Makers.dev: Recent Episodes
Chris Achard and Christian Genco
Chris is prepping for a couple of photo trips. Christian is trying to figure out how to talk to his ideal FileInbox customer. He's also wondering how much consulting to do and what that means for his time working on his own SaaS.
Chris and Christian both went on vacation. Chris is getting back into Photography. Christian is creating user personas for FileInbox, and is getting more consulting gigs too.
correction at 27:45 NVIDIA doesn't even manufacture their own GPU chips! They rely on 3rd party manufacturers too.
0:00 Fun number fact 122: Ozymandias
8:13 Chris vacation update
13:00 Photography as a hobby
23:42 tinygrad ML framework
28:28 Fileinbox user personas
36:15 Christian consulting
44:36 Home Depot adventure
Chris is prepping for a trip to Iceland. Christian is trying to figure out exactly who is the target customer for fileinbox. Christian then tries to convince Chris that Firebase is the best platform on which to build a SaaS.
Christian has been looking at ALL THE BABY GEAR and has opinions. Also, he's working on the serverless transition for FileInbox and is struggling with estimating how long features will take.
Chris totally switches his diet and loses 17 pounds in 3 weeks. Christian went to Craft and Commerce and and takeaways for his business. He also figured out that his time estimates for FileInbox were way off.
Chris finished the StableDiffusion Image competition, but realized he was seriously outmatched in GPU power. Christian has renewed energy for FileInbox after talking with Asia Orangio. We both walk through how to plan to get things done, and how to actually follow through on those plans. Christian is trying to hire an assistant and tries to figure out what he needs to do that, and actually pay them money.
Christian has a potential customer conversation for clips.marketing that didn't feel very great. Chris joins a kaggle competition about gravity waves.
Chris has his first full week of Google, and also got his prize money from the Kaggle competition! Christian wonders if he should focus more on clips.marketing as a consultancy, or as a service, or just focus on FileInbox.
Christian tries to figure out where his customers are coming from, and how to get more signups for FileInbox. He also is trying to figure out what freemium features are best for clips.marketing. Chris starts his first week at Google.
(timestamps coming later)
Chris is prepping to start his new job. Christian got $157.126 per hour on his latest consulting project for Ali Abdall, and is now wondering if he should spend a lot more time on clips.marketing instead of FileInbox.
00:00 Intro
01:07 Prepping to start a job
07:51 Acornchat changes
13:20 Marketing ideas outside an app store
17:34 Consulting project for Ali Abdaal
24:01 RailsSaaS conference
29:13 No progress on FileInbox
34:13 Stringing pearls
37:27 Being close to the audience of clips.marketing
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
iFixit toolkit: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Essential-Electronics-Toolkit/IF145-348?o=5
Chris gets a job! Christian talks about his latest marketing experiments, and wonders if he should start working on clips.marketing again.
00:00 Intro
01:28 Google Photos DevRel role
03:52 What about acornchat?
05:20 Compensation at FAANG companies
09:03 Salary negotiation
11:34 Hiring freeze
12:33 Using Google ads for FileInbox
23:13 Promoted tweet experiment
25:57 Education as marketing
28:04 Low price file sending plan?
34:01 Detecting bots
36:25 Consulting project update
41:47 clips.marketing ideas
48:35 $20k sewer repair
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian quickly bought a google ad for Chris (for acornchat), but there were some unexpected results that required a lot more tweaking. Christian is doing a consulting project and enjoying it, and is wondering how to get more projects like that one.
00:00 Intro
02:15 Dedicated marketing days
03:07 Buying google ads
08:45 Adding more documentation for certain install paths
15:37 Conversion tracking and SEO
17:32 Google metadata tip
20:23 Filesize vs memory error in Google cloud
25:24 Building file sending in a day
32:28 Consulting tasks and rate
38:53 Tackling a personal email backlog with an EA
46:59 Building cabinet drawers
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris gets another customer for acornchat, which is 100% user growth! Christian is thinking about marketing for FileInbox using SEO, youtube, a new feature, and more.
00:00 Intro
05:55 2nd Acorn Chat user
09:18 Buying Google ads seems hard
16:35 Winning $5k from Kaggle
21:54 Twitter recommendations
30:09 FileInbox SEO changes
38:04 Youtube is underused for SaaS
45:34 File sending feature as a marketing channel
52:11 Serverless transition - using less memory
58:04 Doing more consulting
01:03:51 Making cabinets
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Twitter recommendations:
Massimo: https://twitter.com/rainmaker1973
WeRateDogs: https://twitter.com/dog_rates
PUNS: https://twitter.com/thepunnyworld
Chris wins $5k from Kaggle! Christian fixes some bugs and picks up woodworking to fix his new organization troubles.
00:00 Intro
02:43 Winning $5000 in an AI competition
12:10 The hardest problem in the competition
24:41 AI master's class
32:15 AcornChat: why people switch
38:32 Motivation comes and goes
42:03 FileInbox bugs and features
49:26 SegMetrics Analytics
54:27 Woodworking hobby
58:42 Cleaning and organizing
01:01:39 iPhone vs Android
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
We've reached 10,000 downloads for makers.dev! (a while ago). Chris has started his next master's class and is working on AcornChat. Christian is doing end-to-end testing with Playwright, and is still trying to figure out how to get better metrics for FileInbox.
00:00 10,000 downloads
00:54 3 redactions
03:29 Kaggle CTF updates
07:24 Learning things through challenges
10:43 Case studies in Machine Learning
15:33 AcornChat updates
19:59 Violent and original work
28:14 End to end testing
40:13 Metrics and analytics
45:43 Running paid ads?
48:52 How to throw a good party
52:35 Talking to strangers
54:44 CO2 levels indoors
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian came to Indy! Chris started his new ML class and is onboarding his first AcornChat customer. Christian tries to figure out a way to test dropbox file uploads.
00:00 Intro 01:28 Kaggle 4th place 04:04 AcornChat motivation 08:12 Case studies in machine learning 10:29 Christian's travels 12:27 How to test Fileinbox 14:40 File uploads to dropbox 20:14 Next steps for fileinbox
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian got married! Chris got his first paying customer for AcornChat.
00:00 Intro
01:24 First paying customer
07:32 Heroku is removing the free tier
10:43 Kaggle CTF competition
20:13 Taxes
24:36 Killing grass weeds
30:03 Next marketing thing for acornchat
39:48 💍🎉 Christian got married!
47:15 2nd customer migrated for fileinbox
51:43 Next marketing channel for fileinbox
56:22 Youtube as a search platform
59:57 TikTok for B2B saas?
01:05:36 Smartwatch for kids
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
undefined
Christian is in up state New York so he hasn't done much SaaS stuff this week - but he is preparing his business taxes. Yippee! Chris is recovering from being sick, so he's working on an AI security competition on Kaggle.
00:00 Intro
03:19 Kaggle DefCon AI security competition
15:07 DALLE prompts and AI art
22:40 Tricks to make AI art generators output a specific style
24:31 Systems to reduce friction
28:37 Business taxes
37:56 Full sized CNC machine
40:28 Neat wedding gifts with 3d printers
43:41 Manual labor
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris got covid; Christian is in upstate New York, and wonders about a new marketplace project.
00:00 Intro
05:09 AcornChat feature requests
12:41 Marketing for acornchat
15:23 What do you use for analytics?
21:20 Outreach strategies
29:59 GPS Gold Medal
32:57 AI driving to the woods
39:28 Weird birthday project with artist commisions
55:15 FileInbox
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
AcornChat has real users now! Christian loves how TDD makes his code bulletproof.
00:00 Intro
06:58 Kaggle GPS update
14:09 AcornChat real users
15:33 Reaching out to users is hard
19:00 Analytics
27:50 MarketingChangelog ?
30:32 FileInbox work time
33:55 New features for fileinbox
35:16 TDD
41:45 Dropbox OAuth
43:09 File uploads and virus scanning
48:32 SEO links
50:03 How to get MRR up faster
52:42 Personal updates
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris had his name and face on a billboard. Christian is pushing forward FileInbox stuff, and is looking for the next marketing task.
