191: Building a Better Bio with Ryan Walker

In this episode, I chat about an easy way to share posts to your Instagram stories. And then Bjork interviews ryan Walker from LinkedIn profile and tap bio about his process for building a better bio. Hey hey lovely listener. You are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast and we are so, so excited that you're here. Today's episode is sponsored by our sister site, Our friends over at WP Tasty, a food blogger's go to resource for WordPress plugin solutions. Be sure to head over to wptasty.com to learn more. And for today's tasty tip, I figured we'd focus on Instagram because today's interview also focuses on Instagram. There is actually a really simple way to share photos from your Instagram feed or others feeds in your Instagram stories and it's not the most intuitive thing in the world. So if you're looking at a photo on your Instagram feed, there's a little paper airplane kind of icon on the bottom left of the picture. If you click that, you'll have the option to share that image in a few different ways, including to your Instagram stories. Now why is this helpful? Well, there are actually a few reasons. For one, it's just an easy way to promote your feed content in a different way and send people to your new content. If someone sees an image your feed in your stories, they might have actually missed it in their own feeds. So they'll be able to click on the image in your stories and be taken directly to that image on your feed. They can comment, learn more, and like your photo right there. Second, it lets you share images from other accounts. Let's say you're working with a brand and they share one of your images on their feeds. You can then promote that image in your stories. Or if you just like another person's content and want to promote them in your stories, you can easily do that by clicking that little paper airplane icon. Such a simple way to promote content in a few different ways, all on the same platform. I hope you give this a try and if you do, let us know how it goes by going to foodbloggerpro.com 191. And now the episode. If you spent any time on Instagram, chances are that you've seen the words LinkedIn profile and or Tap Bio below. Linkin Profile and Tap Bio are Instagram bio tools that help send followers to your blog content. Ryan Walker, the founder of these two companies, is here today to chat about these tools and how they can help you with your Instagram strategy. He shares tips for Instagram success, his advice for building a product or a website, how to know when you should invest in your business, and so much more. So without any further ado, Bjork, take it away.

Ryan, welcome to the podcast.

Yeah, Bjork, thanks for having me.

Yeah, super excited to chat a little bit about your story. And the great thing about your story is we're going to be talking about a couple businesses that you've started. We're going to be talking about Instagram, but there's also great overlap with your wife Danielle and her story. So we're going to be able to hit a little bit of all of that. And I think that the Food Blogger Pro podcast audience will really appreciate all of those different angles that we slice things from and the different angles that we look at it from. But before that, I want talk about, we're going to be talking about Lincoln Profile, but I want to rewind the tape even before that to hear a little bit about your story. What were you doing before you kind of started up some of these businesses that you're now working on?

Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And my, my life has been, you know, somewhat of a lily pad life in the sense that, you know, I started out as an engineer and undergraduate. I went on to law school of all things, and then kind of got into the tech world and just loved building software. And so I actually worked for a tech firm building software, you know, helping them out and really said to myself, well, I kind of want to go do this on my own. I want to go build my own product. And so I ventured out, I actually built a mobile app with a team. We were trying to reinvent actually what SurveyMonkey would be at the time, Microhero. It was a phenomenal success in the sense that people really loved taking surveys from their phone. They would actually raise money for charity. But a phenomenal failure in terms of getting corporate clients to actually ask the questions to pay for those donations. So that was kind of what I was doing and I was wrapping that up and trying to figure out like what was next, you know, in terms of where I was at, you know, professionally.

What do you coming out of that, what do you feel like were the things that you learned? I'm always interested to hear, you know, there's some successes. But also I'm guessing you learned probably even more so from the things that didn't go as well from that experience. And what were those things that you pulled out both from a business and Also maybe software perspective.

Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think being from the Bay Area, you're surrounded by people who want to create the next unicorn. And I think going into this company called Microhero, it was a little bit of that. It wasn't necessarily wanting to be worth a billion dollars, but it was something that we wanted to make really big and really huge. And I think what we lost sight of was having customers from day one that actually would use the platform and actually ideally even having paying customers even before you're essentially flipping a switch, I found being the most valuable take away from what I did at Microhero. And we built a really cool tool. It just didn't have the saliency that we required from the corporate world.

Yeah. So what does that look like at the moment where you decide, this is no longer going to be a thing, we're going to stop doing this? I think as entrepreneurs, as creators, whether that be a blog or a software solution, there's always the question of, you know, at what point do you continue to keep your head down and move forward and say, it is perseverance that gets me through this, and if I persevere, eventually I'll come upon something that will work versus, hey, this just isn't working and we need to wrap it up. How did you work through that decision?

Oh, man, that is a really. That's a tough decision that I still think I struggle with being an entrepreneur. And as we get into more of the story about the other platforms, just in terms of the amount of hats that I wear, but I think for Microhero specifically, it was clear that the team itself just wasn't gelling anymore. And so not only was the product suffering, but just in terms of the personal relationships, it just wasn't. It wasn't keen. So, like, I had at the time a developer with me. I had a really amazing developer designer with me as well. And, you know, I think it's just one of those things where people just weren't interested anymore. And it was kind of like, okay, well, let's kind of wrap up shop and close things down. And so it was more about the team kind of atmosphere than it was about specifically the technology. Sure.

That's really interesting. Do you feel like within that specifically that the team dynamic influenced then how you went about building a team, moving forward and context for that question? I know a lot of people that listen to this podcast are either thinking about how to build a team, whether it's in a really small way, like, you know, Having somebody help with social media or maybe a really big way, thinking about hiring somebody full time. What would your advice be to those people as they think about what goes into building a team and the things that they need to consider?

