Escape Velocity

Sam gives us an update on how his marketing cycle is going, what he's focusing on, and why he's starting with the title. German shares a slight detour into open source and prepares for his 6-week cycle to improve his Testing LiveView offer. Testing LiveView Build UI 

German talks about where he wants to be at the end of 2024 and the importance of a singular focus. Sam talks about Build UI's latest course launch and his upcoming work cycle on marketing.

We have a guest! Tyler Young joins German to talk about his new venture: Sleep Easy -- a proactive website monitoring tool that alerts users before issues happen! Tyler shares the story of why he chose this venture, how he's winding down his regular job to focus full time on Sleep Easy, his hopes and goals, current problems, and more. And if you want, you can follow Tyler's journey through his newsletter. You can find more about Tyler: Sleep Easy website: https://www.sleepeasy.app/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TylerAYoungTyler's website: https://tylerayoung.com/Newsletter to follow Tyler's journey: https://tylerayoung.com/category/build-in-public/Also mentioned in the podcast: April Dunford's Obviously Awesome positioning book and MicroConf talk

Sam talks about the launch of Build UI's fourth course, the importance of pre-launch marketing, and plans for Build UI's next course. German talks about potentially adding sponsorships to Elixir Streams, asking the Elixir community about what course they'd like to see him make next, and building an audience.Links:- Build UI's newest course on Remix- Sam's talk at Next.js Conf- Elixir Streams- German's post on Elixir Forum- Build an Audience episode of ReworkTwitter: German, Sam

German and Sam are back! Sam answers a question on why he thinks making courses with deadlines will work this time around. German then shares his two potential plans of action: building another course, or curating Elixir content in his Elixir Streams website. Sam pushes back to make sure German deliberately chooses a goal for whichever activity he pursues next.Links:Build UITesting LiveViewElixir StreamsTwitter: German, Sam

Sam tells German about his new idea for scoped marketing campaigns, the difference between YouTube videos and Build UI lessons, scoping new course launches to a month, and lifetime pricing vs. course bundles.Build UI's Lifetime membership sale page: https://buildui.com/pricingTwitter: German, Sam

This week we have a guest, Peter Ullrich! German and Peter chat as Peter talks about the numerous side-projects he's had through the years and shares lessons learned about creating a book, a course, and a couple of small apps. Finally, we get a glimpse into what he's working now -- his most ambitious project yet. Peter's book: https://pragprog.com/titles/puphoe/building-table-views-with-phoenix-liveview/ Peter's course: https://pjullrich.gumroad.com/l/bmvpPeter's write to letter projects: https://myletterdiary.com and https://www.lettertoyourself.com/Peter's twitter: https://twitter.com/PJUllrichPeter's website: https://peterullrich.comGerman's course: https://www.testingliveview.com/

German talks about ElixirConf and his talk, and considers whether he wants to focus on more info products next. Sam gives an update on Build UI, and talks about how he and Ryan need to stop overthinking their process so they can create more content.Twitter: German, Sam

Sam and German talk about how much money Build UI and Testing LiveView have made this year. Sam shares how pairing has been great for him and Ryan. German and Sam discuss the importance of thumbnails and titles for YouTube videos. German touches on what he wants to do next.

Sam and German are back! Sam shares an update on course progress, when Build UI will raise prices, and his focus on creating videos faster. German talks about his two areas of focus for the coming months: courses and a conference talk. He shares his new approach on researching material for a course. Then, they dive into a conversation about having a growth mindset – focusing on effort instead of outcomes, and the positive neurological effects that can have. Links- Build UI: https://buildui.com/- Growth mindset episode on Huberman Lab: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000621365285- Elixir Streams: https://www.elixirstreams.com/

Sam gives an update on Build UI nearly three months after launching lifetime memberships. German talks about how his course launch went and considers what to focus on next.

