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Social Media Decoded
Bootstrapping to Success: How Johnathan Grzybowski Built Penji Without Investors
00:26:01
In this episode, Johnathan Grzybowski shares how he bootstrapped his company, Penji, into a successful creative subscription service without outside funding. He dives into lessons on scaling, customer experience, and building a sustainable business model through authenticity and strategy.
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- [00:01]
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- [00:58]
Jonathan
You were to sign up for Penji right now, you immediately get paired with top 2% of designer in the country, in the world. Excuse me. And they're immediately embedded into your team so you don't necessarily have to re educate them about everything. They're gonna give you a call, talk to you, speak with you to understand what your brand is and what your clients brands are to deliver whatever it is that you're looking for.
- [01:17]
Michelle Thames
Okay? We need this. Some of my clients need this. Are you all listening? Hey. Hey. Welcome to the Social Media Decoded podcast. The podcast for entrepreneurs and business owners who want to grow their brand, increase visibility and make more money without the overwhelm. I'm your host, Michelle Thames, marketing strategist, business coach and the person who's here to give you the real no fluff strategies to help you succeed online. Each week I bring you expert insights, actionable tips and real talk about what's actually working in social media and digital marketing. Whether you're just starting or scaling the six figures, you're in the right place. So grab your coffee or matcha if you're like me. And let's dive into today's episode. I want you to imagine building a business from nothing, okay? Like a lot of us, right, we build from nothing. No outside funding, right? So just pure grit strategy and a passion for solving real problems. And so that's exactly what today's guest Jonathan did with Pinji. So I am super excited to dive into how he turned this simple idea into a game changer. Okay? A creative subscription service serving thousands worldwide. Welcome Jonathan. How are you today?
- [02:35]
Jonathan
I'm doing amazing. That's a great introduction. I appreciate your research and your Creative language. It means a lot.
- [02:42]
Guest
Yes.
- [02:42]
Michelle Thames
No. But I would love for you to introduce yourself and let everyone know about your amazingness.
- [02:48]
Jonathan
Yeah, amazingness. There's a lot there. But when it comes to kidding aside, now I'm a father. I would say father and a husband. Even though father is first, father, husband, I feel like, you know, they're, they're the same. Um, and that's something that I'm probably the most proud of. Then I would say I am a entrepreneur. That probably comes third, maybe second, who knows? But I've had this idea and I've had this, this knack for helping people. And a, a mission that I have in life is to develop creative solutions and make creative solutions more accessible to people who may not necessarily be able to afford high level agency pricing. Right, Right. So making things from a subscription based, for now, it is graphic design and it is creative services like video. And that's more or less what Pengi does. So we're a subscription service that is affordable to business owners. So rather than hiring somebody in house, you can subscribe to a subscription from Pengi, pay a fraction of the cost of somebody in house and be able to receive probably 10 to 20 times more output than that of somebody that is working directly next to you. And you don't have to pay taxes or any of that fun stuff as well.
- [04:00]
Michelle Thames
Oh, the people need this. No, this is so good because I work in a digital marketing agency alongside my husband and we work with creatives. Right. And we work with business owners who don't necessarily have the funds like you said. So this is, I think, such a great, great tool. You all, I hope you are taking notes because we're about to dive in and it's really going to get good. You all know I say get your pens and notepads out because I'm sure Jonathan is about to drop some gems. So I want to start with what was your really aha moment that led you to create Pingy?
- [04:30]
Jonathan
I suck at graphic design. And you know, I think like when you're starting a digital marketing agency, one of the hardest things to do is time allocation. So do you, do you answer that your client? Because all of your clients are going to be needy as hell. They're. They want everything done like asap and you have crap to do, right? You have a child, you have a life, you have your next client that you're trying to go after. Because if you're in the digital marketing agency, you're only as good as your last client. Right? So if you are in this, like, for me, in the very beginning, I was the sales, I was the support. I was the designer again. I told you I'm crap at graphic design. Actually, you know what? I should have. I should. I'm not going to do it now, but I should go upstairs. I did one of those paint and paint things with your wife where it's like you paint her and, you know, whatever. I. My wife is beautiful. I made her, I drew her. And she looks absolutely heinous looking. She looks like that. A mix between like a pig and like a cartoon. It's terrible. So, like, if I were to show you it, you would see how bad I am at graphic design. But anyways, my. My point is, is that my aha moment specifically was, how can I add? Give myself more time to focus on revenue for the business. And then I decided to outsource. So then when you outsource, then you have all of these things that you have to worry about. You have to worry about onboarding because you have a story, right? And you want your clients to know what your story. Excuse me. You want your team to know what your story is. You want your team to know how to talk to customers. You want your team to know what the brand style guides are. Usually it takes anywhere from one to three months in order for you to kind of like have a. A good person on your team that you can rely on. And then if it doesn't work out, you have to fire them and you have to start that crap all over again, right? Penji fixes all that. So if you were to sign up for Penji right now, you immediately get paired with top 2% of designer in the country, in the world. Excuse me. And they're immediately embedded into your team. So you don't necessarily have to reeducate them about everything. They're gonna give you a call, talk to you, speak with you to understand what your brand is and what your client's brands are to deliver whatever it is that you're looking for.
