52: Christmas Special with Jordan Morgan

Transcript

Autogenerated by MacWhisper

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.320

Welcome to Launched. I'm Charlie Chapman, and this is the annual Christmas special with

00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:25.240

the one and only Jordan Morgan.

00:00:25.240 --> 00:00:33.360

back. Yeah. Oh, it's that time of year. It is. It is. Christmas launched. You made a

00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:38.520

joke last time about this being an annual Christmas special. And I apparently took that

00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:42.760

to heart because I just assumed we were doing it this year. And I was re-listening to that

00:00:42.760 --> 00:00:47.920

episode a little bit ago and I was like, oh, I guess I wasn't aware that this was definitely

00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:51.540

going to be a thing we do every year. But no, absolutely. Definitely going to be a thing

00:00:51.540 --> 00:00:56.500

we do every year. I before we recorded that I did pitch one hour of Christmas carols acapella with

00:00:56.500 --> 00:01:01.620

just just you and I but I guess I guess we'll do a hard pivot on that. Yeah hard pivot to

00:01:01.620 --> 00:01:09.140

our deep thoughts on you know being app developers stuff yeah yeah something like that.

00:01:09.140 --> 00:01:14.660

Yeah so you know if you're here for a normal interview episode this is this is not going to

00:01:14.660 --> 00:01:20.420

be that. We're just we're just cozying up by the fire over here. I got somewhere my dog copper is

00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:25.380

curled up at my feet somewhere. We're just, we're just going to kind of sit back and relax and,

00:01:25.380 --> 00:01:29.700

you know, reflect on our lives in the last year and where it's brought us.

00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:31.300

Fireside chats with Charlie Chapman.

00:01:31.300 --> 00:01:31.700

There you go.

00:01:31.700 --> 00:01:32.820

It's your next podcast right there.

00:01:32.820 --> 00:01:40.180

Exactly. I guess, I guess to kick things off, let's sort of, let's sort of do some follow-up

00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:44.820

from our last year's episode. So last year, kind of the big thing we talked about was

00:01:45.860 --> 00:01:50.340

you launching the best in class iOS app book series.

00:01:50.340 --> 00:01:51.700

Nail it.

00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:53.220

Yeah, definitely.

00:01:53.220 --> 00:01:59.300

And so you had launched it by that point and you were starting kind of your trend of weekly

00:01:59.300 --> 00:02:04.340

updates or bi-weekly updates, which we talked about how bi-weekly is confusing.

00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:12.340

And since then, I have seen a regular cadence of updates going through, but I'm not exactly

00:02:12.340 --> 00:02:16.340

sure from, you know, sort of the business side of things, how that's going. So, I'm just curious for

00:02:16.340 --> 00:02:22.500

a check-in on how the book's going. Yeah, it's going good. It is funny because a year later,

00:02:22.500 --> 00:02:30.660

almost nothing has changed in that I'm still just working a lot on the book. So, yeah, it's the

00:02:30.660 --> 00:02:35.620

sales, like that was the big thing I was looking at because, you know, like one year later, I think,

00:02:35.620 --> 00:02:41.380

you know, they're not as high as they were during the launch year. But it still averages. I was

00:02:41.380 --> 00:02:46.420

looking at my little spreadsheet that I do for track taxes and stuff, still makes between

00:02:46.420 --> 00:02:50.580

$2,500 to $4,000 a month. So still going strong throughout the year.

00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:50.580

Yeah.

00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:56.260

So it's been a good little chunk of income, but yeah, it takes a massive amount of time. But

00:02:56.260 --> 00:03:01.780

it's still the same cadence every, I say bi-weekly, maybe just 14 days, I guess it makes

00:03:01.780 --> 00:03:07.700

more sense. Every 14 days, every other Thursday, whatever works for your mental model is the

00:03:07.700 --> 00:03:14.420

release that I shoot for. But in terms of changes, I was doing 2 chapters at least

00:03:14.420 --> 00:03:20.820

when I was doing those updates and that about tore me in half. So now I've gone to 1 chapter

00:03:20.820 --> 00:03:24.740

at least every 2 weeks, which is a lot more manageable because this thing is going to

00:03:24.740 --> 00:03:28.660

take a while to finish. And I'm at the point where everybody that's bought it knows that

00:03:28.660 --> 00:03:32.340

and they're fine with it. There's been no complaints at all in terms of like, "Hey,

00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:37.620

can you go quicker?" In terms of pace, because you already have laid out

00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:41.120

all the different books or the different, you know, sections of this.

00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:44.920

So do you have a sense at this point based on your current pace,

00:03:44.920 --> 00:03:46.420

like how long it's going to take to finish?

00:03:46.420 --> 00:03:48.320

I think it's going to go into 2024.

00:03:48.320 --> 00:03:50.720

That's something I was going to look at real soon.

00:03:50.720 --> 00:03:52.020

You need a burn down chart?

00:03:52.020 --> 00:03:55.920

Yeah, I need to get a nat chart, points, and user stories.

00:03:55.920 --> 00:03:58.120

All my favorite things, jokes.

00:03:58.120 --> 00:04:02.220

To go on a tangent, like the same time when we had this chat last year,

00:04:02.220 --> 00:04:04.420

it's like the start of my time off that I take every year.

00:04:04.420 --> 00:04:05.620

So I have like, you know, three weeks off.

00:04:05.620 --> 00:04:06.620

I always wait for it.

00:04:06.620 --> 00:04:10.620

And then I like reassess where so many things are at, like indie wise.

00:04:10.620 --> 00:04:15.420

And that was one of the things I was going to do is like kind of say if I did a chapter every two weeks,

00:04:15.420 --> 00:04:19.020

you know, where would that put me? When would the first version be done?

00:04:19.020 --> 00:04:21.420

And I'm pretty sure it'll be 2024.

00:04:21.420 --> 00:04:23.220

And I've kind of made peace with that.

00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:27.420

But another part of me kind of wants to take my sabbatical at work,

00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:29.220

which I've been up for, for like over a year,

00:04:29.220 --> 00:04:34.020

and just like go ham on it and just crack out a ton of it.

00:04:34.020 --> 00:04:39.380

it because it's going to be wild to have it done because it's taking so much longer than

00:04:39.380 --> 00:04:40.380

I thought.

00:04:40.380 --> 00:04:42.540

But I realized that pretty early on.

00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:47.420

I'm at the phase where it's like, I know it's going to take a long time and that's fine.

00:04:47.420 --> 00:04:51.140

I think last year when we talked, I was kind of like setting in on that realization like,

00:04:51.140 --> 00:04:55.180

"Oh no, this is going to take years to finish."

00:04:55.180 --> 00:04:57.580

But yeah, I've kind of just faced it up and see where it's at.

00:04:57.580 --> 00:05:03.140

But long story short, I think 2024 sometime is when the table of contents as I originally

00:05:03.140 --> 00:05:05.380

laid it out will be finished.

00:05:05.380 --> 00:05:09.780

Just a little bit for anybody who didn't already listen if you've already made it this far.

00:05:09.780 --> 00:05:14.820

The idea here is you release this book as a, the word you used was beta, right?

00:05:14.820 --> 00:05:16.380

Yeah, that's what I used.

00:05:16.380 --> 00:05:21.980

And basically, you had the first couple chapters or something done.

00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:23.780

Nine is what I started with.

00:05:23.780 --> 00:05:28.440

And then you've been, like we've talked about, every two weeks or 14 days, you've been adding

00:05:28.440 --> 00:05:31.100

to it and kind of updating it as you go.

00:05:31.100 --> 00:05:34.620

And so people can buy into it now and they get those updates.

00:05:34.620 --> 00:05:41.380

But something I'm curious about is like, once you're done, is the idea that a you'll do

00:05:41.380 --> 00:05:46.160

like a big splashy like and now the book is for realsies out.

00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:49.540

And then and then you're done done like you kind of, you know, now it's a physical thing

00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:54.860

that you sort of put on the digital version of a physical shelf and you're not messing

00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:55.860

with it.

00:05:55.860 --> 00:05:58.740

Are you planning on kind of keeping something going after that?

00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:06.220

Yeah, so it's funny to answer your first question like when it's finished in my head like of course I want to do some

00:06:06.220 --> 00:06:07.500

Yeah, it's finished

00:06:07.500 --> 00:06:13.940

But I've worked so much on it that at this point I could almost just see myself like just putting up one tweet like in

00:06:13.940 --> 00:06:16.380

A random afternoon and just be like, all right, I finished it

00:06:23.380 --> 00:06:29.200

Exactly, but I mean, no, I mean, there are plans I want to do like the original plan and still what I what I have

00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:31.320

In mind is when it is done that first version

00:06:31.320 --> 00:06:35.720

I do want to split it out book by book so I can offer like those for sale

00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:39.540

So like if you just want accessibility or maybe you're more interested in design

00:06:39.540 --> 00:06:42.240

Like you could buy those at a cheaper price point than the whole series

00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:48.740

And then of course from a business standpoint like it's much easier to sell the total package if you have individual sums to offer to

00:06:49.300 --> 00:06:53.200

You know, it's like, "Whoa, I could spend X amount of dollars on two of these, or I

00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:55.860

could just bump it up a little bit and get all five."

00:06:55.860 --> 00:06:59.380

So it'll help from a business standpoint, but also give people more choice.

00:06:59.380 --> 00:07:05.340

But no, I mean, I kind of, I envision this as an evergreen project to work on and, you

00:07:05.340 --> 00:07:07.500

know, for years and years to come.

00:07:07.500 --> 00:07:12.500

Because if I'm looking at my document right now, I've already got like 20 or 30 things

00:07:12.500 --> 00:07:16.300

that I want to add after I'm done with the first version.

00:07:16.300 --> 00:07:17.300

Because at that point...

00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:18.700

Like updates to previous chapters.

00:07:18.700 --> 00:07:24.840

Yeah at that point I so I really started this when iOS 14 was was out

00:07:24.840 --> 00:07:27.180

So I have a bunch of notes for iOS 15

00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:30.580

I've got a bunch of notes for iOS 16 and by the time it is done

00:07:30.580 --> 00:07:35.140

I'll have notes for iOS 17 for sure. So it's like I am gonna come back and you know

00:07:35.140 --> 00:07:37.460

Write over things like, you know Swift charts, for example

00:07:37.460 --> 00:07:40.840

That's something I want to do or just small things like because every year, you know

00:07:40.840 --> 00:07:46.000

iOS gets a little bit better and better and there's these little tiny improvements they make and I don't want to miss any of those

00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:51.240

So, you know, I've got a lot of notes on just like quality of life improvements to go over

00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:52.960

so

00:07:52.960 --> 00:07:55.760

The good thing about that though is what while I'm writing it like this

00:07:55.760 --> 00:07:59.560

It's not like I'm missing all the iOS 16 stuff or I was 15 like the last chapter

00:07:59.560 --> 00:08:03.440

I just did had a lot of iOS 16 stuff in there because it's out and in the wild

00:08:03.440 --> 00:08:06.080

But yeah, so I do want to split it out book by book

00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:08.760

and I will keep working on it, but I

00:08:08.760 --> 00:08:14.280

Do know that like once this first version is done and I'm not like in the gauntlet of writing all the time

00:08:14.840 --> 00:08:19.160

The prospect of like adding some chapters every few months is much more like

00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:20.440

You know

00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:25.360

It doesn't the thought of that doesn't stress me out or I don't have the thought of like I'll be sick of it and don't

00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:30.820

Want to do it because writing is already a part of your sort of life anyway with the blog exactly

00:08:30.820 --> 00:08:33.700

Yeah, like and I just love writing too, so it'll be fun

00:08:33.700 --> 00:08:37.540

But I'll have a lot more balance in terms of my indie life at that point

00:08:37.540 --> 00:08:43.460

Yeah, because it's all writing writing writing writing very few time for development, which is you know, we chat all the time

00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:49.200

I've started like six, five, six apps and finished them like 50 to 80% of the way.

00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:51.980

And, you know, then I have to get back on the book and, you know, I'm all over the place

00:08:51.980 --> 00:08:52.980

with that stuff.

00:08:52.980 --> 00:08:57.880

So yeah, it'll be nice, but it'll always be worked on as far as I can see.

00:08:57.880 --> 00:08:58.880

Nice.

00:08:58.880 --> 00:09:00.640

Yeah, that's I didn't think about that.

00:09:00.640 --> 00:09:04.620

The fact that like older chapters are older versions of iOS.

00:09:04.620 --> 00:09:10.380

And so I guess as part of the sort of this is a complete package, you'd almost need to

00:09:10.380 --> 00:09:12.940

get those updated to a more current version.

00:09:12.940 --> 00:09:17.820

If you were going to try and say like the book is done as a sales pitch kind of thing.

00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:18.680

Yeah, that's interesting.

00:09:18.680 --> 00:09:23.820

I was going to ask, do you envision a, uh, like a physical version of this book at

00:09:23.820 --> 00:09:27.360

some point, but based on your answer, it almost sounds like that would be kind of

00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:29.500

difficult to do since you're wanting to always update it.

00:09:29.500 --> 00:09:32.180

It would be, but I want to so bad.

00:09:32.180 --> 00:09:35.620

I was actually just looking at this, uh, yesterday while chatting with another

00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:39.540

buddy, I could see as like, if I could figure out some way to say like, this is

00:09:39.540 --> 00:09:46.260

version, like the 2022 version, right? And you can buy the print and you can still get the digital.

00:09:46.260 --> 00:09:51.220

So like you could be up to date going forward. But there's like nothing beats just like holding

00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:56.660

a paperback book, you know? Exactly. Yeah. Having it on your shelf that you act like you've actually

00:09:56.660 --> 00:10:01.460

read it. And it's massive at this point too. Like it's going to be thousands of pages. Like it's

00:10:01.460 --> 00:10:07.140

already, I think over the thousand mark for sure, depending on like your font settings and stuff.

00:10:07.140 --> 00:10:11.300

But yeah, it would be cool to have like five books and to be able to physically hold those.

00:10:11.300 --> 00:10:14.020

But the thing is, like, that's a whole world.

00:10:14.020 --> 00:10:18.900

And I've had a few talks with like some smaller publishers that would be interested to do it.

00:10:18.900 --> 00:10:23.700

But yeah, I mean, I'm not going to make near as much money on that than I would just direct sales.

00:10:23.700 --> 00:10:25.620

But it's just the fun of having a book.

00:10:25.620 --> 00:10:28.020

And then there's some like print on demand things you can do.

00:10:28.020 --> 00:10:31.780

I think Kindle Direct Publishing, KDP is what it's called.

00:10:31.780 --> 00:10:35.460

And then there's another one that Matt from NS Hipster did with Flight School.

00:10:36.100 --> 00:10:40.980

But that involved like setting up an API with, you know, a bunch of web stuff that I didn't want to

00:10:40.980 --> 00:10:46.660

dip into or would probably screw up. But it would be nice to be able to do it on demand,

00:10:46.660 --> 00:10:49.860

I think. If I could figure out how to do it that way, once the first series is done,

00:10:49.860 --> 00:10:50.740

I'll definitely do it.

00:10:50.740 --> 00:10:55.860

Yeah, that'd be cool. It'd almost be like, what are they called? When like video game

00:10:55.860 --> 00:10:59.300

company, like indie game companies, they'll do like a physical version.

00:10:59.300 --> 00:11:00.340

Do the hard copy.

00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:03.940

Yeah. Like after the fact, and it's more for people who already like the thing to

00:11:03.940 --> 00:11:09.620

A, support it more and B, to kind of have it on their shelf as a fun physical object.

00:11:09.620 --> 00:11:15.060

And then that way too, once I do more updates, I could see myself just re-upping the print copy

00:11:15.060 --> 00:11:21.620

in December. So it's like, "Hey, it's been updated now for 2023. So if you want to buy

00:11:21.620 --> 00:11:25.540

another print copy with the updates, you can or you can just stick with the digital."

00:11:25.540 --> 00:11:31.540

And then there's other cool things too. I would love to have it on a website somehow, which I

00:11:31.540 --> 00:11:36.540

I noticed Natalie did with Neil Koalesing,

00:11:36.540 --> 00:11:38.540

I'm about to really speed that up,

00:11:38.540 --> 00:11:40.260

her UI kit book in SwiftUI,

00:11:40.260 --> 00:11:43.140

like you can log in and just kind of browse it online

00:11:43.140 --> 00:11:44.700

on their website, which is really nice too,

00:11:44.700 --> 00:11:46.300

you know, to kind of just like command F,

00:11:46.300 --> 00:11:47.220

find what you want.

00:11:47.220 --> 00:11:48.040

- Yeah, yeah.

00:11:48.040 --> 00:11:50.860

- Or you can do the other formats as well.

00:11:50.860 --> 00:11:52.900

So I kind of look at the book series

00:11:52.900 --> 00:11:56.500

as something that'll be evergreen side income

00:11:56.500 --> 00:11:59.700

for as long as I'm writing software in the iOS industry.

00:11:59.700 --> 00:12:01.340

And so far, we're a year and a half in,

00:12:01.340 --> 00:12:06.300

has been that. But coincidentally enough, on the day I'm on launch talking about the book series,

00:12:06.300 --> 00:12:09.420

I'm on my biggest sales drought since it's released.

00:12:09.420 --> 00:12:10.060

Oh no!

00:12:10.060 --> 00:12:16.380

We'll see. We'll hope for the best here. But I think it'll be good to have, as people come and

00:12:16.380 --> 00:12:20.140

go in the industry and stumble upon the work, I think they'll be interested in it.

00:12:20.140 --> 00:12:26.940

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that was like... It was good to hear that you were still making sales

00:12:26.940 --> 00:12:31.660

throughout this because one of the things I always wondered was, you know, like writing,

00:12:31.660 --> 00:12:36.540

the cliche with writing is that it's, you know, this really difficult task with in terms of

00:12:36.540 --> 00:12:42.220

motivation and everything. And we had talked about this last time with you having the pressure of

00:12:42.220 --> 00:12:45.740

people who've already bought it and people continuing to buy it to kind of help you,

00:12:45.740 --> 00:12:52.780

motivate you in terms of continuing to write it. But it's easy to imagine at some point,

00:12:52.780 --> 00:12:55.900

it sounds like maybe you're kind of in that, at least in a short term right now,

00:12:56.460 --> 00:12:58.660

not having these sort of regular sales.

00:12:58.660 --> 00:13:02.880

And I feel like that motivation would be a lot harder to drive, uh, drive yourself

00:13:02.880 --> 00:13:04.720

to keep kind of keep plugging away at it.

00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:09.600

Although it's you, you're sort of driven by lists and processes.

00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:13.080

So I feel like the fact that you have this cadence probably helps you get through that

00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:14.640

easier than most people writing a book.

00:13:14.640 --> 00:13:15.320

Totally.

00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:15.560

Yeah.

00:13:15.560 --> 00:13:20.960

And I mean, I've got my, uh, I almost said notion craft, not notion.

00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.760

Uh, my craft document open that like, and I can see like all the green check

00:13:24.760 --> 00:13:26.280

marks I have when I finish a chapter.

00:13:26.280 --> 00:13:31.160

So like there's that motivation of like seeing when things are going to, you know, be done and finish up.

00:13:31.160 --> 00:13:35.100

And I'm really close to finishing the third book over user experience.

00:13:35.100 --> 00:13:38.220

I've got, uh, like three chapters in an epilogue.

00:13:38.220 --> 00:13:43.260

And then after that, really, it's like the biggest medias one over iOS frameworks.

00:13:43.260 --> 00:13:48.580

And then after that one, the fifth book is really just kind of like a bonus add on.

00:13:48.580 --> 00:13:51.220

It's got like five or six chapters over just like catch all tips.

00:13:51.220 --> 00:13:52.480

I didn't know where to put anywhere else.

00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:58.160

So, I think mentally when I get to that last one, it'll already feel like such a weight

00:13:58.160 --> 00:14:01.360

off my shoulders anyways.

00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:02.560

And not that I don't enjoy doing it.

00:14:02.560 --> 00:14:05.800

I mean, I learn stuff all the time, but it is like another job for sure.

00:14:05.800 --> 00:14:07.400

This is something that I have to do.

00:14:07.400 --> 00:14:09.840

And it eats into your other side projects, right?

00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:10.840

Exactly.

00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:11.840

Yeah.

00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:15.400

And I think the biggest lesson I've learned by far with this whole thing is just opportunity

00:14:15.400 --> 00:14:17.560

cost more than anything else.

00:14:17.560 --> 00:14:21.840

It's like I can't seem to really get that lesson drilled into my head into a good way

00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:25.360

because there's been parts of my indie journey where I'm like, all I do is write software now

00:14:25.360 --> 00:14:29.920

with spin stack. I don't have any time to write on my blog. And now I'm like, now all I do is write

00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:34.720

on my blog and for the book, I don't have time to make software. So I envision myself being at a

00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:39.200

good place to kind of take those lessons to heart when this first version is done and have like a

00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:43.600

healthier balance because I have found I love doing all of those things, right? Writing on my

00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:48.880

blog, writing this book, book series. See, that's why I'm so bad at marketing. Sometimes I switch

00:14:48.880 --> 00:14:54.160

from calling it a book to book series to doing an app. So that's kind of where I want to get.

00:14:54.160 --> 00:14:59.440

But it is encouraging and easy to write when you wake up and see that people have bought it.

