Fully-Managed: Ep 195 – John Driscoll

Introduction

Shannon Donnelly (SD): Alrighty. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Fully Managed Podcast, the podcast where we discuss marketing and business tips to help assist you on your business journey. I’m your host, Shannon, Penji’s partnership coordinator, and I’m joined here today with a very special guest, John Driscoll from Naked Development. Thank you so much for coming on with me today.

John Driscoll (JD): Thank you for having me, Shannon. Very excited.

John’s Background

SD: I appreciate it. So, could you just start by telling us a little bit about you, your work, and how you got to this point in your career? How did Naked Development blossom into this beautiful agency?

JD: Sure, absolutely. So, yeah, I didn’t come through the agency route. My first startup was a financial company, and I started that in and sold it around ’06. I had my exit and then I was kind of bumping around trying to figure it out. I loved technology. I loved, you know, kind of seeing trends and where they were going. I was good at marketing, and so that was kind of what I had to work with. Then the iPhone came out and the App Store was released, and I could sign up as an app developer that day. I was just blown away by the possibilities of what we could build onto these amazing phones that we had now. So I signed up, ninety-nine dollars, gave it to Steve Jobs and they gave me the ability to do that. I didn’t know how to code. I didn’t have any of the capabilities, but I hired people to do it. I taught myself a lot of things, and it was a crazy journey. Yeah, we started kind of doing stuff for big companies at first. Then, as time went on, we really found our DNA was really in startups, and that’s kind of where we’ve sat for the last ten to twelve years.

SD: Awesome. Well, one, that’s incredible because that’s definitely a big switch. A lot of people start in the agencies and are in a startup agency and they kind of work their way up to making their own or whatever. So it’s really cool that you were able to do that and also find something that you’re interested in that you had no experience in. That’s really cool.

JD: I’m a little dumb like that, Shannon.

SD: Yeah, but it worked out. I always say dumb decisions are dumb if they work out. I always say I’m stubborn enough that I just won’t give up until I figure it out. That’s kind of really who I am.

SD: That’s good. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. As long as you’re doing what makes you happy, that’s awesome. And being able to teach yourself something is a big part of marketing. I feel like that’s a lot of marketing.

JD: It is. It’s always changing; it’s never the same.

Naked Development’s Target Audience

SD: So when you say that your target audience kind of is startups now, that’s like your bread and butter, is that creating and developing apps for these startups?

JD: Yeah.

SD: Okay, okay. So what is kind of the process of that? I’m assuming most of them come to you with no idea? Or maybe they’re just like, oh, kind of recreate my website, that sort of thing. How does that work? How does that process go?

JD: Yeah, I think most people, I think almost everybody has an app idea or a startup idea inside, and what they’re trying to do is figure out what to do with this thing they want to do. People come to us exactly like that. They haven’t worked on anything; they haven’t really done anything most of the time. I’d say about ninety percent of the time. They just have this idea and they’re looking for somebody to help them launch it, and that’s kind of what Naked is built to do. Over the years, we’ve seen all the needs that a founder like that would have, and we’ve done all this work to try to provide for all of those needs—not just designing it, not just consulting on figuring it out, but developing it, helping to fund it, teaching you how to be a founder, teaching you how to market it, all of those things. And that’s why now we’re kind of more of an ecosystem than a company nowadays. But yeah, so people come, we get about two hundred inquiries a month, people every day. Not to mention people just attending my free classes all the time. So we have hundreds and hundreds of people trying to get into the program, and it’s the Naked Accelerator Program. People apply to get in there, and we approve about twelve percent of the ideas that come to us. Those twelve percent really get a ton of support.

Vetting Process

SD: What is your kind of vetting process for this? Is it just something that you’re excited about, or is it something that—I don’t know—do you have some kind of niche where you think you’re better at working with certain companies?

JD: Yeah, we don’t do games, but I would say any other app other than games, product-wise, we’re not that specific, unless we don’t feel like there’s a market for it. That’s a different thing. I think we’re more concerned about the founder and what kind of expectations that founder has for us. What I call the founder’s journey is going to look like. Some founders are kind of pie-in-the-sky on how they think that’s going to go, and then we have some realistic founders who really understand what it’s going to take to get to the finish line. So we really look for those people that have the right expectations for where they’re trying to go, and they just need the assistance, they need the expertise, and we feel like those kinds of people we can do a lot with. So I would say we’re very, very founder-focused.

