Discussing Lean Customer Development, Innovating & Building the Right Products with Matt Levenhagen of The Builders Podcast

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In this engaging episode, host Matt sits down with Danny Nathan, the forward-thinking founder of Apollo 21. They delve into the world of product development, customer-centric innovation, and the significance of lean customer development. Danny shares his professional journey from the realm of traditional advertising to becoming a key player in the innovation sector, emphasizing the importance of building products that solve genuine customer problems.

Danny discusses the methodology behind Apollo 21’s success, highlighting the principle of “Crawl Walk Run” in product development. This approach emphasizes starting small, validating ideas through customer feedback, and gradually scaling to meet larger business goals. He also touches on how innovation shouldn’t just be about creating new things but also understanding and embedding meaningful changes within an organization’s culture and operations.

Key Takeaways:

• Lean Customer Development: Begin the product development process by talking to customers to understand their pain points before building anything.
• Crawl Walk Run: Start with the smallest thing that can be built to create value, then iterate and expand based on customer feedback.
• Relentless Collaboration: Build strong trust-based relationships with clients to ensure successful partnerships and product outcomes.
• Expect Clients to Outgrow You: Develop a mindset that allows clients to eventually internalize operations, fostering long-term trust and collaboration.
• Focus on Solving Real Problems: Ensure that any product or innovation effort is centered around addressing genuine customer needs.

Watch above or check it out here.

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Transcript:

we're also very strong proponents of lean customer development and for us that comes to life almost before we ever

get to worrying about what an MVP might look like um we encourage our customers

and really enjoy helping them go through the customer development process so that

they're talking to their customers they're learning what the pain points are that those customers have that current products perhaps don't fulfill

and in doing so discovering opportunities for for growth for new

product development for new Venture building that align to a very clear need as articulated by the customer that

ideally aligns to our partners Core Business that we can validate along the

way and ensure that people are to your point willing to pay for because ultimately that's the end goal of

whatever we're creating and so before we ever get to the moment of let's go build

the MVP or let's go build the one feature that's going have the greatest impact there's a process that we go

through to discover what that thing is and so we start you know kind of wide with customer interviews and just sort

of probing questions around what might we create it's really a learning opportunity and then from

there before we jump into this episode please subscribe to this podcast hit that notification Bell if you're on

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more people and deliver these valuable From The Trenches lessons to those that need it enjoy the

episode Hello everybody welcome to another the builders today we are joined by Danny Nathan welcome to the show

Danny thanks for having me I'm excited for our chat yeah me too uh so uh Danny

is the founder of Apollo 21 they don't uh launch rocket ships

apparently they launch products and Ventures things like that yeah that's

what we do no Rockets yet but not going into space yeah no as much as we think

that would be exciting it might be a little bit uh more might be biting off more than we can chew H you never know

someday someday you might you know uh hook you know help a company that's

going into space that would be really cool so there would be alignment there

at least in your branding yes at least from a brand perspective no that's awesome so uh as we do here um

on the builders the first time we have you on the show is we talk a little bit about you or have you talk a little bit

about you uh learning about your your origin story how you landed where you

are today um doing the amazing things you're doing in the world helping people

uh providing you know all the things that you provide um so uh you can go

make this a long version a short version whatever you feel is going to be be impactful all right and and help us

learn more about you and and uh maybe we can extract some stories from there that's be interesting and

insightful sounds good um all right so uh I've had as you noted earlier a bit

of a roller coaster or career I uh actually started in the world of advertising um realized very quickly

that I didn't enjoy it much and that the most fun you'll ever have in the world of advertising unfortunately happens

during ad school and once you're out in the real world it gets uh it gets a lot less fun and so um so you're doing real

real advertising like like real advertising TV spots magazines newspapers you know like old school

stuff um nice yeah and I really what I realized was that I I guess I have to

place this in time a little bit to to give that context uh this was back in the early to mid 2000s when the internet

was kind of you know becoming a thing and um I was probably the last in the last

class out of AD school that didn't focus on what the internet brought to the

world of advertising and brand communication and so on so we really were focused on TV spots and newspaper

ads and magazine ads and all that not fun stuff and I got really frustrated with

it because I was tired of working with companies that were spending an inordinate amount of money to

effectively interrupt their customers lives at in opportune times to scream something at them that that customer

