Episodes
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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! 🚀 Meanwhile Andrew gets Louis's take on MetaMonster's positioning struggles and they debate how and why the SaaS landscape is changing. Plus: the most detailed rom-com ranking you've ever heard, featuring hidden gems and heated debates about classics.
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Louis's Twitter: @louisnicholls_Sparkloop (newsletter recommendations platform): https://sparkloop.app/Grow your newsletter: https://www.growmynewsletter.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00:01.03
Andrew
Hey, what's up, man?00:00:02.44
Louis
Hey man, how's it going? It's been a while.00:00:04.43
Andrew
It has. Astute listeners might notice that you are not Sean Sun, founder of Miscreants. Do you want to introduce yourself real quick?00:00:13.90
Louis
Yeah, my name Louis. I am the co-founder of Sparkloop. I'm a huge rom-com enthusiast, which I think we're going to get to later. and00:00:23.11
Andrew
Hell yeah.00:00:24.25
Louis
I guess I'm a probably more of like a reformed indie hacker. People might know me from that, but more likely nowadays, if you're a newsletter nerd in the newsletter space, you probably have come across Sparkloop or maybe seen me online or something like that.00:00:41.21
Andrew
Reformed. Does that mean you don't identify as an indie hacker anymore?00:00:44.76
Louis
Oh, no, no, I do. I just don't hang out in the as much in like the IndieHack bootstrap founder space anymore. my My Twitter and LinkedIn have been taken over by self-interested business interests of talking about newsletters, which is a lot more lucrative.00:00:51.89
Andrew
Yeah.00:00:59.73
Louis
Yeah.00:00:59.94
Andrew
Yeah. So, okay. How long ago now did you sell Sparkloop? How long has it been?00:01:06.67
Louis
We sold just over two years ago. We were bought by then ConvertKit, now Kit, which I think we...00:01:10.16
Andrew
Okay.00:01:14.78
Louis
Did we talk about this shortly before or shortly? Maybe we met shortly after, actually, I think.00:01:19.18
Andrew
I think both.00:01:20.17
Andrew
I think we, you and i met in New York. I was working for Grey Noise at the time. And you told me, i don't remember if you actually told me it was ConvertKit. I think you told me you were like considering an acquisition and that there was some stuff in the works.00:01:31.86
Louis
Hmm.00:01:33.80
Andrew
And then I think we hung out again, last year sometime after you'd sold to ConvertKit, when I was like starting to, oh yeah, because like last December, you and i were actually talking about like maybe collabing on some stuff.00:01:48.50
Louis
Yeah.00:01:49.80
Louis
Yeah, yeah,00:01:50.82
Andrew
I quoted you some ridiculously high number to do something. I don't even remember what exactly. like I think some of the like personal brand stuff that you've started doing, was going to help with some of that maybe.00:02:01.79
Louis
yeah. Mm-hmm.00:02:03.39
Andrew
And then then, yeah, I think I probably talked to you to just like ask you for some startup advice at some point, which I'm now doing again under the guise of having you on as a podcast guest.00:02:15.33
Louis
It's the the best way to do it. i yeah I remember we were, i think the last time we properly talked was actually not about about this startup at all. It was about the in-email charts thing, I think, was the last time we had like a proper long conversation.00:02:33.24
Andrew
Yeah, good memory. I'm impressed that you remember what it even was. Yeah, that was ChartJuice. was I think at the time it was probably ChartKit.00:02:42.64
Louis
Mm-hmm.00:02:43.87
Andrew
And then had a co-founder, he left, and he owned the domain, so I bought chartjuice.com. And then...00:02:54.82
Andrew
Built it, probably shouldn't have ever built it. Like, I don't think it was like ever really a great market. But I did the classic indie hacker thing where I was like, I kind of just want to build something and I wanted to learn to code again.00:03:08.23
Andrew
And Chart Juice felt very like not intimidating. It felt easy to build. And so I spent a few months building it, launched it to Crickets and then was like, all right, I need to actually build something that I think people will buy now And so, yeah.00:03:22.97
Louis
Always a oh it a good idea. I wish you had, with a name like Chart Juice, it wasn't called Chart Juice at the time, but a name like Chart Juice, that deserves to be a podcast growth agency.00:03:30.27
Andrew
Yeah.00:03:35.87
Louis
There should be a podcast growth agency called Chart Juice out there.00:03:39.11
Andrew
Honestly, that is so true. Someone has like a, someone has a oh, it's, it's a productized service that will submit your startup to a bunch of directories.00:03:54.29
Andrew
And it's called like submit juice or something like that.00:03:54.53
Louis
see00:03:57.23
Louis
I don't like that one so much.00:03:58.44
Andrew
no, no.00:03:58.79
Louis
That's... No. Gotta be careful with juice.00:04:01.82
Andrew
Yeah, you do got to be careful with juice. Yeah, honestly, Podcast Curse Agency makes a ton of sense. I love that. I still like... I still have the the site up. like I have like sort of pipe dreams of you know spinning it out into a little like ah ah a little like plug-in for Webflow or you know ah maybe a kit app or something someday.00:04:28.10
Andrew
But yeah, keep I have like ah ah recurring have like a use Todoist. And so there is a to-do in Todoist to...00:04:38.11
Andrew
to like revamp chart juice and I just keep punting it out like two months every time it comes up because I'm like this is not the best use of my time right now00:04:47.20
Louis
Yeah, I know that feeling. I know that00:04:49.12
Andrew
Yeah. So what what has happened in the last like year? what's What's life like at Spark Loop? and Last we talked, you were pretty happy with the acquisition. like Things were going pretty well. And you all were really running independently, for the most part, under Kit.00:05:06.00
Andrew
I imagine helping them build their kind of internal network and powering that, I would imagine. but then like really just sort of focus, you still running the business as the business is what I remember.00:05:21.42
Louis
Yeah, spot on. It's been a very unusual acquisition, I would say, in that we have kept running separately from Kit for the most part. We do work with them very closely behind the scenes on overlapping tech that we have.00:05:33.29
Andrew
Yeah.00:05:33.63
Louis
like We power their paid recommendations network. They're much bigger company than we are, of course.00:05:38.38
Andrew
Mm-hmm.00:05:38.68
Louis
But we actually have we function as a sepa... -
Sean survives on 1.5 hours of sleep while juggling Black Hat submissions and client launches! 😴 Andrew discovers a new MetaMonster content strategy and shows off the new grid UI that's generating page titles and scoring them for engagement. Plus: should you delegate your therapy homework to Claude (hint: no), auth provider decision paralysis, and why internal linking breaks the table concept.
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:
00:00.81
Sean
Oh, you stopped.00:03.40
Andrew
Yeah, that would be the most obnoxious sound in the world. I was doing the, like, little kid exasperated sound.00:10.45
Sean
Yeah, yeah. What is that? What do you, what do you, how do you, like, what is the English phrase for that?00:16.64
Andrew
have no fucking clue.00:17.80
Sean
It's not like rolling your R's, but it's like blubbering.00:21.54
Andrew
It's like flapping your lips. I don't know.00:23.97
Sean
I guess.00:23.99
Andrew
I was doing this. Pfft.00:26.94
Sean
That's a thumbnail.00:28.02
Andrew
Oh, God.00:28.21
Sean
That's good.00:28.89
Andrew
Jesus.00:32.72
Sean
That's a good thumbnail. I'm going to have Jonah try that out. We'll see how it performs.00:36.82
Andrew
Try what?00:37.93
Sean
You just blubbered.00:40.08
Andrew
Please no.00:40.97
Sean
Okay.00:43.70
Sean
How you doing? how's how's How's it going?00:48.00
Andrew
I'm good. I just pushed out a YouTube video, LinkedIn video for Metamonster.00:54.94
Sean
Nice.00:55.68
Andrew
i I think this is maybe going to be a ah new tactic is I saw um like an SEO influencer type share something about how AI overviews really like structured schema.01:12.35
Andrew
And so I was like, dope. I'm going to go write a prompt to create structured schema in the new MetaMonster UI, record myself doing it, tag this person in the post,01:22.19
Sean
Cool.01:24.43
Sean
Sick.01:24.60
Andrew
and like shout them out in the video. And then did comment on my post. i don't yeah know They didn't share it or anything, but they commented on my post.01:30.77
Sean
Sick.01:33.39
Andrew
And so that was kind of cool. And I'm like, I think this is probably a good tactic to follow is just like take the things that people are talking about and just record short videos showing how you can use MetaMonster to execute on them.01:38.71
Sean
Yeah, 100%.01:47.17
Sean
Yeah, all all of that makes perfect sense. that like01:49.42
Andrew
Yeah.01:50.67
Sean
that That feels like exactly what to do to grow Metamonster.01:54.27
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah.01:55.81
Sean
In fact, I would not be surprised if that was the way grew your user base to your first 500 to 1,000 this point. Yet, yet, to to ah thousand at this point so02:06.85
Andrew
Maybe. i mean, no one is watching, like, our videos aren't getting any, yeah, any views.02:09.98
Sean
yes yet yeah02:12.87
Andrew
And, like, my like LinkedIn, most of the people liking my LinkedIn posts about Metamonster have been, like, my friends. So I haven't gotten, yeah.02:22.08
Sean
yet yeah i think you need you need one you know ah ah you need like02:26.86
Andrew
Yeah, you need one to go viral-ish in the SEO world. And you need, yeah, I just need to stick with it and...02:33.43
Sean
yeah plus i mean the content just gets reused so for the blog anyway or or the website anyway so yeah um i absolutely yeah but that sounds perfectly correct to me that's02:45.76
Andrew
Yeah. I also, um i so I recorded this one today with Screen Studio, was fun to play around with. I like some parts of it a lot. I found myself really wishing, though, that it would generate a transcript like Loom does.02:59.46
Andrew
can probably use, like, a transcript generator. I can just find something like that. But the reason is, i have gotten alex from like Lex like Lex.page set up pretty well.03:12.97
Andrew
probably do it in Claude too. But I've got it generating pretty good marketing emails based off of video transcripts. And so it's been like a really nice way to like just, you know, reuse content as I record the video.03:30.97
Andrew
And then I upload the transcript to Lex and I have Lex generate a, generate a marketing email, I edit that email, and then I copy it over to loops and send it out to the Metamonster list.03:47.74
Andrew
So I've also been thinking about playing around with some of the automation tools to see if I could actually automate that whole flow.03:50.05
Sean
Cool.03:56.02
Andrew
And it would still be, like, human in the loop because I want to edit it before it goes into loops.04:00.35
Sean
Yeah.04:00.43
Andrew
But, like, even if it created it as a draft in loops, I could then go to loops and edit it there.04:04.58
Sean
Yeah. 100%. 100.04:08.89
Sean
hundred percent and04:10.32
Andrew
So...04:12.64
Sean
Yeah, 100%. um I always, well, okay. Sorry, 100%, you can do that. I always struggle with the idea of doing that because I feel like the time it takes to like do that is sometimes not worth the just doing it manually. I feel like I could be automating Okay, one of the things I could definitely be automating is sending you the link to this Zencaster thing. But every single every single time I do it, I'm like, yeah but it's just so easy to just make it.04:42.92
Sean
And it's so much more work to go figure out how to do it in N8N and like increment the number by one.04:48.73
Andrew
Super fair.04:50.98
Sean
Which...04:51.09
Andrew
This is the classic problem with delegation in general, right? Whether it's automation or delegation, it's just you've got to get over that hump of it's easier to do it myself.04:57.56
Sean
Yeah.05:00.78
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Well... Okay, well, that's that's a different way to think about it. That's kind of like death by a thousand. I'll do it myself until you can't do it yourself anymore.05:12.62
Sean
I'm not going automate it.05:12.73
Andrew
Yeah.05:13.46
Sean
It's not going to happen. I'm just going to send you.05:14.86
Andrew
Yeah, I'm probably not going to automate this for a while either.05:15.60
Sean
Yeah. yeah cool okay uh on to another productive topic that we didn't talk about before the show but now i want to know last time we had a call or two times ago we were talking about uh that you were writing down the story of why you would be pushing something off and procrastinating05:22.29
Andrew
Okay.05:26.80
Andrew
Yeah.05:37.62
Andrew
Oh, shit. You just made me realize ... -
Missing episodes?
