DeepSpecialization_Robin Alex_EP 58_Video_Edited_V2
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Corey Quinn: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Specialization Podcast, the show where we blend focus, strategy, and client intimacy in order to scale and simplify our businesses and our lives. I'm your host, Corey Quinn. Let's jump into the show. Today, I'm joined by the co founder of High Level, Robin Alex. Welcome Robin. Thank
Robin Alex: you for having me here.
I'm
Corey Quinn: excited for our conversation. So you and I, we met out in Costa Rica last summer at the Commitment Summit with JC and Karen Height. It was an amazing conference and you were on stage sharing the story of high level. And I think I was the only person in the room who didn't know what high level was.
It was obvious that everyone was either on your platform or was, was transitioning to your platform. And I think, you know, my background is. in the 15 years in the agency space, but it was before a lot of these, these sort of these platforms were, were developed. And so I had a chance to hear your story. I was inspired by [00:01:00] you and your co founder of what you guys have done.
And I wanted to bring you on the show to, you know, share, share with others who maybe have not heard about what high level is, but more importantly about you and your, and your journey. So, um, really excited to have this conversation to kick things off. Could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what high level is?
Robin Alex: You know, once again, my name is Robin Alex, you know, been an entrepreneur since a young age. You know, I was the kid that was running around the neighborhood trying to put paper in people's doors saying, Hey, we're doing a bike race, but you gotta pay 10 to be a part of the race and, you know, give out prizes and stuff.
All the way through high school, right before I graduated, I started an online company. Um, selling game servers. So, you know, games, online games like Counter Strike and Battlefield 1942, I was creating online servers and went to college and actually had a exit. I didn't even know it was an exit at that time.
It was more of my parents saying, you're spending [00:02:00] too much time with this business, with this internet money concept versus studying in school. And so I ended up selling it to a competitor. And what was interesting about that is that competitor then sold the business to another company who became SoftLayer, which is now publicly traded.
Data center company. So it's interesting how, uh, the story kind of translates from there. I think that's an
Corey Quinn: amazing, your first real gig out is it eventually ended up in a big, big publicly traded company, which is pretty, pretty neat.
Robin Alex: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what's, what's wild about it is just, uh, you know, the fact that I had no idea what I was doing short of just having fun along the way and, you know, it was making, yeah.
Decent money, you know, being a college kid, you know, making, you know, 20, 30, 40, 000 a month is, is pretty impressive, right? That's amazing.
Corey Quinn: What do you do with all that money as a college, as a college student? Like, what do you do with all that money? Right?
Robin Alex: Yeah. I mean, not only do you deal with that challenge and you get definitely the, uh, the social pressures.
Uh, you can easily, well, and for me, it was, I [00:03:00] could easily walk down that path, but I also didn't know a lot of how to grow and scale a business. So it was just literally me in a dorm room who I had a roommate who was, uh, Hey, we should go out and go meet other people or go to this event or go party or whatever.
And I was like, uh, I can't, I got a support call. I got an issue that I can't handle. So I'm just stuck. So, you know, like definitely the social impact issues were there, but I was just so focused in on keeping the business afloat. And, you know, you just don't know what you don't know, but, but it was definitely awesome and a really great experience for me.
What was next? You know, from there it was, you know, working for a couple of companies, you know, doing development and then also became entrepreneurs and other startups along the way. But it got me into technology and, and, and technology. Getting really deep in IT and, you know, with that, I was working a lot with servers and, you know, computers and things like that.
And, you know, back then there were companies were investing significant amount of dollars in updating their infrastructure. You know, they'd have a closet full [00:04:00] server rack and, you know, people don't realize that could be Two, three, four, five hundred thousand dollars. It's massive investment. And then you need to have someone wire it up, set it up and install it and just make it work for the business.
So while they were making big investments on that side, many businesses were also making large investments on having online presence, getting their website online, making sure their branding makes sense. It was definitely the early form of landing pages and, you know, advertising online. And because I was the guy on the server side and the IT side, they were getting pitched for digital marketing services.
And then I was always a trusted advisor. You know, they would get these bids and they would come to me and be like, Hey, what do you think about this? Is this legit? They're charging so much money. And I remember it just got to the point where I got so many of these inquiries. I just looked at it and said, you know what, I could probably do this for half the price.
And so I started picking up these projects personally. And, you know, from there, you know, you definitely learn, uh, the feast and famine [00:05:00] situation. You pick up a project and even if you, uh, underbid somebody, you don't realize what you're getting into once you're in it. And then you get things like scope creep and, you know, just all sorts of issues along the way.
