It's so tempting to become a content goblin

Season 2: Episode 5

In this episode Sean talks about being buried in client work at Miscreants and how to design trendy clothing that gets people hyped. Meanwhile, Andrew talks about making slow progress on ChartJuice and trying to fight the temptation to become an SEO content goblin.

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

Transcript:
00:02.21
Sean
So where are you up to? You're late.

Andrew
Uh, I was, I'm so behind on writing my newsletter for this month. Um,

Sean
Because you're not using AI to help you anymore.

Andrew
Dick.

Sean
Sorry, sorry.

Andrew
Um, yeah, I just like, honestly I've been busy with, uh, with consulting work for somebody. I think that's, that's what I'm going to blame it on.

Sean
i it is his fault i would blame it on him as well he's made a lot of poor decisions recently we player

Andrew
Yeah, I've been busy with consulting work and then we were like, um we were up north for ah the fourth for a week. um And so there was like a day where I thought about trying to write it there. We had kind of a rainy day and I was like, I'm just going to fuck around on my phone and read a book instead.

Sean
I, it is his fault.

Andrew
um Which was a choice I don't really regret, but now I'm like,

Sean
I would blame it on him as well. He's made a lot of poor decisions recently.

Andrew
uh like two weeks behind getting a newsletter out so trying to trying to get a piece written about how I validated church use and like just how I got to the point where I was willing to make the investment in the initial MVP because when I say validated I don't know if the product is going to work yet we're a ways off from that but

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
validated it enough to have confidence building an MVP.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
So writing an essay about that and then ah need to put together like the newsletter portion with some links and stuff. But yeah, completely lost track of time. I did the thing I do where I like procrastinated for 30 minutes and then started writing again 30 minutes before our podcast and then looked up and it was like four twelve and we were supposed to start at four o'clock. So

Sean
I do find that like that level of like crunch time is what really snaps me into flow real quick.

Andrew
Oh, absolutely.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad. I'm glad we could do that for you.

Andrew
Honestly, like, that's part of why we wanted to start the podcast again, right?

Sean
For sure.

Andrew
Or at least for me, I i needed, like, I need some social forcing functions to make me do shit.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
If I have to give you an update every week, then I have to have an update every week.

Sean
hundred

Sean
Yeah. I mean, like you tweeted out something about us writing and I was like, fuck. And I started writing. I haven't done it last week, but ah since like, since you tweeted about it, but it at least like made me attempt to put words to the paper for a couple of days. So that was pretty cool.

Andrew
Nice. Yeah, we got to actually we got to decide on an actual an actual bet or something. But I don't want to do that right the second because I have too many other things I'm trying to do right this second.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
For sure.

Andrew
I'm like, I don't want to take on a writing bet.

Sean
ah sure

Andrew
Maybe maybe in a ah month or two.

Sean
um How's your trip by the way, you went through a cabin.

Andrew
Yeah, Trip was great. um My girlfriend's aunt and uncle have this amazing place on Drummond Island, which is this cool island off the tip of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. If anyone listening has never been to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which you probably haven't because most people haven't, it's like one of the most beautiful parts of the entire country. like i didn't really hear about it until I came here and moved to Detroit. And now it's one of my favorite places in the world. It's so fucking beautiful. The Great Lakes are like

Andrew
turquoise blue. theres The trees feel like you're in the Pacific Northwest, um but the weather is way better than the Pacific Northwest. It's chilly enough in the middle of July that you need like a sweatshirt and jeans at night, um but it's warm enough to swim during the day.

Sean
whoa

Andrew
It's it's a magical place.

Sean
Whoa.

Andrew
um And I felt like a ah true digital nomad because I had I felt like I had perfected my my um transportable work setup. I had my laptop. my iPad, which they have made iPad mirroring so good and so easy now.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
I haven't used it in years, but it's like it's great now.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And then I was using Starlink at Maddie's aunt and uncle's place. And the so the Wi-Fi was great. And I was just like, holy shit, with like that new Starlink Mini, you could have an amazing multi-screen set up that you could put in a backpack and it would be light as hell.

Sean
I thought a lot about what you said about the Starlink this weekend, by the way. And I'm like, I think I'm going to get one because I was in a cabin and the Wi-Fi was garbage.

Andrew
Oh, yeah. Oh, no.

Sean
was The-Fi was okay. The Wi-Fi was okay. Having service like one foot out of the cabin was like non-existent.

Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

Sean
And yeah.

Andrew
Where'd you go? Did you go to like upstate New York or something?

Sean
No, no, I took a road trip with some friends down to Robinsville, North Carolina, where Tale of the Dragon is.

Andrew
Oh, sick.

Sean
It's a driver's road slash, uh, more of like a motorcyclist's road. So it's very, very narrow.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Lots of turns, 11 miles, 318 turns specifically.

Andrew
Is that part of the Blue Ridge Parkway?

Sean
Um, it is, I think. on one end of the bluish parkway on the way down. I think we we drove the bluish parkway as well, which was which was which was fun, which is good.

Andrew
It's gorgeous.

Sean
It's a great time. Children was also very fun. I came back a day early because I got.

Andrew
Is that why you initially canceled the podcast and then uncancelled?

Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, i was supposed I was supposed to still be in North Carolina today.

Andrew
OK.

Sean
Well, I'm still flying back in a couple hours, but um yeah, and then headed out, headed to Nashville, Tennessee to fly back to New York.

Andrew
Why'd you come back early?

Sean
I just, you know, too many things going on, too busy, like surviving with it, like.

Andrew
Work.

Andrew
One day I'm going to convince you to take more time off.

Sean
Like.

Andrew
I'm going to teach you.

