#159 – Privacy Policies Made Simple: How Web Designers Can Protect Clients with Termageddon

Shannon Mattern (00:02.152)

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast. And today I am joined by Danada Stroink-Skilrud, President and Legal Engineer of Termigaden, a SaaS company that has generated tens of thousands of website policies and kept them up to date with changing legislation. And I know all of you listening have probably heard of Termigaden. I know you all talk about it all the time. Web Designer Academy students talk about it all the time.

And so Denada is also a licensed attorney in the state of Illinois. She's a certified information privacy professional, chair of the American Bar Association's ePrivacy Committee. Like so many things, member of the Cybersecurity Legal Task Force and ABA's representative to the United Nations. So welcome to the show. And I'm so excited to talk to you about

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (00:45.294)

Thank

Shannon Mattern (00:57.05)

your journey here and all of the really cool things that you're up to. So yeah, welcome.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (01:01.878)

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Really excited to talk about it.

Shannon Mattern (01:06.46)

Yeah. So, you and I met in person a few months ago at Josh Hall's Web Designer Pro Conference. I think my husband got to hang out with you and talk to you way more than I did. So I was just really glad to get this on the books and, learn a little bit more about you. Can you kind of take me back to the origin of how you got involved in the privacy space?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (01:16.981)

Hahaha.

Shannon Mattern (01:36.331)

in your legal career in the first place.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (01:40.47)

Yeah, so I guess there's two parts to it. So the first part is kind of my first introduction to privacy in general, right? You know, we, in my work, I think of privacy as like privacy policies and privacy laws and stuff, but it's actually much more broad than that. So I remember the first time I was introduced to privacy at all was the target data breach. So I had a target credit card and I got

a letter in the mail saying that the credit card was breached and like millions of people had their data breached. And I was like, wow, I didn't really put two and two together. I kind of thought, I'm just getting this credit card. And I didn't really realize that my information could potentially be accessed by somebody else who I don't want to access my information. And I thought, wow, that's weird. I never thought of it.

In terms of how it became part of my career. So when I was in law school, I sitting next to this guy and he's like, you know, I work at a software development company and we need somebody to do our books like part time. Do you want to, you know, make some extra cash after school? And, you know, as a poor student, so was like, yeah, of course, no problem. And I ended up being the CEO of that company eventually. And that's where I met Hans, my husband.

And after the company was bought out, I went into private practice and I was writing contracts. You know, I was writing privacy policies in terms of service by hand for clients. And this was before all of the privacy laws that we have today. This was kind of before even GDPR. And I thought, you know, I'm kind of asking these clients very similar questions. I'm asking them, what data are you collecting? What do you do with that data? Who do you share it with?

You know, I had these like templates that I would Frankenstein together into one document for my clients. And I was like, man, there's got to be a way to like automate this. And Hans and I had already met and we were talking about this and I was like, yeah, like writing privacy policies is kind of boring. It's like very repetitive. And he's telling me that, you know, as he ran a web design agency and he's like, you know, we launch all these sites and we always have clients ask us like,

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (03:53.326)

What do I do for my website policies? Do I need a terms of service? Do I need a privacy policy? And he's like, I have no idea what to tell them. You know, they're small businesses, so they probably can't afford a lawyer. And that's how we came up with the idea of Termigata. And so it's kind of a meshing solution to both of our issues. Like, I didn't want to continuously run through the monotony of writing these policies by hand. And he needed something to tell his clients of what to do.

And that's how we came up with the idea of Termigaden. And after that, you've had a lot more of these privacy laws pass. So while initially the product was relatively simple, it ballooned to over 100 laws, rules, and regulations that we cover now.

Shannon Mattern (04:39.229)

Yeah, I love hearing like the background of just, you were, experienced the data breach. You were writing privacy policies and private practice. I used to work in the marketing department of a corporate law firm back in the day. That was like my first job out of college. And we had all of the different practice areas, but like,

It was, I don't know, 2003. There was nobody in our firm specializing in any type of online privacy or anything like that. That just was not a practice area that was like even on the radar. And, you know, for me then, like 10 years later when I went out on my own, I had the same questions Hans did. I'm just like,

I don't know. see these things on other people's websites. Do my clients need them? I have no idea. I always felt as a web designer, I was like, I don't know, doing my clients a disservice because I'm just like, I don't know. I was just like that emoji with your hands up, talk to an attorney, you figure that out. It was almost like hands off. I didn't even want to discuss it because I didn't want to tell them the wrong thing.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (05:42.923)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (05:55.739)

And so, yeah, when you guys came on the scene, and I don't know what year was it that Termigaden was started.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (06:04.877)

Well, we initially started in 2015, but it took us a couple years to build the product. And then, you know, we got more serious about it. So Hans and I quit our full-time jobs. He sold his agency and then we both went full-time at TermaGeta. And so, yeah.