00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:05.520

And I've learned the lessons of any product that you sell and that there's just curves.

00:15:05.520 --> 00:15:10.240

I just had a Black Friday sale. So I had a big bump in sales there.

00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:14.480

Then you go a few days, it doesn't sell. Then you go another few days, and then all of a sudden,

00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:19.360

like 3 people buy it in 1 day and then 5 and then 0 for a few days. So that's just how these things

00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:24.800

go. But you get used to it after a while too. Those lulls don't bother me at all anymore.

00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:30.400

Are you still spending time and money in marketing? We talked about that a bunch

00:15:30.400 --> 00:15:33.920

last year. So I'm curious where that's at at this point.

00:15:33.920 --> 00:15:40.800

The short answer is no, not as much as I did last year. So we had a lot of talk over like

00:15:40.800 --> 00:15:44.320

but the Twitter ads I've tried, Facebook, podcasts.

00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:48.520

I haven't done the Twitter ads for a while now,

00:15:48.520 --> 00:15:50.520

and I'm sure maybe we'll have some fun time

00:15:50.520 --> 00:15:53.040

to get to Twitter, but with all the baggage

00:15:53.040 --> 00:15:54.520

that kind of came with that,

00:15:54.520 --> 00:15:56.360

I just kind of got to the point where I'm like,

00:15:56.360 --> 00:15:57.600

ah, I'm just done.

00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:01.080

People find me on Twitter for it, then cool.

00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:02.280

Which is a shame in some ways,

00:16:02.280 --> 00:16:05.520

'cause it's the perfect place to market this kind of thing,

00:16:05.520 --> 00:16:09.040

but Twitter's just like in a weird spot.

00:16:09.040 --> 00:16:12.320

I tried a lot with Facebook ads the last few months.

00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:14.560

I know a lot of people that have had success

00:16:14.560 --> 00:16:16.980

on Facebook marketing, but I just, I don't know.

00:16:16.980 --> 00:16:19.320

I'm either not good at writing the copy,

00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:21.240

setting them up is a little bit complicated.

00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:24.120

Twitter's interface I think is a lot easier

00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:25.160

and it's really intimidating.

00:16:25.160 --> 00:16:28.840

So I don't know, I've got like some things

00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:30.000

kind of working there I thought,

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:31.120

but not enough to where I'm like,

00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:33.440

all right, I'm not gonna invest more in this

00:16:33.440 --> 00:16:35.240

because I don't have the infrastructure really set up

00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:38.040

to attribute like sales directly from Facebook.

00:16:38.040 --> 00:16:43.360

I just made this like identical page for the best in class website.

00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:45.960

Just have like slash FB and point to that.

00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:48.620

So I could like at least see in my analytics, like who was

00:16:48.620 --> 00:16:49.940

coming from Facebook to that.

00:16:49.940 --> 00:16:53.120

But I mean, you know how the Facebook app is, you open it in their browser,

00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:56.920

which I don't like, then you have to like hop over to gum road and download it.

00:16:56.920 --> 00:17:01.480

So if you're coming from a mobile device, it's kind of feels disjointed.

00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:01.880

Right.

00:17:01.880 --> 00:17:02.600

So.

00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:05.760

And the user overlaps probably different too.

00:17:05.760 --> 00:17:08.020

Like we talked about Twitter is like, where are the iOS

00:17:08.020 --> 00:17:09.380

community kind of lives.

00:17:09.380 --> 00:17:12.080

And they're willing to pay money for things too, it seems like, you know,

00:17:12.080 --> 00:17:14.580

like people like buying things from people they follow. Like I've,

00:17:14.580 --> 00:17:16.460

I've bought some stuff. Like I just mentioned the,

00:17:16.460 --> 00:17:19.060

the book from Neil Kohl, a lesson blog that I enjoyed getting.

00:17:19.060 --> 00:17:23.440

So at this point I'm less into like, all right, this thing just got out.

00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:24.780

Let me really, you know,

00:17:24.780 --> 00:17:27.820

toy around with marketing and I have a lot of disposable income to do with

00:17:27.820 --> 00:17:30.480

marketing. And now I'm just like, eh, you know,

00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:33.300

I'm working on this and it's like good side income. So if people find it,

00:17:33.300 --> 00:17:34.660

they find it. If they don't, whatever.

00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:40.620

staying in line with the writing theme here. You also have a blog. We talked about that.

00:17:40.620 --> 00:17:48.300

There's been, I feel like there's been some back and forth on that also being a source of income.

00:17:48.300 --> 00:17:53.580

I know last time we talked a lot about this podcast and sponsorships and that concept.

00:17:53.580 --> 00:17:58.620

You talked about how you do it on your blog. And I'm curious what the whole story is there.

00:17:58.620 --> 00:18:03.180

And I'm saying I'm curious as if we don't talk all the time, but really,

00:18:03.180 --> 00:18:05.180

It's like I just kind of... Yeah.

00:18:05.180 --> 00:18:07.020

Let's bring everybody else along with where we're at.

00:18:07.020 --> 00:18:07.500

Let's do it.

00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:12.620

We haven't just sat down and talked about this. And selfishly, I'm very intrigued by this.

00:18:12.620 --> 00:18:16.540

It's a great subject because again, this is something I learned a lot on. So

00:18:16.540 --> 00:18:21.900

at the end of last year, when I was looking at like, if I ever want to try being an indie,

00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:26.780

what could I do? And the three things I identified were the book series will always be around.

00:18:26.780 --> 00:18:30.780

I know that. I'm good with that. So hopefully, I can get income from that.

00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:36.780

I love writing. So how can I make money there? And that's where I came from, sponsorships.

00:18:36.780 --> 00:18:41.660

And then the third pillar, which will, I hope, be the biggest one by far and away,

00:18:41.660 --> 00:18:44.460

would be my own software, which I haven't gotten to yet.

00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:46.300

We'll talk about that after this. Don't worry.

00:18:46.300 --> 00:18:46.860

Yeah, totally.

00:18:46.860 --> 00:18:47.580

Not letting me off the hook.

00:18:47.580 --> 00:18:54.700

So... No, as well, you shouldn't. So I knew I could get to 2 out of 3 of those in 2022,

00:18:54.700 --> 00:19:00.700

which I did. But what I found out is how insane it made things for me for a little bit until

00:19:00.700 --> 00:19:01.700

until I rejiggered them.

00:19:01.700 --> 00:19:05.000

So for a while there, for like the first five or six months,

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:07.000

I was writing a chapter in the book a week,

00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:08.760

which is already a mountain of work.

00:19:08.760 --> 00:19:10.400

You know, you gotta research it, you gotta edit it,

00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:13.180

you gotta make the photos, you gotta do the email,

00:19:13.180 --> 00:19:14.980

you gotta, you know, send it out,

00:19:14.980 --> 00:19:16.200

do the updates on Gumroad.

00:19:16.200 --> 00:19:17.480

So that's a whole thing.

00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:21.040

I was writing one post a week on the blog

00:19:21.040 --> 00:19:24.560

to kind of justify selling sponsorship slots.

00:19:24.560 --> 00:19:26.580

And that just like torched me.

00:19:26.580 --> 00:19:27.880

Like I found where my limit was.

00:19:27.880 --> 00:19:29.280

And like while I could do it,

00:19:29.280 --> 00:19:31.680

It wasn't like a healthy, "All right, I'm doing this."

00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:38.200

It was like a, "Holy crap, I'm down an espresso, working in the morning, go to my day job,

00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:41.640

do all the stuff with my family, and then spend an hour on it at night."

00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:42.640

Recipe for burnout.

00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:46.360

Yeah, and it was just way too much.

00:19:46.360 --> 00:19:50.360

I feel like I learned a lot of the lessons that Johnson Dell did only like a thousand

00:19:50.360 --> 00:19:55.640

times faster, and not because I'm wiser, but just because I realized what he did.

00:19:55.640 --> 00:19:58.040

It's a lot of work to do sponsorships.

00:19:58.040 --> 00:20:01.680

You look at people's blog and a lot of the formats, they're all the same, right?

00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:06.120

Like I just copied Daring Fireball, like put something in the side, two sentences, link

00:20:06.120 --> 00:20:07.120

to it.

00:20:07.120 --> 00:20:10.480

And you're like, "Ah, that's got to be like easy income, right?

00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:13.640

Like just throw a PNG up there, just do some copy.

00:20:13.640 --> 00:20:20.000

Like what a great way to help out another company and help yourself."

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:23.440

But it's more than it seems like anything else in this world.

00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:25.960

You got to reach out, you got to go back and forth on copy.

00:20:25.960 --> 00:20:29.880

"Hey, this image doesn't look right when it's like in portrait or landscape. Can we try this one?"

00:20:29.880 --> 00:20:36.120

You know, negotiating like prices a little bit. And so, it just got to the point where I was

00:20:36.120 --> 00:20:40.280

selling so many weekly slots that that just was like, "I can't do this."

00:20:40.280 --> 00:20:42.280

Yeah, it's a job in its own right.

00:20:42.280 --> 00:20:47.800

Yeah. And again, you're promising an article a week too, which is more work in and of itself.

00:20:47.800 --> 00:20:53.800

And so, if we want to skip ahead, what happened was I did the sponsorships. The good news was

00:20:53.800 --> 00:20:57.800

they were easy to sell. I even raised the price like two or three times because I was like, "Well,

00:20:57.800 --> 00:21:02.280

I'm selling these too easy." Until I finally got to the point where someone was like, "Yeah,

00:21:02.280 --> 00:21:06.520

that's a little high for the traffic." Which I'm glad I hit that point because I knew I wasn't

00:21:06.520 --> 00:21:09.000

underselling. Right.

00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:13.240

And then I hit that inflection point where I'm like, "Okay, this is too much." So I just ripped

00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:19.720

the sponsorships out altogether. The page is still up. I just didn't put the link on my website.

00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:23.400

If you go to it now, it's just like, "Hey, these are on hold if you found this link."

00:21:23.400 --> 00:21:25.800

But what happened was towards the end of the year,

00:21:25.800 --> 00:21:27.560

I still had people reaching out.

00:21:27.560 --> 00:21:29.480

Like me not doing any outbound,

00:21:29.480 --> 00:21:30.600

just like two or three times,

00:21:30.600 --> 00:21:32.760

they're like, "Hey, can I still sponsor it?"

00:21:32.760 --> 00:21:34.200

And I was like, "I'm not doing it right now,

00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:35.160

but I'll get back to you."

00:21:35.160 --> 00:21:38.360

And so I found this really happy medium

00:21:38.360 --> 00:21:42.200

where if I just sold a month slot all at once,

00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:44.200

then all of a sudden it was really doable

00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:46.040

because the work came from like

00:21:46.040 --> 00:21:48.840

having to promise an article a week,

00:21:48.840 --> 00:21:51.720

having to like switch out the sponsor

00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:53.000

that was actually on the website

00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:55.320

and getting the copy down and all those things.

00:21:55.320 --> 00:21:57.400

Where if you just do that once a month,

00:21:57.400 --> 00:22:00.600

then if you're going from 4 times a week to 1,

00:22:00.600 --> 00:22:02.440

like you're cutting down the work by 75%.

00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:06.120

And while you're not making as much money as you would for weekly,

00:22:06.120 --> 00:22:08.440

it's still like, you know, worth your time.

00:22:08.440 --> 00:22:11.640

And then you only have one like sponsored tweet to do.

00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:14.440

And that really hit home.

00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:15.800

Like I'm in that mode right now,

00:22:15.800 --> 00:22:18.440

and I'm still not really actively advertising them.

00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:22.360

I'm just putting them up from people that have already sponsored that want those slots.

00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:25.320

So once a month has been like a revelation for me.

00:22:25.320 --> 00:22:28.680

I can definitely manage once a month and that's where it's at right now.

00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:30.280

Yeah, that...

00:22:30.280 --> 00:22:35.560

I think we talked about this last time, but that's always been the struggle for me with this show is

00:22:35.560 --> 00:22:39.400

I have people reaching out to do sponsorships.

00:22:39.400 --> 00:22:41.480

So I know it's a thing I could do.

00:22:41.480 --> 00:22:44.040

And a lot of people would be like, "Oh, why don't you just take the money?

00:22:44.040 --> 00:22:44.600

Why would you not?"

00:22:44.600 --> 00:22:47.320

And I'm like, "Because it's a job.

00:22:47.320 --> 00:22:51.000

There's sort of infrastructure you have to set up there.

00:22:51.720 --> 00:22:56.520

you're managing relationships and expectations and there's just a level of pressure there.

00:22:56.520 --> 00:23:02.040

I guess pressure. I don't know. I don't have... I feel like I'm pretty consistent with this show

00:23:02.040 --> 00:23:07.000

in terms of there's breaks, but they're breaks that I advertise ahead of time, plan ahead of

00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:13.000

time. It's not like that has really been an issue, surprisingly, in terms of keeping up

00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:20.840

the right cadence. But I was at that... I've always been at that level of I don't have extra room

00:23:20.840 --> 00:23:25.840

for another side project, which is kind of how I always viewed the sponsorship.

00:23:25.840 --> 00:23:26.840

Right.

00:23:26.840 --> 00:23:33.840

And we talked last time a lot about how one of my reasons for wanting it is to try and get an editor.

00:23:33.840 --> 00:23:41.840

Because if I could pay for an editor, then I could spend more time on Dark Noise or managing sponsorships or whatever it is that we want to do.

00:23:41.840 --> 00:24:00.840

And over the summer, I kind of decided that the approach I wanted to take was try and pitch this show to networks to try and like, get it on some tech network because they have the infrastructure and salespeople and all that stuff to try and manage, you know, sponsorships.

00:24:00.840 --> 00:24:10.840

So I thought that would be good. But like, I started building like pitch decks. And as I looked at my numbers, I'm like, I just don't think this show I'll just say it right here, actually.

00:24:10.840 --> 00:24:20.560

Like right now or at that time anyway, episodes are getting about 2000 ish on average, like

00:24:20.560 --> 00:24:24.280

unique downloads at the like 14 day mark.

00:24:24.280 --> 00:24:25.280

Right.

00:24:25.280 --> 00:24:28.560

I think for a just random side project thing, I don't know.

00:24:28.560 --> 00:24:29.560

It's pretty good.

00:24:29.560 --> 00:24:30.560

Yeah, exactly.

00:24:30.560 --> 00:24:32.200

I don't have the best way of measuring.

00:24:32.200 --> 00:24:37.320

Unlike I feel like a lot of worlds I live in, everybody's really public about stuff.

00:24:37.320 --> 00:24:41.480

are weirdly secretive about numbers. There's some...

00:24:41.480 --> 00:24:44.680

I mean, you had a tweet yesterday that showed Dark Noise was just taking over the world.

00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:46.200

So, I mean, you just got to share everything.

00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:54.680

Exactly. Yeah. Well, and like, the company I used to work for, plus you, actually, have

00:24:54.680 --> 00:24:59.320

sort of defined me as a person who is very public with numbers. I guess Curtis Herbert,

00:24:59.320 --> 00:25:02.680

kind of in the same boat. But when I sort of jumped into this, we've talked about this.

00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:07.960

But right after Spinstack came out, you wrote that blog post about your numbers.

00:25:07.960 --> 00:25:13.880

And the company you work for is also very hardcore about transparency.

00:25:13.880 --> 00:25:14.520

Sharing it all.

00:25:14.520 --> 00:25:19.320

Sharing everything. Yeah. So you took that same approach. And I found it incredibly helpful

00:25:19.320 --> 00:25:25.000

to just see numbers for something. And I could at least gauge some sort of

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:27.800

level of expectation around things. So I started doing the same thing.

00:25:27.800 --> 00:25:32.040

So I've been trying to do similar things. And I'll randomly tweet out

00:25:32.040 --> 00:25:36.040

numbers for Dark Noise and also for this podcast.

00:25:36.040 --> 00:25:40.040

But anyway, I didn't have a good measure, but the

00:25:40.040 --> 00:25:44.040

numbers that I was able to sort of get through talking to some different people

00:25:44.040 --> 00:25:48.040

and whatever, I don't think, I still don't think this podcast is quite

00:25:48.040 --> 00:25:52.040

at that level where it makes a whole lot of sense for a

00:25:52.040 --> 00:25:56.040

major network anyway to want to take on. So I kind of backed off of that.

00:25:56.040 --> 00:26:00.040

But I tweeted out, like I always do, a bunch of these numbers that I had gotten

00:26:00.040 --> 00:26:05.960

in preparation for building this pitch deck. Jonathan Ruiz, who's a, he had a podcast for a

00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:12.440

while and has been in this space. He reached out and was like, "Hey, I really liked editing this

00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:17.800

podcast that he used to do with a friend and I'd be interested in..." Yeah, the robots one, right?

00:26:17.800 --> 00:26:21.160

Yep. Everyday Robots. Yeah. Which was great. I think, I don't know if you guessed it on it.

00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:24.280

I guessed it on it. Yeah, I did. A couple times. It was really fun. I really liked that show.

00:26:24.280 --> 00:26:27.640

And that was, that was the big thing. So he reached out and was like, "Hey,

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:34.840

I can edit podcasts and I'd be interested in helping you out." And I was a little chicken

00:26:34.840 --> 00:26:40.520

because I don't like the idea of putting work on somebody where I feel like I'm getting a

00:26:40.520 --> 00:26:44.920

little too much of the... I'm getting the public attention for this. So I...

00:26:44.920 --> 00:26:45.080

Right.

00:26:45.080 --> 00:26:48.520

Like we've talked about. I get a lot from the show. I get to talk to people and all that stuff.

00:26:48.520 --> 00:26:53.480

But he talked me into at least running an experiment with it. And then if we can get

00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:58.360

the show to a point of it making money, then I can pay him and he's learning skills and all

00:26:58.360 --> 00:27:02.440

all of that stuff. Hopefully Jonathan's okay with me talking about this. If not, he can

00:27:02.440 --> 00:27:04.680

cut this out because he's the one that will be editing this.

00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:05.960

He'll have the final say.

00:27:05.960 --> 00:27:12.240

Spoiler alert. Yeah. He has been editing this quote unquote season of the show and it has

00:27:12.240 --> 00:27:20.320

been just a total revelation. Like the amount of time I was spending editing this show in

00:27:20.320 --> 00:27:25.920

combination with scheduling and recording and all the other things that go with it.

00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:30.880

I don't think I fully grokked how much of my indie time was dedicated to this because

00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:32.840

a lot of it was kind of grunt work.

00:27:32.840 --> 00:27:37.240

Maybe the book is a similar thing for you where you know exactly what you need to do

00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:38.240

so it's a little less.

00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:39.240

Yeah.

00:27:39.240 --> 00:27:41.560

Like the app work, everything you do is unique, right?

00:27:41.560 --> 00:27:47.680

Like everything you do is a unique challenge and so it all feels very different but you

00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:51.280

know editing the podcast you kind of know what you're doing but it just takes so much

00:27:51.280 --> 00:27:54.360

just literal time.

00:27:54.360 --> 00:27:56.280

And freeing that up has been huge.

00:27:56.280 --> 00:28:03.160

And so I do have some of that time now and I'm starting to basically have the exact same

00:28:03.160 --> 00:28:08.480

conversation that me and you had last year around sponsorships for this show.

00:28:08.480 --> 00:28:13.320

And so I'm kind of playing around that space and I know people are going to reach out and

00:28:13.320 --> 00:28:16.240

say that they'd like to sponsor, which I appreciate.

00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:19.640

And feel free to, but I will probably answer it the same way I've answered before, which

00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:23.960

is I am thinking about it, but I'm not quite there yet.

00:28:23.960 --> 00:28:26.920

But I it's curious.

00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:31.400

Listening to you talk about that was sort of validating because I was starting to feel a little

00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:35.000

silly turning money down because of the amount of work.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.560

It is work to take people's money, as weird as that sounds.

00:28:39.560 --> 00:28:41.160

Yeah, it is.

00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:41.560

It is.

00:28:41.560 --> 00:28:43.000

It's fun.

00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:43.880

It's fun work.

00:28:43.880 --> 00:28:46.280

But my here's my take.

00:28:46.280 --> 00:28:50.760

And when we do our next Christmas bash next year, hopefully the conversation will go like this.

00:28:50.760 --> 00:28:55.000

At one point, you were like, "Just screw it. I'm going to just try it and see what happens."

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.720

Because I think that's the stage where you're at. If you try it and it doesn't work,

00:28:59.720 --> 00:29:03.880

then it doesn't work. Or you may pivot a little bit like I did with the sponsorships on the

00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:09.800

website. Because I kind of had those same, "Well, it'll be better when X or Y." And in my case,

00:29:09.800 --> 00:29:14.440

I'm like, "Well, when I get more traffic to my website by writing consistently,

00:29:14.440 --> 00:29:18.920

Then I'll sell scholarships, not scholarships. Sorry, I'm not handing out scholarships.

00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:23.720

Sponsorships. But then I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to try it and see what happens."

00:29:23.720 --> 00:29:30.840

And nobody balked at traffic or prices. None of that. It just went right away.

