How Tyler Leber Built a $3M VA Company in 3 Years (and Why SaaS Scares Him)

You can have these crazy ideas and make them into reality. What skill trader characteristic do you think if removed would ensure that you're not at where you are today? Walk me through the process or step you would take. We hired an amazing virtual assistant almost A to Z.

She was running all of the market research projects. What's the secret to your rapid growth? The biggest mistake I've seen is people just don't know what they want. How has AI changed your business?

Do you think AI will eventually replace you know VAs? Yeah I mean I think they will but I think building a SaaS startup right now is very dangerous. What do you think the most important lesson was that you learned from your time? I think learning that skill set and then gaining that experience was incredibly helpful.

What's the biggest challenge you have working with other people? I mean biggest challenge for me I think a lot of the issues arise just when you don't do things right at the very beginning.

Cameron Weber

Perfect. Welcome Tyler. How's it going? I'm going fantastic. Excited to be here.

I love the space. I love what we're doing. I know it's quite interesting environment. Yeah it is.

It's cool to see this out in space. Scottsdale. Yeah yeah it's beautiful. We'll have to come to an event here one day.

Tyler Leber

Yeah yeah I usually do pickleball events but we can make an exception. I like this place too. Funny enough that's actually how we met through a pickleball event.

Cameron Weber

Yeah yeah. Absolute blast. First time playing pickleball. Oh no yeah yeah. I've actually taken it up.

Me and my sister play now. Oh cool okay that's good to hear. I love it. You've inspired a little bit of yeah.

Yeah that's great great to hear.

Cameron Weber

But I wanted to start out talking about just your kind of upbringing. And your background. So before we start also just want to remind viewers if you like the show remember to like subscribe follow us for more amazing content. But Tyler what do I need to understand about your upbringing to truly understand the entrepreneur that you are today.

Was there a moment or influence throughout your journey that sort of started or shaped your your career allowed you to take that like

Tyler Leber

leap of faith into entrepreneurship. Yeah yeah I definitely you know growing up I'd say like one of them probably my main like favorite things about like inspiration was just my dad. You know my dad was actually an optometrist.

So very like white collar job definitely not an entrepreneur at all. But he always did encourage you know kind of thinking outside of the box. And he like I would say I don't know not every month but you know every every so often he would always talk about his million dollar ideas.

And like you know oh like why don't you just go make that you know go make a million dollars right. And so that was always very inspiring. Like he was kind of you know just dorky funny about it. But I always had like what could we do with that idea.

Right. And so I'd say that was like one of my main inspiration just kind of growing up with that.

Cameron Weber

Interesting. So what do you think about it was with your dad. Was it just his creativity. The ability for him to come up with an idea and you know just jot it down. Yeah yeah I think so.

Tyler Leber

And also just like the fact that he was he was willing. I don't think he's actually gone for any of these yet but he's he's always had these ideas and he's always encouraged like not thinking too much about the risk just kind of going for it. Right. Like you can have these crazy ideas and like make them into reality.

And I think just the it's all about the mindset I would say you know just just being able to know that like hey yes I realize this is a crazy idea but I'm still going to go for it and just not worrying too much about the consequence not getting too far into the weeds not overthinking it too much like hey let's put this out there see if anybody wants it. And that's actually part of what led to you know Venture Validator later in my career.

But yeah I think that was very helpful is just that mindset of being able to see something as crazy and not crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot about how crazy it was and just trying it out. So we're going to get to Venture Validator here in a moment because I'm really interested.

Cameron Weber

I don't actually know a whole lot about that part of your life. Yeah. But I am curious to know about you know that mindset in those very early years. What do you think the biggest unlock or change that you had to make was kind of just if I asked you in high school what you wanted to be.

Yeah. What what was going through your mind at that that age.

Tyler Leber

Right. Yeah. It was kind of like a paradox you know because I did it you know I mean even my dad was like I don't know dad was kind of a paradox, right? Like he's a very white color, you know, job, white color kind of guy, but he also did start his own practice, you know, so as he got as, as far entrepreneurial as he could within his, you know, kind of sphere within that optometry space.

So he started his own practice. He, you know, he grew it, he hired people, right. So I was able to see him being a business owner, right. And starting thinking something from scratch.

And so, yeah, it was interesting growing up with, with that kind of paradox. And I think for me in high school, in college, I kind of had that as like, well, I do like that safety net, right. So maybe I'll be like a financial advisor, you know, something very, you know, similar to like that white collar type vibe.

But then I always had in the back of my mind, like, well, I really do want to do something on my own. You know, I want to bring some kind of idea to fruition. I never went through with any of my dad's crazy ideas, you know, in those early days, I didn't have the capital, whatever.

But, you know, I, I did do all sorts of different things growing up that were that kind of exercise that entrepreneurial muscle. So like even in college, I had, you know, window cleaning business and like, I would go out and knock doors, you know, every day to get business. And so little things like that, little experiences like that, I think kind of exercise that muscle.

I did not know that. That's actually, that's actually really interesting.

Cameron Weber

Yeah. What was, what was the, the hardest part of that window cleaning? I, cause I feel like that's a lot of, it takes a lot of grit to go knock on a lot of doors. Yeah, it does. I always, you know, door to door sales has got to be the hardest thing that you could possibly do.

Yeah, it is.