probably wasn't really interested in hearing and it got me thinking down the path of you know surely there must be a

better way to to handle this interaction and situation and so uh

that ended up with me kind of giving myself a crash course in the world of

technology driven Communications and marketing and so on and um I read through a stack of books and

kind of gave myself a second MBA that ultimately led to a job at an innovation

consultancy uh here in New York at the time called poke and um I spent about

five years there helping poke grow their offering and really being exposed to a

new thought process around what it meant for technology enabled brand engagement

how to bring value to the lives of customers as opposed to just yelling at them repeatedly that they should buy

your whatever um and it was a really enlightening and eye-opening experience

because it was the first time that I had ever work for somebody who was willing to say no to a client even if it meant

saying no to money that came with that client and so um we had a relatively

strong stance on where we drew the line in terms of how we felt communication

should work and how technology should enable that and um it was really a a

growth experience for me and so coming out of that I was also introduced to the

world of startups and Entrepreneurship through that opportunity and that really got my attention the idea of moving away

from effectively selling things to people and rather focusing on building

things for people um resonated for me heavily and so that led me eventually to

where I am today I uh I left poke and spent the next uh let's see that was I spent the next 12 years or so leading up

to today um starting a number of companies of my own working as head of product in a

number of other startups and um really focused on building unique and interesting products that I thought

added value to people's lives and so that ultimately led to the creation of Apollo 21 about 3 years ago and our core

focus is helping generally mid to Enterprise size organizations build new

products launch new Ventures and create technology to solve operational challenges so effectively building

customer products or building internally utilized products and new Ventures oh

interesting okay um so so kind of rewinding a little bit um I'm curious

like so you you were at poke you had probably had other jobs in there somewhere like before that I was at poke

for about five years and then uh bounced around a number of startups founded a couple of startups along the way uh

leading up to where I am so yeah there's been there's been a half dozen or so in the in the intervening years so what

what was it about um kind of going into your business for yourself or entrepreneurship or you know doing

something on your own that attracted you to to doing that like what what was did

did you not like working for somebody else did you not see yourself in the corporate ladder uh situation or you

know what never saw myself I'm sorry I definitely never saw myself on the corporate ladder um the largest company

that I've ever worked for is about 150 people uh and that that is my context for big although I realize it is not a

large Company by you know all standards um really for me it's

about having control over my own destiny feeling like I am succeeding or feeling

b or failing based on my own merits um and

yeah there's a there's a modum of control that comes with uh you know working for yourself and feeling like

you have the freedom to make the decisions that you feel are most appropriate in the moment and um I've

worked for some amazing people I'm not stuck on the idea of working for myself solely but I really appreciate being

part of a team where um I feel like I have a voice and I feel like I have a direct impact on the work that's being

created and for me the uh the easiest place to to cultivate that is within a

company that I run you run yeah well it's interesting and I think I

think that I mean you do go work for some companies and I'm sure you don't regret working for poke or any some

other companies because you're gaining experience along the way of course like I I work for a corporation as well I

always say Corporation but they literally were smaller than the one you're talking about they're probably they like maybe 40 employees or 30 okay

but um but for a few years but in that experience I learned so much in that

time frame that I apply to my own business today in my agency and um what

so you said something you learned a lot from poke I think you were talking about

um selling versus building or something like that what what was what was kind of the biggest lessons out of that

experience uh the biggest lesson for me coming out of poke was that there is the

opportunity for a at least at the time different Rel relationship

between companies and their customers and again this was a while ago and you

know my experience up to that point had been through the lens of marketing and advertising where a lot of that was

focused on how do we tell the world that they need our thing for example and I

joined poke it around the time that social media was really becoming highly used and established the iPhone had just

come out like 2 months before I joined the company and so it was really in an

era that was representative of some massive change in the way that um

companies and consumers viewed that relationship and what Communications looked like because people had ready

immediate access to the companies that they previously either didn't have access to in the form of a Twitter

account or whatever where they could you know shout back effectively um and so it

it was eye openening and C with the willingness of the leadership

at poke in this case to um focus on what they believed in and to stand by that

was was really the moment in my career that changed my view of how those

relationships between service providers and clients could work between uh companies and consumers could work etc

and I just to ground it in a in a concrete example for you Matt um I was

at poke early on and we had we had an RFP come in from Fujifilm the the camera

company and uh they wanted to build a photo sharing website for Fuji customers

and they had a a million dooll budget I mean it was you know a substantive amount of money especially back then

