In this episode Sean recaps his first ever trip to MicroConf, spoiler: he loved it. Meanwhile Andrew has a new favorite brick and mortar business, and has a date for the MetaMonster launch!

Links:

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

Transcript:
00:00.78

Sean

What's up man? Why are you late? Just

00:02.85

Andrew

but gonna call me out like that

00:06.12

Sean

helping segue.

00:09.45

Andrew

so i just went to what might be my new favorite like old school business ever and i'm so excited about it it knife sharpening

00:16.40

Sean

Okay.

00:22.54

Sean

Okay. Say more.

00:24.27

Andrew

Okay, so there's this this little business I found on Google google Maps. I was like looking for knife sharpening locally. like There are a bunch of services. My knives have gotten dull as hell.

00:35.90

Andrew

I cook a lot. I need to take better care of them. I was like, I need to find someone to sharpen them. And there's all these services online that like you pay like $60 or something and they nail you a thing. But I just hate dealing with snail mail.

00:47.67

Andrew

And so one day I was like, all right, let me just search Google Maps and see if there's a local business. And I found this company called Bunnell Brothers Cutlery Inc. or something like that.

00:58.03

Andrew

Like classic old school business name. And they had. 4.9 stars on google like all of the reviews were like holy shit these guys are amazing it costs like three dollars to sharpen a knife they do it in five minutes the guy is so so friendly will answer all your questions and so i was like okay i gotta go to this place and it's a little out of the way so it took me a while to get there but this morning i put it on my to-do list i'm like i'm finally going to go and get our knives sharpened And I show up, it's this like, warehousey squat looking building, it was hard to find the door like the front door is painted over.

01:34.21

Andrew

And there's just a sign that says like, all deliveries go to side door. And so I'm like, It was hard to even figure out how to get in. I walk in and like when I first opened the door, I just see like a bunch of people at like grinders, like three or four people at grinders. And it feels like I'm stepping into a warehouse and I'm like, am I like allowed to come in here?

01:55.69

Andrew

But then I saw like the counter and like two people were immediately like friendly and like, yeah, come on in. You're in the right place. And the I mean, just amazing.

02:05.84

Andrew

He sharpened my knives in like under five minutes, not even like under two minutes. It cost me three dollars a knife. He took card.

02:16.93

Andrew

He I asked him like three or four questions and he was super happy to chat with me. I was like, I was like, you know, how often should I be using a honing rod? He's like, every time I'm like, I have a cheap shitty honing rod. Is that okay?

02:27.91

Andrew

Yeah, that's fine. i was like admiring some like really nice expensive knives he had and he did, instead of trying to like push a sale on me, he was like, honestly, for the money, yours are just as good.

02:39.10

Andrew

Like, I love the knives you've got. And I was like, man, this guy is awesome. He told me, like, he's I was like, how often should I, like, get them resharpened? He's like, I tell people, like, twice a year, like, Christmas and Fourth of July. That way you've got them for the holidays. But, like, you know, just whenever you feel like they're starting to get dull and, like, the honing isn't isn't doing its job.

02:58.00

Andrew

And so, like, this is just classic old school business. And... I imagine most of their business is actually sharpening knives for local restaurants and like this, like, you know, personal knife sharpening service.

03:13.15

Andrew

Like they can't make much money on it. They're doing it's $3 a knife. They can't be making much money off of this.

03:18.57

Sean

Twice a year, yeah.

03:19.84

Andrew

Yeah, but I feel like, you know, either they make enough or they just don't care and it's like kind of a public service that they'll just do this for people just because.

03:30.70

Andrew

And so I was just like blown away. Like this, it just, it was one of those like businesses that just made me feel good. It felt like community.

03:39.12

Sean

Is this now your favorite, this is now your favorite and store, like, shop in Michigan?

03:42.87

Andrew

Absolutely. Favorite, favorite, like, like brick and mortar, like,

03:44.62

Sean

Okay.

03:48.01

Sean

Do we do classes?

03:49.84

Andrew

I don't think so. like they Because they they sharpen things on like grind like machines. like They've got grinders.

03:56.09

Sean

I see.

03:56.68

Andrew

And so that's why it takes them no time at all. They just go, choop, choop. So yeah, I don't think. And again, like they're not trying to be modern.

04:08.14

Andrew

They're not trying to offer classes or anything like that.

04:10.56

Sean

Yeah.

04:10.74

Andrew

they're just They do what they do. like All of the knives for like the businesses were stacked in these like wooden boxes that looked like they were 50 years old and just had written in sharpie like the name of the business and whatnot so yeah i just i love this and i want them to continue to exist forever

04:28.58

Sean

I love it.

04:33.75

Sean

Yeah, I mean, sick. no Now I want to come to Michigan and get my knife sharpened. I could take it away TSA.

04:41.74

Andrew

There's got to be a million places in New York that are that are very similar vibes.

04:44.91

Sean

Yeah, they're like $10 a knife. Williams-Sonoma. I think people go there.

04:49.64

Andrew

Yeah, but that's not the same as going to Bunnell Brothers.

04:50.05

Sean

I don't know any like smaller scores. Yeah.

04:52.58

Andrew

You've got to find Bunnell Brothers.

04:52.99

Sean

and Yeah, yeah. Do I have a Penelope?

04:56.29

Andrew

Yeah.

04:58.14

Sean

No, no.

04:58.58

Andrew

I will say I am always amazed when i when I go to New York, how many, like, you know, the old school, like, shoe repair shops and stuff that you walk past that are somehow affording, like, like Manhattan real estate prices, like rental prices and stuff.

04:58.79

Sean

Mm-hmm.

05:16.83

Sean

Yeah. I had a, I mean, back when I was still running like Mr. Rint's clothing out of my apartment, i would bring stuff down to like a local seamstress tail like or it was like a dry cleaning shop and it's like a seamstress as well.

05:30.73

Sean

And she would like, she sewed like the Mr. Rint's patches on my jackets and all this sort of stuff.

05:34.90

Andrew

No way, really?

05:36.21

Sean

Yeah. It was expensive though.

05:36.91

Andrew

That's cool.

05:37.53

Sean

It was like, it was nice that it was right there. It was weird that I like would cart in boxes and boxes of these jackets yeah we don't make him anymore because she's not she's not like two blocks away i don't i don't have like a seamstress that does it for me anymore which seems like a you know self-imposed blocker in a way but whatever cool sick love it love a good micro like business guess they're maybe a little small business yeah

05:50.21

Andrew

Oh.

05:58.01

Andrew

Yeah.

06:03.50

Andrew

Yeah, love a good, just old school, no frills, you know, paying the bills, just solid business that has, these guys don't give a fuck about cursor or AI or anything.

06:16.38

Sean

Yeah. Yeah, can't get replaced. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, while you were getting your knife sharp knives sharpened, i was getting my mental knives sharpened.

06:31.19

Sean

That's the worst segue I've ever done on this.

06:32.37

Andrew

That's terrible.

06:33.23

Sean

that Yeah.

06:36.52

Andrew

i assume i assume we're you're talking about microconf?

06:39.27

Sean

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

06:40.16

Andrew

Sick.

06:40.91

Sean

I went to...

06:40.99

Andrew

And this is what I really want to talk about this episode. Knife sharpening is a little aside, but I am stoked to hear all about microconf.

06:43.48

Sean

Mm-hmm.

06:48.11

Andrew

So yeah, let's let's jump into it. Tell me everything.

06:51.44

Sean

Okay, first and background. First, two two pieces of background. I think this is going to be our first episode in video. So, hello everyone seeing our faces for the first time.

06:57.54

Andrew

Oh, shit.

07:00.81

Sean

I'm Sean.

07:02.07

Andrew

Hi, I'm Andrew.

