Doug Sassaman of RepriceIt Talks Business … and Life

Greetings, folks, and welcome to the small business show at businessshow.co episode number 32 for Wednesday, September 16, 2015 here in Durham, New Hampshire. I'm Dave Hamilton.

Hey.

And I'm Shannon Jean. Coming to you from Lafayette, California. I was going to make a comment about. That's right where we need that bumper music, and then I kind of choked on it. So I just thought they better know who I am before I start. Before I start talking.

Yeah, easy for you to say. That's right. And if you heard it. If you heard a third voice here. We do have a guest today. Doug Sasserman from Repricise it here in Durham, New Hampshire. How you doing, Doug?

I'm doing great, thanks.

Great, man. Thanks for. Thanks for taking the time to join us. This is a blast.

Yeah, thanks for inviting me.

Of course. So, yeah, this is our Shannon. This is the first guest that I've had for this show in my studio. You've had some in yours and we've done some on Skype. But Doug is. Doug lives. Well, like you said, you had the long, treacherous walk across the street to get here.

That's nice. Now go ahead. I'm sorry.

I'm just saying. Yeah. In Little Durham, New Hampshire. So there's only smaller field of entrepreneurship, I would think.

But yeah, I think that's probably. I don't know, there's. You know what? Now. Now that you mentioned it, though, there's probably quite a few. There were. There was. There was little gatherings that used to happen for entrepreneurs here before we all got busy, like doing our. Our work.

Yeah.

Independent spirit out there, right?

That's right.

Yeah. Something like that. Live free or live in New Hampshire.

That's right.

I don't know.

Yeah, There you go. Good. Now, Doug, were you two associated with. With each other before such proximity or.

Yeah, I mean, we've been friends for. For a while. I can't remember. I'm trying to remember how we actually met. Maybe through Mike Mangan or.

Yeah, I think it was one. One of my fling bandmates. I think it dragged me to a poker game one night that might. That might be how we met. I don't know.

Then we've talked shop a lot since, you know, similar, interesting computers and entrepreneurship and various things and.

Yeah, that's great. Well, I'm very. I'm excited to learn about your business. I think it's a great example of the changing economy and marketplaces and the way we sell things. I think it's great.

So tell us, Doug, tell everybody. What is Reprice It. What do you do?

Well, I describe it as, it's kind of known as repricing software, but I call it price management software because it really helps you. It's for people who sell on Amazon and it helps you manage your pricing across all your products. So if you imagine you sell a thousand items on Amazon Books, for example, it's a very manual process to maintain your pricing. Each item you look up, it's every, you know, check it and change the price. So I wrote some Software back in 2006 that automated that process because I was actually selling things on Amazon and at the time they'd opened a new API that allowed you access to their whole product catalog. And I'm a programmer is my background and so I thought, well, this is kind of fun. So, so I wrote software for myself that automated my own pricing for my own stuff I was selling. And you know, you can tinker, you can set min and max prices by item and there's all these different, you know, 70 different variables. You can set how you want it to price your items. But the idea is it's, it's monitoring your competitors as they adjust it adjusts your price based on what you, what you tell it to do. So I mean that's kind of it a nutshell.

Very cool. So, okay, so it's, it, there's some intelligence running. It's, it's not just, it's not software that someone runs on their computer once a week or whatever. They, they, you host it as a service.

Correct.

OK, okay.

Yeah, it's a web hosted service, you know, SaaS.

Yeah.

SAS and. Yeah, yeah. So you know, it was one of those that worked great for me. And I was like, you know, at some point along the way the light went on. I said well, this could be a little business here. And you know, so I didn't know a lot about web technology back in, you know, 2006, so I had to learn kind of seat in my pants and you know, how to host a website and do all this stuff and you know, so kind of in the dead of night I launched it and just waited around and you know, after a week a couple customers showed up and just kind of rolled from there.

So how did, how did you market it initially anyway?

None really. I mean I put a message, Amazon has some message boards that you can go out and I put like a notice saying, hey, we had just launched this service and you know, so that was really the only marketing I did. And of course Google AdWords is the main driver. But yeah, it was pretty, you know, you know, I was working a full time job and so it was kind of a side. I didn't really have any. I can't, I can't. The time that I didn't really have any great aspirations for it. It was more just, I'll just do it, it's kind of fun and see what happens. And yeah, I just started to kind of snowball from there. People started to join, they liked it and then it, you know, word of mouth kind of spread and, and it just started kind of taking off. Wow.