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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. 🤖 Plus: positioning challenges, category creation in the AI era, and why Poboy the cat makes a terrible hide-and-seek player.
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:
00:01.03
Sean
What's up?00:02.39
Andrew
Your energy is different after we hit record than it was before.00:06.79
Sean
I know, I gotta turn it on I gotta turn on for the podcast.00:10.99
Andrew
What's going on, man?00:12.23
Sean
I can't believe we both just went like double peace signs on an audio podcast, by the way.00:12.40
Andrew
you're a00:17.63
Andrew
We have video now, Sean.00:19.07
Sean
We do, we do, and do. We have great intros.00:20.91
Andrew
If if somebody would ever approve the latest videos to go live, then we would have even more video.00:27.34
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. that sounds like That sounds like a job for someone.00:33.60
Andrew
Oh, hey, we have a new episode up.00:34.09
Sean
and00:36.53
Andrew
Someone finally approved something.00:36.57
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I'm working on it.00:40.65
Andrew
All right.00:40.64
Sean
I'm doing it. It just sounds like a job for someone who doesn't have 30 hours of meetings a week right now. So...00:46.70
Andrew
Jesus Christ. Yeah, I'm not going to lie I've been trying to meet with you and JJ at the same time lately and trying to find overlap where neither of you has a meeting is almost impossible.01:00.43
Sean
it is It is pretty much impossible.01:00.69
Andrew
Oh, boy, you sure you want to go out? Can we pause real quick?01:05.95
Sean
Yeah, sure. OK, we'll come back. No problem.01:09.12
Andrew
Thank you, thank you. Po'boy wanted out of the office, but also Wally, guy who works on our house, over. And so then Po'boy was immediately terrified and regretted his choice to leave the office and ran and hid under the covers of the bed.01:26.62
Sean
Gotcha.01:27.14
Andrew
It's pretty funny and kind of adorable. Like when our cat wants to hide from something, he just hides under the covers and it's like the most obvious lump in the entire world. So it's a completely ineffective hiding place, but he feels safe because he can't see anything.01:42.68
Sean
Look, man, if I can't see you, you can't see me. That's how it works.01:45.72
Andrew
He's an adorable, dumb little fuckhead and I appreciate him.01:46.52
Sean
That's01:52.19
Sean
the...01:53.48
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Trying to get time on your calendar right now is tough.01:58.27
Sean
yeah Yeah, same. Me too. It's like you start the day with yesterday's to-do list, you have a bunch of meetings, and you end the day with a new compounded to-do list, and then02:11.16
Andrew
So what's going on? I thought i thought you were like removing yourself from a lot of client work. And yeah, what are all these meetings?02:18.30
Sean
ah so i am ish but i also am not because it's pre-blackhat crunch time and i really have like i think i need to be there like to help you just get things across the finish line we launched a site last week we just launched a site that today we launched a site like the week before we're another monthly sprint to launch like two more sites02:45.30
Sean
Yeah. Plus every single client wants a brand audit because, you know, they work with us at the early stage. We built, we built them a brand. It works really well for the first phase and they all reach a point where like they need to advance it, which is fine. It's normal. It happens with every single client. They just all consolidated onto the same last couple of weeks.03:07.59
Andrew
Interesting.03:07.84
Sean
So03:08.03
Andrew
So you're actually doing a brand audit of your own branding work?03:11.43
Sean
yes.03:12.20
Andrew
Huh. That's kind of cool.03:13.24
Sean
Yes. Yeah. Well, it's because like...03:18.53
Andrew
Sort of seems like a racket, but...03:22.74
Sean
Fair. Fair. I mean, it's not like we're charging for them. So it's part of the retainer.03:26.12
Andrew
Wait, why are you not charging for them?03:27.78
Sean
It's part of the retainer. It's part of...03:29.03
Andrew
Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.03:29.02
Sean
It's, its you know...03:30.39
Andrew
okay03:30.35
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah.03:30.90
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, yeah.03:32.56
Sean
It's like it's time to evolve.03:33.04
Andrew
You're charging for them, but you're not charging separately for them.03:36.84
Sean
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.03:37.60
Andrew
Okay. Okay.03:38.75
Sean
So it's like half a racket. No, it's, it's ah a you know, when you are in early stage company, you are asking for very specific things to get you up and running, right?03:48.30
Andrew
Yeah.03:49.09
Sean
and And over, you know, a year or so as you grow, like, lore gets built about your company more meaning.03:56.03
Andrew
Hmm.03:56.18
Sean
Your product changes, your content strategy changes, and all this sort of stuff. And, like, it at some point it evolves past that. what the branding that we did in the beginning can support and honestly what the branding they paid for can support, which is totally fine because it's like, you know, there's no reason that we start off and you pay us a bunch of money to do all this thinking about your brand for you to like possibly never even use it because you are still in that PMF stage, like finding PMF stage.04:09.70
Andrew
Mm-hmm.04:25.49
Sean
But yeah, a bunch of brand and and also competitors exist and the competitors copy you and it's like, and now, you know, At this point, we should just build invoices to some security companies because every time we do something, shows up on their site.04:38.04
Sean
I'm just like, dude.04:38.96
Andrew
Dang. Shots fired.04:41.55
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah.04:42.03
Andrew
You to call names?04:43.42
Sean
No, absolutely not. No, security companies, we love you all oh equally. and But if you would like someone to just do, if you like work from the source, you might just, you know, hit us up.04:54.89
Andrew
We love the ones that pay us money more. I think that's fair to say.04:58.44
Sean
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. We do love the ones that pay us money more.05:03.82
Andrew
You can buy our love.05:03.86
Sean
Yeah.05:04.68
Andrew
Yeah.05:05.48
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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. 🏕️ Plus he's thinking about how to reposition MetaMonster away from tools that might be seen as cheap. Meanwhile Sean's juggling multiple client launches and working on mapping the security operations of a bank to help other people on the Miscreants team understand what it's like to work in a security org. Also: Ferrari shots, cognitive distortions, and landing new clients!
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:
00:01.05
Andrew
not much got a got a new haircut went to a rave this weekend not really a rave the movement festival the like big techno festival that happens in detroit every year was this weekend so uh we last year went for the first time got a one day ticket one day is all my old man old man ass can handle so00:04.76
Sean
Yeah, what's fresh? How was that? Who did you see?00:14.70
Sean
Cool.00:25.98
Sean
Are you a techno guy? Are you?00:27.81
Andrew
No, not really. I like house better than techno, but Detroit is the birthplace of techno.00:28.71
Sean
Oh, okay. Gotcha. I00:34.22
Andrew
So yeah.00:35.31
Sean
i didn't know that. And yeah also the birthplace of Eminem.00:38.87
Andrew
And i'm a I'm a Detroit guy. So big Detroit guy.00:40.85
Sean
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.00:44.76
Andrew
Yeah, it was fun.00:45.52
Sean
Yeah.00:46.53
Andrew
I could not tell you who we saw. I have no fucking clue what any of their names were.00:50.17
Sean
Okay.00:51.79
Andrew
i was just there vibing and dancing.00:54.88
Sean
Cool. you Did you partake like many techno folks tend to?00:59.05
Andrew
Not this year. No.01:00.38
Sean
I see. I see.01:01.08
Andrew
Nah, we were just... I had... I, you know, sipped on a few seltzers. Had a...01:06.13
Sean
Nice.01:07.04
Andrew
Had a Ferrari shot before we left.01:09.49
Sean
What is a Ferrari shot?01:10.94
Andrew
A Ferrari shot is equal parts for Nett and Campari. For... Ari.01:16.49
Sean
Cool. like01:17.37
Andrew
Yeah. It's like...01:20.58
Sean
Do you like Frenet?01:20.71
Andrew
i feel... I don't know.01:21.50
Sean
Are you a Frenet person?01:24.71
Andrew
i01:25.07
Sean
Oh. Interesting.01:25.68
Andrew
I want to be a Furnette person. i love Amari. And my cocktail nerd friends generally like Furnette. And it's a Furnette shot is called a bartender's handshake because it's apparently a big like industry thing where you're like, you know, start, start your shift or something with a shot of Furnette.01:35.35
Sean
Interesting.01:42.16
Sean
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.01:46.36
Andrew
And so I feel like, like that just sounds so cool. Like a bartender's handshake. Like that sounds so cool. And like, I'm never going to be a real bartender, but I can at least learn to like for net.01:57.22
Andrew
I like it better.01:57.21
Sean
Oh,01:59.49
Andrew
it it just, it can overpower things and tastes like toothpaste. So I like, I prefer it with other things. I really want to try the I found out the most popular cocktail in like Argentina is a for net and Coke.02:17.32
Sean
oh interesting.02:18.68
Andrew
So yeah, it sounds really weird.02:18.85
Sean
Now want02:21.05
Andrew
I want to try it.02:22.31
Sean
yeah i hear uh i hear fernet was like popular in sf for a bit it's a big sf people drink yeah yeah i don't mind it it's not bad yeah i would like to try fernet and diet coke that feels yeah well fernet diet coke break with the the cigarette02:26.88
Andrew