yeah and we looked at it and kind of went well I mean sure we could go and

build a photo sharing website for you but have you heard of Flicker and at the

time of course you know everybody listeners now are probably going no as a matter of fact I've not heard of flicker

but at the time flicker was uh the Instagram of the day was the deao photo

sharing website and on a daily basis there were about 10,000 photos shot on

Fuji cameras that were uploaded to Flickr every single day and so our response to Fuji's RFP was uh

effectively hey you don't need a photo sharing website Flickr exists and it's amazing and they're doing great things

have you thought about building an Internet connected camera that would make it incredibly easy for people to

put their photos on Flickr as they shoot them for example yeah if you want to build that we would love to help and if

you want to spend a million dollars building a photo sharing website not us and uh the the fun part

of that of course was how we responded to the RFP um we shot about 200 photos of the folks around our office physical

like printed photos and on the back of every single one we wrote the URL where

we were hosting our RFP response which was www.the last thing the world needs is

another photos sharing website.com nice and we shipped that box to Fuji as our

RFP response and to me that the reason that I love that story is it's exemplary

of the approach and the type of thinking that was exemplified by the team at poke

and it was it it was really you know why that experience for me was so

groundbreaking in my career and forced me to think about the world differently

in in the most positive way it's amazing like you took your stance like exactly

and it was it was the first company that I'd ever worked for that was willing to take a stance every other company that I'd worked for or you know interviewed

at would have looked at that and said oh my God it's a million-dollar opportunity we can't possibly piss them off and the

answer is yes you can or you know the wor what's wor thing going to happen they're going to say no which to be clear they did they said no they spent a

million dollars they built a photo sharing website and a year later they shut it down because flicker still existed yeah yeah and I I think and I

think you know the lesson in there too is is is the relationships with um your

customers yes um and I even in my my agency and what we do we partner with

other agencies and and and have clients direct clients but all those like I

don't want to work with somebody that is doing something I don't agree with or that doesn't listen to my

feedback or do we hav't built some kind of relationship there where they they you know they're they're obviously

bringing us on board as experts and and hopefully we can uh you know at least

input and they can consider some of the things we're saying to them but but you don't want somebody that's um yeah I

mean relationships I in in I'm sure in your current business too is super super

critical is are there any stances you've taken today in your business that

um yes there are a few stances that we take and at this point we have we've kind of operationalized them as core

principles for Apollo 21 and so uh we have three of them the first is we approach every project with the

mentality of crawl walk run so uh we find it very difficult to satisfy

business goals and needs by trying to build uh you know the 10-year vision of whatever a new product is and so um we

focus very highly on finding the smallest thing that we can that will

have the greatest impact for our clients and partners that we can build in a relatively short fast and hopefully not

terribly expensive uh period of time so that we have the opportunity to put it into people's hands and learn from it

and determine what needs to happen next with some measur datadriven uh view of

the world as opposed to just saying we need to go build this thing and if it doesn't do these 20 things then it's not

good enough to put in front of people um so that's one uh our second principle is

Relentless collaboration which comes directly out of what I've just described uh we we work very closely with our

clients and partners and we like to create relationships that are driven by

Trust that um really see us working together to solve The Core Business problems that

somebody is bringing forward and our last principle that is probably the the

newest and least grounded in you know the days of your of my career but one that I have uh learned in the last few

years is um we expect our clients to outgrow us and that's a relatively

unique stance I have found in our world because you know most service driven companies try to find a client and then

hold on and um extract as much value as they can from them in the form of dollars and what I have realized is that

uh eventually if we are successful in the work that we're doing with our clients they will need to internalize

the operations of the products Ventures whatever that we have worked with them to create and fighting against that

eventuality tarnishes the relationship it erodes the trust that we've been talking about and ultimately um just

kind of sour everything whereas if we go into an engagement with the

understanding that eventually our time together not necessarily will end but at least the

relationship will shift and you know you will look to us for different types of input for example um we have a much

easier time building and maintaining that trust and relationship and that could look anything from uh us building

a team using that team to execute the product and then literally transferring that team into the arms of our partner

and client so that we have effectively built and trained their software team

which for us most of the time our clients don't have when they start working with us and so um those are the

things that we we really stand by today and that I think guide how we interact with clients and and what our beliefs