Yeah, totally. No, I think, and I think the team aspect is such a big, big aspect of what anybody do is especially the smaller entrepreneur. I feel like as content creators, I think at least my experience with my wife is that everybody wants to do everything themselves. And so it comes to a point where you can't necessarily grow without expanding your team. And so kind of hiring those right key people, I think are so important. So, you know, I kind of view teams as two different things. One is, you know, find the right people and then find them a good fit into your org if you can, if you're big enough. But if you're small enough, it's literally writing down all of the things like you said, you know, that like, hey, is it social media? Is it literally just scheduling my meetings and then just trying to find someone that can fill that kind of role, maybe on a part time or full time basis. And then as that happens though, especially because these are such small teams, like the interpersonal dynamic is so important and so being able to trust that individual, being able to, you know, not feel like, you know, maybe they're trying to glean things off of you that, you know, you might not want to provide to them. You know, I think it's important that, you know, the interpersonal dynamic is there from the beginning, but then also making sure that that skill set is, you know, is one that you need, but then also one that they're good at.

Yeah, how do you know interpersonal stuff when you're talking with somebody and interviewing and onboarding, like, what are the questions that you use to suss that out to see if they'll be a good fit?

You know, it's funny is I think we've had some experience actually throughout all of our companies in hiring lots of different people and then essentially having to part ways with different people. And I think the interview process is so hard to gauge just from that. So I think you can walk away from an interview with kind of the right questions of, you know, how would you handle certain situations, how would you handle disappointment? Kind of what do you, you know, what are your goals? Where do you want to be in 10 years? But then I think the biggest time that we've ever been able to be like, okay, stamp of approval, we feel really good about this is when you have these references. So I, you know, it's funny, I feel like I was always taught that, you know, put up references on your resume, but they're probably not going to get called. But I've actually gotten more information from calling those references about, you know, who is this person? You know, what kind of character do they have? You know, are they, are they really interested in, you know, kind of what they're explaining to you in the interview process? Because then I think kind of the whole story kind of fits. That would be, my advice, is actually call some references, call some people and just say, hey, what do you think of this person? Does she perform at a certain level? And where does she go from there?

Yeah, that's great. So you'd mentioned a couple different companies and I'm guessing that people are going to be across the board familiar with each of them in their own way. So Microhero was. Yeah, was the company that you kind of started out experimenting with this. Where does Against All Grain fit into this? So can you. I'm guessing a lot of people will be familiar with Danielle and Against All Grain. But at what point did that start as, as, as a blog and as you look back, did, you know, like, okay, we're starting this and we want this to be a business. Where does that play into things as, as it relates to building these businesses?

Yeah, that's such a, you know, it's such a great question, because it is, you know, I think I feel like it's the quintessential blogger, you know, question because, and I think your audience would really appreciate this, which is my wife, you know, diagnosed with autoimmune disease and about, you know, it was about 2008 and you know, she was, she wanted to be a stay at home mom. She didn't necessarily want to work full time. So I was going to be going to the workforce. And where she started just finding an outlet was literally creating recipes for this autoimmune disease that she had. And so she started this blog and you know, at the time it's like, okay, we're buying domain names and we're trying to figure out, like, you know, how do we use WordPress and like, what are all these tools that we can use? And you know, I just, the thing that I remember the most, and you'll appreciate this Bjork, which is, she turns to me is like, I really want to buy a DSLR to be able to start, you know, photographing these recipes. And I'm like, okay, I know nothing about photography, by the way. So I'm Not. I'm not like, this creative person that, like, that's my background. I look at the price tags and I'm like, honey, this is ridiculously expensive. Like, how can we afford this? You know, like, this is a hobby. And I remember in my mind going like, no, this is a passion of hers. Like, let's. Let's invest in her. You know, let's invest. And I think by the end of this, you know, kind of, let's call it the startup phase, we'd invested like 30 grand in against All Grain, and we were just like, okay, let's see what happens. And then, you know, and not. Not a lot happened for a while, but then obviously, you know, fast forward to today. I'm so grateful that I did that, because not only did it give my wife an outlet, but then All Against All Grain. And Danielle has been transforming lives, like, through her food. And just the stories that we hear, it's so much more than a business. It's so much more than just her literally creating recipes. It's. This is this way of life, and it's inspiring. Honestly, she's way cooler than I am. And so, you know, I look up to her every day.

Yeah, it was fun. She was doing a book tour and stopped in the Twin Cities here. And after Lindsay and I, whenever I watch or, like, scroll through Instagram, it's always over Lindsay's shoulder because I'm not an Instagram user. So I was looking over Lindsay's shoulder and was watching little recap video that she was doing, and it was a Instagram live. And what was so fun to see is the people commenting that had been at the event that they did for the book tour. And it was, you know, obvious that people had such a strong connection. And I think that strong connection obviously comes from who she is and the work that she does, and also the impact that I'm sure she's had through the work that she's done on those people. So Against All Grain. Well, and actually, one question that I wanted to ask related to that, we actually just hour and a half ago wrapped up a Food blogger pro. We do a happening or we do. We do. It's called the live Q and A. And so it's everybody that's interested gets on, they ask some questions, we talk back and forth on it. One of the questions was in the topic was around investing in your business. And one of the questions was exactly what you had talked about, which was like, how do I know when to invest in my business? And when do I put Money towards, you know, buying equipment and, you know, software and things like that versus do I wait and become profitable and then invest back into it? But do you have any thoughts for the people that are kind of at a crossroads in trying to figure out, do I invest in my business and then hope that that will help me grow faster or do I grow slow and then just put all the profit from my business back into the blog as it, as it builds?