I can see that. It seems like a SF hipster thing.02:39.81
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah.02:44.25
Andrew
Kind of like a Calimocho. Have you ever heard of that?02:48.67
Sean
No, no, you know more about cocktails than I do.02:49.83
Andrew
Calimocho is like the... My friends in Spain told me it's like kind of a college kid drink, but it's red wine and Coke.03:02.87
Sean
You know what's really good that people are going to think is this guy? Red wine and Sprite.03:07.24
Andrew
Oh, yeah, yeah. They call that Tinto de Verano. Yeah.03:09.90
Sean
Oh, no, none of my ideas are original.03:11.03
Andrew
Yeah.03:12.70
Sean
I see.03:12.87
Andrew
Yeah, red wine and either like some sort of citrus soda.03:13.06
Sean
Okay.03:16.34
Andrew
So often it's like a sparkling lemonade or a Sprite or something like that.03:17.18
Sean
Hmm.03:21.28
Andrew
It's kind of like, you know, poor man's sangria. If you don't have like fruit and don't want to do a whole like put all the work into making a sangria, just have a Tinto de Verano.03:25.45
Sean
Yeah.03:32.24
Sean
Yeah. Nice.03:34.34
Andrew
We drank a bunch of them on the Camino.03:34.38
Sean
Cool. Speaking of the Camino, you're going on your next trip.03:41.14
Andrew
yeah uh if i can get this fucking newsletter out then i will be leaving to go up to canada for a three-day backpacking trip with maddie at lion's head national park it looks beautiful it's like cliffs that are stick out it's a peninsula that sticks out into lake huron these like big cliffs and crystal clear water03:50.95
Sean
Nice.03:53.69
Sean
Cool. Cool, cool.04:05.29
Andrew
But the high is like 55 and it's supposed to be cloudy and like maybe rain a little bit. So little nervous, but really excited to be getting on trail.04:10.79
Sean
Okay.04:16.66
Andrew
I am like having a little bit of tech overload and04:21.55
Sean
Yeah, it was just i I was just saying to JJ other day that like Andrew's going to go on a trip any one of these days. like It's been a while. He hasn't hasn't left to to go touch grass in a minute.04:34.22
Sean
Yeah.04:35.01
Andrew
yeah i've been craving it i was gonna try while i was uh in between miscreants projects i was gonna just take off in the middle of the week one week but the weather just wasn't cooperating the trail i wanted to do the two times that i looked to like get ready to go it was gonna be rainy the whole time and i was like fuck that rainy and cold so04:45.46
Sean
Nice.04:54.89
Sean
Nice. Nice. Well, glad you glad you get to do it now.05:00.01
Andrew
Yeah. One of my goals is five backpacking trips this year.05:00.58
Sean
hope it's05:03.05
Andrew
So this is number one and we'll see if I can get all five.05:04.06
Sean
cool. OK.05:09.80
Se... -
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:
00:01.27
Sean
What's up?00:02.35
Andrew
Not much, just digging through job applications for this senior product designer role.00:07.89
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.00:09.34
Andrew
it00:09.45
Sean
How's that going? Do you like it?00:10.30
Andrew
It really makes me want to build an ATS.00:12.75
Sean
Yeah.00:14.07
Andrew
i I looked at Home Run again, and00:15.97
Sean
Uh-huh.00:20.47
Andrew
it'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.00:34.46
Andrew
It's, it's not bad at all.00:34.71
Sean
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.00:36.55
Andrew
I 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,00:50.78
Andrew
integrate with an AI detection API because so many of these applications are so clearly just copy and pasted from ChatGPT and not actual applications.01:00.49
Sean
I see. I see.01:02.97
Andrew
Yeah.01:03.27
Sean
You can use GPT for sheets.01:03.42
Andrew
Which01:06.08
Sean
And then...01:07.03
Andrew
do you think how how good is ChatGPT at detecting itself?01:12.38
Sean
I think if you give it a rubric, it it's good. Because, like...01:15.84
Andrew
I don't know if I know enough to give it a good rubric.01:18.86
Sean
can 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...01:27.51
Andrew
Yeah, and you could try to kind of reverse that rubric.01:30.27
Sean
Yeah, yeah.01:30.85
Andrew
Yeah.01:31.58
Sean
God, that's funny.01:33.39
Andrew
Yeah. And, like, there's there's, like, a small part of me that is, like, well, you know, I don't...01:35.17
Sean
Yeah.01:42.50
Andrew
I 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.01:53.80
Sean
Yeah.01:58.15
Andrew
Like, I got several answers to the same question that seemed almost identical.01:58.74
Sean
Yeah.02:04.19
Andrew
And I was like, hmm, okay, so this isn't a real life experience you had then probably.02:08.60
Sean
Yeah, 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.02:16.65
Andrew
Oh, I'm sure there are. yeah Yeah, so I mean, I think part of it is...02:20.17
Sean
How would you build an ATS differently? Let's build a bit sauce.02:27.31
Andrew
Like, 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.02:43.52
Andrew
Now, 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.02:54.26
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.02:56.31
Andrew
So it's it's not a simple product.02:59.09
Sean
Hmm.02:59.43
Andrew
So I totally understand why they're expensive. But I still think ah ah most of that is sunk cost, not like ongoing cost.03:10.24
Sean
Yeah. Definitely03:10.80
Andrew
I 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.03:14.24
Sean
not.03:20.98
Sean
Hmm.03:22.20
Andrew
So 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.03:31.98
Andrew
So 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.03:40.80
Sean
Mm-hmm.03:41.87
Andrew
on both sides of the equation. i think it would be cool to build in, know, some, I remember when we, I know,03:52.68
Andrew
when 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 stuff04:25.09
Sean
You could do a lessannoyingATS.com. Yeah.04:27.83
Andrew
Yeah, like I think, and that kind of stuff was often hidden behind like really high enterprise prices.04:28.44
Sean
come04:33.54
Andrew
And 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.04:49.85
Sean
yeah04:51.78
Andrew
then 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.05:11.51
Andrew
And 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.05:15.57
Sean
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.05:21.64
Andrew
And so trying to walk that balance with thoughtful tools.05:21.73
Sean
and05:24.68
Sean
yeah 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:
00:00:01.81
Andrew
Yo, 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.00:00:13.82
Sean
yeah.00:00:17.66
Sean
That's true. You want to write the other ones, by the way? trying to hire like three more roles at this point. Yeah.00:00:24.94
Andrew
That's nuts, man. Hey, actually, i was going to put in here.00:00:26.23
Sean
I'm00:00:28.46
Andrew
How many people have you hired in the last year?00:00:31.76
Sean
I don't fucking know. I don't know, man. I can't.00:00:34.90
Andrew
If you had to guess, like, give me give me a number.00:00:37.42
Sean
In the past year,00:00:41.08
Sean
five, six.00:00:42.96
Andrew
I guess six. So I'm just going to leave it as six.00:00:44.50
Sean
Yeah. Okay. to fire Yeah, we've hired so many full-time.00:00:50.71
Andrew
Or should I say, like, we've grown the team by 50% or something like that?00:00:55.02
Sean
Sure. Yeah, we've grown the team by 50%. It sounds way better.00:00:58.97
Andrew
Yeah.00:00:58.92
Sean
We'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 know00:01:10.57
Andrew
Yeah.00:01:15.03
Andrew
I'm sorry. What?00:01:19.88
Andrew
I 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.00:01:27.88
Sean
Yeah, yeah, but this was, you know, it's not triple in size. It's six times in size because just kind of said it00:01:36.66
Sean
last 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.00:01:47.89
Sean
RSA 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.00:01:59.66
Sean
It was hyperbolic. I feel a little less hyperbolic at the moment.00:02:00.98
Andrew
Yeah. I will say...00:02:06.94
Andrew
I 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.00:02:14.82
Sean
Mm-hmm.00:02:22.91
Andrew
Like if we lost a client or two, it wouldn't be like 20% of our revenue, 30% of our revenue.00:02:27.42
Sean
Yep.00:02:28.04
Andrew
Like it would be a smaller chunk. It would be,00:02:30.23
Sean
Yeah.00:02:30.70
Andrew
You 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.00:02:40.12
Sean
Yeah.00:02:41.74
Andrew
and 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.00:02:47.89
Sean
Mm-hmm.00:02:53.71
Andrew
And so if we lost one person, like one full-time person, that was, you know,00:02:54.21
Sean
Mm-hmm.00:02:58.47
Sean
It hurts.00:02:59.71
Andrew
20% of our full-time workforce.00:03:01.87
Sean
Yeah.00:03:03.66
Andrew
That's brutal.00:03:05.33
Sean
Yeah.00:03:06.87
Andrew
So I do think that's a good size. Now, would you want to stop there? Because you are more ambitious than I am, probably.00:03:14.82
Sean
I 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.00:03:30.21
Andrew
Yeah, I remember this.00:03:30.53
Sean
you know with yeah yeah and Yeah, I think maybe I showed you as well that org chart.00:03:34.35
Andrew
Yeah.00:03:36.49
Sean
I 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.00:03:46.79
Sean
I can't, i think i i I think I can't fathom like more.00:03:51.38
Andrew
Running a 50-person agency or something.00:03:53.54
Sean
Yeah, yeah, like that, like I can, I think at that point it's just, like, I00:03:54.31
Andrew
Yeah.00:04:01.50
Sean
i think, I mean the market is huge for sure.00:04:06.89
Sean
I 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.00:04:19.97
Sean
I 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.00:04:31.97
Andrew
It's definitely like possible to scale while maintaining quality, but it is fucking hard.00:04:36.95
Sean
Yeah, 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 like00:04:55.63
Andrew
Mm-hmm.00:05:11.23
Sean
creative 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!