Working with Clients

SD: Do you think that that is something that helps you kind of make sure there’s not a personality clash? I know that sounds kind of weird, but I know that a lot of people vet their clients based off of how they think they’re going to work with them. And so, being founder-focused, you can kind of guarantee, you know, at least maybe not guarantee because you didn’t really know how someone’s going to be, but you can kind of make sure that’s the right person that you want to work with.

JD: Yeah, we have six personas when they go through the interview process, and there’s two interviews, and then they get to me, and I approve every founder and every idea still. So, yeah, they—I would say, yes, it does have a little bit to do with how it would be to work with us, but I think it’s more like we want to work with people that we think can get to the finish line. The stamina, the momentum, the inspiration, you know, they know how to bring people together. They’re teachable, but they also really know what they want. I think it’s a combination of all of those things. And I think we’ve seen the pattern of the founders that make it, and we kind of look and go, alright, that one we know is going to probably get there. So we want to be there and provide all the things that they’re going to need to be successful.

Avoiding Troublesome Clients

SD: That’s great. I mean, that ensures your success. Have you ever taken on a troublesome, scarier, intimidating kind of client where you’re like, oh, this is a challenge? We’re excited for this, even though you’re not really sure how it’s going to work?

JD: You know, sometimes I think if it’s product concerns, that’s fine. I feel like we can pivot out of those and kind of discover it. I think I’ve learned, and I think this is probably one of the biggest agency problems is trying to—you get desperate. Maybe you need a sale, and then you make this exception that you think is going to be great, and then that exception turns back, you know, turns to bite you in the butt. I think if anything, I’ve learned to try not to do that anymore. If it gets past me, it’s—it just, I missed it. It’s not that I saw it and made the exception. I think nowadays I know those clients are just more trouble than they’re worth. It’s not that they’re bad people; they’re just a bad fit. I’m not saying they won’t be successful, I’m not saying any of those things, they’re just personality-wise maybe a bad fit for what we have to offer. You know, we’re not—I don’t think—I think every agency has to be specific, and you have to go, hey, this is who we’re looking for. And if you aren’t doing that, I guarantee, I know everybody says this, and agency founders really struggle with this, but you have to be specific. You have to be selective. And if you don’t do that, you’re going to find yourself out of business. That’s what’s going to happen.

Advice to Startups

SD: I definitely, I’ve talked to startup agencies, I’ve talked to, you know, agencies really far along in their process, and I think that most of—a lot of times I’ll ask, especially, you know, someone like you that has started an agency that has been successful thus far. I like to ask, what would you have told yourself, you know, from the beginning now that you know what you know?

JD: Yeah. Now that you know what you know. And I think a lot of people say something along the lines of know your worth. Yes, it’s understandable that startups need to accept a lot more than they want because they need to make money and they need to kickstart their business, have evidence that they’re good at what they do. But I think sometimes that can be a detriment when you’re taking on too much that maybe just might not be too much, like workload-wise, but too much, like, you’re not showing your best work because you’re choosing clients that wouldn’t work for you down the line or now.

JD: It’s funny that you say that, because I think that’s universally just something where—Know your worth. Don’t overestimate your worth. I think that’s also a bad thing, right? Like, there’s a lot of people doing that too. They just think they’re valuable because they say they’re valuable. You’re valuable when people find that you’re valuable. And if you find that people really do appreciate what you do, then make sure that only people who appreciate what you do get your attention.

SD: Yeah, no, I definitely resonate with that. And I think that getting out of your head of being defensive about, you know, something that you’ve created or had people create for you in your vision is really hard sometimes for people to do, but it’s also really important.

The Importance of Client-Focused Work

SD: You have to take feedback constantly to be able to make people happy. And of course… You’re not supposed to—you don’t have to be nitpicky. You don’t have to tweak every little thing because that is nightmarish. But to be able to listen to what people want and be able to execute that is so unbelievably important for your success.

