Ep 304 | Grow and Scale Authentically with Deirdre Tshien

Growing pains are an inevitable part of any organization's journey, whether you're a nonprofit or a tech startup. In this episode, I sit down with Deirdre Tshien, co-founder and CEO of Capsho, to explore the challenges and triumphs of scaling a business in the ever-evolving AI landscape.

Navigating the Ups and Downs of Growth

Deirdre shares her candid experiences of:

• Pivoting and refining Capsho's focus in response to market changes
• Balancing innovation with staying true to the company's core mission
• Overcoming the temptation to please everyone and learning to say “no”

The Power of Listening to Your Audience

Discover why tuning into your community's needs is crucial for sustainable growth:

• How Capsho uses customer feedback to guide product development
• The importance of validating ideas before investing resources
• Strategies for prioritizing features that truly serve your audience

Staying Focused in a Competitive Landscape

Deirdre offers insights on:

• Managing imposter syndrome when faced with new competitors
• The value of “staying in your own lane” and focusing on your unique strengths
• Cultivating an abundance mindset in a crowded market

Lessons for Nonprofits

While Capsho isn't a nonprofit, Deirdre's experiences offer valuable takeaways for mission-driven organizations:

• The importance of setting clear priorities and avoiding mission drift
• How to approach growth opportunities with a critical eye
• Balancing innovation with staying true to your core purpose

Whether you're considering a new initiative, struggling with decision-making, or feeling overwhelmed by competition, this conversation will inspire you to approach growth with intention and confidence.

Want to Skip Ahead? Here are Some Key Takeaways.

04:40 Mindset for Growth and Scalability Explore the mindset needed for business growth, focusing on setting immediate, achievable goals rather than long-term projections. It is import to stay adaptable in rapidly changing industries and maintain focus on core objectives while managing growth.
09:20 Focusing on Core Mission and Adapting to Market Changes Capsho when through a journey of refining its product and target audience. It's always important to stay true to the company's mission while being responsive to market changes and customer needs. Discusses strategies for prioritizing development and expansion decisions.
17:57 Validating Ideas and Prioritizing Resources It's Important to validate new ideas through customer willingness to pay. Explore strategies for prioritizing limited resources and the challenges of saying no to seemingly good opportunities that don't align with core objectives.
24:09 Listening to Users and Managing Competition Listen to paying customers for product development decisions. Manage imposter syndrome and stay focused on your own goals in a competitive market. Tune out the noise and stay true to your mission.

