Ben: [00:00:00] yeah, this was my fifth app. So by the time I got to this one, I was kind of getting to that point of being like a little bit frustrated. I'm not sure if, you know, if, if I was gonna figure this thing out or if I would have to go back to like full-time employment.
Riley: welcome to the show. Today. Today I have Ben Nolan on here. And, um, Ben and I are, um, we don't know each other well, and so we, we are. Ben is a friend of a friend, um, mark Enis, who was on here a few episodes back, was, uh, [00:01:00] introduced Ben and I, and I kind of became a little fascinated.
Uh, Ben has, um, a CrossFit background. He's, he's, uh, he's a super fit dude. It's hard to see on camera, but he's got, he's got abs and biceps and there he is right there, man. And, uh, but he's also, he's also kind of a tech geek, so, uh, he, he's a ab, uh, phone app developer and it's gonna go beyond that. We're gonna find out more today, but you guys are gonna learn about Ben with me, is what I'm trying to say here.
So, Ben, welcome to the
Ben: Thanks Riley. It's good to be here.
Uh,
Riley: man. Well, so
tell us, tell us
are. Tell us about kind of life growing up, what life looked like, and of the story that got you to where you are today.
Ben: yeah, well, I, uh, yeah, I was born in Idaho, um, lived here pretty much my whole life and. Um, yeah, it, not nothing too exciting in my, in my upbringing. I just, uh, just, um, [00:02:00] went to BSU after graduating high school. Um, we moved around a bit growing up. My dad worked for Idaho Power, so I lived, um, in a few different places as he went to the different, um, power plants and, um, went to high school down in Grandview, Bruno area at Rim Rock High School.
Yeah.
Yep.
Um,
Riley: of student there because not much population out there,
Ben: yeah, it, it's pretty small. Um, my high school class was, I think there were 32 graduates, so
not too big, kind of a farming, farming community, but
Um.
Riley: in a big high
school that had on in the graduating class, and so yeah, it's, a big contrast.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah. So from there, um, yeah, I went to BSUI wasn't real spirit first, what I wanted to do, [00:03:00] but I, I liked computers and so I kind of stumbled into computer science and got my degree there. And then went, went to work for a local company, um, worked at Clearwater Analytics for about, about 10 years. Um, yeah,
Riley: you as, as a young, when you were young, did you have that kind of inclination toward computers?
Ben: um, not, not really. Um, I, I was into video games kind of early on. Um, but actually before that I was mostly into like. Actually insects. Um, I loved studying like bugs. Um, I had like the, the Audubon book that like had, it was like an insect identification guide and it had photos and like [00:04:00] information, so kind of a nerd, but there, there weren't, we don't really have a computer until, um, probably, let's see, it was probably fifth or sixth grade.
We, we got a computer and I, I liked it, but I didn't really know what to do with it. So,
played a few games and,
Riley: funny 'cause you say insects. Uh, you know, as a, as a, as a kid, maybe that carried over, but I, I fly fish, right? I'm, so studying, studying bugs and what their are, their life cycle is, is kind of a big part of that. If you're, you know, if you go full nerd like I do on just about anything, I touch
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: the, uh, how that lifecycle works and how to actually fish different lifecycle cycle stages of a different insect.
Man, it's fascinating stuff. So I
Ben: Yeah,
Riley: hearing you you
Ben: yeah. Bugs are cool. Um, not, not a whole lot, not as much [00:05:00] as I would like to. Um, I, I'll take, I'll take photos of bugs I see. And try to like, identify 'em sometimes, but, um, not as much as I'd like to. I have, I've always had kind of wanted to build, uh, an app for like, identifying insects and, um, I think it'd be something fun to do, something I might do later on.
But,
um,
Riley: it's kind
of an interesting I'm glad you brought it up. 'cause I, uh, what, what's your favorite, what's the coolest one? You of top of mind Bug.
Ben: really like ants, um. Uh, yeah, they're, they're pretty fascinating. The different, uh, the, even the different types of ants, like was recently studying the leaf cutter ants. 'cause we were, we were in Costa Rica last year and the leaf cutter ants are pretty, pretty fascinating. They, [00:06:00] um, they cut, they cut the leaves, and then they take 'em down into their, their ant hill and they grow this special kind of mold or fungus I guess that doesn't, like, it doesn't, doesn't grow anywhere else in the world.
Like it can't even survive on its own apparently. It's like, uh, it can only survive if the, these ants feed it and water it, and then the ants, I guess eat, eat the fungus.
So,
pretty fascinating.
Riley: hands.
Ben: Yeah,
yeah.
Yeah.
Riley: pretty cool.
Ben: crazy.
Riley: I,
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: the trails of 'em, you
know, when they're but I, I didn't know that. That's
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Pretty amazing.
Riley: so there on, on vacation or were you down there actually for that reason.
Ben: Just for vacation? Yeah, just, um, just me and my wife just checking it out for, for the first time.[00:07:00]
Yeah. It's cool.
Riley: So then go from, from insects, you guys, you guys get a computer, you said fifth or sixth grade. And did that spur you then, or was it kind of through the video games that really got you into that, that mindset?
Ben: I would say probably, probably neither one really, um, I, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Um, I think in high school we did some, like, uh, I did some computer, um, I forget what the class was called, but me and like two other, two or three other kids we. Help basically build, build the computers for the school, like put the computers together and do some of the administration stuff.