00:29:30.840 --> 00:29:36.440

And I think you can come up with a lot of reasons not to. But at this point,

00:29:36.440 --> 00:29:41.880

I think you just got to try it. Even if you set low expectations for yourself in terms of

00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:46.680

commitment. Not like, "Well, people buy them." But just say, "I'm going to try it for 2 episodes

00:29:46.680 --> 00:29:52.360

or 1 month. I'm just going to do that and see how it goes." Because that way, you don't put

00:29:52.360 --> 00:29:56.680

that mental burden on you where you're like, "Okay, this is a show with sponsorships now."

00:29:56.680 --> 00:30:00.600

Instead, it's just like, "I'm going to try this 2 times. And if I like it, maybe I'll keep it

00:30:00.600 --> 00:30:04.120

going. If I don't, then I won't." You're absolutely... That is... I mean,

00:30:04.120 --> 00:30:07.720

you're hitting me right in my soul here because that's exactly it. It's like,

00:30:08.280 --> 00:30:14.040

I'm afraid to start something because it's like, "All right, now this is a show with

00:30:14.040 --> 00:30:19.160

sponsorships and it needs to have all the things." Yeah. And yeah, no, you're right.

00:30:19.160 --> 00:30:25.880

That is... It's funny. This conversation sounds very similar to my conversation with

00:30:25.880 --> 00:30:30.760

Jonathan Reeves, the one who's editing the show, where he's like, "You're not stuck with this.

00:30:30.760 --> 00:30:34.200

We can just try it for a couple of weeks. And if you don't think it works, or I don't think it

00:30:34.200 --> 00:30:38.520

it works, we can stop and go back to where you are and nothing's harmed." And I'm like, "Oh,

00:30:38.520 --> 00:30:47.960

you're right. I think I have this incredibly conservative, slow approach to things."

00:30:47.960 --> 00:30:49.320

Oh, we're the same in that area.

00:30:49.320 --> 00:30:51.800

Yeah. Well, exactly. Which is why I like talking to you about it because

00:30:51.800 --> 00:30:58.600

I can talk to one of our mutual friends, Josh Holtz, who he'll just do...

00:30:58.600 --> 00:30:59.800

Oh, he launched him yesterday.

00:30:59.800 --> 00:31:05.000

Yeah, he just will do everything. And if they don't work, he's fine. And he just moves on.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:11.080

And it's like, we are different brains. And so I'm like, "Yeah, sure. That works for you. But

00:31:11.080 --> 00:31:17.320

you're Josh, right? You can decide you want to start a conference. And then a couple weeks later,

00:31:17.320 --> 00:31:20.680

you have logos and a venue half booked. And it's like, "What are you doing?"

00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:25.640

Can we just talk about how nuts that is for a second? Starting a conference?

00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:28.760

This is the Christmas special. We can go wherever we want.

00:31:28.760 --> 00:31:30.760

We can't, that is insanity.

00:31:30.760 --> 00:31:33.120

Like I was talking to my wife, Jansen, about this.

00:31:33.120 --> 00:31:34.640

You know, I'm using my stipend at work.

00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:36.400

I bought tickets for this conference.

00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:38.620

Here are the dates, just a heads up.

00:31:38.620 --> 00:31:40.520

And she's like, oh, cool, what is that?

00:31:40.520 --> 00:31:43.000

And I'm like, all right, so you're not gonna believe this,

00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:45.160

but you know those guy I'm always talking to,

00:31:45.160 --> 00:31:46.000

you know, laughing about,

00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:47.520

he's sending me funny gifts all the time.

00:31:47.520 --> 00:31:50.640

He just started a conference and just like,

00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:52.120

was like, I'm just gonna do a conference.

00:31:52.120 --> 00:31:53.560

And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

00:31:53.560 --> 00:31:54.680

I'm doing a conference too.

00:31:54.680 --> 00:31:56.120

And then he did it.

00:31:56.120 --> 00:31:57.440

Like, I cannot believe the,

00:31:57.440 --> 00:31:59.360

Like just thinking about that blows my mind.

00:31:59.360 --> 00:32:01.280

The logistics, finding the venue,

00:32:01.280 --> 00:32:03.240

actually putting money down to do those things,

00:32:03.240 --> 00:32:05.420

the websites, figuring out how to sell tickets,

00:32:05.420 --> 00:32:06.680

how to manage all that.

00:32:06.680 --> 00:32:08.000

I cannot believe he did that.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:09.100

Like it's incredible to me.

00:32:09.100 --> 00:32:11.280

That is not, I don't have that skill set.

00:32:11.280 --> 00:32:13.640

I would overthink that for 14 years.

00:32:13.640 --> 00:32:15.000

- That's the thing, right?

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:18.140

You need a person who's not like what we just described,

00:32:18.140 --> 00:32:22.000

like us, where you take everything incredibly slowly

00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:23.040

and overthink each thing,

00:32:23.040 --> 00:32:25.200

'cause you're never gonna get any of that kind of stuff done

00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:27.400

and just so everybody's brought along here.

00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:30.680

We're talking about the conference he's starting is called Deep Dish Swift,

00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:38.620

which I think I feel like he texted in the group chat we're in as like a joke,

00:32:38.620 --> 00:32:42.340

like, oh, somebody mentioned to me the idea of starting a conference.

00:32:42.340 --> 00:32:46.060

And one of us is like, well, it has to have a funny name.

00:32:46.060 --> 00:32:49.360

And he came up with that name like on the spot.

00:32:49.360 --> 00:32:54.140

And then all of a sudden he's sending us like artwork that he's commissioned and

00:32:54.140 --> 00:32:55.240

talking about venues.

00:32:55.240 --> 00:32:56.940

And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:32:56.940 --> 00:32:59.980

like it was stressing me out seeing somebody else.

00:32:59.980 --> 00:33:03.420

But, you know, he's doing it very responsibly too.

00:33:03.420 --> 00:33:07.500

He's got these huge charts with how many tickets he needs to sell, which I think he's

00:33:07.500 --> 00:33:09.900

close to like the break-even point already.

00:33:09.900 --> 00:33:12.060

Don't let his exterior fool you.

00:33:12.060 --> 00:33:14.700

Like he's Mr. Businessman anyway.

00:33:14.700 --> 00:33:19.900

Like he had a whole thing that he shared that was like, "I need to make X amount of sales

00:33:19.900 --> 00:33:21.660

and sponsorships to..."

00:33:21.660 --> 00:33:23.340

Like he knew all of it.

00:33:23.340 --> 00:33:26.220

And that sounds like the scariest thing in the world to me to do that.

00:33:26.860 --> 00:33:31.100

But we're talking about someone who goes all the way from making an app to remind you of what your

00:33:31.100 --> 00:33:36.780

age is to someone who can go all the way and make a whole conference. So it doesn't surprise me.

00:33:36.780 --> 00:33:42.860

He's got that bone in his body to just go and do things, which I envy. I need to steal some of that

00:33:42.860 --> 00:33:47.020

from him. Yeah. And I'll put a link to the conference in the show notes. But it's called

00:33:47.020 --> 00:33:54.060

Deep Dish Swift. It's in Chicago. It's in May of 2023? April 30th to...

00:33:54.060 --> 00:33:58.220

Yeah, I think, or yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe I was thinking May 1st. It's on that April,

00:33:58.220 --> 00:34:03.260

May, like border. My plane tickets are around that, but I don't remember when the exact

00:34:03.260 --> 00:34:08.940

conference dates are. April 30th to May 2nd are the actual dates.

00:34:08.940 --> 00:34:13.180

And I've announced this on Twitter, but I haven't said it on this podcast, actually. But

00:34:13.180 --> 00:34:17.580

again, another one of these Josh texting me like, "Hey, do you want to do this?" And I'm like, "Oh,

00:34:17.580 --> 00:34:22.540

that sounds fun." And then it's, now it's a thing. We're doing a live episode of Launched

00:34:22.540 --> 00:34:27.740

at this conference. So I don't think we've announced who it is, but the person is booked

00:34:27.740 --> 00:34:30.140

and I'm very excited about this. Tim Cook.

00:34:30.140 --> 00:34:34.460

Yeah, we'll go ahead. Exactly.

00:34:34.460 --> 00:34:36.780

Just a small kid.

00:34:36.780 --> 00:34:43.420

Not quite. Yeah. So I'm doing a live on stage episode in front of real people episode of

00:34:43.420 --> 00:34:45.900

this here podcast.

00:34:45.900 --> 00:34:50.540

That has to be your first sponsorship. I think that's it right there. Let me pull a Josh Holtz

00:34:50.540 --> 00:34:54.860

on you and just be like, "You got to just get a sponsor for that one." What better way?

00:34:54.860 --> 00:34:56.460

Oh, well, yeah, I don't...

00:34:56.460 --> 00:35:00.460

Or is that a conflict of interest because he already has sponsors for that?

00:35:00.460 --> 00:35:01.260

I don't know how that works.

00:35:01.260 --> 00:35:05.180

I don't think Josh is a "I'm going to sue you" type of person though, so...

00:35:05.180 --> 00:35:08.940

That's true. I don't know. Who knows? Once he decides to though, it might just happen.

00:35:08.940 --> 00:35:11.660

Well, he doesn't joke around. So if he does say he's going to sue you,

00:35:11.660 --> 00:35:15.900

you know, past history shows that yes, he is going to sue you. He actually does things.

00:35:15.900 --> 00:35:22.140

Exactly. But yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll end this little plug. But for real, if you have any

00:35:22.140 --> 00:35:27.980

interest in meeting other iOS people, which I've talked about endlessly on the show, how desperate

00:35:27.980 --> 00:35:33.420

I am to meet other iOS people. And another thing about this conference that's, I think, really

00:35:33.420 --> 00:35:39.180

cool. I don't know if other conferences have done this is, I think the first day is like a half day,

00:35:39.180 --> 00:35:45.100

and it is basically a track dedicated to indie development. So he's got some great indie

00:35:45.100 --> 00:35:49.340

developers, some of which have actually maybe all of them have been on the show before. A lot of

00:35:49.340 --> 00:35:56.060

them have. I think Curtis Herbert's on there. Emmanuel Curvissier is Malin. I think, yeah,

00:35:56.060 --> 00:36:01.660

I think they're there, both of them. Yeah, Malin and Kai. Either way, there's kind of like a track

00:36:01.660 --> 00:36:06.860

dedicated to indies and at least so far in, you know, paying attention to the Twitter sphere,

00:36:06.860 --> 00:36:11.420

it seems like there's going to be a nice, you know, gathering of indie developers there.

00:36:11.980 --> 00:36:18.220

I think it has the potential to be really, really cool. Actually, I think it's it already is really

00:36:18.220 --> 00:36:22.300

really cool. It's definitely going to be so. I love the focus on the indie track.

00:36:22.300 --> 00:36:28.060

Link will be in the show notes for that. That's a big part of why I want to go to these things

00:36:28.060 --> 00:36:33.980

is to see to meet with other, you know, indies on top of, you know, learning about being a better

00:36:33.980 --> 00:36:38.220

developer and all that stuff. Well, and like the business side, too, because it's so easy to

00:36:38.220 --> 00:36:45.340

forget how many people are doing the Indie thing as their actual sole income.

00:36:45.340 --> 00:36:50.060

Russ with Happy Scale, of course, Curtis has been doing great for a long time.

00:36:50.060 --> 00:36:53.580

I could go on and on. Like we joked about last time I was on the show,

00:36:53.580 --> 00:36:55.900

anytime you make a list, you immediately regret it because you're like, "I knew I

00:36:55.900 --> 00:37:01.020

just forgot 13 people." So of course, I'm forgetting people. But it would be so great

00:37:01.020 --> 00:37:06.060

to learn more about the business side of things too. I know Emmanuel shares a lot with Card

00:37:06.060 --> 00:37:11.660

pointers like in his email campaigns. I've always been super interested in that. So just soaking up

00:37:11.660 --> 00:37:14.540

all that kind of knowledge, having all those people in one place is going to be a lot of fun

00:37:14.540 --> 00:37:20.700

to pick up those those tips. Definitely. So yeah, so you'll link in the show notes,

00:37:20.700 --> 00:37:25.020

as you would say at the end of a link in the show notes, something like that.

00:37:25.020 --> 00:37:30.540

Find out more. But I guess I guess to to like wrap up that little conversation, though,

00:37:31.340 --> 00:37:37.660

I think you've talked me into... I should just try it in terms of adding sponsorships to this show.

00:37:37.660 --> 00:37:39.900

Just try for like two. Yeah, just limit it.

00:37:39.900 --> 00:37:43.740

We'll see because I feel like the last one ended with me being like, "Yeah,

00:37:43.740 --> 00:37:46.940

I'm definitely going to try this stuff." And now we're talking about a year later. So

00:37:46.940 --> 00:37:50.380

we'll check in next year to see where that actually goes.

00:37:50.380 --> 00:37:55.100

But I'm going to have Josh make a Twitter account that just tweets days

00:37:55.100 --> 00:37:58.060

since Charlie said he would start sponsoring. And you know that he will too.

00:37:58.060 --> 00:37:58.460

Yeah, yeah.

00:37:58.460 --> 00:37:58.940

Absolutely.

00:37:58.940 --> 00:38:04.700

Once he hears this, we'll just get a text that's like, "And here it is!"

00:38:04.700 --> 00:38:06.500

I automated it with all of it.

00:38:06.500 --> 00:38:08.140

Yep, he'll go in on that.

00:38:08.140 --> 00:38:09.140

Oh man.

00:38:09.140 --> 00:38:10.140

Yeah, okay.

00:38:10.140 --> 00:38:15.180

So, I guess, whenever I said earlier, if you're interested in sponsorships, you know, maybe

00:38:15.180 --> 00:38:16.300

don't email me.

00:38:16.300 --> 00:38:17.300

Maybe do email me.

00:38:17.300 --> 00:38:19.100

Yeah, do it.

00:38:19.100 --> 00:38:22.260

And yeah, I'll really...

00:38:22.260 --> 00:38:25.620

I'm going to make a commitment to try it this year.

00:38:25.620 --> 00:38:28.220

a like, I'm going to start it and now it's a thing.

00:38:28.220 --> 00:38:32.420

But in a like, I'll even maybe say in the read, like, this is an experiment.

00:38:32.420 --> 00:38:34.260

You know, let me know what you think, whatever.

00:38:34.260 --> 00:38:39.180

Like, I called my sponsorships a beta when I announced them to, you know, like, I

00:38:39.180 --> 00:38:41.380

don't know if that's a term anyone's ever used for sponsorships.

00:38:41.380 --> 00:38:41.920

Yeah.

00:38:41.920 --> 00:38:44.360

It's amazing how much that helps.

00:38:44.360 --> 00:38:45.540

I do that with lots of things.

00:38:45.540 --> 00:38:49.800

I still have features in dark noise that are in what I call dark labs, which is

00:38:49.800 --> 00:38:54.700

like, that were like features that launch, but I still don't feel great about the

00:38:54.700 --> 00:38:59.180

implementation. And so I'm afraid to take that label on risk. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:38:59.180 --> 00:39:04.300

Someone just wrote about it too. And one of the links in that group chat with live activities,

00:39:04.300 --> 00:39:08.860

I think they mentioned specifically the lab section in dark noise.

00:39:08.860 --> 00:39:15.820

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's where the mix audio thing is. Okay, well, there you go.

00:39:15.820 --> 00:39:19.020

You heard it here first. We'll try it.

00:39:19.020 --> 00:39:23.100

You heard it here first. Charlie's doing sponsorships. Everybody hit him up.

00:39:23.100 --> 00:39:29.420

flood that inbox. Another thing I want to talk about is, like you mentioned, you have this,

00:39:29.420 --> 00:39:34.380

you know, life balance of you like writing and you write like developing. And right now, writing

00:39:34.380 --> 00:39:38.540

is kind of the thing that's been getting all the attention. But you have been building some apps

00:39:38.540 --> 00:39:43.340

and you've had a bunch of different apps that have gotten to different stages of completion.

00:39:43.340 --> 00:39:49.500

But there's one that feels like, you know, you've been sort of toiling away in the background for

00:39:49.500 --> 00:39:55.020

a long time treating it like a true business. And I'm just going to say the name right here.

00:39:55.020 --> 00:40:01.340

It's called [ __ ]. Now I can see because I have webcam on your face because you said I

00:40:01.340 --> 00:40:05.340

don't want to reveal the name yet. I can't wait to see what the edit is. I think we should just

00:40:05.340 --> 00:40:09.740

say the name freely throughout this whole section and we'll just beep it every single time.

00:40:09.740 --> 00:40:14.380

Yeah, because I am working on this project as well. So, you know.

00:40:14.380 --> 00:40:17.100

Well, now see now that's confusing because now if you do that.

00:40:19.260 --> 00:40:24.940

Sorry, Jonathan. Oh, jokes that nobody else is going to understand besides the two of us.

00:40:24.940 --> 00:40:29.740

Those are the best. You haven't revealed the name of this, but you have talked about

00:40:29.740 --> 00:40:33.580

what it is, right? So I'll just let you pitch it because I don't know exactly how you're

00:40:33.580 --> 00:40:41.020

messaging this right now publicly. It is a project management. I always switch between product and

00:40:41.020 --> 00:40:45.100

project, so I don't really know which one is right. So does every acronym at every company ever.

00:40:45.100 --> 00:40:53.500

Yeah, yeah. So project management tool built specifically for indies and even more specifically one person teams. So

00:40:53.500 --> 00:40:59.820

People like you people like me every developer out there that they do everything. That's who i'm building this for

00:40:59.820 --> 00:41:03.180

um, and the backstory is I built a kind of

00:41:03.180 --> 00:41:08.780

Hack together version of this when I was working on spin stack had a nice little menu bar app wasn't pretty but it did

00:41:08.780 --> 00:41:11.420

Some very basic things for me that I really loved and enjoyed

00:41:11.420 --> 00:41:13.900

um, and then as time went on

00:41:13.900 --> 00:41:21.100

I kind of been sharing it here and there, you know, just doing a little tweets and people would ask, Oh, what is that? And then, you know, sharing it in the group chat too.

00:41:21.100 --> 00:41:25.300

And it kind of got to the point where I was like, you know what, I think other people could use this.

00:41:25.300 --> 00:41:40.300

And I'm at that point where I need to learn the lessons I learned from spin stack and and not fall into the perfectionist trapped like this has to be the one like this has to come out hyper polished with all the features and instead just stick to the basics.

00:41:41.100 --> 00:41:44.300

So what it would do is basically have an emphasis on

00:41:44.300 --> 00:41:51.220

quickness and lightning speed entry because I'm building it around all the things that I use it for and that I need and

00:41:51.220 --> 00:41:55.420

betting that a lot of other Indies value those same things so

00:41:55.420 --> 00:42:02.340

Get things in there super quick and then be able to organize them by like this is a feature or this is a bug and

00:42:02.340 --> 00:42:09.820

Then track releases and the nifty little thing that I've done which I don't know a ton of people are gonna love which that's a good

00:42:09.820 --> 00:42:13.580

theme. I'm not going to know anything until I launch it is that it kind of like gathers

00:42:13.580 --> 00:42:17.740

together release notes for me and then I can kind of copy and paste them and move them around.

00:42:17.740 --> 00:42:23.980

So yeah, the one liner is product management software for one person teams.

00:42:23.980 --> 00:42:29.340

I was on the receiving end of this at one point. And I think you've probably gotten this a lot

00:42:29.340 --> 00:42:34.220

where you sort of like tease this thing you're sort of working on. And it's like, yes, please.

00:42:35.180 --> 00:42:41.580

I think I was just on another podcast where we were talking about how I use Trello right now.

00:42:41.580 --> 00:42:46.860

And it was like, yeah, that's the thing that's always worked for me, but it doesn't feel

00:42:46.860 --> 00:42:48.620

nice. Great.

00:42:48.620 --> 00:42:53.820

Built exactly for what I want. I sort of am using a thing that's really intended for teams and,

00:42:53.820 --> 00:42:58.620

you know, bigger sort of thing. But I'm wanting to use it for this one specific use case.

00:42:58.620 --> 00:43:04.380

And the idea of another indie making something for, I want to say just indies, but for

00:43:04.380 --> 00:43:09.380

or the sort of smaller team or single person focused,

00:43:09.380 --> 00:43:11.300

nice experience kind of apps,

00:43:11.300 --> 00:43:13.820

feels like right in my wheelhouse.

00:43:13.820 --> 00:43:16.020

And so I know I'm really excited about this

00:43:16.020 --> 00:43:18.420

and lots of people have expressed that to you.

00:43:18.420 --> 00:43:21.580

But it is like, it's a big ask, right?

00:43:21.580 --> 00:43:23.460

This is a Mac app, right?

00:43:23.460 --> 00:43:24.940

- Yeah, and I've never done a Mac app.

00:43:24.940 --> 00:43:27.700

So there's that thing of like,

00:43:27.700 --> 00:43:30.260

I wanna make sure that I do the platform justice.

00:43:30.260 --> 00:43:34.600

And even though I've used a Mac since 2006,

00:43:34.600 --> 00:43:36.840

I think as my main driver,

00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:38.960

I know what like a good Mac app feels like,

00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:41.120

but I don't wanna miss all those fun little API things

00:43:41.120 --> 00:43:44.440

that like someone who's been on the platform for a long time

00:43:44.440 --> 00:43:46.760

would be like, oh, they miss this.

00:43:46.760 --> 00:43:47.880

Like that's an obvious thing.

00:43:47.880 --> 00:43:49.320

And not like they would say it in a rude way,

00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:52.260

but like those are the things that I wanna to try and hit.