And so I definitely learned how to combat that. And then, you know, once you finally get to the finish line and finish it, you're scratching your head saying, what next? Where's my next project? And it doesn't exist. And so then I had to definitely pick up. kind of changed my mindset. And I realized if I could get as close as I can to the revenue line in helping a business, I'll be able to have a stronger partnership with them and actually keep that customer for, for life in most cases.
And that's where, you know, I pivoted and really focused on advertising and consulting and really helping people drive more business into their small business at the end of the day. And that's where, you know, there's a lot to learn, not only from an industry perspective, helping customers understand. what their go to market strategy is, but then also doing consultative work.
And [00:06:00] I can drive traffic, drive leads, do all these crazy things, but you don't know what to do with it. You're a mechanic or you're a dentist, you're a doctor. You don't know how to respond to leads, you know, how to answer a call, dispositions and things like that. So there's a lot of consultation that that's required there.
And then it didn't, it got to a point where it didn't matter how much work that we did. We were still always losing customers. And the number one reason was when a small business invest in marketing, there's a share wallet issue. They only have a fixed amount per month that they're willing to spend towards marketing.
And it, it, the small business who doesn't know anything about marketing or very little about marketing, they're ready to jump the shark and basically saying, if I invest dollars in marketing, that should equate to X amount of dollars in customers. Clients, customers, right? Exactly. And if I'm going to outsource it to you, I am [00:07:00] outsourcing dollars to you now to give me customers.
Forget the concept of marketing. Corey, I'm giving you money to give me customers. That is the even exchange here. Where
Corey Quinn: are my customers? I gave you the money.
Robin Alex: And you know, as a marketer, it was always, no, you gave me money. I drove interest and I drove you people. I give you a list of people that's raising their hand saying, I want your services.
The problem is Mr. or Mrs. Customer, I don't know what you actually sell. I don't know anything about dentistry. My expertise is marketing or I don't know anything about cars. That's your world. So you have to kind of answer these questions to get it across the finish line. And so there's always this disconnect there.
And so we started building rough technology at that time of, I just need you to pick up the phone call, or I need you to make an outbound call to this individual and just ask them a few questions and get them to book a call. And it didn't matter how much you try to consult them and try to make it [00:08:00] happen.
They ultimately wouldn't do it until you force the hand. And so that's where we just started doing stuff on behalf of the customer, where it was like we would act as we're the business owner and send text messages out. Well, that was great. You know, sorry, woman, or thank you for signing up. When can we get you booked for an appointment?
And we would get some inquiries and people would book an appointment. That was awesome. And this was all rough. But then when a customer was like, well, before I book an appointment, I'll come see you, I have these two questions. Well, we're back to the point of like, I don't know how to answer these. So how can I do it on behalf of the business?
But we had a really great technology stack there. And we were basically looking at it saying, if there's a way that we can continue evolving this, I think we have the magic sauce in helping businesses. So my team at the time, we're sitting in a conference room and we were just brainstorming. We mapped this out on a white whiteboard and, and I remember looking at it saying, this is incredible.
If only if we had enough time to work on this, it'd be great. [00:09:00] But unfortunately, all of our phones are ringing and we got an email. Let's go back to work, helping our customers with what we got in front of us today. And it just sat on that whiteboard for a couple months. And then by chance, I received a phone call from a customer of mine who basically said, Hey, I have these two individuals.
They're starting up a software for reputation management. Can you talk to them? Because they need access to a couple of things. And I remember I was like, okay, this, that's odd. Like they're the experts of their software. They should know how to log in and figure all this out or make it easy. So, you know, I just called them and gave them access to what they're looking for.
And then I just asked them while I was on the call, Hey, so what do you guys, you know, like if you were to look at investing or investing in software and stuff like that, what would it cost to build, you know, and how would you approach it? And I remember taking a picture of the whiteboard and saying, Hey, so if you guys look at this, what do you guys think?
And the response was interesting. Oh, this is cool. Give us a couple of days and we'll call you back. And I just kind of took it as, eh, they're brushing me off. They just need me [00:10:00] to get me off the call and make me feel good about myself. Yeah, and you know, you don't know who it is on the other side. They could be from Megacorp, just a project manager who's running a small little team, and yeah, whatever.
You know, you can just move on. But lucky for me, I got a call 3 4 days later. And I remember it was 8am in the morning, and I was driving to the office. And Sean called me and you know, today's he's one of my co founders. He called me and said, Hey, Bruin and I, the other co founder, we're looking at your schematics and we have an idea.
