Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 5 5.00
Q So what was the first failure? You going door to door one on one classes?
A No, the first failure was a web app. And so it was back in, uh, 2004 and, uh, you couldn't email large files in 2004. Uh, you could email two meg files back then, which is, it feels like that's the cave ages. Like what? And, uh, so I built a web app called, um, flight deck and it allowed you to send large files and you would click to download. And I actually then, uh, I priced it way too high. It was like, it was like, 500 dollars a month. And it was meant for businesses. And I had, I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't know, oh, that means I need a sales force. Like, I, I, what am I doing? And, uh, I kept getting no's and no's and no's. And I got, I think it was 800 dollars in recurring monthly revenue before I flatlined and I realized, This is either, either I need to change the whole thing and raise some money and get serious, or I need to move on and admit this is a failure. So I moved on.
AI assessment note: “No, the first failure was a web app.”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q out to be of 75 bucks, three months of revenue. You've got to be killing that, right? So like the other, the other side to that is you'll always have people around you going, well, uh, Ryan, why aren't you being more aggressive? Why aren't you being more, you got to win this space. Competitors have more funding than you. Why aren't you being more aggressive? How do you resist?
A Yeah. So our competitors have raised 10 times the amount of money we have. Right. But we keep seeing competitors go out of business and, um, you know, look at the bootcamps. So we just saw, uh, so, um, iron yard went out of business. Deb bootcamp went out of business. Flatiron just got acquired. I mean, We are staying laser focused on our strategy. We are a hundred percent online. Um, we're not going to get sidetracked by competitors that raised a ton of money. Now we have Udacity that's raised one hundred and fifty million dollars, I think. Pluralsight that's raised just, I don't know how much, and they're going to go public. But the reality is, um, either you're in a space where there is winner take all, and you better go raise a ton of money and be first, or you're running a more normal business. Um, You know, just look at, okay, so we are an online school. How many universities are there? Hundreds and hundreds, right? There's not one university that everyone goes to that's the best. And so we view this space as there's going to be multiple winners, and we want to be one of the best, um, highest quality, Foundationally strong because that will allow us to actually serve people for 10, 20, 30, maybe a hundred plus years. That's, I have a such a long focus, right? And that allows me to do that. Maybe it's because I'm a little older, maybe because I've run a couple of businesse…
AI assessment note: “we view this space as there's going to be multiple winners”
Answered produced feed
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q So do you model it like a SAS company? Like when MailChimp, when you deliver the 300 new developers they need and then it ends, what happens?
A So, um, we don't know yet, um, is the brutal answer. What, what I know is going to happen is that these companies are never going to stop hiring. And if we do a good job on class one, then why wouldn't they work with us on class two and 10 and five and a hundred? You know what I mean? So, um, I'm really bullish on expansion. You know, we're just about to announce a massive deal. I can't announce yet because we haven't, um, uh, officially got it, but it's going to allow us to create another type of talent. Um, and so then we'll be able to, to cross sell and say, great, we created a class for you of this type of developer. Now we can do this. And that's gonna keep going. It's really exciting, so.
AI assessment note: “we don't know yet, um, is the brutal answer.”
Answered produced feed
D 4 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.55
Q Very cool. That's awesome. And take me back, when did you launch your first one?
A So, uh, grew up in Colorado, got a computer science degree because, uh, that was in 96 to 2000. Internet was blown up. It had the word computer in it, so I studied it, um, and then got a job as a programmer, and I was shocked at the fact that my job didn't require my degree. But yet my parents just dropped 60 K on my degree. I spent four years of my life. Like something was wrong. And for every entrepreneur you talk to, I'm sure they have this moment of saying that's broken and I want to fix that. And so that's when the seed was planted. That was back in 2000. Fast forward, uh, to 2000, uh, six. I started trying to fix that by doing in-person classes. So we did, hey, let's do a workshop on how to build a PHP web app and sold out. Exciting. Grew, grew, grew.
AI assessment note: “Fast forward, uh, to 2000, uh, six. I started trying to fix that”
Answered produced feed
D 4 · C 4 · P 3 · Cm 3 3.60
Q Would you, if he ever came to you and offered you, let's say, let's ignore the price for a second, let's say strategically. Um, let's say the price was something absurd that you would have to say yes to, but strategically, do you think tree house plus an items would be a good fit or no?
A I mean, I care about our mission. So if a strategic fit allows us to change more lives, absolutely. Um, you know, we've gone through a number of acquisition talks and decide not to do them. So yeah, I mean, I am extremely mission driven. Like, I mean, I'm basically, my religion is treehouse because I think it's going to be the most important, most impactful project I ever work on. But that's because the mission matters, right? It's not the attachment to the brand. It's the lives that we change. So, Theoretically, yes, but at the moment we're having so much fun and like changing lives right now and throwing off cash. It's kind of like, I don't know, anything else is a distraction.
AI assessment note: “Theoretically, yes, but at the moment we're having so much fun”
Not addressed produced feed
D 2 · C 4 · P 2 · Cm 3 2.75
Q That's great. I want to get to that in a second, but first, typically when someone transitions from B to C to B to B, there's also a restructuring of the sales team. So you were 80 people last time you were on the show. What are you at today and what portion of those are sales?
A So, you know, what's funny is, uh, I actually, uh, began to run the sales team. So the restructuring was the CEO came in and figured out how to do sales. Um, and it's a long story. I know this is not a long form podcast, but man, this, it was a wild ride, you know, going from doing zero sales myself, uh, to doing potentially millions of dollars of sales myself this year. Uh, and learning how to do that and learning how to run the team. So essentially I came in, I said, you know what, folks, we're going to, we're going to do this and I'm going to directly support you as a CEO and we're going to build out this team. So we've actually grown, um, the sales team. Uh, and, uh, brought on SDRs, and brought on new customer success, and it's, it's been fun.
AI assessment note: “So we've actually grown, um, the sales team. Uh, and, uh, brought on SDRs”