So you started this when you had a, a day job and then, and then at some point you quit your day job and then this became your day job. Right. What was that transition? I mean clearly the, the impetus for writing this had, it sounds like had. No, no part of that was there. The. And then I quit my day job. Like the day you started coding.

Yeah, I mean I say that but you know, I think at the time I was working, you know, I was working for Liberty Mutual and.

Okay, were you programming for them too?

Yeah, the whole career has been in software development. Got it. And yeah, I think I was looking for something different. You know, I was, you know, there's only so much satisfaction I was driving from, you know, full time corporate job and.

Sure.

So I think I, when I started this, it was really my search to kind of like I need something that's going to give me time and you know, flexibility and things that I, you know, and you know, so I think I started in that spirit, but I still didn't really have any grand design. I didn't at the time when I started, I didn't think it would be a. Replace my day job. I thought it would be a supplemental.

Sure.

Kind of a side thing or something. But. Yeah, but you get to a point where it's like, gee, this thing's been growing. And then I was, it was crazy because I was doing a lot of, you know, the early days, the first couple years, a lot of work, you know, developing and you know, all this, this stuff and then working your normal job, you know, so I'd get home from my normal job. I'd be up till 10, 11 night working this second job. And it was after a while I was like, I can't keep doing this and I got to pick one and obviously this is much more exciting and you know, seems like there's has better legs than, than, you know, just working at the corporate. Well, I think, you know.

Yeah. And it seems like the. We always talk about this, on the show, the, the flexibility, I mean, you're probably not free. You know, if it goes down in the middle of the night, you're going to be involved in taking care of things, but it gives you that flexibility to do it. Do things the way you want.

Exactly. And I can't even put a price on that. I mean, that, that part's been fantastic. You, you know, I mean, I, I've been traveling and do, you know, I, I still have to lug my little laptop with me and plug in and do a certain amount of work every day. But you know, for the most part it, it, it kind of self managed itself and you just have occasional questions and, you know, and then periods of word development, but allows you to travel and, and, you know, and, and do a lot of fun things which you could never have done before.

No, that, like, like Shannon said, you know, we, as, as entrepreneurs, we've traded, we've traded that, that freedom. Because when you took two weeks of vacation from Liberty Mutual, you probably were pretty free.

You were free.

Yeah, that part.

Yeah, that's right. But you now have the flexibility to do that whenever you, whenever you want, or mostly whenever you want.

Yeah.

Of course there's other constraints on your time. I know you've got kids kind of the same ages as mine, and so life is, you know, but it's nice to have the flexibility for them.

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, you know, basically to your question though, it kind of ramped up to a point. I, it got to a point where I was like, I could survive on, on this and I, and Curve is, you know, there's no reason to suspect that's going to radically change all of a sudden, you know, so I Left Liberty probably. 2008. Was it 2000? Yeah, 2008. Wow.

So really less than two years in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

That was in the depths of the economy crashing.

Yeah, I was going to mention that for sure.

And my, my father was also an entrepreneur and was very supportive of the whole idea and you know, gung ho and he was just like, I would not stop working right now. I think you should wait a bit. I just was at a point where I just was too far down the rabbit hole and I said, I just, I'm, I'm doing it. I can't stop.

Yeah, that's the right thing, man. Yeah, listen, we understand for sure.

Well, I love your, I love your comment too. Real quick about, you know, getting to this kind of point of equilibrium where you're like, hey, I could live on this. Right. Maybe I'm not going to get rich or I'm gonna, but I can pay my bills.

Yeah.

And that, that's a real important thing to, to, you know, to get to.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome.

You know, you kind of, I don't know, you kind of do. What's worst case scenario, it fails, I go back to work. You know, it's.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, you're right. Well, you know, there's some freedom in that. In fact, there's a ton of freedom in that because you have to be free to make a bad, bad decision. Right. Because you're faced with decisions all the time and the worst thing you can do is not make one. So you have to make those decisions. And you got to know that. Oh yeah, I can. It's up to me. And I can make a decision that turns the business into a great thing or I can turn the business, you know, a trash heap.

Yeah.

And you gotta know that you might make the second one. It's just, it just happens, right? Yeah, it's okay. It's good. So it's just you at repricing.

Yeah, yeah. It's a debate. I.

You and I have talked about this for years.

Every time I do something, yeah, I'm gonna hire someone I'm gonna hire. You know, I just, I just haven't hit that point where. Well, number one, where I have to. Where I'm just working crazy hours or you know, that kind of thing. And it's just, it's just a simple business. You know, I'm always debating the balance between a lifestyle business or scale this business and make, you know, X amount of, you know, I can from this. And it's a tough balance, you know, but. But right now it's, it's just, it's just easy. Not having employees is just easy now.