So at that point I knew I liked computers. I went to college. Like when I went to college, I think at first I was thinking computer engineering, which is more about the design and building of [00:08:00] the actual hardware. Um, but then I took a couple computer science classes, um, just more about, you know, building apps and programming stuff, building software, and I really enjoyed that.
So, so, yeah. It wasn't until like my first year of college that I kind of figured out that computer science was pretty cool.
Riley: So was it, uh, was it a particular project you worked on that that kicked that off? Or what, what was the, what was the thing that lit the fire? Because this is now what you do for a living, right.
Ben: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think, I think it was just some of the, like the introductory classes on like computer science, like algorithms and data structures class, which a lot of people find to be kind of boring and difficult. But I, [00:09:00] I just enjoyed thinking in that way and like solving, like solving those kinds of problems.
And I think that's kind of when I knew that that's the, the direction I wanted to go.
Yeah.
Riley: for, for
who, when you say data sets and you used another technical word that I don't even know what it means, so can you help, help me out there, man? Help me, uh, define those for me.
Ben: Yeah, so data structures and algorithms was the class. So yeah, an algorithm is just, um, a set of steps that you would use to, um, solve a, a problem.
Um, so
Riley: Gimme
Ben: for example, like, uh, common, common one in computer science is a sorting algorithm. So if you have like a list of 10, 10 numbers, or let's say you have 10 index cards with numbers on 'em and you wanted to sort [00:10:00] 'em, um, what.
Let's say you lay 'em out on the table, so they're kind of in a random sequence and you wanna sort them in order. So you want the one to come first, two through 10. Um, so every time you swap a card, like that's a computer operation, that's gonna take some time. So you're looking for the most efficient way to, to sort the, the items.
So that's a pretty common algorithm. There's like probably a dozen different ways you can sort the cards. Um.
Riley: Well, I'm, I'm identifying a bit with what you're saying 'cause I have a, I don't know if you know this, I don't know how much you and Mark have talked, but a mobile oil change company and I wrote some, I don't even know if I wanna call it algorithm, but I wrote some code into the, to the back end of this, uh, program that I use and it predicts when my [00:11:00] customer's vehicles will be due for their next service.
Ben: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.
Riley: original version, it had an unnecessary step in there and that unnecessary step, I viewed it, kind of cause this like circular. Reasoning happening there where it had to like 10 times calculate the same thing before the final answer.
Ben: Yeah,
Riley: hit the report, I'd want
my monthly and it would take an hour to, to upload that report. And I'm like, what is the deal? So then I started digging into
Ben: yeah,
Riley: and I found
that this extra that step out. Now it takes seconds to make that same report. I'm pulling that one step out.
So is that what
Ben: yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty common in developing like. Developing algorithms is like, why is this taking so long? And then you, you know, finally figure it out. And that's like a thousand times faster [00:12:00] just from, from uh, changing a couple lines of code.
Riley: 'cause the stuff that I'm talking about, you know, it's sounds all sophisticated, but it's really, and it's not, you know, it's like these small little versions of what you're talking
Ben: Yeah,
Riley: Man, I banging my head on my desk, like, why is this not working like it's supposed to.
I know it sounds right, but oh, I forgot a comma.
Ben: yeah,
yeah, yeah. That would be,
Riley: that
look like in
Ben: be pretty common.
Riley: that stuff? Because I imagine
Ben: I do, yeah, all the time. Um, there's some fancy techniques you can use, but usually what what works best for me is, um, you know, find, find a way to reproduce the issue. And then I'll just add like some print, print statements. The code so that as the code is going, like when I'm here, it should, should do this.
So I put a print statement there and [00:13:00] then just run it and see like, what's it doing. And I spent a lot of time just writing things on sticky notes, like, this is how it should work. Like, I'm trying to get the algorithm into my head, compare it to the code and like, I don't know, sometimes it, it's just a matter of breaking the problem down into the simple, simplest parts and
um, just.
Riley: Is that, when you say of like a bookmark, like you can take it and say it works fine up till this point. And then what does it do from there? Is that, is that kinda what you're
Ben: Um, no. So what I'm, what I mean is like you run, you run the program and it, it'll, um, print the output like text to your screen. So you can see, like, you can see like a, just kind of a sequence of what the, what the, the code is doing. So it'll actually just, yeah, just put text on screen as it [00:14:00] goes sometimes with like a timestamp.
So you can see the program is starting and now it's entering into this part of the code and now it's
sorting this number.
Riley: you
Ben: Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Yeah,
Riley: Man,
Ben: yeah,
Riley: Didn't
Ben: yeah.
Riley: Oh my goodness.
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: awesome. So when you're,
um, you're developing these apps, like give us an example of what types of, of, of these applications you're, you're working on. I know it varies, it's a variety, but kind of gimme some examples of what you're building.
Ben: Yeah, so, so yeah, I've, I've launched, um, I've done six different apps for iOS and, um, originally I was looking for kind of like clever ideas or new ideas and trying to be more creative. So my first, [00:15:00] um, couple apps were more health and fitness related 'cause that's kind of what I'm interested in or was interested in at the time.
Um, my first app was a social body weight. Tracker. So, um, every morning you would like, log your weight or once a week, however often you want, and then you, your, your friends could follow you and see, just see your updates. Like
today,
Riley: See,
Ben: weighs, you know, 200 and whatever. I dunno.