German talks about finishing recording all lessons for Testing LiveView, sending an email update, thoughts on team pricing, and setting a soft dealing of Tuesday May 16th for launching the course. Sam talks about his first full-time week on Build UI, how lifetime purchases are going five weeks into the launch, finding the businesses new baseline revenue, how to get more content out, and whether video summaries are taking too much time away from making more videos.

German shares how his progress with Testing LiveView has felt like a slog. Sam helps him remove his second-guessing and encourages him to keep shipping. They also talk about what might be next for German after he finishes launching Testing LiveView. Sam gives an update on Build UI's new Lifetime Memberships. He talks about last week's spike in sales thanks to tweets by prominent people in the community, and then follows up by saying he's really interested to see what Build UI's baseline looks like after the launch week.

Sam shares an update with German about his decision to remove subscriptions from Build UI. They chat about why lifetime memberships are more aligned with how customers use content sites, the psychological benefits of one-time sales vs. the burdens of fighting churn, the decision to use an early-bird price, how lifetime memberships help narrow Sam's focus to more a consistent schedule of publishing YouTube content, how many lifetime sales are needed for Build UI to hit escape velocity, and more.Links:- Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business with Jason Cohen- Build UI's lifetime membership

German gives an update on his video tweets and progress on his Testing LiveView course. He talks about how his current pace feels unsustainable, which led to him feeling stressed during the week and snowballing into doubts about the course. Sam contrasts his energy level and productivity this week (bad) vs last week (good) and reflects how exercise and a good Monday can set the tone for the entire week. He then shares updates on finishing another Build UI lesson and trying to create a dashboard to better understand subscriber churn.

German talks about using this week's episode as a deadline for his weekly work, and how he cut scope to make that happen. He also sets up a plan to prioritize his Testing LiveView course work for next week. Sam talks about how he launched a new Build UI course and published a YouTube video using focused 90-minute sprints. He also talks about adding one-time purchases to the site.

German and Sam chat about whether or not they truly want to hit escape velocity, the psychology of creating businesses, and how complacency and fear play big roles in stopping progress.Sam also talks about recording and sending a new free video to existing and prospective customers, and German gives an update on publishing more short-form Twitter videos (some which relate to his course) and progress on Testing LiveView. 

Sam talks about recognizing that he should bail out of complex demos earlier in the week if they're taking too long, and shooting something that's further along in order to hit his deadlines. He also talks about balancing the benefits of serendipitous free-form discovery vs. sticking to a deadline. German talks about staying consistent with his Twitter videos, gives an update on his course progress, and his plans for using material from his course for his Twitter content.ResourcesTesting LiveViewBuild UI

German and Sam chat about the constraints of short-form content and the benefits they bring. They talk about expanding content from a core lesson into sharable short-form clips for different platforms like Twitter and YouTube Shorts. German gives an update on the progress of his Testing LiveView course and Sam shares an update on Build UI's subscriber growth.ResourcesTesting LiveViewBuild UI

Sam talks about sharing his Tailwind course from Egghead on Build UI, and making a sub-10 minute YouTube video that performed well.German talks about how there's 10 weeks left for his course re-release based on his initial appetite, how he should approach email, and his goals for the upcoming week.- Build UI- Testing LiveView- Matt Pocock's 2022 in review

Sam talks about making a Twitter thread for his Framer Motion course and gives an update on Build UI subscriptions. He also talks about bringing his Tailwind videos into Build UI and introducing a new pricing option people have been asking for. German commits to continue his Twitter videos once or twice a week and talks about his progress with Testing LiveView updates. He also discusses his real appetite for how long he wants to spend updating the course. Links:Build UITesting LiveViewSyntax.fm podcast 

German talks about making short videos on Twitter, a blog post that made it to #1 on Hacker News, and his plan and appetite for updating and re-releasing his Testing LiveView course. Sam recaps emailing his email list about the completion of his Framer Motion course, gives an update on Build UI's subscriber growth, and discusses strategies for hitting his weekly video production goals.