Shannon Mattern (06:21.265)

my gosh. Yeah, I want to dig into that story too, because, because that's like, I love hearing those stories of like, going all in, but I just remember, you know, when when GDPR happened, that's when everybody started like paying attention to like, my gosh, I'm freaking out. Do I need this? You know, and that's when I think I first heard of you all and

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (06:23.883)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (06:36.365)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (06:42.397)

Um, for those of you who have been long time listeners of the podcast, we spoke to Hans way back in October of 2022 in episode nine. Um, and, and talked all about termageddon. So I'll link that up here, but, um, yeah, like take me back to you start building the product. Um, and how did it evolve and when did you know it was like time to like.

sell the agency for him, leave the practice for you, and go all in on this thing.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (07:17.067)

Yeah, so we started building the product and the MVP was built by Hans's agency. So, you know, we got a couple of investors and we said, okay, let's take advantage of the fact that Hans has an agency. Let's have the employees build the product from there. And then, you know, we had GDPR go into effect and we noticed, okay, like there's a lot more people that are interested in this, right? We launched this MVP.

And initially, like I got to say, we were making like $10 a month and we were excited, right? $10 a month, we're like, oh my gosh, we went to a hundred dollars a month. We're like, wow, like this is really happening. And like looking back on it now, like, oh my gosh, like you're quitting your full-time job for a hundred dollars a month. Like, what are you doing? You know, looking back on it now, you're like, man, you know, probably should have waited a little bit longer to make sure.

that everything was gonna be fine. But a couple of years passed from there and then we decided, okay, we're seeing a lot more traction with this. We're seeing a lot of communities talk about this. We're seeing a lot of events that we feel like we should be going to that we can't because we have full-time jobs. And Hans, at the time there was a buyer for his agency. So he's like, okay, this lines up really well.

I'm going to sell my agency and I'm going to go full time at Termageddon. And then about a year later, I decided to join him full time as well.

Shannon Mattern (08:48.827)

Yeah, that's just, I remember the feeling of like selling my first thing back in the day, you know, like, yes, my first web design client, that was like a big deal. But then I forayed into like the affiliate marketing space for a while where I was teaching people how to build websites and earning affiliate commissions off of hosting and like all the tools I was recommending. And I remember like,

making my first $67 affiliate commission and be like, my gosh, I have arrived, like this is happening. But it's like, it's the smallest. I mean, it's just that it's that validation. It's like, I put I made this thing, I put it out there and a stranger found it and bought it. Like, how can I do that again and again and again?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (09:20.523)

Hehehehe

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (09:24.78)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (09:36.598)

Yeah, like not a family member. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like a family member or friend buying something for me. It's like an actual what I would call like a real person, right? A real person bought this. And I remember Hans and I sitting in my office here, I have this huge whiteboard and we're like, okay, this is how many agency partners we need to have. Or this is how many licenses we need to sell in order to like cover our salaries.

And we came up with this number. It's like, there's no way. Like there's no way we're ever going to get to this number. The number just seemed so obscene, right? And I guess it's part of like trusting yourself and trusting the fact that you like actually did come up with a good idea. but initially we're looking at this number and it's like, there's just no way this is ever going to happen. And then it did. And we're like, wow, like we're here. And then you move on to the next goal and the next goal and the next goal. But initially it just seems so.

unattainable. But you you put the work in and eventually it does hopefully happen for you, you know, like it did for us.

Shannon Mattern (10:42.415)

Yeah. And so I want to ask you about that because you're like, okay, I have, we did the math. I have this number and you see the number and you're just like, how? There's no way it's not possible. But then there is part of you that must think that it is possible. Otherwise, why would you put one foot in front of the other and chug away at it and chug away at it and like go after it? So what was it about?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (10:52.386)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (11:12.347)

the dis- like where, how did you kind of like still motivate yourself to move forward in the face of like it feeling insurmountable? Like where was that belief coming from and that trust coming from, I guess?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (11:27.679)

Yeah, so I'm going to reveal myself as a total and absolute nerd. and so I did two things at Termigate and Sam, the president's around the company, and I'm also the legal engineer. And what that means is that like, I will read the laws and requirements that will create the questions needed to generate your policies, the answer options, I'll write the text options, I will, you know, make sure it gets updated through time.

