Launch Your Business With AI: one.com Aida AI

Whether you're creating a new website or refreshing an existing one, Aida AI Website Builder helps you get online in minutes, not weeks - without the complexity of juggling multiple tools, learning web design, or writing every page from scratch. Start your free 14-day trial today and use our exclusive SourceForge discount code SOURCEFORGE-AIDA-AI for 75% off when you're ready to launch: https://www.o7anwntrk.com/CSRRLN/FGXLG/?uid=108

one.com helps businesses get online fast with an all-in-one platform for domains, web hosting, WordPress, email, SSL, and website building. With 24/7 support and tools for launching a website or online shop, one.com makes it simple to create, manage, and grow a professional online presence from one place.

In this episode, we speak with Chris Blaine, Chief Operating Officer at one.com. We discuss the challenges and solutions for small businesses establishing an online presence. We explore how one.com simplifies the digital journey by offering an all-in-one platform that integrates domains, websites, email, and online stores. Chris highlights the importance of simplicity, allowing business owners to focus on their core activities rather than technical complexities. We also discuss the role of AI, particularly Aida AI, in making website creation intuitive and proactive, helping businesses manage SEO and compliance effortlessly. The conversation emphasizes transparency in pricing and the value of integrated solutions for small businesses.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the SourceForge podcast. I'm your host, Bo Hamilton. Now, for a lot of small business owners, getting online these days seems pretty simple. You know, you buy a domain, you build a website, you set up an email, maybe you add an online store, you think about the back end stuff, maybe SEO, generative engine optimization is a big one nowadays, and all the other pieces that come with running a digital presence. But in practice, that can quickly turn into quite a massive undertaking, right? With uh with the maze of tools, the subscriptions, the technical decisions and various ongoing maintenance that's involved. And you know, for someone who's trying to launch a business and just grow their brand, that complexity can really become a real barrier. So that's really what we're gonna be digging into today with one.com, how the digital business journey can become a simple, more guided, and accessible practice for small and mid-sized businesses. We're gonna talk about uh why simplicity doesn't have to mean basic, you know, how one.com's all-in-one platform brings together things like domains and websites, email and online stores, and how ADA is helping business owners create and manage a professional online presence without needing all of that technical skill and know-how or complicated prompting. That's uh that's a big skill these days. So uh we've got a lot to get into. And uh speaking on this topic is guest of the show, Chris Blaine, Chief Operating Officer at One.com. Chris, welcome to the podcast. Glad you could join us. Thanks, Bo. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Of course. Now, um, before we get started, and I hit you with some of the big questions of the episode. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe some of your background uh for listeners who may not be familiar with you?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, sure, absolutely. Um, well, I uh I live here in Denmark. So actually one.com was founded here in Denmark around 22, 24 years ago, uh and have moved here to Denmark about five years, um, about five years ago. Um, first of all, great place to live and great place to visit if you're ever looking for a vacation. But I have a long career uh mostly supporting consumers and small businesses um in various areas of technology. So started at Dell, spent 12 years with Dell, uh, both on the consumer and small business side, ended up moving over to Intuit and spent four years at Intuit, both on a website builder product, which we'll get into a little bit here in a second, and also on the uh online accounting software side of things. Uh and then I spent about six and a half years with a company called Sojourn, which is in the digital marketing space, specifically uh supporting uh hotels, uh cruise lines, airlines, et cetera. Uh, and then ended up uh moving over here, as I mentioned, to Denmark to join a couple of SaaS businesses here, again, who support and uh serve small businesses mostly in Europe. Uh one a workforce management tool and another one focused more on nurseries and giving nurseries the tools they need to uh to be able to run their business effectively. So a long career serving and supporting small business customers. And then yeah, jumped over here to one.com just recently or at the beginning of the year.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Very exciting. Yeah, very, very storied uh career. And you obviously have a lot of experience um in the tech space, the software space, and helping small businesses. So um, yeah, I'm really excited to get into this conversation. Um and I'd love to visit uh uh Sweden at some point. I've been in some of the neighboring um countries and really, really, really love it up there. Well, um, let's get right into it. I I'd love to sort of I guess take a step back, maybe talk about some of the bigger um challenges one.com is trying to solve for business owners today. Uh we I think we hear about this all the time. You know, someone has a really good idea, maybe they've already got, let's say, a product or a service lined up, but the moment they they sit down and they actually get online, you know, the problems start to arise. Either they're just looking at a blank screen, they're uh, you know, they're suddenly getting quotes from developers that they can't afford, uh, the prices go, you know, sky start skyrocketing. I'm just curious, do you think we're finally at a point where someone with no technical background can launch a professional-looking brand completely on their own?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I think, you know, what's interesting, you know, website building tools and technology and things that support small businesses and getting their business online have been around for a while. As I mentioned, you know, I was a part of a business back in 2012 at Intuit that was a website building tool and technology. But I think what's dramatically changed over the course of these 14 years for me, but maybe even more recently over the last couple of years is that the tools that are available today make it much easier for customers to not only establish a digital presence through a website, um, but also do it in a way that really brings their brand to life. In the past, I think you've you've found yourself with a you know simple tool. You know, you add your images, you have to drag and drop them. You know, you're trying to figure out how to add text here or there. You know, the tools and the technology at that time were pretty fixed in terms of what you could do and what you could navigate around, unless you were, to your point, a developer who could recode it and build it a different way. But today, um, you know, certainly with the um with the evolution and ongoing evolution of AI, there's a lot more uh tools available for small businesses to make it much more simple for them to not only start their business, but also then to bring that business online in a really meaningful and impactful and professional way.