Sean
I will, I will, I will, just not, not this week. And also, you know, maybe, maybe I'll take time off in a place that has internet. Um, because I would, I would like to take time off where the closest grocery store is not like a 30 minute drive away.

Andrew
Oh, we're different people.

Sean
Um, which becomes like an hour drive away.

Andrew
I love that.

Sean
Once there's like construction on the road. Um, because you have star link.

Andrew
I love it so much. I want to be. I want to be in the middle of the mountains. No, I mean, honestly, I was a little sad that they have good Wi-Fi up there now because it was nice before that you couldn't work.

Sean
No. Mm-hmm.

Andrew
It was great. I mean, it was nice to be able to work, too, but I do get kind of sad to see the places that.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
you could go to escape from technology. Like people hike the AT now with their phones. Your phone is like a crucial part of your hiking gear now because you've got your guidebook on your phone and everything and it's a little sad.

Sean
Right. Okay.

Sean
I mean, I love scrolling TikTok on a hike, you know?

Andrew
So what's going on in miscreants land that's got you so busy?

Sean
Um, just, I mean, we're trying to scale. We, so just brought on, brought on two people, uh, had to mention last week, um, the graphic designer this week, and then and bring on another graphic slash, I guess, I think she also does some like web design as well, uh, on next Monday.

Andrew
Sick.

Andrew
Cool.

Sean
Um, but yeah, I mean, we're like, uh

Andrew
And I've also casually been sending ah the designer who's going to help us on the dread node work. Oops.

Sean
-huh.

Andrew
I guess I said it now. ah The designer who's going to help us on the work that I'm doing with you.

Sean
Oops.

Andrew
um I've been sending his portfolio to everyone on your team and being like, hey, he's great. Look, check out how cool his work is.

Sean
I'll hire him ben was ah ben was like wow i'm very impressed very senior i'm like I was like, oh Hey, yeah, well you can bring him on that's fine Yeah, that was very good sorry Yeah uh, his cover is like His cover for his portfolio is the hottest thing in my figma recents right now Um, so I enjoy seeing it um I

Andrew
Shout out to my friend Chin May. he's He's fucking good. He's got a great eye.

Andrew
Congrats on hiring people.

Sean
Thanks. Thanks. um i We are also switching to Trello at the moment um from ClickUp because it is ClickUp's really great as an enterprise resource planner in that it's just like a spreadsheet with more you know power and labels and all that sort of stuff.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
But to get ClickUp to be really good, you add a lot of complexity and then you don't have anyone touching it like or logging in to like do anything because you have subtasks and subtasks and you have different views and it does all these things with like docs and all that stuff and nobody knows where the docs are.

Andrew
Mm, interesting.

Sean
ah um um And I was like, that's like, we get we get like the amount of requests we get from clients that come in a Trello. Well, I didn't, I didn't think this JJ is the one that kind of switches over, but she's like, we should just at this point, just use Trello for a lot of this.

Andrew
I wonder like how many project management tools the average agency goes through in its lifetime.

Sean
I'm trying to.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
It's gotta be greater than three.

Sean
Definitely. It's definitely greater than three.

Andrew
We were a Trello shop for a long time and and then we made made the jump to Jira.

Sean
i

Sean
Really?

Sean
Whoa.

Andrew
Yeah, we we've willingly adopted Jira.

Sean
Well, that's the same product.

Sean
Whoa.

Sean
My, my biggest problem with Jiren and linear, by the way, is that everything is called an issue.

Andrew
hu

Sean
And it's just, they're just not issues. It's not, they're not issues.

Andrew
It doesn't bother me. I don't I don't.

Sean
I can't stand it. I can't, it's the same reason I can't use hay. And it like, it's the same reason I used hay for five minutes and I got rid of it. Cause I kept calling it an IM box instead of an inbox.

Andrew
Oh, fuck that.

Sean
Can't stand it.

Andrew
Oh, that one would drive. That would drive me up the wall.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
That would drive me up the fucking wall.

Sean
There was no option. Yeah.

Andrew
Hey, it was just like.

Sean
I don't think there was a, uh-huh.

Andrew
They were trying too hard to like completely reinvent email. And so they just, I felt like they made email harder to use.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
It, it felt like it was for email curmudgeons and I'm like kind of an email defender.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
So it wasn't for me.

Sean
I think like there's a, I gotta go find this, um, cause we've been doing like new hire onboarding or sending them like, cause cause we don't, we we haven't written like a large training manual and stuff on how we use her in tools.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
There's a really, really great video from a product marketing manager at Google who explains how to like actually set up your Gmail for an inbox zero method. And it's just like. There is no reason you should be using superhuman if you set it up like him because you get shortcuts, you get labels, you get tags, you get auto filter and all this.

Andrew
Huh.

Sean
I mean, maybe I've never used superhuman, but like I would say like 80 percent of what you would like the speed of email you get off of those shortcuts. um Anyway, I still have like like millions of emails in my inbox because I'm bad at doing that, but I use the like like I use the shortcuts.

Andrew
Interesting

Sean
It's great. It's great time. um

Andrew
The thing I miss most from using Superhuman is just how easy they made it to switch between inboxes. um Because that is the biggest pain in the ass in Gmail is like switching, like having to log in 20 times.

Sean
Mm-hmm, That's fair. That's fair, yeah.

Andrew
I'm also just a weirdo who has too many inboxes, although I imagine you're the same.

Sean
Yeah, yeah, i have I have too many as well.

Andrew
Yeah. Yep.

Sean
I just asked one of my clients to make me one, like, through their domains because I had to reach out to people.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
um Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of SaaS tools, um I have no updates on on Stackwise. um how Yeah.

Andrew
Yeah, I don't have a whole lot on chart juice between the the work that I've been doing with miscreants um and then the um the vacation that I've been taking. um you know My little sister was in town. I was up north.