00:00 Intro
01:40 Face on a billboard
10:10 How to evoke emotion
11:09 Marketing strategies work until they don't
14:38 AcornChat trials
21:17 DALL-E 2
25:21 Kaggle GPS
28:12 Free shirt
30:01 FileInbox SEO
32:08 Live video chat widget
34:46 Next marketing activity
38:14 Next projects for EA
45:23 Paramotoring is dangerous
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris is tired of coding. Christian has too many ideas and should focus on SEO.
00:00 Intro
03:53 AcornChat on Slack App Store
06:01 Developer advocate
11:42 Grass is greener
17:38 Three years
21:07 Controversial figures
25:07 Don't break the chain
27:03 Josh Kaufman's personal master plan
30:17 Therapy is great
30:42 SEO
39:44 Sending large files: Hot take
51:20 Rails vs serverless
53:53 Increase revenue
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian has been reading the book "Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares and has 5 marketing hot take ideas that he wants feedback on.
00:00 Intro
03:33 Kaggle updates
07:58 AcornChat resubmitted
09:54 Cold call update
12:33 Traction book about marketing
17:56 Marketing hot take #1: Blogs
26:16 #2: Publicity
33:46 #3: Unconventional publicity
41:08 #3a: Live video feed of Christian
43:28 Intermission
45:59 #3b: How Jason Bourne would send files
51:12 #4: Search engine marketing
55:19 #5: Social and display ads
01:03:37 AcornChat in the Slack App Store!
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
We talk with Johnny Tong about how he bought a SaaS and is now struggling to grow it. Should he rebuild it? Dive into marketing? Rework the onboarding flow? Buy a bunch of ads?
00:00 Intro
02:47 What Johnny is looking for
10:01 SurveyBot overview
15:29 Buyer's guide
22:00 "The funnel"
28:45 Onboarding friction
33:49 The ups and downs of build vs buy
41:19 Conversion rate
44:19 Marketing vs coding
50:47 The end goal
57:43 Getting professional help
59:00 Deeper understanding
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Buy Grow Repeat Podcast: https://buygrowrepeat.com/
Find Johnny here: https://twitter.com/johnnytong
Books:
- The War of Art
- The Artist's Way
Christian went to Greece and got a new perspective on how he could be living. Chris resubmitted AcornChat to the Slack app store and finished up a Kaggle competition.
00:00 Intro
03:17 AcornChat submitted to the Slack app store
06:40 Kaggle Patent competition
16:51 Reinforcement learning
21:06 Covid (again)
25:40 Building a Second Brain
38:05 On Looking
47:14 FileInbox cold calling
53:24 Consulting update
56:26 Switching to iOS
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Book recommendations:
Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz
Chris wants to spend a bunch of money. Christian got advice to do some cold calling, but it sounds spooky 👻. plus 2 bonus hot takes
00:00 Intro
01:30 3d printer, camera and gpus
06:52 Kaggle update
15:49 Slack app update
17:52 Advanced Operating Systems
21:28 Rust
23:30 Personal productivity
25:30 FileInbox update
28:09 TDD
33:21 Firebase security rules
38:26 Spooky recommendation to increase MRR
43:16 100 paperclips
52:13 Hot take 1: Finance tracker (again but different)
59:02 Hot take 2: NFT project
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris is prepping for an AI for JS devs course. Christian gets engaged! Also, he wants to get to $20k MRR in 12 months, so we talk about how that would be possible.
00:00 Intro
01:28 AI for JS devs course
19:33 Too many Kaggle competitions
26:00 Christian gets engaged!!!
31:19 Parable of the pottery class
39:25 $20k MRR in 12 months
44:04 Do you really want that?
46:42 Is it better for customers?
50:08 Chris is mean and hypocritical
51:32 Personal life is all over the place
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian makes an easy way to send email templates from FileInbox. Chris got a response from the Slack App Store, and is wasted a bunch of time on an ML bug.
00:00 Intro
02:47 Chris's week
04:21 Slack app store
11:18 Working on things that don't go anywhere
16:36 Christian did a bunch of stuff
21:31 Fileinbox email system
24:03 What sells well
28:57 ffmpeg
32:18 Free Fileinbox for marketing?
37:40 3D printing bezier curves
45:24 Tick Tock development (again)
51:44 Just do stuff (again)
53:32 Tinnitus
57:59 How to read a paper
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
pubmed.gov
https://arxiv.org/
Chris is in 3 different AI competitions (anyone want to know how GPS works?) and Christian was gone and describes how it feels to get back to work. He's also selling a paramotor, so hopefully that goes well 😆
00:00 Intro
01:07 Life and death reflections
07:00 Give yourself some leeway
12:10 Work is hard until it's easy
16:00 Kaggle competitions
18:17 Objective measures of learning
27:39 Christian wants Black Mirror 🤨
29:24 Different types of AI problems
31:15 How GPS works
41:46 Patent competition (NLP)
44:57 Bird Call competition (audio)
49:26 Slack app store
49:53 MarketingChangelog.com
53:14 Christian's week
54:53 Getting started is the hardest part
57:02 Other tasks and projects
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris was on a trip, and Christian fell off the co-working wagon. Also, focus on authenticity (on YouTube, but everywhere too)
00:00 Intro
04:06 Tests
08:57 Having a beginner's mind
10:32 Fileinbox bugs
16:21 Consulting
18:52 SaaS math is bananas
23:50 Talking to customers
24:31 Focus is fickle
27:20 Makers.dev early episodes
34:54 Youtube as a reliable source of information
36:17 Prioritize authenticity
50:18 Attaboy
54:13 Hot Take #1: personal private podcast host
56:49 Hot Take #2: ffmpeg as a service (again)
01:02:21 How to start working with other people
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
undefined
Chris created his buyer's guide for acornchat. Christian gets another contracting job and wonders how to leverage that or if he should try to get more similar contracts.
00:00 Intro
00:50 SaaS buyer's guide
11:20 Look at all these salad dressings!
14:00 Machine learning theory and math
19:01 Fileinbox updates
24:37 Errands and engagement rings
32:09 Face follower contracting job
39:16 Making an automated Fiverr service
42:58 Modularizing code
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian calculates his consulting rate per hour. Chris soft launched saastips.com and was immediately overwhelmed by email bot signups. After fixing that problem, it led to three new SaaS ideas.
00:00 Intro
02:57 Launching saastips.com
12:25 Fixing fake bot email signups
18:54 Hot take #1: email signup saas
23:55 Hot take #1.5: better newsletter sending UI
32:29 Hot take #2: Marketing Changelog
39:11 $183.60 per hour
51:45 Back to SaaS
57:14 Hot take #3: Face follower
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
We chat with Tim Leland who runs a link shortener (t.ly) and a weather extension. We cover how he came up with the ideas, how he developed and marketed them, and where he sees the future of his products and Chrome extensions in general.
00:00 Intro
00:22 Tim Leland's start as a developer
05:24 The Chrome Extension Marketplace
09:52 Security concerns about Chrome extensions
16:21 Chrome change create opportunities for new developers
20:13 400k active users
21:48 How t.ly works and compares to other link shorteners
29:28 Marketing playbook
33:01 Chrome extension marketplace tips
37:15 Malicious chrome apps
40:35 How to make money with a Chrome extension
42:54 The hard parts of running a link shortener
49:40 What's next for t.ly?
55:19 Other marketing channels
01:00:56 Be simple technically, focus on marketing
01:03:05 Where to follow Tim
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Where to find Tim online:
https://twitter.com/Tim_Leland
https://timleland.com/migrate-chrome-extensions-to-manifest-v3/
https://timleland.com/extensions/
We both share our takeaways from Microconf.