Full Transcript

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
One of the hardest things I think about owning a business, growing a nonprofit, trying to reach more people scale, is growing pains at every stage of our organization. No matter what it is, there's always kind of that thing that next hire do we need? Like we need to make or like, how do we get to that next threshold of fundraising? How do we reach that next caliber of foundations or grants, there's always something, and even when we celebrate the wins and hit those targets, you know, you kind of struggle with okay, but now we need to invest again in our organization to do some of these things, and it can be scary. And I'm really excited about our guest today, because she has a software company, and they've had to pivot. They've had to niche down, they've had to evolve. They've grown and learn from their customers and learn from those around them to kind of figure out where's the next best place they want to invest in their organization. So for you, if you're thinking, Okay, well, where are we going to spend the money in order to make the most impact? I think that's a really hard thing for nonprofits to do. Those Growing Pains really hurt a lot, and so I'm really excited for you to take a listen to this podcast. If you're in a space where you're like, Yeah, we have some things we want to do. We need to expand. We need to get a new physical location, or a bigger location, or we need to invest in some software or CRM, or whatever it might be, that fear of, will we be able to continue to support it? Will we be continuing to grow? Will the funds still come in? This is what we're talking about today. And my guest today is Deirdre shin. She is the co founder and CEO of CAP show, the fastest way to get clients from your content. Cap show is an AI powered content marketer that helps entrepreneurs who podcast, vlog and live stream create repurposed content that converts from one audio or video upload. Cap show helps create little descriptions, social media posts, blog posts, lead magnets, LinkedIn, newsletter, images and short video clips. We are using cap show for our show notes, so you you definitely can check it out. It's been really helpful. We're using it for social media posts, but we can talk more about that at another time. She is the creator of the honey trap method, author of honey trap marketing, and host of the win with content game. She is a 2023 honoree of the 100 women to know in America. Such a great conversation. I really appreciate her authenticity, her openness about the growth of her organization, Cap show, and while it's not a nonprofit, there's so many amazing ways that you can take what she's learned and apply it to your business as well. So I really think you're going to enjoy this episode, and you'll have to let me know if you want to know more about CAP show and how we're using it. Email me hello at the first click.net. I'd love to talk to you about it, but before we get into this episode, it is brought to you, of course, by do good university. So if you're looking for a place to support you or your team in offline and online marketing strategies, online and offline fundraising strategies, this is the go to place for small to medium sized nonprofits, you've got an event that you want to maximize, if you're just not quite making as much money with your paddle raise or fund a need, if you're struggling with how to message, how you're talking to people, one on one, conversations with donors. How do you retain donors? How do you make the most and get marketing done with your small team? That is what we do inside of do good university. And my favorite part is that Patrick Kirby and I Kirby and I go live every single week to answer your questions, and it's just for the community, so you can come and learn alongside like minded professionals who are struggling with the same things you are, get your questions answered, or even just come and learn, hear what other people are working on, get inspired and increase your impact so you can learn more about do good university at thefirstclick.net/dgu, that's the letter U, and sign up for a free two week trial. Come hang out with us for a couple weeks. See all of the amazing resources that are on the back end of the platform. I would love to see you there. And if you have questions about this again, hello at the first click.net, I'd love to answer them for you, or even hop on a quick call and see if this is something that's something that's the right fit for you. Let's get into the episode.

Intro
You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits, and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Hey, friends, please join me in welcoming Deidre Shen to the podcast. Deidre, thanks for being

Deirdre Tshien
here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about this chat. Yeah, I

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
love the conversation about growth and scalability from a mindset perspective, because I think a lot of times we have conversation about this, and you hear people talk about, oh, I'll help you get to six figures, or I can help you raise a million dollars and and really it's more just about, how can we like process that. Our brains to even understand how we can get there. So I would love for you to just start with kind of, maybe a story, or kind of how you've worked through growth, because I know you have a very successful business and and maybe your own personal journey with how you've had to kind of tackle that mindset side of growth and scalability yourself. Yeah, it's

Deirdre Tshien
so it's crazy because anyone who starts any kind of project, whether it's a business or anything really, it's so it's sometimes it's so hard. Like, we either project really, really far, like you went, like, we're like, this successful, like, super, you know, like on our private yachts, or whatever that dream is, right? We either like project all the way there, or we literally have no clue as to what growth could look like and where that could take us. So it's actually a really, really funny concept when you think about it, you know, just like, yeah, just just conceptually. And that's always what I think I've struggled with, you know, like, even when, and I know this is kind of taking a little bit of a tangent, but I'll come back definitely, to your question. But you know, every time someone's asked me in like, whether it's a mastermind setting or, like, a, you know, and they're like, What is your five year goal? Or, you know, What's your ultimate and, you know, I'm like, I actually don't know, like, really, right now, all I'm focused on is building a sustainable business that can be profitable and, like, that's literally, you know, the next thing in front of me. And so, you know, I guess that sort of speaks to a bit of, like, my mindset to growth. It's, you know, I probably don't, I've tried, but I've struggled to, always to follow the quote, unquote rule book around. Yeah, you know, project yourself five years out, and, you know, work backwards from there. Because I'm like, Man, five years, especially when you talk about business, is a lifetime. It is like things change so drastically. You know, even in one year, even in six months. I'm like, How do I even think about five years? You know, so mindset wise, for me, as it pertains to growth, it's, it's really like, Okay, what? What is the immediate next goal that we're trying to get to? You know, for us, it might be acquiring users. So, you know, we just, we were, our next goal is to get 50 more users into cap show, for example, or, you know, whatever that is. And then what do we need in place to actually facilitate that? Because it's not as easy as just, like, you know, market more. I mean, yes, that's the starting but then, like, but then there's, you know, that either the infrastructure that the stuff that has to support that as well, on an ongoing basis. Because ultimately, if you want to build a sustainable business, like, that's all the stuff that you have to think through. So yeah, it does get into, you know, more of the tangible, nitty gritty when I think about growth, I guess,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
well, and I love that as an answer, because you're in the tech AI space, which to your point, like, five years from now, who knows what that's even gonna look like. And so I think you're doing yourself a disservice by having a five year plan, because you're not allowing yourself the ability to kind of evolve and interact with the industry as it is growing also, and I think for nonprofits also in this space, the parallel there that I'd run is, regardless of how you feel about the politics of this country, it is changing on a daily basis. And so same thing is true. Like as we think about growth of our organization, it's more how can we stay hyper focused on what we want to do and kind of shut out the noise? So I love your example of, okay, let's get hyper specific. We need 50 new subscribers. How do we do that? And then kind of focusing on that, as opposed to the big picture? Because the other thing that I'll say is, from the nonprofit side, is a lot of times our our problem we're trying to solve is so big that if we think about it as a whole picture, it's overwhelming, and then we get lost in, kind of, where do we go and what's that next step? So how have you in your organization kind of managed that also in the there's so many things we can do, there's so many things we're excited about. How do we hyper focus on, like, what is part of our mission or vision, and like, kind of stay true to where we do want to go. Yeah,