Sean
yeah

Andrew
So having gotten a whole lot done over the last couple of weeks, um I do think since we last talked, I um so i created a ah demo video. And I created a YouTube channel and posted the demo video to the YouTube channel.

Sean
Yep.

Andrew
And like that's now on the website. um So I have a little demo video now.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
um I will say I showed it to my girlfriend who's typically bored to tears by anything SaaS related and she watched it and was like, oh wait, this is actually kind of good. Like I understand what you're doing now.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
Cool. I've only been working on this for four months, five months.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
ah Um, um, So got the got the demo video up. And then the thing I'm like cautiously excited about is I got the service page up for the chart juice done for you automated email report service, which, good god, that's a mouthful.

Sean
cool

Andrew
I need a better name. I need a ah short way to describe it.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
ah Right now, I'm just calling it like the chart juice done for you service. um but The idea is that we will, um for a flat fee of $3,000, we will help you decide what metrics to include in your automated email report. We'll design it and build it for you, build the actual email templates, and we'll even build out any necessary automations and like hook it up in your transactional email ah code um and launch it and send it.

Andrew
so flat fee of $3,000 and that comes with one year of our middle tier of chart juice, um which is like a $1,700 value or something. So um don't know if that price is super sustainable. I think I'll probably have to raise that, especially if I start outsourcing the work at some point. But initially I want to do the first fee myself and I care more about getting a couple of customers than I do about the money.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
So I'm going to try to to start testing the waters on that soon. um And then the other thing that I'm just like have been putting off, not super intentionally putting off, but I really need to get billing implemented.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
So. um trying to figure out which Stripe option to use. Like there's like Stripe checkout and then there's like Stripe payment pages. And I want to use whatever is just the easiest one, but I'm not sure what that is.

Sean
yeah yeah yeah it's oddly like more complicated than if everyone says right everyone's like always like just use stripe just use lemon squeezy or yeah yeah lemon squeeze lemon squeezy it's a little weird i've never said that out loud in my life before okay without i've never said that out loud without going easy peasy lemons okay anyway sorry um

Andrew
um

Andrew
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lemon squeezy. Yeah.

Sean
Yeah, I keep seeing like tweets all the time but but like about problems with these tools.

Andrew
yeah

Sean
Or even like plaid.

Andrew
Stripe's complicated for sure.

Sean
yeah

Andrew
um i guess that's part of like what like I think that's part of the value prop of Outsetta is they take they handle some of that, um and there's a few other people that that are sort of another layer on top of Stripe that are emerging.

Sean
yeah

Sean
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
um But yeah, I need to get Stripe set up before I start running any ads um and ah kind of want to get it. I could start doing outbound email um before I have Stripe set up because I could just, you know.

Andrew
Bill people manually or something. So I i may start doing that, but um honestly, I just haven't had time.

Sean
Nice.

Andrew
So I'm going on another trip next week for a friend's wedding. Um, and then when I get back from that, I'll probably start doing some outbound email and then hopefully have billing done soon so I can start running some ads again.

Sean
Cool. Cool.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
Um, so I was talking about. all the consulting work that I've been doing for you.

Sean
Yes.

Andrew
Not for you, but through you.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um And that means I've been hanging out in the miscreant's Figma a lot more.

Sean
You've been stupid.

Andrew
I've been snooping.

Sean
You've been stupid.

Andrew
Dude, the new line of miscreant shirts, like I feel like this is coming from a very biased source, but the new line of miscreant shirts that you all are designing for DEFCON are so fucking cool.

Sean
Yeah. Oh.

Andrew
I want all of them.

Sean
Thanks.

Andrew
They're so rad and it was also really cool to get a look at your like your process.

Sean
Mm-hmm.

Andrew
Can you talk a little bit about like how you all go about designing a new line.

Sean
Yeah, Ben and I try to kill each other online for like months and then and then. um Well, what did you what did you look at? Did you look at all of the different lines or just as you look?

Andrew
I mostly looked at the most recent line.

Sean
OK, well.

Andrew
I think I also went back and looked at the last line too.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
um But I was mostly looking at the most recent line and I was like clicking through some of the different decks that you had.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
um I really loved the like the section on like what not to include in these designs like um I thought that was really cool and would honestly be a really helpful resource for you to give to new miscreants designers to help them like develop their

Sean
Right.

Andrew
taste within the cybersecurity field because I feel like a lot of designers when they first come into cybersecurity want to do the same things that are like kind of overplayed but they don't know they're overplayed yet because you know most designers have never seen cybersecurity shit before.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um So I feel like that was really cool and then I just I started clicking through like all the iterations and just different like kind of mood boards and stuff trying to find

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um Honestly, it took me a while to actually find the designs, the finished designs. I was like, where are they?

Sean
Sometimes it takes a while for me to. Yeah, I was asking if you've seen the old ones. It's definitely been a super iterative process. um And ah now it's a lot of it is just Ben and I working. um There's definitely also like a lot of Pinterest boards and a lot of sharing of different ideas. I think in terms of

Andrew
So like, how does it start?

Sean
Hmm. Usually with a name for the collect. Well, it's been different. It's been different every single time. Um, so for internet friends, well, years ago, it always started the name. It was always like, what is like an interesting sort of name for the collection away from keyboard, work from home, things that reflected sort of things that were, were culturally.

Andrew
Like themes in cybersecurity themes, yeah, sort of themes, memes, cultural ideas.