Oh man. Yeah. Another great question. I'd be curious to see how you answered it. So I'll have to go back and listen to the Q and A. You know, I think for us it was, you know, that initial, you know, we'll call it the $30,000 investment into her business was more like a rider almost in the sense of like taking the risk, which is ironic because I'm a pretty risk taking individual. So I'm, you know, if kind of you see the potential for growth and everything like that, you know, investing. And the nice thing about these days is you can invest a small amount in your business and see a huge return. I'm very much of the mind of if I can't project income based on the expenses that we're doing, it might not make sense. And so I'm always trying to figure out why rationally would we make an investment. And one of the things that I always kind of think about is if you have cash lying around, which hopefully people do, or savings or whatever, there's places you can put that money. You could put it in the stock market, you could put it into bonds, wherever you want to feel comfortable with it. But then there's also like investing in yourself and making sure that even taking a look at yourself as a part of your diversity portfolio, saying, okay, if I put money in the stock market, bonds or whatever, I'm covered there, but then I have this other cash and what do I go do with that? Investing yourself can be a huge, huge moneymaker because in the end you're going to get a big return because it's going to be what you make out of it. So my delineation really is if you're starting out and you really feel strongly that you can do this, it's not going to take a lot of capital, I think, to get kind of going, especially with all of the software and service today that you can subscribe for and actually do, as opposed to go building out your own thing. But I think take the risk, especially if you believe in yourself.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And that was, it was essentially A version of how I answered it, which was, I think it really depends on where you're coming from. I think there are those people who maybe have that disposable income. They're willing to say, ah, we're going to take some of this, whether it's savings or, you know, maybe it's an extra $500 a month that you have and risk the potential of investing that into a business, which some businesses fail, some businesses don't, and you never know what the result of that is. But if you have that and you are okay risking that, I say I think it makes a lot of sense to go for it. And then for some people it's just not an option. And so it's like, well, you have to use the other resource you have, which is time, in order to eventually get to a point where hopefully that time invested into a business will result in additional disposable income, which then you figure out ways to invest back into it. So interesting to hear your thoughts.

Your answer was much more elegant.

Well, it's because I got a thought and didn't think about it while you were, while you were giving yours. So. And I just gave the answer 60 minutes ago, so it's my second round going through it. So I'm guessing that as the blog grew and as you started to understand the potential of building this brand against All Grain, there was kind of some areas where you as a software producer, as a creator, as an engineer started to see, hey, maybe there's some opportunities here to build, maybe even for us to solve our own problem that also exists for other people. Is that kind of how you got to the point where kind of creating some of the, the tools and solutions and applications that you built to, to help bloggers and content creators or what did that look like as you started to build these other businesses that, that you have now that you run?

Yeah, no, that's another great question too. I think it's funny because I'm the technical side of Against All Grain for all intents and purposes. So anything blog related and like you said, viewing it in the lens of software and how to build it and just the knowledge of what it takes to get from point A to point B was kind of where I could bring a lot of value and say, okay, well we can actually go do this ourselves or we go buy that off the shelf. And so the best story is my wife and I obviously work together a lot and even when I was working in a corporate world, in a corporate job, you know, we'd still be working together. It's just our work times would be, you know, at 10pm at night when we're laying in bed. And so it'd be oftentimes that my wife would, you know, she's. I'm gonna say workaholic, but in a good sense, like, she just loves her job. So it's like she's always constantly, like, her mind's always thinking. So she rolls over to me and this was probably, you know, 2014, and this is gonna get into the creation of LinkedIn profile and says, you know, honey, I love Instagram, but I create these recipes, and no one knows how to find these recipes on Instagram because there's only one URL. And I'm like, oh, okay. So, you know, tell me more about that. And I'm not a huge social media person, which is ironic because I have essentially two social media companies. But I'm a very much of, like, an engineer, like a very efficiency type person. So that's not. That's not right. That's not fair. How do we. How do we solve that? And so she told me, well, there's, you know, there's these services that work for shopping, like Saks and Nordstrom Use it. It's by this big company based on. I think they were Philadelphia, or still are, you know, can you go investigate them for me? And so I, you know, I went and investigated it and I went through their webinar, which was probably the first inclination that it was probably going to be too expensive. And this maybe will actually even tie back into your other question about money. We got to the end of the call and someone, I think, asked, you know, how much did this software cost to be able to link, you know, essentially shopping products, you know, to, you know, the webpages? And they said, $1,000 a month. And you're like, my job just dropped. I was like, that's cool, but that seems really expensive.

Yeah.

And so, you know, that was when LinkedIn profile was born, because I'm like, honestly, I know a lot about the Instagram API. And I. Because I think I had messed with it for a different project I had worked on at some point that was just personal. And I said, no, this should be pretty simple. And so went out and built it. And that was what Lincoln Profile was always designed to be an easy way and obviously designed mainly for food bloggers to say, here's my recent recipe. Go click the link in my profile and you can find it. And then there was the passive discovery of old recipes as well. So ideally, that was kind of how it was born, and that's kind of how Against All Grain has shaped a lot of what I've done. And it's nice because we talked about customers having someone from day one. Well, my wife was a customer, and when she gives me technical feedback like, hey, this isn't working, or this doesn't work right, or this doesn't look right, she can find me.

Yes, right. It's a very quick feedback.

Yeah, exactly.

So for those that aren't familiar, can you kind of describe what that process is like? So, essentially, it's you use link and profile, and like you said, it's a way for you to be able to link content within Instagram. But can you kind of describe the mechanics of that and how that works and what that looks like?

