FounderQuest

FounderQuest is back for episode 100! Learn why FounderQuest is down to two hosts. Listen to tales of hosting lavish RailsConf parties. Plus, don't miss the details of the secret upcoming product release that has been a year in the making!Links:Mastodon - @FounderQuest@honeybadger.social Twitter - @honeybadgerappWebsite 

Show notes:Links:Garrett DimonMinitest HeatHeat Map Reporter for MinitestReviewStarting & SustainingSifter AppAutomated transcript (only about 70% accurate)Ben  Welcome to FounderQuest, this has been Today, I'm interviewing Garrett Diamond Star and josh are taking the day off and I get a chat with Garrett, who's a longtime friend of mine and fantastic entrepreneur and all around great person in the world, so I'm excited to have you here. Gary, Thanks, Garrett  thanks for having me. Ben  It's always fun catching up with you. I think the last time we chatted was business of software a few years ago, wasn't it? Garrett  Yeah, not frequently enough, Ben  so that was, yeah, definitely not frequent enough. One thing I most remember about that business of software was that was when the hurricane was coming through and so I was standing out there in boston with all the wind and the Garrett  right, having grown Ben  up in the south, that was kind of ironic that I was there in the northeast and getting a hurricane. Mhm. So have you been Garrett  three, so just uh probably about the same as everybody else man, you know, just kinda one day at a time and keeping it going um and yeah, I just kind of dabbling and exploring and for once the last year just kind of let myself be undirected and just kind of followed what was interesting and pulled on threads and uh a little unnerving but also kind of nice and refreshing, I don't know, you know, so kind of bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Ben  Well, that's, that sounds pretty cool. Well, let's talk about that in a minute. I want to catch people up so I'm sure most people know you, but just for those who don't. So Garrett again, it's been a long time entrepreneur I think. I think I first bumped into you with doing sifter, your, your, your app from a few years ago, you built that from scratch solo entrepreneur and then you sold that. Then you're, you're at post uh, postmark for awhile for that. Right. Garrett  Well, wild bit at large, but primarily on postmark. Yeah. Ben  Okay. Right. Right. So you're a while, but for a while and then I guess it was a couple of years ago now that you've left wild. Garrett  Yeah, it's been about . years, I guess. No. Okay. Ben  Yeah. And so I guess also during that time you kind of did the starting and sustaining books slash video series slash thing. That was cool. Garrett  Yeah, I've been dabbling in all that, trying to share my battle wounds so that other people can maybe avoid them or less than them. Ben  Yeah, that's awesome. I remember, I remember buying that. It's good, good stuff. So also linked in the show notes. Maybe we'll get a sailor to uh, you spoke, you spoke at Microsoft a few times or at least once that I can remember Garrett  I can't even keep track now. Microsoft spoke once attended a couple of times. Yeah. Ben  And so now you're doing some, some interesting stuff. So I remember, remember when you left a wild bit, you were, you're really interested in getting started on helping amputees have a community and so you started adapted, right? So, we're gonna talk about that for a second, and then we can talk about, you know, how that plan kind of changed for you with the passage? Garrett  Um, I mean, so I'm a left below knee amputee. And when I was trying to make that decision, I couldn't find any information on what life is really like as an amputee, um, let alone specific information about, can I play basketball still, if so, how does that work? Or what other activities can I do? And there's just not a lot of detailed information, and with disability, even just within amputees, the range is incredible, like above me and bologna makes a complete difference in how you function and your body mechanics, and so I just couldn't find this information out there. And so that kind of planted the seed that obviously it's not out there and, you know, it's woefully under informed, which at first was kind of scary, it's like, oh, I guess nobody does any of this stuff Garrett  and for me, the whole, ironically, the whole point of amputating was so that I could get back to doing things because of my ankle fusion was horrible and all that, it's just hurt and was miserable and through the whole thing, I was blogging about it, and what would happen is people would email me because they'd go on google and search for amputation, ankle fusion, that kind of thing, and then they'd ask me like, I'm, because I was the only person that came up and I would get these emails, you know, it kind of varies and go ebbs and flows, you know, to a month, once a week, you know, so frequently enough. Um, and uh, one uh, young woman that reached out to me, she actually amputated and then just won a couple of gold medals in the paralympics and like, Garrett  it just blew my mind is like, how do you find the answers to this stuff? And uh, after being an amputee now about five years and trying stuff and just kind of figuring it out. Uh, my hope was originally, I was like, well, I'm a software developer, I'll build a platform so people can share that information, um, you know, and I figured I was really optimistic about that specifically, because, well I built sifter and rails has gotten way better and I learned a ton from sifters, it'll be way easier this time around, but I didn't really account for was now I've got a family and I'm  years older, uh and so it's been more challenging at the end of the day, I'm just tapped on software because I'm doing that all day and my brain is fried. Garrett  Um, but I've been doing videos kind of explaining this stuff to people about how legs work and the logistics of like how they change your body mechanics and um, how to do things like go to the beach and deal with sand in your foot and that kind of stuff. Uh, and I did that more is like an exploratory whimsical thing because that was the kind of content I hope people would create and put on the platform. So then you could filter and say, here's my disability, here's the activity I want to do. Give me all the information about that specific thing. Um, but I did it and it just kind of left it for a year, but it just kept going and then more people have been contacting me and so now what I'm doing is kind of Garrett  stepping back from the software side of it and I'm just gonna keep recording videos for the next short term, um, and having them produced and that kind of stuff and hopefully increasing the quality and the depth and then doing interviews with other amputees and really kind of getting into more stuff, um, and then eventually circling back to building a platform to help people find the right things that meet their needs and that kind of thing. Um, so, you know, it's, it's, it's been tough. I think the toughest thing is realizing that nonprofit side projects are the hardest thing to make time for, um because it's never going to offset my income or anything. And so like Garrett  now I've kind of been thinking, I guess I need to build a business again. So I've got more ironically more free time um, just because Sassen recurring revenue all that's so great that it would give me the flexibility to do that and to spend more time helping people and building um software and all that. So kind of just juggling things and figuring it out. And that's kind of where a lot of the exploration has come in. I haven't really prescribed where I'm taking things and uh um spending a lot of time dabbling and ruby and getting kind of deeper into it than I ever have previously. And uh exploring video and trying to help people with that stuff. So just kind of playing around and tinkering and trying to make ends meet at the same time and I'll figure it out, I guess Ben  that's cool. There's a whole lot to unpack in there. So let's, let's talk about some of that. So, Some of the, some of the themes, well, at first, I guess I should say I can totally relate to you with the whole, you know,  years later and now, there's. yeah, there's more demands on your time. There's less energy in the body and there's, you know, less energy in the brain probably is more importantly. Um, I've had that, that same thing I recently started picking up some side projects, you know, and like, yeah, they're just, you have fewer hours in the day that you really feel like being really into that kind of mode, you know, that your brain stuff and, Ben  and I've noticed that uh I can tell like when my blood sugar is getting low and now we're like, I've I've used up too many brain cells, I gotta go back and recharge, you Garrett  know? Uh Ben  So it's interesting that dynamics, like, I don't quite have the appetite that I used to have to just dive in and, and, you know, slog away at the keyboard for hours. And then Garrett  for me, it's also been awareness, like, I recognize it more now when I, when I was younger I would push through and be like, oh, grind and hustle and you know, and now I'm like, ok, I need to stop, this isn't, you know, if I don't stop, I'm going to be a complete mess tomorrow and not want to work and not be able to think. And so I catch it earlier and I just stopped and I hate it because I still, like, interested in whatever problem is in my head is still tugging on it and, you know, it's trying to and it's really hard to just turn it off and walk away. Um but I've gotten better at that a little, Ben  One of the things that I've noticed as, as I've gotten older in this tech world. So I guess I've been doing it  years or  years or so, is that, um, uh, so that that energy for doing all the things is not there? Like it used to be, but it seems like the deep thinking is more refined is more home. So like you said, like you're going to be, you know, you're just not going to have the energy, you're not going to be wasted the next day. And I think I've seen that too. And I think it's not just from like the energy of working, it's from the energy of thinking deeply about what's the right solution here, right? Ben  It's not so much like just powering through it. Okay, I'm gonna build this stuff and I'm gonna backtrack and I'm gonna redo and backtrack and redo now. It's like, oh, I'm gonna think about this and I'm going to get it right right? And then you apply that precision cut I guess. Garrett  And for me, the struggle is having the wisdom to recognize they should stop, but I can't turn off the excitement or the interest, right? And so I do still want to work on it. I just know better. And it's hard when those two don't align. Yeah, that's, that's been a struggle. Ben  Yeah, I've seen saying the same thing, but I think my living experience so far has been like the, the eventual outcome is better, even even when I have that, you know, I want to do more, but I don't know, I don't have the energy to more, But having that time to reflect more when I do sit down next time and have that  minutes an hour or whatever, like that time is much better spent coming up with the right solution rather than Garrett  just uh just the other day. I was and I mean, I think we've all had this happen a million times, but this just happened. I don't know, friday, I think banging my head on the desk for an hour and a half on this thing. That just makes no sense. There's a ruby thing like this doesn't make sense. What am I missing here? Like is there some really quirky ruby behavior I don't understand. Um And hour and a half and finally was like, I've got to give up, I've got to stop, this isn't getting anywhere. And it was only like , right? So I still was like, I had time in the day, I was like, I just got to stop The next morning. I sat down with in  minutes, Garrett  like solve cold, right? Like there's no, that was from the time I sat at my desk at the time, I solve the problem and it was just, you've got to step away and clear your head or you know, it just doesn't go well, Ben  yeah, yeah, I've had that same experience so many times and uh I think a lot of times you hear people say yeah just take a break, go for a walk whenever you're like yeah what everyone's gonna power through it but it actually does work Garrett  well for me. Walking doesn't cause then I'll just fix it on it too much and like I need to let go like my brain has to let it go. Um And so for me usually it's more getting a getting a night of sleep um is what kind of resets it for me at least from what I've found. But I've probably every three or four months. It's one of those where like This is going poorly and the next morning less than  minutes it's solved. Uh Ben  Yeah I have that too, like a good night. So definitely goes to reset. The one. The one problem I've had with that though is that then I will wake up at four a.m. I have the solution in my head, I'm like I got to go do it, Garrett  I do that too and for better or worse I don't even fight the sleep anymore, I just get up and go start working. Um And then if I need a nap later or something I just Ben  so be Garrett  it. Uh But like that's so much of that like We're so indoctrinated that like  is when people work. And that's been a really hard thing to let go of two and not feel that way every day and to basically, it's not about like working when you feel like it, but it's not like pushing back when the urge to get something done strikes, like go do it and then circle back, yeah, you know, and get some either for rest or whatever. Um you know, take a long lunch or whatever it is. Uh and that's uh I've found that to be helpful to just to try and not forced to work, but do it when it's fresh in my head and just go, Ben  yeah, yeah, I love having that flexibility as a, as an entrepreneur or business owner and being able to work when it's most effective. So You know, if it's  and then I take a break and maybe come back in a couple hours in the afternoon and then I'm done for the day, that's, it's cool. Right? So I wanted to hit on one other thing from, you're talking about there about with adaptable and you know, I love what you're saying about there's a, there's a software solution here, let me go build that, right? And then over time. Like uh maybe not. And I can totally relate to that because I feel the same way. It's like, oh if there's something missing in the world, there's, there's obviously assad's there that can satisfy that need, but Ben  but in reality like salad, you don't have to go all the way to says, right, you can uh, you can start with, you know, youtube videos or uh, maybe even just a reddit, right? Maybe maybe you're hanging out in the community and on offering back and building up that stuff that you want to see in the world. Garrett  Uh, so there's definitely still an element of that with what I want to do and uh, a lot of it is like, right now I'm focused on videos and more mechanics and uh, you know, here's things to think about if you want to get into mountain biking as an amputee or things to think about with snowboarding or, you know, whatever it is. Um, but there's this whole other facet or many facets really, um, of like limb care and recovery and you know, when you beat your leg up doing something active in a carbon fiber socket all day Garrett  and then you get home and it's destroyed, uh, you know, you got to take care of it. And so there's things like that and there's a financial aspect that like insurance only helped so much with prosthetics and they help with basic, like daily kind of day to day prosthetics, but they don't help if you need more advanced prosthetics, um, for certain activities. And so for that, you're either on your own or you need to find financial assistance and there's a ton of great organizations out there that help with that, but they're all non profits and their websites are less than stellar and less than informative. Um, Garrett  and in a lot of ways it's difficult to find the one that is right for you that will cover the type of equipment you need based on, you know, just your disability fall into the disabilities that they cover. Um, and so there's all these different requirements and details and it's difficult or you forget right, like life happens and some organization has an annual grant cycle and it's in october and then october blows by and you're like, oh crap, I totally forgot to apply for that grant and now you got to wait till next year. And so, you know, my thinking is that it's not just a tool to like educate people and help people find the information. They need something to proactively help reduce friction and remove the barriers that stop people with disabilities from being active. Garrett  Um, and that could be everything from pain to financial stuff to simply, you know, needing somebody to talk to who's done it. Um, and there's just, there's so many solutions and everybody, even within a category of disability is unique, even if they're not unique from the disability perspective, the activity they want to pursue might be more unique. Um, and so it's just really difficult to make it all work and to find answers and you kind of just gotta go try and you know, from experience the first couple of times I try new activity is miserable because I'm just figuring it out and that takes a lot of the fun out of it. And a lot of people like this isn't for me and you know, until you learn Garrett  kind of about that learning curve and how it exists and how it's a lot steeper than it is without a prosthetic or what have you. Um it's tough and it's easy to give up because it hurts and it's inconvenient and you know, there's just you're worried about your prosthetic, right? You've got this $, prosthetic that you need to survive day to day and you're like, oh I'm going to go paddleboarding, so what if it gets wet, can it get wet? I don't know, and there's just so many questions and so many easy reasons to give up or be intimidated and Garrett  you know, it doesn't need to be that way because more more importantly, like once you're in that situation is more important than ever to be active and to stay active and to not let it just lock you down on the couch or something. Um but it's not easy, you know, it's way harder than before and I don't think it needs to be, it doesn't need to be as hard as it is. So yeah, I'm hoping could help people get answers and you know, do their thing, whatever it is that moves them figuratively and literally Ben  yeah, yeah, that sounds like a tagline for the website Garrett  actually. Right. Ben  Right. Garrett  Yeah. Ben  Yeah. I I have uh so we have in our in our family some some experience with a kind of obscure medical issues like uh which is kind of similar to, you know, go into a prosthetic situation, right? Where all of a sudden you're into this community where you have to, you can get the speed really quickly on what does life look like now. And how do I do the things that I want to do and where do I go to find that information? And so often it seems that in our in our experience is that the only people who really know much of anything are the doctors that you're working with or the therapists or the nurses, right? And and they can connect with resources. But like if you just happen to have the wrong, you know, chemistry, Ben  you know, with with someone or you don't just happen to the right person, you can just feel pretty isolated. And uh so I thank you for having having resources for, for that is is so helpful because I've told my wife a number of times like you could write a book on on all the things that you've learned, you know, through this experience. And and then my my my brother's family there was a significant motorcycle accident that left someone with, you know, just a lot of parallelization from the waist down basically and his his, you know, going through all the things that he went through two surgeries and the rehab. And so to get back to a point where he could walk, you know, uh, which was, which was assisted so much by the great people that he had around him. Ben  But fortunately he had them right for those that don't, it's got to be a much, much harder rodeo Garrett  and it's just all over the board. Um, amputations really interesting is what most most frequently right into with people is there surgeon doesn't want them to amputate and is constantly trying to talk them out of it. But after you go through it, I saw my surgeon, I mean, my surgeon, I had to switch surgeons. Um, but he saw me twice after my amputation. He's never seen me with a prosthetic. He has no idea what I'm doing now. And so these people are asking their surgeons about amputation. The truth is the surgeons, unless they're actively helping. Um, you know, in other contexts and volunteering. Uh, they have no clue what life is like after amputation. They might read some stuff, Garrett  right. And you know, there's plenty of paralympians that are amazing. But then you wonder those people edge cases or you know, can anybody run and do that stuff again? Maybe not at that level. Um, and the, your surgeon just doesn't know. And so people are asking the surgeon because that's supposed to be the expert and then the surgeons giving them, I don't want to say bad information but incomplete information. And so it's tough for people because you can't get those answers, you know, and again, every disability so different how it affects people and how your doctor, what their background is in terms of how they understand like being active or you know, doing more than just day to day functioning. All right. Yeah. There's so many layers to it all. Mhm. Ben  So, one thing I wanted to go back to was talking about, you know, the time that you spend on that, obviously it's it's tough when you've got a family, you're the breadwinner. You know, you're trying to build a nonprofit thing. And at some point it sounds like you realize, you know what, I just gotta I gotta do some work. I got to bring the money in the door, right? I can't spend all my time focusing on this this nonprofit platform. So it sounds like you're doing that in your spare time and that you're you're paying the bills of freelancing doing a bunch of bunch of rail stuff. But as you've been doing that, you've actually built some tools that I want to talk about. So it sounds it sounds like Ben  you've been doing this work and this work has prompted you to build the review thing you've been working on. And also the heat map thing for many tests, let's talk about that a little bit. Garrett  Uh Yeah. So the nice thing, the one the only intentional thing I've done the last . years is to try and make sure that whatever I'm doing at all kind of syncs up somehow um and for the most part that was always leading back to ruby and or rails um and you know, so a lot of my client work is helping with legacy apps that are profitable now, but they built the app quickly and there's some, you know, legacy pain that needs to be fixed, re factoring that kind of thing. Um And then there was adaptable where I was starting with a Greenfield fresh modern rails app um and one of them was fun and the other one wasn't and I'll let you guess. Mhm. And so a lot of what I started thinking more about was like how does an app that Garrett  has all this legacy craft get from there to a point where it's not miserable to work on and you know, there's a lot of ways, there's a lot of paths, there's a lot of great books on re factoring um and a lot of that kind of stuff, uh what I started getting more interested in was how we've got all these great letters and static analysis tools for um security for syntax for just cleaning up code, right? And a lot of little auto correct and format stuff for you. Uh and the more I I dabbled with the tools previously but they were always so difficult to use because they're all command line um you know and they all have different syntax, different names for the same flags that do the same thing like Summer Garrett  auto, correct, some are right, some are, you know, and so like you gotta then remember the quirks, they're using the wrong flags with the wrong tools and it just gets tedious, right or like you know, you want to use a dozen tools, but if you run them all at once, like it's going to take  minutes to run through your whole project when really all you want is like just look at the files, I'm about to commit or uh you know look at the files, I just committed and let's do a pass it like with Robocop or whatever, clean them up and then I'll commit a separate one that's just pure clean up, you know, all these kind of things and but it was so tedious, I love these tools but I just wouldn't use them because there was too much friction. Garrett  Uh and so with adaptable and like when I start a Greenfield project, I was like I've got to use these tools from the beginning to make sure that never gets into a bad state because once that ship sails it's too much effort to go back and too much risk to like make those kind of wholesale changes and uh so it started with just that it's like how can I make it easier to use these tools and remove the friction so that they're enjoyable to use and kind of in the back of my mind was because like Guard does a lot of this, right, if you're running guard constantly. Uh But Guard also drove me nuts because it would my fans would spin up and make so much noise and I couldn't concentrate. Um Garrett  and so kind of and I still like guard, but my thinking was what if the tool could be so convenient that you didn't feel like you needed to use guard to watch files as you changed them and that you could do more than just have your automated test front, right? So like what if and I mean there's there's integrations for like Robocop and stuff, but like what if you change five files and you could just run a tool that will automatically run all of the relevant things you have against those files that you updated and potentially auto correct them if you want or um you know, this is all theory and it's it's come together and I'm using it on itself but it's not ready to like use in other projects yet. Um that's kind of the next step. Uh Garrett  But yeah and that's what I just I wanted that I want to be able to take it on a project that's raw and has a ton of craft and then every time I commit basically start cleaning up there and just make sure it doesn't regress, right it only gets better, you know and basically it makes it easier to or hopefully it will make it easier to just make constant steady improvement, right? It's not you run it and then it's like you know the tool just throws up its hands, it's like this code base is a mess, Ben  don't even Garrett  use this tool. Um Instead I want it to be you know what okay make some progress, let's start there and eventually, you know, over the course of a year, two years you're gonna touch so much of the code and eventually it's gonna get cleaner and it's gonna get better right? And it's not just formatting but like you've got things like brake man and things that are for scanning for security issues and all this stuff and there's so much bundler audit right and all these things to make sure that your dependencies and you know there's a lot of great tools out there like code, climate for reporting. But what drives me nuts is when I commit and then it gets to see I Garrett  and then the ci finds the mistake because the tool you don't run it locally like okay well now I've got to fix it and I gotta wait for ci again and like I want all these tools to be so frictionless to use, it never even makes it to see i like CS board because it never has anything to complain about because by the time it gets there it's already perfect. Um So yeah, so that's kind of the that's a reviewer um and it'll hopefully be more like the end of the year. Um And then I've also been obsessed with many tests lately because I used to use ours back and I just it never messed with me. It was too, I don't know, it's Garrett  the way I've always described, feels like it's the only thing in ruby that I feel like is simultaneously very ruby and very un ruby and it's just never worked with my head. Um And all the I'm very dependency averse from years of you know dependency breaks or has a security issue and the chain reaction of things that need to be updated and can't be updated because and so I'm very dependency averse. Um and uh so that's another reason I've gone with many tests because it's just there there's fewer dependencies, it's simpler. Um But many tests output even with all the formatting options out there just always, I felt like I was doing way more work than I should have to to figure out what failed what went wrong and how to fix it Garrett  and so what I've done is really over engineered to test reporter for many tests to uh when a test fails, it kind of catalogs what file was in the stack trace what line number in that file. Um and so what it's doing is in the background, it's kind of building up a heat map of everything that triggered a problem. And it's also differentiating between like failures and exceptions because if your test fails, okay, that's interesting. You want to start with the assertion, what was the assertion that failed? But if there is an exception, then the assertions kind of irrelevant. You want to go dig into the exception. But what if the exception came out of the test, Garrett  then you don't want to waste your time and source code just fix the test. Otherwise you're not. And so it differentiates between failures, a broken test and an exception. And it presents the output differently to kind of guide you in the right direction based on those. And if you've got anything that's failing or broken, it's not going to harass you about skipped tests or slow tests, right? It suppresses those until everything's fixed. And it's like, hey, by the way, you've got four tests here that you've skipped, you need to go right? Those, uh, and actually won't bother you about slow tests until all your skip tests are fixed, Right? Garrett  Uh, and so it kind of lets you focus on what's important at the time without reminding you of the fact that you've got a lot going on that is pending and problematic or whatever it is. Um, you know, so there's a lot of little things like that and like when you make that one change that breaks  things across your whole project, you're renaming a class or whatever it is. Uh And then it's just you will go from like a perfect test suite  failing tests like crap. Okay. Where do I even start? Uh And so the heat map will show you like look all of these problems come back to this one file, you know, whatever it is so you can get to the heart of the matter instead of having to like Garrett  visually scanned through  failures and try to find and recognize a pattern. Uh So it's kind of uh a proactive pattern matching reporter. Um you know with a few other tweaks to just help uh nudge and simplify kind of the output so that you can my hope be, you know, you see a test failure and you know exactly what you need to do to fix it before you even go back to your text editor because you've got enough context. Um And obviously that's not always possible, but more often than not and definitely more often than with just the generic reporter. Uh That's been the case and has been really helpful and saves me a ton of time fishing for what needs to be fixed and what what's worth fixing first and that kind of thing. So I have to think a lot less. Garrett  I just have to go fix it. Ah And so both of those combined are going to kind of I'm hoping work in a way that you know you type R. V. W. And it's just smart and it says here's all your problems. You're like oh my gosh, everything's perfect. But you could stand to improve your documentation here in this file, you're like okay I can do that real quick. Um You know so it kind of nudges you in the right direction without like wearing you out about how horrible your code is. Um Because when you're one of those tools just raw, that's basically what it feels like. It's like oh my gosh I'm horrible. I have no idea, I have no business writing code. Uh Garrett  And that's not a good feeling but if it's like hey you can fix this, here's how okay I can do that. Um You know there's a lot of really interesting ideas. There are like you know you ever run your test suite and it fails and you run it again and it passes. They're like oh crap what was the seed that it used when it failed? And uh so what reviewer does too in the background, it's recording a bunch of history. Um And so it will remember that last failed seed and so you can you be able to type our VW rerun and it would rerun just the failure and let you zero in on that and focus on fixing that. Um So there's a lot of little things like that that Garrett  I just want to make it easier. I mean there's bisect and some great tools out there. Um, but sometimes they're overkill and slow and they take you out of the zone and I want to make it easier to stay in the zone and get things done and get back on track. Ben  That sounds sounds really cool. Yeah, we um, remember having done some a few major rails version upgrades with the honey badger card base, you know, go from  to  or  or whatever it is. And like all of a sudden half your tests, you got thousands of tests and like thousands of them. It's the Garrett  most defeating feeling. You're just like, oh, okay, I quit for today. Ben  Yeah. And then, and then, you know, you dive through all those things like, okay, these all look the same. It's all the same. It's all the same and go and try this thing here and that thing there and oh, I made this one change and now half of those failing tests are now passing okay. Now, you know? So yeah, having the heat map I think is uh, it sounds like a great idea. And then of course, you know, you mentioned, uh, if it's an exception, you know exactly where to go, like it sounds like honey badger, right? You get the context that you need to know what to fix, right, yep. Yeah. Although I must say I'm, I'm an I respect fan Ben  have been for a long time and I've tried, you know, going back to many tests because I'll start your rails app like this, this new side project, I started a few a few months ago, like it's a new rails happen to me, you know, let me try any test again because that's the default and so I'll get in there for a bit. But then like one of the things I've come to realize is that I, what I love about our spec is despite how, you know, I can feel you about the dependency aversion, but at the same time our spec is kind of like a batteries included kind of thing. Like Ben  you've got the mocking right? Not the stubbing, you don't have to worry about what I do. I do, I do many test mock or do I do mocha, you know, like all that's kind of rails itself, right? It's kind of kind of its own duck and it has everything included. So you don't think about, you Garrett  know, and don't get me wrong, I don't dislike our spec, it just doesn't work with my head and like, I just get overwhelmed with how much it has. And so for me with many tests, like you're like, oh, which marked thing to use neither. Like if I feel like I need to mock something, I need to re factor it so it's more easy to test efficiently and directly. Um, because like marks, I mean that has all has its own issues, right? Like uh and so for me uh and and it was very much a mental thing. Like I just fully embraced accepted many tests limitations and now I use that as kind of a nudge to be like, all right, if this is really difficult to do, Garrett  then it's not that I need better testing tools. It's that I need my code to be organized in a way that lets me test this appropriately And efficiently without getting to set up  unrelated models so that it won't fall over. Uh And so that's kind of been more of a philosophical thing for me because previously when I drive many tests, that's exactly how to drive me nuts. I'm like, how the hell do I do any of this? Because my brain what little I did understand of our respect. I had learned to think that way about things. And so then I found myself doing all this like how do you mock in many tests and how do you, And it's like you don't, you know, use mocha or you know what have Ben  you. Garrett  Uh and so kind of accepting that and just saying, you know what, When it, when many test pushes back, I'm going to listen and I'll just re factor. Um and at first was a little painful. But now it actually has been really, really nice. Uh But I will say to a lot of that goes hand in hand with like I've been doing a lot of like deeper deeper reading on ruby and thus kind of understanding patterns, you know being able to see more patterns to re factor like oh this is why this is hard to test really. Just need to re factor using this pattern and take this approach instead or whatever. Um And so that's helped because otherwise I feel like I know I need to change this but I don't even know where to start. Um Garrett  So you know, that's definitely been a philosophical thing I had to accept. Ben  Yeah, that makes sense. So you mentioned code climate and I know, you know in the early days when kokonas started like it was basically a wrapper on top of flay and flaw right and eventually break man and stuff. Right? They assembled all these open source tools and put a nice ui on top of it, which is fine, you know, but you could just run off tools yourself, right? Um But review sounds pretty cool because you're basically giving that code climate kind of experience, but it's on your own right, in your own cli and you could I mean conceivably you could even use it like with left hook or something to do get pre commit kind of thing which might have its own problems but still it's an option. Garrett  It's definitely on the radar, there's a lot of get integration that I'm planning on. So you can do like our VW staged and it'll just look at the staged files or R. V. W untracked, it'll just looked at your file that you haven't staged, That kind of thing. Ben  Super handy. So do you do you see a path where review because there's some sort of commercial component to review or do you think it could always be pure, Garrett  there's, I've got a bunch of ideas that I think could um I mean the core one is just gonna be an open source jim. Um if I do follow any model um you know, it's probably going to be something more like sidekick where there's the core thing that is helpful and useful and free for eternity. Um and then there would be more advanced, either team functionality or kind of sharing of configuration files. Um There's a whole ton of tools that I've thought about building to to um things like if you have an existing app, it kind of auto detect and suggest, hey you might want to use these gems, these tools um obviously it's built in ruby but the idea is that it has to be ruby centric. It's really at the end of the day, it's just a wrapper for command line tools Garrett  that gives you some kind of either pass fail or score output. Um and so like if you've got  tools set up, like one reviewer, I've just gone overboard. Like I'll use everything because I want to kind of test it, you know, and dog food it um And so like if one fails it doesn't bother running the rest of them. And so the idea is if you can figure in the order of priority, like start with bundler audit right? Because if you've got a gym that's out of whack, then you need to fix that because that'll ripple And so it'll just stop there, so you have to wait  minutes for a whole suite to run on a huge project, it just fails immediately, insist fix this and then you fix that and then it runs Garrett  um and then two and this is all theoretical at this point because I haven't played with it, but I've got some, I'm really excited about the idea potentially. Um and I hate to make it ruby three only, but playing with tractors and some some threading and stuff so that you can have Robocop running in parallel with, you know, especially with multi core processors picking up and all this kind of stuff, I feel like there's a lot of potential Like what if you could run  tools in parallel and have the whole thing run in seconds instead of minutes and that could be really cool, There's other challenges there, but um you know that reporting obviously um like code climate, I feel like that's one of code climates really big things, Garrett  but for me the reporting is gonna be more an afterthought, I wanted to be a local thing that you can use friction free and then if people like it, which I hope they will, I mean I'm really excited about, I love using it to build itself, it's been wildly helpful. Um you know, then yeah, I'd start thinking about, you know, what other options are there for, how it could be better um and do even more cool stuff for teams or people who are just really serious about using it or you know, what have you? Ben  Mhm Yeah, I think, I mean I love, I love the sidekick model uh you know, give that great open source core that has great functionality and then build on top of that, you know, things that are useful to people who are going to use it more intensely and I think, I think the psychic definitely has that sweet spot, if it's it's an operations kind of thing where you're gonna be, you're gonna be running this forever in your production environment. So you want to pay that licensing fee, you know, every month, every year or whatever. And then there's also like the ASCII corp model, right? Where they have very, very good open source tools, you know, you can use Packer or Terror Form or whatever, Ben  you know, never paying them a dime but they also have great team collaboration tools if you want to move to their platform, you know, and coordinate your Terror Form running or you know, your console, you know, or your vault or whatever, right? They have a pro or enterprise offering for every one of those that can do additional stuff enhancing it, you know? So yeah, some great options there, Garrett  yeah, you know, I will say to a lot of my Garrett  thinking since selling sifter has been, I don't really want to run a sas app again, uh and I'm sure you can guess all the reasons uh at the end of the day, the simplest thing um and I mean I knew it when I was running sifter but I didn't fully appreciate it was the degree to which I let it change me to notifications and alerts of problems and a never ending fear that as soon as I went camping or hiking out of cell service was the day it was going to fall over in a bad way and uh like it wasn't this like huge thing, but it was just in this like ever present anxiety and after I didn't have that anymore, it was just such a like epiphany Garrett  that was like, I don't really want to go back there and if I build a SAS up, it needs to be something that can be designed in such a way that it's resilient and I know that, you know, if it goes into a certain state and it's like that for six hours or something, nobody's gonna be too upset. Um and I couldn't think of anything and uh so yeah, so then I just started building these gyms and I was like, I'm just gonna build the gyms and see where that takes me. I mean really, I feel like I'm just kind of pulling on a thread right now based on my personal curiosity and then just trying to also keep in mind like let's make sure this would also be useful for other people at some point, wherever that is. Ben  Yeah, I'm of course totally with you on the whole like it's tough to run this as because yeah, it is and yeah, I think about this the other day as this, this side project, I'm working on it, like, well it's it's actually right now just for fun, but of course it's like well how would I how to make money on this if I wanted to? And I could run a sad and this is a sad thing, it integrates with GIT hub. And uh so it's it's definitely a web based kind of stuff you do. Um Ben  but you know, if it went down for a few hours, people wouldn't be screaming like screaming about honey badger going down for a few hours. So like that's like that's okay. And then on the other hand, it's like, well it's it is very tightly integrated to get hub. So I could do a self hosted, here's a doctor image kind of thing, you go run this and it talks to your get up enterprise installation behind your firewall. Right? Ben  So I think, yeah, it's really good for entrepreneurs today who are so low to be thinking about that because there are a lot of options. There's the, you know, there's a psychic model. We just give one some someone some code, right? They license it, they run it and it's it's all them right. Or maybe you build a SAAS app that is also a docker image that they can deploy themselves. Maybe the codes available, you know, as maybe it's an open source thing, even like a matter most right, you can they have a hosted option, they have an open source options, have a self host adoption. Um Yeah, I think really good to be thinking about these things as you're, you know, deciding what you're doing day to day because it does, does affect quality of life. Like Ben  my first thought was, and I was when I think about this says I was like this side project, as I says, I was like, well then I got to have the laptop in the night time because Garrett  I'm like, I think I would much rather have an imac, but like as long as I'm involved in anything that can go offline, I don't think I can survive with just an imac, I've got to have a laptop and like yeah, I don't like that, feel like, I don't know, I mean, I don't think anybody but uh Yeah, Ben  Yeah, well that's, and I sometimes I think about a kind of metal level like oh that's a problem to solve, like how do you help? So the entrepreneurs run saAS operations without having to be, you know, always on like yeah, that's an unsolved problem. If someone solves that, that will be I think worth some. I mean Hiroko has done a pretty good job solving that problem, but it's not % solved yet. Garrett  So Well there's Ben  for me, Garrett  like I built a job board for our community here in the valley um because tourism based economies like the turnover and stuff is high and ah and so like for me I was staying with that and I haven't done this because it's just not critical enough. Um but the only thing I thought it would be like with a job board, if you could have it fall into read only mode where it's basically heavily cached on the front end and that's something that could work. But most apps where you're interacting with them because posting jobs, it's not like you constantly post jobs, you post a job and if you can't post a job right now you can come back in six hours and that's fine. It's not the end of the day, you know, into the world. Garrett  Uh but that's the only thing I've been able to come up with that has felt like it wouldn't be a huge issue as long as you designed and built it, right, so that I could do that. But everything else I'm like, nope, that won't work, That won't work. Like, I think that's why haven't start another business yet is because I've become really picky, like after selling stuff to, I'm like, what do I really want to do and not do again? And so much of the sad stuff while it's great. Um it was just like, it took a toll. Like, it made me not want to do so many things that now I love doing, like camping and hiking and like getting out of cell service. Um, and so I don't want to give that up anymore. Ben  So I guess the moral of the story is do all that kind of stuff when you're in your twenties have plenty of energy, right? You don't hate it yet, right? And then try to come up with something different by the time you're in your s, Garrett  use the experience to uh more wisely choose your battles. Ben  Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, this has been total fun. Yeah. Yeah. Garrett  Glad, Glad to catch up. Ben  Is there anything that we should have talked about that we didn't? Garrett  Oh, probably a ton of stuff. Uh, no, I mean, I wish this stuff was all in a better state. Many test heat is good to use now, I need to add a little bit more exception handling because now every now and then something goes wrong with many test heat and like you can't see your own test failures because it fell over. Uh so that's kind of my next step is to add some resiliency to that so that if it breaks, it says, hey many test heat fell over on this, but your things fine and have some like simple output. So you at least can see something because every now and then I have to go disable it and switch back to the regular reporter so I can actually see the the failure. Um but uh you know, it's ready to use, I'm using it Garrett  every day on all my projects now. Um and it's been pretty, pretty fine. Today was the first time in like a week that I've seen any kind of issue that didn't work so that people can use it. It definitely needs some tidying up and improvements, but that's forthcoming, then reviewer will hopefully be the end of the year will kind of see how, how things shake out with the holidays and all that, how much work I'm able to get done, but um I'm optimistic because I want it, I want to use it on other projects, like every time I go work on reviewer, I'm like, I really wish I had this for my other projects where I've just got dumb scripts that just run the same commands in order and you know, it's close, but it's not the same. Um Garrett  you know, I'm really excited about how much I know it's going to help my day to day work flow and I'm hopeful anybody else that's using rubio find those same benefits. Um And hopefully other languages too. I don't know. I haven't really tried, I mean in theory, javascript and a lot of that stuff will work like with the rails app. Um and like er be learning and and what night. Um So hopefully, but I haven't tried anything wholly outside of a ruby project to see if it could be useful there, but it should be, it's just a wrapper around command line, right? Strings. So hopefully Ben  and then next step V. S. Code plug in right where it's all just running all the time Garrett  code, right? Ben  Yeah, maybe that's your thing you sell. I don't know. Garrett  Yeah. You know, I haven't thought about that too much because most of them you can plug in on their own. Uh But then that gets overwhelming when you're trying to edit your file and it's like just yelling at you about everything. Like just let me think first, then yell at me after the fact after I've like figured it out. Yeah, I'm excited about it. It's kind of the most fun I've had programming in a long time. Um So we'll see. Ben  I love it. Well, scratching your niche is always fun and if you can make some money while you're at it. Hey, even funny Garrett  right? Well and so like that's the thing, like just kind of circle back and wrap it up, like part of it is in order for me to really pursue adaptable, I've got to have some kind of automatic income and like with sifter that would've been perfect, you know, it's recurring revenues, Great. And uh so a lot of it too is like, I'm really gonna unlock adaptable potential. I need to not be, you know, have an income tied to hourly rates. It's got to be divorced from how much time I'm actually sitting at my computer and uh so that's kind of been a driver too, but again, more just wandering and figuring it out, hoping it all comes together somehow. Ben  That's, we're all in the same boat. Garrett  Right, Ben  well, we will definitely link up uh the heat map and review and uh definitely get some people check it out if you're ruby ist and we'll link up your twitter so people can follow you and keep track of what you're doing. Uh Thanks again, yeah, hanging out with, Garrett  thanks. Great to catch up Ben  and thanks everybody for listening Again, you've been listening to found request from the founders of honey badger. We're excited to continue to bring you exciting episodes on podcast and a fantastic product, honey badger of course. So check us out on the bed, radio and you know, as star always says, review as if you like and don't review us, if you don't like, have a great one. 