are in the projects that we take on that's great you kind of you kind of understand your space where you where

you're positioned um we certainly try to it it uh it makes lives a little bit easier and you know we know the type of

work that we like to work on and you know because we enjoy doing that type of work we tend

to excel more at that than uh you know I tell people that we're we're not necessarily the best partner of what you

need is Road execution if you have a 500 line product requirements document that

says you know we need this and this and this and this and you're just looking for somebody to crank those out you can

find somebody better for that particular need but if you don't have that list and you don't know what to build and you

don't know what to create that will bring value to your customers and you're looking for a partner who can really dig

in and explore that alongside your team that's where we really Excel yeah oh man I that really

resonates with me because that's exactly kind of our messaging um it's all built around uh building

that relationship and you talk about part the word partner like we're not just order

takers there's your dog um there's we're not just uh order takers

we're not you're we're not just here to just I mean we'll do tasks but sure um

but we're going to work with you to find the most efficient way to do things or to have insights about things and and

yeah and you want to build a relationship where you have the freedom if somebody is putting a task in front of you that you don't think is the right

Next Step that you can at least vocalize that and know that you know ultimately the the client or partner might say no

we we really believe we need this and then then you have to decide how to move forward but at least feeling like you have the uh the level of trust and

freedom to offer your strategic Insight is in my opinion what builds those

healthy relationships well exactly and and you want a partner that will listen to you listen to those things at least

listen may you know um you know I can think of lots of examples but it's you

know sometimes it's oh there's a better way to do this like if we're if we're

getting some kind of task that's we know we keep repeating and like well you know I can

make this more efficient where you could even just do it we don't have to do it anymore you know that where you're adding that value as well and and one of

the things you said was enjoyment I think all of this stuff you've kind of struct structured and put

kind of put up some um guard rails in terms of you know this is what we do uh

we don't go outside of that and uh this is who we like to work with it does make

a difference and impact on you and your mental mental health or whatever you

want to call it it's yes you want to show up every day working with people you enjoy working with and doing the projects you want to enjoy doing and it

sounds like you prioritize that I think that's really important yeah it absolutely is and uh it helps keep teams

happier and when teams and people are happy then they're more motivated and they feel like they have greater ownership and so it it impacts

everything across the board I mean you want to make money you want money is important yeah that helps too especially

when you're running a business but you know it really is we don't have to get into that part of it boring stuff um no

I mean but you probably will make money if you're doing what you enjoy and and you're better at it you become you know

great at it um exactly so so let's so one of the other thing that kind of jump

out at me here is your I love the crawl walk run situ kind

of the MVP situation right the minimal viable product um that's what it sounds

like you're kind of uh leading with like let's start with something simple that we can get into people's

hands that kind of how you yes it is very much we are strong advocates for

lean methodology and uh the only place where I I won't say I disagree with what

you're saying Matt but the only caveat that I'll add to it is um we're also very strong proponents of lean customer

development and for us that comes to life almost before we ever get to

worrying about what an MVP might look like um we encourage our customers and

really enjoy helping them go through the customer development process so that they're talking to their customers

they're learning what the pain points are that those customers have that current products perhaps don't fulfill

and in doing so discovering opportunities for growth for new product

development for new Venture building that align to a very clear need as articulated by the customer that ideally

aligns to our partners Core Business that we can validate along the way and

ensure that people are to your point willing to pay for because ultimately that's the end goal of whatever we're

creating and so before we ever get to the moment of let's go build the MVP or

let's go build the one feature that's going to have the greatest impact there's a process that we go through to discover what that thing is and so we

start you know kind of wide with customer interviews and just sort of probing questions around what might we

create it's really a learning opportunity and then from there as we begin to identify what those pain points

are that align to our business that we could solve we then start thinking about Solutions and even at that point we not

jumping into oh great we had an idea that solves a problem let's go build it instead the MVP at that point might look

um almost like a comic strip you know it's four or five frames of a storyboard that we then bring back and put in front

of customers again and go hey you told us you have this pain we've envisioned this thing that we think solves that

pain does it how interesting is it would you be willing to buy it Etc and so the

re the result of going through all of that uh kind of upfront work before we

ever build anything is a huge mitigation of risk at every step because we know

what the client needs they've told us that they're interested in the solution they've told us they're willing to pay