07:03.56

Sean

cool we've run agencies i currently still run one andrew sold this a while back andrew's doing some really cool sas things i'm attempting to do that sort of stuff and then second piece of background many many episodes ago i think i think in this season i was complaining to andrew about how it's hard to find people who like do this right this podcast is always very fulfilling for me and we've done it for a while just because like you you and i get to talk to each other about like micro sass or bootstrap sass or indie hacking and all this sort of stuff and all my friends work in tech they work nine-to-fives and they enjoy their lives and and weekends and and there's no one else to commiserate with and also you know i feel like when you're a founder who who's like in this spot of like you've you've built some amount of a business

07:49.74

Sean

you know it's off the ground and it's some modicum of success you've reached some modicum of like success in that way like you're not in the same like grinding for your first user stage slash you're you're doing your first startup but you're not at like silicon valley yc

08:04.18

Andrew

Unless you're like me and you're restarting everything and absolutely grinding for your first user. But yes, continue.

08:10.97

Sean

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

08:11.11

Andrew

Go on.

08:13.47

Andrew

Yeah.

08:14.48

Sean

But also, but, but you know, it's it's not like your first, it's not like baby's first like to do list app, right?

08:14.39

Andrew

It's Sean.

08:21.63

Sean

Versus like, it's also like, you know, neither of us have like VC funding.

08:21.78

Andrew

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

08:26.06

Sean

It's, we're not sort of like in this, like we have investor report, like board, but boards to report to and that sort of stuff. So it's a very different thing. And we're sort of in this like like set of like weirdos on the internet.

08:37.41

Sean

And neither of us are like Peter Lovell's amounts of of indie hacking success either. what I'm getting at is was complaining to you and then you were like, maybe check out MicroConf. And a really nice guy who runs, you know, one of the people that runs MicroConf, maybe the main guy, Rob, main guy, yeah, yeah, yeah.

08:54.23

Andrew

Not maybe the main guy. Yeah.

08:57.33

Sean

Rob Walling, I guess I came across his inbox via Arvid's PodScan and and he was like, you just you should come to MicroConf.

09:07.80

Andrew

Yeah.

09:08.01

Sean

And for some reason I was like,

09:08.23

Andrew

And I think specifically you were saying like you felt like you shouldn't go to microconf.

09:12.61

Sean

Yeah. sure. Yeah.

09:13.75

Andrew

Like you you were kind of pushed back on me and you're like, I don't know if I'm really the right fit for microconf.

09:15.41

Sean

yeah

09:18.51

Andrew

I don't know if they would want me there. Like I'm an agency guy primarily and then do SaaS stuff on the side and like they're SaaS people.

09:20.26

Sean

for sure and

09:25.24

Andrew

And like and Rob was just like, no, come to microconf.

09:26.74

Sean

yeah

09:28.73

Andrew

Like we want you there.

09:28.99

Sean

yeah

09:30.21

Andrew

Everyone like you will find a place there.

09:32.92

Sean

For sure. Which I still didn't listen to until you convinced me to go to MicroCoff. So by I bought a ticket after the early bird pricing. So thank you for pushing me as well. Definitely had a lot of, i don't know, I just felt like I had a lot of anxiety leading up to it for some reason.

09:47.42

Sean

Mainly also because we were talking about this last episode, but this is the first time in a very long time I'm going to a conference where it's like, not a security conference where i'm looking to sell people or you know a marketing conference where i'm also like a sponsor and and it's like a conference to like go actually be in a conference which was really really weird and and probably one of the best experiences of my life like my account was fucking amazing yeah yeah

09:58.32

Andrew

Yeah.

10:07.27

Andrew

Yeah.

10:14.09

Andrew

Damn. Wow. That is high praise. Okay. Why? Tell me, tell me about it.

10:19.98

Sean

Okay.

10:22.71

Sean

It absolutely was the right fit of people.

10:25.43

Andrew

Cool.

10:25.64

Sean

Definitely felt like I found like my tribe of people. You should definitely come next year.

10:30.11

Andrew

i want to so bad.

10:30.29

Sean

Screw the high school robotics team. They don't... That's joke that we're going to talk.

10:34.04

Andrew

I mean, maybe maybe I just need to go to to Europe. I was talking to Rami, and I think he's going to go to Europe in September, the year MicroConf Europe, which is apparently in Turkey this year.

10:42.64

Sean

Yeah. Istanbul...

10:46.25

Andrew

i just i feel like I need to have some more than $50 a month of MRR before I can go do that, because I'm like...

10:56.90

Andrew

i It's not inexpensive.

11:00.24

Sean

Yeah.

11:00.27

Andrew

it's It's not terrible, but it's not inexpensive.

11:03.17

Sean

Okay.

11:04.10

Andrew

But maybe I'll push for it. Anyway, sorry.

11:07.49

Sean

Okay. No, you're good. You should definitely go, whether it's the next american one American one or the Turkey one. I think, one, it's definitely people who are like who are like us.

11:19.37

Sean

Arguably, some people of us who are farther along or have...

11:22.17

Andrew

Sure.

11:22.43

Sean

you know maybe it's sold one or or sort of doing this thing even people who are like just bought bought some some people who are like doing entrepreneurship through acquisition some people who are also like agencies looking to kind of maybe transition and everyone is incredibly inviting there were 236 people

11:30.96

Andrew

Cool.

11:42.64

Sean

in new orleans and i think also the conference is really run as like at least 50 to 60 percent a like go meet people sort of conference whereas i think a lot

11:53.11

Andrew

Yeah. I've heard Rob talk about that on startups for the rest of us, like them being very, very intentional about like not overloading you with talks and tracks and like trying to make sure that they are creating opportunities for connection and collision.

12:08.60

Sean

Yeah. Yeah. hundred percent. And like forcing you to like talk to new people as well, which is great.

12:14.33

Andrew

Love that.

12:14.60

Sean

There was like a whole, like they called it like micro excursions. Like, uh, we broke up into groups. We went to go do different types of things, food tour, bar tour, et cetera.

12:21.42

Andrew

Cool. Yeah, which ones did you pick?

12:23.82

Sean

uh,

12:24.72

Andrew

Because usually there's like several and you get to pick a couple, right?

12:25.04

Sean

i

12:27.53

Sean

Yeah, I went on the quirky tour. learn Yeah, it was a walking tour through it was a walking tour through the French Quarter.

12:29.78

Andrew

Quirkitor?

12:34.83

Andrew

Cool.

12:36.03

Sean

Guy was bringing us along and then and then it was like free drinks at that time.

12:39.59

Andrew

Nice.

12:40.32

Sean

So it was good. Every night has a reception, which is awesome. It's like a great time to like catch up and chat chat with people. And yeah, man, I just like, i feel like I've made some genuine lifelong friends there.

12:52.88

Sean

And I also felt like I could bring some of the expertise that I had and like offer help to folks.

12:52.98

Andrew

That's awesome.

13:00.24

Andrew

Cool.

13:01.58

Sean

So yeah, it was cool.

13:02.75

Andrew

so Anyone you want to shout out that you really enjoyed talking to? you

13:08.17

Sean

I mean, everyone, but okay. okay to go down a mental list i met zach first who runs strip on sh which is where we're probably going to start sherpa.sh which is a platform as a service heroku slash like heroku netlify sort of competitor definitely going to start switching my like netlify things over to his thing to to to sherpa at this point

13:19.92

Andrew

Runs what?

13:22.33

Andrew

Uh-huh.

13:29.94

Andrew

Okay, cool.

13:34.07

Andrew

Cool.

13:37.87

Sean

they they're bare metal so they're they're cheaper technically than you know other options there was that i think i met some folks who run like square kiosks they're called gamso so g1 and james they're yeah uh they uh they basically run like both the most like transparently priced but like

13:40.06

Andrew

Mm-hmm.