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/
Links:For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00.93
Sean
This is a new background. Where are you?00:07.44
Andrew
Oh, you can tell how well my brain is working today. Good Lord.00:11.24
Sean
Yeah.00:12.58
Andrew
i 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.00:30.46
Andrew
My 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.00:38.71
Sean
Amazing.00:41.60
Sean
Amazing.00:42.00
Andrew
Little, know, who needs a fancy stand-up desk when you've got a suitcase desk?00:46.59
Sean
Yeah.00:49.28
Sean
You can just record things. You can just do things.00:52.52
Andrew
You know, don't have the fancy mic today.00:52.93
Sean
Yeah.00:55.88
Sean
Yep.00:56.28
Andrew
know, the MacBook microphone is shockingly decent, maybe.01:03.40
Sean
Yeah, your audio level is better than mine for what it's worth. So maybe should just swap. Maybe I should just... Yeah.01:11.52
Andrew
Dude, it's all it's all an illusion. It's all just, like, stuff.01:14.81
Sean
Exactly.01:16.03
Andrew
And you don't need the stuff to do things. You can just do the things without the stuff.01:21.45
Sean
Yeah. 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.01:28.08
Andrew
Was it...01:29.24
Sean
That's the Jackie Cho way.01:30.69
Andrew
I just heard the other day that... Dude, do you remember Call Me Maybe?01:36.79
Andrew
The song? The, like, pop song?01:38.33
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.01:40.12
Andrew
That was recorded on a MacBook.01:43.03
Sean
Whoa.01:44.15
Andrew
But yeah, that was recorded on a MacBook, like on iMovie.01:44.89
Sean
That's sick. That's I didn't know that. but That's crazy.01:48.59
Andrew
It was just like them holding a MacBook.01:51.86
Sean
I think have you heard Here With Me by David?01:58.63
Andrew
No.02:00.87
Andrew
Uh-huh.02:02.46
Sean
I think that guy did it on his like iPhone. With like an iPhone like digital audio workstation and just cut it up.02:10.33
Andrew
That's sick.02:11.29
Sean
It's pretty crazy.02:12.11
Andrew
That's wild.02:12.22
Sean
I don't know. Kids these days, man.02:14.27
Andrew
There really are no excuses. Yeah. yeah I think we might have a little bit of lag.02:18.70
Sean
Yeah.02:20.30
Andrew
It feels like we're lagging a little bit.02:22.62
Sean
Oh, definitely. We definitely are lagging a little bit. Yeah.02:25.65
Andrew
Okay.02:26.21
Sean
Oh, well, all right, if you're listening, we're sorry.02:26.53
Andrew
Well.02:29.21
Sean
Well, we'll do better.02:29.98
Andrew
Yeah.02:30.48
Sean
not Not this week or next week. I'm traveling next week, so I will also have, I'll be on hotel Wi-Fi.02:34.68
Andrew
Yeah. Also...02:39.24
Andrew
Yeah. Zincaster's pretty good, though, at, like, cutting out pauses, so maybe there will be no lag to the user.02:40.21
Sean
Yeah.02:45.18
Andrew
It's just lag to us.02:47.08
Sean
Maybe, yeah.02:48.11
Andrew
User, listener, what call this? Yeah. Okay.02:51.26
Sean
I don't know, people, friends.02:51.45
Andrew
Alright. What's going on with you? what's What's going on in Miscreants land?02:56.98
Sean
I don't know, man. Giant tax bill.03:00.15
Andrew
Oh, yeah.03:01.44
Sean
That's...03:01.85
Andrew
Yeah. Sucks making money, huh?03:03.93
Sean
I know. It's the worst. i03:06.12
Andrew
the03:06.64
Sean
Life is so much easier.03:06.85
Andrew
It's so hard to be profitable.03:08.97
Sean
Yeah. yeah Especially if all of our profits just went into last year's taxes. No, it's it's it's like...03:14.28
Andrew
not all of your ta Not all of your profits went into last year's taxes.03:17.34
Sean
All all of our profit this year so far are paying off the taxes from last year.03:24.24
Andrew
Okay, that's very different. This year so far is a quarter of the year.03:26.02
Sean
For sure.03:28.38
Sean
For 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.03:36.53
Andrew
Yeah.03:37.43
Sean
Yeah.03:38.44
Andrew
Okay, wait.03:39.24
Andrew
Controversial topic.03:40.69
Sean
Yeah.03:41.17
Andrew
Do you pay estimated taxes?03:43.81
Sean
I would like to. hi03:46.39
Andrew
So, no.03:46.59
Sean
Yeah. I would like to. We don't.03:49.77
Andrew
I don't pay estimated taxes, and I don't currently have plans to start paying estimated taxes.03:55.40
Sean
why don't you have like a don't you get fined i'm not a cpa i don't okay yeah yeah03:56.97
Andrew
Because... Yeah, but... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you pay a penalty if you don't pay estimated taxes, which kind of bullshit.04:08.09
Andrew
Like... 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.04:21.30
Andrew
So I don't wanna be the anti-tax guy.04:22.12
Sean
agreed04:24.51
Andrew
But, 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.04:39.67
Sean
Right, or getting fined for it if you don't. For sure.04:42.19
Andrew
Yeah, 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.04:54.75
Sean
Yeah.04:55.56
Andrew
And 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.
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/
Links:For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:01.15
Sean
What up, what up, what up?00:02.64
Andrew
I got some stats for you.00:04.12
Sean
Yeah, tell me. Hit me. but yeah We should probably give some context first.00:08.26
Andrew
All 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.00:11.90
Sean
I don't know. I can't remember. One of the nights. Uh-huh.00:26.76
Andrew
And 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?00:34.37
Sean
We co-worked. We co-worked on your cold emails. You didn't lie to me.00:41.45
Andrew
Fair, 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.00:57.98
Andrew
And so I have some early results and01:00.84
Sean
Do we want to tell everyone what the five different emails were?01:05.39
Andrew
Yeah, 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.01:12.61
Sean
Okay.01:13.75
Andrew
Probably shouldn't have, but like I'm incredibly impatient and no, no, it wasn't one of the ones that affects your bets.01:16.85
Sean
Does it affect my bets? Oh, good, good, good. Sweet. That's what matters.01:22.88
Andrew
Okay.01:23.01
Sean
Okay, go.01:24.34
Andrew
Yeah, 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 one01:45.84
Sean
Yep. Yep.01:52.92
Andrew
is 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.02:25.14
Andrew
So 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.02:39.34
Andrew
And 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.02:55.21
Andrew
And so you and I placed a bet on this. Your bet, what did you bet?02:57.76
Sean
Yep.02:59.95
Sean
So 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.03:04.78
Andrew
Yep.03:07.11
Andrew
Yep.03:09.83
Andrew
Yeah.03:16.15
Sean
and 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 up03:23.39
Andrew
Yes. Yeah.03:37.69
Andrew
Yes.03:44.46
Sean
The loser has to buy the winner on Chick-fil-A.03:46.44
Andrew
Yep.03:47.24
Sean
So the stakes are high.03:47.32
Andrew
All right. are you03:48.38
Sean
It depends.03:48.87
Andrew
when are When are we cutting off the results, by the way? What's...03:51.67
Sean
What are the results that?03:54.65
Andrew
So, currently, in fourth place in open rates, and tied for lowest response rate, I think.04:03.73
Andrew
oh i There's an asterisk on response rates that I'll explain later.04:06.58
Sean
OK.04:09.17
Andrew
Newsletter.04:10.39
Sean
Oh, damn.04:11.29
Andrew
But all of these have gotten crazy good open rates for cold email.04:16.19
Sean
OK.04:16.80
Andrew
That is the lowest open rate at a 42% open rate so far.04:20.22
Sean
What's the highest?04:21.26
Andrew
Highest, I'm sorry to say, is the interview. Is the interview request at a 62% open rate.04:27.67
Sean
pretty good.04:30.75
Andrew
62 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.04:45.44
Sean
Right, right.04:46.35
Andrew
i don't care about this.04:48.41
Sean
Okay.04:48.85
Andrew
That would be my guess. I have booked two demos.04:57.58
Sean
Okay.04:58.43
Andrew
And have gotten direct feedback on our pricing from a third person who may still has expressed interest in booking a third demo.05:06.39
Sean
And this is from what? Which email?05:08.61
Andrew
So here's the thing. One of them I don't know.05:12.15
Sean
Okay.05:12.74
Andrew
Which 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 yeah05:24.81
Sean
Yeah.05:30.07
Sean
Gotcha.05:36.24
Sean
Probably, yeah.05:40.51
Sean
and Unless, unless Incidentally wants to sponsor us, because we're both users.05:45.04
Andrew
True.05:45.50
Sean
Yeah.05:46.06
Andrew
So all I see ri... -
Andrew just launched MetaMonster! Andrew and Sean dig into how the launch is going so far (spoiler alert: not great), whether the product is overpriced, and what to try next. Then the guys talk about the demo for Sean's new product and what to name it.
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/
Links:For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00:00.75
Sean
Welcome back. How is robotics?00:00:02.92
Andrew
Robotics was good and bad. Bad good? Good bad?00:00:07.35
Sean
Okay.00:00:08.00
Andrew
So we got our butts kicked. Like, plain out, got our butts kicked.00:00:10.85
Sean
Oh.00:00:12.28
Andrew
We got there. The robots were insanely good, all of them. We played well. Like, there's this crazy advanced stats thing in robotics.00:00:22.25
Andrew
Some probably, like, 20-year-old or something.00:00:22.12
Sean
Yeah.00:00:26.42
Andrew
built a website called StatBotics that pulls the live data from... All the live data is published through the site called the Blue Alliance from every match.00:00:36.61
Andrew
And he runs that through some sort of equation, statistical...00:00:40.43
Sean
Cool.00:00:41.28
Andrew
thingy and creates he calls it EPA estimated points added which is supposed to because like robots always compete in teams of three and so EPA is like how much of your total score did you actually contribute to the the team estimated points added so anyway this is a long rambly way to say that like throughout the competition so we were00:00:47.18
Sean
OK.00:00:56.35
Sean
Oh, what what does what does EPA stand for?00:01:00.84
Sean
OK, OK, gotcha. OK.00:01:09.00
Andrew
There were 40 robots in on our field. 160 robots at the competition total, by the way. Four fields going simultaneously all right next to each other. So it's like pure chaos. It's wild. It's really fun and interesting and crazy.00:01:22.28
Sean
Yeah. Sweet. sweet00:01:23.97
Andrew
We go into the the weekend ranked top 20 in EPA, like maybe 17 or something like that. And our goal was to end up like around that range at the end of qualifiers like if we had ended up around that range gotten picked for playoffs we would have been a lock for worlds uh our epa stayed around that range like we were at one point as high as like 11 we finished 22 in epa and then like fluctuated kind of between that range so we were playing well our driver was driving well00:02:00.39
Andrew
But we just got our butts kicked in the actual matches. And EPA is definitely not perfect. It's not everything. like you know It has a bunch of obvious flaws. And so like you know just because our EPA was good didn't mean we were doing well. but But like we had some hiccups here and there.00:02:12.63
Sean
Yeah.00:02:15.77
Andrew
But like objectively, I think the team, like the kids drove well. I think they played well. But we ended up ranked out 40th. so we just got whooped we hit we won one match the entire weekend00:02:25.28
Sean
Damn.00:02:30.61
Sean
But out of the top 40. Yeah.00:02:34.09
Andrew
uh well top 160 like top 40 we there were 40 in our field 160 robots there total and most of the robots never play each other so you don't really know who the top 40 are00:02:37.13
Sean
okay00:02:46.33
Sean
I just meant like of the state.00:02:48.19
Sean
cause00:02:48.29
Andrew
Yeah.00:02:48.68
Sean
because00:02:49.17
Andrew
We were top 160. sixty Again, what I'm saying is like, 160 the state.00:02:51.79
Sean
Yeah.00:02:54.51
Sean
god i Got it, got it, got it.00:02:55.25
Andrew
yeah00:02:55.52
Sean
Makes sense.00:02:57.41
Andrew
And so like that part sucked. like It sucked to lose a bunch of matches. it really You could tell it was like wearing on the kids. After a while, we had a little bit of drama that we had to work through with the team. like some you know you know it It was sort of getting to people, and it was causing some conflict and tension and stuff.00:03:15.63
Andrew
But the good side of it is we worked through all of that. We got our first win. We celebrated the heck out of that.00:03:25.17
Andrew
Celebrated the heck out of the seniors, you know, just, you know, making it to states and their senior season and all of that. And then really cool on Saturday.00:03:35.58
Andrew
So that we didn't get picked for playoffs. so we just had Saturday to chill, which was honestly really nice and fun. And like, just got to spend a lot of time. Like the team got spend a lot of time bonding and hanging out and watching robots do cool robot shit.00:03:49.53
Andrew
and then we were one of four teams who won an award called the rising all-stars award which is given to a team that is like has grown drastically and is on an upward trajectory which is exactly what we are and so that was really cool it was it was really cool to get that and so like00:03:55.32
Sean
Sick. I love it.00:04:03.57
Sean
love it00:04:10.31
Andrew
Final rankings in the state, which again are imperfect in the same way that stats are imperfect and all this stuff, but final ranking in the state, we finished 91st in the state out of like 600 teams. So still objectively an incredible season, drastically overperformed where we thought we were going to be,00:04:29.92
Andrew
The bar like just keeps getting raised every season. you know i think clearly our goal you know our goal for this season was to get to States. And now our goal for next season is pretty clearly get to Worlds.00:04:43.00
Andrew
Which is just a crazy thing to say. Because like four years ago, 2020 season, this team was down to one kid.00:04:44.94
Sean
Yeah, absolutely.00:04:51.22
Andrew
And like barely getting a robot a functioning robot to competitions. Yeah.00:04:55.84
Sean
Yeah.00:04:56.24
Andrew
And now we're like, no, we think we can realistically compete for Worlds within the next few years.00:05:03.07
Sean
I mean, that's awesome. Like, I hope everyone is super proud of all all of that. So that's pretty sweet.00:05:08.54
Andrew
Yeah, I think they are. like Once they got over the initial losing streak, and then like we got the win, and then we got the award, and I think that the team was able to like feel really proud and really excited.00:05:44.08
Sean
Nice.00:05:20.89
Andrew
And yeah, a bunch of the kids are like excited for the offseason. They want to take on offseason projects, and they're like really excited for next season. Some kids who we might have lost because they were going to other schools want to come back and be part of the team, even if they go to another school. So like vibes were really good, even if we objectively got our butts kicked.00:05:44.94
Sean
Well, nice. Good job. Good job. Good stuff.00:05:47.71
An... -
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.
