Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

We've got a special guest on the pod today! Louis from Sparkloop joins to share how they evolved from referrals to recommendations and sold to Kit!

Sean survives on 1.5 hours of sleep while juggling Black Hat submissions and client launches!

Pre-Black Hat crunch time hits Miscreants hard as brand audits pile up and Webflow goes down for half a day. Andrew's new MetaMonster grid shows AI's bipolar nature - brilliant one moment, baffling the next.

Fresh from a techno festival, Andrew's planning an escape to Lion's Head National Park in Canada while working through therapy insights about procrastination.

Andrew and Sean talk about hiring tools, positioning MetaMonster, and Andrew's struggles to increase his publishing velocity. Meanwhile, Sean is slammed with inbound after RSA, is putting project management systems in place for Margins, and just got a pool table!  Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Margins: http://margins.so/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Apply to Miscreants: https://tally.so/r/nrWOlNFor more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:01.27SeanWhat's up?00:02.35AndrewNot much, just digging through job applications for this senior product designer role.00:07.89SeanYeah. Yeah.00:09.34Andrewit00:09.45SeanHow's that going? Do you like it?00:10.30AndrewIt really makes me want to build an ATS.00:12.75SeanYeah.00:14.07Andrewi I looked at Home Run again, and00:15.97SeanUh-huh.00:20.47Andrewit's gone up to, like, their base price starts at, I think, $90 a month or something like that. and JJ has essentially built a, an Excel Google sheets, ATS, uh, which is solid.00:34.46AndrewIt's, it's not bad at all.00:34.71SeanMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.00:36.55AndrewI think the email automation stuff she's been trying to do isn't working yet. then I have spent a chunk of today trying to figure out how to run a script inside of Google sheets that'll,00:50.78Andrewintegrate with an AI detection API because so many of these applications are so clearly just copy and pasted from ChatGPT and not actual applications.01:00.49SeanI see. I see.01:02.97AndrewYeah.01:03.27SeanYou can use GPT for sheets.01:03.42AndrewWhich01:06.08SeanAnd then...01:07.03Andrewdo you think how how good is ChatGPT at detecting itself?01:12.38SeanI think if you give it a rubric, it it's good. Because, like...01:15.84AndrewI don't know if I know enough to give it a good rubric.01:18.86Seancan give you my, like... You know, it's not a rubric. It's just like, hey, generate this blog post. Don't use these words. Don't use this phrasing. Don't...01:27.51AndrewYeah, and you could try to kind of reverse that rubric.01:30.27SeanYeah, yeah.01:30.85AndrewYeah.01:31.58SeanGod, that's funny.01:33.39AndrewYeah. And, like, there's there's, like, a small part of me that is, like, well, you know, I don't...01:35.17SeanYeah.01:42.50AndrewI don't have a problem with you using ChatGPT to help you write your application. But if you're clearly just like, if it's 100% copy and pasted from ChatGPT, then I have no way of knowing if it's legit information or not, or if you're just completely bullshitting.01:53.80SeanYeah.01:58.15AndrewLike, I got several answers to the same question that seemed almost identical.01:58.74SeanYeah.02:04.19AndrewAnd I was like, hmm, okay, so this isn't a real life experience you had then probably.02:08.60SeanYeah, I bet. That's so funny. I bet there's like apps now also like apply with AI like one click and then it just generates that stuff.02:16.65AndrewOh, I'm sure there are. yeah Yeah, so I mean, I think part of it is...02:20.17SeanHow would you build an ATS differently? Let's build a bit sauce.02:27.31AndrewLike, I think it's an area where I would try to compete on price because ATS systems tend to be pretty fucking expensive. And so I think if you tried to be a fairly minimal, simple version that was at more of an entry level price, I think that's like step one.02:43.52AndrewNow, the shitty part is to build even a simple ATS. You're basically building a CRM, an email marketing system, and a form builder all in one. and like kind of a website builder too.02:54.26SeanYeah. Yeah.02:56.31AndrewSo it's it's not a simple product.02:59.09SeanHmm.02:59.43AndrewSo I totally understand why they're expensive. But I still think ah ah most of that is sunk cost, not like ongoing cost.03:10.24SeanYeah. Definitely03:10.80AndrewI don't think they're that expensive to operate. Just you know there's a high barrier to entry to build you the base features you need.03:14.24Seannot.03:20.98SeanHmm.03:22.20AndrewSo I think I'd do some of that. i think I would also, think it could be really interesting. Like I've always been interested in salary transparency and stuff like that.03:31.98AndrewSo I think it could be interesting to try to do some like, try to talk people into doing some data sharing around salaries and stuff like that.03:40.80SeanMm-hmm.03:41.87Andrewon both sides of the equation. i think it would be cool to build in, know, some, I remember when we, I know,03:52.68Andrewwhen we were trying to care about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and like learn about it, part of what people said you should do is like serve like conduct anonymous surveys to determine you know try to determine if there's what bias there is in your application process and like you know some people say you should hide names from applications and stuff like that and i yeah that kind of stuff04:25.09SeanYou could do a lessannoyingATS.com. Yeah.04:27.83AndrewYeah, like I think, and that kind of stuff was often hidden behind like really high enterprise prices.04:28.44Seancome04:33.54AndrewAnd so just making that stuff more widely available, offering good rubrics, like good default rubrics for like, here are good application questions. Like here's some templates you can choose from and here's a good rubric to like help you reduce bias in your process and doing some different stuff like that.04:49.85Seanyeah04:51.78Andrewthen just trying to make it balance that with also making it reasonably quick to eliminate people who clearly aren't a good fit and then like narrow your list down because those are the two kind of competing priorities for good hiring managers. is like On the one hand, you have a massive stack of applications to get through normally.05:11.51AndrewAnd on the other hand, you want to be respectful of people and like you you want to get through those in a reasonable amount of time while also giving people their due.05:15.57SeanMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.05:21.64AndrewAnd so trying to walk that balance with thoughtful tools.05:21.73Seanand05:24.68Seanyeah maybe like hard filters and soft filters as you're going through applicants it'd be cool like you i mean if it's cheaper it's better for smb and then the templates make a lot of sense because i mean hiring is hard your first hundred times i'm pretty sure especially because there's differ...

Whoops! Our last recording got botched halfway through and only Andrew's audio was saved. So we recapped what we talked about in the last podcast and got into some new stuff in today's episode. Sean is back from his busiest RSA yet and growing Miscreants like crazy! In fact, they're growing so fast that Andrew is hiring a full-time product designer to join the Miscreants team. Meanwhile Andrew is also rebuilding MetaMonster from the ground up (well, Austin is) and thinking about how to build products with AI at the core instead of just tacking it on. The guys talk about the Vercel AI SDK, the value of time in market when growing an agency, Sean's progress on his new Margins product, and more. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Margins: http://margins.so/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:01.81AndrewYo, so funny reason that I was late to this podcast recording. I was distracted trying to write a job description for the miscreants product designer role that we're trying to fill.00:00:13.82Seanyeah.00:00:17.66SeanThat's true. You want to write the other ones, by the way? trying to hire like three more roles at this point. Yeah.00:00:24.94AndrewThat's nuts, man. Hey, actually, i was going to put in here.00:00:26.23SeanI'm00:00:28.46AndrewHow many people have you hired in the last year?00:00:31.76SeanI don't fucking know. I don't know, man. I can't.00:00:34.90AndrewIf you had to guess, like, give me give me a number.00:00:37.42SeanIn the past year,00:00:41.08Seanfive, six.00:00:42.96AndrewI guess six. So I'm just going to leave it as six.00:00:44.50SeanYeah. Okay. to fire Yeah, we've hired so many full-time.00:00:50.71AndrewOr should I say, like, we've grown the team by 50% or something like that?00:00:55.02SeanSure. Yeah, we've grown the team by 50%. It sounds way better.00:00:58.97AndrewYeah.00:00:58.92SeanWe've doubled in size. we're about to double the fucking team again at this point i think i like said on a call that jj heard where i was like yeah like we're trying to be like you know 25 30 people by the end of the year and she so yeah that was her reaction don't know00:01:10.57AndrewYeah.00:01:15.03AndrewI'm sorry. What?00:01:19.88AndrewI wonder why. i wonder why your COO would be is shocked to hear you want to triple it in size by the end of the year.00:01:27.88SeanYeah, yeah, but this was, you know, it's not triple in size. It's six times in size because just kind of said it00:01:36.66Seanlast year. ah home or or like the beginning. I think I said in the beginning of the year. i mean, I don't know. Inbound has been good. Inbound has continued to be really good.00:01:47.89SeanRSA was really good. So it just has kind of kept growing. and It was i was kind of said not in jest, but in hyperbole.00:01:59.66SeanIt was hyperbolic. I feel a little less hyperbolic at the moment.00:02:00.98AndrewYeah. I will say...00:02:06.94AndrewI will say always thought that like 20 to 30 people would be kind of the perfect size for an agency because at least for us, it was big enough that we could have enough clients to that.00:02:14.82SeanMm-hmm.00:02:22.91AndrewLike if we lost a client or two, it wouldn't be like 20% of our revenue, 30% of our revenue.00:02:27.42SeanYep.00:02:28.04AndrewLike it would be a smaller chunk. It would be,00:02:30.23SeanYeah.00:02:30.70AndrewYou know, we could have a good manageable number of clients. It was still small enough that you wouldn't have a whole lot of process or red tape. It would still be pretty flexible, pretty collaborative.00:02:40.12SeanYeah.00:02:41.74Andrewand And also big enough that, like, if you lose an employee, like if ah if an employee takes a new job, you weren't losing, like, you know, when we sold Crit, we were six full-time people, 10 including part-time.00:02:47.89SeanMm-hmm.00:02:53.71AndrewAnd so if we lost one person, like one full-time person, that was, you know,00:02:54.21SeanMm-hmm.00:02:58.47SeanIt hurts.00:02:59.71Andrew20% of our full-time workforce.00:03:01.87SeanYeah.00:03:03.66AndrewThat's brutal.00:03:05.33SeanYeah.00:03:06.87AndrewSo I do think that's a good size. Now, would you want to stop there? Because you are more ambitious than I am, probably.00:03:14.82SeanI am i am greed personified. Yeah. I mean, when when the years started, i like one of the exercises I did with JJ was that we sort of mapped out what a 20-5 to 30-person agency would look like.00:03:30.21AndrewYeah, I remember this.00:03:30.53Seanyou know with yeah yeah and Yeah, I think maybe I showed you as well that org chart.00:03:34.35AndrewYeah.00:03:36.49SeanI mean, I think agency-wise, I'd probably stop there. I'm saying probably, i don't know, give it like six more months, I'll let you know.00:03:46.79SeanI can't, i think i i I think I can't fathom like more.00:03:51.38AndrewRunning a 50-person agency or something.00:03:53.54SeanYeah, yeah, like that, like I can, I think at that point it's just, like, I00:03:54.31AndrewYeah.00:04:01.50Seani think, I mean the market is huge for sure.00:04:06.89SeanI think I would just, I think my shiny objectpreneurism would just want to do other, like even in that 30, right? There was still like two people were doing merch. other There was like a developer on a product and I think those things would grow.00:04:19.97SeanI think mysteries as a whole, I can see becoming larger and larger, but like pure client services, I don't know. I think it's, I think quality of work still matters and I still worry about getting too large in that way.00:04:31.97AndrewIt's definitely like possible to scale while maintaining quality, but it is fucking hard.00:04:36.95SeanYeah, I mean, we've won deals because people are unhappy with killer agencies because ultimately, you're large, even now, can't even now we can't like even now when a creator comes to us and they're like hey i only have like this much money to do it like like i have three thousand dollars to do something right it's like dude we can't like we can't take that but like at this point we'd rather just do it for you as a like here's a free creator program and like you know ultimately like you have to know that you're not going to get like00:04:55.63AndrewMm-hmm.00:05:11.23Seancreative director bends time on every single part of it, you're gonna get, it's gonna be a training project for ah junior. It's still gonna be go...

Andrew is in Atlanta visiting friends and continuing to think about how to best integrate more AI features into MetaMonster to make the product stickier. Sean had his first demo of Margins and... everything broke! But that's okay!Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Margins: http://margins.so/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.93SeanThis is a new background. Where are you?00:07.44AndrewOh, you can tell how well my brain is working today. Good Lord.00:11.24SeanYeah.00:12.58Andrewi am staying with one of my college roommates in Atlanta. And after four years away from the South, my body has apparently completely forgotten how to function in a land of like pollen and pollinators. Every time I come to the South now, it's like the first three days I'm here.00:30.46AndrewMy nose is just like, fuck you, dude. So... Yeah, that's where I am. Check out my sweete my suite setup. I've got my suitcase with a couple books on it.00:38.71SeanAmazing.00:41.60SeanAmazing.00:42.00AndrewLittle, know, who needs a fancy stand-up desk when you've got a suitcase desk?00:46.59SeanYeah.00:49.28SeanYou can just record things. You can just do things.00:52.52AndrewYou know, don't have the fancy mic today.00:52.93SeanYeah.00:55.88SeanYep.00:56.28Andrewknow, the MacBook microphone is shockingly decent, maybe.01:03.40SeanYeah, your audio level is better than mine for what it's worth. So maybe should just swap. Maybe I should just... Yeah.01:11.52AndrewDude, it's all it's all an illusion. It's all just, like, stuff.01:14.81SeanExactly.01:16.03AndrewAnd you don't need the stuff to do things. You can just do the things without the stuff.01:21.45SeanYeah. You just record it your vlog and on an iPhone and put on the internet. You might get a couple hundred thousand subscribers that way.01:28.08AndrewWas it...01:29.24SeanThat's the Jackie Cho way.01:30.69AndrewI just heard the other day that... Dude, do you remember Call Me Maybe?01:36.79AndrewThe song? The, like, pop song?01:38.33SeanYeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.01:40.12AndrewThat was recorded on a MacBook.01:43.03SeanWhoa.01:44.15AndrewBut yeah, that was recorded on a MacBook, like on iMovie.01:44.89SeanThat's sick. That's I didn't know that. but That's crazy.01:48.59AndrewIt was just like them holding a MacBook.01:51.86SeanI think have you heard Here With Me by David?01:58.63AndrewNo.02:00.87AndrewUh-huh.02:02.46SeanI think that guy did it on his like iPhone. With like an iPhone like digital audio workstation and just cut it up.02:10.33AndrewThat's sick.02:11.29SeanIt's pretty crazy.02:12.11AndrewThat's wild.02:12.22SeanI don't know. Kids these days, man.02:14.27AndrewThere really are no excuses. Yeah. yeah I think we might have a little bit of lag.02:18.70SeanYeah.02:20.30AndrewIt feels like we're lagging a little bit.02:22.62SeanOh, definitely. We definitely are lagging a little bit. Yeah.02:25.65AndrewOkay.02:26.21SeanOh, well, all right, if you're listening, we're sorry.02:26.53AndrewWell.02:29.21SeanWell, we'll do better.02:29.98AndrewYeah.02:30.48Seannot Not this week or next week. I'm traveling next week, so I will also have, I'll be on hotel Wi-Fi.02:34.68AndrewYeah. Also...02:39.24AndrewYeah. Zincaster's pretty good, though, at, like, cutting out pauses, so maybe there will be no lag to the user.02:40.21SeanYeah.02:45.18AndrewIt's just lag to us.02:47.08SeanMaybe, yeah.02:48.11AndrewUser, listener, what call this? Yeah. Okay.02:51.26SeanI don't know, people, friends.02:51.45AndrewAlright. What's going on with you? what's What's going on in Miscreants land?02:56.98SeanI don't know, man. Giant tax bill.03:00.15AndrewOh, yeah.03:01.44SeanThat's...03:01.85AndrewYeah. Sucks making money, huh?03:03.93SeanI know. It's the worst. i03:06.12Andrewthe03:06.64SeanLife is so much easier.03:06.85AndrewIt's so hard to be profitable.03:08.97SeanYeah. yeah Especially if all of our profits just went into last year's taxes. No, it's it's it's like...03:14.28Andrewnot all of your ta Not all of your profits went into last year's taxes.03:17.34SeanAll all of our profit this year so far are paying off the taxes from last year.03:24.24AndrewOkay, that's very different. This year so far is a quarter of the year.03:26.02SeanFor sure.03:28.38SeanFor sure. For sure. For sure. For sure. Yeah. and it's it's It's good. It's fine. We will just have more taxes to pay next year. And it'll just be this.03:36.53AndrewYeah.03:37.43SeanYeah.03:38.44AndrewOkay, wait.03:39.24AndrewControversial topic.03:40.69SeanYeah.03:41.17AndrewDo you pay estimated taxes?03:43.81SeanI would like to. hi03:46.39AndrewSo, no.03:46.59SeanYeah. I would like to. We don't.03:49.77AndrewI don't pay estimated taxes, and I don't currently have plans to start paying estimated taxes.03:55.40Seanwhy don't you have like a don't you get fined i'm not a cpa i don't okay yeah yeah03:56.97AndrewBecause... Yeah, but... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you pay a penalty if you don't pay estimated taxes, which kind of bullshit.04:08.09AndrewLike... Okay, government, I'm not gonna go there. I don't wanna be the anti-tax guy. I actually think it's good to pay your taxes. I want the government to have money and exist, and I want social services to exist and national parks to exist.04:21.30AndrewSo I don't wanna be the anti-tax guy.04:22.12Seanagreed04:24.51AndrewBut, you know, at the same time, as much as I want all of the national, you know, public services to exist, I also don't, like, love, like, giving the government an interest-free loan if I don't have to. Yeah.04:39.67SeanRight, or getting fined for it if you don't. For sure.04:42.19AndrewYeah, well, I'm fine with getting fined for it if I don't. that's i'm I mean, yeah I don't know. but But yeah, so basically my thought is the penalty that I pay is relatively small.04:54.75SeanYeah.04:55.56AndrewAnd I don't know what my income is going to be quarter...