Show notes:Links:Sweaty StartupHook RelaySpider seasonWrite for HoneybadgerAutomated transcript (only about 75% accurate)Ben  So I've been, I've been using Hook Relay over the past week and I got to say, there's nothing as useful as using your own product to make you see places where the product can be improved. So I've, I've opened a couple of issues. Yeah, yeah. And uh, I mean, they're not, they're not major things, but it's like, oh, it would be nice if this was different, would be nice if that was, you know, different. And it's been, it's been good. So I'm, I'm looking forward to having those things done making the product better. And we, uh, you know, we talked about spending some more time, uh, development time on really the other couple next coming weeks and months because I've had some, some customer requests coming in. So Ben  it's always a good feeling like when people are actually using it and saying, oh yeah, I like it, but couldn't do this like, Oh yeah, I could do that. It's fun. I love it. I love being developer and just building stuff. So much fun. Yeah. Josh  Yeah. Looking at our, our dashboard, we've got uh, got a few New year's is coming in. Got some a little bit more revenue than last time I looked at this, so that's cool. Starr  Yeah, that's good stuff. You know, it's the season for it. The, the pacific Northwest summer is long gone and we're just into the dark, wet now. We've gone through a spider season. Yeah, I mean, right, you've got um, yeah, you've got the summer, you've got spider season, you've got dark with it. Josh  Is that from that like list of pacific Northwest Seasons or whatever, that's like . Starr  You can, you can call me out on that. I was hoping to um, I was hoping to plagiarize. Josh  We should, we should put that in the show notes if we can find it though. That's a pretty good one. Starr  Yeah, that's a good one. Josh  I don't remember them all, but Ben  I'm definitely, definitely more productive in the winter time because like, I'm not outside playing, I'm inside hunkering down from the rain, the cold, so I'm like, I might as well do some code. Josh  Yeah, Starr  I mean, personally, I kind of um like I kind of stopped going on my morning walks in the summer because there's too many amateurs out. Yeah. And I started again once the fall comes, once it starts getting dark and drizzly and those are my favorite morning walks. Josh  Nice even in the rain. Starr  Yeah, especially in the rain, get out. Yeah, that's why you have a nice like Gortex raincoats and my scoots. Yeah, it's all about the gear. Yeah, it's uh, I don't know, this is very pleasant. I like it. The, yeah, the summer here, like it's nice, but after a while, the sun just, just starts getting to me. It's just like, I can't escape it. It's just boring into my eyeballs. Ben  It is truly a thing around here when the sun has been out too long has been to many is people do get a little so crazy. Like I need some wet and so the first rainy day comes, you can just feel the relief. It's just, it's just, I don't know how to describe it. It's just a sense of community, like relieved that things are back to normal. There's, there's precipitation again. Starr  Yeah, I came up with a theory and I have no idea how valid the series, so I'm just going to throw it out there because it's unfounded and I'm wondering, so like I realize this, this winter, this, yeah, this fall as I'm going out. It's like, okay, like the reason I, like this is because like everything is more muted, right? And I get over stimulated very easily. So, you know, noise and late and all that just kind of does it to me. Starr  And but when it's like dark and gray, like for like, I don't know, this may just be my, my perception, but like the water vapor like mutes the sound a little bit or something. It's not quite everything. Like all the edges are more round and pleasant, nothing is quite as sharp and stab. E And so yeah, and Seattle Seattle is like the pacific northwest in general. It's just like, it draws in like all the computer nerds, all the, all the people who just like it here and like that kind of environment. So it's like, oh do we all just, you know, we all have like sensory issues. I don't know. Josh  That's why all the tech companies are in Seattle. Yeah, probably. I think I need to get an office still because I think like, I think, I think Ben's right, like I I also would be more productive in the winter, but like working from home in the winter with with uh like Kindergartners is a a different experience than working at home in the dark by yourself. It's a bit of a challenge. So yeah, Starr  when you turn on the lights while you're working, you don't just leave them off. Josh  Yeah, sometimes I leave them off. Oh yeah, Starr  that's because you're a real hacker, I've been doing more marketing stuff lately. So I turn the lights on. I use light mode. Josh  I mean you probably forgot how to touch type, you know, and use them with you shut up, Starr  shut up. Shut up, you shut up. I get to say that. Not you. Josh  So you have to have the lights on. I'm sorry. Starr  Yeah, I don't have one of those keyboard with a blank key caps. Josh  Like truth be told. I've been um doing a lot less programming than I used to as well. And it's, it started to bother me a little bit lately. So I've been trying to find ways to get back into it because I'm like, if I'm gonna like forget how to build a rails app if I don't, if I don't like, you know, do some do some work. Ben  We do have like  items in our backlog for Honey badgers. It's true. She can find something to do. Yeah. Josh  I don't know, it's just weird like having like a legacy rails out for so long um Like even when you are working, like even when you do work in it, it's still like, I don't know, like your, it's, you know, I'm like not utilizing a lot of the knowledge that I built up like, like we we all built up working on client projects, like where you're constantly solving new problems and like building things out. Like a lot of those decisions are already have long been made in a honey badger app. So it's like, yeah, it's, it's weird. It's a little bit different. Ben  That's been nice about having the side project because like starting a new rails app and making new decisions and trying the new things and new toys like hotwire and you know, stimulus reflex, all kind of stuff. Like it's, it's been, it's been fun. But hey, you know, maybe uh you know, talking about client work like, hey, take on some client work, right? It could uh do something completely different and take on Josh  an option for sure. Yeah, I thought that could be fun. Ben  Good old days Josh  build a green field, a green field ap Yeah, Josh  this I mean, I think we're talking about like the problem of like what to do with your time when you're, you're like app is like nine years old and stable and, and you have all this time on your hands and you know, want to still build new things, right? Starr  Yeah, I've got a question like for, I mean, y'all probably don't know because you haven't been freelancing for a while. But to all the freelancers out there, do do people still um do people still higher developers to build like, you know, facebook for x. Like it's like, I just remember working on so many like facebook for so and so um facebook for um nurses, facebook for, you know, whoever and it turned out the facebook for all those groups with facebook, Josh  right? Was that before facebook groups. Starr  I think so. Yeah. Yeah I think so it was. Yeah. It's just weird Josh  because it's like I was our era I mean like for sure like our era freelancing was the facebook for ex Yeah Starr  because like the social media like the social network had just come out that movie about facebook and so I really wanted to be the next facebook by copying facebook for some vertical. Ben  I was just I was thinking back to the are kind of projects that we built you know, talking about the facebook for X stuff and uh I think I was like what was my favorite project and the one that I can remember maybe so I guess it's probably my favorite because when I remember the most and remember the most kindly is the Montessori project that we did. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. Remember started a lot of work on Josh  that project. Still around you know. Ben  Yeah, it's like still making bank. Mhm. It's gonna be like  years older now by now or something. Yeah. That's awesome. I wonder if it's still on rails too. Josh  Yeah Caitlin was doing some shopping for the kids last night and she was looking at Baden kids brand. There are many many Baden and I don't know if that name rings a bell with you Ben but it doesn't because they were one of the they were one of the affiliate shops with today shop flashbacks man. I'm much. Yeah I have all these like I've had all these like kids kids clothing brands like just like programmed into my brain for the last  years now. And now that I actually have kids like they're all resurfacing. So Starr  that's where that was like another that was like another um era which was the um it wasn't the facebook for X. It was the product aggregator. Like we're gonna make we're gonna make a website that aggregates lots of products across you know for different companies and we're just gonna be like an affiliate. We're gonna be really good. S. E. O. Josh  Yeah it was like the um and and that trend was like kind of I mean amazon was definitely around then but it was like I think these days like amazon is now where everything is pretty much aggregated like that. So this was like I don't know it seems like pre pre amazon like at least in their current scale. Starr  Yeah I mean amazon missed out on that. Sweet sweet. A sai Buri affiliate money though. Uh huh. Or it's like you got I don't know what it was like  or  bucks if he was an affiliate could like sign somebody up first. The scam a sai buri like subscription service. Well what it was just affiliates but it was a scan because it was recurring charge and people weren't familiar with getting recurring charges. Yeah so um well you don't Josh  want to boost your health just once. Oh no. And then lose out on all those benefits. So you're really I mean that's like in the that's in the interest of the customer star. Starr  Exactly. One of my friends worked um back then worked at a ah the call center for a bank and like half of her calls or just people like what the hell? Like why am I keep getting charged for this? Josh  Like all of your support requests or start with what the hell you work in a bank. Ben  Yeah. There's a lot of fun things to do when the projects are new and it's all green field. But then, you know, there's also fun things to do when the projects are nine years old. You know, like I was pleasantly surprised on monday morning to find that our database server had failed on sunday morning. You know, it's like, Oh really? That that happened. But our our high availability set up actually worked and the fail over happened and it's just like nothing, nothing happened. I mean these days of course you? Re wild, you would not even set that up, right? You just use already s or you would, you know, there's there's like a gazillion post graze as a service services out there now. But you know, back in my day, you know, we had to push the bits uphill both ways. Right. Mhm. Josh  So yeah. Imagine if the database server failed in like year two. Yeah, back on, back on snickers. Starr  Yeah. Yeah. Well our servers were named after candy bars. Candy bars were Josh  still I love that. We're still on first name first name basis with all of our old servers. Ben  Uh My favorite tricks though, Josh  tricks. Yeah, Starr  I mean it makes sense why that whole hosting platform didn't really work out for us because Trix are for kids been. Ben  I know, I know, but then my kids were young enough then it made sense. Josh  Yeah, these drinks, we should build a we should we should do a client project just for fun. I mean and obviously Starr  obviously right, Ben  your friends but of course is gonna be for money. Yeah. Josh  The great thing about client projects is like you get to build them and then and then you get to like, never see them again. Ben  It's like, it's like, it's like being grandparents right where you can send the kids back to the parents like oh we'll have some fun, will spoil the kid and then send them back to be the parents so you can grow this little rails app and you can have some fun with it and then send it off, you know? And Josh  yeah, yeah. And then you're like, you're like, oh I wonder what happened to deteriorate. Starr  Like a couple of years later, you were like, oh, I wonder what happened to little timmy and see a google him and he's dead. Uh huh. Josh  Yeah. Four little timmy. Mhm. Yeah, there's um I unfortunately I think a lot of my old client projects are in that category, but I think that's just kind of the way it goes. Ben  But you know, I remember the primary struggle that we had the with the ones that didn't, one that weren't reported means I was like, what do we do with it now? Because we like to building new things, but we didn't really like running them, you know, we didn't wanna be on the hook. And so it was like, it's great, you have this new app go enjoy, right? And they're like, yeah, but you know what about something breaks? It's like, oh, well, good luck, you know? Yeah, I Josh  was thinking about that recently, like, like does that still fly? Like what do people do these days? Like, I don't know. Ben  I would like to know Josh  if you have a non technical, like, I don't like, to be honest, um you had a knack for like finding those people that seem to been because like, you find these people that are just like nontechnical. They they just have an idea like, you know, they're like, like Star said, like the whatever facebook facebook for X people, but like, they just have you just build it for them? And then yeah, they would kind of just be like, now I'm I'm like, I'm a tech founder now, Starr  can I tell a funny story about um So I used to live in Tulsa Oklahoma is where I went to college and live there for a little while after and one day I was at like a local coffee shop and there was this guy who actually, I saw a couple times at the coffee shop who just um was chatting up the brief, such adding up everybody around him about this app idea. He had um called the love button, which is just, oh my God, like that, that name, but it's called the Love button. And uh basically it's not, it's not a dating app though, which is like, you know, you're winning when you have to explain that your product name isn't what people think it is originally at first glance, it's not a dating app. It's a uh Starr  it's about like you can put in like what do I love to do? I love carpentry so I can press the love, but you have to press it, it's important. And then it um he didn't say this, but I was sort of imagine like a slot machine type, you know, spinning type thing, like whirling and then it pops up the people nearby you who also love that thing so you can stalk them. Uh huh Ben  uh huh. I was with you right up to that Stockport. Starr  I mean, well, I mean that's I had at that part, but I mean, it's like we've seen what happens to the internet, we've seen having to go, Josh  it just like has their contact information. Like it's a Starr  yeah, it's just, it's like, it's a way for, yeah, it's a way for people to have uncomfortable interactions. So it's like, Ben  it's like chatroulette but in real life, Starr  in real life. Yeah, I'm just sitting there like why the hell would anybody ever consent to that ever? But maybe I wasn't the target market, you know, Ben  mm maybe, maybe not just trying to think. You definitely want to involve a map of nearby welded locations for people to meet up. Josh  Maybe you just don't love anything enough to press the button. Yeah, maybe you like really have to be into something Starr  and then it just shames you. It's like, hey, what's the matter? Josh  I mean like to be fair like craigslist exists and like people, people do like respond to all kinds of things on craigslist and I'm sure are not in well lit locations. So you know, maybe this, maybe this love button app has like a, you know, has like a pivot or something. Starr  Yes, I mean, I don't know, maybe he was going to pivot it to grinder, who knows? Ben  Yeah, Well, you know, another option to just building apps would be buying apps right? We could hang out on micro require and, or flipper or someplace and uh, you know, for these for these developers who built the thing and don't want to run it. You can just buy it and then we can run, Josh  no, I think there's, I think there's probably something there potentially for us because we, we have some of the experience now that maybe they don't, they didn't um, you know the people that someone that just build something to a certain point. So, and we have a marketing engine so we could potentially like acquire something and then plug it in to our existing systems. So that could be fun. Like, you know, I mean like this is like instead of, you know, like, like I got a friend in construction and him and his dad like flip houses, you know, like that's the, the thing they do but are, are flipping houses is like flipping flipping SAs apps I think because you know, that's like our, maybe someday you'll be um flipping saps with your, with your boys. But Ben  mm hmm. Uh huh. We'll have a show on tv about that, you know, let's take it to the next level. Instead of just buying zaps and flipping it. Let's, let's get investors. Let's get some, some, some of the partners up in here and we can use their money to go buy the apps and then we'll run them for a while. Then maybe sell them. Then we can be like those cool kids that are out there like buying all these as apps and doing the investment thing, right? Josh  Yeah, I like it. These are good ideas Starr  are private and private equity firms. The cool kids. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I guess you're right for some value of cool, right? Ben  If you ask the private equity firms, they will say yes, they are the cool kids. Starr  Yeah. Josh  There's a lot of new types of private equity these days. It seems Josh  okay. Yeah. We need to take stuff. Ben  Yeah exactly. Take advantage of this new micro pipeline like you know, tiny seed and calm fund, right? We need to, we need a pipeline like okay, those are the feeding into the pipeline and then we do some magic somewhere along the process, right? And then outcomes bigger companies and we make money somehow. It's kind of funny but I think we can make it happen Starr  if you just took all those platforms up to each other in a circle, you get uh infinite motion machine, right? Oh. Mhm. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger until somebody goes to jail. Josh  I thought you got like an R. Burrows. So I hear you pronounce that the snake eating its own tail. Starr  Yeah. Ben  Or we could go in a completely different direction. I saw a tweet from Patio  this morning where he was uh he was referencing a tweet from sweaty startup and if you don't, if not familiar sweaty startup, you really got to go check that out because that's, that's some cool stuff. Like he hangs out and read it, his cool beans. We'll put some links in the show notes if you can check it out. But somebody started up dude uh he bought like a storage company, self storage company and like applied software to the process because like they were still like, you know, pushing paper around or whatever. It was old school and then really like juice that business and made it pretty cool investment and so Ben  thinking, yeah, we could, we could do that, we could go, we could go old school and get all these old school businesses that are not online and apply our our marketing juice and Josh  tear it up. I'm down to buy like a brick and mortar. Yeah or something. Um Just first of all though, you can't introduce what the startup guy as sweaty startup guy. He's the tomato guy right? Like this is the guy that was like trying to sell like it was like bragging about how he could like whatever like like grow a tomato farm to like a billion dollars. But he Ben  was sweating startup guy before he was tomato guy. Josh  Well because that was, you don't start that was an epic troll. Did you did you catch that at the end? Like it's it's pretty amazing like. Yeah, it turns out that guy really like that. Really not like he knows his shit apparently. And I mean like probably also know like I'm like having like followed him a little bit like seen some of the things he said like I might be inclined to like listen to him on the tomato thing, Josh  Maybe I can make a fortune of tomatoes, you know. Mhm. Ben  Mhm. As long as you don't live in Seattle where it rains nine months out of you. Ben  Yeah, no sweat. He started like I've been following him on Reddit for the longest time and I just love, obviously not every idea is genius, right? But I do love his approach. Like get in there, do the work, do the work that other people aren't willing to do or that people are just haven't really caught on to yet. Like one of his, one of his classic things is like just go start a pressure washing company right? Go knock on your neighbor's doors and see if they want their driveway pressure washed and then and then pressure wash it right? And then you do that and you get some gaming experience and you provide a quality service and lo and behold now you've got a business, right? So I think I just like his his ethos of just go in there, Ben  do the work and try to make it happen as opposed to right, You know. Mhm. Sit back and complain or whatever. You know, it's just kind of like the I just like that I would Josh  I would hire that person by the way um because I could use some pressure washing like the moss around my house is just out of control Ben  really. Again pacific northwest Yeah, Josh  you know that's pretty cool. Um And I like the just the thought of like I mean they're so it feels like there's so many um little I mean there's so many business problems out there that are in the real world that will they need a software solution and um will eventually happen. Um It just like it seems like in order to solve those problems you have to have some sort of like actual like proximity to the problem. So like maybe the way to like get into those problems is just to go out and start doing more stuff in the real world and see where you know like see where the pain points are. Ben  So you're saying if you want to build software for dentist you've got to become a dentist. Josh  Yeah. I don't know like at least like yeah work it in reception or something or have a lot of cavities just go like do stuff for oh yeah, just be a repeat customer for this. Ben  Yeah. Yeah. I just I just love how there's so many ways to make money on the internet. It's amazing. Starr  Yeah but the sai buri opportunities are long gone. That started a long time ago unfortunately. Josh  I think we'll see more. We'll definitely see more internet scams in the future though. So hope is not lost. Ben  You mean like thank goodness. Josh  Oh shots fired. Josh  I like I really want to see just like a like a smart contract. MLM. I mean like I think there might be something out there, but like, I want to see one. I just want to see one succeed, you know? Um Ben  Okay. You have to, you have to be the change that you want to see in the world job. Uh huh. That means you have to do it yourself. Josh  I know. I don't know if I can, I just don't understand that world. Like, I don't know. Like, I'm sure I could go like build, yeah, like comprehend the technology. But I just, I don't know. I'm just not motivated to at all. Like I've kind of tried a little bit, but Ben  yeah. Yeah. I'm still the old guy shaking fist at cloud stage of N. F. T. S. I'm like, I don't get it. Get off my lawn. Yeah. Josh  Well, there will be something there. I'm sure the FTS necessarily just in, in the, in the technology in the future. Ben  But my one of my sons who's really into tech and keeps on top of these things every time I say N. F. T. He's like money laundering. I think that's a really Matic response. It's like, well, okay, I'll trust you Josh  get that kid. A twitter account. Ben  Yeah. That's, that's interesting. Things like my kids not into facebook, not into twitter, you know, there's not Starr  social network for old. Tiktok Ben  absolutely hate Tiktok. Yeah, It's like, it's the opiate of the masses. It's like, well, okay, that's technically. True. Starr  Yeah. I don't know. I really like to talk. It really depends on like, where um like what like you follow and all that. It's, you know, it's just like twitter and that really? Josh  Yeah, yeah, I, I signed up for a Tiktok account recently just to check it out and see like what, where the rabbit holes go and um kind of scared me a little bit, but I mean maybe that's because I was like trying to see how bad it was versus how good it was. So maybe I should do a different experiment where like, I only Starr  like the trick is to take on cat videos or whatever trick is to like follow the things that you like and then you'll get more of those and all the things you don't like, you'll get more of those, Ben  yep. So you said it was scary was more or less scary than kid Youtube. Josh  Uh I haven't really, I don't know like, I mean just the whole idea of Kid Youtube is scary, so it might be just different kind of different things, but just like the algorithm, like the algorithmic bubble that Tic Tac seems to create. Like, I mean, all of these, all of those services have that, but like maybe it's because like the videos are so short and there's so many like strangers that you can end up following or whatever, but it just seems like you could like someone who doesn't understand how that works, could easily end up in some sort of like alternative universe. Uh you know, Yeah, yeah, again, I have Starr  used as um I don't know, it's interesting to me because it's like much more than other, much more than other services. You can really see the algorithm at work. Like be like, okay, you're, you're like testing me to see if I like this um carpentry videos where people take these very expensive, expensive looking hand planes and then like play like take minute lee thin shavings of very expensive looking wood. Um So you watch the whole video, so I'm gonna give you like three more of those. We're gonna see how you do on those. And um and then like sometimes it gives you things that you're just like, nope. So it's like, I just don't want the algorithm just just see that I'm watching this, so I'm just not even gonna try. Josh  Yeah. You have to like, you have to tend to tend your algorithm. Yeah. But in order to do that, you have to understand that that's what you're doing. I think we're in a good position to do that. Yeah, Starr  But also just like the tactic, the tactic, What am I saying? The content on Tiktok? I think it's in my brain, it's I'm just nothing I say is like everything I say is it's going to become some variant of Tiktok um the content I found it's like, I don't know, like, I I and much happier, like looking at Tiktok because it's like you know, I don't know, I guess I'm just looking at happy or content. The Josh  content is so like the whole like the niche aspect of the content, like you said, like the narrowest type of video, like, like a hobby but where people are like, you know like whatever creating very thin strips of wood and there's some sort of like, you know, just like they can feed you very specific types of videos to see like and then you can get into that like specific like subset of like whatever woodworking video. It's not you're not even into woodworking at that point. You just ended this like very like Misha part of it. Starr  Yeah. I don't know. That's well, see I'm sure I'll get bored bored with it eventually. Josh  I don't think you will. Starr  You know, it's ever renewing stream of just Josh  delicious content. I trust trust algorithm, you trust, Starr  I trust in the algorithm to josh to Josh  keep you to keep you engaged. Yeah. Yeah. Starr  Okay um you all have been listening to another episode of founder quest if you want to um review us on apple podcast or whatever it's called these days, go for it. Um You want to write for our blog and we've got to write first page on there at honey badger to I  slash blog um scan for the right for us link, that's your first assignment. Um Until yeah. Until then. Um See you later. 

Show notes:Links:Hook RelaySSL Server TestSecond brand marketing tips Twitter thread XhtmlchopHook Relay Twitter announcementHook Relay blog announcementDerrick Reimer & Corey Haines Product Hunt launch Startup Director List Indie Hackers launch repeatedly Not very accurate auto-generated transcript:Ben - you know, last week I recorded a quick little message talking about why we weren't recording our podcast. That was in the middle of the let's encrypt ssl certificate fiasco that swept across the internet and you know, at the time it really didn't feel like a huge problem. Uh like from our perspective there wasn't much of an impact, but there was some impact, but then later on that day and the next day I was reading some articles and like apparently it was a pretty big deal for a lot of people. So uh yeah, wasn't wasn't just us, it's one Josh - of those things like I could just kept seeing it more and more like just pop up in random places though to like, not, not necessarily in our world, but it was just like affected all kinds of different things. Ben - Yeah, yeah, so shout out to ssL labs for their ssl testing tool to put a link to that in the show notes. Whenever you have a question about your ssl you should check that first because it does tell you when, when things are bad. Josh - Yeah, I hadn't used that tool before and it was very very helpful on customer support. Especially like sending to people and we needed to like prove that we were, we were not at fault like you know, it gave us like a smoking gun that we could. Yeah. Yeah. Really great. Starr - That's always a weird thing to do in customer services and it's like um it's like no, actually like I found the line in the library you mentioned. That's actually the problem. It does everything to do with this. Yeah. Yeah. And then um and then facebook goes down so I'm thinking I'm thinking we are like, like spooky Tober is starting up like things are starting to get witchy. Josh - I kind of like I I was like checked out the day facebook went down so I like missed most of like the fun on whatever online and I guess on what the other social networks that didn't go down, twitter mostly. But yeah, that's kind of wild. The story that I at least what I picked up. Yeah, I'm not on facebook. So Starr - my favorite part is how they house since everything was tied together, they couldn't get access to the building. They have the servers to do the like you know, manual physical reset then you had to do Josh - because of that security. Starr - Yeah. Like that's like I don't know that. It seems like it's out of some sort of movie or something. Yeah. It's just like a comedy. Josh - They like accidentally deleted their private keys to the building or something. Starr - Yeah. Or maybe like in oceans  type movie where um like they like the crew does that like the cruise like well if we mess with their DNS records and they'll be locked out of the hotel for six hours, let's give us time to like airlift the loot out. Josh - Yeah. Or what about like just like mission impossible. But with nerds. Uh huh. You know like trying to break into the building. Starr - I mean that's what we are here at found requests aren't right. Mission impossible with. Starr - Okay. Um So in addition to all that um just terrible stuff happening, there was um some good stuff happened. We had our, you know we have the hook relay, we did a little launch to our user base or honey badger user base. Um Do you wanna talk about that a little bit? Ben - Yeah that was that was the day before the ssl problem. So Josh - that was it. Yeah that's maybe that's why I was like the details. I was like trying to like remember what I did last week or whatever and I was like I could and then I remembered I'm like how did I forget about the hook really launch. But yeah, maybe that's I spent the next day, like on support. Ben - Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, who really was impacted by the ssl thing. And so like, the day after our launch day, we had to deal with the on fire kind of situation. But you know, props to kevin very quickly finding that issue and fixing it. And uh, it's nice to have, you know, the service, uh, deployment that we have, pushing it out was quick. That was that was nice. But yeah, we, we were able Josh - to help some people on twitter because we, uh, we did some crowd sourced troubleshooting and yeah, we're able to share our fix with a few friends. So that was heroes. Hopefully we Starr - were, hopefully we think people like you for everyone. Ben - Yeah, but I think think the launch went well. We had an email out to our, to leveling up mailing list and got a pretty good response right on that. We had put a banner up and on the, on the website and put a banner up on the app. And those had some pretty good click throughs as well. I'm just looking at the stats from Fathom this morning and yeah, it's a good good share of traffic from those sources. So it's nice to see that people care enough to click through and zero working on that was pretty cool. Josh - Yeah, because I think, I think like the, uh, it was, I felt pretty encouraged by just the, you know, the level of engagement that we got from, from everything, like it seems like, I mean the worst that could happen is like you put out the, you know, you put out everything that's just crickets, like, you know, and so yeah, I mean people signed up, we got some sign ups and we started, I mean like we've our support and feature request throughput has increased for sure on like from almost zero to something. So, you know, we got, we got some feature requests coming in, that's that's all good. Starr - Alright. I suppose we should mention what hook really is and why people should be interested in it. Um since, yeah, that's some people might want to know, Ben - are you gonna tell the star what it is? Oh, I, I mean, I'm trying to find out Starr - your, well, uh, I'm on the edge of my Ben - seat over here. Starr - There you go. I don't know. Hook relay is an enterprise level Blockchain analysis tool. It's not love it, look really uh, lets you have um, web hooks that are, you know, as high quality of stripes. Web looks like very high quality, very fully featured and just like a couple of minutes without much code or work. And um yeah, and honey badger. We have a lot of, you know, web hooks that go out and stuff and we use that for all of ours, I think right now for some of them at least. And yeah, so so that's what it is. Ben - Yeah, great for debugging and in the past week I've been doing a little side project that has inbound web books and so uh since I don't have it's launched yet, it's been handling my inbound web books for me and just storing them so I can go back and you play the we play the payloads against my uh my test instance. And uh there's a there's a button in hickory. They that I think I think kevin added, which I'm totally in love with now it's the copy as curl button. And so I can just click that button and dropping my terminal and boom, now I have a curl payload that I can send to my my dove, you know, server great. Starr - So you can be so so the the thing you're working on the like you can just like go do other things and will collect your inbound web hooks like just like your Jeffrey Bezos or something like you could be on the beach um doing whatever you want and then just um yeah, then just copy the curl Ben - you got it. Yeah. And then and then even better once I do launch, I would just add my production U. R. L. As the hook relay in point and then we'll actually start delivering them. So I want to change anything with that web provider that's sitting in the stuff right? Josh - Doesn't have as replay to right, Like if you if you have a bunch, can we do we do that add or? Yeah there Ben - is a re send button so you can okay you can send it again. Josh - So like for local development you could also like pointed out like an end rock like to your local host or something and replacing my books or something if you wanted to do if you wanted to do it in real time. Right? Yeah, Starr - that's cool. Yeah, pretty heavy. Josh - Maybe we should make like a like a hook relay native End Rock. They just like, you know, you can spin up your hook directly to your local host or something. That would be kind of cool. Ben - I had the same thought this morning. Yeah like stripe provides you a cli tool that will listen to their web hooks and then relate it to your local instance while you're developing. I'm like oh yeah, we should have the same thing really. So they can just listen to your endpoint and suck it down and replay it for you with it on the feature list. Josh - Yeah I do. Starr - I mean what's there? There is a danger here though that like if you make it too easy for people like they might not feel like they're being productive or like they really bring much value. Like if you make it also turnkey for developers and so easy. Like the developer just might be like what what am I even here for What's my job? Josh - You wouldn't feel like a hacker anymore. Starr - No, no, like that's something we've got to watch out for as we move forward boldly. Josh - Well how do you like write some like assembly code for a capture or something? Mhm. Josh - So yeah, we got a lot of the ideas for the uh hook relay uh launched a honey badger customers through a tweet that I had sent out a few weeks before just asking like like what's the best way to um launch for, you know, for what company with one product to launch another product and let their existing customers. No, and ah asking twitter is always, I mean it's usually helpful at least in our indie hacker space, everyone's always got ideas so we got a lot of good ideas from people there um including I think one of, one of the ideas was like depending how far along we are, like, you know, do you make a separate brand or like how do you like, like how does it change the, like the parent company, you know, if you're moving from, Josh - You know, a one product company to multiple products. That's all, that's all interesting. We opted just, you know, we're kind of like honey badger is the company and then it's hook relay by honey badger, I think it's kind of our our approach there but there's a lot of different ways you can do it. Ben - Yeah the one the one snag on that has been the other day. I was poking around in stripe and I was looking at the email setting options. They have, you can, you know, have stripes and emails when a payment fails for example and then it points them back to a payment collection page. I was like, yeah, we should have that, it's like click the button to turn it on and I preview the email and the, it's based on the business name. So uh it says oh honey badger industries LLC, you know, payment page or whatever. And I was like, well people who are hungry customers aren't really going to recognize that name necessarily. Uh so I Ben - can't have that. And so I went dug around the stripe settings and it's like, well you can't really do anything but the actual business name on that particular page, even though on the end of stripe settings you can set the credit card like, you know, that shows up on the actual payment thing, you can change that and uh so that's set in our case to hook dot gov but you can't change the the email header from to be something different from the business name and well we haven't registered cookery they as a business name because it's like yeah, it's just a, it's just a product, right? So I didn't feel comfortable changing that in stripe because like, well it's really not our business name so I think what can you Josh - do like a D. B. A. Or something? Yeah. Ben - Yeah that's what I thought it's like, well I guess perhaps it's time to register that? D be a for every day so I can actually change the business name and blah blah. Josh - Yeah. It's kind of exciting though, like all the all these, you know, new problems come up, but it's because we have this new product that has to become more official. So um we're like we were also talking about like like now that we actually have some people using it, we're gonna need a way to like notify them of changes to the product or improvements or you know, all the all the little infrastructure things that we have for honey badger that we haven't quite gotten around to yet on hook relay. Mm Ben - Yeah, these are nice, nice things to deal with as opposed to like crickets. Josh - Yeah. Ben - So glad that somebody showed up to actually use the app. Nice. Josh - So next up for hook relay is this quarter, we've decided to do some uh spend some additional time on product development and implement some of those feature requests. I think that should be uh should be a good time. Ben - Yeah, I think I think we have a backlog of like  or so items and in good health, so I think we have plenty of stuff that we could keep us busy for the next few months on a greeting. It's cool. Starr - Yeah and you were talking about taking a, um, and sort of multi lunch approach, right? We just got out of always been watching. Yeah, always be launching. So we're going to just have from now on every episode of this podcast, we're just gonna launch really, I'm gonna make people explain what it is. Uh, Josh - next week is show hacker news. Starr - Yeah. Yeah. So I guess at some point like you have to just call these things campaigns and instead of launches, but it feels very dynamic to call them launches. Josh - Yeah. Well you got to call him a launch. Like for the sake of the whatever platform you're your campaign is speaking to because you know, you got to make them feel special first. It's the launch for them. It's, you know, it's, it's for them. It's, it's a, you know, it's the first launch ever. I've never heard of us before, I'm sure. Starr - Oh, that makes sense. It's like you're launching the campaign, Josh - right? Yes, you're launching the campaign. So I think we'll probably be doing, I will do a show H N. And we'll do a, we'll probably do something with indie hackers at some point. I imagine. Um, there's a list, I, I saw a list somewhere, I'll take it if I can find it, but just a list of like all those little, like all those, like a big list of platforms basically like that that you can, you know, forearms basically. But Ben - yeah, you know, we should go, we should go old school and we should do regional launches. Like I used to work for a company where it was very much local and so like every, every few months would be a new city. We're gonna send the crew, we're gonna set up stuff and we're gonna launch in this city. So we should totally do that. Like we should start and of course here in the Seattle area and then branch out to California and then you move across the country and you're saying Josh - we're gonna do a national tour. Starr - Does that mean you like, can we get a bus, you lock access based on geo location? A very p Ben - it's like, yeah, sorry, we're not in your area yet. Please check Josh - back. Mhm. Ben - Please sign up to be notified when we're in your area. Starr - Nice. Josh - Well if we do regional launches, we might have to have regional managers. Oh, you know, I gotta think about your chart. Mhm. Josh - Yeah. So I think like the launch, you know, there's a lot of small places you can kind of launch to. Um, I think the big one that is on our um, on our radar is product cut. But I think we're quite, you know, based on the advice, we've heard about doing an effective like initial product launch. It sounds like maybe it would be better to polish polish the product hops and feedback feedback about it. Maybe like be a little bit more established or something. Um it just seems like the, the products lately that have been really had really successful product launches have been, have had like um they put were like a lot of work into the actual like launch campaign Josh - before products like had a video and some of them almost seem like Kickstarter quality type campaigns or something, I don't know how over the top we're going to go, but I think that the current plan is to uh you know, kind of do some of the smaller things and implement some feedback and start to, you know, we might we're planning on doing like a redesign of the website eventually um with what we learn, so um then you have a designer in progress I think Ben - Yeah, three years. Yeah, yeah, first I guess it's the first time we've had an external designer working on one of our products, so we have a we have Josh - someone do, we had someone do the honey badger website at one point started, I think you did yeah, yeah, way back, I thought that was all star Starr - um now I built it, I built the html but I built it based off of uh like pds or something. Ben - Yeah, well this time it's being built so it's even more hands off, that's nice uh someone reached out to me on twitter and uh we mentioned a few episodes ago that we were getting this design done and I didn't know at the time what kind of built was option we had, whether it's going to be a tailwind, which is what our new hotness these days that we love or is going to be something else and it's going to be something else going to bootstrap, but even bootstraps as long as as long as we can modify it, that's that's my thing. Like, I remember back and way, way back in the day before a bootstrap when we were doing, you know, freelancing for people, we would get those designs from the designers and it would be a PSD Ben - right? And then I had no, no way to really deal with that. And so I would send it off to this chop chop shot. Yeah. X. Html shop I think was the name of the business, I think they're still around even and and they would they would take the PSD and convert it into html and CSS, which was, you know, of questionable quality I guess. I mean it worked, but it's like, oh, it's ugly, like just like I don't ever want to touch that and uh and being able to actually have like a designer give you html CSS and it's actually going to be, you know, structured like in the same way because it's based on a framework like Duceppe like that's that's awesome. That's much as Josh - an alternate, like tabs and spaces. Mhm Ben - Yeah, the good old days Starr - they just wanted to keep you on your toes josh. Josh - I remember, yeah, I used to do why I didn't do, I wasn't a chop shop, but I used to, you know, implement my own Photoshop, um, yeah, designs and html and stuff and yeah, that was, that was fun. Like getting all the pixel dimensions and the, you know, in your overall Photoshop layout, piecing it all together. Kind of like, it's kind of like a puzzle. Like you're putting a puzzle together. Starr - Yeah. I mean they called it a chop shop because like it was, they made a lot of, they made big use of the slice tool in Photoshop. Josh - Yeah. Starr - Where you basically, you basically went in and you know, you couldn't do CSS borders or drop shadows or anything like that. I mean, I guess you could do borders but not like nice. They didn't have rounded corners. They didn't drop shadows, anything like that. And so, um, you basically had to go and like tell Photoshop like, okay, like, like you could you tell it to split up the image in these parts and then like, you know, leave make this middle sort of a place for you to put some html so you can put stuff in the middle of your box and then, I don't know, it was just, it was not the best and so a lot of that bad. Html and CSS was, I mean, I imagine a lot of it was auto generated. Yeah. Josh - Yeah. Yeah. There were even some, some tools just to like that, you know, you kind of like dry your borders and stuff and fill out, I don't know, like fill out some stuff in the app and then it just like generates the html page for you. And that was always like the worst, like the absolute worst thing you could go with. But you know, it, I guess the people's standards weren't as high in those days either. So you could get away with a lot, Starr - I guess not. Josh - But yeah, we'll, uh, we'll get to product hunt eventually. And uh, yeah, I guess if if you as a listener have a tip for us on how to get a good product launch, go and let us know. Um, and also we will hopefully involve, um, we're gonna want to like bring in our networks to this, I think eventually. So, uh, yeah, I hope that all of our listeners will, um, will help us when the time comes to, uh, to have a good product launch with lots of up votes and, you know, telling your friends and whatnot. Ben - And, and maybe we could even get one of our listeners who might be interested in a half a particular talent for doing a product promotion. Like we could even just hand out to someone and say, hey, go go do that for us. Josh - Yeah, that would be, that would be nice too. Because then we wouldn't have to do it ourselves. Yeah, like a product consultant. Ben - Exactly, there's gotta be some out there, I mean product has been around long enough now, there's got to be specialists. Right? Josh - Yeah. Well isn't that kind of uh Cory Haynes helped derek with for the cow? Right. Yeah. Yeah, Ben - I'm sure Corey is really busy, so if someone wants to be like Corey do that for us, that would be totally awesome. Josh - We just need a we just need a guru. Ben - I was surprised on the day I signed up for the uh product hunt rss feed, I put that in my news reader and I was I mean I've seen you know probably things on twitter from time to time and I click through and I look at stuff but I never really followed closely, I was surprised how many launches there are products on every day, There's a lot there, so I think you really got to stand out in some way to be able to mix them, get some head space because there's just a lot of competition for things on the products on, Josh - I gotta say like just the Indy hacker space, like not indie hackers dot com but like just the overall in the hacker community is just like wild lately, like I don't know about you but I feel like a total just like dinosaur. Um Like I feel like I've like like I'm becoming out of touch so I need to like I need to I probably need to pay a little more attention to like, you know what the what the new uh what the latest is? Starr - I think it's inevitable that you get out of touch, right? I mean that's that's why Josh - Yeah, but like people I don't I don't think there yet, like I don't I don't want to be there yet, I'm not ready for it start. Josh - Uh huh Ben - Yeah geriatric highly valued developers there we are Josh - now we're we're you know, we're getting back out there. We did our we did our Emma or any hackers Emma. Starr - Uh that's right Josh - yeah, we'll have to do it, we'll have to do some Amas for uh for relay to like all that sort of stuff. I just like that. I love that. Like it just think it seems like the ecosystem is just much, it's so much more developed than when we launched honey badger. There's so many more places to go, especially if you have a tool that appeals to like the, you know, developer, you know, I guess just developers and yeah Ben - and it feels like there's so many people in the community now who are, you know, identify in that group. Uh you know like there were three micro conferences in the past three weeks or four weeks right? There was to locals and then one in europe. So Uh that's just one indicator that there are a lot of people out there like us, you know definitely more than there were  years ago who are enjoying this life of building things and sell them to people. It's nice Josh - love. It's awesome. We should talk about um the Q one  marketing campaign that we have in the works for Hook really? Because I thought that was an interesting idea. The I guess I'll just say it the the idea, I think this was been your idea uh to basically we want we want to like try some marketing like you know, putting some dollars behind Hook really and see if we can actually generate some, you know new customers that way. And um we already have like a marketing budget and um like a bunch of you know ongoing relationships and campaigns and stuff that we run for honey badger. So the idea was to basically just like have a swap. Josh - Not I think we're gonna go with a quarter, not a month, like just basically try swapping out some of our advertisements for honey badger which are typically like um more like just kind of general awareness brand style. I'm like, you know, keep us top of mind sort of advertisements. Um you know like we do a lot of podcast ads and that sort of thing, newsletter sponsorships. So swap them out for a little while and just replace them with hook relay and uh you know, see how that goes um at this, you know, I guess a side benefit of that approach is that we we get to see what happens when we stop putting money into the honey badger advertising, which is always, I mean like that's a good experiment in its own like, Josh - you know, so I'm interested to see how that how that turns out both on both sides. Like you know, do we, do we lose any momentum with honey badger? Do we gain a lot of, you know, how much momentum do we gain with hook? Really? Ben - It feels like kind of like the pricing experiments that you're always nervous about doing because you don't know if you're going to like royally hose your business, you know, you won't and in our case you don't know for a while you have to let it play for a few months before you find out. Right. And so uh yeah, so switching the marketing like that feels like one of those experiments like well this could be really bad or it could be like there's no impact. And so it's like, oh well then maybe it's we re evaluate how we spend our marketing dollars for honey badger at that point, you know? So yeah, I'm pretty exciting, nervous and excited about trying that. Experiment Josh - my prediction. I'll make a prediction is that I don't I don't really think it's I don't I don't imagine it's going to uh have a huge impact on honey badger, like conversions and sign ups and all that at least not if we do, if we do like a quarter, I would all kind of be surprised if we see any difference if we, you know, as long as we resume at some point. Um Just because like a lot of our advertising and we just we really don't have like clear, you know, like clear objectives necessarily. It's more just like brand advertising. Like and we see we do see a lot of sign ups like Josh - of people coming to us because they heard us heard about us on a podcast, or they saw us in a newsletter, but it's not like click click through, it's not like a like pay per click or something or like click through this and you're gonna convert and we're going to track that. So I think like the it would be bad if we stopped advertising entirely for like a year or two because people forget about you. Like I think that's why we do advertising for the most part at this point, it's just like so people remember that we're here. Um and so that's my prediction is that I don't think we'll see a huge impact on honey badger. Um but I think that because no one knows about hook relay, it could potentially have a big impact for hook relay Starr - uh side now. Um you know, just all of it, all of our listeners, you all should really um you know, enable tracking on your browser's disable your ad blocks and that will make life a lot easier for us because we will be able to um, you know, track funnels a lot easier. So Josh - we can do, we can do marketing, do real marketing on the internet. Um we are using uh, we're using fathom on hook relay and they're like the privacy, whatever privacy first um analytics tool that a lot of people use these days and they're also indie hackers and I don't know, maybe twitter friends for some of us, but they're pretty cool. And uh, they have a feature that um, you can set up like a custom, like domain that like hosts, they're tracking scripts like, because it's all like GDR and like privacy compliant like by default. But even so like if they're added to like a ad blocker, you know, like tracking prevention thing, um you can't host on your own domain so that, you know, it's, it's, you're guaranteed to have accurate accurate results Ben - except for those people who are still using links as their browser, Josh - right? If they're using or Yeah, they're like if they're browsing from their terminal that or if they have javascript disabled. Um Yeah. You know, I mean, I guess if you're, if your audience, your Starr - richard Stallman, if your Josh - if your audience is Lennox, it's like arch Linux users, you're, you're kind of out a lot. Like no matter no matter what. Ben - Just, just put ads on on slash dot and call it a day. Yeah Starr - slash hot. That's that's a tragedy in that they really went downhill. Ben - They're still around though. Like one of the cockroaches of the internet last time is still there. I don't know. I haven't looked at it for years, but you know, but back when I was posting my code to source forge, I was reading slash out everyday Josh - source forage Starr - source for it for ages Josh - still there, isn't it? It's Starr - really hard to use. Ben - It's probably still there. I don't even know. Yeah. Josh - And that was two cows Ben - subversion instead of get we're just this this is the way back episode. We're going back to P. S. D. S. And S. V. N. And slash talk. Josh - Every episode is kind of the way back episode. I mean, yeah, we're way back founders. So Ben - I mean our our company name is now a vintage meme. So it's gotta be a way back. Yeah. Josh - All right, okay. I just got like we had a marketing meeting earlier and Ben Finley, our marketing manager was like looking at R. S. E. O. Performance. He's like, Like we we could improve our website if we if we like if we optimize the three MB Jeff on the home page. I'm like wait we have like a three, we have like a chip on the home page and I remembered I had like this easter egg that if you click like the resolve button in the, in like the screenshot of our, of honey badger on honey badger. Yo it well you can go and do it and you can see what happens. Um We'll make sure we leave it in even if we optimize it. But yeah, that's how we roll is like, we just like kill our search engine optimization. Because Josh - we had to have uh like, yeah, for the walls, we had to have this easter egg. Starr - That's awesome. Ben - Uh The the main thing reminded me that I have an interview being published tomorrow. I believe in Saas Mag at a link that in the show notes but had a great chat. Uh And it was funny because I was like, we were talking about humor and that's like one of our core values of the honey badger our business. And I was like, well, yeah, because like, I mean, we named our company after me, right? So like, you got to have fun in that kind of business, right? Josh - For sure. We should, we should like send out a leveling up email that just is designed to rick roll our customers. I don't know if they'd appreciate that. Starr - We should rename hook related berries and cream. Josh - Uh huh. Yeah, that's a that's creative. You can do that. I mean hook really is kind of like, very like business business formal descriptive. So we could, we could definitely get weirder Ben - for sure. Yeah, that was, that was not one of my more creative days when I picked that name. Josh - I mean the other, you know the upside is that it actually tells people what it does. It's instead of, it is not just named after a, after an animal joke on the internet. Ben - Yeah. Josh - Yeah. Um also it has a proper casing. Ben - Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's you know, one of the things that's funny, I have this I now for whenever we write anything, like we're doing any kind of copy or a blog post or whatever and if we ever reference get hub without the capital agent. And I always catch it now because because of how many people miss capitalized honey badger, like so I knowing how much that like I catch that. I was like, I bet they get how people really appreciate what people actually capitalize their name properly. So yeah, it's like six out to me all the time. Starr - Just for the listeners. The proper capitalization is one capital at the front because it's one word. It's not two words Ben - and go, Josh - yep. For honey badger. Starr - Yeah, yeah, sorry, not get up Josh - as uh two capital letters to capitals. Get lab. But I also now notice the companies that are like us where they have just, they have opted for the lower case in the second word as well. There's a few of those out there. I'm not remembering them off the top of my head, but they always stick out. I mean, I usually remember those now too if I'm familiar with them or I I know that I need to go check and I always go and like check when I'm writing their name at least usually. Starr - And then if you just want to, oh I'm sorry. And then just like if you just want to like just set the world on fire, you can be stripe and have your logo, your name of the logo, low, all lower case. But then in your body text capitalize it. Like they just want to watch the world burn. Uh huh. Ben - Oh, Ben - they're probably trying to punk the new york times editors, you know? Starr - Yeah, probably. Starr - Well, um we're getting a little quiet. Are we reaching the end? Ben - I think we are Josh - depends how far you want to go because I mean like we've got a whole list of topics here, but we are already into this episode of ways. And uh I think like this has been a pretty good episode, you know, it's it's for once. We've actually like managed to stay on topic for the most part. Like this has been mostly a hook really episode. So I think we should probably quit while we're ahead. All right now. And you better you better wrap this up quick start because I'm like, I'm ready to like Starr - dive in the rest of this. So you're about to explain this episode of founder class has been brought to you by hook relay a striped quality web hooks in minutes. That's awesome. Thank you. Uh, if you want to give us a review on Apple podcast, whatever they call it now, I don't know itunes, music to itunes. Um, please do that. If you want to. If you're just in writing for our blog, we are, you know, currently looking for um, ruby python, PHP writers. Um, go to our blog, honey badger to I.  slash blog and look for the request page. And yeah. All right. So I will talk to you guys next week. 