JD: Yeah, it’s really interesting that people look for validation from everybody but who they should really be looking for it from. They’ll look for, “Oh, my family thinks this is great.” They’ll ask me what I think. And my answer is always, it doesn’t matter what I think. It really doesn’t. Like, it matters what does the market think? You need to be looking for the market’s validation, and the market clicks for validation. It buys for validation. So you are validated. The scoreboard is clicks and purchases. It is nothing else that people just thinking that you’re cool or, “Oh my gosh, that’s amazing” because they’re your friends—none of that matters.

Focusing on the Market

JD: And that’s where people really get narcissistic almost about their marketing is they think, “Well, I like it. I’m really into this idea.” Who really cares if you’re into it? Like, if the market doesn’t like it, you’re not going to be around very long. So what I get very excited about is the market’s reaction to what we do. When people are coming to us at wild numbers, you know, and we haven’t had to do an outbound call in ten years, when we have all of that, you know, and I don’t have to go anywhere for meetings or go to network meetings, which I hate, all of that—when we don’t have to do any of that because the market just searches for us and they find us and then they come to us at really good numbers, like that means something we’re offering is resonating with people. Sometimes it’s even hard to know exactly what it is, but I think that’s more fun to figure out than to try to go, “Oh, you know, my mom really thinks I’m great.” Like, obviously, she does.

SD: Yeah, no, I definitely agree that people look for validation in the wrong spaces. I even think, to go even further with that, maybe not asking more interpersonal relationships like family and people in your life, but I think also… a lot of people look for validation from other professionals that wouldn’t need their service, like, uh, like adjacent communities that, you know, maybe do the same thing that you do or whatever that don’t believe in your product or whatever it may be.

JD: Yeah, and I think that is something that people need to get out of the hard space too. Like, “Oh, I’m maybe—or even the competitiveness of all of it, that, oh, I need to be doing better than this person that’s doing something similar to me or whatever it may be.” It’s like, Yes, it’s a competition to a level if you’re doing the same exact thing as someone else or doing something similar, and there’s only so many of them. Marketing is very different than that. The fact that there are so many marketing agencies out there, I think there’s like hundreds of thousands in the U.S. at this point in time—that competitive wise is not really something that I think people should really worry about. But I understand if your industry is more niche and you do have competition that directly affects your clientele. But I think people outside of that are looking for validation from other professionals that don’t really care about your best interest. They just see a startup and they think, “Oh, you know, well, what is the statistic of how many startups don’t make it?” I’ve heard a bunch of stories of my bosses being told or discouraged about, you know, what they’re doing from other professionals that have already made it but aren’t doing as well as we are now. That happens all the time.

The Right Focus for Success

JD: I think that considering, you know, if you think you have a good idea and you know your worth and what it’s going to become, obviously take feedback. Take feedback. The most important group to take feedback from is the people that need your product and, you know, you don’t even have to consider anyone else. You really don’t.

SD: No, honestly, I—I don’t even know who my competitors are, to be honest. I—I have no clue. People ask me, “Do you know who’s doing this?” No, I have no idea. Like, I just don’t. I don’t really care what they’re doing. I genuinely don’t. I’ve never really thought about it. And I think it’s already a form of insecurity. Just let’s use the dating analogy. The moment you’re looking at like, “Oh, I look better than that guy. She’s gotta like me because I look better than that guy.” Like, you’re using the wrong standard. You’re either trying to find the lowest common denominator to make yourself feel better, or you feel insecure because you’re looking at somebody and you think they’re better. So I don’t really know what there is to gain in that whole deal by thinking about other people or being obsessed with your competition. I just—I’ve never seen really any value out of it.

SD: Yeah, I completely understand that. It shows a lot more, you know, that you’re doing well if you’re not thinking about your competitors. You don’t have to. Means you’re doing great.

JD: Yeah, and I honestly, I would argue that I don’t think anybody has to.

SD: Yeah, that’s the thing. I actually don’t think anybody needs to, and I think it’s a huge distraction to do it. I just—I don’t—I’ve never seen any value in it. And I, yeah, I would just say somebody’s going to have to show me like, “What have they really gained from looking at somebody else?” Like, I don’t know, looking over your shoulder while you’re running a race is not a great thing to be doing.

Innovation Over Competition

SD: Yeah, no, I, I definitely agree with that. It’s just like, it feels very idealistic, but I don’t know.