You know, that's for sure.

That's for sure.

I may hit a point, you know, who knows where I need to get some support help or some kind of help. But.

Yeah. Would that be. That be kind of the first hire that you think you might make is just.

Yeah. The mundane, you know, the customer support stuff, you know, and then maybe some development help, you know. But. But yeah, it's just a matter of, you know. You know, like I say, it's a balance, you know, right now it's just simple.

Yeah. You're. I, I. Shannon, you and I haven't really talked about this, but I've always felt like certainly the the, the cliche is true. The first employee is the hardest hire you'll ever make, but also it's the hardest expense you'll ever accept because you haven't needed them up until that point. Yeah, right. You know, you're like, I'm taking all this money that used to be mine and now I'm making it yours. And the problem I found with the first employee is it doesn't, that person doesn't necessarily save you time because you now have to teach them and manage them. And so certainly for the first couple of months.

Yeah, in the beginning, for sure.

In the beginning, for sure, you're spending, you know, you're giving this person your money and you, you're working potentially more. And, and so it's hard, you know, and it, it's that second employee that I found is the one where you're like, aha, wait a minute, you know, now they're actually doing my work for me. Now, of course, it's not your work, it's the company's work, but it used to be your work. Right. So.

Yeah, and I think that, that you're talking these critical decisions, the first one, you know, leaving, going out on your own and obviously number one, but then hiring that first employee is, is right up there to, to do it. And so that. It's a big step. Now if you needed other help, would you, you know, consider outsourcing stuff to help with like, programming needs or would you always want to keep your, your own hand in it?

Yeah, I mean, I, I think I would outsource some of the programming. There, There are certainly things that, you know, tasks that, that you could segment and, you know, and hand off to someone pretty easily, I think.

Yeah.

And that's, that's where I'm really starting to look at stuff because I have, you know, of course your to do list starts to grow and grow and people ask for new features and this and that and you know, becomes the point where you. I can't do all this work here. But, but you know, the thing I struggle with is, you know, I'm a control freak and.

Welcome.

I like to do it all myself, you know.

Sure, sure.

And certainly programming, that's, that's what I love to do. You know, a day spent, you know, and programming for me is, is the fun part, you know, so that's the problem, you know, that I really should start distribute out to some, you know, contractors or whatnot.

Yeah.

You know, but it's hard.

It's hard.

It's. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elance. I mean, it sounds like, you know, something like Elance or what's it called? Up. Upwork now. Right? They've changed.

That's right.

Whatever it is. But that's, that's something that. Shannon, I think you turned me on to Elance, you know, a long time ago, but we've both used it and it's, I mean, it's great. But I've, I've, I've been in your shoes, right. Because I did a lot of programming and now I don't do nearly as much. But when I find myself doing it, I enjoy it.

Yeah.

But for the most part, it's, you know, telling people, okay, you go program this, you go program that. But then I've got four things being developed in a day as opposed to exactly one.

Yeah, yeah. Can we talk about your customer service, you know, for a minute? I mean, are you getting primarily, like feature requests or, hey, this didn't work. What am I doing wrong? I mean, tell us about what those needs are that you're having to deal with.

I mean, it's, it's a mix, you know, so I use Zendesk is, you know, the support software, which is, which is just fantastic. And the questions are, you know, mostly people have questions, obviously, when they first sign up, and it's a lot of, you know, how do I do this, what do I do this? And. But I'd say, you know, maybe 5% have questions, 95% can figure it out. There's help, self help guides, they go on their way and I never hear a word from them. Which is, which is great.

You should pat yourself on the back for that.

Yeah, that's really good.

I mean, that's huge. Wow.

But, you know, but still you get a certain number of questions and people just basic, you know, how to, like, do this kind of stuff. And then you get some feature requests, and then the ones that take a lot of time are, why did it do this? Then why did it change this price to this? And that's where, you know, you can spend an hour digging into the details of why did it do that?

Right.

Yeah, sure. Makes sense.

So do you, do you have any, do you have any concerns over liability with that? I mean, if it reprices somebody's product the wrong way and now, you know, whose fault is that? Right? I mean, is that.

Yeah, it's, it's. Yeah.

You haven't run into any problems yet.