00:00 Intro
00:37 Microconf growth '22
07:46 Takeaway #1: Focus instead of niche
13:16 Takeaway #2: Buying is harder than selling
19:35 subpoint: have a buyers guide
27:18 Takeaway #3: It's OK to optimize for experience instead of growth
39:05 Tall poppy syndrome
41:37 Excited for SaaS again
46:20 A nice little Italian restaurant on the internet
50:28 Hot take #1: Google voice style frontend for Twilio
55:20 Hot take #2: Tree map for expenses in QuickBooks
01:02:00 Fixed audio
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🚽 “How to Craft a Story that Sells” by April Dunford: https://www.recap.app/april-dunford
🔍”How to Go-To-Market Across Many Verticals” by Asia Orangio: https://www.recap.app/asia-orangio
🐎”Ending Well: The Complex Psychology of Exiting Your Company” by Sherry Walling: https://www.recap.app/sherry-walling
☑️The 7-Figure To Do List: 29 Tactics To Level-Up Your Business In 60 Minutes or Less by Rob Walling: https://www.recap.app/rob-walling-2022
🚀”Here’s the exact method I used to scale to $100k MRR in 12 months”: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1512782207508643845
🌳Grand Perspective’s tree map: http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
🍝 “Nice Italian restaurant of the internet”: https://youtu.be/0CDXJ6bMkMY
Chris almost has Acorn Chat feature complete and ready to submit to the Slack app store. Christian is getting close to finishing the serverless FileInbox v1. Also we talk about RSI and using voice commands as a potential way to limit injury.
00:00 Intro
00:37 Expectation maximization
06:06 Acorn Chat
09:10 Screenshots and video marketing
12:55 Simple can be a differentiating factor
17:50 New Kaggle competition - are patents good or bad?
28:21 AI can be both good and bad
31:48 All the Music
33:49 The Gap
35:48 FileInbox recording, uploading, and downloading
41:25 RSI causes and fixes
44:44 Talon voice control
49:22 Home automation architecture
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🔍 "The Gap" by Ira Glass: https://youtu.be/91FQKciKfHI
🎼 All the Music project: https://youtu.be/sJtm0MoOgiU
🎧 All The Music player: https://gen.co/allthemusic
Chris is almost ready to submit his Slack app to the Slack app directory. Christian tries to figure out how to charge for work he wants to do for a friend. Christian also has ideas about home automation.
00:00 Intro
01:08 Kaggle essay competition
08:16 Building a Slack app
09:32 The amount of time things take to get done
17:09 Administrative poms
20:12 Home automation
37:50 Doing work for friends: paid or free?
52:48 Fileinbox update
55:36 Naming things is hard
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
MeetingPlace is sold, so Chris is working on his next SaaS. Christian keeps getting stuff done on FileInbox, and wonders when he can actually fly with his paramotor.
00:00 Intro
02:28 Microaquired
09:29 SaaS feelings
13:23 Why developers are bad at marketing
16:31 What is the core functionality?
17:58 AcornChat development roadmap
22:31 Kaggle update
28:50 Getting work done one step at a time
44:42 Hobbies
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris finalizes the sale of MeetingPlace. Christian worries that he's getting too productive.
00:00 Intro
01:03 Completing the sale of MeetingPlace
11:33 Should Christian sell something?
15:01 Data science
16:14 Coworking progress
21:30 Open vs closed mode of working
32:09 Admin work
38:49 Three Body Problem
40:29 Paramotor Adventure
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris sells a SaaS! Christian tries to figure out what makes him productive. [Sorry for the audio quality! - it gets better next week]
00:07 Slava Ukraini
03:31 Selling MeetingPlace
08:43 Advice for selling a SaaS
11:21 Strategy to build apps just to sell
13:53 Motivation to sell
16:15 SaaS valuation calculations
20:30 Data competitions
22:51 Accountability buddy effectiveness
27:03 Time estimates are hard
30:41 Another app idea
33:05 So easily tricked
34:16 Open vs Closed mode
36:58 Goals for the next week
41:26 Administrative stuff
45:18 Talking openly about work issues
48:24 Audio quality
49:05 Allergies
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
The Killer Combo of Free Content with Paid Promotion – Jordan Gal – MicroConf Growth 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9aLKqRuS7A
Microconf is in 40 days! We talk about what we want to accomplish before then, and come up with a strategy to hold each other accountable and get stuff done.
00:00 Intro
01:18 MicroConf in 1.5 months
04:07 The next 40 days
10:22 Accountability buddies
15:13 AI competitions
19:13 Tesla safe driving score
24:20 Writing mini blog posts
31:42 Paramotoring
33:45 Flashcard app
38:54 The big SaaS idea for a flashcard app
42:17 Neuroticism
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris has to relearn a bunch of math and tries to figure out how to teach it as well. Christian has a new way to try to get things done by delaying work on his fun projects.
00:00 Intro
03:08 ML Math
08:16 Teaching as you're learning
17:57 Games that you can't lose
22:08 Anki flashcards app
31:55 New tactic to get things done
36:04 Making clear priorities for Christian's assistant
40:18 Have you ever made a french fry?
45:11 Tesla roadtrip
50:53 Paramotoring
57:08 FSD Beta 10
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris tries to figure out how to learn the math he needs for ML by teaching it. Christian buys a new domain name, then works on another project for 16 hours and tries to figure out how to deliver it.
00:00 Intro
03:38 Benefits of taking a break
08:28 How to teach math?
12:52 Am I a web dev or actually shifting to AI?
14:07 Snow water equivalent competition
19:23 Doge wordle
26:50 Feeling like a BOSS
34:45 Nerdle solver
38:31 Magic robot arm
43:10 Some people are controversial
52:17 Don't make work for other people
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian had a really productive week and would like to figure out how to have more weeks like that. Chris is doing well in a Kaggle competition and had to learn a bunch of math for ML this week.
00:00 Intro
02:11 ML math is like coding
08:45 How Kaggle promotes code and idea sharing
18:12 Balancing family life and work
27:20 Christian's super productive week
33:04 Stripe extension vs coding your own
35:36 How to handle feature flags
37:20 What can an executive assistant do?
43:10 Attaboy
49:07 Making SaaS videos (as a service?)
52:10 Wordle solver
53:32 Make more videos
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian's executive assistant experiment is going great. Chris has to learn a lot more math to do his ML class. Christian has great LEGO aspirations.
00:00 Intro
00:42 LaTeX
06:44 How to learn by teaching
13:28 ML for essay classification
19:39 Folding data into bins
25:22 Christian's executive assistant is great
38:13 FileInbox Stripe integration
46:33 Harry Potter LEGO
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Correction: 59 is prime 😆
Christian finally gets an executive assistant! Chris finishes the pet kaggle competition and prepares to start the next semester of his masters program.
00:00 Intro
02:47 Chris cleans up
07:13 Adam Savage's rules for putting things away
13:16 Kaggle top 6%
18:34 Overcoming futile feelings
21:08 Public and private leader boards are different
27:13 Crypto trading is still gambling
28:46 AcornChat Slack App Store
30:48 Morning pages
34:33 Executive assistant for Christian
41:44 Stripe integration with Firebase
43:40 Whole house humidifier
46:31 Dude, where's my heart?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Can we only get a lot accomplished if we have something more important to do that we are ignoring? Both Chris and Christian had productive weeks, but only by ignoring other things that we were supposed to do...
00:00 Intro
01:07 Getting stuck on features
07:25 Why features feel good
10:03 Next steps for AcornChat
11:04 Frustrated at Kaggle competition
17:21 Difference between cats and dogs
18:13 Applying AI to business
21:09 MeetingPlace features
22:18 Best way to do HTML embedding
23:15 Productive procrastination
24:21 Wordle solver
29:59 Getting things done only if you have something more important to do
32:34 Won't you be my boss goals
37:45 Dude, where's my Chipotle?
43:31 YC now offers $500k
49:51 We only get one life
54:13 Reading books gives you multiple lives
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris re-learns that to go fast you have to slow down. Christian rediscovers who his best customers are and tries to focus on getting more like them. Then he tries to sell a laptop...
00:00 Intro
00:27 Chris did nothing
01:26 Go slow to go fast
05:55 Software is magic
11:04 Dropbox api upgrade
19:01 Won't you be my boss?
31:16 Dude, where's my laptop?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
We talk to Brian Casel about launching ZipMessage and growing a SaaS business (vs a productize service). We talk to him about his previous business successes, how he got started programming, and how he's thinking about growing ZipMessage.
00:00 Intro
01:08 Brian's backstory
05:35 Scaling by hiring more people
09:40 ZipMessage
12:22 Audience Ops
13:14 Move towards software businesses
18:14 Christian's backstory
20:42 Chris's backstory
21:38 Tech stack: Rails vs React vs Laravel
28:24 ZipMessage company structure
30:26 Business structure: selling just part of an LLC
33:13 What to spending money on
38:18 Freemium
42:44 Buying a Tesla
48:01 Reading books
49:29 Investing thoughts
54:23 Outro
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
https://zipmessage.com/
https://twitter.com/casjam
The exciting finale of "Dude, Where's my Car???"; plus we talk about crypto: is it gambling? or is there a way to make money with it?