Riley: you know, it's over 200 just by what you're seeing here. Huh?
[00:16:00]
Ben: Yeah. Just a wild guess. Just sticking for myself. Yeah.
Riley: when you said social body weight tracker, I'm picturing, I'm picturing like the meta glasses and you're just looking around seeing everybody's weight.
Ben: Yeah. Well, that's a good idea too. Yeah.
Riley: totally do it. I. When, when you are making these things, so what's, what's the first one [00:17:00] you did that Mark talked to me about you having a one that just kind of took off early
Ben: Yeah,
Riley: you still
kind of run and
Ben: Yeah,
Riley: that look like? What?
Ben: yeah. That's my, that was my fifth app. Um, it's called Toury, uh, it's a tour allowance app for built for families. Um,
Riley: Say that again.
Ben: it's a chores and allowance tracking app like for, for families with kids. Um, and so the, yeah, the idea is like as the parenter, you can go in and configure the chores, like make your bed, brush your teeth, and.
Um, walk the dog, et cetera. And for each chore you can, um, if you want, you can put like an allowance amount next to each chore. So when you make your bed, maybe that's worth 50 cents. Um, and then the kids will [00:18:00] still install the app on their phone or their tablet, and then every day they can go in and like mark off the chores as they do them.
And then that will add to their allowance. And, um, anyway, so that's the app idea, but as for like, what, what that looked like. Um,
yeah, so originally like, um.
I mean this, yeah, this was my fifth app. So by the time I got to this one, I was kind of getting to that point of being like a little bit frustrated. I'm not sure if, you know, if, if I was gonna figure this thing out or if I would have to go back to like full-time employment. Um, and so my wife, she, she suggests an idea of like, [00:19:00] what about an app for keeping track of house chores, house maintenance type stuff?
And so kind of at this point in my journey, I had learned that, um, the hardest part with building apps was finding customers. Um, and one of the lessons I had learned from my first few apps was I need, needed to actually build something that people were searching for. Um, specifically like on the app store, there's a search function and there's actually some software, um, and some, some kind of algorithms that people have figured out.
Like what? Like how do you, how do you actually rank for some of these search terms and how do you see what terms people are searching for? And so, um, I looked, looked [00:20:00] kinda, I dunno, at this point, all my ideas were starting to go through this filter of like, is there demand for this, this app? And if there is, what, what does the competition look like?
And so the chores, the chores idea was actually. Pretty good because there was good demand for it. And the existing apps weren't, um, weren't like too intimidating. Um, they didn't like scare me off. I felt like I could do something that was on par with that. Um, so yeah, so I spent, um, three or four months building the initial version, got it on the app store, and, um, it just kinda started showing some early signs of like, this, this role a little different than my other apps.
It never really like, it didn't [00:21:00] like explode, but it was just like consistent, steady download.
Riley: So do you, um, you had mentioned in there, Ben, this was your fifth app and that you had kind of started to clue in about that point that you needed to find something that already had some search terms attached to it so that you knew it was in demand.
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: were some of the other
ones you worked What, what, what were they about?
Ben: Um, yeah, so I got some fun, fun ones in there. My second app was, it was called Burpee Hero. Um, and the idea was like fitness gamification. So you would do, um, just some body weight exercises, burpees, pushups, sit ups and squats, though it was centered around those four different movements. And you would go into the app and you would log [00:22:00] any reps that you had done that day.
And as you did, you had like a little energy meter. So you, I think you start out with like. 30 energy. So if you do, um, 10 burpees and you log 'em, then your energy goes down to 20. And then if you do 20 more pushups, now your energy's at zero. But you would earn like points and you would earn coins, and then you could buy like energy drinks and you, you would level up your, your hero as you did, did more exercise.
And, um, so that was my, yeah, that was my second app. Um,
Riley: Um, did you, so apparently that one didn't, didn't take, is what you're saying?
Ben: right. Yeah. Yeah. It, it was, it was interesting because I would tell people about the idea and they would, they would [00:23:00] say it's a great idea. Like, sounds really cool. Um. And I like people were, were curious about it. Like I could get people to download it if I told 'em about it. They would download it and they would check it out, but they would not, um, retain as users.
Like, it just wasn't the, it wasn't really a sticky idea. It was kind of more of a novelty. So didn't really work as a, as a business, but it was fun to, fun to build and
fun to,
Riley: A lot of, so.
What you're kind of getting to is something that's interesting to me because we, we have a lot of ideas, especially entrepreneurs, man, there's a lot of ideas that we have. are good, some are not, you know, and some are just, they end up being, um, well, some are successful, some aren't. Right.
And
Ben: yeah.
Riley: how do [00:24:00] you,
you, you talked about search terms and finding things that, that are, uh, search searched. What, what other things are you doing to kind of gauge whether or not an idea is something you should pursue?
Ben: Um, so I think at the, this point in my journey, like I mentioned, retention, um, so for an app, retention is pretty important. Um, I started thinking about like, what are some, what are some ideas, what are some apps that people are gonna want to use like longer term? Um. Because, um, a lot of apps you, you'll use like a subscription model, and so if you can keep people around for longer, then that's more money in the long run and creates a [00:25:00] more sustainable business.
So, so yeah. Retention I would say is, is a big one that I think a lot about. Um, there, there's types of apps that you might use once or twice, like if you've got like some kind of a phone cleaner app or like a social media cleanup tool. Um, those are things that are useful, but you might only use 'em once.