- [06:38]
Michelle Thames
Okay? We need this. Some of my clients need this. Are you all listening? Are you listening? Are you gonna check out Pingy? Because this is gold. Okay? I love how you said you wanted time back too. That's very important for us as entrepreneurs because I'm a parent too. I'm a mom of a 10 year old, so I definitely get that. And this is Gene. I'm just genius. I love the guests that are coming on the social media decoded podcast. You all, you are in for a treat this year. Okay? So let's talk about struggles because all entrepreneurs have struggles. What were some of the struggles that you face early on and how did you push through that?
- [07:11]
Jonathan
Yeah, so early on is different than, than now. So the, the, the company is about 8 years old. We have over 500 team members on the, in the, in the company, in the early struggles, there's different phases. So, like, phase one is like, how do you make it work? Right? Phase two is like, okay, so it's working. You have validation. How do you scale? And right now we're in this phase where it's like, we're in the what do I want to be when I grow up type of phase where it's like, we know what we are, we know, we know who we are, we know what we sell. But, like, what is the actual deliverables that are going to move the, to become an even stronger force where you, you know, the companies that are tools in your brain and you can list them off the top of your head. I would like more people to be able to have Pengi as that tool that pops in their head when they come on a podcast that they can't live without without me actually being on the podcast explaining it. So the struggles that I have now that are actionable, that I can probably give to your audience is communication. What I've done. I'm a terrible communicator. My brain is firing at 6,000 miles per second and I have to keep track of my own thoughts in addition to all the things that are happening around me. Communication and notion, right? I've used notion quite regularly. I use it for my marriage, believe it or not. I use it for my business and writing things down and telling my team members what to do without me just getting on a call and be like, hey, update this or do that. And it usually ends up not being. Being done exactly the way that I was hoping for. And so communication to me is like, always been the hardest thing that I've never quite really got right and I'm still not really great at it, but I'm better than I was yesterday, for sure. So my advice to anybody that's listening is, please, just because you say something to somebody doesn't mean that they understand what it is that you're trying to say. And I think you should do two things. Number one, you should have a conversation with them about whatever that task is and then write it down and then actually share that link with them on Slack or teams or whatever it is so then they are aware of exactly what it is, what your Expectations are. And then the final thing to that entire thing, put an end date that it needs to be done by. Because I can give somebody a task right now. And like I'll give you an example. One of the tasks was like we changed their pricing. Tell all clients that we changed their pricing and they're getting a free upgrade for XYZ reasons.
- [09:41]
Guest
Right?
- [09:41]
Jonathan
Well, I was like to me it was, I did on a Monday, it should be done by Friday. Well, only 25% of the customers that needed to be responded to were. And then I realized, well, crap, I didn't. I never put an end date. So how are they supposed to know when it's supposed to be done? My idea is that it's urgent, it should be done like asap. But they have other things that they have to do too. So I think communication is the key. Writing things down and then putting an end date on everything.
- [10:08]
Michelle Thames
Great tips. No, I am for it. Write it down. And like you said, everybody communicates differently too. So I think that a lot of us, because I know I'm an oversharer. So I'm sorry to my, my team, I over share information, but I just want to make sure that like you said, you know, everything is out there and that we can work together as a team. Those are really great tips and I hope you all are taking notes again like I said. But now let's talk about some, some interesting things. Okay. And bootstrapping again is no small feat. And so Pinchy is now a multimillion dollar business. Congratulations. You said 500 employees. That is no small feat. And I hope that you have celebrated yourself because that is an amazing accomplishment. But we want to know what strategies helped you scale outside of funding. Because I know many entrepreneurs listening may not have access to funding and are trying to figure out different ways that they can continue to scare their businesses.