Show notes:Links:Umm...here's a picture of a Honeybadger sleeping on our 404 page. He's definitely sleeping.Transcription:*Note, transcription is paraphrased with 1.3% accuracyBen "Expired certificates, yada yada yada, internet broke...no episode. Bada-boom-bada-bing, have a good weekend."

Show notes:Links:Felix LivniSchedulistaTranscript:*This is an unedited, automated transcript, with only about 80% accuracy*BenAll right, so, uh welcome the founder quest today, you have me, Ben, because Star and josh are taking the day off and we have Felix of me who is with us or with me chatting about uh founder related stuff. It's just one of our uh, intermittent founder interview kind of episodes where we're just going to have a great chat, talk about some stuff, so welcome Felix. Thanks. So, Felix was telling you tell me right before we got started about the differences of having an actual conversation versus a podcast conversation and you had a great great tip about email. So, if you don't mind, could you like, hit me with that again? Because I thought that's pretty cool. Felix  Yeah, what I've noticed is if I write an email knowing that a lot of people are going to read this email, maybe it's an onboarding email that's going to be sent out to uh you know, many, many people, I don't seem to be able to write it in the same way as the emails I write to just that one person and I often feel that if I could just if I was just trying to sell to one person, I could probably do a pretty good job and I think the better attitude for me has always been to then trying to do that and then try and automate that and it turns out very differently than when I'm trying to to do the thing that is going to be automated right away. Ben  So yeah, I like that, I've had the same kind of experience where it's like, well you spend a lot of time crafting, crafting, crafting and then it feels crafted right? It doesn't, it doesn't feel like a real email. So do you like uh Try to like email individuals for like  times  times first and before you get the final copy that you want to send everybody? Felix  Yeah, exactly. And I think really not thinking about tools at all is really the right way to go about it um where all you try and do is think what is the best thing for this one customer and you do that for a couple of different customers and then you look for patterns and I would say when you do it a lot and this is the advantage you have with podcast is once you do it a lot, you kind of see some patterns as well, some sort of meta patterns of like how, how do the things that sound unnatural look versus the things that sound natural and I'll just tell you one that I've noticed, I don't know if this is something you've noticed, but when I write an email to a single person, it usually has one sentence in it, maybe two. Felix  Uh but when I write something that I think is, let's say, an onboarding email of some sort uh it's not gonna be that short. Uh so that's definitely a pattern I've noticed. I think we we noticed that as consumers or business owners, when we see inbound email, we automatically filter emails that have just one sentence very differently than we filter ones that are multiple paragraphs. Ben  Yeah, I never really noticed that. That's true. Yeah, because most of my personal emails are just like a couple of sentences, man, I was thinking back to the initial like set of onboarding or just stock emails that we had for honey badger, like, you know, you're building has failed or thanks for being a subscriber or whatever. And I was thinking back and like I wrote them and they're all like one or two sentences. I'm like, yeah, that's that's true. It's like versus this big long book, right? Yeah, Felix  yeah. In general, I think I'm a big fan of looking at software, automating things that people already do. I think sometimes that's the best software and as opposed to sort of rethinking everything, because I think a lot of the time when you rethink everything, most things people can do just less maybe less quickly than it would be if it were automated. And so I think when you rethink everything a lot of the time, it doesn't fit as well as it seems like it might have back in the lab. Ben  Yeah, true, we'll get back to that. I want to talk more about that, but I want to uh introduce you more fully since everyone might be thinking, hey we just dropped to the middle of conversations like yeah, you did just kind of jump in both conversation because Felix and I are old friends, we've been uh we've been hanging out and chatting about business for years now uh and Felix is an entrepreneur who is running a business called Schedule Ista, So Felix want to give us a quick rundown of what schedule list is. Felix  Yeah, well before Schedule East it was scheduled to, it was sort of an idea of, hey I want to start a company that is a B two B sas company. And one of the very first conversations I had about that Was with Ben, I don't know if you remember, I was looking back through my email  Ben  yeah, Felix  our mutual friend paul introduced us and the topic of conversation was marketing and BtB Sas um something admittedly I still struggle with, I kind of had it on in my mind is oh this is something I'm going to be bad at and I don't know how to get customers. Um maybe maybe I need to reach out and figure out how that happens. Um and I don't, I don't know if this is okay to bring up here, but I'm curious to know, I mean, tell me if my characterization of our conversation is correct, but that conversation way back then I think you were pretty pessimistic and or at least I think as a friend you were looking or as a new friend, you were looking out for me and you were saying kind of don't do this crazy thing. Um Felix  Was that the advice you gave me and then if you were to meet someone like me today, would you, would you give different advice? Ben  Yeah, my my memory of that conversation was not that I wanted you to not do it, but it was like, I I saw some concerns, some red flags and I wanted to save you some pain just in case you hadn't, you know, like considered like, because as I recall trying to, you know, rewind back to  years ago, what that conversation was like, you're sitting across table from me and you're saying I want to build this business that's gonna require a lot of sales effort because I'm gonna be selling to some people that, you know, I can't really reach well online and here I was thinking, okay, so Felix is going to be like walking down the street, knocking on doors, trying to get people to buy his says and I'm like, Ben  okay, sure, but are you sure you want to sign up for that? That's kind of but I remember is that is that kind of Felix  remember, I think that's accurate and that's basically exactly what I did. And we even did some, some things like send out postcards. I might have mentioned that as an idea that I've had, I said, you know, I think uh well used to do that kind of thing and then it fell out of fashion, maybe there's maybe there's some wisdom there and I think um you realized how crazy I really was and how little I knew and there was nothing but love I felt coming from you, which made it even like harder to hear, I think. Felix  Um so I believed you and the irony too is I think I would probably, so I don't you didn't tell me yet how your answer would change, but I would I tell people, I meet people all the time who say they want to start a bootstrapped company and my first inclination sort of out of love is to say, you know, that can be tough, it can be uh you know, I've seen lots of them fail. And is this are you sure this is something that you want to do? Yeah, Ben  I'm totally with you on that. And uh funny, the funny thing is like, the postcard thing is stuck with me for  years, like I still want to do a postcard mailing thing myself and I just never got around to doing it. Felix  So we we did it um and it worked. It worked and then we never did it again. Uh I would say there's a pattern, everything that we have done has sparked actually just not that well. And I actually, this is one of the ways that I think about marketing is uh in a sense, it's stochastic or at least one way to view it is stochastic. So if you make a cold call, there's some chance that that the person on the other end is going to buy what you're selling, even if it's even if most people don't want it. Um Felix  but it may not pencil, right? You may have to make so many calls that it just doesn't pencil. So in a sense everything works. The question is just how well does it work? And what we've found is almost everything does better than break even, but not by much and uh, you know, for probably for a variety of reasons, but we sent out, I think it was  postcards. We scraped yelp. We looked at businesses that had five stars. They were only massage therapists. Uh and they were only in I think three cities and we sent, we didn't license the photography very right. All really. So I would, I would probably, it's hard to find Felix  good photographs of you can license, but anyway, the photograph we sent out was this awesome black and white photograph that just looks so hardcore has joseph Pilates on it. So the guy who founded Pilates and he's in this weird machine that he built at home and it's so gritty and it would really resonate with the people that we were sending it to and so we sent out these  postcards and we got one customer Felix  that we knew of. The only way we would know about it is because if they were to type this long you're well that was on the postcard. If they just went to our site we would have no way to track it. So we have one. We got one customer, they're one of our biggest customers, we still have them today and it cost us  bucks to send those  postcards and get them printed and post digital that and yeah we you know had penciled I don't know if that proves anything but and I have had another conversation you know about a year after we sent the postcard. I talked to someone on the phone that was in Malta and this person Felix  friend had sent them someone we've never heard of had actually emailed them a photograph of this postcard because she loved it so much and she had had it on her wall and she decided to give us a call. So I know that it had some you know impact and yeah there's been a lot of things like we've done like that that it's that we just never really try to scale but it does seem like it's got a lot of problems. Ben  I love that. I wanted to answer your question. Uh, yeah. I think my answer today would be pretty much the same because it was like you said motivated from this place of love. Like hey, I just want to make sure, you know what you're getting into. Like sounds cool. But you know, and I love talking to entrepreneurs who have ideas and they want to run it by me and I always try to look for, you know, look for the good. Like, hey, yeah, that could really work. And also like bring some realism to the things like, hey, have you, have you thought about this because it might be something you want to watch out for, you know, Ben  but it's never, I never want to say that out of like, oh, I shouldn't do that because like I don't know right? It's not my business. But uh, hopefully that's, that's taken well. Like, like, like you took it well. Apparently Felix  I took it well. And I think the reason I didn't listen to you and I think it's the right reason was not because I thought you were wrong. It wasn't rational. I actually think there isn't a great rational reason to do these kinds of businesses a lot of the time. Um, just because I think we live in the world of tech, uh, it's pretty nice to go and work at a big tech company. It's extremely comfortable you get financially compensated great. I think what a lot of people overlook is the marginal value of any additional money that you might make is essentially zero. So doing financially better is just sort of not even interesting. So it has to be something that has to do with meaning in your own life. And Felix  it's the kind of thing when you add up all the negative reasons to not do it, that you're gonna do it anyway. So I feel, I feel like that's another reason that I tell people, I don't tell them don't do it, but I essentially say, uh, you know, a bunch of things that are going to be really tough and I hope that they'll ignore me because I know that if they ignore me, they'll be doing it for all the right reasons, in a sense, at least in my opinion. Ben  Yeah, totally. Uh, it's, it's so much, uh, I don't know if passion is the right word, but there's definitely passion in it. That's probably not all inclusive, but the, the idea that, um, once you hit a certain baseline of, of money in your life, like you're fine, like what's where's the fulfillment gonna come from? It's probably not going to come from other more money, it's probably gonna come from doing something that you really want to do. For whatever reason, maybe Ben  like me, you're very independent minded and you don't like having a boss, right? Or you just, you see this need in the world and you can't let it go or it doesn't let go of you. Like when an idea keeps hitting me and hitting me and I know I'm like, oh, that's probably something I should spend some time thinking about. You know, I think this, this, this kind of selection process, not everyone is born to be an entrepreneur, but when, when you get that bug, it's kind of hard to shake it loose. Felix  Absolutely all of those things you said resonate with me, I might add as well, being able to choose the people that you work with really carefully and also protect people. I think this this this makes sense. The kind of technology that you work with, it's no small thing to be able to say, I want to work on this cool new tech, just because I think it's cool. Which you seldom get to do that at a big company. Ben  Yeah. Being all that self determination is huge for sure. So you picked a business so schedule, it's, it is a, is a scheduling widget that sits on websites that, you know, hair stylist or massage person can use to help, you know, schedule appointments online for their customers. How did you decide that was the thing you wanted to do? Because when you came to me, those  years ago, like you pretty much already decided, I think you had some other ideas, but this was like at the top of the list for you, Felix  how did Ben  you get to that point where you're like, that's that's the thing I want to do. Felix  Yeah. So uh I knew I knew a couple of things and I started this company with a friend of mine, Lowell manners, we were best friends, we work together. And so really everything I say here, we decided together, uh we saw the world pretty similarly, but we also built a lot of our theories about what kind of business we wanted to start. We built that together. Um and what we knew initially, I kind of was trying to remember exactly when you and I have that conversation and where in the timeline, I didn't know yet that we were going to do scheduling, but that's that's a good point that we had probably already decided that by then yeah, I knew that we wanted to do BB rather than a consumer product. I knew what we wanted it to be software and we wanted it to Felix  be a bootstrapped company right from right from the initial uh, starting point. We knew that we wanted it to be bootstrapped. So we were we were intentionally bootstrapped. And so one of the core things we try to do is think about what is a bootstrap company, what makes a bootstrap company successful? How is it different from some other kind of company? And we came up with a a theory about her and the theory, I think is contrarian, But I also think that there's a lot of truth to it. So the theory was almost everything that is good about a venture backed company is the, if you take the opposite of that, it's good for a bootstrap company. So Felix  I'll give you some example. I'm trying to find our original, I have my, because I was doing a little bit of research for this chat, I found our original slide that we made for ourselves and what we thought was good for VC backed companies was that there was a strong network effect, uh, that they had an idea that there was kind of a winner takes all when, when there was a product that there could be a winner takes all. That would be good. It would allow you to create a moat. Uh, and this would typically be in the form of a new idea because if there was an old idea that had a network effect, there was probably, there was too big of a mode to enter that Felix  or it was, you could be a second mover, but you had something in your formula where you'd be able to kill the competition. So there's a, there's, there's this first mover benefit or the ability to kill the competition and then a lot of the time investors will ask how many competitors you have and they'll get worried if there's lots of competitors. So what we thought was good for bootstrap company was that they would be low network effects, that there'd be lots of winners, that there'd be no moat. That it was an old idea that was proven to work, that there were many late movers that did very well and that there were lots of competitors. Felix  So if you pitch that to an investor, uh, you know, they'll, they'll, they'll be like, okay, you, you, you, you hit everything wrong here. Um, so we, we, that was, that was one of our sort of initial ideas and then we created a fitness function to evaluate a couple of things and I'm trying to remember what they were, but it was essentially how big of a network effect does this have. We were looking for a company that was for a product that was established, but not super mature. So it was right at that point where there were examples and we were specifically looking for examples of other boots trappers because we thought that other successful bootstrap, because we thought that that would be a good sign that we could do it too. So we were like opening up a coffee shop in Seattle Felix  versus opening up a coffee shop where they've never tasted coffee. Those are very, very different. And there's difficulties for both. But at least when you open up a coffee shop in Seattle, you know, hey, there's gonna be people that are gonna enjoy coffee and you can look around and you can try and see what things work and etcetera. So that was kind of, you know, because we were bootstrapped and self funded, we thought that seems a lot less risky and that seems like an environment that we kind of have believed in. We like the idea that there could be lots of coffee shops and that they were in competition with each other, but not in a way that an independent coffee shop sort of desires that no other coffee shop exists. Ben  Yeah, I like that contrary and take agree investor probably kick you out of the office for coming up with that. But I mean what you're describing is like there's a healthy market already, right? There are people who are already looking for this product, like you don't have to convince someone that hey, you want to drink coffee. So kind of my coffee shop, right? Ah and if there are a number of businesses already doing that, you know that Felix  it's viable, Ben  right? Uh people spending money in that marketplace because there's other people currently receiving that money. So yeah, I think that's some pretty awesome criteria there. Felix  Yeah. So we, we wanted to come up with  businesses and then evaluate each of these  and then choose the one that we thought would be best for us and it wasn't completely scientific, but we did use uh, uh, you know, some numbers next to them and we had some kind of internal calculus that we did and I'll give you some examples like e commerce is an example that fits a lot of what what I mentioned, but it's too mature and so we thought okay e commerce uh there are, you know, since we started actually there's been some companies that are in the e commerce space that have done extremely well. Felix  I'm not sure when Shopify started maybe a little bit before us, but around that time. Yeah, but around that time and there's other examples that didn't do, you know, aren't as well known as Shopify but still did very well and I think it's because they have all of those criteria that the investors would not be so excited about, but they don't have strong network effects. So I think this kind of contrarian idea does, does hold some does hold some water, Felix  but so for us, e commerce was too mature then we thought of a bunch of ideas that they might have been like one or two examples of, but we thought it was too knew that it was just not yet proven and was a little unclear exactly where this was going to lead. So there were a lot a lot of ideas that we had around doing kind of online ordering from your phone that kind of dovetailed with how businesses already did business. So you can imagine you're sitting in like a T. G. I Fridays and you can order right from the menu from your phone or you could order from a from the waitress or you could be in a bar, you could maybe order some drinks at the counter and then at your table you can order, Felix  you know, additional drinks. So we're looking at lots of things that kind of intertwined with how the real world does things, but automated some aspect of it. But we thought we can see a little of this, this was before a lot of the online ordering that we have today because this is back in . But I think it would be much more viable to do to do those things today as a bootstrap company. But a lot of these ideas I think are more would be more interesting as a venture backed company. So those ideas were lowered down on our list. I did think of an idea actually um called, I think it was tell the manager or ask the manager or notify the manager or something like that. And I pitched it Felix  at a probably the only start up of the local and I ever went to was like it's night in Redmond and we went to this event and I pitched it and about six months later I was contacted by someone who said it looks like you never did that, do you mind if I do it? Uh and the person did it and did did well, so it's a funny story. So there might have been other ideas on the list that, that are still interesting. But yeah, so online scheduling really hit that sweet spot. It's very similar to e commerce in a lot of ways. I think in ways that maybe people don't really realize actually, but it's a lot less immature even now,  years later. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's, it seemed good to us and we were like, let's do it. Ben  Yeah, I love it. And I like, I like the, I love the contrariness that's right up my alley. So you started this with bowl, You worked together, built the business at some point. I mean I've known you all this time and I know now that you're not working with low anymore on the business on a regular basis. So what, what happened like just in general, like what was that transition like and you know, what are some lessons learned from the co founder experience and now that co founder is no longer with you? Felix  Sure. Um Felix  yeah, let me, I don't know the best way. There's so many different ways to tell the story. I would say. One way to tell. It is to tell about how we founded the company. So we founded the company in my backyard, we had a conversation one summer day and we were drinking some beers and one of us said we should really just start a company and uh, I think I must have said that and Lowell said I'll quit, I'll quit tomorrow, let's do it. And uh you know, I knew he was joking, but as he left, I was like, okay, don't quit. Um Let's think about this, I'm really excited, but let's think about this. And the next day he, he texted me and he said I quit, have you quit yet? So Felix  I then, you know, took about another two days and and quit. Uh Ben  that's that's jumping on both feet right there. Felix  Yeah, and I think sometimes, you know, the biggest decisions that I've made, I've made sort of the easiest and maybe Lowell doubly so ah and I would say that's that's kind of how we separated too. Um It was really, really, really, really good until one day it was um and I think, you know, when you start out on, you know, definitely when we started out and I think this was maybe more true for Lowell, who is significantly younger than me, I think if I had said, okay. Yeah, but there's one rule, we've got to do it for four years, he would have been like, what? Hey, wait a second, I need to think about this a bit more. So it was unclear like Felix  we we thought, I mean, to be honest, we thought our first few ideas would fail and we were looking forward to that because we were thinking we would learn a ton, we were really aiming where the direction that we thought that we would get the most learning and there was no sort of long term commitment other than we just, we we thought we were gonna have a lot of fun. We did have a lot of fun. And I think that there was a point where there were some other things in that local realized that he wanted to do and when he, when he realized like, Felix  oh there might be some more long term commitment involved in this, uh it didn't seem so great anymore and it kind of happened at a time that was extremely destabilizing for both of us. We, we had entertained an idea of selling the business and that would have come with kind of some golden handcuffs which kind of explicitly put into uh, you know, black and white, this kind of long longer term commitment. So I think it's a bit more complicated than that. But it wasn't, it wasn't something that built up for for years and years and years and just, you know, kind of deteriorated. It went pretty rapidly from uh this is amazing too. Let's not do this anymore. Ben  Yeah, I would like to see that. Yeah, that makes sense. If if your expectation is to just, you know, do whatever and then all of a sudden is like, oh, you want me to commit to the next five years, whatever. That yeah, that could definitely put some cold water on it. Felix  Yeah, absolutely. And it felt very different after he left, but it has a business wise, the company has done, has done great. I would say as far as how it feels today, I enjoyed it more working with him to be totally honest. Ben  Yeah, it's nice. It's, I mean there's so many benefits to having a co founder, having the accountability is one that people often think about, but you know, just having the camaraderie, right, you're, you're doing the same thing, you're in it together. You know, it's uh, Felix  yeah, to me, I think it's a lot harder Ben  even even as as independent as I am and as self directors, I want to be, I do feel it's harder to do something so completely, so low because you just have to have all that motivation yourself and there's no one happening out. Felix  Yeah, absolutely. I agree totally. I would never have been able to do schedule is to, without having role as a co founder, it is much easier to run a company that's already in place than it is to start something from scratch and there's just no way that I, that I could have done it and it's not from, hey, it's not so much that we complemented each other's skill wise or anything like that. It's just the, there are a lot of things that are psychologically difficult and doing that with someone else makes it possible, in my opinion. Ben  Yeah. Yeah. I feel the same about honey badger. Like there's no way it could have been done with the three of us working together, there was just, I mean, first there's a lot of work, but also, yeah, getting through those times where it's just a struggle is Yeah, I think I would probably throw in the towel if it hadn't been to have two good co founders who helped me out. Felix  Yeah, absolutely. Ben  So I know from our conversations that we have from time to time, that you spend some time mentoring people who are looking to start businesses or who are just, you know, in the beginning end of this, this entrepreneur adventure. So what, what are the two or three kinds of themes that you see coming up time and again, people coming to you and you're like, uh you know, maybe maybe look at this, you know, so if someone today is thinking about something like, well, and they sat down with you, what are the kind of things that you would poke at their ideas and say, have you considered this or have you thought about that? Felix  Yes, most of the people I talk with are looking to raise money. Uh and I actually have found out that there's another definition of bootstrapping that I wasn't aware of until I started mentoring. So to me, bootstrapping meant a company that doesn't raise money and is structured in such a way that will make profits and poor those profits back into growing the company. So there's a, there's enough that's not how the kids today are using the term bootstrapping at least the ones that are looking for venture capital to them. Bootstrapping is what you do until you raise money. So you're structured is a typical venture backed company, but you just haven't raised money yet either on purpose because you want to build, you know, a prototype or Felix  or something else that an investor might see and you'd get a better deal or you just haven't managed to to put it all into place to raise the money. So most of what I do, actually, it's like, I love venture backed company, it's kind of funny that, you know, I'm so much of a bootstrap er but I don't know if I've told you this before, but one of my heroes is Craig Newmark and I don't know if you know that crate that craigslist started as a list of startup parties Felix  because he loved the startup scene and here he, he loves everything about startups and raising money and all of this stuff and then he starts this company that's like completely counter to that. Um and I feel like he is a hero of mine in many ways, but I feel similar in personality in a sense that I love the start up world and I love working with these people and who knows maybe I'll do a venture backed company one day, but uh everything that I do in my business life is about bootstrapping, but all my mentoring is pretty much about venture companies. So I think a lot of what I do is I try and you know, tell them all of the things that are opposite of what I did with schedule is to, uh, and uh, I really problem in the other direction and Felix  uh, it's, I guess everyone's different, I think I just try and help out where I can based on what I've seen. One of the things I love the best actually is working with other mentors, I love working with a founder with multiple mentors and so I feel I try to not do harm, you know, the Hippocratic oath of mentoring, but I think it's easier to kind of say what's on your mind when it's balanced out with other mentors. So I don't know, I'm struggling to think like if there is a single pattern or thing that I see that I would help people with, maybe I'm going to think about that for a second, We can come back to it. Ben  Sure, well maybe maybe maybe this is a different way to look at it. Like if you could go back  years and mentor yourself, right? You you come to you with your idea for schedule is to, what kind of things would you say to yourself with the experience now that you have, Felix  okay, a couple of things popping in my head, I don't know if these are pop things, but one of the things I tell Felix  new founders is about linkedin, how wonderful linkedin is. It's the only social network that I understand, but I think that I, which says a lot about me, but I think I understand it pretty well and I tell them you can reach out to people on linkedin who can help you. And it's not sort of like, hey, look for another mentor or look for people to give you advice about X, y and z. But let's say you're starting a business in the analytic space. And let's say that it's very similar to maybe some of these three other businesses, maybe these folks would be competitors, of course, I would say reach out to those people, which is so counter to what a lot of people are comfortable doing. But, Felix  and I have a formula for, they think that they'll never hear back from people. I have a formula for how to reach out and link, which is you craft an email that there is only one person in the world that can answer that email and that's the person you're sending it to. So if you ask someone a general question, like, you know, hey, how should I market this business or something? They'll think to themselves and I'm not gonna answer this, anyone can answer this. But if you ask them a question that only they would know and you make that connection in a way that hey, you are facing something that only they have seen, they will respond. So that's my sort of, that's one of the tips that I share is Felix  make those connections with other people in the industry that you're going to be in, ask them a lot of the time, you know, they'll have some plan And one of the things they want to do is understand each step of the plan. They call it the risking that's like the $ word. So I think one of the best ways to sort of the risk a plan is to find out other people who follow that same path and succeeded and try and map that path on to some other path that a business has followed and then talk to those people and and run what you're going to do by them and ask them if it's going to work. Ben  I love it. That's great. Felix  So I can say also another thing that I that I offered that I believe, and I don't know if you agree with this, but I think that there are far a few different business types out their business structures out there than people think because we're in tech. We often, and let's say we're a venture backed company, we're doing something that the world has never seen before. It's going to take, It's gonna be the next unicorn. It's by sort of definition, nothing like anything else out there. But we extend that to the business structure and what I mean by that is how customers are required. What metrics that you should measure, how growth will happen, how marketing will operate, how you'll get your first customer, your th customer, your th customer and what your channels are those kinds of things. And Felix  I don't think there is that many different patterns out there. I think that there's just a handful of patterns and there are businesses sometimes that introduce brand new patterns, but they're very rare. So a lot of the time, what I encourage people to do is to figure out exactly what they think their business structure or pattern is and then map it onto another business that was successful. That has the exact same pattern and maybe find three or four of them And then figure out how did they acquire their first customer? How did they acquire their th customers? And sometimes that you can find that out by looking for interviews and things like that. But reaching out to people as well that I just mentioned can be very, very powerful. So innovate where it matters. But you know, don't innovate everywhere. Ben  Yeah, that, that lines up with uh, you know, the technology world, we have this idea that you should use boring technology because like you only have so much innovation, you can do in your business. Just use a plain old database, right, Don't, don't go crazy with the newfangled hotness. Right? And yeah, I think I totally agree with you actually like use those well worn paths, Use those channels that everyone has done  times before because it's, you don't need to innovate there. Felix  Yeah, you can find so much depth in anything that I think there's sort of a fear that at least I have this fear I always want to orient myself towards whatever I think is going to be the most interesting life. And so, but I think if, if everything is interesting, that doesn't necessarily add up to more interesting, I think that sometimes, you know, a lot of things can be boring, like you can be steve jobs and wear the same black turtleneck shirt every day. He's not innovating in his wardrobe, but that doesn't mean that he's not innovating, He's not maximizing innovation. So I try and remind myself of that. I think it's an easy fall to fall into and really being intentional. I would say here's an advice that I would give myself that I thought of and that's kind of aligned with, with, Felix  with, with what I've been saying so far, which is uh huh A lot of thing I kind of think separate sort of opportunities into inbound and outbound, so inbound opportunities or opportunities that come to you, they arrive in your email box. They, you know, there's a phone call, a friend tells you something over lunch. You see a cool movie that inspires you. And then there's outbound an outbound happens because of some mental model that you have about the world and you intentionally decided to go and do something. And I think all the time you get bombarded with inbound stuff and most of it is not that interesting. And then sometimes something interesting comes along and you think, okay, I'm going to follow up on that. I actually think if someone ignores Felix  and I think it's more subtle than ignore, but if someone does not respond to all inbound, they're way ahead of the game. If you just sort of erase every inbound email and never read it, you're way ahead of the game. And if you do things that are that are only outbound for, for your life and for your business? I think that that is very, very powerful and by ignore, I don't mean like let's say you see a movie and it's about, uh, some people that move to Argentina and reinvented themselves and that really inspires you and you think, okay, I could move to Argentina and you do and it's great. That kind of stuff happens all the time. And, but I don't think it's optimal. Felix  I think you should watch that movie and be inspired, but then you should figure out what is it about that's inspiring? Is it living abroad? Is there something about Argentinian culture that's really cool. And then you should come up with some kind of a fitness function and you should also think what is the opportunity, cost of doing this versus everything else. And then you should as an outbound effort figure out. Okay. So I'm really gonna do this abroad thing. That's going to have the following characteristics. Where's the best place to be? And I bet you don't end up in Argentina. Felix  I love it. That's, that's Ben  awesome. And, and this is why  years later, like I still find every conversation with you secret productive and sometimes inspirational to Felix  write on. Ben  It's great. It's great job with Felix as always. Um, I think that's a great place to wrap it. Uh, do you have any parting thoughts? Felix  Um, yeah. How different did this conversation feel from a conversation that you and I might just have, Ben  you know, it's pretty close. Yeah. Obviously like we've got, we've got the world listening with us and so it's a little different. It's not quite as intimate as usual. And of course we haven't talked about any numbers and things like that that we usually get down in the weeds with you and I, Felix  but yeah, pretty close to our usual Ben  cars. What do you think? Felix  Um, closer than I thought? But I don't know, I might listen to this back and just be like, I'm not going to send bend the wave file. Ben  Well, my pro tip is, I never listen to the recording. So I mean that's, Felix  that's, that's the way I do it. Okay, good. Good. That's actually I should do that too. Ben  It's easier that way. He really is. Well, thanks, thanks so much for you. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate you uh doing this for me and uh hanging out. I know that I've learned some things and I hope that people who listen to podcasts, I've also learned some things. If someone wants to reach out to you, where's the best place twitter maybe? Felix  I don't know how to use twitter with twitter. You have to show me the ropes. Um I would say just you can send me an email. Uh you can find me on linkedin. How about Lincoln? There you go. Find me on linkedin and asked me a question that only I know how to answer Ben  a lot. All right, Felix. Thanks again so much. So like Star usually does our outro is but I will I will try to fill in for Star as best I can and I will say you should, you know, go and review us somewhere. Give us those five stars on those podcast listening things that you do. And uh as always let us know if we can answering particular questions for you or talk about anything that you find interesting. Thanks so much for joining us and hope you have a great week. Felix  Thanks Ben was awesome. Ben  All right. So, you can stop the quicktime. We can stop 

Show notes:Links:SaaslerKoombeaHook RelayTranscript:*note - this is an unedited, automatically generated, transcript with only about 80% accuracy*Ben  So I say we we just had a new customer signed up just like minutes ago and said that the reason they signed up was our podcast. So awesome. Good stuff. Good stuff. So pro tip for you says operators out there, put a little box and your on boarding, asking people how they heard about you or whatever. It's very, very informative. Starr  Yeah, it does. And then do a podcast and wait  episodes. Ben  Those steps are optional. I really do like they're having like those, those uh onboarding introductions is what we call them. We have a channel in slack for them and having those show up periodically is like a little little endorphin rush. Like I love seeing those show up in our slack channel and you know, we also have a cancellations channel has the same thing with cancellation messages and that's not quite as fun. But thankfully we see if you are those messages that we do the onboarding messages, but I just, I really like having those things in slack. It's nice to see that throughout the day. Starr  Yeah, definitely. So imagine this is gonna be a little bit of a shorter one because we just recorded um last week's podcast, like on monday in today's thursday. So I don't know if there's, there's not as much time that's passed to let um I don't know to let the hot takes regenerate themselves. Mhm Ben  Right, well, I have a hot date for you and it's the grape, I guess most hot takes are great Josh  what we're best at. Ben  Uh so I'm working on an update to the Roku integration. So, you know, we haven't a clue add on and Uh we started to add on like, I don't know, back early, early days, it must have been like , or so. A long time ago. Well in , apparently Hiroki released an updated version of their API for partners like us and uh it has a new provisioning thing and you can actually call back to their API and get some information about like supervision to add on and stuff like that. Which is great. Uh We haven't ever really gotten around to changing our particular add on because it works just fine. So why bother? Ben  But I've been looking at synchronizing the Heroku pricing with our current pricing because we've done a number of pricing variations since we launched the Heroku. And so now the two sets of pricing are pretty out of sync. So as I started to get into that I was like well you know well I'm here, how about I just you know update the A. P. I write classic classic rabbit hole. Right? And and and so I spent some time doing that and found you know some interesting quirks and so on about our integration and anyway it's all good like I got the work done and I did a pr and and josh and kevin like giving the thumbs up and I'm ready to deploy except Ben  I have two questions for the Heroku people about about the migration because the migration you gotta be careful right? Because like the V one A P. I. Is not compatible with the V three Api And so you have to store different sets of data and the I. D. S in particular are different like they used to pass what they call a ready and now they pass an add on I. D. And you gotta you know handle the transition carefully or else someone you know maybe they can't add on the thing. Maybe they can't start being customer, maybe they can't remove the adult which would be a problem because you know or maybe they can't log in that would also again yeah prop trading right? Josh  And so because they still get the emails Ben  so so my questions for harajuku around this migration revolve around this idea and like handling sso and making sure that we can still provisions and provisions properly anyway. So I put two questions to them and support two days ago and that's my gripe because that's the holdup. That's the holdup I can't deploy it because I can't get answers to these questions apparently. So I'm just like oh okay I understand like people are busy and stuff but uh I would like an answer some time you know and there's no like there's no auto responder there's no we'll get back to you in X. Amount of time. No it's just like off into the void and I'm just waiting Starr  did you maybe did you maybe use the legacy um support page Instead of the current ? Ben  No no use the current one. Okay good question though. Good like that Josh  this is just another example of like coding being the easy part. Uh huh. Ben  Yeah and also a good example of like rd party integrations causing you know uh technical maintenance burden like like um oh for example like clubhouse that recently renamed themselves the shortcut. Right? And so we had to, you know, do a little bit of work there and renamed stuff inside of our app wasn't a whole lot of work but it was some work but you you add, you multiply that kind of work by the number of integrations you support and all of a sudden like this is ongoing maintenance work that doesn't, it's just you're just treading water trying to keep up with what everybody else in the world is doing. Right? Josh  Yeah. And as new as new integration, you know, his new apps come onto the market and everyone wants to integrate with them, you just gradually expand until you, I mean you still have to support the old ones. Yeah, I think we're definitely getting to the point where every new little thing we add is like yeah, yeah, we're starting to feel it, we are starting to feel it. Yeah. And like the the depth of the integration is also I've noticed is like a big, big thing because like there's a few integrations that we like go a lot deeper with like get hub, you know, heroic. Who obviously is like a good example of that. We have a lot of issues with vera I've I've seen but who doesn't Ben  um Josh  but it does seem like the like I don't know, the more standardized something can be. Um and yeah, just I don't know when you're like integrating with a lots and lots of custom API's and stuff like that. They're going to switch it out on you at some point. Josh  Yeah. Support. It Ben  would be, it would be nice if there was like a happier plus plus, like a next level happier right? Where uh it just, it just abstracts away all these differences and you can just, you know, it's like a universal kind of thing and it's like, yeah, possibly be impossible. But Josh  are almost like the pitch I get to the pitch there being almost like an LTs, like like an LTs contract for for integration API is like, you gotta, you gotta contract. This API isn't going to change for like  years. Um and they'll just, you know, they'll do the and we'll do the internal migrations to keep the ap the same for you. Ben  Yeah, there you go. That's that's an interesting idea. I wonder how that kind of service would cost. Josh  I don't know, I know there's been a few um someone a micro, someone, a Microsoft had like a service that built like manage the integration side for you. Um was that Jonathan? Um Yeah, yeah, I don't know if that was like similar. I know it wasn't quite, that wasn't quite the idea, but like it was the idea that like, you know, they like give you  integrations, you know, for free or whatever, like much easier to integrate with them. Ben  Yeah, you just plug in and all of a sudden you Josh  have immigration. Ben  Yeah. Yeah. But the link in the show notes or see if it still exists. I haven't, I haven't Josh  talked to Jon tester. I can't Ben  yeah, sounds familiar. Josh  I don't know. I remember like having their like sticker in front of me at the table microscopes. Ben  Yeah. I haven't uh you know, having, having not gone a micro comp or business software or anything else for a couple of years now it's like it's going to keep track of what people are doing and because usually that's where I see Jonathan, Josh  you know, there was a Microsoft Microsoft local happened in Portland yesterday. I was kind of, I was kind of, I didn't go but in hindsight I kind of wished I had. But yeah, I saw, I saw a little bit of activity on twitter Ben  yeah look like they were having a fun time and I had the same kind of feeling. I was like, yeah I wasn't really thinking about going but then after seeing some of the tweets and like actually would've been fun to me, you know, Josh  wow I'm in the middle of like my kids are home from school this week because there was a covid case at the school and uh, so it's got yeah got that that's fine and in the school like was not as equipped as we hoped to like handle like the, you know right, just all the um coordination and stuff like the communication, I don't know, just they're still getting it together, it seems so it could be better. Ben  Did you sit there and think there should really be an app for managing this kind of communication between that would be family. That Josh  would be, yeah, that would be uh that would be something because yeah, it's like, like, yeah, not everyone seems to know how to use email. Uh huh Ben  That could be problematic. Starr  I've never gotten so many emails about like a specific thing is, you know, recently now that my daughter is going to school. Yeah, and they're not bad. They're just like, there's just so many of them about all these different aspects of things. Josh  Do they do they put urgent everywhere because like I've got a whole inbox of urgent emails. Starr  Oh no. Uh huh Like they seem to be pretty on top of it. Like they're kind of um like the whole covid stuff puts a whole another layer on top. Like, I'm sure opening school is already like a lot of work, but you know, they're scrambling around and like erecting tents in the, on the blacktop so the kids can eat lunch outside and you know, all this stuff. Starr  Okay. So they've created an official, an official channel for parents to raised their safety concerns with the school because I think they were just getting bombarded. Bye Everyone. Josh  Yeah, I think that's where we are and I'm hoping that's they come up with something like that like some sort of process for raising concerns. Ben  Yeah. I wonder if you start seeing like a a school board or maybe a school level position right? Like pandemic coordinator, right? And that's your point. I Josh  I really hope I hope it doesn't last long enough to like bake the position into society. But like I guess like yeah some sort of health coordinator. I could see that being a thing for sure. And I guess yeah I mean I could probably do other things when there's not a pandemic happening I imagine. Mhm. Still be useful. Ben  Wouldn't be a full time job is what you're saying. Josh  Yeah. Well Starr  I was like I was surprised at like um the school does offer like free um like flu vaccine drive through clinics and like they do a lot of stuff, it's just not just directly school and that was a little bit surprising. I mean it's awesome but Josh  maybe I need to move to Seattle. Starr  Um Yeah. Ben  Yes. Well um yeah Ben  we'll help you find a house. Starr  Yeah it'll only cost you like a million dollars Josh  on the low end right for a starter house. Yeah man. Well um we could talk about one of the things that I've that we were discussing this week um was the you know the hook relay launch. And I thought one interesting conversation we had was because we've we're making a few improvements to the sales site um before we sent out this email and um like published a blog post and do some basic like you know launch to our customers um sort of thing. Um And Ben you had you've been working with like a contractor or you found a contractor Josh  to do some website, like some redesign stuff because the website we put it together kind of like I don't know what is it, It's a tail end tail insight. Um Just like what like telling you I um fairly boilerplate and uh not really very polished. So we thought it would be cool to uh you know kind of polish it up and rethink some of the content and make sure like everything flows together in terms of like called call to actions and things like that. Um But we're at the we have a decision to make like do we do we kind of just like do a little bit of work to make it you know, launch Hubble and then launch or should we like go for this full redesign that the designer of course is trying to pitch us on. And Josh  I'm thinking that like ship it is the way to go. You know make make it make it ship herbal and then uh come back and and we'll we'll do the big the big overhaul. Ben  Yeah I I've heard smart people say that if if you're not embarrassed by what you ship then you waited too long. So Josh  yeah so we're probably making a mistake by not just uh shipping it as is, huh? Ben  So the current, like if you look at the, I mean there's only like four pages right? Of the sounds like uh and of those four pages, like the best looking one I think is the one that kevin did. That's the documentation page. Uh put a lot of good work into that. And then the second best I would say it's probably the guide that you wrote. So that's Josh  that's job because because I copied kevin Ben  copy, Josh  kevin's work. Ben  And then I would say the next the next in series is the pricing page. I think it looks okay, but that's like straight from tailwind ui Uh basically copy based, like we paid, you know what, $ for the components and then worth every penny, right? Uh And then I would say the worst of all the pages is the homepage. And that's the page. That's all me. Like I I put that together. So uh I think it's pretty clear who needs to stay away from design at honey badger. It's been. Josh  But in your defense, like you put that together, like when the product was like, like barely even alpha and we were like, we should just like, we should really like buy a domain for this. And so you like wrote a little letter and put it on there. Um And we haven't revisited since, so that's kind of what we're talking about is just revisiting um you know, making a few small changes and then then we'll get around to hopefully making something more um professional or I don't know. Ben  Yeah, but it's funny that, as I was, as I was working with that designer that we found to help us, as we were like, scoping out the project, it was, I felt a bit of deja vu but from the other side, because I remember as a freelancer, like, I was always, you know, pitching people on the project and I would give them the grand vision and, you know, and here's the price tag, Ben  and they'd be like, oh, out, could you, could you cut, you know, x, y and z could get the price down to whatever, you know? And uh it wasn't about the price, in this case, it was about time we wanted to get that homepage done faster so they could get this launch done sooner rather than doing a whole redesign, but I still felt kind of guilty going back to design and say, okay, that's that's great, but could we, you know, cut like all those pages and just do this one, it's not Josh  the it's not the price timeframe, so are they going to be able to you think they'll be able to do a quick ish turn around, like um so that we'll get to get to ship this thing. Ben  Yeah, I think so, I didn't made the mistake of not actually setting a deadline. So I'm I realized that after I agreed and paid the deposit and all this kind of so like I don't actually know when he's going to deliver stuff. That could be a problem, but I figured I'd just wait a few days because you know, I'm thinking it should only take a few days. What do I know I'm not a designer obviously, but I figured after a few days if I see nothing, I hear nothing then I'll be like, okay, so what's the timeline? And hopefully it'll be something like, you know, next week, but Josh  this project is just like is he is he already like is you just have access to the like get a repository or is he like working something up? Like some sort of prototype or Ben  or something like that? Yeah, you should be doing a prototype. So st, st thing is he asked us do we want how do we want to get the design part? Uh So like the choices were a PSD or stigma. So I chose stigma because we use stigma. Uh and then the second part would be okay. And there also was a question and the on boarding was okay, you want me to build this out in html CSS And of course, yes, like yes, I want you to do more work for me, thank you very much. So, so the first version is just a design and stigma and oh, actually three. So he gave us the option of just doing one, like I'll do a design and you accept it or not? Or doing three designs. Ben  I went for the three designs because I mean I'm a client now so I get to like, you know, be deciding and stuff. So that was that was slow us down a little bit obviously because there's gonna be three designs, that one, but we'll get those three designs. That's Josh  for that's for like the big project. Right? Or or is he doing three for the initial bill? Ben  Well, I think that I think for the further homepage Okay. I think that's basically, I think what I was trying to communicate, I think I communicated was we want to do is basically to stage project, like we want to do the whole design, but we want the first stage to be, Let's get the homepage set. So what I'm thinking is like the design that he goes with for the homepage will then carry through to the rest of the project. The rest of the pages. Gotcha. That's mine. That's my hope. Josh  I don't do you know, I it sounds like he's more like he's going to be coding if he's coding this up in html and CSS like I wonder he's probably not using like uh is he using anything to start with? Like could he use could he do this in tailwind for instance because that might be useful in the future if we want to like, you know, take over if we want to like do some, you know, of our own design in the future, which, you know what we're capable of is basically tailender bootstrap. Ben  Yeah, I didn't specify to use tailwind. I didn't really care at the moment. I just wanted whatever was fastest. Uh Right. And I figure if we decide to revisit and do some structural stuff, we can always adapted the tailwind ourselves, like that kind of thing I can do, you know, I can take an existing design and I can, I can rework it, you know? Uh so I figured just get it out the door, get it done as quickly as possible. I don't, I don't care what you do and then we can, we can revisit if we need to. Josh  Cool. Well the, I mean, once we get the whole thing redone that, that'll be nice. I don't know. We've never really done that. We've on our current on, on honey badger. Io we've never like, we've always just done it ourselves. Ben  That's new news. Something a new venture for us to try try this sort of thing. It's great. I like experiments. So we had, speaking of experiments, we had an experiment that did not work out and I suppose we should talk about that. Uh we, we decided that the sales, the outbound sales effort is not working out for us. So uh worked with Harris at interest there and we talked about this on the podcast before. Uh, and Harris is great interest. Um, it's great, % recommend Harris and his team. If you're thinking about doing some sales stuff and you want some training, some coaching or you want someone to help you do it. All those things are great. But after having done sales work with Harris, I just realized it's Ben  probably not gonna work for us. Maybe it's maybe it's me, maybe it's our business, maybe it's our customer segment, maybe it's a combination of all those things, but you know, Harris and I, so I told Harrison and it's just not working out, we need to, we need to turn this down and turn it off. And, and Harris was like, yeah, I was getting the feeling based on the response rate, like which is zero, uh, just wasn't working. And so, and we also like on Tuesday, I had a great call with Harris and we just did a post mortem basically the whole project and like why why didn't it work? Like we were hoping it would work and Ben  uh, and it was, it was a blameless postmortem, like I don't think there was a particular fault. I think there are factors like, uh, we sell primarily to developers and developers, primary that usually don't want to be talked to right, They don't want to talk to a sales person, they don't really want to get unsolicited stuff. Uh, And so that's a factor, I think also like the nature of our product, like you don't really need a salesperson to explain to you exception monitoring, right? Like it's, you know, it's like if you go to the car dealership Ben  and you're looking for an accord, you don't really need to spend a lot of time with a salesperson as he explains to you what an accord does, like, you know what an accord does, right? It's a car. Like if I know I want an accord versus camera, like I don't need any help, right? Just just tell me the car and I think it's kind of some kind of thing here is like we're not selling something that's really complicated or that needs a lot of education or it needs a lot of configuration or whatever. Like it's not a solution based sales, which I think would be a better fit for that kind of sales process. So, and, and there are other factors. Um but yeah, so that's an experiment that I think is just, uh, does it work out? Josh  It seems like we're really positioned to sell to the developers and it's not that we couldn't, I mean, we could try to sell ourselves too because it seems like, like depending on the size of team that's using a tool like this, like you get people in the organization higher up that get involved, like managers or product managers or uh, like engineering leads and stuff that are trying to do more of the like management and coordination um stuff and those are the people that like the dashboards and the samel and like all the more enterprise features, but we don't typically like lead, like that's not that's not how our um product is positioned to, we're not like we haven't positioned ourselves to sell to that level really, it seems. Um and Josh  yeah, I don't know, that's that's kind of interesting because, you know, you wonder at some point like if the developers are deciding what tool to buy, do they buy the same tool as like their bosses and we're trying to give the developers what they want, it may be more than we're trying to give their bosses what they want, and you know, and then we try to build those features too so that we can keep everyone happy, but like um it does, there's like yeah, it's kind of a different, like you could see like trying to take the same approach with like, you know, someone up the higher up the ladder or whatever, I could see that not being as interesting. Yeah, Ben  one of the things and there are other factors, like one of the things that Harris taught me about sales is uh he said the money is in the follow up basically like you need to keep reaching out to the same people basically until they tell you to go away and that's not what I'm about and I don't really want to do that to people. Like we email sequence and uh inherited like, well we need to do an email sequence like this and it's like in emails long and I'm like um how about two? We send one and then we send one more and that's it. And Harris was like uh so I think in many ways like I was tying his hands because I didn't want to do the kind of sales process that a lot of people do. Right? Josh  Well I imagine like putting your face on those emails probably like you don't, you don't want like to make a bunch of enemies of developers that you might have to work with in the future. But like what if you like, did you consider just like making a completely fictional sales? Just like salesperson persona? And it could have just been like, you know, we could have put them on the, on the sales page and everything. It's just like this fictional person that takes all the heat for sales. Ben  I never thought of that. That's a great idea. Name, bobby bobby, the badger. Josh  Yeah, um maybe that's like a side like, you know, kind of an Upsell offering that Harris can can add to to his product eyes thing. Like, you know, if you don't want to take the heat, like we can create something for you Starr  that's a Ben  that's an awesome idea should afford that on. Yeah. Yeah. So the and another factor is like uh you know, because there are there are companies, we have competitors that are selling into the enterprise and do that sort of thing and um, I think I think you hit on a point there. It's like are we, are we selling to me selling the typical enterprise solution where the buyer has to be happy or are we selling something where the user has to be happy? Right. And and sometimes that they're both happy but and often times it isn't and in our case we're focusing on that and user and it doesn't make that user happy if we're pestering them with emails or you know, getting in their way of actually just trying the product. And so anyway, I think for now at least we are Ben  Better served as a % inbound kind of company and maybe spend those resources on customer success or engagement or something like that. Yeah, Josh  it's interesting but it Ben  was fun while it lasted. Josh  Well, I'm glad, I'm glad it wasn't a complete drag. You got to, you got to learn a little bit about sales. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I think like uh like competition, just like the, we're in such a like a competitive space and most of our competitive, our competitors also go for those like enterprise segments. Um so it could actually be, you know, it could be good for us to stay, you focused on the on the smaller, like, you know, the smaller, the smaller end of the market in a way because they're probably somewhat underserved at this point, Josh  yep. Starr  All right. So um when is the hook really lunch Starr  or is this and how to fix fixed? Okay. So we don't know what to tell people Josh  we're meeting, we're meeting next next week to kind of finalize it. But I'm imagining like we're going to push it out the door as soon as we have, you know, some I think we're going to wait for a few updates to the homepage, but otherwise we're going to ship it. And who knows? Like if if this project ends up kind of dragging on at all or anything like we could just decide to, you know, kind of just go what we have. It's not, you know, it's not it's it's workable. So maybe we should just like stop procrastinating, right? But we'll we'll decide next week at our um hook really marketing meeting. Ben  Yeah, the good news is we already have customers who are using it who are paying us money to use it. So that's that's nice. Like it's not just burning cash with a bunch of a rack of servers doing nothing. You know, Josh  So I would say it's in the next couple weeks. Starr  Awesome. I'm sure when that happens we'll um be blowing horns and making all sorts of noise on this show and directing people to the right place. Uh huh. All right. Was there anything else you guys want to talk about? Should we should wrap it up? Josh  We can wrap it. We can wrap it. Starr  All right. Well, you all have been listening to um found request. If you want to go read us on apple podcasts or whatever the kids are calling it these days, go for it. Um And yeah, we'll catch you next week. Thank you. Josh  Yeah, No. 

