Coffee, Chaos, & Cashflow
☕️ Coffee, Chaos & Cashflow 🎙️
Fueling your business journey with real talk, laughs, and a dash of caffeine! Join Eric Griffin, Aram Street, & Yemi Ogunbase as they share wins, missteps, and candid advice on turning chaos into cashflow. Real stories, real lessons—entrepreneurship, unfiltered. 🎧
Coffee, Chaos, & Cashflow
#6 Meet a Founder - David Johnston
Discover how David Johnston, co-founder and CEO of DoorSpot, transformed from a software engineer managing quilting inventory to pioneering tech innovation in property management. In his first podcast feature, David shares insights on productivity, the benefits of early mornings, and mastering evolving marketing trends. We explore his 24-year programming career and how it led to creating DoorSpot—a platform redefining rental management with seamless communication and financial clarity for property managers. Alongside personal reminiscences and shared media favorites like "Crossing the Chasm," join us for a conversation that celebrates David's journey and anticipates DoorSpot's industry impact.
So David Johnston is the co-founder and CEO of DoorSpot, a SaaS company focused on streamlining property management, with a sharp focus on modernizing outdated processes. David's leadership centers on identifying stagnant markets and introducing streamlined, innovative solutions. Through DoorSpot, he aims to reshape the property management experience. He aims to reshape the property management experience, driving efficiency and enhancing usability. David, it is great to have you on. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Doing well. Great to be here.
Speaker 1:Good, good. So it's cool for me to be on here. This is our first guest appearance on the show. Those of you who've been listening for a while know that we've been talking about season one guest. David Johnston is our first. Really excited about that, personally. But I'm also excited because I don't think David's ever been on a podcast, or at least my wife didn't. I was telling her yesterday about this show coming up and she's like this doesn't sound like David's thing. So, david, is this a first time for you? This is my first. All right, that really makes me excited because David has a lot of stuff that he could be sharing on podcasts pretty regularly. So I feel kind of honored that we got him first. So it's a win for us. It's good stuff, all right. So, david, before we jump into some of your story and some tidbits here and there, I'm going to start off with a couple of random questions just to get everything off and running. So I already I think I know a couple of these. But are you an early bird or night owl?
Speaker 2:currently, I try to be neither. Uh, I try to be. Sleep is important, um yep, but I tend to.
Speaker 1:I tend to be early okay, you tend to be early. Okay, you tend to be early. Okay, has that changed, because you did run pretty late nights right Back in the day.
Speaker 2:I tend to still run pretty late and get up pretty early, but I definitely am more productive in the morning. Okay, that's fair, there's just more hours.
Speaker 1:That's fair. What's the most unusual job you've ever had?
Speaker 2:You know I was pretty fortunate. I didn't have a lot of unusual jobs. I got trained as a software engineer and jumped in really early. But I would have to say my first job as a software engineer I was creating an inventory of quilt patterns for an institute of regional analysis and I spent a lot of time looking at quilting patterns that's so funny that's great, okay, so you, you got the, you got the info on on quilts huh, apparently, apparently it was a long time ago.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, all right. Last question on this kind of lightning round if you could instantly master just any new skill, like just something, boom, you had it on lockdown. What would that be? If you could just pick one?
Speaker 2:um, the whole point is that it changes so frequently. But I think it's it's it's marketing um the the trends just change so rapidly to be able to pick those up and stay ahead of the curve and on the front end of that. I think that would be where it is. Yeah, it feels like you're in a constant chasing cycle there sometimes. Yep, that makes sense Changes on the platforms.
Speaker 1:That would be a superpower for sure. You didn't have to continuously update yourself. Yeah, exactly, cool, all right. So, david, I read a little bit of your bio earlier. Just kind of give a snapshot of where you're at Before we launch into some of that. I'd like to just can you give me like a quick summary of how you started out, how you got here? It doesn't have to be real in depth, because we'll dive in a bit more. Give the listeners just a background on who David is and how he got here.
