Podcasts about miscreants

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!

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...

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 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 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...

As we gird ourselves for the inevitable stress of the holiday season, let us take a moment to enjoy some of the finer things in life, such as reading Reddits and judging people to be either innocents or a**holes and absolutely nothing in-between. It's a wonderful way to relax and unwind before hopping in the family station wagon to go visit your Uncle who smells of Icy Hot and won't stop talking about the 1971 Baltimore Colts. Follow the podcast on Insta: @shttheydonttellyou Follow Nikki on Insta: @NikkiLimo Follow Steve on Insta: @SteveGreeneComedy To visit our Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/stikki To watch the podcast on YouTube: http://bit.ly/STDTYPodYouTube Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening, or by using this link: http://bit.ly/ShtTheyDontTellYou If you want to support the show, and get all our episodes ad-free go to: https://stdty.supercast.tech/ If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: http://bit.ly/ShtTheyDontTellYou To submit your questions/feedback, email us at: podcast@nikki.limo To call in with questions/feedback, leave us a voicemail at: (765) 734-0840 To watch more Nikki & Steve on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nikkilimo To watch more of Nikki talking about Poker: https://www.twitch.tv/trickniks To check out Nikki's Jewelry Line: https://kittensandcoffee.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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...

Hello, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. Tune in to get updated about the major news stories of the day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alex (aka Érratic) is hailing from Orléans, central France, Alex, known in the music industry as Érratic, has established an impressive career as a producer and dj specializing in Deep House and Minimal electronic music. His passion for the dance music scene led him to immerse himself in club culture, forging connections with DJs from around the globe. Érratic has shared the decks with acclaimed artists such as Cristi Cons, Alexia Glensy and is signed to an impressive roster of labels including Rominimal Collective, Relikt, Plano Records, ReActive Lab, Gliese Records, Miscreants, Secretjams Records, Perception, Ultra Knites and Worst Date Records. Érratic's influence in the industry has been recognized with support from Traxsource and numerous successful releases. He is proud to have contributed to various artist compilations alongside talented names like Mihai Popovisciu, Lukea, DJ Honesty, and Mike Sharon. Notable remixes include works for artists such as Benny S, Coral O'Connor, Luís Bravo, Maxim Thierry, and Joval. His journey into vinyl began with his first release at Relikt records based in Zurich, followed by a second with Mole Records and a highly anticipated third vinyl release is on the horizon, along with exciting upcoming projects on labels like Sengiley Wax, Yuzu Records, Evaporate, Sillion Records, and Symbiotical. Érratic had the chance to received Remix from famous artist such as Paul Rudder, Tommaso Pizzelli, Simone Adinolfi, Benny S and Basic 96. His collaborations extend worldwide, having worked with over 20 producers, and his tracks have garnered support from industry luminaries like Arapu, Barac, Priku, Raresh, Costin RP, Ted Amber, and Soundopamine. As a musician, Alex transitioned into the realm of hardware, embracing Dawless gear with a Roland-centric setup, featuring the TR-8, Jupiter XM, TB-3, TR-8S, Keystep Pro, and Blackbox. His devotion to Roland's iconic sound is unmistakable, coupled with a penchant for 909 drums. In addition to his music career, Alex brings a unique perspective shaped by 15 years as a Chef, which introduced him to diverse cultures across China, Switzerland, England, Luxembourg, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Each location he lived has enriched his appreciation for music and culture, providing inspiration for his creative endeavors. Additionally, Alex has a side project called Botterratic which he collaborates on with an Argentinian artist Bottene, resulting in an upcoming EP on PhonicHouse records. With an unwavering passion for music and a commitment to exploring new artistic landscapes, Érratic continues to push boundaries and enrich the global dance music scene.

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....

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...

Miscreants broke through barricades, damaged gates & overturned a Kolkata Police post and several vehicles, say Kolkata Police, who have blamed incident on a 'malicious media campaign.'----more----https://theprint.in/india/rg-kar-hospital-vandalised-amid-kolkata-rape-murder-protests-mob-came-with-swords-pulled-out-wires/2224216/

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...