Show notes:Links:Bold Badgers NFTMantis scooterRidwellWrite for HoneybadgerTranscript:*note - this is an unedited automatically generated transcript with about 80% accuracy*Josh: So we really are we doing this, uh, super quick. Do we need to like speed up our voices? ArtificiallyBen: The chipmonk episode.Starr: There you go. No, we should just, we should slow them down. So it'll um, we can just record  a  minute episode and then we'll take  minutes to listen to it.Josh: Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's what we've been doing all along. That's our life hack is it takes us  minutes to record these episodes and you listened to them in  minutes.Starr: Yeah. So that's the, um, so I'll fill in our listeners. We, um, we miss our normal recording day on Friday, and so we're making it up on a Monday, which means like we're jam packed in with a bunch of other stuff. Um, so this may be a little  shorter than usual and I'm sorry. I know you just have to have all of us all the time and we're just giving it all we can right now.Josh: Yeah, it'll be just as off topic though. So, um,Starr: I would thank God.Ben: Yeah. Speaking, speaking of off topic, I have, I have a public service announcement to make. As, as you know, I've been getting more into the electric vehicles scene, uh, personal mobility, micro mobility, all that kind of fun stuff. And I, you know, a few months ago bought an electric scooter.  It's a mantis for those who are curious, who are in the know, uh, and I've been really enjoying that, like riding back and forth to work and goofing off and that sort of thing. But the thing that's, the public service announcement is, uh, wear a helmet. If you're going to ride one of these pillars. I just, this past week saw two different people riding on scooters, similar to mine, like higher powered scooters, mixing it up with traffic, like on  mile per hour roads and not wearing a helmet. And I just thought that is insane.  Like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, yeah, you should definitely wear a helmet if you're going to ride electric scooter at  miles an hour, just saying that's my PSA.Josh: I did go for, I went for a, my first ride on an EBI bike, um, last week and I must confess I did not wear a helmet. And, uh, I have to say it was, you know, it was kind of fun. Like, you know, little dangerous,  there was no traffic. Like there was very little traffic, so in my defense.Ben: Okay. That's a plus. Do you remember what kind of bike your Rover's like a super ? Like one of those modelsJosh: I have, I have a very bad memory for names of things and I was told, but, uh, no, I don't know, but actually I was, it was with, uh, it was the bike of, uh, Mike Perrin, who is a friend of the show and creator of sidekick. So I'm  sure he will, uh, hopefully listen to this and, and let us know. And then we can fill everyone in the next week. MaybeBen: I think, I think he has a super . It's a, and that's a pretty sweet,Josh: It's like the super it's like one of the fastest ones on the market, he said, yeah, cool. Or something like that.Ben: I'm going to have to get down to Mike's house and borrow some of his bikes. AndJosh: It was a lot of fun. I'd never, I'd never done that before. And I, I get the appeal now.Ben: Yeah. So when, when I got my scooter, Mike was like, I don't  know, scooters. They're kind of, uh, I don't exactly what he tweeted, but he's like, yeah, they're kind of sketchy because they're not very stable and stuff and he's right. They are integrated stable compared to the bikes, but it's still a lot of fun. So I just wear a full face helmet to counteract the wobbliness. Yeah.Starr: Did y'all know I have a, an electric bike? No, it's called a Peloton.Josh: You were so smug with that one.Starr: It's the perfect bike for me because it doesn't move. Um, it's like all the, got all the nice things about the bike, like the workout, but you don't go anywhere. You don't have to Dodge any traffic. Uh, don't have to wear a helmet screen.Josh: Yeah. Those sound, those do sound seriously though. Those, those, uh, look pretty, pretty nice.Ben: Yeah. I have, I have a low-tech Peloton. It's just a trainer. I brought my bike on.Josh: Is your bike on it? Yeah. Yeah. But I like, I don't know the what, from what I've heard of the Peloton  , uh, those they've got all the bells and whistles right star.Starr: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, really it's um, it's not so much about the actual bike for me. It is, as it is about having some like super enthusiastic person, like, um, playing really good music and just being like, you've got this, you were born for greatness and just like saying stuff like that at me. Um, while I'm like trying to, you know, read them a little bit,Josh: You say that, but like, you know, like I, I try to, you know, give that experience  to Katelyn, for instance, my wife and she just like, she hates like, she's like get, get out of here.Starr: I think, I think it's easier. I think it's a little easier when there's not like an actual person there, you know, Just hire a social exerciseBen: That started out live, get, you know, the, uh, the motivational speaker guy lives in a, down by the river. I'm just, I'm just thinking about Chris Farley,  like standing by your exercise bike. You can do it. You've got this.Josh: If we could get a, yeah. If we could get that, um, on the Peloton, I would subscribe like if he was one of the trainers, I mean, like, you know,Ben: So just bring him back from the dead, have him record some such the Peloton and then, yeah, that'd be awesome. I miss Chris Farley.Starr: So Ida likes to ride the Peloton too, that she's not big enough for it. Um, but she  is a, her, her feet can touch the pedals. Um, but they can't reach all the way down. So she's kinda like kicks the pedal down and then catches it on the way back up. And so she asked me to put on a little video so she can do it to the music too. Yeah. Oh, I need to give an update about my, um, about the printing press. I know everybody's like waited, waiting the press breath about thatJosh: Date. I thought, yeah. I didn't know. There was news so, well, IStarr: Mean, the news  is I have given up on it. I went down to Tacoma. I went down to see it and it worked and everything, and I just really got a sense for like how big and heavy it was going to be. And, um, then I started, I measured it and I started actually trying to figure out how I would get it into my building. Um, because like, it's just, my, my office is  in the backyard. It's, uh, it's, we're having our backyard redone soon, but right now it's just all bumpy and lumpy. And so it's like trying to like roll this thing. I would have to construct like a, a path out of plywood. I'd have to build a ramp up to my, um, the doorway, um, then to actually get it into the location where it's going to be. I would have to completely like dismantle all my shelving and, um, then like re assemble it once I had put the thing in place.  And so if I ever wanted to move it again, I'd have to like completely take down all my shelving. I was just like, this is too much. Like, this is, um, like I can't, I can't justify this on it. Like I'm, I'm waking up early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep. Cause I'm like, how the hell am I going to like move this thing? It's like, no, that's not a good hobby for me right now.Ben: That's too bad. Have you looked into typewriters?Starr: I mean, quite the same thingJosh: I would get into typewriters  though. Just like aside,Starr: I am looking into smaller, into a smaller press. They have smaller like desktop ones that are a couple of hundred pounds. Um, not, not like a thousand and looking into that sad,Ben: sad to hear it didn't work out, but I let's get pictures of that in any one. If you get a small one, that'd be kind of fun.Starr: Yeah. I just have to, I, uh, I almost saw him this weekend, but somebody swooped in before me. And so now I'm just going to have to wait like six  months until another one pops up. Cause like it's, they're not very, there's not a very liquid market. It's not like in a, I guess, I guess there is a liquid market, I guess, I guess they just kind of get snapped, snatched up and then like, there's just not any of them. Yeah.Josh: Do you still get to like, do you have to do like type setting and stuff?Starr: Yeah. You do like, um, there's a couple ways to do it. Like you can do it the old school way where you have like the lead type and you like, um, you know, put it letter by letter and do like a composing  stick and do all that. Um, I probably wouldn't do that just because I'm not sure I have the time and patience. Um, so there's a, an updated way to do it where, um, you can, um, you know, send a PDF off and they'll make a, uh, a plate for you and it's plastic and then you just use that. So, um, yeah. And you can make them yourself too. It's just, you know, takes more equipment and more, you know, you know how I'm work and stuff.Josh: Maybe you could get like a specialized, d printer to like printer plates for you.Starr: Cool. Do you use like, uh, um, people to use like a, a Glowforge like a laser cutter cool. Or laser engraver?Josh: That's a, that's a fun hobby. That sounds, that sounds like fun.Starr: Oh yeah. Oh, I went down the rabbit hole of reading all about laser engravers too. Like there's like this cheap one from China that you can get for like  bucks. And then like,  it's apparently got good internals, but like, you really have to soup it up. And so like that's some people's whole personality is they just do that.Josh: Nice before we get off the topic of a paper and things that interface with paper. Um, I like ordered something off of Amazon that I was like, I don't know why I was like this excited about it arriving. Like maybe I'm just like extreme, like my, you know, I'm extremely  bored and needed something to look forward to. But like Amazon basics, paper, shreds, shredder, sharpening, and lubricate, lubricant sheets. And I get all, I'm not going to say that again. I hope you like got that. Um, I did not know that this existed though. Cause like I have like a paper shredder. It's like a cheap, you know, a cheap one, but like I never, like, I never oil it cause don't like just, I don't know how, okay. Like just the thought of like getting a, like a bottle  of oil or something and like trying to like dump it.Josh: Like I just, I don't know. So I like was like trying to figure out like, how do you oil these things? And it turns out they make sheets of paper that had the oil like in them and you just run them through the shredder. I didn't know. Like maybe everyone knows this. I did not know this was a thing. And uh, I mean it's like the perfect, it's like the perfect, uh, lubricant solution for your shredder because, um, you just, you know, it's like shredding a piece of paper, which is fun in and of itself.  Like who doesn't like shredding paper. So pro tip, you don't needStarr: Waiting. How do they work? Um,Josh: My shredder might be too far gone from the lack of oiling, but I'm going to like, wait and see. Oh no, we'll wait and see. Luckily I did get the cheap one. So now that I'm like an expert on shredder maintenance, um, my next shredder maybe I'll even upgrade or something.Starr: I actually, um, I bought an Amazon basic shredder. That  is, uh, it's a, it's a fairly big one, um, for home use, but it's, it's uh, Amazon basics and it's actually really good.Ben: That is a cross cut. Cause that's the key feature right there.Starr: I, I think the cross cuts. Yeah. SeeBen: Mine. Mine's a cheapo one that just does stripsJosh: And that's, I mean that's the strips. Yeah.Ben: Gotta have the crossover.Starr: Yeah. They can always go in the strips back together.Josh: Yeah.Ben: I was a little disturbed to find out  though. My, my local trash and recycling facility, uh, our city requests that you not put shredded paper in the recycle, uh, I don't know why they can't handle the recycle shredded paper, but yeah. So if, if all the stuff that I shred, it has to go in the trash, which seems kind of wrong, you know, it's like it's paper cause then recycle. Right. ButJosh: That's because I'm pretty sure recycling is a big scam and none of it actually works. Like you think it does because like Kaylin, like  Katelyn knows all about recycling and I am constantly trying to like be a good person and recycle things and she's like, no, that's not recyclable. Like you can't like, that's going to actually like, that's going to like make the recycling people mad because like they have to sort through this and like, you know, take it out before they can actually like repurpose. So yeah, it seems like there's very, uh, relatively little that is actually recyclable. At least in my experience. So farStarr: We subscribed to an additional recycling service,  um, read well. And uh, yeah. So they like, you can't recycle, um, just a normal city was like, when you can't put like plastic bags or any sort of like plastic film stuff. Right. So like they take that and um, like they'll take, uh, like fabric stuff, like clothes, um, and like batteries and light. And then they have like a rotating category where um, like once every three months or whatever, it's like, you can put your old  electronic devices in there and they'll like, you know, have those recycled and whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty nice.Josh: Yeah. Cause I'm everything I hear lately about like just normal recycling, just as depressing. Like it's like, I don't know. I hear like, you know, half the recycling isn't even like being taken care of taken,Starr: You know, like they're like shippingJosh: It to other countries or burying it in landfills anyways. It just it's like, yeah, it's kind of sad. It doesn't make me want to recycle.Ben: Cool.  Let's see. Maybe, maybe my municipality then is forward-looking because they know there's going to put in the landfill. So there's just saving a step, right? Yeah. Just put it in the trash. Cause we're going to put out the trash anyway. Right?Josh: Yeah. And thenBen: They actually did that for a styrofoam. We used to have a regular styrofoam collection event. Like every month you could go down to city hall and you could dump your old styrofoam and they would take care of it. And then like, you know what, we just can't even cost effectively handle styrofoam anymore. So don't even, it's not even worth driving down to the city  hall to drop it off. Just put it in your trash. It's like, oh, that's so sad.Starr: Well, the, the rebel also does styrofoam. Like it's um, that's cool. It's it's not included in the base like price, but they give you a big bag and they're like, okay, whenever you're done with filling up this giant bag, like it'll cost, I don't know, five or $ to recycle it.Josh: Okay. Well we got to remember put it in the show notes cause I'm going to look at it too. Okay. Sure. I mean, it does seem like I'd rather the city, like if the city like  legitimately can't handle it and they're just like secretly like just trashing it anyway. It's like, it's better just to acknowledge the problem so that a real solution, hopefully it can, you know, like maybe like something like this, like people can start to, you know, pay extra for it or, or whatever. But like, it just seems like ignore, like just pretending, like just, just so everyone can feel good. Like, you know, just keep the people, you know, let them feel like they're recycling when they're not, does  not seem like a solution that's going to like solve any problems.Ben: But you know, what's, what's free to recycle the bits that you send to Honeybadger. We recycle those things all day long. You send us those, those API bits and they get efficiently recycled right away.Starr: I thought y'all were going to recycle those into NFTs.Josh: Oh yes. We don't. Don't uh, can'tBen: Spill the beans yet. Yeah. LikeJosh: Tell everyone our new business strategy. I think already I put that on Twitter already that we're pivoting into crypto and Airtraq and it's going to be a side business. Yes.Starr: It might confuse people. There's already like a Honeybadger coin or something out there.Josh: Yeah. And there's also like multiple Badger NFTs by the way. SoBen: Yeah, just a little delight.Josh: That was like a brave badgers. Brave badgers on Salada. I think there's one.Ben: Yeah. Put that in the show notes. Make sure people check it out.  Not officially endorsed by Honeybadger, but still cool. IStarr: Think we should put out our own line of pugs.Josh: Yes. Yeah. I mean like I'm surprised pugs. Aren't like, so someone's rolling an NFT for pugs, to be honest.Starr: I wasn't making it come back. I hear.Ben: Yeah. If we're going to, if we're going to go retro, like let's go all the way. Retro let's skip the whole collectible cards and stuff and go straight to playing cards. Right. I'll play for the two cards with  different batteries on them. Yeah.Starr: I thought you were going to say to me,  light bulbs or something.Josh: Absolutely. I've been, I'm curious. Have you learned anything about, uh, crypto or NFTs lately?Ben: You know, no, I haven't really, I I've been, I've been watching people in my Twitter feed and it's, it's funny, there's this, there's this arc that I see, like their first tweet is like, what is this crypto stuff? And then their next tweet is like, this crypto stuff is crazy. And then a little bit later, there's another tweet. It's like, I'm going to look into this crypto set because I want to understand it. And then a little bit later there's like,  Hey, check out this NFC I just bought. And then a little bit later, their final tweet is like, here, come join this, this core community and get into my mint.Josh: And, and they have a new Twitter avatar that has like laser eyes.Ben: Yeah. It's kinda, it's crazy. So, so I've like, I've seen this again and again and again, I'm like, okay, I'm not, I'm afraid. I don't wanna investigate the Nazis becauseStarr: So R oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to get, I'm going to get so much hate over this, but our, um, our  NFTs just like, um, MLM for like tech rose.Ben: Yes, totally. They areJosh: Essentially,Starr: That's like, I've got, I've like, I'll just tell my I'm essentially. I've got my sensory over here. My essential oils.Josh: Yeah. Well spring as well. I mean like, technically I think you probably could code a MLM on Ethereum, so I'm sure it's already been done, but maybe that, you know, maybe, maybe we should just go for it. Just go full a  full billing. There you go.Starr: That's it. Everybody you heard it. We're going full villain now.Josh: Crypto villain. Yeah. I I've checked it out as well. A little bit. Um, I bought a, uh, an FTE on Solano just to see. And, um, actually I did not follow the pattern that you, uh, that you described Ben:, but I also did not let myself do this publicly, which I think is a big key. Like you people know,  like you can create anonymous identities on the internet. Um, it's still possible. And then you can go explore, you know, like NFTs or whatever, and you don't have to like have laser eyes on your main Twitter profile. Um, but you know, I went and looked at it and uh, I'm still, I'm like still learning. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to update my, you have the whole crypto scene is a little bit, you know, a little bit dated. Like I  checked it out, like after Bitcoin got, you know, it was starting to get popular and stuff, read some white papers, but I think it's, I mean, it's, you know, it's not going away regardless, so it's good to keep your view current at least. But, um, I am not, uh, you know, bought into, I have an eight in as the kids say,Ben: Well, I mean, back to the two lips, I think I'll just wait until the crash happens. Right. And then I'll have a bias of nice to have thoseJosh: Do that. Yeah. That's the, that's the cycle. I mean, you know, it's going to happen. That happens like in every, every, it seems like every new application of blockchain that, you know, comes out that goes through the same, like boom and bust cycle, um, and then levels out to, uh, you know, fairly regular boom and bust cycle.Ben: I mean, you know, confessional here, but I'm actually a laggard when it comes to tech stuff.  Like I'm pretty late on the adoption curve for a lot of things. Like, you know, my car is pretty old, my TV's kind of old, you know, I'm not really sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's just kinda, it's kinda weird. I'm in the tech world, but like, I don't really jump in on things like that. I'll just wait,Starr: That's pretty normal. Right. There's like, um, I don't know. There's I saw some, I forget where I saw somebody say it was like, there's two types of tech people. One has the newest of everything all the time. And the other one is like still working on like a,  a   PC.Josh: Yeah. Whatever.Starr: Yeah. I don't know about y'all, but like, I don't really know a lot of like tech people who have like, um, like voice assistance in their home.Josh: Yeah. I like that as much as like the consumer more than just regular consumers. Yeah.Ben: That's because we know it's like I write software. I know how bad it is.Josh: Yeah.  Yeah. That's why I don't like having them. So I don't trust, I don't trust software, but I don't know, like the block, the whole blockchain thing. Like, I, I, you know, I kind of get the, like the future application argument, like there's something here. Like I think it is like that idea of having like very easy, like making contracts easier, for instance, or giving software,  the ability, like making it easier to write applications that are built on like contracts or, or even like financial applications. Like the whole idea of like, like code being able to hold its own its own actual currency or money. Um, because it's like, you know, it's just bits. Like that is interesting. Like, I don't know, you know, I'm not enough of a futurist to be able to like see the future where, you know, that's like ubiquitous, but like it is, I can see that aspect of it. It's interesting. But like the whole, like, yeah.  I'm not like collecting a bunch of, uh, NFTs in the meantime.Ben: Yeah. I think smart contracts. The idea is interesting. I think, you know, the stuff that's being loosely called web three, I think that's kind of stuff is interesting, but the, but the whole I'm going to buy a smart contract thing that represents a JPEG and then I'm gonna hold on to it and it's going to be worth a million bucks. That part of it doesn't really appeal to me. Like, yeah, I guess I'm just not yet.Josh: Well, you're also not  an art. You're not like an art collector either. I would assume that's true. I don't think you have a house full of priceless art. I would, that would be my guess. I mean, I don't want to like, yeah, like over assume, but I mean, like, I think that's the kind of person that this would, this definitely like appeals more to like the collector and, uh, I'm, I'm also not a collector. So, um,Ben: Um, I do have one, I do have one piece of art in my house, so I'm not a complete,  you know, Rube, but, uh, but yeah, I am not, I'm not a collector. Yeah.Starr: I think the big, um, like, like I'm thinking about how like Bitcoin and stuff has been around and, you know, blockchain has been around for over a decade at this point. Right. Um, and like still now, like, you know, it looks a lot, I don't know, to me, just from the outside, it looks very similar to what it did back then.  It's like, it's like, um, a bunch of people, very excited about it and what it means, and this kind of like vague way, um, that like seems like, you know, it'll pan out in the future, but we're not quite sure how yet. And like, I'm wondering if the big, um, I'm wondering if the thing that like blockchain is actually successful at is in, um, being very like evocative to  a certain type of person, um, making a certain type of, you know, developer or a tech person, like feel a certain way. Like I wonder if that's the main success of blockchain, because that seems to be like, mostly what I'm seeing is like a bunch of people, you know, excited a bunch of people. Um, I don't know, like, like wanting to discuss the future of things and you know, being smart about it. And it's like, I wonder if that, um, that process is the whole reason that it stuck around. I don't  know.Ben: It's good, good point.Josh: There's definitely some interesting stuff out there. Um, and some very, I mean, like, I think it's undeniable that there are some very people that have thought all this stuff up, like yeah. But yeah, I don't know. You're right. It's, it's been around a lot. Like the, it seems like the adoption curve as much longer on this one. If, if it is going to be the, you know, the next big thing, I don't know. It does. I don't know. It'll be interesting.  But I figured in the meantime, like keeping, keeping an eye on, let's just try to learn more about it. But, um, I'm not really the, I try to avoid situations where I just like dive in and become a like true believer. So I'm, I'm learning from afar.Ben: I'll just go buy some GME. That'll go to fix.Starr: I dunno. I'm just going to go for  AMC, myself. Like the movies, like the movies have been around forever.Ben: Well, confession time I actually bought some AMC. Oh yeah. When the whole GME thing was going crazy and AMC got part of it. I went and bought some AMC. Cause I'm like, you know what, thinking about it. It's like, I wasn't really interested in the main stock thing, but I was thinking, okay, pandemics going to go away some point, right. People are gonna get back out and they're going to go to movies again. Right. It's going to be, and I'm actually, I think I'm doing pretty good on the whole AMC purchase.  We'll see how it goes. Pandemic didn't end yet, but I can still close the fingers.Josh: I mean, as a futurist, I do expect more things to become MIMA fide. So if you can like predict those trends, then go, you know, get in early because, uh, everything's going to be a meme on the blockchain. Eventually.Ben: That's a good thing. Our business is based on a meme now. We're, we're, we're totally with it.Josh: Yeah. All right. We're finally with it on the whole meme thing.Starr: Well, as the present test, I think you should just enjoy it while you can.Josh: You mean all the mains or I don'tStarr: Really know. I just want to get, it seemed like a pithy thing to sayBen: It's apropos. Yeah. Yeah.Josh: Well, we discussed like, no, like I think we, I think we actually discussed like nothing  related to the business this time and that is, you know, that's moving forward.Ben: This is our Seinfeld episode, the episode aboutJosh: Speed. Oh, speaking of Seinfeld, we finished the last, the final episode of Seinfeld, um, that like a couple nights ago. And it like, cause we've been like Kayla and I have been like going through it, like for like years at this point, like just slowly, like, cause it's not every night you want to watch Seinfeld.  Like it's, it's gotta be like a Seinfeld night. So we finally, like, we didn't realize we were like at the end. Um, and it was kind of a, it was a little bittersweet moment kind of likeStarr: At the end of real Seinfeld when it aired. So, and you just heard that green day song starts swelling. It's something I'm predictive of your life. I know. So enjoy it while you can enjoy it while you can.Starr: You've been listening to founder quest. If you want to give us a review, go to wherever you do that and do that. I don't know. I've never been given a podcast or review, to be honest. I don't know how you do it. Um, so I may just be sending you out to nowhere. Um, and yeah, if you're interested in writing for us, we are usually looking for authors and stuff for a blog. Um, check out  honeybadger.io forward slash blog and look for the right press link and learn all about, you know, all about that. And we will see you next week. See ya. See ya. Bye.

Show notesLinks:Hey Dumpster FireGoatse.cxFull transcript:*This is an unedited automated transcript which is only about 80% accurate*Starr  Yeah, well, sad news. Um I did not see my printing press last weekend because I I came down with a cold, it wasn't it wasn't covid, so don't worry, it's okay. Um But we're waiting for the test to come back. So you know the difference between now and the before times is now when you get a cold life shuts down and you can't really do anything until your results come back. Josh  Well and you know the other thing about like during the pandemic, everyone's home like just the printing press market is just going wild right now, so like, there's going to be gone, I'm sure it'll be gone long gone by the time you're feeling better. Starr  Exactly, everybody's going to print their manifestos, Josh  right? Yeah, Ben  well, you know, since my kid is able to take care of his own school needs and I didn't have to like sideline myself for that, like, like star, I actually got some stuff done this week, but uh but not going to tell you me. So I've been really get into this groove on having other people do things, so Starr  it's not definite, Ben  it's so nice, so nice. So shall I was able to deliver a feature that we want in Hungary there for a long time and that is being able to deliver to multiple your ills. So we give you a hook address that you post to and then you can say, okay, up to three different Charles will then get that delivery that post. So Josh  that's pretty cool, Starr  wow, Broadcasting broadcasting Ben  your publisher, this is something that one of our customers asked for and something we've wanted for a while and, and uh I apologize, I think to shop because I kind of dropped the ball on, you know, helping this get this, get this feature over the goal, you know, he uh he had done some work a few months ago and I just was distracted and didn't really uh follow up on it, like, I should have, and then and then once I did follow up like I should have, then it's like, you know what, I don't think we want to go with this round, I think I want to go a different round. So we ended up re implementing the whole thing in a different way, but so I appreciate his patients but got that launch, That's feeling pretty good. Starr  That's awesome. So um so hook really is a product that we're uh you know, we've lost, you can just go sign up for right now, right? Yeah. Ok. Yeah, so it's uh it's like magic for your wife hooks, so if you if you want to um if you want to send a web hook, you just send it to our service and then we make sure that it gets deliver, that's super reliable, that I don't know, there's just a lot of details that you have to implement around doing web hooks, right? And we do this for you. And so now it sounds like you can have that sort of broadcast to multiple points Josh  also works for inbound web hooks. So no matter what the flaky services that is sending you sending you web hooks, I think what we're doing right now is broadcasting, by the way, um but yeah, no matter what the flaky service that you have to integrate with, you know, to send to receive data from them if your app goes or maybe your app is flaky, if if your app is going down, um you can just be sure that when you get back online, hook relay will be there to relay all the web hooks that you missed. Starr  Well, I've got I've got a term for it, you can feel free to use this in your marketing. So that means that um since it does both outbound and inbound, that means you're full duplex Josh  well, Duplex. I like it, I like it going to write it down, You know, like that would be an awesome, like if we did kind of like, you know, like, like I don't know, like s marketing theme, like with me on colors and stuff and we're like full duplex. Just that going well together. Ben  Do you remember speaking of the eighties, remember back and when you connect with your modem and it would be the wrong duplex setting. And so everything you typed would be double right? You get every care, it could be a double f. You know? And they're like, oh man, full duplex. I gotta reconnect at half duplex. Yeah, Josh  we should we should do like a, like a marketing, like, like a Youtube video, you know, like this little sketch or something of you trying to connect to your modem. Yeah, Ben  awesome. Josh  Yeah. So Ben  yeah, in fact, I used, I used to create this morning for doing an inbound hooks setting up. So we're working on the broadcast emails, that's the task, that's another task has been on our to do this for a long time. Uh I was working on that this morning and uh we use postmark for our email delivery and when one of the things uh they did recently a few months ago they had this new feature and their product called announced broadcasts, announcements, broadcast exactly what it's called. But basically before this feature, post Margaret, just about transactional email, like it could only send things that were triggered by a user, right? Like a password reset email or you know, in our case we send a lot of notifications for errors, you know, to individual users, Ben  but then they launched this new broadcast feature which allows you to use their infrastructure for, you know, kind of marketing, like emails like maybe announcements about your, you know, new products or your new features or maybe have new terms of service or whatever. So more and more of a broadcast email rather than an individual email. And uh one of the features that they have and the reason why I was using the web book is they can they have, we'll add an unsubscribe link for you at the bottom of the emails that go out. And so of course the person may click the unsubscribe if they don't want to hear from us anymore, which would be, you know, totes sad, but it happens Ben  and then it goes to postmark and then postmark records that unsubscribe intent and then sends it can optionally send a web hook to you. And so uh yeah, so I set up a cookery, they target for that postmark web hook so that even if our app goes down, which of course it never does, but if it did then we would have all those, you know, web hooks from postmark happily saved in Hungary. They uh getting along of it to see is nice. I wonder Josh  like the go ahead. Sorry, Starr  I was just going to say. So you can um the inbound web hooked payloads get saved and then you can just pull them down whatever you want. That's convenience. Like I want I want that inbound with a hook data, but I don't want to build a web hook right now, I don't want to build like something to like get that right now. I just want I just want to know that the data someplace and get it later. Josh  Yeah. Yeah. I wondered like the utility of that feature might be pretty, pretty huge depending on like what people are doing with web hooks these days, you know like I don't know like receiving, you know, recording payments or um activated subscriptions. Yeah, Ben  or you know if you're if you're building a feature that's gonna accept the web hook but you don't it is not launched yet or you don't know exactly what you're going to get because you know sometimes your provider might say, well this is what we're gonna send you but you actually really be sure. Right. So you can, you can set up the cookery. They link first start getting some real web hooks from them. See what they're like before. Well yeah actually we Josh  don't have an option. Yeah, we have an option to like to not just receive but not forward. Right. Right. Yeah. So he's a sort of as like a interim development. Starr  Can we have an option? Um do we have an option to receive and just immediately discard just for you know, just when you're just fed up with that website provider? Ben  Yes. I think we actually do have that. So we have like this. Yeah forget this. We have a disabled button so the link still works like I can still post to it but it won't, nothing will happen with the payload is just goes into it either devon all Josh  you can set up like that. The dumpster fire thing like like a base camp did well back where we, you know, we have someone just burn it for you. I mean it's probably like, it's like yeah environmentally responsible to Starr  like get sense to like it gets sent to a, did you see that star? We just take the exact yeah I didn't see it. No. Josh  Okay so it was pretty awesome. Like they yeah, I forget like what was the, what were the emails like it was, you would give you like they had an address that you could um, email at? Hey, right. Hey dot com. And like they had someone actually like with a printer set up in a webcam and everything. Like they were just like, like they would print out your email I think and like just burn it like in front of the camera or something like that, Wasn't it? Something like that. Yeah, Starr  That would be a weird job. Josh  Yeah. Well, it was, yeah, it was definitely start. Yeah. Ben  Yeah. We should definitely something that I don't know. Maybe every time you get a look at it, tickles a honey badger. I don't know. I can think of something. Starr  Yeah, that's an even weirder job. I don't think I want to do that. Good. Ben  Yeah. So I got, I got a tweet dM today um, from someone uh, asking about something from a previous founder quest episode in which we talked about. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. That was cool. So, you know, everyone's always welcome to do that because that's fun for us. The uh, the message was a question about, were we talked in the previous episode about the automation, the automated monitoring that I added for our sake too, compliance stuff. And the question was like, you know, did we go with a particular provider? And yes, yes, we did. We went withdraw to, so we looked at van to and looked at secure secure frame and we looked at Dorada and uh, they're, they're pretty comparable all three of them. But are we, it came down to, we really liked draw to just a bit more than secure frame, Ben  which would be perfectly fine solution I think to you, we almost went with him and then an advantage was kind of like in this kind of distant third like they're okay. But what I really like drought and secure frame. So I don't know why. I didn't say who he selected before but there it is in case anyone is curious and didn't feel like actually asking uh there you go, Starr  awesome. And remember the, the answer to the first security question is all of the above. Mhm. Oh my God, they're gonna drop us as a customer now. I just violated the terms of service haven't giving Josh  out the answers. Starr  Maybe it's none of the above. Hopefully they switch out the questions. Ben  Uh speaking of questions, we got a we got a vendor questionnaire, security questionnaire the other day and I was looking at the answer. I was going through and answering the questions and there was this whole section about card data. And I thought to myself, oh how quaint like back in the day when we had to actually worry about securely storing credit card data. You know, these days, you know, we use stripe and we don't care. We never touched a car or data. And so I was able to, you know, Mark in a to all those things. But I just, it's kind of a blast from the past to see questions about, you know, do you, do you ever send credit card details via email? No, no, we do not. Our whole Josh  payment system, man. Yeah. Starr  Business card data though. We just like have those in a box in the closet. Ben  Yeah, we secure this to our Starr  business cards. Josh  Well, they're apparently there are vendors that are still doing it that way. Yeah. Ben  Yeah. Which is kind of scary when you think about it. Starr  You know, it's funny like with the compliance, I've been um there's been a couple of times where um, well, I've got to explain my setup. So I've got a little office in my backyard. I'm the only one here. Um and there's been a couple of times where I'm about to like go into the house or whatever my computer's on and normally like I'm just going to leave it running and stuff. And then I was like, nope. I, and the compliance says I've got to lock it before I leave my office from which I uh and it's like, okay, it's like, should I leave the door open the office? No, I gotta lock it, compliance says I've got to have, you know, adequate physical security measures Josh  like you want, like one of the squirrels getting in there. Okay, finding it unlocked? Ben  Well, I appreciate your diligence star. That's, that's going above and beyond right there. Starr  Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's, it's ridiculous. But yeah. Ben  Well on that note, one of the things that has annoyed me about the compliance requirements is that they prefer that you have um your screen saver lock Within, you know, x minutes,  minutes or whatever it is. Right? And they actually check that we have an agent that runs on each computer to make sure that we actually have that enabled and I surveillance. I never had that enabled because you know, like you like who's who's here? Like it's just me, like I'm the only person here, right? But now I have to have this screen saver that locks and Starr  sometimes you want to read things so that takes a little while or like watch a video or something. Mhm. Ben  So, but you know, it serves the greater good. So Josh  I already had my screen saver set because I have perfect operational security. Starr  What's that outside that window, josh behind you? Is that Massad? I think it's Massad, Starr  but they can't get in. They can't get in. Okay. Good. Just banging against the door. Josh  I got the dog patrolling the perimeter right now. Josh  Yeah, well I learned to keep my screen lock at a small time window when I shared an office with my brother because we would like actually, I don't know, I don't know if you ever actually got me, I think I like one time I like installed a Cron job, like a random crime job on his computer that like remember that it played like uh like read out like a random random spot quote I think with, you know with the with the speech to text, text to speech thing in backup in Mac. Os. Yeah, I remember after that I was like he is going to retaliate and I need to, I need to like up my security game. So Starr  that would be one way to like um to harden an office. It's just like encouraged employees to prank one another. Josh  Well that's where I think it started. Like I think we're kind of like doing that a little bit and yeah, it is a I don't know if I should if it's recommended but it is hilarious. Ben  That sounds, that sounds perfect for like an internal security team at a large enterprise. Like they should give prizes for the best pranks, you know, that actually expose security weaknesses like that, you know because you know they do these things like they will send an email to everyone in the company and like click on this link and then someone does and they're like, oh gotcha, you weren't supposed to Starr  click on that. It's fishing Ben  and everyone's like, oh you suck. You know? But if they made a crowdsource it. Josh  Yeah, get everyone involved. Ben  Yeah, totally. Starr  It's like whoever the best rick roller is gets a bonus Josh  a hackathon where everyone's a target. Ben  Maybe maybe you have to maybe have to put some parameters around it like maybe it's only the week around april fool's right. And so you know, people can be on a higher guard. I don't know Starr  how it makes sense. Otherwise you'd have foster a climate of like continual mistrust. Yeah, it's like, just just see that important business document I sent you bob. It's like good try Jeff, try Ben  not falling for it. Starr  That's fallen for it. You got one of those word, macro viruses in there. I know it. Josh  Do you see like someone on twitter posted like this Apparently rick Astley got rick rolled on Reddit like a few years ago. Obviously that like you just Yeah, the person, the person that did it got like, I think like, like, like a century of Reddit gold or something like that. Like you just you just win the internet totally like Yeah, that's yeah, that is winning the internet right? Like that's the ultimate prize. Yeah. Starr  Are giant Zoomer fan bases. Like what? What's rick rolling? Mhm. Ben  Even my kids, You know what rick rolling is Oh, they do. Okay. Josh  It's just one of the ones that just never goes, Yeah. People are just never going to give up. Ben  It's going to persist through the generations of time until the sun has the heat death. Josh  That's that's that's heavy. Starr  Yeah, I guess it could be worse. It's not go to see Josh  Oh man. Yeah, Josh  that was, I don't know like there was like there's that thing goes around like always like, like date yourself by like the earliest mean, you remember or whatever and I think goats, he was one of the earlier once. I won't forget it. So Starr  there was a time before they called the means like maybe that, I don't know. Ben  Yes. Ben  Well do either of you have any last hurrahs for our lovely summer season before the weather turns cold and gray and rainy in any plans to do something fun? Don't Josh  know why we have kids in school now. And so our plans are to drive them back and forth Ben  repetitive lee. Starr  I'm just trying to survive. That's basically it and it's trying to get through, Josh  I mean, and get, yeah, we'll probably like, I've been like, the weather has been nicer outside lately. So I've been trying to enjoy the yard while I can because like, yeah, it's just the weird like pacific northwest thing now where like most of years rainy and what used to be the thing that made it worthwhile was the wonderful summers is now like half of the summer is also now cloud covered in smoke and, And like °. So, um, like right now everything is like picture perfect pacific northwest and I've been really enjoying that. Starr  Yeah, last in the past. It's pretty nice. I'm, I'm looking forward to the drizzle coming back because there's just too many people out on walks, you know, like I like, I like, I like to be solitary on my walks and these amateurs only come out when it's nice outside. Um you know, so yeah, I can't, I can't wait for a little bit of drizzle where I got my raincoat and I can go and you know, walk through my neighborhood and be alone Josh  is we are kind of at the point where like you start, you start to like, uh like not dread fall or so much. Like I'm kind of looking forward to it again and like, you know, seasons, seasons are nice, but then like you halfway halfway through the winter, I'll be like ready for summer and summer will be a long ways off. But I'm looking forward to fall right now. Ben  It's kind of kind of funny like there's definitely this uh there's a sense of angst when there is too much, when there's too much sun for too long. You know, when people like, I, I need I need some grey, I need some rain and then, and then the grain grey comes and the rain comes and you can just feel this, this uh you know, things are back to, back to where it should be. You know, it's just kind of fun and of course, yeah, february comes around like, oh, it's a son, Josh  you know, and see, I just want, I just want all of this on like a light switch, so I can just change it depending on the mood that I'm in. Um Ben  you know, Yeah, we really need some weather management technology. Starr  Uh We just need to get in with the movers and shakers that control the weather. Josh  Yeah, I think, I think it's the folks over at DARPA from what, from what I hear from the internet, you know, Ben  or you just, you know, take a vacation. I mean the old fashioned way you just go to some place, warm Josh  vacations, Starr  vacations, That's Josh  so that's so pre that's so pre . We we stay in one place and control the weather now. Yeah. Mhm. Ben  Yeah. It sounds like a lot more fun actually Josh  and it does. Josh  Yeah. Well I don't know, I've done stuff this week but I don't remember. Me neither and what not. So Starr  yeah, sure you make this a short one. I guess we should. Okay, well you have always been. Sorry, let me do that again. Um You have just now, just in this very moment finished listening to found request. If you want to right to serve you go do that. Um If you're interested in writing for us, you know, check out our blog honey badger dot I.  slash blog and look for the writers page. Well the right for us link I mean and just yeah, stay safe and we will catch you next week. Ben  Have a good one. Thank you 