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/
Links:For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00:01.03
Sean
How you doing?00:00:01.98
Andrew
I'm good.00:00:02.68
Sean
Happy Wednesday.00:00:03.55
Andrew
Happy 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.00:00:09.88
Sean
Hell yeah.00:00:16.49
Sean
For yet, you know I got two product inbounds in like one day.00:00:21.53
Andrew
Oh, I knew about one. I didn't know about both.00:00:24.39
Sean
i got another Well, i actually, technically, Osuja's got another.00:00:28.53
Andrew
So we're up to three. Great.00:00:29.56
Sean
Yeah.00:00:29.65
Andrew
Cool. Cool.00:00:30.24
Sean
yeah00:00:30.41
Andrew
Cool.00:00:31.14
Sean
I can just not close them.00:00:31.22
Andrew
Okay.00:00:32.71
Sean
You know?00:00:33.75
Andrew
I mean, I do like being able to pay my bills.00:00:35.38
Sean
Cash.00:00:37.32
Andrew
So yeah, I probably will tell them I can't start on anything until May though. All right, good.00:00:44.47
Sean
That'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.00:00:57.38
Sean
Everyone's tied up.00:00:58.19
Andrew
Nice. When is RSA?00:00:59.99
Sean
April 28th. 26th is when Gyside starts.00:01:01.61
Andrew
Okay, cool.00:01:01.81
Sean
Yep.00:01:03.19
Andrew
So 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.00:01:17.34
Sean
Hell00:01:18.56
Andrew
But 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.00:01:28.86
Sean
he yeah. That's awesome. 10K. Okay.00:01:32.02
Andrew
Yeah, 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.00:01:36.40
Sean
okay00:01:43.57
Andrew
Yeah.00:01:44.78
Sean
just have them take the pieces apart, put it in a suitcase, and rebuild it. And then you...00:01:51.04
Andrew
Yeah, that is that sounds like an idea from someone who has never touched a first robotics robot in their life.00:01:56.15
Sean
I've done Legos and failed at the at the tech whatever it's called, the kinetic Legos.00:01:57.97
Andrew
Yeah, same thing. Same thing.00:02:03.14
Andrew
The, like, robo-LEGO thing?00:02:04.71
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:02:05.70
Andrew
Yeah.00:02:05.81
Sean
I tried once was over.00:02:07.62
Andrew
Yeah, so...00:02:07.79
Sean
went back. Yeah.00:02:09.30
Andrew
we 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 championships00:02:11.88
Sean
Congrats.00:02:21.21
Sean
Nice. Overqualified.00:02:29.05
Sean
nice00:02:34.30
Andrew
which, 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.00:02:37.49
Sean
overqualified00:02:43.78
Andrew
Our 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.00:02:58.55
Andrew
And 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.00:03:33.77
Andrew
And 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.00:03:46.99
Andrew
There'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.00:04:00.99
Andrew
I 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.00:04:08.93
Sean
this is This is like a real like Mr. Shushita moment.00:04:11.87
Andrew
It's crazy.00:04:12.81
Sean
This is awesome. This is cool.00:04:14.19
Andrew
It's like total Cinderella story vibes.00:04:16.66
Sean
Yeah. was going to work.00:04:17.56
Andrew
Now, if we make it to Worlds, we are going to get obliterated.00:04:18.25
Sean
Glee.00:04:21.47
Andrew
we are like I've been watching videos of some of the top robots, and they're insane.00:04:25.80
Sean
yeah00:04:28.59
Andrew
There'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.00:04:37.99
Sean
Gotcha.00:04:38.84
Andrew
It's stupid.00:04:39.98
Sean
I see.00:04:40.96
Andrew
But...00:04:40.98
Sean
What makes their robots so good? I see.00:04:43.63
Andrew
So actually really, really fucking clever strategy.00:04:48.36
Sean
i see00:04:49.24
Andrew
So you have to know a little bit about the game to understand this, but basically like one of the core mechanisms of the game is, you get these like foot-long PVC pipes, and you have to deliver them to a station in the middle of the field and place them on a rung of this ... -
Andrew and Sean are trying different AI tools to vibe code/write more. Andrew's considering other features for the MetaMonster roadmap and his next steps with consulting.
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/
Links:For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
-
In this episode Sean recaps his first ever trip to MicroConf, spoiler: he loved it. Meanwhile Andrew has a new favorite brick and mortar business, and has a date for the MetaMonster launch!
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00.78Sean
What's up man? Why are you late? Just
00:02.85
Andrew
but gonna call me out like that
00:06.12
Sean
helping segue.
00:09.45
Andrew
so i just went to what might be my new favorite like old school business ever and i'm so excited about it it knife sharpening
00:16.40
Sean
Okay.
00:22.54
Sean
Okay. Say more.
00:24.27
Andrew
Okay, so there's this this little business I found on Google google Maps. I was like looking for knife sharpening locally. like There are a bunch of services. My knives have gotten dull as hell.
00:35.90
Andrew
I cook a lot. I need to take better care of them. I was like, I need to find someone to sharpen them. And there's all these services online that like you pay like $60 or something and they nail you a thing. But I just hate dealing with snail mail.
00:47.67
Andrew
And so one day I was like, all right, let me just search Google Maps and see if there's a local business. And I found this company called Bunnell Brothers Cutlery Inc. or something like that.
00:58.03
Andrew
Like classic old school business name. And they had. 4.9 stars on google like all of the reviews were like holy shit these guys are amazing it costs like three dollars to sharpen a knife they do it in five minutes the guy is so so friendly will answer all your questions and so i was like okay i gotta go to this place and it's a little out of the way so it took me a while to get there but this morning i put it on my to-do list i'm like i'm finally going to go and get our knives sharpened And I show up, it's this like, warehousey squat looking building, it was hard to find the door like the front door is painted over.
01:34.21
Andrew
And there's just a sign that says like, all deliveries go to side door. And so I'm like, It was hard to even figure out how to get in. I walk in and like when I first opened the door, I just see like a bunch of people at like grinders, like three or four people at grinders. And it feels like I'm stepping into a warehouse and I'm like, am I like allowed to come in here?
01:55.69
Andrew
But then I saw like the counter and like two people were immediately like friendly and like, yeah, come on in. You're in the right place. And the I mean, just amazing.
02:05.84
Andrew
He sharpened my knives in like under five minutes, not even like under two minutes. It cost me three dollars a knife. He took card.
02:16.93
Andrew
He I asked him like three or four questions and he was super happy to chat with me. I was like, I was like, you know, how often should I be using a honing rod? He's like, every time I'm like, I have a cheap shitty honing rod. Is that okay?
02:27.91
Andrew
Yeah, that's fine. i was like admiring some like really nice expensive knives he had and he did, instead of trying to like push a sale on me, he was like, honestly, for the money, yours are just as good.
02:39.10
Andrew
Like, I love the knives you've got. And I was like, man, this guy is awesome. He told me, like, he's I was like, how often should I, like, get them resharpened? He's like, I tell people, like, twice a year, like, Christmas and Fourth of July. That way you've got them for the holidays. But, like, you know, just whenever you feel like they're starting to get dull and, like, the honing isn't isn't doing its job.
02:58.00
Andrew
And so, like, this is just classic old school business. And... I imagine most of their business is actually sharpening knives for local restaurants and like this, like, you know, personal knife sharpening service.
03:13.15
Andrew
Like they can't make much money on it. They're doing it's $3 a knife. They can't be making much money off of this.
03:18.57
Sean
Twice a year, yeah.
03:19.84
Andrew
Yeah, but I feel like, you know, either they make enough or they just don't care and it's like kind of a public service that they'll just do this for people just because.
03:30.70
Andrew
And so I was just like blown away. Like this, it just, it was one of those like businesses that just made me feel good. It felt like community.
03:39.12
Sean
Is this now your favorite, this is now your favorite and store, like, shop in Michigan?