Andrew and Sean have a bet to see who can write the best cold email copy for MetaMonster, and early results are in. Sean has a name and domain for his new product - Margins and is letting the Miscreants team handle the branding. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Margins: http://margins.so/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:01.15SeanWhat up, what up, what up?00:02.64AndrewI got some stats for you.00:04.12SeanYeah, tell me. Hit me. but yeah We should probably give some context first.00:08.26AndrewAll right. So Thursday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, some night, there was a night last week when, I lured Sean into giving me a bunch of free consulting advice, in under the pretense of let's cowork and like work on things side by side.00:11.90SeanI don't know. I can't remember. One of the nights. Uh-huh.00:26.76AndrewAnd instead I just like for three hours was like, what do you think about this cold email idea? What do you think about this cold email idea?00:34.37SeanWe co-worked. We co-worked on your cold emails. You didn't lie to me.00:41.45AndrewFair, fair. I'll take it. I'll take it. So got some cold emails spun up. I knew this was something I wanted to do again now that the product was live. And it's early, early days, but i have, I've sent 200 emails.00:57.98AndrewAnd so I have some early results and01:00.84SeanDo we want to tell everyone what the five different emails were?01:05.39AndrewYeah, I narrowed it down to four after day one. I just canceled. There were two that were almost identical. And so I just killed one of them.01:12.61SeanOkay.01:13.75AndrewProbably shouldn't have, but like I'm incredibly impatient and no, no, it wasn't one of the ones that affects your bets.01:16.85SeanDoes it affect my bets? Oh, good, good, good. Sweet. That's what matters.01:22.88AndrewOkay.01:23.01SeanOkay, go.01:24.34AndrewYeah, yeah, yeah. So we've got four cold email templates. going these are meta monster cold email templates if that isn't blatantly obvious first one is just like classic sales email the uh the subject line is ai powered screaming frog and then it's just like hey i built this thing do you want to demo it i want to sell it to you classic sales uh sales pitch second one01:45.84SeanYep. Yep.01:52.92Andrewis almost the exact same, only instead of presenting it as a sales pitch, presenting it as, hey, I'm looking for feedback, which is true. i At this stage, I just want feedback and information, especially on our pricing, which I want to talk about later. Third one is one of your ideas that you pitched me, which is kind of like Try to write... i think your your pitch was try to write your cold email like you're writing a newsletter.02:25.14AndrewSo try to write it so that you're teaching the recipient something and then just also happen to be have to have this product that is connected to the thing you're teaching that you want but to try to sell.02:39.34AndrewAnd then the the fourth one was more of like a... Classic kind of growth hacky play, which is, hey, I want to interview you for our blog.02:55.21AndrewAnd so you and I placed a bet on this. Your bet, what did you bet?02:57.76SeanYep.02:59.95SeanSo I bet that the AI powered Screaming Frog, the first one, the traditional sales email would have the most opens because not because I believe in those, but because specifically AI powered Screaming Frog alternative is just a great subject header.03:04.78AndrewYep.03:07.11AndrewYep.03:09.83AndrewYeah.03:16.15Seanand then i also bet that the one that would bring you the most value quote unquote whatever that however we want to define that and is the newsletter one value isn't like you know someone actually demos most qualified leads basically you bet uh that the interview one would have the most opens and replies but the most valuable responses would come from the feedback yeah the feedback letter and whoever wins the other person to buy that the other person the up03:23.39AndrewYes. Yeah.03:37.69AndrewYes.03:44.46SeanThe loser has to buy the winner on Chick-fil-A.03:46.44AndrewYep.03:47.24SeanSo the stakes are high.03:47.32AndrewAll right. are you03:48.38SeanIt depends.03:48.87Andrewwhen are When are we cutting off the results, by the way? What's...03:51.67SeanWhat are the results that?03:54.65AndrewSo, currently, in fourth place in open rates, and tied for lowest response rate, I think.04:03.73Andrewoh i There's an asterisk on response rates that I'll explain later.04:06.58SeanOK.04:09.17AndrewNewsletter.04:10.39SeanOh, damn.04:11.29AndrewBut all of these have gotten crazy good open rates for cold email.04:16.19SeanOK.04:16.80AndrewThat is the lowest open rate at a 42% open rate so far.04:20.22SeanWhat's the highest?04:21.26AndrewHighest, I'm sorry to say, is the interview. Is the interview request at a 62% open rate.04:27.67Seanpretty good.04:30.75Andrew62 is pretty damn good. No replies on that one, though. No replies, no clicks that I can tell. no No interest coming out of that. So my guess is people are, like, opening it and then going, this is some no-name company that's trying to, you know, sell me something.04:45.44SeanRight, right.04:46.35Andrewi don't care about this.04:48.41SeanOkay.04:48.85AndrewThat would be my guess. I have booked two demos.04:57.58SeanOkay.04:58.43AndrewAnd have gotten direct feedback on our pricing from a third person who may still has expressed interest in booking a third demo.05:06.39SeanAnd this is from what? Which email?05:08.61AndrewSo here's the thing. One of them I don't know.05:12.15SeanOkay.05:12.74AndrewWhich sounds dumb. It's like, how could you not know? It seems like instantly missed the tracking. And I have had a... damn hard time figuring out i know the email but i've had a damn hard time figuring out which version they got sent uh in instantly software i think maybe if i paid for their crm version i'd be able to like track all of the the activity in more detail but i'm not paying for their crm right now and so it's like it yeah05:24.81SeanYeah.05:30.07SeanGotcha.05:36.24SeanProbably, yeah.05:40.51Seanand Unless, unless Incidentally wants to sponsor us, because we're both users.05:45.04AndrewTrue.05:45.50SeanYeah.05:46.06AndrewSo all I see ri...

Andrew just launched MetaMonster! Andrew and Sean dig into how the launch is going so far (spoiler alert: not great), whether the product is overpriced, and what to try next. Then the guys talk about the demo for Sean's new product and what to name it. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:00.75SeanWelcome back. How is robotics?00:00:02.92AndrewRobotics was good and bad. Bad good? Good bad?00:00:07.35SeanOkay.00:00:08.00AndrewSo we got our butts kicked. Like, plain out, got our butts kicked.00:00:10.85SeanOh.00:00:12.28AndrewWe got there. The robots were insanely good, all of them. We played well. Like, there's this crazy advanced stats thing in robotics.00:00:22.25AndrewSome probably, like, 20-year-old or something.00:00:22.12SeanYeah.00:00:26.42Andrewbuilt a website called StatBotics that pulls the live data from... All the live data is published through the site called the Blue Alliance from every match.00:00:36.61AndrewAnd he runs that through some sort of equation, statistical...00:00:40.43SeanCool.00:00:41.28Andrewthingy and creates he calls it EPA estimated points added which is supposed to because like robots always compete in teams of three and so EPA is like how much of your total score did you actually contribute to the the team estimated points added so anyway this is a long rambly way to say that like throughout the competition so we were00:00:47.18SeanOK.00:00:56.35SeanOh, what what does what does EPA stand for?00:01:00.84SeanOK, OK, gotcha. OK.00:01:09.00AndrewThere were 40 robots in on our field. 160 robots at the competition total, by the way. Four fields going simultaneously all right next to each other. So it's like pure chaos. It's wild. It's really fun and interesting and crazy.00:01:22.28SeanYeah. Sweet. sweet00:01:23.97AndrewWe go into the the weekend ranked top 20 in EPA, like maybe 17 or something like that. And our goal was to end up like around that range at the end of qualifiers like if we had ended up around that range gotten picked for playoffs we would have been a lock for worlds uh our epa stayed around that range like we were at one point as high as like 11 we finished 22 in epa and then like fluctuated kind of between that range so we were playing well our driver was driving well00:02:00.39AndrewBut we just got our butts kicked in the actual matches. And EPA is definitely not perfect. It's not everything. like you know It has a bunch of obvious flaws. And so like you know just because our EPA was good didn't mean we were doing well. but But like we had some hiccups here and there.00:02:12.63SeanYeah.00:02:15.77AndrewBut like objectively, I think the team, like the kids drove well. I think they played well. But we ended up ranked out 40th. so we just got whooped we hit we won one match the entire weekend00:02:25.28SeanDamn.00:02:30.61SeanBut out of the top 40. Yeah.00:02:34.09Andrewuh well top 160 like top 40 we there were 40 in our field 160 robots there total and most of the robots never play each other so you don't really know who the top 40 are00:02:37.13Seanokay00:02:46.33SeanI just meant like of the state.00:02:48.19Seancause00:02:48.29AndrewYeah.00:02:48.68Seanbecause00:02:49.17AndrewWe were top 160. sixty Again, what I'm saying is like, 160 the state.00:02:51.79SeanYeah.00:02:54.51Seangod i Got it, got it, got it.00:02:55.25Andrewyeah00:02:55.52SeanMakes sense.00:02:57.41AndrewAnd so like that part sucked. like It sucked to lose a bunch of matches. it really You could tell it was like wearing on the kids. After a while, we had a little bit of drama that we had to work through with the team. like some you know you know it It was sort of getting to people, and it was causing some conflict and tension and stuff.00:03:15.63AndrewBut the good side of it is we worked through all of that. We got our first win. We celebrated the heck out of that.00:03:25.17AndrewCelebrated the heck out of the seniors, you know, just, you know, making it to states and their senior season and all of that. And then really cool on Saturday.00:03:35.58AndrewSo that we didn't get picked for playoffs. so we just had Saturday to chill, which was honestly really nice and fun. And like, just got to spend a lot of time. Like the team got spend a lot of time bonding and hanging out and watching robots do cool robot shit.00:03:49.53Andrewand then we were one of four teams who won an award called the rising all-stars award which is given to a team that is like has grown drastically and is on an upward trajectory which is exactly what we are and so that was really cool it was it was really cool to get that and so like00:03:55.32SeanSick. I love it.00:04:03.57Seanlove it00:04:10.31AndrewFinal rankings in the state, which again are imperfect in the same way that stats are imperfect and all this stuff, but final ranking in the state, we finished 91st in the state out of like 600 teams. So still objectively an incredible season, drastically overperformed where we thought we were going to be,00:04:29.92AndrewThe bar like just keeps getting raised every season. you know i think clearly our goal you know our goal for this season was to get to States. And now our goal for next season is pretty clearly get to Worlds.00:04:43.00AndrewWhich is just a crazy thing to say. Because like four years ago, 2020 season, this team was down to one kid.00:04:44.94SeanYeah, absolutely.00:04:51.22AndrewAnd like barely getting a robot a functioning robot to competitions. Yeah.00:04:55.84SeanYeah.00:04:56.24AndrewAnd now we're like, no, we think we can realistically compete for Worlds within the next few years.00:05:03.07SeanI mean, that's awesome. Like, I hope everyone is super proud of all all of that. So that's pretty sweet.00:05:08.54AndrewYeah, I think they are. like Once they got over the initial losing streak, and then like we got the win, and then we got the award, and I think that the team was able to like feel really proud and really excited.00:05:44.08SeanNice.00:05:20.89AndrewAnd yeah, a bunch of the kids are like excited for the offseason. They want to take on offseason projects, and they're like really excited for next season. Some kids who we might have lost because they were going to other schools want to come back and be part of the team, even if they go to another school. So like vibes were really good, even if we objectively got our butts kicked.00:05:44.94SeanWell, nice. Good job. Good job. Good stuff.00:05:47.71An...

In this episode Sean is finally ready to reveal the new product Miscreants is building! Meanwhile Andrew's robotics team is getting dangerously close to qualifying for the World Championships, and the guys debate marketing new products. This episode was originally supposed to go out a couple weeks ago, but we're playing with our publishing schedule a bit. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:01.03SeanHow you doing?00:00:01.98AndrewI'm good.00:00:02.68SeanHappy Wednesday.00:00:03.55AndrewHappy Wednesday. Things are hectic. My entire life is robotics and also trying to launch a product on Monday. But yeah, I'm kind of delighted that I don't have, no offense, but I'm delighted I don't have any miscreants clients right now.00:00:09.88SeanHell yeah.00:00:16.49SeanFor yet, you know I got two product inbounds in like one day.00:00:21.53AndrewOh, I knew about one. I didn't know about both.00:00:24.39Seani got another Well, i actually, technically, Osuja's got another.00:00:28.53AndrewSo we're up to three. Great.00:00:29.56SeanYeah.00:00:29.65AndrewCool. Cool.00:00:30.24Seanyeah00:00:30.41AndrewCool.00:00:31.14SeanI can just not close them.00:00:31.22AndrewOkay.00:00:32.71SeanYou know?00:00:33.75AndrewI mean, I do like being able to pay my bills.00:00:35.38SeanCash.00:00:37.32AndrewSo yeah, I probably will tell them I can't start on anything until May though. All right, good.00:00:44.47SeanThat's fine. That's what we're telling everyone right now. We're all inbound that comes in. We're swamped for RSA at the moment. We can kick things off and start like loosely, but it's like hands-on keyboard stuff.00:00:57.38SeanEveryone's tied up.00:00:58.19AndrewNice. When is RSA?00:00:59.99SeanApril 28th. 26th is when Gyside starts.00:01:01.61AndrewOkay, cool.00:01:01.81SeanYep.00:01:03.19AndrewSo the reason that I can't start anything until May is, one, we're launching Metamonster, the beta, on Monday, and I need to like ramp all of our marketing back up, like start up Google Ads, start doing cold outreach, all that stuff again.00:01:17.34SeanHell00:01:18.56AndrewBut two... There is now a non-zero percent chance that my robotics team makes it to Worlds and has to raise $10,000 and figure out how to get 15 high schoolers to Houston in like two weeks.00:01:28.86Seanhe yeah. That's awesome. 10K. Okay.00:01:32.02AndrewYeah, I don't actually know what it will cost. That's just like kind of a number I'm pulling out of my ass. But like we need to pay for like 15 flights, hotel rooms, and to transport a robot across the country.00:01:36.40Seanokay00:01:43.57AndrewYeah.00:01:44.78Seanjust have them take the pieces apart, put it in a suitcase, and rebuild it. And then you...00:01:51.04AndrewYeah, that is that sounds like an idea from someone who has never touched a first robotics robot in their life.00:01:56.15SeanI've done Legos and failed at the at the tech whatever it's called, the kinetic Legos.00:01:57.97AndrewYeah, same thing. Same thing.00:02:03.14AndrewThe, like, robo-LEGO thing?00:02:04.71SeanYeah, yeah, yeah.00:02:05.70AndrewYeah.00:02:05.81SeanI tried once was over.00:02:07.62AndrewYeah, so...00:02:07.79Seanwent back. Yeah.00:02:09.30Andrewwe crushed our second competition again and what that means this is i'll try not to get too into the weeds because first robotics is so incredibly convoluted but basically we have racked up 112 district ranking points between our first two competitions you need about 70 to qualify for the state championships00:02:11.88SeanCongrats.00:02:21.21SeanNice. Overqualified.00:02:29.05Seannice00:02:34.30Andrewwhich, so we have officially qualified for states. I leave at 6.30 tomorrow morning to go to the state championship for the first time ever.00:02:37.49Seanoverqualified00:02:43.78AndrewOur team has never been. And then district rank points are also how you qualify for worlds. So generally speaking, if you get 150 state rank points, then you qualify for worlds.00:02:58.55AndrewAnd points at states count for triple what normal points count for so if we finish kind of middle of the road and make it into playoffs and like win a playoff match we will almost definitely qualify for worlds Which would be absolutely bonkers because then we, as I mentioned, have to raise a bunch of money, figure out how to get a bunch of kids to Houston, and compete against the best robots in the world as a tiny scrappy team that has never even been to States before.00:03:33.77AndrewAnd it gets crazier. I've been doing some research. I don't think a Detroit public school from like our school district has ever made it to Worlds.00:03:46.99AndrewThere's only one team from DHDC that's ever made it. And I think they might have been like a private team, a private school or a charter school or something. There are a ton of teams from the Detroit metro area who make it, but they're all in the suburbs.00:04:00.99AndrewI think we'd be the first Detroit public school from, at least from our school district, to ever make it to Worlds if this happens.00:04:08.93Seanthis is This is like a real like Mr. Shushita moment.00:04:11.87AndrewIt's crazy.00:04:12.81SeanThis is awesome. This is cool.00:04:14.19AndrewIt's like total Cinderella story vibes.00:04:16.66SeanYeah. was going to work.00:04:17.56AndrewNow, if we make it to Worlds, we are going to get obliterated.00:04:18.25SeanGlee.00:04:21.47Andrewwe are like I've been watching videos of some of the top robots, and they're insane.00:04:25.80Seanyeah00:04:28.59AndrewThere's a robot from San Francisco that is like, it can put up three or four X the points that we can put up in a given match by itself.00:04:37.99SeanGotcha.00:04:38.84AndrewIt's stupid.00:04:39.98SeanI see.00:04:40.96AndrewBut...00:04:40.98SeanWhat makes their robots so good? I see.00:04:43.63AndrewSo actually really, really fucking clever strategy.00:04:48.36Seani see00:04:49.24AndrewSo you have to know a little bit about the game to understand this, but basically like one of the core mechanisms of the game is, you get these like foot-long PVC pipes, and you have to deliver them to a station in the middle of the field and place them on a rung of this ...

Andrew and Sean are trying different AI tools to vibe code/write more. Andrew's considering other features for the MetaMonster roadmap and his next steps with consulting.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

In this episode Sean recaps his first ever trip to MicroConf, spoiler: he loved it. Meanwhile Andrew has a new favorite brick and mortar business, and has a date for the MetaMonster launch! Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.78SeanWhat's up man? Why are you late? Just00:02.85Andrewbut gonna call me out like that00:06.12Seanhelping segue.00:09.45Andrewso i just went to what might be my new favorite like old school business ever and i'm so excited about it it knife sharpening00:16.40SeanOkay.00:22.54SeanOkay. Say more.00:24.27AndrewOkay, so there's this this little business I found on Google google Maps. I was like looking for knife sharpening locally. like There are a bunch of services. My knives have gotten dull as hell.00:35.90AndrewI cook a lot. I need to take better care of them. I was like, I need to find someone to sharpen them. And there's all these services online that like you pay like $60 or something and they nail you a thing. But I just hate dealing with snail mail.00:47.67AndrewAnd so one day I was like, all right, let me just search Google Maps and see if there's a local business. And I found this company called Bunnell Brothers Cutlery Inc. or something like that.00:58.03AndrewLike classic old school business name. And they had. 4.9 stars on google like all of the reviews were like holy shit these guys are amazing it costs like three dollars to sharpen a knife they do it in five minutes the guy is so so friendly will answer all your questions and so i was like okay i gotta go to this place and it's a little out of the way so it took me a while to get there but this morning i put it on my to-do list i'm like i'm finally going to go and get our knives sharpened And I show up, it's this like, warehousey squat looking building, it was hard to find the door like the front door is painted over.01:34.21AndrewAnd there's just a sign that says like, all deliveries go to side door. And so I'm like, It was hard to even figure out how to get in. I walk in and like when I first opened the door, I just see like a bunch of people at like grinders, like three or four people at grinders. And it feels like I'm stepping into a warehouse and I'm like, am I like allowed to come in here?01:55.69AndrewBut then I saw like the counter and like two people were immediately like friendly and like, yeah, come on in. You're in the right place. And the I mean, just amazing.02:05.84AndrewHe sharpened my knives in like under five minutes, not even like under two minutes. It cost me three dollars a knife. He took card.02:16.93AndrewHe I asked him like three or four questions and he was super happy to chat with me. I was like, I was like, you know, how often should I be using a honing rod? He's like, every time I'm like, I have a cheap shitty honing rod. Is that okay?02:27.91AndrewYeah, that's fine. i was like admiring some like really nice expensive knives he had and he did, instead of trying to like push a sale on me, he was like, honestly, for the money, yours are just as good.02:39.10AndrewLike, I love the knives you've got. And I was like, man, this guy is awesome. He told me, like, he's I was like, how often should I, like, get them resharpened? He's like, I tell people, like, twice a year, like, Christmas and Fourth of July. That way you've got them for the holidays. But, like, you know, just whenever you feel like they're starting to get dull and, like, the honing isn't isn't doing its job.02:58.00AndrewAnd so, like, this is just classic old school business. And... I imagine most of their business is actually sharpening knives for local restaurants and like this, like, you know, personal knife sharpening service.03:13.15AndrewLike they can't make much money on it. They're doing it's $3 a knife. They can't be making much money off of this.03:18.57SeanTwice a year, yeah.03:19.84AndrewYeah, but I feel like, you know, either they make enough or they just don't care and it's like kind of a public service that they'll just do this for people just because.03:30.70AndrewAnd so I was just like blown away. Like this, it just, it was one of those like businesses that just made me feel good. It felt like community.03:39.12SeanIs this now your favorite, this is now your favorite and store, like, shop in Michigan?03:42.87AndrewAbsolutely. Favorite, favorite, like, like brick and mortar, like,03:44.62SeanOkay.03:48.01SeanDo we do classes?03:49.84AndrewI don't think so. like they Because they they sharpen things on like grind like machines. like They've got grinders.03:56.09SeanI see.03:56.68AndrewAnd so that's why it takes them no time at all. They just go, choop, choop. So yeah, I don't think. And again, like they're not trying to be modern.04:08.14AndrewThey're not trying to offer classes or anything like that.04:10.56SeanYeah.04:10.74Andrewthey're just They do what they do. like All of the knives for like the businesses were stacked in these like wooden boxes that looked like they were 50 years old and just had written in sharpie like the name of the business and whatnot so yeah i just i love this and i want them to continue to exist forever04:28.58SeanI love it.04:33.75SeanYeah, I mean, sick. no Now I want to come to Michigan and get my knife sharpened. I could take it away TSA.04:41.74AndrewThere's got to be a million places in New York that are that are very similar vibes.04:44.91SeanYeah, they're like $10 a knife. Williams-Sonoma. I think people go there.04:49.64AndrewYeah, but that's not the same as going to Bunnell Brothers.04:50.05SeanI don't know any lik...