Clearly people that have been, you know, angry on why it did this. Sure. You know, there's always a, you know, you can explain. Well, it did because X, Y and Z. And you set this up or. Or they set it up the first time and they run reprice it. They don't really know what.

They don't.

They don't get it and it changes their prices in the way they don't want it to be. And it's like, is there a floor.

That you can set to where, you know, like, so you're okay. Because obviously that, that would be important so you don't get driven down to the bottom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And there. And there's been cases where, you know, I've had competitors where they had their software went off the rails and literally changed all their customers prices down to a penny. I mean, it was just looking that, you know, it's things that was even on the news like CNN and various, you know, outlets because it just caused chaos and.

Yeah.

You know, so I don't know if anything like if that ever happened, you know, obviously there'd be some. Some serious liability concerns, but I would imagine. Yeah. You know, I don't know.

Are you. So business structure. Are you in an LLC or something? Do you. Have you. Have you separated your liability? You are. Okay. All right. So at least there's. At least there's that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously that, you know, you don't want that to just be the. Well, it doesn't matter. I can code whatever I want. I'm an llc, you know. But at least. At least you probably won't lose your house.

Yes.

Yes, it's cool.

But yeah, it is sensitive. You can imagine how that, you know, it can. It can drive someone out of business if. If your software went awry. I mean, it could really cost.

Oh yeah. And how about. I mean, I'm a marketplace seller as well, so I have lots of questions for you. So does. So I'm primarily like in the refurbished use space for some items. Does it take into account nuances like that or do you find that it's really primarily based on, you know, like a new product where you're trying to get in the buy box.

Yeah, it takes in, you know, subconditions. So used if it's in.

Good.

Very good. You can price based on. I only I want to price against other items in good condition. So it does take into. That isn't so much. Refurbished. Refurbished. I just haven't had much request for that.

Yeah, it's a small niche. Yeah. That's cool.

So yeah, I mean, you know, the kind of control panel is. Is pretty involved if you want to take it, kind of dig into it. I mean, there's, there's a lot of fine tuning you can do to, to tweak how exactly you want it to work.

Yeah, I looked at some of those screenshots. It definitely looks like that sometimes too.

Much because people just look at it and they're like their eyes cross and, you know, sure, what do I do? So you're always trying to, you know, of course, then you get all these requests for all these features and you're like, if I add all these features, it's going to be the most complicated, you know, control panel, you know, so you're always trying to figure out how can I integrate this in a way that makes sense? And it's simple and, you know.

Yeah. So you, and you do 100% of this. Not only the coding, but the design of the UI and all of it.

I hired someone to do the. Help me with the UI and then the, the website itself.

Okay.

Yeah, that was kind of beyond my skill set.

Sure.

In terms of making it look really presentable and all the, you know.

Well, yeah, that's part of, That's a big trick there. Okay. All right. Okay. So you've made some smart outsourcing decisions already.

Yeah, I have that.

Yeah, that's true.

I mean, that's the one piece that I've, you know, all the back end programming I've done myself and had a lot of fun doing it, but it's, it's the, yeah, the web stuff was, was beyond.

Yeah, well, I mean, focus on the.

Stuff you, you know.

You know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cool. Very cool. So you are Shannon. Do you have any more questions about the kind of the nuts and bolts here? Because I know you could probably go two hours and I could.

Yeah, we could do a whole show. No, I don't want to dig. I mean, it's, it's, you know, I'm interested in how it works and the, and the pros and cons and pitfalls, which I'm sure we'll get into in a little bit. So I don't want to go down a rabbit hole too much on that kind of thing. I'll, I'll just jump in as we, as we move along.

Okay. I know this is your world. It's so, you know, or at least a part of your world.

Yeah, you, I think you, you had a question, you know, queued up about how good is your, you know, Amazon as a partnership partner with free business. And that really intrigues me because I have my Own somewhat strong, you know, thoughts on how good they are as a partner from a seller standpoint. And I definitely wonder, you know, are the, what kind of support if any, you know, they give you.

Yeah, it's, it's been interesting. I'd probably, that would definitely rank up as my highest risk in, in the businesses. I'm solely reliant on Amazon and in the early days it was funny because I, I mentioned they, they launched this API, I think it might have been 2004, 2005, but I started using it in 2006 and it was just kind of just broad general purpose API and, and you know, things that we were using it for, to, to lower prices. I wasn't sure if Amazon liked that or didn't like it.

Sure.

You know, because in theory either you're lowering, you know, and generally when you reprice prices are generally lowered about a third. Probably anytime you were pricing for you, a third goes up and probably two thirds roughly go down. And does Amazon like that? Because it's, it's a, they're making less money.

