Freemium and new goals

Note: This episode was supposed to come out a couple of weeks ago. But Andrew forgot to attach the audio file when he went to publish, so it's just been sitting in our podcast hosting software. Sorry about that. 

In this episode, Andrew and Sean dig into Paul Graham's founder mode essay that has gone viral in the past couple of weeks. Spoiler alert: Andrew is not a fan.

Sean talks about the challenges of evolving client demands with Miscreants, while Andrew recounts his experiences in Mexico City and his decision to pivot ChartJuice towards a freemium model.

Then they talk through some of Andrew's new AI-related business ideas, including automating marketing graphics and financial modeling for agencies, and his new co-founder and year-end goals.

Links:
For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

Transcript:
00:00.63
Sean
Can I start this podcast off by reading you a quote?

Andrew
Sure, I'm so curious.

Sean
um Have you seen the Ted Chiang essay about Gen AI?

Andrew
No.

Sean
okay um It was on The New Yorker. he okay so

Andrew
For a second, when you said JIN AI, I thought J-E-N, and I thought this was like some new AI company I hadn't heard of that named their AI JIN, as in short for Jennifer, and then I realized I'm an idiot, and you're talking about generative AI.

Andrew
so

Sean
Well, there's there's a startup called, I think, Jim, it's like a 25 year old like Korean person who Korean guy um and he like did like the rounds on YouTube for a little bit about how he like went from like broke to 100 million in net worth overnight because.

Andrew
ah

Andrew
Oh, that's cool.

Andrew
Jesus Christ. What?

Sean
um I mean, it was like the dawn of like LLM stuff and jennna I had just started so.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
adam

Andrew
Okay. All right. Hit me with the quote.

Sean
Okay, so let me just preface this. Ted Chiang, excellent sci-fi writer, um um ah wrote a really great book called Exhalation, one of my favorites.

Sean
um

Andrew
Oh, I've been wanting to read that.

Sean
Yeah, excellent, excellent book.

Andrew
Cool.

Sean
Would recommend, there's like a two page story in there that I really, really like. But, um You know, this this would have been great if i if I had it pull up, and I didn't.

Andrew
Had it pulled up if you were prepared.

Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not how we do things. we you You know what? I can't find in this article. So I'm going to pull it up on a Slack thing.

Sean
OK. um It's just the task that generative a generative AI has been most successful at is lowering our expectations. um And I was like, damn.

Andrew
Oh, interesting.

Sean
hot take yeah uh

Andrew
How do, okay. So how do you interpret that?

Sean
well um i sent it as like a kind of honestly like uh

Andrew
Do you agree?

Sean
Yeah, yeah, I do. um I don't agree with his essay. I think his essay about how his essay is about how Gen AI won't ever make art, and I think that's arguably true, um but I think that he misses the fact that Gen AI would be an art form, and people will use it the way that they make art with Photoshop and then collage things together.

Andrew
Sure, but at that point, it's not Gen AI making the art, I don't think. I think it's human artists making art using Gen AI as a medium or a tool.

Sean
you

Sean
Agreed, agreed.

Andrew
ah like I think what he's saying is like the thing that Gen AI, at least in its current form, can't think.

Sean
hence in

Andrew
right it doesn't It doesn't produce creative thought.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
it's not It's not actually that intelligent, even though it's really good at looking intelligent.

Sean
Right.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
um it just it repeats it guesses it and you know there's still this possibility that if we like scale it up enough we find out that that's all we do anyway and original thought is all just like guessing and repeating and suddenly it's doing what we can do but like we think that most likely we will need a new technological revolution like and a different form of AI technology paired with

Sean
Yeah. yeah

Sean
Sure.

Andrew
paired with or that replaces our current. Anyway, sorry, you know all this shit I'm preaching to the choir.

Sean
know um Well, to go back to the quote, I absolutely think it's true.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
I actually think Gen. AI makes incredibly mid stuff. um Yeah.

Andrew
Yeah, for the most part. Yeah.

Sean
But I think we are always astounded by it because of the speed at which it can make incredibly mid stuff is impressive.

Andrew
um

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
And that's I think that's lowering expectations of

Andrew
And I think we also make a lot of pretty mid stuff and so it does look pretty human. um It just doesn't look like the best humans.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
It looks like all of us at our laziest.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
And I don't want to say like some people are inherently lazy.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
We all are inherently lazy in some ways.

Sean
For sure.

Andrew
And so it's like it's really good at mimicking us at our like...

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
lazy Lazy maybe isn't the right word because it's like You know, it obviously works hard in that it generates a lot of output, but it's like it's all of us that are at least creative and most like boring.

Sean
Mm-hmm. For sure. Well, anyway, good essay. Worth reading. We'll give the show notes. ah We also read an essay. We both independently read an essay. And I think you had some thoughts about it.

Andrew
Oh, fuck, dude. ah Paul Graham just being Paul Graham again and all the fucking tech bros just like sucking his dick and It drives me crazy um Yeah Okay so my take on the founder mode is that it is a Massive nothing burger like I I saw all these people like it obviously went viral.

Sean
One more.

Sean
Thank you.