German talks about setting aside looking for a SaaS to build and instead focusing on content creation. He talks about being energized by making Twitter videos and the success he's had with them so far. He also talks about wanting to launch at least one courses this year. Sam shares that he published the final video in his Framer Motion course and retros how creating the course went. He shares an update on Build UI's subscribers and talks about the next course he has planned for the site.LinksMatt Pocock's year in reviewGerman's Twitter video

German shares ideas for building an email authoring tool focused on developers and designers writing newsletters. He also considers creating new educational materials for the Elixir ecosystem. Sam gives us an update on Build UI's video library and subscriber count. Then, Sam shares how he's felt the need to look outside himself when it comes to reaching new people and building trust with them. He talks about making shorter, more targeted content to grab people's attention based on their mood in different browsing contexts, in a way that is still authentic to his style and goals.Links: Build UI: https://buildui.com/Chat bot taking the world by storm: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/Sam Harris episode with Cal Newport https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/304-why-i-left-twitter

Sam gives a quick recap of Next.js conf and talks about new users joining the Build UI Discord server. Sam and German discuss pricing as a lever and getting testimonials. German is back to consulting and talks about moving on from his first idea for literary agents.Links:Build UI The Art of Product podcast episode 218

https://buildui.com/https://www.testingliveview.com/

Build UI: https://buildui.com/

Build UI's website: https://buildui.com/

Resources mentioned:- Shape Up- EmberMap- MicroConf

Adam Wathan joins the show to talk about a new direction Sam could take for getting his video products up and running. They talk about ideas like releasing content incrementally, starting a private Discord forum, and hosting a weekly Q&A. Adam also talks about some recent challenges he's been working through at his own business, Tailwind Labs, and shares some hard-earned lessons from his years of selling products – like why you shouldn't talk about pricing until a week before a new product launch.

Resources mentioned- Sam's Framer Motion Course: https://samselikoff.com/framer-motion-course- German's Testing LiveView Course: https://www.testingliveview.com/- EmberMap: https://embermap.com/- Build Your Personal Brand podcast episode: https://thefutur.com/podcast/build-your-brand

Resources mentioned: - Sam's Framer Motion Course: https://samselikoff.com/framer-motion-course- German's Testing LiveView Course: https://www.testingliveview.com/- EmberMap: https://embermap.com/

Resources mentioned: - Sam's Framer Motion Course: https://samselikoff.com/framer-motion-course- German's Testing LiveView Course: https://www.testingliveview.com/- EmberMap: https://embermap.com/

Diverge then converge is an exercise that is sometimes performed during Design Sprints. https://www.thesprintbook.com/the-design-sprinthttps://thoughtbot.com/product-design-sprint/guide/divergehttps://thoughtbot.com/product-design-sprint/guide/convergeGerman submitted talks to Elixir Conf https://2022.elixirconf.com/Courses we talked aboutSam's Framer Motion course - https://samselikoff.com/framer-motion-courseGerman's Testing LiveView course - https://www.testingliveview.com

Sam talks about a breakthrough he had while working on his course, which will allow him to both cut scope and also deliver more value to his students. German talks about some customer research he did for teams who want to share updates on their projects, while also working through a low-energy week and trying to figure out whether he needs more clarity on his long-term vision.

The Mom Test book: http://momtestbook.com/The 4 Quadrants of Time Management from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: https://www.franklincovey.com/habit-3/

German mentions how unsubscribes are gut punches and revisits 5 options for choosing a niche for his SaaS idea. Sam talks about how the first lesson of his course is taking longer than he wanted, but he wants to finish the first one to figure out more unknowns.

Sam and German talk about German's consulting load, Sam taking on more consulting, hourly billing vs billing per project, and how to stop trading time for money. Sam commits to completing a demo for the first lesson of his course, and German commits to narrowing down the scope of a potential product to find people to talk to.

Links referencedhttps://samselikoff.com/framer-motion-coursehttps://germanvelasco.com/blog

German's and Sam's websiteshttps://www.germanvelasco.com/https://samselikoff.com/Sam's course landing pagehttps://samselikoff.com/framer-motion-courseGerman's blog postshttps://www.germanvelasco.com/blog