Can we get you on a call? And I was like, yeah, sure. Well, before that, who is this again? What are we talking about? Like, I just, I forgot about it. And once he, he caught, yeah, once he caught me up, I was like, okay, well, give me about 20 minutes. I'm gonna get to the office and I'll call you right back. And of course I get to the office and I just get into my normal rhythm, forgot about the call, I'm talking to team members, checking my email and stuff.
10 o'clock rolls around and Sean calls me again and I was in a conference meeting and he kept calling me and I was like, this is weird, this number [00:11:00] just keeps calling me. So I get on a call, it's like, hey, you told me you're going to get out, let's get on a Zoom call right now, we're running out of time. I was like, okay, threw everything off and got on the Zoom call and Sean and Varun are there and they had mocked up version one of what high level is today based on the schematics on the thing.
And I was like, wow, this is incredible. Can I test it out? So we took it, we took it to the co customer that we had two days later, came back immediate success. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. Can I roll it out to 80 clients that we have on the books here? And I We'll pay you and they're like, well, how much would you pay us?
I was like, I don't know, a hundred bucks a client, right? Like, this is, this is incredible. If it can do what we're seeing here to do, like, this is the game changer. And we start rolling out and I was just so happy that they leaned into my need and what I wanted, that I was like, can I just get this out to other people in the industry?
And you know, I'm tied into other agency groups and stuff like that. And I remember they just said, uh, sure, I [00:12:00] guess, you know, like they don't know what any of that means. And I reached out to 20 different agencies, and everyone said, yes, we're interested. But as agency owners, you know, the world quarry, like everybody is flaky when you need them to actually doing something.
But 14 of them came back and said, we're ready, you know, we'll do whatever we need because we know you, Robin. All 14 of them got the product, we got them on board it, and they all loved it. And they all paid a fee to use it, which was incredible. It was the first time that the company of high level was actually receiving true revenue.
And then one of those had recently sold their agency and became a business coach and said, if I had this while I was running my agency, you guys would have saved me about 60, 000 to 80, 000 a month in fees. Um, cause he was using other technology out there and he said, he's doing his first event in San Diego.
Can we fly out there and just present it? Yeah. And, you know, so there's in high level, there's three co founders. There's me, there's Sean, and then there's [00:13:00] Varun. So Sean is actually based in Oregon. I'm in Dallas and Varun is in Qatar. And I pitch, pitch it to the other two. It's like, Hey, so this guy, he's running his first business event.
It's a mastermind. And, uh, there'll be about 20 people there in person, another 20 people virtually. We should go and present. And they kind of looked at me as like, Why? Like, we don't get this model, like, and they're not from the internet marketing space, they're not from this world, so they just didn't get it.
It's like, trust me, I think it's worth our time. And so Sean, who's in Oregon, meets me in San Diego, and it's the first time that we meet in person. Varun, who's on the other side of the world, couldn't make it in that short notice, but he comes in via Zoom. And literally on the flight, I'm creating landing pages and sales pages for this product.
So we get there. We get walked straight into the mastermind. We're just talking. And then it was our time to present. We just thought we had a quick 20, 30 minute presentation. Verun's in the zoom. I mean, on the TV behind us. And, [00:14:00] uh, we're just, just standing there and we do our presentation. The room was quiet.
It was like, we'd look at each other and we're like, okay, well, I guess that that's it. You know, we, we had our time and, you know, yeah. And then, you know, don't, don't sit down yet. We have a couple of questions. We're just looking at the site. Can we do this? Or what about that? And it just, the whole event shifted into all about our software, which was crazy.
And people were asking like, Hey, do you guys offer annual pricing and stuff? We just looked at each other and it's like, sure. And I'm like sneaking away back to the computer and going back to the pages to add a new product and things like that, just so we can take purchases. And that event turned out, you know, to be our launching platform.
We sold I think 39 out of the 40 immediately and the 40th person came in a couple of days later because of FOMO and then you know It's been a wild journey since then. I mean we uh, what year
Corey Quinn: was that real quick? What was that?
Robin Alex: I believe it was 2019 January of 2019 [00:15:00]
Corey Quinn: Okay, so the beginning of 2019. So you've had just had your five year anniversary.
Robin Alex: Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. We're on year six I mean 2024 is our year six and um, yeah, it's been it's been a crazy journey now. We're at about sixty ish thousand customers, agencies representing about 400 to 450, 000 small businesses around the world. We're about 830 employees worldwide, 24 7. So it's been, it's been a crazy ride.
Corey Quinn: Wow. What I love about that story is that your now co founders were, they leaned in, they saw something that, uh, obviously you had a vision for as well. And then they just produced it and you saw it like, okay, in those early days, before you went to this mastermind in San Diego, did you ever think about just using this platform internally to build your own agency versus go the route of, you know, [00:16:00] selling the software and services to other agencies?