13:51.31

Andrew

Interesting.

14:00.08

Sean

Like largest like key you know when you get like bubble tea, for example, and you see like a giant yes, they basically do that.

14:03.44

Andrew

Yeah.

14:05.61

Sean

And like they they run one that I've quite literally have look they they have a kiosk in Queens that I touched.

14:06.39

Andrew

Cool.

14:12.61

Sean

And that was crazy. That was like mind blowing.

14:14.19

Andrew

That's cool. Yeah.

14:16.99

Sean

I don't know, I met a guy in New York who's in entrepreneur who's doing entrepreneurship through acquisition. His name is Matthew, running ImprovMX email forwarding.

14:28.39

Sean

Vova, who's doing like Merchant of Record and Stripe that we might honestly start using. Maybe you should just start using.

14:33.26

Andrew

Cool.

14:34.37

Sean

I feel like I just met a bunch of people who are all like, who are who I'm just going to start using all their products which is pretty cool yeah I had a chance to speak with Arvid as well it is really weird I gotta say it's really weird meeting like like Patio Levin, Arvid and Rob in person it's kind of like yeah

14:40.34

Andrew

sick

14:53.74

Andrew

Yeah, yeah, just because the you feel like you know them because you've read and listened to so much of their stuff, and but you've never actually met them, and then they're...

15:02.32

Sean

I just like mentally have a YouTube frame when I speak to them. like I can see the but like like the play button going. But yeah, i mean, meeting meeting Patrick McKenzie was like mind blowing as well.

15:18.92

Sean

And then the most mind blowing.

15:19.80

Andrew

did you yeah yeah yeah Did you call him Patrick or Patio11? Hey,

15:23.13

Sean

Both, both. I didn't know what to say. I didn't but like this. This is Japan guy. That's.

15:27.35

Andrew

hey Mr. Patio.

15:30.80

Andrew

Lovely to meet you.

15:32.20

Sean

Yeah. He was also in like he was in a button up, like a collared shirt.

15:39.33

Andrew

Yeah.

15:39.72

Sean

And I'm so used to seeing pictures of him in that like red jumpsuit or or whatever. But I think the most... Oh, okay. So just the other shots.

15:49.91

Sean

david vu David Wu Pierre at Scraping B. Now I'm blanking on a couple of other folks that I met. Phillip and Rob are both doing like a search fund right now.

16:03.30

Sean

Nick and Christian over at Moonbase Labs.

16:07.04

Andrew

Moonbase Labs I've definitely heard of, I think.

16:07.37

Sean

Keith at Segmentrix. Yeah, they're...

16:11.55

Andrew

They might sponsor mostly technical or something.

16:13.78

Sean

Marvel Con. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

16:15.93

Andrew

Yeah.

16:16.52

Sean

think they know Aaron Francis. i think I think Nick and Aaron are good friends as well, from what I hear.

16:18.12

Andrew

Cool.

16:21.10

Andrew

Cool.

16:22.68

Sean

Yeah, Keith at Segmetrics, another tool that we're all going to... I'm listing every single tool that, like, are all things I start using, except for a square kiosk, but one day.

16:30.76

Andrew

Yeah, it is kind of funny how you remember people as much by the name of their company as their name. Because I imagine that's just kind of central to how people introduce themselves. It's just like, I am so-and-so, I'm working on this.

16:45.44

Sean

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

16:45.75

Andrew

Or, yeah.

16:47.11

Sean

i think I think so. I think that's a big... Yeah, I think it's like, I'm so-and-so, I'm working on this, or I'm trying to work on XYZ thing. Yeah. yeah It is my preferred way of, like, oh my mental stuff.

17:00.77

Andrew

Yeah. My therapist might not like it. hes He's constantly telling me not to make my business my entire identity, but I keep doing it anyway. So

17:09.07

Sean

Well, I think this is like a conference for people who kind of make it their part of a large part of their identity for what it's worth.

17:13.74

Andrew

yeah, for sure. For sure.

17:16.22

Sean

I met the guys at Fletch in person, Fletch PMM. They're great. They gave a great, they I think they gave one of the talks that like multiple people, like they gave a positioning and messaging talk, which I've seen because I've i've known, I've known those guys and we've like talked about possibly working together on some things, but yeah,

17:25.27

Andrew

Cool.

17:32.13

Andrew

What do they do? Fletch PMM?

17:33.40

Sean

they do like they They basically rewrite your entire homepage to actually make it like make sense.

17:37.79

Andrew

Oh, cool. Okay. So they're like a copywriting positioning firm?

17:41.74

Sean

Yeah, product marketing, messaging experts.

17:43.71

Andrew

Mm-hmm.

17:44.76

Sean

They're great. Good to see that dave event they've had a lot of growth. They're they're like kind of famous also in the security space in a way as well, which is cool.

17:50.74

Andrew

Oh, cool. Interesting.

17:52.84

Sean

Or like like LinkedIn famous.

17:55.01

Andrew

Yeah. Who did you meet who had miscreants merch? Who had bought miscreants merch?

18:01.33

Sean

God, I'm going to be an asshole. I'm going to say, oh, Josh, Josh, Josh, Josh. He is a dev over in Illinois. Done a lot of, yeah, it just does a lot of React work.

18:11.94

Sean

And like, yeah, it was, we were just, he was, he was talking about, yeah, he went to DefCon.

18:13.99

Andrew

Had he been to Defcon or something?

18:16.52

Sean

He went to DefCon, I think, three years ago and bought like four of our shirts.

18:16.87

Andrew

Nice. Cool.

18:19.04

Sean

And like, yeah, we were just chatting about, I think he wanted to start selling some of his own, like, he makes some Miata merch as well.

18:26.87

Andrew

No way.

18:27.62

Sean

It sells on,

18:27.79

Andrew

That's that's crazy overlap.

18:28.43

Sean

Yeah, I know, I know. it was like, you want to, like...

18:31.83

Andrew

Viatas and Merch are like your two passions outside of security and startups.

18:34.69

Sean

I know.

18:38.70

Sean

that's true that's true he yeah he does some of that and i was like oh like like if you want you know we have space in our cube at this thing and i'm showing him like i went to like shopmissure.com and he's like oh i have some of those shirts i was like what do you mean by you have some of those shirts did you see the image correctly he's like no i have i have that one the pizza one the whatever

19:00.65

Andrew

That's wild. Yeah, because like, i truthfully, i wouldn't have expected anyone. To me, microconf is a totally different community than DEF CON.

19:07.78

Sean

Totally.

19:07.91

Andrew

And so I wouldn't have expected that overlap at all.

19:08.60

Sean

so

19:10.51

Andrew

So it's it's awesome that you ran in. Not only was that overlap there, you met the person and were able to to figure that out.

19:13.03

Sean

Yeah. yeah

19:19.65

Sean

Dude, I know. but The amount of serendipity. So, okay, let me... That was serendipitous. My old boss, when I was who I reported we keep touch with each other.

19:27.00

Andrew

Yeah. Yeah.

19:30.36

Sean

yeah who was who i reported to we keep in touch

19:32.43

Andrew

When you were an RA, you mean in college? Yeah, yeah.

19:34.37

Sean

yeah in college in college yeah we we like we've we've kept in touch she's been like someone that i've gone to with as like a mentor as well uh runs like dei over at the uh university of washington but she was there she not at microcom not at microcom sorry she was there for naspa the the uh yeah she was in new orleans

19:34.63

Andrew

Oh, okay,

19:54.04

Andrew

okay okay. She was in New Orleans. i was like, she is she starting as a sass?

19:58.42

Sean

Sorry. No.

19:59.69

Andrew

What?