Sean
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right. Right. I think I would say like I would say like the theme has always been something irrespective to like the current like situation of things that are happening.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
um you know work from home was like during COVID away from keyboard was post COVID of sort of revenge vacationing for example um and then internet friends was kind of created like a lot of times the theme sort of forms after a couple t-shirts have been created or a couple of designs have been created then it's like actualized so internet friends was this idea that like Defcon and all these conferences were back in full swing you were going to Defcon to meet like ah you You were going to Defcon to sort of see all the friends you made on the internet again. High Tech Low Life was next. That was sort of, honestly Ben and I were just in New York and we binge watched Hyperpunk, Edgerunners, and we were like, ah, High Tech Low Life, nice. And then, went with that.

Sean
Um, and that had to do with like, like that, in that case, the names sort of defined a lot of the ideas for the clothing where, you know, we retcon it, right? Like we, we, uh, we were like, okay, like, like cyberpunk is kind of like RPG-esque. If, if you kind of treat your life like a video games, we made like a. reality character sort of shirt. um the There's a lot of the times where um it also just starts with like a random idea. That's a joke.

Sean
um um I would say the process is has been different almost every single time. Future Echoes is what this was originally called.

Andrew
that's that's the current okay That's the current name, or you have a new name for it.

Sean
Yeah, yeah.

Sean
I don't remember. I feel like Ben and I, so we worked on future echoes.

Andrew
It's so-called future echoes in Figma, I think.

Sean
It is, it is, it is.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Let me, let me pull this up. We can look at the same thing.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
um

Andrew
Also, can I like tease out some of the different shirts and stuff and who talk about?

Sean
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it, go for it. Sure.

Andrew
So like the vibe seems to be very like mystical, magicky, retro, board games, D and&D.

Sean
Mm-hmm.

Andrew
like I don't know I'm just talking about like I'm throwing out different words that all I don't know how I would summarize it but these are all the things that yeah yeah yeah so naturally I'm like fucking stoked on this shit because I'm like wait you're taking computers

Sean
There are fairies, there are dragons, there are wizards. Yeah, yeah.

Sean
yeah

Andrew
I'm like not a video game person, but I'm a huge like board game fantasy nerd.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And so you're taking computers and rather than going video games directly, which you do have some video game inspired stuff too, which is rad, but like you're going tabletop games and fantasy and mish mashing those two things together.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I'm like, yo, this collection feels like me. this is like It feels like you designed it for me and I'm fucking stoked.

Sean
Yeah, you're you're ICP. Yeah. OK, we it might be called it might be called shell bound. I'm not sure yet.

Andrew
Hmm, okay.

Sean
um Or like side quests or I don't know. I basically so. So, OK.

Andrew
SideQuest of the three that you have said, SideQuest feels to me like it fits the best.

Sean
Future goes.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
Shellbound and Future Echo. Future Echo, I just took to mean in like like and and like retro stuff applied to futuristic ideas, like a mashup of of retro and futuristic. um Shellbound, I have no idea what that means.

Sean
uh it was like spellbound and then with the shell yeah that was kind of whatever um okay so future echoes was this thing that came from a british tv show that ben was referencing about sort of you know echoes of like they're like these looks like a star trek parody there's get these guys on the ship but um

Andrew
OK.

Andrew
Okay, okay.

Sean
when When he kind of told me about it um if you actually click on my my name I'll show you sort of the breakdown of like all the universal triggers So with every single collection name I attach like a universal trigger to it, which is like it Yeah, like you know what a general feeling of like things people feel I guess is this is my best way of explaining it. um I don't know. I'm sure Casey nice

Andrew
It's kind of like a tagline for the collection.

Sean
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And um and Future Echoes was going to be kind of about self-reflection and growth. And I thought there was interesting things there with like hard drive hard drives for like, thanks for the memories. Or and we still might do this for like a more few like collection and down the line. um We actually are going collectionless. and ah la Or we might go collectionless after this. but um ah Future Echoes was just this idea of like, yeah, exactly. It was like kind of sci-fi. It was kind of just like ah kind of retro, kind of sci-fi. We didn't really know where we were going exactly with it. it kind of The ideas sort of start to form as we just kind of put more graphics. um We start with creating a bunch of assets and asset pools based on various types of inspiration. um you know Ben and I have very different

Sean
ah I mean, him being from London and and also we're of like different ages. So we have different cultural references and different things. And also just different interests outside of our shared ones.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
um um So we'll pull from that too. um Usually i'll my process is that I'll try to name a shirt and have an idea for the shirt. um His, I think the shirt idea and the graphic gets created together at the same time.

Andrew
So it's more like he just, he goes a little more visual. Like you start maybe with words or ideas and he starts more with like visual aesthetics and then like builds an idea that way.

Sean
right exactly exactly exactly exactly yeah yeah for sure and then we kind of like emerge in the so like he made a wizard on a computer right and i was like huh it's like a software source or um or software sorcery or like open source or i don't know open the sorcery there's nothing there

Andrew
Cool.

Andrew
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew
Oh, open sorcery is pretty good. That's pretty funny.

Sean
Thanks, thanks. Yeah, or I'll try to find like ah something there or, you know, we have ideas that are from me, which come from ah where where there is like a like a like a joke or an in like an in joke already, and then he can kind of create something around that.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
um We always have like one style that's predefined or one style that's decided on, which is like the thank you for hacking with with us shirt. We're just trying to make that collectible.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
That usually reflects something that's like trending or that we like for the year. So this year was more Y2K.

Andrew
And the new one is the new one's pretty adorable.

Sean
Thank you.

Andrew
I'm into it.

Sean
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
ah Yeah. I think I always like going a little bit. like I don't know. I think I always like a cuter shirt personally, but um I think we.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
Yeah, like it's it's kind of fun. It's sort of I feel like hacker culture has a stereotype of being very masculine and going cute sort of plays with more traditionally feminine ideas.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
And like, you know, the so many hackers actually in actuality, like fuck with gender norms and like do all sorts, you know, are all into like different types of self-expression and stuff.

Sean
Sure.