Shannon Mattern (11:32.433)

I love it. Bring it on.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (11:53.014)

And for me, it was like the love of the job. So like the legal engineering part of the job, I would probably do it for free if I'm being honest. You know, I love that part of the job. I really enjoy it. I'm very much like a puzzles person. So when I have time off, I will do puzzles and like listen to podcasts. And Hans is like, why are you doing this like 1000 piece super hard puzzle? Well, it's because I like putting together puzzles. And that's how I view that part of the job is

like the puzzle part where all the pieces have to fit together to end up with like one coherent policy. So for me, it's like the love of the job. And I was like, I really, really like this part of the job and I want to do it. And the customers and the money and all of that, that will come. That's Hans's problem because he does sales marketing and partnerships. But I'm going to just do this part that I really enjoy. And hopefully the rest of it kind of follows from there.

So that was kind of my motivation to put one foot in front of the other and say, okay, this number seems very insurmountable, but I know I'm going to enjoy myself while I do this, regardless of like the end outcome. So that's why I want to do it anyway.

Shannon Mattern (13:05.149)

love that so much and like I so relate to the like you can't put the puzzle down until the puzzle is solved.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (13:16.585)

Mm hmm. Yeah, it does grind away at my brain if it's half done and I just have to I have to finish it, you know.

Shannon Mattern (13:24.219)

And that's like every person listening to this podcast. Like you don't, you don't go into web design if you aren't just a problem solver at your core and you don't love solving problems because whether it's a design problem or a technical problem, like that's the stuff that like, I don't know about anybody else, but that's the stuff I love literally just before this podcast. have one client left.

I haven't worked with clients since 2019, except for this one legacy client that I love their organization and their business. And they came to me with this like business problem. And I'm like, I know I can figure that out. And so for the past like two days, my brain has been like chewing through how to do this thing. And I'm not getting paid nearly like I make way more money coaching in the

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (14:19.351)

you

Shannon Mattern (14:21.019)

web designer academy and like with private clients and all of that stuff. But like, I can't not figure this out. So I think that it's so interesting that you're like, you detached from the outcome of the number. Like you're like, I love doing this. We're going to do this. And I do think that there, is some aspect of like the love of what you do. Like you have to, otherwise you're not going to have the

capacity to see it all the way through.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (14:53.099)

Yeah, yeah, you know, if you you're not going to quit your existing job and try something completely different and completely new and completely untested, at least for you, and put in all this time and all these hours and all the effort, you know, if you're not enjoying some part of it, like you are going to stop at some point if it's just, you know, grinding away and grinding away, it's not going to be.

long, there's not going to be longevity to it.

Shannon Mattern (15:23.377)

Yeah. So you're like, Hans gets to worry about the marketing and the partnerships and all of those pieces. What do you recall him doing in the early days? I mean, I had him on the show and I asked him about like some of this stuff, but what do you recall him doing in the early days to like get the word out about what you guys were up to? Because I don't care if you're selling subscriptions, digital products, whatever, like

there is a level of effort to get out there and connect with people. What were some of those things?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (15:59.862)

Yeah, so our main target at the very beginning, and it's still the case, were agency owners, because agency owners get those questions about policies from their clients. And since Hans was an agency owner, we're like, OK, this seems like a really good fit. And I asked him, like, when you were an agency owner, where did you hang out?

Shannon Mattern (16:07.645)

Mm-hmm.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (16:21.995)

Like, where did you look for answers to the problems that you were facing? What kind of communities were you part of that you found to be really helpful? And one of the first things that we found was word camps. And we went to Word Camp Jackson, Michigan, which was a really small word camp, very local. And I remember we were driving on our way there, because we live in Chicago, so we drove. And I remember just...

Shannon Mattern (16:22.214)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (16:46.891)

like sweating bullets, like what if people don't like us? We're not gonna know anyone there, it's gonna be weird, like are they just gonna think that we're just some random people coming in with a sales pitch, are they gonna hate us? And it actually was like the perfect introduction to everything for our company because it was really small. So it wasn't like an overwhelming amount of people.