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I totally agree. Yeah, it seems like just a few years ago, you know, uh where building a website yourself basically, you know, meant meant wrestling with all these different templates and just kind of fingers crossed, hoping things weren't gonna break. Um and then once you get into some of the more complex like back-end stuff, like um dealing with, you know, complying with various regulations with privacy, security, and then working with SEO, things just got way more complex, right? So the the it's nice to see the barriers to entry are are decreasing quite significantly. Um, but I want to talk about that simplicity, you know, thing. So there's like this perception that uh simple is bad, I guess. Like it's almost like a dirty word. Um and in order for something to be to be quote unquote good or capable, it has to be complex, it has to be, you know, almost difficult to use and learn. But um I would almost push back on that a little bit um nowadays, especially for for small business owners who are already wearing, you know, 10 different hats. Um what when it comes to like building a company's digital presence, how can simplicity actually become a real competitive advantage?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, well, first of all, um, you know, I talked a little bit before in the introduction about uh the many years of experience I've had in working with small business customers across the globe. And the the cool thing about small businesses, um, but also the hard thing as a small businesses business is that they have the challenge of time. They just don't have time to do everything they want to and need to do to make their business successful. Um, and so they spend too much time trying to solve the things that are less important for their business or the things that take them more time because they're not experts in, you know, in this particular instance, trying to figure out how to build a real great, engaging uh website and maybe even plug into that other tools like an e-commerce platform, or maybe they're a service business. So they need a booking tool so customers can schedule appointments or whatever it might be. Um, you know, that challenge that has existed for them over time just takes time away from what they really want to be doing, right? Which is building the small business that they're passionate about, serving the customers that they're passionate about, right? Trying to ensure that they have the time to invest in those things that are important to them in setting up, establishing, and growing their small business. You know, think about like if you're, say, for example, you're a you know, you're a fitness instructor, or maybe you run a uh a CrossFit box, right? Like you want to be spending time helping your clients get fit, live a healthier lifestyle. You want to be investing in how you do that better every day with your customers and your clients. You don't want to be spending time trying to figure out how to put a website up, give them the tools they need to book sessions with you, right? Maybe engage with them through a CRM integration into the tool so you can communicate with them, maybe even a social uh integration so that you can communicate online through the social tools that are available to you. Like all of these things are things that are kind of need to be done, but not what you want to be spending time on. So the simplicity, I think, is critically important there because it gives customers back time, time to invest in those things that really, really matter to them. And so that's what I think is really important when we look at how these technology tools have been evolving over the years, is moving away from those stayed, templated versions of websites that are complex, they don't integrate well with other tools. You're trying to figure out how to manage multiple subscriptions, whatever it might be. You know, the simplicity today allows those cus those small business customers to really use their time on the things that they truly care about, right? Because those things become much easier with the adoption and the availability of new technologies.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Absolutely. Yeah. You want to have, you want to help them, you know, build a website, but also help them focus in on what they want to be doing, which a lot of times isn't building a website, right? It's just they they know that they need the website, they need the the exposure and the the branding and whatnot. But um, you know, they ultimately want to be focusing on their craft. Um so the less time they can spend on that on the other fronts um is is is better. Um and I think another word that kind of comes to mind is is just the focus, right? So when you're when you're not drowning in options, um, you can actually get stuff done, right? It's sort of it's like that paradox of choice where, you know, it's just sometimes more features just mean more paralysis. You're looking, you don't even know where to start because there's just overwhelming options. Um and with my internet brain these days, that is that hits very, very close to home with that sort of like, where do I start? There's just too much, too many things to do and too many new tools and software to tinker with. Um so I totally get why simplicity would be um appealing. Um another thing too is um when people, you know, when when people hear simple, they I think they might also picture something pretty narrow in scope. Um, but I also want to I also know that one.com gets described as this all-in-one platform. And so I sort of want to unpack what that actually means. Um I think from the business, uh small business owner's perspective, they're not just evaluating software, they're trying to survive and grow, they're trying to um build a website. But I'm curious, like what does a small business really need today to grow online? And then how does that all-in-one platform, one dot com offers, help solve that, help with with that endeavor?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Well, first of all, let's just start with the basics, right? If you're gonna have an online presence, you need a website. The second thing is you need a domain, right? So people can actually find your store online, right? And then the last thing is it needs to be hosted somewhere. So these are the basics, right? Like domains, hosting website. We're pretty simple. Um, the business basics, right? So if you're gonna run an online business and you wanna try and grow your business, you need demand, which means you need to find a way to reach customers. Um, and that requires you to have some ability to understand what SEO does for you and how that works to give you visibility and presence online so customers can find you. Or geo now, right, with the introduction of many other LLMs and all of these chat GPTs, et cetera. You need to know how to set your site up so that those can find you and can recommend you. The second thing is you need a way to engage with people, right? So you need to have content and information on the site that's relevant. Um, and it needs to not be cluttered. It needs to