Um.
Riley: Do you have, uh, gosh, there's so much going through my head that you're saying here right now, but when I, when I started my, me, when I started my electrolyte supplement brand, getting the flavors right was a huge deal for us, right? And so I would take, I would mix up some kind of prototype flavors and I would single serving them out in these little cups, and I would take 'em down to my teammates down at my Juujitsu school, I would feed them to these guys.
And then I'd have a homework sheet for them [00:26:00] to fill out that kind of told me what they thought of the flavor, if they thought it needed more flavor or more acidity, or more sweetness or less of any of those. And, they had to turn this back into me, right? And I had like 30 or 40 of the, of the members down there
Ben: Oh.
Riley: little experiment for
it, it lasted, you know, two and a half years of going back and forth with them before we finally got it to a place where. These guys were, liked the flavor, right? And so you mentioned this retention thing and how people said it was a good idea to do, do this, you know, burpee app. But, um, those are your friends, right?
And so what did you do to make sure that these guys were, were being brutally honest with you, right? Because you want that, like, if it sucks, you wanna know.
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: It's like I'm getting
ready to invest a
of money into this electrolyte, uh, and I'm, I'm going, man, I want the truth, you guys. If it's gonna hurt my feelings, hurt my feelings now before I spend a hundred grand and, [00:27:00] and then really have my feelings hurt 'cause you lied to me.
You know?
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: you do to kind of
feedback?
Ben: Oh man, that's a really good question. I still haven't completely unlocked the secret to that. 'cause I, I think people are like, they are being honest, but they're, they're just not, like, they don't, they don't know that, like, it's hard to distinguish what's, what's an interesting idea and what's gonna be like.
Useful in the long term? Like, like what are you gonna keep coming back to? Um, I, for me, the best tool I finally stumbled onto was, um, just emailing people when they would cancel. Um, like asked them, like was there a missing feature or something that they were looking for that the app just didn't have. [00:28:00] And so that's like when, when they get to the point of like making a decision to discontinue their subscription, um, asking for feedback at that point I think is the, the best thing I've found.
Um,
Riley: Did you find they were more willing to talk after they discontinued, or would they have been more willing to talk before they discontinued?
Ben: um. I think the type of feedback that I would get after they discontinued was maybe more valuable for me because I do have surveys like in the app for people that are using the app and enjoying the app. Um, but the, the tricky thing with them is like, they already like the app, they are using it, they're gonna continue to use it.
So what I get [00:29:00] from them a lot of times is like little, little things, little feature requests that they, they would enjoy, but it's not the type of thing that's gonna keep someone from canceling and it's not the type of thing that's really even gonna improve retention by that much. Um, so I find that the people that actually left the app sometimes have more, uh.
More important feedback, I guess.
Riley: Yeah, it's a little more, how to put it, almost a little more critical because maybe there's a little emotion involved, and
Ben: Yeah,
Riley: they tell you
little more
Ben: Yeah, And I, I think it depends a lot on the type of business you're running. Um, so for, for my case, it's like, it's a subscription consumer app. So I have, I rely on having a lot of users that pay [00:30:00] a, a small amount. Um, but I know in the case of like if I was a B2B type app, I would rely more on having, um, maybe smaller or fewer, but larger customers.
And so in, in those cases, like. I know it's good to pay a little more attention to your, your big customers and keep them happy and like figure out what, how to get more of those types of users. But in the consumer app business, it's very different.
[00:31:00]
Riley: I, I'm so fascinated with that because you're, you know, you mentioned taking four months to develop app.
Ben: yeah.
Riley: And
I want people to kind of do the math on that, right? If you had to take four months of. No income in order to develop the thing a big time investment. Right? And
Ben: Mm-hmm.
Riley: uh, that can
kind of come with Now,
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: I talked about the financial
investment I did,
It was years in developing my electrolyte. But then you, you're also there, there's this big chasm between you and in the monetary return of that product,
right?
Ben: Yeah. [00:32:00]
Riley: Uh, what
did you have to get through that? Man, that's, that's scary stuff.
Ben: Yeah. Yeah, it is. Um, yeah, it was intimidating for sure. So, let's see. So some parts of this story that I kind of left off was like, so after I worked at Clearwater for 10 years, um, we got our house paid off. Um, my wife and I, we don't, we don't have any kids, so have fairly low burn rate. Um, and then she works, you know, part-time as a personal trainer, um, had some money in savings.
And before I left my job, I had actually started another little web application. This was. Like 10 years ago. But I built some software that did, uh, like technical phone interviews. [00:33:00] This was something I had built actually while I worked at Clearwater, kind of on the side. Um, but when I worked there, we, we spent a lot of time hiring other software developers and we found that sometimes we would bring people in to the office or even fly them in to the office.
And then within like 15 minutes we realized this person didn't know how to write code and it's kind of important for, for the, the job role. So, so I built this little piece of software that made it so we could do some coding interviews over the phone. And, uh, that I grew that to the point where like, we, um.
I made enough between my wife and I to like sustain our cost of living, and that was kind of the, kind of the first step to, [00:34:00] to going full time on entrepreneurship, but
Riley: that is kinda a man after my own heart. And that, because I, you know, I'm, I'm just a debt-free fanatic. I, I love that you do talk about low burn rate and your ability to have, to have options in life. You have more because you don't have this giant, you know, pile of expenses coming in every month.