Show Notes:Links:MicromortNoblesse obligeJosh's dotfilesGitHub Code SpacesFull Transcript:Ben:Yeah. I've been holding out for the new MacBook Pros. The M1 is pretty tempting, but I want whatever comes next. I want the 16-inch new hotness that's apparently supposed to be launching in November, but I've been waiting for it so patiently for so long now.Josh:Will they have the M2?Ben:Yeah, either or that or M1X. People are kind of unsure what the odds are.Starr:Why do they do that? Why did they make an M1 if they can't make an M2? Why do they have to keep... You just started, people. You can just have a normal naming scheme that just increments. Why not?Josh:M1.1?Ben:That would be awesome.Starr:Oh, Lord.Josh:Yeah, it would.Ben:M1A, Beachfront Avenue.Starr:So last week we did an Ask Me Anything on Indie Hackers, and that was a lot of fun.Josh:It was a lot of fun.Starr:I don't know. One of the most interesting questions on there was some guy was just like, "Are you rich?" I started thinking about it. I was like, "I literally have no idea." It reminded me of when I used to live in New York briefly in the '90s or, no, the early '00s. There was a Village Voice article in which they found... They started out with somebody not making very much money, and they're like, "Hey, what is rich to you?" Then that person described that. Then they went and found a person who had that level of income and stuff and they asked them, and it just kept going up long past the point where... Basically, nobody ever was like, "Yeah, I'm rich."Josh:Yeah. At the end, they're like, "Jeff Bezos, what is rich? What is rich to you?"Starr:Yeah.Josh:He's like, "Own your own star system."Starr:So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing pretty good for myself because I went to fill up my car with gas the other day and I just didn't even look at the price. The other day, I wanted to snack, so I just got a whole bag of cashews, and I was just chowing down on those. I didn't need to save that. I could always get another bag of cashews.Ben:Cashews are my arch nemesis, man. I can't pass up the cashews. As far as the nut kingdom, man, they are my weakness.Starr:I know. It's the subtle sweetness.Ben:It's so good. The buttery goodness.Starr:Yeah, the smoothness of the texture, the subtle sweetness, it's all there.Ben:That and pistachios. I could die eating cashews and pistachios.Josh:There you go. I like pistachios.Ben:Speaking of being rich, did you see Patrick McKenzie's tweet about noblesse oblige?Josh:No. Tell me.Ben:Yeah, we'll have to link it up in the show notes. But, basically, the idea is when you reach a certain level of richness, I guess, when you feel kind of rich, you should be super generous, right? So noblesse oblige is the notion that nobility should act nobly. If you have been entrusted with this respect of the community and you're a noble, then you ought to act a certain way. You got to act like a noble, right? You should be respectful and et cetera. So Patio was applying this to modern day, and he's like, "Well, we should bring this back," like if you're a well-paid software developer living in the United States of America, you go and you purchase something, let's say a coffee, that has basically zero impact on your budget, right? You don't notice that $10 or whatever that you're spending. Then just normalize giving a 100% tip because you will hardly feel it, but the person you're giving it to, that'll just make their day, right? So doing things like that. I was like, "Oh, that's"-Josh:Being generous.Ben:Yeah, it's being generous. Yeah. So I like that idea.Josh:That's cool.Ben:So-Starr:So it's okay to be rich as long as you're not a rich asshole.Ben:Exactly. Exactly. That's a good way to bring it forward there, Starr.Starr:There you go. I don't know. Yeah. I think there's some historical... I don't know. The phrase noblesse oblige kind of grates at me a little bit in a way that I can't quite articulate in this moment, but I'll think about that, and I will get back with you.Josh:Wait. Are you saying you don't identify as part of the nobility?Starr:No.Ben:I mean, I think there's a lot of things from the regency period that we should bring back, like governesses, because who wants to send your child to school in the middle of a COVID pandemic? So just bring the teacher home, right?Starr:Yeah. That's pretty sexist. Why does it have to be gendered? Anyway.Ben:Okay, it could be a governor, but you might get a little misunderstanding. All of a sudden, you've got Jay Inslee showing up on your doorstep, "I heard you wanted me to come teach your kids."Josh:I don't know. I'll just take an algorithm in the home to teach my kids, just entrust them to it.Starr:Yeah. Oh, speaking of bringing things back, I told y'all, but I'll tell our podcast listeners. On Sunday, I'm driving to Tacoma to go to somebody's basement and look at a 100-year old printing press to possibly transport to Seattle and put in my office for no good reason that I can think of. It just seems to be something that I'm doing.Josh:Do you like that none of us actually asked you what you were intending to do with it? I was like, "Yeah, just let me know when you need to move it. I'm there." I just assumed you were going to do something cool with it, but ... Yeah.Starr:I appreciate that. I appreciate the support. I'm going to make little zines or something. I don't know.Josh:Yeah. If I get a lifetime subscription to your zine-Starr:Okay, awesome.Josh:... that would be payment.Starr:Done. Done.Josh:Cool.Ben:Yeah, sign me up, too. I'll be there.Starr:Well, I appreciate that.Ben:I mean, who could resist that invitation, right, because you get to... If you get to help with moving that thing, you get to see it, you get to touch it and play with it, but you don't have to keep it. It's somebody else's problem when you're done with the day, so sounds great to me.Starr:There you go. Well, I mean, if you read the forums about these things, this is one of the smaller ones, so people are just like, "Ah, no big deal. No big deal. It's okay." But I was happy to hear that there's no stairs involved.Ben:That is the deal-breaker. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But it-Ben:If you ever get the friend helping you to move their piano, you always ask, "Okay, how many flights of steps," right?Starr:Yeah. Oh, I just thought of something I could do with it. I could make us all nice business card to hand out to nobody.Ben:Because we're not going anywhere.Josh:I just think of my last six attempts at having business cards. They're all still sitting in my closet, all six boxes of-Starr:I know. People look at you like, "What, really, a business card? What?"Josh:Yeah, like all six generations.Starr:Yeah.Ben:I hand out one or two per year. Yeah, just random people and like, "Hey, here's my phone number." It's an easy way to give it to somebody.Josh:Just people on the street?Ben:Exactly. Like a decent fellow, "Here you go." Thank you.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's like, "I've got 1000 of these. I got to justify the cost somehow."Josh:We got to move these.Starr:We could start invoicing our customers by snail mail. I could print a really nice letterhead.Ben:I think we have a few customers who would be delighted to receive a paper invoice from us because then they would have an excuse to not pay us for 90 days.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Isn't owning a printing press like owning a truck, though? Once people know you have it, everyone wants to borrow it.Starr:It's going to be pretty hard to borrow for a 1000-pound piece of iron.Josh:Well, they're going to want to come over and hang out in your basement and do their printing. This is the Pacific Northwest, like-Starr:It's their manifestos.Josh:Yeah. They got to print their manifestos, lists of demands.Starr:They don't want the establishment at Kinko's to be able to see.Josh:Right.Ben:I don't know. It's got to put you on a special kind of watch list, though, if you have a printing press in your home, right? All of a sudden, some people are really interested in what you're up to.Josh:It's like a legacy watch list.Ben:I'm just flashing back to, yeah, in the 1800s when cities, towns would get all-Starr:There you go.Josh:Well, yeah, because they're like-Ben:The mob would come out and burn down the printing press building and stuff.Josh:If you wanted to be a propagandist back then, you had to buy a printing press and then you get put on a watch list. That just never went away. They're still looking for those people. They just don't find as many of them these days.Starr:Yeah. It's so inefficient. It's not the super efficient way of getting the word out, though, I hear, unless you want to be one of those people handing out leaflets on the side of the road.Josh:Well, you could paper windshields in parking lots.Starr:Oh, there you go. Yeah.Josh:Yeah, that's how they used to do it.Starr:No, look at my beautifully hand-crafted leaflet that you're going to throw in the gutter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think you just settled on what your next adventure's going to be after Honeybadger. You're ready to put this business aside and focus on printing up flyers for your local missing cat.Starr:There you go. There you go. Band flyers, that's big business.Josh:But you could get into fancy paper. That's a whole thing up here. It's pretty cool, actually.Starr:Yeah. I don't know. Really, I was like, "Oh, it'd be cool to have a big thing to tinker with." I'm learning about myself that I like having just a big physical project going on, and I'm pretty... Like, I built this backyard office, and that took up two years of my time. Ever since then, I don't have a big physical thing to work on, so I'm thinking this might fill that niche, that niche, sorry. I read a thing that's like don't say niche, Americans. Niche.Ben:I don't know, Starr. Maybe you should think of the children and then think about 50 years from now when you're dead and Ida's cleaning out the house and she's all like, "Why is there this printing press?"Starr:Oh, there you go.Josh:Have to move it.Starr:They'll just sell it with the house.Ben:There you go.Starr:Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is, is that it is wider than the doorway, so I would either have to dissemble it partially or take out the door. I put the door in, so I know how to take it out, so there is a good chance the door's coming out because I have less chance of messing something up if I do that one. But we'll see.Ben:Echo that.Starr:Well, thank you.Josh:You should've put one of those roll-up doors in there.Starr:I should've, yeah.Josh:Those are cool.Starr:What was I thinking?Josh:You really did not plan ahead for this.Starr:Yeah. I mean, walls are really only a couple of thin pieces of plywood, and you can just saw through it.Josh:Just a small refactor.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that would-Josh:Did y'all see that someone listened to every episode of this podcast in a row?Starr:I know. I feel so bad. I feel so bad for them.Josh:Speaking of-Starr:We're sorry. We're so sorry.Ben:I was feeling admiration. I'm like, "Wow, that's impressive," like the endurance of it.Starr:I just think we would've made different decisions.Ben:I don't know. But not-Josh:Maybe it's pretty good. I haven't gone back and gone through it all and never will, but-Ben:Well, I mean, not only did they say they listened to every episode, but then they were eager for more. They were like, "When are you getting done with your break?" So I guess-Starr:There you go.Ben:... that net it was positive, but-Josh:We must not be too repetitive.Ben:Must not.Starr:Stockholm syndrome.Josh:We're sorry.Ben:Well...Starr:I'm sorry. I don't have anything informative to add, so I'm just going to be shit-posting this whole episode.Ben:Well, I've had an amazing week since we last chatted. I kept reflecting on how I couldn't remember anything that I did over the past whatever months. Well, this past week, I can remember a whole bunch of things that I did. I've been crazy busy and getting a bunch of little things knocked out. But today, today was the capstone of the week because I rolled over our main Redis cluster that we use for all of our jobs, all of the incoming notices and whatevers. Yeah, rolled over to a new Redis cluster with zero downtime, no dropped data, nobody even noticed. It was just smooth as-Starr:Oh my God.Josh:I saw that.Starr:Awesome.Ben:It's going pretty good.Starr:Just like butter?Ben:Just like butter.Starr:They slid right out of that old Redis instance and just into this new... Is it an AWS-managed type thing?Ben:Yeah, both of them were. They all went on the new one, but... Yeah.Josh:It's, what, ElastiCache?Ben:Yep. Smooth like a new jar of Skippy.Josh:I saw that you put that in our ops channel or something.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, that's the topic in our ops channel.Josh:So it's the subject or the topic, yeah. We're making ops run, yeah, like a jar of Skippy.Starr:Why isn't that our tagline for our whole business?Ben:I mean, we can change it.Starr:I don't know why that's making me crack up so much, but it is.Josh:Skippy's good stuff.Starr:Oh my gosh.Josh:Although we-Ben:Actually-Josh:... usually go for the Costco natural brand these days.Ben:Well, we go for the Trader Joe's all-natural brand that you have to actually mix every time you use it. I prefer crunchy over creamy, so, actually, my peanut butter's not that smooth, but... You know.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. But, yeah, I love our natural peanut butter, except for the whole churning thing, but you can live with that.Starr:We're more of a Nutella family.Ben:Ooh, I do love a Nutella.Josh:Ooh, Nutella.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), that's good stuff.Josh:We made pancakes the other day, and I was putting Nutella on pancakes. I did this thing, like I made this... We have one of those griddles, like an electric griddle, and so I made this super long rectangular pancake, and then I spread Nutella on the entire thing, and then I rolled it so that you have this-Starr:You know what it's called, Josh.Josh:What is it called?Starr:That's called a crepe.Josh:So it's a crepe, but it's made out of a pancake.Starr:It's a Texas crepe.Ben:Texas crepe.Josh:Yeah, a Texas-Starr:A Texas crepe.Ben:Yes.Josh:Is it really a Texas crepe because that's... Yeah, so, I-Starr:Oh, no, I just made that up.Ben:That sounds perfect, yeah.Josh:Well, it is now.Ben:Yeah, it is now.Josh:It is now, and I highly recommend it. It's pretty amazing.Ben:Throw some Skippy on there and, man, now it's a... That's awesome.Josh:Peanut butter's also good on pancakes.Starr:That's why people listen to us, for our insights about business.Ben:Yeah, there was this one time, speaking of pancakes and peanut butter...Josh:How did we get on pancakes? Like, oh, yeah, ops.Ben:This one time, I went over to dinner at some person's house, and I didn't know what dinner was going to be, but we got there and it was breakfast for dinner, which I personally love. That's one of my favorites.Starr:I knew that about you.Ben:So they're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Hope you don't think it's weird, but we're having breakfast for dinner." I'm like, "No, no, I love it." So eggs and bacon and waffles, and so I'm getting my waffle and I'm like, "Do you have some peanut butter," and they're like, "Oh my goodness, we thought you would think that was way too weird, and so we didn't have the peanut butter." They whipped it out from in the counter. It's like, "Oh, shew, now we can have our peanut butter, too." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, peanut butter on waffles, yeah."Josh:Everyone had their hidden peanut butter.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah.Starr:And that's how you level up a friendship.Ben:There you go. So, yeah, the week was good. The week was good. Bugs got fixed, things got deployed, and, yeah, just a whole-Josh:Yeah, you had a bunch of PRs and stuff for little things, too, which-Ben:Yeah. And got some practice with the whole delegating thing, got Shava doing some stuff, too. So, yeah, just all-around super productive week.Josh:Nice. I got Java to run in a Docker container, so my week's going pretty good.Ben:And that took you all week?Starr:What do those words mean? I don't...Josh:Yeah.Starr:Was your audio cutting out? I don't know. I just heard a bunch of things I don't understand.Josh:Well, for your own sake, don't ask me to explain it.Starr:Yeah, it's like better not looked at.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Why would you subject yourself to that sort of torture, Josh?Josh:Oh, well, because running Java on an M1 Mac is even worse.Starr:Oh my Lord.Josh:Well, actually, running it, period. But, yeah, like just our Java package. I mean, I've spent half this podcast ranting about our packaging, so I don't need to get too deep into it. But every time I release this thing, it's like it just doesn't work because I've forgotten my... I've changed my system, and Java and Maven package repository are just like that. So I figure if I can make some sort of reproduceable development environment using Docker, then in two years everything will just be smooth as a jar of Skippy.Ben:Skippy. Yeah, yeah.Starr:Well, I had a chance to-Josh:I reckon.Starr:I had a chance to dig into some numbers, which is one of my favorite things to do, and so... I don't know. There was this question that was just bothering me, which was... Well, let me just back up. So we've had some success, as you guys know, in the past year. We've almost doubled our rate of new user sign-ups, not new user sign-ups, like conversion to paid users. We've doubled our paid user conversion numbers, rate, whatever you call it. And so, obviously, revenue from users has gone up as well, but since we are a... Our plans are basically broken down by error rates, right? So what happens when people upgrade is they get too many errors for their plan. It says, "Hey, you should upgrade if you want to keep sending us errors," and they do.Starr:I had this weird situation where it's like I wasn't sure... In our system, revenue from users was coming just from whatever plan they picked when they signed up, and so I was wondering, "Well, what if they sign up, and then a week later they upgrade? That's going to be counted under upgrade revenue instead of new user revenue," which, really, it really kind of should be. So I got to digging, and I found that it doesn't really make that big of a difference. Some people do upgrade pretty quickly after converting, but they don't... It's not really enough to really change things.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Then, also, just sort of offhand, I took a little sneak peek. I've been running this experiment to see if lowering our error quota for our basic, our free plan, it would increase conversions. So I took a little sneak peek at the data. It's too soon to know for sure, but so far the conversion rate, I think, is going to end up being higher, which is what I would expect, so that's good, and-Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah. And when we're done, I'm going to look at sign-ups just to make sure that they are still in line.Ben:Yeah. Anecdotally, I've seen a smaller window from trial to paid conversion. Well, not trial, but freemium to paid conversion. I've seen people who are signing up, getting on the basic plan, and then within some short time period they're actually going to a team plan.Josh:Oh, that's good to know.Ben:That's happening more often than it was, so... Yeah. So that's-Josh:Cool.Ben:I'm just saying the same thing Starr said but without real data.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, we need a little bit more time to see how things pan out, too, because it's... One thing I figured out that I will share with our readers, our readers, I'm used to doing the blog posts, I'll share with our listeners that I figured out that you really have to pay attention to, on free plans especially, is comparing conversion rates between time periods. So if you make a change and then you wait for a month of data to come in and you're like, "Okay, let's look at the conversion rate for the past month after the change with the conversion rate for the time period before the change," that is really an apples to oranges comparison because on the one hand you've had people who have maybe had a year to upgrade versus people who've had a month to upgrade. So you have to be really careful to make it apples to apples, right, where you only compare... If you have a month worth of users on one side, you compare it to a month worth of users on the other side, and you only count the conversions that happened in that time period.Josh:Makes sense.Starr:Yeah. So, anyway, that's just my little freebie data analysis thing for our listeners.Josh:We should have Starr's weekly data science tip.Starr:Starr's data corner.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Love it.Josh:Yeah. We could move the podcast to segments. We've never done segments. We could introduce segments if we need to spice things up on FounderQuest.Ben:Yeah. Totally. Well, speaking of spicing things up, I had a brilliant idea this morning.Starr:Oh, I want to hear it.Ben:Yeah. So one of the things that I keep an eye on is how much we spend on hosting because that's a good chunk of our expenses. We always want to make more money, and one way to make more money is to have fewer expenses. So I had this brilliant idea on how to cut expenses. We can chop our AWS bill in half by just not running everything redundant.Starr:There you go.Josh:Brilliant.Starr:Would you say the AWS is the sixth Honeybadger employee?Ben:Yeah, pretty much.Josh:Yes. That's a good way to put it, actually.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, in the early days, before we were paying ourselves a full salary, I remember we budgeted 25% for Starr, 25% for Ben, 25% for Josh, and 25% for hosting.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't think we ever exceeded the 25%, which is good. That would be a bit high. So, yeah, AWS is like our sixth employee.Starr:Yeah, it's funny because do we even have other expenses?Josh:No.Ben:I mean, salaries is definitely the biggest one, and our health insurance is not cheap either.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Advertising.Starr:I was thinking like marketing, advertising. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Advertising and marketing, that's the next one.Starr:That's the next 25%.Josh:Can we make AWS our seventh and eighth employee, too?Ben:Eventually may. Yeah, I did some... Oh. Oh. So I told you my great success that I had this morning. Well, your comment just now about AWS made me think about the one failure, just amazingly huge failure that I had also this week, migrating a bunch of data from Redis to DynomoDB. So we have this situation where it's one of those seemed like a good idea at the time kind of thing where we're doing a bunch of counting of people and individuals that hit errors, and we're counting that in Redis. I'm like, "Okay, great," because Redis has this INCRBY and it's easy and it's atomic and, boom, you're done, and I just never paid much attention to it until a few weeks ago, and I was like, "Yo, you know what? That's actually a lot of data in there, and we're keeping that forever, and so it's probably better to put it someplace that's not Redis." So I'm like, "Ah, I know. I'll do DynamoDB because it has an increment thing and...Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I put a table together, and I wrote a migration script, and I migrated a bunch of data. It took two days. It's great. Everything is beautiful. Had buckets of data inside DynomiteDB, and then I went to go query it, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't query it that way because I don't have the right index." Well, that sucks. All right. So you can't create a local index on DynomiteDB without recreating the table. I'm like, "Okay, well, that sucks. I just lost two days worth of data migration but oh well." So dump the table, recreated it with the index, and started redoing the data migration, and I'm like, "Yeah, it might take two days, no problem." So I check on it every half-day or so, and it's not going to be getting done after two days. Three days go by, and I'm checking the work backlog, and I was like, "It's just flat."Ben:Turns out because of that local index, now Dynamo can't really write fast enough because the way they do the partition throttling and stuff because we have some customers who have huge chunks of data. So their partitions are too big for Dynamo to write very quickly. Hot partition keys is the problem. So I just gave up. I'm like, "All right, fine." Drop the table again, recreated it, and now we're just double writing so that, eventually, given six months from now or so, it'll be there and I can replace that thing in Redis.Josh:Nice.Ben:So this is my life, the ups and the downs. So, yeah.Josh:And just waiting six months.Ben:And just waiting six months.Josh:Yeah. That's funny, but that is kind of a pattern in the business. In some cases, we need to just wait for the data to populate itself, and we just have to basically wait our retention period because data tends to turnover and then we can drop the old database or whatever.Ben:Yeah. Yep. But, luckily, nobody noticed my big fail, so it's all good. It didn't impact the customers.Josh:I didn't notice.Ben:So, yeah, busy weekend.Starr:I noticed, but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be nice.Ben:Thank you, Starr. Appreciate that.Starr:Yeah, I [inaudible].Josh:Starr was over there just quietly shaking her head.Ben:Just judging. Just judge-Starr:No, sorry.Ben:So, Josh, I'm going to get back to this Java thing because I'm curious. I remember, I don't know, a year ago or something, we're kind of like, "Maybe we should just not when it comes to Java anymore." So I'm curious what prompted this renewed activity to do a new release.Josh:Well, I don't know. I figured... I don't know. Didn't we say we were just not going to do any releases?Ben:Yeah, it just-Josh:It's not high on my list of development. We're not spending a bunch adding stuff to it, but there are dependency updates that have been getting merged in. I merged the Dependabot PRs and stuff. There's something else. There might be some small PR or something that someone submitted that was sitting there on release, and I just can't handle just unreleased code sitting on the pane. So it's just one of those things that's been sitting on my backlog halfway down the list just gnawing at me every week, so I figured I'd dive in and at least get some sort of quick release, relatively quick release process down so we can just continue to release dependency updates and stuff, like if there's a security update or something, so...Ben:Yeah.Josh:Some people still do use it, so I want to make sure they're secure.Ben:Make sure they're happy. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. But, yeah, that's a good point. We are not treating all platforms as equal because we just don't have the resource, so we need to focus on the stuff that actually is making us money.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, it's tough when very few of our customers are actually using that for it to get a whole lot of priority.Josh:That said, we have already put a lot into it, so as far as I know, it works well for the people that have used it.Starr:So are y'all encouraging our customers to do more Java?Josh:Yes, switch to Java. Then switch to SentryBen:Ride a wave.Josh:... or something.Ben:So I've been contemplating this new laptop showing up, right, whenever Apple finally releases it and I get to get my hot little hands on it. I've been thinking, well, the one big downside to getting a new laptop is getting back to a place where you can actually work again, right, getting all your things set up. Some people are smart, like Josh, that have this DOT file, this repo, on GitHub, and they can just clone that, and they're off to the races. I'm not that smart. I always have to hand-craft my config every time I get a new machine. But I'm thinking-Josh:Oh. Take the time.Ben:So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to that part, but GitHub has released Codespaces, and so now I'm thinking, "Ooh, I wonder if I could get all our repos updated so that I could just work totally in the cloud and just not even have a development set-up on my machine." Probably not, but it's a fun little fantasy.Josh:Well, then you could have any little... You could work on your iPad.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I don't even need a laptop. Then I could save the company money. That's brilliant, Josh.Josh:Yeah. You could work at the library.Starr:Yeah. It's like, "So your main ops guy, I see he's primarily working from a five-year-old iPad."Ben:At a library.Starr:In a library.Josh:An iMac.Starr:When he gets paged, he has to run to the nearest Starbucks and get that wifi.Josh:Yeah. I got to say, having your DOT files all ready to go and all that is pretty good. Also, I've got my Brewfile, too, so all of my Homebrew stuff is automated in that.Ben:Well, that's clever. I never even thought of that.Josh:It does make it very quick to bootstrap a new machine.Ben:Yeah. Maybe I should take this as initiative to actually put my stuff into DOT files repo and get to that point.Josh:Careful, though, because you might... I've had four computers between your current one and now, so you might end up switching more often because it's easier to do it.Ben:Appreciate that warning. That's good.Josh:Yeah. Speaking of the M1s, I love the M1 MacBook Air that I have. But the battery has been... I don't know what happened, but the battery was fantastic, I don't know, first few months. Ever since then, it's been kind of like it hasn't been lasting. I've been surprised at how fast it's draining, and I go and look at, whatever, the battery health stuff, and it says that health is down to 86% and the condition says it's fair, which does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.Josh:It has 50 cycles, so I think it might be defective, and that sucks because otherwise this machine is maybe one of the best Macs I've had. I guess... Yeah. I've had a few compatibility issues with the architecture, but it's not too bad. I mean, I'm not a Java developer at least, so...Ben:Yeah, I think you need to take that in for a service because that is way soon for that kind of degradation.Josh:Yeah. I might need to do something.Ben:That's a bummer.Josh:Yeah. I don't know. I might have to ship it in because I think our local Portland Apple Store is shuttered currently.Ben:All those protests?Josh:Yeah. It's got eight fences around it and stuff. Downtown Portland's a little rough these days.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Well, I mean, you can always take the trip out to Seattle.Josh:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or there's other... I forget. There's an Apple Store that's not too far outside of Portland. It's where I bought this, so I could take it down there.Starr:Yeah. I'm sad now because I bought my second MacBook from that store in Portland.Josh:Yeah? It's a good store.Ben:Speaking of you coming out to Seattle, I was thinking the other day that maybe we should do a company-wide get-together sometime soon. Be fun to see everybody again in-person.Josh:It would be. Now that we're all vaxxed, we're all super vaxxed. I don't know that Starr is even down for that, though. I'm just looking at Starr.Starr:I don't know. Like, I-Josh:You don't look like you're too stoked on that idea.Starr:I don't know. I'm just-Josh:What with Delta lurking.Starr:The problem is, Josh, is that you have not been reading nursing Twitter.Josh:Uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:So I don't know. Yeah, it's doable. Currently, I think the CDC just released a thing that said vaccine efficiency of preventing COVID infections... It's very good still at preventing bad, I don't know, disease, health problems, whatever, keeping people out of the hospital. It's very good at that. With Delta, it's about 65% effective at preventing infections, and so if you get infected, you can transmit it to other people.Josh:Right.Starr:Yeah. So it's not impossible. It's just like we're just back to this fricking calculus where every possible social interaction you just have to run it through your spreadsheet and your risk analysis and... Ugh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's like, "Are you worthy of the hassle? No. Sorry, can't make it."Starr:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, "Okay, so what's the probability that meeting with you is going to send my child to the hospital? Okay, that's low enough. Sure."Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's just such a weird world.Josh:Wouldn't it be funny if when you get into your car in the morning, it reads out the probability of you dying in a car accident?Starr:Oh, yeah. Do you know about millimorts?Josh:No.Starr:Oh, you should go Google millimorts. A millimort is a one in a million chance that you will die, and so there's tables and stuff that you can find online that have different activities and what the number of millimorts is about them. So you can compare, and you can be like, "Okay, so going skydiving has this many millimorts as driving so many miles in a motorcycle."Josh:That's awesome. Okay, we have to link this in the show notes because I want to remember to look this up-Starr:Okay. I'll go find it.Josh:... so that I can depress people.Starr:I think there was a New York Times article, too.Ben:Yeah, I totally have to see this because I just signed up for a motorcycle training course and I'm going to get my endorsements so that I know exactly what kind of risks... Though that's probably part of the course, where they try to scare you out of actually getting your endorsement. They probably...Josh:By the way, I'm really glad my morbid humor or my morbid joke landed because for a minute there-Starr:Oh, I'm sorry, it's a micromort.Josh:Oh, a micromort. Okay.Starr:I was like, "Isn't milli 1000?"Josh:Minimort, like-Starr:Milli is 1000.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, that grated at me. I know. My old chemistry teachers are just giving me an F right now.Ben:Yeah, I got to see that.Josh:Well, I'm sure you'll be all right, Ben. I mean, the risk of a motorcycle is much higher than a car, but you just can't think about that all the time because the fun... I'm sure the fun is much...Ben:[inaudible].Josh:It's worth it.Ben:It's worth every hazard. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. The risk is worth the reward.Ben:Yesterday, I just hit 250 miles on the odometer on my scooter, so loving that. It's a lot of fun.Josh:That's cool.Starr:That's a lot of miles for a scooter.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:I guess you just love to scoot.Ben:I love to scoot. Well, there you go, Starr. There's our happy ending after that slight dip there.Starr:That slight delay into reality.Josh:I like the dark humor. I don't know. It's always a gamble, though, with depending on... Yeah. But I think, Starr, you're always down to get dark.Starr:Oh, yeah. I'm down with the darkness. All right. Well, should we wrap it up?Ben:Let's wrap it.Starr:Okay. This has been a very witchy episode of FounderQuest, so if you liked it, go give us a review and... Yeah, if not, just keep listening to us. Make it a hate listen. You got to have a couple of those in your line-up. 

Show notes:Links:Snohomish Centennial trailIndie Hackers AMAIntro CRMFull transcript:Starr:All right. Welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. So we took a little break. We're going to have her hot vax summer, but that-Josh:Hot vax summer.Starr:It turns out that was the mirage. It turns out that was a mirage.Josh:Well, it did reach 112 degrees in Portland. So it was hot.Starr:There you go. Yeah. The summer never existed. It was just an illusion caused by our overwhelming thirst for lots of things.Josh:Mirage.Ben:Well, there were a couple of weeks there that I thought, "Yeah. This is going to work out. And then Delta.Starr:Yeah. It was a couple of nice weeks, wouldn't it?Ben:Yeah. It was. It was.Starr:Except for the panic about, "Oh, crap. I need to learn how to deal with people again."Josh:Wouldn't it be wonderful when we can just look back on those two weeks and just remember those last good two weeks?Ben:Yeah. Went 112 in Portland. That's pretty bad. It got to 116 in my garage.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It's pretty warm.Josh:Yeah. That's like melt some things if you're not careful.Ben:I did not know this until well, at the beginning of the pandemic, that there was actually a special class of freezer called the garage freezer because at the beginning of the pandemic I wanted to have a freezer in my garage. I'm like, "Okay. I'm just going to go to Home Depot and buy a freezer." Oh, no, no, no, no. You can't just buy a freezer to put in your garage. You have to have a garage freezer to put it in your garage. So we have a garage freezer and even with 116 in the garage, the stuff stayed frozen. So I guess it actually works.Josh:Nice. Yeah. My freezer survived as well.Starr:I mean, not having a garage freezer in your garage is almost as bad as wearing white after labor day, or is it before labor day? I forget.Josh:I don't know. I never wear white.Starr:I just don't wear white.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Starr:Stains too easily.Josh:I just always dress like I'm going to a funeral.Starr:All right. So today's going to be a little bit of a short episode. So we should probably get to the content.Ben:I thought we were already in the content.Starr:I know our reader.Josh:Yeah. It might be short. I don't know.Starr:Oh, we are?Josh:Our podcasts tend to have a mind of their own.Ben:That's true.Starr:Well, that's true. But we've got this Ask Me Anything schedule.Josh:Oh, yeah.Starr:20 minutes from now.Josh:Well, the great thing about asynchronous ask me anything is that they're asynchronous so you can post them even while you're on a podcast and answer the questions whenever you want.Starr:Yeah. Maybe you can, but my brain does not work that way.Josh:Oh, I've got it all queued up.Starr:I've got a one track mind.Josh:It's just a button press. We're locked and loaded.Starr:Oh, you're like Kramer. You've got the button.Josh:No. I'm ready to go.Starr:Sell sell sell!Josh:So yeah. At 10:30, we're recording this podcast. It's 10:08 right now. Pacific. And we're going to be doing an ask me anything AMA on the indie hackers forums.Starr:Yes. And it's a last minute affair as of 20 minutes ago. I didn't have an indie hackers invite code. We're running around scrambling.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. Ben wanted to try a new podcast recording software, and I'm just like, "No. I can't handle this amount of change in my life right now."Josh:We need to title this episode, live from the indie hackers backstage, by the way.Josh:[crosstalk]Starr:Oh, yeah. I don't know if you like a live album.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Okay.Josh:We're doing it live.Starr:Well, so Ben suggested, when you talk about one work thing and one vacation thing we did. And I guess, I'll start because I didn't actually have a vacation. I just got sick a lot, which I didn't get COVID, but there was some sort of bug that was going around and I got it and I was out for a couple of weeks. And so I guess that was my vacation. I don't know. I just played a lot of Diablo III.Josh:That's cool.Starr:Yeah.Ben:We got our worst vacations in Diablo III.Josh:Yeah. We got away for a few days. We went to this lake up north of Spokane in Washington and just five nights or something. But on the trip there, we're looking at our friends who were already up there, sent us the fire map of Washington. And we are traveling, literally our destination is in the middle of six fires.Starr:Oh no.Josh:We're like, "Should we be turning around?" I don't know. But it turned out all right. We breathe too much smoke the first couple of days, but it cleared up and-Starr:Yeah. After the first couple of days you hardly notice it.Josh:I only got a minor headache.Starr:Your nerves just die. The nerves in your lungs.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. We have good health insurance.Josh:I'm an ex smoker. So I'll just tack it on, it's just like adding a couple of days.Ben:It's like getting that upgrade package when you're buying a $30,000 car. And it's like, "What's another thousand dollars?Josh:Yeah. I've already got the risk.Ben:Yeah. I stayed closer to home. I read a bunch of books and I got out for a nice bike ride, went to the Snohomish Centennial trail. So it starts in Snohomish and it goes up through Arlington and it's rails to trail conversion. So there used to be railroad tracks there, but now it's a paved trail. And the thing that's neat though, they have a bunch of trail heads and a few of them have the recreations of the old train stations. So it's like, you can act like you're getting on board that train and actually getting on-Josh:Oh, that's nice. Really nice.Ben:Yeah.Josh:That's cool.Ben:That's a lot of fun. Let's see, a work thing that I did. It's a blur.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I probably migrated something somewhere at some point. And back-filled something-Josh:You were busy.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. You did a lot.Ben:Yeah. I can't remember what I did.Starr:Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things, right? We're working with that sales consultancy, what is it? Intro CRM people?Ben:Yeah. Did do that.Starr:Have you done some outreach? You got some replies even?Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's been kind of a mixed bag. So I've gotten some replies, but also the outbound stuff has not really been all that productive. So I'm questioning my life choices at this point.Starr:Have you had any overt hostility though?Ben:No overt hostility.Starr:Oh, you're not pushing hard enough then. You want your OH metric to be at least 10%. At least 10%, you want death threats.Ben:I will take that under advisement.Starr:Okay. That's how you know you're really-Josh:Really selling it.Starr:Yeah. I would say coffee's for closers, but you don't drink coffee. So there you go. Oh, cool. On my end, I don't know. We published our first batch of Honeybadger intelligence reports and I don't know. Loyal listeners might remember from last time, I mean, if you don't remember how loyal are you and how much should I even trust you, but yeah. You might remember that we were working on these things. Basically, they are quarterly reports for a certain programming language where if you kind of need to keep an eye on, I don't know. Front-end JavaScript, but you don't want to just inhale the feed of news that's constantly coming out, you can just look at this beautiful quarterly report. And we are publishing them quarterly now on our blog. And the first batch went out three weeks late, maybe a month late, I don't know. I didn't give myself enough time to get them ready for publication. And then I got sick for two weeks and just could barely crawl to the computer. So I'm sorry. I'll do better next time.Josh:If that's you're going to say, if you don't want to inhale the whatever weekly newsfeed, you can inhale it once a month or once a quarter. Just all.Starr:Well, no. We're not just collating everything together.Starr:[crosstalk].Starr:We're concatenating together.Josh:It's like a curation of curation.Starr:Yeah. We're not just a pending three months worth of Hacker News together. We're going in and applying some real intelligence to it. We have real domain experts.Josh:Editorial.Starr:Curating.Josh:Occasionally?Starr:Yes. Providing you the choicest morsels.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Hand crafted morsels of information.Starr:Yeah. Maybe I should be doing these outreach emails.Ben:Yeah. I think so.Ben:I've got the wrong person writing this stuff.Starr:Yeah. They'd be like, "Are these people even professionals?"Josh:Well, that should be obvious from our website.Starr:Yes.Josh:I'll let you decide which way that goes.Ben:Wow. I've been sitting here while you're talking, thinking, what did I do? I'm like, "This is not good. If I can't remember doing anything useful for the past three months, that's probably a sign that I'm doing the wrong things."Starr:I mean, it could just be, you did a lot, Ben. I can remember things you've done. Can we got set up in a new compliance automated thing?Ben:Oh, yeah. Then the compliance-Starr:Yeah. An automated compliance thing. So you don't have to juggle all that stuff manually.Ben:Yeah. We got our SOC 2 type two report done. So we're legit now. We're officially doing the things that we said we would do.Starr:We're enterprise.Ben:Yeah. Full on enterprise.Josh:That's amazing.Ben:Yeah. And it wasn't a particularly painful process. I mean, it wasn't pleasant, but yeah. We survived.Starr:My favorite part of that was that, so as part of this automated security, your automated SOC 2 compliance stuff, all of the employees I guess, have to do mandatory security training once a year now. And it's this automated quiz where you have to read something and then it asks you questions. So it was a really weird big business moment, where I just felt, okay. I'm watching this training video. It should have 50s music in the background of it. And I hate to admit that I got stuck on the first question for 10 minutes. For 10 minutes. Because it was an easy question, but it was one of those things where it's like, "What's the correct answer? Choose one or more." And the correct answer was all of them. But for some reason, I had selected them all with my keyboard and that wasn't good enough. I had to click on them to show I really meant it because hackers generally use keyboards. So they're not really trustworthy devices.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Starr it was like a JavaScript bug.Starr:So eventually, I literally tried every combination. Eventually, I was just like, "Okay. I'm just going to try the first one again," and it worked. So there you are. There you are.Ben:I can't believe you're giving away the answers to our security questions on the podcast. That's a breach of security.Starr:Yeah. I mean, I think our security questions have some security vulnerabilities if, you can manually brute force them. You have four binary options. That's what? Four factorial combinations? You can knock that out in an hour.Ben:Starr is hacking the mainframe.Starr:I am hacking the planet.Josh:That's how Starr passed the security test.Starr:Yeah. That's also how I got such a great score on the SAT, by the way. You just take it, I don't know. 128 factorial times and then you just brute force it.Josh:Nice. How long did that take you?Starr:I don't know. I still haven't graduated from high school.Josh:I sort of graduated from high school.Starr:Well, you can tell you've been away for a while. Because I just have all this bullshit that I've saved up for you all, and it's just all coming out now.Ben:So I was surprised to learn. I don't know why this surprised me, but it surprised me nonetheless, when we had our all hands meeting recently that we have three Honeybadger employees that have children starting kindergarten this year.Starr:Oh, my God. Yes.Ben:That's pretty wild.Starr:It's pretty terrifying. It's pretty terrifying. I'm glad that I live in Seattle. You guys don't. Josh and Kevin don't, but I mean, you all live in fairly reasonable places where governors aren't banning masks in school.Josh:Yeah.Ben:As they themselves are going to get advanced treatments for their COVID infections. Yeah.Starr:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's okay. We love you Texas. We just don't love your governor.Ben:Speaking of Texas. So this random tidbit I saw the other day, Austin, Texas of course, you know the housing market has been crazy. As far as prices go over the past several months, people have been overbidding regularly on how to just be able to-Josh:Oh, I read that.Josh:A hundred grand?Ben:Yeah. So Austin, Texas.Josh:That's what I'm asking.Ben:A hundred grand over asking price. So you have a $400,000 list price, but you actually got to pay $500,000 to get the house. That's crazy.Starr:That is wild.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. I had to drop off my car at the mechanic to get its normal service and I was walking by, and this was this morning and there's this kind of older condo building. It's not great looking or anything. And it's two bedroom condo, 900 square feet is now selling for the same price that I bought my single-family house with big yard and everything three blocks away. And that was five or six years ago? Six years ago?Ben:Crazy stuff.Starr:It's bizarre. Totally. I don't know. It's the sort of thing like it feels kind of gross even. Just because I was able to scrape together a down payment for a house, suddenly I get, I don't know. A hundred grand a year extra just in appreciation.Josh:You just hit a jackpot.Starr:Yeah. But it's just like, okay. I literally did nothing to deserve that. And meanwhile, people who could use that or I mean, I could use it, but I'm not in dire straits. I don't know. It's just like, "Wow, this whole system is just kind of backwards and weird."Ben:Yeah. It's to the point I'm getting unsolicited offers to buy my house, right?Starr:Oh, me too.Ben:I'm getting these letters in the mail like, "Hi, I'm Bob and my wife is Alice and we'd like to buy your house." And I'm like looking at the letters, "Is this is really an automated thing or do they really write this by the hand?"Starr:I've had people call me on the phone, in person.Ben:They called you?Starr:Yeah. They called me. Three houses on my block have been demolished in the past two months, three older houses, one of them was just really messed up. But two of them were these small houses on big lots. And essentially what happened is a developer bought almost every house on the opposite side of the street from me and is now basically filling up the lots with as many units as they can. So I think they're going to end up with like 18 units out of these five or six houses, which is fine. I guess. I don't mind density and everything, but it's just so wild because it's like, "Oh, it finally caught up with us." Because for a long time we were just over the edge where things were nice, we were just one block over from the nice stuff. And it finally caught up with us. So we're going to have to move now because we're not fancy enough for the neighborhood anymore.Josh:Yeah. Just cash out.Ben:Yeah. Move to Kansas.Starr:Yeah. I mean, that's the problem though. It's like, "Okay. Great." I get all this appreciation, but if I ever want to get a new house, it's like, "Okay. I've got to pay those new prices."Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah. We've looked at that too, or you could sell and rent for a few years and see if anything happens. That would probably be a gamble.Starr:That would be a really bad gamble I think. I mean, I don't know.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Considering no markets decline anymore.Starr:I mean, they, they could decline, but you're trying to time it.Josh:Time the housing the market?Starr:Yeah.Starr:Maybe it'll decline, but yeah.Ben:This got me thinking, real estate agents, they want you to trade up, right? You buy your starter house and then you buy your bigger house and then eventually you downsize again because hey, why not have another transaction that a real estate agent can take a commission on, right? And it just got me thinking, why don't we have that for businesses? Why can't you trade up your business, right?Josh:Like trade it?Ben:Yeah. It's like, "Honeybadger, that's a nice little business. Why don't you trade it on up to a bigger business?Starr:So we sell Honeybadger and then by a larger business.Ben:Right. Right. Like that. Rolled into a down payment for a bigger business, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:I'm not sure if you're very good at that.Josh:I love it.Starr:I don't know.Ben:Maybe this is a new marketing thing we can try. We can figure out new business models.Josh:Because we're getting trade-in program like the private equity firms.Ben:You're slapping the top of your business. You can fit so many customers in here.Josh:Might be our best bit yet.Ben:Well, I guess, we better get ready for our ask me anything session. Got a crack the knuckles and get ready to type.Starr:Crack the old knuckles.Josh:Almost time.Starr:All right. Okay. I will sign us off. All right. So this has been FounderQuest back from hot vax summer, back from vacation or being sick or whatever we call it these days. If you want to give us a review on Apple podcasts, whatever they call it, go for it. If you want to look up this AMA we're about to do on Indie Hackers, we recommend that and yeah. Otherwise, just stay cool, stay safe, and we will see you next week.Ben:Catch you later.Josh:See you.Starr:Bye.

