#50 - Build A Successful Shopify App - TikTok & Hiring 🚀

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That week was slow. We didn’t have that many installs and lost some MRR. We didn’t get as many reviews as usual.

It was slow and I don’t feel depressed but you know I have this strange feeling when you’re not moving forward.

It’s funny because we didn’t grow that week, but if you look at the last month, we sure grew. And even more, if you compare it with the month before.

That’s why emotions are tricky. You can grow for months and when you have a bad week, you start questioning yourself.

Or you get many 5-star reviews and one day you get a 1-star and you feel like everything before has been erased.

And we’ll let 1 bad day, or 1 bad week, affect us. And it can be worse.

Because 1 bad day can discourage you and you’ll lose your momentum.

But this week I also started the strategy for video content. I already told you, I want to double down on TikTok, Instagram and Youtube.

Especially on short video content. And the strategy, in the beginning, will be simple:

• 1 video per day shared on the 3 channels

• We give value to the audience

And then we see what happens. As we get more videos we’ll try to change the content type, the angle, etc. And we’ll see the impact on installs.

I want it to take as little time as possible.

I will follow this process that you can borrow:

• Write the script for 10 TikTok videos

• Add the script to an app prompter on the phone

• Use a prompter and a camera to show the text

• Read the text in front of the camera on a single shot (multiple videos)

• Send the audio file, the script and the rush to a video editor

• The video editor will then follow a complete process I created to generate these kinds of TikTok

  

• I can then review each video, and every day we’ll take one and post it

I created one video myself to create this process and make sure that it was good and easy to understand.

And remember, 1 video might not change anything. But if you create 1 video per day for 365 days.

And each month you try to understand what worked, and what didn’t, so you can improve.

How can you not get results?

Hiring when you’re a solo founder

I’ve been a solo founder for years but then, as you grow, you might need to hire people.

Because sometimes you can’t do everything by yourself.

And I noticed 4 different steps (and challenges):

1. Finding talents

2. Doing interviews

3. Doing tests

4. Managing people

If you master these 4 points, you’ll be so good at growing your company. And some other companies might even pay you to handle it for them.

1) Finding talents

It’s tough to find good employees. And if you can’t fuel your hiring funnel, then you can’t have talents. Exactly like a SaaS.

And what do you do when you have to find users? You go where people are and try to understand what they want.

So you can speak like them, show them exactly what they need to join you.

And I’ll give some advice that I followed and it’s working pretty well.

When you’re on platforms such as Upwork, don’t look at the rating (I mean except if it’s a bad rating). But what I mean is that if someone never worked on the platform, it doesn’t mean that they’re bad.

Sometimes people want to work, put themselves on the platform but they never find jobs because they don’t know how to sell themselves.

And I don’t expect a developer to know how to sell himself. I expect him to be good at coding.

So feel free to contact people even if they have never worked. Everything will be done during the interview and the test.

2) Doing interviews

That one is complicated because it’s all about asking the right questions. You can determine if someone is good or bad based on what you ask.

I don’t master it as everyone is different. But what I understood is that you should ask very specific questions with a hundred different responses.

I do the interviews in 3 steps: Personal, Soft Skills, Hard skills

If you can find someone that fits your personal expectation, soft skills (and your company values) and hard skills, then you can go with the test.

Sometimes I have doubts and the technical test will help me make the decision.

3) Doing tests

Tests are what will help you make the decision after the interview. You should give a test that lasts 1 to 8 hours (you pay the person for that).

And the goal of that test is to put the person in situations they can face in their tasks.

I’ve made the mistake of hiring developers but I only tested some parts of their job and not others.

So you need to ensure that you actually test everything they can do. It will save you so much time.

You can even create another test period after hiring the person, that lasts for a month or two so you can see how they actually work.

4) Managing people

The biggest takeaway here is that you should be flexible. People are different and you should work with them so that they are doing the best job possible. And based on the person you might need to work differently.

You have to experience being a manager to improve.

But what you can already do is try to make a 2-side relationship. It’s not only you telling the person what to do but also asking for feedback on how you’re currently managing.

I also made the mistake of thinking some developers were bad when in reality, I was just a bad manager (it was in the beginning)

That’s it for today’s email!

I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to share my newsletter with someone else: https://news.matdesousa.com/

See you next week,

Mat