be easy to find and easy to navigate. Um, and so you need to ensure that your content is structured in a way that makes it easy for customers to get the information they need from you. Um, you need to be able to engage with customers. So you need an email, right? You need maybe a platform to engage with people on social, like I mentioned earlier. These are important uh tools for you to engage customers in a conversation about your business and about your brand. You need a way to transact e-commerce tools. As I mentioned before, maybe your um hair salon, right? And people want to book appointments with you. So you need to provide them the ability to book those things with you through your website. We come across a lot of small businesses here at one.com that only way you can book with them is by phoning them. Like customers are way beyond that today. There's too many great technologies out there. They'll just choose an alternative, right? If it's simple for them to find a way to book online. So you need a way to transact with your customers online as well. And then, of course, you know, sort of the CRM side of things, you need a way to ongoingly communicate with customers to build repeatability in that purchase process with your customers, engage them in a relationship with you, et cetera, et cetera. So there's lots of tools that you need to be able to be successful as a small business. Why does all in one matter? Well, as we mentioned before, one of the challenges that small businesses face beyond time is the complexity of all of these things. Right. So there's different tools you need to use for SEO, right, for optimizing your site for search. There's different tools you need to use to engage with customers, whether they be email products or social integrations. There's different tools for bookings or e-commerce, there's different tools for establishing a CRM. And all these tools, when managed individually and separately, just create more time for you. Not only that, then they make it complex for you, they also make it complex for you to run your business, right? I have multiple logins, I got multiple accounts, I got multiple customer, must customer service organizations to deal with potentially. So where all in one becomes important, and what we're trying to do here at one dot com is to bring these tools together under one platform for customers so they can choose what they need for their business and do what they need for their business all under one umbrella. And that's tricky, right? That's a hard thing to do. Um, but what we've been focused on is how do we make that easier for customers? So here as a part of our organization, we have multiple brands that are a part of our group umbrella that we are now plugging in to make it easier for small businesses to again to run their business online. So I think in the end of the day, it's it's it comes down to you got a lot you need to do as a small business to be successful online. What you need to look for is a partner that can help you do those things easily and simply, to your point, and in a way that makes it right kind of happening in the back end and you don't need to worry about it. And again, you don't need to manage all these different relationships. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, it's it's easier said than done um to have this all in one platform. Um, but it's, you know, the the upside speaks for itself. Like you're saying, there's there's so many different tools. There's so many different, the competition is higher than it's ever been. Um, but it's really all about you know, that full surface area um uh of all the different possibilities uh and tools and integrations that a customer might want for their business. So it's not just like that that front door, so to speak, it's the whole house. Um and and and you're I imagine you're consistently, like you mentioned, the umbrella of different products you guys um have and different companies um trying to integrate that. I'm sure you're you're just constantly adding new features, new integrations. You probably have a whole laundry list of different um, you know, tools and whatnot to incorporate into your platform. Um yeah, I'm just like what what changes when you have, I mean, you you did address this, but when you have domain, email, website, the store, all those things all in in one, what what sort of changes when you have this one place for for everything?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Yeah, well, I think in the you know, in the end of the day, uh small business customers uh um are looking for ways to to simplify their lives. And you know, that simplification comes through the amount um of of sort of complexity they have in trying to navigate and manage technology. Um and so I think what becomes important for customers is having, excuse this expression, but like one neck to hold on to, right? Um and when you have a platform that provides that to customers, if they have a problem with their booking tool, or if they have a problem uh with their CRM integration, or if they have a problem with their site, um, or if something's going on, they want to add another domain, or they want to um increase the capacity for for their email volume, whatever these things might be, it's it's it's better, in my opinion, to have one person to go to to solve those problems for you. Um and I think that's what's important for small business customers is having that single neck that they can maybe massage as well as hold on to. Uh, but but in the end of the day, really have that person or that company that's there to support and help them, um, whatever their needs might be. And things go wrong in technology, right? Like it's not perfect. Things break all the time. And, you know, we're not immune to that here at one.com. Um, so when that does happen, like you don't want to have to go down to the tire shop to fix your tires and then drive across town to figure out what you need to do with your transmission and then go across town because you know your glass is cracked, and then go like like you just don't have time for that as a small business. So, how do we make it easier uh for these customers just to be able to reach out to one person to get the help and support that they need to solve the problems that they have?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah, no, there's there's absolutely there's there's a real peace of mind uh in knowing where to go when something when something needs attention. Absolutely. Um, okay, so I know a lot of people get get sort of burned by this where you you finally you launch a site, you feel good about it, and then maybe it's six months later, maybe longer than that. Uh maybe sometimes it's like a month later, but something just goes wrong, something breaks, and then it's back on the to-do list. You're starting to you know have to pull people from different departments trying to tackle the issue. Um, maybe you have an IT team, but chances are they're they're probably pretty lean if they exist at all. Um so there's this ongoing sort of maintenance tax that nobody really talks about when you're first getting started. I'm curious, how is AI changing that experience for business owners? Is it making it you know better or worse? Um, or does it depend on the situation? Curious to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