Right. And, and Amazon doesn't care about profits.

Yeah, that's right.

That's true.

You know, for a couple of years I, almost three years I operate in this kind of dark zone and I tried many times to get inroads to Amazon contacts and I just had no luck. And they just, just really didn't want to almost talk to you, you know because there was other people that are doing other third party providers that besides repricing that we're doing other inventory management functions and, and we're all kind of, you know, we kind of commiserate a little bit. Like we just don't know does AM a lot. Amazon like us, they support us. It was no kind of developer platform. It was just us on our own, you know, using their API, which they could pluck, you know, at any time they could take it, turn it off and they did. They made some significant changes. They turned it more into an advertising API for a while and it was, you know, our use was not, you know, according to the license. So there was a lot of, there were some dark days where you're like this could all just stop. And, and I think, I don't know, a few years into it, all of a sudden I got this contacted by this Amazon Solutions architect that asked for all my feedback on the API and they were developing a new one and you know, suddenly I was like, had this, this resource at Amazon. It was just like a godsend. And so they basically built a New API that was kind of catered towards sellers. And yeah, it was suddenly a whole new bright light went on and realized, yeah, they do like us.

That's good to know.

And you know, Amazon's focus, you know, I learned after the fact was they want to be the low price. They want to be the Walmart of the Internet, you know, so low prices, they love.

So this actually works for them.

So they really, not only that, they started really to support us and it was a whole new world. It was like, oh, okay, you know, so it was, it was, you know, a big weight off. Off my back for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Because. Because otherwise you gotta go back to work or start another business.

There was periods where I thought it would all just end.

Yeah. Yeah.

So for sure.

So look, talking about other platforms, obviously, you know, we let's. The other, you know, major, you know, marketplace is ebay. And I know they have various APIs and things, but I know nothing about, you know, what they do. And have you ever looked at expanding into other marketplaces and particularly, you know, for ebay?

Yeah. So when I first launched this, my, My whole intent was I'll just start with. Start with Amazon and, And then, yeah, ebay and then Barnes and. Oh, there's other, These other selling venues.

Sure.

You know, ratuken. And there was all, you know, a bunch of. I was. My intent was to launch it to all these other venues, but really Amazon became. Well, it was. It just consumed so much of my time and then it just grew. You know, the last 10 years of Amazon, it's been crazy.

Yeah.

And. And it's just grown so much that I'm. I kind of like, you know, do I look at the. The other 10% of the pie or just focus on the 90% here, you know, and.

Sure.

And so, you know, so, yeah, just stayed with Amazon.

That's good to know. It's that lifestyle question versus do I go chase this thing and give up more. More of my flexibility. I totally get it.

Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess. And now that, you know, I mean, it would probably be different if, if you were still sort of in the dark in terms of Amazon's wishes and, and all of that. Right. Because then it's like, well, you may. Maybe ebay is a good thing.

You make a hedgehog a little bit.

Yep, sure. Yep. And then just at least, even if nobody's really using it, you have the engine there that you can, you know, really ramp up the day that Amazon just closes the game. Yeah. So your pricing model is a just A monthly subscription, is that right?

Correct?

Yeah. Okay.

Just based on the, the volume of.

Your inventory, size of your inventory. Okay. So you're not getting a percentage of their sales or anything like that.

I looked at that early days and you know, that was, I don't know, to me I just wanted to keep it simple and not, you know, feel like I was taking a big cut of the sellers. You know, a lot of sellers hate those kind of tools where they have to give a chunk of their profits based, you know. So I just, I'm just going to keep it simple. A simple pricing model, a flat fee based, you know, month to month, cancel whenever you want. And it seemed to have worked. And you know, most people kind of are in that model now as well.

Oh, makes sense. Yeah.

And are you still doing the AdWords advertising or do you pretty much, you know, is your name out there, been out there long enough to where you're just, you know, kind of word of mouth thing?

Yeah, I still do AdWords, although organically I rank really good on Google. So I, that's where I get 90% of my traffic is just from Google, just organic search organic. And then you know, of course I do, I still do ads. But yeah, I think just being out there long enough has helped me organically.

Sure. Yeah, for sure.

To rank really, really well is your business continue.

I mean, I'm sure you've got some attrition where customers leave for whatever reason, but it, I mean, month to month, are you seeing steady growth?

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's awesome. It's just. Yeah.

Congratulations, man.

That's killer. That's really great.