And that, uh. man.
Ben: Hm.
Riley: just the thought that
had you choice regarding that, you may have never had the opportunity to build the business you have. Right.
Ben: Yeah,
yeah, exactly.
Riley: It's
Ben: Because yeah, like you say, I mean, it was very intimidating at first, but once I had, once I had the income, like, I think the first thing I did was I asked my employer if I could just take a leave of absence. And, um, [00:35:00] so that way if it didn't work out, I could come back and, and they, they were fine with that.
And, and yeah, it worked out well enough that I was able to, you know, just keep going and, and that business like, it, it didn't, like, it didn't really. Continue growing like I had hoped it would. So there were several years, I think, I think it was about eight years of like just breaking even, um, just making enough to, to to stay alive and keep, keep trying new ideas.
And, um, it was, yeah, it was a long journey for sure. But I think in the back of my mind I knew that like, if I needed to, I could, you know, go back, go back to, to the employed life. And
so
the risk was pretty.
Riley: I think that's so I hear guys [00:36:00] talk about it, you know, these, you know. Instagram entrepreneur gurus, and they're always like, you gotta burn the ships. So you're motivated to go and you, you didn't burn the ships, man. You, you kept that with your employer as an option.
You had, pared your lifestyle down by being smart with your money and paying your house off. And, you know, you were, you had, uh, part-time income from your wife's income and you were doing all these things to prepare yourself so that you could withstand the dip in front of the development of this other app.
And I, people to hear that because that's the wisdom there, man, is that's a big deal to me. You know, people, they, they wanna do some big things, but they don't calculate the risk. They don't calculate the time it's gonna take, and then they their lifestyle up to a point where, you know, they can't not work for any period of time.
And you did some smart stuff there, dude.
Ben: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it was, I'm a [00:37:00] very safe, safe person. Like I don't, don't like to take risks, so that helped a lot.
Riley: and that's the thing is there's, there's enough risk already in, in the entrepreneur lifestyle, right. add more to it. Just because, you know, we want to get the cart before the horse is, is crazy to me.
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: Um, and what I have kind of a, a slightly off question from where we're, where we're kind of at right now in the conversation, but I've got a buddy who's got an idea for a, for an app that he wanted to have developed.
Man. He's talked to five, or maybe even seven or eight different, uh, app developer guys now. And every one of 'em has just like flaked out. They just kind of stopped talking to him and ghost him. And it's been the weirdest experience for him. Is there, what is it do you think these guys to be so flaky?[00:38:00]
Ben: Oh man, that's, yeah, that's a good question. Is it like, have they entered into like a business relationship or is it more of like a split the equity
type
arrangement?
Riley: like, Hey, I'm gonna
you to me. Sort of
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: of a deal. And
yeah, they'll talk to him for a little bit and kind of a few ideas back and forth about what they think might work. And then they just disappear.
Ben: Yeah,
Riley: like, won't talk to 'em
anymore. And I
uh, hey, they're, you know, they're just overloaded with their day job and they're, you know, or if, like you said, maybe they really don't know how to code and his project's too big for him. I don't know, man. You know, maybe it's, there's some insight you have in that.
Ben: yeah. I honestly, I don't know. I, I, yeah, I've had a few people ask me about like, how do you, how do you find a developer to hire? And I, I, I just don't have much experience with that 'cause I just do it all [00:39:00] myself. And
so, Yeah.
Riley: yeah.
Ben: know.
Riley: a question. other projects for, uh, side gigs like that?
Ben: No, not, yeah, not really. I, like, I have enough ideas on my own, like things I wanna do. I've, yeah. Yeah. I, I do get that question from time to time and, um, I find that, like, I, for me, me personally, like I, I like to kind of keep my life simple and focus on like one thing at a time. And right now it's choy and then I've got, got other ideas I wanna, I wanna do on my own.
So
like,
Riley: Getting
Ben: not enough time.
Riley: can be dangerous to you,
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: switch
gears a little bit. hear about your CrossFit stuff. 'cause you, if I, if I heard Mark right, you've [00:40:00] done some competition, it's been a big part of your life. You're, and I don't know if it's CrossFit in particular, I use that term.
I know that's kind of a brand name, but
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: in general. Uh, can
you talk about Kinda what spurred that on and, and know, where you're taking it and maybe where you're going with the, on your fitness journey?
Ben: yeah, yeah. Honestly, it's, it's kind of, it's always been more of a hobby, I would say. Um, done. The competitions I've done have been just kind of like local, smaller competitions, but, um, I think what I really enjoy is finding things that I can, um, things that I can just practice and get better at. I enjoy the, uh, the training process and so, so.
Um, I played sports in high school and then did, did some weight lifting, like in college, just [00:41:00] like in the gym, just trying to get stronger. Um, and then I had a few ary years where was just working, put on a little, little weight and just kind of wasn't taking real good care of my health. But then my wife, Leah, she's always been very into fitness and um, I think her and her brother kind of introduced her to CrossFit, um, and started, started doing that.
Um, and see that was 2015 I believe we started doing CrossFit and um, I. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because there's, there's just a lot of variety. Like, there's always different things to, to train. There's the strength aspect and then there's the, just [00:42:00] the endurance, the aerobic stuff. There's a lot of different skills.
