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November 1, 2024 55 mins

Bluesky is having a moment.  Halloween.  Customers telling us their problems are solved.  Essential onboarding. Calm before the (hiring) storm.  Projects are waiting.  The podcasting election.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jordan Gal (00:17):
Welcome back everybody. Another episode of
Bootstrap web. Brian, how wasyour Halloween?

Brian Casel (00:23):
It was it was good. We we we divided and conquered
last night. My my older went toher friend's house, like the
street over there. My my wifetook her over there and I I went
with my younger daughter and herfriend around our neighborhood
here. It was fun.

Jordan Gal (00:38):
Okay. Yep. Well, we we had a breakthrough last
night. Last night was the firstHalloween that my wife and I
just walked around by ourselveswith friends, drink in hand,
stopped by a few people'shouses.

Brian Casel (00:49):
Oh, that sounds super fun.

Jordan Gal (00:50):
It was it was wild. No kids? So our home was home
base for all three. But so theywould come we we made like a
walking taco situation, like abuffet. So kids would kinda come
in somehow like this town haslike a starting time

Brian Casel (01:10):
for

Jordan Gal (01:10):
trick or treating.

Brian Casel (01:11):
Oh, really?

Jordan Gal (01:12):
I don't remember that growing up at all. Here
it's like, no. It's 03:00.That's when trick or treating
starts.

Brian Casel (01:16):
Oh, that's early. Yeah. We were out there at like
six.

Jordan Gal (01:19):
Okay. So we we started early and everyone was
like, oh, it's too early. And itwas actually quite nice because
everyone was done by 07:00.

Brian Casel (01:24):
Still light outside.

Jordan Gal (01:25):
Yes. Yes. So we had all the kids here. We had about
25 kids eating and then they allwent out on their own and my
wife and I were just free forlike two three hours. Yeah.
Walked on a few friends houses,had a drink.

Brennan Dunn (01:36):
It was nice.

Brian Casel (01:37):
Oh, that sounds super fun. Yeah, man.

Jordan Gal (01:41):
Halloween weird weird holiday. Stresses me out.

Brian Casel (01:45):
Weird holiday. Lot of lot of Reese's and KitKats
floating around my house. Yeah.

Jordan Gal (01:51):
The candy's awful. Yeah. Regular boring CPG candy
is awful. I I I I pay attentionto

Brian Casel (02:00):
some You you cooked your own? What what do got going
on over there?

Jordan Gal (02:03):
I mean, I got Trader Joe's peanut butter cups, bro.
That's that's the

Brian Casel (02:07):
Those are good. We do get those. Those are

Jordan Gal (02:09):
In the fridge.

Brian Casel (02:09):
Those are kind of insane. Those legit.

Jordan Gal (02:11):
But not like having like a Reese's Pieces peanut
butter cup at some at this pointis is a horror show. There's
someone I follow.

Brian Casel (02:18):
I mean, I still do it too long. You do it?

Brennan Dunn (02:20):
I can't I can't even

Brian Casel (02:21):
do it.

Jordan Gal (02:21):
I just put it

Brian Casel (02:21):
on my mouth.

Jordan Gal (02:21):
I'm like, what? Why? Yeah. I see some direct to
consumer people on Twitter, likeone of them in particular
starting like a candy companyand I think it makes a lot of
sense because I think the oldcandy that formula hasn't
changed other than for the worsein decades is is not good.

Brian Casel (02:39):
Yeah. Crazy. Mhmm. Yeah. I just put the order in on
a new on a new Mac for myoffice.
Kinda psyched about that. Igotta wait

Jordan Gal (02:49):
Which are

Brian Casel (02:50):
four weeks. I got I went with the Mac mini. Yeah. So
I I I've always done or the lastseveral years I've done two
Macs. I have a travel.
I have an m one air. That's myand I love that thing. It's I I
just love how light the air is.It's perfect for The best. For
traveling and I just carry itaround my house and

Brennan Dunn (03:08):
Mhmm.