So, yeah, maybe you don't need any employees. I mean, I don't know, I'm kind of jealous of him. Shannon.

It's kind of.

Well, you know, yeah, for sure. I feel the same way.

Yeah.

I mean it's kind of like this rolling wave. So there's periods like right now is a busy time because a lot of people want to ramp up before the holidays with price management software and get all their ducks in a row. So typically the kind of, the growth I've seen is there's a growth period right now that gets busy and that's when I get busy. And then after, you know, once the, that, that new customers kind of quiets a little bit, then it, it gets quiet for me as well. So it's really just people new and people that have questions initially is, is, you know, interesting.

So yeah, so the customer up and.

Running and then they really don't have, you know, any questions? Which is great, you know.

Yeah, I would have, like you say, Dave, I would have a. A hard time, but the, the really grappling with that flexibility versus expansion and looking at all these opportunities and, And I, I commend you to sit back and really think about. And go, well, you know, all these things you're going to give up, you know, chasing this other. Other business. That's a hard switch to turn off.

Yeah, it's. It's. It's not that I'm not growing and, you know, I'm adding things and doing things. It's just the pace of it. And I worry, you know, because other. I have a lot of competitors now, and some of those guys are going gangbusters. And so there's concerns, you know, am I. Am I not growing enough?

Are they coaching customers?

Am I going to get just lost in the wake? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, they have customers.

A lot.

A lot of choices now, so.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Before you came on, before we started the show, Shannon, we were. Doug and I were sitting here talking, and he. He told me about how he spent most of his summer at his little surf house on the beach and brought his laptop and, you know, he'd surf in the morning and maybe do a little work. And this is not a bad thing.

Yeah. Like I said, you can't put a. You can't put a price on that.

I mean, that's what, you know, I look back at, why did I leave the corporate world? It wasn't so I could kill myself. You know, I mean, obviously I want to make money and be successful and, you know, have a business that's a viable concern. But, you know, ultimately was to get that flexibility back in my life. So, you know, when I want to work, I can work. When I want to surf or travel or whatever, I can. I can fold that in as well. Which is.

Yeah.

You know, and a great message, I think, also for your family. I think you mentioned you had a couple kids and, you know, the. For them to see you make those decisions. And I'm really starting to notice that now as my kids get older and my daughters getting ready to go to college, you know, you can just see it in the decisions that they make. You know, they're not kind of pigeonholed into this, oh, this is the way life works. And I do this and I do that. The opportunities for them seem much broader, and I really believe that's because they're watching you.

Yeah.

And I think that's a. Again, you just can't put a price on those things. That's a huge benefit.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, just from my own experience, my father was a serial entrepreneur and, and just seeing the business he started and then his successes and, you know, it just feeds right off on you, you know, so even when I was in the corporate world, I was always kind of tinkering, looking for other ideas and, you know, so it just definitely broadens your horizons of what's possible.

What's possible. That's it. Yeah, it's. It really is. It's. That's the. You know, we've talked about this a couple of times, Shannon, where it's like just knowing that you can do this. You know, the second business is the easier one.

Right.

Because you're just like, well, done it. I've done this. Yeah. Okay, so this one fell apart. Fine. I just find something else. There's. People want to be helped.

Yeah.

You know, so find a way to help them.

Yeah, that's right. Well, and it's like you're. You've got the foundation in the first business. You're doing it in the middle of the night because you had your, you know, steady check coming in, and now, you know, you got something else. And if you want to give up some more time, you can launch something different, and you have the success of your current business to support that, so.

Yep. Yep, exactly.

That's good. That's good. Any. Any. Any story come to mind, Like a favorite story that you've. You've kind of experienced throughout your. Your career here? I mean, I know you've told us a couple already, but, I mean, I.

Don'T know if I have a really poignant business story. I can't think of anyone offhand, but.

Well, then let me. Let me guide you down a different path. What's the best mistake that you've ever made? We like to. We like to ask everybody a couple of questions, and that's one of them. You know, what. What mistake taught you the most?

I think the. I don't have a, you know, stark example. I think that the biggest mistake I had was. And I see this a lot with people, other people. You know, of course, once you start a business and you get. You get into this little entrepreneurial world and you meet people all from various little businesses like yours. And, you know, and I met, actually mentored a high school student, this. This over the summer. And I think the. The people. People have a lot of great ideas and they think about It. And they think about it when they wait to execute. I think the failure to execute is. Is, you know, certainly for me too. I spent a couple years just kind of with the idea, and I would. It took me forever to start doing it and, you know, instead of just. Just doing it and, you know, figure out the rest. But you're trying to. I think that you try to achieve this level of perfection before you launch instead of, you know, it may not be perfect, but it's good enough. Let's get it out there and see if it works.