Tyler Leber

It's, it's difficult and, and it's not, it's not easy. I actually enjoyed that more than the actual window cleaning the actual, uh, because I wasn't that amazing of a window cleaner, but it's a fairly simple job. It's something you can learn pretty quickly.

Um, and so for me, like, I just, I loved the idea of, of starting things, something from scratch. And so I just enjoyed the building of it. Like, okay, I'm going to whip up the LLC, you know, I'm going to whip up the systems behind it, everything. And then even, yeah, you know, getting the sales, getting the, you know, going door to door, knocking on these people's doors and trying to get business in the early days.

That was all really fun. The fulfillment. Yeah. Fulfillment was actually probably the worst part for me was actually cleaning the windows and spending, you know, four hours to go around, you know, to all these different windows, climb on ladders, all that stuff.

Cameron Weber

Wasn't my jam. Interesting. Cause when I think of you, I think you're very operations mindset, you know, fulfillment type of person.

Tyler Leber

Right. Right. I know you love your spreadsheets. Yes, I do. Yeah. And I think that's the difference is like, you know, being able to coordinate all of that is what I love. Right. But doing the actual, like in the weeds of it, I get a little bit frustrated.

It's going a little bit too slow, you know, like I want to see, how we can spread this across, you know, 10, a hundred different people. Right. Instead of just me doing it one-on-one, you need that for sure. But I try to get through that as quickly as possible.

Cameron Weber

Well, looking back at those years, what skill trait or characteristic do you think if removed would ensure that you're, you're, you're kind of not at where you are today?

Tyler Leber

Interesting. I mean, I think really, you know, going back to even like my father, right. Just the willingness I'd say, like if I just that, that kind of grit and gumption to actually go out there and do it. Right. Cause like, I think that's even for me, like if I, if I didn't just push through that, if I kind of sat too, too, too long in that space of just overthinking, right.

Like, okay, like I could, you know, do this and spend this much time doing it and maybe I'll get, you know, this result and maybe I'll get this amount of, you know, business. Right. But actually going out and testing it. Right. I think is what is really what the key was for me to just get out there and like, see what the actual results are.

Right. Get it out of the spreadsheets a little bit and actually do it. The, the execution.

Cameron Weber

Yeah, exactly. Right. That's always, always matters, more. And that's something I'm starting to learn as I've, you know, failed and kind of continue to just grow as an entrepreneur myself. Yeah. The more execution you do, the quicker it is to usually get to an answer.

Yes. Yes, exactly.

Tyler Leber

Yeah. If you can get so stuck in overthinking, overanalyzing, you know, paralysis analysis type thing, you can definitely get stuck in that space.

Cameron Weber

So if, if, if you're a, someone interested in starting a business, just starting their business, how, how do you think someone would go about, you know, building up those traits, those skills, that, that operations mindset?

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean, I, I think kind of similar to what I was talking about with me is just exercising that muscle, you know, getting started with something little. And I think even nowadays, like with AI, with so many online tools, you can do that easier than ever. And not being afraid to, to move on, you know, from the first idea, you know, usually most, most founders, you know, there's definitely exceptions out there, but most founders don't have an amazing first idea or an amazing first business. But if you spend a couple of years learning lessons, then your second, your third business will go so much quicker.

And that's what happened, you know, with me, like even the window cleaning business, you know, maybe it was kind of try one Venture Validator was like a really serious try two. And then coconut was just so much quicker on every, every level of the business because we had learned so many lessons along the way. So not getting, you know, not being afraid to just start somewhere, I think is really,

Cameron Weber

really helpful. It's, it's really hard. Cause at the time, I think you're, you're always afraid of failure, right? And you always have that sort of like anxiety looming over your head. And so I think it's really, really helpful.

And I think it's really, yeah. And I think like, again, just embracing it. Um, definitely things seem to just move faster and quicker. Yes. Yes. But, um, so you're smart, you're ambitious.

You've learned a lot from your dad just by watching him sort of operate his own,

Cameron Weber

uh, practice. So I'm really curious to learn more about Venture Validator. Cause that's something I couldn't find a lot online. But, um, from my understanding, it was a market research company, um, specifically tailored to startups. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

This was your second venture, right? Yes. Second venture. So this actually, it was not my idea. It was started by my co-founder.

Tyler Leber

Um, and so he initially started as a consulting firm where he would actually, he, he was doing a lot of different startups in college. He was actually joining a lot of startup competitions. He won a startup competition. So he had this wealth of experience of validating his ideas.

And so I really wanted to tap into that. I really admired what he was doing, what he was going about with this consulting firm. And he really needed somebody to help him on everything. You know, the, the execution of, of all of it and actually making this, uh, a company that could scale up beyond just a, you know, one-on-one consulting type firm.

And so that's where Venture Validator was born. It was called wow factor consulting before that. Uh, but then we started, you know, Venture Validator together, uh, and, and kind of just, yeah, started from really ground zero where we were taking his consulting experience and then trying to, to scale that up to, to include like other people that could actually execute this market research for all of these different companies, different ideas. Um, and yeah, so that, that's really how it was, it was started.

So what, what were you doing at the time where you focused on operations mainly? Yeah. Yeah. And funny enough, he, you know, he's a very ambitious guy. He's a very, um, he's a good sales guy. He's a good, you know, I'd say visionary type, type personality.