for the solution and at that point often what we find is customers are so excited by the fact that somebody is listening

to them and actually going out of their way to solve a problem that not only

have we mitigated Risk by identifying the thing that we want we've also often lined up 10 15 20 100 customers who are

literally pounding at the door going oh my God have you finished yet I need that thing like come on and so the day that

you go to launch you've got a group of people who are ready willing and waiting

to buy and so the amount of time that you put in upfront in our experience

while it's sounds like it extends out the process actually speeds everything up because you end up building building

less fewer features you end up missing the mark uh less often and you end up

with customers who are there ready and waiting for you and so it creates a really nice relationship and it builds a

ton of customer trust because they feel like they're being heard because they feel like they've had the opportunity to

input into the thing that you're building and so they feel a sense of ownership in

it cool it is cool it's really exciting to see it come to life too no that's that's

well I think that's a pie I I again I kind of relate it to myself we have products we have work we just do have we

have WordPress plugins sure nothing fancy um but um I think about process to

what's the next plug in we're going to create do we need what's the next feature and um at this stage a lot of

that grows out of our agency and what I see people needing or what we need like

we could what would help us be more efficient and so we build something that solves our problem and hopefully it

solves somebody else's and inevitably hopefully it solves somebody else's along the way I hear you well maybe maybe I can you know convince somebody

that they have a problem they didn't know they had um cuz we had that problem you anyway um but what you're what

you're saying is really really interesting and I'm wondering how somebody gets started doing that like

where you how do you talk to customers before you have customers I

uh that's a really good question um I have an answer for you uh awesome but I

I just hadn't thought about it from that that perspective that's a really good question um if you're so in a world

where you're either an early stage founder or you're an established company that's looking to build something new and trying to figure out what that thing

is to your point you may not have the customer that doesn't mean that you can't talk to people though and depending on who and what you are and

which of those kind of startup versus established companies situations you're in chances are you at least have some

idea of what that problem space is that you're looking to solve and it's really

not that difficult to get people talking to you about the problems that they have and the caveat in this is and kind of

hearkening back to what we were talking about from my experience in the world of advertising that has to be a

conversation and it has to be a genuinely open question rather than a we think you have this problem and we're

going to tell you that you have this problem and therefore you're going to tell us whether you like it because at that point you've caught somebody off

guard and they're going oh uh sure I guess like yes because they want to get

you out of their face um however if you know who your target audience is or you

have an inkling of who has the pain point that you're trying to solve if you approach those people and explain that

you are really looking to try and help them solve that problem they are usually willing to talk to you people love when

you take an interest in what their problem s are and if you can help them

come up with a solution to something that is genuinely a problem usually it doesn't take much convincing to get them

to start talking to you and if it does convincing today is a $20 Amazon gift card or whatever like you know sure if

you need to incentivize it go ahead but honestly even that you generally don't

necessarily have to do if you can find the right folks to talk to yeah that's the key is finding them I

mean I just use example here and maybe you you have some insights into if this

aligns um but one of the things that um I don't know if it's taught but I've

heard people you know I've had conversations with people doing this is going out like even on the web like

let's say let's say let's use WordPress for an example let you you have an idea for WordPress plug-in or kind of a

general idea want to do something sure and you go to the WordPress forums or

support areas and you look at what problems people are having with certain

plugins and then maybe maybe that's where you can connect with that person

reach out to that person and talk to them about that or maybe just note and

people are having this problem over and over again absolutely and that's that's exactly what I'm describing Matt if you

you're right if you're trying to build a WordPress problem or a WordPress a WordPress plugin to solve a problem go

and find the people that have that problem and I guarantee you if you're looking at the WordPress forums or I

don't know the WordPress subreddit or whatever and people are saying how do you whatever oh my God it's so

frustrating that I can't if you DM them and go hey I saw you talking about this

we're looking to solve that problem would you be willing to take 15 minutes just to talk to me about what exactly

you're trying to accomplish you're not I mean you're not going to get a 100% response rate but I guarantee you you

will find enough people are going oh my God you want to talk to me to help me solve my problem yes

absolutely yeah and that and that's something you have to have tenacity and like like you got to understand that

some people are going to say no they're not or they're going to ignore you oh yeah I mean there's there's ation fix skin in it yeah yeah there's a numbers