Like, uh, there's like double under jump ropes. There's, um, handstand pushups, handstand walking, there's pull-up, there's the, uh, CrossFit style pull-ups, which are, um,
kind of a spectacle of their own. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a lot of different things. Um, one of my favorite moves is probably the, the ring muscle ups.
Um,
those are,
Riley: Oh
Ben: those are fun. But, um, so yeah, started into that and just like. Found a lot of different things that I could work on. Like just, I just enjoy, like, just enjoy working on things like practicing, practicing kind of on my own and like figuring out what, what are my weaknesses and [00:43:00] how can I hone those things?
And,
and I had,
Riley: find that you're attracted to long-term projects like that? Like here's why I ask.
Ben: yeah.
Riley: uh, was in the a while, just, uh, like running or triathlon type stuff, and I noticed that. I would train for these big events. I'd get to the event, I would do I to complete it. And the next day I am like, well, now what do I do?
'cause my training schedule's done. Like I, you know, I guess I better just find another event and start training for that one. You know? And I, that let down. so after a few of those, I decided, you know what, Brazilian jiujitsu thing sounds really cool. 'cause that's one to, to, to get a black belt.
And that's like a decade, maybe, you know, 10 to 15 years of, of this drive towards a thing. And it, it, it sounds to me like maybe you're talking a little bit along the same lines as these long-term [00:44:00] projects. Like what, what can I learn? What can I discover about myself through this? And, you know, not just hit a goal in three months and then what I'm gonna do next.
You know?
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: Can you,
can you
Ben: Yeah. I, yeah, I think, I think for me, um, a little, yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't think I really experienced the let down as much because I, um. I just enjoy the process of it. Like the, I do do find, maybe it's kind of a personal weakness that like when I get to the competitions, I'm not even like that.
Um, competitive, I guess. Like I don't care too much whether I come in first or third or 10th, like, um, I, I, I just, I'm just happy to like, do [00:45:00] my best and then get back to the gym the next day and work on like whatever needs improvement. And I, I kind of enjoy just, yeah, like I said, just the, the training aspect of it.
Like there's always room to grow and, um, and actually, yeah, kinda kinda ran into some issues with CrossFit, where like started kinda got to the point where, um. I guess I kind of wasn't improving as much anymore because I kinda maxed out all the, the newbie gains and like, as I try to get stronger, like joints start hurting and like start accumulating some injuries and, and that, that became, yeah, that became a whole, whole nother challenge.
But, um,[00:46:00]
Riley: Talk about the, the injuries part of that. 'cause I know that's, that's kind of in the metasphere of people talking about their CrossFit journeys, that that's common, man, where you get, I have a friend who was doing, I don't even know what you call it, I'm just not much of a weight lifter, but I wanna say it was cleans where she flips the barbell up and when she
Ben: yeah.
Riley: back into a
squat, her
Ben: Oh, yeah.
Riley: her
Ben: Yeah.
Heard of that happening. Yeah.
Riley: bad with that and I, you know, it's been two years ago or something, but talk about that man. 'cause like I said, when you get stronger, bigger weights and you're, know, doing them at the fast paced, kind of high rep, you know,
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: version, sometimes there are
injuries there. what did you experience and how did you deal with it?
Ben: Yeah. For, for me it was more overuse injuries. So like my, my knee just just started hurting after a while, like when I would go heavy, like [00:47:00] just started hurting. And, um, and so my strategy there was kind of, kind of maybe overly. I'm, I've always been kind of hesitant to like, ask for help, so I'm just try to figure it out on my own.
Um, I just like back off and do less, do less squats and focus on other things for a while and then, and then my shoulder would start hurting and slowly, like I found there, there just wasn't much I could work on. And I think my problem was I was working out like seven days a week. Um, and I just wasn't, wasn't balanced in my, my training.
I was just doing, doing too much. And, uh, so yeah, I just needed to learn, learn to learn [00:48:00] to do less, I guess,
more.
Riley: does it look like for you now if,
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: know, 'cause it sounds like you pull back
from seven days
So what, what does, what does staying fit look like for you now?
Ben: I act. Yeah, I actually took, took about two years off from CrossFit and just came home, like we've got a pretty good gym set up at home, so I just lift like three days a week and maybe run
a week. Um,
Riley: Mm-hmm.
Ben: but I've slowly eased back into it. Um, definitely missed the, uh, the community aspect of it and missed the, just the, the extra gear that, like, I, I have a hard time working out alone, um, kind of soft on myself.
Like, I don't, I don't push, but if I'm, if I'm in the gym environment or the CrossFit environment, especially, like I can go a little harder. So nowadays I, I go like two or three days a week to [00:49:00] CrossFit and then I work out two days a week actually with, with Mark Marks. Um. And then I might do one other workout a week, so maybe four to five days a week currently, and find, find, that's a pretty good balance for me.
Ben: So,
Riley: Oh, that's pretty cool, man. 'cause I [00:50:00] think that happens a lot where, and maybe you could give some advice on this, Ben. Um, I, I've seen more people will start a new workout routine and. They go in too hard, too fast, and then they're so sore the next day the day after that they, it's several days before they can get another workout in.
There's enough time goes by where they're almost discouraged. They don't wanna go through that pain again. And so what's your advice of getting somebody from that, know, sedentary stage into actual fitness without that stinking discouragement that happens when you get, or you overdo it?