And so he, he posted a job for, I think it was director of operations and it was, you know, it was just him, right. But now he's director of operations and it was an unpaid intern position. And so for some reason, you know, that, that, that appealed to me.

I was like, okay, like this sounds great. You know, it's, it's this very ambitious visionary guy. I am more of like the, the execution operation side of it. And I want somebody that's, that has, you know, that gumption that we talked about earlier, but even to a, to an even larger degree.

And so that really appealed to me. I was like, yeah, I want to operate this guy's business. And like, this sounds great. I love the title.

And you know, I wasn't even getting paid at the time, but it was, it was really fun. And you know, we kind of just went from there.

Cameron Weber

Yeah. That's, that's often how it starts in a startup, you know, the unpaid internships, the, uh, the late nights, but what, what do you think the most important lesson was that you learned from your time just working on Venture Validator? Yeah.

Tyler Leber

So honestly, you know, the, the ability to evaluate ideas, right. That was the entire business. So like that was an incredibly helpful skillset that I still use to this day. Um, you know, evaluating my own ideas, other people's ideas, all of that.

Um, I think learning that skillset and gaining that experience was incredibly helpful. Um, but also like getting kind of like the real world example of actually running, uh, you know, a, a business with other people, right. Like the window, window cleaning business.

That was pretty much just me. Like I had a few people, you know, help me here and there, but overall it was really like more of a solopreneur type type role. Um, and then this was really the first time it was like an entrepreneur business owner where we were actually hiring people. Um, we were working together as, as a partner, as a partnership.

And so I think that was the most valuable skillset from Venture Validator is just navigating all of that. And like, Hey, this is what the infrastructure of a business looks like. Here's how to navigate it. Um, and you know, obviously making mistakes along the way and learning from those working, working with people can be difficult sometimes as an

Cameron Weber

entrepreneur. I feel what's, what's the biggest challenge you had working with other people during that time?

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean, biggest challenge for me, I think a lot of the, a lot of the issues arise just when you don't do things right at the very beginning. So when you have expectations, when you're not hiring for the right personality, for the right roles, you don't have the right people in the right seats.

Uh, I think that was the biggest, uh, you know, kind of issues we had and lessons we learned, you know, we would hire somebody that we thought, yeah, they're not a perfect fit, but they have all of this experience, right. Or they have all of this knowledge. Like, yeah, let's kind of, you know, try to push them into that space and see if they can work with us as a whole, as a company.

Um, but we always regretted doing that and then it never really worked out. So finding that culture fit, personality fit, and like work ethic fit was more important really than like education or, or even sometimes experience, obviously the experience, you know, can be vital, you know, if they're doing a video editing or, uh, if it's an engineering type role.

Um, but for us really those three things, like the culture, you know, the personality fit and the work ethic, those really were the three things that we always hired for. And it always worked out. Like we, we still work with some of the people that we hired in those very early days, even now that we're at coconut.

Uh, and I think the reason for that is because we had those, that foundation level talent, uh, and that foundation level personality that we just enjoy working with.

Cameron Weber

Interesting. So one of the things I'm sure a lot of people are curious about, you've been talking about validating ideas, right? Can you walk me through the process or step you would take? Cause I know there are many people watching this are probably want to be entrepreneurs. Um, and so I'm really curious, what are the three things that you think they could take away?

They have an idea, you know, they jot it down on a sticky, or on a, you know, some sort of notebook. Right. What, what, what can they take away?

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing to, I mean, it's obviously a whole world right there and a whole world of how do you validate an idea and how are you, you know, really successful at that. I would say to, to try to dumb it down into like the very simplest form would be to just be talking to the, to the right people really is like, that's the very simplest form, right?

Like you need to figure out who's actually a customer of, of what you are selling, um, or what you're building. And I think honestly, a lot of people just get stuck really in that step. And like, it's, it's kind of sad, but like, it's, it's hard to get out of that.

Like you, you could be so excited about your idea and maybe part of you just wants it to be validated or, you know, part of you just doesn't is a little bit lazy. You want to get out into the, like the real world of the idea and not this minutia of like actually validating it. And I think a lot of founders get stuck just in, even in that spot.

So like they might look for validation among their LinkedIn network or their mom or their family or extended family, you know, like, Oh, this guy's a really, really great business guy, or he's a real estate mogul. Like, of course they're going to have great ideas and great advice, but if they're not the people that are actually going to be purchasing, you know, whatever you're building, like, why are you talking to them?

Why are you taking their advice? Even if they're smart, you know, they might not be the right voice to listen to. So I would say that's probably the biggest thing to remember is like, you need to do the work to find, to figure, figure out who's actually going to buy what you're selling and then figure out how to talk to them.

And then obviously like the, the qualitative interviews where you're actually sitting down and talking to somebody like, you know, face-to-face like we're doing is probably the very best thing that you can do. We actually, a Venture Validator did a lot of just online surveys. So, um, we would do wow factor tests.

So on a scale of one to 10, you know, what's the wow factor of this product? Like 10 being the, the big, the best thing you've ever seen, literally like, here's my credit card store, my credit card info. So I can buy this and like one zero, you know, being like, this is terrible.

I would never, ever like touch, touch this. Right. And like, that is really, really helpful. And so if you do a survey, that, um, that's very easy to get up on Google forms. Right. And then like, say, you know, Hey, I'll Venmo you 25 bucks.