Robin Alex: A hundred percent. I mean, originally when I pitched the idea to the other two co founders, it was honestly just from a selfish perspective of. I need to help my customers and here's the perfect tool to it. But, you know, they put in a whole bunch of work into it. And I was just, I just know that this is a prevalent problem everywhere.
I wasn't necessarily trying to become a co founder of the software or anything. I was genuinely just like, guys, I found a solution. Do as you wish. I know everything about it. I know how it works. I know the ins and outs of it. I was there at ground zero. Good luck. And, you know, what was fun about this whole process was, you know, I went out there on my own dime and.
I wasn't even looking for anything, and I just enjoyed helping. It was just natural, like, I've always just been a person. If someone has a problem, I'll jump in and help. Like, I never asked for any money or any compensation or anything. I just enjoy it. And I've always [00:17:00] had this philosophy of if you do good deeds, they'll come back, you know, tenfold.
And it wasn't until two or three months after that. And everything that we've done has been word of mouth and natural organic growth, which has been incredible. Sean and Varun kind of came back to me because I used to always just log into the zoom and just check in on them. And I remember there was one day where or two days where I just didn't log in because I was just like, uh, they're so busy, you know, they, they're kind of blown up and they're on their own now, like spread their wings.
And they call me like, where are you? You haven't jumped in. It's like, yeah, but this is your guys company and all that. And they're like, what are you talking about? You're a part of this ride. We need you. You're a co founder of this company. Like, come on in. You know, I was just, I took a pause because I was like, I don't even know what that means, like, what are we talking about?
And all that, and like, we have no idea either. We're figuring it out all together, but you're part of the ride. And so, you know, since then, you know, that's, that was the focus and really my mental pivot of like, let's actually turn this into a software and I'm officially part of the ride, you know, so let's go.
So [00:18:00] that, that's, that's, that's, That was always kind of the the path and how we got here today. It was all all by nature I mean nothing was forced. Nothing was predicted. It just all yeah
Corey Quinn: It feels yeah, it feels very organic obviously at that mastermind. It was Validation that you were solving a profound problem that everyone else was struggling with I think that mean that that whole thing is beautiful looking now back five years like What were some of the major growth milestones?
You mentioned that you have 60, 000 agencies on the platform. That's a lot more than the 39 or 40 that just started. Like, what were some of the major milestones as you went along?
Robin Alex: You know, from a client perspective, I mean, that's always Great milestones. And I vaguely remember those moments of like, I remember just refreshing.
It's like, wow, we had a thousand customers and wow, we just broke 5, 000 and 15 like, and so it was always a by product and more customers coming to us. But the major milestones for us was always in our hiring. So when we [00:19:00] started, it was just us three. And we always had a model of anybody who signs up. One of us three needs to pick up the phone and call that person, welcome them into the platform, get them on a zoom call immediately and just hear them out and get them set up.
And, you know, the story that I love to tell people is We would onboard every single person and then I would get you on a zoom call onboard you and I would just ask Did I get to your version of success? Because everyone had a different version of it and I worded a little bit differently depending on the person But once you can ask them that question, did I get you what you needed?
They usually have a smile on their face and they say yes you did. It's like well perfect. Can you do me a favor? Do you know two other people or two other agency owners that might find value into this product? And what I knew was they would at least give me one person Right? Like that was always the worst case.
And I would just kind of push the needle and get confidence in it. Like, Hey, do you mind just inviting them into a Zoom call? And people would be kind of taken aback and like, I guess. [00:20:00] And in the online space, you know, you can message them on Facebook Messenger or text. I love that.
Corey Quinn: That's, that's, that's awesome.
We kind of put him on the spot, but I think it's the way you're presenting this is. Well, let me ask you. So what about the call got them to the point where when you ask them, Hey, is there, you know, one or two other agencies that, that could benefit from this? Like what, what happened on that call? Do you think that that helped them to get to that, that, uh,
Robin Alex: that comfort?
Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is just listening, you know, at the end of the day, people, people are coming in. I know that the problem exists. We have a solution and mostly from a software perspective, there's a reason and why you're looking at this software. And then I would just ask them leading questions, you know, like, what kind of agency are you?
Who do you serve? What are you delivering for them? And then I would just do a natural demo of the software that makes it applicable to their use case and showing them what they've been missing out on. And then I would, the next step was, okay, [00:21:00] so now you see how this works. Let's go ahead and set up a few of these items for you.