Andrew
It was blowing up my Twitter feed um for several days everyone like arguing over like does you know Is founder mode better or is manager mode better? And like the implication is that founder mode is sort of this like permission to be a micromanager. It's this this idea that founders are all knowing and are like you know you know incredible 10x employees or whatever who they're the only ones capable of like of really driving innovation, which

Andrew
We can argue that whether that's true or not. um But the implication was that like it was sort of permission for founders to be micromanagers and to get really involved in the weeds and that like, um you know, to to be a Steve Jobs type who is kind of incendiary and like super detail oriented.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
And you read it and that's like, one that's that is sort of the implication from the blog post, not just from how people took it. Although the blog post does couch more than that. It basically says like I read the blog post is saying like a lot of founders are bad at hiring and hire leaders who are good at like sort of faking output but not actually great at like driving change.

Andrew
And again, to me, that's not saying that like managers are the problem. It's saying that like hiring is hard and and like bad managers are not great, which duh.

Sean
Yep.

Sean
Yep. Yeah.

Andrew
um And that a lot of founders are bad at hiring, which also duh, because hiring's hard and most people don't have a whole lot of practice at it. um And then he goes on to say, like you know, we need this like founder mode. And he, there was a, there was a quote in it that like, that really was wild to me, um where he said something like, um hold on, I want to pull it up because it's, it's so funny to me. um

Andrew
um Okay, he says, skip level meetings will become the norm instead of a practice so unusual that there's a name for it. And I just read that and was like, hello, what?

Andrew
Like names, things have names that are norms. Names are helpful. Like things don't have names because they're like shocking or unusual.

Sean
yeah

Andrew
Um, also, I'm sorry, Paul Graham, are people not having skip level meetings at most of your companies? If so, that's just shitty management. That's not. That's not like founder mode versus manager mode. That's shitty management. Like ah my my whole takeaway from the article was that like maybe Paul Graham is a bad manager and like doesn't really know a whole lot about what management is, which obviously is like kind of an arrogant take. Paul Graham has seen it way more companies than I ever will and like has talked to more people than I ever will. But I don't know. The whole thing felt like kind of

Andrew
and nothing burger to me. And he even, again, he couched a lot of what he said by saying like, this isn't an excuse to be a total micromanager delegation is still important.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
um Basically, just he thinks that founders need to be aware of what's going on at all levels of their company, and not just like look at teams as a black box that they can like

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
be totally hands off from. And again, I totally agree with that. But I, I don't think that we need some new type of management for that to be true.

Andrew
I think that's just like best management practices. Like a lot of the stuff he's describing is stuff that I've seen Claire Lou writing about in her like management and leadership essays for years.

Andrew
And

Sean
Yeah, but I mean, when he says it's a novel, right? but's It's discovered for the first time. That's fun.

Andrew
yeah

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
i yeah I just, when I finally read the essay, I was like, this is what everyone's freaking out about. There's nothing in here. He even says multiple times, like, I don't know what founder mode is. None of us know what founder mode is. And it's like, kind of sounds like founder mode is just being a better manager.

Sean
I think it's like, well, I think it's popular because of the term, right? I think like goblin mode is huge. And like, I think Paul Graham's an excellent marketer. Like he's like one of the best content marketers of our time.

Andrew
yeah

Sean
I would argue, I would wonder if he's a good manager, given the fact that, you know, he's not the person that manages everything happening at YC anymore.

Andrew
Totally.

Sean
And amongst other things, and like his own genius is just excellent essays, um or at least is that,

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
Yeah. And naming things is valid. Again, skip-level meetings have a name for a reason, not because they're novel or unheard of.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
like giving something a name, like sure, I saw some people like saying like, yeah, it's not novel, but like, but it's, um you know, often the best writing points out things that aren't necessarily novel, but it gives us new perspective or gives us a new way of looking at it. I just don't think he really did that. I think he, and in fact, I think he kind of muddied the waters because I think he like implied that founder mode is not being a manager.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I don't think that's true. I think good founders are good leaders. And like and again, like founders don't have to be good managers.

Sean
Agreed.

Andrew
They can remove themselves from that work. And I do agree, again, that like founders should be aware of what's going on at different levels of their company. But I think good managers are also aware of what's going on at different levels.

Andrew
They don't get in, throw, bombs into the teams and they don't like, they give people autonomy, but they also like step in if they need to and like, you know, make sure that if problems are arising, they either address them or they make sure the right person is addressing them.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just called being like a good CEO, to be honest with you. um Like I think that ah like this idea of like like delegating and or like that you should micromanage because delegating is like bad is a little bit black and white in the in the sense of like like

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
like just assigning something to someone and telling them to go forth and prosper is like ineffective, no matter what. ah Really quickly, did you see the tweet um ah comparing like like founder mode versus manager mode and like Uber and Airbnb?

Andrew
Yeah, there's also um a bunch of them that are like maybe even funnier are like, people will do like they've done Apple and like a couple of other companies, and they'll highlight like the period of time that was founder mode and the period of time that was manager mode.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And it's if you know, obviously, stock price is not the end all be all ah indicator of value generation, but um it is pretty funny.

Sean
Yeah. Sure.

Sean
Yeah, yeah. I think it's like, I don't know. It's it's some.

Sean
I think we as like indie hackers and founders and whatever we do champion these people that like are are like these like great founder types and whatever right like ah Steve Jobs but I mean pre the whole Mr.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
Beast incident like Mr. Beast was sort of like champion as this like glorified like glorified you know like the next Sam Walton is

Andrew
This savant at like understanding how to gain algorithms and like maximize reach and um yeah.

