Ep 413: Do You Need an App? | Josh Hotsenpiller Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Oh boy. I just had the best and most enlightening conversation. And it’s like one of those conversations that when you have it, you’re like, oh, I really need to tell somebody else about this. Usually the first victim is my husband and he’s always getting infiltrated with all the new things that I’m hearing and learning, but today to you. So welcome. Here’s what we’re gonna talk about for the next just few minutes. I’d like to keep these short, sweet, and simple. But I was recently having a conversation with a newer friend of mine. His name is Josh Hotsenpiller, and he’s the founder and CEO of this awesome company called Juno, which we happen to be using to build the new brand builders group app. And so I also have another great friend, Amanda Mariachi, who also owns a company called appt.
AJV (00:46):
They build custom apps. And you know, apps are a big conversation, right? They’re a big topic, they’re really expensive, take a ton of time. And so I’m always so curious to go like, how much does it cost to do that? And you know, there’s so many apps out there. I’m like, all these people spent all this money making these apps. How long did it take? And it’s like, the more you get into it, it’s like, wow, like that’s really expensive. It takes a lot of time. And so I was having this conversation with Josh about building and creating apps, and he cut me off right in the beginning, which is always a good sign, something good’s gonna happen. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is the wrong conversation to have. The conversation is not do you need an app? The conversation is what problem are you trying to solve?
AJV (01:31):
And is one of the solutions an app? And I thought that was so wise and so simply stated because, you know, we at Brand Builders group, like every other human out on the planet gets distracted by what’s happening in the market, what’s happening all around us, what our friends are doing, what our competitors are doing. Just what’s happening, right? And it’s like everyone needs an app. And the truth is, no, you don’t. Not everyone needs an app. Not everyone needs this. Not everyone needs that. And I thought it was just a wise thing for someone who owns an app company to go, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wrong conversation. It is not, do you need an app or How much should I spend on an app? Or, you know, at what point do I get an app? He goes, all the wrong things. All you need to figure out is what are the main problems in your business?
AJV (02:22):
And then could an app be one of the solutions? Because it’s definitely not the only one. And it really got me thinking, you know, we started this app conversation, this app journey months and months and months and months ago. And really the problem that we have been trying to solve at Brand Builders Group is consolidation, right? It’s like up until now we have had a private Facebook group for a lot of our community interaction. We have used Thinkific as our L M Ss. We use Keep as our, you know C R M, but we use Teams
AJV (02:58):
For internal Chat. We have all listservs for days for our community. But it’s like, in order to really get the full picture of all things Brain Builders Group, it’s like we have our course curriculum, our course content, and think if that you use several different, you know, landing pages to register for events or register for virtual trainings. You can come live, you can come in person, you go to our Facebook group for daily interactions, and we have a growing number of people who are like, I refuse to log into Facebook. How else can I get engaged? And we haven’t really had an answer. And what we were solving that we weren’t even clear that we were solving is our big problem is consolidation. How do we create a platform, a go-to place where you can come in to one place to get access to every single thing that we do at Brand Builders Group?
AJV (03:46):
Log into your affiliate commission statements and sign up for a referral program. Register for an event attend a live event happening right now. Chat with our community, join a forum, watch course content gamification, see leaderboards. And we were using so many fragmented tools to make that happen. It just so happens an app was the solution for our unique problem. We just went and reverse order, didn’t do it in the right order. Luckily, it all worked out in our favor. However, I just thought that was a really powerful conversation to have. And not just about an app, but about technology in general. It’s not, do you need a C R M or do you need an L M s or do you need this? It’s no, no, no, no, no. Wrong questions. What problem are you trying to solve for your business? And what technology could help?
AJV (04:42):
What problem are you trying to solve in your business? What’s the biggest problem you’re trying to overcome right now? And then is there, and then what technology could help? Super simple conversation today, but was one of those aha. You know, like ding ding, dinging moments. And I wanted to just stop in a moment and record this for you of going, it’s like we get distracted by all the shiny objects. We all have a little bit of squirrel syndrome, right? It’s like shiny object swirl. And this is a great moment to go. Like just because it’s out there doesn’t mean you need it. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to. But get focused and get centered on what problem are you trying to solve. And then what and if technology or if technology can do it, and then what technology is out there that can actually help solve that problem. So hope this helped you. It was an aha for me. I’ll catch you next time. See you later.