If you're looking for a man in Finance, Trust Fund, 6'5", blue eyes, then keep looking. All we got here is a Waffle House training manual, the world's weirest obiturary and a long-overdue congressional censure. Serve that up with a lil no-tip salami and a brief dive into dating before cell phones, and you've got yourself a podcast. There's laughs here, friends. Dig in.  

Get ready for an action-packed Episode 152 of "The SplashCast with Reggie and Norwood" – Around The League Edition! Titled **"Hooligans and Miscreants"**, this episode dives deep into the latest happenings in the world of sports, with a special focus on HBCU news, basketball showdowns, and football updates. Let's get into it! **HBCU News Around The Culture** - **Howard Sends the Squad** - **Dawn Thornton Mission Complete** - **FVSU Men's Volleyball Wins SAIC Chip** - **Jamarii Thomas Heads to SC** **Basketball – Drink Break** - **WNBA** Cameron Brink makes Kawhi laugh, Aces' $100K sponsorship deal under investigation, Indiana Fever's rocky start.- **NBA** – From rookies to veterans, the league is buzzing with drama: - **We Old As Hell** – NBA stars' sons are up next. - **All Rookie Team** – Celebrating the future stars. - **Hawks** – Draft thoughts and first pick speculations. - **Thunder vs Mavs** – A battle for the ages. - **TWolves vs Nuggets** – An epic game 7 showdown. - **Celtics vs Cavs** – Celtics cruise, big decisions for the Cavs. - **Pacers vs Knicks** – Knicks' downfall and Reggie's last laugh. - **Conference Finals Preview** – ECF and WCF matchups. **Football News Around The League – Drink Break** - **NCAA** – Major updates from Gainesville,- **NFL** Falcons updates, Eagles' leftovers, and Netflix striking a deal with the NFL.Don't miss out on this thrilling episode of "The SplashCast"! Listen now on your favorite podcast platform for all the latest splashes in sports and culture. #SplashCast #AroundTheLeague #SportsPodcast #HBCU #WNBA #NBA #NFL #Basketball #Football #SportsNews

Cities overflowing with illegal "migrants" (we call them miscreants) are beginning to ship bus loads of them to a town near you. Situational awareness has never been more important than now... We discuss the odd resurgence of the 147 grain 9mm round (Are we re-inventing a bad wheel?) ... and we discuss how wind changes can "scoop" or "swat" a round on a long range shot. We hope you'll tune in! :)

Miscreants are installing iOS emulators on their Androids to get the blue bubble and trick girls... and trying to pay for drinks with gasoline   Full episode at https://www.patreon.com/posts/wfym-195-broke-100141426

The National Security Hour with Col. Mike and Dr. Mike – In this episode, we delve into President Biden's controversial J6 speech at Valley Forge and uncover the vast trove of Jeffrey Epstein's evidence. We scrutinize the implications for national security, the roles of global intelligence agencies, and the involvement of high-profile figures in potentially illicit activities, offering a critical perspective on current political and cultural dynamics...

The National Security Hour with Col. Mike and Dr. Mike – In this episode, we delve into President Biden's controversial J6 speech at Valley Forge and uncover the vast trove of Jeffrey Epstein's evidence. We scrutinize the implications for national security, the roles of global intelligence agencies, and the involvement of high-profile figures in potentially illicit activities, offering a critical perspective on current political and cultural dynamics...

The Miscreants rise to level 8Help us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick → https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

On this week's episode of The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast, Sherrod DeGrippo is joined by Jack Mott to discuss the movie "Heat" and its relevance to social engineering and threat actor psychology. They also chat about the challenges of identifying real threats in the world of information security, highlighting the need for vigilance in detecting both evident and subtle threats. The conversation revolves around the complexities of distinguishing between genuine and malicious activity and the importance of a nuanced approach to cybersecurity.      In this episode you'll learn:       Why experimentation and new approaches in the security industry are so necessary  Microsoft's approach to handling and investigating blocked threats  The importance of an adaptive system to stay updated on evolving threats and behaviors     Some questions we ask:      Why is curiosity a crucial quality for success in the information security field?  How do you deal with making mistakes and taking risks in your work?  Why do you foster relationships and share information with other professionals?    Resources:   View Sherrod DeGrippo on LinkedIn   Microsoft Ignite Panel, The risk of trust: Social engineering threats and cyber defense       Related Microsoft Podcasts:                     Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson   The BlueHat Podcast   Uncovering Hidden Risks      Security Unlocked       Security Unlocked: CISO Series with Bret Arsenault   Secure the Job: Breaking into Security     Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at microsoft.com/podcasts     The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast is produced by Microsoft and distributed as part of The CyberWire Network.  