JD: No, you’re a hundred percent correct. I think, you know, some people can’t help it, but I also think that, no, you’re—you’re a hundred percent right that I don’t see a positive side to it because it’s like, what—what do you get out of keeping up with your competitor? If you’re, you know, you could focus that energy on other fruitful endeavors, you know?

JD: Well, you can also very easily just go, “Oh, well we’re doing better than them.” So, you know, like, and then you’re not innovating anymore. I think that’s what happens to big companies is they kind of just stop innovating because like, I think if I looked at my competitors I’d probably take my foot off the gas a little bit. Like, I really do. I think I would be kind of like, well, nobody’s doing what we’re doing. We’re good. Let’s—we’re good. Like, we can just stay here and stay stagnant. Yeah, like why are we even doing this free class? Nobody’s doing it, you know? Is what I’ve been told is that nobody’s doing it. I haven’t really looked, but I wanted to do it because I wanted to do it for our people. I really thought that it would benefit them.

Adding Value to the Community

JD: So I feel like I’m more obsessed with the user. And that’s how we are when we design an app. We’re very obsessed with what does the user really want? And how do we just provide so much value that the price seems absurd? That’s really… what I love to hear, like is that, you know, the price, and we’re considering it like we’re premium, you know, but because we’re offering so much value, nobody’s—and it also makes— I love Alex Hormozi. It’s really hard to compare you to other things when you are just pouring on so much value. You know, you have a—they have a hard time comparing you against anything.

SD: Yeah, exactly.

JD: He calls it a grand slam offer. It’s really, really hard to compare you to anything else. And I love that. I love people just going, “We don’t really know how to compare you to anything because we just haven’t seen anything like that.” You know? Um, so I think that’s a better perspective instead of going, “Hey, let me, you know, let’s be like all these other folks doing the same thing.”

SD: Yeah. No, that’s completely true. And you can even put that back to dating.

JD: Absolutely, yeah. Every girl wants to be with a guy that just thinks he’s a little bit better than all the other guys, right? That’s super attractive, yeah.

SD: Yeah, no, exactly. You know?

JD: Yeah, I teach a concept called hot girl in the bar for people who are trying to raise money for investors. And I would say, you’ve got to be the hot girl at the bar where everybody wants to come up and talk to you. Not, she’s not chasing down dudes. She’s just sitting there going, “I’m awesome. Come to me, ask me for my phone number.” And when I go to investor events, it’s kind of the same thing. I never—I never tell anybody about me unless they ask. I’m constantly always like, “What are you doing? What are you into?” Don’t be focused on yourself, be focused on them. If you’re asking like, eighty percent of the questions and they’re doing eighty percent of the return talking, then they’re basically feeling good because they are talking about themselves. People love to talk about themselves. So if you’re asking a lot of questions, then they’re like, “Oh my gosh, whatever that feeling was I had talking to that guy, I want that again.” And they’re like, “Okay, give me your phone number. I wanna talk to you more.” And I’ve had more VCs chase me down after meetings where I didn’t even ask for their phone number because they wanted to meet with me after. We’ve raised a lot of money in the last ten years, and I think that that mentality is why it’s worked. It’s just, just stop being so self-focused, you know. And that, it’s funny when you’re just like, the value economy is like, go provide so much value that people just want to work with you, period.

SD: Mm-hmm. They make it seem also almost unreal that you, you know, can provide that much for them. So they’re just, you know, they’ll always come out happy.

JD: Yep, absolutely.

Conclusion

SD: Well, I think that this is a perfect note to end on since we are out of time, unfortunately. But thank you so much. I really appreciate this. And I’ve learned a lot. I hope that I never stop saying that. It’s my favorite thing to do. But thank you so much. I really appreciate this conversation. And I think that our audience and me have gotten a lot out of this. So it’s an incredible conversation to have. I appreciate it.

JD: Thank you, Shannon. I enjoyed it.

SD: Thank you so much. I also know that when I don’t get through all my questions, that it’s a good conversation. But yeah, thank you so much. And thank you everyone for watching or listening. Please don’t forget to like and subscribe to see more of this. I appreciate it. Have a good day.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejohndriscoll

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