But at the same time, the people were really friendly. A lot of them already knew each other, but a lot of them didn't. So we weren't the only like new people there. And it was really cool because I remember at some point we were all just sitting there coming up with different designs for like a termigante and t-shirt. And I still have it. It's like a little pirate that says, are you compliant? It's one of favorite shirts. But that was the place where like, okay, this seems like a really good place. You know, we came at this with

very few ideas of exactly how we're going to get the word out. And one of the first things that we tried really worked out super well. We also tried Facebook ads, which was really good at the beginning. But throughout time, we actually figured out that wasn't the best avenue. know, it's initially was really fruitful, but then the results kept just dwindling and dwindling and dwindling over time. We also knew that education was going to be extremely important.

A lot of people, especially at that time when we were getting started, did not know what policies were, did not understand why they're important, didn't think they needed them. There wasn't that many privacy laws. Even consumers didn't really care about it. People just put their information all over the place back then. We knew that we were going to have to do a lot of education, so we did a lot of guides and resources. We even offered web design contract templates.

Basically anything that we think web designers or small business owners might be interested in. And we just kind put that out there and that's how we started.

Shannon Mattern (18:48.153)

I love that so much that the first thing that you did was go to a tiny, small, word camp event because I, know, when we, talked to our web designer Academy students, the, people who listened to this podcast all about like marketing and it truly is the relationships that you build over time with the people who serve your ideal clients.

that no matter what changes with algorithms, like it's the people that you meet that are gonna be your best marketers. And we met at a networking event and I, as much as I am a podcaster, I speak at events, I do all this stuff, I am very introverted and to go to networking events and like,

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (19:41.837)

.

Shannon Mattern (19:44.382)

talk to people, I have to talk myself up and talk myself into it. And I have to always remind, I go in with all of the same thoughts that you described of what if they don't like us? What if they think we're just coming in here to sell them something? What if it all just goes terrible, horrible, and you get booed out of there or whatever it is? I think

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (19:50.027)

Same. Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (20:07.743)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (20:10.159)

those things too by default, but then I have to remind myself, I'm like, I am thinking the worst of the people in this room. If I think that that's how they're going to be. And you were at a web designer pro and you experienced the amazing people in that room. And I just can't imagine a scenario in which any of us would like walk into a room and have something like that happen.

I have to remind myself of that every single time. Do you have to as well?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (20:41.609)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (20:45.401)

I do. I'm very lucky that Hans is always with me and he's very extroverted. So he, yeah, he just comes to these events like I'm going to have a good time no matter what. And I'm like, my god, everything's gonna go terrible. I'm gonna bomb and cry and whatever. And then I just look at him and he's like having a great time. And I'm like, okay, like just let him do the introductions, let him do his thing. And then eventually somebody will talk to you too.

Shannon Mattern (20:50.372)

He was very outgoing.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (21:12.989)

So it's nice to come to these events with somebody else who's more extroverted, I would say. But yeah, I do have to always remind myself, like, it's fine. You've been to a lot of these and everything has gone fine every time. Like you haven't, because I'm always like, what if I trip and like face plant? It goes into you in like bad territory. And then I'm like, there's something wrong with your brain. Like it's fine. You've never, nothing bad has ever happened at any of these, you know? And it's also good with Josh Hall's community, for example, like

Shannon Mattern (21:29.327)

you

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (21:42.079)

We've known him for years outside of that and we've met him. So I knew like, okay, you're gonna go into this and you're gonna know Josh and you're gonna know Hans. So that's like two people, know, which is pretty good. So that also helps too.

Shannon Mattern (21:56.016)

Yeah, it's, it's so my husband does not work in the industry, but he went to that event with me because Josh was like, Hey, bring Floyd. I'd like to meet him. And so that was like the first work thing that he's done with me since like way back in the day when I was in corporate, I go to his work stuff. That's like social all the time, but I don't have the type of business where that's a thing. So he came with me and he was my wingman the same way. It sounds like.

Hans was for you that night. then Floyd met Hans and they totally, I think they talked to the whole night, I think. And Floyd is very much like that too. Like never met a stranger, find like he's there to have a good time, find all the friends. And I'm like, can you, like, how do you do that? Because I don't know how to naturally do that. But what I always

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (22:26.349)

Nice. Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (22:32.141)

I did, yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (22:47.874)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (22:56.265)

remind myself and tell other people because I do think like meeting real people in real life, there is just something to that that will lead you to your next client and your next client and your next client in unexpected ways. I would imagine that 90 % of people in that room walked in feeling the way we felt. And probably 10 % of the people in that room are the Hanses and Floyds and Joshes of the world.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (23:18.306)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (23:24.541)

And that's what I also have to remind myself of too is like, everybody else feels just as awkward as I do. So I'm going to go find the person that looks like they feel as awkward as me. And I'm just going to like strike up a conversation and then, and this to make myself feel better.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (23:36.065)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (23:43.381)

Yeah, and it's usually like in my experience is the first like 10 to 15 minutes that's awkward. And then as soon as you would like actually start talking to somebody, everything's fine. And it's not awkward anymore. So you just got to get through that first time.