Sean
right right and then and then like now you have all these like people that work for him speak out because like it actually kind of sucks working for the guy uh and and there's a lot of other issues and i think we like

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
this sort of thing is another example of how like founders are very insulated against sort of what's the actual ongoings of their company because they have a reality distortion field around them um i don't know it it did sound to me like just like don't like get better either get better at hiring or like or just like don't hire like people that are bad for your business but it

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
Yeah. And again, if, if founder mode is a helpful term that helps people understand they need to balance autonomy and, um, with like staying aware of what's going on at different levels.

Andrew
And Paul Graham you know created that term and that term is helpful for people, great. But that doesn't, from the reactions, that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems like people are just going to use the term as an excuse to be shitty micromanagers.

Andrew
And like i you know I go back and forth on, like I think the reality distortion field stuff, I think like being kind of a delusional optimist can be important for driving innovation forward and and everything.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
But I often think that like you know I think Apple was so successful like in spite of Steve Jobs' worst tendencies, not because of his worst tendencies. i think i And like it's all like a double-edged sword, right? like His best tendencies probably required his worst tendencies, and so and the best like maybe outweighed the worst, but I don't think like I don't think Apple succeeded because he like would yell and scream at people and make them feel like shit. I think he would yell and scream at people because he had like an obsessive, he cared about like quality to an obsessive degree. And so I i think like too many people go, Oh, yelling and screaming at people is the answer here and not like caring about quality.

Sean
I think it's yeah I mean I also think that like any other type of story is really boring and doesn't catch theme like a story about something someone who succeeds and is just nice to people and is good is like actually not every interest like there's no flaw like deep Machiavellian character flaw to them that makes for a good show like Peaky Blinders right there's just

Andrew
is the is the ah is the important takeaway.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
And again, the reality is we're all shitty people sometimes and we're all good. like I don't believe people are black and white. I don't believe people are like good or evil.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
I think we all have have the worst of Steve Jobs inside of us and the best of Steve Jobs inside of us. And like, um what's that?

Sean
Steve Jobs is... Sorry, go ahead. Nothing. I'm just gonna make a 13-year-old joke. He's carrying on.

Andrew
Steve Jobs is inside of me?

Sean
Yeah, you know yeah.

Andrew
Is that what you were gonna say? Yeah.

Sean
yeah

Andrew
Yeah, I don't know, man. I was like, my my biggest reaction was like, I waited three days to read it and I read it and I was like, wait, what? This is all, this is all that, like, why is this blowing up? This is ah kind of a bad essay.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize it was going to blow up this, uh, into like this thing until actually I saw like your tweet and then, and then some other people comment on it and stuff.

Sean
I didn't realize it was going to be a whole thing. You know, who's making a lot of money off of this though.

Andrew
Peter levels.

Sean
Computer levels.

Andrew
Oh man, dude. Do you ever think that there's like a certain degree of shamelessness that's required to like really make a lot of money?

Sean
Yeah, 100%. founder mode, that's the that's the secret thing.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
That's actually rule number one, be shame. Well, I guess that's be allergic to objects, right? That's the whole point of 100%. I also think the whole like,

Sean
I think Peter Levels was great. I think the stuff he was doing is great. I do think that his big break feels like it was much more like the AI, photo AI stuff. um Like I feel like he was more of a, like a, I don't know, like a more of a neighborhood hero sized person back when, ah you know, I don't know, back back when he was just doing like hood maps and all this sort of like nomad list and I think he kind of blew up with the photo AI stuff, but I don't know.

Andrew
Yeah, maybe he's been pretty big for a while. But um yeah, I mean, I think he's really good at like, following trends and like hacking on shit and like getting shit stood up quickly. um I think he where he struggles is like, long term operations and maintenance and like, you know,

Andrew
from all accounts, it would be better for some of his products if he would sell them and hand them off to someone who cares about long-term maintenance and everything.

Sean
Sure.

Andrew
But, um, yeah.

Sean
Yeah. I mean, what do we know?

Andrew
He's pretty great at going zero to one.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Andrew
Yeah. Um, what's going on in your world? Um, outside of founder mode, are you, uh, are you locked into agency founder mode?

Sean
Yeah. I'm in like Gotham mode based.

Andrew
yeah

Sean
uh... we're busy uh... you know in man is still good which means we're closing things we had a client basically close us which is kinda cool but also you know I don't want to say stressful it's more just like we are we're being challenged in good ways we have a client of ours who uh... who asks us to pitch them on on some new ideas and stuff and like we're getting to this point where I've been thinking about this like there's so many different types of agencies right there's like marketing agencies there's design agencies etc and like we we kind of straddle this difference between the design and marketing agency and like we went ahead and did marketing agency stuff because like retainers are good and we like that sort of stuff but you know it's like the more we do that the more clients start to go like do you do content do you do this and and all this stuff and then

Sean
um And recently we've had the chance to pitch more like an ad agency gets the pitch, which is like more like a creative agency where we propose campaigns and concepts and stuff like that.

Sean
And that's been really fun to do as ah just as a team.

Andrew
Hmm.

Sean
So now I'm wondering, you know, does it make sense for us to keep

Andrew
Hmm.