The Miscreants devise a way to escape the dragon's clutches.Help us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick → https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

The queens hypothesize that erotic/love poems must always have one "f*ckstick." Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Please consider buying your books from Bluestockings Cooperative, a feminist and queer indie bookselling cooperative.We talk about the difficulty of language and words that “shouldn't” be in poems in Crimes Against Diction, episode 95. Read “Dick Pics” by Sarah Tsiang.Read Jack Gilbert's “Michiko Dead."Linda Gregg, “Kept Burning and Distant” from The Sacraments of Desire.Read H.D.'s “Sea Poppies."Read Sharon Olds's, “The Pope's Penis”Read Adrienne Rich's "The Floating Poem" in Twenty-One Love Poems. Kim Addonizio's poem “Penis Blues” can be read here.  Louise Glück's “The Encounter” can be found here and is from The Triumph of AchillesRead Emma Lazarus's “Assurance”We reference Russell Edson's poem “Conjugal” and Mark Strand's “Courtship”Read Jill Alexander Esbaum's awesomely funny “On Reading Poorly Transcribed Erotica” Wallace Stevens's first book of poems is Harmonium, published by Knopf in 1923. A Palm at the End of the Mind is a Selected Poems and a play.Lynn Melnick's third book of poetry is Refusenik. You can watch Lynn read from it and talk about it with David Ulin of the New York Public Library. Watch James Hoch talk about Miscreants and the backstory behind "Bobby" here (~17 min mark).  You can read the Publisher's Weekly review of Miscreants here. Donika Kelly's first book is called Bestiary. Her second book is called The Renunciations pub'd by Graywolf. Watch Lucas Mann read "Conversion" from Matthew Olzmann's book Constellations.Read Charles Olsen's essay “Projective Verse."

LAPD officer Mike Oreb spent several hours dodging the aim of a gun laser as Duc was looking for a clear shot. Oreb was 20 feet from Alvaro and Duc during the standoff in the hall of records building in downtown Los Angeles where they held a young security guard hostage. Oreb heard and saw everything. He relives the heart stopping rare moment in police history. 

It's time for the families of Peggy and Keith to watch Alvaro get executed, hear his final words. Also shocking announcement for Maria serving life for killing her son and a bizarre twist of fate for the heroic gun store owner who escaped a shootout with Alvaro and Duc in the streets of Reno, Nevada, injury free.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Visit now at BetterHelp.com/killingdad to get 10% off your first month.  Personal letters from Duc Huynh before he takes matters into his own hands. Alvaro plays games with the legal system and his execution. What becomes of the Miscreant family of killers, will one walk free?

One of the deadliest earthquakes in Southern California history strikes, detectives are left stranded with two sadistic killers in their custody. And chilling confessions from the killers and what happens when they turn on each other. The family of Miscreants start to crumble. 

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry's Anmol Pritam.Anmol reported on the recent communal violence in Haryana, which began during a religious procession at Nuh and spilled over to Gurugram, leaving six people dead. In Gurugram, several commercial properties were burnt down, a mosque was vandalised and over 200 Muslim families were forced to leave their home amid threats. He spoke about what conspired in Haryana, the pattern of communal violence, the negligent police action and the death of a 52-year-old man in Nuh after being beaten up by the police.He also shared his experience of encountering miscreants, who threatened and forced him to stop recording, while he was reporting on the ground.Tune in.Timecodes00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:17 - Mewat Violence00:36:11 - RecommendationsRecommendationsAnmolWah Bhi Koi Des Hai MahrajBasantThe Song of ScorpionsProduced by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar, and edited by Samrendra K Dash. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alvaro Calambro and Duc Huynh were united by loving the same woman, Maria. Maria is the younger sister to Alvaro and would soon be in a controversial love affair with Duc, who was several years older. The trio lived together, as the two men teetered on legitimate work and criminal activities to pay the bills.  This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Visit now at BetterHelp.com/killingdad to get 10% off your first month. 