03:42.87
Andrew
Absolutely. Favorite, favorite, like, like brick and mortar, like,
03:44.62
Sean
Okay.
03:48.01
Sean
Do we do classes?
03:49.84
Andrew
I don't think so. like they Because they they sharpen things on like grind like machines. like They've got grinders.
03:56.09
Sean
I see.
03:56.68
Andrew
And so that's why it takes them no time at all. They just go, choop, choop. So yeah, I don't think. And again, like they're not trying to be modern.
04:08.14
Andrew
They're not trying to offer classes or anything like that.
04:10.56
Sean
Yeah.
04:10.74
Andrew
they're just They do what they do. like All of the knives for like the businesses were stacked in these like wooden boxes that looked like they were 50 years old and just had written in sharpie like the name of the business and whatnot so yeah i just i love this and i want them to continue to exist forever
04:28.58
Sean
I love it.
04:33.75
Sean
Yeah, I mean, sick. no Now I want to come to Michigan and get my knife sharpened. I could take it away TSA.
04:41.74
Andrew
There's got to be a million places in New York that are that are very similar vibes.
04:44.91
Sean
Yeah, they're like $10 a knife. Williams-Sonoma. I think people go there.
04:49.64
Andrew
Yeah, but that's not the same as going to Bunnell Brothers.
04:50.05
Sean
I don't know any lik...
-
Andrew and Sean talk about the high robotics team Andrew mentors, choosing to delay the MetaMonster launch, hiring updates from Miscreants, and muse on the pros and cons of adding a custom prompts feature to MetaMonster.
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Stacked cookbook: https://www.amazon.com/Stacked-Perfect-Sandwich-Owen-Han/dp/0063330652For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00:00.85Sean
Yo, yo.
00:00:02.06
Andrew
Yo!
00:00:03.42
Sean
How was...
00:00:03.58
Andrew
How are you?
00:00:04.54
Sean
I'm good. I'm tired. I'm good. I'm gonna hop in on a flight to New Orleans. New Orleans.
00:00:13.79
Andrew
Nolens?
00:00:13.76
Sean
Next. New Orleans in 48 hours.
00:00:17.25
Andrew
Sick. 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.
00:00:24.46
Sean
Next year.
00:00:24.73
Andrew
Although, I guess if I keep doing robotics and it's always during robotics season, then maybe I won't ever make it.
00:00:29.86
Sean
Yeah, that's...
00:00:30.05
Andrew
I could go to the Europe one.
00:00:31.77
Sean
Yeah. yeah
00:00:32.79
Andrew
That would make no sense. That would be so much more expensive.
00:00:35.73
Sean
and But don't they have like... Oh, so Rob Walling. Rob Walling. Rob Walling. But...
00:00:41.58
Andrew
Hey, Rob.
00:00:42.78
Sean
Hey, Rob. Don't they have a... Do they only have a Europe and Americas one? For some reason I felt like they
00:00:50.68
Andrew
Yeah, I think they just have two.
00:00:51.62
Sean
Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool.
00:00:54.88
Andrew
Two per year.
00:00:56.38
Sean
I'm excited. and
00:01:00.18
Sean
I 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.
00:01:01.88
Andrew
Mm-hmm.
00:01:05.52
Sean
So I'm like a little bit nervous about it.
00:01:06.35
Andrew
Whoa, yeah.
00:01:08.86
Sean
Yeah.
00:01:09.38
Andrew
You're not going trying to get work. You're just trying to meet people and learn and have a good time.
00:01:12.04
Sean
Yeah.
00:01:16.25
Sean
I know. That feels so wrong. Yeah,
00:01:18.70
Andrew
Yeah, they've that's like not Sean at all. how Sean going somewhere and not trying to make money?
00:01:22.02
Sean
hu
00:01:24.87
Andrew
What? What?
00:01:27.47
Sean
yeah I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Make friends is crazy.
00:01:35.75
Sean
yeah and Yeah, no, I, and then, and then, and then I'm going to RSA.
00:01:41.10
Sean
in well one month right after that so i'll be back to my normal self afterwards
00:01:47.39
Andrew
Gotcha. How many conferences are you going to be at this year?
00:01:54.19
Sean
like 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 might
00:01:51.71
Andrew
Total. By the end of the year, you think?
00:01:56.20
Andrew
No.
00:02:00.94
Andrew
Weren't you just at ShmooCon and like... Did you go DistrictCon?
00:02:10.09
Sean
try to sneak into ChinaCon.
00:02:12.74
Andrew
Oh.
00:02:13.42
Sean
Small conference for like to talk about like like Chinese APTs and all that stuff.
00:02:13.82
Andrew
What's ChinaCon?
00:02:20.27
Andrew
Hmm, neat.
00:02:20.38
Sean
Anyway, yeah.
00:02:23.04
Andrew
Are 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?
00:02:28.75
Sean
Oh, 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.
00:02:41.70
Sean
Because...
00:02:43.10
Andrew
It sounds like someone who has disposable income.
00:02:43.84
Sean
Yeah,
00:02:47.87
Andrew
Someone who has has a business card they can put things on.
00:02:48.36
Sean
that's weird.
00:02:51.51
Andrew
and
00:02:51.75
Sean
That's true. That's true. The $100 difference doesn't make a that make good significant difference, I guess. Well, after taxes are involved.
00:02:57.64
Andrew
Yeah.
00:02:59.44
Sean
Speaking of which, my taxes are horrendous this year. Oh, yeah.
00:03:02.01
Andrew
Oh, fuck. Mine are going to be terrible, too, because I didn't pay any like estimated taxes last year.
00:03:06.33
Sean
Yeah. yeah
00:03:09.78
Andrew
Do you have a good accountant? and
00:03:12.42
Sean
we 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:
00:01.01Sean
How you doing?
00:02.26
Andrew
I'm good, man.
00:03.31
Sean
How's South Carolina?
00:04.58
Andrew
South Carolina was great. Had...
00:09.01
Andrew
but Sorry.
00:10.00
Sean
we'll start recording again.
00:11.53
Sean
No, keep it rolling, keep it rolling, keep going.
00:13.18
Andrew
You don't want to leave that? You don't want to leave my my hacking?
00:15.76
Sean
Hmm.
00:18.03
Andrew
Yeah. 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.
00:29.79
Andrew
Took my parents to Korean barbecue for the first time ever. They'd never never tried Korean barbecue and they loved it.
00:32.22
Sean
Whoa.
00:36.68
Andrew
I made some butter chicken for my mom's birthday for her and some of her friends.
00:39.84
Sean
Nice. Happy birthday your mom. What is your...
00:43.39
Andrew
My mom got a new kitten.
00:45.25
Sean
Whoa.
00:46.19
Andrew
So that was fun.
00:46.48
Sean
Big updates. Uh-huh.
00:47.60
Andrew
her name's Her name's Ruthie.
00:49.57
Sean
Nice.
00:50.30
Andrew
Full name RBG.
00:51.66
Sean
are Okay.
00:52.46
Andrew
She's my mom's resistance kitten.
00:54.48
Sean
Very good. i love it. I love it.
00:57.66
Andrew
Yeah. 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.
01:11.63
Andrew
Congrats to the Dreadnought team. Their website's now live.
01:14.42
Sean
Absolutely.
01:14.58
Andrew
Super cool to see. it wasn't It absolutely was not that I was procrastinating on my promise to finish the onboarding flow for Metamonster.
01:21.95
Sean
Right. Right. Right. Convenient story.
01:24.77
Andrew
Yeah, that had nothing to do with it.
01:26.24
Sean
Your 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.
01:37.38
Andrew
Allison. Allison had a great birthday.
01:39.39
Sean
Happy birthday, Allison. Cool. Or Miss Askins. Miss Askins. Miss Askins.
01:45.00
Andrew
Allison's fine. We are we are adults.
01:49.54
Sean
And 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. But
02:03.35
Andrew
It was. Yarek is a beast, man.
02:05.70
Sean
I know.
02:05.75
Andrew
Yarek, like, just...
02:06.73
Sean
Yeah.
02:08.61
Andrew
There 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 awesome
02:17.91
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.
02:26.24
Sean
yeah
02:41.42
Sean
Yeah, he's, yeah. yeah. um do think And the guy's a part-time professor.
02:48.22
Andrew
And he's a part-time professor.
02:49.76
Sean
That's crazy. He's out here teaching kids design things.
02:50.68
Andrew
Yeah.
02:54.93
Sean
Yeah, 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.
03:03.72
Sean
For 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.
03:16.04
Sean
It has been, we missed an episode, so technically this is the new episode. so so is it see it? are like can we see it
03:24.48
Andrew
Define done.
03:28.78
Sean
you find time I don't know. I don't know what you had in mind.
03:33.06
Andrew
Okay, so I would say the the we're over 50% of the way there.
03:40.07
Sean
Can I reset my password? Because I forgot it. and he can't like
03:42.15
Andrew
No, no, that's that's one of the things that I still need to do.
03:43.06
Sean
gosh
03:46.98
Andrew
So 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:
00:01.41Sean
Oh, I'm like that for me. Oh, there it is. Okay.
00:03.89
Andrew
Hey, there we are.
00:03.96
Sean
How you doing?
00:05.100
Andrew
I'm good.
00:06.84
Sean
Good to see.
00:06.90
Andrew
Dude, I just made the best fucking sandwich.
00:09.78
Sean
Okay. about
00:12.87
Andrew
uh 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.
00:39.11
Andrew
It 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.
00:51.55
Sean
Okay.
01:00.70
Andrew
Really, really good. Like maybe the best sandwich I've had in the last at least six months.
01:10.24
Sean
okay I've never heard of this guy in my life, but yeah, yeah, I thought of him.
01:13.81
Andrew
Did you find him? What's his what's his name?
01:16.50
Sean
Owen Han. Owen hahn on Han, the sandwich king.
01:17.52
Andrew
Oh, Owen Han.
01:22.24
Sean
Interesting.
01:23.23
Andrew
What a great niche, right?
01:23.43
Sean
Interesting.
01:25.22
Andrew
Like I want to be the sandwich king.
01:25.77
Sean
Yeah.
01:27.09
Andrew
Like that's such a fun place to live in and play in.
01:29.79
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just gotta be like a chiseled Asian guy.
01:33.15
Andrew
Yeah, I mean, he is he is jacked and very attractive.
01:33.90
Sean
Great hair.
01:36.98
Sean
Yeah.
01:38.15
Andrew
But 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.
01:55.09
Sean
I don't know. I feel like you might run out of sandwiches. I mean, I guess not, but...
02:01.08
Sean
I don't know. I mean... What am I to say? I don't know shit about content creation.
02:08.27
Andrew
Yeah, what do you do when when making sandwiches is no longer fulfilling for you?
02:09.84
Sean
It just...