00:43:52.260 --> 00:43:53.240

And of course.

00:43:53.240 --> 00:43:55.960

- Let's be honest, in the Mac community,

00:43:55.960 --> 00:43:57.360

they would say it in a rude way.

00:43:57.360 --> 00:43:58.480

(laughing)

00:43:58.480 --> 00:44:01.040

probably like, oh, this doesn't even select, you know, like,

00:44:01.040 --> 00:44:03.240

so one of them actually,

00:44:03.240 --> 00:44:05.760

and I've given a really early alpha build

00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:06.960

to you and a few other people,

00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:09.920

but one of them that I had to build all custom

00:44:09.920 --> 00:44:12.800

was like the selection of like multiple tickets.

00:44:12.800 --> 00:44:15.420

So like if you had like 10 things and you held down,

00:44:15.420 --> 00:44:16.880

I forget off the top of my head without doing it,

00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:17.820

but like shift or command,

00:44:17.820 --> 00:44:20.200

whichever selects multiple things in Mac OS,

00:44:20.200 --> 00:44:21.560

like I had to custom write the logic

00:44:21.560 --> 00:44:23.840

to like select all of those individually.

00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:25.560

So like if you did the first one, the third one,

00:44:25.560 --> 00:44:27.920

the fifth one, you know, those would all be highlighted.

00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:30.240

or if you hold down shift and click from like one

00:44:30.240 --> 00:44:32.360

down to the very bottom, it selects all of them.

00:44:32.360 --> 00:44:34.480

So like I'm trying to get all of those

00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:38.120

like table stakes things in there,

00:44:38.120 --> 00:44:41.480

but either due to my ignorance of SwiftUI on Mac OS

00:44:41.480 --> 00:44:45.000

or just ignorance in APIs in general,

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:47.560

a lot of those things, if you want to customize look,

00:44:47.560 --> 00:44:49.440

don't come for free.

00:44:49.440 --> 00:44:54.440

Like for example, I'm not using a list on a Mac OS

00:44:54.440 --> 00:44:57.720

because it just, I could not get it looking how I wanted.

00:44:57.720 --> 00:45:01.280

But the trade-off there is you don't get the free reordering.

00:45:01.280 --> 00:45:03.960

The selection, I think, comes with lists for free.

00:45:03.960 --> 00:45:06.720

When you use a 4-H and a V-Stack or a Lazy V-Stack,

00:45:06.720 --> 00:45:09.120

like you kind of have to do all those things yourself.

00:45:09.120 --> 00:45:10.640

I'm so big on aesthetics and looks,

00:45:10.640 --> 00:45:13.440

and I have it looking how I want it to look

00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:14.960

that I couldn't sacrifice the other things,

00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:16.080

which means I'm having to build out

00:45:16.080 --> 00:45:17.880

a lot of stuff by myself.

00:45:17.880 --> 00:45:20.600

But as long as I keep the focus on a lean MVP

00:45:20.600 --> 00:45:23.160

that does a few things well, I'll be good.

00:45:23.160 --> 00:45:25.520

But then the doubt monster starts to creep in,

00:45:25.520 --> 00:45:28.360

Like, well, how do I give people a reason to use this over

00:45:28.360 --> 00:45:30.440

like linear for just one person, right?

00:45:30.440 --> 00:45:32.360

You know, cause linear is like blowing up the world

00:45:32.360 --> 00:45:33.200

right now. - Yep.

00:45:33.200 --> 00:45:35.080

- Everybody loves linear and it's a great product.

00:45:35.080 --> 00:45:36.420

I don't want to say that sarcastically.

00:45:36.420 --> 00:45:38.760

I've used it and poked around to get like inspiration

00:45:38.760 --> 00:45:40.440

and it's nice, but at the end of the day,

00:45:40.440 --> 00:45:42.800

it's still built for teams.

00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:45.340

So, you know, I keep telling myself, like,

00:45:45.340 --> 00:45:47.280

I could give myself a thousand reasons not to do this.

00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:49.640

Same as you with sponsorships or anything else.

00:45:49.640 --> 00:45:52.180

I just got to go and crack on and do it.

00:45:52.180 --> 00:45:55.000

But the other part of the problem is, as you well know,

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:56.960

and we can get into this a little bit if you want is,

00:45:56.960 --> 00:45:59.880

I keep working on so many other things.

00:45:59.880 --> 00:46:00.840

And I'm like, "Oh, well, you know what?

00:46:00.840 --> 00:46:03.680

"This one's almost done and it's way easier to put out

00:46:03.680 --> 00:46:06.240

"than Untitled Project, right?"

00:46:06.240 --> 00:46:08.840

So maybe I should just start with that.

00:46:08.840 --> 00:46:10.640

So I'm in this frustrating phase

00:46:10.640 --> 00:46:13.980

of doing so many different projects,

00:46:13.980 --> 00:46:15.960

but not releasing any of them,

00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:18.680

while also spending a ton of time on the book.

00:46:18.680 --> 00:46:21.700

And then I try and take a breather and come up for air

00:46:21.700 --> 00:46:23.140

and just be like, "Relax,

00:46:23.140 --> 00:46:27.620

Like you've done so much this year when I stopped to look at it, like I should feel accomplished, right?

00:46:27.620 --> 00:46:34.420

Like I launched sponsorships. I wrote like 60 blog posts. I have a thousand pages. Like I should be proud of myself.

00:46:34.420 --> 00:46:39.820

But the predominant feeling I have is like I didn't ship something and that's like gnawing at me.

00:46:39.820 --> 00:46:49.700

So again, I just go on that mirror, go around like maybe I should just ship something that's smaller that I can get out there that I'd be proud to work on before this app, because this is like my big one, you know?

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:56.480

So around and around I go in my little head and send you and some other buddies 50% done

00:46:56.480 --> 00:46:59.840

projects and start the dread process over and over.

00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:06.320

Yeah, that seems to be the theme is like, this thing is so big, and it's not like you can just

00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:13.440

cut it off and it'd be useful early. That you get to a point where you're like, I need to just have

00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:17.440

something out there and then you'll start on a small thing. But then you get a certain ways to

00:47:17.440 --> 00:47:22.000

that small thing and you realize, "Well, this is taking away from moving forward on the big thing."

00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:27.120

But you do keep coming back to this, which feels like a good signal that this is the thing.

00:47:27.120 --> 00:47:30.720

And maybe those might feel unhealthy, but maybe they're good for you because

00:47:30.720 --> 00:47:35.840

it just gives your brain a break. Because ultimately, you're like five layers deep

00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:43.440

on side projects at this point. So, you might need... Part of it is for fun or needs to be

00:47:43.440 --> 00:47:48.640

in your head for fun until you get close enough that it has business viability. Because

00:47:48.640 --> 00:47:55.120

right now, ultimately, it's a project that you're doing to sharpen your skills, make it...

00:47:55.120 --> 00:47:59.200

Make the book writing more useful by having a project that you're working on, yada, yada.

00:47:59.200 --> 00:48:04.400

But once you get closer, you do seem to be treating this one even more than like Spendstack

00:48:04.400 --> 00:48:09.600

or any of your other projects as "I want this to be a business with a capital B."

00:48:10.480 --> 00:48:16.800

Yeah. Yeah. Like I want to work on it for a long time. You're absolutely right. And that's where

00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:22.800

you keep spinning yourself around crazy. It's like, you know what? All businesses start somewhere.

00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:26.400

So I don't need to have a big splashy launch, although I wouldn't be upset at all if that

00:48:26.400 --> 00:48:31.600

happened. It's more about let's get it out. Let's get a good foundation and build up from that.

00:48:31.600 --> 00:48:34.880

And that's... I need to take my own advice because I'm saying it out loud and that's what I should

00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:36.380

should do, but I'm not doing that.

00:48:36.380 --> 00:48:39.920

Um, and you know, you're not at a good spot where.

00:48:39.920 --> 00:48:43.980

Like, you feel like the code that you already have is like legacy code in a way

00:48:43.980 --> 00:48:47.320

because it's like before the first launch, even exactly.

00:48:47.320 --> 00:48:51.020

Cause I've built so much with Swift UI this year, uh, you know, at my day job and

00:48:51.020 --> 00:48:56.300

otherwise to where it's like, this is trash and I can make this a lot easier to

00:48:56.300 --> 00:48:56.780

manage.

00:48:56.780 --> 00:49:01.900

Um, so I'm like fighting that, but you know, it is something to where like I need

00:49:01.900 --> 00:49:08.540

hype up less in my head because in my head I'm thinking like, "Oh, people expect like the same

00:49:08.540 --> 00:49:14.540

polish as SpinStack and you know, the same kind of quality but like with a better formed product."

00:49:14.540 --> 00:49:19.500

Which I would love to do that but at the same time it's like, you know what? Just that's all

00:49:19.500 --> 00:49:24.540

in your own head probably. Just get it out there. Some people will like it, you know, some won't and

00:49:24.540 --> 00:49:27.980

you know, grow and make it better. So, that's kind of what I'm looking at.

00:49:27.980 --> 00:49:35.100

I'm curious, like, I feel like one of the things you did to sort of start making this feel more

00:49:35.100 --> 00:49:41.100

real was you announced it in part to just give yourself that public pressure. And I know I harp

00:49:41.100 --> 00:49:46.540

on this a lot on this show. But in this case, it feels like a really good use case. It almost

00:49:46.540 --> 00:49:52.700

seems like if you could get a beta that people could use, even if it's less polished, which I

00:49:52.700 --> 00:49:59.500

I know it's hard for you to do, like test flight or whatever, that could get the ball rolling on

00:49:59.500 --> 00:50:05.260

the things. So I think the things that people will request are going to be the things that

00:50:05.260 --> 00:50:12.140

are useful for people more than the polish that you're probably caring about now. And that might

00:50:12.140 --> 00:50:19.980

help with sort of reframing your perspective on like right now, you're like, "All right,

00:50:19.980 --> 00:50:25.180

I need to add a filter somewhere and it's going to have this little drop down. But then once you

00:50:25.180 --> 00:50:29.660

start building it, you're you, which means it needs to be like the nicest drop down. It feels

00:50:29.660 --> 00:50:34.940

fully native. It's also kind of custom in these couple ways. And you'll go like really deep onto

00:50:34.940 --> 00:50:40.060

that because there's no there's nobody asking for the next thing necessarily. But once you have,

00:50:40.060 --> 00:50:47.100

you know, people that are like, hey, I just want this button to exist, you might be faster to just

00:50:47.100 --> 00:50:53.100

get the button out there in a less nice looking way and then polish on it. Or maybe everybody's

00:50:53.100 --> 00:50:55.420

like, "Yeah, that's good enough and you can move on to the next thing."

00:50:55.420 --> 00:51:00.140

That's a great point because, yeah, if I don't have someone over my shoulder,

00:51:00.140 --> 00:51:06.140

so to speak, asking me for other enhancements, I will spend two weeks on a drop down.

00:51:06.140 --> 00:51:07.580

I guess it's like the book.

00:51:07.580 --> 00:51:12.700

One example of that. Yeah, exactly. Because that's the only reason the book is working is I have the

00:51:12.700 --> 00:51:16.860

external pressure. And I mean that in a positive light, not like, "Oh, pressure." But like,

00:51:16.860 --> 00:51:20.780

I have to, I have to do it. You know, I've promised it. Whereas like another good example,

00:51:20.780 --> 00:51:24.860

like if you play around in the app now and like you made an issue or a ticket, whatever you want

00:51:24.860 --> 00:51:30.060

to call it, when it's open, you can tab around every single element in there. Come like, "It's

00:51:30.060 --> 00:51:33.820

a Mac app. Like I got to have keyboard navigation." It would be embarrassing not to, right?

00:51:33.820 --> 00:51:39.980

But that was not easy to do because some of those, so many of those controls are customized heavily

00:51:39.980 --> 00:51:45.580

to where I had to do certain things to make it all work, write a custom modifier to just like even

00:51:45.580 --> 00:51:50.380

get an arbitrary key down on Mac OS. So all these things. Whereas at the end of the day,

00:51:50.380 --> 00:51:54.380

if I had a beta out, I don't know if anyone would notice that.

00:51:54.380 --> 00:51:57.500

And if they did, you'd find out soon and then you could prioritize it.

00:51:57.500 --> 00:52:03.100

Exactly. Because in my head, I'm optimizing the app in so many ways for people like,

00:52:03.100 --> 00:52:08.540

that have been blogging about Macs for 20 years. Because like I had this nightmare

00:52:08.540 --> 00:52:09.920

scenario in my head where they're like,

00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:12.280

"Oh, look, it's a Swift UI app on Mac OS.

00:52:12.280 --> 00:52:15.640

That looks nice, but doesn't even have keyboard navigation."

00:52:15.640 --> 00:52:17.600

So, you know, that thought like terrifies me,

00:52:17.600 --> 00:52:18.840

but you know what?

00:52:18.840 --> 00:52:20.080

It's kind of like, screw it.

00:52:20.080 --> 00:52:22.200

Yeah, it doesn't right now, but I can do it, you know?

00:52:22.200 --> 00:52:24.560

And I kind of need to get there because, you know,

00:52:24.560 --> 00:52:25.640

I'm looking at the email list.

00:52:25.640 --> 00:52:30.320

Like I announced it once and it's got 429 people

00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:32.080

that are signed up, at least somewhat interested.

00:52:32.080 --> 00:52:34.400

So it's like, I could get a good beta pool,

00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:36.640

but the thing I need to fight with that,

00:52:36.640 --> 00:52:38.440

and you're always telling me not to worry about it,

00:52:38.440 --> 00:52:40.200

but it's so hard not to, is like,

00:52:40.200 --> 00:52:42.800

I'm so scared of like someone copying stuff.

00:52:42.800 --> 00:52:44.380

And I know that's so silly,

00:52:44.380 --> 00:52:47.280

and I always tell people not to worry about that too,

00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:50.800

but like, ugh, it's like, if I have some, if I--

00:52:50.800 --> 00:52:52.280

- This one in particular,

00:52:52.280 --> 00:52:55.600

it's not, the idea is not the gold here.

00:52:55.600 --> 00:52:57.400

It's gonna be the implementation, right?

00:52:57.400 --> 00:52:58.240

- The execution. - There's a million

00:52:58.240 --> 00:52:59.960

project management apps.

00:52:59.960 --> 00:53:01.240

The thing that's gonna make this work

00:53:01.240 --> 00:53:06.160

is the expertise and polish that you apply to this

00:53:06.160 --> 00:53:07.040

and care and attention.

00:53:07.040 --> 00:53:09.040

And somebody that's just copying isn't going to do that.

00:53:09.040 --> 00:53:11.840

Like they're going to copy linear.

00:53:11.840 --> 00:53:12.960

They're not going to copy you.

00:53:12.960 --> 00:53:17.360

And again, if they do, I don't think, I don't know, maybe that's easy for me to

00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:21.960

say, cause it's not me, but I really don't think that that's going to be a high risk.

00:53:21.960 --> 00:53:23.880

Like do you ever fight with that with dark noise?

00:53:23.880 --> 00:53:26.060

Cause I know you have a, like, where are the opposites there?

00:53:26.060 --> 00:53:29.960

Like I took my betas pretty close with spin stack and I like cut them dead as

00:53:29.960 --> 00:53:31.280

soon as like the release came out.

00:53:31.280 --> 00:53:36.400

Whereas you, I, I always see you pushing out a beta openly asking people to join

00:53:36.400 --> 00:53:41.400

and tangentially related, I see that a ton with Streaks too.

00:53:41.400 --> 00:53:44.200

You know, he's always putting out open betas

00:53:44.200 --> 00:53:45.720

and in my head I'm like,

00:53:45.720 --> 00:53:47.120

whoa, these are like paid up front apps.

00:53:47.120 --> 00:53:49.200

Like how can they afford to do that?

00:53:49.200 --> 00:53:51.080

But obviously it works.

00:53:51.080 --> 00:53:54.960

And I don't know, I don't know too much about your space

00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:58.200

to where like if there's others indies tackling it,

00:53:58.200 --> 00:54:00.520

which sounds weird that I'm like kind of self-conscious

00:54:00.520 --> 00:54:02.280

that other indies would like try and copy it.

00:54:02.280 --> 00:54:04.760

I mean, it sounds silly now that I'm saying it out loud.

00:54:04.760 --> 00:54:05.800

Because outside of that,

00:54:05.800 --> 00:54:08.120

The only people I'm really battling are the big boys

00:54:08.120 --> 00:54:11.000

who probably don't really care what I'm doing anyways.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:14.840

- Yep, and if there's other indies, again, I don't know.

00:54:14.840 --> 00:54:17.880

I really don't, especially with this one,

00:54:17.880 --> 00:54:20.440

like it would be so much work to copy it,

00:54:20.440 --> 00:54:22.840

and by the time they got to that point

00:54:22.840 --> 00:54:24.840

of doing that much work, they're surely gonna have

00:54:24.840 --> 00:54:27.460

a different idea of how they're gonna work on it.

00:54:27.460 --> 00:54:28.720

If they're willing to put the amount of work

00:54:28.720 --> 00:54:30.440

that you put into it, they're gonna put

00:54:30.440 --> 00:54:32.600

their own spin on it, right?

00:54:32.600 --> 00:54:34.760

- Right. - So like, I don't know.

00:54:34.760 --> 00:54:36.700

It doesn't feel like it's a little different

00:54:36.700 --> 00:54:38.900

if it's one of these small apps

00:54:38.900 --> 00:54:43.520

that's like a unique hook, right?

00:54:43.520 --> 00:54:46.100

Or something totally different

00:54:46.100 --> 00:54:47.980

and it's maybe easy to implement,

00:54:47.980 --> 00:54:50.100

but it's the idea is the gold.

00:54:50.100 --> 00:54:51.340

And there, yeah, you have to hold that

00:54:51.340 --> 00:54:52.360

close to the chest or something.

00:54:52.360 --> 00:54:54.340

Or the implementation is difficult

00:54:54.340 --> 00:54:58.500

and you wanna keep how you did it a secret.

00:54:58.500 --> 00:55:01.860

But in this case, it's just grinding out the work

00:55:01.860 --> 00:55:05.920

and having the expertise on UX and understanding the Hig,

00:55:05.920 --> 00:55:07.600

which is something that, you know,

00:55:07.600 --> 00:55:10.720

you're one of the foremost in the experts on probably.

00:55:10.720 --> 00:55:12.460

- I try.

00:55:12.460 --> 00:55:14.200

- And especially in the Mac space,

00:55:14.200 --> 00:55:19.200

like how many people are making low effort Mac app clones?

00:55:19.200 --> 00:55:20.840

- That's a great point. - Probably a lot less

00:55:20.840 --> 00:55:22.640

than on iOS.

00:55:22.640 --> 00:55:24.680

- Yeah, I mean, you see it on iOS every now and then,

00:55:24.680 --> 00:55:27.480

and like my heart sinks when I see it,

00:55:27.480 --> 00:55:29.040

but if I take a step back

00:55:29.040 --> 00:55:31.840

and I look at the times that that has happened,

00:55:31.840 --> 00:55:33.880

the apps that maybe ripped something off

00:55:33.880 --> 00:55:36.760

or outright copied, like didn't do anything anyways.

00:55:36.760 --> 00:55:39.160

Like, and I know Christian Selig had this problem

00:55:39.160 --> 00:55:41.280

with Amplosion a little bit,

00:55:41.280 --> 00:55:43.720

'cause he did it entirely open source

00:55:43.720 --> 00:55:44.920

out of altruistic reasons.

00:55:44.920 --> 00:55:46.160

Like he wanted to say, hey, look,

00:55:46.160 --> 00:55:47.000

you can look at the code

00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:49.500

so you don't have to worry about what I'm doing with Safari,

00:55:49.500 --> 00:55:51.760

I think was his original motivation.

00:55:51.760 --> 00:55:53.880

And then he dealt with some, you know,

00:55:53.880 --> 00:55:56.000

apps coming out that were super similar.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:57.520

So you see that, but then at the end of the day,

00:55:57.520 --> 00:56:01.420

like years later, because I think he released that with iOS 15 or 14 or

00:56:01.420 --> 00:56:04.540

something like, does he care really now about that?

00:56:04.540 --> 00:56:08.320

You know, I'm sure he learned some lessons, but I don't know if he would

00:56:08.320 --> 00:56:10.220

really change too much about what he did.

00:56:10.220 --> 00:56:12.220

And I could be putting words in his mouth right now.

00:56:12.220 --> 00:56:13.180

I'll have, I'll have to text him.

00:56:13.180 --> 00:56:13.260

Yeah.

00:56:13.260 --> 00:56:16.780

And that's a little different just because it's literally the same code.