game I mean like like with sales right I mean you're going to have to call a 100

people to get on a phone with a few you know or whatever to or to set up an appointment with a few or whatever

you're doing doing um it's a numbers game and you figure out your numbers and uh you deploy yes um the other thing

here too and and this word has come up multiple times is you're solving

problems that's how what you're focused on creating a product that solves a

problem a paino yes um is are there other reasons to create a product I

think that's like I I when I look at my services what am I doing I have

identified a pain point that agencies have Outsourcing we're solving that for them right is there is there anything

else that is that what everybody does uh I think that if you're doing it

a different way we usually call it uh building a solution that is in search of a problem and generally that's a recipe

for failure right yeah that's you know some of my plugins could be in that category

yeah unfortunately we've all been there um it's it's very easy to get stuck in a world of huh wouldn't it be cool if and

then to immediately convince yourself oh well if I think that's cool somebody else is going to think that's cool and if people think it's cool then surely

they'll be willing to pay a few bucks for it and then you find yourself six months later having deployed an engineering team and you know spending a

bunch of money to create something going wait I thought people would want this and if you just talked to them at first

and said hey would you want this then you know you find out on that the answer is no or the answer is yes but only if

it does this too or whatever the case may be yeah I think there's just a lot there's probably a lot of people out there shooting in the dark like we're

we're not sure we're I just have this idea I want to build it for myself you know and then hopefully so I I want to

build this cool thing and then hopefully there's a market out there for it and they haven't even talked to the market

yet let's be clear I've done that too Matt and I we've all been there I think everybody who is trying to create

products has found them themselves in that situation at some point and it's it's the experience of having been through it that makes at least me

personally such a strong advocate for the process that I'm describing for the need for customer development the the

need to talk to people before you build for people yeah and then you're doing something amazing in the world right

you're solving problems that's that's about the best thing you can do is

improve the world yes um like what are some of the let's say I'm a a small

business or I want to be a small business I have a product idea um we know we should be talking

figure out how to get in touch with our customer and or uh maybe that's you know

through the efforts we were talking about or creating content first this

content work is like if I create content does that attract people that I could

potential like create an article I don't know I'm just brainstorming yeah I mean

I think that I think there's a reason that content-led marketing is such a well-used phrase these days and there's

no question that people have learned that when they have a problem one of the first things they do is go out and search for literally type into Google

search for a solution to that problem and you know your MVP of a solution

might just be an article on your blog that says hey if you want to do this do this and I don't know that blog post in

and of itself could be a product and it might be a product that you give away for free but the exchange of value there

is you give somebody value in learning and you gain brand affinity for it for example and I think that's sort of the

the underlying thought behind most content marketing I think yeah I I think

um just an example I mean back in the 2000s I had

um uh I I did a lot of content I I wrote reports I had ebooks I was selling I had

Affiliates and build memberships and all the I did that whole thing already it's

I'm done with um but the reason I bring it up is because out of that grew lots of ideas

right um for more products so the more I did the more feedback I got yes and kind

of this kind of feedback loop and suddenly oh we're I'm seeing my my members or you know my customers have

this particular problem let's build a solution for it let's create a script Let's uh create a piece of software to

help them uh many at keywords or something right something something

crazy at the time and then we I turn around and sell that and or you know have a software developer do it I sell

it as an affiliate and and a lot grew out of that just generating content and

just doing stuff and taking action exactly but the interesting thing for me in what you just said is feedback it's

you you're leveraging the content as a means to start the conversation with your customers to understand their paino

so that you know what to build for them and so I think that there's I think there's a lot of value in that yeah I

mean you got to get started somewhere you got to find your kind of your your your wedge to get in there right I mean of course um and I I think that you know

again looking at my services today for web design development a lot of what we do today has happened through

conversations with other agencies just jumping on a call intro calls or

whatever and listening doing a lot of listening right yes so um so once they

you know once we got an idea once we got so so we're crawling is that what we're doing right now we're crawling we're

trying to crawl the web for well I think

that the customer Discovery process in many ways leads to the moment of crawl and crawl for us at least is okay we've

heard from people we've understood the pain Point we've come up with a solution we have validated that the the fact that

they're willing to buy it crawl is we've now identified that tiny little thing that we can build to add value that

drives Revenue let's go and make that thing and you know coming out of crawl

which is the the first sort of moment of creation if you will for whatever that new product is um you have something