Ben: yeah. Yeah, it's hard. Um. It's hard because, I mean, there is always the temptation to go go real hard and I still still make that mistake from, from time to time. But, um, I think you gotta figure out like how to, how to motivate [00:51:00] or motivate yourself to stay consistent because, 'cause consistency is, is what, um, brings about the, the long term results.
So for me it's been a lot of like figuring out how to control my, my ego, um. You know, in, in CrossFit, you, you show up and there's a, there's a workout that's prescribed for the day and they usually have weights that they suggest. And, um, there, there's a lot of days when I know like, my shoulder doesn't feel great today, so I probably shouldn't do the workout, but I know I could, and I know I could probably beat some of the people that I'm usually competing with.
And so it's like, I need to, I need to just stay, [00:52:00] say no and like scale appropriately, do something else. Um, and just, just getting better at that has been pretty, uh, pretty helpful, pretty important for me. Um, and. Yeah. And then also just, just finding something you enjoy I think is, is important. Um, because like, doing,
doing, yeah. It comes back to consistency. Like if you have something you can enjoy and can do for, for the long run, that's gonna work a lot better than trying to do the perfect program a hundred percent and burning out.
Riley: I kind of hear you saying that you're. To do a, a lesser workout maybe that day, but still be there doing something is better than it's [00:53:00] all or nothing. Kind of a mentality,
Ben: Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's, yeah,
that's a good one.
Riley: man? listen, can we, uh, change some to some lighter
Ben: Yeah. Yeah,
that'd be good.
Riley: here a little Um, Ben, this is called the Go Earn Your Salt podcast. And, you know, we've talked entrepreneur stuff, we've talked fitness stuff, and kind of, uh, where we, we earn our salt. But when you hear that term, go earn your salt, what does it mean to you?
Ben: Um, for me, I think of food I like, I mean, I like salt on my food, but I, I mean, I think for me, like part of the reason I enjoy fitness is 'cause I can eat, like, eat more food and like a, a good heart, good hard workout is to, [00:54:00] is a good way to earn like, some, some calories and some, some, uh, yeah, some more food and put some, some salt on the, on that steak and enjoy it.
But, um. Yeah, that's, that's, that's what comes to mind for me.
Riley: man. What's, um, of the CrossFit, what's your favorite pastime
Ben: Um, let's see. Lately I've been getting into Jess a little bit. Um, I got, yeah, I guess that the other one is like
Jess and then
Riley: I
Ben: been working on making smash burgers, like trying to perfect my smash burger recipe. Um,
Riley: about that. So
Ben: yeah.
Yeah.
Riley: Um,[00:55:00]
you got some culinary in there too, huh?
Ben: A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I've done some baking over the years and you know, currently it's focused on the, the smash burger working on like buns and the, the burger itself use my Blackstone and, uh,
trying to
perfect that recipe,
Riley: what's us who suck at smash burgers?
Ben: um, you gotta buy one of the, the Debbie like presses that's, uh, made out of like cast iron. Um, first couple times I tried the, the spatula method, like you can, you can take the two spatulas and like press it down, but, um, you really want the meat to like stick to the grill, um, because it makes that nice crust and.[00:56:00]
What I found with the, the spatula limit method is like as soon as you let go, the burger kind of like springs and cooks and doesn't really get quite the, the same level of crust. So yeah, I usually use the, use the Smasher with some wax paper and like I'll leave it on, I actually let it sit on there for a good, you know, 15 seconds before I move on to the next, the next burger.
But
Riley: used, um. and try and the smash burger thing out. I've used a cast iron pan on top of the burger to smash it
Ben: oh yeah,
Riley: but sometimes I,
Ben: probably work.
Riley: I have to put so
much pressure my grill in, man. So
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: do, uh, so there's a, there's a question I ask on this podcast oftentimes right about now anyways, so since we're talking about hamburgers, when you build a smash burger, do [00:57:00] you put the veggies above the meat or below the meat?
Ben: Um, I recently started putting the pickles on the bottom, um, which is something I learned when I went to, uh, have you been to the, uh, have called smashed alley? Um, it's, uh, it's, it's in downtown Boise and they, they make smash burgers. Um, so I went there a few months ago and that's how they did it. They put the pickles and the mustard on the bottom, so, and then I put the rest veggies on top.
But,
Riley: the
Ben: um, I, I think it reduces the, the slippage.
Um.
Riley: which is important,
Ben: Uh,
Riley: [00:58:00] we like smash burgers is 'cause
they don't shift
Ben: yeah. Yeah. If you stack too many vegetables, they, they get pretty slippery. Um, I think having the pickles on the bottom works works pretty well because I still do like a lettuce and a tomato, um, and grilled onions, I put all those on the top and
pickles on the bottom.
Riley: in your, or they patty or they actually on top.
Ben: Um, I do 'em separately. I just put 'em on top. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't tried the smashing 'em into the patty method yet, but it seems like it's pretty,
Riley: Yeah. you, you've got me thinking about smash burgers now. Dang. There you go. But I think I just, just for the record, and it's probably come out in the podcast before, but I think it's unacceptable. Put veggies below the burger. see it. If you stick a couple pickles down there, I'm probably okay with that.
But when I go to a restaurant and get a burger and the veggies are below, it's, [00:59:00] send it back time, I think.