00:56:16.780 --> 00:56:20.180

So you could, you could imagine that actually having an impact on sales, but

00:56:20.180 --> 00:56:25.600

like if somebody were to make an app called, you know, super indie project

00:56:25.600 --> 00:56:28.700

manager. Well, I was saying like in the case of dark, like dark

00:56:28.700 --> 00:56:31.840

sounds or something like that. Okay, gotcha. And it's a purple

00:56:31.840 --> 00:56:35.180

icon that's similar to mine. I don't know, like there's

00:56:35.180 --> 00:56:38.600

especially in my case, there's a bajillion white noise apps. I

00:56:38.600 --> 00:56:42.120

don't know that that one's gonna make that big of a difference to

00:56:42.120 --> 00:56:45.240

me. Any material difference? It's a little different if

00:56:45.240 --> 00:56:47.560

they're if they're using your exact name, right? Obviously,

00:56:47.560 --> 00:56:50.120

there's an issue, especially like sometimes people throw

00:56:50.120 --> 00:56:53.120

stuff on the Play Store, like Google Play Store with your

00:56:53.120 --> 00:56:55.420

exact name. It's like, well, that's a problem because they're

00:56:55.420 --> 00:56:59.920

literally trading on my name and that hurts your not just hurts

00:56:59.920 --> 00:57:03.460

your reputation, but like is deceiving people maybe which is

00:57:03.460 --> 00:57:06.380

not great. But in terms of the actual impact here, but like

00:57:06.380 --> 00:57:10.120

that's more of a moral ethical thing. I feel like then a real

00:57:10.120 --> 00:57:13.880

problem. I've always looked at the test flight thing more

00:57:13.880 --> 00:57:18.700

similarly to like Adobe with Photoshop. It's kind of like the

00:57:18.700 --> 00:57:22.780

people who are going through the effort of getting this free

00:57:22.780 --> 00:57:26.860

version of the thing, what percentage of them really are

00:57:26.860 --> 00:57:29.220

representing people who would have paid in the first place?

00:57:29.220 --> 00:57:32.060

Probably not a huge one. And then if you actually measure

00:57:32.060 --> 00:57:35.540

that out, like, TestFlight has a limited number of beta users you

00:57:35.540 --> 00:57:38.380

can even have. And if I look at my metrics on how many people

00:57:38.380 --> 00:57:44.180

have the TestFlight beta, and I say even 50% of those people, if

00:57:44.180 --> 00:57:46.860

they would have bought it, sure, that's like, oh, that's a nice

00:57:46.860 --> 00:57:49.660

chunk of money. But then that's it. That's just a chunk of money

00:57:49.660 --> 00:57:54.300

at that point, it doesn't represent this kind of ongoing loss of revenue.

00:57:54.300 --> 00:57:59.740

But what it gives me right now for dark noise is a safety net.

00:57:59.740 --> 00:58:06.460

Like I push stuff out like I just added a telemetry deck analytics to dark noise.

00:58:06.460 --> 00:58:10.740

I could push that out through my test flight and I could see, you know, a couple

00:58:10.740 --> 00:58:15.260

hundred users immediately flowing data through and there's no crashes, there's

00:58:15.260 --> 00:58:19.540

no weird stuff. And that gives me like so much confidence that I have like a

00:58:19.540 --> 00:58:22.740

safety net there, um, that I didn't do something at least horrible.

00:58:22.740 --> 00:58:23.140

Right.

00:58:23.140 --> 00:58:27.700

And so, yeah, I just need to adopt that mindset more, especially with this,

00:58:27.700 --> 00:58:32.540

because this is an app where I could really see the feedback being really

00:58:32.540 --> 00:58:37.580

helpful because the audience is so defined way more than anything else that

00:58:37.580 --> 00:58:42.020

I've worked on that I'm probably not going to get like, Hey, cool.

00:58:42.020 --> 00:58:42.980

Thanks for letting me try it.

00:58:42.980 --> 00:58:45.180

Maybe you try a different color for this label.

00:58:45.180 --> 00:58:49.260

I envision the feedback being more like, Hey, my flow works like this.

00:58:49.260 --> 00:58:50.500

Can I, can I do that?

00:58:50.500 --> 00:58:51.980

Am I thinking about this right way?

00:58:51.980 --> 00:58:52.980

Or like, this is awesome.

00:58:52.980 --> 00:58:55.940

What would really like take it over the edge for me is X, Y, and Z.

00:58:55.940 --> 00:58:57.940

So I do need to think of it.

00:58:57.940 --> 00:58:59.900

- Like you ran into a spin stack once you put it out there, right?

00:58:59.900 --> 00:59:04.540

Like how much spin stacks after release development was people with different

00:59:04.540 --> 00:59:07.460

workflows asking for small tweaks that made their life way better.

00:59:07.460 --> 00:59:08.340

- Yeah.

00:59:08.340 --> 00:59:11.540

And it wasn't even close to what I thought it was going to be in the first

00:59:11.540 --> 00:59:15.100

place, which was, I've talked about that to death probably on my blog, but like

00:59:15.140 --> 00:59:16.420

That was a huge issue with it.

00:59:16.420 --> 00:59:20.260

And especially now with like, kind of angling this already.

00:59:20.260 --> 00:59:22.140

It's like, Hey, this is like a subscription product.

00:59:22.140 --> 00:59:24.020

Like I want it to be part of your flow.

00:59:24.020 --> 00:59:26.700

Like I got to make sure I'm nailing those flows for everyone.

00:59:26.700 --> 00:59:32.620

And it's felt so good and right for me that I re I just know that.

00:59:32.620 --> 00:59:37.380

Well, no new that world so well, when I worked with spin stack, like all the

00:59:37.380 --> 00:59:42.580

pain points that I felt with like hopping around from GitHub to Trello to paper.

00:59:42.940 --> 00:59:47.180

to manage all of these things, whereas this worked so much better for me, even in like

00:59:47.180 --> 00:59:51.820

it's crummy hacked together state, I feel confident that'll help people. And it's one

00:59:51.820 --> 00:59:55.020

of these things too, where when I look at like the vision of what I want to do with my indie stuff,

00:59:55.020 --> 01:00:00.860

this is like another foundation, sort of like the book series, like something that I want to have.

01:00:00.860 --> 01:00:01.340

Yeah.

01:00:01.340 --> 01:00:07.020

It doesn't have to blow the world apart. It just needs to be part of revenue that, you know,

01:00:07.020 --> 01:00:11.260

kind of comes together with other stuff. Because like, you know, I looked at the book, because

01:00:11.260 --> 01:00:15.020

we're talking about sharing numbers. And I think since it's released, it's just under

01:00:15.020 --> 01:00:21.580

150,000, which is great for me. I hear that. I'm super proud of it. But when you're being

01:00:21.580 --> 01:00:27.340

realistic, that's not like, "I can just do this and it's done." That's not quit your job money

01:00:27.340 --> 01:00:28.140

at all. Right.

01:00:28.140 --> 01:00:32.700

Especially when you have a family of five. Well, and a lot of that was launch numbers.

01:00:32.700 --> 01:00:40.220

Exactly. Yeah. I think two-thirds of that was launched for sure. So I kind of look at

01:00:40.220 --> 01:00:45.980

like I want to take like four or five tiny, tiny bets and see if I can get another thing that

01:00:45.980 --> 01:00:51.020

makes like $150,000 and then maybe make it recurring and slowly just kind of build up

01:00:51.020 --> 01:00:56.700

with some quality products that would sum up to get me to where I want to go.

01:00:56.700 --> 01:01:00.220

Your multiple stool or multiple legs of your stool, right?

01:01:00.220 --> 01:01:04.460

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. So, I need to build the freaking stool though. I only got

01:01:04.460 --> 01:01:09.340

one leg on it right now. So, it's not going to work. And even if the next leg of the stool

01:01:09.340 --> 01:01:14.140

isn't perfect like I want it. It's just, it's got to be out there. And again, sort of like you

01:01:14.140 --> 01:01:18.940

talking about sponsorships, I feel like that's always been me with software in our relationship.

01:01:18.940 --> 01:01:22.540

Like I could come up with a thousand reasons not to get something out the door. I'm like,

01:01:22.540 --> 01:01:27.420

"Well, it's got to be this or that. It's got to be pretty." And that's not a novel problem at all.

01:01:27.420 --> 01:01:29.020

Like we all... A lot of people struggle with that.

01:01:29.020 --> 01:01:29.420

Oh yeah.

01:01:29.420 --> 01:01:34.140

But ripping the bandaid off and actually doing it is so tough for me.

01:01:34.140 --> 01:01:37.820

That's why... I mean, we mentioned it with the word beta on things. That's... I really think

01:01:38.380 --> 01:01:42.700

Getting it more out there with through, through like a test flight beta or

01:01:42.700 --> 01:01:46.060

something, it's like, it's a lot less embarrassing when you're like, Hey, this

01:01:46.060 --> 01:01:47.460

is really rough guys.

01:01:47.460 --> 01:01:51.780

Like, yeah, I think I even told you all like it's going to crash and your data

01:01:51.780 --> 01:01:52.980

won't be saved on the next update.

01:01:52.980 --> 01:01:56.260

Cause I don't have like migration and like, you don't have to open it up to the

01:01:56.260 --> 01:01:58.260

whole world at first, you know, that kind of thing.

01:01:58.260 --> 01:02:02.660

But it, it lets, it lets that, who was I talking to recently?

01:02:02.660 --> 01:02:08.100

You know, I think it was a Simon with runes with runestone, I think was the app.

01:02:08.100 --> 01:02:10.820

I don't remember which app it was, but I was asking how the launch went.

01:02:10.820 --> 01:02:15.300

And he was like, "Well, it was almost like a soft launch."

01:02:15.300 --> 01:02:19.060

Because he had been beta testing it for so long that it was really just flipping a switch.

01:02:19.060 --> 01:02:22.660

He felt pretty confident because there were so many people already using it.

01:02:22.660 --> 01:02:28.580

And I think there's something to go with that, with the actual shipping it in terms of making it a product that you sell.

01:02:28.580 --> 01:02:38.060

There's a lot less stress around it being having these big bugs or something if you've already gotten a big user base that's already sort of pounding on it.

01:02:38.060 --> 01:02:40.820

- I think the idea of like a soft launch

01:02:40.820 --> 01:02:43.540

sounds so appealing to me.

01:02:43.540 --> 01:02:45.500

'Cause we were talking about this with Daniel

01:02:45.500 --> 01:02:49.300

with Up Ahead, like he was kind of joking with us

01:02:49.300 --> 01:02:51.260

like how the hardest part of that,

01:02:51.260 --> 01:02:52.820

and I'm paraphrasing, was like just getting

01:02:52.820 --> 01:02:53.660

that launch ready.

01:02:53.660 --> 01:02:55.540

Like I gotta make a website, I gotta make a video,

01:02:55.540 --> 01:02:57.740

I gotta make the screenshots, I gotta make the press kit,

01:02:57.740 --> 01:02:59.860

I gotta reach out to press, I gotta make the tweet.

01:02:59.860 --> 01:03:01.560

There's a thousand things to do.

01:03:01.560 --> 01:03:02.860

And sometimes you wanna do that.

01:03:02.860 --> 01:03:04.920

Like with SpinStack, I love doing that.

01:03:04.920 --> 01:03:07.340

But I'm almost to the point where I'm like,

01:03:07.340 --> 01:03:09.380

I would be fine with just saying, here it is,

01:03:09.380 --> 01:03:11.180

I'm gonna slowly build it up over time.

01:03:11.180 --> 01:03:14.060

Instead of doing the grand boom, you know,

01:03:14.060 --> 01:03:15.820

like here it goes.

01:03:15.820 --> 01:03:18.540

- Well, and you can still do the grand boom

01:03:18.540 --> 01:03:20.420

at the point it goes on sale.

01:03:20.420 --> 01:03:22.100

Like that's exactly the thing. - Exactly.

01:03:22.100 --> 01:03:26.460

- And then you're, you know, that big rush before release

01:03:26.460 --> 01:03:27.880

where you're trying to get all this stuff,

01:03:27.880 --> 01:03:32.160

all these fixes slammed in and get press and get websites

01:03:32.160 --> 01:03:34.260

and get, you know, all these other things.

01:03:34.260 --> 01:03:39.200

What if the app itself wasn't part of that rush because it's already ready and

01:03:39.200 --> 01:03:42.220

then you're totally focused on marketing and all that.

01:03:42.220 --> 01:03:46.080

Um, and I think there's, there's maybe a, I don't know if this is a cynical

01:03:46.080 --> 01:03:53.060

take, but like another element to this in particular with this app is, you

01:03:53.060 --> 01:03:56.100

know, you're imagining this app being an important part of people's workflows.

01:03:56.100 --> 01:04:02.220

And so if you can get it to the point where people are using it and recommending

01:04:02.220 --> 01:04:06.780

it, it's sort of building an audience as this free thing and it becomes an

01:04:06.780 --> 01:04:08.540

important part of people's workflows.

01:04:08.540 --> 01:04:12.940

Obviously, with a very clear upfront, this is eventually going to cost money,

01:04:12.940 --> 01:04:13.340

guys.

01:04:13.340 --> 01:04:18.660

Once you flip that switch, there is a huge audience built in who can make the

01:04:18.660 --> 01:04:19.740

decision right then.

01:04:19.740 --> 01:04:22.140

Is this important to me or not?

01:04:22.140 --> 01:04:22.980

And they already know.

01:04:22.980 --> 01:04:26.740

Like the thing I think about is MimeStream.

01:04:26.740 --> 01:04:27.620

Are you familiar with?

01:04:27.620 --> 01:04:29.500

I've heard of it, but I don't know what it is.

01:04:29.900 --> 01:04:34.540

So it's a it's an email app that basically feels exactly like Apple Mail,

01:04:34.540 --> 01:04:37.900

but it's specifically built around Gmail APIs.

01:04:37.900 --> 01:04:39.740

And it's it's incredible.

01:04:39.740 --> 01:04:42.460

Like it's I've never liked any email apps before.

01:04:42.460 --> 01:04:43.700

And this is the one I like.

01:04:43.700 --> 01:04:45.740

It's only on the Mac right now, but it's so good.

01:04:45.740 --> 01:04:48.140

I need to have the guy who's building it.

01:04:48.140 --> 01:04:50.340

His name is Neil.

01:04:50.340 --> 01:04:51.140

I can't remember his last name.

01:04:51.140 --> 01:04:51.860

I'll put a link in the show.

01:04:51.860 --> 01:04:54.660

If only there was a podcast which was suitable to have such people.

01:04:54.660 --> 01:04:58.800

Yeah, yeah. Seriously, I need to have them on because I adore this app.

01:04:59.440 --> 01:05:02.880

I like the Apple Mail app, but it's always been a problem with Gmail in particular,

01:05:02.880 --> 01:05:09.760

especially at my work where Gmail or Google focused. And it has the little widgets that

01:05:09.760 --> 01:05:14.720

show if you get a calendar invite, they have the "Yes", "No". It's not links that then open up a

01:05:14.720 --> 01:05:19.920

browser to let you accept or not accept or anything. It's just an incredibly good app.

01:05:19.920 --> 01:05:26.800

And it's still in beta and it's free. And he's been clear that once this is officially released,

01:05:26.800 --> 01:05:31.200

that's going to cost money. But he could charge a decent amount of money. Maybe I shouldn't say

01:05:31.200 --> 01:05:35.360

this publicly, but he could charge a lot of money and I would still pay for it at this point.

01:05:35.360 --> 01:05:35.440

Right.

01:05:35.440 --> 01:05:43.600

Because it's like, I would be so sad to lose it. It's a major part of how I work and manage email.

01:05:43.600 --> 01:05:48.880

And email is such an important thing for me. And I hate it. And this thing makes it a little bit

01:05:48.880 --> 01:05:56.480

less bad. And so I think you could have a similar thing here where like, at first,

01:05:56.480 --> 01:05:59.520

people will, lots of people download it because it's free and they're curious.

01:05:59.520 --> 01:06:06.720

But some of those people, it'll click with and they'll keep asking for updates and changes and

01:06:06.720 --> 01:06:11.840

tweaks and you can keep, keep on making it more and more solid. And then they're going to start

01:06:11.840 --> 01:06:15.840

recommending it to people and then you get like a little following. And so when you flip that switch,

01:06:15.840 --> 01:06:21.040

you have a group of people who've already decided it's worth it at a certain price point. And then

01:06:21.040 --> 01:06:25.600

of course, finding that price point is always a difficult thing. But oh yeah, I really, I really

01:06:25.600 --> 01:06:31.040

think I know I hounded a lot, but I really think if you can get it to an MVP point where

01:06:31.040 --> 01:06:36.920

people could start using it and then get that out there, even if it's not as polished as

01:06:36.920 --> 01:06:43.840

what you want a Jordan Morgan TM app to really feel like, I think that would be really worth

01:06:43.840 --> 01:06:44.840

it for you.

01:06:44.840 --> 01:06:45.840

Yeah.

01:06:45.840 --> 01:06:52.360

And I like the idea of that, kind of changing a little bit to do that through a prolonged

01:06:52.360 --> 01:06:57.760

beta. So that way I can have the clear delineation of like, okay, I'm at V1 now.

01:06:57.760 --> 01:07:01.120

Like you can use the beta if you want, but from here on out, like now it'll, now

01:07:01.120 --> 01:07:02.800

it'll be like the paid subscription.

01:07:02.800 --> 01:07:04.920

Um, and I could, yeah.

01:07:04.920 --> 01:07:10.680

Cause really all I need is to, to validate that people do also work the way that I

01:07:10.680 --> 01:07:11.000

think.

01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:16.460

And it's, it's almost silly that I have it because the slow, tiny little drips of

01:07:16.460 --> 01:07:21.920

information I've given about the, the app, I've always gotten like, yes, like that's

01:07:21.920 --> 01:07:23.280

what I want to do.

01:07:23.280 --> 01:07:25.080

You know, like even just the sidebar

01:07:25.080 --> 01:07:26.880

of like categories of stuff.

01:07:26.880 --> 01:07:27.840

I've had people like that.

01:07:27.840 --> 01:07:29.280

I think of things that way too.

01:07:29.280 --> 01:07:30.720

Like I think of X, Y, and Z.

01:07:30.720 --> 01:07:32.840

That's how I want to categorize things.

01:07:32.840 --> 01:07:34.200

So yeah, it's good.

01:07:34.200 --> 01:07:36.120

It's funny because these Christmas specials,

01:07:36.120 --> 01:07:38.080

which I have nothing to do with Christmas.

01:07:38.080 --> 01:07:39.160

It's just Christmas time.

01:07:39.160 --> 01:07:42.520

It always ends up being our like sort of a therapeutic moment

01:07:42.520 --> 01:07:44.280

where we both kind of face up the things

01:07:44.280 --> 01:07:46.840

that we wish we were doing maybe differently

01:07:46.840 --> 01:07:47.680

and hash them out.

01:07:47.680 --> 01:07:51.080

So I think the Christmas gift we can give to each other

01:07:51.080 --> 01:07:54.920

for 2023 is you bite the bullet, try a few subscriptions.

01:07:54.920 --> 01:07:57.640

I just clean this up to where it's not gonna at least crash

01:07:57.640 --> 01:08:00.920

and can receive updates and then just start going to town

01:08:00.920 --> 01:08:02.280

and getting feedback on it.

01:08:02.280 --> 01:08:06.800

And I've got it, I think for me, what I really have to do,

01:08:06.800 --> 01:08:08.620

and again, it's so hard and I've said it,

01:08:08.620 --> 01:08:11.680

is I just have to riff off the bandaid in terms of it

01:08:11.680 --> 01:08:15.320

not being as pretty or perfect as I want it to be.

01:08:15.320 --> 01:08:18.160

Because that's, and I also put that pressure on myself

01:08:18.160 --> 01:08:21.060

because I think if I write this book series

01:08:21.060 --> 01:08:22.880

about like how to make great apps,

01:08:22.880 --> 01:08:26.040

if I had this other app that was objectively

01:08:26.040 --> 01:08:28.520

like good looking, like then this one's gotta

01:08:28.520 --> 01:08:29.760

like meet those standards.

01:08:29.760 --> 01:08:31.020

- Yeah. - But really,

01:08:31.020 --> 01:08:32.720

that's the lesson that I learned with SpinStack.

01:08:32.720 --> 01:08:34.160

It's like, you have to think less that

01:08:34.160 --> 01:08:35.720

and more as a business.

01:08:35.720 --> 01:08:38.120

Like if you really wanna keep working on this

01:08:38.120 --> 01:08:39.480

and you really wanna get it to that point,

01:08:39.480 --> 01:08:41.920

then you've gotta make some concessions along the way

01:08:41.920 --> 01:08:43.800

and not bad ones, but the right ones.

01:08:43.800 --> 01:08:46.640

- Right. - To start the train going.

01:08:46.640 --> 01:08:48.600

Because I can always make it prettier after the fact.

01:08:48.600 --> 01:08:54.800

And one of those things which you've mentioned multiple times already, but like, I think it's worth diving into a little bit is is subscriptions.

01:08:54.800 --> 01:08:59.120

You've talked about this a bunch with with Spinstack.

01:08:59.120 --> 01:09:01.440

So Spinstack was a paid up front app.

01:09:01.440 --> 01:09:07.280

And then I came out with Dark Noise soon thereafter, and I was already planning on doing a paid paid up front app.

01:09:07.280 --> 01:09:10.480

But like your thinking around that was very similar to mine.

01:09:10.960 --> 01:09:15.560

I'll let you start, but I do want to kind of, you know, get a little more therapy into

01:09:15.560 --> 01:09:19.400

our thoughts on subscriptions really quick with that too.

01:09:19.400 --> 01:09:23.000

So my, I've completely 180 on them.