Sean
like pushing on the marketing stuff versus should we start thinking about, I don't know. I think, I think it's this, this problem of like, I've never worked at an agency before. And so I'm just kind of like doing things that I want to do and are interesting and are challenging and creatively and, and cool.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
So like there's definitely.

Andrew
But you then just run the risk of like muddying your positioning and people like start to struggle to know like what you do and when to come to you.

Sean
definitely Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. um um I kind of put it under this umbrella term as like creative agency just because like it was like we do creative things but that's not that's not what a creative agency actually is right a creative agency is like, you know, Grand Army they they do brand they do a little bit of like websites they do a little bit of marketing stuff but really they produce a really great giant.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
I don't know if I agree with that. i I look at creative agency and maybe this is like, maybe it means something different to people outside of the agency world, but I look at creative agency more as an umbrella category for like marketing, design, a little bit of dev, i like like just, you know it's like a term that I feel like people inside of the industry use to mean like,

Sean
and

Andrew
um You know, you're not like a business consultant, like a business consultant isn't necessarily a creative agency, although even it could like make an argument.

Sean
I think it's, um, so this is what I mean about how like, because I've never really experienced this side of it, but I've always kind of been around it like, that's not how advertising my understanding understands what a creative agency is right.

Andrew
Hmm.

Sean
like ah ah an ad agency uses a creative agency to do the production of all the all the things that I do.

Andrew
Interesting. Okay.

Sean
And a creative agency sometimes will pitch on on those things, but like in the advertising world, it's different in a way.

Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know as much about the advertising world. I had some friends who worked um for like in Columbia where I grew up, there was like a big advertising agency that had like an office in New York and an office in in South Carolina, a couple offices in South Carolina, and they were like kind of the big name in South Carolina.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
um and So I got a little peek it what into like what they did and how they looked at things, but I never interacted with them enough.

Sean
Yeah. Um, I don't know. I'm with you. I'm with you though. Like we call ourselves a creative agency because we're just do creative things. Um, like it was an umbrella term of the stuff we do, but yeah, I think it's like, it does feel like we kind of sort of money our waters.

Sean
Um, I've always kind of made this excuse that because we're focused on security, we, we go wide with scope, but, and um, I don't know. Um, someone wrote a really great, uh, blog post the other day about easy positioning that I was reading.

Sean
Um, that's pretty good.

Andrew
Yeah, thanks for your feedback on that. um It was really helpful. It went out, went out on the newsletter today, so wrote, I'd been wanting to write this for ages, um like, kind of before it all disappeared from my head.

Andrew
um Also, I've had a couple of people ah approach me and a couple of friends who are like, hey, I'm thinking about starting an agency. Could I like just ask you a bunch of questions for like an hour?

Andrew
or And I love those conversations.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
So finally, get around to writing up. The title is Everything I Learned, Growing My Agency to a Million in Revenue or something like that.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um And I I really focused mostly on the growth side a little bit of operations but like most of it was focused on growth and like um yeah, as you alluded to like the the thing that I My in my opinion and a lot of this is heavily influenced by the people I've read Philip Morgan David Baker Blair ins In my opinion like the most important thing like the biggest key to like

Andrew
smoothing out the sales process, um, and like making it, making marketing easier is nailing your positioning as an agency. And in my opinion, the strongest positioning is a combination of like a horizontal and vertical positioning where you have a handful of services that you do and you do really well.

Andrew
And you make it really clear what those are and you kind of like stay in those bounds and like continue to deepen that expertise. Um, and then you, uh, you pick one or two verticals. Most companies will do the best serving one. A lot of companies as they grow larger will serve two to three. Um, and they like hone in on those verticals so that you, you get more word of mouth and you get more, you get like deeper expertise into the problems and challenges of the vertical.

Andrew
So you have like the vertical expertise and then you also have like the service expertise.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um And I mean at the same time like most of the biggest agencies I think eventually do go pretty broad with services. Um, but in my opinion, like for, if you're going to stay small, then you need to kind of limit your services. And so I guess it also kind of comes down to what's your ambition for miscreants. Like if you want to grow miscreants into the agency, the ad agency, I grew up with was Chernoff Newman. I know they're not one of the big players, but name your big players, you know, then you could say like, we're going to be an advertising and creative agency.

Andrew
um

Sean
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. um It's also like weird because like because we do more demand and stuff, it gets us closer to add agency stuff. I don't know. It's a lot of it's also a lot of thinking for this this agency, whereas like the goal of miscreants was always to build up the brand of miscreants, which I think we've been doing as like the design leader in cybersecurity.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
But ah ah It's just something something to reevaluate you know probably by the end of the year. um

Andrew
I think one helpful thing to remember, and I just saw someone actually who was building a SAS and was talking about going vertical in their positioning, um and they pointed out it is a reversible decision.

Andrew
Like it can take time to reverse it. Like if, if the kind of. Enough people in the industries are aware of you, which like also like most people are not thinking that much about us all the time. So it's, but it is a reversible decision. So if you did want to go narrow for a little while and test that you could always do that as a test for like three to six months. And if like pipeline starts to dry up, then maybe you go, okay, we need to go broader.