Yeah. So LinkedIn profiles, essentially, it was designed to make it super seamless and fast for someone to say, I have a new recipe, I'm going to post it on Instagram, and I want people to be able to access it immediately. And so what you're able to do is actually, by original design, was include the URL, which is not clickable in Instagram because of the way that they've architected the app in the caption of your post. And then our software actually goes through, looks for URLs in your caption, and says, oh, hey, Bjork wants to associate this recipe with this image. We're going to take that, put it on a simple landing page that then people could click through into the profile and then tap and go to that recipe immediately. In terms of workflow, it was designed to make it super seamless. No one had to log in anywhere. You didn't have to go find the image in this dashboard where you'd add a link. It was all supposed to be super fast and super easy. And so. And then also, just as a core tenant of how I built LinkedIn profile, I never wanted to one, lock people in. So in my mind, if Instagram ever turned on linking in the Instagram app, all your URLs would be there already. So, boom, you know, you wouldn't use LinkedIn profile anymore. Bummer. But, you know, you would still benefit from that content being there. And then also, you know, making sure that we charged, you know, the smallest amount possible, you know, to essentially say, you know, hey, anybody should be able to do this. It's not, you know, cost prohibitive.

Yeah. So one of the questions that I have, and this was actually in this live Q and A that we did you know, just an hour ago, this came up as well, and we've heard a lot of people talking about this. Obviously, Instagram is a really influential, important platform, especially for people who have food and recipe websites. But just in general, I feel like it's a platform for content creators where there's. You can really quickly, if you do it right, and effectively, build a strong following and reach people in a way that you can't on a Facebook, let's say. Or it's definitely not in the same way that you could on a Twitter or Pinterest. So it's an important platform. One of the questions that we constantly hear is, what is the strategy between trying to get people to go to your website versus just engaging with them on the platform itself? And an example would be, I was talking to Lindsay before we started this podcast. I was like, what, What? How do you view Lindsay? You know, including an entire recipe within an Instagram post or not? And she said, well, sometimes I'll do that depending on if it's a good recipe for Instagram, which is like, it's kind of one of these gut things of like, well, what's a good recipe for Instagram? Or not? Or, you know, and there's probably a lot of nuance that goes into that. But I'm wondering for you, you know, as somebody who understands kind of the dynamics related to engagement on the platform and also traffic from the platform, do you have any thoughts around that and how people should view content creation on Instagram? Is it. Is it lead generation for traffic? Is it trying to engage people on that platform? How much should you try and message people to go to your post versus staying within the platform? Curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, I think that's changing too. I think if you had asked that question a couple years ago, I think the answer would be different. I think because of Facebook's takeover of Instagram and the algorithms that have now come into play with how people are viewing content, and it's no longer linear. I think it changes the way that you look at it. So the same thing with Danielle and myself. We're constantly in discussions of do you include a full recipe or do you not? Because I think at the end of the day, the goal is. Is really to be seen, because your wife and you guys do amazing things and your videos are unbelievable. And so it's just one of those things where it'd be really sad if you created that content and no one could see it. And so how do you make sure that that content is Seen. And one of the ways I agree, is including a full recipe in the post to engage on the platform. Now, I think cutting against that is being beholden to a platform. And obviously Instagram is kind of the king of the hill today. And who knows what it's going to be like in a year or a couple years. Is always the thing in the back of my mind going, you know, as a content creator, you're really good at creating this content that people want to consume. And it's oftentimes that people that want to consume it can't even see it or knew that it existed. There have been multiple times, and actually it wasn't this last book tour, but even the previous book tour where Danielle has posted, you know, I'm coming to the city, like, please come visit me and whatever. And then people would get on and be like, hey, well, why aren't you coming to Dallas? And Danielle's like, well, I just announced that I was coming to Dallas, going to Dallas, you know, last week. It's just that post is hidden. And so, you know, it's that balance of, like, well, you stoke the fire of engagement, you know, on a recipe post, you know, that includes the full recipe, because such that the algo then algorithm then, you know, will promote, you know, content kind of. Is there a tail on that? And, you know, it's always this guessing game with Instagram. Like, you know, they had that whole presentation on. Well, we don't, you know, rank based on this and blah, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, in the end, when you see, like a highly engaged post, usually the post after that tend to perform a little bit better for whatever reason. So, you know, maybe there's some insight there. But I think one of the things that, you know, the reason why we built these tools like LinkedIn profile and tab IO were really to make it so people could still consume the content that you want them to, but still feel like they're on the platform. Because I think that's the biggest thing, which is the follower doesn't want to leave Instagram. Like, they want to stay within that kind of flow. And so making it really seamless to be able to say, you know, I want to get to this recipe. Boom, I got this recipe. You know, maybe I save it or somehow, you know, maybe I share it, you know, the URL or somehow, but then I can go back to the feed and engage in different things. So I think, you know, that's kind of the, you know, our take on it now is, you know, Instagram is Kind of like this beast where you got to feed the beast, but you want to be cognizant of. You know, this is your audience. Like, you should own your audience.

Mm. Yeah, it's. It's interesting. I feel like it ties into some of the things that we've been thinking about with decisions of what we're working on and just even kind of mindsets as it relates to the businesses. And one of the things that I've been thinking about and constantly trying to figure out is, like, what are the incremental improvements that we can implement that are ongoing? And I feel like a great example of that is including a way for people to easily get to your content from Instagram. And it's not going to be like, you turn it on and there's this massive influx of people all of a sudden coming. But it's an incremental improvement that over time will pay off. And it's small strategies that build up and pay off over a long period of time. One of the things that you talked about that I think some people would have, like a little oh, I'm interested flag go up would be you had talked about an Instagram presentation and some of the things they talked about an algorithm. What was that? Can you explain a little bit more about what that was?