Speaker 2:Yeah again, I started as a software engineer, was really fortunate to go on at some great startups early on in my career and kind of progressed through that Along that way. Obviously, I kind of started having the desire to go out and start something on my own and was really fortunate to work with some people that gave me opportunities to grow and learn in that area, and that went until about 2018. And then I started my first company. We exited in 2021. And here I am on my next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're from Kentucky originally, right, that is correct. Okay, so we have a Kentucky native Good deal, yeah, right, and you. So it's kind of cool. I met David originally at church what 10-ish Maybe not that far back Six years ago Seven.
Speaker 2:Was it close to 10?
Speaker 1:Close yeah, time is speeding up these days ago. Seven was it close? 10, time is speeding up these days. Well, back ago, yeah, so, uh, yeah, david and his wife, um, now a couple of boys and uh and your daughter soph. Actually, your daughter sophie was really good friends with uh, my oldest daughter too.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah growing, growing family are you guys?
Speaker 1:gonna have any more. No, Okay, you're not going to try to catch up with us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not, absolutely not.
Speaker 1:That's fair. That's fair. So, what we like to do when we're and you're the first person to experience this, but the show's name Coffee, chaos and Cashflow we want to ask our guests that come on the show about each of those elements and I'm going to break it down a little bit. So all three of those sections I want to kind of target and get from a little bit more depth on your experience in relation to those. So coffee obviously everybody kind of uses coffee as, like the, the standard caffeine, uh, type thing to keep things moving. You've got a cup there. I know you drink a good bit of coffee, so is that kind of your go-to. Like we talked about getting in, you're going through the grinds. Startup life is intense. Any sort of business is usually pretty intense starting out and maybe never gets less intense. What is your go-to source for just staying on top of things, whether you're pulling early mornings, late nights is it coffee, uh? Is it something else? What's your, what's your motivating factor there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I don't know that it's any, that it's a specific thing. I think it's a combo. I mean for the to really get started. It is coffee for me in the morning, but I think, to, to sustain. My wife plays a huge role right. She'll go through the emotional roller coasters of startups at times and so you know having support there behind you is a huge factor yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 1:I uh, you know, I've been involved in a few different odds and ends over the last few years and if I, if I was married to just about anybody else, I don't think, think this would have happened a long time ago, yeah Right. Beverly has played a just tremendous role in keeping me grounded, also helping me, you know, when we're running outside the edges, you know, come back to reality a little bit, so, and she has just an outstanding capacity to handle crap, which you experience a lot, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of good stories. I'm sure it can be shared there. So, on the chaos elements, there's always something going on, right, if you put out a fire, you might have three more pop up. So give me a little bit of your perspective on that. Maybe a personal story of when things got crazy, maybe unexpected, maybe it was expected, but something that really went off the rails for you In any one of your ventures, maybe even in your career experience prior to that. What was something that just really hit you and caused you to maybe have to adapt or renegotiate things?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, um to your point, we've all had the, the fires and catastrophes on a day-to-day, where maybe a bug occurs that was, you know, hits you completely off guard. But I think the the biggest for me, um has not been any of those, those kind of feel like normal after a while. Right, I think you're just kind of the unexpected is what's expected, and so I think the craziest thing for me, the chaos of it, is always the timing of things.
Speaker 2:It feels like entrepreneurship is definitely the biggest factor in my life where, um some of your biggest surprises, good and bad, um the timing of them, seem to go as far from the plan sometimes as possible. Now, um, you know, are you talking about like specifically?
Speaker 1:like on releasing something or getting something out like that time.
Speaker 2:No, I'm saying I'm saying you know, sometimes we put the the best plans in and they're tried and tested and maybe that is in, you know customer acquisition and you just have this home run. You know it's a home run and it it bombs Right. And then, and then the next moment you do something small that is going to you have very little expectation about and it just takes off. You have very little expectation about and it just takes off Right. Or even in previous, in my previous company, you know even the timing around our growth and and how that kind of grew quickly and led led to exiting of the company. Was you know COVID, and so I think that was probably the craziest thing right Is was you know covid, and so I think that was probably, um, the craziest thing right is you know you're building a platform and then, due to a major pandemic in the world, it just triggers growth that you couldn't have foreseen. So I think that's that's definitely the craziest so I'm gonna.