Brian Casel (03:08):
Work with it in the backyard. But then here in the
office, this is like quoteunquote my power computer and
you know. So But I've beenwaiting years. Like this one
that I'm still using right nowis a 2019 Intel iMac. Oh, before
before it went.
Yeah. Excellent. And so so I'mfinally getting up to the to the

(03:29):
Apple silicon on the on the mainmachine. I mean, the Mac minis
the Mac minis used to be likethe lightweight Macs and
technically they still arebecause the Mac like the Mac
Studios are insane. But the

Jordan Gal (03:40):
It's flipped.

Brian Casel (03:41):
I mean, the Mac minis are super powerful now. So
I got like the m four pro, allthat. And I and I ordered the I
I received the the Mac Studiodisplay. I was like to look that
up. So

Jordan Gal (03:52):
So you you bought both of those?

Brian Casel (03:54):
Mhmm.

Jordan Gal (03:55):
So you you broke now? Yes. What is that? $5? $6?

Brian Casel (04:00):
I think all in it was probably 4.

Jordan Gal (04:02):
$4?

Brian Casel (04:02):
Yep. And I'm trading in my iMac which they're
giving me a nice $385 for and

Jordan Gal (04:09):
Okay. Nice. Yeah. I I had a bit

Brennan Dunn (04:12):
of a like macabre. I think that's the

Jordan Gal (04:14):
right term in this situation. Experience where I
collected all of the all of thelaptops of all of the people
that I have fired

Brian Casel (04:22):
Oh. Over the

Brennan Dunn (04:23):
last year. And now I think everyone left in the
company can get whatever Mac

Jordan Gal (04:26):
they want because of all the trade in

Brian Casel (04:28):
Yeah. You could just Oh, so you're you're so
yeah. What do you do with thosemachines?

Jordan Gal (04:32):
Do you just like Not me in the life. We have like a
Apple business account andUh-huh. And representative. So
we just email them with aspreadsheet of all the serial
numbers and they're like, here'sour offer.

Brian Casel (04:42):
No. But I mean okay. So you you just go ahead
and like trade them back in. Youyou don't like keep them for to
give to other employees orwhatever?

Jordan Gal (04:50):
In theory, we could give them to other people. I
have never once given a newemployee an old computer. Maybe
once.

Brian Casel (04:58):
Right. It always it's not old.

Brennan Dunn (05:02):
I'm like no. No. They're not not not so old.

Brian Casel (05:05):
Yeah.

Jordan Gal (05:06):
Yeah. I would love an excuse to get a new Mac, but
this iMac I have that's fouryears old is perfectly good. So
I I have yet to find

Brian Casel (05:13):
I mean, yeah. And like this this one that I've
it's five years in, still on onthe Intel chip and like it still
works great. I just But I I waslike, you know what? Whenever
they come out with this nextgeneration m fours, that's gonna
be the time I finally upgrade.And and they did this week so I
did.

Brennan Dunn (05:30):
Yeah. There you go. I saw a lot

Jordan Gal (05:32):
of lot of talk about it on on the Twitters. Mhmm.
What else? I just voted. Gotthat out of the way.

Brian Casel (05:40):
Okay. There you go. So that means we I don't want I
guess that means I can't spendthis podcast trying to trying to
trying to win your your vote theother way.

Jordan Gal (05:53):
I don't think anyone's being no one in the
country is being persuaded atthis point. Right? I did

Brian Casel (05:57):
Oh, man. I don't I don't know if we're gonna get
into politics now. But I I didpress play on that on on Trump
on Rogan last night. I I watchedlike the first like ten minutes
of it.

Jordan Gal (06:08):
I mean It's it's him.

Brian Casel (06:13):
It's him alright.

Jordan Gal (06:14):
You know, weird. Overall, was your impression
negative of it? Is I

Brian Casel (06:21):
didn't watch all three hours. I literally watched
like about ten to fifteenminutes. Yeah. That's what

Jordan Gal (06:24):
I did too. It's like a fifteen, twenty minutes. It's
like, okay. It's kind ofinteresting because of how
casual it is.

Brian Casel (06:28):
I thought it was actually interest okay. So I had
an interesting observation of myask the podcaster, Brian.

Jordan Gal (06:37):
You you Okay. I have

Brian Casel (06:39):
another point to to make about podcasting and
politics Okay. Before we get tothat. So so with with, you know,
with Trump, I think this isagain probably the case for for
most people where it's like youjust can't stand the other side,
so you actually avoid watchingfootage Yeah. Of the other side.