That's a great question. So I can't remember exactly the details, which is probably going to fail in terms of people being intrigued. But there, there were. I can't remember if it was TechCrunch or someone. Instagram announced the new algorithms and they essentially brought up, I believe it was like, five key points that they were essentially saying that impacted the viewability or visibility of posts within Instagram, and it was trying to essentially dispel certain rumors. And obviously Facebook's had these issues with the fake news of it being promoted and all those kinds of things. So I think they were trying to dispel those kind of myths of how they were doing things, but they're still pretty opaque in terms of how they're doing it. I'll have to find the link for you because it was publicized. I believe it was TechCrunch.

Okay. Yeah. And we'll include that in the show notes for people that are listening and want to check that out. So one of the questions that I have specifically with LinkedIn profile, and then we can talk about Tap Bio as well, is what were some of the things that you did differently with LinkedIn profile? Or as you analyze and compare that to Microhero, what are the things that were different about that. That kind of proved like, okay, this is something that I think has some legs that we're able to spend some time on and will actually be a worthy business and worth continuing on with.

Yeah, no, that. Good question. So it's funny. And this will go back to that kind of customer base. Obviously, I had an inbuilt customer, So I viewed LinkedIn profile almost as this thing where if I built it and Danielle used it and she found it, good, done. You know, I could say, this is. This is really amazing. It was worth it. And the story about that is even better because I think I had briefly touched on how easy it would theoretically be to build something like this. And a buddy of mine and myself built the Alpha in a weekend. It wasn't perfect. It didn't have like all the bells and whistles, but it worked. And so we were able to roll it out to Danielle literally within like 48 to 72 hours, where she could actually start using it within link or in Instagra. Whereas Microhero, to give you Context, we spent 18 months in design and engineering to be able to build that and then release it. So, you know, just in terms of the cycle, it was a lot faster. And so then what I did was, you know, I reached out to four or five of Danielle's key contacts that actually were in different verticals. So jewelry, interior design, food, blogging. I can't remember if there was another, like maybe another food blogger or whatnot. And I said, hey, I have this tool, it does these things. Would you be willing to. To use it and just tell me what you love, hate what you'd like different. Gave it to him for free and got them up and running. And I think we had those six people or five people on the platform for about three or four months before really anything took shape after that. And then the ironic thing was we opened it up to, I think everybody, but no one could pay us. So everybody was in this like extended beta trial that we were saying, but it was really, in reality, we just had no, we didn't build out the part of payment yet.

So it was like you didn't even. If you wanted to, you couldn't charge them?

No, I couldn't. It was impossible. So it was like, oh, you guys are just on a free trial. Yeah, it was a month away, A six month free trial, whatever you want.

One of those very rare seven month free trials.

Exactly, yeah.

So at what point did you say, hey, I think this is something that's worth turning on payments for and starting to collect payments. And the context for that is the reason that I'm asking these questions is because I think it's important, even if it's not software, that people that listen to this podcast think about ways that you can be building solutions, building products, building services for people that help solve a specific problem. And if you can do that, there's some really exciting things that happen around that that are different than just monetizing via ads or sponsored content, which is good. But also there's this entire, you know, category of business that we sometimes don't talk about on the podcast, which is, you know, tools and services and solutions. And so I'm interested to hear what that was like for you as it relates to Lincoln Profile now eventually tap Bio, and we talk about that in a bit. But when. When did you get to the point where you said, okay, let's turn this on? And then how did you introduce that to customers and say, hey, you're on this plan, but it would be great if you upgrade or, you know, your free trial is coming to an end? What was that like?

Yeah, no, yeah, it was one of those things where I think it was always. It was to prove out the model first. And I think that's what the nice part about essentially having this extended, you know, free trial for many months was. We kept getting users, people kept signing up. And the interesting thing, too, was that people were signing up without any marketing. You know, Instagram is a very much of a scenario where people see other people do things and they want to explore it, they want to experience it. And so people would sign up for LinkedIn profile without us doing any sort of advertising. And so it's like, okay, well, this could be a thing, you know, like, if we constantly get these signups, let's find out what that, you know, that payment should be essentially to keep servers and running and all that kind of stuff and then just start charging them. And the upsell to essentially from this beta period to paid was pretty trivial because, you know, in all, we always kind of intended to charge them, and I was just hoping that they would forget. So that was pretty easy. But I do agree with you, because there are so many things that people and, you know, for me, it's software where I can. I can go build software. But there are so many different. Like, there's knowledge and from all your listeners that they could probably teach someone else, and someone would probably be willing to pay for it. Because so much of what we do these days, especially when you're a content Creator is create cool things and think that almost like you can't charge for it, but I think you can. And I think it shortcuts a lot of abilities. Like if someone, you know, is willing to pay, you know, a small fee for a PDF download on how to do things, or, you know, one of the things I always see on Instagram is people selling filters. It's just that, like, you know, why not? Because you're actually gonna benefit someone. So that was kind of an easy decision in that way.