Show notes: Seriously, this is just an announcement to let ya'll know we are taking a summer break. We'll be back, pinky swear!

Show notes:Links:Write for usMaybeJosh Pigford Flu dataFull transcript:Ben:And today we don't have Starr, because Starr is on vacation this week, fireside chat.Josh:I will be on vacation next week, and the week after.Ben:Nice.Josh:I don't know if you saw, I extended my vacation.Ben:I didn't see this.Josh:Yeah. So, surprise!Ben:Two weeks back to back. That's a record.Josh:Yeah. I decided I'm feeling it and I don't think a week is going to be enough. So just thought I'd go for it.Ben:Yeah, I get that. I get that. It's funny, I was looking... We started this vacation calendar, recently, since we are looking at transitioning away from Basecamp, where our vacation calendar was, we are now putting a vacation calendar in Google calendar, because we use G Suite for all of our stuff. And I set up this vacation calendar, and I noticed that Starr put one on there, and then Josh put on a vacation and then Kevin put on a vacation. And then, Ben Findley, just week after week after week, it's like everybody's taking a vacation. I was like, all right, so I put myself on vacation.Josh:Yeah, you got to put yourself in there. Yeah.Ben:I did. Yeah. I added myself yesterday, for the week after Ben Findley's vacation.Josh:I don't know if you went and... I went in and just put a bunch of vacations for the rest of the year for-Ben:I saw that.Josh:... myself. Yeah.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:I mean, they might change, but I figured, if I at least put them in there, that'll force me to think about it and decide. Because that's been an ongoing problem, I always wait too long and then, finally, take the vacation when I just desperately need it, and I want to avoid that cycle, like we're supposed to be. This is supposed to be sustainable.Ben:This is a calm company. It means, lots of vacations.Josh:Yeah. We should be calm if we're running a calm company.Ben:I like that idea of putting on these dates tentatively and just planning on it. I might try that.Josh:Yeah. You should just plan them out. Also, yeah, I put our traditionally long winter vacation on there too, which I think is currently the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, which we can always move that around or sometimes we do the Hack week or whatever.Ben:Yeah. I've come to cherish that tradition. I like having that-Josh:It's nice.Ben:Knowing that's going to be downtime. You know?Josh:Yeah.Ben:I mean-Josh:I like the first week of the year off is kind of... there's something about that, where you don't have to go back to work the day after New Year's or whatever. That feels really nice.Ben:I mean, in reality, we're still on call. So if something broke, were going to work, but, yeah, it is nice not having that expectation of showing up and doing actual productive stuff.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. It's the low bandwidth mode.Ben:Yeah. It's also this past winter when we did that, I used that to just experiment with some stuff, work-related stuff like Elasticsearch and whatever, so that's kind of fun. It's a tinkering... even if we don't do an official Hack Week, it's still a good time to do some tinkering and get some of those creative juices going.Josh:Read some books on computer science or something like that, get excited about it again.Ben:Well, going through the SOC 2 compliance thing, the type two for the first time audit, one of the things that I came across that was new was this continuing education tracking thing. So the auditor wants evidence that we're actually doing continuing education for our employees. We always do conferences and stuff, but 2020 was a bad year for conferences, and we've never really tracked continuing education. We just like, "Yeah, let's do this conference," or whatever, and it's kind of ad hoc. And now it's like, "Oh, we need to track this, it's a good idea to plan something." So yeah, digging out those old computer science books or taking a course or doing a conference. Got to do it.Josh:Which is, well, you got to do it, but it's also, to me, that's one of my favorite things to do. I really like learning, so even in my spare time, that's what I like to do.Ben:Same.Josh:So I realized even with, yeah, my perfect workweek is a couple of hours maximum a day of doing the day-to-day things that you have to do, and then spend the rest of the day reading or learning something or working on improving your skills.Ben:Yep. Yeah. I to-Josh:That's what makes me happy.Ben:I don't try to do that every day, I like the idea, but I try to do that on Fridays. Friday to me is like the decompression day, I'm cruising into the weekend now. And so I try to put aside all the normal stuff and just something kind of interesting. Before we got on this morning, I was playing with some Docker stuff, not that we use Docker, but maybe we will someday, and just fiddling with it. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I think it's kind of fun.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I like that.Ben:Until we get one of those customer requests that come in, I'm like, "Oh, I have to do some actual work now." And so, love our customers, but sometimes they can be kind of inconvenient, legitimate complaints about things need to be fixed.Josh:Or when there's an ops emergency, and so I drop everything and fix it. You had some of that going on this week. I know.Ben:But with both you and Starr got to experience those ops emergencies. It was actually a funny, so Starr, is on vacation, but the Starr was still on call for part of that time.Josh:The first night. Yeah. Because she had scheduled me to take over, was it yesterday? Whatever day it was-Ben:But in the morning.Josh:... but it was the night before. Yeah. It was like-Ben:Yeah, so I imagine in the future she might schedule you to swap a bit earlier, but-Josh:Yeah. I feel bad, because she said that, I guess, they had to get up early for a road trip and it's like 2:00 AM or something, or actually it was like 4:00 AM, I think, by the time the alerts died down.Ben:Yeah. The bad part was that there wasn't really anything to do. There was this spike in memory usage on our Redis Cluster, but it resolved itself, but only after sending some alerts saying, "Hey, somebody better pay attention to this," because that's a critical part of our infrastructure.Josh:Well, I mean, that's happened to me a few times. I mean, that's usually my on-call experience to be honest, and if it's worse than that, there's a good chance I'm waking you up anyways. But I mean, that's part of... You have a system well-architected, at least to the point, where if there is something, it does usually resolve itself, but still you need someone to sit up with it and babysit it until it does, just to make sure. And I mean, it would be totally unfair that you're the one who builds the system and also has to babysit it all the time, so our on call schedule is like a babysitter rotation.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned that, because I was looking at this vacation schedule, it's like, "Oh, when should I take vacation?" So I went and looked at the PagerDuty rotation to try and schedule my vacation away from my rotation on PagerDuty, so I didn't have to swap. And PagerDuty has changed their UI a little bit since the last time I looked at it, and I logged in and it's like, "When are you on call next?" And it says, "You're always on call." Because I'm the-Josh:Because you're level one.Ben:I'm the backup schedule. Yeah.Josh:I know, and that's a problem. I've been thinking about that, so you're not the only one worried about that, but, yeah.Ben:It was just kind of funny. I mean, it hasn't been a quality of life issue for a long time, because we've had so few problems, but still I am that backup. If it goes, what is it, more than half an hour or something, then I get woken up. But it was just kind of funny to see, you're always on call.Josh:Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd say that's the major downside of our business is just the nature of that. And also just the nature of expertise. I feel like when I leave, it's much harder on the team, solving a lot of the customer support issues that come up related to our libraries and things. And I mean, that's part of the reason we've wanted to bring more people in the business, but then you end up with more people in the business, and then you're tied to a management role that you can't leave too. So there's trade-offs there.Ben:Yes. It's the struggle of all the bootstrap SaaS operators that are small like us, how do I get time away when I'm the solo founder? Or maybe it just two co-founders, how do we take a break? Justin has talked about this with their customer support for Transistor. They felt like they were always just having to stay on top of that, and they could never take a break. And so, they hired someone to help out with that. And having Kevin around has really helped spread the rotation out, and he's taken up a lot of the ops stuff and gotten familiar with it. So-Josh:Yeah. He's taken an interest in it, which is good.Ben:Yeah. It's been great for me.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. It's a hard problem to solve, because, I mean, yeah, you could add people, but then you got to pay those people, and so your profitability takes a hit, so it's a balance.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, I think, I don't know about you, I prefer to stay small. I don't think... I've moved past the idea of I want to have a company with tons of employees or whatever. I think that actually would make... I wouldn't be as happy with that situation, probably, as with our current situation, with a few employees and small team. We probably spend a lot more time trying to solve these problems than larger companies do, because they just throw people at it. But yeah, I feel like-Ben:That just introduces a different set of problems, right?Josh:It does.Ben:You really just have to pick which set of problems you want. Do you want to be tied to the business? Or do you want to deal with the layers of management and the people problems that come with not being tied, personally, to the business?Josh:Yeah. So, yeah-Ben:Yeah.Josh:I don't know, over time though, I think I tend towards wanting to spend less time on the business or at least, when I say, on the business, I mean, less time on those things that I just have to be doing and don't want to be doing. I want to try to always be doing the things I want to be doing. And yeah. I mean, I know just general management stuff does not fall into that bucket of what I want to be doing.Ben:It's not your dream in life to be a manager.Josh:Nope. It's not even my dream in life to be traveling the world 200 days a year or something, and preaching the gospel or something.Ben:Yeah. I've thought about that recently too. Looking at companies that get really big, whether they take a bunch of money or not regardless, but they turn into tens and then hundreds of employees. And I think about what would that be to be a CEO of that kind of company? And I'm just like, I just don't know that I would really enjoy that. There would be a certain set of excitement, yes, no doubt, about having that kind of business.Ben:I can think of right now about Tobi at Shopify, because I remember when Tobi started at Shopify, and watch that grow. And just thinking about, it's got to be pretty fun and in some ways to be Tobi, to be on top of this organization and doing these cool things and seeing the impact that you're making. And they've gone public, there's a whole lot of cool stuff there, but there's also a lot of annoying stuff there. That come along with those cool things. And it's like, ah, I think I'm happy where I am. I don't think I need to be the CEO of Shopify or something that size to have that fulfillment in my career right now.Josh:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that you find new ways to guard your time and it just becomes even more, that's why no one can reach the CEO, usually. But, I mean, it's all... Yeah. It just puts you in an even more critical position. The pressure and responsibility must still be pretty, it just must be massive. But-Ben:It must be.Josh:Yeah. I guess, I don't really know, because I've never been in that position. I'm just guessing.Ben:Right, right. And life phases might change somethings and maybe when the kids are grown and gone, maybe you'll feel like, ah, I want a new challenge, something bigger. I think you see that a lot with founders, like us, who build something, sell it. And they're like, "Huh, let me try a bigger swing. Let me try..." Like Josh is doing right now, he did it did Baremetrics, he sold that, and now he's building out Maybe, and I think he's definitely thinking bigger scope kind of stuff.Josh:It looks like it. Yeah.Ben:Or you can just go buy a ranch somewhere and just chill, right?Josh:Right. Well, I think it's kind of... I mean, yeah, those aren't unsimilar to me. I mean, I think the big point is or the major thing is, if you're financially set and you can, again, do whatever you want to do, then, yeah, go do it. But again, even, say, if we sold the business and didn't have to work another day in our lives, we could just go buy that ranch and just kick back on it. If I decided to go and start another company, I wouldn't want to start a company that is going to demand my time and involvement, like most companies do.Josh:I'd probably try to go start another Honeybadger or something, maybe, you could go larger scale, but something that solves for those problems. Yeah, and I don't know what that looks like, but I feel like some companies of the future are kind of like... The ones that GitLab, that take a more open source approach. I don't know exactly what being in charge of GitLab is like, but I'm sure it's not a walk in the park either, but experimenting with new ways to spread responsibility around. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And maybe the answer is, that's a scenario where you do have to take a bunch of money, so you can get those employees to make that lift, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. I think if we sold Honeybadger and we did something new, I think it has to be different in some dimension or otherwise, why did you sell?Josh:Yeah. It would have to be.Ben:And so maybe it's a different audience. Maybe it's a different size. Maybe it's venture backed versus doing it from scratch. I think it would have to be different in some significant way for it to be interesting enough to actually do versus just spending the rest of my retirement tinkering or whatever.Josh:Yeah. Yeah. I guess, getting to that critical point with employees is the thing that's hard, going from what we have, which is kind of like where we're so small that we have things we have to still be here for, but we can just disconnect whenever we want to, for the most part, like take a week off if we want to, and just do customer support or be on call. But jumping from that to the point where, say, you have 50 employees or something and you're the CEO, and you can just be like, "Okay, everyone, I'm going to be gone for a week, carry on." Which I think you can do when you have other people managing people.Josh:But in between that, there's a very... it's like if you're growing out your hair, there's that weird, you know, the annoying stage where your hair, just like you hate it. And it's like, it just doesn't work. And you're... Yeah, it just seems like that exists when you're trying to grow a business where it's hard with 10 people, all 10 of those people are looking to you for leadership on a regular basis. And you're still connected to the major centers of the business.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't really thought of it that way, and that makes total sense to me. There's those growing pains that you would get going from one phase to another.Josh:And I guess, I'm not sure, having been doing what we're doing as long as we have, I'm not convinced that I want to go through that pain that I know is there to get to that stage where I know that we probably would be in another... we'd be back in the position where we could probably have more freedom, or hire a CEO then to just run the business, which people do.Ben:Well, I mean, I wonder, so two thoughts that I have. I wonder, if you're a venture back startup, if you start from scratch with a bunch of money in the war chest, do you avoid some of those growing pains? Because you can just, right out of the gate, hire a bunch of people, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:So I wonder that, and then the follow on-Josh:Good thought.Ben:Yeah, I have no idea. And the follow on thought is, well, like in our situation, we've been around for a long time, we have profitable business, we're great, what if we take on an investment now, and then that gives us that money to hire a bunch of people? To help you accelerate through that growing pain phase, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:If you had one or two people here and there that's painful, but if you add 10 or 20 people, I don't know, maybe that's a different kind of pain, but maybe it's a better kind of pain. Because it's like ripping the band-aid off, because you did all done at once.Josh:Yeah. No, that's a good point. Yeah. That's something that I hadn't factored in, in that line of thinking. So, yeah, I think he could be right, that that is a common use of funding and capital investment and all that.Ben:Yeah. I would be open to that idea, if we had figured out the sales machine. If we could say, "Oh, we can deploy X amount of people, and we know that X amount of revenue would come in, because we'd be doing these Y activities."Josh:Totally.Ben:But we haven't quite got there yet. We have a really strong inbound, but we don't really have an outbound or we don't have a process even for dealing with inbound sales, because everything right now is hands-off, right?Josh:It's not scalable. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're doing this to ourselves, to some extent, just in our own lack of knowledge or experience in those areas, but that's part of the learning process. So-Ben:Yeah, you're right.Josh:... we are... I think it's smart though, to be focusing on those areas now, to open up those possibilities in the future. So that if we change our minds and realize that we could scale the business to a point where we can, again, have the same thing that we have now only potentially better because we don't have those, even the small responsibilities, that drag us back in, on a regular basis.Ben:Yeah, yeah. We're still choosing to grow slow and to keep it pretty calm, keep that calm company.Josh:Yeah. That's the point of calm-Ben:Right. If we take it big chunk of money, we could hire the VP of Marketing, the VP of sales, the VP of engineering, right? And then we could-Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:... presumably step back once we got these people set on the, here's the goal, now get it, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:But, yeah, that would be a less calm company, for sure.Josh:Yeah.Ben:At least for a while.Josh:Yep. And even if that's to the extent that that's possible, yeah, I don't know, I mean, you still have to build the idea of the calm company into that business. Otherwise, you'll just end up with 30 to 50 people that are chaotic and-Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:... calling you all the time or emailing you. Yeah. So I guess I'll revise my statement, it's like, I'm not willing to grind it out to get to the next level. If that's what it comes down to, I'm happy, let's just stay where we are for... I'm fine, we run the business as an asset and try to build the lifestyle aspect of it more than anything else. But if we can find a way to scale the business and then maybe invest in it so that we can accelerate the jump, or a hair faster, so to speak.Ben:I like that.Josh:I'm terrible at metaphors. I feel like this one might actually be working, but Starr's the metaphor person. So I feel like I'm really on... I'm going to risky position right now.Ben:Better stop while you're ahead, right?Josh:Yeah.Josh:No more metaphors for the rest of the day.Ben:I think that the hair growth thing works, just have to take care of not to offend all of our bald listeners, you know?Josh:Right. Yeah. So I went to a Starbucks this week and did some work inside of it-Ben:Whoa.Josh:... without a mask.Ben:Wow. That's brave.Josh:I still did the distancing stuff just because it seems smart. I wasn't hugging everyone, but, yeah, they've got it all posted, it's like, if you're vaccinated, the mask is optional. Plus I was drinking a beverage, so... But yeah, I had a Zoom session at the Starbucks, and it was a novel experience.Ben:Very nice. Yeah. I went to a Target this week for the first time in a long time, and yeah, I just put my mask on out of habit. It's like, get out of the car, put the mask on, go in the store, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:And I'm walking around and I don't know, maybe a quarter of the people there didn't have masks, it's like, oh yeah, it's not required anymore, really. I'm vaccinated. I'm like, huh, cool. And I'll just get a long my way, but it's like, I have to get used to this new reality of not having to wear a mask.Josh:That not everyone... Yeah. Although I still suspect that a large portion of the people that are going to take them off or aren't going to wear them are the people that were always not wearing them.Ben:Yeah. Although I will say, if I were still doing mass transit every day, like I used to do, I would definitely be still wearing a mask, if it was any time cold or flu season-Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I'm not going back to that prehistoric animal way of not covering myself during germy season.Josh:Well, there's that flu statistics that I guess have been coming in from the CDC, since the season is coming to an end 2020, 2021 or whatever, and it seems the whole social distancing. Masking situation, hand-washing really drastically improved that situation. I don't know, I forget what the numbers were, but it was ridiculous.Ben:Yeah, it's dropped like 99% or something crazy.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Something like that.Ben:It's nuts.Josh:Which is-Ben:It's awesome.Josh:... wild. Give it a little time for the data to get worked out, I guess, because just seems prudent. But I mean, either way, it seems like it's a massive thing.Ben:Yeah. I would definitely need to normalize mask wearing during germs, no doubt.Josh:Yeah. Yep. I'm cool with never getting sick again.Ben:Totally. Well, and on that note, this fall kids will actually be going to school, and it'll be an exciting adventure. All those, snot nosed punks running around getting each other sick again.Josh:Yeah. That'll be the real test. That's just going to knock us out. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter's, Tatum's starting kindergarten in the fall.Ben:Wow.Josh:And that'll be her... We did preschool at home. So yeah, that's going to be wild.Ben:First school experience, huh?Josh:Yes.Ben:Yeah, that's-Josh:I'm entering a new stage. I feel like, a new phase.Ben:Yeah. It's bittersweet. You're like, oh, that's so exciting. And it's like, oh.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, yeah. I remember those days with fondness.Josh:What's also going to be weird, because it's going to force me to start interacting with other parents in the community, which I think that's my biggest thing right now is like, oh, no, I-Ben:You better watch out, next thing you know, you'll be the president of the PTSA. You'll be organizing bake sales, and-Josh:Yeah, we're definitely going to be the... I think we'll be the weird parents, in our area, anyway.Ben:It's funny. I've noticed this, this arc, your first kid goes into kindergarten and you're so into PTA and PTSA. You're like, "I'm going to take care of all the things. I'm going to volunteer in the classroom." And you're really engaged and involved and it's so good. And then over time you start to back off a bit. It's like, "Oh, I don't really need to do all the things, there are other people that help," you know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:And then by the time they get to the tail end and they get close to graduation from high school, you're just like, "I don't even care what they're doing anymore. Educate yourself, kid. You figure it out."Josh:Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean I had to basically educate myself, so you can.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Totally. It's funny seeing the new wave of parents come in every year to the PTA, and then all of a sudden they go out, again, as the new wave comes in.Josh:And you having been there for a while, that sounds kind of like, oh no metaphors. Like if you go to a gym regularly and every New Year's, like the first two weeks of January, that's what it sounds to me.Ben:Yep. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.Josh:Because everyone comes in and is just super dedicated, and then over the next couple of weeks, it's just, they all filter out again and you're back to the same 10 people in the afternoon or whatever.Ben:Right. Yeah. And all the regulars get annoyed because of it. They're like, "Oh, all these people crammed in one place."Josh:Yeah. All this exuberance is just... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. So gym, that's a open question for me right now. So I still have a gym membership. I haven't canceled it, but I haven't been since the beginning of the pandemic. And even though I'm a 100% vaccinated, and I'm feeling invincible, still, the gym is one place I'm like, I don't know. I still feel kind of uncomfortable at that. Still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to keep that membership, because I really enjoy going, but I don't know, I don't really want to wear a mask while I'm exercising, that just sucks.Josh:Yeah, that was mine too, I just didn't... Yeah.Ben:Yeah. And wiping down everything, I'm not a super sweaty person, so I'm not the kind of person that really needs to wipe down the equipment as soon as I'm done with it, because it's like, I just touch it. I didn't have a bath on it. And so I'm just... I don't know. I don't even know if they have a kitchen cleaning procedure that you have to do now, because, again, I haven't been to the gym, but I don't know. It's tough.Josh:I haven't been to the gym, because I got my home gym in 2019, the end of 2019, and so it's been that long. But I do sweat and I was used to just wiping down the equipment in between, it's not that bad. Especially if you... you can even carry a towel with you if you want, but most gyms have the whatever clothes-Ben:Yeah. Wipes.Josh:... and spray bottles and stuff. It's not the end of the world, but the mask thing, yeah, the idea of working out in a mask does not appeal to me. Even though it could be a plus for some people, like the people that are training for high altitudes and stuff. Some people wear the mask on the treadmills and I'm sure those people are like, "Sweet, that's just extra challenge."Ben:Right, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So I'm still doing the home stuff and it's just not as-Josh:You should-Ben:... awesome.Josh:... give it a try.Ben:Yeah. I guess I should. I should call them and say, "Hey, what's the deal down there?"Josh:I mean, I figure from what has been reported, the vaccines are very effective.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:And I mean, I understand the hesitancy, give it some time, obviously, that's prudent, the wait and see approach is completely valid. But after that, I mean, if you're immune, you're immune. So at some point you have to start-Ben:Living again.Josh:Yeah. Getting back out there, putting yourself back out there. But I mean, it's not a bad thing to be cautious, so I understand.Ben:Yeah. Just get back in the habit, I guess.Josh:Yeah. And I mean, to be fair, I'm also not at the gym with a bunch of people spitting in my face. So just to be clear, I'm giving this advice from my bunker.Ben:Yeah. You've got the sweet home gym set up. I'm jealous.Josh:Yeah. Actually, I've reduced my routine a little bit lately, and I've actually been doing more yoga and flexibility things, because I always go really hard with the weightlifting, and I'm not getting any younger. And so injuries are more frequent, and so I've been doing two days, two days a week right now just to keep up the major lifts and stuff, but kind of taking a little bit of a break.Ben:Have you done any of the Apple Fitness stuff?Josh:Yeah, I did one of the yoga sessions on it, when I was just... because I did yoga last year, when I had some injury stuff, and it was good, and I should have just kept doing it. And so, that's why I tried when I first started getting back into it this year, and it was really good. It was a little intense though for a beginner like me. So I've been doing this more beginner training, learning the actual postures and stuff. But then my plan is just to use the Apple Fitness stuff after that, because they seem like they have a lot of good just general-Ben:Yeah. I really like the Apple Fitness stuff. I've done some of the yoga. I didn't do the 30 minute stuff. I did the 10 minutes stuff, because I'm a super beginner, and so I did the really easy yoga, which was great for me. And I've done their high intensity stuff, which was pretty good. I'm not really an aerobics kind of person. I run and I ride, I figure I get enough aerobics that way. But when it was raining and cold and stuff, I just did the high intensity stuff, and that was pretty cool. I really liked that. And I've done their cycling, which is okay, but it's geared, at least the ones that I did, were geared towards being on a indoor cycling machine where you can adjust the intensity easily and stuff.Ben:I'm not, I'm on my own bike on a trainer, where the wheel is propped up and it's on that little roller. And so a lot of the instructions in the thing were, "Okay, let's dial up the resistance." And it's like, "Well, okay, I don't have that good of a setup here. I can't just dial up the resistance." So I had to alter it a bit, but it was still nice.Josh:You got to get your weighted boots on.Ben:I mean, but they do have trainers like mine that actually do have remote control, and so you can do that, but I don't have one. But anyway, I really enjoyed them. The fitness things are cool, and they're set into 30, 20, 10 minute intervals. And so you can like, "Oh, what kind of workout do I want today?" Yeah, I really like it.Josh:Yeah. I like the high intensity stuff for cardio a lot. And otherwise , yeah, I don't know, I could get into running, I think, but I really like walking, so I'll go for super long walks. But again, time is sometimes a factor that... sometimes I'll even just go for the afternoon and just start walking and end up back home at dinner time or something like that. I like that, but I've never been like going out too much. I've gone through a few running phases, but it never really stuck. So I like the high intensity stuff, because as far as I understand, it gives you some of the same benefits without having to run for an hour or something.Ben:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I too love long walks.Josh:Yep. I think that's a great way to spend some of your just general workweek. That's the good alternative to sitting and grinding away at the desk-Ben:No doubt.Josh:... for eight hours a day or whatever. This morning I was wrestling with my kids and stuff. And I was picking them up individually and lifting them up and then throwing them on the bed. And then I was like, "Okay, now I have to go, I have to go back to work." And they're like, "No, no. We just, we want one more." So I was like, "Okay, I've got one more." So I picked them both up, one in each arm. And I do, basically, a lateral raise with them. And as I do this, I don't know what they weigh, but Tatum's over 50 pounds, and of course they're unbalanced, but my entire upper body, just like... I hadn't done any stretching or anything, so my entire upper body just cracks all over, and Caitlin, she's like, "Are you okay?" Apparently it was like, she was concerned for me. So, yeah, I realize, man, it's not the good old days anymore.Ben:You're getting up there in years.Josh:Not that out there, but at the age where you start to notice these things, right?Ben:Yeah.Josh:But I'm not past the point of trying.Ben:So did you do anything this week? I didn't do a whole lot actually. Well, I mean, I did responding to those urgent issues-Josh:Like working, you mean?Ben:Yeah.Josh:I did not get a whole lot of work done this week no. Yeah, no, you're good. I figure, yeah, I mean, again, yeah, I'm ready for a break, so I've been trying my best, but-Ben:You're coasting into that vacation.Josh:Yeah, it's been a struggle.Ben:That's awesome.Josh:But I mean, I think, we need to learn not to feel bad about that. Having a "unproductive" week. And I mean, if I'm... Yeah, honestly, I did things this week, it just wasn't as much work things. Dealt with things at home, read some books, that sort of stuff, that's still being productive, right?Ben:Totally. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.I thought a lot about our project that we mentioned last week on the podcast about working together with Kevin on, I had spent a fair amount of time thinking about that. And that's one of the things that you can do on those long walks, it can still be working.Josh:Thinking.Ben:Thinking.Josh:Yeah, thinking is totally work.Ben:Thinking is totally work, so I did a lot of thinking this week, and responding to urgent stuff, but also, nearly, nearly done on the compliance thing. I think I have 11 out of 150 evidence requests left to complete. So-Josh:Wow.Ben:... yeah, it's almost there. Next week, I'll be actually talking to the auditors and-Josh:Awesome.Ben:Yeah. It's almost done. That's nice.Josh:And you've got ideas for making it easier next year.Ben:Yep. Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:So, yeah, just plugging away.Josh:So I guess we're cruising.Ben:Yeah, no worries. Well, I guess we can wrap it.Josh:Yeah, wrap it.Ben:They're getting a good one. This has been FounderQuest. We're still coming at you mostly every week, and we really enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, hope you give us a review at iTunes or wherever you can review podcasts, because I never do that, so I have no idea. But if you're into that, please do, and, yeah, check out Honeybadger, of course, because we love having more customers. And I guess we'll see y'all next time.Josh:Catch you later.