Jordan Gal (06:54):
Yeah.

Brian Casel (06:54):
Right? Not

Jordan Gal (06:54):
not great, but yes.

Brian Casel (06:55):
I sort of don't watch a lot. Any anyone's
speeches or or most mostinterviews, but I was like and I
usually just can't standwatching Trump.

Brennan Dunn (07:04):
Mhmm.

Brian Casel (07:05):
Like, I gotta watch some of this Rogan interview.
Right?

Jordan Gal (07:07):
Yeah. Just to see it. As

Brian Casel (07:08):
Right? Just to and so so alright. I I turned it on
like and I was and I'm alwaysinterested about like the very
beginning. Like, how do theystart off? Like, they they just
get into the room like like, Iwould say the first three three
to five minutes, I was like,man, that does not come off as
Trump as we know it.
He he seems normal. He seemsdown to earth. He seems pretty

(07:31):
like alert and on top of it.This was three to five minutes.

Jordan Gal (07:34):
Is that when he got into like the Lincoln bedroom?

Brian Casel (07:36):
So then the Lincoln alright. So so then I I So, you
know, it's just like nicetiesand and and like just like get
settling in. Right? And I waslike, this guy actually seems
pretty normal. Not like the thecaricature that we all know.

Jordan Gal (07:50):
You're right. Which was the goal of the Rogan
interview,

Brian Casel (07:52):
I assume. Then Rogan's first, I would say like
real question was somethingaround like, okay, like it's so
crazy that you Donald Trumpbecame president in 2016.

Jordan Gal (08:02):
Uh-huh.

Brian Casel (08:02):
What was it like on day one or or what was it like
when you when you found out thatyou are now the president of The
United States? Yeah. And that'swhen Trump goes on like a
literally like a ten minute

Jordan Gal (08:14):
Yeah. Rogan had to like stop him at some point.
He's like, okay like

Brian Casel (08:18):
a ten minute like what what He he started with
like the the inauguration andthe and and how many people were
cheering for him which manypeople were probably protesting.
And then but then like walkinginto the White House and how
luxurious it is. Oh, beautiful.And So beautiful. It's so
beautiful and and like and Imade my living in luxury and and
this is luxury and and and thenlike and then and and then I

(08:42):
gotta see the Lincoln bedroom.
And then he goes into detail onevery little thing that he's

Brennan Dunn (08:46):
seeing in

Brian Casel (08:47):
the Lincoln bedroom. Yes. And then it goes
on on the on the whole backstorywith like Robert E. Lee and and
and like, dude, the question wasabout how do you feel about
being the new leader of the freeworld?

Jordan Gal (08:58):
Yeah. The question was a green light to talk, my
friend. That's what the questionwas.

Brian Casel (09:01):
Yeah. But like, but but that so that's when for me
as a viewer, it started to gooff the rails. Yeah. And I'm
like, okay, this is like, thinkabout like because the question
was like, dude, you just becamethe leader of the free world.

Jordan Gal (09:16):
Right.

Brennan Dunn (09:16):
What

Brian Casel (09:16):
kind of impact does that have on you as a person?
What are you thinking about theimpact that you are personally
are about to have on the wholeworld? And he's talking about
how cool the the finishings onthe White House are and and, you
know Yeah.

Jordan Gal (09:35):
Our our politicians are not. They're not normal
people.

Brian Casel (09:37):
No. I mean, but like it's it but that's that's
one to me. It's like, man, howdo you not grasp the gravity of
what just happened here? Youknow? Yeah.

Jordan Gal (09:47):
I I hear you. But I I think overall, the the
podcasting format, I I thinkOkay. My hope is that this year,
it's crossed over until yougotta do podcasts. You gotta let
people get

Brian Casel (09:57):
to You absolutely do have to I I heard a great
conversation. I'm a huge fan ofthe podcast Dithering, which is
actually a paid podcast withJohn Gruber and Ben Thompson.
It's all all tech. Okay. Youknow, tech they they do fifteen
minutes every twice a week, thecurrent tech news.
Big big tech news. Right? Sothey did an episode, I think

(10:17):
couple days ago on this is likethe podcast election. Right? Cup
like remember 2008, it was likethe the Twitter election Mhmm.
And then I don't know whateverthe other ones were, but like so
they Ben Thompson made thisfantastic point. Really makes
makes you think. So you thinkyou think back through the
history of presidentialelections and there was radio

(10:40):
and then television became themedium.