And we've always had this concept of the plus one. So when you're shopping for software. You already have a baseline of software that you're using today, but now you're shopping for that next piece of the puzzle, right? So that next piece is what I would focus on and making sure that you set up. And I would never try to force you in saying, leave your existing tech stack and leave everything that you're doing behind and move everything over.
Now we have the tools to doing that, but that was never the focus of my conversation. That's a very combative conversation, right?
Corey Quinn: Yeah. Yeah. It's friction. You've been
Robin Alex: doing this for five years and you're the best at it. All of that is garbage. Stop doing it. Yeah, come on over tomorrow. Never the thing. Now what we would always focus on is the plus one.
So it's like, look, those other products are great. And they truthfully are. What we have is the next phase of that, the next puzzle, what those products are doing. So come on over. So I would focus on connecting your other products into this [00:22:00] new thing that you didn't have. And that just brought a smile to people's faces.
They checked a major milestone off of their business concepts. And that was always the next step. Okay. Now that I got you here, do you know anyone else that's struggling with this or know anyone else that would love this? And they would always at least bring one person. And, um, from there we, uh, You know, Sean Vroon and I did that and we would onboard every single person, bring people on and it was just all organic growth.
And it wasn't until we hit about a thousand customers where we needed to do some, you know, growing on the development side. And we basically said, all right, Vroon, you, You know, can you help grow the development team and all that, but you can't be doing these onboarding calls. You're spending too much time here.
We have too many customers. So then it was Sean and me doing it and we kept following the same process. And then I stopped doing it around customer 6, 000. And then Sean kept going until about customer 11, 000, 12, 000 of just doing onboarding calls day in and day out. And the value of that was [00:23:00] so significant because we got to hear Every single use case, we've got to understand the whys, what drives people and then just the fact that people see human interaction kept our churn rates incredibly low.
And that's how we've been able to move incredibly fast is because we know exactly what people wanted. We didn't have to guess, we didn't have to predict, we didn't have to, you know, figure out what, what anyone wants. They just literally told us, Hey, your product doesn't do this. We're like, Oh, okay. Yeah.
You're talking to your customers. Yeah. And, you know, they would call us the next day, Hey, there's a problem here. Can you fix this? And we're just like, of course, yes, we would. And so that, that to me was kind of the, the major milestones is us making the decision to saying, stay on as long as we can as owners.
And we've taken that same concept and we actually do it today. So today if you sign up, we have a team that's going to call you and ask you to come into the zoom room and we're asking the same questions. And. Hey, do you know anyone else that'd be interested? Can we get them into a call? And, um, [00:24:00] you know, we try to get you set up immediately and it's all through Zoom and we've been trying to keep that model, um, for it doesn't matter how large we get.
That homegrown, that authenticity just is far more powerful and we're trying to not be like every other software company that's out there who tries to feel like they're, they're an ivory tower and they're not. You know, there needs to be a wall before you talk to them. For us, it's no, their wall doesn't exist.
We want you, it's a community. You know, we want to be in the trenches with you and solve it with you. And so that, that to me was, once we realized that was a big aha moment. And we got to be in a milestone.
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You feel taken care [00:26:00] of. It's not like you said, just a software, a cold software platform that you're kind of You're left to figure out how to make it work for your business. What is your day to day like now that you're at, uh, like, you know, like we said, 60, 000 customers, what is your focus?
Robin Alex: I mean, every day is definitely a lot of the place.
So me, Sean and Varun, you know, we, well, we do have official titles. We, we don't really leverage them. We were kind of forced to pick titles and said, we'll run with it. But in reality, we kind of run it as more of a founder's office where us three can, you know, own everything and make decisions together, usually Because we're 24 seven, you know, ruins in Qatar, I'm in Dallas and Sean's in Oregon.
We definitely get 24 seven coverage by ownership team. So that's always been an advantage for us. But usually by the time I get up, you know, I hit the gym and, you know, get back to the office and, you know, run around 738, I jump on. And usually we jump onto a product call, and that's usually when Sean wakes up as well, so he's immediately on the product calls.
So we're listening to any of the [00:27:00] new releases, any of the new enhancements, and our product has become so vast that every day we're talking about a new aspect of the product, and what we're doing, and how we're making it better, and getting more adoption and stuff. Then further, we're getting into leadership calls with our executive team, you know, whether it's finance, legal, you know, how do we optimize teams, hiring, and all that.
And then usually at about noon is where I, you know, really transition and just to date, just scouring our Facebook group, appointments with call, uh, customer calls, and, you know, just talking to as many people as possible and really understanding their challenges, what's working, what's not, you know, I'm never going to admit, you know, of being perfect by any means.