20:02.20

Sean

Maybe. i don't know. At some point. Maybe something in like emotional intelligence and stuff.

20:05.66

Andrew

Yeah, I do think there needs to be a more affordable, I've talked about this before, i I want to see a more affordable ATS applicant tracking system with like some of the DEI tooling built in.

20:15.52

Sean

yeah

20:18.96

Andrew

Because currently to get access to any of the like blind survey stuff, you have to pay for like enterprise tiers of all this shit.

20:27.45

Sean

yeah yeah true true yeah that's true di i should probably

20:27.74

Andrew

So anyway.

20:30.61

Andrew

Yeah, so she if she ever wants to start a an ATS, tell her to hit me up.

20:35.90

Sean

i'll let her i'll let her know that's it that's yeah i do think that di probably should not be like part of enterprise tax that feels like that feels weird

20:44.81

Andrew

yeah it's kind of like making security an enterprise tax. It's like, nah, this stuff should be available for everyone.

20:50.94

Sean

Yeah.

20:53.89

Sean

The... What else? Okay. And then and another stand-upist moment was the fact that like I totally forgot my charger at the restaurant and Matthew had grabbed it for me. And then Matthew's pre-check. I do not. I was dumb and got on the pre-check line by accident.

21:09.50

Sean

For some reason... for like I was just kind of waiting there and then he just randomly shows up like a couple like one person behind me. Turns out we were on the same flight.

21:19.79

Sean

Turns out we were like sitting one row away from each other on the same flight.

21:23.93

Andrew

Nice.

21:24.20

Sean

And I got my charger back, which is great. My dumb ass forgot to bring a MacBook charger to MicroConf.

21:30.79

Andrew

Oh, dang. That's a tough one.

21:32.40

Andrew

That's tough one.

21:33.42

Sean

um But I bought like a yeah. Anyway.

21:37.42

Andrew

Cool. I'm so glad you had such a good time.

21:39.69

Sean

I have one more.

21:40.57

Andrew

Oh, okay.

21:40.70

Sean

have one more.

21:41.59

Andrew

One more moment of serendipity.

21:41.64

Sean

The most mine. Just one more person to to kind of call out. I'm sure I forgot a bunch of people, but the one that blew my mind the most.

21:51.50

Andrew

Yeah.

21:53.53

Sean

Have you ever seen this thing called how DNS dot works? Okay.

21:57.81

Andrew

Uh, it's, I maybe, I feel like yes. because yeah, DNS is a, is mind boggling and I, feel like I've come across it at least once.

22:07.32

Sean

okay i' i also might have just might have showed it to you i don't know but uh it's an online web comic that kind of is like there a couple chapters and it kind of explains how dns works through these really cute characters that's how i learned dns in college that's how my friends and i like learn dns in college amongst actual like school but anyway i see this lady with a dns dn simple like dns simple shirt

22:10.85

Andrew

Maybe. Yeah.

22:19.32

Andrew

Cool.

22:23.44

Andrew

Yeah.

22:32.03

Andrew

Uh-huh.

22:32.59

Sean

I'm like, is that, do you, do you guys run that thing? She's like, yeah. Turns out DNS Simple is a bootstrap DNS registrar.

22:40.04

Andrew

Sick.

22:41.20

Sean

They were running for 15 years and they're the ones that created that, that, they're the ones that created that comic. And yeah, mind blowing, mind blowing.

22:48.84

Andrew

No way. Cool. So they're they're a domain registrar, like Hover or somebody?

22:53.49

Sean

Yeah. Like a name sheet.

22:55.83

Andrew

Yeah, yeah.

22:56.46

Sean

Yeah, to yale exactly.

22:58.14

Andrew

I might have to check them out.

22:59.76

Sean

Yeah.

22:59.82

Andrew

i you know I don't have any complaints with Hover, but I've always wondered if if there was something better and would love to support sort a microcomfer.

23:03.01

Sean

Yeah.

23:06.78

Sean

I think they they do some like really interesting like things are around like domain control plane, which is interesting. And then like they're one of the only like solutions that I've seen that that lets you like have organizations and like multiple people in an organization.

23:23.52

Sean

And that way, you know your if your CTO happens to register a domain, it's just, you know.

23:24.57

Andrew

Hmm.

23:28.50

Andrew

Oh my god. Yeah, this happens to you all the time miscreants land where like, yeah, some random person registered the domain on the company and it comes time to like migrate the site over to Webflow and you're having to like track down who actually has the credentials to to set up the DNS bullshit.

23:31.44

Sean

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

23:39.74

Sean

Exactly.

23:43.93

Sean

Exactly.

23:47.80

Sean

And yeah, i feel like I feel like all I want to do now is just take everyone's company that I met and just recommend it to every single client. Yeah.

23:57.99

Andrew

That's dope.

23:58.31

Sean

yeah

23:58.81

Andrew

That's really cool.

24:00.20

Andrew

Anything that you feel like you learned or like any any takeaways that you're going to apply to either miscreants or the SaaS businesses you you want to work on?

24:15.98

Sean

yes yes yes oh so uh shout out mark who filled me in i'm part of this part of the talk that i missed but two things one was i really didn't think i would take out my like notebook for some of these talks because i have it go i was wrong i started taking notes there's a really great pricing talk that

24:30.50

Andrew

Yeah.

24:36.35

Andrew

Ooh, nice. Who gave that?

24:39.82

Sean

I don't know his name.

24:41.41

Andrew

That's OK.

24:41.77

Andrew

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not important.

24:43.39

Sean

He writes street pricing, the author of street pricing, got his book, like went deep into price. I realized that pricing is, i mean, we've had conversations about pricing, right? But I think his framework probably would have answered a lot of your questions about how to price earlier on.

24:52.73

Andrew

Hugely important.

24:56.97

Andrew

Cool. wish i Wish I had read the street pricing.

24:58.99

Sean

Yeah. Yeah. I know. Right. Yeah. Street pricing. Yeah.

25:03.33

Andrew

OK, I'll find it and and probably buy it immediately because I need to get smarter.

25:07.47

Sean

yeah

25:09.89

Sean

Yeah, his was his was s sweet. Fletcher's was good too. And i think the other one that kind of blew my mind a little bit was Dr. Sherry Walling and Rob Walling's talk on how to exit your company.

25:21.92

Sean

turns out, you know, the thing that I think I, you know, i think you like, you read enough about like, you know, thinking about your company, like an exit and all that stuff.

25:22.36

Andrew

Nice.

25:33.32

Sean

And you think you've heard it all. And then, like, they just dropped this thing of, they, like, dropped this slide, which was, like, what is, you know, like, attachment theory, like, anxious, avoidant, secure attachment.

25:39.31

Andrew

Uh-huh.

25:43.18

Andrew

Yeah.

25:44.12

Sean

And they were like, like, what is your relationship with your company?

25:44.44

Andrew

Yeah, yeah.

25:47.51

Sean

Are you, like, anxious, like, anxiously attached, avoidant, attached, to secure attachment?

25:49.91

Andrew

Ooh, interesting.

25:53.60

Sean

And she was like, I'm sure many of you are anxiously attached to your company. was like, fuck. God damn.

25:59.31

Andrew

Why you gotta to call us out like that, Sherry?

25:59.89

Sean

Right. Right.

26:01.75

Andrew

Ha ha ha ha

26:02.96

Sean

Red is all the filth. Yeah.

26:06.49

Andrew

Yeah, yeah, yeah. there's There's a lot of truth in that.

26:10.38

Sean

Yeah. those like

26:11.56

Andrew

I mean, that kind of goes back to my jokes about identity, right? Like, you know, that anxious attachment and like having your whole identity wrapped up in your business, like those two things are very deeply related.