If you take this survey, if you know that they're a good fit, yeah, you should pay that all day because that's going to help you, you know, save so much money in the long run from either saying, Hey, this is not a good idea. I'm going to drop it.

Um, or yeah, I'm going to, you know, pursue this idea and actually sell it and make some money. I think that's, I think that's great advice.

Cameron Weber

I think a lot of the problems that I've had within my own business and trying to get that to scale and to grow has really come down to like a talking people, like you mentioned, but also honing in on your, your offer. Yeah. I think that if you're, your offer is really off, it really is hard to sell a bad offer, no matter what it is.

Um, even if the product and service is exceptional, right. Walk me through how you've sort of changed your offerings over time. And I guess we'll move into a little bit about coconut now. Can you just tell me a little bit more about what you do at coconut?

Yeah. Yeah. Coconut. So we do virtual assistant staffing. Uh, so we find people in the Philippines, we connect them to us companies and they, they work remotely.

Uh, they work us time zones.

Tyler Leber

So typical outsourcing type model. Um, there's a few things that we do that are very unique to this space. Um, I'd say the biggest thing that we're most proud of is just the benefits we offer our people. So we attract the very best talent.

I think we literally have the best, as far as I am aware, we have the best benefits on the market for our VAs. And so that leads to like 98, 99% retention. Um, so, you know, a client might churn, right. But a VA is very, very unlikely to churn because they they're in a position that they like, and they're getting paid way above average and they're getting a whole, you know, full suite of benefits.

Um, so there's really no downside for them. Uh, and you know, coconut is, is a job that they want to get. Uh, so yeah, that's what we were doing at coconut.

Cameron Weber

Okay. Is there a range of areas that the VA is working on the business or is it just tailored to admin work?

Tyler Leber

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, Philippines is definitely known for, for the admin admin work. And I I'd say that's our, our bread and butter, like executive assistants is the most uh, but also social media managers, uh, SDR, so sales development reps. Um, but we've always prided ourselves on being kind of a step above, so, you know, really high quality talent, high level talent.

So we've staffed, you know, scrum masters, project managers, uh, chief of staff. Um, even our internal team is all based in the Philippines. Our, our current CEO, she's based in the Philippines. Uh, she does an amazing job to literally running the entire day-to-day operations of the company at this point.

Uh, and so it's, it's amazing. You know, people do have a kind of a fear if they hear the term VA, or if they think about hiring a VA, it's like, oh, well, they're just gonna run my email and do my calendar.

Cameron Weber

It's like, I, you know, I could have AI do that nowadays, right? Quick break here, because I want to say thank you to our incredible location sponsor for today's episode, Club Scottsdale. If you're unfamiliar with Club Scottsdale, it's the ultimate spot for entrepreneurs and high-level individuals to connect from exclusive events to luxury, a luxury lounge, podcast room, cigar lounge, and even access to, of course, incredible super cars.

This is where connections are made and deals, deals get done. Amazing entrepreneur, uh, communities host events here every month. So huge thank you to Club Scottsdale for making this happen today. And, uh, links below, if you want to check out their Instagram or their social media channels below.

Perfect. Well, welcome back, Tyler.

Cameron Weber

Um, we had a quick break there, uh, but I now want to talk about your, you know, current role at Coconut. And I'm really curious to know, like what inspired you to create Coconut coming from Venture Validator? Like why the, the sudden shift to, to VAs?

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean the, the sudden shift in VAs. So Venture Validator, we obviously were doing a lot of market research projects, kind of similar to what we talked about earlier, the cleaning windows thing. I didn't want to actually be doing the market research, you know, that much.

Right. And so we, we hired an amazing virtual assistant, uh, you know, out of the Philippines and she was able to, to really replicate our entire system. So, you know, kind of almost A to Z, she was running all of the market research projects of, of our, of our clients.

And so, you know, we would be hopping on the calls with clients and then she would be running everything in the background and then we would help deliver it, answer questions, obviously review work and finalize things, put the finishing touches on everything. Um, but that was really our first deep in-depth experience with hiring and working with virtual assistants. So near the end of Venture Validator, we had a few of our Venture Validator clients ask us about, Hey, how did you hire this person?

Like, you know, the work that they did was amazing. Like I love talking to them. Um, like how do I find that kind of a person? Right. And so we actually did really a test run.

And, and that's kind of what we talked about earlier with, you know, validating something, like if somebody is actually willing to, to pay for what you've built, what you've created, that's, that's great validation. And so we ran through that process with, with this Venture Validator client and we said, Hey, who do you want to find?

We'll go out and find them for you. And so, you know, just really the first kind of product of, of coconut was finding this, finding this person for this client. And then her reaction was, was really, I'd say, what kind of turned us around or turned us onto coconut is she was just so, so excited, so grateful, so thankful.

Like, Hey, this VA is changing my life. Like I'm able to hand off so much to this person, like, and just seeing the reaction was so powerful for us. Cause like, okay, we we've done something good here. Like, you know, and, and she is willing to pay for this and super happy with what she's paid for.

And so that's what really first turned us onto it. There was some issues with the Venture Validator business model. So we were looking for something else anyway. And so we said, Hey, you know, this could be a recurring revenue model.