Deirdre Tshien
and that has been a journey like, let me tell you. So, you know, even if I talk about CAP show itself, so we've, we launched in mid 2022, so we're coming up to, you know, kind of three to two and a half years she is now. And like, in that two and a half years. And this is what I mean, like, time in business is just not even relative, like, it's crazy, like, we have had so many iterations of our product because, and it's been because of the I guess we when we think that we're focusing, but we're not really, like. When you, when you step back and look at it and you see what you build, you're like, Oh my gosh. Like, this is, this is so not focused. So it has been a struggle to get to the point now where we're trying to go, we're actually trying to go as super lean as possible, and just, like, really targeted. Like, that's your point. Like, using the word hyper focused, you know, some of the things that has happened, for example, like, you know, we so we launched, as I said, mid 2022, that was before chat GPT, that was before, you know, AI really took off. And when that happened. And then, you know, that we had a slew of competitors as well in the in the podcasting space. Then we had to really think about, like, long and hard about, you know, what was our position in the market? And that was one, it's just one example where we had to kind of go back to basics and again focus. Because when we looked at our product, we were like, Oh my gosh, you know, we built stuff for, you know, agencies. We built stuff for, like, podcasters who, because we originally, when we originally set out, it was always going to be experts who podcast, so we're talking like coaches, consultants, service providers, you know, people who are sharing some kind of expertise on their, on their in their content. But then we started, you know, through that journey, talking to, you know, podcasts about Dungeons and Dragons and just like, you know, all these different types of podcasts. And I think we kind of like lost our way, if I from a product perspective, and so even at that point when we had to kind of really look and be like, Okay, well, we have to like, this is this isn't going to work. We have to, sort of, you know, put a stake in the ground as to this is our position the market. We have to strip it all all back again. And so for us, it's like a constant challenge of, like, okay, are we staying true to like what we said? And it doesn't mean that you have to be so rigid, because I know there has to be growth as well and what you do, but growth shouldn't be, you know, and I've learned this hard way, like, you can't push the speed of growth sometimes, because then you end up like we did, with, like, yeah, really, we had, like, a really buggy product, like we was just like we were, you know, trying to code like our developers were coding at such a rate that, you know, we couldn't go back and, you know, error handling was really terrible. And, you know, we were just, we're basically losing people because our what we had built was like, it was like a leaky bucket. And so there's just so many downsides now, when I, when I think about it, to not focusing and not staying true to what it is that you do, who you serve and for what purpose. And so now, you know, fast forward, you know, two and a half years, and I said it's been a long journey for us to learn or relearn a lot of these lessons where, like, okay, the product is the is the product. We know exactly who it is that where we're serving. You know, all our messaging can be very, really, really tight, and now it's like, on a weekly, almost daily basis. You know, our team look at, you know, what it is that we have prioritized, and what the things that we're working on and and I'm constantly asking, like, are these the right things? Like, let's just really critically go, Is this the thing that's going to move the dial? Like, if our, again, going back to the example, if our whole goal is to get 50 more users, 50 more subscribers, like is this thing that we've prioritized that we're working on today, is this actually going to help us do that? And so that's how we kind of now stay really super hyper focused on what it is that we're doing that's so good.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
And I kind of love that lesson that you shared, because we talk about this all the time where it feels scary to hyper niche down to be like, Okay, well, somebody came to us and said, we have this really great opportunity. And I would love for you to come into this vertical and, like, create for this, and then you do it and you realize that it's a disservice to the people that you're actually serving. I think that's a beautiful example. And love that you shared that, but kind of how so as you're evaluating what's working, what's not is this actually getting us to our goal, when you kind of see a gap in your ability to be able so you're sitting in the meeting and you say, Okay, well, we think this strategy is going to work, and we think it's completely In alignment with getting us like to this goal faster, but we need to allocate X amount of resources. You're kind of putting a little bit of faith out there that the strategy is going to work, and also kind of knowing that if you don't do it, you know you're not going to get there. So how do you kind of reconcile those two things together in your brain and kind of push forward and like, take that leap of faith to kind of make that investment in your business