26:14.81

Sean

yeah

26:25.35

Sean

Yeah, definitely.

26:26.71

Andrew

Yeah.

26:28.09

Sean

But yeah, that was a little bit of like a mind fuck that I was, that I've been trying to think about how to unravel, but slowly.

26:35.37

Andrew

Cool. What were your takeaways from the pricing talk? Do you remember any like bullet points of like yeah the that you're going to use?

26:44.06

Sean

Yeah, yeah, definitely. ah ah well it it literally I use it with one of our clients because they're you know they're they trying to figure out, exactly.

26:51.04

Andrew

Revamping their pricing?

26:52.57

Sean

they Rather they're like launching a platform out of a services company and like I was like, okay, are we are we core and more?

26:53.04

Andrew

Sick.

26:56.65

Andrew

Oh, nice.

26:58.64

Sean

are we all a cart? Are we gonna price based on you know usage or or whatever, anything? Pricing is a part of product marketing and arguably probably one of my like weaker parts of product marketing knowledge.

27:11.26

Sean

But I think just like he had a scale of like simple to flexible and sort of explaining like getting an idea of like or take how to articulate just different ways you do pricing, such as usage-based.

27:24.20

Sean

Well, usage-based I knew. lot of card I knew. but like And good, better, best I knew. but But core and more was a good unlock as well.

27:32.31

Andrew

What is core more?

27:32.37

Sean

you know you buy a You buy a core platform, but then there's add-ons that you purchase.

27:35.59

Andrew

Add-ons? Oh, yeah, yeah.

27:37.16

Sean

That was a nice way to kind of talk about it. Let me see. I took pictures of the slides. It's how much.

27:43.73

Andrew

I just signed up for a new product yesterday, and they heavily leveraged like add-ons in their sign-up flow to to try to increase you cart value, which was interesting to see.

27:55.55

Sean

Oh, nice.

27:58.83

Andrew

you I haven't seen that in like a tech product in a long time.

28:05.29

Sean

Yeah.

28:17.25

Andrew

It a little bit gave me the, like, stop trying to upsell me feeling.

28:17.74

Sean

Yeah,

28:21.13

Sean

yeah. That is... Yeah, I wonder what he has to say about that. Yeah, I feel like i feel like upsells have to be at sort of a timely have to be sort of timely for that to work well.

28:34.85

Andrew

Yeah.

28:36.35

Sean

Oh, the other thing that he, one slide that was really great, know and I think I've often felt this way about messaging with some of our clients, this idea that like does it save you like does this thing save you time or not?

28:49.03

Andrew

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

28:50.29

Sean

And he had a really good point of like time savings and B2B is just table stakes. People don't buy because no one no one buys software to spend more time. So it's kind of useless if your website's main value problem is we help you save time versus the other things that matter like product quality, expertise, responsiveness, um you know integration, stuff like that.

29:10.86

Andrew

Okay, cool.

29:11.42

Sean

It's kind of like a B2B value pyramid.

29:13.26

Andrew

I was worried he was going to say you have to like make people more money in order to be valuable.

29:18.94

Sean

Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah, it was, oh which is arguably also so tables, like the whole like B2B tools help you either make money or save money also like another table stakes.

29:29.95

Andrew

That's really interesting. that That feels like kind of an effect of the maturity of the SaaS market. like

29:37.17

Sean

Mm-hmm.

29:37.16

Andrew

and niche i could maybe Maybe this is wrong, but I imagine that like initially that that value prop worked better. And then at a certain point, it's like, yes, that's what software does. It saves me time. It helps me make more money in some way.

29:48.33

Andrew

So stop talking about that and start talking more about like

29:48.76

Sean

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

29:52.45

Andrew

the specifics and like at one point in time like the the best advice was like don't get too into the specifics of like you integrations or whatever but but yeah it feels like you i wonder if that's a side effect of like talking to a more mature more educated market

30:10.32

Sean

Yeah, I wonder. I mean, i'm sure I'm sure messaging and pricing has changed. I mean, I don't think we've even had usage-based pricing until... I guess Stripe was always that in a way.

30:21.39

Sean

Although that was like more commission-based and less per game or something like that.

30:24.83

Andrew

Yeah, hosting was often, like, kind of usage-based. Like, as as long as there was hosting, you know, bandwidth was, like, kind of a part of hosting costs and and stuff like that.

30:28.47

Sean

Yeah.

30:34.32

Sean

Mm-hmm.

30:37.08

Andrew

api Any APIs were always, you know, largely usage-based.

30:41.40

Sean

Yeah. Yeah. But I think a lot of the stuff I also just learned was like just off the out of the talks and in conversations with people. I think a lot of people were very open about things that they're thinking about, things that they're playing around with, but also just like the be ins and outs of like, for example, I learned things about the hosting business that I had no idea about. Right. like the margin that companies have on bandwidth, for example. bandwidth is is super I think I maybe instinctively knew this but never confirmed with someone who actually has done it.

31:16.37

Andrew

Yeah.

31:16.44

Sean

Like bandwidth bandwidth is actually super cheap and anyone charging you for bandwidth is kind of ripping you off. Yeah.

31:22.76

Andrew

Yeah, that that checks out to me. I feel like I would have expected that.

31:26.71

Sean

yeah

31:27.67

Andrew

Yeah.

31:29.24

Sean

But otherwise, I mean, great food. It's New Orleans.

31:32.00

Andrew

Nice.

31:32.34

Sean

Had a beignet. Beignet? How do you say it?

31:34.44

Andrew

Beignet.

31:35.28

Sean

Beignet. Had a beignet. That was good. lot so much So much crab. Yeah, everything had crab in it.

31:41.96

Andrew

lots of seafood. Crawfish, did you try any gator?

31:43.28

Sean

Yeah.

31:45.58

Sean

No, but I've had gator in the past.

31:47.30

Andrew

Okay, cool.

31:48.03

Sean

Yeah.

31:48.62

Andrew

Cool, cool.

31:49.12

Sean

So it's just kind of tastes like...

31:49.96

Andrew

Honestly, it's it's fine. It's just, it's a little chewy. So, yeah.

31:53.38

Sean

That's pretty much the sentiment everyone, I think, has after their

31:56.22

Andrew

Yeah, shrimp and crawfish are so much better.

31:59.50

Sean

Yeah. But yeah, now I had a little bit of like con depression afterwards, to be honest. I was like, don't want to go home. don't want to go back to any of this.

32:10.32

Sean

Yeah.

32:10.96

Andrew

and Okay, I got to go to microconf. I got to make it happen. Either microconf Europe or her US next year.

32:15.04

Sean

you Yeah.

32:18.82

Andrew

And

32:20.48

Sean

And Austin should also come to MicroConf, by the way.

32:22.91

Andrew

that would be sick. I would love for him to go.

32:23.83

Sean

those you who don't know, Austin is Andrew's co-founder. Yeah.

32:27.83

Andrew

Yes, he is.

32:28.28

Sean

yeah Yeah.

32:30.41

Andrew

Cool, man. Awesome. i'm I'm just so glad you had such a good time. I'm stoked for you that you made so many friends. And yeah, hopefully, yeah, this will be some good encouragement to to keep pushing on your product stuff.

32:44.20

Sean

Yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, like, it makes me want to launch all the products, like, tomorrow.

32:57.16

Andrew

One day I'm going to get you to start listening to Startup for the Rest of Us, Rob Walling's podcast.

32:57.51

Sean

Yeah.

33:02.85

Sean

I do listen to his podcast.

33:03.03

Andrew

And... Okay, one day I'm going to get you to start internalizing the things that he says on his podcast so that you actually focus on one thing at a time.

33:04.93

Sean

I do.

33:12.68

Andrew

And...