Um, and we just had an amazing first experience. Let's keep pursuing that. Right. Uh, and, and, you know, within six months we were, you know, very profitable starting to pay ourselves already. And so it just really kind of hit the ground running.

Cameron Weber

So I want to, I want to talk about that last part there about kind of your rapid growth. You've been able to do 3 million error in what, three years? Yeah. So adding a million every single year, that's quite impressive. What's the secret to your, to your rapid growth?

Yeah. I mean, a few things, right?

Tyler Leber

Like we talked about getting kind of the reps in, you know, starting, starting from scratch is always difficult. But starting from scratch has allowed us to kind of hit the ground running with Coconut. So like I said, you know, our first client of Coconut was a Venture Validator client. And that was really, I'd say the first half of our, of our kind of baseline clients was Venture Validator clients.

So they had worked with us before, you know, they all have businesses and they needed, you know, remote help. Right. And so we were able to support them with Coconut as well. That really helped us kind of hit the ground running.

Uh, the other big thing was, was content. So we started posting on LinkedIn, from the beginning, I started posting at the very beginning. My co-founder started posting pretty soon after that. And that helped us a ton.

Um, even today, like a large percentage of our business is, you know, generated through, uh, our LinkedIn content. And we really took the philosophy of that built in public type type, you know, content where we're just like, Hey, this is what we're building.

And, you know, this is what we're issues we're having. And, and that's like inspiring. It's genuine, right? Like, especially nowadays, you want to see people that are authentic, are genuine.

And so that was really beneficial for us in the early days was, uh, you know, just that baseline of clients from our previous company and then content. And then the last one, just being word of mouth. Like, like I said, that, you know, that one woman at the very beginning, our first client, like she was overjoyed and she started, you know, just naturally sharing with people like, you know, Hey, these, these guys got, you know, got me this VA.

Uh, and so the word of mouth from that was extremely beneficial as well. That was another, that really kind of made up the last percentage of our, of our new business was just that word of mouth growth of, of people just kind of lauding our praises, right? Like, Hey, these, these guys are amazing.

You know, let them find a VA for you.

Cameron Weber

Well, that's, that's really interesting, especially when you talk about content, because I'm obviously a big content guy, right? We're filming this podcast. How did you go about thinking about this, this content strategy? Was it something you just knew from the beginning you wanted to do, or was it, was it literally, you just wanting to share kind of what you were working on in the business, like just for fun?

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean, at the beginning it was, is a little, I'd say a mix of both, right? It was something that I knew could bring more awareness to the company, but it was also something I was just doing for fun. Um, and then obviously there was, you know, a few inspirations on LinkedIn. Like I saw some creators that were doing really well, that they were getting a lot of great engagement.

I could tell that they were experiencing a lot of growth. So that's something that I wanted to replicate. And so I reached out to quite a few of those guys and like, Hey, you know, how are you doing this?

Like, yeah, I love your content. Like, how could I do something like what you're doing? And so I actually got some great advice in the early days. Like, you know, LinkedIn is, is different platform than the rest.

Um, you need to be making content, but you also need to be, you know, very actively engaged with, with everybody in your network, uh, trying to mix in as much real life as you can. So, you know, like us sitting here in person, right. Or doing pickleball events, right.

Uh, like little things in person kind of help support what you're doing on LinkedIn. Um, and then outreach as well, just, you know, actively trying to make new connections and, you know, genuinely trying to get to know people better. Uh, all of those things kind of factored into those, that early day, like kind of boom of, of our LinkedIn.

That's, that's interesting.

Cameron Weber

What, what do you think the biggest mistake is that, you know, founders are thinking about their go-to-market strategy or, um, wanting to push more content out there. What's something you think that they could do today or take away from this kind of conversation to sort of see those growth metrics that, that you have?

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so tough, right.

Tyler Leber

Cause it depends, you know, it depends on so much, depends on what industry, what kind of company you're building. Um, you know, for, for us, like we, we knew that we were targeting founders or, you know, business owners with, you know, maybe 500 K to $10 million in revenue and okay, where do these people live?

You know, what are they talking about? How can we kind of get into those spaces? And so, you know, for, for an overall go-to-market kind of going back to Venture Validator, it really depends where your people are and who they are.

And then, yeah, what kind of content are they, you know, consuming right now today and how can you make better content? Uh, and so, you know, you don't have to, I would say, don't, you know, copy what's out there. Don't copy other creators, but learn from them, get inspiration from them, uh, do the similar, you know, style content.

Do they want to read a whole blog article or do they not have time for that? You know, like I can't remember the last time I read a blog articles and if I'm a founder business owner, then I'm not going to create a bunch of blog articles. Obviously that helps with SEO.

So there is a little bit of wisdom to that. Um, but you know, what kind of content are people actually going to consume? And, you know, part of that is, is interviewing, you know, talking to those, to those people. Well, I think that's great.

Cameron Weber

I often think of content almost like a, like a DJ mix, like it has to be a remix. Like you need to remix a popular song. Yeah. Like add your own like taste and flair to it to really make it work. Definitely. Yeah. Um, but now I kind of want to talk and go back a little bit to, to VAs. Yeah.

Um, what do you think the biggest mistake is when founders are hiring VAs? Like what's a mistake? Just maybe even when it comes to hiring in general.