tangible that you can put out in the world and sell and see how it sells you

know ensure that what your customers told you when you talk to them that they were willing to pay for your solution is

true that you can scale that Truth uh you know into greater revenue and then

inevitably that of course opens the door to opportunities for further customer development as your customer base grows

because they have the problem that you solved with the crawl portion then you learn what else would be valuable to

them and walk might look like the next feature or two and run might look like

product Market fit and all of a sudden you're Off to the Races and building something

amazing yeah and and you only get that feedback if if you get it in people's

hands right done is better than perfect every time yeah yeah I'm a firm believer in that right CU they're going to tell

you oh it would be really nice if you added added this feature or added oh

yeah they'll tell you whether you want them to or not you're right you can choose not to listen to

him but um you can but your own Peril yeah exactly exactly yeah it's and so

and then we're so what so let's uh as a product in general like can you share

any stories and like success stories of how this is has developed for somebody um do you have any particular examples

of where somebody started crawling that did their thing and and now they're running absolutely um one of our clients

uh was a big upand Comer in the western Sports space so think Cowboys and rodeos

and all that fun stuff which uh generally is not considered a of you know technology um but that made it all

the more ripe with opportunity and so one of the things that our client wanted

to create was a deeper touch point between Rodeo athletes and fans and a

way for fans to keep up with what's happening in the world of rodeo Etc so effectively think ESPN for Rodeo okay um

and rather than just going out and going oh ESPN for Rodeo I get it that makes sense let's go build it um we started

with customer development so we started by talking to Rodeo fans and asking them

what was missing from their experience in the world of rodeo and we talked to athletes about the same thing and that

was one of the most interesting learning experiences because what we found from athletes in particular is that they

really wanted to connect with their fan base but they felt like existing social

media wasn't well aligned to the world of rodeo for whatever reason and they

wanted a place where they could feel like they were closer to Rodeo fans because it is a relatively tight-knit

community and the other need that we heard that was super interesting was that um because of the relative dir of

technology in the world of rodeo you'd have athletes that even in the middle of a rodeo competition wouldn't be clear on

what their standings were at any given moment there was no way for them to look around and go oh you know the person

went after me and now I've dropped from second to third place or whatever and so we had a very clear-cut set of problems

or needs that we could solve for and ultimately that led to the creation of a

mobile app that was designed to serve as ESPN for Rodeo but with the benefit of

all of those problems and conversations that we had both with fans and athletes

and then of course the perspective of our client as well who represented sort of the the commercial side of that world

if you will and so we created an app that was uh you know everything from

your news feed about the world of rodeo that responded to which of the rodeo disciplines you as a fan were most

interested in gave um our client the opportunity to sell some of their merchandise gave athletes a ready touch

point to understand immediately what their standings were in the midst of a competition and then of course served

entertainment needs like live streaming rodeo events and things like that and so

it was a really interesting experience and a really well-rounded path towards okay we have this idea for a need that

we can solve but how do we ensure that it really fits and solves the problems

that the core users of this application hav't at heart yeah when you say it that way it's

it seems like common sense like why would I build something that I haven't talked to anybody I have

no idea if they want it or need it or exactly exactly it's not yeah it's not a huge leap to understand why it works

it's just one of those things that when you're in the midst of the process of developing a new product uh people tend

to get excited and they get stuck in their head of no no no it's got to be this it'll be so cool if this happens

when I tap here whatever and the reality is that you know your customers don't

necessarily care about the beauty of the Pixel Perfect animation in the transtion

from screen one to screen two they care about can I see how well my favorite athlete is doing or can I see how well

I'm doing and you get a lot of leeway if you can solve those core problems it

doesn't have to be amazingly beautiful the transitions don't have to be Pixel Perfect there's a lot of forgiveness in

there that comes along with solving a problem in your in your process do you do you also look to if this has already

been built is that a a thing Absol like if you're you got the problems it's

might be already be out there they just don't have it yet yeah absolutely and you know I think that I think it's UNC

incumbent on us as a steward for our clients and partners to do our diligence

in that manner because look and this again this comes back to we expect our clients to outgrow us I don't want to go

and spend half a million doar of a client's money to build an application that we could buy off the shelf for $99

a month like it's just it's bad business it's it's a bad way to ingratiate

yourself to a customer and to prove that you are a collaborative partner with them whereas if you can go to them and