Shannon Mattern (23:56.188)

Yeah. what are back to like the growth of termigaden, you know, you had like the first like, there's no possible way we will hit this number and then we did. And then it's like on to the next. What were some of the other milestones that you were like, there's no way this will ever happen. And then it happened.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (24:15.841)

Yeah. You know, I think when we initially started, we launched the MVP and even before we made our first dollars, like there's so many things that were wrong with it. So for example, like, you couldn't log in, like you created an account, you registered, you set your password, and then you tried to log in with that password and it just didn't work. We also got reports of people saying like,

I put in my credit card and I thought I bought a license and I got a license, but I was actually never charged. So we're just like giving stuff away for free. And thank you to whoever told us about that, because that was a really key factor. So, you know, some of those things that we've overcome is like the idea of we're going to build this technology that's a policy builder that actually works, you know, whether it's from the login to the policy generation process.

Shannon Mattern (25:06.001)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (25:09.645)

You know, those first couple clients, those first agencies, there are a lot of things like, for example, we thought that law firms were going to hate us. We thought that law firms were going to see us as competition. But we learned that actually we have a lot of law firms using our service for their clients because they had the same exact problems that I did. Right? Like I had the issue of I didn't want to write these policies because it was very repetitive. And it turns out they had the same problem. And instead of viewing us as competition,

They used us as a tool, which is really cool because we were very nervous about that. And I remember the first law firm that ever used our product, they sent us an email that was titled like issues. And I was like, no, this is not going to be good. And it turns out that their only issue was their company name was misspelled, but they input their company name. So they misspelled it themselves. You know, so things like that where it's like, you get that email and get like a little heart attack thinking, okay, everything's really wrong.

But it turns out it's just user error. Recently, we completely redesigned our entire application, which was like a three-year process. One and a half of those years roughly was just testing. So there were some points within those three years that we were just like, I don't know if we're going to be able to do this. Initially, when we built the platform, everything was hard-coded.

So all the options, all the texts, everything was hard coded. And whenever we would need to add a law, all the charts and everything would go to developers and they would need to hard code it. And we got to the point as more and more laws were added, we were just like, this is unsustainable. Like you cannot continue hard coding this thing. So we built a policy builder, which allows us to dynamically add policies and add the texts and everything like that. But we had to move everything from

that already existed from the hard coding system into the new system and tested and make sure everything was, you know, showing up correctly and stuff. I mean, our QA document was about 400 pages by the time we were done.

Shannon Mattern (27:18.306)

gosh.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (27:18.925)

Yeah, it was not a good project, but we finished it and we launched the redesigned version of the app. And there are definitely some points at which I was like, I don't know if I can do this, but we did and it's done and it's great and we all love it. yeah.

Shannon Mattern (27:37.381)

I mean, I love it too. And I know our students and clients love it too. mean, we like it. Your tool comes up constantly in our programs and there's just so much positive word of mouth and great, great just comments about support. because so what I'll hear from our students is they're like, my gosh, there are so many questions.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (27:40.077)

Thank you.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (27:52.267)

Awesome.

Shannon Mattern (28:07.022)

I don't know how to tell my client how to answer them. And this comment was just like just the other day, like, if you're an agency partner, like you can, and you correct me if this is wrong, but you can use termigadans like concierge service with your clients. I don't know if that's the right word because they're like, I don't know if my client's gonna be able to fill this out. They're not gonna know what all this means.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (28:28.565)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (28:34.416)

Do I have to walk them through that? What are the options there? So can you tell me more about what that looks like?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (28:40.353)

Yeah, so there's two things. So first, in our new app, one of the updates that we did is on the side. So when you go through the questionnaire, you hover over question. And on the side, we have what we call TermaGuider. So that's a video of Hans explaining that question, explaining how to answer it. And there is also written explanation. So now when clients are like, I don't know what kind of legal entity my business is.