00:00 Intro
00:25 The Matrix Resurrections
03:49 VR Movies
08:29 AcornChat next steps
12:38 Work time vs vacation time
13:45 AI competitions
24:04 Crypto Trading Compeition
30:03 Efficient vs inefficient markets
32:01 Why you can't make money trading crypto
34:16 Markets and crypto
38:27 Crypto breads discipline in normal markets
40:53 FileInbox Dropbox deadline
43:31 Dude, where's my car?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
SaaS is complicated... Christian has FileInbox go down and has to figure out what that means. Chris works on his final lab and runs into issues. Also: what would you do if your car got stolen?
00:00 Intro
00:46 SuperTuxKart AI
13:05 Acorn Chat
17:47 FileInbox was Down!
21:06 SaaS is... complicated
28:25 Programming languages for SaaS
32:49 Dude Where's my Car?
43:28 How to deal with a car thief?
48:54 Health issues are like cold taffy
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris finished his final lab using MPI (used in supercomputers). Christian tries to get his car back, and then we both ask: do you have to be kind of a terrible person to be a billionaire?
00:00 Intro
01:47 MPI to solve the n-body problem
12:40 Dude where's my car?
17:02 Spending money to make money is hard
21:25 Road trip in a Tesla
30:11 The relaxed pace of Barbados
33:54 Steve Jobs was kind of a terrible person
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Brains: Talking Money with Anthony Pompliano and Sam Parr: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/bonus-brains
Chris builds an AI to play virtual go kart icy hockey. Christian wants to track his mood and talk to customers.
00:00 Intro
01:29 SuperTuxKart AI Control
13:51 Kittens idle game
20:06 Kaggle Superpermutations
27:22 Youtube good? Youtube bad?
34:50 The formula for retention
36:45 Christian's projects
41:10 Mood tracking
46:40 Theranos
51:23 Deploy Empathy
54:47 Talking to customers
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
This was supposed to be an interview with Michele Hansen, co-founder of Geocodio and author of "Deploy Empathy", but due to interview issues that part was lost :(. Instead, Chris and Christian talk about the book and do a customer interview exercise from it - which worked way better than either of us thought it was!
00:00 Intro
01:24 Don't just ask what people want
05:10 You have to be bad before you're good
07:11 Customer interview exercise
08:31 Q1 Can you tell me about a product you bought recently?
11:02 Q2 Where were you when you bought this?
13:07 Q3 Were you with anyone else when you bought it?
13:57 Q4 How did you make the purchase?
17:21 Q5 Before you bought it, was there any open questions for you?
19:34 Q6 Where did you first learn about this product?
21:52 Q7 What did you do when you first came across this product?
22:53 Q8 What were you hoping this would do for you?
24:54 Q9 What other products did you try before this?
26:22 Q10 How did it go when you first used this product?
27:07 Q11 Can you tell me about whether it did everything you were hoping it would do?
27:51 Q12 Would you buy it again?
28:19 Meta discussion about the interview exercise
30:49 Audio book as a private podcast
32:06 The not-interview
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Stay tuned for a future episode that is actually an interview with Michele, or find her here now:
https://twitter.com/mjwhansen
deployempathy.com
Chris has been learning Rust and has thoughts about strongly typed languages. Christian has been building "Treebooks" - a new way to read ebooks - and is wondering how to get customers and authors onto this new format. Also and update about Christian's passive income experiment of renting out his card
00:00 Intro
01:36 Chris's update
03:21 What has Chris's GPU been doing?
06:53 Does GPU mining of cryptocurrencies make sense?
12:08 Rust and strongly typed languages
19:08 Deploy Empathy book
24:51 Treebooks - a different way of reading books
37:43 How to get customers and books for treebooks
42:43 You don't have to solve everything - just make something a little bit better
45:26 Naming a process gives it power
46:23 Passive income experiment: renting out a car
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
https://deployempathy.com/ - Book about talking to customers
Chris is learning Rust for his next lab. Christian has been renting out his old car to someone who uses it to drive for Uber, and it makes us think about wealth inequality. Also: what actually is the metaverse?
00:00 Intro
01:33 Rust
05:28 Process for learning a new language
09:37 Worrying about memory size and resources
14:43 Custom designed silicon chips
19:34 Low level vs high level programming
20:43 Buying vs making wizard wands
26:25 Aliexpress
31:07 What is the Metaverse?
39:26 The best tech item to bring back in time
41:57 Renting out a car update
52:30 Switching between work and taking breaks
🎩 Christian opening stuff from AliExpress: https://youtu.be/mCfMk1NaFUs
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris gets a list of all 160 million registered .com domain names and tries to figure out what to do with them. Christian has been looking into Solidity programming and has some hot take ideas.
00:00 Intro
02:39 All the .com domain names
08:31 Using AI to generate new domain names
16:31 Twitter algorithm
17:39 What type of work do you want to be doing?
26:41 Motivation
28:28 Solidity programming
34:56 Hot take #1: unique blockchain auctions
37:52 Squid Game on the blockchain
42:12 Hot take #2: NFT Secret Santa
45:26 Hot take #3: Dead man's switch on the blockchain
48:33 Hot take #4: Embedded JS widget to make NFTs
55:44 Renting out a car (car as an asset)
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
ICANN's Centralized Zone Data Service
https://leandomainsearch.com/
What makes a tweet thread either go viral or go to zero? Christian talks about his recent tweet thread that didn't get any likes, and Chris talks about some of the ways he's used tweet threads in the past. Also: is twitter really the best medium for what we want to share anyway?
00:00 Intro
00:27 Diminishing returns and catching little bugs
05:43 The Go programming language
10:09 Deleting youtube and twitter experiment
22:26 The feeling of flow
26:37 Why tweet threads do well or poorly
39:04 Why do people click retweet?
40:49 The importance of consistency on twitter
45:46 Digital gardening
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
We both took a road trip and was able to do some thinking about what he should focus on. We talk about if you should or shouldn't worry about competitors, and some good ways to focus. Then we delete twitter and youtube from our phones in an effort to regain some wasted time.
00:00 Intro
00:38 Deep thinking on a road trip
04:07 Losing interest once you have the end in sight
07:28 Worrying about competitors
11:50 Getting to "done"
15:51 Sticky notes on our monitors
19:38 Focus by being distracted
25:42 So how are we feeling?
34:48 OAuth deadline
39:17 Deleting YouTube and Twitter
42:04 M1 Max
51:55 Touchbar or no touchbar?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian goes through a list of 20 potential marketing channels and we think about ways to make those work for Fileinbox. We also try to figure out what to focus on and how to frame the work we're doing as "experiments": with a hypothesis, success and failure criteria, and a completion timeframe.
00:00 Intro
03:25 Talking to people as an experiment
13:12 How to figure out what to focus on
15:34 Pushing work forward
16:55 Fighting yourself about what to work on
20:41 How to create work experiments
23:08 Tracking time: good or bad?
26:13 What a work experiment actually is
36:03 Fileinbox experiments
40:55 App store integrations
43:18 Tech debt
46:41 20 Marketing channels
55:30 Ranking marketing channels
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
We talk about MicroConf Local Austin and MicroConf Europe: Do we need to be focusing on just one thing? We also come up with a framework for doing small experiments with post mortems as a way to push us forward.
00:00 Intro
01:23 MicroConf in 2021 vs before
04:54 Isolation as an Indie Dev
06:17 MicroConf Takeaways
08:45 Focus as a bootstrapper
16:33 Results oriented post mortems
21:39 MeetingPlace, or something new?
24:59 But why is MeetingPlace hard to grow?
29:08 Support Shepard to handle support
38:29 AI powered writing buddy hot take
44:03 How we things about a focus on growth
46:22 Fileinbox marketing channel
50:56 Post mortem structure
51:48 Potential FileInbox growth strategy
55:43 Riding a big wave with clips.marketing
01:00:17 Chrstian gave a talk
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
How Veed.io grew to $1.7m ARR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgFGokLcq6E
https://www.supportshepherd.com/
Post mortem structure:
-
Timeframe
-
Action
-
Hypothesis
-
What does success look like?