Yep.

And I think a lot of people get caught in that stage of trying to perfect it before they launch it or whatever the idea might be.

Totally.

And I spent. I wasted probably a good two years where I really could have gotten, you know, a much bigger foothold of really being the first guy out there doing this.

Yeah.

You know, and that's.

That's a great point. And I would say, you know, there's a lot of people listening right now that are at that point where they just don't want to make. Take that. That step off the edge there. And all of us have been there, so that's a really valuable lesson, man.

Yeah. Just do it.

Yeah. You know, a good plan finally executed today is a better. Better than a perfect plan tomorrow, or wasn't it? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's a patent or someone said that, but it's totally true. I. I agree. I think it's just get it out there.

If it's.

If it has traction, it'll, you know, and then you can iterate. Refine it and then perfect it, you know, but. But, you know, I think people get caught up in. And they're, you know, afraid to take that step, and they keep kind of trying to get it perfect, you know, and it, you know, it's never perfect. Never perfect.

No, it doesn't exist. But it's good enough. Yeah. Yeah. And more than good enough, I mean, it works.

I mean, I look back at my. My first iteration. I look back, I'm embarrassed by like, oh, my God. God.

I put that.

That was just terrible. But it was. It was fine at the time, you.

Know, solved the problem.

You know, people started signing up and they started getting feedback and what. Oh, this is what you want. Oh, okay. And then you kind of iterate and then. Then really get it to where you need it to, you know, but, you know, sitting on the sideline, you know, sidelines too long doesn't. Doesn't. Doesn't help. Doesn't Help. Nope.

Do you have any of those first customers or any of those still with you?

Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Just a handful of. I have some customers back from 2007, actually.

Wow, that's great. That's a long time, so that's really good.

That's awesome. Shannon, we have any other. Any questions for Doug here? Any more?

One more. You mentioned, you know, you've had these customers for a long time. I mean, do you spend any time on, like, retention or reaching out to those customers, any kind of marketing to your existing customers? Or do you. It sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, you kind of let the product speak for itself.

Yeah, I mean, mostly, but I do, you know, I'll send out, you know, not. I like, not like a quarterly newsletter, but I'll send out. As I add new features. I'll. I'll send out, you know, I have a mailing list of everyone who's, you know, subscriber and, you know, here's new features and are using this and different things like that. But, you know, nothing beyond. Beyond that. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. But they know there's somebody there. Yeah, yeah, but they don't need to talk to you every day. In fact, they have other things. They have better things to do. Frank, quite frankly.

I mean, I debated various ideas, and maybe after a guy's been a customer for a year, send him a coffee mug or something or, I don't know, some kind of a chotchki or.

I don't know. But yeah, you can start tomorrow.

Well, you know, I have mixed feelings about that, too. You know, if it's working, it's great. I mean, some customers don't want you hassling them. And, you know, there's like, no, we don't want to hear from you. And there's something to be said for, you know, for that. I mean, that's definitely a whole different topic for discussion is like the leave me alone thing. And I think especially with a service like you, I use. We use some, you know, essay SaaS, services like this, and I. I don't want to. I don't have time to interact with people. I'm like, no, I'm sorry. Sorry. You know, so, yeah, well.

But I mean, the point is that, you know, your service saves. They could do this on their own. There's nothing that stops them from manually going and checking everybody's prep. Right. But you save them time.

Yeah.

So if. If by having your service, they now have to, you know, cater to, oh, look, it's Doug again. You know.

Yes.

That's not what they signed up for.

Yeah. Or even, you know, like I mentioned, I use Zendesk, which is. I have.

Yeah.

You know, they send you, like, a lot of those type of service. They send you monthly. You're getting all kinds of emails, and it's almost too much. It's like, yeah, it works great. I don't, you know.

Yeah, I don't care how many.

I don't need this and that, you know.

Interesting.

That's great.

Yeah. This is fascinating, man. I'm glad. I'm glad we're doing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's a great. I mean, I love the concept. I think it's great. I commend you for having the foresight to, you know, take that first step back, you know, when you did. And if, you know, when you're ready to expand to other marketplaces, especially ebay, you know, make sure you let us all know, especially me.

Shannon wants to reprice it for ebay.

Do you sell on ebay mostly, or.