Andrew
So I think it I think it vibes with that in a cool way.

Sean
for sure. Thanks. um And then this year for DEFCON32. So we do like a bootleg shirt every single year as well. I just sent you the new design that Ben finished this morning.

Andrew
o Wait, what's, what's a bootleg shirt?

Sean
um

Sean
It's like a, you know those like bootleg wrap t-shirts?

Andrew
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sean
We always do like a bootleg wrap t-shirt. For Defcon 30, we did like a bunch of hackers, like like literally even the movie hackers like Angelina Jolie and so and like even Elliot as well this year.

Andrew
Yeah. And these are, are, are these, some of these in the past have been like the official miscreant shirt or the official Defcon shirt, right?

Sean
and ah They've been officially approved by defcon to be sold at defcon.

Andrew
Oh, okay, okay.

Sean
They were not sold But it was really funny when defcon 30 hours was like this cast from hackers plus a little bit of other kit side characters Ended up like because the official defcon shirt that year was oh so hackers, but it was like the so silhouette So I think ours is like a little bit better

Andrew
Mhm.

Andrew
Mhm. Mhm.

Sean
um um But no, they they they are ah they are made official and blessed by DEF CON.

Andrew
Hmm.

Sean
And we actually have to get it. We have to get this one blessed by DEF CON as well. But this year we went with like, let's just put all the A.I. in movies on a shirt. By the way, the the casting for A.I. in movies is incredibly monochromatic.

Andrew
Hmm.

Sean
um is what is what we've learned i don't know if it's just my point of references but we went through the entire wikipedia list like wow i see now um ah um but yeah this year we i mean i think ai is sort of top of mind and we ah figured we would put all that but i think it turned out it turned out nice so excited

Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

Andrew
So how did y'all get from future echoes like some of the original ideas to this more like magical fantasy inspired vibe?

Sean
it's

Sean
I think we just wandered until we found a direction to be perfectly honest with you this year.

Andrew
Cool.

Sean
um Last year I think we had a little bit more of a direction this year. We really just kind of wandered. ah We were working with another ah designer as well. We kind of contracted with and brana we met him at Defcon. He's super cool.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
um um And we were like, we basically start with like a loose brief of future echoes and why we're doing future echoes. And then we just kind of like do whatever.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
And um and again, Ben thinks more visually. And I think ah he started going down into a direction and indexing on um indexing on a couple of different ideas. And we just kind of kept moving towards like the different mystical and then it and then i think it's more that it looks like we narrowed down towards this mystical lore idea but really we it was like a sprawl and then i just kind of looked at the sprawl and we're like okay we're going with we're printing this one this one this one this one this one

Sean
um And they all sort of fit a theme. And that's kind of and then then they get finished and run out, basically, um which means that like we revisit our asset pool all the time um to reprint.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
But I think we're I think we're actually getting I think we're actually going to not do any more. Well, for a while, we probably won't do collections at a time. I think we're too small for that.

Andrew
Mm hmm

Sean
I think we get asked, we disappoint ourselves every year because we pick up a lot of momentum at DevCon. And then but we we have a men we've momentum and hype for about a month or a month and a half. um People like respond like respond to polls on Instagram or whatever. um And then And then and then we just kind of go silent and then we don't drop anything new. um And yeah, I think we do ourselves a disservice. Yeah, we're like basically so we make noise through Black Friday and then we kind of just die off and we make things.

Andrew
I mean, lots of lots of fashion is kind of seasonal. So that that kind of makes sense. And I i feel like the feel like the collections are nice because the that themes are kind of cool.

Sean
Kind of. i

Andrew
And I feel like drops are generally a good way to like build hype and get people excited. um

Sean
I think so. I do think one drop a year is doing ourselves a disservice. I think it's also the amount of effort we're putting in, right? Like it's it's it's always down to the wire every single year because I mean, we just have other things to do. So it would be nice to get into some level of consistency. There's also the other side that we have like a fulfillment center now, um which which costs us money every single month, no matter what. um

Andrew
So is the idea then with going um collection lists is the idea that you'll just like, you know, every now and then add like three shirts or five shirts or

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um You know, you'll add new designs, but it won't have, it doesn't have to be like you'll still, is it, you're going to have like a set stock and you're going to always sell that stock or are you going to add new stuff, but you'll just add it a little bit more sporadically and it doesn't have to be in like one big fell swoop.

Sean
um i think it is going to be more sporadic so it's not one big fell swoop i'm thinking about it more like how how i am understand like an artist drops music where they drop singles but it's all part of a larger album like i don't know if we'll ever be like just because like we we still have to like

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Andrew
Cool. Cool.

Sean
like put date like when we put things into this Shopify it's like oh what collection is this thing a part of and we for organizational purposes it's still valuable um I don't know if we will ever not have like

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
an idea that drives what we're doing that year, but it won't be one big sort of thing at DEFCON.

Andrew
yeah

Sean
Also, just from like a pure e-com strategy, DEFCON's actually a much better like warehouse cleaning ah event rather than like a warehouse creation event, um especially because it's so close to Black Friday.

Andrew
Yeah, that makes sense.

Sean
like I would say that The right thing to do is rob shirts throughout the year, probably one or two or three every two months, build up inventory, ship it all to Defcon with like maybe a couple of new styles. And then, I mean, at Defcon, we generally are able to sell out. So hope that we sell out and then kind of move on from there. So we'll see.

Andrew
Cool, sick. i like I like that strategy change.

Sean
We'll see.

Andrew
um I was showing some of the shirts that you're working on to Austin um and he and I were chatting about it and it's it's really interesting.

Sean
Hmm.

Sean
Mm.