Deirdre Tshien
again. Yeah, you know, for us, so I have so, for example, we actually my co founder. It to pod fest recently. I'm not sure if, if you you were there, or if you know about it, but it was in, it was a month ago, basically, and I remember having a conversation with her. She was like, yeah, she met, like, a couple of people, and they actually have a different, like, a slightly different need from what capture bread and butter does, like they have sort of more of a volume need they have, like, and so we would have to essentially do development work, which is, which for us, is an investment, right? Like, that's us prioritizing, you know, because everything's about prioritization, because there's 100 different things that you, you know, you want to be doing all at the same time. And you know, we have to be really like, we have to sort of move the pieces of the puzzle in the right way. And even when we I had that conversation with her, you know, my the old me, the person is like, let's just do everything right now. Would have, like, jumped at the chance, because it to your point. It's like, okay, well, I see that. There's a need. There's definitely people verbalizing that, you know, they're saying that. But when I kind of the more that I spoke to, I was like, Well, hey, let's just get them to maybe try capture, just for what it is right now. And if they then, off the back of that, want to commit, to say, you know, for us to build this, then, you know, kind of they've got to put their money where their mouth is. And, yeah, you know. And so definitely, for me, it's like, okay, if I can, if I if, if we can see that yes, people are willing to pay, like, literally pay, because that's the highest form of currency that you know you can get in any kind of experiment. Then, okay, this is then worth going down. But if they're not, because we can talk to so many people, they will all have different needs, and all of them will sound good. They're all the ideas are good, like no, there is no bad idea, right? But again, as a business, as a non profit, not for profit, like we have such limited resources that we have to actually put really, really clear check marks and criteria in for ourselves to be like, Okay, well, what is actually going to make it pass to the, you know, to the next thing? And so for like, any idea that we have, I'm always like, Okay, is there truly a market for it, for it? IE, are people willing to actually pay for this and not just say that they are? Because, again, people, it's easy to say that, you know, and people want to be really positive 100% Yeah. So they'll always be like, well, cause we'll support you. They want to be supportive, right? But no, no, like, will they actually take out their credit card, put their details in, you know, see a payment go through, and if they are then it's like, okay, this is an idea, then worth pursuing. That's kind of the that's where we've gotten to in terms of, like, how we we develop or think about prioritization. Yeah,