- [11:05]
Jonathan
I think a lot of people nowadays assume that funding is needed in order to generate an idea or in order to be successful. And that's fundamentally not true. I think there are not that many people that have the, the passion to actually see their idea to fruition. The biggest thing that I would say to that is your problem has to be large enough in order for you to be inspired every single day to wake up in order to solve. And I used to be a digital marketing agency and in full transparency, the problem wasn't large enough like the. And again, nothing. Digital marketing agencies were our best customers by the way. So. But for me in particular, like there are successful agencies out there, but when we were doing our agency. We were located in Camden, New Jersey, and it's a predominantly interesting area. Voted one of the most dangerous cities in America at one point. And so the idea was like, okay, well, we can go from Camden and we would be the best agency in Camden and then we would be the best agency in Philadelphia. But then outside of those goals, there really wasn't much. There wasn't anything else left. Right. So you achieve those things and then. And then what do you do? Right. So myself and my co founder kind of had those conversations and we realized that, that that's not good enough for what we want to accomplish in our life. It is good and for a lot of people. And again, you could be very successful in all those things, but it wasn't good enough for us. And so we found ourselves pretty much down in the dumps quite a bit because we didn't want to continue doing the agency. Right. We were, we were less inspired. And so we created a problem that was large enough that actually motivated us to fix every single day. And still to this day, I don't be honest, I don't think I would be doing Pengi if I wasn't motivated and inspired to actually fix the problem, which is creating creative solutions for small businesses that are affordable. Right. If that's not my, my North Star, then I mean, I could sell anything. Like, I'm a salesperson. I'm sure you are too, but you have to be motivated to do so. So I would just say that whatever it is that you're doing, when it comes to bootstrap, that's fundamental issue number one. You have to have a large enough problem. And sure, it'll inspire you, like maybe a couple months or a year, but eventually you're going to get burned out and it's not going to be a large enough problem. The next thing is to test that is try not getting paid. So there's a time where probably three to four years of my life, I didn't receive a single dollar. I didn't have an income. Now I did have living. I was able to live, you know, safely from the business, but I wasn't putting anything towards, you know, my savings. I wasn't putting anything towards, like, new things. I had a livable expense. I ate peanut butter and jelly for probably two, three years. End up finding out a couple years ago that I actually have a peanut allergy this entire time, and that I was eating peanut butter and jelly and had a peanut allergy pretty much destroying my body, had no idea. So that was Fun. But again, like, I'm still motivated even without being paid to fix this problem. So if you can survive all of those things, then I promise you that you will be successful when whatever your idea is. But to scale to where we are now, the tangible advice that I would say to you is if you are just starting out, reach out and email all of your closest friends, get them as a business, as a customer, to at least a dollar a month, validate the idea, and then figure it out from there. That's what we did. We, we got 200 customers. They're paying US$79 for a service that we currently pay $1,000 a month for. And we just used that revenue and we just funneled it back into the business over and over again. And then we got creative with advertisements, and now here we are today. But it was just a cycle, an endless cycle. And there's nothing really sexy about it. Like, we just, we just did it.
- [15:04]
Michelle Thames
Wow. And that was a masterclass, my friends. So I hope again, I can't. I know you're like, Michelle, you keep saying, take notes. No take notes, you all. And if you are loving this episode, make sure you go ahead and tag me on Instagram at Michelle L. Thames and at the social media decoded pod. Okay. We love seeing your messages now. That was really good. I don't know how we can follow up to that, but I want to talk about customer experience. Okay. Because that's important. I think this is where a lot of people, you know, miss the mark. The customer experience, I think is the most important thing of your entire business. Right. So with talking about customer experience being the ultimate differentiator, what does that look like at Pingy?
- [15:43]
Jonathan
Yeah. So if you were to look at our Google reviews, if you were to look at our reviews, like trustpilot and all that stuff, like, we're not measured. It's not my measurement of success. It's their measurement of success. And I will say in full confidence that if you were to go on to our, our, our reviews and read them, they're all done by genuine customers and they're all written in a genuine way. And I think it starts from the very beginning. If you are over promised and then you under deliver, then you're bound for failure. You are bound for failure if you under over promise, under deliver. I think what has been really awesome when it comes to Pengi is the honesty that we have. As you could tell, I'm a pretty honest person. I don't really like, I have nothing to hide and I will give you 100% of me in all aspects and give you the most honest and truthful answer as I can in that moment. And the same rules are applied when it comes to our business. So when we sign up, when somebody signs up, they talk to an art director. That art director pretty much tells them, listen, I'm not perfect. I'm gonna make a mistake. I'm not gonna be able to assign you to the person that you want to be, but I'm gonna do everything I can in order to try and find a way that it. That it's exactly the way that you want it to be. And that level of transparency and honesty, I think, is probably the biggest game changer. And it kind of lets them know that we are human. And if you. Again, if you look at the reviews, you'll see that there are people on there that didn't have a great experience with Pengi, but they know damn well that we tried our hardest in doing so. And at the end of the day, I think that's all that matters to me is, like, we're not a perfect fit for everyone. We do have bad designers. Right. Not everybody's going to be good. They're not good for you. That doesn't mean they're bad. It's just. They're just bad for you in that moment. And I'm okay with that. So, yeah, I don't remember the exact question, but I know that that's the answer.