02:11.79
Andrew
You've got to got elevate your game somehow.
02:14.06
Sean
Yeah. It's only filling, not fulfilling. I don't know. Switch the wraps. There we go.
02:21.23
Andrew
What's going on with to you?
02:21.23
Sean
yeah 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 um
02:33.05
Andrew
God damn. Yeah. It's just, you know, you can get that stuff out of the tap in your kitchen, right? Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Uh
02:47.01
Sean
I 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.
02:54.95
Andrew
Yeah.
02:55.69
Sean
There's like a lime seltzer one. That's really good.
02:58.05
Andrew
Unfortunately, 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.
03:04.24
Sean
Oh, 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.
03:15.29
Sean
They say two grams of sugar and then a fuck ton of Stevia.
03:17.90
Andrew
yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:18.42
Sean
but oh
03:20.44
Andrew
I noticed that I've been drinking some of the, the fair life protein shakes.
03:21.68
Sean
yeah
03:25.61
Andrew
And 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?
03:31.39
Sean
Right.
03:33.99
Sean
Right.
03:34.41
Andrew
and then afterwards I was like, I know that aftertaste.
03:38.16
Sean
I see.
03:38.31
Andrew
So they're like, they're yeah, they're doing the same thing.
03:39.74
Sean
Microplastics. Nice.
03:41.03
Andrew
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, it's like number one microplastic thing or whatever.
03:42.49
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.
03:45.59
Andrew
It 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:
00:00.79
Sean
Do you play Starcraft? Have you played Starcraft?00:03.15
Andrew
No, I've never played Starcraft. I'm not a big gamer.00:04.71
Sean
and00:06.24
Andrew
Like the most time I've ever spent on video games, like my top games are like Pokemon, like Crystal.00:13.03
Sean
That's true. You're like an actual sports like healthy touch grass person. I forget that.00:17.74
Andrew
i 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.00:27.01
Sean
Yeah, but I'm like, ah ah I'm like, a you know, watch eSports and touch Minecraft grass sometimes, every guy.00:34.57
Andrew
Why do you ask about Starcraft?00:35.44
Sean
I'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,00:48.14
Sean
I 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.01:06.11
Andrew
Huh.01:08.75
Sean
and And like, so for some reason, my brain has that connection.01:11.48
Andrew
Yeah.01:11.58
Sean
Oh, 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.01:19.07
Andrew
whoa Whoa.01:21.89
Sean
I'm i'm pretty sure it, I think it's like, you know, top 200 snapshot in time, never went pro.01:22.08
Andrew
Oh.01:26.65
Sean
Oh, so it's in the US. So he's Korean, but.01:28.07
Andrew
I 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.01:33.85
Sean
that'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 cool01:42.52
Andrew
I 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.01:50.93
Sean
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly yeah01:52.07
Andrew
Now 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.02:02.67
Sean
Nice, nice. Yeah, some Age of Empires, some Fred Alert.02:06.05
Andrew
Yeah, I never got beyond Civ III.02:06.19
Sean
and um Okay.02:08.67
Andrew
Again.02:08.70
Sean
Alright, 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?02:18.77
Andrew
I'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.02:29.67
Sean
Hmm.02:31.04
Andrew
So 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.02:36.98
Sean
Oh, sick.02:41.38
Andrew
And it all happened like way faster than he was expecting.02:41.66
Sean
Sure.02:44.48
Sean
sure02:45.51
Andrew
It ended up falling through, like they decided to pass on it.02:44.87
Sean
Sure.02:47.47
Andrew
So he's he's not buying the house, but he was going through the motions.02:48.03
Sean
Okay.02:53.13
Andrew
And I think it was just eating up all of his like attention as it would.02:58.84
Sean
right03:00.29
Andrew
So 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 like03:42.79
Andrew
higher 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,03:55.63
Andrew
staring 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.04:08.02
Andrew
Client work is great at like kind of forcing you to get over that ADHD hurdle, because there are deadlines.04:12.14
Sean
For sure.04:13.37
Andrew
And 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 so04:50.04
Andrew
i just i I'm feeling a little discouraged. I'm feeling a little like we're just moving more slowly than I would like.04:58.08
Sean
Yeah, i mean we missed our first episode in a long time last week.05:01.06
Andrew
yeah 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.05:17.58
Sean
Yeah, yeah. Oh, Paul is okay, which is good.05:18.37
Andrew
so But boy is fine. But boy is totally fine. I was pretty pissed off at him, but he's cats are curious.05:21.66
Sean
Yeah.05:26.21
Andrew
And if you leave a... -
In this episode, Sean's Shmoocon trip got spicy 🌶️ 🥵 and Andrew is riding the high of a great prospect call for MetaMonster. Sean gives feedback on the experience of using MetaMonster, and Andrew debates when (and how) to start charging early customers.
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Worth Driving: https://worthdriving.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00.38Sean
How's your poop?
00:01.58
Andrew
Oh, fuck you. yeah
00:05.86
Sean
I'm sorry, we can cut this out.
00:06.93
Andrew
No, no, no, it's all good. Everybody poops, man. I didn't actually poop this time, but I do poop.
00:10.21
Sean
yeah oh I hope so.
00:13.46
Andrew
Poops are great.
00:17.43
Andrew
Poops are great. Well, I that was not expecting that. Okay.
00:22.77
Sean
Sorry, sorry, how's robotics?
00:26.27
Andrew
Robotics is great. Yeah, we're I think two weeks into the season. And this is going to mean nothing to anybody who hasn't been involved with first robotics, but we're making a big switch from tank drive to swerve drive this year and from time based to command based robot programming.
00:46.76
Andrew
So.
00:46.34
Sean
Whoa.
00:47.88
Andrew
Yeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool. Tank-based is kind of what it sounds like. you know If you imagine how a tank moves, it's like two tracks moving at the same time. um And so it's simple, but it's also like not very precise. Whereas swerve drive, you have four wheels that can all move independently, and so they can and they can rotate. So you can move forward, backwards, left, right.
01:14.66
Sean
Hmm.
01:15.53
Andrew
diagonal you know you become a queen instead of a ah ah rook and it's uh does that metaphor make sense it's nerdy as fuck but it makes sense
01:27.02
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it does, it does. It was just not, it was just not the metaphor. Like, it just took me a second. and I was like, I didn't, my brain did not go to chess. I was like, what is it?
01:42.87
Andrew
And then, yeah, but the the flip side is it's just way more complicated. So Swerve Drive, you have because you have you go from like four motors that are basically doing the same thing you have to control and to eight motors that can all operate independently. And there's a lot of like tuning and.
02:04.02
Andrew
PID controllers, which are this like math thing that you use to like set a location on within like robotics. So you have to tune like your PID controllers and set your like encoder offsets and just get everything be very precise about everything. And then it's also like strongly encouraged that you use command based code which is like a little things are a little more like obfuscated away from you versus like in timer based you're like there's a timer running throughout a match and you're just constantly getting
02:41.44
Andrew
hitting the same function over and over again. And then in command-based, it's a little more abstracted. And so it can be like just a tiny bit trickier to debug things. So we've just like we have taken a big step up in complexity of our electronics and programming. And guess who's the electronics and programming mentor on the team?
03:02.00
Sean
Austin.
03:03.27
Andrew
yeah
03:05.38
Sean
You, you.
03:05.70
Andrew
I wish. Dude, I wish Austin was on the team.
03:06.88
Sean
That'd be crazy.
03:07.90
Andrew
That would be a blast.
03:09.98
Sean
That'd be the coolest robot there. That'd be cheating for the kids.
03:14.81
Andrew
Yeah. But yeah, it's been super fun. And I you know finished up workday and then went and spent two and a half hours at the robotics center yesterday and spent that whole time trying to tune our surf drive. And it is still not doing what I want it to do. So I'll be going back tomorrow night.
03:35.90
Sean
How many kids do you have to work with? Like just on your team?
03:38.99
Andrew
Yeah, so our team, the first year I did it, we had three kids. The like most competitive teams often have 40 or 50 kids. so And they often have tens of thousands, if not six figures of funding.
03:48.64
Sean
Whoa.
03:53.94
Andrew
And we had our first year like two grand. So that gives you an idea of like scale. This year, we're up to, I think, 15 kids.
04:00.80
Sean
Yeah.
04:06.77
Andrew
We've got a handful of eighth graders who were having them build a separate robot so that they can get a as much hands-on experience as possible.
04:15.39
Andrew
then we have a couple of seniors and like a junior who were who are super involved. And so I've got one senior who is interested really interested in programming and electronics.
04:28.12
Andrew
And so usually he and I are working together with a random eighth grader.
04:33.22
Sean
Nice.
04:34.05
Andrew
Yeah.
04:34.64
Sean
Nice.
04:35.16
Andrew
Yeah, it's fun.
04:35.57
Sean
Cool.
04:36.45
Andrew
It's cool. Also, our team's all like Hispanic, and like half of them don't speak English. Well, not half. yeah This year, we've only got a couple who aren't very comfortable speaking English.
04:48.20
Andrew
But like everyone on the team speaks Spanish, a couple of them like prefer to speak Spanish over English. And so yeah.
04:56.65
Sean
Sweet.
04:56.81
Andrew
I get to try to practice my Spanish, and they get to make fun of me for how bad my Spanish is.
05:00.37
Sean
Sweet.
05:02.81
Sean
cool nice nice i was thinking about going back...
-
Andrew and Sean are back for Season 3!! Andrew's onboarding his first users to MetaMonster, and as alpha user #1 Sean has lots of thoughts. Meanwhile Sean actually took some time off??? And he used it to start writing. The guys talk MetaMonster, product design, and personal branding.
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Worth Driving: https://worthdriving.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00.98Sean
I'll lie down for a second. Happy New Year.
00:02.47
Andrew
Yep.
00:03.08
Sean
How you doing?
00:03.53
Andrew
ah Perfect. No, that's not the perfect metaphor.
00:06.47
Sean
ahhu
00:07.40
Andrew
This isn't going to be a year of lag. This is going to be a year of getting shit done and moving fast.
00:09.32
Sean
Hell yeah. Yeah.
00:12.99
Andrew
Yeah.
00:13.56
Sean
Who's in three, baby?
00:14.79
Andrew
Season three. Oh, are we going to start a new season?
00:18.12
Sean
I'm going to, I call it any season. Did you see me create the show, delete the show and recreate it and slack? Yeah.
00:25.17
Andrew
No, I miss that.
00:25.14
Sean
Yeah. It is not season two ah episode It is season three, episode one, 2025.
00:30.50
Andrew
Love it.
00:32.13
Sean
Um, how you doing?
00:32.18
Andrew
Fuck yeah. I'm good, man.
00:33.85
Sean
How's your. Yeah.