Sean
um Yeah, ah there's a there's a good um piece of advice in the boutique about this sort of thing about like, like, you do want to launch new services, but it's a matter of just building like having like the processes built around it and and that might be the that i'm feeling is like,

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
we'll launch services because like I know how to do it, I know someone else knows how to do it, but it doesn't mean that like we know how to serve it as a, like really kind of serve it, and there's a difference between.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
I like to kind of equate um like agencies to restaurant businesses a lot, um and different types of food service businesses. like I think a productized service agency is like fast food, and like we try to be like more prestigious than the Michelin star sort of thing, but like just because we know how to cook it at home doesn't mean that we know how to serve it and put it on the menu.

Andrew
Michelin star. Yep.

Sean
um

Andrew
Yeah, that's that's a really good framing, actually. um And like a lot of clients will still pay for home cooking because like you still know more than they do.

Sean
yeah

Andrew
But um to really get to that level of like, you know, repeatability and like being known for quality and stuff.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
Yeah, it's helpful to like, figure out how to shape it into a service.

Sean
Right.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
um So I just sent the blog post out this morning um and actually i I've only gotten one response yet through the newsletter, but someone hit reply and asked me if I would look at their agency website um and and give them like critique their positioning, which I was like, hell yeah, that's super fun.

Sean
Hell yeah. Yeah.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um So I gave them a few quick thoughts and then we're going to meet a little bit longer ah this week or next. Do like a do like a 30-minute meeting and I do think it would be fun to do some like coaching for agency owners at some point, but We'll see yeah, I think that could be fun

Sean
Cool.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. That's sick. That's awesome. hey

Andrew
Yeah, I was I was stoked to get a reply. I would love um ah I would love it if a few more people had had like kind of a similar reaction. But even if just one one person like, you know, got value out of it, um I do think I'm going to try to promote it a little bit more.

Sean
No.

Andrew
So I'm going to try to like, I need to write up like some tweets and LinkedIn posts and stuff about it.

Sean
No.

Andrew
And then I also want to hit up some of the people I like referenced.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Like ah I added a Um, after you reviewed it, I added like kind of a sources and resources section at the end and shouted out like David Baker, Peter Kang.

Andrew
Um, just so people have like a jumping off point to like go even deeper if they want to.

Sean
most yeah yeah absolutely um yeah but well congrats on getting that out i know that you've been thinking about that for a long long time now yeah

Andrew
Um, and because like, if I'm being honest, a lot of the ideas in the post were heavily influenced by those people. And so I want to like, I want to give credit where credit is due.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
yeah thinking about it for a long time and then you know was hoping to get it out in august and it is now september but that's okay um i mean the biggest thing is like you know kind of related to like the positioning argument do you go broader do you go deep

Sean
Yeah. Do you feel like you've gotten all of it off of your chest or do you feel like there's a part two coming?

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
And i I went broader in this, right? So I tried to cover a good bit of topics.

Sean
Hmm.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I think any one of those topics I could go deeper on and do like a post dedicated to that topic.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
um There is also a part of me that, you know, if I were to create an info product, I think it would be around ah some piece of agency growth and operations.

Andrew
And I think probably I would go after um Like I think there are probably people like Philip Morgan and David Baker who have written books and stuff on agency positioning. I don't know that there are any video courses. So maybe there's still room for like a video course on agency positioning, um which would be a fun thing to build. um But I also, I would be really interested in doing kind of doing a course on like road mapping or um I also think that like,

Andrew
Like what we've been testing with the work I've been doing with you at Miss Grants is like we aren't requiring people to go through a road mapping service upfront, like we used to do at Crit, but we give them a like ah fixed timeline and then we do kind of road mapping at the beginning of the project um or story mapping or whatever you wanna call it.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
And i and so I wanna like develop that idea a little bit more and then like I think it could be cool to do a video course and talk about like those two approaches to scoping projects.

Andrew
Cause I think those can be pretty transformational in like, especially for projects that have a really nebulous, um, that can have a really nebulous scope like product or, um, you know, big content projects or something.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I mean. Yeah.

Sean
Yeah. I mean, uh, can I offer you some ideas?

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Um, I think the thing, like the thing that I learned a lot off of your stuff in conversations with you is like, like.

Andrew
Yeah. Yeah.

Sean
A lot of it is like the thing i struggle I've struggled with or used to struggle with was like, just how the fuck do you scope product projects? um Because especially for startups, right? um And i I wonder if there's an like an opportunity here of building of a product specifically also around product agencies and UI, UX sort of things. is like Like I know that we kind of went through, you know, 20, I don't know, 2015, 2016, South by Southwest era of of like when Twitter was still like ODO and like ah like when Gary V was still hot. Like there was that era where the UI, UX agencies were really, really hot and there were a lot of people doing it. And to me, it feels like it kind of died off. Like there's plenty of, um and it kind of, we kind of enter this era of, I would argue like brand aid, like sort of brand and social media agencies.

Andrew
Interesting.

Sean
And then I wonder if there's a research, there's going to be a resurgence because of like the amount of cursor, um, Cursor VO, like at V zero Claude stuff, but different in the fact that like, like more of a strategic consulting agency, like.

Andrew
Hmm.

Sean
like like I wonder if there's like a weird interesting mix of like like this is how you build product but this is also how you use AI to help you build a product but this is how you think about product so you can build a better product using and use AI and move faster that way um anyway there's there's like a very nebulous sort of thinking there

Andrew
Interesting.