01:09:23.000 --> 01:09:27.880

So I started SpinStack all those years ago, paid up front was at the time, kind of like

01:09:27.880 --> 01:09:31.440

my favorite way to buy apps, which is not anymore.

01:09:31.440 --> 01:09:32.560

True, hand over heart.

01:09:32.560 --> 01:09:34.760

I prefer subscriptions now.

01:09:34.760 --> 01:09:38.420

And it was easiest to do, which I've not built a subscription app yet.

01:09:38.420 --> 01:09:40.440

So I can't really speak to how easy or difficult that is.

01:09:40.440 --> 01:09:42.240

I know we got stuff like Revenue Cat

01:09:42.240 --> 01:09:44.200

that everyone really seems to enjoy,

01:09:44.200 --> 01:09:47.240

their store kit too, which I guess makes it a lot easier.

01:09:47.240 --> 01:09:49.360

As I put in a blog post that I just published

01:09:49.360 --> 01:09:52.480

a few days ago with SpinStack now being Sunset,

01:09:52.480 --> 01:09:54.600

the biggest problem with it was,

01:09:54.600 --> 01:09:56.240

yes, there were product issues,

01:09:56.240 --> 01:09:58.760

but to fix those product issues,

01:09:58.760 --> 01:10:00.940

I needed a lot of work,

01:10:00.940 --> 01:10:02.760

and I think I could have made it worth it

01:10:02.760 --> 01:10:04.200

to other people and myself

01:10:04.200 --> 01:10:06.100

if I had recurring revenue with it.

01:10:06.100 --> 01:10:08.920

So I think with subscriptions,

01:10:08.920 --> 01:10:11.060

you're kind of saying I'm serious about this.

01:10:11.060 --> 01:10:12.300

I want it to keep going.

01:10:12.300 --> 01:10:14.340

I'm gonna provide value to you.

01:10:14.340 --> 01:10:17.840

And not only that, but it just is what it is.

01:10:17.840 --> 01:10:20.280

They make so much more money.

01:10:20.280 --> 01:10:22.840

You know, like if you look at SpinStack,

01:10:22.840 --> 01:10:25.080

it was often on sale for three bucks.

01:10:25.080 --> 01:10:27.600

I look at a $3 app in the app store,

01:10:27.600 --> 01:10:30.300

and today in 2022, I'm probably not gonna buy it.

01:10:30.300 --> 01:10:31.240

I can't try it.

01:10:31.240 --> 01:10:32.080

I have to look at reviews.

01:10:32.080 --> 01:10:33.700

I can look at the videos,

01:10:33.700 --> 01:10:36.880

but I don't bat an eye in spending on like 30 bucks

01:10:36.880 --> 01:10:39.040

on like up ahead subscription, right?

01:10:39.040 --> 01:10:42.080

And how much more is 30 bucks than $3?

01:10:42.080 --> 01:10:44.080

And I do that with several apps.

01:10:44.080 --> 01:10:48.200

I pay for craft, Ulysses, all sorts of stuff

01:10:48.200 --> 01:10:49.160

and I'm happy to do it.

01:10:49.160 --> 01:10:51.360

So I think the market is more prepared for it

01:10:51.360 --> 01:10:53.720

and more accepting of it.

01:10:53.720 --> 01:10:58.160

But, oh my, I did not even know my daughter was home

01:10:58.160 --> 01:10:59.840

and she just walked.

01:10:59.840 --> 01:11:00.760

- It's a Christmas special.

01:11:00.760 --> 01:11:02.600

You have to have your family.

01:11:02.600 --> 01:11:04.320

- Dude, they were gone at the gym.

01:11:04.320 --> 01:11:06.080

I did not know that.

01:11:06.080 --> 01:11:09.840

Dude, that freaked me out. I'm just sitting here chilling and all of a sudden, bam!

01:11:09.840 --> 01:11:14.960

Baylor. Oh gosh. Wow.

01:11:14.960 --> 01:11:21.600

It's funny, I could see her coming, like sneaking up on you and I guess you didn't see it.

01:11:21.600 --> 01:11:22.400

That's hilarious.

01:11:22.400 --> 01:11:25.120

She like tugged on my leg. You little sneaker.

01:11:25.120 --> 01:11:27.920

Well, I guess my wife's back from the gym now.

01:11:27.920 --> 01:11:32.560

Now that I've had my heart attack. But yeah, where I was going with that is like,

01:11:32.560 --> 01:11:36.480

If you want to build a sustainable business, I think subscriptions are the best way to do it now.

01:11:36.480 --> 01:11:40.720

I think the market is more accepting of it. I think the tools are there to do it.

01:11:40.720 --> 01:11:46.720

And I think it helps you build a real business and not an app. And I think it'd be easier than

01:11:46.720 --> 01:11:50.160

paid up front. Of course, paid up front still works for a lot of apps. I know

01:11:50.160 --> 01:11:56.400

Dark Noise still sells and it's still working for you. But I will say here on December 9th,

01:11:56.400 --> 01:12:01.200

2022, that I think you would make more money with subscriptions than you would as it is now.

01:12:01.200 --> 01:12:05.120

Yeah, and I think I've talked about on the show. If not, I've definitely talked about on Twitter,

01:12:05.120 --> 01:12:10.480

but I am in the process right now of of switching over and really,

01:12:10.480 --> 01:12:17.120

at least experimenting with that in the same vein. It's similar conversation actually with somebody,

01:12:17.120 --> 01:12:23.120

maybe you, about this a little while ago where it was like, you're allowed to try this. And if it

01:12:23.120 --> 01:12:27.840

doesn't work, you can switch back to paid up front. Absolutely. The other way. But with this,

01:12:27.840 --> 01:12:35.360

it's like, "Okay, if it really backfires, it's not like I can't go back." And yeah, I feel like

01:12:35.360 --> 01:12:42.320

the big things that really changed that one is like, trying to look at this more like a business

01:12:42.320 --> 01:12:47.120

for different reasons, our environment being a little different in terms of the tech sector.

01:12:47.120 --> 01:12:55.280

But also a couple different sort of intellectual thinking, I don't know what's the right word here,

01:12:56.960 --> 01:13:01.680

ways of thinking about it is like Daniel Gauthier, when he was describing how...

01:13:01.680 --> 01:13:12.320

One of my paranoias with subscriptions is it kind of puts me on the hook for repeated value.

01:13:12.320 --> 01:13:17.440

And since it's a side thing, I don't know that I can do that. And that always really stressed me

01:13:17.440 --> 01:13:21.040

out. The idea that I would feel like people are paying me regularly. I need to make sure I'm

01:13:21.040 --> 01:13:26.160

putting out lots of updates and everything. And he said he thought about this sort of inverted,

01:13:26.160 --> 01:13:32.400

which is if it's paid up front, people are like they're expecting a couple years, at least worth

01:13:32.400 --> 01:13:36.960

of repeated updates. That's the expectation. Whereas if it's subscription, they can cancel

01:13:36.960 --> 01:13:40.800

it if they're not getting that. They get the value now and then if they're not getting it later,

01:13:40.800 --> 01:13:45.920

they shut it off. And that freed him up mentally in a way that was inverse for me.

01:13:45.920 --> 01:13:54.560

And that was a "Whoa!" moment. And the other thing is, like what you were saying,

01:13:54.560 --> 01:14:00.400

my attitudes changing. I was definitely did not like subscriptions initially. And I would say I'm

01:14:00.400 --> 01:14:06.080

still actually more in the boat of people who if there's a paid up front option, I would prefer

01:14:06.080 --> 01:14:12.880

that. I just don't like that sort of mental thing hanging over me. But yeah, there are examples

01:14:12.880 --> 01:14:18.320

where I've really, really liked that model. One of them is flighty. I don't know if you've used

01:14:18.320 --> 01:14:22.160

flighty much since it's come out. I know flying has been a little less accessible.

01:14:22.160 --> 01:14:24.840

I haven't, but I, I dive into it all the time.

01:14:24.840 --> 01:14:28.400

Cause Ryan and his team just do such a great job with the design of it.

01:14:28.400 --> 01:14:29.160

It's so good.

01:14:29.160 --> 01:14:30.200

And you're hearing it too.

01:14:30.200 --> 01:14:34.760

Uh, first that, that will be an Apple design award, a winner soon.

01:14:34.760 --> 01:14:38.080

Like that, that one's not gonna not win.

01:14:38.080 --> 01:14:40.080

It's so, it's so good.

01:14:40.080 --> 01:14:43.780

Gets brought up often and it's, you know, it's not overhyped.

01:14:43.780 --> 01:14:45.080

It really is that good of an app.

01:14:45.080 --> 01:14:49.480

But the thing with that app is when it first came out, it was like, this app's

01:14:49.480 --> 01:14:53.260

expensive. Like, yeah, it's really, really nice. But for how

01:14:53.260 --> 01:14:56.080

many people is this really worth it? And so I kind of, I always

01:14:56.080 --> 01:14:59.760

played with it, you know, the free version of it, because,

01:14:59.760 --> 01:15:03.080

because it's such a nice app, it's a good example, you know,

01:15:03.080 --> 01:15:05.720

to look at. And then I, you know, I used the trial the first

01:15:05.720 --> 01:15:09.440

time I flew. And I was like, Oh, wow, this is really nice. But

01:15:09.440 --> 01:15:13.280

what really like, changed my thinking was when I realized, I

01:15:13.280 --> 01:15:17.760

think it's $6 a month, which isn't worth it for a year for me

01:15:17.760 --> 01:15:18.940

because I don't fly that often.

01:15:18.940 --> 01:15:20.740

But then once my mental model changed

01:15:20.740 --> 01:15:23.100

and I was like, the next time I flew

01:15:23.100 --> 01:15:25.160

after I tried that trial, I was like, wait a minute,

01:15:25.160 --> 01:15:27.900

I can just subscribe for one month

01:15:27.900 --> 01:15:30.400

and I will have it for both of these flights.

01:15:30.400 --> 01:15:34.540

It is a thousand percent worth adding $6

01:15:34.540 --> 01:15:38.160

to my round trip flights for my whole family

01:15:38.160 --> 01:15:41.260

to have this way better app version.

01:15:41.260 --> 01:15:43.860

And so once I started thinking about it that way,

01:15:43.860 --> 01:15:45.900

I've used it for every flight I've gone on since

01:15:45.900 --> 01:15:47.260

because it's a no brainer.

01:15:47.260 --> 01:15:53.020

And sometimes, if you time it right, you can get two flights into one month or something like that.

01:15:53.020 --> 01:15:57.900

And I probably ended up paying more than the yearly flight for one of my years because I did

01:15:57.900 --> 01:16:05.740

fly a bunch then. But that mental framework really opened my eyes to how this can be better for

01:16:05.740 --> 01:16:12.060

people too. Because Dark Noise in particular, it is an app that a lot of people use every night

01:16:12.060 --> 01:16:16.380

or every day when they work. That's a big portion of my user base. But there's another

01:16:17.100 --> 01:16:24.460

user base, which is probably a bigger group. That is, I use it when I'm on vacation. Like,

01:16:24.460 --> 01:16:28.540

I'm in a hotel room. I'm trying to get my kids to go to bed. I have a white noise machine,

01:16:28.540 --> 01:16:31.260

an actual physical machine that we have at our house. But of course, I don't

01:16:31.260 --> 01:16:35.580

lug that to hotels or whatever. So I just load it up on an iPad and that's how I get the kids

01:16:35.580 --> 01:16:40.300

to fall asleep or whatever. I hear that a lot from people. So I don't have the analytics to

01:16:40.300 --> 01:16:45.580

back it up because I literally just started measuring this. But I've heard it enough that

01:16:45.580 --> 01:16:48.340

that it makes me think that it's a significant portion of my user base.

01:16:48.340 --> 01:16:53.660

And for those people having an actual monthly option that like, yeah, it's

01:16:53.660 --> 01:16:58.700

not worth it for me to have this, uh, to pay an annual price for this, but a

01:16:58.700 --> 01:17:02.340

couple bucks for this month while we're on this trip, a hundred percent worth it.

01:17:02.340 --> 01:17:06.100

And I like the idea of like opening up those opportunities for people.

01:17:06.100 --> 01:17:09.320

Um, and those, those are the two like thought technologies.

01:17:09.320 --> 01:17:10.340

That was the word I was looking for earlier.

01:17:10.340 --> 01:17:14.900

Those are the two thought technologies ideas that have made me like really open

01:17:14.900 --> 01:17:20.060

up to this as me feeling better about it because I think I was just feeling guilty about the

01:17:20.060 --> 01:17:24.340

idea of adding subscriptions because it's a side project.

01:17:24.340 --> 01:17:29.380

It's not like I think it's unethical for people to do, but for me, since this isn't my 100%

01:17:29.380 --> 01:17:34.820

full-time gig, I always felt a little guilty about it, but I don't have those same misgivings

01:17:34.820 --> 01:17:35.820

now.

01:17:35.820 --> 01:17:41.580

And so, yeah, so I'm on the journey of exploring that right now, kind of a similar time as

01:17:41.580 --> 01:17:44.620

you, except I'm switching an existing app over to it.

01:17:44.620 --> 01:17:46.900

I mean, 100%, I agree with everything you said.

01:17:46.900 --> 01:17:51.900

I think subscriptions honestly are just the best for everybody involved at the end of

01:17:51.900 --> 01:17:56.540

the day, because if people enjoy software and they want it to be developed, then we

01:17:56.540 --> 01:18:02.100

need to continually make money from those things that we're making to justify that or

01:18:02.100 --> 01:18:06.380

to kind of get you over that threshold to where it becomes like your full-time gig.

01:18:06.380 --> 01:18:10.500

And the great thing is from as a consumer is they can offer that up so many different

01:18:10.500 --> 01:18:11.500

ways.

01:18:11.500 --> 01:18:12.700

Like FlyD, like, "Hey, I'm flying once a month.

01:18:12.700 --> 01:18:16.380

I have no need, or I'm sorry, only once this whole year

01:18:16.380 --> 01:18:18.260

and one month, I can just do the six bucks

01:18:18.260 --> 01:18:19.820

and get the value from it.

01:18:19.820 --> 01:18:20.660

Perfect.

01:18:20.660 --> 01:18:23.060

I mean, that's not a subscription to them,

01:18:23.060 --> 01:18:25.260

but that's how it's packaged up, right?

01:18:25.260 --> 01:18:26.700

And then if you love it,

01:18:26.700 --> 01:18:28.540

then maybe you hop onto the yearly.

01:18:28.540 --> 01:18:30.140

And that's the other thing.

01:18:30.140 --> 01:18:31.380

Every subscription I buy,

01:18:31.380 --> 01:18:32.980

I was trying to pull it up on iTunes Connect.

01:18:32.980 --> 01:18:36.340

I don't know how on the Mac App Store.

01:18:36.340 --> 01:18:39.940

Almost every subscription I buy, I always do the annual.

01:18:39.940 --> 01:18:41.060

Like--

01:18:41.060 --> 01:18:41.900

Same.

01:18:41.900 --> 01:18:45.840

That's why it's so interesting that you mentioned Flighty though, because I hadn't really thought

01:18:45.840 --> 01:18:50.240

of it that way, but that's a great example because I don't like the mental burden of

01:18:50.240 --> 01:18:53.880

like adding something to like my budgeting spreadsheet, but like if I can just buy it

01:18:53.880 --> 01:18:57.360

in one shot and then decide a year later, like do I still want it?

01:18:57.360 --> 01:18:59.480

I do that every time.

01:18:59.480 --> 01:19:04.260

And so it's just, it shows two different scenarios, buying it for a whole year versus buying it

01:19:04.260 --> 01:19:08.040

for this one-off, you know, situation that I have for six bucks.

01:19:08.040 --> 01:19:10.600

That's what subscription gives to you.

01:19:10.600 --> 01:19:14.320

And so as developers, if we can make more money to do things we love, and as consumers,

01:19:14.320 --> 01:19:18.260

if you've got options, how you want to consume and pay for that, like, it's no wonder that

01:19:18.260 --> 01:19:20.000

they're so popular now.

01:19:20.000 --> 01:19:22.680

And it's easy to say, "Oh, subscription is another subscription."

01:19:22.680 --> 01:19:24.120

But not really all the time.

01:19:24.120 --> 01:19:29.960

You know, it's like, it's not like this handcuff that you have to buy it for two months, a

01:19:29.960 --> 01:19:31.280

year, keep paying for it.

01:19:31.280 --> 01:19:32.520

It's like you have the choice.

01:19:32.520 --> 01:19:36.280

If it's not delivering the value that you want, then you can drop off.

01:19:36.280 --> 01:19:40.360

Whereas if you bought it for one time, and it's not what you want, you know, you could

01:19:40.360 --> 01:19:45.640

either get the refund or the developer stops working on it like Spinstack. Because you

01:19:45.640 --> 01:19:49.120

get the nice launch, you get a nice little tailwind, but then you've got to really dig

01:19:49.120 --> 01:19:54.280

in and become a business and you need to reaffirm the value you're giving with more revenue

01:19:54.280 --> 01:19:55.440

and recurring revenue.

01:19:55.440 --> 01:20:01.760

And just all signs to me point towards subscriptions. And I don't see myself ever shipping an app

01:20:01.760 --> 01:20:03.720

that isn't subscription based at this point.

01:20:03.720 --> 01:20:09.800

I definitely think there's... I do still wish we had the ability to do paid updates.

01:20:09.800 --> 01:20:10.800

That would be nice.

01:20:10.800 --> 01:20:17.280

Yeah, but there's a lot of there's a lot that's cleaned up by not having that as well, right?

01:20:17.280 --> 01:20:22.520

Like the fact that yeah, with a subscription, it's like everybody has the same version of

01:20:22.520 --> 01:20:23.520

the app.

01:20:23.520 --> 01:20:25.840

There is complication with do they have the free version or the not free version?

01:20:25.840 --> 01:20:28.040

And oh yeah, especially for me since I'm converting.

01:20:28.040 --> 01:20:33.920

It's like you have to treat the people who bought the app initially different than free

01:20:33.920 --> 01:20:36.960

people obviously because you don't want anybody to ever lose anything.

01:20:36.960 --> 01:20:39.880

So there's a little bit of complication, but it's a lot less complicated than,

01:20:39.880 --> 01:20:44.240

you know, there's well, especially if you do frequent updates, there's, you

01:20:44.240 --> 01:20:48.600

know, 18 versions of the app out there and you need to be supporting all of

01:20:48.600 --> 01:20:52.280

them and you need to send security updates or something so that you don't

01:20:52.280 --> 01:20:55.200

break the old people, but you don't want to give them the new features because

01:20:55.200 --> 01:20:56.260

they need to pay for the upgrade.

01:20:56.260 --> 01:20:59.240

And so there's a lot of complexity that comes with that and.

01:20:59.240 --> 01:21:04.560

Reducing that complexity lets you focus more on actual features, which the

01:21:04.560 --> 01:21:07.860

people who are regularly paying, you know, that's where they're wanting that

01:21:07.860 --> 01:21:13.300

to go. So yeah, it's a complicated thing. And I, I do think there, I don't

01:21:13.300 --> 01:21:18.360

think it's a clean, like all pros and no cons, but especially given that I

01:21:18.360 --> 01:21:22.560

have been actively working on this for over three years now, I think I've,

01:21:22.560 --> 01:21:26.680

I've talked myself into trusting that I will keep working on it. I think that

01:21:26.680 --> 01:21:30.800

was another thing with when I initially launched it is like, I don't want to

01:21:30.800 --> 01:21:35.120

ask people for, you know, recurring money from them.

01:21:35.120 --> 01:21:38.560

If is this going to be something that I tail off of, you know, I've done a

01:21:38.560 --> 01:21:39.780

million side projects before.

01:21:39.780 --> 01:21:42.960

Is this going to be like a lot of those where eventually I get bored of it?

01:21:42.960 --> 01:21:45.640

And it seems like the answer is no, it is.

01:21:45.640 --> 01:21:48.720

Apple keeps coming out with plenty of new things for me to integrate with.

01:21:48.720 --> 01:21:53.900

And also I have a endless backlog of ideas, including some that will cost me

01:21:53.900 --> 01:21:58.500

money, like adding servers that I'm afraid to do without recurring revenue.

01:21:58.640 --> 01:22:00.800

And if I had recurring revenue, I can invest in that.

01:22:00.800 --> 01:22:03.360

I could build out a bigger library of sounds that are hosted, you know,

01:22:03.360 --> 01:22:05.040

somewhere else that you can download.

01:22:05.040 --> 01:22:05.440

And so.

01:22:05.440 --> 01:22:07.240

Well, and that's the other thing too.

01:22:07.240 --> 01:22:11.720

A lot of the stuff that we make has a recurring cost to us, which again, with

01:22:11.720 --> 01:22:15.200

a Ryan before flighty and he had weatherline, like that's the lesson that he

01:22:15.200 --> 01:22:18.520

learned the hard way, which he talked about on launch, just like, which I

01:22:18.520 --> 01:22:21.000

couldn't believe I just finished that episode a few weeks ago.

01:22:21.000 --> 01:22:21.740

What did he say?

01:22:21.740 --> 01:22:26.960

He was paying like five or $6,000 out of pocket to just keep it going, which is

01:22:27.080 --> 01:22:27.920

- Crazy.

01:22:27.920 --> 01:22:29.560

- But you know, props to him, but I would be like,

01:22:29.560 --> 01:22:31.000

sorry guys, you're out of luck.