Yeah. Last question that I have with LinkedIn profile. One of the unique things that. That you have as a business owner for a service that helps people on Instagram is being able to see and understand influential people. So maybe it's people that use a platform or just a general understanding of Instagram. Are there things that you notice this as themes or kind of rhythms that you see for people who are successful on Instagram, whatever that might be, in terms of how they approach the platform, whether that be the content they're creating, the consistency that they create the content, how they're using the platform, and even it could be from experiences that you've had with Danielle and Against All Grain. I'm curious to hear just kind of of your assessment on. Essentially, it's the question of, like, what does success look like on Instagram, and how can the listeners to the podcast become more strategic and successful on Instagram?

Totally, totally. Yeah. So, I mean, I think, you know, we're in a weird, you know, spot in terms of tab bio and LinkedIn profile, like you said, and it's able to see, you know, data essentially flowing through our system. And, you know, obviously we keep it all confidential in terms of, like, specific. But it's interesting because our platform in and of itself doesn't necessarily see all of the data that would be associated with the user. So I think we have this small subset of really successful people, which I would include you guys in that world in the sense that they're driving a lot of Traffic through their LinkedIn profile to be able to get people to recipes. And so, by the way, taking even a step back there, there's so much audience education in terms of click the link in my profile, because Even we at LinkedIn profile admit it's kind of a janky solution. It's not, like, super optimal. Like, I'd like to be able to click on a link. I can. So then you have to teach your audience to go do those things. And so we see kind of like that tail end of, like, the people that are successful on our platform are the ones that have done a really good job educating their audience on. Now go to click the link in my profile and look for the image that you want and click it, and that's it. You know what I mean? But people that aren't successful on our platform don't do that. And they kind of wonder why maybe it's not working for them. Which is. It's sad because I think it could, however. So I think so in terms of, like, answering questions like that, you know, we don't necessarily have all of the insights into what's successful on Instagram from the technology side on those businesses. It is, I will say, though, we have some pretty famous people on Tapbio, you know, that have, let's call it like 6 million or more, but they don't drive any traffic through their URL, their profile URL. So, you know, is that successful? They're probably successful on the platform itself, but, you know, utilizing a tool like ours, you know, maybe we're not the right fit because, you know, maybe they don't need something like that. But it is one of those things where we kind of see that. I will say on Danielle's side, you know, if I was to take, you know, kind of a page from her playbook is, you know, I was telling someone this the other day, Danielle is who she is. And ideally, when she includes me as well, is like, if you meet us off Instagram or on Instagram, we should be the same. And if we're not, there's a problem, you know, being authentic, I think, and I guess it depends probably a lot on your brand. Like, if you're, you know, a food blogger who just does recipes, maybe that's kind of a different kind of take. Whereas, you know, Danielle's kind of has a little bit more kind of the social aspect of it. But just be who you are, you know, don't try to be something that you're not. And just. And just kind of, you know, don't be afraid to be who you are either. I think that. I think just people appreciate the authenticity of people and that people do appreciate it. Also, people love selfies, so, you know, people love pictures of other people for sure.

Yeah, it's a great. It's a great little, like, last reminder, people like people, and selfies are a good thing. So you'd mentioned tapbio, and the cool thing is that you had. And I had noticed this before as kind of. I was doing some research for the interview and stuff, but some pretty significant people that use it. When did tapbio come about? What is the problem that it's solving? And explain a little bit about that and how that fits into the picture.

Yeah, great question. So it's funny, when I was working for LinkedIn profile, I got offered a job to go actually be a software engineer at a big corporate tech company here in the Bay Area. And as I was getting recruited, they essentially said, hey, you can't really do LinkedIn profile anymore while you're here. And I said, oh, okay, that's kind of a bummer because, you know, it's kind of successful and it's doing really well. And so I actually tapped a friend who kind of had this long standing background in technology and I said, hey, look, one, do you want to buy it or do you want to take it over and kind of run it for a while? And so that's what he did while I was there. He ended up taking over the platform. And the idea was I was hoping he'd take LinkedIn profile to the next state, the next step, the kind of next stage. And because, because, you know, from a business perspective, Lincoln Profile, like I said, if Instagram turns on links, doesn't need to exist anymore, which is fine, but you know, in terms of like, you know, planning income and all that kind of stuff, like how do you, you know, kind of, how do you essentially live with us? Like this notion of, oh my gosh, Instagram shutter business down.

Yeah.

And so how do you. That was kind of the task given to him, which was, how do we make it even better? And I think the space, the linking space is essentially, you know, for all intents and purposes, what LinkedIn profile is in has become replete with, you know, many competitors. Because like I said, if I built the alpha of LinkedIn profile on a weekend, it doesn't stop, you know, other people in building something similar. And so obviously you guys probably know, your listeners know about Linktree, which is, you know, the big 800 pound gorilla in the room and they're offering. And so we kind of took a look at the market and said, you know what, what could LinkedIn profile be that could be a lot more to people? And one of the things that we wanted to focus on was kind of this micro conversion aspect. And so we kind of approached it from that, because linking to recipes via photos is kind of this micro conversion aspect. You know, being able to quickly get someone somewhere and tap bio or LinkedIn profile kind of being the conduit, you know, not the end game, but the conduit and so we thought about email lists, we thought about what linktree was doing with just a table of links. We thought about including YouTube videos, easily being able to watch. And so we started conceptualizing this new tool that could quickly convert your audience or your followers into doing something. And then ideally, like I said, pop back into Instagram, pop back in the platform, start engaging with you or whomever in an easy way. So it'd be very lightweight on the followers. And the Instagram stories, obviously based on Snapchat stories were such a huge thing. So we thought, well, why not create essentially these mini websites in story form that each card could kind of have a specific purpose, whether it's a single call to action, go download my new ebook from Amazon or YouTube where you have your YouTube playlist, and it has the most recent videos posted on there, and all in the swipeable format that's very mobile friendly. That actually honestly looks like you haven't left Instagram. Ideally, you know, ideally it kind of has that same look and feel. And so that's kind of what we had gestated on while I was doing the corporate gig. And then with the corporate gig, the buddy that I sold to, Jesse, he's like, please come back and help me run the technology side. And he essentially convinced me about a year ago, actually almost it'll be a year next month to come back and run engineering and product and kind of get it off the ground. And we launched in April of last year and I think it's been, you know, with any tech company, it's been ups and downs and trying to fix bugs and make sure our customers are happy. And, you know, I think we're still trying to figure out what it is and kind of how does, you know, tab bio, you know, exist with LinkedIn profile and how does it look different? And I will say, you know, when people ask me, like, what's the difference? I say, you know, tab bio, essentially, as if LinkedIn profile and Linktree had a child, but that child was like a superchild and they had way more like abilities than their parents.