Andrew and Sean talk about the high robotics team Andrew mentors, choosing to delay the MetaMonster launch, hiring updates from Miscreants, and muse on the pros and cons of adding a custom prompts feature to MetaMonster. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Stacked cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Stacked-Perfect-Sandwich-Owen-Han/dp/0063330652For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:00.85SeanYo, yo.00:00:02.06AndrewYo!00:00:03.42SeanHow was...00:00:03.58AndrewHow are you?00:00:04.54SeanI'm good. I'm tired. I'm good. I'm gonna hop in on a flight to New Orleans. New Orleans.00:00:13.79AndrewNolens?00:00:13.76SeanNext. New Orleans in 48 hours.00:00:17.25AndrewSick. I am so fucking jealous you're going to microconf before me, but I'll make it there one of these days. It'll happen.00:00:24.46SeanNext year.00:00:24.73AndrewAlthough, I guess if I keep doing robotics and it's always during robotics season, then maybe I won't ever make it.00:00:29.86SeanYeah, that's...00:00:30.05AndrewI could go to the Europe one.00:00:31.77SeanYeah. yeah00:00:32.79AndrewThat would make no sense. That would be so much more expensive.00:00:35.73Seanand But don't they have like... Oh, so Rob Walling. Rob Walling. Rob Walling. But...00:00:41.58AndrewHey, Rob.00:00:42.78SeanHey, Rob. Don't they have a... Do they only have a Europe and Americas one? For some reason I felt like they00:00:50.68AndrewYeah, I think they just have two.00:00:51.62SeanOkay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool.00:00:54.88AndrewTwo per year.00:00:56.38SeanI'm excited. and00:01:00.18SeanI don't know what to expect. I feel like this is the only time I've been to a conference that wasn't a security conference.00:01:01.88AndrewMm-hmm.00:01:05.52SeanSo I'm like a little bit nervous about it.00:01:06.35AndrewWhoa, yeah.00:01:08.86SeanYeah.00:01:09.38AndrewYou're not going trying to get work. You're just trying to meet people and learn and have a good time.00:01:12.04SeanYeah.00:01:16.25SeanI know. That feels so wrong. Yeah,00:01:18.70AndrewYeah, they've that's like not Sean at all. how Sean going somewhere and not trying to make money?00:01:22.02Seanhu00:01:24.87AndrewWhat? What?00:01:27.47Seanyeah I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Make friends is crazy.00:01:35.75Seanyeah and Yeah, no, I, and then, and then, and then I'm going to RSA.00:01:41.10Seanin well one month right after that so i'll be back to my normal self afterwards00:01:47.39AndrewGotcha. How many conferences are you going to be at this year?00:01:54.19Seanlike three just rsa black hat i mean you have to if if like i count rsa and b-sides as one conference and oh shit yeah you're right oh no what going i think i think i might00:01:51.71AndrewTotal. By the end of the year, you think?00:01:56.20AndrewNo.00:02:00.94AndrewWeren't you just at ShmooCon and like... Did you go DistrictCon?00:02:10.09Seantry to sneak into ChinaCon.00:02:12.74AndrewOh.00:02:13.42SeanSmall conference for like to talk about like like Chinese APTs and all that stuff.00:02:13.82AndrewWhat's ChinaCon?00:02:20.27AndrewHmm, neat.00:02:20.38SeanAnyway, yeah.00:02:23.04AndrewAre you gonna go to any of the, we have like multiple clients who are throwing their own conferences this year. Are you gonna go to any of those?00:02:28.75SeanOh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You are reminding me of all the travel that is... You know, I don't think about these things until, like... I didn't book my travel... I didn't book my plane ticket for MicroConf until two nights ago.00:02:41.70SeanBecause...00:02:43.10AndrewIt sounds like someone who has disposable income.00:02:43.84SeanYeah,00:02:47.87AndrewSomeone who has has a business card they can put things on.00:02:48.36Seanthat's weird.00:02:51.51Andrewand00:02:51.75SeanThat's true. That's true. The $100 difference doesn't make a that make good significant difference, I guess. Well, after taxes are involved.00:02:57.64AndrewYeah.00:02:59.44SeanSpeaking of which, my taxes are horrendous this year. Oh, yeah.00:03:02.01AndrewOh, fuck. Mine are going to be terrible, too, because I didn't pay any like estimated taxes last year.00:03:06.33SeanYeah. yeah00:03:09.78AndrewDo you have a good accountant? and00:03:12.42Seanwe just got a new accountant or we stopped working with our previous one because like well he stopped working with us i think we outgrew sort of all the services...

Andrew is slowly crawling towards a beta release for MetaMonster, he's almost done with the signup/checkout flow and then has a few more things he wants to check off the list before launch. Sean has been playing with Lovable again, and has built a proof of concept for a Webflow changelog he wants for Miscreants (and is thinking about selling). The guys get a little technical talking through the challenges with Supabase edge functions and building with AI. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Stacked cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Stacked-Perfect-Sandwich-Owen-Han/dp/0063330652For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:01.01SeanHow you doing?00:02.26AndrewI'm good, man.00:03.31SeanHow's South Carolina?00:04.58AndrewSouth Carolina was great. Had...00:09.01Andrewbut Sorry.00:10.00Seanwe'll start recording again.00:11.53SeanNo, keep it rolling, keep it rolling, keep going.00:13.18AndrewYou don't want to leave that? You don't want to leave my my hacking?00:15.76SeanHmm.00:18.03AndrewYeah. Yeah, picked up a little bit of, i don't know, crud. not Not even a cold necessarily, just like got super congested for a few days. But had a great time with my family.00:29.79AndrewTook my parents to Korean barbecue for the first time ever. They'd never never tried Korean barbecue and they loved it.00:32.22SeanWhoa.00:36.68AndrewI made some butter chicken for my mom's birthday for her and some of her friends.00:39.84SeanNice. Happy birthday your mom. What is your...00:43.39AndrewMy mom got a new kitten.00:45.25SeanWhoa.00:46.19AndrewSo that was fun.00:46.48SeanBig updates. Uh-huh.00:47.60Andrewher name's Her name's Ruthie.00:49.57SeanNice.00:50.30AndrewFull name RBG.00:51.66Seanare Okay.00:52.46AndrewShe's my mom's resistance kitten.00:54.48SeanVery good. i love it. I love it.00:57.66AndrewYeah. Yeah, things are good. i Cancelled last week's podcast because i was trying to get some work done on client project that we just we just shipped.01:11.63AndrewCongrats to the Dreadnought team. Their website's now live.01:14.42SeanAbsolutely.01:14.58AndrewSuper cool to see. it wasn't It absolutely was not that I was procrastinating on my promise to finish the onboarding flow for Metamonster.01:21.95SeanRight. Right. Right. Convenient story.01:24.77AndrewYeah, that had nothing to do with it.01:26.24SeanYour mom's birthday kitten. i don't believe any of those things. Yeah. Just kidding. Happy birthday to your mom. I don't know her name, but okay.01:37.38AndrewAllison. Allison had a great birthday.01:39.39SeanHappy birthday, Allison. Cool. Or Miss Askins. Miss Askins. Miss Askins.01:45.00AndrewAllison's fine. We are we are adults.01:49.54SeanAnd you might be an adult. You can make butter chicken. I can't. Cool. Cool. But that that was a fun, was that was a fun, hectic launch to get everything live. But02:03.35AndrewIt was. Yarek is a beast, man.02:05.70SeanI know.02:05.75AndrewYarek, like, just...02:06.73SeanYeah.02:08.61AndrewThere were so many things that he just took and ran with. And, like, the, the like, image... generator app that he built to apply like one of the the effects that we created for the website like without anyone asking him to build it was sick the client loves that uh yeah he's he's a beast i i feel i am a little worried that he hates me because i was constantly like hey all right can we change this can we change that like got another request for you but but no he's awesome02:17.91SeanYeah. Yeah.02:26.24Seanyeah02:41.42SeanYeah, he's, yeah. yeah. um do think And the guy's a part-time professor.02:48.22AndrewAnd he's a part-time professor.02:49.76SeanThat's crazy. He's out here teaching kids design things.02:50.68AndrewYeah.02:54.93SeanYeah, yeah, he's pretty good. We're very lucky to have him, so. Cool. health so So, okay. So we skipped. It's just for context.03:03.72SeanFor people that missed the last episode, two weeks ago on our weekly episode podcast, Andrew promised that for the next podcast, he would have his onboarding flow for his SaaS app done.03:16.04SeanIt has been, we missed an episode, so technically this is the new episode. so so is it see it? are like can we see it03:24.48AndrewDefine done.03:28.78Seanyou find time I don't know. I don't know what you had in mind.03:33.06AndrewOkay, so I would say the the we're over 50% of the way there.03:40.07SeanCan I reset my password? Because I forgot it. and he can't like03:42.15AndrewNo, no, that's that's one of the things that I still need to do.03:43.06Seangosh03:46.98AndrewSo you can sign up for an account. As part of the signup flow, you have to pick...

Andrew just made a life changing sandwich and is finally using Cursor (and it's living up to the hype). Meanwhile Sean has been working on cutting SaaS costs for Miscreants and gets nostalgic about Flask (the Python framework). Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Stacked cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Stacked-Perfect-Sandwich-Owen-Han/dp/0063330652For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:01.41SeanOh, I'm like that for me. Oh, there it is. Okay.00:03.89AndrewHey, there we are.00:03.96SeanHow you doing?00:05.100AndrewI'm good.00:06.84SeanGood to see.00:06.90AndrewDude, I just made the best fucking sandwich.00:09.78SeanOkay. about00:12.87Andrewuh so we we just bought a cookbook this guy he's like a sandwich influencer i don't know he makes he makes youtube videos and like clips something Han i think and his whole thing is like sandwiches like he he's made like 300 sandwiches or something so he finally came out with a cookbook i love a good sandwich bought the cookbook First recipe, pretty fucking good.00:39.11AndrewIt was like a so homemade pesto on sourdough with like a chili crisp mayo and turkey parmesan crisps where you like fry parmesan until it becomes like a crunchy wheel of cheese, red onion, banana pepper.00:51.55SeanOkay.01:00.70AndrewReally, really good. Like maybe the best sandwich I've had in the last at least six months.01:10.24Seanokay I've never heard of this guy in my life, but yeah, yeah, I thought of him.01:13.81AndrewDid you find him? What's his what's his name?01:16.50SeanOwen Han. Owen hahn on Han, the sandwich king.01:17.52AndrewOh, Owen Han.01:22.24SeanInteresting.01:23.23AndrewWhat a great niche, right?01:23.43SeanInteresting.01:25.22AndrewLike I want to be the sandwich king.01:25.77SeanYeah.01:27.09AndrewLike that's such a fun place to live in and play in.01:29.79SeanYeah, yeah, yeah. You just gotta be like a chiseled Asian guy.01:33.15AndrewYeah, I mean, he is he is jacked and very attractive.01:33.90SeanGreat hair.01:36.98SeanYeah.01:38.15AndrewBut yeah, I mean, he just makes videos of himself making sandwiches and eating them, which is like. I'm sure it has its own ups and downs and pressure and whatnot, but as content creation niches go, it seems like a pretty decent one.01:55.09SeanI don't know. I feel like you might run out of sandwiches. I mean, I guess not, but...02:01.08SeanI don't know. I mean... What am I to say? I don't know shit about content creation.02:08.27AndrewYeah, what do you do when when making sandwiches is no longer fulfilling for you?02:09.84SeanIt just...02:11.79AndrewYou've got to got elevate your game somehow.02:14.06SeanYeah. It's only filling, not fulfilling. I don't know. Switch the wraps. There we go.02:21.23AndrewWhat's going on with to you?02:21.23Seanyeah take over another um um well speaking of food i've gotten really into liquid death i've probably drank at least 50 worth of liquid death in like the past week yeah multiple in no no the flavored ones the flavored yeah there's like tea there's like some that have tea but they're like low sugar so um02:33.05AndrewGod damn. Yeah. It's just, you know, you can get that stuff out of the tap in your kitchen, right? Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Uh02:47.01SeanI got like a tall boy here that's like green tea. made like a so flavored soda sparkling water, which is like two grams of sugar. They're not very good to be honest with you. The other ones are better.02:54.95AndrewYeah.02:55.69SeanThere's like a lime seltzer one. That's really good.02:58.05AndrewUnfortunately, sugar is like part of what makes things taste good. So when you do the low sugar stuff, it just doesn't taste as good usually.03:04.24SeanOh, I think it doesn't taste good because, I think it actually, they lie about it or so they're not, they're not, they don't lie about it. They're, they're. being intellectually dishonest about it.03:15.29SeanThey say two grams of sugar and then a fuck ton of Stevia.03:17.90Andrewyeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.03:18.42Seanbut oh03:20.44AndrewI noticed that I've been drinking some of the, the fair life protein shakes.03:21.68Seanyeah03:25.61AndrewAnd I was at first, I was like, holy fuck, how do they get 42 grams of protein into this thing and make it not taste like butt?03:31.39SeanRight.03:33.99SeanRight.03:34.41Andrewand then afterwards I was like, I know that aftertaste.03:38.16SeanI see.03:38.31AndrewSo they're like, they're yeah, they're doing the same thing.03:39.74SeanMicroplastics. Nice.03:41.03AndrewOh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, it's like number one microplastic thing or whatever.03:42.49SeanYeah. Yeah.03:45.59AndrewIt has more microplastics ...

In this episode Andrew talks about his recent struggles with ADHD and feeling like MetaMonster is moving too slowly. Meanwhile, Sean is planning to build a new SaaS product within Miscreants. The guys talk about the challenges of maintaining focus on a new product while running an agency, and how to set up the project for the best chance of success. Sean gets deeply uncomfortable, it's great!Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.79SeanDo you play Starcraft? Have you played Starcraft?00:03.15AndrewNo, I've never played Starcraft. I'm not a big gamer.00:04.71Seanand00:06.24AndrewLike the most time I've ever spent on video games, like my top games are like Pokemon, like Crystal.00:13.03SeanThat's true. You're like an actual sports like healthy touch grass person. I forget that.00:17.74Andrewi I'm not an there I'm a watch sports and then touch grass in like nerdy hiking ways, not like Boy Scout touch grass.00:27.01SeanYeah, but I'm like, ah ah I'm like, a you know, watch eSports and touch Minecraft grass sometimes, every guy.00:34.57AndrewWhy do you ask about Starcraft?00:35.44SeanI've been I may have gotten really into stuff. It's been like two days, but I may have spent a lot of hours into Starcraft over the weekend. But it's because, well, first of all, it's really interesting because like,00:48.14SeanI see how it's like a groundwork for a lot of other games that have been really bad at and I see the difference between people who are good at like played Starcraft and then we're good at other games like League of Legends versus not. More importantly, it's because my brain has been on like like agents, agent systems, Starcraft is like RTS where you manage a bunch of little tiny things and that move around the map.01:06.11AndrewHuh.01:08.75Seanand And like, so for some reason, my brain has that connection.01:11.48AndrewYeah.01:11.58SeanOh, so it's because I've always been really bad at it. And like my best, one of my but best friends is like, was top 200 in the US. So, it's, it's not that impressive.01:19.07Andrewwhoa Whoa.01:21.89SeanI'm i'm pretty sure it, I think it's like, you know, top 200 snapshot in time, never went pro.01:22.08AndrewOh.01:26.65SeanOh, so it's in the US. So he's Korean, but.01:28.07AndrewI mean, I mean, it's so impressive. Like why you gotta, why you gotta hate on your friend? Like your friend sounds, that's cool.01:33.85Seanthat's what we do okay okay fine fine fine he's pretty good he's pretty good at it anyway he's been rolling me constantly it's but maybe I'm just salty that he's been fucking destroyed like cool01:42.52AndrewI played Civ three for a while. Is that like similar vibes where you like, you send all your little people to go do things and you have to constantly like be like, okay, do this.01:50.93Seanyeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly yeah01:52.07AndrewNow do this. Now do this. Now you, you guys build this and you guys build this and okay. Cool. Yeah. I could get hooked on some, some Civ three back in the day.02:02.67SeanNice, nice. Yeah, some Age of Empires, some Fred Alert.02:06.05AndrewYeah, I never got beyond Civ III.02:06.19Seanand um Okay.02:08.67AndrewAgain.02:08.70SeanAlright, alright. I mean, I need discovered football. That was my weekend. um um Amongst like some other random things, but how about you? How you doing?02:18.77AndrewI'm all right, man. i I am feeling a little stressed because I feel like the last couple of weeks, we just have not made much progress on MetaMonster at all.02:29.67SeanHmm.02:31.04AndrewSo there's a handful of of things at play here. Austin was trying to buy a house. Yeah, which just sort of consumes your life while you're doing it.02:36.98SeanOh, sick.02:41.38AndrewAnd it all happened like way faster than he was expecting.02:41.66SeanSure.02:44.48Seansure02:45.51AndrewIt ended up falling through, like they decided to pass on it.02:44.87SeanSure.02:47.47AndrewSo he's he's not buying the house, but he was going through the motions.02:48.03SeanOkay.02:53.13AndrewAnd I think it was just eating up all of his like attention as it would.02:58.84Seanright03:00.29AndrewSo that was going on. And then I've talked about robotic season. The build season of robotic season like takes up a lot of my free time. like you know, one to two weeknights and all day Saturday basically are spent at robotics and that eats up a lot of time. we've been having to fight with our landlord ah like getting our heater worked on. He keeps saying there's not a problem. We try to tell him there's a problem. We have been fighting with him on that. and then I just think for the past like two or three months, I've been in a season of like03:42.79Andrewhigher ADHD, like my ADHD feels like it is has been harder to manage for the past couple months. And so I have had more days where I'm just like,03:55.63Andrewstaring at a screen, trying to get started, trying to get over that initial hurdle, and then just like not getting anywhere with my day, other than like to get the most urgent things done.04:08.02AndrewClient work is great at like kind of forcing you to get over that ADHD hurdle, because there are deadlines.04:12.14SeanFor sure.04:13.37AndrewAnd so there's like that added pressure. So my client work, I'm i'm getting done. My MetaMonster work, not so much. And so like the result is that I feel like I'm just crawling on the marketing side. And then, yeah, Austin has also been been busy the last couple weeks, so we haven't gotten, and we're just like dealing with some crawler issues too. trying to We've made the decision to switch to a paid crawler service, but like we're trying to get a couple features out before we make that switch, because we don't know how long that switch is going to take. and so04:50.04Andrewi just i I'm feeling a little discouraged. I'm feeling a little like we're just moving more slowly than I would like.04:58.08SeanYeah, i mean we missed our first episode in a long time last week.05:01.06Andrewyeah Yeah. Also, my cat got into the basement and hid under a pile of insulation in the crawl space. So I had to spend like two hours one afternoon like tearing apart the house, finding him. So that kind of derailed derailed my day last week too.05:17.58SeanYeah, yeah. Oh, Paul is okay, which is good.05:18.37Andrewso But boy is fine. But boy is totally fine. I was pretty pissed off at him, but he's cats are curious.05:21.66SeanYeah.05:26.21AndrewAnd if you leave a...