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean, I'd say the biggest mistake I've seen is people just don't know what they want, um, which is kind of hard to believe. It's like, you know, if you're in the market for hiring somebody and then you actually go through the process of hiring somebody, you should know what you want, but that's honestly the biggest issue.

We've run into is just mixed expectations or just not a full fleshed out idea of what this person is actually going to be doing, which is sometimes can be fine, but you do need to pay a little bit more for that. If you're having somebody that's going to like, Hey, go figure this out. You do need to pay for that kind of a talent.

That's going to, that has the experience and the proactivity to like do that. Um, but if you're, if you're trying to leverage like a low, lower cost, you know, a higher, then you need to find out like, what are they actually going to be doing? And kind of, you know, map out that progress for them, uh, to some degree.

And you don't have to, you know, babysit them. You don't have to handhold them too much, but you do need to have like a clear expectation of, Hey, social media manager, right? Like I want you to put out this many blog articles.

I want you to put up this, these posts, we are on these platforms, you know, like, don't worry about these ones. Just having the expectations outlined is really just the first biggest step to, to making that successful. So that's, that's great.

Cameron Weber

And I think one of the things that you've done that I've actually really excited about. Uh, for coconut is the playbooks. Yeah. And can you tell me a little bit more about the playbooks and, you know, is that something, you know, every founder should be looking at if they're kind of unsure with what they want or.

Tyler Leber

Yeah, definitely. So, so, you know, like the kind of playbooks that we have made is just a step-by-step process for all of these different, uh, you know, functions, right? So like the social media manager, if you want to, if somebody is going to take over my LinkedIn profile, right? Like, here's what I currently do.

Here's how you would do it. And what we have found works really well in these kind of SOPs, these playbooks is the, the video content, and then also like the step-by-step written guides. So what we typically do is like, Hey, I don't want to keep doing this every week.

You know, I don't want to keep cleaning these windows every day or whatever. And so I'm going to record a video of me doing this tasks, you know, do a lot of commentary on it. Like, Hey, I'm clicking this because of this. I don't want to, you know, change this setting here.

Um, and just really mapping it out on a, on a loom video, going through that task from A to Z and just commentating everything that you do. So you have that then, especially with the AI tools that we have nowadays, you can throw that, you know, that video, that MP4 file, whatever it is into like a ChatGPT and say, Hey, break this down into a step-by-step process.

And then you can hand that video and the process to whoever you want. And they should be able to replicate that fairly easily.

Cameron Weber

How, how has AI changed your business? Cause I'm sure, you know, everyone's been talking about this, but, uh, do you think AI will eventually replace, you know, VAs?

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean, I think they will to some degree. So, you know, we've always prided ourselves on being like the higher quality, the higher level talent. I think the lower level talent, the very basic type roles, they're already getting, you know, obsolete, they're already becoming obsolete.

And so, you know, if it's a data entry type VA, or if it's a very basic list builder type VA, if that's all that they do, then there's so many AI tools that can replace those functions now, which can be scary for that, that talent. But from our perspective, yeah, that's, that's what we need to focus on is staffing the higher level talent where people are, are really owning the outcomes.

And so I think that's really the difference in my mind is there are some people who will, you know, kind of do steps one, two, and three, and like, that's all that they do every single day. But what really is going to have a lot of more staying power is somebody that can manage more of the outcomes, right? So like, Hey, I want to grow on social media.

If you pay somebody that has the experience and that knows all the AI tools, and then can this run that entire playbook that run that entire strategy, and then also be proactive and grow it, you know, organically from, from what they know, from what they are testing out and experimenting. That's, what's really going to be very powerful and continue to have staying power because as a founder, you know, you, you, you're doing so many different things.

You're wearing so many different hats and you just want to be able to, to hand something off and know that it's going to be done. And, you know, I don't care what tools you use. Like, yeah, feel free to use ChatGPT. Like that's amazing, you know, use whatever you want.

But just having the, the peace of mind that, Hey, this person's going to keep going. Not until like, I tell them to stop or anything. They're just going to keep going, right. They're going to make this happen no matter what, and use every tool that they have.

Cameron Weber

So how are VAs, I guess, adapting to an AI first world then? Are they starting to incorporate these tools into the sort of their daily workflow? Yeah, definitely. And like, so I have an executive assistant, you know, that I work with full time and,

Tyler Leber

and yeah, she uses ChatGPT every single day, you know, I pay for her, you know, pro or plus membership or whatever it is. And so, so yeah, they're, they're definitely adapting very quickly. I would say, you know, you, you see a lot of AI tools showing up on resumes.

You see a lot of just expertise in these different tools. Like one of our internal team members, you know, he, he was a software engineer, but he's now learned Lovable, you know, and like a replet type type company where it's, you know, it's a very impressive tool to, to build code very quickly.

And so now he can take his preexisting experience, but now apply it to these new AI tools. That's really interesting.

Cameron Weber

I tried out, out Lovable for the first time a couple of weeks ago, blew my mind away. I'm currently taking a software engineering course in the side and I would not be possible without AI. Yeah. Oh, sure. But I want, I want to talk about, you know, kind of what you said, like wearing all hats.

Originally when you're starting out, you have to do that, but how do you, how do you manage, you know, setting time aside to sort of work on the business versus working in the business?

Tyler Leber

Yeah, no, for sure. I, you know, I keep going back to the window cleaning, which I usually don't talk about that much, but I think that's a good example of this, of like, you know, getting stuck in the spreadsheets to some degree versus just hitting the pavement and making it happen.