Sean
um And yeah, I don't think I see a lot of really good sort of this is how you like run and build a product agency content out there. There's a lot of social media management stuff, um which is all, you know, whatever.

Sean
um um And I think, you know, those became easier to run as an agency because of like companies like Canva and tools like that. So now, you know, with, I'm calling Claude and and Cursor, et cetera, as like the Canva equivalent here, but ah and like V0 as the equivalent here. But I wonder with these things, if there's gonna be that sort of end-to-end product agency sort of thing.

Andrew
Yeah, I mean, um like, Brian Chappell is...

Sean
Mm.

Andrew
um yeah He's been refining his product UI-UX consulting positioning um and his newest offering is one month app.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Mm-hmm.

Andrew
um and He takes this idea that you and I apply at miscreants too, with our, with a lot of our clients where we give them like, okay. Initially we're going to quote you three months and we're just going to work together for three months. And this is what we think we can get done in three months, but right off the bat, we're going to have a deeper conversation and we're going to refine this and make sure.

Andrew
we've got a plan that is doable in three months. And that's kind of what he's doing, squeezed into one month. And part he's said on his podcast, that part of how he's able to offer that service is because um he, a combination of like cursor, and um although I think he actually still just uses raw chat GPT,

Andrew
um Uh, and then, um, you know, he's built up a little bit of a personal component library and, you know, rails also gives you some, you know, some speed benefits.

Sean
Yeah. I mean, it's a very specific one thing you can build in one month, right? It's like a CRUD app or a directory app or something like that.

Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, to be fair, I think 90% of apps in the world are crud apps, like 95% are like crud it in some way.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Exactly.

Andrew
Um.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
And I think that you can like, I think a month, if you, yeah, if you have a a good, you know, a really good engineer who has some prior, some tooling built out, um, and is good at using AI, then I think you can do like a simple crud thing with maybe like one kind of unique feature or like piece.

Sean
Mm hmm.

Andrew
Um, but the other thing that he's doing is same as we do at miss grants is like, The one month is a starting point. And then you can choose whether you want to continue. You can also choose, you know I think he often gives people a couple of options.

Andrew
So it's like, he'll come in at the beginning of the month. They'll do a essentially a road mapping session.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um And then they'll he'll give them options where he's like, OK, here's what we can get done in the month. Here's what we can get done in two months. Here's what we can get done in three months. um You can also just commit to the one month for now, and then we can talk about it later.

Andrew
um so ah Yeah, i think I think there's something there. um i I'll definitely noodle on that a little bit more.

Sean
Yeah. Um, well, even in Mexico city, I don't think the last podcast cause we skipped last week.

Andrew
yeah yeah that's right we you and i just ended up talking for two hours which was great um no regrets yeah i've been in mexico city for a week and a half now um fucking love it here it's so cool uh my stomach is killing me uh my

Sean
and

Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
my weak little white boy stomach is is struggling a little bit. The first week I was doing okay, and then over the weekend we drank a lot and eat ah ate a lot, and i'm I'm hurting a little bit now, so I'm gonna try to take you take it pretty easy today, um and hopefully hopefully recover.

Sean
how's your and

Andrew
ah

Sean
hows your spanish working out by the way

Andrew
Eh, mi espanol es más omenos.

Sean
the use

Andrew
Yo hablo?

Andrew
yeah ah pretty well i don't know i I don't know if I do upload pretty well. if that um Yo hablo en más que yo entiendo.

Andrew
One of the big things that I have realized being here is that my listening comprehension needs a lot of work.

Sean
How's your Spanish working out, by the way?

Sean
i

Andrew
um So a goal when I go back is going to be to like start trying to watch more Spanish like TV shows and movies and stuff.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um Hit up like Money Heist, Narcos, do some look for like a good Spanish comedy.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Yeah, little telenovela.

Andrew
um Yeah, maybe maybe pick up a telenovela.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And then ah I think that like while being here has helped, I think it would really accelerate things if I go stay at the school that I take lessons from and do one of their immersion programs for a couple of months.

Andrew
So I think I'm feeling like I might try to do that sometime next year, like try to commit to, and I'd probably like still work um and just do like do class and and work and like try to commit to it for a couple months.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Yeah. Cool.

Andrew
Yeah, i can I can like carry a conversation if someone speaks really slowly to me um and knows a little bit of English. When someone doesn't know any English at all or just like No matter how many, like, there are a couple of people who, no matter how many times I say, yo entiendo muy lentamente por favor hablas más despacio.

Andrew
Like, I understand very slowly, please speak slowly. um There's some people who just like, their rate of speech just does not slow down, no matter how hard they try.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
ah I see, I see.

Andrew
And and then it's it's a struggle.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Did I ever tell you that my friend from, my best friend from high school, he moved down to Mexico City on a bet to become an agent?

Andrew
Oh, sick.

Sean
I think he's back in New York now.

Andrew
Oh, yeah, you did tell me this. Yeah.

Sean
Yeah, I think after a couple months and in CDMX, he started picking up some things. At least I see his Instagram is all like, yeah, the guy's Bangladeshi, so it's impressive, yeah.

Andrew
Cool. one of my One of my best friends was here over the weekend, um and he was born in the US but um ah is Indian American and grew up speaking English, Hindi, and a little bit of Punjabi.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um And so he hasn't taken Spanish since high school. And he his retain like he can speak about as well as I can. i My grammar is a little bit better um because he hasn't taken a grammar class in so long.