In this episode, Sean's Shmoocon trip got spicy

Andrew and Sean are back for Season 3!! Andrew's onboarding his first users to MetaMonster, and as alpha user #1 Sean has lots of thoughts. Meanwhile Sean actually took some time off??? And he used it to start writing. The guys talk MetaMonster, product design, and personal branding. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Worth Driving: https://worthdriving.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.98SeanI'll lie down for a second. Happy New Year.00:02.47AndrewYep.00:03.08SeanHow you doing?00:03.53Andrewah Perfect. No, that's not the perfect metaphor.00:06.47Seanahhu00:07.40AndrewThis isn't going to be a year of lag. This is going to be a year of getting shit done and moving fast.00:09.32SeanHell yeah. Yeah.00:12.99AndrewYeah.00:13.56SeanWho's in three, baby?00:14.79AndrewSeason three. Oh, are we going to start a new season?00:18.12SeanI'm going to, I call it any season. Did you see me create the show, delete the show and recreate it and slack? Yeah.00:25.17AndrewNo, I miss that.00:25.14SeanYeah. It is not season two ah episode It is season three, episode one, 2025.00:30.50AndrewLove it.00:32.13SeanUm, how you doing?00:32.18AndrewFuck yeah. I'm good, man.00:33.85SeanHow's your. Yeah.00:35.55AndrewMy holiday was great. It was super, super chill. We stayed here in Detroit, um just... hung out with family and friends and relaxed through a kind of a quirk.00:48.82AndrewMaddie's little sister got COVID a few days before Christmas. So we had to delay Christmas and do like kind of a second Christmas.00:55.36SeanOkay.00:55.52AndrewAnd so on Christmas day, we were just home, just the two of us with the cats. And we were like, oh shit, we really like this.01:00.74SeanSweet.01:05.02AndrewLike don't get me wrong, love family, love friends, wanna see them as much as possible. But there's something really nice about just have just being you and your partner on Christmas morning, like drinking mimosas, being lazy, not getting out of bed right away, eating some some yummy pastries.01:13.30SeanHell yeah.01:25.46Andrewum We unwrapped some things for the cats and like a couple of things for each other and it's just super chill. It was really nice.01:32.65SeanNice. Sweet.01:33.39AndrewYeah. Yeah. Um, and then the other thing from this break was I just found myself like for the first time in recent memory, wanting to work.01:36.36SeanSweet.01:44.30AndrewLike I didn't want to take more than a week off because no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.01:44.50SeanHell yeah. You're becoming me. I like it. and like I'm rubbing off on you.01:51.84AndrewI just like, I'm feeling drawn to work right now and it's a season. It'll pass. Um, I'm, I know that I'm okay with that, but. But yeah, I'm feeling really hyped about Meta Monster. I really want to get going on it, do more with it.02:06.89Andrewum get it off the ground. So I'm feeling really excited. And um small update there, this week, as you well know, we started to bring on our first outside users.02:18.15SeanMhm.02:20.94AndrewSo not, we're calling, I'm thinking of this as like a friends and family round of alpha testing.02:27.01SeanHell yeah.02:27.54AndrewSo it's not a, these aren't, potential customers really. they're They're people who we just trust to get in and start finding bugs and edge cases and giving us good honest feedback on how the product feels. um While we wrap up a couple of last features that I think are really important for giving our first potential customers the real full experience. Like right now, bulk generation doesn't work. So you have to generate things one at a time. And so to me, we're not fulfilling the promise of MetaMonster until we have bulk generation done.03:02.96Andrewum But yeah, we've we've started to onboard our first couple of users, ah friends and family users. I think I created three accounts yesterday. I'll hopefully create two or three more today. um And yeah, so what do you think? You've been in the product now.03:20.06SeanYeah, I mean, you know, as alpha user number one, um just so everyone's aware, alpha user number one, ah president yeah president of MetaMonster fan club.03:23.71AndrewYeah. Got to give you your props. I'm sorry for not not mentioning that.03:33.07Seanah I like it. I mean, I like it. It's buggy. It's toss you a bug early on. those I mean, I don't think anything's like, like, I think core functionality, everything's working great. um It's like more very basic, like UX things.03:53.81SeanGood found value out of it pretty quickly. um I ran worth driving through it. I honestly ran some client sites through it as well um You know, I think like ah I mean worth driving is pretty large now too But even like some client sites like it's an easy way to spot like oh shit that meta tag is actually wrong We should just go switch it04:02.22AndrewLove to hear that. Hmm.04:14.46Seanum And yeah, i mean instead of like arbitrarily writing meta descriptions and and whatever, I think it's nice to... I actually didn't mind that I couldn't do bulk generation, only because um I only cared about clicking through the ones that I cared about. um That being said though, I do kind of wish it was sorted a little bit better. um04:40.62Andrewoo O...

In this episode, Andrew talks about his recent deep dive on prompt engineering and the way the AI product landscape is shaking out. Sean talks about his recent trip to Philly for a cybersecurity marketing conference. Then the guys reflect on 2024 and their goals for 2025. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Worth Driving: https://worthdriving.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:00.00Seantwo, one, happy birthday Austin, yay.00:00:02.11AndrewHappy birthday, Austin!00:00:05.29SeanHow was your recording last week? How'd it go?00:00:09.74AndrewI thought it went really well. um guess you tell me, have you had a chance to listen to it yet?00:00:13.54SeanYeah, my train from Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Virginia last week got very delayed, so.00:00:20.11AndrewOh no, I'm sorry.00:00:21.26Seansaid in the terminal and listened to it. was good. It was, yeah, thought he was super insightful.00:00:28.35AndrewYeah, Alex was awesome.00:00:28.63SeanI feel like he's beginning, you were a little, what is it like? like like starstruck felt like i was like wow didn't see me like this so before it was good i thought he gave you like really good feedback i thought but i mean there were things i learned from it being someone who's never looked at the stack in the brick stuff and yeah i think it was it was helpful and then i saw the new meta monster update today or that you sent down i was like wow it is way better than before00:00:36.26AndrewOh, that's funny. Yeah.00:00:57.50Seanand00:00:59.34AndrewWell, that's good. At least I'm taking what I'm being taught and internalizing it and not it's not just going in one ear and out the other.00:01:05.30SeanYeah.00:01:07.62SeanRight, right.00:01:08.30SeanLike our podcasts usually do.00:01:09.72AndrewYeah, I tried to also do some of the pulling the slingshot back, as Alex says, some of the anticipation building with the actual release of the podcast episode. So tried to like hype that up. Austin said it worked on him. I'm not sure it made a big difference on our analytics, I think. Yeah.00:01:33.43AndrewYou know, I think we had. You know, it's performing better than our average podcast episode, but I think that's as much about like Alex retweeting it as it is anything else. So, you know.00:01:46.91SeanWell, the real magic is, let's see how many people isn't today is right. So hello, new listeners. Austin is Andrew's co-founder, or I'm going to last name.00:01:51.97AndrewHey, that'd be cool.00:01:57.22AndrewYep. Austin's my co-founder on MetaMonster. He's the one responsible for making the product look great and function. Well, I'm just the guy who talks about it and is trying to talk about it better, trying to talk about it more good.00:02:13.12SeanYeah, hell yeah.00:02:14.59AndrewYeah. How was Philly?00:02:16.99SeanIt was good. I went to, so I went to cybersecurity marketing, the cyber marketing conference or cybersecurity marketing conference held by the cybersecurity marketing society. was good. A lot of, mean, no, this is the third time actually.00:02:27.82AndrewIs this their first time doing an in-person conference? Oh, wow. I thought they were all virtual before.00:02:34.02SeanThe society, sorry, this is their, this is their third conference. They've done a bunch of like in-person events. Yeah. The society's grown. There's like 500 people at this conference.00:02:42.76AndrewCool.00:02:43.91Seanyeah, I get to hang hang out with people that I don't usually get to see. And it's weird. It's, it's like the only conference I've ever been to. That's, I think that's i've ever, ever really been to that's not a security conference.00:02:54.04AndrewHmm.00:02:54.63SeanSo it's a whole other sort of vibe.00:02:56.73AndrewWait, but isn't it, I mean, it's still a security adjacent conference, right?00:03:01.68SeanFor sure.00:03:01.98AndrewBut it's not hackers talking about like the new vulnerabilities they discovered and like how they reverse engineered some crazy low level protocol or something.00:03:02.04SeanFor sure. For sure. But it's not like, you know, it's not like RSA. It's not like i can not be solid. It's yeah. Yeah.00:03:10.97SeanRight.00:03:14.32Seanright right exactly exactly and and it's not like it's also it's also not cyber security vendors trying to sell you on their product00:03:24.38AndrewRight.00:03:24.67Seanlike RSA and Black Hat.00:03:26.34AndrewOkay.00:03:27.48SeanAnd it's also, it's a society it's like a society conference, so it's not, I guess it's almost like the DEFCON, like in that case, like the DEFCON of cybersecurity marketing, like you don't really go to sell anything there, you're not, your customers, I mean, I guess my client customers are there, but I also try not to do any of that.00:03:32.18AndrewWhat does that mean?00:03:38.60AndrewHmm. Yeah. Yeah.00:03:48.90Seanyeah There's obviously vendors and sponsors and stuff. We're a sponsor as well. i I literally was just like, I don't want to, like I also would like to attend the conference. So I gave up my booth and switched it out with a 360 camera and just let people use a 360 camera there.00:04:02.45SeanAnd then went ahead and hung out with people there, but it was good.00:04:01.81AndrewOh, that'...

In this week's special guest podcast, Alex Hillman (of Stacking the Bricks and 30x500) joins Andrew to coach him on early stage marketing at MetaMonster. They talk through Andrew's recent failed launch (and why not to worry about it too much), what he's doing differently now, and how your identity as a founder can impact your marketing. Plus, what pro wrestlers get right about identity and storytelling and how to create great content when you aren't an expert in your niche.There's so much great info packed into this discussion, enjoy! By the way, check out Alex's description of 30x500 at the 12:11 mark for a masterclass in positioning.  Links:Follow Andrew on BlueSky: @andrewaskins.comAndrew's writing: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Follow Sean on BlueSky: @seanqsun.comSean's writing: https://seanqsun.com/Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/Follow Alex on BlueSky: @alexhillman.comJumpstart your product empire in 12 weeks with LaunchFTWFor more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:01.42AndrewAll right, so we've got a little bit of a different type of podcast episode. Usually it is me and Sean riffing on the things that we are building, but I'm super excited today because Alex Hillman is here to join us. So Sean is at a conference, so unfortunately couldn't be here today. But as I mentioned on the last episode, Alex very kindly took time out of his day to roast the shit out of my half-assed launch attempt. And then was even more generous and said, hey, I'll take an hour out of my day to come talk to you some more. Let's talk about this in public so that people can learn from this as we work through it together, is super cool. And for anyone who doesn't know Alex's background, Alex has been partnered with Amy Hoy on stacking the bricks and 30 by 500. They've been working on that for, you said 15 years?00:00:58.53Alex Hillman15 years, yeah.00:01:00.15Andrew15 years. I've been reading Stacking the Bricks for ages and really, really love all the content that you all have put out, have looked up to you and Amy for a long time. Still apparently didn't learn anything from from all of that reading, but i'm I'm trying to learn it now.00:01:15.29AndrewSo yeah, we're gonna get into it. But Alex, thanks so much for for being here. Just so appreciate you, man.00:01:22.85Alex HillmanYeah, i'm I'm happy to. This is going to be a good time. And, you know, I think the the common theme through all of this is and there's a lot of folks that read our stuff like our stuff and then willfully do the opposite or think that they did. what We told them and I go, I don't know where you got that from because those words never came out of my mouth. So I say all of that with, you know, with love and, you know, the the roast.00:01:47.38Alex Hillmancame from, from that point of view as well. You know, I think that there's, there's cool people doing cool things on the internet. And I know you're, you're a fan of the build in public, trying to eat those and mindset.00:01:59.19Alex HillmanI'm a fan of the help in public. And so that's my thought here is if I can help you, whether it's through a roast on blue sky or a podcast, and there's other folks that that benefit from that perspective, then that's a,00:02:08.00Andrewyeah00:02:13.34Alex Hillmanand at least three-way win. I win, you win, and and whoever listens wins. So really, really stoked to get into this.00:02:18.10AndrewAwesome.00:02:19.52Alex HillmanI think you're working on stuff that is common and and easy to get wrong.00:02:25.03AndrewYeah, appreciate that. Yeah, so to give folks some context, because I imagine there might be people who will listen to this episode who who don't typically listen to small efforts. So a few weeks ago, I sort of kind of launched a alpha-y type thing. Like I'm having trouble even describing it because it was so like half formed. But I basically like got in my head,00:02:53.09Andrewwe're okay I'm building this mailing list, I'm getting people on this list, I need to convert these people to you know potential paying users and we don't have a product yet so I need to like kind of pre-sell them but I don't want to actually ask them for money yet so I'm gonna pitch them on being a founding user and I sent out this this one email and basically said like Hey, I want you to be a founding user. You'll get a couple of things. And in return, I want a lot of your time. Click here to sign up. And I'm sort of being facetious, partially to protect my ego, because I candidly was like, once I realized like, kind of how bad I messed up, I was a little embarrassed. Like I had this feeling of like,00:03:44.44AndrewI have run a business before. I thought I knew how to do content marketing and knew how to do some of this stuff. I've been reading your content for years and so um so um realizing that I was making a lot of rookie mistakes was a little embarrassing and so even now as I'm describing it, I'm catching myself using self-deprecating humor as a little bit of a shield.00:04:04.73Alex Hillmanthat cushion00:04:05.14Andrewhello But but i mean that's kind of that's that's the basic context. I tried to pitch people on being early adopters of some sort. It was a very half-formed ask.00:04:17.85Andrewand and unsurprisingly, the result was kind of crickets. I got one person who responded to me and said, hey, I'd be interested. other than that, no responses. And so I tried to share about this on Blue Sky in that building public mindset and just be like, hey, anyone what what do you all see when you make these kinds of asks early on? And that's when Alex jumped in and was like, hey, tell me more. like what What was the context here? How much did you email these people and And so, yeah, why don't I kick it over to you and you can kind of give that initial context from your side and, you know, we can talk about some of the advice you got and then we'll get into what we're doing next.00:04:57.12Alex Hillmanyeah Yeah, I mean, ah you you know first of all, first of all like congrats on shipping anything. like for like to to not Not to backpedal the mistakes that were made, but you know the the making mistakes is is the result of of doing things and trying things. And one of the beautiful things about launches is that there's you know I think there's a myth of a single launch, a single chance.00:05:22.14AndrewMm hmm.00:05:23.16Alex HillmanAnd the trut...

In this episode, Andrew discusses feedback he received from Alex Hillman on his marketing efforts for MetaMonster, and how he plans to adjust his approach going forward. He's now focusing more on creating content and building anticipation rather than rushing to convert customers. Sean shares his thoughts on personal branding and how he's reworking his online presence. They also touch on the pros and cons of starter packs for growing following on BlueSky and the value of being an authentic, relationship-based creator versus optimizing for algorithms.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Worth Driving: https://worthdriving.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.01SeanHappy Thanksgiving, or Happy Post Thanksgiving.00:03.75AndrewHey, happy post Thanksgiving.00:04.77SeanHey. Yeah. Did you pick anything up for a Black Friday?00:09.25AndrewOh my God. I spent too much money. I, I got sucked into a die work where, Twitter thread on, uh, links to black Friday deals.00:16.04SeanOh, sweet.00:22.53Andrewa couple of the links I was like, Oh, this looks really cool. That's $1,200 for a jacket. I cannot do that. I'm sorry. so I just can't bring myself to do that.00:30.68SeanWe gotta invest in yourself, man.00:36.16AndrewI'm trying.00:36.68SeanOkay,00:36.92AndrewI'm trying to like push myself to slowly start buying some nicer pieces. I've got my eye on like a leather jacket. That's more in like the 300 360 range that I might00:46.87Seannot bad.00:48.08AndrewPull the trigger on at some point in the next year in the next sorry in the next few months but yeah, but entirely too much clothing tend to like just buy nothing and then buy Everything in like one or two goes and then not buy anything for a long period of time And then I bought a bunch of gifts for people so it was actually like normally I don't do shit on Black Friday, but this time I was actually pretty01:03.52SeanYeah.01:09.18SeanNice. Sweet.01:14.74AndrewPretty active on the interwebs, on the, the e-commerce sites.01:17.08Seanthree01:19.45Seanwell i bought a humidifier so it has an app i haven't downloaded the app yet i know on weekends on weekends when i go to my computer when i'm in front of my computer i always feel like my eyes are really dry and i think it's because of a week of staring at the screen and then i turn on humidifier and it tells you how like dry your room is and it's like i think the like it was it was saying that the healthy range is 30 to 50 and when i turned on it was like01:22.51AndrewWhoa.01:25.08AndrewWelcome to your seventies.01:36.73AndrewHigh strain.01:47.95Sean15 uh like 1828 something like that it's like cool put that sucker on eyes not dry anymore life hack yeah01:51.12AndrewDamn interesting.01:55.44AndrewI get pretty dry in the winter around here. And then we have radiators. And so if we don't have the windows open, it gets so dry. But usually we have the windows open because our heating system is horribly inefficient.02:09.12AndrewAnd so you're either like cold as shit or you are sweating. So we have to open the windows to like let excess heat out because we can't just like turn it down. It's old houses.02:20.83SeanGot it. Yeah, sounds fun.02:22.24AndrewIt's pain. yeah02:23.47SeanI also bought into, uh, detailed, which is Glenn Alsup's, uh, uh, SEO private group.02:29.54AndrewOh, Oh, interesting.02:32.86SeanAnd, yeah, there was no sale. It was just like, here's the option to purchase it, which is kind of badass of him to do on a Black Friday, but.02:39.65AndrewYeah. It's like, cards against humanity always does the hilarious black Friday stuff. Like one, didn't they ah ah raise prices one year for black Friday? They were like, you can buy cards against humanity for double what it normally costs.02:48.81Seanthere02:52.63SeanIt's kind of sick.02:53.77Andrewthis year they sold a potato with diamonds stuck in it.02:56.76Seanoh cards The original mischief, just saying.02:56.93AndrewLike fucking weird.03:01.39Andrewthey They totally are the original mischief. That's very true. Is mischief still kicking? Are they still doing shit?03:08.22SeanYeah. Yeah. Yeah. They also have Black Friday sale. They're making shoes. I mean, whatever. I feel like they kind of fell off after the big but look big red boot moment.03:19.61AndrewIt's hard to like, when your business model is go viral, it's just hard to do that consistently, I think.03:27.45SeanNo. I disagree. I disagree. I disagree. I think it's hard to do that consistently and be ethical around how you do it. oh but I don't think ah they had a whole thing where that like, you know, every two weeks they would release a project and like, I'm pretty sure 70% of the projects were all sweepstakes.03:40.89AndrewThat might be true.03:48.93SeanThey were all like, sign up for things, share it, again, a chance to win in different flavors.03:49.16AndrewYeah.03:54.46SeanAnd then with different like creators as well. So,03:57.62AndrewYeah, that checks out. I mean, fucking Mr. Beast has built yeah the largest YouTube following in the world, basically turning his channel into a lottery.04:06.87SeanYeah. Yep. Yep. Are you? Yeah.04:09.00AndrewGambling, gambling and porn.04:10.69SeanYeah. Hell yeah.04:11.75AndrewSo all the Internet's good for.04:14.21SeanI agree. And this podcast, what else have you been up to the past two weeks?04:20.50AndrewSo I got roasted last week by Alex Hillman on Blue Sky.04:22.14SeanYes, you did. I'm Blue Sky.04:25.75AndrewVery, very positively roasted. I I went to Blue Sky looking for feedback on I think I talked about it on the podcast last recording.04:27.80SeanYeah.04:30.70SeanMm-hmm.04:34.84Andrewa Like I did this like kind of mini launch and trying to get, of what were we calling them, founding users, get people to convert to founding users.04:43.58SeanYeah.04:47.12AndrewAnd we were talking about just like only one person replied. And yeah, it just was kind of a flop. so I was just trying to do the building public thing and talking about it on Blue Sky and asking you know people what what their experience had been with pre-sales and that sort of thing.05:05.33AndrewAnd Alex Hellman was basically like, bro, you You like half asked this thing, what did you expect? but And I was like, oh, yeah, you're right.05:14.06SeanUh-huh.05:16.21AndrewYeah.05:16.78SeanYeah.