-
What does failure look like?
Christian has an idea for a financial visualization app and we talk about how to market it. Chris has been doing C++ recently, and has just started GPU programming.
00:00 Intro
00:16 What to do with GPT-3?
05:08 C++
07:41 Programming video games
09:38 CUDA GPU programming
13:23 AI loss functions
14:20 How Chris learns new things
15:34 Reading an ebook like a tree
24:43 Releasing an audiobook as a private podcast
25:43 Hot Take: visualizing finances with a treemap
30:11 Business accounting - do we have to itemize expenses?
35:17 Better understanding business expenses
37:37 Marketing a finance visualizer
41:52 Pricing a financial SaaS
42:35 Competition is good
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🤑 The Killer Combo Of Free Content With Paid Promotion
by Jordan Gal: https://microconf.gen.co/jordan-gal/
A short episode this week: Christian is in Europe! He just got access to GPT-3 so he's really itching to play with that. Chris does his first big project for his masters, and is going to Austin in a few weeks.
00:00 Intro
00:51 Christian got access to GPT-3
09:43 C++ threads
15:45 Microconf Local
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris explores how a non-fiction writing buddy app might work. Christian ponders if freemium is a good fit for his app or not and talks about progress on his time tracking app.
00:00 Intro
00:25 We made attaboy.ai
01:51 Offline vs online AI
06:41 Deploying web apps with Vercel and Netlify
08:24 Non-fiction writing tools
23:20 Chris starts his masters
24:05 AI generated narratives
31:38 Is freemium a good idea?
43:05 Time tracking project progress
51:22 Talk to your customers
55:04 Holding office hours for customers
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian gives up on a project and Chris convinces him that it's actually a big win. Chris is about to finish his summer work and start his masters. Also: How much is a SaaS worth? Is $100k too much to pay for a SaaS that only makes $600 per month?
00:00 Intro
01:10 attaboy.ai
04:58 Chris finishes summer work
11:47 0-shot learning
14:18 The logistics of an online masters program
21:28 Wacky AI experiments
24:31 Instagram vs twitter vs tik tok vs youtube
26:58 First paying customer!
28:55 Give up on gmail integration?
29:33 tailwindui
31:12 Giving up once you almost get to the finish line
34:48 Building camhead in Electron
37:37 App Store vs direct release
42:23 meta time statistics
46:05 Product research as entertainment
54:52 Is $100k too much for a SaaS with $600 MRR?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Who wants to take bets about when Tesla Bot will be ready? Chris is finishing up his summer consulting project and getting ready to start his CS Masters program. Christian spent 0 hours on fileinbox last week, and instead created a mini web app to show people's "life timelines"... was that time well spent?
00:00 Intro
06:25 Using AI for a large variety of problems
12:54 Tesla bot
18:05 Is Elon Musk a positive or negative role model?
21:46 Singular minded focus
24:39 Chewing glass and staring into the abyss
26:52 Life timeline - Christian's latest project
37:09 OpenAI Codex for code creation
46:40 Finding motivation
48:15 Why is OAuth so hard? (meta point)
51:37 Relationship with email
55:33 How to reach people like Christian?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Demeo VR turn based "D&D" style game: https://www.resolutiongames.com/demeo
Life Timeline: https://www.lifetimeline.app/
How do you feel about NFTs? Chris has finished his GPS competition and is now using his fancy GPU to generate AI art. Christian got clips.marketing past his internal goal line! Now he has to figure out the next steps. We also talk about a potential business idea for sharing family photos
00:00 Intro
00:14 Kids back in school
05:35 Chris got 5th place in the GPS competition
10:03 Learning new things: projects vs classes
16:43 Using AI to generate art
17:55 AI art web app hot take
20:57 NFTs
27:03 What would make NFTs interesting?
36:32 Generative games
40:09 The IKEA Effect
41:40 clips.marketing update
46:06 Software profit margins are silly good
55:15 Sharing family photos (as a business?)
01:08:58 TV photo frames
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🤖 robohash.org - generate random robots
How do you decide what to work on every day when there's no one really telling you what to do? Christian thinks about ways to keep himself on track, and Chris talks about what motivates him to do Kaggle competitions (hint: it's not money).
00:00 Intro
00:58 GPS competition update
06:29 Olympics data scraping
08:41 Chris's summer work with Hidden Door
12:38 How to choose a day/time for different timezones
29:46 Productivity and the most important work you can be doing
35:54 Sometimes you just have to dig the hole
39:31 Show up every day
44:36 Different kinds of work and timelines
50:09 Purpose in life
58:52 Updates for next week
59:42 AI art
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian gets back from New York with an unwelcome update, but is plowing ahead by taking care of himself first. Chris has a new contract for the summer - his first AI position! Then we talk about how great SaaS is compared to other assets.
00:00 The Lost Episode
01:51 Health is important - take care of it!
08:22 The most effective productivity hack
10:15 GPS competition update
17:51 Chris's new job! (for 2 months)
22:43 Are educational games always too contrived?
29:22 Christian geeks out about Tesla
34:08 Can cars be assets?
45:58 SaaS is great
50:29 Automating customer support with an assistant
54:07 Finally taking SaaS seriously
59:37 Spending money to make money
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Personal assistants: https://www.gosquaredaway.com/
Support help: https://www.supportshepherd.com/
Learning AI is like learning to program all over again. Christian tries to plan what an AI based text-bot business would look like. Chris talks about an AI coding assistant (we recorded this before GitHub copilot was released :0 ), and we both marvel as self driving cars.
00:00 Intro
03:46 GPS data competition basics
08:04 Time is hard
11:56 GPS data formats
14:45 The AI Hammer
16:43 Christian experiences self driving
18:21 Tensorflow.js
22:42 Prebuilt AI models
25:35 AI business idea progression
35:13 Self driving isn't self driving yet. Why?
38:40 Why isn't Christian's Roomba smarter?
43:50 Twitter OAuth flow
50:33 No code works great, until it doesn't
53:06 Clippy AI assistant for code
54:53 What are humans going to do when AI is good enough?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris gets stuck on his kaggle competition and when trying to figure out how to move forward, started researching how to buy a farm :). Christian asks about how AI works and also talks about how he got ffmpeg working in the cloud.
00:00 Intro
02:20 The ability to take time off
03:48 Pushing forward when you feel stuck
09:46 Exciting work - buying land
16:37 Self driving cars
25:29 How AI works
40:01 What is the difference between AI and ML?
46:04 What is the future of work?
50:47 Robotics is hard
01:01:05 ffmpeg in the cloud
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Christian gets advice about how to focus to make more money... but is that what he wants? We also talk about how to start and maintain programming projects as a solo dev.
00:00 Intro
03:47 Chris's next week
05:20 Learning math for a masters - making a product from it?
10:52 Short form content plays better in today's world
13:56 What kind of assistant aligns with Christian's business goals?
19:34 Focus to make more money?
33:36 Using business skills for personal projects
38:46 How to start a new programming project
48:17 Syncing changes across projects
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🧮 3 Blue 1 Brown Linear Algebra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjBOesZCoqc&list=PL0-GT3co4r2y2YErbmuJw2L5tW4Ew2O5B
🧠 Imperial College of London Linear Algebra for Machine Learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T73ldK46JqE&list=PLiiljHvN6z1_o1ztXTKWPrShrMrBLo5P3
If you could just spend money to save time - would you do it? Where is that line? Christian explores a personal assistant and Chris finally gets his new computer.
00:00 Intro
00:04 New computer
03:03 Camping and shiny toys
07:12 Freeze dryer
16:13 Exposing yourself to different ideas
17:43 Selling the core thing vs selling an experience
21:07 The value to the customer
25:07 Chris update
27:54 Apple is focused on the story
29:12 Novelty
32:30 Passion
35:36 Christian update
39:33 "Why don't you just..."
42:42 Applying work tools to family projects
47:27 Consumers are terrible customers
48:52 What is your time worth?