I mean, of course. I mean, AI opens so many doors and so many opportunities, not just for small business customers, for really anybody. Um, but I think what's really changing here is how AI becomes proactive, not just reactive. And um there are hundreds, thousands of use cases of how uh AI can support you with reactive responses to the questions you have, even within maybe in the example here of building your website. Like, I want a website, right? What kind of website do you want? I want this type of website. Okay, I will build it for you. Um so it's reacting to what you're what you're telling it to do. Um, I think what's changing and what we're working on here is how do we bring um agentic intelligence into our solutions so customers don't even need to ask. Um, and let me give you an example. Uh maybe not necessarily something broke, but um, let's use SEO as an example. One of our um agents, our AI agents, is going to continuously check how you're showing up in search engine optimization. It's gonna check Google, it's gonna check where you're falling, where your competitors are. And it's gonna come back to you and it's gonna say, hey, oh, FYI, you're on the third page. One of the things I would recommend us doing is putting additional content on your site that supports these types of search terms. Would you like me to do that for you? Right now you have not only somebody looking out for your business, checking those things for you, but also then saying, not only is that available, but I'll actually just do it for you. You don't need to do anything. If you want me to, that's what I'll go do for you. And so certainly the customer is still in control, but you have this now sort of agentic opportunity to build a much more successful business without having to know what to do all the time or not having to know what to ask. Right. It will tell you these are the things you want to go uh focus on for your site and for your business. And so I think that's pretty cool. And I think that's really what's evolving with AI and how that's changing from, again, this reactive to a more proactive approach to really helping small businesses uh sort of navigate the complexities of all of these tools that we've been talking about.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's uh it's it's a wild, um, it's a wild, you know, world we're we're journeying into with this AI um and what's capable nowadays. I mean, I was just uh vibe coding a website not too long ago just to kind of test out the current state of AI with some of the the leading you know um tools out there and LLMs. And um, it's pretty, I mean, it's pretty amazing that you can just sort of if you see a particular uh you know attractive like carousel of uh feature or um of certain you know various visuals, you can literally just sort of be like, hey, I like this from the XYZ website. Can you incorporate it to mine? You know, and it'll just do that. But then what you're talking about with the agentic capabilities, being able to, you know, sort of cross reference other websites and other resources out there and kind of be proactive and say, Hey, I noticed you don't, your your website doesn't have this page doesn't have this thing that you might want. Um, I can add that for you. Or I was thinking too, if it's able to tap into some of the metrics and analytics and say, hey, like we could. Potentially get people to stay on your website, you know, 30 seconds longer by adding this feature, let's say. You know, it's like with YouTube and the watch time, it's just inevitably it drops off after people press play. But uh the videos that really have uh a lasting impact, you know, it'll um, you know, they have that hook up front, they they kind of lay the the groundwork. It's like things like that can help really uh, you know, help the listener and viewer um stick around longer. So I imagine all these different tools can be applied to the website as well. Um so they're just I don't know, it's really it's really fascinating. And I think there's also a little bit of a paradox happening in AI right now, um, in terms of, you know, uh the tools that are supposed to make things easier are also sort of introducing their own learning curve, right? Um prompt engineering is is a is a real skill nowadays. Um and I think most small businesses don't have time to really develop it. Let's say I think for some, maybe of the younger audience, like bored into it, they might have like they're starting to get the get the hang of it. Um and some some of it isn't pretty intuitive, but there's a whole level of complexity with prompt engineering that I think um is really starting to um you know show. Um so I understand you guys have a new AI tool to help with all this called IDA AI. Um, so my question is, how does Ida AI make website creation just feel more intuitive, feel more guided, less intimidating for someone who just wants to get online?