Sean
yeah

Andrew
um And he can understand probably better than I can. And it's so frustrating because I'm like, I've been working at this for a year and a half now and you haven't touched this in like so long and you're still like as good or better than I am.

Andrew
Um, but I, I think there is something to like growing up multilingual does make it easier. Um, you know, they always say that like, it just like sort of forms connections in your brain or something that make it easier to pick up another language.

Andrew
Um, I don't, do you agree with that?

Sean
I almost, dude, him and I both, we took the same high school semantic classes for like five years.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
We both almost failed every single class. Like, know I don't know what you're talking about.

Andrew
but

Andrew
Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe I'm totally wrong.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Um, he definitely, uh, sunshine definitely feels like, like he, that that has played a part in his ability to retain it, but maybe he's just naturally gifted at languages.

Sean
Yeah. God gives, God takes. I don't know.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
um So on ah on chart juice slash startup news, on disco shrimp company news, um ah I think I've officially decided to stop pushing on the, um, on the email use case, the, um, you know, the image chart to image API use case.

Sean
Okay.

Andrew
So, um, you know, was getting okay conversion rates. You helped me tweak my ads that definitely helped a little bit. Um, but still was just seeing like almost no real usage.

Andrew
and real adoption and I've gotten like it's been crickets ah with the cold emails I sent out and to be fair like you know, probably a lot could be improved in my cold email messaging, but my gut is just telling me that this market is not worth the the effort and the fight.

Andrew
um And so I think my plan, I'm not gonna ditch the API, I'm gonna, you know, I've built it, I'll i'll leave it there.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
ah Maybe it'll be useful for some people in a way I can't predict right now. um But I'm gonna go more freemium chart builder, um And ah so I'm going to go a little bit broader in my positioning, um refactor the the website, and then um reorganize the flow of the app to be to get people in faster, um you know add watermarks.

Andrew
So like I think I'm going to go with, like we talked about it on a podcast episode a long time ago, but I'm going to go with like

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
you know a free plan that includes you know images are watermarked and maybe I limit the number of images you can download per month, um a cheap you know Canva like price plan that lets you remove watermarks and then download like you know up to 50 images a month or something like that, and then like an automate plan that lets you do a lot more than that. um And then I also wanna build a couple of plugins, so I wanna build um a Webflow plugin, a Figma plugin, and potentially a Canva plugin. Because still the best experience I've had using this product, to like the the moment that felt the most like, wow, that was cool, was when I needed to create a chart

Andrew
in for a Figma project I was working on, a missed grants Figma project. And I went to chart juice and like created it really quick, downloaded the SVG, dropped it into Figma. And then like the SVG was organized in a really nice way. And it was super easy to edit it further in Figma. And I was like, this is awesome.

Andrew
Um, so I think I'm just going to go that route.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And then like, once I get a couple of those plugins built, um, I'll probably stop pushing super hard on marketing and building, you know, I might every couple of months add a new chart type, something like that, do a, you know, a blog post for it, send out an email kind of thing, but like mostly try to put it on the back burner.

Andrew
And then. might be starting to work on some new stuff with a ah partner who is yet to be named.

Sean
Yeah, you got it.

Andrew
I want to wait until they're they're ready to ah be more public.

Sean
Secret partner. Yeah.

Andrew
Um, be more public, but, um, yeah, there's, I've, I found a new partner and we've started talking through some ideas.

Sean
Oh, yeah.

Andrew
So kind of concurrently with making those changes to church use, I'm probably going to start, start researching some new ideas.

Sean
Cool. Um, well, the thing we were talking about before this call, that idea that you're working on with said partner, very exciting. It was cool.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Worth worth of them. I mean, if they're mowing you $50 for, and a problem, it is that's more successful than chart, than chart juice already.

Andrew
Yeah. Thanks for being my first customer. Um, I guess I'm counting that as revenue. So we, we set a goal so much more successful than chart shoes.

Andrew
Holy shit.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Um, damn, you're so right.

Sean
if

Andrew
ah So sad. Um,

Sean
I mean, I could also have been with you that amount for charge use if you want to, you know, I i just want what that money back.

Andrew
see, this is the problem. This is why I don't trust you. I think you would have been mode me for chart shoes. If I, if I'd pushed.

Sean
No, I would want my charge use money back. um If that was the case.

Andrew
Yeah, um so yeah, we set a goal for ourselves of like, we wanna try it, and this is a little bit ambitious, but we wanna try to earn $5,000 by the end of the year.

Sean
Nice.

Andrew
um um Open to doing something that's not recurring, doesn't have to be a subscription service. um In fact, we'd like to go kind of stair-step and start with something that's more like plugin,

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
Focus like has a built-in distribution channel kind of thing. um And right now we've got like a list of like 15 or 20 ideas and we're going through kind of the five Rob Walling's 5 p.m.

Andrew
framework. Hey Rob, having given you a shout out on the podcast in a while. So, you know, overdue.

Sean
This is just the, yeah, this is just the RW fan club show.

Andrew
It's been like two whole weeks.

Sean
Let's change the name at this point.

Andrew
Yeah. So we're going through like kind of a combination of some, uh, some of Jason Cohen's stuff and then Rob Walling stuff and doing sort of, yeah, just talking through the different ideas.