Andrew
Part of why I wanted to ask you so much about the process is I feel like this shirt's kind of encapsulate the one of the things that makes miscreants great, which is like your sense of style. um And like I think about what made Krit good and like our sense of style and they were very different like I think we had a sense of style that was more like a little less in the moment, a little bit more like we tried to aim for things that were a little more like classic and would just kind of they weren't cutting edge.

Andrew
They weren't ever like, like, oh, wow, that's like so invoked, that's so fashionable, that's so exciting.

Sean
Hmm. Hmm.

Andrew
It was like looks good, classic, going to last a while, like sort of like um Uh, and, and you guys are so good at like tapping into new trends and new waves and like doing things that are new and interesting and different and edgy. And, um, I feel like that is part of your secret sauce and like what makes miscreant so good.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And part of that might be why we were good at product and why you all are so good at brand. And a lot of these things is like. A lot of that goes into brand and marketing, like fits very well with like how brand and marketing works versus like product is a little bit more formulaic, a little bit more like, um you know, you're trying to design something that is like as usable as possible, not necessarily as like exciting or cool as possible.

Sean
Mm

Andrew
um So I think it's like a cultural difference too, a little bit of just like the the DNA of our different companies. um And I also think that like the way you all are able to do this, like as I'm hearing you talk about the process, like I think it just comes down to you know you and Ben and the other people at Miss Grants who get involved in this type of work are just like immersed in

Sean
-hmm.

Andrew
internet culture and in, you know, you you draw lots and lots of inspiration, like the vast majority of this board.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
I realized the vast majority of this Figma file is not designs. It's not anything new that you all are creating. like The vast majority of it is pulling in just hordes of inspiration, cool shit from all over the internet, and then you all take that and design something, and it looks cool pretty quickly um because you're ingesting a lot of ah lot of stuff.

Sean
ah I will say I half agree with you. I 100% agree with you in that that is entirely how I operate.

Andrew
Okay.

Sean
Like, like there's a point where my brain is like, oh yeah, like, I guess the AI model has finished learning, which is me looking at enough inspiration and now I can output things by remixing different styles and ideas together. Um, Ben hates me, not, Ben doesn't hate me for that. That is not Ben's process at all.

Andrew
Interesting. Okay.

Sean
So I frustrate the hell out of him, um, all the time with it. Um, um I, you know, I think he, I don't necessarily think I'm wrong for doing it that way. I just think we have different working styles.

Andrew
Yeah, for what it's worth. I think a lot of junior designers and like engineers who want to be designers could benefit from spending more time gathering inspiration and less time like designing because so often I see people like they're trying to like create a button style from scratch.

Sean
Um.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
And like the first time you create a button, it's going to look ugly.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
Um,

Sean
Right.

Andrew
But if you go and look at 10 buttons and go, what makes these look cool? What do I like about these?

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And you recreate that, then you I think a lot of people could benefit from spending more time in the inspiration phase of especially visual design work.

Sean
For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing I think the the place where Ben and I compliment each other on the work has been like. I forget who set this, but it's it's this idea that like when I mean, I guess I'm older now, but it was when we first started this thing, it was like like really what you have at the time is at like this age like is you really as a creative, you really just have your taste um like I can execute on a lot of the the things, but

Sean
I can execute on it, on it, on it to a point that I'm happy with it and a lot of clients are happy with it. And then I'll see Ben execute on like even an idea that I had and I'm looking at like, fuck, that's like at least three times better than what I had in mind.

Andrew
Did Bin create the dragon and the RPG thing?

Sean
um

Andrew
did ben been create um the dragon and the the rpg thing

Sean
Uh, yeah.

Andrew
Both of those, I was like, there's so much detail here and so much like skill in creating these graphics that I don't even know how I would start.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
I don't know how I literally, I don't know how he did that. ah Like, I generally, I still don't know.

Andrew
like i i tech I don't understand the techniques to do this shit.

Sean
Unless he decided to paint it pixel by pixel. Yeah. Yeah. um Yeah, there's there's, there's some stuff that Ben pulls off that I'm just like, How did you make that up? Yeah. um So I think it's very different and I think it's something that he and I I think compliment each other on but also argue about all the time because I think the thing that I am good at is figuring out like how to make something like very commercial commercially. ah What is it?

Andrew
I think you have good taste and I think you have you have ah good you you have a a deep knowledge of like culture and you understand how to pull from that pull ideas from that that people will get hyped about.

Sean
Like viable or wanted? Thanks.

Sean
For sure.

Sean
Yeah, I think so. I think so. Thanks. I appreciate that. Could read. Yeah.

Andrew
Yeah, yeah.

Sean
I feel a little red to filth at the moment, but yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
Oh,

Sean
I just wanted to, I guess my point is I wanted to ah still stand up for Ben in that a lot of the work in Figma.

Andrew
oh yeah, yeah, I'm not trying to bash Ben Ben.

Sean
No, I know. I know.

Andrew
It's fucking amazing what he's creating.

Sean
I know.

Andrew
It's wild.

Sean
I know I just want to point out that, like, um what am I trying to say that the reason there's so much inspo is like, largely probably because of me, Ben, like, like, some of the stuff that doesn't have the doesn't even have to do with the inspo that you see on this page, you just kind of like whipped it up as he was doing things. So anyway, point being, we come.

Andrew
That's wild. We need to talk to Ben and figure out like his process then, because like if he's not drawing from tons of inspiration, how does he come up with this shit?

Sean
I had an idea.

Andrew
Maybe he's just like ingested the inspiration over the years and doesn't need to go find it now.

Sean
I don't know. Right.

Andrew
It's just already in his head.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
Um, by the way, um, I, I desperately, you still haven't answered me, so I'm going to make you answer me now.

Sean
I see.

Andrew
Please save me one of the dragon shirts. I will pay for it. I'm not saying give it to me for free. I want to buy it, but like, please don't sell out.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
I want one of the dragon shirts so bad.