Right. So yeah, in the early days you are wearing so many hats and I'd say, you know, you really have to be kind of working overtime. You have to be working so many different hours because you need to be fulfilling both of those roles. Luckily for me, you know, I have so much experience like hiring virtual assistants and low cost talent that is really effective.

So very fun. We were able to hire people to kind of work in the business. And so, like I said, even today, you know, we have a CEO in the Philippines that's running the day-to-day ops. Like, whereas if I tried to hire that person in the, in the U S as a U S employee, that would be incredibly expensive, you know, prohibitively expensive.

Right. And so we still have that, that advantage to this day of being able to hire lower cost talent to kind of help us work. They, they are helping us to work in the business while we continue to work on the business. And you don't have to do that. It just helps you speed things up.

Yeah. So we were able to grow quicker because we were able to delegate things quicker and, and trust the entire process to somebody else instead of, you know, being stuck babysitting or doing it ourselves.

Cameron Weber

And I think that leads me to sort of my next question. You, you mentioned that you have a CEO over in the Philippines. What makes it, I'm sure it's difficult to sort of manage a business from another country. Right. So what prompted you to sort of make that decision?

What was it like kind of before having that, that CEO? Yeah, no, it's, it's been interesting.

Tyler Leber

I mean, I'd say from day one, my original co-founder and I kind of, we just, we felt like that that was the right move, you know, it was kind of like eating our own dog food to some degree is like, well, if we're pitching these VAs to all of these different founders, like I don't want to be showing up with a US SDR, you know, on the call, or I don't want to be showing up, you know, talking about my US, you know, executive assistant, you know, anything like that.

So for us, you know, maybe a kind of a unique perspective, a unique situation, but for us, it just kind of made sense. It was just a decision we made, you know, from day one that we wanted to eat our own dog food in, in that way.

And, and just use the talent that we could find. In the Philippines. So I'm not sure if that entirely answered your question there. I think I got off track, but, but no, I think, I think, I think that's great.

Cameron Weber

But I want to talk about automation now, because I know you're huge automation. And I am too. I'm starting to learn Zapier. Yeah.

So I want to sort of talk to you, like what systems or processes do you use in your business today that you think other business owners should start to incorporate, or that should be like top of their mind. This is something I have to start incorporating.

Tyler Leber

Yeah. And, you know, I did say for me, it's, I don't always pitch, you know, using VAs, right? Like I'd say automation and delegation are both incredibly important. And I'm, I feel like I'm fairly down to earth or all, you know, I'll tell you to tell it to you straight, right? Like just because we, we staff VAs doesn't mean you have to use VAs for everything.

So yeah, automation, especially nowadays is so powerful. And like I said, a lot of those kind of steps, one, two, three, if it can be broken down into a repeatable process that you can just set and forget, then yeah. Why not use automation?

Why not use a, you know, $49 a month subscription to Zapier? Like, yes, I I'd say we use Zapier very heavily. We have multi-step Zaps. I think we have one that's like a hundred steps, which is insane.

You know, it has like these brand, it has branching logic. It goes off into these different decision trees, all of this crazy stuff. And, you know, it ends with all of these different actions, depending where you started. And it's, it's wild what you can do once you get into the weeds on that.

So yeah, I highly recommend Zapier. Monday.com is another great tool that we use. It's project management. But we also used it as our CRM for the first like two, two and a half years of, of Coconut. So, you know, up until 2 million ARR, we were still having our CRM on Monday.com, just kind of custom built.

We just made it. And so Monday.com is also another one that has incredible automations. And I'd say every tool nowadays is, is getting a lot more AI functionality, automation functionality in it. So yeah, just learning how to go about that and learning the kind of the logic behind it.

And then the tool that we use to, to help us really map out automation is a mural. So it's like a digital whiteboard tool basically. And so we're kind of mapping out the decision tree before ever having to implement into, into a software or into an automation.

And then what's really helpful about that is then you can kind of tag things for, for different people or different, you know, like different delegation, I guess, processes. Right. So like if this is a process that I want to be done by a human, then we'll have Zapier just notify that human, right.

Instead of trying to do that action by themselves. And so it's kind of a beautiful mix, a beautiful hybrid between the two, you know, that automation serving as like kind of the baseline, but then putting in that human element whenever you can.

Cameron Weber

So how does automation, I guess, then enable your sort of team members to just contribute more? Is it for your SDRs? Is it getting, you know, you mentioned notifications when they come in. Can you tell me maybe about like the number one most important automation that you have in your business right now?

Tyler Leber

Yeah. I mean, I'd say that the number one most important right now, and we are, we are actively trying to grow. So a great tool that we have is Amplemarket. They're like an up and comer in the, in kind of the SDR type space where they're really just enabling an SDR to do more. So they have like multi-channel automation.

So it's LinkedIn automation, email calls. They have a few AI functionality, you know, features as well. But that's been the most important tool for us recently. And it's really helping our SDR, SDR do a lot more.

And like you say, you know, we're still having them do a lot of the manual tasks. So he'll send, you know, voice messages, he'll record Loom videos for people. But that's something that still does need to be done by a human. Or I would say it can be done.