SPEAKER_00 23:28

What we've done with ADA is is really sort of back to this whole conversation is try to make it simple and easy for small businesses to take back time and spend it on the things that they love. We just actually uh relaunched our website building product uh with ADA driving it. Um, and there's a couple of really cool things that I think are important. Um, the first one is a lot of customers already have a website. So they don't want to go back out and try and figure out how to build a new one, right? They got one. Like, how do I just make it better? Uh so one of the things that we've introduced with ADA is to modernize. Uh so it's a modernized function. So all you have to do is put your URL into ADA, and ADA will take a look at your site and recreate your website for you using all the same content, all the same imagery, uh, et cetera, and build you a brand new, refreshed site in minutes in quotation marks, right? And depending on how big your site is. Um, but what's really cool about that for customers is you know, this challenge of well, how do I make this better? How do I bring it up to speed? How do I make it cooler? How do I make it more professional? You know, I don't want to have to start from scratch when I've already got something. Like, how do I take that and and just modernize it? You know, we're providing that, or ADA is providing that uh to customers now. So that's number one. The second thing is, you know, this vibe coding stuff, it requires some intelligence, right? Like I gotta tell you, I'm probably not the most um savvy uh technical person when it comes to trying to vibe code or just tell uh an AI tool what I want it to do. I I always get it wrong and stuff has gone wacky on me. And I I don't know how to fix it, I don't know what question to ask to fix the problem that exists. Um what we tried to build with ADA is a super intuitive platform for customers. Again, you know, we're serving small businesses here. So, you know, we're not trying to build highly complex uh e-commerce engines for mid-market and large enterprises like that. Of course not, right? So who we're solving for is, you know, relatively simple set of needs. Um so we don't need to make it complex in terms of what we're asking customers um to tell us about their business. Uh, we make it very simple. Um, the other cool thing is that we we make it relevant to their industry and relative relevant rather to their location, right? So, you know, if you tell Ada, listen, I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, as I do, and I want to build a site for you know cycling tours around Denmark, it's going to select imagery for you that represents where you are, right? Instead of just pictures of people on bikes. And I think those are the cool advancements in technology. And what we've tried to build Ada to bring forward is intelligence in that build that makes it simple with very easy-to-use prompts. So customers don't have to spend all this time trying to figure out how to ask the agentic tool, hey, I want this or I want that, or I need these things, or I want that to change or adjust. I mean, you can certainly do that, but but the simplicity of the questions that we ask and the simplicity of how we can get to a quick site execution that is relevant to their business and relevant to their location, I think is super powerful.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