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
it's so good. I think, you know, some of my biggest heroes in the nonprofit space. When board members come to them with good ideas, we'll say, That's a great idea. Would you like to spearhead the committee to make that happen? And if they're not willing to say yes, then it's like, yeah, well, this is what our priorities are. So if you really want to try to do that, like by all means, you know, get back to us at how we can support you in spearheading that project. But I also love it from the donor perspective, which I haven't necessarily thought of in that if you're in a conversation with a donor, or, you know, an investor, maybe in your in your space, and they also say, like, hey, we see this need. We see this void, you know, feeling comfortable to immediately say, Okay, well, great. Well, you know what? What are you willing to invest in making that happen? Because I think we tend to go the other way and say, Oh, well, they won't give us money unless we make that happen, versus saying, what are you going to do on the front end? Do help us make this happen? If it is your idea that you're coming to the table with, and I think that's such a good mindset shift for us to really just say, well, this is what our plan, this is what we're focused on, and we love this, and this could fit in really well with the work that we're doing. What are you willing to invest right now in order to help us take that forward? It seems like a natural and easy progression that we don't think about because we're just like, we kind of tense up,

Deirdre Tshien
yeah? And it's like, I actually wouldn't say it's, it's super easy, like it sounds, it sounds really easy, yeah? And it's simple in concert. It's just, it's, it's actually really hard, because I think just human nature, like, where a lot of us are, like, quote, unquote, pleases, or like, you know, we want to, we want to, like, do a good job. We want to, we want to get praise. We want to all of these things, right? Like, we want all the positive things. So it's kind of natural, I think, for us to just be like, yes, like we can do because we can as well. That's the thing you know, that we can do anything that we set our mind to. But, and so, yeah, I actually think it's a it's a really hard thing to do, to be disciplined enough to be like, no, no. Like, we could do it, of course. But hey, again. Let's go back to our objective markers. You know, our criteria as to what will actually count as being able to progress something forward.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah, well, you talked earlier about, like, growth and how you went into a vertical that didn't necessarily make the right sense at the time, and you kind of had to back up and rewind and kind of reassess. But part of growth and scaling is in reaching new networks, reaching new people, reaching new problems that people have. So as you kind of work through these things as a team, kind of where do you kind of say, okay, yeah, we're killing it here. So we are at a place where it's time to start to invest in another area, or just start kind of increasing the way that we solve this problem, kind of, do you have benchmarks in place that you can feel comfortable with? Like, yep, we're ready to tackle the next thing.

Deirdre Tshien
Yeah? Well, yeah, for us, we because we are really close to our community, to our captchavians, so we're always listening to their feedback. And when we get something that's repeated, you know, like, you know, for example, just very recently, we launched our image and clipping studio. So traditionally, with CAP show. And just for way background, in case anyone doesn't know, what capture does, we basically take audio or video files. So anyone who had like a pod we took, we're talking podcast episodes, trainings, YouTube videos, webinars, any of that you upload that into capture, and we create marketing content marketing assets, everything from like social media posts to blog posts to LinkedIn newsletters, all the way to now images and short form video clips. And so when we started, it was very much in the text based assets that we did recently, we launched image and clipping because people were saying, were telling us that, you know, they had multiple, these multiple subscriptions. They're like, we love capture. We know how good quality, like, how high quality our your stuff is, we would love it if you could, like, do x, y, z, so that we can just shelve all these subscriptions, you know, can, can you help us? And it was like, the first ones like, oh yeah, that's a great idea. We'll, you know, we'll, we'll put that in the backlog. But, you know, once you hear it again and again and again, and you're like, oh, okay, you know, we kind of have to move with where the where the market, ie, our users, are going as well. And so we use that as a as a bit, as a big determinator as to what it is that we're going to be working on next. Yeah, definitely listening to, you know, the people who are paying us because, you know, they paying us for a reason. Yeah, I

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
think that's super smart. And I think you're listening to the masses. So, like, the thing that I the caveat that I would share here in in the nonprofit space, is that you are not listening to, like, I think it's easy for us to take a listen to the one big donor, or, like, the one big Foundation, or the one big granter that's giving us funds, but, but the power is in the subscribers or your monthly donors, or the people that are there by your side regularly, people that donate to you multiple times. They're the mouthpiece. They're the ones that are sharing about your product or your service or your nonprofit with the world. So I love that that's where you kind of take your foundation from, and also understanding that while you know and had a reason for why you started this organization in the first place, that you aren't necessarily the one who's who's getting the benefit of it, and so that you might not know what people need. We talk about this all the time, that I'll issue podcast episodes where I'm like, Oh, this I killed it. This one was great. And people are like, yeah, that was okay. And then there's some where I'm like, Yeah, that was an okay episode, and it like blows up, like we have no idea what content is actually. We can do our best, but we don't fully know what's really going to resonate with our audience in the moment. And so I love that you're listening to them taking it in and allowing the consistent answers that you're getting to dictate how you move forward, not just your own ego or your own great ideas, or you thinking this could be awesome. I think it's really smart.