Sean
I got you. I got you. But thanks. I appreciate it.

Andrew
I also want like three other shirts. Like I love the the wizard. Austin loved the RPG one. he He was like, I need that.

Sean
Which one is the do you mean the decrypt one or do you mean?

Andrew
ah the Yeah, the decrypt.

Sean
I say yes.

Andrew
This might require some brute force. Yeah, decrypt. Yeah.

Sean
and Do you know do you know why do you know why it says that, by the way?

Andrew
um

Andrew
I don't school me.

Sean
Okay, because Hydra is a tool that you use in security to brute force things. Yeah.

Andrew
Damn, damn.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
um

Sean
Anyway, that's where like, that's my, that was my contribution, by the way, to that shirt. Ben just made the thing. and I was like, Oh, what if you just, you could just put this text down there and it kind of makes sense. But yeah.

Andrew
By the way, ah I was kind of glad you all went back to the purple dragon, because I really liked the purple dragon.

Sean
Oh, wow. who's stupid fixed By the way, this is why role-based access controls don't work.

Andrew
I was snooping, snooping.

Sean
God damn it, Figma.

Andrew
to To be fair, Ben also sent me the latest version but because I was hyping him up in the slack.

Sean
For sure. For sure.

Andrew
And so he sent me the latest version and and I was, I liked the purple dragon better.

Sean
Good. and Good, good.

Andrew
I like the red text feels very D and&D, which I liked, but the purple dragon feels more fun to me than a red dragon.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Also, I just like purple.

Sean
yeah Yeah, no, I think it looks good.

Sean
Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to do this year. We we definitely spent more money on shirts. I'm bringing way more inventory. We'll see how it goes, but seems fun.

Andrew
Tick.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um We're about at time. Do you want to you have time for me to tell you one more thing about ah ah my personal site and like a funny thing that happened? Or do you want to save that for next time?

Sean
I think you should tell us why you're going to become a goblin like me. By the way, you spent five minutes telling me how I'm just chronically online. You were just like, like you know, so much of about internet culture is like, yes, Andrew, I scroll TikTok too much. I don't know what to tell you.

Andrew
To be fair, I also do, but somehow you turn it into like stuff that's like fashionable and cool. Maybe it's like because, I don't know, maybe it's the New York in you. You turn everything into stuff that's fashionable and cool.

Sean
Thanks.

Andrew
I just turn things into, I don't know, knowledge about random YouTubers.

Sean
Thanks.

Sean
I don't know. I think you're short-selling yourself. I think the Kurtopia shirt couldn't have happened unless you made it, so...

Andrew
Maybe.

Andrew
Except you all literally made these.

Sean
Yeah, but you you thought of it, so...

Andrew
I copied one of your existing shirts that I loved.

Sean
Okay, anyway, speaking of, what what happened? What happened on your personal site?

Andrew
Oh my God. Okay. So a couple of podcast episodes ago, we had a conversation about whether or not AI generated book notes were like on brand and like in line with the values with like my values and like the but values and brand of my personal site and like whether I should

Sean
Uh-huh.

Andrew
Um. use them as a strategy to acquire customers. um And ultimately, you very correctly pointed out that it doesn't so much matter that they're AI generated. It's just that booknotes are kind of lame, like especially booknotes about like already kind of lame self-help books that everyone has read. um And so I was like, ah, fuck, you're right. this it it It was a thing I was doing because it felt like an easy way to get eyeballs, not because it felt like

Andrew
it really meshed with what I wanted my personal site, my blog, and my like personal brand to be. So I was like, fuck, Sean's right. um And so I went and I actually like took the the post down. I had done an Atomic Habits like book summary.

Sean
Hmm. Hmm.

Andrew
um And I'd kind of done this weird thing, too, where I'd like been transparent about the fact that it was AI-generated, but in a way that probably felt like kind of apologetic or weird or something. um And I added some human-generated stuff to it as well, human-generated. That's funny. ah um um But I ultimately took it down, and I was like, all right, fine. This is not going to be for me. um And then I got a fucking Google search console report. And guess what? The fastest growing blog post on my site in the last 30 days was, and now the number two driver of Google search traffic. And it's not even on my site anymore. It hasn't been for like two weeks. So in like two weeks.

Andrew
That fucking blog post drove, you know, and it's not, like the reality is I don't get a ton of clicks, but I got like 40 clicks on that thing.

Sean
It's pretty good.

Andrew
um And I was like, fuck, why can't I just do things the hacky easy way? It works, I wanna do it. um But I think, and this is turning into a monologue, sorry.

Sean
All good.

Andrew
um But I think that the the correct lesson to take away from this is not, Oh, I should do like hacky book notes. It's, I should look for, I should put a little bit more time into SEO keyword research. And then I should create actually good content that meshes with my like values and brand, um, for things that also have some SEO potential and that I could, you know, cause like one of the, the number one post is my post about the Camino.

Andrew
which I did a little tiny bit of SEO research. And I was like, there's a lot of traffic for the Camino. um And so I get a bunch of clicks on that. um So I think I think that's the right take away.

Sean
That is a That

Andrew
But it's like, damn, I just want to be a content goblin.

Sean
is a really mature response to that and I appreciate You summarizing your lesson in that That would not have been my reaction at all

Andrew
Oh, I know because I texted you and your reaction was, fuck it, just do it then.

Sean
I would have unpo- I would have unarchived that one so quickly.

Andrew
Honestly, it's a good thing that I deleted it and didn't archive it because now it's gonna, it's like just that little bit of effort to, so I've still got like a version in my docs, but it's that little bit of effort to recreate it that I'm like, ah, fine.