So it's got that context awareness. Um that's interesting. Yeah. Um, wow. Okay. So generative AI and website building is is um, you know, it's it's democratized. Everyone can really, you know, start building a website with pretty much any run-of-the-mill LLM. But the the thing that separates um, let's say ADA with uh, you know, something from, I don't know, Chat GPT, OpenAI, Claude, um, is is the the context awareness, the complexity involved. And I I read something uh around um like more than a third of new websites generated are are generated or created with AI. And that was like a month or so ago. Now I'm sure it's it's it's much more than that. Um and I think that figure was even pretty conservative to begin with. But it just makes me think of okay, you can create this website, let's say, but like there's so much back-end, you know, behind the scenes stuff that's involved. Um and so by working with a dedicated, you know, platform that actually can handle all the back-end stuff and all the different tools and integrations and whatnot, you're gonna set yourself up for success as opposed to um uh the headaches in the future of just, you know, maybe creating a website with Claude, let's say. Um, because the that's sort of the the unsexy side of having a website is just the stuff that doesn't show up in the screenshots that but can cause all those those problems and really, you know, go back to the time element. Time is is the ultimate asset, and people in businesses don't have the time to be spending fixing things and maintaining their website. They just want it to work. Um, so my uh when it comes to SEO, you know, privacy, compliance, and all that behind the scenes work, um, how much of that can AI realistically take off a business owner's plate?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah, you know, as I mentioned before in the example I used with uh the agentic approach to helping small business customers understand how they can improve, you know, their their um searchability, visibility online through through search engines. You know, certainly there's tools that that can help them do that. I think when it comes down to ultimately, you know, solving some of the more complex issues, you know, you mentioned compliance and other things. Um I think it matters to have a partner that that understands the um complexities of where you operate. And certainly, you know, AI tools can do that. But you know, there's a lot that goes behind that and is is not just behind the scenes from an AI perspective, but also behind the scenes from a just a platform perspective. Um and I think where you operate matters. Um you know, one of the things that that we're proud of here is that we're a European company, we're a European business. And the majority of our customers are here in Europe. And and Europe has some very specific things that matter when it comes to compliance, um, you know, certainly privacy, um, that aren't as necessarily as um rigid as they might be in other places around the world. So I think making sure that you establish a partnership with somebody that that understands those things and has built those things into the platform. And then, of course, enable the AI tools that we use to support that ongoing is is super critical and super important for small businesses. Um, certainly the agents, as I mentioned before, can always be checking the site. Hey, there's things that are wrong here. We need to update this, you know, this, you need a privacy clause. You, you know, these things are things these agents can absolutely solve for customers. And as I mentioned before, like we're we're just getting started with this journey, and there's additional agents we'll be adding here over time. Um, but those are certainly places where I think AI can help. But again, I think the real critical and important piece of this is not information. It's not just simply telling a small business owner or a website owner what the problem is. It's actually doing something about it for them, right? And that's really where I think the AI tool becomes powerful, is not just in the inform, but actually in the do for. Um, and again, you know, to my point earlier, I think that's that's one of the things we've really focused on here is there's lots of great AI tools out there. You you mentioned yourself, right? Like there's a ton, right? There's small businesses that have got lots of choice. Um, I think what becomes important is how does that tool not just help me get online, but how does it help me run and grow my business online and actually kind of do it for me in the end of the day?

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Well, you mentioned the the some of the data uh and privacy regulations um uh you know required for for companies operating in Europe um and and abroad as well, but uh Europe is really kind of leading the the charge there with with some of these regulations with GDPR um among other things. Um so um and I think small businesses are really expected to hold themselves to the same standard as as some of these bigger enterprises when it comes to things like GDPR and and and SSL and just data handling in general. Um but they're they have to do so with with obviously a lot less resources, right? So it can become a real, real challenge. Um, and there's uh there's a gap as as well, and just a lot of owners are just hoping they're covered, kind of fingers crossed, I imagine. Um, so how does one.com just help simplify those concerns for businesses that don't have like an IT team to make sure they're compliant with everything.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, like like I said before, I mean, I think the important thing is knowing what they are and building the tools and the technology to support them. Um, you know, we have a whole department of people here that are focused, you know, on our own compliance and privacy work. And of course, you know, that easily translates into the tools that we develop and we deploy for our customers. But I think, you know, when it comes down to privacy and compliance, and and back to your point a second ago, um, you know, small businesses aren't any different than enterprises. There is no um there's no leeway. There's no like, oh, it's okay, you're small, you don't have to do like there is a requirement, there's a legal requirement to do certain things. So so they they all have to operate under the same rules. Um but I think what's important when we when we when we start to look at um compliance and privacy um is you know, how are we ultimately protecting as a as a business, as one dot com, how are we protecting our customers and ensuring that they are set up for for success and and we can take some of those those concerns off their plate. So as I said, you know, we we we operate here, we know the rules here, and so they're pretty stricter, stricter than than most other places in the world. And so our technology is built to support those things. And certainly the agents that we use are obviously developed in a way that also will support that. But I also think it falls on the business owner themselves to be aware of those things and ensure them for themselves that they're they're also following the proper standards. Like I can develop a, I can integrate a CRM tool for you, but you know, if if you choose not to allow customers to opt out, like that's that's that's a rule that you need to make sure that you're adhering to as a small business owner. So we can certainly build that into the technology and support customers in that journey. But there's obviously got to be a level of awareness of what it takes to run a bit a small business, dependent on where you are in the world. Um, and how do you ensure that you are set up for success there too? And the tools can certainly help, but you've got an obligation as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah. No, well very well said. Like that's so true. It's like you can you can bake in the protection, um, but ultimately it's it's yeah, it's on the business owner to to you know make sure they are um they integrate or they they apply um what you guys offer. Um and and also I think also the the being able to just kind of offer uh resources and information about like, you know, what is a SSL certificate and like what what is a cookie policy supposed to say, you know, stuff like that, I think could be super helpful. But again, it does fall back ultimately on the business owner.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah, and the agent, the AI can help you with that, right? Like it will script it for you. It'll write it based on sort of what it understands to be the rules and also sort of informed by all the other customers we have, because you know, it's a continuous learning engine around how do we set these things up properly for customers depending on what market they're in. And so certainly the ag tools can help for that, with that as well. But to your point, you know, it's definitely the responsibility of the business owner to ensure they're adhering.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Now, uh another uh uh common um sort of trend we're seeing nowadays in in addition to, you know, um AI website building and and AI in general is this sort of introductory pricing bait and switch, let's say, um, that people have basically learned to uh distrust the number they're seeing at the checkout because it's sort of it's it's usage-based. Um, you know, one figure ends up being a completely different figure for whatever reason. Um I feel like they're they're already sort of mentally bracing for what the bill is going to look like um after you know they they sign on to work with a company. Um so I'm curious, like how how is one dot com uh just trying to make part of that experience uh more transparent? What are you guys doing on that front?