Speaker 1:I want to dive into that a little bit, because that I'm assuming you're referring to two mites, right, yeah, um, so tell us a little bit. This is the company you exited from, uh, give us a quick snapshot of what two mites did, uh, and and what, what it was created for yeah, it was a all-in-one sass platform, um, for churches, uh, to help them receive, uh donations online, manage events, manage people, a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2:And you know it was one of those right place, right time, um, in the sense of you know, everybody had to go online because in person everything was shut down, and so the factor there just kind of the timing, worked out perfectly and it was something that I never could have predicted or that any of us could have predicted, and so I think those, those are the kind of events that the chaos doesn't have to be bad. Right, chaos can be good, but it definitely sent my world personally into like a spin cycle at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting because I got to work with you a little bit in the Two Mites era, kind of getting that out there. And it was funny because prior to the pandemic, when I was, like you know, talking to people that I knew friends and family that were in ministry and churches it was surprising at that point how many churches, ministries in general, just didn't have an online solution, even just for the giving side. They were just like, oh yeah, everybody writes a check, they put cash in. So your big churches, obviously, they've had something for a little while, but a lot of your medium to small churches they just had nothing. That's right. And the interest initially was like they're just like, ah, you know, we don't really need it. And then all of a sudden you've got the pandemic and people are like not going to stuff anymore and these people start reaching back out.
Speaker 1:They're like, hey, um, what? What was that tool that you were trying to talk to us about? For giving because they kind of still needed, you know, people to give and but they weren't. They weren't showing up anymore. So it is interesting like there was just a serious like dynamic shift there and the need became apparent so yeah, that's like that's a great example of chaos actually providing um a good solution that you know might, might not have been expected.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, absolutely it's good. I mean, typically, chaos gives you an opportunity to kind of evaluate something from a perspective that you never looked at, and so I think there's always opportunity there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. That's good. So, going into the cash flow side of the discussion, just give us a snapshot of how your current and previous business ventures have made money. What has been? Maybe you have a particular business model that you've always gone to, or a smattering of different things. Give us a snapshot on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so currently DoorSpot's a SaaS platform and we are a subscription-based model. That's where my experience typically lies, and so you know we've been able to stick with that model through everything that we've worked on in the past, and so I think you know we always have a little bit of extra revenue channels through that, whether it's through partnerships or add-on services and things like that. But the pretty standard business model is just subscription-based and we've been able to stick through that pretty easily and the pivots become in how we're pricing or how we're packaging, and less about the model itself.
Speaker 1:Okay, interesting. And have you arrived at that discovery, so to speak, here with DoorSpot, after trying different ideas in the past, have you always kind of maintained a pretty even focus there in terms of business model, or has it changed much?
Speaker 2:No, we've been able to maintain. I mean, our focus is around providing recurring value, and so I think that aligns well with the pricing model and that's been our goal is to really focus there. If we felt like we had to change that, then we weren't providing the value that we needed to.
Speaker 1:Yep, that makes sense. Okay, so now that we've gotten some of that background and different elements in there, I really want to talk a bit more about Door spot, because that is your current project, that's your, that's your baby at the moment. Give me the background on that, like, how did that come about? Why did you, you know, choose rental management, particularly? What problems did you see in the industry? What are you addressing? Just all of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I had some experience um in a in a previous job where I was working in the property management space and building for that, and it wasn't on the rental side of the market, but it allowed me to view into that and I just saw. You know it was interesting to me. I got to learn a lot about that area during that time. After, after that project was over, I kept digging, doing my own research, learning more about that and I just felt it was a, it was a great place, that I had a lot of interest.