55:32 Spending money instead of time
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
❄️ Home freeze dryer https://harvestright.com/product/home-freeze-dryer/
🥩 Alinea https://www.alinearestaurant.com/
Even if you don't have ADHD, learning about your brain and how it works will pay dividends for your entire life. We chat with Jesse J. Anderson about his journey with ADHD, what symptoms to look for if you think you might have it, and some processes and systems you can try to get a handle on it. If you want to hear more, check out Jesse on twitter! https://twitter.com/jessejanderson
00:00 Intro
00:53 How Jesse came to learn about ADHD
03:28 ADHD symptoms and behavior
07:32 Where's the line? What makes a diagnosis?
09:08 It's not just willpower
09:37 Motivation and importance
10:19 Rewards and consequences
10:41 5 factors of motivation
13:31 Are these strengths or weaknesses?
14:39 Privilege and support systems
15:46 Reasons to get a diagnosis
18:33 ADHD and kids
20:20 What if you're stuck
22:56 Would you flip a brain switch if it existed?
27:42 Doctors vs therapists
31:00 Whiteboards help
36:05 ADHD effects on significant others
38:50 Co-morbidities
40:36 The "caretaker" role
42:38 Criticism and complements
48:47 Positive reinforcement and positive accountability
50:45 External systems and processes that help
01:00:04 Manufacturing urgency and gamification
01:02:02 Outro
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🧠 The ADHD Nervous System: https://jessejanderson.com/posts/the-adhd-nervous-system
🤪 You Mean I'm not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?! The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults w/ Attention Deficit Disorder: https://amzn.to/3x7CYem
🍬 I Love Lucy candy making factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQ58I53mjk
💍 The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps: https://amzn.to/3pxclgz
👶🏻 Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life: https://amzn.to/3w5Uqjt
😠 Rejection Sensitive Disphoria: https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria
🦸♂️ Superparenting for ADD: An Innovative Approach to Raising Your Distracted Child: https://amzn.to/3cpJVj6
⏱ Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day: https://amzn.to/3x5W9VY
📄 Tactical Time Blocker by Jesse J. Anderson: https://gumroad.com/l/timeblocker
📓 ReMarkable: https://amzn.to/3v2efGY
🌅 Morning Pages: https://www.chriswinfield.com/morning-pages/
🧭 Roam Research: https://roamresearch.com/
💠 Obsidian: https://obsidian.md/
✅ Due app: https://www.dueapp.com/
Competition isn't bad, it's good! If you target a narrow market and tell your story, then people will buy your product just for that. This week, Christian figures out who to hire first and Chris preps for his CS masters to start.
00:00 Intro
03:13 Podcasts are cool
04:13 Next week: ADHD chat
06:28 Prepping for a CS masters
10:30 Teaching as you learn
16:38 Future Christian tells past Christian who to hire
26:36 Activation energy to hire someone
30:56 Choosing what you spend time on
36:00 Hot take: clips.marketing is B2-me
42:52 If you hit a wall, go for a walk
46:04 Competition is not what you think
48:50 Target a narrow market - pick your angle and tell your story
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Delegate and Done: https://start.growthlab.com/delegate-and-done/
Your World Class Assistant: https://yourworldclassassistant.com/
Great Assistant: https://greatassistant.com/
Chris has big news about the next few years. Christian thinks about how and who to hire. Also, we talk about ADHD again: how to handle it, and what it means.
00:00 Intro
00:29 Meal prep
03:29 Solving AI problems
08:38 MS CS
10:40 Why get a college degree?
15:28 What makes someone a student?
17:10 Work in Progress update
19:56 Having more capacity to do work
25:48 Live streaming as accountability for work
31:50 ADHD behaviors and tactics
45:35 How to get started in practical AI
47:38 Who and how to hire help
58:44 Email access for a personal assistant
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris's Kaggle competition wrapped up and he finished in 5th! Christian goes on a hunt to figure out what is wrong with his parents house, and contemplates what the future of life and business is once an AI is better than humans at most things.
00:00 Intro
02:29 Chris finally bought a computer
12:39 GPT-3 and the future of AI
21:52 Home diagnosis
33:11 How do you curate when there's too much information?
35:28 Dusting tips with Chris and Christian
37:47 Negative externalities
42:05 Makermade CNC
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
undefined
Burnout is sneaky. Chris and Christian talk about what makes work meaningful, and how to find that work. Christian talks about onboarding and how many info products get the checkout flow all wrong. Also, Christian is building a tiny house and is super excited about it.
00:00 Intro
01:29 Burnout
09:22 AI Update
11:10 What makes work exciting?
16:44 Work in progress
18:51 Deep learning machine
21:09 Meaningful work
23:28 COVID
25:17 Tiny houses
29:04 Improving checkout flows and onboarding
33:32 How to transition to serverless
40:58 Should Christian do a kickstarter?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Book: "Drive" by Dan Pink
The perfect wall system: https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-001-the-perfect-wall
How much would you spend to increase your MRR by $1000? Christian thinks he has been thinking about customer acquisition all wrong, and could be spending a lot more to get customers.
00:00 Intro
00:26 Kaggle contest update
06:34 Christian had A WEEK
13:53 Making a super simple info product
21:48 How much is $1000 MRR worth?
26:57 LTV = ARPU / Churn
31:09 Acquiring a small saas or info product
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Profitwell blog: https://www.profitwell.com/recur/all
Microaquire: https://microacquire.com/
Chris talks about overfitting to the public leaderboard (on Kaggle and in life), and Christian tries to figure out a direction for two different projects: a hierarchical book reader (or writer?), and his timetracking app: should he go more B2B, or be more like Scott's Cheap Flights or Nomad List?
00:00 Intro
02:48 Overfitting to the public leaderboard
06:48 Different approaches to life, business and problems
11:40 Buying a new computer?
20:04 SaaS Work in Progress and 30x500
23:03 Hot Take: hierarchical book reader
37:29 Hot Take: timetracker: B2B or start a cult?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🎙🗺 Confronting Your Fears and Taking a Leap with Pieter Levels of Nomad List: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/043-pieter-levels-of-nomad-list
🎙✈️ Building a Million Dollar Mailing List with Scott of Scott's Cheap Flights: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/020-scott-keyes-of-scotts-cheap-flights
📺 Don't start a business, start a cult: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gj7Qb9w_Kk
Christian is out this week so Chris is joined by Matt Swanson (https://twitter.com/_swanson). We talk about making decisions about features and user roles in his software consulting role, how he grew a twitter audience to 4,000 and what he learned, and "Boring Rails", his latest project, where he talks about writing software using the tride-and-true "boring" rails stack.
Both of us refocus on the businesses we had when we started makers.dev, and we become each other's boss again.
00:00 Intro
01:38 Taking breaks is good for work
03:52 Chris's update - AI plus WIP
09:25 Specific marketing next steps
21:39 A tool for finding "watering holes"
23:54 Make specific next steps and cultivate long term habits
31:12 Chris might buy a computer
34:12 The most effective way to allocate money
44:17 Should Christian transition to serverless?
49:44 Making plugins for every site building app
56:20 OneDrive and SharePoint integrations
01:03:58 Want us to "Hot Take" your business idea?
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🧠 https://www.kaggle.com/c/indoor-location-navigation/
🚀 joinwip.com
🔎 https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/
🤑 The Killer Combo of Free Content with Paid Promotion – Jordan Gal – MicroConf Growth 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9aLKqRuS7A
🎤 https://softwaresocial.dev/
30x500 query generator: https://gen.co/qgen/
Chris dives deeper into data science and complains that crypto currency miners are buying all the graphics cards. Christian talks about how to decide what to work on, plus has 6 new business ideas to think about.
00:00 Intro
01:11 Chris's projects
03:43 When to buy vs rent (graphics cards and more)
12:34 Trying to rise in a Kaggle competition
16:44 MeetingPlace - what to do next, committing to action
23:55 Mining Ethereum
30:40 Hot take 1: better YouTube suggestions
35:08 YouTube history tip
36:34 Hot take 2: solar system Oculus Quest app
39:23 Hot take 3: selling physical products
42:45 Hot take 4: a better way to read ebooks
51:51 How to parse an epub
53:35 Hot take 5: non-birthday cards
59:29 Hot take 6: paid coaching calls
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Links from the show:
📖 Permutation City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City
📄 How to Read a Paper https://web.stanford.edu/class/ee384m/Handouts/HowtoReadPaper.pdf
Chris enters a Kaggle competition to expand his data science skills, and Christian tries to figure out what to work on and how to prioritize time. We also talk about personality and learning traits, and how we get things done.