They just hover over it and there's an entire explanation on the side explaining how to answer everything. And then also through the affiliate program, if the client is paying us directly and you're getting commissions, you can connect us via email with the client and then we'll set a call with them. So during the call, we'll actually walk them through the entire policy generation process, help them answer everything, help them create everything.

Shannon Mattern (29:09.126)

So good.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (29:32.747)

And then at the end, we'll share the license with you so you can just access the embed codes and then put those on the site. So you don't really have to do any of the walking through for clients. And also like one-off questions. Yeah, like one-off questions too. Like you can always submit a ticket or send them to us. If you're like, a lot of my clients don't know what this means, just let us know and we can try to help explain it too.

Shannon Mattern (29:42.879)

my gosh, it's like brilliant.

Shannon Mattern (29:57.329)

Yeah. I think that, you know, just the way that I know this is probably a whole other podcast episode, but web designers, you're not responsible for knowing if your client's business is an LLC or an S-Corp. there is some, you don't have to take on the full responsibility of holding their hand to answer those questions for them. But I do love that you have such robust resources so that people

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (30:11.83)

So true.

Shannon Mattern (30:27.452)

can feel really comfortable and confident using the tool that they are answering the questions to the best of their knowledge and using it well.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (30:31.393)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (30:38.826)

Yeah. And that's also why we have license sharing too. So, you know, as an agency, you probably know, okay, your client has Google Analytics, Metapixel, they have a form that collects names and emails. So you can also fill out a part of the questionnaire for the client and then send an invite to the license to the client, share with them, and they can go in and answer the rest that are like business specific questions, like, you know, who's responsible for your privacy practices, you know, or

what's your business legal entity type or your full business legal name. You can also do it like half and half where you fill out kind of the technical parts for them that they normally wouldn't know and then share it with them. And then they can review and put in answers to the questions that you didn't answer. And then they can also review and confirm your answers too.

Shannon Mattern (31:28.294)

Yeah, and I just also feel like it makes you look like it's just another signal that you know what you're doing when you're like, yeah, privacy policies, all of this stuff, I got you. We actually have a tool for that. Here's how we support you and we can take some of that uncertainty and fear away that you're doing something wrong or that you're going to be caught blindsided or unaware. Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (31:50.048)

Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (31:54.237)

I know I've been ping ponging back and forth between like terma get in and mindset, I would love to know as you've been growing this company, what are some of the biggest mindset shifts that you have had over the years of growing this business?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (32:16.586)

Yeah. So I think a big one for me is, you know, it's okay to ask for help. So being trained as a lawyer, you know, we were all when I was in law school, we were all in competition with each other, especially the first year, regardless of the grades that you got, the lowest 30 % of grades were just booted out after the first year. And yeah, it's a horrible system because those people still had the school loans for the first year, but no degree.

But we were all pitted against each other for that time while in law school. And it was very competitive. And it was very much like you had to figure stuff out on your own. And then also working in other jobs, if you say, don't know about something, people automatically look at you like, wow, doesn't know what she's talking about. But through running this business, I've been a part of different communities when it comes to the web design world.

but I'm also part of a lot of communities with the lawyer world, with like the American Bar Association, the International Association of Privacy Professionals, the Chicago Bar Association. And I've spoken to hundreds of lawyers in my career and mentored hundreds of law students in my career. And let me tell you, we ask each other for help a lot. For people who are not lawyers, it seems like it's very much like very clear cut.

But if I had a dollar for every time I read a law, rule or regulation where I read it, I'm like, this makes zero sense. Like this makes no sense whatsoever. And this is not a space where you can just be like, I'll just guess. Like you have to know the right answer. And over the years I've learned, OK, like reach out to the lawyers in your network, see what they think. And there's been quite a few instances where the lawyers are like, I have no idea what this means. You're right. This makes no sense. And then you

reach out to the regulator or you reach out to the legislators or you reach out to the attorney general's office to get explanations of what things mean officially, because we can't just guess, right? We have to know the correct answer because we have to do right by our clients. And sometimes, yeah, that means reaching out to people and saying, I don't know. And that's OK, because eventually you do figure it out. And, you know, sometimes one of us will reach out to.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (34:34.75)

an attorney general in a specific state and that will just trickle down that knowledge to everyone else so they don't have to reach out and wait for an answer. And it's great. It's great to be part of that community and to get answers. And you just realize your time. Like there are lawyers who have been practicing for 40 years. We don't know the answers to some questions and, you know, they'll ask you what you think and you'll ask them what they think the next time. And that's totally fine. So that's definitely been like a big difference, I would say, from.

when I was in law school to now, it's just understanding it's fine to ask for help and you can work together to come up with solutions.