It's always, we have a problem, we know there's a problem, we're a glutton for punishment every day as far as getting punched in the face with challenges that people run into. So we're quick to jump on a call and just hear people out, try to find success. And so usually the second half of my day, that's all I focus on and just keep doing.
And
Corey Quinn: over the five years you went from, you know, [00:28:00] having a small agency to partnering up with your co founders to, you know, growing this from 39 customers to 60, 000. How have you changed? Like what are some of the major milestones in your leadership over these years?
Robin Alex: I don't really know. I've never really thought about it from that lens.
Uh, so it's an interesting question. I probably have to say, you know, there's a lot of, um, you know, eating my words a lot. You know, like you try to be the effective leader in, in thinking that you need to know everything and be a part of everything. But early on, you know, my partners and I, you know, built confidence first in each other and the perspective of like, I trust you so much.
I don't need to worry about it. That's you jump on that landmine and solve that problem. And another one does the same thing. So that I think was a great step for us. And then from there it was we were going at such an aggressive pace that You just can't continue having that mentality. There's just no way to scale.
So it's making sure that you have the right people in place, but there's definitely a push pull, [00:29:00] you know, that we, because we are still who we are, we want to know everything that's going on. And so there's a lot of coaching and breaking a lot of baggage and feeling for other individuals coming into our world.
I think that was a huge, managerial challenge, because I just assumed if you get someone with a lot of experience and a lot of tenure, they can come in and provide value, which is true to a certain extent, but there's this weird feeling of, well, you hired me for my experience, so I'm going to come in and I'm going to make change in the way that I'm going to make change.
And we're having to break a lot of baggage and saying, yeah, I mean, you've done a lot of things in the past, but you really need to understand what makes us special here. And we don't really want to change anything that we're doing. What we want is you to bring more. I have a story about that. Yeah. You know, it's more about the additive substitutes, but I think people come in with this baggage of no traditional companies.
When I come in, it's to, [00:30:00] wipe the board clean and start over and build something from scratch. And we're just like, no. So managing around that, I think has been definitely a challenge and really trying to, now I spend more time and trying to break old, you know, storylines and old traditional mindsets that people have.
And it's like, yeah, I know you did that in the past, but that doesn't work here. But that cool thing that you did over there, add that on top of what we're doing and we'll be better than anyone else. Yeah,
Corey Quinn: I was at an agency, my last role was at a very fast growing agency. We were, we went from 100 employees to 1, 000 employees, 1, 000 customers to 14, 000 customers.
And then we brought in some private equity money, 100, we raised 100 million. And that came, along with that came a new executive team. Of course. We're not part of the original crew and There was over a period of about two years, the thing that I think is relevant for this conversation speaking to what you're speaking is that we [00:31:00] knew that we knew that we wanted to make changes for us to get to the next level of business.
And I think it took us a while to figure out what, what were the core aspects of the culture of the business that we needed to preserve. And what were the things, what were the areas that we needed to level up? And I think one of the big learnings, at least from my perspective, during that whole experience was that the culture and the sort of the lively culture that we had built, these folks from the outside, they didn't, they didn't, they weren't there.
They didn't build this. And so they had no way to know what, you know, what to preserve and whatnot. And so it was, it was a whole growth experience where it was, We were throwing things away that we shouldn't have. We were doing new things that we shouldn't have, and we sort of, end of the day, we brought the, you know, the culture back because we were confused for a little bit.
I think it, it,
Robin Alex: it is definitely tough in those moments because , you know, in, in the scenario they're talking about receiving that substantial amount of money as an investment into the company. Yeah. It's a shocker and it's a [00:32:00] shock for anybody. It's such a substantial amount. Right. And then, you know, people try to read the tea leaves and what it means.
Well, they see that what we've done is so incredible, right? They are going to invest a substantial amount of money. They must be incredible themselves. And so whatever they tell me and bring in the door is going to be amazing. Right? And so you get into this honeymoon phase and all you do is just, you know, You, you lay off the gas pedal and everything that you built along with the team and you just try to lean into like, okay, there's a new partner that's coming in, they're bringing in all this talent.
They must know everything. And so I need to lean into that when in reality, you know, it's the, there's a reason that they're investing into you. You need to hold firm on that as much as possible. And the other partners need to figure out how to lean in to what the team is doing today. Correct. Correct. is really the best way to do it.
But it's so hard in that moment because you're just so enamored of the [00:33:00] honeymoon phase of just newness, right? Right.
Corey Quinn: We have these, these, these people who've been there, done that. They're going to come here and help us to do the things where Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, having been through that, obviously you do things differently the next time or you moving forward.
I know that you guys brought on a financial partner at a certain point. What was that experience like?