Ben: Yeah. Offensive, huh? Yeah. I don't, I don't know if I've tried the other veggies on the bottom. It's never, never even occurred to me.
Riley: Don't, just don't, don't do it. Don't do it. If it does, don't. If you, if you do it, don't tell anybody. It's, it's a reputation burner. What's, uh, the scariest moment of your life?
Ben: That's a good question. Um, trying to think like, I'm not, like I said, I'm pretty, pretty safe person in general. I don't do too many risky things. Um, I think.
I don't know. The, the thing that's come to mind is kind of just, again, the maybe heavier topic of entrepreneurship and those years of like, like after my [01:00:00] fourth app wasn't really working, just like kind of the fear that I wasn't, wasn't gonna figure, figure out and, um, I don't know, just feeling kinda like a, like a failure in a way.
Like,
like I've spent a lot of time trying this and has have not, have not figured it out yet. And the, yeah, the, even the income from, from that, that first web app was, you know, starting to trail off and like, I was feeling like this would be getting close to the. To the end of my entrepreneurial journey.
That was, that was pretty scary.
Well,
Riley: sure,
man, because there's a
goes on with that. Gosh.
Ben: yeah.
Riley: Do you
Talking about that, how you, you remember the [01:01:00] first person who purchased from you app that you didn't know that was is that still fresh?
Ben: Um, not, yeah, not, not really. Not for me. It, it wasn't, uh, wasn't a huge moment. I think maybe, maybe I remember the first like online sale I made back with my, my coding interview app. Like that was kind of a, kind of a, an exciting thing. Um. But I, I can't say I remember exact details on it, but I think by the time I got to apps, like I was a little more accustomed to just making, making some sales and,
Riley: Yeah, that's a, that's an interesting thing 'cause I, it stands out so much to me. You know, when we had our first, we called them bro sales at first, right? When all our friends and family and all our bros
were [01:02:00] ordering the electrolyte product. And same thing with my lube business. You
Ben: Mm-hmm.
Riley: I remember it
was started family that were having us come change their oil and work on their cars. But it was when the first ones started to come in that were not people that I knew outside or, you know, knew personally. I,
to me so much, man. I'm just like, okay.
Ben: yeah,
Riley: Folks who
don't are doing this as this means. It must be. It must be okay,
Ben: yeah, yeah. That's, yeah, that's important. And I think I've even like. Over the last, over the years, like I, nowadays, I don't really even tell people that I know about my apps so much. 'cause I don't like, I, I value the sales from people who don't, don't know me a little bit more and I value their feedback a little bit more because I think, kind as we were speaking about earlier, they're more likely to do it just 'cause the app is good and [01:03:00] not because they're trying to do me a favor or,
Riley: yeah. No,
Ben: yeah.
Riley: sure, man. Um,
Ben, what's something that is on your bucket list that you wanna, you wanna do?
Ben: Yeah. No, it's another good question I haven't thought a whole lot about. Um, I think I, I think I just wanna do some more traveling like. See some more countries haven't been to, to Europe yet. Um, I think, yeah, yeah, that'd probably probably be,
be months.
Riley: a place that's
top of the top of
Ben: Um, I think, let's see, no, probably just like, uh, probably [01:04:00] Spain and Italy would probably be those places. Sound kind of, kind of cool. So.
Riley: For sure. I've always wanted to see castles, man. I
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: European castles will be
They'll just be so cool.
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: man, what's a
favorite you would recommend everyone reads.
Ben: Um, I really like the book mindset. I, Carol Dweck, um, read that a couple years ago and it really helped, really helped me, um, kind of get through some of the, some of those difficult times. Like, uh, just believing that like I, I could continue to improve and I could, you know, figure this thing out and I wasn't, wasn't, wasn't stuck.
Riley: it's uh, you found that book when you're in [01:05:00] need of it, huh?
Ben: Yeah. Yeah.
Riley: I kind of. I always turn 'em, they kind of hit you where you're at, you know? I love those. I love it when I'm in the middle of something and I find the book that speaks to it and
Ben: yeah.
Riley: That's pretty
cool. That Um, well listen man, where, um, where can you be found your, the name of your applicant?
It's called Choy.
Ben: Cho Z. Yeah,
yeah,
Riley: I like in the Google App Store and then on Apple.
Ben: yeah,
Riley: called. I'm an
Ben: yeah, yeah. It's on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Um, it's got a website, cho z.com, but
um, that's,
probably the best place.
Riley: it, spell it
Ben: Uh, C-H-O-R-S-E-E.
Riley: Okay.
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: Awesome man.
Ben: Yeah. That's probably the best place to find me. I'm [01:06:00] not real
Riley: I'm gonna
Ben: cool.
Riley: um,
to your website there so people can find that if they'd like. And then, uh, yeah man. Well I appreciate you coming on today, Ben. I, been a cool conversation you got. kind of fascinating to me 'cause there's a lot of, it's a lot of the emotion you talked about and just a lot of the steps of development and stuff are pretty easy for other entrepreneurs to identify with.
Man, we've all been there, we've all been scared, we've all been excited. We've all, you know, it's trying to figure out whether our friends are, you know, giving us the brutal truth that we need to, to make a venture worth it.
Ben: Yeah.
Riley: all those
subjects we man. I appreciate you coming on.
Ben: Cool. Yeah. Thanks Riley. I had had a good time.
Riley: Ben, go earn your salt, my friend.
[01:07:00]