SPEAKER_00 35:51

We talked earlier about the fact that I've been a part of many different companies of various sizes uh uh across the globe. And I will say that this particular industry that is sort of the domain hosting and even website building space has some very aggressive pricing tactics from an acquisition standpoint. Um and uh you know, I think customers can often run into sticker shock uh if you or we as as um business partners with them are not transparent in exactly what they're paying today and and what they would be expected to pay tomorrow. And so this is a constant struggle, and we we don't do it right all the time. I like because customers, to your point, see what they see up front, they expect that to be the thing, and then of course, you know, when they do get the sticker shock at renewal, um, you know, they feel they feel cheated or or they feel like you know they we weren't transparent with them. So our job um is to ensure that we do that well. Um and certainly um with things like domains and things like hosting, that's a little bit more challenging because usually those are used as acquisition tools generally. Um but website building, we can be a lot more transparent, right? Because um uh we can be transparent on on the other things as well, but but with website building, usually you're sort of so there's more of a monthly cycle to what you're doing. It feels more like a SaaS product than it does sort of purchasing, you know, a domain for a period of time or purchasing a sort of a hosting solution for a period of time. And so um one of the things we're thinking about is how do we ensure that we, in this all-in-one solution, package it together in a transparent way for customers so they understand exactly what they're paying for. Um, so so number one is certainly a level of transparency. Number two is ensuring that we're we're bringing things together for customers so they feel like they have one thing they're paying for over time. Um, and then the last thing is back to your point, you know, AI is tricky because, you know, this sort of notion of credits. You can do only so many things. And then you run out of tokens and you run out of credits or whatever. Um, and now you're paying, you know, you know, I just wanted to like change the background color to blue, and now I gotta spend, you know, whatever. Um, you know, we are trying to build and construct our offering and our solution to give customers much more flexibility. Um, you know, that's tricky, right? Because AI comes at a cost. So we're trying to balance that as we deliver uh and develop and deliver these tools to customers and be transparent in that journey with them. Um so yeah, so I think this is that this is a challenging area for our industry generally. Um, and I think what we have an obligation as providers of that technology is to be fully transparent with customers and do our best to call out the price you pay today and what what you would be expected to pay in the future, sort of based on that acquisition pricing strategy. You know, but but again, you know, certainly small business customers and customers in general, you know, like what they see and that's what they expect, and that's what they're gonna expect forever. So, you know, that's always gonna be a challenge, but but it's something that we certainly focus on every day on my team.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