Yeah, I feel like there's a Marvel character somewhere in there that that would apply to. It's maybe Superman is what tied back to. Okay, so this is just out of curiosity and I know a lot of people will be wondering this as well. You had mentioned some influential Instagram users that are using it. Can you. I mean, it's obviously part of their profile. Can you share who those are?

Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, you know, I think we have, well, I can get into a story about Eminem if you want. He doesn't use it anymore, but I'm happy to. But, you know, we have people like, you know, Melissa Hartwig using it, obviously Danielle using it. We have yes, Theory, which is a really cool brand. I guess they call it a brand, but like more of a way of life. On YouTube. We have a lot of music people that use it. So, like, Janet Jackson is using it right now. We have Bethany Hamilton, who's a famous surfer. Just some cool people that are like, I don't know, it's a cool client roster because they're doing cool things. And a lot of these bios that they create are just beautiful. And you're like, wow, that's. And that looks really nice.

Yeah. And so the idea here is that what you're creating with Tap Bio is essentially an experience that amplifies and tells your story in a way that either a. A link to your website wouldn't, because you go to your website, it's a, you know, Safari browser. It doesn't really guide people. I mean, ideally it would, but realistically, a website doesn't really guide people through a story the way that maybe something like tapbio would. And so essentially, you're kind of controlling the experience a little bit more and deepening the engagement while also introducing some actionable items. So can you talk about what those actionable items might be that you'd want to. Let's say, if you're a food blogger and you're using Tap Bio, what are some of the things that you'd recommend people think about including in their bio that would help kind of give some direction and some intention behind the user using Tab IO and kind of exploring their brand a little bit more?

Yeah, totally. I think the biggest thing and the way that I like to describe Tab IO and why you would use us if you had a website was that think of us as kind of like this micro layer in between us and your content on your website. What we, again, kind of want to do is funnel people in the right way with the easiest kind of path to get there. So that's where, like you said, you drop someone into your website, they're going to look for something. And especially if they're. Usually Instagram posts aren't very generic. It's not like, hey, just go visit my website, it's, hey, go sign up for this new challenge I'm doing, or just go see this new recipe or go watch this new video. And so it's that micro kind of interaction where we want to take that follower and get them to your content, on your webpage, on your YouTube channel, wherever, as fast as possible. So one of the things that we've built out, we have multiple card types and that's kind of where we think of Tab IO Tab IO essentially as a deck of cards. And each card has a purpose. So you could be promoting like a download of an ebook. Like let's say you just launch your ebook, you post something on Instagram, you put your ebook card kind of first and there's a simple call to action where people can just click and I can go download it. And so we have simple call to action. We have a links card which looks similar to linktree in the sense that you can have just a bunch of links on a page. We have, you know, Twitter, YouTube, like kind of these, these other social networks that you might want to cross pollinate with your Instagram audience. Because that's one thing that we've recognized is that people not only do different things on different channels, but then also might have a different audience on different channels.

Right.

And so being able to have that kind of cross pollination benefit. We also have the Instagram links card, by the way, which is probably the one that you guys would be most interested in general, which is, you know, essentially LinkedIn profile, but on a card format. And by the way, the one thing too, by the way is we have a free version of tabbio which you can actually get a lot of the similar functionality of LinkedIn profile through that aspect too. So that was one of the other business decisions that we made was let's make the barrier to entry for these people that want to create a tab bio even lower because they would benefit from it. And then we have like a profile card where you can link out to all your different social networks, even like a Spotify playlist or an Apple music playlist. We have other things in the works in terms of we actually are releasing a new feature, a card that's going to come out hopefully in the next week or so. So depending upon when this airs, hopefully it's out where people I think will really benefit that are kind of more in the photography space or more maybe like promoting like different key influencers across their network. We have kind of some works in the shopping space, like being able to make it easy for people to shop within your Instagram. But yeah, so that's kind of how we view tabbio and how, you know, this, this kind of thin layer between like Instagram and your website, your content, wherever that may reside.

That's really cool. And I'm pulling up the site Tap Bio, and you can see it's. It's. It's a great little marketing page because essentially it is what Tap. Like, you're using Tap. An example of TAP IO, maybe it is just actually TAP IO to show what Tap Bio is. But then also it's like that's what the page is, is a Tap Bio deck of cards, essentially. But the second page kind of outlines some of the people that use it. And I think, for those that are listening, would be interested in kind of checking out a little bit more. That would be a great place to go and say, oh, I see a lot of these recognizable names. Some people that have been on the podcast, Michelle from Nomnom Paleo Simple Grain Smoothies.

I love Michelle.