Show notes:Links:TwistHook RelayBen Orenstein TupleWrite for HoneybadgerFull transcript:Starr:So Ben is joining us today from his car. It's bringing back fun memories. I recorded, I think the voiceover for our very first demo video in my car.Ben:Oh yeah? Nice. So as you may recall, I have a two story building that I lease one of the rooms, and the downstairs is a wine tasting room. Well with the pandemic, the company that had the wine tasting room, they closed shop. They stopped leasing, because who's going to go to a wine tasting room during a pandemic, right? Well they're leasing the space to a new tenant that's going to take that space. Apparently hey, we're getting back, things are reopening, let's taste wine again, but the new tenant wants to have a new door put in. So I got to the office today and they're like, "Yeah, we're putting in a new door." And then I'm like, "Cool." Didn't even think much of it. But then a few minutes later, there's all this drilling going on. I'm like, "Oh, I think probably the car is a better place to record today."Josh:Well at least you'll have some new friends soon.Ben:True, true.Starr:Yeah. Well I'm glad you made it, at least. And so what's up? I missed a week of the podcast and you guys invested our entire Honeybadger savings account into Bitcoin.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And I'm not sure that was the most prudent investment decision, y'all. I just wanted to say that.Ben:Yeah, the timing could have been better.Josh:Yeah, we really pulled a Roam Research on that one.Starr:Oh yeah. What do you mean by that?Josh:They invest in Bitcoin, apparently.Starr:Oh, they do? Okay.Ben:Of course they do.Starr:Of course. It's just a dip. You're supposed to buy the dips, Josh. It's just what, like a 30% dip? 40% dip?Josh:I wasn't watching it, but I read that it had recovered pretty quickly too.Starr:Oh. I have no idea. I didn't even follow it.Josh:As it does.Starr:I don't even follow it.Josh:Yeah. I just read random people's opinions.Starr:There you go.Josh:I forget where we left it last week, but I just wanted to state for record that I think I mentioned I made some accidental money in Bitcoin back when I was learning about block chain technology, but I have not bought any Bitcoin since, nor do I intend to, and I do not really view it as an investment asset.Starr:This is not investment advice.Josh:I just need to state my opinions for the future so I can look back on them with regret. If I don't say what I actually think, I'm never going to have anything to regret.Starr:There you go.Josh:I'm just going to commit.Starr:So you've decided to die on this no intrinsic value hill.Josh:Right. I'll let you know if I change my mind.Starr:Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, I don't really check. Last week y'all did the interview with Mike, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, it was a good conversation.Starr:Yeah. I don't really pay attention to it, except occasionally I'll look at the chart. It's the same with GameStop. Occasionally I'll look at the GameStop chart and then just see what wild stuff people are saying about it. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, GameStop was hovering at about 150 for a while, but now it's up to like 170-ish, 180. Something like that. Yeah. I peek at it every now... it's on my watch list when I log into my brokerage account, so I just see it. I'm like, "Oh, okay. Cool." And then I move on and check out my real actual stock portfolio.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. I'm not going to buy it. It's like a TV show for me.Ben:Yeah, totally.Josh:Yeah. To be fair, I really don't have much of an opinion either way. I still don't understand it, so I don't know. I just feel like I probably shouldn't be buying it.Starr:That's really good advice. I don't understand anything though, so what am I supposed to do, Josh? Huh? Huh?Josh:Yeah.Ben:Just buy the index fund.Starr:Yeah. I don't even understand that.Josh:I don't understand that either though, if you really think about it.Ben:That's actually, there was a good thread or so on Twitter. I don't know if it was this week or last week, but basically the idea was if you feel really confident in your own ability, in your own business, given that, you're probably spending most of your time in that business, right? We spend most of our creative time in Honeybadger because that's where we feel the most potential is. So you're investing basically all of your personal capital in this one business. How do you diversify that risk? Or do you diversify the risk? Do you double down? Maybe do you take investment to diversify, and so you buy out? Let someone do a secondary and so you take some cash off the table? If you did that, then where would you put the money? Do you just go, "Okay, I'm going to go buy Bitcoin. I'm going to go buy an index fund," or whatever. And if you do that, is that a better use of your money than having just kept the equity and just plowing more time into your business? Right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's an interesting thought exercise. It's like, "Hm." The whole investment mindset of your business is interesting to me.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. I think I saw that conversation, or maybe I saw a similar conversation where they were talking about even just 401Ks and for founders who are already fairly... have at least made it in whatever sense that means. Is it the best financial move to keep maxing out your 401K versus investing in your ability to generate revenue in your business?Starr:So a little bit of real talk here. If you are a founder who's made it, maxing out your 401K isn't really a blip on your financial radar.Josh:It's not a big... yeah. That was kind of the same thought I had. It's not like you're putting 50% of your income into it.Starr:Yeah. What is it, like 20 grand? Something like that?Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's a good chunk of change, but still. It's not like...Josh:Yeah. I don't know.Starr:Yeah, that's interesting. I think I'm just going to go all in on Pogs. I think they're due for a comeback. I think that's going to be how I diversify.Josh:But I think it's probably a good move to invest in yourself if you have the ability to build businesses. That definitely seems like a good investment, in any case. Probably still have a 401K. I tend to do everything, except Bitcoin.Ben:A 401K is a nice backstop. Just keep stocking money away, and later it will be there, hopefully. But in the meantime, really, really spend your time and your energy on making your business even more profitable. Speaking of making your business more profitable, so this past week or two weeks, I've been working on our SOC 2 type two audit, so I'm doing the evidence collection.Starr:Oh yeah?Ben:So that in this case means I take a bunch of screenshots of settings, like the AWS console and G-suite console to show yeah, we have users, and yes, we have login restrictions, et cetera. All the 150 different things that you're supposed to check off the list when you do the audit. And as I've been going through this process taking all these screenshots, honestly it's getting a bit tedious, and it's surprisingly time consuming. And so I'm like, "You know, there are services for this sort of thing. Let me check them out." And so in the past three days, I've had conversations with Vanta, Secureframe, and Drata. These are three providers that what they do is they provide almost SOC 2 in a box. Basically they help you connect all of your systems and get the evidence that you need for an auditor in a more automated fashion. So for example, they'll plug into your AWS account and they'll pull out information about your security groups, your application firewall, your AIM, all the access permissions, all that kind of stuff, and pack that up into a nice little format that the auditor can then look at and like, "Yeah, they're good on all these different requirements." So you don't have to take screenshots of security groups.Ben:And I hadn't really looked at them before because I was like, "I don't know if I just want to spend that kind of money," but actually sitting back and looking at it, looking at the time that I'm spending on this and the amount of time I'm paying our auditors to audit all these screenshots that I'm taking, actually I think it would be cheaper to go with one of these services, because your audit is a bit more streamlined because the auditor knows how that data is going to come in and it's an easy format to digest, et cetera. But the thing is that after having gone through some of the sales pitches from these vendors, I'm thinking I really wish I would have started with these back the first time, because I think it would have been much easier just from the get go. So I think I've been doing the SOC compliance on hard mode, unfortunately, but lessons learned.Starr:With my experience, that just seems to be how projects are. You do it one time and you don't really know what you're doing, and you just push your way through it, and then eventually you figure out how to do it better and easier and all that. Because when something is new to you, you don't know what you can safely ignore. You know?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Well plus you're pumping up the value of FounderQuest.Starr:Oh, that's true. We got a lot of content out of that.Ben:That's true.Starr:At least $100 worth.Josh:That's useful knowledge. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, so I think the short version is if you are interested in doing SOC2 compliance and you have no idea what you're doing, talk to these vendors first and maybe just start with them. They will help you, because they have customer success people like SaaS does. They have people on staff who are there to help you have success with their product. And if you don't get compliant, then you're going to stop using their product, so they're going to help you try and get there. And it's still pricey. It's still going to be five figures a year, but it will definitely save you some time and maybe even save you some money.Josh:Nice.Ben:Yeah. So next year, our audit should just be smooth as silk.Starr:Just butter.Josh:Love it.Starr:So if we-Josh:What are you going to do with all that extra free time?Ben:I made an executive decision.Starr:Oh really? What's that?Ben:Yes. The executive decision is we're going to have more teamwork at Honeybadger.Starr:That's ironic.Josh:Instead of what? What we have now, which is anarchy?Ben:We pretty much do have anarchy, I think. We are coordinated, we do make our plans, and we do have things we want to get done, but yeah, we are very independent at Honeybadger. We work independently. You might even say we're kind of siloed. We go off in the corner and do our own thing for most of the time. And I was chatting with Kevin about this, and I think we're going to try an experiment. So I think we're going to try to actually work together.Starr:Kevin is our developer.Starr:Yeah, so you all are going to be developing features together. Are you going to pair program? Are you going to use Tuple?Ben:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there.Starr:Are you going to mob program?Ben:Pair programming, that's maybe too advanced for us, I think. Maybe actually we'll chat in Slack a little bit here and there and maybe have a Zoom call.Josh:Yeah, so you're talking about you're both going to work on the same project at the same time.Ben:Right. Right.Josh:Mostly independently, but coordinating.Ben:Right. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think that still can fit into our anarchy model.Starr:Yeah. It still seems a little bit independent.Josh:It's more like mutual aid or something.Starr:There you go. We should make a conference talk about mutual aid development.Josh:Right.Starr:That would go over well.Ben:Using NATO as a model for your development process. Yeah, so we'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to it. I think I've been feeling a little lonely. I don't know if it's the right word, but maybe just off doing my own thing. I was like, "Oh, I think it will be nice to have some collaboration, some coordination." Maybe we'll even get to a level of synergies.Starr:Synergies.Starr:That's a blast from the past.Josh:Yeah, I think it's a good idea.Ben:Yeah, so more to come on that. We'll keep you posted. It's a bigger project. May not have results for a couple months. Don't really want to spill the beans on what it is right now. Competitive information. Don't want to leak it to all of our competitors.Starr:I like that. I like that. It's going to keep people on the hook for the next episodes.Josh:Totally.Ben:But yeah. That was my week.Josh:Yeah. Well my week, I took some time off, had some family stuff going on, so I was not very productive this week, but what I did work on was I've been working on this little guide for Hook Relay. I'd love to get the marketing machine, the fly wheel going on that at least, so we can be moving that along with everything else. And so yeah, working on some content and such.Starr:What is Hook Relay?Josh:Well you tell us what Hook Relay is, Ben. It's your baby.Ben:It's my baby. Yeah. So Hook Relay is a tool for managing web hooks. So you can record web hooks as they go out. In our case, to Honeybadger, we send a lot of web hooks, and so we built Hook Relay to help track all that web hook action. So we logged as pay loads that can go and diagnose issues that are happening, or maybe replay them as necessary, and of course it also handles inbound web hooks. So if you were handling, let's say, a post pay load request from GitHub about some activity that happens in your GitHub account, you handle that web hook and we can give you a place to store that, and then you can replay that, send it, forward it onto somewhere if you want, or just store it.Josh:Yeah. I think one of my favorite things about Hook Relay is just the visibility that it gives us into what's happening with the hooks, because otherwise we never had a dashboard. I guess we could have built one internally to see what the activity was and what's failing, what's actually... what requests are... because you're connecting to thousands of different people's random domain URLs, basically. It's really nice even for debugging and things like troubleshooting to be able to see what's going on, in addition to all the other cool things that it gives you out of the box.Starr:So you might say it's even like turnkey reliability and visibility for web hooks. For all your web hook needs.Ben:Yeah. Yeah, we modeled it on Stripes web hooks because we loved-Starr:I'm holding up a box up. I'm holding the TurboLinks box up and gesturing at it with my hand.Ben:Vanna White style.Josh:We should do our own channel, do our own infomercials.Ben:Yeah, I really wanted experience of Stripe. If you set up web hooks in Stripe, you can go and you can see all the web hooks they've sent you. You can see the pay loads, you can see whether they were successfully delivered or not, and I wanted that experience for our own web hooks, and also I thought it would be cool if developers could just have that without having to build the infrastructure. And so if you're building an app that send a bunch of web hooks on behalf of your customers, well now you can give your customers visibility into that web hook activity without having to build that tracking yourself.Josh:Yeah. That's pretty cool. So basically this content guide I'm working on is how to build web hooks into your application, including all the reliability and stuff that Hook Relay gives you for free. And the idea is that if that's what you're doing and you just want to save some time, Hook Relay will be a large chunk of that. You've just got to sign up. So I think it will be useful to everyone, even if they don't become a customer. If you're going to build your own back end and handle all the retries, build dashboards, and all that. But if you want it all turnkey, then Hook Relay is a big chunk of that work just done of you.Starr:So is this live? So can people go and sign up now?Ben:Yeah.Josh:Hook Relay, yes. It is.Josh:Hookrelay.dev.Ben:Yeah. In fact, we have enough customers now that it's actually paying for itself.Starr:What?Ben:Yes. So sweet.Josh:It's wild. That's wild.Starr:That's amazing.Ben:So Josh, is your guide going to have... are you going to dive deep into the architecture of here's how you build a whole web hook system, and so we're going to show you all the stuff behind the curtain so you can build your own? And then, "Oh, by the way, if you want it just done for you, here it is." Or are you going to just keep it more high level?Josh:I'm starting more high level. Yeah, I was planning on it being more high level. More like a high level architecture thing, or specification. Like these are the parts that you'll need to build, but you're going to have to solve some things, because it's not going to be specific to one system. It's not going to be like, "This is how you build web hooks for Ruby and Sidekick, or if you're going serverless." It will have suggestions on stacks or technologies to use for the back end, for instance, but yeah. I was thinking of leaving that to the user to figure out, but just showing the things you need to think about that a lot of people don't think about until they encounter the problems that might arise, like retrying and all the error handling that you add later, and validation for security reasons and things.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Starr:This is giving me flashbacks to a whole two or three year process after we first launched.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It was just like, "Oh, crap. There's an edge case here that we didn't think of because we're not used to doing web hooks at this scale." And that just went on for like three years.Josh:Yeah. And it's nice having the two products because Hook Relay came out of Honeybadger and it's basically part of our web hook system. This is basically just documenting Honeybadger's web hook system for other people who might want to replicate that or whatever.Ben:Totally. I think that will be cool. A great piece of content, a great piece of SEO juice. And if you did decide to go deep into the technical side, like if you explain the entire infrastructure that we're building, that would actually be kind of cool too because you could maintain your technical documentation for the system internally and use it as a piece of content for marketing.Josh:That could be cool. Yeah. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, I was thinking just because I want to get something out there. I'm thinking it will help with both, having a resource for people who are already on the site to see this is basically how you will implement this. It's kind of like an implementation guide, really. But then also SEO. It should help get us in more search results.Ben:Yeah.Josh:And I also want to credit Ben Orenstein and and Tuple. They have a great pair programming guide which was an inspiration for this idea. I just really liked the format that they used, and I just think it's a great idea if you have a product that's highly targeted or focused on one specific thing and doing it really well. I think it's maybe even a great alternative to a blog, for instance. You can get some of the same benefits of having a blog, but without actually having to create a blog with a lot of different variety of topics and things.Ben:Speaking of the blog, I was talking to Harris, our sales guru, about our blog strategy, and I said, "Yeah, it's basically like a flypaper strategy. We want it to attract developers that come and see the content and they love it and they're like, 'Oh, let me check out this Honeybadger thing.'" Not particularly novel, but I like the flypaper idea.Starr:That's a good metaphor. And also for a long time, I poo-pooed SEO because in my mind, SEO was very scammy. I don't know. I learned about SEO in the days of link farming and all that, and I just didn't want to be involved in that. So I'm just like, "We're just going to put out good content and that will be enough." And it is, yes, but also I've looked at some metrics since then that make it clear that the majority of good things that happen because of our blog actually are people entering through search queries. That really outweighs people sharing articles and doing stuff like that, which I guess is obvious that it would be that way, but my own bias against search just made me not see that for a while. So maybe trying to pick some possible low hanging fruit. We've tried to make our site search engine friendly, but we having really done any explicit SEO type activities.Josh:Yeah. I went through recently through our documentation and just tweaked just small things on a bunch of pages, like headlines and some of the meta tags and stuff, but mostly headlines and content on page was what I was focusing on. And I wasn't using any particular tool to measure before and after results, but it does seem like it bumped us up in some of the results for people searching for more general terms like Ruby error tracking, for example, which are typically pretty competitive terms. But I think we rank pretty well for some of those terms these days. I think we've been around enough and we're one of the options that come up. So it does seem like if you already target the terms, it actually does what they say it does, which is good to know. You've just got to pay attention to it.Ben:So the moral of story is there is some value in SEO.Starr:I guess so.Josh:Yeah. Well and I think documentation sites. Your documentation, I think it's a great place to optimize SEO because a lot of times, especially for those... maybe not for the long tail searches. A blog is great for that, like what you were talking about with the flypaper, Ben. But for people who are actually searching for what you do, I think a lot of times documentation pops up first in a lot of cases when I'm searching for things, so don't overlook it like we did.Starr:Yeah. Well this week, I guess the main thing I did was I got our authors lined up for the next quarter of intelligence briefings. So if you haven't been playing along at home, we're having some intelligence briefings created. Basically everything that's going on in a certain language community for the quarter, and this grew out of Josh's need because he's basically in charge of our client libraries. And we have libraries in a variety of languages, so keeping up with those languages and what's going on is a real pain in the ass, so we were going to make these guides originally for him, but then also we were like, "This would be really great content to publish."Starr:And I've already got this system with authors who want to write about programming languages, and so let's see if we can make some authors make these summaries. And so far, yeah, I'm pretty happy. We had four or five of them created, and we're not publishing them because they were for a previous quarter, and this is just a trial run to see if the results are okay, and I think they were. I think the results were pretty good. We go some feedback from you two, and I updated my process and updated the template that all the authors are using, and so we should be getting round two done. I'm setting the deadline a week after the end of the quarter. My hope is if they get them to me then, then I'll have a week to get them up on our blog or wherever, and then they won't be too out of date by the time people see them.Josh:Yeah. That's cool. I'm excited to see the next batch. My favorite thing from the reports were the ones where they wrote some original content summarizing things or sections or whatever. That was super useful because there's a little bit of a story element to it that's specific to the quarter or whatever that you don't really get from just... if you just aggregate everything, all the weekly newsletters and what happened on Reddit and what happened on Twitter. If you just dump that all in a document, it's a bit of overload, so it's nice to have the summary the story of what the community was interested in.Starr:Oh yeah. Definitely.Josh:Here are some articles that they talked about.Starr:That's the whole idea, is to have somebody who knows the community explain to you what's going on, as opposed to... if I wanted a bunch of links, I could just write a little script to scrape links from places.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And it wouldn't be very useful. What's useful is having people who know the environment being like, "Hey, this is what's going on. This is why it's important." And yeah, so that's going to be something I guess I need to look for explicitly when I get this round of things of reports back.Josh:Start calling them secret agents or something instead of authors.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Or detectives.Starr:Operatives. Yeah. Assets.Josh:As our detective service investigators.Ben:I think having that analysis of why this news is important or why these things are important that they've collected is really handy, because the links are great. Like you said, I could just write a script to collect them, but having someone with that context in the community saying, "Okay, and it's important because, and this is why you should pay attention," I think that's really helpful to someone who's maybe not as deep into that every day.Starr:Oh yeah.Josh:Yeah. And also knowing what to surface, because there was one report that it really seemed to just dump every single link or article that was discussed or was in a newsletter or whatever, and I think it's more helpful if it's on a quarterly level, if you know what is actually the important things that you really want to know about.Starr:Yeah, that's true. I just made a note for myself to go back and explicitly just mention that to people, because I realized I didn't put it in the instructions anywhere. I put like, "Here's where a description of the content goes," but I didn't really put what I want inside that description, I realized.Josh:Yeah.Starr:So I'm going to do that.Ben:We're iterating in real time here.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah. This is where the work gets done.Josh:Yeah. Well and pretty soon, we'll have hopefully some good examples that we can show future authors, or detectives, or whatever we're calling them.Starr:Oh, definitely. Definitely. I'm going to call them authors because they're already in the blog system as authors and it just seems like-Josh:Agents?Starr:I don't know. I've got to be able to talk to these people with a straight face.Ben:You could call them research specialists, but then you might have to pay them more.Starr:There you go.Josh:Research. Yeah. Yeah.Starr:I don't know. I think I'm paying pretty well. Honestly, I think I'm paying pretty well for looking at... I don't know. How many weeks is a quarter? 12? 12 weeks of newsletters and just telling me what's going on. I think I'm paying pretty well.Josh:Yeah. You don't need to talk to them with a straight face though. You need to talk to them with sunglasses on, smoking a cigarette in a diner.Starr:Oh that's right. Yeah.Josh:Or a dive bar somewhere.Starr:Those people aren't smiling. Those people aren't smiling. Oh, that's right. I can do that. I just realized that it's two weeks since my second vaccine, so I'm ready to go out and recruit secret agents.Josh:Ready to party.Starr:Yeah. I'm very anxious talking with people in public now, but that's not a topic for this conversation.Josh:Yeah. We'll ease back into it.Starr:Oh yeah. Yeah, we're going to have dinner with my sister in law on Saturday, and I'm just like, "Okay Starr, you can do this. You can do this."Josh:Cool.Starr:Yeah, and I guess the other thing that we did this week is we are doing a trial run of Twist as a replacement for Basecamp messages, the message board on Basecamp. And yeah, so basically the long and short of it is the whole Basecamp BS just left a bad taste in my mouth in particular. I think you all's a little bit, or maybe you're neutral. I don't care. That sounded really harsh.Ben:You can be honest with us. We can take it.Starr:No, I didn't mean to sound that harsh. I just mean I'm not trying to put my opinions onto you, is what I'm saying. I just felt gross using Basecamp. Also if I'm being honest, I never really enjoyed Basecamp as a product. It's got a couple things that just really rubbed me the wrong way.Josh:We were having some vague conversations in the past. We have posed do we really want to keep this part of what we're using Basecamp for? And we were already using a subset of it, so yeah. It wasn't totally out of the blue.Starr:Yeah. And we were using maybe 20% of Basecamp, just the message boards feature.Josh:And the check ins, which apparently we all disliked.Starr:And the check ins, which nobody liked but we all kept using for some reason. Ben is like, "Can I turn off the check ins?" And I'm like, "I thought you were the only reason we were doing the check ins, it's because I thought you liked them."Ben:I think I was the only reason we were doing the check ins.Josh:It's because... yeah.Ben:Yeah, because I remember when I started it I was like, "Yeah, I really don't know what's going on," because back to that siloed, independent, off in the corner thing, I was like, "It would be nice to know what people are doing." But yeah, lately I've been like, "This is just a drag." So I'm like, "Would anybody be upset if this went away?" And everyone is like, "Please take it away."Josh:Everyone is just passively aggressively answering them.Ben:Everyone hated it.Josh:It wasn't that bad, but-Ben:I get it.Josh:Kevin used them too, but yeah.Ben:So I finally gave everyone permission to tell me that it was not okay, and now we no longer do it.Starr:There you go. And we're just like, "While we're at it, just ditch Basecamp." So yeah, so we've been trying a new system called Twist. Twist is, essential it's... I don't know, it's like threaded discussions. I figured this out on my own. I'm very proud of myself. So you have lots of threads, and you twist them together to make yarn or something or some sort of textile, so I bet you that's why it's called Twist.Josh:Beautiful sweater.Starr:Yeah. A beautiful sweater. The tapestry that is Honeybadger. And so far, I've really been enjoying it. I find the UI to be a lot better. There was one bug that we found that I reported, so hopefully that will get fixed. It doesn't really bother me that much. Yeah, it's amazing sometimes how the UI of an application can just be like, "Oh, ah. I'm having to parse less information just to do my task."Josh:It's much nicer.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It does feel like a lot less friction for our use case.Josh:Yeah. Well we talked about that, just the structure. The way that you structure conversation and organization things in a management tool like that makes a big difference. In Basecamp, we would create Basecamps for whatever. They call them Basecamps, right? They're the projects.Starr:They're like projects. I don't know.Josh:We'd create different ones, different projects for each project, but then there's five of us, so we'd basically just add everyone to every single project that is in there. But all the conversation is siloed off in each project, and with Twist, it's just much more of a fluid... it uses what, like channels? But yeah, it just seems like it's all together. It's kind of like a combination of Slack and a threaded message board or something, to me.Starr:Yeah, or like Slack and email or something.Josh:Slack and email. Yeah. It's a nice combo.Starr:Yeah. It has inbox, which I like, where it shows you any unread messages, and so you can just easily just go and scan through them, and it's all in the same page. It's a single page application, so you don't have to click out to a completely new page and then come back to the inbox and do all that. Basecamp had a similar feature, but it's like a timeline and it had a line down the middle of the screen and then branches coming off of either side of it. And for some reason, I started using the inbox in Twist and it was just like, "Oh, this is so much better." For some reason I think having things on different sides of the screen just doubled the amount of background processing my brain had to do to put it all together. And yeah, so I don't know. I do like it. Also, it's got mark down. It's got mark down.Josh:The mark down editor is so nice. It reminds me a lot of just using GitHub, the editor on GitHub, with the mark down mode and preview. And you can drag and drop images into the... I don't know if you knew that, into the mark down editor, like you can on GitHub, and it automatically inserts the image tag and uploads it for you.Starr:Yeah, it's all really slick. So I don't know. I imagine in maybe another... I've got vacation next week, so maybe after that we'll get together and compare notes. But I don't know, it seems like people like it so far.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah, it's been good. It's interesting-Josh:If I had to decide today, it's a keeper for me.Ben:Yeah, I would go ahead and switch.Starr:Oh yeah, me too.Ben:It's interesting to me, you alluded to this, Starr, as you were talking about comparing it to your products and how they approach... it's interesting to me the UI, even if it's the same kind of functionality, how much different takes on the user experience can make a different experience for the user. How it just feels different. Like, "Oh yeah, it's basically doing the same thing, but it just feels better for whatever. My mentality or our business." Fill in the blank there, but I thought about that many times. Honeybadger versus competitors. It's like, "Yeah, they're doing basically the same thing, but we do have differences in how we approach the UI and different use patterns that we think are more emphasized by our UI versus the others." And sometimes it's just a matter of personal preference. It's like, "Oh, this just feels better to me." One night I tried Python before I tried Ruby, and Python is like, "Oh, that's interesting," but then Ruby really clicked my brain. It's like, "Oh, it just feels better." And I'm sure other people have the opposite experience, but I don't know. It's weird to me and fun to think about the human part of these products. Josh:Yeah. And it's surprising, the strong opinions that people pick up just based on those experience things when they're basically the same, if they're doing the same thing. Some people, they either love it or hate it based on that.Starr:Yeah, that's true. Maybe it all goes back to whatever business apps you used in childhood. It's just whatever your mom made you for lunch, you're always going to love that.Josh:Yeah. It's like a nurture thing, nature versus nurture. You were exposed to these apps when you were young, and so it's just what you're drawn to.Starr:Yeah. I remember putting my little friend's contact details into Lotus Notes.Josh:Right. I had to program Lotus Notes.Ben:I got my first dev job because I knew Lotus Notes.Starr:Oh, nice.Josh:Lotus Notes was an important precedent at the time, I think.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It was the bomb. You could do some pretty serious stuff.Starr:Yeah. I kept having these jobs that weren't technically dev jobs, but ended up being dev jobs just because I knew how to write V basic macros for Excel. I'm sure a lot of people had that experience.Josh:The thing I remember doing in Lotus Notes was setting it up to ingest email from the outside world into whatever, the system. And thinking about it now, that project I've done over and over and over since then.Starr:It's Basecamp.Josh:And I'm still doing that project.Starr:It's Basecamp all over again. Oh no.Ben:If only there was a service that took in emails for you, and then you could just bring them into your app data.Josh:Yeah. I bet in 20 years, we'll be writing programs to accept email.Ben:Process emails, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. When is this stuff going away? Technology changes all the time. When is email going away? They've been killing it for years. It's like fricking Rasputin. When is it going away?Ben:It's the cockroach of protocols.Starr:There you go.Josh:After the singularity, they'll still have to have a way to import it directly into your consciousness, and yeah, I don't know.Starr:Yeah. I hope the spam filtering is really good then.Starr:All right, well it was great talking with y'all.Ben:Likewise.Starr:Yeah. So this has been FounderQuest. Go to the Apple podcast and review us if you want. If you're interested in writing for us, we are always looking for fresh, new talent. Young authors looking to make their mark on the world of technical blog posts for SAS companies. And yeah, just go to our blog and look for the write for us page. I don't currently have any openings, but who knows? People flake out. So if you're interested in writing these reports for us too, get in touch. These quarterly intelligence briefings, if you want to be an agent for our intelligence service. All right, so I'll see y'all later.

Show notes:Links:Mike MondragonCRDTShip of TheseusExceptional CreaturesShiba Inu Full Transcript:Ben:I'm just gonna dive on in there. I'm so eager. I'm so excited. It's actually weird because Starr is the one that typically starts us off. Josh:Yeah. I thought we were just going to start with our just general banter, and then not introduce the guest until 30 minutes later.Ben:By the way.Josh:It is also our tradition.Ben:Yeah. Well we're getting better at this thing.Josh:Where we say, "Oh, by the way, if Starr doesn't sound like Starr..."Ben:Right, yes. Today Starr doesn't sound like Starr because today's star is Mike Mondragon instead. Welcome Mike.Josh:Hey Mike.Mike:Hey.Ben:Mike is a long time friend of the show, and friend of the founders. Actually, Mike, how long have we known each other? It's been at least 10, maybe 15 years?Mike:Probably 2007 Seattle RB.Ben:Okay.Josh:Yeah. I was going to say you two have known each other much longer than I've even known Ben.Ben:Yeah.Josh:So you go back.Ben:Way back.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Because I think Ben and I met in 2009.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Or something.Mike:Okay.Ben:Yeah, Mike and I have been hanging out for a long time.Mike:Yeah.Ben:We've known each other through many, many different jobs, and contracts, and so on. It's been awesome.Josh:Yeah, Mike, I feel like I've heard your name since... Yeah, for the last, at least, 10 years just working with Ben. You've always been in the background. And we've realized this is the first time we've actually met face to face, which is crazy. But it's great to... Yeah.Mike:Yeah.Josh:... have a face to put with the little... What is it, a cat avatar? Is a cat in your avatar? You've had that avatar for a really long time I feel like.Mike:Yeah, that's Wallace.Josh:Okay.Mike:So I'm Mond on GitHub and Twitter, and that cat avatar is our tuxedo cat, Wallace. And he is geriatric now. Hopefully he'll live another year. And if you remember in that era of Ruby, all of the Japanese Rubyists had cat icons. And so that was... I don't know. That's why Wallace is my icon.Josh:Yeah. Nice.Ben:So, so do Wallace and Goripav know each other?Mike:No, no, they don't. They're like best friends, right? They had to have met at Seattle RB.Ben:Yeah. Internet friends.Mike:Internet friends, yeah.Ben:Yeah. So, Mike is old school Ruby, way back, way back, yeah. But the other funny thing about the old Rubyists, all those Japanese Rubyists, I remember from RubyConf Denver... Was that 2007? Somewhere around there. I remember going to that and there were mats and a bunch of friends were sitting up at the front, and they all had these miniature laptops. I've never seen laptops so small. I don't know what they were, nine inch screens or something crazy.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I was like, "How do you even type on that thing?" But it's a thing. So I guess... I don't know. I haven't been to Japan.Mike:There are laptops that you could only get in Japan and they flash them with some sort of Linux probably.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Okay. I wonder how long it took them to compile C on there.Mike:Yeah. So, about the orbit with the founders. So, I think I'd put it in my notes that I... And I consider myself a sliver of a Honeybadger in that I did have a conversation with Ben about joining the company. And then in 2017, I did do a little contracting with you guys, which is ironic in that... So we're probably going to talk about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin protocol is, essentially, on a four-year timer. And in 2017 was the last time that we were building up to, I guess, an explosive end to that cycle. And I had just been working at Salesforce at Desk.com, And I left because of Bitcoin. And then this year, four years later, I, again, just left Salesforce, but I just left from Heroku. And I didn't leave so much because of Bitcoin, I just got a better opportunity, and I'm a principal engineer at Okta, and I'm in the developer experience working on SDKs, primarily, the Golang SDK.Mike:So I think one of the things that they were happy about was that I had experience carrying the pager, and knowing what that's like, and they wanted to have an experienced engineer that would have empathy for the engineers to main the SDK. So I'm really excited to be here, because I'm not going to be carrying the pager, and it is the fun programming. What I imagine, listening to the founders, about the kind of fun programming that you guys get to do, working with different languages and whatnot. So, obviously right now, I'm starting out with Golang. We don't have a Ruby SDK, because OmniAuth provider is the thing that most people use. But, there's also PHP, and some Java, so I'm just looking forward to being able to do a bunch of different languages.Josh:Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. We don't know anything about SDK teams, Honeybadger. But yeah, it sounds like we have very similar jobs at the moment. So that's cool. We'll have to trade tips at some point. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I'm excited that you're there, because I'm definitely going to hit you up on the SAML stuff, because SAML's a pain in the tuchus yeah, I'm sure you'll have some insights from your time there.Mike:Well, that was how I was even open-minded to talking to Okta, was the recruiter had contacted me and I think actually it was the recruiter... I don't know the structure of how this works, but a lot of companies have a prospecting recruiter. And I think that a veteran oriented prospecting recruiter contacted me. And so being a veteran, I'll usually entertain those cold calls. And so then when I was at Desk, I wrote... So Desk was a big Rails monolith. I wrote a microservice to break some of the SSO off of the monolith itself. And in writing the API documentation that was on desk.com, I actually used Okta as one of the examples as a SSO identity provider using SAML. So yeah, I have had a little bit of experience from the outside of Okta with SAML. And so maybe I'll have more experience here to answer your questions.Ben:Yeah. We'll have to have you back and we can just do a whole hour on that. It's a fun world.Josh:After we do an hour on SDKs.Ben:Yeah, and your code that you wrote for us still lives on in Honeybadger.Josh:Yeah. Was it the webpack? That was some of the work, right?Ben:Some of it, yeah.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:And some GitHub integration work.Josh:And the integrations, yeah.Mike:Yeah, well if I remember correctly with the GitHub integration, I did do some GitHub integration, and it tickled your enthusiasm, Ben, and then I think you went in and like refactored that a little bit.Ben:Well, if you have a monolith like Redo that's been around for as long as ours has, things don't... It's like, what was that Theseus' ship, it's goes around the world but you replace things as it goes, and it's never the same app, right?Mike:Yeah, that's the thing, we had discussed this in the prelude around just software engineering in general and how hard it is to maintain a monolith, especially as a company grows and as developers come rolling into a project, you get all of these... Over time you get engineers with different goals, different techniques, different styles of touching your code base, to the point that it becomes very hard to maintain a project. And I think, I don't know if we're going to talk about Heroku at all, but I think that Heroku suffers from a little bit of that, where there's very few original Heroku that are involved in the runtime at least. And I just came from being on the runtime in the control plane. And, definitely, the code base there is... There's maybe one or two people that are still around that have touched that code base from the beginning.Ben:Yeah, let's dive into that, because that's fascinating to me. I know that there's been chatter on Twitter recently that people feel that Heroku is stagnated. That they haven't really brought a lot of innovative stuff to market recently. I remember, actually a funny story, I'm going to tell it myself. I can't remember what year this was, it were way... I don't know, I don't know, early 2000s. I was sitting as part of a focus group, and I can't reveal a lot of information because secrecy and stuff. But anyway, I was part of this focus group and I was asked as part of this group, what as a developer working on Ruby applications and Rails applications, what I thought about this new thing called Heroku. And had it explained to me, "Oh, you just get push", and "Blah, blah, blah", and I poo-pooed the idea. I was like, "Nah, I'm not interested", because I already know how to deploy stuff. I've got Mongrel, I got a DVS.Josh:Say Mongrel.Ben:I know how to use SEP, why do I need this? Like Math, never going to catch on. And so don't follow me for investing advice.Mike:Yeah, totally.Josh:I got my Linodes.Mike:Yeah. Or even back then, I wrote all of my own chef, so I got my own recipes I can-Ben:Right, exactly.Mike:... bare metal at will.Ben:Exactly. So, what do you think, you've been at Heroku, you've seen this process of people having to maintain this code base over a long period of time. What are some tips for people who might be a little earlier on the process? Looking down the road, what do you suggest people think about for having a more maintainable application?Mike:That's interesting. I really think that there is not one size fits all, and actually some of the things that are specific to Heroku, and actually to desk.com when I was there previously, that some of the issues actually stem from Salesforce culture and the way that Salesforce manages its businesses. And so, I guess the thing that I've always liked about Rails, specifically, is that the conventions that are used in Rails, you can drop an experienced Rails developer pretty much into any Rails app and they're going to know the basic conventions. And that saves you so much time to ramping up and bringing your experience into a project. Whereas when you get into bespoke software, then you run into well what were the architectural design patterns 10 years ago compared to now? How much drift has there been in libraries and the language, depending.Mike:And so that is... I don't... That's a very hard question to nail down in a specific way. I would just say in spit balling this, conventions are very important, I would say. So as long as you have a conventions using a framework, then I think that you'll get to go a long ways. However, if you start to use a framework, then you get the everything is a nail and I'm going to use my hammer framework on that. Which is its own thing that I've seen in Ruby, where if you start a project with Rails, I don't think everybody realizes this, but you are essentially going to be doing a type of software development that is in the mindset of Basecamp, right? And if you have an app that is not quite like Basecamp, and then you start to try to extending Rails to do something different, then you're going to start running into issues. And I think that... It makes me sad when I hear people talk poorly about Rails, because oftentimes people are just pushing it into a direction that it's not built to do. Whether they're, like in the old days, like monkey-patching libraries, or whatnot.Ben:Yeah, I think we saw that with the rise of Elixir and Phoenix, right? José just got frustrated with wanting to do some real time stuff. And that really wasn't the wheelhouse for Rails, right? And so he went and built Elixir and Phoenix, and built on top of that. And that became a better hammer for that particular nail than Rails, right? So now if you come into a new project and you're like, "Well, I'm going to do a lot of highly concurrent stuff", well, okay, maybe Rails isn't the best solution. Maybe you should go look at Elixir and Phoenix instead.Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So, with Heroku, I just want to say that it was so awesome to work at Heroku, and the day that I got a job offer to work there, it was like... I still, if I'm having a bad day, I still think about that, and the... I've never used hard drugs, but I would think that somebody that was cocaine high, that's probably what I was feeling when I got the offer from Heroku. I started using Heroku in 2009, and it has a story within our community, it's highly respected. And so I just want to say that I still think very highly of Heroku, and if I was to be doing just a throwaway project, and I just want to write some code and do git push main, or git push Heroku main, then I would definitely do that.Mike:And we were... And I'm not very experienced with the other kinds of competitors right now. I think, like you pointed him out, is it Vercel and Render?Ben:Render. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Yeah. So I can't really speak to them. I can really just speak to Heroku and some of the very specific things that go on there. I think one of the issues that Heroku suffers from is not the technology itself, but just the Salesforce environment. Because at Salesforce, everything eventually has to be blue, right? And so, Heroku, I don't think they ever could really figure out the right thing to do with Heroku. As well as, the other thing about enterprise software is that if I'm selling Salesforce service cloud or whatever, I'm selling, essentially, I'm selling seats of software licenses. And there's no big margin in selling Compute, because if I'm buying Compute, I expect to be using that.Mike:And so, as a salesperson, I'm not incented to sell Heroku that much because there's just not margins for me in the incentive structure that they have at sales within Salesforce. So I think that's the biggest thing that Heroku has going against it, is that it's living in a Salesforce environment. And as, I guess, a owner of Salesforce being that I have Salesforce stock, I would hope that they would maximize their profits and actually sell Heroku. Who knows, maybe a bunch of developers get together and actually buy the brand and spin that off. That would be the best thing, because I think that Salesforce would probably realize a lot more value out of Heroku just by doing that, even if there's some sort of profit sharing, and then not have to deal with all the other things.Ben:Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. The thing about billing, and then selling per user, versus the compute- That's definitely a different world. It's a totally different mindset. And I think Josh that we have now been given a directive step. We should acquire Heroku as part of Honeybadger.Josh:I was going to say, maybe we can acquire it with all of our Doge profits in five or 10 years from now.Mike:Well, yeah. Somebody spin a Heroku coin, a ERC20 token on Ethereum and get everybody to dump their Ethereum into this token.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Get that pot of money together. And then that is the Heroku Foundation. Yeah, exactly.Josh:Okay, yeah.Mike:The Heroku Foundation that buys the Heroku brand. I know that we're laughing about it, but actually this is what is possible today. And, I was telling Ben... Well, let me just say a couple of things about the FounderQuest and how it relates to me, is I've been listening to FounderQuest from the first episode, and I'm an only child, and I like to listen to podcasts. So I'll be on my afternoon walk, and I'll be hearing you guys talk, and I'm having this conversation along with you guys listening to the podcasts.Mike:And so, I think, in January, you guys were talking about, or maybe Ben was talking about, $30,000 Bitcoin, and you guys just had your yucks and laughs about it. And it actually made me think critically about this, because I've been involved with Bitcoin since about 2012, and it's like, "Do I have a tinfoil hat on?" Or what do I think? And so, I'm not joking about this, listening to you guys actually has helped me concretely come up with how I feel about this. And first off, I think, I'm bullish on technology. And this is the first epiphany that I had, is all of us have had a career close to Linux, close to Ruby, building backend services, close to virtualization and orchestration. Fortunately, that's been my interest, and fortunately that's been where our industry has gone. And so, when Bitcoin came out, as technologists, all you ever hear, if you don't know anything about Bitcoin, you just hear currency. And you're thinking internet money, you're not thinking about this as a technologist.Mike:And so that was the thing. I wish that Bitcoin had been talked about as a platform, or a framework.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:And not even called it coin. Because that confuses the issue-Josh:The whole coin thing, just... Yeah.Mike:Yeah, totally. And mining the metaphors-Josh:That alone.Mike:... just totally throws everything off. Because we are talking, we're laughing about it, but this is really possible today. We could come up with a Foundation to buy Heroku with a cryptocurrency, and it would... Yeah. So that's one thing that Ben helped me realize in my thinking around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And I think I'm just bullish on technology. And so to me, again, across our career, there's been so much change. And why would we look at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies any differently than any other kind of technology? Even a hundred dollar bill with all the holograms on it, that is a kind of financial technology. And so we're just talking about a digital technology, we're not talking about coins I guess.Josh:That's the appeal, a lot of the Altcoins, right? They give everyone a way to invest in those companies, whereas before you would have to... Whatever, be an accredited investor or something to be able to get involved. Is that part of the appeal? I'm probably showing what I know about crypto, which is very little, but I'm excited to... Yeah, maybe you can...Mike:Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like these projects are... I'm not a VC, and I'm not an insider, but from what I can see from afar, in Silicon Valley there's a close group of people that have access to all of these ideas. And there's Angel clubs, and VC clubs, and whatnot, that are funding these startups. And to me, I feel like these crypto projects are the same kind of thing, except for they're just available to the public. And so, I think if I was speaking to another technologist that was interested in cryptocurrencies, is you probably need to get your hands on some of the technology in order to get experience with it.Mike:And so if that means you figure out how to maybe mine some coin on your laptop, or whatever, or you actually pay for it, you should at least have some in your possession, and at least learn about the custodial part of it. Also, there's different software libraries now to actually do programming against it, and platforms, I believe. So that'd be another way to at least tickle your curiosity, is by actually touching the technology and not thinking about the value. So yeah.Ben:Yeah. That, to me, that's one of the most interesting things about the whole coin thing. My younger son is really interested in the crypto space, in the coin and in the other parts of a distributed ledger, and what does that mean, and how does that work? And before I heard about NFTs, he was talking about NFTs. And so it's really interesting to me to see this coming from him. Just yesterday, we had a conversation about CRDTs, right? Because we're talking about how do you merge transactions that are happening in distributed fashion? Right? I was like, "Oh yeah", and it's so weird to have my teenage sons' world colliding with my world in this way.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But it's a lot of fun. And I've got to say, Mike, I got to give you back some credit, talking about the whole coin thing. As you've heard, we're pretty coin skeptical here at Honeybadger, the Founders, but you made a comment in our pre-show conversation. And maybe you didn't make this explicitly, but maybe it's just a way that I heard it. But I think... Well what I heard was, and maybe you actually said this, was basically think about this like an index fund, right? You put dollar cost to averaging, right? You put some money into coin, you put a little bit, it's not going to be your whole portfolio, right? But you don't treat it like a gamble, and you just treat it like an investment, like you would other things that may appreciate in value. And of course you may not.Ben:And so, as a result, I decided, "Okay, I can do that. I can put a little bit of my portfolio into coins". So just this week, and this is the funny part, just this week-Josh:I'm just finding this out now, by the way.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Josh is like... I told my wife about this last night and she was like, "What's Josh going to say?" "Like, I don't know". So anyway, just this week I put a little bit of money into Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that was... When did Elon do his thing about Bitcoin? Was that Thursday morning?Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I bought, two hours before Elon did his thing, and Bitcoin lost 15% of its value.Mike:That's awesome.Ben:I'm like, "It's okay. It's okay, I'm just putting-Josh:Yeah, you don't sell, it doesn't matter.Mike:What was your emotion? What was your emotion?Ben:Yeah, totally. Yeah. In fact, my first buy, I used Coinbase. And Coinbase was like, "Oh, do you want to do this periodically?" I'm like, "Yes, I do. Every month". Boom.Mike:Oh.Ben:I went ahead and set that up like so, yeah.Mike:Oh, I did not know you could do that.Ben:I'm in it to win it, man.Mike:You should get a hardware wallet. That's the next thing, is you need to learn how to handle your own custody, so-Josh:Right, yeah. You got to... Yeah.Mike:Not leave it on the exchange. Interesting.Josh:Get those hard drives.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Ben's a veteran indexer though. So you can handle some dips. Some volatility.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Josh:I actually, I did make some money off of Bitcoin back in the day, and probably if I would've just held onto it, I would've made a lot more, of course.Mike:Same.Josh:So I accidentally... Back, I don't know when this was, it was maybe five years ago or something, when Bitcoin was going through one of its first early hype cycles, and I was like, "I'll check it". I was learning about it, of course. And so I went and bought some and I think I ran a blockchain Elixir app that someone made, to see how the transactions work and stuff. Read some books on Bitcoin. But I bought some Bitcoin, I can't remember how much, but just left it. I think this was after Coinbase had launched, I'm pretty sure I bought it through Coinbase. But yeah, I just left it, and then that was when it was in the first huge push of Bitcoin where it went up to 20,000 or something. And I remembered that I had it, and I went and looked and oh yeah, I made five grand or something. I put hardly anything into it initially. So I forget what I actually bought with that money. I just sold it and it's like cool, free money.Mike:So you just sold it this year? Or you sold it...Josh:No, I sold it back-Mike:In 17?Josh:I think I sold it at 20... Yeah, this would have been at 17 that I actually sold it, probably.Mike:Did you report it on your taxes, your capital gains?Josh:I did, yes. Yeah, I did.Ben:That's the benefit of having an accountant, because your accountant reminds you, "You know what? You did have some Bitcoin transactions, you should probably look at those".Josh:Can I say on here that I actually put some of it through a Bitcoin tumbler though, just to see how those work?Mike:Yeah, I mean...Josh:And that was a very small amount of money, but I didn't actually report that on my taxes. Because I think I actually forgot where it was or something.Ben:You'll have to explain what a Bitcoin tumbler is.Josh:So a Bitcoin tumbler... Well, I'll try, and then maybe Mike might explain it better, but a Bitcoin tumbler is basically how you anonymize your Bitcoin transaction. If you have some Bitcoin and you want to buy some drugs on the dark web or something, you go and you send your Bitcoin to this tumbler, and then it distributes it to a bunch of random Bitcoin addresses that it gives you. And then you have those addresses, and they're anonymized, because they've been sent through a bunch of peoples' wallets, or something like that.Mike:Yep. That's basically it.Ben:So it's basically money laundering.Josh:Yeah, it's laundering.Mike:Yeah. But if your privacy... I mean, okay-Josh:Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because part of the appeal of Bitcoin is some people are just like, "Oh yeah, good money, credit card transactions are so... The governments are recording them and stuff, the NSA probably has a database of them". So Bitcoin is anonymous, but it's not. It's not anonymous. And yeah. So that's why people do this, right?Mike:Yeah. Well that, to me, that's if you want to... So the value of Bitcoin, if you want to get bullish on the value of Bitcoin, the traditional outlook is yeah, the silk road was going on and there's all this illegal stuff going on. Therefore it must be bad. But actually, to me, that's the thing, you know it's good if there's illicit stuff going on, because what's the number one currency that's used right now for illicit transactions? It's dirty US dollar bills. And if you're a drug dealer in central South America, you are collecting, dollar bills United States. You're paying some sort of transport probably at 10, 15% cost to get those dollars back to wherever you're going to hold them. And so, if you're using Bitcoin, you're probably not going to pay that fee. So, to me, it's like okay, that actually proves, at least in my mind, that there is value. That it's being used, right?Josh:Yeah. And you also, you don't want to see... Some people are fanatics about cash going away, even just because as more people move to digital transactions, whether it's just through, whatever, traditional networks, or through crypto. People are using less and less cash. And I feel like, whatever... Like Richard Stallman, he pays for everything in cash though, because he thinks that cash is going to go away someday. And that's a problem for privacy, because you do want a way to pay for things in private in some cases.Mike:Yep. I agree.Josh:Yeah.Ben:My only real beef with Bitcoin, well, aside from the whole requiring power plants just to do a transaction, is that there is Badger coin. This company that is named Honeybadger, it's all about Bitcoin. And they have these ATM's in Canada, and we constantly get support requests from people.Mike:Oh really?Josh:Is this the reason that we've been so down on cryptocurrencies in the past?Ben:I think so.Josh:Because ever since the beginning, since people started making coins, Badger coin came out and then it's been our primary exposure to be honest.Ben:It has been, yeah.Josh:Throughout the past... I don't know how many years it's been. Has it been six-Ben:Yeah, six-Josh:... to eight years?Ben:Yeah, something like that. It's been nuts.Josh:I'd say.Mike:You should send them an invoice, and they actually-Ben:Yeah, so what happens is they had these kiosks where you can buy Bitcoin, right? You put your real money in, and you get your fake money out, right? And the name on the top of the kiosk is Honeybadger. So, someone puts in some money, real money, and they don't get their fake money, then all of a sudden they're upset, right?Mike:Yeah.Ben:And so they... For whatever reason, it doesn't go through, right, I don't know how this works, I've never bought Bitcoin at a kiosk. But so, they're like, "Okay, Honeybadger". And so they Google Honeybadger, and the first result for Honeybadger is us. And so they're like, "Oh, here's a phone number I can call". And they call us. And they're like, "Where's my Bitcoin?" That's like, "Uh, I really can't help you with that".Josh:They do.Ben:"You stole my Bitcoin". It's like, "No, that's not us".Josh:Something just occurred to me. I wonder how many of them are just confused over the fact that Bitcoin transactions can take a while to arrive now, right? It's not always instantaneous, where it used to be a lot faster, but now I know that it can take a while to clear. So I wonder how many of those people are emailing us in the span... Maybe that's why they eventually always go away and we don't hear from them again. Maybe it's not that they're getting help, but it's just that their Bitcoins are arriving. Yeah. I have a feeling that there's some sort of... I'm guessing these are mostly regular normies using, and interacting with this very highly technical product and experience, and even if you're walking up to a kiosk, but there's still a highly technical aspect of it that, like you said Mike, people are thinking coin, they're thinking... The way this maps to their brain is it's like dollar bills. So they're looking at it like an ATM. Yep.Mike:Yeah. When it comes to cryptocurrency and the technology, I don't want to have to think about custody, or any of that other kinds of stuff. It'll be successful when it just is happening, I'm not thinking about it. They're already... In some... I don't know all of the different mobile devices, but I do carry out an iPhone. And so, the wallet on iPhone is pretty seamless now, right? And so I'm not thinking about how that technology is working. I had to associate an Amex with it originally, right? But once I've done that, then all I do is click my button to pay. And there you go. And so I do think that the cryptocurrency technology has a long way to go towards that, because if normal people, the non nerds, have to think about it, then it's not going to be useful. Because in the end-Josh:Yeah.Mike:... humans use tools, right? And so, whatever the tool is, they're going to use it especially if it's easy and it makes their life easier.Ben:So what I really want to know, Mike, is what are your feelings about Dogecoin? Are you bullish on Doge?Mike:Well, I'll answer that, but I wanted to come back to the bit about the NFT, and just talking about the possibilities with technology. And I think that you guys could profit from this.Ben:I like where it's going.Mike:You'll have to do some more research. But I think what you could do... See, I love the origin story of Honeybadger. And maybe not everybody knows about the Honeybadger meme from what is... When was this, two thousand...Ben:2012? 2011?Mike:Yeah, okay. So not everybody... Yeah, bot everybody knows about the meme. I guess, just go Google-Ben:I can link it in the show notes.Josh:It's long dead. This meme is long dead.Mike:Is it? Well it's still awesome. I still love it.Josh:It is.Mike:So, there's so many facets of this that I love. The first one is that... Can I name names on competitors-Ben:Of course.Mike:... in the origins? Okay. So the first one was is that Airbrake, an exception reporting service, was doing a poor job with their customer service. And you guys were like, "We're working on this project, we need exception reporting. It's not working". It's like, "Well, can we just take their library, and build our own backend?" Right? And to me, that is beautiful. And in thinking about this episode, in Heroku, the same opportunity lies for an aspiring developer out there where you could just take the Heroku CLI and point it at your own false backend until you figure out all of the API calls that happen. And I don't know, you have that backed by Kubernetes, or whatever orchestration framework is...Mike:There is the possibility that you could do the same Honeybadger story with Airbrake SDK, as there is with the Heroku CLI. So that's the first thing I love about the Honeybadger story, and the fact the name goes along with the fact that Airbrake had poor customer support, and you guys just were like, "F it, we're going to build our own exception reporting service". Now, in the modern context with NFTs is... I have old man experience with the NFTs in that GIFs, or GIFs, and JPEGs, this is BS that people are gouging for profit. However, the technology of the NFT... This is the thing that I think is beautiful, is that... And I'm not sure which of the NFTs does this, but there is the possibility that you could be the originator of a digital object, and then you sell that digital object. And then as that digital object is traded, then you, as the, I guess, the original creator, you can get a percentage of the sales for the lifetime of that digital asset.Ben:Yeah.Mike:And, I'm not sure which of the NFTs allows that, but that is one of the things, that's one of the value propositions in NFT. So what I was thinking is if you guys did an NFT on the shaw of the original Honeybadger Ruby SDK check-in, that this could be the thing that you guys have an experiment with, is you have real skin in the game, you're playing with the technology and see if that works. And, let me know if you do that, because I might try to buy it. So, we'll see.Josh:Well, we've already got a buyer, why wouldn't we?Mike:Yeah, so..Ben:Indeed, yeah.Josh:See I was thinking maybe you could own various errors or something in Honeybadger.Mike:Yeah, I mean... Whatever digital signature you want to... Whatever you want to sign, and then assign value to.Josh:Yeah, we could NFT our Exceptional Creatures.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Have you seen that, Mike? Have you seen that project?Mike:Yep, yep.Josh:Okay.Mike:I'm well aware of that. Yep.Ben:Yeah. I'm thinking what about open source maintainers, right? Let's say you have this project and someone really wants a particular feature, right? Or they're really happy about a particular feature that you've already done, right? You can sell them that shaw, that commit, that put it into name, right?Mike:Yeah, totally.Ben:You are the proud owner of this feature. Thank you.Mike:Yeah, totally. Yeah, I was hoping that I would come with some ideas. I hope someday in the future that I run into somebody and it's like, "Oh, we heard that podcasts were where ideas were free ideas that were worth a lot of money were thrown about. And I did this project, and now I'm retired. Thank you, Mike". Honeybadgers.Josh:Wait, so Ben are you saying that, so as a committer, so say I commit something to Rails, submit a PR, so then I own that PR once it's merged and it would be like I could sell that then to someone? Is that along the lines of what you're saying?Ben:No, I'm thinking the owner of the project. So, if you commit something to Rails, and you're really excited about it, and you for some reason want to have a trophy of that commit-Josh:Right.Ben:... on a plaque on the wall, right? Then the Rails core group could sell you that token.Josh:Okay. Gotcha.Ben:That trophy, that certificate, like, "Yep. This is your thing. Commissioned by..." It's like naming a star, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:You buy the rights to a star, and it's fake stuff, right? We're naming stars. But that's the same idea.Josh:Yeah. So you could use that same idea to incentivize open-source contribution. So if you make the PR to Rails and it gets merged, you get this NFT for the PR merge, which you could then actually profit for if it was... Say it was, I don't know, turbo links or something, whatever. Years later, when it's a huge thing and everyone in Rails is using it, maybe Mike's going to come along and be like, "Hey, I'll buy... I want to own the PR for turbo links".Ben:Right.Josh:Yeah. And of course then, you, as the owner, would also profit from any sale between parties later on too. You'd get that little percentage.Mike:Yeah. Well, so when somebody comes up with committer coin, just remember me, I want to airdrop of some committer coin.Josh:We have a name. We've got a name for it. Commit coin.Ben:I've got a new weekend project ahead of me.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Cool. Well, that helps me understand NFTs.Ben:Yeah, I really like the idea of being able to sell ownership rights to a digital asset. That I think a good idea. I don't know that the current implementation that we see on the news is a great implementation of that idea. Buying the rights for a copy of a JPEG, it feels kind of sketchy to me. But maybe there's some sort of, I don't know, PDF document that has some sort of value for some reason. And you can give that, sell that to someone. And to me, it's not so much about the profit, or the transaction, it's the ownership. You can say I am the owner of this thing. Yeah, there can be copies all over the place, but I'm the person that has the ownership, quote unquote, of this thing.Josh:Yeah, yeah. But then you've got to define value Ben. What is value? Okay, so, what makes a PDF more valuable than a JPEG?Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Bring this back to Dogecoin, and value propositions, and whatnot. What is valuable? When you're talking about the value of a JPEG, this reminded me of a conversation I was having with my son. He's 10 years old and he wanted some money to buy, I don't know what it was, and old man voice came out of me and it's like, "That's BS. I don't think that's valuable". And he looked at me and he was like, "It's valuable to me". And it's like, "Oh, you just put a dagger in my heart. I'm killing your dream". And one person's value may not be another person's value. So, on the Dogecoin, that's interesting. Dogecoin is very interesting to me, because I feel like I'm in a quantum state with a Dogecoin where it is a joke, but at the same time it apparently it has value.Mike:And I don't know where I stand on that threshold. I know how to trade Dogecoin. And I know the behavior of Dogecoin, and the behaviors, from a trading standpoint, has changed substantially in the last six months. Before it was a pump and dump kind of thing. Well, actually, you know what? When Dogecoin was first created, its purpose was highlighted by the community. People in podcast land don't realize this, but I'm wearing a 2017 Dogecoin shirt from when the Dogecoin community sponsored the number 98 NASCAR. And the thing of the community was like, "Oh, we have all this money, and we're just being altruistic and we're giving it away". And so they were exercising their belief with this currency, right?Mike:And from then, till now, there was a bit of a cycle to Dogecoin where you could, if you acquired Dogecoin for say under a hundred Satoshis, this is the Dogecoin BTC pair, that was actually a good buy. Just wait for the next pump when somebody does something, and Dogecoin goes over 200, or 300 Satoshis, and then you dump it. And that's basically what I did on this in the last six months. I had a small bag of Dogecoin waiting for the next pump and dump. And I actually did that, but it kept on getting pumped, and then it would stabilize. And then now we're at the point where apparently Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are saying that there's value to it.Mike:And to me, I actually put a lot of credence to that, because these are two public persons that they cannot... If they're pumping things in the public domain, then they have risk, right? And so you can't be those two people, and be pumping, and not run the risk of the FTC of the United States government coming in and saying, "Hey, why were you doing this?" So there's the, I guess for me, a small bit of a guarantee that maybe there is something to Dogecoin.Josh:Yeah. See, the way I think, when you first started you were saying it is a joke, but you're in this dual state, and my initial or immediate thought was it is a joke, but this is the internet, and the internet loves to make silly things real.Mike:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Especially these days.Ben:Yeah. It's pretty funny for all those people that made a bunch of money on GameStop, right? Yeah.Mike:Yeah. Well that's the thing, is in Dogecoin, Doge is, of itself, from a meme from the same time period as Honeybadger, right? The Iba Shinu doggie, right? So, the other thing I don't understand, or the thing that I understand but I don't know how to quantify it for myself, is that, to me... So there's no pre-mine on Dogecoin. There's no one person that owns a lot of Dogecoin from the beginning. Whereas if we're talking about Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the founder, or one of the founders of Ethereum, they pre-mined Ethereum, and there's a ton of Ethereum that's owned by the founders. Whereas you compare that to, say, Litecoin, Charlie Lee cloned Bitcoin and created Litecoin. He sold all of his Litecoin. I believed in him when he said he's sold it all. He's a software engineer, just like us. He was Director of Engineering at Coinbase.Mike:He doesn't seem like he's wearing tinfoil hat out there, doing conspiracies. So when he says that he sold his coin in 2017, all of his Litecoin, I totally believe that. Yet today, he is the chairperson of the Litecoin foundation. And so, to me... I actually do have, I placed some value in the benevolence of Litecoin and Dogecoin, because there's not any one person that actually controls it. I guess Charlie Lee, he probably has a stronger voice than most. But he doesn't control the levers.Josh:Not financially.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Yeah. And so then with Dogecoin... So Dogecoin, it'll be awesome if it gets above a dollar, but the structure of Dogecoin will be such as they cannot maintain that.Josh:Right.Mike:Because it's an inflation-Josh:There's no cap, right?Mike:Right.Josh:Yeah.Mike:It's inflation. And so, I don't know the number, I think it's a million Dogecoin are minted every day. So, 10 years from now, if Dogecoin is worth a dollar still, then that means Bitcoin will be worth a lot more than that. So I guess that'd be awesome if Dogecoin stays a dollar. However, the point I'm trying to make is actually there is value in having an inflationary currency, especially if we're talking about living in the structure of our current financial... The way that our current financial markets work, where there is an inflation.Mike:And so if I want to be transacting with a digital currency, I don't want to have to be, say, like having an Argentina kind of moment where my one Dogecoin is worth $5 American today, and then maybe only $3 American a week from now. So to me, I think there is value in Dogecoin in that it's inflationary, and that it will not be as susceptible to speculation bubbles as other currencies. And so, I don't know if that answers your questions on the value of Dogecoin, but those are a couple of reasons why I think that Dogecoin is valuable. Now, am I going to be holding a big bag of Dogecoin in 2022? Probably not. Just to be honest.Ben:We're all about honesty at Honeybadger. I love the episodes where we have to have a disclaimer, this is not financial advice. Please consult competent professionals before investing, et cetera, et cetera. Mike, it has been a delight to have you with us. We appreciate your counterbalance to our coin pessimism that we have amongst the Honeybadger fan base.Josh:Yeah, I think we needed this.Ben:Yeah.Josh:We really needed this.Ben:We really did.Josh:So thank you.Ben:It's been good.Mike:Yeah. Oh, I got one more idea out there. Hopefully, somebody can run with this, is I've been trying to get motivated to do some experimentation with the Bitcoin lightning network. We didn't really talk about these a layer two solutions for scaling, but I think that there is a lot of potential in coming up with an interesting project that lays within the Litecoin* network, it has its value in and of itself, but there's a secondary value of being a note on the Litecoin* network where if there's transactions going through your node, let's say, I don't know how you'd instrument this, but let's say that Honeybadger actually was... That you guys were taking your payments across your own lightning node, then all of the transactions that are going across the lightning network, you're getting a small fee, right? So I think that there's the possibility of a micropayments kind of play there, like for instance, paying by the exception. I mean, literally-*Editor's note from Mike - "in my excitement talking about the Lighting Network I slipped and said Litecoin a couple of times between Lightning Network. Lightning Network is a layer 2 protocol that is primarily intended for scaling Bitcoin and that was what I meant. However, Lightning can be implemented to run on top of Litecoin and Ethereum."Josh:That has come up that has come up in the past, I think at one point.Mike:You can't do micro payments on a credit card.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Right? But you can do micropayments on lightening network. And I'm not selling you guys on this, but I'm saying that there's going to be some nerd out there that it's like, "Oh my God micropayments are here, I can do micropayments on lighting network". And then they're going to do well on that product, but then they're also going to do well on the commission that they're earning on payments going through their node.Josh:This could be used for usage base software as a service billing model.Ben:Totally. And then you get the skim off the top, just like a good affiliate does.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it. All right. All right, Mike, we're going to have to do some scheming together. Well, any final words, any parting words besides go by all the Dogecoin that you can?Mike:Yeah. Don't put all your money into the cryptocurrencies. Yeah.Josh:Seems like good advice.Ben:Be smart