Andrew
And then the plan is to like narrow it down to a list of like, you know, two to five and then do a little bit of deeper validation around those probably involving some user interviews.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Um, and you know, ah maybe a little bit of market research and then like pick one. to build an MVP for, um try to limit that MVP to like six weeks is like kind of ideal. um Get it out there, test it, and then decide whether to like move on to one of the other ideas or or keep pushing on that. um So yeah, it's been,

Andrew
fun talking through some of the the other things um and a lot of AI ideas in there, including the one that you've been with me for.

Sean
I see that. I see that.

Andrew
um

Sean
I will say I I do really like like number 12 and the ideas that are around like using AI to help connect the dots and and understand data like like generated data better.

Sean
um Mainly.

Andrew
Cool.

Andrew
We can just talk about the ideas. like i'm I'm cool with that.

Sean
I mean. OK.

Andrew
So the thing you've been known me for was um this idea that I have that I'm like kind of excited about, um which I think is going to end up becoming one of our one of our top five.

Andrew
um which is like um So I think a big part of our thesis, and you and I share this thesis, is that like I don't want AI to do creative work.

Andrew
I want it to do the grunt work.

Sean
Yeah. yeah

Andrew
I want it to do the boring stuff that is like super tedious for me to do.

Sean
Yep.

Andrew
And I think that's what it's best at in its current iteration too.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um And, um, I just remember being an agency owner and like trying to get people, like I tried to get Austin. I tried to get like one of our employees at one point to just like go through our Figma and create dribble posts.

Andrew
And it was so hard. Like, even when I said, take Friday and do this every week, it's still like just somehow didn't get done.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Like other shit would come up like.

Sean
four it's It's such a bad experience, yeah.

Andrew
Yeah, and so I like i finally, like I feel like, I think it would be hard to get it like really tuned, but I think you, you could use a combination of like the more generative AI and like the more introspective AI.

Andrew
I need to talk to one of my data science friends to like find out what the actual names for these things are.

Sean
Yeah, yeah.

Andrew
But I sound like an idiot right now. um But yeah, you could basically generate a bunch of like marketing graphics for use in case studies and ah social media posts and like ah decks for clients and stuff like that.

Sean
Yeah, I mean, i I like it because, like, it's not, you know, it's not like it's it's generative graphics, but it's not like Gen AI.

Andrew
um

Sean
Like, it's not Gen AI art, you know, it's it's just the art work.

Andrew
Yeah, we're not trying to replace artists. We're not trying to replace graphic designers.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
We're trying to enable them and support them and help them get broader reach.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um And like, you know, a lot of what we might end up doing isn't even generating a whole lot of like new graphics.

Andrew
It's like, using AI to like kind of quote unquote understand what's there and then like plug it into existing templates and stuff and just like yeah it's automation.

Sean
It's automation is better. Yeah.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um ah So there's that piece um and then yeah the thing that you were like one of our other ideas is like similar on like the SEO side like do some of the like really tedious like create a title, create a meta description, ah alt text, like all the like really tedious internal links.

Andrew
like the The boring stuff that like kind of matters that like a lot of people just who aren't SEO experts don't do.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um So that's one that I've been thinking about for a while. um And then, yeah, the one that you just mentioned is like

Sean
Yeah. Like, are you going to say it? I don't know if you want to.

Andrew
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like could could you like chat with either your financial spreadsheet or your QuickBooks or something and like do kind of financial modeling, financial projection as an agency?

Sean
and

Andrew
Because like one of the things that was always frustrating to us is like I wanted like a bare metrics for agencies or something like that. Like I wanted a better like financial dashboard, a rocket money, you know, whatever for our agency, but like nothing ever built, beat a spreadsheet.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I think part of that is because like agency data is kind of like it's not recurring. It's not like as as consistent as SAS data, but that's the kind of stuff that AI is that ai is like good at analyzing and like giving you a way to query.

Sean
Yeah, it's not.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
yeah um Yeah, I mean, i I think I like, I feel like I see a lot of like enterprise startups that are like, we'll use Gen AI and LLMs to help you make sense of all your data, but there's a whole other smaller market of like, like I wish I just had, like I have a great COO, but every time we need to do like model something that takes time out of her day to do it, like I wish I could just ping like qb.ai and be like, yo,

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
Like, how much money do you think we're gonna make tomorrow? Or, you know, how much, how much do we spend on contractors for XYZ sort of thing? Or like, how much do we spend on, like, font packs or something?

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
um

Andrew
Yeah. I think the trickiest part of that one is just like with financial stuff, you the hallucination piece becomes like kind of dangerous.

Sean
Um... For sure. For sure.

Andrew
And so it's like, how do you minimize that as much as possible? And like, do you need to like, are people comfortable looking at an answer and knowing like, Hey, I need to double check this? Or does that end up being as much work as just like doing the modeling yourself?

Sean
Yeah. um Cool. I got to run, but good to see you. Good to chat.

Andrew
Yeah man, great to see you too.

Sean
Have a good time in Mexico City.

Andrew
um yeah I'll ah hopefully have some exciting updates on on some of these over the next few weeks and we'll keep chatting.

Sean
Yeah. All right. I'll see you. I'll see you at work. Bye.

Andrew
Alright, peace boss.

Sean
Thanks. Bye.