In this episode, Andrew talks about the rapid audience growth he's seeing on Bluesky and the challenges he's running into finding Founding Users for MetaMonster. The guys talk about the idea of product market fit as a spectrum and validation as a way to uncover where you might be on that spectrum, but without ever getting to 100% certainty. Then Sean talks through trying to find his next side project idea. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/CopyWork: https://copy.work/Wordpress to Webflow-ready CSV: https://contentgobl.in/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.01SeanThis is a full Andrew podcast with Sean does a support character today Mainly because I was late before this call00:08.75AndrewUh, I was also kind of late. I was chatting with a friend and it took me a while. Yeah. what's up, man? How are you?00:17.09SeanI'm good. um I'm busy. um Yeah, I'm busy. A lot of things happening with miscreants, Q4, trying to get a lot of things wrapped up before the holidays and and just so much inbound.00:31.44SeanSo much inbound.00:31.83AndrewThat's great.00:32.67SeanYeah, it is. It's amazing. You know, partially00:34.65Andrewyou see You sound exhausted by it. but00:36.91SeanI'm so tired. Yeah. Well, partially thanks to you for for doing some really good work as well. So I appreciate it.00:43.48AndrewCool. I'm glad it's been helping.00:45.98SeanYeah, absolutely. What's up with you? What's going on?00:49.78AndrewSo two things I want to talk about today, a small one and then a bigger one that I want to work out some thoughts with, with you and our, our 12 listeners.01:01.03SeanYeah.01:02.70Andrewso the small one real quick blue sky is popping off right now. It is wild. I've been, I've had an account for like two weeks now and I'm up to 1200 followers.01:16.59Andrewstarter kits are this like magical growth hack, uh, where01:16.28Seanhe yeah01:20.44SeanAre starter kits just lists but people can auto follow everyone in the list?01:25.31AndrewBasically, yeah, yeah, a starter kit is basically like a Twitter list.01:26.99Seanokay01:30.65AndrewBut so in Blue Sky, you have three concepts that that fulfill part of the responsibility of lists um in Twitter. So you have starter kits, which are a way to curate a list of people that you think others should follow most often around the topic. So like, I'm in a couple of like indie hacker, indie founder, bootstrap founder, starter kits. and you can, when you open a starter kit, you can follow individual people or you can just click follow all.02:01.31Andrewand And so that's how I found people to follow. I'm following like 360 people. It's almost all from like a handful of starter kits. And then and it's a really great mechanism for people to very quickly build a little network.02:18.09AndrewAnd it's if you get added to a couple of these, it's an awesome growth mechanism.02:22.54SeanHell02:22.64AndrewSo I'm up to 1,200 followers. very, very quickly, which is cool.02:28.21Seanyeah.02:29.29AndrewAnd we'll see how that correlates to engagement. wasn't seeing much engagement for the first like maybe 400 or 500 followers, but now I feel like I'm starting to see some pretty solid engagement.02:41.50AndrewI think engagement is naturally going to lag behind followers on the platform while people are still building a habit of checking and using Blue Sky, because it's still like A lot of people are switching over right now or like signing up and trying it for the first time, and so they're not going to have that usage habit right away. But I'm now seeing more engagement there than I am on tweets, and I have like 2700 Twitter followers.03:09.80AndrewSo there's there's starter kits, then there's lists. they do have lists that work exactly like Twitter lists, which are like a non-algorithmic way to curate a list of people whose content you want to view without following them. And then they have feeds, which are custom algorithms that developers can write and publish.03:31.61Andrewso there's like 50,000 feeds. So there's essentially 50,000 different algorithms you can choose to subscribe to and follow. So there's a default discover algorithm. There's a default like following algorithm, where it's just everyone you follow.03:46.88Andrewthen you can subscribe to lots of different feeds and customize your algorithm work the way you want to, which is a really cool idea.03:59.56AndrewYeah.03:57.79Seanthat is a really cool idea i wonder i wonder if there's like a secret like if your feed is used a lot you know how like you know plug-in like places that like have that you do upload plugins and stuff will pay out a certain amount if you have like a cool04:13.36AndrewMaybe. Yeah. I don't think they've started doing revenue sharing on blue sky yet. and they very openly said they're going to try to stay away from advertising and sell premium features, which is interesting. sort of Also the blue sky team is only 20 people. There are 20 people on the team.04:34.05SeanSo you're saying Musk didn't fire enough people when he joined Twitter. That's what you're telling me.04:39.64AndrewI'm saying it's really cool what they're doing. And they're they're being very open and like chatting with and interacting with the community. Overall, the vibes are just, it I think because it's new, like this won't last forever, but because it's new, people are looking for people to follow. They're looking for content to engage with. therere They're just more open and and curious than where people have more set patterns of behavior that they fall into.05:11.07AndrewSo the vibes are really good right ...

In this episode, Sean talks about getting himself out of day-to-day client work at Miscreants, and Andrew provides an update on his slow progress with customer acquisition for MetaMonster. Andrew shares an idea for a side project and they talk about Dharmesh buying the chat.com domain and "flipping" it to OpenAI.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/CopyWork: https://copy.work/Wordpress to Webflow-ready CSV: https://contentgobl.in/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.98SeanAll right, what is this thing, Andrew? What are you gonna tell me? even It's been 30 minutes since you told me we we're changing what we're talking about today. Now you've been, okay, go.00:12.23Andrewlet me Let me just play this for you and I think it'll all make sense.00:15.25SeanOkay.00:21.25Andrewand00:24.28Andrewhoping you can so into me baby00:28.45AndrewDo you know what this is yet?00:33.18SeanYes. I know what this is. I know what this is. This is the... I feel bad for all Asian guys in SF. I'll never outdo you, you tech bros. It's fucking over.00:51.69AndrewWait, wait! graves keepki godam oh01:02.88AndrewI never thought I would hear Mark Zuckerberg with T paid singing sweat, drip down my balls.01:04.84Seanz pain that's what what what do you want to do you want to dissect the lyrics you want to01:11.18AndrewOh, ski, ski motherfucker. Oh, ski, ski. God damn.01:17.79AndrewOh my God. I found this and I was like, holy shit. Clear everything. This is all I want to talk about.01:32.86Seanhoney01:32.98AndrewI think it's just fucking hilarious. And like, I can't decide if I like love it or hate it. Like I can't decide if it's the best thing ever or the most cringe thing ever. And I think I love it. And I think I love it in part because it is kind of cringe and he just doesn't give a fuck.01:52.89Seanfor what it's worth though maybe this was the light at the this was the this was the one piece of uplifting news in recent times my executor the one who keeps us going02:01.14AndrewRight. Oh my God.02:08.17AndrewYeah. So that, that is the, uh, Mark Zuckerberg collaboration with T-Pain. Uh, their group is unofficially or officially, I guess, Z-Pain. Um, they have one single, which is an acoustic version of Gitlo, which Mark recorded for his wife Priscilla because apparently it's the song they listened to every anniversary.02:28.74SeanYep, and then you played it for her, and...02:32.21AndrewIs there a video of him playing it for her?02:33.61SeanYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.02:34.49AndrewOh my God, I gotta go watch that. i I mean, he's found something that works. Being a wife guy is working for his brand right now and he is leaning all all the way in.02:47.07Andrewand02:47.21SeanHey, you know what they say about wife guys, though?02:50.47AndrewYeah.02:50.85Seanon the internet. okay I just hope he doesn't.02:53.35AndrewYep, it's gonna blow up at some point.02:57.23SeanI don't think he was on the ditty list, so we'll be okay.02:57.61AndrewBut...03:00.01Seanwe might or Or the FC list, so we might be okay.03:04.72AndrewFor what it's worth, I love T-Pain so much.03:08.46SeanYeah, he's great. He's great.03:09.83AndrewT-Pain's Tiny Desk Concert is one of my all-time favorites. It's so good.03:13.97Seani I just love that he is just doing side quests at the moment. Like, the guy's a genius.03:21.04AndrewZuck or T-Pain?03:22.12SeanNo, no, T-Pain. Zuck, I guess, is also doing a side quests at the moment, but like...03:23.46AndrewYeah.03:26.12SeanI'll just like I'll watch random youtubers and like sometimes T-Pain will just show up like like that are not related to things related to him you know I'm watching like a car guy youtuber boom T-Pain's winning a drift competition yeah I'm on twitch all of a sudden or I'm not on I'm browsing twitch and all of a sudden T-Pain's a streamer I don't know yeah03:28.43AndrewMm-hmm.03:36.42AndrewMm hmm. Holy shit, that's cool.03:47.23AndrewBy the way, on the Zuck side, I just listened to the acquired episode about Metta, and it made me realize that like. I feel like public perception of Metta is changing a little bit like I feel like Elon Musk buying Twitter.04:01.86SeanYeah.04:04.11Andrewhas kind of has taken a lot of the heat off of meta.04:06.90SeanYeah.04:07.45AndrewAnd so now everyone's like, Elon's elon's the evil one.04:09.12SeanHe's almost like, it could be so much worse.04:13.00AndrewAnd yeah, Elon's like, you guys think 2016 Facebook was bad?04:13.84SeanYeah.04:19.71AndrewBro, hold my drink.04:21.08SeanListen, when you gotta be the best at everything, you know?04:26.64AndrewIncluding being a massive fucking troll.04:28.86SeanYeah.04:30.46AndrewYeah, but it made me realize that like I don't hate meta as much as I used to. And I i don't know if that's like.04:35.61...

In this episode, Andrew and Sean talk about Halloween plans and Sean's decision to kill Stackwise. Meanwhile, Sean has launched two new free tools in the last week! The guys talk about how he did it and what his goals are for both of them. Then they spend the rest of the episode brainstorming marketing ideas for MetaMonster.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/CopyWork: https://copy.work/Wordpress to Webflow-ready CSV: https://contentgobl.in/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.35SeanCool. Happy Halloween.00:02.59AndrewHappy Halloween.00:04.93SeanAre you going to any parties?00:05.11Andrewo00:08.27SeanAre you doing anything?00:09.37AndrewYeah, we're so normally we go to Chicago for Halloween hang out.00:14.09SeanBecause it's extra scary there. Sorry, go ahead.00:16.45AndrewWhat?00:17.99SeanIt's just so scary in Chicago. and i don't know that's not why that's not why i was That's not why I was going with that.00:20.19AndrewWow, that's racist, John. Fuck you, dude.00:26.99SeanJeez, I'm kidding.00:29.92Andrewfucking New Yorkers hating on Chicago. Gross.00:33.16SeanThat's not racist. I'm just elitist. That's different.00:38.29SeanYeah.00:39.11Andrewnormally we go to Chicago because, uh, a bunch of Maddie's best friends from high school all live there and they throw a Halloween party every year. So normally early we go and we go out with them and we go to like one bar and then we go get, uh, like shitty Greek food and then we go home.00:46.34Seanyeah00:56.68SeanNice.00:57.84Andrewbut this year we decided to stay in Detroit, because we love Halloween and we love decorating for Halloween and. We've never gotten to be in Detroit for Halloween, we really want to pass out candy this year so tomorrow, which will probably be today by the time I get this published.01:16.54AndrewWe're gonna hang out, pass out candy, go drink some beers with our neighbors. And then Saturday, one of our best friends is throwing a haunted carnival party.01:27.46AndrewIt's her second year in a row throwing this like haunted carnival themed Halloween party.01:30.91SeanSick.01:32.68AndrewSo we're gonna go to the haunted carnival party and Maddie's dressing up as a ringmaster and I'm dressing up dressing up as a lion.01:39.02SeanNice.01:39.91AndrewShe's like a ringmaster lion tamer and then I'm a lion.01:42.17SeanYeah, hell yeah.01:43.56AndrewSo it's gonna be fun.01:44.70SeanSick.01:46.43AndrewYeah, what about you?01:48.22SeanI'm debating on whether or not there's this like Instagram, ah like ah ah actually been sorry. I don't even know what they are. There's just like some cool internet website thing called shell tech that they're like a band or or producer do, or I don't, I don't fucking know.02:02.36SeanThey just make music. It's apparently dropped the new album.02:03.90AndrewFun.02:05.31SeanThey have like an album party tomorrow and I think it's for, so maybe that, or maybe I'll be in my room jamming away.02:08.48Andrewpun02:16.05Seanon whether or not stackwise has a future because i am uh-huh yeah02:19.88Andrewwait Wait, wait, pause before we get too far into that. Can you just tell me a little bit about like what Halloween is like in New York? I'm so curious.02:32.57AndrewLike Yeah.02:33.00Seanwhat is how yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like uh well in queens it's super cute it's very residential you know so everyone like especially in a lot of kids in the neighborhood they walk around and they get candy and there's like really nice areas in queens that people will go to and there's like halloween decorations and stuff yeah exactly exactly the full skies can i think it's a trap i think that's like a like02:52.01AndrewGot to go get the full size candy bars. I went to Costco today and I was this close to buying the full size bars, but yeah, I'm not actually sure it's better.03:03.66AndrewI'm not sure giving out full size bars is better. Like my plan is to give out a big old handful of candy and, and then you get a mix of candy and you get to like spread it out a little.03:05.94SeanUh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.03:14.05AndrewWhereas if I give you a full size bar, you're going to eat it super fast.03:18.14SeanI was just gonna say, like, the expectation of being in a house that gives full-sized candy bars, that's dangerous.03:21.100AndrewOh yeah. Once you go, once you go full size, you can't go back.03:24.58SeanYeah. Exactly. You can't, you can't roll back the whatever.03:27.20AndrewYeah.03:30.16SeanYeah. But like, yeah.03:34.39AndrewIt was 20 bucks for 30 full size bars or 20 bucks for like a five pound bag of candy.03:40.29SeanYeah, see?03:40.72AndrewAnd so I was like.03:42.09SeanDid you see that meme of, uh, one of the fuh- uh, like, fuh in a Halloween bucket?03:47.49AndrewYes, that was so good.03:47.91SeanAnd it's like, one ...

In this episode, Sean discusses the challenges he is facing (and his new momentum) with his project Stackwise, including finding the right developer and getting the project scope defined. He talks about discovering a no-code tool called Subframe that has helped streamline his design process. Andrew shares his progress building the MetaMonster website with Astro and SpinalCMS, and gets feedback from Sean on the first round of MetaMonster wireframes. They also discuss pricing models and ideas for holding company names. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/New MetaMonster website built with Astro: https://metamonster.ai/MetaMonster prototype designs: Click hereChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...Podscan: https://podscan.fm/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.76SeanThe yeah motivation for the podcast is brought to you by Arvid Kahl, the creator of Podscan.00:09.01AndrewHi, Arvid.00:10.02SeanHi Arvid. Shout out to Arvid.00:13.06AndrewPodscan, Podscan, Podscan.00:14.76SeanYeah, the creator of Podscan, excellent tool, doesn't sponsor us, but but has been the reason why we've had three founders reach out to us on Twitter now.00:25.94SeanSo that's pretty cool. It's kind of just like a modern day summoning ritual at this point, Beatlejuice.00:33.81AndrewBy the way, what did you say is brought to you by podscan? Did you say like, did you say this podcast sounded like you said like the wrong name of our podcast?00:39.44SeanOh, the oh this episode no, the motivation, the motivation for ah ah for for this podcast, the the the motivation to do today's episode.00:47.14AndrewOh, okay.00:50.86SeanYeah, yeah.00:51.40AndrewGot it. Got it.00:52.63SeanYeah. Now that we are a full minute in.00:54.17AndrewCool, man.00:55.65Seanbut00:57.34AndrewHow are you? What's going on?00:58.79SeanI'm good. I'm good. Remember how I was super stressed last week about stack-wise and the lack of movement on it?01:08.93AndrewMm hmm.01:10.11SeanSo I I put some more budget towards it, a little bit more, and just or like a ah you know mentally committed more budget to it.01:17.41AndrewCool.01:21.40SeanAnd checked out Lemon.io. a little bit more expensive than I think. We'll see. I don't know. I checked Alumni.01:29.78AndrewYeah, fair.01:30.22SeanI also went on Upwork to look for devs. Had some like interesting proposals come in. Then I was talking to a dev and He looked really promising. He was like 75 bucks an hour, is like about lemon I.O. prices. So and you know, he he like like takes supplements and and whatnot. So he has some realm of understanding. And then he hit me with a he'd so he reviewed the he reviewed the current code and everything. And then he hit me with a yeah, if you want me to like fully scope it, I'm going to need you to like actually give me user stories and like better Figma wireframes.02:10.35AndrewLike actually project manage and like build a scope and everything like via products manager.02:11.90SeanYeah, yeah, like actually do it. I know, I know. And then I was like, wow, that's really annoying. I guess that's kind of fair, I guess. um It's hard to so like really feel like I've put my foot best foot forward on this project without having done that. So I did it. I wrote a PRD. I wrote a bunch of user stories. I mean, I had one in the past that was like a loose bullet pointed list, but this was like a little bit more official.02:35.52AndrewYeah.02:37.13Seanand then I, and then I sort of wireframe, like rewire framing some stuff in Figma. and, uh, you know, that, that, that for a little bit was pushing back my timeline.02:48.31Seani have a day job which takes more time out of my which takes more than just my regular day so it's like ah like I got maybe like two screens into the fig into the Figma part and I was like damn I really don't want to go like do this all over again because like I have shitty wireframes right I don't um um uh and oh oh and and in the meantime like as as these guys were like reviewing it i i kind of felt a little bit uh like uh like like i don't know at a just like an informational disadvantage a little bit so03:24.97SeanI've also just watched a shit ton of Laravel tutorials and Laravel things. now now I kind of like mostly understand Laravel and PHP, not to a degree that I can write it, but to a degree that I can read it and know what's going on and and like and make edits and stuff.03:39.55AndrewMm hmm.03:42.17SeanSo, you know, I was able to kind of review the proposals a little bit better. That's been my last week until yesterday. And then I remembered that there is this thing I saw, which was a no code frontend React, like build at with tailwind components, or build with like like React components export as React code and tailwind. And it's called subframe, YC startup, super, super small. I don't know how small they are, but very small following.04:12.66SeanExcellent product. God, it's so good.04:15.69AndrewCool.04:15.54SeanAnd not only is it good, it feels like a mix between Figma and Webflow, except I'm kind of working with like components. And i if I want more components, I have to make more make them on my own.04:25.92SeanBut there's a long list of just basically subframe versions of Tailwind components. And it makes me way happier to be designing in this than designing in Figma, mainly because I hate the idea that if I'm going to desi...

In this episode Andrew tries to pick a CMS for the new MetaMonster website and talks about his dream solution. Then the guys talk about their ideal consulting businesses. Meanwhile Sean is feeling frustrated by how slow his projects are moving, and wishes he could focus on them fulltime for a bit. They also touch on the difficulties of balancing attention to design details versus just getting a product out the door quickly. Finally, Sean shares 3 businesses he loves. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:00.01SeanUh, yeah, I mean, I was going to talk about, well, I should have your record.00:00:05.81AndrewDo you want to start over?00:00:07.50SeanNo, it just let's just roll with it. Hi, everyone.00:00:10.80AndrewHi, how's it going? Behind the scenes look at Andrew and Sean being a bit of a clusterfuck trying to figure out what the hell the pod about 30 seconds before the pod or five seconds after the pod.00:00:12.65SeanGood.00:00:20.21SeanWe're very organized or we're incredibly organized. think, I think it's a good segue into, into like, we can talk about like other service business and I have a segue into it because I was kind of curious about just how your consulting is sort of going now that.00:00:34.65AndrewOkay.00:00:35.35SeanYeah. but more importantly, some crazy, crazy, crazy tech Twitter stuff going on these days, huh?00:00:42.87AndrewOh, so when i when I said I wanted to talk about CMSs, yeah the WordPress drama, I feel like we covered a little bit last time.00:00:42.94SeanSince the last.00:00:49.11SeanYeah.00:00:49.88AndrewThere's more updates. it's It keeps getting wackier.00:00:53.21SeanMm hmm.00:00:53.72AndrewThe WordPress founder took over a plugin, which is batshit crazy.00:00:59.63SeanYeah, I was just going to go from crazy batshit WordPress things into maybe Ghost and then CMS's house imagining.00:01:08.50AndrewUh, sorry, I totally fucked your, your segue there.00:01:09.97SeanNo.00:01:13.12Andrewyeah, anyway, I need to build a website and I'm trying to pick a CMS and I want you to, to I want you to tell me which CMS to use and I'm gonna, I'm gonna like ignore you and tell you why you're wrong on every CMS.00:01:22.11Seansquarepace Okay.00:01:26.46AndrewLike, because they all suck.00:01:26.71SeanOkay. Hit me. Hit me. They do all suck, but hit me.00:01:31.00AndrewOkay. So I think I have it narrowed down. I wanted to use, so I'm trying to build a proper marketing site for MetaMonster so that I can get a little bit of SEO stuff rolling and then publish some content and just like have a place to do marketing.00:01:51.26Andrewum want to build some free tools, want to do some other things to just start building building the list, our waiting list.00:01:54.30SeanYeah.00:01:59.89AndrewSo need to pick a CMS. would typically just build on Webflow. Like Webflow is so fast. It's what I built chart juice on. It's clunky, it's expensive, it has its problems. The CMS sucks if you're doing a lot of content, but for like early stage SaaS website, I don't know many things better. So would typically just do Webflow. But I know one of the marketing channels I wanna try is building00:02:32.68Andrewsome free tools to try to drive, get like SEO juice from, from free tools and like some traffic. it just aligns perfectly with MetaMonster, you know, having a free like, enter a link or copy and paste your content in and we'll generate a page title for you. We'll generate a meta description for you. Like it just makes too much sense. Um, and sorry, one second. Let me let my cat in.00:02:57.67Seangot00:02:58.58AndrewCome on in you dork.00:03:01.38AndrewOkay. So yeah, I want to build free tools and like.00:03:03.43SeanYou want to build free tools. It's great. It isn't a monster.00:03:08.40AndrewThe process of doing that in Webflow is just clunky. I could yeah know i could build them, host them on some free thing like Netlify, and then just like run them on a subdomain.00:03:19.66AndrewBut you know if the whole point is SEO, then running it on a subdomain is a little counterproductive. you know It's not the worst thing in the world, I guess, but you're just like, do they now?00:03:28.86Seandoes it you I thought subdomains count as the main domains. like Yeah, I thought that was the whole thing.00:03:38.16AndrewI feel, oh, okay, I need to look into that. Cause that would massively simplify my my problems.00:03:44.34Seanright00:03:46.07AndrewI always thought like best practice was to do everything on your primary domain and that like subdomains got treated differently.00:03:52.10SeanI thought that00:03:56.09AndrewYou're looking it up.00:03:57.51SeanYeah, I'm looking it up. I feel like it was something.00:04:01.40AndrewThere was a Google update, like in this, one of these new big updates, they they started00:04:02.81SeanYeah.00:04:06.13SeanYeah.00:04:07.62AndrewMashing it all together.00:04:08.89SeanYeah. I mean, Ahrefs literally pulls shop.mistreins.com and mistreins.com into one thing now for me.00:04:16.03AndrewInteresting.00:04:16.97SeanSo. I don't know. Yea...