- [17:32]
Michelle Thames
Oh, yes. Customer experience.
- [17:34]
Jonathan
No Customer experience. There you go.
- [17:35]
Michelle Thames
Absolutely. And it is so very important. And congratulations on such amazing reviews. That is no small feat either. Reviews are very important. And while we're talking about reviews, if you're loving this episode, make sure you go ahead and leave the social media decoded podcast a review right on Apple or Spotify. So pivots. We pivot. In business, Entrepreneurs pivot. Lessons are long all the time. Right. Every founder faces moments. I mean, I think I probably faced a moment this week, probably today, before I got. Before I got on here with you. It's like always something. But what's a major shift that you had to make in business and how did it impact your business?
- [18:12]
Jonathan
Major shift. I think the biggest shift in our business has been not listening to customers. And something that we've been doing from the very beginning is interviewing our customers. And you would think that somebody who is a co founder of a business of, you know, 500, whatever people that he's too good to communicate with with, like customers that are paying a couple dollars a month or whatever, it Is. But I, I actually sent an email to every single one of our, our customers that leaves the business and I asked them what can we have done differently in order to earn your respect and trust in services? And the biggest pivot is being stubborn and not listening to your customers and just going off of your own intuition, thinking that you know everything. And so the biggest pivots to us have been when we don't listen to our customers and we just make decisions in ourselves. And I think making data driven, calculated decisions are the most important thing that you can do in business, especially when you're at a particular portion of your life cycle in your company, that if you don't talk to your customers, you're going to fail. Just that simple.
- [19:21]
Michelle Thames
It is just that simple. I literally just said that today. So it is no mistake, Jonathan, that you are sharing this.
- [19:27]
Jonathan
It was meant to be.
- [19:28]
Michelle Thames
It was meant to be. But this has been a great episode and I have just a few more questions questions for you. But I know that you do things beyond pingy. We talked about you being a dad. So I know that you've built platforms like Dear dad and free ideas. So can you tell us why storytelling is just still so important for you and for other entrepreneurs?
- [19:48]
Jonathan
I am at my best when I am constantly creating, when I'm constantly doing something, I am challenged when it comes to doing things with my hands. I'm getting better at it, but I need to like, make things. Like, I just need to like, create things. And for the past three to five years, ish, I've just been locked in a room, more or less haven't really been digitally inspired. And when I had the birth of my daughter, she, I wanted to find a creative way to kind of like share my story and her story and for her to be able to like, come back and, and, and be able to see what her, her father was able to do. And I want to, I want to more or less create a love letter to, to that. And so that's what More or less Dear Dads is. I never thought I was going to be a dad. And I didn't know I really wanted to be a dad until I met my wife, until I had my daughter. And that journey for me has been really special. So that's what More or Less Dear Dads is, but on a, on a broader scale for men. And you said that you're a mother. Nobody talks and listen. You have your own journey as a parent, right? And you're, I'm sure you're an amazing mother, but like there are, there's more content out there for moms than it is for dads. Right. And so like there's a support system naturally, as a mother. Right. But like, no one really talks about the pressures that dads have when it comes to potentially. And this is gender norms, of course. And I'm like generalizing, but like most potentially fathers are the bread. Breadwinners that go to work and then the mom's at home taking care of the baby. Right. There's a lot of pressure there for a father to be able to not only come home and take care of the child, but also go to work every single day. And of course every family is different, but I never really saw content that normalized that and I wanted to be able to kind of share that level of stories that's more or less dear dads. And then free ideas. I just think that more people should take actionable steps in order to build their business. And listening to podcasts like yours is a great start in that I want people to be able to take bite sized pieces and say, okay, this guy said this and he should apply it. And then here's the study behind what happened from that idea. So I'm gonna call cold call 100 people. I wanna document what that looks like, I wanna document what that sounds like and I wanna document the data associated with that. And that's more or less what I want free ideas to become. Not just like videos and things like that. I want people to actually take actionable steps. But in the core answer to your question is I am my best when I am creating and I want to be my best.