Robin Alex: Yeah, I mean, we definitely ran into similar challenges in what you did. So for us, we've been profitable bootstrap since the beginning. We've been very lean and, you know, tight with how we spend our money and things like that, very consciously driven from that moment.
But it was the height of the market in 2021. And, you know, we were getting inbound inquiries of people interested in, we didn't know what it means. Like we just never experienced that. Like, well, this is weird. And so we were just advised, we should get a banker to just represent you. And a banker for anyone that doesn't know is just like having a real estate agent.
Right? People are knocking on your house. You want to buy your house and you're like, what? I wasn't even trying to sell it. So you just get a real estate agent to [00:34:00] help see what's real and not. And through that process, we just, my partners and I just kind of took it and saying, you know what, people are interested.
They're supposed to be smart. Money people who invest into these companies. Let's just hear them out and we'll learn stuff and we'll get insight on what they've done with other companies. And it's, it's like us, you know, kind of hacking business in many ways. And we could take what, what they learned and just apply it.
You don't have to do any sell anything or whatever. But through the process, we realized that we do have a very valuable company. We're profitable and we're in a good place. pretty awesome position that because we didn't need anyone's money, they want us even more because it's an easy investment. And, um, you know, so at that point, yeah, so we were able to, uh, you know, at the end of 2021, it was the height of the markets.
We were able to raise 60 million and they took about 22%, I believe, minority investment into it. But, you know, very similarly, we didn't know what we were getting into. I think overall it was a great experience. We did, they gave us [00:35:00] some, you know, great ideas and great insight in the perspective of, you know, you guys are growing.
We want you to keep running the business as well as you guys are, keep it going. But there's some back office, you know, we didn't have a CFO at the time and stuff like that. And they were really pushing us and we were just like, we don't need any of that. And they're like, no, you guys are getting to a size where you need someone like that.
And lucky for us, we did find a great CFO and it was, you know, transformative for the business. And so. We wouldn't have done that without, you know, a partner like the investment group that came in. But, you know, on that same point, we were just leaning into a lot of other decisions of you need to build an executive team and stuff like that.
All you can do is ask people, look at blogs, read books, and you know, Everyone tells you the greatness of it. And that's, you know, when you were talking about milestones, that's where I learned, you have to kind of break people out of traditional and let them figure out how to play into our world instead of us trying to figure out how to play into their world.
Corey Quinn: I love that. It's such a, such a
Robin Alex: good lesson. And that was actually, you know, [00:36:00] a pretty tough moment from a internal business perspective, because I think as new leaders coming into the business, they were expecting us to be open arms and, you know, leading into them. And at first we were doing that. And the problem was that And they were easily going into a very, you know, traditional ivory tower mentality.
I'm now a VP, you're a head, and you know, I run a massive team and I should get all these perks and benefits and, you know, teams need to kind of, in some ways, bow down to me from my rules and methodologies, because this is what I've done at 10 other places. And once we realized that the company wasn't continuing to be pushed forward from that additive perspective, we definitely had a beating of the minds, basically saying, you You know, here's what makes us great.
And here's what makes us special. You need to figure out how to supplement us. And immediately the team shifted. And once you realize that is where things kind of took off, but we definitely ran into that same situation. And, you know, if we had to do it all over again, I think it's, [00:37:00] you know, be a very vocal, we're not changing.
You have to figure out how to be additive to us because we're the specialness here. Yes, right.
Corey Quinn: You're coming to us. We built something special. We don't want to change it and ruin it as a result. So you, you've, uh, again, you've gone from 39 agency clients in their very early days, five years ago to over 60, 000.
You've been on a lot of these onboarding calls, especially in the early days. Because, well, Sean, you've seen a lot of agencies along the way. What are some of the typical challenges that agencies face as they
Robin Alex: grow? I think it's the counterbalance of sales versus churn. And many agencies usually, you know, they prioritize one or the other.
They don't try to figure it out in tandem. They will build up massive sales teams and just build a whole model around the fact that churn is just a part of the business. And sure, the churn numbers are rising. So we'll aggressively ramp up the sales team. And the second that you [00:38:00] get doing that is very much to the hustle culture, right?
Just keep selling by any means necessary. Just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. We lost 13 clients. We need to sell 26 clients. That's our new target. Just, you know, like, who cares about the lost clients? That's their fault for leaving us. Then you get the other side of it where agencies will never grow, will not prospect, and all that they're doing is they will hang on to five clients and never want to grow beyond that.
And they're stuck on the hamster wheel because They're charging flat rate fees, you know, like if you're charging it just as an example, you're charging a customer 1, 000 a month. You have five customers charging 5, 000 a month. You don't put limits in place or anything like that scope creep is very inevitable.