00:00 Intro
01:23 Data science update
02:37 Kaggle indoor positioning competition
11:51 How Chris dives into learning a new topic
14:18 Balancing short term vs long term
17:02 ADHD styles of getting things done
22:53 Studying personality
27:06 Christian defeats email mountain
32:47 It's never as good as it seems, it's never as bad as it seems
39:47 3D printers are SO FREAKING COOL
45:59 How to choose what to work on
49:43 Selling a SaaS?
55:49 Recapturing attention by streamlining processes
57:07 Hot Take: online grocery ordering
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Chris talks about learning more AI and ML, and how learning that is helping as he teaches others. Christian is about to get a new 3D printer, and talks about how it's so cool that we can just download and print real things - we're living in the future.
00:00 Intro
02:15 Doing things under your own name vs a new domain name
07:18 Learning new things makes you a better educator
09:27 Consuming the content you create is important in business
14:33 Penny wise and pound foolish
19:11 Paying money for human experts to cover your blindspots
21:39 Updates on Chris's projects
24:14 Solutions for reducing the support load of a SaaS
29:27 3D printer + CNC + laser cutter
39:50 Openscad as a programmable 3D modeling software
42:16 Living in the future
46:07 NFTs
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
Links mentioned:
🖨 https://snapmaker.com/
💻 https://www.openscad.org/
📖 https://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/1469246864
💎 Diamond Age: https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Age-Illustrated-Primer-Spectra/dp/0553380966
📱 Kindle Fire Kids Edition: https://www.amazon.com/Fire-HD-10-Kids-Edition/dp/B07KD7K4B1
🎨 https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/
"Christian just do your emails"
00:00 Plumbing problems
01:31 When do you outsource vs. do it yourself?
13:18 Chris's AI research
17:38 Overview of Machine Learning
22:24 PyTorch vs. TensorFlow
26:02 Python, Javascript, and Ruby
29:41 Slogging through email
33:34 Email systems
40:43 Bookmark bankruptcy
41:44 Zettelkasten Google Search browser plugin HOT TAKE
44:34 Just do your emails Christian
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
9️⃣MNIST number dataset AI practice: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1369313924970143749
🌊TensorFlow: https://www.tensorflow.org/
🔥PyTorch: https://pytorch.org/
🏃🏻fast.ai: https://www.fast.ai/
🌭Not a Hotdog app from Silicon Valley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIci3C4JkL0
☕TensorFlow.js: https://www.tensorflow.org/js
🎒Learn X in Y minutes: https://learnxinyminutes.com/
🐍Effective Python: https://amzn.to/30t9fOS
🐓Data Science from Scratch: https://amzn.to/3t476pd
🤘🏻Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw: https://amzn.to/3t6u8f5
🚶🏻StumbleUpon: https://www.stumbleupon.com/
⛰Email Mountain: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1369407654809001986
Apparently makers.dev is now the #1 Entrepreneurship podcast in Albania
00:00 Intro
01:45 2^4 episodes and the #1 Albanian Entrepreneurship Podcast
04:00 Chris's GAN AI research
09:32 How hard is it to make a GAN?
14:56 Feeling like you should be working on something else
21:31 EMAIL
24:56 Building a book reader in public
28:47 Orders of magnitude of views vs. engagement
31:12 Letting projects incubate
36:28 Boutique paper scanning business idea #HOTTAKES
41:40 Google lockout insurance #HOTTAKES
45:57 Chrome Extensions, npm, and other dangerous ecosystems #HOTTAKES
56:59 Christian spends several minutes reinventing Squarespace
01:08:04 gen.co domain name
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🇦🇱 #1 Entrepreneurship podcast in Albania: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1366427624659185664
🎓Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) Specialization: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/generative-adversarial-networks-gans
🆒Tesseract OCR: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract
👻This Person Does Not Exist: https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/
🏫 fast.ai: https://www.fast.ai/
📖Christian making an ebook reader in public: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1365354786422460419
🐦Use AI summarizations to help summarize a book: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1365681397365628934
🗻Iron Mountain enterprise scanning: https://www.ironmountain.com/
🖌Tom Sawyer painting a fence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAHXwLRI88Q
🤨"I no longer trust The Great Suspender": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25846504
❌"The Great Suspender extension has been removed from Chrome Web Store for containing malware": https://9to5google.com/2021/02/04/the-great-suspender-extension-has-been-removed-from-chrome-web-store-for-containing-malware/
🏚"How one developer just broke Node, Babel and thousands of projects in 11 lines of JavaScript
": https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/
🍔"McDonald’s Didn’t Know What the Internet Was in the 90’s
": http://www.factfiend.com/mcdonalds-didnt-know-internet-90s/
🚗Nissan.com: https://nissan.com/
Eight new ideas hot and fresh from a week of impromptu urban camping in Dallas, Texas.
00:00 SNOVID
02:39 Iceballs
03:43 Acorn Chat
04:44 Standard landing page vs. Long Form Copy
09:52 AB testing
14:55 SNOVID idea #HOTTAKES
16:30 Amazon mobile app for all Shopify stores idea
19:07 donotcall.dev API idea
22:13 ffmpeg as a service idea
27:47 transcriptions with a good API idea
32:43 Every YouTube channel is a podcast idea
35:18 Custom email frontend idea
40:18 Positive feedback hotline idea
44:50 Audiobook/ebook note taking app idea
50:11 Generative Adversarial Networks
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
⏲Noko time tracker: https://nokotime.com/
📈Fileinbox long form copy AB test: https://imgur.com/KDfDYmi
🛍Main Street Fights Back: https://justinjackson.ca/main-street-fights-back
🚚air.com searching network of independent stores: https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1363648414882271233
🥊Fight Amazon: https://justinjackson.ca/fight-amazon
🏦Mastering Modern Payments: https://www.masteringmodernpayments.com/
🤖GPT-3 beta: https://openai.com/blog/openai-api/
🏋️♀️Jane Fonda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM3SslJP31Y
🎧Pocket Casts podcast app: https://www.pocketcasts.com/
🎓Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) Specialization: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/generative-adversarial-networks-gans
💀"I tried to warn them": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPgL8O5mwLg
Perfect is the enemy of good, show your work, and get more of yourself out there.
00:00 Keeping the monkey healthy
03:00 Crunched audio?
05:02 Building Acorn Chat in a week
13:15 Why have separate app. and www. subdomains?
18:44 Embedded customizable .ejs templates per customer
21:13 Perfect is the enemy of good
24:00 The next 48 hours for Acorn Chat
27:08 Clips.marketing goals were CRUSHED
31:29 Show your work
42:56 Acorn Chat on Fileinbox?
46:20 Next week
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
💬 Building a SaaS in a week: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1357029859046875137
🐦 "Something easy to fix now and hard to fix later is to separate out your marketing site from your backend app": https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1358147298979627008
⛪ Perfect is the enemy of good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good
✂️ Clips.marketing: https://clips.marketing/
🎞 API for video clipping and encoding: https://cloud.qencode.com/
🤩 A moderately popular tweet about clips.marketing that only took 25 minutes to make: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1357476125228871681
🐉 fluent-ffmpeg: https://github.com/fluent-ffmpeg/node-fluent-ffmpeg
Virtual Reality, project prioritization, and smart but upset tummies
00:00 Intro
00:56 Syndicating makers.dev clips
03:35 Clips.marketing as a consultancy vs. SaaS
13:58 Avoidant attachment style
16:00 Virtual Reality and the Oculus Quest 2
19:21 Unity VR development
21:23 Chris's 17 projects from 2020
26:02 How do you prioritize what to work on next?
31:22 Optimizing for fun work is important
34:23 Runway anxiety and optimization
39:31 Kids are productively challenging
42:14 Is your stomach or your brain in charge?