Jordan Gal (10:42):
Right. The way you looked mattered. That's right.

Brian Casel (10:44):
The way you looked, the way you presented on
television and and so so youknow, you you go back to like
the Nixon Kennedy debate and andall that.

Jordan Gal (10:51):
Swedding. Okay.

Brian Casel (10:53):
So then, you you're in the television era and a
Ronald Reagan comes up. Andpeople who are telegenic are the
ones who make it to the top andbecome president and become
candidates because they theyplay so well. So that Ronald
Reagan Yeah. I mean Obama

Jordan Gal (11:13):
The Trump. Trump. Right.

Brian Casel (11:14):
Like Clinton, you know, all of these people have
presence that translates superwell on television. Right? Now,
you fast forward. This year isthe first podcast election and
and you could even make the ofcourse, we're still very tied to
television, but you can make theargument that more and more
people are tuning out oftelevision and tuning into not

(11:36):
just social media but podcasts.

Jordan Gal (11:38):
And I mean Right.

Brian Casel (11:39):
Trump goes on Rogan and he's reaching 30,000,000
people.

Jordan Gal (11:42):
Yeah. Within within a few days.

Brian Casel (11:44):
And but but you go on a CNN town hall or or Fox or
NBC like even Fox which is Ithink the highest rated Mhmm.
You're what are you reaching? A100,000?

Jordan Gal (11:53):
Like Yeah. Like a million at at most Okay. At one
of

Brian Casel (11:55):
the big shows. Like a national debate or something
but like

Jordan Gal (11:59):
Yeah. National debate gets gets a lot but

Brian Casel (12:01):
But even even that is like not that much compared
to like major sporting eventsand other stuff. Right? Yeah.
And and so like but like apodcast, you are literally
reaching millions upon millionsof of listeners. It and the
point that that Thompson wasmaking was that like, what does
this mean in the decades tocome?
Right? Because we're talkingabout long form interview. It's

(12:24):
a very different medium. Thepeople like the candidates
themselves literally aredifferent when they're talking
on the mic for an hour, twohours, three hours long than
they are in these like quick hitspots,

Nathan Barry (12:37):
you know.

Jordan Gal (12:37):
Yeah. The spots are awful.

Brian Casel (12:40):
So then you start like So then it's like, well who
is We don't know but like, howis this gonna impact the type of
candidates that Yeah. That thissystem attracts, you know?

Jordan Gal (12:49):
Mhmm. Now the the whole thing with podcasting, I
was gonna say audio more thanvideo but the biggest podcasts
have a video component. Even ifmaybe they

Brian Casel (12:57):
get Yeah.

Jordan Gal (12:57):
Listened to audibly more.

Brian Casel (12:59):
There I think that's interesting too. Like
like I I catch with YouTubeclips.

Jordan Gal (13:04):
Yeah. But then you're working and you're
listening to without watching itbecause no one, I assume, almost
no one is watching Rogan andTrump talk back and forth for
multiple hours. I mean, guessmaybe some people do. Yeah. But
even if it's on YouTube, it'sbeing played on YouTube.
It's being listened to. The theinteresting thing about that is
it favors authenticity. Yes.Which is the opposite of our

(13:26):
politicians.

Brian Casel (13:27):
That's exactly right. That that's what's
interesting with this wholetrend, you know.

Jordan Gal (13:31):
I I will I will not challenge you. I will suggest.
Watch JD Vance on Rogan.

Brian Casel (13:40):
Oh, he was just on it. Right? Yeah.

Jordan Gal (13:42):
Yes. That feels like a peer, our age. It's that one
of the first times you get thisauthenticity of like, oh, that
guy is like us. Like our age notfar from

Brian Casel (13:56):
our age. Right?

Jordan Gal (13:56):
Right. The the the sporadic cursing here and there.
Right? You and I, we don't cursea lot, but we throw it in here
and there because it kinda makessense sometimes.

Brian Casel (14:04):
Mhmm.