01:22:31.000 --> 01:22:32.000

- I know.

01:22:32.000 --> 01:22:34.720

- But he was able to switch that up

01:22:34.720 --> 01:22:36.720

and make a business model that made more sense.

01:22:36.720 --> 01:22:38.360

So yeah, for sure.

01:22:38.360 --> 01:22:39.480

It's not a silver bullet,

01:22:39.480 --> 01:22:41.800

but it does seem like it's the best option for me

01:22:41.800 --> 01:22:42.920

out of what we've got.

01:22:42.920 --> 01:22:45.920

And so when I'm thinking of these side projects too,

01:22:45.920 --> 01:22:47.880

I also look at them in that lens.

01:22:47.880 --> 01:22:50.480

Like, is this an app, A, that I wanna do

01:22:50.480 --> 01:22:51.720

and provides value, solves the problem,

01:22:51.720 --> 01:22:52.800

all the normal stuff.

01:22:52.800 --> 01:22:54.960

But like, could it justify a subscription?

01:22:54.960 --> 01:22:57.720

And like, if it doesn't, like, I kind of kick it off now,

01:22:57.720 --> 01:22:59.800

'cause it's like, well, I'm just gonna repeat

01:22:59.800 --> 01:23:01.400

what happened with SpinStack, you know,

01:23:01.400 --> 01:23:03.640

best case scenario, you know?

01:23:03.640 --> 01:23:06.020

So I wanna, I don't know, man,

01:23:06.020 --> 01:23:07.540

I just really wanna put my stamp on things

01:23:07.540 --> 01:23:09.840

and really start building a proper business

01:23:09.840 --> 01:23:11.880

with the stuff that I put out.

01:23:11.880 --> 01:23:12.960

And to build a proper business,

01:23:12.960 --> 01:23:14.720

you have to continually make money.

01:23:14.720 --> 01:23:17.000

- Yeah, and I didn't get into it.

01:23:17.000 --> 01:23:18.160

I just wanna throw it out there too,

01:23:18.160 --> 01:23:21.680

that another piece of like anxiety I have

01:23:21.680 --> 01:23:23.060

about the Switch for me in particular,

01:23:23.060 --> 01:23:28.820

since this is an existing app is like that always anxiety you have of like,

01:23:28.820 --> 01:23:34.020

is, is the fact that it's paid up front, the reason why dark noise is working.

01:23:34.020 --> 01:23:34.440

Right.

01:23:34.440 --> 01:23:36.920

I don't know that I doubt it.

01:23:36.920 --> 01:23:40.400

It, there almost no data would point to this being the case, but there's that

01:23:40.400 --> 01:23:44.420

fear I have in my heart of like, if I switch this over, is it like, well, now

01:23:44.420 --> 01:23:46.620

you're like the other white noise apps.

01:23:46.620 --> 01:23:48.880

The only reason people were buying this was because it was paid up front.

01:23:48.880 --> 01:23:51.900

And most of those people were buying it and then never used it.

01:23:51.900 --> 01:23:55.500

and they were just giving you their money and then, you know,

01:23:55.500 --> 01:23:57.940

turning around and now they're not going to do that. And like,

01:23:57.940 --> 01:24:01.820

there's like this, like this sort of fear that I'm destroying the business,

01:24:01.820 --> 01:24:04.780

uh, by doing this, but that,

01:24:04.780 --> 01:24:08.500

the way I like undid that is what I talked about earlier is somebody pointing out

01:24:08.500 --> 01:24:11.700

to me, like, you can go back. It's, you're not stuck.

01:24:11.700 --> 01:24:18.820

And so that, that is really like where I'm at right now.

01:24:18.820 --> 01:24:22.360

I still have a fear that I'm going to switch and be the one person because

01:24:22.360 --> 01:24:25.820

almost everybody, it seems like it helps their business, but maybe I'm the one

01:24:25.820 --> 01:24:28.280

example of where it destroys this whole thing.

01:24:28.280 --> 01:24:29.740

I, you know, I got lucky with this thing.

01:24:29.740 --> 01:24:31.080

We never heard from Charlie again.

01:24:31.080 --> 01:24:31.780

Yeah, exactly.

01:24:31.780 --> 01:24:32.820

Then I disappear from the internet.

01:24:32.820 --> 01:24:34.220

Uh, yeah.

01:24:34.220 --> 01:24:37.940

Well, you know, another way that I think about it too, is when we think of those

01:24:37.940 --> 01:24:42.300

examples of indies who, who truly have a business from their apps, that that's

01:24:42.300 --> 01:24:46.780

their sole income, I don't think one of them is not a subscription.

01:24:46.800 --> 01:24:48.880

I think every single one is a subscription.

01:24:48.880 --> 01:24:50.640

Uh, peacock.

01:24:50.640 --> 01:24:53.880

I think that one's still, still a $10 paid up front.

01:24:53.880 --> 01:24:54.680

It might be.

01:24:54.680 --> 01:24:55.140

Yeah.

01:24:55.140 --> 01:24:59.880

And, and yeah, so I guess there's less like how wide used to be and now they

01:24:59.880 --> 01:25:00.440

switched.

01:25:00.440 --> 01:25:01.920

Yeah.

01:25:01.920 --> 01:25:06.000

What's the meme from like Batman, you either like live long enough to become

01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:08.780

this, like it's this, I think I actually tweeted that one time about

01:25:08.780 --> 01:25:11.680

subscriptions, like you live long enough to become the subscription app.

01:25:11.680 --> 01:25:12.000

Right.

01:25:12.000 --> 01:25:13.560

But which makes sense.

01:25:13.560 --> 01:25:13.800

Right.

01:25:13.800 --> 01:25:17.720

because if you live long enough, you get to the point where you saturated the

01:25:17.720 --> 01:25:21.320

people who buy your app and now everybody's just getting free updates at this point.

01:25:21.320 --> 01:25:27.400

And perhaps the biggest thing that I think about is like, they can try the app, you know,

01:25:27.400 --> 01:25:31.000

people could not try Sprintech. You had to buy it and then see if you liked it,

01:25:31.000 --> 01:25:32.360

which sounds crazy, does it?

01:25:32.360 --> 01:25:40.280

I get emails regularly, at least one a week, often multiple that are people asking for a trial of

01:25:40.280 --> 01:25:43.020

of the app and it's like, now that is technically

01:25:43.020 --> 01:25:46.220

something I could offer with a in-app purchase.

01:25:46.220 --> 01:25:47.060

You know what I mean?

01:25:47.060 --> 01:25:49.700

Like it's free to download and then you could do

01:25:49.700 --> 01:25:51.700

a one-time in-app purchase.

01:25:51.700 --> 01:25:54.060

But yeah, like having just a trial where it's like,

01:25:54.060 --> 01:25:56.660

here you have everything, this is the whole app,

01:25:56.660 --> 01:25:58.920

you get it for three days or whatever.

01:25:58.920 --> 01:26:00.580

That's a thing that a lot of people want,

01:26:00.580 --> 01:26:02.140

especially with a white noise app

01:26:02.140 --> 01:26:04.300

because what they're really asking for is,

01:26:04.300 --> 01:26:06.220

I wanna hear all the sounds because what they're really

01:26:06.220 --> 01:26:08.700

doing is downloading a dozen of them and trying to find

01:26:08.700 --> 01:26:10.260

the one that they like the most and then they'll stick

01:26:10.260 --> 01:26:15.220

that. And right now with Dark Noise, the only way to try it is to literally give me money,

01:26:15.220 --> 01:26:21.460

which makes that a much harder sell. Oh yeah. And it was that way with SpinStack too. Like,

01:26:21.460 --> 01:26:25.540

I go back to the product problems that it had. They would download it and think it worked

01:26:25.540 --> 01:26:28.980

completely differently. And then, you know, rightfully so, they wanted their money back.

01:26:28.980 --> 01:26:33.940

So I think trials open your market up so significantly, you know, because you've

01:26:33.940 --> 01:26:38.980

got to have a lot of people looking at Dark Noise that maybe just don't want to bite the $10 bullet.

01:26:38.980 --> 01:26:43.940

And if anything, your success as a paid up front app, I would look at that as a data point as even

01:26:43.940 --> 01:26:50.500

more motivation to be subscription. Because if you can get enough people to pay $10 without even

01:26:50.500 --> 01:26:54.820

being able to try it, I think you're going to get a lot more interested parties who would happily

01:26:54.820 --> 01:26:58.980

give you a free trial and then decide if it's for them when there's no barrier to entry.

01:26:58.980 --> 01:27:07.060

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'll say, just from a pure "it's nice for my ego" perspective,

01:27:07.060 --> 01:27:12.660

It'll be sad to leave the paid upfront health and fitness chart category.

01:27:12.660 --> 01:27:14.660

It's always nice to see it charting.

01:27:14.660 --> 01:27:18.420

It's a lot easier to chart on that one than anywhere else.

01:27:18.420 --> 01:27:21.860

Especially on the Mac App Store. It's usually me and Streaks,

01:27:21.860 --> 01:27:23.620

kind of dancing towards the top.

01:27:23.620 --> 01:27:25.140

That's awesome.

01:27:25.140 --> 01:27:25.620

But obviously, that doesn't...

01:27:25.620 --> 01:27:27.780

Yeah, because you pretty much never chart, I would assume,

01:27:27.780 --> 01:27:29.700

when we go free paid upfront.

01:27:29.700 --> 01:27:29.780

That would be my guess.

01:27:29.780 --> 01:27:34.020

Because you just get the titans of industry who have the marketing budgets.

01:27:34.580 --> 01:27:39.460

But, you know, if we trade the nice chart number for more money and in sustainable business,

01:27:39.460 --> 01:27:42.500

then I guess that's a trade I'm sure me and you both would make any day.

01:27:42.500 --> 01:27:45.540

I don't know. I really value my big head.

01:27:45.540 --> 01:27:51.780

Same here. Yeah. I mean, it is a... To talk about that for a minute, it's such like an

01:27:51.780 --> 01:27:55.220

endorphin boost though. Like if you open up the App Store and you see it's like,

01:27:55.220 --> 01:28:00.100

"Oh, number 10, number 1, number 15." It's like, "Yeah. All right. I like that."

01:28:00.100 --> 01:28:01.700

That definitely feels good.

01:28:03.780 --> 01:28:08.100

Hey, Charlie from the future here. So this next part of the conversation, we are going to talk

01:28:08.100 --> 01:28:14.180

about Twitter and Macedon and kind of our feelings with all of the things that are going on. And I

01:28:14.180 --> 01:28:19.860

just want to put a disclaimer out there that we recorded this a couple weeks ago. And a lot has

01:28:19.860 --> 01:28:24.900

happened since then. So just keep that in mind. Probably from the time that I'm recording this

01:28:24.900 --> 01:28:29.140

disclaimer, there will be a bunch of things that happen because we still have a couple days till

01:28:29.140 --> 01:28:32.820

this episode comes out. And then who knows how many days till you listen to it. So this is a

01:28:32.820 --> 01:28:37.420

a very fast moving topic. There's a reason I don't normally talk about newsy type events

01:28:37.420 --> 01:28:41.380

on the show because we record ahead of time and you know, it can make us seem really out

01:28:41.380 --> 01:28:45.180

of date. But I thought this was a good conversation. One to leave it in there. So just throwing

01:28:45.180 --> 01:28:50.540

it out there. Okay, back to the show. So we are we're technically over your time. Do you

01:28:50.540 --> 01:28:54.540

need to wrap up? Or do you want to get into the Twitter thing?

01:28:54.540 --> 01:29:00.020

Uh, how about we do a lightning round on Twitter? Because it's just too fun to talk about the

01:29:00.020 --> 01:29:04.460

The world around us, in particular, the iOS world that it lived in...

01:29:04.460 --> 01:29:07.500

I'm so excited to hear this monologue, by the way.

01:29:07.500 --> 01:29:08.500

Yeah.

01:29:08.500 --> 01:29:14.940

Twitter as an entity where we all exist. That has been a major part of both you and I getting

01:29:14.940 --> 01:29:20.180

traction in this industry and being able to sort of build a... Already rolling my eyes

01:29:20.180 --> 01:29:25.100

at myself, but build a brand, right? I'm an ignorant guy who tweets about my failures

01:29:25.100 --> 01:29:29.740

and hopefully people will learn from me. And you're a smart guy who blogs about Apple APIs.

01:29:29.740 --> 01:29:33.260

doing a lot of work in that phrase. Nope, nope, not allowing you counter that.

01:29:33.260 --> 01:29:40.460

Twitter has been where that lives. And right now, Twitter is in an interesting place. And by the

01:29:40.460 --> 01:29:45.500

time this episode comes out in two weeks or a week and a half or whatever, it'll probably be in

01:29:45.500 --> 01:29:49.020

another interesting place that who knows, we can't even predict what it'll be in at that point.

01:29:49.020 --> 01:29:54.780

And I'm just curious where you're at with that. This is, you know, we're sitting here by the fire,

01:29:54.780 --> 01:29:58.860

just enjoying some eggnog and talking about our thoughts. And I know both of our thoughts are in

01:29:58.860 --> 01:30:01.420

this place, probably like a lot of people listening right now.

01:30:01.420 --> 01:30:03.580

I'm just curious what you think about it all.

01:30:03.580 --> 01:30:09.020

I have gotten to the place where, all right, let me back up.

01:30:09.020 --> 01:30:11.420

The beginning of the year, I could not imagine life without Twitter.

01:30:11.420 --> 01:30:12.860

Let me say that to get the proper context.

01:30:12.860 --> 01:30:15.580

Which sounds sad, but let's all be honest with ourselves.

01:30:15.580 --> 01:30:16.460

Yeah, it's just so important.

01:30:16.460 --> 01:30:20.860

Like the example I've always given other people, like my family, for example, who's not on

01:30:20.860 --> 01:30:25.020

Twitter, like my mom or dad, if something happened with my job and I got laid off, the

01:30:25.020 --> 01:30:29.420

first place I would go to is Twitter and I would find my next job through Twitter.

01:30:29.420 --> 01:30:33.980

Like it's such a valuable career tool for me and for the iOS development community.

01:30:33.980 --> 01:30:34.660

Okay.

01:30:34.660 --> 01:30:36.780

So all that said, fast forward to today.

01:30:36.780 --> 01:30:42.220

And like, I've just made peace that maybe it won't exist in a year or so,

01:30:42.220 --> 01:30:43.900

which is just wild.

01:30:43.900 --> 01:30:47.980

I would never imagine me saying that, but I have this odd sense of calming

01:30:47.980 --> 01:30:51.060

this too about it where it's like, yeah, all right.

01:30:51.060 --> 01:30:52.980

Maybe if that happened, whatever, you know, like.

01:30:53.820 --> 01:30:55.500

I've had these thoughts before, like,

01:30:55.500 --> 01:30:57.860

am I still gonna be tweeting when I'm like 60?

01:30:57.860 --> 01:31:00.820

You know, like, am I still gonna wanna have this drive

01:31:00.820 --> 01:31:02.180

to like share everything I'm doing,

01:31:02.180 --> 01:31:03.900

which sounds silly to say,

01:31:03.900 --> 01:31:05.780

but it's like stuff I've really thought about.

01:31:05.780 --> 01:31:09.340

So I'm at this place where I hope it survives,

01:31:09.340 --> 01:31:11.040

but I'm not gonna try to help it survive.

01:31:11.040 --> 01:31:12.680

And if the ship goes down,

01:31:12.680 --> 01:31:14.860

I'll be the dude from Titanic playing the violin

01:31:14.860 --> 01:31:18.300

as the ship goes down and, you know, do my salute

01:31:18.300 --> 01:31:21.900

and then just probably chat with people like you

01:31:21.900 --> 01:31:25.860

in group chats and make reels with my kids on Instagram.

01:31:25.860 --> 01:31:28.200

Like I don't know that I'll really go to Mastodon

01:31:28.200 --> 01:31:30.740

or try and to keep up.

01:31:30.740 --> 01:31:33.980

It's just like, whatever happens, happens.

01:31:33.980 --> 01:31:35.380

And it's so weird, I did not think

01:31:35.380 --> 01:31:36.300

I'd be at that place at all.

01:31:36.300 --> 01:31:39.580

I thought I'd fight tooth and nail for it to survive.

01:31:39.580 --> 01:31:41.580

But I love the iOS community and I have my blog

01:31:41.580 --> 01:31:42.680

and people did that before.

01:31:42.680 --> 01:31:43.860

So my kind of thought is just like,

01:31:43.860 --> 01:31:45.420

well, I guess if that used to work,

01:31:45.420 --> 01:31:47.020

even though technology and the world has changed,

01:31:47.020 --> 01:31:48.220

maybe it'll work again.

01:31:48.220 --> 01:31:51.220

Or maybe Twitter survives and nothing happens at all.

01:31:51.220 --> 01:31:53.180

But who knows on that one?

01:31:53.180 --> 01:31:56.720

Yeah, that's, that's what's weird.

01:31:56.720 --> 01:31:58.800

It's like, I've said this to a lot of people.

01:31:58.800 --> 01:32:02.880

Well, so to back up a little bit, like I'm in a similar boat.

01:32:02.880 --> 01:32:08.300

One difference is I'm, I'm a little newer to this world, although I don't

01:32:08.300 --> 01:32:09.900

think I can really claim that anymore.

01:32:09.900 --> 01:32:11.520

I've been saying it for forever.

01:32:11.520 --> 01:32:15.900

In the last couple of months, I think I've fully accepted like, no, I'm not

01:32:15.900 --> 01:32:16.240

a while.

01:32:16.240 --> 01:32:18.060

I think, yeah, I'm not building.

01:32:18.640 --> 01:32:23.080

a network the way when I started this podcast, I was only, you know, a couple

01:32:23.080 --> 01:32:25.780

of months into dark noise being released.

01:32:25.780 --> 01:32:30.280

I was only basically exactly a year into developing anything for iOS at all.

01:32:30.280 --> 01:32:35.380

And so I had this, like, especially when the pandemic was starting to get close

01:32:35.380 --> 01:32:39.480

and it was looking like WWDC might not happen, I was starting to get pretty

01:32:39.480 --> 01:32:45.580

panicky about how do I establish myself here in this, in this world that I

01:32:45.580 --> 01:32:48.320

really want to have that network.

01:32:48.320 --> 01:32:51.200

And this podcast is, it was a major part of that.

01:32:51.200 --> 01:32:53.680

The biggest part of it was Twitter.

01:32:53.680 --> 01:32:57.320

And it wasn't the platform, it was the people, right?

01:32:57.320 --> 01:32:58.160

- Right.

01:32:58.160 --> 01:33:00.160

- And that's where the group lived.

01:33:00.160 --> 01:33:03.640

And that's what I spent, I spent a lot of energy

01:33:03.640 --> 01:33:09.520

trying to create relationships with people

01:33:09.520 --> 01:33:14.760

that I felt like could make sense

01:33:14.760 --> 01:33:16.180

to help me out in this industry.

01:33:16.180 --> 01:33:18.160

If I lose my job, I can help get another job

01:33:18.160 --> 01:33:23.200

this space or if I want to launch a project, there's a group of people who will support

01:33:23.200 --> 01:33:27.520

me in the building it and then a group of people who pay attention to what I'm doing

01:33:27.520 --> 01:33:31.640

and would be interested or at least look at it or whatever.

01:33:31.640 --> 01:33:37.000

And so I don't think I ever got off of that mindset.

01:33:37.000 --> 01:33:44.760

With the pandemic, I was building in my head to, "All right, I just need to sustain this

01:33:44.760 --> 01:33:48.560

energy of people paying attention to me.

01:33:48.560 --> 01:33:51.640

That sounds weird, but I guess that's what I'm really, you know, and I look in

01:33:51.640 --> 01:33:55.720

myself, that's what I'm thinking until WWDC where I can finally shake hands

01:33:55.720 --> 01:33:57.360

with people and make some friendships.

01:33:57.360 --> 01:34:02.400

But with Twitter dying, and I shouldn't say dying with the idea of Twitter dying

01:34:02.400 --> 01:34:07.600

in my head, I think I have taken some stock and been like, you know, I do have

01:34:07.600 --> 01:34:08.080

friendships.

01:34:08.080 --> 01:34:13.160

We've alluded to it, but like I have, I talked to you outside of Twitter and I

01:34:13.160 --> 01:34:15.160

message that we've met in person before.

01:34:15.160 --> 01:34:20.080

Uh, like I have some friends out of the, out of that, you know,

01:34:20.080 --> 01:34:20.960

singular group.

01:34:20.960 --> 01:34:25.160

And so it is a thing that, that does exist that I do have going.

01:34:25.160 --> 01:34:31.120

That being said, I still think there's just so much value in, in the

01:34:31.120 --> 01:34:31.560

community.

01:34:31.560 --> 01:34:35.140

And also I want to help people that are trying to do what I'm doing or what I

01:34:35.140 --> 01:34:36.640

did right now.

01:34:36.640 --> 01:34:41.080

Like if I can help, like we've talked about Russ, uh, I think on the show

01:34:41.080 --> 01:34:42.480

already, but Russ Shanahan.