Yeah, it's a big, big marketplace for us. And right now, you know, they're really ripe. We're going to do an upcoming show on marketplaces, and I know that having just come from the seller summit last week, you know, and with the split with PayPal, you know, they have a really energetic team in right now that is really focusing on sellers, and I think it's got to be a great time to get involved with. With that platform that has, you know, 800 million items for sale every day. Yeah, it's. It's insane.

Yeah.

You're trying to convince Doug to build a new engine, you know.

Well, but the thing is, you know, from someone who has made this, and we'll call it a mistake or made this decision to chase opportunity after opportunity after opportunity, you also have to really sit back once in a while and kind of prune things, or at least I do. I have to look at various ventures I'm involved in and say, hey, is that really a good return on my time? What do I really like to do? You guys made a comment earlier about enjoying programming so much, and then a couple seconds later, we were talking about outsourcing and how that would be the thing you would give up. We're all. That's. That's all of us. Right. There's certain things that we love about the business, but then as soon as we can, if you're in growth mode, you know, we. We start giving those things up. And then at the end of the day, you look Back and go, wow, the thing I really loved about this, I don't get to do anymore. So definitely, definitely worth thinking about.

So it's a, I mean, it's a tough balance, like I said, you know, it's. You're always struggling with it.

Yep. Yeah. It's never, it's never easy. And it's hard to explain that to, you know, the, the other people. We see that think, man, you have like the life of Riley. And it's true, you know, we both do. I think we all three of us do. But it's not, it's not easy. Even like you said, like, day to day, you're like, oh, what do I. What's the next thing I do? Yeah, how do I. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's okay. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

No, no, no, no. Just giving up, sir. Like we, you know, like, we've, we've touched on it. At one in the morning when you're solving a problem.

Yeah.

These other folks are asleep, you know, or that kind of thing.

Yeah. But you know what?

At one in the morning, that's when I like to solve those problems.

I got you.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's, that's been the, you know, the scary part is, you know, I, like I said, I've done the programming, all the infrastructure, you know, all the servers and everything. And when things do go wrong, it's, you know, stressful, as they, as they do, and there's no one there to bounce, you know, troubleshoot with, which is challenging at times. You know, fortunately, I've been able to work through it and, you know, I've had some vendor support that's kind of got me through some technical issues. But, you know, when everything comes crashing down and people are filling your inbox, what's going on? Why is your site down and you're up at 2 in the morning just pulling your hair out? I mean, that's where it's like, okay. Boy, it'd be nice to have a partner sitting here.

That's right.

Well, it'd be nice to have a partner that understood that because I've been there at two in the morning and I have partners, but typically I'm the tech guy, so they're typically not. So they can be there and say, wow, I'm really sorry, man, I wish I could help. And that's. Listen, that's probably better than them not being there there saying, I'm really sorry. I wish I could help. But that's about the extent of, of the support. You get so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all right, though. I mean it, you know, it's fun. Especially when you look back and you're like, ah, I figured it out.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

Well, the struggle like we're talking about now, you know, these, the problems and stress and different types of different times of the year or one business venture to the next, you know, you're just like, oh, my gosh, you know, But I find that, you know, I often invoke the Steve Jobs quote, you know, that you can't connect the dots and till you get to a chance to look back on things. And when you look back on things, sometimes those the worst times when you probably, you know, get the edge off a little bit after some time. But coming through those really tough times are often seen as the most rewarding when you look back.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

At least I tell myself that that's correct.

Keep saying it, Shannon.

Yes, I know.

Sweet. Well, thanks for joining us, man. Do Shannon or Doug. Do either of you have. Doug, you have anything else you want to share? Did we catch everything that you wanted to talk about here?

Yeah, no, it's been fun talking about it. I mean, it's always fun to talk about your own business, of course.

Sure. So how do. How do our listeners find your service, Doug?

So the web address is just, you know, repriceit.com and that's R E P.

R I C E I T. Yep.

Cool.

And. And, you know, that's.

That's you.

That's it.

Awesome.

Well, we wish you a lot of success. I really enjoyed learning about it, you know, about the, the software and about your business.

Absolutely. Well, thank you.

Yeah. Thanks for joining us. And folks, if you have any questions for. For us that you'd like to pass to Doug, of course, you can find doug@repriceit.com, but we're always reachable here at Feedback Business Show Co. That's where you will find everything in terms of getting in touch with us.

Of course.

BusinessShow Co is the website for the show. Thanks for listening, folks. Thanks for joining us, Doug, and we'll see you next week.

Take care, everybody.

Thanks.