Shannon Mattern (35:11.548)

I love everything you just said there because I feel like so many of the women especially that come to work with us in the Web Designer Academy, they come to us because they're experiencing the problems of success. They are not the people that haven't been able to figure it out on their own. are not like, they're getting started. They've gone.

really, really far on their own. And they also feel like it's all on me. I have to do it all on my own. I can't ask for help. If I ask for help, I'll look like I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want my clients to think I don't know what I'm doing. And if I don't already know how to do it, I cannot take that part of a project on and get paid to figure it out.

And I like to turn all of that stuff on its head because it's not all on you. Your superpower, and we talked about this at the beginning of the episode, our superpower is like figuring things out, like never meeting a problem that we can't solve, using every resource at our disposal to find the answer. It's not that we already have to know the answers. It's that we have to be like persistent to be willing to be the one to find the answers.

There are so many people out there, I'm sure you know, that are just like, I don't know, I give up, moving on, not interested. And, you know, so it's like, I love that you said that because once you shift from it not be, it's not all on me, it's not all your responsibility, you don't look bad if you don't know and your willingness to find answers is worth so much more.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (36:43.564)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (37:07.046)

than your willingness to do it all yourself and be the only one. Like the whole world shifts and it really does unlock everything for you in your business. so like it's beautiful.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (37:19.148)

For sure. I mean, yeah, we get so nervous about saying, like, let me look this up and get back to you. Well, guess what? If you say that nobody's going to die. Like nothing horrible is going to happen if you take 10 minutes. You know, even if you know the answer, but you're not 100 % sure. I do this pretty frequently where, you know, I think I know the correct answer. I think I remember it correctly. But I'm like, let me just check and confirm and

Shannon Mattern (37:28.572)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (37:45.901)

I go and spend five minutes checking and confirming and okay, yes, I'm right about this. And then I give them the final answer and like nothing bad has ever happened because of that. But a lot of bad things have happened when people have confidently said, oh yes, 100 % this is true. When they're not 100 % sure.

And then all of a sudden there are problems because then you have to go back and tell them, well, sorry, I was wrong. I should have double checked this before I told you. And maybe you made a decision based on that information that I gave you. So, you know, if I'm ever not like a hundred percent confident on something, I'll say, you know what, let me check on this and I'll get back to you. And then when I am a hundred percent confident with my answer, that's what I'll give.

Shannon Mattern (38:28.09)

Yeah, and even like not 100 % confident in how you want to even answer a question right then and there. If you're put on the spot or something like you always have the option to say, let me think about that and I'll get back to you or let me research that and I'll get back to you or whatever the case may be. So I love that. So I have just a couple more questions for you before we wrap up. We talked about

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (38:55.852)

Sounds good.

Shannon Mattern (38:57.754)

We talked a little bit about mindset, but one question that I ask everybody that comes on the show is what belief about yourself did you have to change to get to where you are today?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (39:08.69)

Yeah, so for me, it was a lot about, you know, asking for help, being a part of community is a big one. I'm very much an introverted person. And I always thought I just need to be like on my own. You know, I just need to do the things that I got to do and I got to get them done. And I have to do everything that has to be done. But throughout time and throughout being part of these communities, I've kind of learned that

There is like a small extroverted part of me that gets excited after I go to these events, you know, that gets jazzed up about all the things that I've learned or all the people that I've met and all these connections that I've built. You know, there's people that I've known for for years that, know, initially reached out about some, you know, silly little question or something really small. And then those relationships grew over multiple years.

into like actual true friendships, you know? So to me, it's more about being a part of something with somebody else rather than just doing stuff on my own. And that's been especially true as we have employees at Termigaden, know, initially it was just me and Hans and we thought this is how it was gonna go for a while. We were gonna contract out the development work to another firm and it was just gonna be me and him, but you know,

hiring employees and when working with people, I have definitely learned how much I enjoy working with other people, which is not something that I would have thought of myself as enjoying.