- [22:17]
Michelle Thames
Absolutely. And I love that. And I love that you're putting such great information out there, especially for dads. It's super important. And yes, I think free idea that is amazing. Us entrepreneurs, we need all the information, ideas and things that we can get. So thank you for that as well. And yes, this podcast, if you go back and binge, there's so many episodes you all, you can binge so many different things. And so thank you for that. Hope this is a great resource for entrepreneurs out there looking to really grow their businesses. And I hope that they learn so much from you today because you gave us a masterclass, Jonathan, on really building from scratch. Right. And not giving up and really focusing on customer experience. And I think the subscription based models are so amazing. And before we head out, and I would love, love, love for you to also tell us where we can find you, but those subscription based models are really changing the game. And what do you see? Where do you see the future? Where do you see this industry heading in the future?
- [23:16]
Jonathan
I think, you know, the first conversation is AI, right? And I do think AI is something that everybody should be not scared of but willing to adapt. At the end of the day, you need a human being to do something. And I fundamentally believe that you will always need a human being to do something. Therefore you as a human being is your right to do what you need to in order to survive. I think when it comes to subscriptions, why the hell not? Do you like recurring revenue? I do. Do you want to make money while you sleep? I do. So if you're not doing a recurring business model, you know, enjoy your 9 to 5 and that's okay. And you're allowed to have a 95, 9 to 5 and you're allowed to have an amazing job. But if you are entrepreneurial, savvy and you, you know, want to make money outside of your, your 9 to 5, I think subscription models are a great, a great way for that. That's my answer.
- [24:07]
Michelle Thames
Well, that was a great answer. And yes, please, I think everybody should have a subscription based model. It can be something as simple as $5 a month for something that you offer. Right? Everyone listening to this is an expert. So I know you have a skill. And you just heard Jonathan say we want to make money in our sleep. And he must have listened to the episodes because he knows that I love to make money in my sleep. Plus help you all come up with different income streams. So there you go, another income stream. If you haven't been thinking about a membership or a subscription based service, give it a try. But this has been such a great episode. Jonathan, I'm so grateful that you came on and dropped so many gems for the listeners here today. But where can we connect with you and learn more about Pingy? Please let us know.
- [24:49]
Jonathan
Yeah, Penji Co if you are interested in becoming a customer, we would love to have you. If you have any questions at all, I'm an open book. I will always respond to emails. Jonathan at Pengi Co J O H N A T H A N at Pengi Co P E N J I Co Feel free to email me any time. I'd be more than happy to communicate with you. And if you want to just Google free ideas. Dear Dads on YouTube, I'm sure you'll find something of value.
- [25:15]
Michelle Thames
Absolutely. And we'll make sure we put all that information down in the show notes. Thank you so much, Jonathan. Jonathan dropped so many generous gems Today you all on bootstrapping, scaling the customer experience. So if you're ready to take your business to the next level, you might need to re listen and listen to this again and share with a friend too. But I know you have what you need to take action here today. So if you love this episode please share it with a fellow entrepreneur. And don't forget to follow Jonathan and check out Pingiengie Co. And again we will make sure we have all that information down below for you in the show notes. Thank you again Jonathan and I hope that you all will come back for the next one. I'm so excited to chat with you all. Thank you all again and we'll talk to you all in the next one.
- [26:00]
Jonathan
Peace.
- [26:03]
Michelle Thames
All right, that's a wrap on today's episode. I hope you got some valuable insights and real strategies you can apply to your business right now. If you enjoyed this episode, I love for you to do two quick things. First, take a screenshot, share it on Instagram and tag me ichellel Thanes so we can keep the conversation going. Second, if you found value in this podcast, it will it would mean the world to me if you left a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your support helps this show reach more entrepreneurs just like you. Oh, and if you want to support the show and fuel my Matcha obsession, you can always buy me a coffee at the link in the show notes. Thank you for tuning in. Until next time. Keep showing up, keep growing and I'll talk to y' all in the next one.
- [26:52]
Guest
Peace.
- [26:59]
Wix Advertiser
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- [27:28]
TransUnion Advertiser
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- [28:31]
Jonathan
Psoriatic arthritis Symptoms can be unpredictable I.
- [28:35]
Michelle Thames
Had joint pain and I couldn't move like I used to.
- [28:38]
Guest
I needed relief. I got Cosentyx.
- [28:43]
Michelle Thames
It helped me move better.
- [28:45]
Stripe Advertiser
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- [29:28]
Jonathan
Cosentyx.
- [29:32]
Guest
On WhatsApp, your personal messages stay private between you and whoever you send them to. So things like the passport numbers for your honeymoon stay between you and your fiance and that video call for your grand's 80th stays in the family. Even your streaming password stays between you and your college roommates, who still ask for it every week in your group chat. Because on WhatsApp, your personal messages are yours. No one else can see or hear them, not even us. WhatsApp message privately.