Yeah, for sure. And these would be great people to look at and explore. Janet Jackson, of course, is on there as well, which is such a great name to be able to have using the product to explore a little bit. Are there any others that you'd say, hey, for people in the food and recipe space, these would be good accounts to check out to see an example of how they're using it and how we could be, as creators, using it on Instagram.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, obviously, start there. That's a great place. And I'm glad you brought that up. And then two. One of the things that we've been doing, or at least trying to do on our. On our Instagram is feature our users. And so we just featured someone. I can't remember exactly who it was, but they have the most beautiful Tap bio. And it's just every card has just. It's got this attention to detail where, you know, it's just. It's beautiful. So I think there's some great examples that aren't necessarily from, you know, big names, but they've just created really beautiful bios. And so I think, you know, following us there, which is, you know, I think we're. Are we at Tap Bio? I should know these things before I come onto a podcast. But I think it's either Tab Bio or Tap Bio.

We'll link to it either way on Instagram.

Yeah, that'd be great.

So, last question, kind of as we're coming to the end here, really appreciate you telling your story, Ryan. Some insights along the way. But one of the things that I think is so valuable is your experience as an entrepreneur. And everybody that listens to this podcast, even if they're within a Corporate environment, in some senses, entrepreneurial. They're creators, they're builders, they're people who are looking to implement ideas. And you've done that in multiple different ways. I'm curious to hear your thoughts and advice for people as it relates to building a thing. Whether that be a food blog, which you've done along with Danielle, whether it be a software company. What is your advice and what would the inspiration that you give to people be as it relates to building a thing? Seeing your idea come to life?

Yeah, no, I think the biggest thing is if you believe in what you are setting up to build, whatever that is, you know, from day zero to whenever, do it. Like there's no, you know, I think the nice thing about again, kind of the world that we live in today is that you can really build a lot of cool things and it doesn't take a lot of time because I think, you know, it used to be where you'd have to quit your corporate job or you know, leave that corporate environment or you know, have kind of be the whole focus. But I think you can do these things and kind of have this side hustle. And then, you know, as we were talking about before, like build into the revenue and kind of see if you can create profit and just build something that people want to use, Build something that people like to use and then worry about how you're going to make money off it later. Because I think, you know, so much of what you know is revenue driven in the sense of like, oh, how am I going to make a buck off that? But if you make something that people like, they will probably pay you for it. And I think that's my biggest piece of advice. And then the second piece of advice I would say is it can get lonely depending upon kind of where you are in terms of your life stage and whatnot. As an entrepreneur, especially as a small business owner, because I work from home, I'm actually doing this podcast for my car because my 3 year old would probably be crying in the background and that you probably have to edit it out.

So relatable.

You can get lonely. Make sure you're surrounding yourself with like minded people, whether you're listening to this podcast or you go to a meetup or whatever. Because I think that's the other thing that don't feel like you're on this island by yourself, that there are other people doing something similar, the same and you can connect over that. So those would be kind of my two things, which is if you believe in yourself, go do it. But then also find other people that kind of surround yourself and kind of lift you up and make sure that you have the moral support.

That's awesome. Yeah. And a great note to end on. So we've mentioned a couple different times, but for those that want to follow along with what you're up to, check out this site. Can you just do a quick little recap of the best places for people to learn more and even sign up for the services?

Yeah, definitely, Definitely. And I think you actually, for your Food Blogger Pro members, we actually have a discount, which is cool.

Which is.

I'm not sure exactly where it's posted on that there, but for LinkedIn profile and tap Bio, but yeah. So take a look at us at Taptap Bio. If you visit us from a mobile browser, it'll look really cool. If you're visiting us from a desktop, it'll look kind of like a mobile view. You can also obviously follow us on Instagram, which is Tap Vio. And then, you know, take a look at, you know, what kind of the different people that are doing things, you know, my wife, obviously plugging her at Danielle Walker and kind of follow her and see what she's up to.

Cool, that's great. And thank you for mentioning that. Now that I remember back, that's originally how the connection happened. Here was Jasmine, who manages the deals for Food Blogger Pro, said, oh my gosh, we gotta have Ryan on the. On the podcast. So if you, if you are a Foodblogger Pro member, that's just FoodbloggerPro.com deals and that's the page where we have kind of exclusive deals for Food Blogger Pro members. Tap bio and LinkedIn profile will be there. So if you're a member, make sure you go there before signing up. Ryan, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. So great to connect and excited to stay connected with you here moving forward.

Yeah, that was awesome. Thank you, Bjork, for the time. It was fun to talk about the history and it's fun to relive memories.

Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Ryan.

And that is that, my friend. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Food Blogger Pro podcast this week. But before we wrap up, it's time for our drum roll, please. Reviewer of the week. This itunes review comes from Margaret in Cincinnati and it says Tuesdays are great days for me now because a new Food Blogger Pro podcast will be ready to listen to. I am a jewelry designer with an e commerce site and blog, yet I benefit from every one of the podcasts I have learned more about blogs, social media, websites, photography, legal issues, and more from the podcast than anywhere else. Bjork's interview style makes me think he is learning about the topic at the same speed I am. He asked the guests the questions I would ask and then ask the ones I wish I would have thought of, and I'm so glad he did. Jargon and acronyms consistently get explained. Additional resources are provided to listeners to follow up with. I'm surprised, but so glad that the podcasts are free. Thank you so much for your review. Margaret and I agree, Tuesdays are just fantastic days because we love sharing the podcast with you all every single week. Every Tuesday. So thank you again for letting us be a part of your day today, friend. We'll see you here same time next week. Next week. But until then, make it a great week.