Shannon Mattern (40:45.348)

I love it. Yeah, me too. I'm like, get out of my way. Like, I just want to be out in front doing things and not like working with a team or like group projects were always the worst. And now I have an incredible team of people that I can't really imagine running my business without, without them. So I love that so much. So what is the next

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (40:50.666)

Mm-mm.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (40:55.405)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (41:05.324)

Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (41:08.92)

impossible goal that you and Hans are like, there's no way that this could happen. Like, what's that next big vision for the company?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (41:20.146)

man, so we actually did it today. So I got to think of a new one, but for years now, so we've offered, yes, yeah. And I was actually wearing it. So we have basically a team superstition on the development team. This is such a tangent, but years ago, yeah, years ago we got a ticket, like a support ticket that said, it not worked.

Shannon Mattern (41:21.884)

perfect timing.

Shannon Mattern (41:27.241)

you reached the goal today?

Shannon Mattern (41:40.23)

I love tangents, give me all the tangents.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (41:48.557)

That's it. That's all it said. Zero information about what doesn't work. Like no clue. like is the entire app down? Can you not log in? Are you having it? Like, no, son. So ever since then on launch days, we have a shirt that says it work. And then on the back it says Termigadan development team. But I was like, you know what? I got to change. I've got to put something else for this. so.

Shannon Mattern (41:58.758)

You

Shannon Mattern (42:06.383)

love it.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (42:13.428)

We have covered GDPR for many years now, but our service was never available in the European Union. And that's because the EU is changing its consumer protection laws, which affects the terms of service. We're like, let's wait till those are finalized. And then we did the new app, which took way longer than we thought. And this has been in the works for many years, but we had to wait for the app to launch. And then we had to fix stuff.

Anyway, just kept on getting postponed and postponed. it's like one of those things where it's like, when is this even gonna happen? Right? So today actually we officially launched in the EU. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks. So we cover like 30 more countries now, which was an undertaking to read all the requirements and get them all at it for those. But we actually officially launched today, which is really exciting.

Shannon Mattern (42:50.838)

Congratulations. That's a big huge deal.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (43:09.248)

So like right now we only offer the policies in English. So our next kind of, I guess, surmountable task, but it is going to be hard, allowing for translations. But it is going to take a while because obviously we have so many different text options and combinations and all those other things that have to be translated. But I think that's going to be our next endeavor.

Shannon Mattern (43:33.361)

Wow. I mean, you just have to have such a big vision to be able to take on like that scope of a project. And yet you've proven over and over and over that once you have that big vision, but you're super passionate about the big vision and the work is enjoyable and you're getting a lot out of it personally and professionally.

It's not impossible.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (44:04.78)

Yeah, for me, it's very much like, okay, this is what's in front of you. This is the goal that you have to achieve. These are the steps that you need to take to get there. And that's just what you're going to do now. You know, there's no like, oh, maybe like, we'll do this later. Maybe I won't do this or I won't do that. Like, no, this is it. This is what you have to do. And you're going to sit there and you're going to do it until it gets done.

Shannon Mattern (44:29.26)

were the same way. We just redesigned our website. It's probably a fraction of the effort that Termigaden Europe took, but it was the same thing. I'm like, okay, this feels like a big, huge, ginormous project, 10 years of website automations, all of the things to run a business online. And I'm like, you just got to like

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (44:30.764)

Thank

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (44:34.652)

I'm

Shannon Mattern (44:55.404)

sit down and what does it eat? How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? You just do it and you do it and you get through it and it's always so rewarding and cathartic on the other side of that. Where can everybody go to learn more about Termighetton, get it for their web design agencies, get their clients hooked up with it, all of the things?

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (45:01.067)

Yep.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (45:07.947)

Yeah.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (45:21.504)

Yeah, so you can go to termigaden.com. We have an agency partners page. You'll see that in the top navigation bar. You can click on that. There is an application form at the bottom where you can apply. If you do apply, don't buy because the agency partner program includes a free license. But we do review and approve each application manually. So it might take just a couple hours, but you will get an email letting you know when the free license is available for you.

And then you can learn more about us on our website or on social media. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Yeah.

Shannon Mattern (45:58.108)

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here. I loved hearing more of the backstory from the other side of the Termigaden powerhouse partnership that is you and Hans. And it was so fun to get to meet you in person. So everyone definitely go check out Termigaden.com. I'll link it up in the show notes and just, you know.

sign up, apply to be an agency partner, get that license, and then you can just start offering it to your clients and you won't ever have to think about if you should or shouldn't or whatever. All of the stuff about privacy, terms of service and stuff will all just be done for you and you and your clients will just be super happy. So, Denada, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Donata Stroink-Skillrud (46:48.352)

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.