Deirdre Tshien
Yeah, and, you know, it's the thing too, is that when, when you start on this, it's again, just everything I talk about things like, you know, it's easy to talk about them, because I guess we've gone through the journey. But that's the thing. It's like, this stuff is not easy to do as well. Because I can tell you, when we first started, like, I was, you know, you mentioned ego and things like that. Like, I was a hunter driven by all those things, even my own ego to be like, Okay, I want, like, the most, you know, the biggest product, the one that would do it will do everything and and again, you know, I go back to, you know, what contributed as well to a really buggy product, leaky bucket, all of that. And it was, you know, all it was that approach. And so I had to unlearn a lot of because, again, I'm a, I'm a yes people pleaser, you know, to. Was, like, everything I came, I was like, yes, okay, well, we'll do that. You know, even it was just one person asking for this, like, one, you know, not an easy, yeah, could have even been a big thing, but I was just such also, you know, used to just being like, okay, like, we just, we just want to please people. And so that it took a lot of, again, discipline and willpower to kind of like, shut that off a little bit and be like, Okay, we're still listening like we hear you, but, you know, it's on the backlog, but we just in the prioritization set. Like is we need to get more people asking about this for it to get pushed up. So it's not an easy thing to do by any stretch of imagination. But you know, the more that you can like stay close to the end users or consumers of what it is that you're doing and just constantly getting that feedback, then the more that you can move with the the market and stay relevant.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah, so good. Okay, I want to flip gears just a little bit, because I'm really curious about your thoughts on this because, you know, you mentioned you started your software before chat, GPT, and now there's been this huge explosion in all things AI and and so, I mean, this the software, the SaaS, it's always been kind of crazy, but so to enter into that space, and then to see all these competitors come out, they're all doing different types of things. Like, where does the imposter syndrome come in? How do you kind of process success? Like, how do you still stay centered into like, all these other organizations are doing these crazy things. We're doing this. We're doing really well here. We're not doing like, how do you kind of manage all of that as you're starting to grow and scale in competition with others, while still kind of stay true to to what you know you originally started this to be, yeah,

Deirdre Tshien
I probably don't have a healthy we're gonna be honest. I you know when, when the competition really started to heat up, you know, it was like, literally, it was like, it felt like every day a new platform would, you know, would launch, and would look at it be like, oh, you know, on the surface, it seems like they're doing so much more, or whatever it is. It got to a point where I was like, this is just not serving like, it's not healthy to be, you know, constantly second guessing yourself, constantly doubting you know what it is that you're doing. So I just kind of, like, in a way, switched it off. I was like, I don't get like, we're gonna stay in our own lane. I mean, I hear, I hear it when people like, it's really important to keep your finger like you're on the pulse and yes, but then there is like, you know, where it gets a bit it starts to not be, I of benefit to you to continue down that path. So, you know, I kind of had to be really, really, you know, it's kind of almost have clear boundaries around that, to be like, Okay, well, I can't, you know, know more about what X, who, what x, y, z, is doing, and, you know, versus us, and because it's just not, you know, and at the end of the day, you're kind of like you're running your own race. Like, I truly believe that like for all of us, like the game is there for any of us to win? Truly, like, the only person or people that can actually like, not that can help you lose is yourself at the end of the day. And so when I think about that, I'm like, Okay, well, it doesn't really matter what other competitors are doing, like, it's, you know, they're, they've, they're serving their own audience. They've got their own thing going. We're serving our audience. We have our own thing going. Let's just, like, stay true to that. So, yeah, again, it's been a big learning. I kind of have had to, have had to, kind of like, tune all that noise out for sure.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Yeah, well, I think it's, you know, the thing that I always come back to is the only businesses are that fail, are those that quit. If you keep going, you have the opportunity to see what your what you can become. And I love the abundant mindset that kind of keeps coming through and all of the things that you're saying and that we don't need to be all things to all people. We need to be the best versions of ourselves to the people we choose to serve. And there are enough of them to help us, support our business and help us grow. And what that turns into in five years, who knows, but we're open to possibility, and I think that, especially for a lot of listeners, because I know we have a lot of people in smaller communities, the same is true. Like you might feel like you don't have enough customers or donors because you live in a small community, but But you know, kind of changing that mindset, kind of what you're saying and can really make a big difference in making a strong core of your people and then opening up to possibility from where that that can come. So I love I love that. Um, well, so I just kind of want you to share kind of any last thoughts about I know you said you don't have a five year plan, and I'm like, I don't even have a. Six month plan right now, because we have a lot of things we're testing this year, and then we're just going to kind of see what happens. So I feel you there, but kind of what are you in this ever changing world that you live in? What are you excited about, like, what? What is coming up for CAP show and your organization that you're just really kind of looking forward to as you kind of think about growth and scale for your business,