Sean just got back from two weeks in Korea and Japan. His trip got derailed when he had to jump in to put out fires and finish some Webflow dev work for a client. He and Andrew talk about the challenges of removing yourself from the day-to-day as an agency owner and how to balance work and time off.  Andrew gives an update on the client work he's doing with Miscreants, his decision to put ChartJuice on the backburner, and the traction he's seeing with a new product (MetaMonster) he's working on with a partner. MetaMonster helps SEO agencies automate metadata cleanup using AI. He already has 3 agencies/consultants signed on to be design partners and is working on getting more.  Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:01.77SeanWhat's up? I wanna go see.00:00:03.30AndrewMiss you.00:00:04.17SeanI wanna see you too. I wanna see you too.00:00:05.85AndrewHow are you?00:00:06.85SeanGood. I feel like I saw you in person and then all of a sudden I was in Korea and Japan and then I...00:00:13.69AndrewYeah, shit. That was like not, not far apart, was it?00:00:14.59SeanSo... It wasn't... My last memory of the US was being at your place and drinking cocktails. So, yeah.00:00:26.00AndrewThat's a good night.00:00:26.91SeanIt was a good night. It was a good night. We played basketball.00:00:30.25Andrewbut that was Oh my God.00:00:32.10SeanPlay is a strong word. We attempted basketball.00:00:35.25AndrewWe threw basketballs around in the dark and like one or two of them went into a basket.00:00:40.26SeanYeah.00:00:40.26AndrewOh my God. You made me feel a lot better though. Cause I was like, I was like, Sean's going to smoke me. Like he's going to be so embarrassed at how bad at basketball I am and you are just as bad as I am.00:00:51.77AndrewSo I was like, okay, cool.00:00:56.81SeanYeah. I think about like how like my first million has that basketball camp. Just like there's no way all these people are that good at basketball.00:01:08.14AndrewI love the image of like Sean Burry is just like, you know, making people like, uh, like bring over a step stool or something so he can dunk. He's like, but then he he goes on my first million and talks about it and he's like, yeah, it was awesome.00:01:17.33SeanYeah.00:01:23.65SeanYeah, I hit every sh- I hit- I banked every shot.00:01:26.87AndrewNo, I think like there are a lot of people in tech who are actually athletic because they played sports at some point in their life.00:01:35.34SeanYeah, probably.00:01:35.70AndrewAnd then, and then there's the rest of us who got into tech because we were nerds and liked computers.00:01:42.01SeanYeah. Oh. Plus, I mean, you rock climb. Like, you're pretty athletic.00:01:47.12AndrewI haven't been rock climbing in like two months.00:01:47.27SeanYou- you just suck the best at work.00:01:51.37SeanOh.00:01:51.95AndrewI am actually going rock climbing outside in with some friends in two weeks, and I'm like, I should probably go climb a wall in the gym before I go, because I haven't climbed in like two or three months, so.00:01:51.93SeanOkay.00:01:55.81SeanOh, cool.00:02:00.09SeanYeah.00:02:02.82Seanand Get those forearm muscles pumping again.00:02:05.99AndrewI gotta get my skin. My skin's gonna.00:02:07.90SeanRight.00:02:09.20Andrewlike be shredded if I if I don't climb at all and then go try to climb outside so I feel like it takes me like two or three climbs before my skin starts to thicken up again00:02:19.51Seanyou know what you can do there's this guy on tiktok he pours i don't know what it is but something really sticky on his hands so he like is like a martial artist or something and it's like it's like epoxy or something and he basically just rubs it on his hand and or like sand papers down his hand basically and until it gets super super rough he just does it every single day on tiktok it's gross.00:02:40.15SeanIt's terrible. And you can like, oh, oh, it's, uh, it's like floor wax.00:02:43.18AndrewAnd so then it like grows back thicker or something?00:02:45.40SeanYeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like floor wax basically.00:02:47.63AndrewWait, wait, wait. We were talking about the wrong thing. How was your fucking trip?00:02:48.09Seanhe just like, and he also puts his hand next to the microphone and it's like the worst version of ASMR you've ever heard in your life. It's like worst at misophonia. Um.00:02:57.48Andrewwait wait wait we're talking about the wrong thing how was your fucking trip00:03:03.02SeanWell, much like listening to really shit awful man hands. It was. It was good to attempt a vacation.00:03:17.29AndrewOh, no.00:03:18.12SeanIt was not it is it is not what I would call a vacation.00:03:18.68AndrewOh, no, Sean.00:03:23.61SeanIt sucked. It sucked to be honest with you. It was like it.00:03:26.96AndrewBrutal.00:03:26.33SeanYeah, yeah, yeah. So this is.00:03:28.08AndrewOkay....

In this episode, Andrew and Sean got hit up by someone clearly using Podscan... again! They talk about it, then Andrew shares details about his recent trip to Mexico City, including highlights like a hot air balloon ride over the pyramids and an exciting Lucha Libre wrestling match.Sean provides an update on Stackwise, discussing the data sources they've uncovered and the challenges of building a comprehensive database. Meanwhile, Andrew delves into the validation process for his latest SEO-focused startup idea, weighing the pros and cons of targeting different user segments.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...Podscan.fm: https://podscan.fm/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:01.71SeanYou know what we should rename our podcast tagline to?00:05.21Andrewsandwich free.00:06.47SeanNo, not same.00:09.97AndrewWhat is that?00:10.48SeanNo, the best case study that Podscan works.00:15.95SeanWe should be front page on Podscan FM.00:18.73AndrewGenuinely, we should we should reach out to it's not Arjun. What's his name, Arran?00:24.60SeanI have no idea. I don't know who makes Podscan. I just know about it.00:27.08AndrewOh, he's he's the dude who's the. ah ah Oh, fuck, I signed out of Twitter everywhere. so that I wouldn't get distracted.00:36.50SeanNice. I'll look it up.00:37.86AndrewArlen, something like that, he built he built like class dojo or he he built some like teaching software with his wife, sold it.00:48.13SeanArvid. Arvid.00:48.97AndrewArvid, Arvid call, that's his name.00:49.57SeanArvid.00:51.16AndrewYeah, yeah, yeah. Also, if avid has a and Arvid hot scan trigger, we'll find out.00:56.81SeanYeah, we'll find out. Arvid.00:59.14AndrewSo, hey Arvid.00:59.99SeanArvid call. Arvid call. Arvid call. Feedback panda. Arvid call.01:03.88Andrewfeed neck to end there, that's what it was.01:06.67SeanZero to sold, or we'd call. Alright, maybe we'll summon him for the next one.01:12.62AndrewYeah, that was wild. So, I get...01:18.40AndrewI forget which podcast episodes we've published because I'm behind. So I like didn't even realize I'd published that episode.01:24.75SeanYeah.01:24.82AndrewBut we published a podcast episode where we were kind of like, I was hating on intro. You're pro intro. I was hating on intro.01:32.17SeanUh-huh.01:33.57AndrewAnd then the CEO of intro tweeted at us this week and was like, here's why you're wrong and why intro is great.01:39.63Seannot Really, it's not really a tweet. It was kind of an essay, actually. It was kind of like, yeah, yeah.01:42.93AndrewYeah.01:44.32SeanBut that's the second time someone famous on the internet has hit us up on Twitter because of that.01:49.41AndrewI wish they would fucking promote our podcast when they treat at us.01:56.45SeanI don't know.01:56.90AndrewInstead of doing it so subtly.01:57.13SeanI feel like this is a secret and feel like there's a little secret growth hack in there, you know?02:01.18AndrewYeah, but the girth hack only works if they like tell people about you.02:06.72SeanNo, no, no, no, no. I think that you can leverage it for, for more reach.02:08.29AndrewTo become biffles.02:12.19SeanCause if I, cause if I reply to his thing, I'm, you know, I feel like there's enough Twitter engagement there in in the, you know, get the algo going and, and, and you know, what is beef marketing?02:22.26AndrewIs this like even grosser beef marketing?02:27.16AndrewBeef marketing is when you start beef with somebody just for like the views and the clicks.02:30.09SeanOh, I see.02:35.19AndrewSo obnoxious.02:36.88SeanI say yeah.02:37.09Andrewyeah who's You know who's the king of beef marketing?02:41.16SeanNo. Who's the king of beef marketing?02:42.94AndrewDHH. DHH is the02:44.69SeanOh.02:45.98AndrewThe king, the founder, the creator, the the god of beef marketing.02:51.86SeanRight, right, right.02:52.08AndrewThat man can start beef with anybody.02:54.78Seanright say well What's his full name? Just in case pods can.02:56.89AndrewDavid Heinemeyer Hanson.02:58.48SeanOK, cool, cool, cool. Basecamp, basecamp, basecamp. Maybe he uses Podscan too. Yeah. Yeah. Jason.03:08.45SeanYeah. I don't know. I think he has good ideas sometimes.03:14.37AndrewWhat did you actually think of the intro guy's response to us? I can no longer pull up because I logged myself out of Twitter and don't want to log back in.03:23.34Seanyou know i think i appreciated the thoughtful response um um on it that's kind of03:29.13AndrewYou want to summarize real quick?03:29.28Seanweirded I was weirded out yeah I was weird for what's worth a a little bit weird out kind of kind of weird ...

Note: This episode was supposed to come out a couple of weeks ago. But Andrew forgot to attach the audio file when he went to publish, so it's just been sitting in our podcast hosting software. Sorry about that.  In this episode, Andrew and Sean dig into Paul Graham's founder mode essay that has gone viral in the past couple of weeks. Spoiler alert: Andrew is not a fan. Sean talks about the challenges of evolving client demands with Miscreants, while Andrew recounts his experiences in Mexico City and his decision to pivot ChartJuice towards a freemium model. Then they talk through some of Andrew's new AI-related business ideas, including automating marketing graphics and financial modeling for agencies, and his new co-founder and year-end goals.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.63SeanCan I start this podcast off by reading you a quote?00:06.34AndrewSure, I'm so curious.00:10.28Seanum Have you seen the Ted Chiang essay about Gen AI?00:15.59AndrewNo.00:16.55Seanokay um It was on The New Yorker. he okay so00:20.85AndrewFor a second, when you said JIN AI, I thought J-E-N, and I thought this was like some new AI company I hadn't heard of that named their AI JIN, as in short for Jennifer, and then I realized I'm an idiot, and you're talking about generative AI.00:34.68Andrewso00:35.09SeanWell, there's there's a startup called, I think, Jim, it's like a 25 year old like Korean person who Korean guy um and he like did like the rounds on YouTube for a little bit about how he like went from like broke to 100 million in net worth overnight because.00:35.41Andrewah00:41.20AndrewOh, that's cool.00:51.05AndrewJesus Christ. What?00:52.11Seanum I mean, it was like the dawn of like LLM stuff and jennna I had just started so.00:57.32AndrewYeah.00:57.44Seanadam00:57.71AndrewOkay. All right. Hit me with the quote.00:59.67SeanOkay, so let me just preface this. Ted Chiang, excellent sci-fi writer, um um ah wrote a really great book called Exhalation, one of my favorites.01:10.54Seanum01:10.83AndrewOh, I've been wanting to read that.01:12.94SeanYeah, excellent, excellent book.01:15.57AndrewCool.01:16.59SeanWould recommend, there's like a two page story in there that I really, really like. But, um You know, this this would have been great if i if I had it pull up, and I didn't.01:28.60AndrewHad it pulled up if you were prepared.01:31.18SeanYeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not how we do things. we you You know what? I can't find in this article. So I'm going to pull it up on a Slack thing.01:42.69SeanOK. um It's just the task that generative a generative AI has been most successful at is lowering our expectations. um And I was like, damn.01:54.53AndrewOh, interesting.01:55.78Seanhot take yeah uh01:57.03AndrewHow do, okay. So how do you interpret that?02:00.61Seanwell um i sent it as like a kind of honestly like uh02:05.49AndrewDo you agree?02:10.72SeanYeah, yeah, I do. um I don't agree with his essay. I think his essay about how his essay is about how Gen AI won't ever make art, and I think that's arguably true, um but I think that he misses the fact that Gen AI would be an art form, and people will use it the way that they make art with Photoshop and then collage things together.02:25.42AndrewSure, but at that point, it's not Gen AI making the art, I don't think. I think it's human artists making art using Gen AI as a medium or a tool.02:29.77Seanyou02:35.06SeanAgreed, agreed.02:35.66Andrewah like I think what he's saying is like the thing that Gen AI, at least in its current form, can't think.02:36.21Seanhence in02:43.90Andrewright it doesn't It doesn't produce creative thought.02:44.72SeanRight.02:46.78Andrewit's not It's not actually that intelligent, even though it's really good at looking intelligent.02:47.70SeanRight.02:53.73SeanRight.02:53.80Andrewum it just it repeats it guesses it and you know there's still this possibility that if we like scale it up enough we find out that that's all we do anyway and original thought is all just like guessing and repeating and suddenly it's doing what we can do but like we think that most likely we will need a new technological revolution like and a different form of AI technology paired with02:58.14SeanYeah. yeah03:13.96SeanSure.03:25.17Andrewpaired with or that replaces our current. Anyway, sorry, you know all this shit I'm preaching to the choir.03:28.49Seanknow um Well, to go back to the quote, I absolutely think it's true.03:33.93AndrewYeah.03:34.93SeanI actually think Gen. AI makes incredibly mid stuff. um Yeah.03:39.30AndrewYeah, for the most part. Yeah.03:41.52SeanBut I think we are always astounded by it because of the speed at which it can make incredibly mid stuff is impressive.03:41.64Andrewum03:48.77AndrewYeah.03:50.11SeanAnd that's I think that's lowering expectat...

In this episode, Andrew talks about his upcoming trip to Mexico City, which started as a potential plan to live there but has evolved into a working vacation. Sean talks about recent challenges in his agency, including team members getting sick after conferences and some project misfires with smaller clients. Andrew then gives an update on the lukewarm progress he's seeing with ChartJuice (complete with raw metrics) and again ponders a freemium pivot. He's grappling with the question - how do you know when to give up on a SaaS product? They wrap up by debating whether shelling out big bucks for 15 minutes with a big shot is worth it or just a fancy way to burn cash.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:01.34Seanbut what up what up00:00:02.64AndrewNot much, just ah trying to get a full week of work done for the first time in what feels like weeks um in part because I am headed to Mexico City next week.00:00:09.84Seanyeah well00:00:14.45Andrewum And I'll be working from there, but the first week I'm only going to have like two days because um Maddie gets in like midday Thursday.00:00:14.79Seanyeah00:00:24.72AndrewI'm traveling Monday. um We've got plans Friday um and Thursday afternoon. So it's like, yeah, I'm i'm not getting shit done.00:00:35.69Seanare you Are you going, like, is there a reason you're going or are you just going to hang out because you like.00:00:35.75AndrewSo.00:00:41.99Andrewum It started with like Maddie and I had kind of talked about like this pipe dream of maybe living in Mexico City one day.00:00:49.90SeanOh.00:00:50.25Andrewum Part of me really wants to live in a Spanish speaking country at some point um so that I can become properly fluent because I've been taking Spanish lessons um almost every week for the last like year and some change.00:01:04.58SeanOK.00:01:05.07Andrewum and so And I've just always wanted to be fluent in Spanish. So this was kind of supposed to be a test run. It was a goal I set for myself this year. I was like, all right, I'm taking this year off. I'm focusing on startup shit. But I also want to make sure I still get in at least one long backpacking trip, which I did with my dad. And then I want to go to Mexico City for a couple weeks.00:01:25.52SeanOh yeah.00:01:25.58Andrewum So, um yeah, the plan is to kind of work from there and try to like, try to spend some time.00:01:37.70AndrewWe're going to, again, take some days, have some fun, explore, but then also have some days where it's like go to a working space ah and just like live a normal life.00:01:41.52SeanYeah. Yeah.00:01:48.19Andrewum I think that like the odds of moving to Mexico City are not very high anymore, like it just doesn't feel like it's probably going to fit into like our life plan.00:02:00.44SeanMm00:02:00.83Andrewum But I think that I um would still strongly consider going for a longer stint at some point.00:02:03.94Sean-hmm.00:02:10.30AndrewSo like the school I take lessons from is based in Puebla, which is, like I think, like two hours from Mexico City. So if I like it a lot and you this continues to be a goal, then I might, at some point, go spend a couple months at the school to try to become fluent.00:02:30.28SeanNice, nice. Have I ever told you that I have a pipe dreamer living in Vegas?00:02:37.53AndrewYeah, yeah, we've talked about it.00:02:38.27Seangood Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Because I want to be fluid in losing all my money at the casino.00:02:42.93Andrewyeah00:02:45.71SeanThat's cool.00:02:45.76AndrewYou just want DEFCON year round, huh?00:02:48.13SeanYeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. um00:02:51.19AndrewDEFCON's a lot of fun. That sounds awful. DEFCON year round sounds like the worst thing in the world.00:02:55.66SeanYou know, there's a new there's a new conference now that's like going to be the new new big thing, um supposedly.00:02:59.98AndrewReally?00:03:00.66SeanYeah, it goes. It's the Monday right after DEFCON and Black Hat. It's called A.I. 4. It's like the new hotness because it's all like A.I. stuff. It's a corporate event. um00:03:10.75AndrewHotness outside of cybersecurity.00:03:12.58SeanNo, like in in cybersecurity as well.00:03:15.31AndrewBut but like it has broader reach than cybersecurity?00:03:17.72SeanI think so. I think so.00:03:19.29AndrewOK.00:03:19.74SeanI think so. I haven't looked so much into it. I just know that, like, yeah. I just know that. Well, my guess is it's going to be like the black hat, but for AI, basically. um00:03:28.63AndrewWhat was the old hotness?00:03:30.68SeanBlack hat.00:03:32.12AndrewBut like outside of cybersecurity, what was the old hotness?00:03:32.46SeanBlack hat artist thing. Oh, I have no idea. I don't know.00:03:35.77AndrewYeah.00:03:36.17Seanah yeah um Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:03:37.85AndrewNot your job.00:03:41.49SeanNot my area of expertise. um That's cool. I didn't know you were taking Spanish lessons lesss that regularly. I had no idea.00:03:50.11AndrewYeah, although I actually haven't taken a lesson in like the past three weeks be...