01:34:42.760 --> 01:34:45.940

He was one of the first people that while I was tweeting about the beta, I

01:34:45.940 --> 01:34:49.700

have no idea how he found me, but he like gave me a bunch of feedback and it

01:34:49.700 --> 01:34:52.480

was encouraging and like helped sort of bring me into this.

01:34:52.480 --> 01:34:55.540

And I want to, I want to do that for people as well.

01:34:55.540 --> 01:34:59.420

And if Twitter is not going to be where that lives, I want to at least have

01:34:59.420 --> 01:35:01.300

some presence wherever that is.

01:35:01.300 --> 01:35:05.460

And so I I've like jumped on the, the mastodon bandwagon.

01:35:05.460 --> 01:35:09.260

I have lots of thoughts on the actual viability of that as a platform.

01:35:09.900 --> 01:35:10.760

Um, true.

01:35:10.760 --> 01:35:18.600

But the reality is I feel like there's this sort of amorphous entity that is

01:35:18.600 --> 01:35:25.140

the iOS network, you know, which is just a blob of connections between people.

01:35:25.140 --> 01:35:30.260

And it was really focused on Twitter.

01:35:30.260 --> 01:35:34.400

Like, you know, you and I are probably in multiple Slack groups with a bunch of

01:35:34.400 --> 01:35:39.340

random iOS people, maybe some discords, some group chats, but every one of those,

01:35:39.360 --> 01:35:42.560

What it's full of is links to Twitter, right?

01:35:42.560 --> 01:35:44.000

Oh, absolutely.

01:35:44.000 --> 01:35:47.760

Like a lot of times the group chat is where you put your takes that you're

01:35:47.760 --> 01:35:53.280

you don't want to, you know, tweet, tweet because you're you're trying to get

01:35:53.280 --> 01:35:55.360

feedback from people. You don't want to say something embarrassing, whatever.

01:35:55.360 --> 01:35:58.720

But that's sort of the glue that holds it together.

01:35:58.720 --> 01:36:06.480

And like with with Twitter's insanity right now, that group, that amorphous blob,

01:36:06.480 --> 01:36:10.720

It has not moved wholesale to Mastodon. I think a lot of people on Mastodon feel like it has.

01:36:10.720 --> 01:36:15.600

I think it's fractured into these two groups, but there's a lot of threads connecting them

01:36:15.600 --> 01:36:22.480

right now anyway. And so I'm keeping a foothold in both. And I'm not sure Mastodon is where

01:36:22.480 --> 01:36:31.680

things will land. But I do think that if this is a network that you care about, having something to

01:36:32.240 --> 01:36:35.280

bring you along to wherever it lands is helpful.

01:36:35.280 --> 01:36:38.400

And I think Twitter will exist long enough that if something else hits,

01:36:38.400 --> 01:36:40.520

people will talk about it on Twitter and then that's where, you know,

01:36:40.520 --> 01:36:41.560

where people will go, whatever.

01:36:41.560 --> 01:36:42.880

Absolutely.

01:36:42.880 --> 01:36:44.520

But yeah, it's, I don't know.

01:36:44.520 --> 01:36:48.080

I literally put the section header for this Twitter, let's get our feelings out.

01:36:48.080 --> 01:36:49.760

And I think, I think that's what I'm doing here.

01:36:49.760 --> 01:36:53.400

It's like, it, it freaks me out.

01:36:53.400 --> 01:36:59.480

I think I have more calm than I did in part because of that acceptance of like,

01:37:00.560 --> 01:37:06.640

I think I'm more established than I at the surface level, you know, feel like I

01:37:06.640 --> 01:37:06.960

am.

01:37:06.960 --> 01:37:11.520

And so I think I can find my way into whatever, wherever group we land, but

01:37:11.520 --> 01:37:15.780

there's a lot of new people coming in and I want that, that channel for us to

01:37:15.780 --> 01:37:21.560

like us as a community to develop new, interesting talent and people to keep

01:37:21.560 --> 01:37:21.960

going.

01:37:21.960 --> 01:37:24.040

Cause I, cause I don't think that's a given.

01:37:24.040 --> 01:37:27.720

I think there are development communities where it doesn't exist, especially not

01:37:27.720 --> 01:37:28.600

in the indie scene.

01:37:28.960 --> 01:37:33.280

And a big part of me and you probably being able to get into this like we did

01:37:33.280 --> 01:37:37.560

is people who are already in it being really open and talking to us and giving

01:37:37.560 --> 01:37:41.920

us feedback and talking about just what they're doing and us learning from them.

01:37:41.920 --> 01:37:46.560

And I, I'd like that to continue, um, in whatever form that needs to take.

01:37:46.560 --> 01:37:47.880

Yeah.

01:37:47.880 --> 01:37:51.160

I mean, long story short, I wanted to survive and go on cause there's

01:37:51.160 --> 01:37:52.960

just truly no place like Twitter.

01:37:52.960 --> 01:37:57.040

Um, and I think the other weird thing that I'll add, cause I mean, I acted the

01:37:57.040 --> 01:37:58.800

the same kind of things that you're saying,

01:37:58.800 --> 01:38:02.200

is like it definitely feels tangibly different right now.

01:38:02.200 --> 01:38:03.160

- Yes.

01:38:03.160 --> 01:38:05.000

- And we know we were joking about this on the group chat,

01:38:05.000 --> 01:38:08.120

like of course we're not like in it for like engagement,

01:38:08.120 --> 01:38:09.800

but for lack of a better word,

01:38:09.800 --> 01:38:12.640

it feels like people just like aren't really using it

01:38:12.640 --> 01:38:14.600

as much like, you know, we joke back and forth,

01:38:14.600 --> 01:38:17.600

like I tweeted something like I got like one like,

01:38:17.600 --> 01:38:19.560

or like, you know, you tweeted something that like

01:38:19.560 --> 01:38:22.240

got one or two likes too, and it's just like,

01:38:22.240 --> 01:38:23.440

and then I looked the other day

01:38:23.440 --> 01:38:25.280

and I lost like two or 300 followers,

01:38:25.280 --> 01:38:27.360

which again, is not something that I stay up

01:38:27.360 --> 01:38:28.960

and I think about, but it's just like,

01:38:28.960 --> 01:38:30.800

you visit your profile every now and then to find a tweet

01:38:30.800 --> 01:38:32.240

and then you see the number go down,

01:38:32.240 --> 01:38:33.400

you're like, oh, whoa.

01:38:33.400 --> 01:38:35.200

So it's like all these weird things are happening

01:38:35.200 --> 01:38:37.480

and we're just in this weird phase

01:38:37.480 --> 01:38:40.120

where we have to wait for it to settle down

01:38:40.120 --> 01:38:41.740

and who knows how long that's gonna take

01:38:41.740 --> 01:38:44.000

to kind of see what's gonna happen.

01:38:44.000 --> 01:38:46.700

I really hope people stick around and don't leave,

01:38:46.700 --> 01:38:49.000

but I kind of joke that I've gone through

01:38:49.000 --> 01:38:50.520

all the stages of grief with Twitter,

01:38:50.520 --> 01:38:52.600

like to where now I'm at acceptance.

01:38:52.600 --> 01:38:55.160

It's like, if people wanna go to Mastodon,

01:38:55.160 --> 01:38:55.860

You know, go for it.

01:38:55.860 --> 01:39:00.800

And I hope it works great, but it's just like, uh, at the ripe old age of 34,

01:39:00.800 --> 01:39:04.280

I'm almost like, ah, I'm just too old for like another social network.

01:39:04.280 --> 01:39:06.040

Like I just can't, you know?

01:39:06.040 --> 01:39:10.240

Um, but I love what we have going on Twitter with, with the community.

01:39:10.240 --> 01:39:15.080

And I hope that the prevailing thought will be that the collective

01:39:15.080 --> 01:39:17.000

people are what make Twitter great.

01:39:17.000 --> 01:39:21.600

Like you could hate or love whoever runs it and that's run the gamut since

01:39:21.600 --> 01:39:22.720

Twitter's existed, right.

01:39:22.720 --> 01:39:23.680

With every CEO.

01:39:23.680 --> 01:39:24.200

Yeah.

01:39:24.220 --> 01:39:27.640

But we are the people that are there, what make it good.

01:39:27.640 --> 01:39:30.520

And I have a mute list that's as long

01:39:30.520 --> 01:39:31.860

as my book series at this point.

01:39:31.860 --> 01:39:34.660

So like, I've almost got Twitter down to where it's like,

01:39:34.660 --> 01:39:36.720

I don't see the stuff that drives me nuts anymore.

01:39:36.720 --> 01:39:38.380

Like I really don't.

01:39:38.380 --> 01:39:39.860

And you can find it if you want.

01:39:39.860 --> 01:39:41.900

But that was like the sweet spot for me.

01:39:41.900 --> 01:39:43.220

And I think a lot of people are worried

01:39:43.220 --> 01:39:45.400

like those kinds of bad things will come in.

01:39:45.400 --> 01:39:48.240

And hopefully that they don't, nobody wants that.

01:39:48.240 --> 01:39:50.700

But, you know, I hope that it just,

01:39:50.700 --> 01:39:52.700

it's just like, we make Twitter fun, you know,

01:39:52.700 --> 01:39:53.740

not who owns it.

01:39:53.740 --> 01:39:57.340

So I'm holding on to that thought.

01:39:57.340 --> 01:39:59.420

So hopefully it'll survive under that notion.

01:39:59.420 --> 01:40:04.300

But yeah, at next year's anticipated, highly anticipated Christmas special,

01:40:04.300 --> 01:40:07.420

I guess it'll be fun to revisit this conversation and see what's happened.

01:40:07.420 --> 01:40:08.940

Yeah, that's actually, that's a good point.

01:40:08.940 --> 01:40:10.940

It'll be interesting.

01:40:10.940 --> 01:40:17.740

I'm a lot more hopeful about the community as a community just existing somewhere.

01:40:17.740 --> 01:40:23.100

I think even this recent Mastodon thing has shown like people can jump ship

01:40:23.100 --> 01:40:26.620

and do the same types of things that they do somewhere else.

01:40:26.620 --> 01:40:32.540

And so in some capacity, and like you said, blogs were kind of the name of the game before.

01:40:32.540 --> 01:40:37.020

And there's plenty of different ways of doing blogging that'll work. And yeah,

01:40:37.020 --> 01:40:40.540

you already have a great blog that's a destination for people.

01:40:40.540 --> 01:40:47.980

I think it'll all work out in the end. It's just a weird time. And it's a weird time with

01:40:47.980 --> 01:40:53.500

lots of deep emotions for lots of people. Oh yeah. Which doesn't, you know, it doesn't help

01:40:53.500 --> 01:41:01.340

with the discourse maybe. But yeah, at the end of the day, I think having some mechanism,

01:41:01.340 --> 01:41:05.900

you've been a great example for me and I've been trying to do it. Although I don't know how

01:41:05.900 --> 01:41:11.180

successfully, but like trying to just constantly talk about what you're doing, share out your

01:41:11.180 --> 01:41:16.140

ideas, be vulnerable with the reality of your situation.

01:41:16.140 --> 01:41:20.300

Um, that's really what helps bring people along.

01:41:20.300 --> 01:41:24.060

Um, and makes all of us, I think, better at what we do.

01:41:24.060 --> 01:41:27.900

And so I think, I think there's ways that we'll continue to do that even without

01:41:27.900 --> 01:41:28.300

Twitter.

01:41:28.300 --> 01:41:30.380

Um, but I'm with you.

01:41:30.380 --> 01:41:34.780

I think Twitter to me is still the one that I actually like more.

01:41:34.780 --> 01:41:39.300

Um, I just hope that, you know, the current ownership doesn't just completely

01:41:39.300 --> 01:41:40.020

destroy it.

01:41:40.980 --> 01:41:43.000

And you know, personally, that's funny for me

01:41:43.000 --> 01:41:46.340

because I think I blogged about this one time.

01:41:46.340 --> 01:41:49.900

But I've been big boy pants responsible with the book

01:41:49.900 --> 01:41:52.100

money, saved a lot of it, used it for family.

01:41:52.100 --> 01:41:55.300

And the only me purchase I did was

01:41:55.300 --> 01:41:59.060

I bought a Tesla because my car went out around the same time.

01:41:59.060 --> 01:42:00.720

And it's funny when I say that out loud.

01:42:00.720 --> 01:42:02.420

I didn't buy the crazy, insane--

01:42:02.420 --> 01:42:05.540

I just bought the lowest model, the most affordable one.

01:42:05.540 --> 01:42:07.100

When I was looking at other cars,

01:42:07.100 --> 01:42:09.340

there were Toyotas and Chevys that cost more.

01:42:09.340 --> 01:42:12.420

So, you know, I got the Tesla and I love it.

01:42:12.420 --> 01:42:14.560

And it's so weird because it's like,

01:42:14.560 --> 01:42:17.640

how can this person who makes like this product

01:42:17.640 --> 01:42:18.560

that I think is so great,

01:42:18.560 --> 01:42:20.680

which he's overblown a ton of promises too,

01:42:20.680 --> 01:42:22.780

which obviously with the self-driving,

01:42:22.780 --> 01:42:27.120

like can he do this with like, is he gonna make Twitter?

01:42:27.120 --> 01:42:28.280

Like, can he handle that?

01:42:28.280 --> 01:42:31.560

Like social media and cars are not the same thing.

01:42:31.560 --> 01:42:33.120

But I just keep thinking in my head,

01:42:33.120 --> 01:42:36.300

like he's gotta be this billionaire for a reason, right?

01:42:36.300 --> 01:42:38.780

Like, is there some method to his madness?

01:42:38.780 --> 01:42:40.940

So it's gonna be really funny to,

01:42:40.940 --> 01:42:43.980

or fun/funny/disheartening/scary/

01:42:43.980 --> 01:42:45.760

all these other emotions to just see

01:42:45.760 --> 01:42:47.700

what in the world is gonna happen with Twitter.

01:42:47.700 --> 01:42:51.220

Like I just, I have no idea what an Elon Musk Twitter

01:42:51.220 --> 01:42:54.460

looks like to be honest, from a product standpoint.

01:42:54.460 --> 01:42:56.420

- I think we have an idea of that at this point,

01:42:56.420 --> 01:42:57.240

which is--

01:42:57.240 --> 01:42:59.580

- Blue check marks for everybody causing mayhem.

01:42:59.580 --> 01:43:00.780

I mean, that's not a great start.

01:43:00.780 --> 01:43:01.780

- Yeah, chaos.

01:43:01.780 --> 01:43:03.500

- Oh man. - Right, right.

01:43:03.500 --> 01:43:05.340

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on that

01:43:05.340 --> 01:43:07.260

that I won't get deep on,

01:43:07.260 --> 01:43:10.260

but is there a method to his madness?

01:43:10.260 --> 01:43:13.720

The method might be I start out with a large amount of money

01:43:13.720 --> 01:43:15.380

as the main entry point.

01:43:15.380 --> 01:43:16.220

- True.

01:43:16.220 --> 01:43:17.280

- And then madness ensues,

01:43:17.280 --> 01:43:19.480

but somehow you can turn that large amount of money

01:43:19.480 --> 01:43:21.020

into more money.

01:43:21.020 --> 01:43:22.600

- It's crazy what a large amount of money can do

01:43:22.600 --> 01:43:23.600

to start something.

01:43:23.600 --> 01:43:25.280

- Exactly, right.

01:43:25.280 --> 01:43:27.120

Or destroy something, apparently.

01:43:27.120 --> 01:43:28.360

- Absolutely.

01:43:28.360 --> 01:43:29.240

- But yeah, yeah, anyway,

01:43:29.240 --> 01:43:31.020

I don't wanna get too deep into that specifically,

01:43:31.020 --> 01:43:33.960

but yeah, Tesla is a good example of a similar thing.

01:43:33.960 --> 01:43:36.680

It's like, why does he have to be so public?

01:43:36.680 --> 01:43:37.920

How many products do I own?

01:43:37.920 --> 01:43:40.200

How many products sitting in front of me,

01:43:40.200 --> 01:43:42.480

me buying them are helping bad people, right?

01:43:42.480 --> 01:43:44.340

Like how many CEOs of these major companies

01:43:44.340 --> 01:43:46.920

are people that I like the way that they act?

01:43:46.920 --> 01:43:48.440

- Even the iPhone's a great example.

01:43:48.440 --> 01:43:49.920

Like if you've read the book on that,

01:43:49.920 --> 01:43:53.580

like the actual sweat and blood it takes to make an iPhone,

01:43:53.580 --> 01:43:55.100

I wish we could put it in the show notes,

01:43:55.100 --> 01:43:55.960

maybe I'll message after you,

01:43:55.960 --> 01:43:57.560

but it came out like two or three years ago

01:43:57.560 --> 01:44:00.560

and it was just a book on like the cost,

01:44:00.560 --> 01:44:02.100

the human cost to make an iPhone.

01:44:02.100 --> 01:44:04.880

And it's crazy, like the raw materials

01:44:04.880 --> 01:44:05.720

and the mining and stuff.

01:44:05.720 --> 01:44:09.880

like that. Yeah, that's one example right there. But we don't ever think of it that way.

01:44:09.880 --> 01:44:15.720

Most CEOs don't, aren't just like publicly broadcasting their, you know, crazy.

01:44:15.720 --> 01:44:20.120

And I guess that is a very big difference. Yeah. And it's,

01:44:20.120 --> 01:44:23.880

it's almost nerve wracking to talk about it on a podcast. You're like, Oh yeah, I'm about to get

01:44:23.880 --> 01:44:29.960

into inviting, like, you just have to say it like how crazy all of this is though. Cause it is wild.

01:44:29.960 --> 01:44:34.120

Now that we've gotten all of our feelings out, the fire over here is slowly dying.

01:44:34.120 --> 01:44:39.160

I think it's time to let you, I think you're about to start your sort of yearly vacation,

01:44:39.160 --> 01:44:41.240

aren't you? You're going to disappear from the internet.

01:44:41.240 --> 01:44:47.800

- Yeah, started today, yep. Turning off Twitter, doing all that stuff. Got my video game for the

01:44:47.800 --> 01:44:54.680

year picked out, Horizon Forbidden West, going to dive into that. Going down to a nice little

01:44:54.680 --> 01:44:59.800

resort down in the next city for tonight and coaching my son's basketball team this weekend.

01:44:59.800 --> 01:45:00.960

So I'm ready to go.

01:45:00.960 --> 01:45:04.800

Uh, by the way, the book is called the one device, the secret history of the iPhone.

01:45:04.800 --> 01:45:05.200

Okay.

01:45:05.200 --> 01:45:05.560

Perfect.

01:45:05.560 --> 01:45:06.320

It's back in the journal.

01:45:06.320 --> 01:45:11.360

Uh, but yeah, so, uh, I, I can think of no better way to start my vacation

01:45:11.360 --> 01:45:13.120

than our yearly, uh, fireside chat.

01:45:13.120 --> 01:45:13.720

Yep.

01:45:13.720 --> 01:45:14.040

Yep.

01:45:14.040 --> 01:45:14.760

Awesome.

01:45:14.760 --> 01:45:18.520

Well, I guess, uh, I'll end it the way I always do, which is where can

01:45:18.520 --> 01:45:20.600

people find you and your work, Jordan?

01:45:20.600 --> 01:45:22.040

Take a guess, right?

01:45:22.040 --> 01:45:23.080

Uh, yeah.

01:45:23.080 --> 01:45:25.280

Twitter, ironically enough.

01:45:25.280 --> 01:45:25.560

Yeah.

01:45:25.560 --> 01:45:26.840

At Jordan Morganton.

01:45:26.840 --> 01:45:28.640

Uh, of course my website is.

01:45:28.640 --> 01:45:29.120

Of course.

01:45:29.280 --> 01:45:30.280

App.net.

01:45:30.280 --> 01:45:34.520

I'm not going to go on a tangent, but I found some app.net code and buffer the other day

01:45:34.520 --> 01:45:37.600

that I still hadn't taken out.

01:45:37.600 --> 01:45:38.600

Old relic.

01:45:38.600 --> 01:45:40.860

But yeah, and then the website is swiftjectivec.com.

01:45:40.860 --> 01:45:41.860

So check that out.

01:45:41.860 --> 01:45:47.820

And then the LLC, which I started to release the unnamed app that I'm working on Mac is

01:45:47.820 --> 01:45:49.260

Daywellspent.

01:45:49.260 --> 01:45:51.220

So you can sign up to the mailing list there.

01:45:51.220 --> 01:45:55.700

It's daywellspent.io, which is officially the first plug I've ever had for that.

01:45:55.700 --> 01:45:56.700

So there you go.

01:45:56.700 --> 01:46:02.140

So if you're interesting and interested in one man, indie product management,

01:46:02.140 --> 01:46:06.140

project management, whatever you want to call it, head there. And that'll be in the show notes,

01:46:06.140 --> 01:46:13.260

obviously, as well. Thanks for listening. This episode was edited by Jonathan Ruiz.

01:46:13.260 --> 01:46:16.140

If you'd like to discuss the show, you can find me on Twitter at

01:46:16.140 --> 01:46:19.500

underscore Chuckie C or tweet the show directly at Launched FM.

01:46:19.500 --> 01:46:24.140

I'd really appreciate a rating or review in your podcast app of choice.

01:46:24.140 --> 01:46:28.140

And you can find show notes and more at LaunchedFM.com

01:46:28.140 --> 01:46:48.140

(Music plays)