That's that's I think reassuring to hear for uh customers, perspective customers. I I think it's it's it's an uncomfortable topic just talking about pricing and things are changing so fast with AI um that it's it's tough to it's tough to nail down one price that will that will stand the test of time, um, with especially when you have the geopolitical like uh inflation and whatnot. Um and I think AI too is you know, it's uh a lot of companies are operating um with the hopes of becoming profitable in the future. And so they're kind of just like dangling this carrot of of tools and stuff and then and then um with the goal of, you know, or very real possibility uh plan of raising the prices um to support and sustain the business. Um and the ultimate goal, like goal right now, the short term, is just getting as many customers as possible. And so there's uh I mean I've read a number of articles about this and and how um basically don't get too comfortable with with the the prices you're paying now because they are almost inevitably going to go up as some of these margins really tighten um and um profitability becomes a much more desired target.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

I think it's a really good point to make. And I certainly can't speak to the future from a pricing perspective here, but what I what I can what I can talk about is value. Um and I think that's the important thing that we have to do. We have to bring value, we have to create value for for our small business customers. And that value comes in supporting them in growing their business. Their profitability is not gonna come necessarily from saving an extra 10 bucks, 10 euros, whatever, 10 kroner a month in some technology fee. It's gonna come from a 20% increase in the number of customers they've got or a 25% increase in the number of sales they get. Um so the scalability factor of growth is far more valuable than the cost savings of technology at a certain point, right? But but certainly, and I think that's really, really important um, because that's what we need to be delivering to customers, conscious of price and conscious of making sure that we we help them balance that profitability equation, but really support them in the thing that's ultimately going to make them them successful um is is the growth piece of it.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's that's so true. And and being able to, yeah, help them scale, offer those tools, and then just think about it like, you know, you're saving how do what do you put how how do you put a price on the time you're saving and the lack of of a headache and right? So um I think from that standpoint, um, you know, the value is is really um is really absolutely there. And um and then again, circling back to just being straightforward and transparent about things and where things are going. Um and if things, if the pricing does change, just you know, give um give customers a heads up. Um uh I know Copilot um recently was in the news for this, and they've been, you know, back in December, they announced they were switching to a usage-based uh model, pricing model. And, you know, here we are in June. They just made the switch. They gave customers a six-month window. Um, obviously, you know, a lot of the headlines capture the frustration and the the differences. Um, but at least it was, you know, it was it was the messaging was there. Uh at least they they had this window of um information there to deliver. So circling back around or just kind of bringing this home, let's say. Um, we've obviously covered a lot of ground. We've covered the tech, we've covered the pricing, we've covered the AI layer. Um, but I would just like to bring it back to the to the person on the other end. So let's close with with the you know, is this for me question um that I know some folks are listening and are probably asking themselves. Um, in regards to the AI website builder you have with ADA, um, who is it really built for and where should they go to learn more?

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Yeah, so our our website building technology and and ADA specifically is is here to serve and support you know small businesses across Europe and you know across the globe. You can access and use ADA if you're anywhere in the globe, and actually it will speak to you in your language if you'd like. So that's pretty cool. Um, but but really we're here to serve and support uh small businesses across Europe. Um, you know, and our goal is to do exactly what I said, right? Give them time back to focus on the things that they really care about, bring them more insights in the technology and tools that we provide them, and make it simple for them to run their uh front office, right, online with one partner and one provider. And so that's what we're here to do. That's what we're here to provide, and that's who we're here to serve. And the easiest way to learn more uh about us and learn more about ADA is just to go to one.com, uh go to our website and try it out. We have a 14-day free trial. Um, we we continue to add features and uh other other tools for for our customers, which will be coming and rolling out over the course of the few months here. But but come and give us a try, right? Um, because you know there's there's no no risk in coming in. If you got a website, throw your URL URL in and see what we can we can build for you quickly. Um and uh if you don't and you're just trying to figure out if you'd like to build a small business and you want to play around with the tool, then you certainly have that opportunity as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Perfect. All right. Well, be sure to uh drop that link in the show notes so nobody has to go hunting for it. One.com. Um and then Chris, um I imagine you're over on LinkedIn, but is there a place you'd like to send people to get in contact with you?

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yeah, sure. LinkedIn is great. Uh you can find me, Chris Spleen on LinkedIn. That's probably the best way to reach out to me if you have any other questions.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Perfect. All right. Well, this has been a really, really great conversation. I really feel like we covered, you know, um a lot of ground, the full picture, getting started, um, some of the nitty-gritty AI details and uncomfortable pricing topics and compliance and whatnot. So um, but yeah, thank you so much for just for being on the on the on the show and um for sharing all the insights you shared with us. My pleasure. Thanks so much for the time today, Bo.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

And thank you all for listening to the SourceForge podcast. I am your host, Bo Hamilton. Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date with all of our upcoming B2B software related podcasts. I will talk to you in the next one.