Show notes:Links:Threads.comBlueyVogmaskTwistIt’s a Southern ThingIf I had a front porchFull transcript:Josh:How y'all doing?Ben:I'm doing.Starr:Yeah, about the same.Ben:I've been riding my scooter to work all week.Starr:Oh, how's that?Ben:It's a lot of fun. Got a little electric kick scooter and top speed about 25 miles per hour. I was concerned about it being able to get up the hill that I have to go back up on my way home. It does drag a bit on that hill. I only got a single motor. Guess I should have gone with the dual motor. Otherwise it's fun. It's nice to be out in nature, I guess, air quotes, because you're still on the road and you're still a victim of cars and stuff. Being able to see the sun coming up over the hills and down to the valley and while you're just feeling the wind on your face, it's all good.Josh:It sounds nice.Ben:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, sounds awesome. I don't know. It seems terrifying to me, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun.Ben:It helped that I have done a lot of bike riding on roads for the past several years, so I'm already comfortable with the idea of mixing it up with cars and weaving in and out of traffic and realizing that people aren't going to see me and things like that. I think if I had just gone from driving a car straight to riding a scooter in the bike lane, that would be a little more terrifying.Starr:Yeah, that makes sense.Josh:Next you're going to have to upgrade to one of the electric skateboards or a Onewheel or something, just remove the handle bars.Ben:Right, right, right. Get one of those Onewheel things.Josh:This is leading up to-Ben:Totally.Starr:We're just working up to hoverboards. I mean I commute to my backyard office, so maybe I should get a zip-line or something from the main house.Ben:I like that, yeah.Starr:... then I could be extreme.Josh:We want a zip-line at our place out into the forest.Starr:That would be fun.Ben:You could do a zip-line from your deck to the sandbox, send the kids out to play.Josh:The kids would love it. Well, I was thinking more for myself though. Screw the kids. They don't need a zip-line.Starr:There you go. That's actually not a bad idea. We're going to get-Josh:That would be cool though.Starr:... a deck in the fall.Josh:Oh, nice.Starr:I had thought it would be fun to put a fireman pole on one side or something so kids could slide down it. It's raised up a little bit but not that much. It's like a kid's sliding size.Ben:That would be totally awesome. That would-Josh:We have been loving our new deck that we have had for a month and a half or something now. It's a new deck. If you have a really old, rickety deck, a new one is a big upgrade. Also ours is a little bit larger, too, so it's like a bigger house almost.Starr:Oh, that's great. We don't even have a deck it's just like a little stairway.Josh:I think you're going to like it, Starr.Starr:I think so, too. I know, deck life. It's going to be covered. I was just like-Josh:It's just the small things.Starr:I know. All I want is to be able to go out on a nice evening or something and sit and drink a cup of tea and be outside.Ben:And think about all-Josh:I was going to say, where do you drink the sweet tea in the summer if you don't have a front porch?Starr:Yeah, that's the main problem with houses up here in the Northwest is there's not real front porches. We have one that's like a weird nod at a front porch. It's like somebody maybe had seen a front porch once when they were... They were like, "Oh, maybe I'll try and do that from memory," without really knowing what it's supposed to be like.Josh:Some of the ones in Portland have them, but they're boxed in usually, and they're the older houses-Josh:... like the old Craftsmans or whatever.Starr:The stately grand dames.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Well, here in Kirkland we're destroying all those old houses and putting in-Starr:Thank God.Ben:... townhouses.Josh:Hell, yeah.Ben:I drove by one this morning. This morning was the first morning since I got my scooter that I actually didn't ride the scooter because it was raining and the ground was wet. I was like, "Ah, I don't want to deal with that this morning." So I just drove. I drove past this house that... Well, yesterday it was a house. Today, it's a pile of sticks because they sold the lot, and they're going to split it into probably, I don't know, four lots and put in some townhouses. It's always a sad thing, but people got to have a place to live.Starr:Yeah, it's a shame. They tore down a house on my block, too, except it was a condemned house. It looked like a gingerbread fairy house that you'd find on just a random stroll in the woods where you'd go inside and you'd find just a delicious meal laid out on the table just waiting for you. So I'm a little sad it's gone just for, I guess, the storytelling aspects, the mythology of it. I guess it's probably best not to just have a condemned structure hanging out.Josh:I still do feel like Ida's is missing out with your telling of that story. I feel a little sad for you all.Starr:I know. I know.Ben:You're totally missing the threat possibility there. Like, "Don't misbehave or I'll send you over to the gingerbread house."Starr:Oh my god, yeah. Yeah, lots of great ways to traumatize my child.Ben:Speaking of traumatizing children, I was going through Twitter the other day, and the Washington State Department of Health had a tweet. I don't remember what the tweet was, but they had a GIF embedded in it. It was Stimpy from Ren & Stimpy as a scene from the show. I was like, "That's from the Department of Health? My generation is now in charge."Starr:With the Twitter account at least.Ben:We're now putting in-Josh:Yeah, exactly.Ben:That was the weirdest... It's like, "I'm an adult." That was a weird, weird experience.Josh:It is kind of strange when the people in charge start looking more and more like you until you realize they're just like-Ben:They're just little kids, just like I am.Josh:Then you wonder why the hell they're in charge.Starr:I'm getting like Paul Ryan listening to a Rage Against the Machine vibe from this.Josh:That's what I'd be playing if I was in charge of the Department of Health's-Starr:There we go.Josh:... Twitter account.Starr:I think this week has all been a little bit... I don't know. We're all maybe a little bit having a hard time focusing. I know I have a little bit just. It seems like that happens every spring as soon as the weather gets nice and it stops being nice, then it gets nice and it stops being nice. You're waiting by the door with your kayak. You just got to get the jump on it before everybody else gets to the lake.Josh:Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Also allergies have been kicking in lately.Starr:Oh my god, yeah.Josh:I was really on top of it this year, but then I ran out of my Zyrtec or whatever. It was on the list to replenish the supply or whatever, but I procrastinated and missed a few days. That's a huge mistake.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:That was this week. Now I switched to Claritin, so we'll see how... That's the big news of my week.Starr:Oh my gosh. I'm getting vaccinated later today, my second dose.Josh:Nice.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Congrats.Starr:I think I'm still going to keep wearing the KN95 respirators outside, though, just for the allergies.Josh:It's probably a good call.Ben:I was helping a neighbor with some yard work and doing a bunch of weeding and had the weed whacker out, and there's just dirt flying everywhere. I'm like, "Man, I should really wear a mask." Like, how ironic. I've got like, I don't know, a thousand masks in my house, and I'm not wearing one as I'm doing all this dusty stuff.Josh:That's a good thing to do.Starr:Oh, this is reminding me, I need to stock up before fire season.Ben:A few years ago when we had the really bad fire season, we got some Vogmasks. This was before the world knew that you were supposed to wear masks. Vogmasks are fantastic. They're a fabric mask that have the filtering stuff on the inside and highly recommend. I'll put a link in the show notes.Starr:Cool.Ben:Good stuff. When the pandemic hit, of course, they were out of stock immediately because everybody and their brother wanted one, but they've been back in stock. They're nice masks. They're really nice.Starr:Well, one thing that we have been doing is casually just checking out alternatives to Basecamp for our internal company's message board. I don't know. I feel like we're just perusing the alternatives. Honestly, it's been a little bit difficult finding just a system out there that's just a simple thread and message board without a million complex adjustments for running a forum that has thousands of people. Somebody on Twitter yesterday recommended Threads. I don't know. I think we're currently evaluating that one but no decisions yet.Josh:Is that like Twitter threads? You just-Starr:Oh, yeah, just Twitter threads.Josh:We do all of our communicating but just public threads.Starr:No, we're just going to use Twitter stories. We're just going to take some pics of ourselves in different-Josh:If we're trying to go to the opposite direction of Basecamp, we could just... Well, I guess this is like Basecamp, just do all of our communication via thought leadership.Starr:There you go.Ben:What if we did all of internal communication via TikTok?Starr:Okay, I'm getting this. I'm on board with this. We're just going to be influencers. Whoever's the most influential is going to-Josh:You know what? If our employees don't like it, too bad. You're getting a Twitter account, and it's getting verified.Starr:Yeah, they can interpret our really random TikTok video and try and figure out what it means. That's how they'll discover our disapproval.Ben:On the Basecamp thing, though, it was interesting as I was looking at it this week and realizing that the only thing that we use in Basecamp is messages along with the files. We sometimes attach files to our messages.Josh:Or email forwards.Ben:Yeah, occasionally we do an email forward. But we don't-Starr:Usually we do calendars, but we also have Google calendar.Ben:And Slack.Josh:And Notion.Ben:And notion. So we don't do to-dos. We don't do hill charts. We don't really use the project management side of the project management software that we're using. As I was looking at alternatives this week, I looked at monday.com and ClickUp and, I don't know, a few different ones. They're all these project management things. It's like, well, we don't really manage projects. We do that via chat or via a Zoom call every once in a while or via Notion. We don't use a project management tool for that. So it's like, yeah, all we really need are threads, conversations.Starr:It's the sort of thing where you could just do it in email, but it's nice having that archival ability, the ability to go back and check things out and not have it dependent on, "Oh, maybe I deleted that message by accident or whatever."Josh:Well, you could do it in Slack, but then you end up with the weird history aspect of it, and you'd have to have some sort of... You have to create a channel for it with the rules so it doesn't end up being just a chat. You have to say, "The rule of this channel is every message is a thread or a post or whatever."Starr:You kind of have to do it manually.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I did look at Twist. That was pretty cool, pretty close, but it also has chat. It's like, "well, I don't want a second chat since we already use Slack." We're not going to ditch Slack.Starr:Basecamp has chat, too.Ben:Right, and we don't use that. I guess you could use Twist. Twist is pretty nice.Starr:I think we need threaded messages, we need everything to be archived, and we need some way to see what people have been writing on lately, see what the latest activity is. That's basically it. I don't even use notifications. I get them, but I don't really... Usually by the time I see them... That's not my process. I don't look at my notifications and be like, "Oh, I'd better check this out." I check out the messages at a set set time basically.Ben:Then, like you said, the forum software, like the discourse, and it's just way, way too much. It's like, "Yeah, we get it." We just need a message board. We don't need all the dials and knobs. It's totally a dials and knobs application. I saw it in the settings, and I was like, "Whoa, okay. I'm just going to back away slowly."Starr:It could be fun, I don't know, if we want to be passive aggressive, we could shadow ban people. We could just do all sorts of fun things.Ben:But I suppose we don't have the hard requirements supporting BBCode.Starr:Isn't that a negative requirement? Supporting BBCode, I think that's a detriment. But we do have a chance to maybe, I don't know, maybe... One thing that I've always really... This really annoyed me about Basecamp is that it doesn't support Markdown, and everything we use supports Markdown, so everything I have is in Markdown. So if I write something in my personal notes, it's going to be in Markdown. If I want to transfer that to Basecamp, I got to manually format it, which is just like, "What am I? What is this? Who do you think I am?"Josh:That's my number one gripe with Basecamp, like the editor, is just a WYSIWYG editor that... I constantly... even just when I'm writing and I want to make a list and I just type a dash like I normally... in most things these days, and it just doesn't do anything in Basecamp. Then I remember, "Oh, I have to get my mouse and click on the bullet." It's a huge hassle.Ben:I can imagine your quality of life being dramatically affected by that.Josh:Yeah.Starr:You know we're developers when we're complaining about things like that.Josh:This is why I'm wearing wrist braces.Starr:Or dual wrist braces.Ben:I totally get what you're saying. I want to be able to type star, space, stuff, stuff, stuff and I get a list. Yeah, totally.Starr:It looks like threads.com, it does support Markdown, which is nice. I don't know. I haven't really played around with it a ton. Some aspects of its design, I'm not super happy. I wish the column widths were a little wider and stuff, but also I don't like certain aspects of Basecamp's design. So it's kind of a toss up for me.Ben:I did an export of our Basecamp content, and I got to say their export is fantastic. They give you an HTML page that links to a bunch of other pages per topic or project or team, whatever they call it, and the files are there. It's really well done. So I think if anyone's looking for inspiration on doing exports in their app, they should totally look at Basecamp. They nailed it. It's actually usable. You get this zip file. You open it up and bam, you can just browse through all your stuff.Starr:That's pretty great. I guess I should declare, I think maybe I started this casual looking for alternatives just because I've seen a lot of stuff online about people are angry at Basecamp. It's like, I'm not really angry at them. Well, this isn't really the point. I'm sad and disappointed in them. But also a lot of the reason why I think they have had our business and they had my business, I've stored personal stuff in a personal Basecamp account, it's just because they're trustworthy. That feeling of trustworthiness has gone down a few pegs for me.Starr:Also, I just kind of felt gross logging in there. If you haven't been keeping up with this, part of the deal is they were making fun of people's names and stuff. I don't know. Are they making fun of my name? I've got a weird name. Are they going through my stuff making fun of it? I know they have access to pretty much everything that I put into Basecamp. I don't know. Even if they're not doing that now, are they going to do that in the future? Because it seems like they're going in that direction. I don't know. It seems like they're shutting down people trying to hold them internally accountable for that sort of thing. I don't know. It's just like a gross feeling. I'm just sad about the whole thing.Josh:I personally I kind of doubt that that's like... I got the feeling that the list was more of an artifact from the past, and it had stuck around for too long. I didn't get the feeling that they're condoning that sort of activity really, but I get what you're saying. Also for me, a big factor of it, it's not even just that I'm mad at them or something, they did lose 30% of their company, and they're supporting two products now, one of which is a major infrastructure product but basically is like email. So they have operation overhead and stuff. They did just lose 30% of their company including their, what, head of strategy but basically head of product. So I just wonder, where is the product going from here? It was already, I felt, a little bit stagnating. I don't know. I think they've been working on the next version of it is what I heard. I don't know. It just seems like there are questions about just the stability from that nature, too.Ben:I'm probably in a third place from you two and I probably care the least. I'm like, "Eh, it's a message board. They can make fun of my name." Okay. I had that happen when I was 10. People do that. It's like, "Oh, get on." I have a hard time getting up the energy to care, I guess.Starr:Don't mistake me. I'm not like up in arms about it. This is more like a passive viewing. It's like, "Oh, I got to go on Basecamp and check my things. Uh, I just feel kind of crummy about it." This is-Ben:It's one of those friction things in your life you just don't need. Yeah, absolutely.Starr:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Absolutely.Starr:I'm like, this is a message board. Like, should I be having to deal with this just to go check some messages? It's ridiculous.Josh:I think all of us are really just talking these are passing thoughts we have using the product in light of the drama of the past few weeks.Starr:If we end up staying on it, I'm not going to be super upset. I'll probably get over it. I don't know. It just seems like it might be nice to try something different especially if we can get that sweet Markdown.Ben:I've been surprised that there are so few products that are just about this one use case of the simple messages. I expected there to be tons of things to try and no.Starr:Of course, in our company Notion, there's now a design document-Ben:Of course.Starr:... for a simple-Josh:Because we're going to build our own.Ben:We're going to build our own, of course. What does any good tech team do when they're frustrated with the 20 solutions on the market? They build solution number 21.Starr:Of course.Ben:Maybe we'll build that. The code name for that project is Budgie. I named it Budgie because I went to do the Google search, I'm like, "What's a communicative type of animal? What's a social animal?" I can't remember the search I did, but the first thing that got turned up was like, the most social birds. I don't know. So there's this list of birds, and budgie was the number one bird. So I'm like, "Okay, cool." Then I was like, "Well, what kind of domains are available?" Because of course when you start a project, you have to buy the domain. Before you do anything else, you got to buy that domain. Surprisingly, and perhaps not surprisingly in retrospect, every variant of budgie is taken, of course, budgie.com but also budgie.app and budgieapp.com. I'm like, "Wow. How many...?" And they're all for sale. None of them are actual products. They're all parked, and they're for sale. I'm like, so a bunch of people have had this idea about what's a social animal. I guess budgies are really popular for pets, and so they're looking for the ad opportunities with people looking for, "How do I take care of my budgie?" Anyway, just kind of a diversion.Starr:That's interesting. The first thing that pops into mind when I heard that... I like the name. It's a cute name. There's this really good Australian kids' cartoon called Bluey, and there's an episode where they find a little budgie that's injured, and it dies. So the kids have to come to terms with that. I don't know. It's just like, "Little budgie died."Josh:Bluey is one of the best cartoons ever, by the way.Starr:Yeah, Bluey. Oh, I'm glad you like it, too.Josh:It's so good.Starr:It's super good. It's super good. Basically the whole cartoon is just these kids... They're dogs but they're kids. They're just making up games to play with each other. How it works is the kids watching the show see it and that makes them want to play that game, too. So it's just not dumb TV. It gets them doing stuff outside of the TV, which is kind of nice.Josh:That's a really good analysis of the show. I hadn't thought about that aspect of it, but come to think of it, my kids totally imitate them.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:Climbing all over us.Starr:I now have to play every game in that show, and I've got to know them by name and what the rules are.Josh:One of the things we like about it is just they really got the sibling dynamic down. It is like our kids to a tee. It's pretty funny. Now that I think about it, maybe it's like our kids have now become the characters in the show.Ben:It's a good thing I watch the Simpsons.Josh:Oh, no. Actually we do watch the Simpsons.Starr:Is the Simpsons still on?Josh:It's on Disney+.Starr:Oh my gosh.Ben:Yeah, it is still a thing.Josh:They're still making it, too, right?Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.Starr:Wow. I don't know. I don't even know about that.Josh:We don't watch much of the Simpsons with them yet, a three and four-year-old.Josh:I don't know if I'm quite ready for a couple little Bart and Lisas.Ben:You put that off as long as you can. Well, I actually did a little bit of work this week. I was working on something, I don't know what. I noticed one of the tests was running kind of long like it was just stuck. I don't usually watch tests. I don't usually run the tests actually. I just let our CICB run the tests. I don't even worry about it. But this morning for some reason, I don't know, I was working on something, and I happened to be running the tests. I noticed one of the tests was just stuck. Like, that's weird. So I did a little investigation.Ben:It turns out that a number of our tests do some domain name server resolution because, for webhooks, when someone puts in their webhook, we want to verify that the destination is not like a private thing. They're not trying to fetch our EC2 credentials and stuff like that. So it does some checks like, is this is a private IP address? Does this domain name actually resolve, blah, blah, blah? Also for our uptime checks. Obviously, people are putting in domains for that, too. It turns out that, I don't know, maybe it was my machine, maybe it was the internet being dumb, whatever, but the domain name resolution was what was holding up the test. This happens, as you can imagine, in a variety of ways in our tests. This one test that I was running, which was only, I don't know, seven or eight tests, it was taking a minute or two minutes to run. Then I fixed this so that it stopped doing the domain name resolution, and it took two seconds.Josh:Wow.Ben:So a slight improvement to our test suite there. A quality of life improvement.Josh:Did you benchmark overall? Because that's got to be a huge improvement if it's doing that everywhere.Ben:Well, it's not doing that everywhere. I did do a push, so I have to go and check and see what GitHub... see if it dropped that time.Josh:Well, it might have been whatever was wrong with your DNS resolution in the first place that was causing it to be extra slow. Would it be faster if DNS was fast?Ben:Yeah, it could have been. I actually did some tests on my laptop at the time. I'm like, "Is my DNS resolution slow?" No.Josh:So it's-Ben:The test... I don't know what the deal was.Josh:It was just resolving a bunch of actual URLs in the test.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah, that's bad. So nice work. You reminded me that I did some work this week, too.Ben:OhJosh:Very important work, I must say. I added a yak to our Slack bot to where-Josh:... if you mention the word "yak" when you're interacting with the Slack bot now it will return... You should do it in Slack, just whatever Badger bot. Say Badger bot yak me, it-Starr:Okay, I'm doing it.Josh:Okay, do it.Starr:Oh, sorry. It was the wrong channel. Hold on.Josh:You got to do it in general, I think.Starr:Come on Badger bot. Oh my god. It's a little text space yak.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Awesome.Josh:This came about because earlier this week I was just passively mentioning in chat that I'm just yak shaving. My entire life is yak shaving. That just got us talking about, why don't we have some representation of that in our chat, in our Slack? Obviously, I had to stop everything I was doing and build that right away. Of course, there were some escaping issues that came up as a result of that, so obviously I had to deploy a few hot fixes.Ben:The whole episode amuses me. I love it. I would do exactly the same thing. But also what amuses me is that we already have, as part of Slack, GIPHY, and you could just dump a picture of a yak in there. But you're like, "No, that's good enough. I must have an ASCII yak.Josh:It's got to be an ASCII yak, yeah.Ben:This is great. I love technology.Josh:I kind of miss Hubot where it would just automatically... if you just mention it. Maybe I should change our Slack bot so that it does that. So if you say "yak," a wild yak appears. By the way, that's what the text at the bottom of the ASCII yak says, a wild yak appears. I just wish it would pop up if someone just mentions it in a chat, like if they're talking about it just because-Josh:It's listening to everything, right?Starr:That would be fine.Ben:We used to have Hubot, and every time you said "ship," it would show the ship-Josh:The ship, the squirrel. But I definitely would like... annoying at times, but overall I'd say it was worth it.Ben:Totally worth it.Starr:Yeah, definitely. I do remember sometimes where things were on fire, and it's just popping up funny GIFs, and it's like, "Not now. Not now Hubot, not now.Ben:Sit in the corner. Should have had that command. Like, "Go away for a while."Josh:Or just make it a separate... Maybe we should just make this a separate bot that you don't have to have any ops channel. Maybe this'll be our next product.Starr:Oh, there you go. It's like when you mention yak, it turns into an Oregon trail-type hunting scene, and you have to shoot the very slow pixel at it.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). I do love this aspect of our business of being... I assume it's like a side effect of being small. I don't know. I'm sure large teams also do this, I didn't spend a day on this, but spend a day just doing something completely useless. I like that we can do that-Ben:Yes, it is.Josh:... and the total lack of responsibility, to be honest.Starr:Is there a total lack of responsibility? I don't know. I don't know.Ben:I think you could argue that there is a total lack of responsibility.Josh:Maybe relatively.Starr:Maybe.Josh:I think we're speaking relatively.Starr:Relatively? Well, there's responsibility to customers. I don't know. Do they count? Nah.Ben:Speaking of being a small company, just because of a recent acquisition of one of our competitors, I had gone to look at what some of our other competitors, what status they were, and I was just blown away with how many employees our competitors have. It's really amazing.Starr:What are they doing with all those people? Are they paying...? Do they have a professional volleyball team or something?Josh:Not in the past year.Starr:Well, they play over Zoom.Josh:It's a professional pong league now.Starr:There you go.Ben:We have five employees. The competitor that has the closest number of employees comes in at a hefty 71. Then the largest number that I found was 147 employees. That's impressive.Josh:With the competitor, the first one that you mentioned with the 70 something employees, and I assume over $100 million in funding, were they the ones that were recently bragging on Twitter about how much more usage they have than everyone else?Ben:I don't know because I don't remember seeing that bragging.Josh:They were. It was kind of funny. Yeah, you would probably be the major player.Starr:That's something I definitely learned throughout the course of running this business is that a company that has tens or, I don't know, hundreds of, did you say $100 million, that's a lot-Josh:It's a lot.Starr:... of funding can do more work than three people even if those three people are very, very good. It's-Ben:That's right.Starr:They can do more work, and that's all right. We're just going to have our little garden patch over here. It doesn't matter if ConAgra is a mile down the road. They can do their thing. We can do our thing.Ben:As long as they don't let their seeds blow into our farmland, right?Starr:Oh, yeah, definitely. Let me just ask you a question. When it comes to buying your strawberries for your traditional summer strawberry shortcake, are you going to go to that wonderfully, just delightful artisanal farm down the road, or are you just going to slide over to ConAgra and, I don't know, get some of their strawberry-shaped objects?Ben:I got to say, I love roadside fruit stands. Those are the best. When cherry season happens here in Washington, going and grabbing a whole mess of cherries from some random person that's propped on the side of a road, I mean it's awesome.Starr:My favorite ones are the ones have no... if you stop and think about it... I used to live in Arkansas. One time I was walking by and there was this roadside fruit stand just with oranges. It was like, "Hold up. Hold up. Oranges don't grow in Arkansas. What is this?" I don't know if he just went to Costco and just got a bunch of oranges or maybe he did the Cannonball Run from Florida straight up-Josh:Road trip.Starr:... and was selling oranges all the way up. There was some explaining to do.Ben:I didn't realize until I was saying it, but it really does sound ridiculous that you're going to go and get some fruit items from some random person on the side of the road. But I love roadside fruit stands. They're great.Starr:Oh, yeah.Josh:I don't know. In this day and age probably, yeah.Josh:Maybe things should be more like that. Maybe that would solve some problems.Ben:Well, coming back to the front porch thing, do you know that country song, If the World Had a Front Porch?"Starr:No, I don't.Ben:Definitely have to link it up in the show notes. It's all about if the world had a front porch like we did back then, then things would be different. People would be more friendly. We'd be chatting with our neighbors. Things would just be overall good.Starr:Yeah, totally.Josh:We'd all know each other.Starr:Is that true? Is that true?Ben:I got to say, I grew up in the Deep South. I did not have a front porch and none of my friends had a front porch because we all lived in the same neighborhood and all the houses were the same, but we were all still pretty friendly-Starr:Oh, there you go.Ben:... even though we didn't have front porches.Starr:Well, I had a front porch and people were assholes, so I think the correlation between front porches and nice people is weak.Ben:The song If I had a front porchJosh:.Isn't it more like a metaphor? I don't know.Starr:You could say the internet's the world's front porch and look how great that's worked out.Josh:If you just build a front porch-Starr:I'm sure it's a nice song. I don't mean to make fun of the song. I'm sure it's a good song.Josh:You build a front porch that the entire population of the world could fit on, just see how that goes. That's what we-Starr:It's like, "Oh, shit. We deforested the Amazon to get the wood for this."Ben:We should name our little message board product Front Porch.Starr:Front porch, ah, that's nice. You could have add-ons to that. Like for upgrades, you could get the rocking chair or the whittling knife.Ben:Yeah, and the sweet tea-Starr:The sweet tea, yeah.Ben:... or the mint julep.Starr:Can I ask you a question? Was sweet tea a thing when you were a kid?Ben:Yes.Starr:Do people refer to it as like, "Oo, sweet tea," as a saying?Ben:No.Starr:Okay, that-Ben:They'd just refer to is as tea.Starr:Okay, thank you.Ben:There was no other tea. It was just that.Josh:But it was sweet.Ben:Yeah, it was sweet, of course.Starr:Yeah, of course. It's-Ben:That's the only tea that existed. None of this Earl Grey hot business, no, no, no.Starr:I just noticed, I don't know, around 2007 everybody started talking about sweet tea. It's like, "What? What's this?" Ben:Yeah, totally. It's a Southern Thing, on YouTube, their channel, is pretty funny. They go into the sweet tea thing quite a bit. If you want some additional context, do some research on that whole aspect. You can go and watch that YouTube channel. I'll have to link it up in the show notes.Starr:Yeah, I'll check that out. Well, would you gentlemen like to wrap it up? I think I've got to start... I'm going to be Southern here. I'm fixing to get ready to think about going to my vaccine appointment.Ben:Jeet yet? You know that joke? Have you heard that?Starr:I haven't heard that joke. What?Ben:It's like, oh man, two southern guys, one's like, "Jeet yet?"Starr:Ah, did you eat yet? Okay, yeah.Ben:"No. Y'want to?"Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Josh:Did you eat yet?Starr:I haven't been back in a while.Ben:Oh, good times. Sometimes I miss the South but not during the summer.Starr:One of my favorite words, I think it might be a local Arkansas word, is tump. It's a verb, tump. It's the action of tipping something over and dumping out its contents. The perfect use case is a wheelbarrow. Like, you tump out the wheelbarrow. I'm sorry. Tump out the wheelbarrow.Ben:Totally.Josh:I am learning so much on this episode, by the way-Starr:There you go.Josh:... about the South.Josh:It's great. I'm learning more about-Josh:This is your second vaccine appointment, right?Starr:Yeah, it's the second one.Josh:Second and final. Well, for now.Starr:So I'm ready for it to hit me. I'm like, "Bring the storm.Josh:Yes, it hit me.Starr:Bring it on."Josh:Mine was like a 48-hour ordeal, but back to normal now. I feel great.Starr:That's good. You got your super powers.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Well, good luck with that.Starr:Thank you. Maybe one day we'll be able to have a conclave in person again, although I might need the support of a therapist or something because just like... I mean I like y'all, but I don't know if I'm over the droplets yet.Ben:You can still wear masks.Starr:Okay, that's good. Thank God, okay. All right, I will talk to y'all later.

This week The Founders talk about the Basecamp drama and break down how it may impact companies using Rails. They also discuss customer support for developers and Gen Z's emoji game leaving Millennials and X's for dead. Check it out! ;-p (I've still got it!)

This week The Founders get real and talk about whether it's better to ship something with known issues and deal with support requests or hold off and keep banging your head against the wall trying to get it to 100%. They also discuss vaccines, the (un)official release of React Native support, and Lego space shuttles!

This week The Founders talk about the recent Ubiquity hack and subsequent denial. They also talk about difficulties in obtaining customer feedback and possible schemes to increase the response rates. Would it help to personalize emails with recipients' social security numbers in the subject lines? Listen now to hear the debate!

This week The Founders discuss topics for inciting a developer holy war, getting listed on AppSumo's marketplace, and what the general consensus is on microservices. They also brainstorm direct mail marketing campaigns and shipping Honeybadger in a box with a serial number just like old times!

This week The Founders talk about free users and discuss some possible ways to try and monetize them. They also talk about MicroConf's virtual conference this year and get misty-eyed about it leaving Las Vegas. Also, why didn't Second Life have a second life during the pandemic? Tune in to listen to some theories!

This week The Founders talk efforts to better track Honeybadger's sales funnel, the satisfaction of a cleaned-up to-do list, and Starr reveals last episode's mystery vendor. They also debate whether to print, bind, and mail the future Honeybadger Intelligence Report or keep it digital.

On this week's FounderQuest, the hosts talk buying electric motorcycles, Sidekiq-Cron saving the day, fintech, and wade into the debate of whether developers actually pay for any of the products they use. Want more? How about Starr dropping some knowledge with another of her patented lyfe hacks? (Hint, it rhymes with TextExpander) You're welcome!

This week The Founders talk about relying on Amazon for their technology stack and what happens when problems arise. They also provide updates on existing post-Postgres and extol the virtues of documentation when outsourcing.

On this special bonus episode, The Founders talk about whether to keep their swag fulfillment or look for other options after a recent steep price increase. They also provide an update on the contractor machine and also discuss some of the personality traits needed to successfully delegate projects. Listen now, or have someone listen for you!

Special guest John Nunemaker is in the house...err...Zoom! He chats with The Founders about Flipper Cloud and strategies around its launch as well as tales from companies' past. They also discuss decisions around pricing a SaaS product and killer cardinality.

This week The Founders give an update on their new contractor system and how to nurture an "I don't care" work culture. Plus don't miss Beavis and Butthead memories, Heroku integration speed bumps, and chopping chonky trees!

This week The Founders talk about maintaining simple websites from the stone age, hiring contractors with Upwork, and Heya being 100% opensource. They also put Netlify on notice; if things don't improve, Badgerfy is becoming a reality!

This week The Founders talk GameStop stock, Elasticsearch clusters, Honeybadger's hedge position on the internet, and creating their own contractor pool to outsource small projects. Can you handle it? Listen and find out!

This week The Founders explain the difference between a ninja launch for bootstrappers vs. the more traditional stealth launch. They also reveal what programming languages they would learn if Honeybadger went away and they had to get real developer jobs! Plus, AWS vs. Elastic, who's right?

This week Josh, Ben, and Starr break tradition and go public with Honeybadger's product roadmap. They also reveal a foolproof plan to monetize locked Bitcoin wallets and predict the future of crypto, Bytecoin!

It's a new year and a new season of FounderQuest! Season 3 starts things off with the founders recapping Honeybadger's 2020 growth numbers and where they are hoping to go in 2021. They also review the performance of the blog after a year of commissioning articles from outside authors and its impact on sales.

This week the Founders talk about dealing with fears their company could disappear at any moment and what makes them confident that it will be around tomorrow and beyond. They also talk rollerblade chairs, Kung Fu Panda, wrapping up 2020, and the upcoming FounderQuest hiatus! Also, please vote!

This week The Founders talk about the latest redesign of Honeybadger's user account setup and lessons they've learned along the way (tenant ID FTW!) They also talk about the Hook Relay launch, celebrity endorsements, moving to Canada, and how building software relates to constructing buildings.

This week The Founders talk about new hiring paradigms, virtual conferences, and the stock market. Plus, does Roam dress your notes in the world's finest UX, only appreciated by the best and brightest, or is it really just a wiki strutting around with no clothes on?

This week The Founders reveal some of their favorite books they've read this summer and what they learned about utopias, U.S. history, and Murderbots! They also talk about living their lives up in smoke as the forest fires continue to rage along the West Coast.

It’s all in your mind! This week The Founders share apps and strategies they use to stay mindful and breathing while banging out code. Also, do they actually miss anything about working for "the man" before setting of on their own? Plus, what will the future of office snacks look like in a world without offices? Tune in and satisfy your hunger for FounderQuest!

This week The Founders talk SOC 2 and why you may not even need it in the first place. They also detail their quest for the perfect task management tool (spoiler alert, they're still looking) and share bonus tips on how to tell if your kayak has a leak!

This week The Founders talk about product positioning for Hook Relay and how launching new products has changed since releasing Honeybadger. They also discuss why Google would make a terrible airline, Microsoft Flight Simulator glitches, and flavors of bottled excellence.

This week the founders talk about their content marketing efforts. Starr explains her process for keeping the Honeybadger blog content flowing from writer recruitment, management tools, and the editing process. Josh talks about Exceptional Creatures and also risks getting sued into oblivion by reminiscing about freelancing for "The Mouse."

This week the founders talk about security, and what the process was like to have penetration testing done for Honeybadger. They also talk about why they don't offer bug bounties and Josh explains what a Whirly Board is.

This week the founders talk about their origin stories and what sparked their collective interests in computers. By the end of the episode you will also be able to match each founder to their corresponding early-childhood career dreams consisting of architect, journalist and pool hustler!

This week the founders talk about their experiences dealing with the wild world of EU privacy laws when operating in the US. Learn about the potential impact on the Schrems II ruling on their business moving forward. Plus, learn some proposed names for future Schrems rulings!

This week the founders talk about the pros and cons of having your app and website share the same domain. Can they coexist or can there be only ONE? Plus, find out who has that new product glow and don't miss grilling tips for veggies and garlic scapes! Other podcasts may go more in depth, but none match FounderQuest's breadth!

This week the founders recap their second quarterly meeting under Covid. They reveal how pricing changes have impacted business, share updates on Hook Relay, trademark renewals, and using ProfitWell Retain. Plus, don't call it a chargeback!

This week Josh and Ben talk webhooks and announce a new product from Honeybadger. Testers wanted! They also touch on managing contractors, fallout from the Hey vs. Apple saga, and decide that there's really no right or wrong way to pick up dog poop.

The Badgers break down DHH's spat with Apple and Ben correctly predicts how it ends (this episode was recorded June 19th). It's freaky! They also discuss Hey and if it's worth the hype and how Honeybadger's new pricing has impacted business.

This week the hosts debate how many hours per week it takes to bootstrap a company. Other topics include politics and podcasting, SOC 2 compliance, and whether to treat free accounts the same as paid accounts. Also, in light of current events, we are taking a brief hiatus after this episode.

This week the crew talks about decisions around Honeybadger's recent pricing changes as well as the new mild and spicy plans. The discussion gradually fades to black when the topic of dark patterns creeps in, sparking rants about purposely poor UX. Listen now, we're the gravy on your Friday!

Mike Perham of Sidekiq and Faktory fame joins us on FounderQuest this week. We talk about the origins of Sidekiq, COVID impacts, and having a plan for your business if you, the sole proprietor, kicks the bucket. Can you kick it? Yes you can!

Question everything this week!?!? Can you use proprietary drivers and truly be an opensource developer? Is Codespaces really just X Windows? Did Elon Musk secretly create DuckTails for propaganda purposes? Listen before Big Brother takes this down!