You know, there are tools out there that can automate that. Like 11 Labs is an amazing one that can mimic a voice very well. But there's always going to be issues. And even, even today, even as good as it's gotten, you can still largely tell when it was, it's an AI tool or an AI outreach.

We try to make it very intentional, very genuine. And we really just try to help have that kind of support. So like a connection request that doesn't need to be done by a human, right? But an email, yeah, I'd say most of the time that that should be done by a human just because they can catch on to so many subtle nuances.

And nowadays, we, I kind of hate it. But like even an email, I've started to like, do lowercase on a lot of different sentences. My co founder does this a lot on his emails, and he gets an incredible reply rate, incredible, you know, positive reply rate, because you can tell it's a human like he intentionally misspells words sometimes, because like, well, AI wouldn't have done that, right?

So like, I know this is a human. So it's crazy, kind of how we're adapting to this new world of AI and like trying to stand out. And I see that on even LinkedIn as well, like people are starting to, to put in a little bit more informal type language, informal type, you know, lowercase grammar type stuff, because like, well, AI wouldn't have messed up on that.

So I know it's a human.

Cameron Weber

Yeah, it's really interesting to see how we evolve with technology. Yeah, I would say one of the things I always notice is the hyphens. Yeah, yes. Oh, no, it's almost like a watermark. Yes, it is.

It really is. Yeah. That's, that's really interesting. And then when it comes to automation, how do you use automation to sort of measure the success of your team? How do you do you have KPIs that you track?

Yeah, yeah, we do.

Tyler Leber

I mean, KPIs for everybody, what we've recently, you know, we've, I've read a few books, I'm constantly reading, you know, self help and business type books, but one philosophy is the EOS kind of methodology. And that's been really helpful for us.

So one thing that we've adapted from them is like North Star goals. So we just take it by quarter. So like, hey, this is your role. These are the like, two, really just one or two metrics that kind of encapsulate the success of your role.

And we're going to track that, you know, as best as we can throughout this quarter and have this kind of stretch goal. And that's been really helpful for our entire team. So now we have, and we've built that into into even like slide decks that will kind of present at the end of the quarter of like, hey, here's how it went.

And and it really just helps measure the effectiveness of the entire team. And we get everybody on board, you know, at the beginning of every quarter, like, hey, do you feel like this is a, this actually, you know, is measuring the success of what you're doing of, you know, whatever campaign you're running, or just the role that you're doing.

So it's different, right, for everybody, SDR, social media manager, our hiring managers, of course, are very different. But that's been very beneficial for us. And to automate the, like the reporting of that we use HubSpot. Now, that's our CRM.

And they've actually incorporated some really cool AI tools recently. So you can actually talk with ChatGPT about your HubSpot reporting and your HubSpot metrics. So you can say, hey, I want to know how my SDR is doing on XYZ. And it will, you know, give you an AI answer of, hey, here's all the data I've pulled.

And here's like the trends I've noticed. And like that, that kind of replaces the role of a very basic data analyst, right? And that's incredibly helpful.

Tyler Leber

Well, that's really interesting.

Cameron Weber

Before we end the podcast, though, I, I do want to get your controversial take on something. So what's, what's something contrarian or something that you think is just controversial in today's age? Or what are you seeing out there in the world of startups and entrepreneurship? Yeah, I mean, everybody is different.

I will say that as a disclaimer, right?

Tyler Leber

I always hate these like super absolute hot takes, right? But, but for me, I would say my most controversial one, then, you know, it's, it's true for me, not for everybody. But I think building a SaaS startup right now is, is very dangerous, I would say.

And because it's, it's really honestly scary for for builders to see how quickly people can copy your SaaS. And like, we've talked about Lovable, right? We talked about Lovable earlier, like I've, I've seen some of our subscription costs, right? And like, okay, we're paying 100 bucks a month for this, we're paying 400 bucks a month for this, like, I know how this works.

And I'm very intimately familiar with how this works. I bet I could probably make this on Lovable. And so we've, we've actually done that with, quite a few of our subscriptions. So, you know, for me, like, that's, that's very fulfilling.

And that's exciting for me. And that's cost saving, right, which is really cool. But I, you know, I'm just imagining the founder of that company, like, if I can create your software, you know, the basic functionality, the things that I need, and like custom to my business, if I can build that within a week, or even a month, and like, just me, or maybe me and my tech guy on the team, like, that's kind of scary, right?

Like that, that terrifies me. And so like, I would want to stay away from the SaaS space. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, a lot of people are talking about like the HVAC space, or, you know, like more tangible things.

But I think that's also going to become flooded as people kind of flee from software. So it is scary. I think there's going to be a lot of upheaval, a lot of change, a lot of, you know, just people kind of pivoting, you know, wherever.

But the SaaS space definitely scares me right now with how, how easy it is to replicate.

Cameron Weber

Okay, it's really fascinating how you can take an internal tool. Yeah. And you can spin it up at that speed. Yeah. What used to take 20 engineers now takes one or two. Yeah. It's insane.

Yeah. But thank you so much, Tyler. That's all I had for today's podcast. But thank you so much for coming on. Is there anything else you want to share?

Where can people find you, Tyler?

Tyler Leber

Yeah, people can find us at trycoconut.com. Or feel free to follow me on LinkedIn, Tyler Leber. I've got a little coconut next to my name. Perfect. Thanks, Tyler.

Thank you.