Speaker 2:At that point I kind of started doing research into that space and there's a lot of, there's a lot of options search into that space and there's a lot of options and it just felt like a place where I could come in. There's a lot of opportunity to innovate and just kind of put my spin on things, if you will, and just get a different outlook. And so that's really where we've been focused and how we're providing that now. Our goal is to really reach people at all phases of the rental experience, whether you're just starting out and have your first couple of properties, or whether you're a seasoned property management company, and even if you're doing short, mid or long term rentals. So we want to be able to help people on all aspects there, and so that's really our focus is providing a really simple platform that allows you to grow your business.
Speaker 1:You talked about putting your spin on maybe what the industry has done. Give me an example of that and what is the differentiator for DoorSpot that you are really excited about in the market?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so with us. My spin is maybe hard to describe at times, but I think our differentiator is really around one just modernizing the experience, but also really how we're bringing in and making everything seamless. We, you know, we have the philosophy of keeping everything in house and really building out a platform that manages all your needs, and that really it's about how well it works together. So, as we all know, over the past several years now, laws around rentals and tenant managements and everything have been changing rapidly, and so to be able to address those, we felt like there needs to be a real focus around how people are communicating with each other, how your finances are flowing and being able to see that total picture from top to bottom, and so that's really what we're focusing is providing you visibility into your own business.
Speaker 2:That you may not have had previously, and doing that in a way that is very automated and seamless, so that way you can get back out there and be growing your portfolio or making better experiences for your tenants, or easier to work for your vendors, or whatever your need may be right now vendors or whatever your need may be right now.
Speaker 1:So that makes a lot of sense, because I know something that has been said about you and the programming that you've done in previous things is how good the accounting, the reporting side of products you've developed has been. You seem to excel in that category. So is the idea here with DoorSpot is not strictly to collect a rent check so you don't have to keep tabs on it, but also to get that business level insight makes a lot of sense. I could see why you would excel in that department.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I think that's you know, it's definitely became one of my strengths over the last 10 or 15 years. I'm not really sure how I got there at the beginning of it, but I've been here for a long time and so, yeah, I think it's important. I mean getting back to an earlier point, no matter what your business is, understanding your finances and how that affects the regular decisions you're making day-to-day in your business is it is critical, right, and so, uh, providing the tools there to do the day-to to day operations and give you that business insight, uh, we feel like we'll really help you grow your business over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, david, having been in software programming for as long as you have, what's your, what's your year, count right now that you've actively been working in this space, you think?
Speaker 2:I don't do as much development right now, um, but I guess technically I've been in this space about 24 years okay, that's I was.
Speaker 1:I was 20 something, so I was trying to guess where it'd be okay. So 24 years like that, the landscape right has changed so drastically right so 24 years ago.
Speaker 1:That would put us at, you know, windows 2000. Um, that was, you know, xp. Like this was this era of of stuff changing there. What, what can you say about the? Obviously the rate of change has accelerated significantly, you know, as the the further along we go. Yeah, what are some things that maybe you're really excited about in the future, of just the software space as a category, and maybe something that you're not excited about or you see as a, you know, potential game changer? You know, for the worst, just give me your, your ideas. I mean, you've been here for so long, you have such a depth of knowledge in this. I just curious, like what do you see in the next five years or so for the industry as a, as a whole?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know I'm not much of an oracle um, of that kind of thing. As far as predicting the future, I mean, it's a um. You know I think we're going to see a lot of growth around some obvious spaces. Right, there's such a push into AI right now. You know it's really hard to predict where that can go from a practical perspective. You know, I tend to live more in the middle right of what I would consider being trying to be very practical with new tooling. All I can predict, or that I feel, is that whatever we have now will change pretty drastically in five years. And you know that could be anything from how we are hosting our companies to, you know, efficiencies our developers have to release new things quicker or, you know, could be content, or it could be anything. So, you know, I think that all of that will change drastically. I just, you know, don't know, I don't spend a lot of time trying to think about what that exactly will look like in five years.