33:14.15

Sean

I've never heard Rob tell me not to launch, not to pursue four SaaS startups at once. Just for the record.

33:21.89

Andrew

That's only his most one of his most common refrains.

33:22.24

Sean

just kidding.

33:27.70

Sean

Yeah. Yeah.

33:28.55

Andrew

Yeah. Cool, man.

33:31.27

Sean

Yeah. Feel fired up.

33:33.46

Andrew

Love it. Love it.

33:35.37

Sean

What's going on with you? What's happening?

33:37.26

Andrew

So, real quick, we had our first robotics competition, and we fucking crushed it.

33:41.82

Sean

Yep.

33:44.60

Sean

Hell yeah.

33:45.49

Andrew

We had easily, so there were 40 robots at the competition. Easily top three robot, if not top two. We... ah we

33:58.87

Andrew

placed I think we were after qualifiers. so competitions are structured. You have like 60 or something qualifying matches. You don't you aren't individually in 60 matches. You're in like 10 to 20, somewhere like that, qualifying matches.

34:13.68

Andrew

And then... You're always competing in these alliances of three robots, so three teams together. And so going into playoffs, you have alliance selection to start playoffs. It's like a draft.

34:25.33

Andrew

And so the top eight eight teams automatically qualify for playoffs, and then they take turns selecting the teams on their alliance. And if a team in the top eight gets picked, then like it all shifts up. And so you end up with 24 teams qualifying for playoffs on an alliance.

34:44.16

Andrew

So first really cool thing that happened, we were ranked fourth going into playoff selection. And there was one robot that was like kind of clearly head head above the rest, they were ranked in first. they They clearly had the best spot at the competition, and they picked us for their alliance.

35:02.91

Andrew

So we were the first overall pick in alliance selection, which felt awesome to the kids and and was really, really good validation.

35:06.16

Sean

Hell yeah.

35:12.13

Andrew

And then, unfortunately, their robots started having electrical issues during playoffs. They had a loose connection that they were having a really tough time diagnosing.

35:22.43

Andrew

And so there were multiple matches where their bot was essentially out of commission for some or all of the the match. And so our team kind of had to carry the alliance for most of playoffs.

35:34.10

Andrew

And they did it. And we got all the way to finals. We were playing another team from our, from DHTC, the space that we work out of. We were playing another DHTC team in the finals. We weren't able to pull out the win. They beat us.

35:54.38

Andrew

But, you know, we were super stoked that they won first and it was also just incredible that, you know, we came in second. It was our first time ever placing, you know, being a finalist.

36:07.17

Andrew

We also won an award, the sustainability award.

36:07.04

Sean

Thank

36:12.68

Andrew

And so all of that combined means the other like kind of complicated thing is you have like these state ranking points that you earn.

36:22.48

Andrew

And then like you generally need about 70 state ranking points to qualify for the state competition. And after this first match, this first competition, we have 60 state ranking points.

36:35.63

Andrew

so if we just show up and have a solid competition the second time around, which we should, then we should qualify for States for the first time ever.

36:44.88

Andrew

So, it was just a super awesome, awesome weekend, super gratifying for the kids to get to experience that success. and then, uh, just really wholesome. Like we, we cheered, there was lots of cheering for the other DHCC teams and like,

37:03.43

Andrew

you know, after they beat us, the Aztec Eagles, the team that won, was on the winning alliance, you know, after they had won and things had quieted down and our team started walking off the field, they started like chanting for us.

37:17.67

Andrew

They they started a chant for us as like, so there it was just the most wholesome weekend and it just made me feel so good.

37:18.38

Sean

Oh, nice.

37:26.24

Andrew

So yeah, got to brag on my kids for a second.

37:27.14

Sean

Amazing.

37:29.76

Andrew

it was It was really cool.

37:29.94

Sean

Yeah. That's sick, man. So how many how many teams does DHGC have? Just those two, are there more?

37:37.69

Sean

OK.

37:38.43

Andrew

There's a sixth that has been sort of semi-active. they They might make it to one competition, but five primarily this year.

37:43.75

Sean

Mm-hmm.

37:47.97

Andrew

Yeah.

37:48.93

Sean

Cool. And then...

37:50.44

Andrew

And all five DHTC teams were selected or qualified for playoffs. So that was cool to see too. All all five of us made it to playoffs.

38:00.33

Sean

Nice. Is DHTC normally like a killer robotics school or is this like... Oh,

38:05.21

Andrew

So DHTC is the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation. So it's a nonprofit in the neighborhood that like serves the Hispanic community and like Southwest Detroit.

38:09.07

Sean

okay, cool.

38:12.89

Sean

Okay.

38:15.85

Andrew

And one of many initiatives they have is... the robotics engineering center of detroit wrecked and they so each of the teams four of the five teams are associated with a local high school and then the fifth team is like the dhdc team that can pull kids from any school and and so like dhdc is more of a like

38:23.76

Sean

Got it. Got it. got

38:43.99

Andrew

a center, a hub for robotics. And then the other teams are all, you know, they're all independent, but we share resources and share the space.

38:55.04

Sean

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

38:55.94

Andrew

and But to answer your question, like, no not at all. Like, aztec eagles the team that won first like they've had the most like i think sustained success because they're a slightly bigger team they've got like 30 or 40 kids involved and uh but like know i mean two years ago four so this is my fourth year know when i first started at our first competition like we had a robot that could drive but it couldn't score like we were barely able to compete in the competition at all and then we've just gotten better and better every competition we've been to and you know a lot of the other teams

39:25.31

Sean

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

39:37.20

Andrew

in part because of a lot of like, you know the teams are starting to work together more. And then we've recruited some more mentors. And Caitlin, our lead mentor, who is now also the like manager of the DHTC space.

39:52.31

Andrew

So she works for DHTC. She has put in a ton of time to try to like help level up some of the teams. And and so like a mix of things have led to like this being DHTC's best competition ever.

40:06.76

Sean

That's awesome. Sick. Love it. Love it.

40:08.95

Andrew

Yeah.

40:09.11

Sean

Like, like i don't know. I don't know if it's an underdog story or just like a rising sort of story.

40:12.80

Andrew

Oh, it totally is. Yeah, yeah.

40:14.56

Sean

Love it.

40:14.74

Sean

Yeah.

40:15.66

Andrew

I mean, this competition was a lighter competition. There wasn't there weren't as many of the top tier teams. But yeah, every team at DHTC, even Aztec, who has 30 40 kids, we're all... we're all underfunded has as as robotics teams go the you know the teams we're going going to go up against in our next competition and the teams will we'll see at states they often have tens of thousands of dollars of funding you know 50 plus kids you know tons of per parent involvement in the team like you know parent support that kind of thing and

40:29.54

Sean

Yeah.

40:36.74

Sean

Yeah. Yeah.

40:51.28

Andrew

you know All of us, our you know our kids, their parents work sometimes multiple jobs and just don't have the time to be super involved, the time or the resources to be super involved. like you we don't have We have some sponsorship, like we're not you know largely through the mentors. like yeah Maddie works for Bosch and because she mentors a team through Bosch, we get like $4,000 year.

41:11.81

Sean

yeah

41:17.72

Andrew

And so we we have funding, but it's still like nothing compared to like what a lot of these teams have.

41:23.64

Sean

yeah for sure I feel like robotics is always one of those sort of things that like funding does play a large part in like or or can play in success too

41:24.66

Andrew

And so.

41:30.61

Andrew

For sure, yeah, funding. Yeah, funding and then like having. having mentors who've done it long enough to like understand the ecosystem and everything.

41:40.19

Sean

yeah

41:42.47

Andrew

And, and then having kids who are engaged and have been involved long enough that you can start because where you really start to have sustained success and what you really want to get to is like where it's really student led.