43:00 Gotta make the monkey happy
44:43 Camhead.app as a profitable Tamagotchi
48:38 Clips.marketing architecture
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🐦 Clip retweeted by @arvidkahl: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1355180904235188229
💡 Making the Most of Social Media with Whitney Hansen on the Run With It podcast: https://share.transistor.fm/s/75366d71
🍯 Parable of the Pottery Class: https://aliabdaal.com/pottery/
📚 The Artist's Way: https://amzn.to/39LFYEy
🧠 "The second brain contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/
💔 Heartbleed SSL vulnerability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed
00:00 Christian and Chris are converging
00:40 Maker.dev interactions on twitter
01:47 Audio quality is bad and it's not the microphone's fault
04:56 Chris's talking head videos
08:46 Why is Facebook's moneymaker backend so bad?
15:01 What's the plan for clips.marketing?
20:52 Build your audience first (unless you can build really quickly and cheaply)
26:16 Manually onboard to make sure you talk to customers
28:24 Talk to dirty messy humans about their FeElInGs
30:48 Clips.marketing as a productized service?
37:22 Christian's next week
39:36 Chris's next week
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🎙 Our new matching microphones: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1352332392367841280
💛 Positive twitter feedback for makers.dev: https://twitter.com/petersuhm/status/1353368545715863553
🐦 Some of Chris's talking head videos: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1352376272878493699
💡 Making the Most of Social Media with Whitney Hansen on the Run With It
podcast: https://share.transistor.fm/s/75366d71
🦓 How To Use Jobs To Be Done To Perfect Your Positioning by Claire Suellentrop: https://microconf.gen.co/claire-suellentrop/
Apparently "worse is better" is how you get Christian to buy things.
00:00 Intro
00:23 Seeing the zoo through a child's eyes
02:56 Kids are like startups
05:27 Stripe Checkout
13:53 Microphone upgrades
17:52 Camera upgrades
21:54 Aspirational purchases
22:31 How would you live differently with more money?
28:25 A programmable phone in search of a problem and audience
34:40 Next week's plans
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
💳 Stripe Checkout: https://stripe.com/payments/checkout
🎙 Shure SM7B with cloud lifter: https://amzn.to/3p4y9z1
📷 Sony a7 III: https://amzn.to/3p1VcKX
📷 Ricoh GR III: https://amzn.to/2XVuCan
☁️ Salesforce Platform: https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/features/app-builder/
⚛ Close API Documentation: https://developer.close.com/
🅾️ Zoho Extensions: https://www.zoho.com/developer/extensions.html
It's usually better to just get something done and out there rather than obsess over every little detail. Christian also figures out a better way to handle customer support emails.
00:00 10 episodes!
00:34 Listener shoutouts
02:59 Pumping your voice into someone else's ears
05:38 Converting internet numbers to real numbers
06:40 "Slack is down, use async!"
08:04 Meeting Place, Async.dev, and WebRTC update
09:59 How does WebRTC work?
14:59 Twilio's TURN at $0.40/GB vs. $0.01/GB
16:09 Business WebRTC bandwidth costs
18:49 STUN servers
20:09 Anyone could build AT&T from their bedroom!
20:43 Integrating audio chatting in Async.dev/Meeting Place
22:47 Chris's pandemic advantage over Meetup.com
27:32 Future plans for Async.dev and Meeting Place
35:09 Who is Meeting Place for and what problems is it solving?
42:06 Do whatcha want! You don't need a grand vision
45:29 CamHead.app
50:00 Cocoa Development
52:33 What's next for CamHead?
55:49 Influencer marketing
57:49 Turns out infoprducts are real businesses
01:00:23 THIS EPISODE IS TOO LONG
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
🐦 Learn React in 10 Tweets: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1175022111758442497
🐦 No Code Doesn't Exist: https://twitter.com/cgenco/status/1346139894398251027
🐦 Slack is Down - use async: https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1346118116774989827
🔗 I'm Walking Away From the Product I Spent a Year Building—The story behind Level and why it failed by Derek Reimer: https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html
🔗 Nailing Your First (Info-Product) Launch by Adam Wathan: https://microconf.gen.co/adam-wathan/
Also Christian's video is no longer 0.25 seconds off he fixed it :)
Alternate title: doing everything right and seeing what happens
00:00 Intro
00:34 CHRISTIAN'S CHRISTMAS IGLOO
04:02 Chris's soundproofed office
05:14 Chris's co-founder breakup
08:53 Why not swing for the fences instead of bootstrapping?
09:55 Optimizing for flexibility
11:06 How do kids change business priorities?
12:46 Consulting vs. full-time for Riverside
15:44 Chris's upcoming consulting info-product
17:59 Manifesting consulting with The Secret
19:56 Chris's Christmas thinkin' about the future of async.dev and meeting place
23:43 Slack hate is a great opportunity
28:46 Niching down Meeting Place to developers
29:53 Next steps for Chris
33:21 CamHead.app
43:15 Fileinbox customer support email resistance
46:02 Streamline customer support and standup meetings with video tutorials
50:14 Clips.Marketing for writing YouTube chapter markers
Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco
"Without Their Permission" by Alexis Ohanian: https://withouttheirpermission.com/
00:00 Hello!
00:31 How do you take vacations as a bootstrapper?
03:58 Brain dumping
04:51 How is work is more fun than skiing or ziplining?
07:44 Morning Pages from The Artist's Way
08:08 How do you balance vacations and family with work?
10:13 Needing meaningful work
10:50 YouTube to Transistor script for makers.dev
13:57 Dogfooding async.dev for makers.dev
15:53 Websocks in Rails
18:33 Doing art for art's sake vs. making art for a market
24:19 What do you want to win by doing?
27:52 Christian's non-goals for next week
30:18 The privilege to work on what you want
34:41 Track your money and time instead of trusting your intuition
36:50 What if you don't have the bandwidth to do work you love?
39:15 Chris's plan for next week
0:00 Drywall is like business
1:24 Just doing the work is more important than tips and hacks
6:00 Christian's robot video editor
11:34 The dream podcasting workflow
17:40 Automatic YouTube to Transistor.fm flow
19:20 Makers.dev vs. BusinessMan.Business work
22:58 MeetingPlace update
24:13 Dogfooding Async.dev instead of Slack
27:20 How do you decide what to work on next?
36:45 Setting immutable biweekly or monthly goals
38:50 Enjoying the work vs. growing the business
41:48 Fileinbox Sign Printer Interviews
46:12 Customer chats are more enjoyable, less stilted than scripted interviews with an agenda and they're just as useful
50:50 Christian's hypo-hypo-manic week of projects
54:13 $10 vs. $50 vs. $200 tasks
57:39 Drywall craftsmen
Shape Up: https://basecamp.com/shapeup
Full-time Employees for $9k/year: https://www.supportshepherd.com/
0:00 Special Acoustic Caulk and manual laber
3:22 The Jigsaw Puzzle Theory of Business
6:10 Async.dev Slackbot update
9:00 Can you charge for an unfinished project?
10:44 Niching a Time Tracker Coaching Service
22:28 What's next for Async.dev and Meeting Place?
24:54 Talking to Sign Printers update
30:25 Clipping Microconf Recap
35:17 Effective Time Design
38:07 Automated video editing
45:44 Delegating to machines vs. humans
48:51 AI is coming to take all our jobs unless you're a coach
49:38 When does it make sense to hire humans?
🔗 How to Conduct a Great User Interview: https://microconf.gen.co/chris-achard/
🔗 How To Use Jobs To Be Done To Perfect Your Positioning: https://microconf.gen.co/claire-suellentrop/
0:00 Intro
3:51 Spending money to make more money
5:47 Imposter syndrome in charging more
8:05 Micropreneurs vs. YouTubers
13:00 Marketing without feeling slimy
14:45 Doing everything wrong and seeing where it goes
17:00 Chris's MeetingPlace and Async.dev update
21:50 Tick Tock Development
24:56 Chris's Goals for next week
27:03 Christian's Fileinbox update and goals
33:16 How do you know which features to build?
34:37 Customer workflows show you adjacent problems
36:00 Tick tock audience research
37:00 Pivoting
39:12 Makers.dev is super useful for us
40:03 Repurposing interview content?
42:49 Skyscraper posts
While talking about weekly goals, Chris and Christian talk about the feeling of procrastination and how to overcome it.
Talking to customers is important! Chris talks to potential business customers for meetingplace.io, and Christian gets ready to convert fileinbox to serverless before he turns on more marketing.
Chris and Christian introduce themselves and figure out what this podcast is going to be about.