And now you're just working your butt off. Trying to keep these customers happening and you're doing everything for them and never asking for more dollars. And now you're just so stressed out out of your mind. [00:39:00] And, you know, someone from the outside is like, you probably should hire or get sales, go in or something to help get out of the situation.
But when you're in that clouded mentality, you kind of stuck on both sides, you know, either you're aggressively selling and burning bridges or on the other side of it, you just can't grow because you're, you're stopping yourself from growing. Yeah. Yeah,
Corey Quinn: I think it's like a, it's like a sales focus or a product focus, quote unquote product, right?
There's, there tends to be one or the other in the, in the agency. Either they're obsessed with sales. They built up this, like you said, a massive machine. That's their, their, their specialty, their competence or it's the product side. Go ahead. And
Robin Alex: I would actually not say it's product. I think it's actually service.
They're, they're more focused on the service. Yeah, I'm saying
Corey Quinn: product in quote, in quotes. Yeah. Well, where
Robin Alex: you, I think where the winning solution is where both of them kind of meet in the middle. And actually turn into a product delivery is where the winning solution is because that service 100 percent service agency, they haven't figured out how to productize their offering.
[00:40:00] And I think the salesperson or the sales team method, they're selling anything and everything under the sun. And the reason that they're having so much churn on the other side of it is because they haven't built a great product. But, you know, if they just kind of focus in on that middle, and that's really, I think, part of what makes high level great is we try to help productize their delivery.
You just reduce churn significantly. You have more of a lifelong customer and it actually allows you to grow. And those are the best stories that we hear. I mean, of course, there's the big ones, you know, people have made millions of dollars, but the best ones You know, I was doing this for 10 years and only making, you know, five, 6, 000 a month.
Now I'm doing 12, 000 a month. I was able to take my family on a vacation. We actually have savings now, you know, just those stories are the ones that are, you know, hit the hardest for us in a, in a positive way. That's beautiful.
Corey Quinn: And so I'm just curious, how do you, how do you help agencies with that, with the productization?
Is that more of a course based stuff? Is it coaching, or is it more just the product? It's, it's productizing software. How does that work? Yeah. Yeah.
Robin Alex: [00:41:00] It definitely leads with the software in itself. So many agencies, you know, they're doing professional services. They're trying to glue 15 different products together to make it work.
When coming to high level, the idea for us is you should make a consistent offering for all your customers. So, create a master template, and what you're going to offer to your first client, you can essentially zip it up, is the easiest way to think about it, and we call it a snapshot. So you take that snapshot, now when you deploy customer number 2, you can deploy that snapshot, and everything is set up.
Customer 3. deploy the snapshot. And what we mean by that is 80, 90, maybe even 95 percent of it's already ready to go. And you just need to go into that last mile and updating the name, their colors, their address, and boom, the customer's online. And really it's getting agencies to kind of move into that world is really helping them to productize.
That is usually the first step. And then from there, it's breaking people's habits of here's how to sell a product, here's how to build the product, right? [00:42:00] So we have created a little bit of education there, but we also partner with other people who are great in their own lens. But all roads lead back to you need to have that product, and that's where we excel at.
Corey Quinn: Beautiful. Well, I have one more question for you, Robin. So, What is your motivation? I mean, from
Robin Alex: a personal perspective, definitely my family and well being and just making sure that everything is taken care of for them by any means necessary. So that's, that's always a driving factor, but then, you know, on the other side of it is just making sure that customers are happy and people are thriving.
I think every day it's just making sure that anyone who has a problem, someone on our team, including me, is jumping on and helping people. And if I feel like we're not helping people, something is wrong. If there's no one to help, then there's something wrong from a business perspective. So I'm constantly chasing to find, you know, where the fires are and how can I help as fast as I can?
Well, I
Corey Quinn: think just based on our conversation, that is definitely a part of a big part of the culture and a part of your growth story. So it feels very authentic. [00:43:00] So that's awesome. Rob, where can people reach out to you to ask maybe a follow up question?
Robin Alex: Yeah, definitely. So, you know, our website is gohighlevel.
com. Corey, maybe we could put a link at the The bottom, but you know, people can, yeah, people can always email at robin at go high level. com. You can find me on Facebook, Messenger, you know, LinkedIn, I'm on all social channels, so feel free to reach out and more than happy to chat.
Corey Quinn: Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on today.
It's been great.
Robin Alex: Yeah. Thank you for having me on.
Corey Quinn: That's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn, and I hope you join me again next time on the Deep Specialization Podcast. If you received value from this show, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. Thanks. And we'll see you soon.