Speaker 2:And as far as the tech, I think it's gotten much. You know, in some ways our life has gotten much easier. Where, to your point, at the beginning of my career, we used to have to stand up actual servers and write software and manage those. You know, a lot of that has gotten so much easier. At the same time, there's just a lot more of everything Right. So for people new to it, it's a lot um to learn and there's a there's a pretty steep curve.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think um, the things that excite me now are really around tools that that work really well together and that you don't have to um spend days, weeks, months to kind of piece this and something else together. Right, it's around just a, you know, being more efficient, and I think you know little things work with that every day, everything from some of the ai tools to automation tools, to um even just how simple it is to do something like this now, right, um. So, yeah, I think that's what excites me just seeing how that those little things work together better in the future sure that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yep, so give me a, give me an idea for you personally the next couple, three years or so. What are you excited about? What's what are you? Obviously you know you're growing door spot. What do you hope to see, plan to see door spot accomplished in the next few years? What's a you know, best case scenario there?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, um, you know we're a very early stage company right now and, um, you know, we felt like we have a lot more to offer. So, you know, the next couple of years for us is a lot of product growth and, as I mentioned earlier, we want to be able to meet the needs of everybody, from someone just starting out in their rental business all the way up through, you know, the largest property management companies, and so for us, you know, it's just continuing to refine that and additional functionality kind of help them anticipate the changes that are happening in their business, which is why I'm not focused on the next five years of tech as much as I am the property management space, and so, you know, really just trying to remain dialed in there and, you know, see us be able to help more people grow their real estate businesses and, yeah, I think that's really it for us is just to kind of see that grow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So your focus maybe personally is keeping a really good pulse on the economy of that industry in general right, so you're not necessarily always just knee deep in the software development side. But also, how can this product better serve a changing market? Because I'm actually looking at that market and staying up to date.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And so, yeah, we really want to focus on the economical side, but also just on the day-to-day Again, going back to just changes in the rental landscape. Some of those aren't economic and some of those are just, you know, new compliance or regulation needs or that kind of thing, and so you know, if you had a, if you had some rental property staying on top of, that is a full-time job for you and anywhere we can ease that pain along that path, we want to yeah.
Speaker 1:So because I'm assuming, you know I I don't do anything, uh, in real estate on the investment, but I'm assuming if you have properties across multiple states, that could function pretty differently, right? So if I have homes here a couple in Indiana, maybe a couple out in Washington State, just whatever and maybe they're commercial, maybe the residential. The functionality of what I'm having to keep track of day to day looks very different for those doors. I'm assuming that's the case. You can correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:No, that's absolutely the case. It's a little beyond states, right. It goes all the way down to the local level. So there's you know there are a lot of possible combinations and issues and you know being able to just work more hand in hand with more groups allows us to help more along that path. So that's really where we're focused.
Speaker 1:That's great, I love it. Cool, cool, good stuff. Well, david, it has been a lot of fun getting to chat with you here. I'd like to finish off by just asking a couple of things. First of all, how do we listeners keep up with you, specifically obviously following DoorSpot but what are some ways that we can also just tangibly get out the news of what you're doing and share that, especially the people that we know in the rental management side?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think just door spotcom is the best place right. That's where we're going to. We're going to link everything. We do have a blog at door spotcom slash blog and we're available on LinkedIn. So just look us up. That's definitely where we're posting the most and just keeping everything current. So I would say that is definitely the best place to keep up with what's going on.
Speaker 1:Perfect Will do All right. What about just personal recommendations from you? Is there any? And it might be a podcast, might be a book, might be something else, I don't know. A movie, what's something that you have read, listened to, watched recently that was great in any category that you'd recommend.
Speaker 2:I haven't read it as recently, but I normally read it every little bit, I think one. Crossing the Chasm is a book that I go back to from time to time. I think there's just great insights in there, so it's probably my favorite.
Speaker 1:that's one that I like to go back to, so I'd always recommend that awesome, good stuff, good stuff. Well, david, thanks again. It has been a lot of fun getting to chat with you and again getting uh. Getting the first david johnston podcast uh appearance on the in the in the on the globe man Like this?
Speaker 2:is the first time we got it.
Speaker 1:You heard it here first, excited about that. Thanks for coming on and we are looking forward to seeing what happens down the road. All right, thank you so much. All right, cheers, buddy. See ya Bye.