say oh that's your core problem we can solve that in about two weeks and it'll

cost you you know five bucks whatever and that that builds a ton of trust

because somebody looks at it and goes oh you could have told me that you needed a half a million dollars of my money to go

and build that but you didn't and guess what next time they have a problem they're that much more inclined to call

yeah and and and again comes back to relationships that word partner like if

you that's how you become trusted and uh somebody can rely on you to give them

the right feedback um so then and and that's that happens if if that's already been built

or there's another solution or it doesn't make sense in some way and you say that then that's good your your

partner now can go to the next idea they don't have to waste their time and money on that idea because they probably have

another one wait in Waiting or they'll develop something else in a few months EXA yeah that's how we work together so

what do you so what do you specifically so at at Apollo 21 um I don't know why I

say it that way APO 21 do you have a jingle no I'll sing it no we

like but what so do you is that exclusively what you do is partner with um like other um digital marketing

agencies or or or companies that are developing products and you you are the

partner to get that done for them to build it yeah so we partner uh generally

with mid to Enterprise siiz clients to um help them through that process to

help them understand and evaluate where for example Innovation efforts may or

may not be working Innovation is a word that frankly I'm sort of surprised we haven't talked more about because it comes up all the time uh um you know but

today lots and lots of companies claim to be innovators want to be Innovative and the reality is that their businesses

aren't set up in a manner that will allow and enable the type of innovation that perhaps they're suddenly realizing

they need and so um in addition to helping with the ideation and creation

of the product itself we also help our partners understand how Innovation comes

to life within their walls what metrics they need to be focused on and what frankly what the shift in mindset is

that will enable Innovation over time and Longevity for their organization as opposed to um the heavy focus on

whatever it is they're doing today yeah so Innovation ties into kind of our conversation though like right it's it's

innovating doing something new net new in the world that solves a problem right

yes is that how you Define innovation the words thrown around a lot it is

thrown around a lot to the point where yeah exactly to the point where you know we're starting to not really be clear on

what it means it means something different to every organization Etc I think what we can all agree on is that it means um the consideration and

creation of something new that at least in my mind solves a problem or creates a new opportunity a new business model

whatever it is and so you know a lot of times our our partners are looking to

create a new Revenue stream for example um we had another client recently that was focused on the B Toc uh food

delivery space and wanted to get into wanted to create a new Revenue stream by

expanding their um office lunch catering offering and so we worked with them to establish and create a new product that

would support in office catering and help differentiate them in the market

from what exists today for how do I order lunch at work kind of thing and so

you know clients come to us to think about how do we add new revenue streams how do we create new business models how

do we assess and learn about new opportunities that we might not be thinking about and so we help them with

the mindset around how to think about those things and then we help them execute and bring to life the outcome of

those efforts really good solid so so if

somebody wants to um learn more about what you do um where can they find you on the worldwide web uh where's your

website do you hang out anywhere like LinkedIn Twitter where you hang out yeah uh our website is a great place place to

learn about us and our approach to this type of work it is Apollo 21 number2 number

one. uh we have a bunch of case studies that show how we've executed this type of work for past customers and partners

we have a bunch of white papers that may prove helpful if you're trying to understand how to Usher Innovation into

your organization things of that sort um Apollo 21 of course is active in social

media and I am also very active on social media um I am blah blah blah slam

many on most of the social things and then if you happen to be based in New

York where I am uh I host monthly Founders dinners and monthly innovators dinners which are actually real live

in-person dinners not on the web so if you want to meet and have a meal please

give me a shout yeah there's still room in the world to actually meet people there still we still can do that yeah

and it's really interesting uh there's been a number of conversations at recent uh Founders and innovators dinners about

how nice it is to sit down with a small group we limit every dinner to six people and so it's a it's a relatively

intimate thing there's no name tags there's none of this you know networking event stuff of oh hi I'm so and so I

work it's a much more natural conversation and uh I don't know sharing a meal builds camaraderie so it's it's

been a great way to to meet folks well that's great um yeah I as somebody who

buil likes to build products and probably isn't very good at selling or or building the right products I got a

lot out of this conversation I I'm going to be thinking a lot about this um I

appreciate your time and and hanging out with us for a little while Danny until next time thanks for having me it's been

a pleasure that's all for today's episode I hope you enjoyed that again please subscribe if you haven't already

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