In this episode, Sean gives a recap on shirt sales, his annual Korean BBQ dinner, and more from DEF CON. Andrew shares some feedback he got from the client project he's been working on, and dives into the early results he's seeing from running Google Ads for ChartJuice. Andrew reveals his latest mile times from his half marathon training, and the guys talk about how much impact you could make in congressional elections with some basic digital marketing chops. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:00.75SeanWhat up, what up? Long time no see.00:00:02.71AndrewYeah, how's it going? Can't wait to hear all about Defcon.00:00:07.02SeanGood. I can't wait to tell you all about DEFCON. A little sniffly. Definitely have conflu.00:00:14.04AndrewConcrud.00:00:14.49SeanYeah, a couple friends. A couple friends I've also got in COVID. There's, I think, all that stuff.00:00:19.25AndrewOuch.00:00:20.33Seanum I'll test again later. So far, so good. But ah yeah, we'll see. um Yeah, yeah, it's been, it's been hectic.00:00:31.74SeanGot back yesterday at 5am because my plane got delayed, and that was brutal. But it's the first time I've ever used my priority pass for a lounge. So that was kind of cool. um But before we get into Defcon, what have you been up to?00:00:43.45Andrewpun What?00:00:45.64SeanWhat's been, what's been going on?00:00:47.21Andrewwhat No, no, no, no, no. We got to start with Defcon.00:00:48.83SeanOkay.00:00:49.58Andrewand Defcon is is the big news here.00:00:50.65SeanAll right, fine.00:00:51.69AndrewI've got i've got some some little tattoo stuff to talk about, but ah yeah no you I want to start with Defcon.00:00:54.82SeanOkay.00:00:58.31Andrewand00:00:58.87SeanAll right, okay, fine, fine, fine, fine. Defend was good, Black Hat was good, Black, I'll start with the Black Hat. I went to the, shout out to Lucas Nelson, and he handed me to the Investors and Innovators Summit. um So first I'm going to like a summit at Black Hat.00:01:14.64Seanum00:01:14.94AndrewHuh.00:01:15.56Seanah ah like I got to go that to that basically like for free which is cool and so I just decided not to pay for an expo pass this year terrible idea by the way like I really want to pay for an expo pass it's 800 bucks and like I don't really like it's not like I go for sales so I kind of just go to meet our clients but probably should have paid a hundred bucks to just go like like go to a booth00:01:25.56AndrewOh no.00:01:37.19AndrewWhy? Why do you say that?00:01:39.28SeanUm, I think I felt, okay, one, I think I felt a little bit of FOMO not seeing stuff at Black Hat and the expo floor. Um, I mean, in part didn't have like that much time to walk the floor.00:01:53.41SeanDefinitely met people outside of the expo floor. So it was fine overall. I think it was just felt very weird not to like go do the whole expo thing that I always done every year. Um,00:02:05.12AndrewYou all have never set up like a booth at Black Hat, have you?00:02:08.15SeanNo, not for us, only for our clients.00:02:08.79AndrewYeah.00:02:10.64Seanum But I think it's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we would never we would never like be black hat booth wise, that would be, actually, that would be very, very interesting.00:02:10.67AndrewYeah. That shit is expensive, right?00:02:18.97AndrewYeah.00:02:21.00SeanI don't think black hat would ever let us do that, now that I think of that.00:02:22.17AndrewOh really?00:02:24.51SeanI mean, we're not a security vendor, so it'd be very weird to do it.00:02:26.65AndrewHmm.00:02:29.87SeanI don't know, it'd be weird. i like That's not that's not like a terrible idea. actually it'd be very interesting i wonder if there's something we could do there but anyway we like uh uh i didn't get to wander it which means i didn't get to like i think i think one of the things i missed out on and what's kind of sad about it is i didn't get to get them i didn't get to go pick up merchandise that we made for our clients that they printed and that was probably the biggest thing i was bummed out about00:02:51.17AndrewHmm.00:02:56.29SeanUh, but the innovator summit was super cool.00:02:56.53AndrewThat's a bummer.00:02:59.57SeanUh, shout out to Mike Privet and Ross. Uh, you know, they were, they were both on a panel together. That was super good.00:03:04.65AndrewCool.00:03:06.02SeanUm, um, and that was fun. Def Con was Oh, so very fun. A lot of good pictures. We ah including me brought six people out this year.00:03:15.41AndrewTick.00:03:19.17Seanum More like extended team members rather than like team core team members. It's been kind of like extended team members slash friends basically coming to help.00:03:30.92SeanIt's just a lot cheaper than flying out our design staff um from from a like00:03:37.44AndrewOh, because so that design staff can keep like doing design work for clients.00:03:41.34Seandoing yeah yeah um yeah exactly um which is like i don't know it's something i like it's something it's been always the biggest issue of this like agency plus merchandise model right they're two separate businesses so flying out on...

Sean is exhausted because he has so many inbound emails from prospective clients he doesn't have time to answer them all. Meanwhile, Andrew is trying to buckle down and get Stripe built into ChartJuice so he can start advertising and collecting payments. Sean and Andrew talk about how the consulting project is going, and Sean has to rain Andrew in as he contemplates repositioning ChartJuice again. As a bonus, find out how fast Andrew can run a mile and why he needs to run faster. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...FigTree: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.90AndrewWhat's up, friend?00:00.81SeanNot so much. How are you?00:04.17AndrewGood, we haven't talked other than Slack in like two weeks.00:07.87SeanYeah. You've been traveling.00:11.38AndrewYeah.00:11.84SeanHow have your trips been multiple?00:14.99Andrewum Montana is fucking beautiful. Oh my god. um Glacier in particular is stunning. Was there for a friend's wedding. um And then I think right before that, my sister was in town visiting. Have we talked since then? I can't remember.00:34.15Seanwe talked i think i think the last time we talked was the day you i think you went to pick up your sister from the airport or yeah something like that yeah yes00:42.08AndrewOkay. Cool. Cool. Yeah. So, okay. Great. Time makes no sense, but that was the week before. And then there was a week. I think. I don't know. Anyway, my sister came to visit. That was a blast. It was great to see her. Got to meet her new boyfriend. So that was fun. And then went to Glacier for one of my best friend's weddings. His name is Alex. His now wife's name is also Alex. So that was very entertaining.01:15.17Andrewum We love her. We've known her for a long time. It's kind of the novelty is kind of worn off, to be honest, but but she is taking his name.01:21.51SeanGot it.01:24.95AndrewSo they are going to be Alex Drake and Alex Drake, which is like absurd. Um, but we did a lot of hiking, did some white water rafting. Um, I saw, uh, mountain goats and big horn sheep. Um, and yeah, Glacier is just absolutely stunning. I, it reminded me that like, there's so much of this country that I have not seen that I want to see. Um, so I think next year I might. Maddie and I might make it a point to do like some sort of national park road trip or something, but we'll see.02:04.04Seannice um i've always dreamed of just going and like driving to go cross-country trip in either like an rv or just with multiple motels and just driving around and staying like a like 52 weeks in 50 52 weeks in 52 states something like that and then you're right sorry it's been a long it's been a long since you've been gone it's been a war zone here02:18.26AndrewThere are 50 states, but02:31.01AndrewOh no, what's happening? Why are you so tired?02:36.01Seanum i count california as two states just for the record and porta rico just just before but i'm not yeah i am not smarter than a fifth grader for what it's worth so um anyway uh i don't know just like you02:43.80AndrewPuerto Rico should be a state, but yeah.02:55.44Seanand You know that thing where they're like, you'll know when you have product market fixed or bang on your door. It's like, have feeling like you have service market fit and people are banging on my door and we say yes to things. and We say no to some things, but like whenever, you know, just, we have a lot of clients and I don't have, we have.03:12.22AndrewI understand.03:17.00SeanBarely amount the amount of people to get all of it done with all the things that are going on.03:20.77AndrewYeah.03:23.63Seanum um03:26.14AndrewSo you're in, you're fully in one of the agency peaks where there's just like too much work and you're happy that there's too much work.03:34.68SeanYeah.03:36.60AndrewSo you're finally not stressed about like paying the bills and making ends meet, but instead that's replaced with doing the work and making sure the work is done to a high standard because, you know, when there's lots of work to go around, it's easy for things to slip through the cracks and yeah.03:42.32SeanRight.03:49.41SeanYeah. Yeah.03:52.74SeanYeah. But there's more money in our bank account than ever.03:54.51AndrewYeah.03:56.04SeanSo, you know, that's, that's really cool.03:59.49AndrewYeah, it really is.03:59.93SeanUm, yeah.04:00.84AndrewThis is the thing about agencies is it does feel like you're always trading one type of stress for another. It's either you're like, fuck, I need to find clients. Or it's like, fuck, I need to get this work done for clients. um04:13.50SeanYeah. I do really think like,04:18.39SeanLike I think I think creative agencies also like creative service providers are also an extra level of like because it's objectives right it's not like I have a friend who runs an MSP or an it's MSP sort of shop, but it's very like those that sort of work is very like oh you get the green checkmark because because the scanner no longer detects an issue so you're good, it's good to go.04:41.89AndrewYeah, the flip side is like people don't usually call us in the middle of the night because they're like design got hacked into.04:41.82Seanyou can like04:48.71SeanYou're right. You're right. You're right.04:50.45AndrewSo that's, that's like, Oh yeah, that's.04:50.52SeanWe do manage websites. We do. Weflo did go down the other day, and that was my nice slide blew the fuck up.04:54.91Andrewhu

Season 2: Episode 5In this episode Sean talks about being buried in client work at Miscreants and how to design trendy clothing that gets people hyped. Meanwhile, Andrew talks about making slow progress on ChartJuice and trying to fight the temptation to become an SEO content goblin. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...Cider: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:02.21SeanSo where are you up to? You're late.00:04.34AndrewUh, I was, I'm so behind on writing my newsletter for this month. Um,00:11.16SeanBecause you're not using AI to help you anymore.00:14.65AndrewDick.00:15.61SeanSorry, sorry.00:16.52AndrewUm, yeah, I just like, honestly I've been busy with, uh, with consulting work for somebody. I think that's, that's what I'm going to blame it on.00:26.47Seani it is his fault i would blame it on him as well he's made a lot of poor decisions recently we player00:34.31AndrewYeah, I've been busy with consulting work and then we were like, um we were up north for ah the fourth for a week. um And so there was like a day where I thought about trying to write it there. We had kind of a rainy day and I was like, I'm just going to fuck around on my phone and read a book instead.00:49.38SeanI, it is his fault.00:53.84Andrewum Which was a choice I don't really regret, but now I'm like,00:55.16SeanI would blame it on him as well. He's made a lot of poor decisions recently.00:59.72Andrewuh like two weeks behind getting a newsletter out so trying to trying to get a piece written about how I validated church use and like just how I got to the point where I was willing to make the investment in the initial MVP because when I say validated I don't know if the product is going to work yet we're a ways off from that but01:07.48SeanCool.01:24.03Andrewvalidated it enough to have confidence building an MVP.01:27.50SeanCool.01:27.60AndrewSo writing an essay about that and then ah need to put together like the newsletter portion with some links and stuff. But yeah, completely lost track of time. I did the thing I do where I like procrastinated for 30 minutes and then started writing again 30 minutes before our podcast and then looked up and it was like four twelve and we were supposed to start at four o'clock. So01:50.67SeanI do find that like that level of like crunch time is what really snaps me into flow real quick.01:55.08AndrewOh, absolutely.01:56.39SeanYeah. Yeah. I'm glad. I'm glad we could do that for you.02:01.80AndrewHonestly, like, that's part of why we wanted to start the podcast again, right?02:05.41SeanFor sure.02:05.71AndrewOr at least for me, I i needed, like, I need some social forcing functions to make me do shit.02:07.01SeanYeah.02:13.01SeanYeah. Yeah.02:14.19AndrewIf I have to give you an update every week, then I have to have an update every week.02:14.27Seanhundred02:20.36SeanYeah. I mean, like you tweeted out something about us writing and I was like, fuck. And I started writing. I haven't done it last week, but ah since like, since you tweeted about it, but it at least like made me attempt to put words to the paper for a couple of days. So that was pretty cool.02:38.93AndrewNice. Yeah, we got to actually we got to decide on an actual an actual bet or something. But I don't want to do that right the second because I have too many other things I'm trying to do right this second.02:46.30SeanYeah.02:52.07SeanFor sure.02:52.29AndrewI'm like, I don't want to take on a writing bet.02:54.63Seanah sure02:55.72AndrewMaybe maybe in a ah month or two.02:59.59Seanum How's your trip by the way, you went through a cabin.03:03.82AndrewYeah, Trip was great. um My girlfriend's aunt and uncle have this amazing place on Drummond Island, which is this cool island off the tip of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. If anyone listening has never been to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which you probably haven't because most people haven't, it's like one of the most beautiful parts of the entire country. like i didn't really hear about it until I came here and moved to Detroit. And now it's one of my favorite places in the world. It's so fucking beautiful. The Great Lakes are like03:38.57Andrewturquoise blue. theres The trees feel like you're in the Pacific Northwest, um but the weather is way better than the Pacific Northwest. It's chilly enough in the middle of July that you need like a sweatshirt and jeans at night, um but it's warm enough to swim during the day.03:53.37Seanwhoa03:57.01AndrewIt's it's a magical place.03:57.65SeanWhoa.03:59.70Andrewum And I felt like a ah true digital nomad because I had I felt like I had perfected my my um transportable work setup. I had my laptop. my iPad, which they have made iPad mirroring so good and so easy now.04:17.24SeanYeah.04:18.21AndrewI haven't used it in years, but it's like it's great now.04:18.30SeanYeah.04:21.49AndrewAnd then I was using Starlink at Maddie's aunt and uncle's place. And the so the Wi-Fi was great. And I was just like, holy shit, with like that new Starlink Mini, you could have an amazing multi-screen set up that you could put in a backpack and it would be light as hell.04:42.70SeanI thought a lot about what you said about the Starlink this weekend, by th...

Season 2: Episode 4Did you know AI really loves the word delve? Sean and Andrew can't help starting the pod off with a little more AI talk. Then they get into Sean's new product he's working on. Meanwhile Andrew is putting aside his IDE and starting to shift his focus to marketing and selling ChartJuice. He talks about using Flow.club to focus and setting a goal of doing two hours of deep work every day. Sean asks Andrew if he would sell ChartJuice if someone made him an offer tomorrow. And Sean and Andrew talk about working together on a new client project!Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...Cider: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.77SeanWhat's up? What's up? How you doing?00:03.03AndrewNot bad. What happened to our theme music? I thought you were supposed to be coming in every week with a new theme song.00:09.35SeanSo, you know, it's actually a little bit harder to use. than i Yeah.00:14.64AndrewIsn't this the classic story of all of these AI tools is it's like, it seems great at first glance. And then you start trying to really use it for something and you start going, oh, this is so much work to get out of this, what I want to get out of it.00:28.82SeanYeah, 100%. I think like it doesn't have it doesn't have the levers I would want. you know I can't like dial a voice. I can't like switch. I have to use a prompt to change. like Do I want a male singer or a female singer? Do I want it to be you know louder here? I can't i can't say like I want to be louder here or different here. I feel like that.00:49.46AndrewYou need a cringe dial. Let me crank the cringe all the way down to zero.00:51.24SeanYeah. Yeah, i don't think i don't the thing is AI doesn't know what that is, which is crazy.00:55.60AndrewAI doesn't understand cringe. AI is by default cringe. That's that's why we still have jobs.00:58.85SeanYou know?01:01.89Seanum I've been looking at some other AI things and God.01:07.62Seanwhich AI really likes the word Delve. Did you know that?01:10.59AndrewOh, interesting. I have not noticed that.01:11.63SeanYeah. I think Paul Graham had a tweet or something to say like that's like the one of the biggest indicators that someone's seeing AI and they never saw it and then until I finally like um I was pulling a transcription out and then trying to get a summary just to see how any of that works and the amount of times it uses Delve is astounding and01:31.86AndrewThat's fascinating.01:32.63SeanThere's nothing I can't, i you know, once it's like a wrapper around whatever sort of AI tool, I can't tell it to, you know, at that point, I can't even change the prompt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um.01:42.85AndrewBy the way, I really want to try out a couple of different transcription tools to see if any any of them can do a better job with our voices because Zincaster is not terrible, but it's a little bit of a mess.01:45.78SeanHmm.01:57.05SeanHmm.01:57.49AndrewI do think the, Post edit transcription is usually better.02:03.85SeanMm-hmm.02:04.19Andrewlike I see a pretty noticeable improvement from pre-edit and post-edit, so that's kind of interesting.02:06.81SeanMm-hmm.02:09.69AndrewBut I'm really curious, like what if Podscan actually has the best the best transcriptions?02:10.71SeanMaybe.02:14.46Seanmaybe02:15.85AndrewOr yeah know maybe Transistor's new transcription tool will be better because that's all they're doing?02:16.09SeanMaybe.02:21.50SeanYeah.02:25.24AndrewI don't know.02:25.29SeanIs there a job to be good at that?02:27.00AndrewYeah, I guess it's Zincaster's job to get that right as much as Transistor's job. but um It might even be the same person powering both.02:31.87SeanYeah. Yeah, that's true. Um,02:37.63AndrewIt might be the same tool under the hood.02:39.95Seanum02:40.45AndrewThat would be funny.02:40.75Seanso, so this podcast, uh, for a client, I was running it through, I tried swell AI by, I don't remember his last name, Cody something, um. The draft horse, now he's doing swell, um and I tried to script again. um Interestingly, I don't know what's going on with swell, but like so far, that's the best transcript I got back. um Yeah, so that's pretty good. um Okay, no, no, no, no.03:08.87AndrewI also saw every, do you know them? ah Nathan used to be Bashaw and now I think it's Basquez. He was at Product Hunt and then at Gimlet and um then I think co-founded every with03:25.58SeanCool.03:31.51AndrewDan Schipler, if that, I might have that name right. It's kind of interesting. They were doing bundled newsletters. So taking different newsletter creators and creating a unified brand for them to publish under and then offering a bundled price where the creators split the revenue and they're now taking.03:43.65SeanCool.03:47.29Seancool03:52.41Andrewthat bundle concept to a new extreme and launching software products. And the only way to pay for their software products is by buying a bundle, a subscription to every. So for one price, you get access to all of their newsletters and their software products. And their first one was Lex, an AI powered document editor where you could04:18.67SeanOkay. You use that, yeah.04:22.06AndrewI, yeah, I've used it a little bit. It's, it's pretty nifty. And then it se...

Season 2: Episode 3It's a Small Efforts Double Header! We were late getting this episode out, so we decided to go ahead and publish two weeks of episodes at once. In this episode Andrew is coming straight from a tattoo session, and talks about fighting bugs with ChartJuice. Meanwhile, Sean has gotten over 300 APPLICATIONS to his open job post, almost all from Dribbble. And he previews the consumer SaaS/community he's building on the side. Andrew and Sean discuss the strategy behind the new ConvertKit rebrand, and finally debate whether AI-generated book notes can be a good growth strategy for Andrew's personal blog.Differences between serverless functions and edge functions according to Claude:Execution Location: Serverless functions run on the cloud provider's servers centralized in large data centers, while edge functions run on edge servers distributed across multiple locations closer to the user.Latency: Edge functions have lower latency compared to serverless functions due to their proximity to the user.Scalability and resource constraints: Serverless functions scale automatically based on demand, while edge functions have a more limited scalability. Edge servers generally have less compute power and storage compared to cloud servers.Use Cases: Serverless functions are better suited for compute-intensive tasks, while edge functions are more efficient for data processing and content delivery near the user.Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/StackWise: Coming soon...For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:00.69SeanWhat's up?00:00:02.02AndrewNot much, just got back from a little tattoo session, got some fresh ink.00:00:06.48SeanVery cool. What did what you get?00:00:08.97AndrewUh, got a piece of flash. So I was at a fundraiser for, um, a friend's, a friend was organizing the fundraiser. He's part of this group called prism, um, that raises money to support, uh, GSAs in schools, which used to stand for gay straight alliances.00:00:19.32SeanCool.00:00:27.96AndrewNow I think stand for gender sexuality alliances.00:00:31.21SeanOkay.00:00:31.48AndrewUm, so he's part of this group prism. They were doing a fundraiser and they had a raffle as part of the fundraiser.00:00:38.18SeanHmm.00:00:38.43AndrewAnd they were raffling off three flash tattoos. Um, so it was like a design and you could put. ticket in, and if you won, you would get that tattoo. And um I like two of them. And so I put a ticket in each one and was like, well, let fate decide. And I got picked. And so I went and got this cool vase with, it's like kind of an abstract vase with monstera leaves sticking out.00:01:04.13SeanYeah.00:01:06.90AndrewAnd it's my first leg tattoo, got it on my thigh. um it will be very visible when I wear shorts.00:01:14.20SeanHell yeah.00:01:14.51Andrewum So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.00:01:15.18SeanFive inch the blue velvet shorts.00:01:18.18AndrewWhen I wear my short shorts, which is all I wear.00:01:19.60SeanNice.00:01:20.58AndrewSo, um yeah, I'm pretty into it.00:01:20.75SeanNice.00:01:23.87AndrewIt was cool. This was my first, I guess it was my second flash tattoo. um But the artist, she was great. Her name was Ali Gostella, I think. Super chill, super welcoming, had a great time, made the experience fantastic.00:01:40.32SeanHmm.00:01:41.67AndrewAnd one of the cool parts was she really was stoked about this design, which was so much fun because she was having fun tattooing it and was really hyped and excited about it. And that made it more fun and made me more excited about getting it. And so it was just like just good energy.00:01:55.53SeanNice.00:01:58.07SeanI like it. Congrats.00:01:59.08AndrewYeah.00:01:59.96SeanYeah, congrats on waiting.00:02:01.33AndrewThanks. I'm I'm stoked. i'm I'm really excited about it.00:02:04.48SeanCool.00:02:04.66AndrewI will show you after the podcast because it will not get podcast content.00:02:08.82SeanThat's true. That's true. We are, we are not a video podcast yet. We tried, but yeah.00:02:13.67AndrewWe can be. I guess whenever we just got to commit to doing another thing, which is not like us.00:02:18.46SeanYeah.00:02:21.08AndrewWell, and is also like us. You know what I mean?00:02:23.70SeanYeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure.00:02:26.97AndrewYeah. So what's up with you?00:02:29.04SeanUm, last week was brutal. Last week was a couple, a couple of our folks are out on like PTO and then some folks got sick.00:02:31.81AndrewYeah.00:02:36.01SeanUm, uh, yeah. Uh, so I didn't sleep much and that was, that was exciting, but we're back to it.00:02:44.58AndrewOh, that's rough.00:02:45.14SeanYou know, I'm on eight hours, so extra energetic today. Um, I mean, Oh,00:02:52.52AndrewHow is hiring going?00:02:55.23Seandribble is not dead.00:02:56.62AndrewOh, really?00:02:56.72Seandribble not that hot take dribble like yeah yeah hiring our type form00:03:00.41AndrewFor hiring designers specifically? Yeah.00:03:06.01SeanSo we were going to do we're going to do like an online, we're going to put a form on our website at first and then I was like, I don't i ...