Deirdre Tshien
oh, gosh, yeah. Like in terms of, I just always go back to, you know, like the thing that always really drives us and lights us up is if we can help our captions succeed as well. So, you know, our whole ethos is like, how do we help entrepreneurs who are creating content get more leads from and clients from their content. And so that's what we're like, just super focused on, is like, okay, how can we really help facilitate that? So I'm always just excited about, you know, the problem that is that and solving and helping to solve that. And, you know, I truly think that if we can just, if we can help people succeed, then, you know, there's no way that we can't succeed. So that's, yeah, I guess you know, to answer your question, that's kind of the thing that I'm always most excited about. I love

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
that. I love that. And I love software companies and platforms and AI that does still heavily bring in that human element, because I think having a brand, this is my own soapbox, so like this has nothing to do. My own feeling is that like having brands that are just helping people do better at what they already do really well at, and keeping that human element and community, while also like integrating some of those AI elements to help us save time. Like I love that balance for businesses, and I think it's so needed so that we don't just completely lose touch with where we're going and how we're connecting with people. So I love that you said that. But Deidre, if people want to connect with you, learn more about CAP show and just kind of see all the cool things that you all are doing. How can they do that?

Deirdre Tshien
Yeah, definitely. I would love if you are creating some kind of audio or video content. So as I mentioned, it could be a podcast, it could be YouTube channel, it could be just trainings and courses and or webinars that you know you're doing and you want to amplify the message that you know you're creating already, then I would love for you to check out cap show that's at C, A, P S H O.com capsho.com and Sami is going to, in the show notes, drop a code, a special code, for her audience, that where you can get 50% off forever. So instead of paying $99 a month, you pay only $49 a month for as long as you're with Capsho. But if you want to give it a go, it's seven day free trial just at capsho.com.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
I love that, and you can find all the links to all the things from this episode at thefirstclick.net/304, thank you so much for being here and being open and just sharing kind of how you have been working through growth and scale in your organization. I can't wait to see you guys have a long way to go. I mean, you're still a baby company.

Deirdre Tshien
We are super big. I love it so young.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
I love it well. Thank you so much for being here.

Deirdre Tshien
Thank you so much having me bye.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, so are you inspired to take that next, next step? You are not alone. Growing is difficult. It's hard and it's fun and it's exciting at the same time, and it's extremely stressful, but you can do it. The more that you kind of push yourself, push those boundaries, figure out exactly what it is that you do and how you can best serve your community, the bigger the impact you're going to make on your community in the world. So make sure you check out the show notes for additional resources at thefirstclick.net/304, head on over to YouTube at Digital Marketing therapy, drop in the comments. What your favorite takeaway is, what strategy are you excited to implement? What surprised you? What didn't surprise you? What are you kind of most excited to kind of share with your colleagues, and on that note, share this episode with somebody who's also going through growing pains and might need some additional support. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode. And thank you so much for taking time to join us again thefirstclick.net/304, for the show notes, and I'll see you in the next one.