Sean
yeah

Sean
Yeah. um I do want to I do want to say for and my defense, I said that it's not that the book clothes notes are lame. It's that I think you can use the AI to like do one thing like one level higher than book notes or a couple of levels higher than book notes now that you have a I like how you had that. ah like cyber security names blog posts like you can use AI to crunch things or to pull things for the record but for for what it's worth ah my take away is you should you should totally just create an AI generated blog post like blog not a blog post like a blog on the internet called like I don't know better reads well yeah better

Andrew
Yeah, not to just summarize, but to like do something interesting.

Andrew
booknotes. Yeah, there's already booknotes that.ai. I think I think I found this and sent it to you a couple months ago.

Sean
I see. I see. I see, I see.

Andrew
And I was like, fuck.

Sean
I see.

Andrew
But there's also so many books that it doesn't have that you could.

Sean
What? Yeah, exactly.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Which, which could be you. You can, you can stack that section.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
You could be that person. I'm just the devil on your shoulder telling you that you have to use Claude and make it happen.

Andrew
You're somehow both the devil on my shoulder and the angel at the same time. You're the one that's like...

Sean
Which means I give terrible advice and no one should listen to me. That's the real takeaway.

Andrew
Never.

Sean
No, i think I think that's a really good point. I think that um i think it does like it does go us to to show that like you you can definitely, it's it's actually, okay, it tells me two things. One is what you said and how you can use AI to kind of grow and your personal brand in that way. And I agree, like definitely look for keywords that have to do with what you want like your audience and all that but also I'm so surprised that like atomic habits of all like yeah yeah yeah yeah I wonder

Andrew
Oh yeah.

Andrew
Like the fact that I get 40 clicks, like that should be the most saturated thing out there. And like the fact that with my little blog, I was able to get 40 clicks in two weeks, um, with an AI generated atomic habits, like summary.

Sean
Mm hmm. You do you do get like like not a unwritten, not an insignificant amount of traffic, right?

Andrew
Uh, it's been falling a little bit.

Sean
To your website.

Andrew
So I think the, like, I think my organic traffic covers around like two to 300 clicks per month. And then total visitors is like five to 800.

Sean
Andrew, did you know your domain rank is 52?

Andrew
Yeah. Cause I redirected crit dot.com to, uh, to point at Andrew askins.com.

Sean
Oh, I see.

Andrew
Yeah, I've got a legit domain rank now.

Sean
I see.

Sean
Whoa.

Andrew
It's amazing what eight years of backlink building and like writing good content and like, you know, trying.

Sean
Yeah. You still have like one of the highest ranking articles on buying a newsletter, by the way, on.

Andrew
Oh, really sick.

Sean
Yeah, because I was looking into it. It's like it's like the marketplace like deuce and then it's like your blog post on Medium or something.

Sean
that that makes me feel better about that makes me feel better about you getting clicks for it.

Andrew
about the Atomic Habits thing taking off.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. But it makes me feel worse for the shitty advice I gave you, though. I feel like had I known that I would have been like, yeah, you should totally totally be a goblin.

Sean
oh Cool. That's sick.

Andrew
yeah yeah I need to take advantage of it and like write more content that has a potential to rank because like

Sean
I didn't realize that I might look your back.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
Yeah, i've I've actually got a domain that has good ranking potential.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
That's what's up.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
That's sick.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
um Oh, also, the other thing I did for Chart Juice is I bought a product I service called Submit Juice, where they submit your your site to like a bunch of different directories and shit.

Sean
You did.

Andrew
um I think I paid $600 for 100 submissions. Not fucking worth it.

Sean
Really?

Andrew
Yeah. i i could have told you when I was doing this that it probably wasn't gonna be, and I was hoping I was wrong, and it's it's not. I mean, I'll give it some time, maybe maybe things will trickle out, but so far all I've gotten is a bunch of spam emails from it, and like, because, you know, they used my email to sign up for like,

Sean
Gotcha.

Andrew
You know, a hundred different services and now I'm getting emails from all a hundred of those services and like a decent number of them are like pretty shady backlink trading things where it's like, Hey, we saw you submitted a link. As soon as you add this link to your site, then we'll approve your submission. And it's like, Nope, not going to do that.

Sean
um do you have both chart you did this for chart juice right did you do you have both chart juice and andrew askins in the same google search console okay cool cool keep it that way yeah yeah yeah i think from what i understand this sort of like like you you keep all your shady stuff in different like a way basically like jackie jackie chow which is like an seo guy online like

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
No. Okay.

Sean
he has some like legit like websites like e-com and all that stuff and then he has those like shady whatever stuff and his shady stuff got basically clapped by Google's a helpful content update and it affected all of his current sites because they just went and they're like oh if you if you have this you know if you if you're doing shady stuff with this one you're probably doing shady stuff with your other ones and just axed him um yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean i don't know how true that is but you know might as well keep it might as well

Andrew
Damn, that's kind of scary.

Andrew
Also, I don't want church juice to be my shady thing.

Sean
Yeah, I agree.

Andrew
It just just, yeah, I paid for a service and got some shitty links because of it, but.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
um Yeah, I think it would have been better for me to just take a day, like buy one of the lists out there of like directories and stuff, and then just take a day and like set up a bunch of accounts myself.

Sean
yeah

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I probably would have gotten just as much value.

Sean
i put I have a backlink list for you if you want it.

Andrew
I have one now, too, because I ah did get a couple of lists as part of this.

Sean
Oh. Nice.

Andrew
So we can we can trade and you come up with our own private

Sean
Oh, cool. Yeah.

Sean
Our own PBN.

Andrew
backlink list.

Sean
Let's start our own PBN.

Andrew
Sweet.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
All right, man.

Sean
Bye. I'll see you later.

Andrew
See ya.

Sean
Bye.