Season 2: Episode 2It's a Small Efforts Double Header! We were late getting this episode out, so we decided to go ahead and publish two weeks of episodes at once. In this episode Andrew talks about quietly pushing ChartJuice live, and raves about his new favorite podcast. Meanwhile Sean drops some knowledge about the intricacies of swag supply chains, and the guys discuss the trap of being an expert beginner vs a true expert. Finally, Sean talk about a leadership retreat he's going on soon. Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.00Sean SunYeah, hey doing sorry late.00:00.64AndrewAll good man I've just been over here sipping on my in Zony Happy as can be.00:06.41Sean SunAh, there you good there Good How's your week been. What's you been up to.00:13.49AndrewUm, not a bad week. Um, let's see I haven't been hella productive this week but I've been making steady progress. So um.00:29.64AndrewThink this happened after last week's pod. Um, so I sent out chart juice for feedback to a small group of friends you um, awesome price Greg um, handful of people and.00:49.48AndrewMy friends are super generous and so a bunch of people took the time to create an account and give me some feedback and a lot of feedback I got was like hey this is cool. Um, you know Austin understandably spent a bunch time on the ux and was like hey you know you should left a line. Your text anytime you have more than a line or two because it becomes harder to read when it's center aligned and I was like dope didn't know that that's a really helpful rule of thumb. Thanks for telling me um and then like Greg um in very Greg fashion pointed out. Hey on the signup form you should really have a couple of statements about the value props and like what people are going to get out of this to help encourage them to finish the signup process which is very Greg always thinking from the perspective of the user and thinking about like how do we optimize this. Um, so that was super helpful. My friend Kevin who is one of the original partners in crit and a super talented engineer took a very engineer's approach to it and he was like hey just so you know if you put in a ah. Width of greater than a hundred thousand pixels it breaks and I was like cool I don't care and like he obviously knew I wouldn't care but you know took took a very engineer approach to it and.02:09.31Sean SunYeah, yeah.02:19.44Sean SunUm, yeah.02:21.86AndrewAh, like looked for the edge cases the weird extreme edge cases. The other one was like if you add more than 21 elements to a pie chart then the legend gets really wonky like create. Um, so.02:39.40Sean SunI think that's a hold on I just want to point out I don't think I think that's a feature not a bug I think no one should be adding 21 elements to a pie chart like a pizza doesn't have 21 slices yeah um02:41.61AndrewYeah.02:49.77AndrewI Love it? Yeah yeah, yeah, we we intentionally make your chart look like shit past a certain point because like why stop.02:56.87Sean SunRight? right? Exactly There's a hidden feature that if you make it look like it'll all turn brown and.03:03.80AndrewI mean the good thing to do would be if you use more than 8 elements or something in your pie chart. We just automatically start combining the smallest ones that would be nifty but um, but my favorite piece of advice came from my friend ramy um, who is an indie hacker.03:13.12Sean SunUm.03:21.69AndrewUm, based out of the Uk and repeat founder has a few successful small products under his belt and his advice was basically good enough ship it and I was like that's you're so fucking right? so.03:33.50Sean SunNice.03:41.60AndrewUm, yeah, the first half of this week was shipping it so chart juice is now technically live I'm calling it a soft launch because I haven't really talked about it being live much at all yet I'm not being super public about it. Um I just linked up.03:46.26Sean SunUm, okay, um.04:00.70AndrewThe buttons on the marketing website to the actual app so that you can get to the app from the marketing website and then I made some small updates yesterday to the marketing website adding screenshots and a little bit more information about how it how it works. To try to make it a little bit clear what the product does because I had several people like hit the marketing website and go so is this like chart Js for emails and I was like I mean kind of but it's like a layer above that. Um, so I added some some screenshots and like a little bit more information without. While trying not to change too much because I still want to test kind of that original marketing copy and see how well it works. Um, but yeah, so chart juice is now live I am spending the rest of this week focused on trying to get billing working. Um, so i.04:45.97Sean SunUm, right.04:57.83AndrewIf you go sign up for an account right now it is free until I get billing implemented um and once I get billing implemented I'll I'll find some way to grandfather in any existing accounts with like an extra long free trial Probably um.05:11.20Sean SunRight? right? So Andrew's giving away lifetime access to anyone who signs up right now.05:16.66AndrewAndrew's giving away short to your mas if your life only you know continues for another three or four weeks then yeah lifetime access.05:25.31Sean SunIf you plan on dying soon. Sign up for George ah, that's the ad there you go is converting ad.05:31.90AndrewAh, perfect ship it so working on getting billing um, integrated which I've just been dragging my feet a little bit. It's just boring. It's like it's standard. Ah. Stuff I Just got to hook up some webhooks and Yada Yada Um, and then the other thing I need to do that's kind of important is I need to actually test using our embed code in a transactional email which is like somewhat. Hard to do since I don't have an existing Saas product with existing data. Um, So yeah, I'll just I'll probably just fudge the data. But um I need to send out some test emails. Um, and then I want to record a demo video of like the entire end-to-end process.06:24.35Sean SunRight...

Andrew and Sean are back for Season 2! In Season 2 they'll get transparent about the highs and lows of building their businesses (with plenty of goofing around too). Same concept, new businesses. In this episode we recap WHERE THE HELL WE'VE BEEN FOR TWO YEARS. Plus we talk about the projects we're working on now, how to market and validate Andrew's new startup, and Sean's search for founder friends.  Links:Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean's Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.73SeanAll right? don't scream this time. Maybe I'll cut that front part out. Um, okay, take 4 episode 1 season 2 small efforts like no see oh yeah, me too.00:11.35AndrewAh, but what's up man Glad to be back. Ah back on the pod with you.00:18.76SeanToo I'm excited to be doing this again. It's been a fun 6 ones of a dry run. Um, so ah.00:22.92AndrewIt wouldn't be us if we didn't record for six months and then finally describe decide to scrap all of those recordings and just say fuck it. Let's go live or as close to live as we can get.00:32.53SeanYeah, yeah, yeah, it's literally how I've built the michigans website every single iteration actually I spent months on it and then I'm like fuck. And I just do it in the black in my hotel room right? before blackhead starts in a day like yeah, good enough I don't care if it's not perfect. Um, what's been going on. Why have we disappeared what happened you know what happened to season 1 I'm sure everyone wants to know.01:02.54AndrewAh, yeah, um, yeah, it's been 2 years almost to the day like pretty close to it. So um, we were running the podcast before and had set it up in a way to be like.01:05.75SeanOur 11 listeners.01:22.00AndrewFairly highly highly produced and um in a way that required as little involvement from us after recording as possible so we had an awesome producer and an editing team who would take care of everything for us. Um, but that also meant it was. A little bit expensive to create um and then I went and sold my business and that meant that half of our funding disappeared. So I sold crit almost two years ago exactly um, sold the company to.01:47.45SeanHell yeah, a girl. Yeah, he did.01:58.77AndrewOf our longtime clients grayyno which was an awesome experience. I still haven't really written about the experience of going through this sale process. It might be hard to do now I've I'm sure I've already forgotten a lot. Um, but it was it was a really. Really fascinating experience to go through I think our sale was really pretty easy and pretty fast compared to a lot of people because we already knew each other really well um, and structured it in a way that that due diligence was pretty simple. So um, yeah, sold crit two years ago02:23.90SeanA 502:36.57AndrewThen went to work at graynoy for a year um so learned a ton in that time about security and technology and what it's like to be part of a larger team as hilarious as it is a 50 person team is like by far the biggest team I'd ever been a part of.02:53.75SeanYeah.02:55.78AndrewUm, and ah learned about management and it was like a year of speed learning. Um, it was really interesting. Had a lot of fun. Um, and then ultimately got fired which was kind of. Ah, shock and kind of not a shock. Um, ultimately I think it just wasn't as good a fit on either side as either of us were were hoping for um, still have a ton of friends there and still am rooting for them all to be successful. Um, you know it's funny I've mentioned that I got fired to. Entrepreneur friends and to like non-onpreneur friends and non-onreneur friends are generally like oh my god are you? okay like what's ah, what's wrong. What can I do to help and then all my entrepreneur friends are like yeah I kind of expected that we're just ah.03:46.18SeanYeah, yeah, it makes sense.03:52.10AndrewI Guess once you're like an entrepreneur through in through you kind of become unhireable but not in the way you thought just unhireable in the sense that like you become a bad employee or don't want to don't want to work for anyone? Um, so um.03:56.64SeanUm, yeah, yeah.04:00.33SeanYeah, yeah.04:10.71AndrewYeah, shocking and not a shock. Um, but ultimately like 2 really good things came out of bad experience which were um one when I was at crit my fear. The thing that kept me up at night. Was often this idea of like what if our clients all disappear and we run out of money and we have to lay off the entire team that was like the failure mode that that was constantly eating away at me constantly like this pit of stress in the middle of my stomach. Um, and then once I sold the company and joined grey noise. Thought that fear would go away. It didn't it just morphed and the new fear. The new failure mode was what if I get fired. Um, and so when I ultimately did it was this kind of positive forcing function to face this deep fear of failure that I had. Um, and you know went through it and was like oh shit I'm okay and the people around me don't actually think any worse of me. In fact, they all are being super supportive and kind and like are very understanding and and then I had time to make a podcast to get.05:20.70SeanSo yeah, and then you had time to do a podcast again. So it's been great.05:28.17AndrewUm, and and that actually was the second positive thing. So the the second really positive thing was that it gave me the nudge to take a long extended sabbatical. Um, so after that I went and fulfilled a lifelong dream and walked across Spain on the camino de santiago. Um. Spent two months over in Europe um, that was incredible I've written about that on my on my website a little bithitteraskins dot com um, and then I I came back from that and had time to sit down and just think about what I really wanted to do and um. Decided that I wanted to get back into startups and wanted to try to build a new product and do do it the way that I had always wanted to do it which was bootstrapped calm slow growth. Um, and ah, you know, but do something that. You know, high margin. Um, try to basically build my perfect job. My dream job my my dream business. Um, so I started working on ad at the beginning of this year worked with a partner for a little while who um, ultimately had to step away for some personal reasons. Um. Which then launched me into the process of learning to code again which has been really cool. Um, kind of surprised myself with how much I have enjoyed that and liked that. Um and so that was a few months ago that I I started learning to code and and building the product.07:05.74AndrewMyself and I'm now ah at a point where I've got a functional prototype and I'm you know probably going to be launching in a week or 2 probably 2 two weeks would be my guess. So um, yeah.07:19.46SeanI Hell yeah.07:24.27AndrewLast time we recorded I was running an agency and now I am getting ready to launch a new Saas company. So yeah, and so now that's ah now we're on season 2 Um, so yeah, tell me tell me ah tell me and tell our 3 listeners.07:29.51SeanYeah, act...

(0:24) This is officially a rock climbing podcast(8:15) Andrew and Sean's gardens have attracted guests(12:59) Sean lowkey needs another break(25:10) Miscreants is doing a collection drop at DEFCON(29:56) Rebranding is like creating a religion but without Kool-Aid Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) There's a parallel universe where Andrew's life revolves around photography(8:34) Sean is suspicious as hell(17:31) The real reason why so many CEOs are super fucking into meditation(26:31) Andrew and Sean's bi-weekly book club chat(34:29) Your lawyer career doesn't mean shit if you can't work on your streetwear brand Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Sublime Security: https://sublimesecurity.com/  Email Rep IO: https://emailrep.io/  Ted at Sentinel IPS: @tedgruenloh  Margins by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk: https://www.readmargins.com/  Leave Me Alone: https://leavemealone.app/  SparkToro: https://sparktoro.com/  Melissa Perri's book: Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value  Bionic reading: https://bionic-reading.com/  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:25) The difference between Andrew and Sean is that Sean is extra delusional (6:27) Sales feels like throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks (17:23) Either the channels depend on the day, or different channels work during different times(24:32) Giving constraints encourages creativity, not stifles it(34:21) Andrew and Sean are both traveling and bad at bowling Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Traction: https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Get-Grip-Your-Business/dp/1936661837 For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:22) Getting experience is all about putting in the reps(9:09) It's easy judging a designer by their portfolio. A PM by their resume? Not so much.(18:58) It's mad hard building a leadership team(27:12) Commission vs. Salary: We're undecided on which one's better(37:03) If Krit didn't exist, Andrew would definitely have an SEO marketing agency Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Pyramid of Success: http://www.coachwooden.com/pyramid-of-success  Traction: https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Get-Grip-Your-Business/dp/1936661837  Entreprenurial Operation System: https://www.eosworldwide.com/  Luke Stephens: @hakluke  HackerContent: https://hackercontent.com/  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:22) Sean was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and that's OK(5:58) I'm not undisciplined, mom—I'm just wired differently (10:16) Wages as a CEO: How much should you compensate yourself?(20:21) Stocks are steady, but business is more rewarding(26:53) Sometimes, it's the stupid risks that pay off (so go sponsor that esports team)(30:36) Personal note: Rest in peace, Mike Murray Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Atonic Habits: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits  Bureau of Digital 2022 Salary Guide: https://bureauofdigital.com/2022-salary-guide  Mike Murray: @mmurray  Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD: https://www.amazon.com/Organizing-Solutions-People-Revised-Updated/dp/1592335128  Pilot's 2021 Founder Salary Report: https://pilot.com/blog/2021-pilot-founder-salary-report  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) It's good to have a playbook in case you get hit by a bus tomorrow(6:19) You can't have a great process if you don't iterate or communicate(11:31) The more granular you get, the more you get bogged down by the rules(18:14) Awesome employees + no rules = chaos(23:17) The client does have the final decision, but it's sad if you just act like a waiter(33:24) Miscreants don't sponsor losers Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Maker's Pace: https://anchor.fm/makers-pace/  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) The Tale of Two Founders: the Technical One and the Sales and Marketing One(6:58) Sean is Andrew's new therapist(13:39) Letting go of your Legos is harder than it looks(17:48) Hot Take: Social media memers don't make for good marketing directors(23:32) Sean is like a laptop with too many Chrome tabs open: constantly getting drained(29:56) Relinquishing Perfectionism: It's not that their version is worse—it's just different(35:40) Miscreants is now an eSports sponsorThanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Productive Flourishing: https://www.productiveflourishing.com/  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) Andrew got roped into volunteering with a local high school robotics team(4:12) It's mad hard to hire a product designer(10:59) One does not simply get hired because one uses hamburger menus(20:22) There's always a weird rift between international and domestic employees(28:38) How do you keep your employees happy when you can't give them a ping pong table?(31:38) You can't pay someone a shit salary just because they're in Mexico(40:44) Hiring People: It's like a transaction, so don't be shitty Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) Andrew got his first snow boots ever, and Sean is terrified of surfboarding(4:36) Sean wishes he had an office-office, and Andrew's looking to hire a product designer(10:14) Andrew's new pitch: a low-cost, automated recruiting service with a flat fee(19:58) There are many great online job boards out there, but Ziprecruiter is not one of them(25:34) Coinbase's Super Bowl ad was a super clever campaign(30:02) Andrew and Sean play a game using Krit's data on cybersecurity product names(40:07) Sean's new self-care regime: breathwork(45:32) It's hard to know just how many people you should hire(51:48) You can't build a business on something people don't want or don't know that they need Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Pallet: https://www.pallet.com/  Superpath: https://jobs.superpath.co/  Krit's cyber security product names analysis article:  ​https://www.krit.com/blog/cybersecurity-product-names ​ For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) Andrew's never been to Disney World, and Sean's surrounded by cat owners(5:18) Domain names are like gym memberships: you should take them seriously(10:38) People are scrambling to figure out how to close that lead gap, and that's fair(15:40) A less boring alternative to white papers: interactive microsites(19:48) No time for microsites? Start a movement with other companies(24:33) What's better than hosting competitions? Free swag.(28:19) Everyone loves free stuff—including existing customers(31:59) One does not simply close the lead gap by making marketing events Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Label Time: https://label-time.com/  Minimum Viable Secure Product: https://mvsp.dev/  Trace Labs: https://www.tracelabs.org/ For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:25) Andrew and Sean are going to play a game(2:57) Microcopy: the little bits of texts that can make a huge splash(7:48) Accessibility: it's just good design(10:18) Andrew wants tooltip walk-throughs to burn in Hell(14:05) Not all product analytics is created equally(20:03) Why do people have a customer support robot when it takes hours to get a response?(23:19) Documentation is more scalable than customer support, but most people suck at it(32:47) Andrew's quick correction Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Growth.Design: https://growth.design/  Samuel Hulick's User Onboarding: https://www.useronboard.com/  Parallax tool: https://www.getparallax.com/  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) Andrew hopes he's resilient to SAD because he has plenty of other mental anguish(3:29) Culture and Business: Only having awesome culture doesn't put food on the table(15:58) Miscreants just launched three freaking projects back to back(19:09) Appealing to Emotions 101: Emphasize with pain(21:33) If you think figuring out your niche is hard, try finding someone else's(29:15) Standing out in a Commoditized Industry: Specifically show what you do(38:07) Krit and Miscreant's 2022 goals: Less chaos, more focus Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) Running an agency is like leading geese while not knowing where you're going(5:45) Holidays While Remote: Having fun traditional office stuff is hard(9:11) Miscreants' Black Friday merch sales were so high that Sean became a folding master(11:56) The hardest part of having a newsletter is making it(15:05) Krit learned some interesting things from testing their design audit process(19:30) And Miscreants is launching a YouTube channel(23:55) Andrew and Sean might share an Airbnb for RSA(26:43) If Greg's happy, Andrew's happy(29:30) Andrew and Sean and the future of the pod Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Krit's InfoSec VC list: https://www.krit.com/infosec-vcs  Krit's Product People Interview with Haroon Meer: https://www.krit.com/blog/sweating-the-small-stuff-with-haroon-meer-founder-of-thinkst-canary  Malcolm Gladwell's book: https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669  Mike Monnik's Infosec Black Friday List: https://github.com/0x90n/InfoSec-Black-Friday  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

(0:27) Krit (sort of) got hacked (7:21) One does not simply tell employees and clients that one got hacked(13:23) Two Types of Recruiters: Those who “spam the shit out of everybody,” and those who build relationships(18:31) “Holidays are tough”(23:47) It's hard juggling days off while pushing against stagnation(26:54) Selling butts in a seat is easier when you have a smaller team(30:27) Making Playbooks: Is it better to make it simple than have all the context in the world?(34:44) Krit just hit a major milestone!(39:37) Sean's new clothing line is out(45:04) Andrew's talking to a social media manager, and Sean's trying to do a content marketing push in a newsletter format  Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary Vuong for producing and editing. Links: Andrew's Twitter: @AndrewAskins Krit: https://www.krit.com/  Miscreants: https://www.miscreants.co/  Sean's Twitter: @seanqsun Hatch Team: https://www.hatch.team/ Miscreants' new clothing line (Away from Keyboard): https://shopmiscreants.com/collections/away-from-keyboard-2021  For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.