00:35.55
Andrew
My holiday was great. It was super, super chill. We stayed here in Detroit, um just... hung out with family and friends and relaxed through a kind of a quirk.
00:48.82
Andrew
Maddie's little sister got COVID a few days before Christmas. So we had to delay Christmas and do like kind of a second Christmas.
00:55.36
Sean
Okay.
00:55.52
Andrew
And so on Christmas day, we were just home, just the two of us with the cats. And we were like, oh shit, we really like this.
01:00.74
Sean
Sweet.
01:05.02
Andrew
Like don't get me wrong, love family, love friends, wanna see them as much as possible. But there's something really nice about just have just being you and your partner on Christmas morning, like drinking mimosas, being lazy, not getting out of bed right away, eating some some yummy pastries.
01:13.30
Sean
Hell yeah.
01:25.46
Andrew
um We unwrapped some things for the cats and like a couple of things for each other and it's just super chill. It was really nice.
01:32.65
Sean
Nice. Sweet.
01:33.39
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then the other thing from this break was I just found myself like for the first time in recent memory, wanting to work.
01:36.36
Sean
Sweet.
01:44.30
Andrew
Like I didn't want to take more than a week off because no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:44.50
Sean
Hell yeah. You're becoming me. I like it. and like I'm rubbing off on you.
01:51.84
Andrew
I just like, I'm feeling drawn to work right now and it's a season. It'll pass. Um, I'm, I know that I'm okay with that, but. But yeah, I'm feeling really hyped about Meta Monster. I really want to get going on it, do more with it.
02:06.89
Andrew
um get it off the ground. So I'm feeling really excited. And um small update there, this week, as you well know, we started to bring on our first outside users.
02:18.15
Sean
Mhm.
02:20.94
Andrew
So not, we're calling, I'm thinking of this as like a friends and family round of alpha testing.
02:27.01
Sean
Hell yeah.
02:27.54
Andrew
So it's not a, these aren't, potential customers really. they're They're people who we just trust to get in and start finding bugs and edge cases and giving us good honest feedback on how the product feels. um While we wrap up a couple of last features that I think are really important for giving our first potential customers the real full experience. Like right now, bulk generation doesn't work. So you have to generate things one at a time. And so to me, we're not fulfilling the promise of MetaMonster until we have bulk generation done.
03:02.96
Andrew
um But yeah, we've we've started to onboard our first couple of users, ah friends and family users. I think I created three accounts yesterday. I'll hopefully create two or three more today. um And yeah, so what do you think? You've been in the product now.
03:20.06
Sean
Yeah, I mean, you know, as alpha user number one, um just so everyone's aware, alpha user number one, ah president yeah president of MetaMonster fan club.
03:23.71
Andrew
Yeah. Got to give you your props. I'm sorry for not not mentioning that.
03:33.07
Sean
ah I like it. I mean, I like it. It's buggy. It's toss you a bug early on. those I mean, I don't think anything's like, like, I think core functionality, everything's working great. um It's like more very basic, like UX things.
03:53.81
Sean
Good found value out of it pretty quickly. um I ran worth driving through it. I honestly ran some client sites through it as well um You know, I think like ah I mean worth driving is pretty large now too But even like some client sites like it's an easy way to spot like oh shit that meta tag is actually wrong We should just go switch it
04:02.22
Andrew
Love to hear that. Hmm.
04:14.46
Sean
um And yeah, i mean instead of like arbitrarily writing meta descriptions and and whatever, I think it's nice to... I actually didn't mind that I couldn't do bulk generation, only because um I only cared about clicking through the ones that I cared about. um That being said though, I do kind of wish it was sorted a little bit better. um
04:40.62
Andrew
oo O...
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In this episode, Andrew talks about his recent deep dive on prompt engineering and the way the AI product landscape is shaking out. Sean talks about his recent trip to Philly for a cybersecurity marketing conference. Then the guys reflect on 2024 and their goals for 2025.
Links:
Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Worth Driving: https://worthdriving.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00:00.00Sean
two, one, happy birthday Austin, yay.
00:00:02.11
Andrew
Happy birthday, Austin!
00:00:05.29
Sean
How was your recording last week? How'd it go?
00:00:09.74
Andrew
I thought it went really well. um guess you tell me, have you had a chance to listen to it yet?
00:00:13.54
Sean
Yeah, my train from Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Virginia last week got very delayed, so.
00:00:20.11
Andrew
Oh no, I'm sorry.
00:00:21.26
Sean
said in the terminal and listened to it. was good. It was, yeah, thought he was super insightful.
00:00:28.35
Andrew
Yeah, Alex was awesome.
00:00:28.63
Sean
I feel like he's beginning, you were a little, what is it like? like like starstruck felt like i was like wow didn't see me like this so before it was good i thought he gave you like really good feedback i thought but i mean there were things i learned from it being someone who's never looked at the stack in the brick stuff and yeah i think it was it was helpful and then i saw the new meta monster update today or that you sent down i was like wow it is way better than before
00:00:36.26
Andrew
Oh, that's funny. Yeah.
00:00:57.50
Sean
and
00:00:59.34
Andrew
Well, that's good. At least I'm taking what I'm being taught and internalizing it and not it's not just going in one ear and out the other.
00:01:05.30
Sean
Yeah.
00:01:07.62
Sean
Right, right.
00:01:08.30
Sean
Like our podcasts usually do.
00:01:09.72
Andrew
Yeah, I tried to also do some of the pulling the slingshot back, as Alex says, some of the anticipation building with the actual release of the podcast episode. So tried to like hype that up. Austin said it worked on him. I'm not sure it made a big difference on our analytics, I think. Yeah.
00:01:33.43
Andrew
You know, I think we had. You know, it's performing better than our average podcast episode, but I think that's as much about like Alex retweeting it as it is anything else. So, you know.
00:01:46.91
Sean
Well, the real magic is, let's see how many people isn't today is right. So hello, new listeners. Austin is Andrew's co-founder, or I'm going to last name.
00:01:51.97
Andrew
Hey, that'd be cool.
00:01:57.22
Andrew
Yep. Austin's my co-founder on MetaMonster. He's the one responsible for making the product look great and function. Well, I'm just the guy who talks about it and is trying to talk about it better, trying to talk about it more good.
00:02:13.12
Sean
Yeah, hell yeah.
00:02:14.59
Andrew
Yeah. How was Philly?
00:02:16.99
Sean
It was good. I went to, so I went to cybersecurity marketing, the cyber marketing conference or cybersecurity marketing conference held by the cybersecurity marketing society. was good. A lot of, mean, no, this is the third time actually.
00:02:27.82
Andrew
Is this their first time doing an in-person conference? Oh, wow. I thought they were all virtual before.
00:02:34.02
Sean
The society, sorry, this is their, this is their third conference. They've done a bunch of like in-person events. Yeah. The society's grown. There's like 500 people at this conference.
00:02:42.76
Andrew
Cool.
00:02:43.91
Sean
yeah, I get to hang hang out with people that I don't usually get to see. And it's weird. It's, it's like the only conference I've ever been to. That's, I think that's i've ever, ever really been to that's not a security conference.
00:02:54.04
Andrew
Hmm.
00:02:54.63
Sean
So it's a whole other sort of vibe.
00:02:56.73
Andrew
Wait, but isn't it, I mean, it's still a security adjacent conference, right?
00:03:01.68
Sean
For sure.
00:03:01.98
Andrew
But it's not hackers talking about like the new vulnerabilities they discovered and like how they reverse engineered some crazy low level protocol or something.
00:03:02.04
Sean
For sure. For sure. But it's not like, you know, it's not like RSA. It's not like i can not be solid. It's yeah. Yeah.
00:03:10.97
Sean
Right.
00:03:14.32
Sean
right right exactly exactly and and it's not like it's also it's also not cyber security vendors trying to sell you on their product
00:03:24.38
Andrew
Right.
00:03:24.67
Sean
like RSA and Black Hat.
00:03:26.34
Andrew
Okay.
00:03:27.48
Sean
And it's also, it's a society it's like a society conference, so it's not, I guess it's almost like the DEFCON, like in that case, like the DEFCON of cybersecurity marketing, like you don't really go to sell anything there, you're not, your customers, I mean, I guess my client customers are there, but I also try not to do any of that.
00:03:32.18
Andrew
What does that mean?
00:03:38.60
Andrew
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:48.90
Sean
yeah There's obviously vendors and sponsors and stuff. We're a sponsor as well. i I literally was just like, I don't want to, like I also would like to attend the conference. So I gave up my booth and switched it out with a 360 camera and just let people use a 360 camera there.
00:04:02.45
Sean
And then went ahead and hung out with people there, but it was good.
00:04:01.81
Andrew
Oh, that'...
-
In this week's special guest podcast, Alex Hillman (of Stacking the Bricks and 30x500) joins Andrew to coach him on early stage marketing at MetaMonster. They talk through Andrew's recent failed launch (and why not to worry about it too much), what he's doing differently now, and how your identity as a founder can impact your marketing. Plus, what pro wrestlers get right about identity and storytelling and how to create great content when you aren't an expert in your niche.
There's so much great info packed into this discussion, enjoy! By the way, check out Alex's description of 30x500 at the 12:11 mark for a masterclass in positioning.
Links:
Follow Andrew on BlueSky: @andrewaskins.comAndrew's writing: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Follow Sean on BlueSky: @seanqsun.comSean's writing: https://seanqsun.com/Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/Follow Alex on BlueSky: @alexhillman.comJumpstart your product empire in 12 weeks with LaunchFTWFor more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.
Transcript:
00:00:01.42Andrew
All 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?
00:00:58.53
Alex Hillman
15 years, yeah.
00:01:00.15
Andrew
15 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.
00:01:15.29
Andrew
So yeah, we're gonna get into it. But Alex, thanks so much for for being here. Just so appreciate you, man.
00:01:22.85
Alex Hillman
Yeah, 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.
00:01:47.38
Alex Hillman
came 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.
00:01:59.19
Alex Hillman
I'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,
00:02:08.00
Andrew
yeah
00:02:13.34
Alex Hillman
and at least three-way win. I win, you win, and and whoever listens wins. So really, really stoked to get into this.
00:02:18.10
Andrew
Awesome.
00:02:19.52
Alex Hillman
I think you're working on stuff that is common and and easy to get wrong.
00:02:25.03
Andrew
Yeah, 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,
00:02:53.09
Andrew
we'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,
00:03:44.44
Andrew
I 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.
00:04:04.73
Alex Hillman
that cushion
00:04:05.14
Andrew
hello 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.
00:04:17.85
Andrew
and 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.
00:04:57.12
Alex Hillman
yeah 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.
00:05:22.14
Andrew
Mm hmm.
00:05:23.16
Alex Hillman
And the trut...
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