41:42.49

Sean

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

41:49.91

Sean

yeah

41:56.17

Andrew

And like in our early years, we had to be much more mentor led because, you know, we had two kids who were freshmen and that was like our entire team. And so now we're finally getting to the point where we're,

42:08.80

Andrew

Caitlin has also started middle school and elementary school teams to start feeding into our high school team. And so you know we're trying to build that pipeline of students and build you know get people excited early.

42:22.66

Andrew

And then that way we can have like yeah students involved year after year so that they can start to develop confidence and start taking on more leadership.

42:34.18

Sean

Sick. Cool.

42:35.28

Andrew

Yeah.

42:35.72

Sean

That's awesome. that's Congrats. that's yeah Congrats to the kids.

42:37.22

Andrew

Thanks, man. Yeah, yeah.

42:40.17

Sean

That's awesome.

42:40.49

Andrew

They were a little heartbroken when we didn't win, which is kind of incredible in and of itself, because like given where we were four years ago, where like you you it was not a guarantee that we would even make it to playoffs even three years ago.

42:46.23

Sean

Right.

42:55.10

Andrew

Even last year, I think we... you we

43:00.78

Andrew

I don't even remember if we qualified for playoffs in our first match last year. We definitely did the second one, but I don't... Our first competition.

43:07.24

Sean

nice

43:07.43

Andrew

And so like the fact that they're now sad that we didn't come in first is like incredible.

43:12.09

Sean

For sure. hundred 100%. Love it.

43:15.81

Andrew

Yeah.

43:15.90

Sean

Love the DHTC takeover too.

43:17.61

Andrew

Yeah. Yeah. So we've got one more competition this weekend. And we'll see how it goes.

43:25.07

Sean

Sweet.

43:25.36

Andrew

But feeling feeling good. Sorry, not this weekend, next weekend.

43:29.14

Sean

Sweet.

43:29.62

Andrew

So in in a week.

43:32.32

Sean

Well, good to hear we both had solid weekends.

43:35.48

Andrew

Yeah.

43:35.59

Sean

Yeah, very fulfilling.

43:36.53

Andrew

Yeah. Yeah.

43:39.88

Sean

Cool.

43:40.17

Andrew

And then on the Metamonster side of things, we're we're still just chipping away, moving moving towards launch. We've rolled out settings, yeah one of those these boring SaaS things that's just necessary so people can now like manage their billing and like yeah know update their password and yada, yada.

43:48.66

Sean

Hmm.

43:58.85

Sean

Hmm.

44:00.74

Andrew

We have a team... panel on the settings page. It says team management is coming soon. So i will I will get that in there for you as soon as we can.

44:10.44

Andrew

But we held off on that for right now so that we could get into WordPress integration.

44:10.42

Sean

Yep. yeah. Mm-hmm.

44:16.55

Sean

all good

44:16.85

Andrew

So

44:17.44

Sean

and

44:17.71

Andrew

I spent yesterday setting up a little WordPress site, leaning into my inner content goblin.

44:22.40

Sean

yeah

44:23.38

Andrew

Bookmonster.xyz is live.

44:26.21

Sean

he yeah

44:26.80

Andrew

It three book notes right now, but I want to try to experiment some, you maybe some agentic flows to crank out a bunch of book notes and just see see kind of what I can, what happens with that.

44:41.82

Andrew

But the primary use for that is a testing ground for,

44:42.58

Sean

Yeah. Sweet. It

44:46.76

Andrew

uh the wordpress plugin that austin is building and talked to him this morning sounds like it's going faster than he expected leveraging cursor pretty heavily for that and so like hopefully might even be able to launch with like wordpress plus webflow would be really cool

44:49.47

Sean

sweet

45:06.10

Sean

would be really cool

45:06.21

Andrew

But we'll see.

45:08.45

Sean

yeah

45:08.64

Andrew

We'll see. So yeah, just just chipping away, working towards launch. And you desperate to yeah get there so that I can start testing real numbers and figuring out, like are people going to pay for this thing?

45:24.64

Sean

I mean, well, I'm excited. do you and you have a gut feeling like end of April, beginning of April, middle of April?

45:33.90

Andrew

Beginning of April, we have an internal date, which we have not publicly said.

45:35.20

Sean

Cool.

45:37.61

Sean

Okay.

45:40.17

Andrew

It's April 7th. April 7th is is the the go live date.

45:41.25

Sean

Okay.

45:44.67

Sean

Cool.

45:45.03

Andrew

We haven't like said that in any of our emails, and I'm not going to tweet it out until like we're ready to go. but yeah, we that's our states would you know the last day of states would be like April or And so April 7th would be the Monday after the state's robotic state robotics competition.

46:04.19

Sean

Nice.

46:05.25

Andrew

So plan is to have everything ready to go. And then, yeah, I think we'll we'll send out an email the week before. that was part of what I did this week was writing up those launch emails.

46:19.32

Andrew

Leveraged Claude pretty heavily to get me started on those. And it did a pretty good job. i was impressed. So, yeah, we're like we're getting there.

46:29.98

Andrew

like We're in a place where we could launch right now, but we're just, yeah, we're going to wait until robotics is done and then, excuse me and hell yeah.

46:36.24

Sean

Yeah. You need to go but win another competition first. Yeah. There we go.

46:41.71

Andrew

Yeah, yeah, just got to get a couple more medals before

46:45.28

Sean

Yeah.

46:46.72

Andrew

before we launch

46:48.05

Sean

It'll be a good payoff, by the way, for your launch. like Because cause your newsletter went out of, like, we're doing this thing, and now it'll be good extra like personal payoff.

46:52.98

Andrew

Yeah.

46:55.12

Andrew

oh that's true. i should, I should like, uh, give people an update and just be like, Hey, we did it.

46:58.03

Sean

Yeah.

47:01.54

Andrew

We did the thing.

47:01.93

Sean

yeah Yeah, we delayed your launch.

47:02.70

Andrew

Yeah.

47:04.09

Sean

but All these kids fucking killed it.

47:09.34

Andrew

yeah, that's cool.

47:08.97

Sean

Yeah.

47:10.41

Andrew

I hadn't thought about that, but I, yeah, I should slip that in somewhere. a little PS or something at least. but.

47:17.56

Sean

Yeah.

47:19.27

Andrew

uh yeah yeah yeah and then austin and i did have a little discussion this week about like do we want to turn Google ads back on to start building the list again with these last few weeks? And we decided the list is at a pretty good spot. Our waiting list is like 300 people.

47:37.35

Andrew

you know I would love if we had the 3,000 people that Rob had when he launched Drip, but yeah we're not going to get to that in the next three weeks. And we we sort of talked about it we like,

47:48.36

Andrew

if we're driving people to the waiting list, then there's like, we have to convert them to the waiting list and then convert them from the waiting list to the, to the product. And so it feels like at this point, it just makes more sense to like wait and see what conversions are on the actual product. Once we go live, rather than trying to like have this extra step in between.

48:11.65

Andrew

So yeah, I think we're, we're going to hold off and see. Yeah.

48:17.03

Sean

sense.

48:17.03

Andrew

Yeah.

48:18.05

Sean

I have a little piece of Meta Monster news for you.

48:20.66

Andrew

Oh, OK.

48:22.24

Sean

Basically, my COO, JJ, hit me up.

48:24.25

Andrew

Mm-hmm.

48:25.20

Sean

I don't tell her about my software spend until after it happens and then she finds out on the thing.

48:30.30

Andrew

Yeah.

48:30.43

Sean

But she was like like, hey, should we be getting a license of MetaMonster? Because it seems like the devs are really... Because I don't think... The team's been using it, obviously, but I don't think she realized that maybe had paid for it yet already.

48:38.90

Andrew

Uh-huh. You had paid for it? Yeah.