Editing by Alexander FloydMusic: Near End Action by Alexander NakaradaFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/4968-near-end-actionLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseThe following music was used for this media project:Music: Chase by Alexander NakaradaFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/5766-chaseLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseMinstrel GuildCurse of the ScarabOur Story Begins All by Kevin MacleodLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licenses 4.0 Creative Commons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Editing by Alexander FloydMusic from Film Music.ioMusic: Chase by Alexander NakaradaFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/5766-chaseLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseThe following music was used for this media project:Music: Countdown by Alexander NakaradaFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/4865-countdownLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseMinstrel GuildCurse of the ScarabOur Story Begins All by Kevin MacleodLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licenses 4.0 Creative Commons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Welcome to Killing Dad Presents: The Miscreants, season two of our series investigating family murders. In the shadows of the 1994 Northridge earthquake that devastated Los Angeles, there was a violent crime spree of sadistic killers who mimicked their violence from scenes straight out of their favorite movie; The Terminator. Two men wreaked havoc from Reno to Los Angeles in a matter of days. It involves two innocent victims tortured before they were murdered, a day-time robbery shootout at a gun store, a high-speed chase with guns blazing, a kidnapping, a 9-hour standoff with swat, the crumbling of buildings in southern California ending with a failed suicide pact, a prison execution, and a bizarre twist of fate for a local hero. It's when truth is more compelling than fiction. Exclusive interviews including confessions from the killers.

We get a coon attack at the end of this show... stand by... :) We discuss the faggotry of certain PRS r/o's who need to turn in their patriot cards and retire to the sodom pit!... and scope alignment myths dealt with, the impact of our growing audience (not at all bad, we appreciate you all :) )... and more... Tune in! This is a good one! :)

The Miscreants meet with the Lady of the Mountain and reunite with their lost party member.  Help us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick →  https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

The Miscreants get to know the Lady of The Mountain. Help us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick →  https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

The Miscreants awake to find themselves fewer in numbers than beforeHelp us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick → https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

The Miscreants sneak their way out of the mountain in order to escape the watchful eye of a dragon.  Help us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick →  https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

The Miscreants bite off more than they can chew, as usual. Help us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick →  https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

The Miscreants are starting to feel crowded as they run into more and more kobolds in the tunnels.  Help us keep the lights on and upgrade our equipment!:https://www.patreon.com/AbstractAdventureshttps://www.humblebundle.com/?partner=abstractadventureshttps://www.heroforge.com/tap/?ref=abstractadventuresFind us anywhere and check out our other projects:  https://beacons.ai/abstractadventuresPaddler is played by: Jason Cassidy → https://www.instagram.com/dungeoneeringwithjason/Acheron is played by: Brent Markee → https://www.instagram.com/brent_markee/Dust is played by: Hannah Davies → https://www.instagram.com/bananedavies/Roe is played by: Remick →  https://beacons.ai/RemoftheRealm

With the return of APU the Miscreants formulate teams, and a plan to execute their religious coup. Editing by Alexander FloydMusic by All by Kevin MacleodRitesMinstrel's GuildCurse of the ScarabOur Story BeginsLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licenses 4.0 Creative Commons.org/licenses/by/4.0

The Miscreants realize that there may be only one way forward, and it's not ideal. Editing by Alexander FloydMusic from //FILMMUSIC.IO//Minstrel Guild Curse of the ScarabOur Story BeginsAll by Kevin MacleodTranquil Fields Tense by Alexander NakaradaLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licenses 4.0 Creative Commons.org/licenses/by/4.0

The Miscreants realize that there may be only one way forward, and it's not ideal. Editing by Alexander FloydMusic from //FILMMUSIC.IO//Minstrel Guild Curse of the ScarabOur Story BeginsAll by Kevin MacleodTranquil Fields Tense by Alexander NakaradaLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licenses 4.0 Creative Commons.org/licenses/by/4.0