48:42.49

Sean

And she was like, do should we get a license of that since like the team seems to be using it? So, you go.

48:48.48

Andrew

And you were like, oh, yeah, we we got a license. And we also got like a killer deal.

48:51.05

Sean

Yeah.

48:53.84

Sean

I didn't say the killer deal part, I just said, okay.

48:55.68

Andrew

but You should tell her the killer deal part.

49:00.37

Sean

Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

49:01.30

Andrew

Dude, I love i love that y'all are still using it. That makes me so happy.

49:04.63

Sean

yeah I need to add a new user, we hire a new dev, so.

49:06.64

Andrew

Great. Great. Yeah. yeah

49:09.28

Sean

You just get that team thing done and then launch, yeah.

49:10.74

Andrew

I should get the team management done. the the only The only part that's going tricky is like, what do we do to team members when you delete them from a team? Because right now, like team members are all, sort users are all associated with an organization. And so what I think I'll do is like, when, if you delete someone from a team, they'll retain their account.

49:31.80

Andrew

It'll, and we'll just create a dummy organization for them. Like create a new organization called like organization one, two, three or whatever.

49:39.72

Sean

You could do like Andrew's org. you know

49:41.75

Andrew

yeah yeah we could try to like pull their name from their email or something yeah yeah give them you kind of yeah so but yeah it's just like it's just tricky enough that to get that flow right that we're dragging our feet on it a little bit

49:46.65

Sean

Give him like a freemium access sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. the way sta the yeah make sense That makes sense. I think that's cool.

50:00.21

Sean

Yeah.

50:02.38

Sean

Yeah, no that that makes sense. That makes sense.

50:04.54

Andrew

Yeah.

50:05.74

Sean

Yeah.

50:05.83

Andrew

Like, it's easy to invite people. It's the, like, what do you do with people if you have to remove them?

50:10.90

Sean

Dude, I had this...

50:10.95

Andrew

That's...

50:11.50

Sean

we had a We had the same issue this morning with another tool that's like something we pay non-significant amount of money. Like, JJ's a guest in the tool, but she's also the account owner.

50:20.87

Andrew

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

50:23.22

Sean

But she doesn't she can't make herself a paid seat, even though we have empty paid seats open.

50:23.30

Andrew

That's weird. That's so weird. Uh-huh.

50:29.29

Sean

So she has to transfer to a random person, and me, and in the org. So then i delete her as a guest because I can't upgrade. I can't bump her from guest to paid seed. Delete her as a guest and then re-add her and then re-transfer her back to her.

50:43.36

Sean

Yeah, yeah.

50:42.14

Andrew

That's hilarious.

50:44.04

Sean

So.

50:44.11

Andrew

that is That is so weird.

50:46.54

Sean

Yeah.

50:46.72

Andrew

i had I ran into something kind of funky like that. What was it? i was I was signing up for WP Engine yesterday.

50:53.42

Sean

Mm-hmm.

50:54.08

Andrew

and oh, yeah, there there maybe they do this to prevent spam. But their onboarding flow, like I paid.

51:03.68

Sean

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

51:03.82

Andrew

They don't have free trials or anything. You pay and they have a 60-day money-back guarantee. So I signed up and paid. And, but then I had to click in a link in my email to like activate my account.

51:17.91

Andrew

And so I go to click the link to activate my account. And then before I can do anything else, I have to enter an email verification code. And I'm like, i just clicked a link to verify my email. Why am I having to double verify my email?

51:33.23

Andrew

This seems silly.

51:33.49

Sean

Yeah.

51:33.91

Andrew

Like I couldn't have clicked this link if I didn't have access to this email.

51:38.57

Sean

And you mean it's like a CAPTCHA or?

51:41.21

Andrew

It was like, it was like a, no, no, no. it was, so the first one was they sent me a link to activate my account. I log into my email, I click that link and that activates my account.

51:48.46

Sean

Yep.

51:51.36

Sean

Yep.

51:51.55

Andrew

But then they sent me a verification code to my email. So they were like, all right, enter the code we just sent to your email. And it's like, what?

52:02.12

Andrew

I just clicked a link from my email. Why, how many, how many likes layers of verification do you need?

52:05.94

Sean

Yeah.

52:09.14

Sean

Yeah, that is weird.

52:10.90

Andrew

It was silly.

52:13.43

Sean

I wonder if it's like they have two different mailing services and they want to check both go to your email and not and spam or

52:20.42

Andrew

Maybe. I don't know. It was funny. But, yeah.

52:23.50

Sean

Yeah, because like even if, yeah, I mean, I don't know how it would stop spam because like if I was using like 10 minute mail, I think temporary email address, right? Like that flow happens so quickly, my email is still live.

52:34.15

Andrew

Yeah.

52:34.27

Sean

but

52:34.39

Andrew

100%. hundred percent

52:35.50

Sean

It's not like I'm making a fake account and have to go go back and check it later on, but weird.

52:41.28

Andrew

yeah

52:42.47

Sean

don't know.

52:43.30

Andrew

Cool. any I got run in just second, but any Miscreants updates?

52:48.37

Sean

I found my dev for the SaaS.

52:49.54

Andrew

Sick?

52:51.52

Sean

He's like perfect in every single way.

52:54.39

Andrew

Awesome.

52:55.77

Andrew

Hell yeah.

52:55.99

Sean

Or 95% perfect. More perfect. Like has experience doing exactly what it is. You know, built a product that I use or started using.

53:06.14

Sean

So like has a little bit of a product management thinking as well.

53:08.78

Andrew

Love it, man.

53:09.51

Sean

Said a bunch of things that like nobody, no other dev we've talked, like spoken to, you like brought up. Like, why didn't I think of, there were there were moments of like, oh shit, why didn't I think of that? And there were things that I had thought of later on that he just brought up.

53:18.78

Andrew

Cool.

53:21.12

Sean

So definitely has that sort of product thinking, has experience, works in, I just told him to pick whatever stack he's most comfortable in.

53:23.76

Andrew

Love that.

53:28.12

Sean

And he says two weeks for the prototype. So we'll see.

53:32.08

Andrew

All right.

53:33.82

Sean

I don't know.

53:34.77

Andrew

You've officially onboarded him, and so the has the two-week clock started?

53:35.29

Sean

No.

53:38.22

Sean

and ah ah the I think the contractor paper is going out in today slash Monday or something like that. So it'll be soon enough.

53:44.25

Andrew

Cool. So yeah, two or three episodes from now. Hopefully you're going to have a prototype that we can start talking about.

53:49.42

Sean

Soon enough. Crazy stuff, man.

53:52.52

Andrew

Love it, man.

53:52.58

Sean

Crazy.

53:53.54

Andrew

Cool.

53:54.08

Sean

Cool.

53:54.30

Andrew

Well, stoked you had a great time at MicroConf. And excited you found a dev.

53:56.60

Sean

Thanks.

53:58.97

Andrew

And yeah, anyone new who is listening, thanks for listening. And yeah, I think we're going to try to put this up on YouTube. So search for Small Efforts Podcast on YouTube or something like that.

54:08.21

Sean

Yeah.

54:11.22

Sean

Yeah, absolutely. Comment micro... Comment, mike comment if you're made of this long, comment microconf in the comments.

54:13.26

Andrew

Gotta go create a YouTube channel.

54:18.51

Sean

That'll help us boost our numbers.

54:21.02

Andrew

Sure.

54:21.12

Sean

Yeah, thanks.

54:22.20

Andrew

Alright,

54:23.10

Sean

Listen, it works, I promise. I think it's how it works.

54:25.29

Andrew

cool.

54:25.81

Sean

All right, bye, guys. Thanks.

54:27.76

Andrew

Later.