Jordan Gal (14:05):
If that if that type of politician from both sides,
from all sides does better thanthe person who gives a slick
speech and then Yeah. You know,does not expand on anything,
hopefully that's better.

Brian Casel (14:19):
I have always favored just in general trends
of my Who I lean toward goingback. It's always been younger,
know, more forward thinkingpeople. I do tend to prefer like
governors over or or executives,you know, over like senators.

(14:40):
You

Jordan Gal (14:41):
know? Yeah. There's just a there's just a reflexive,
you know, just being repulsed bycareer politicians. You just you
just know you're being lied to.You're part of the game.
You're participating in acharade. You're like, I guess I
have to hope for the bestbecause I don't trust a single
thing this person says

Brian Casel (14:57):
at all. I mean, in but then at the end of the day
for for me, of course, it'sthere are there are things that
that go above those thosepreferences like Mhmm. Yeah,
Trump is the executive and sheis the Right. The career
politician, but like Yeah. I'mdefinitely voting for her over
Trump.
Right. Right. That's where Isit, you know.

Jordan Gal (15:14):
Yeah. It's just ideology too. But even even
that's Yeah. Kind of gettingmixed up. You know, these things
I I saw a graphic once.
Phenomenal. You can definitelyfind it just on Google. It shows
the history of the right andleft and and how the political
parties in The US have swappedover time. So it looked they
it's like a I think it's a treebranch or like a snake, but it

(15:37):
moves around in the differenteras throughout the country's
history.

Brian Casel (15:40):
Yeah. They used to be very much the opposite of
like like Yes.

Jordan Gal (15:43):
What it is now is not static. It's not it was not
like this always. Yeah.

Brian Casel (15:47):
Yeah. My one hope and I really This is this is the
the thing where I always feelI'm always very optimistic and
hopeful about America ingeneral. I'm But about the
political parties is where Ifeel kinda hopeless. Because
thing that I the thing that Iwant most is to break out of the
just the two party options.

Jordan Gal (16:05):
Oh, don't I'm not sure about that. I I just don't

Brian Casel (16:08):
see a path to a to a third party getting getting to
a level of viability. And I andI would love it and I just don't
see a path.

Jordan Gal (16:15):
Yeah. Same.

Brian Casel (16:16):
You know.

Jordan Gal (16:18):
Anyway. Well, I'm yeah. Well, next week, we'll
we'll be having an interestingconversation barring some legal
issues and court proceedings.

Brian Casel (16:28):
Oh, we're we're definitely gonna be like what is
it? The the year 2000 all overagain. That'll be fun.

Jordan Gal (16:34):
And and whenever I think about this stuff, my
conclusion is always, you knowwhat matters most? Make a bunch
of money for my family. That's

Brian Casel (16:43):
There you go.

Jordan Gal (16:43):
That's it, baby.

Brian Casel (16:44):
Can't argue with that.

Jordan Gal (16:46):
Speaking of, what do we got going on?

Brian Casel (16:49):
You on Jordan, are you on Blue Sky yet?

Jordan Gal (16:52):
Come again?

Brian Casel (16:53):
Are you on Blue Sky?

Jordan Gal (16:54):
What's Blue Sky?

Brian Casel (16:55):
Blue Sky is the the alternative to Twitter right
now.

Jordan Gal (17:01):
Oh. Is it a crypto thing from back in the day, like
a year or two ago?

Brian Casel (17:05):
Well, it's yeah. It's from a couple of years. So
Is this Jack? Yeah. Jack.
Yeah. Okay. I mean, what's greatabout it to me is like, it He
literally recreated Twitter.It's exactly. It is Twitter.
Oh, wow. It is a clone

Jordan Gal (17:18):
of Twitter that

Brian Casel (17:19):
It's a quite literally a clone of Twitter and
I don't know, something happenedin the last two weeks or so.
It's having a moment in ourReally? Startup tech circles.

Jordan Gal (17:32):
People just get sick of all the politics on regular
Twitter and are trying to

Brian Casel (17:36):
Yeah. What I see on Blue Sky in my feed is no
politics really at all. It'sit's dude, it's it's people in
our circles, listeners of thispodcast, probably a lot of them
are are now on Blue Sky. Istarted actively using it as
much as if not more than Twitterjust about a week or two ago and
there's there's something I feellike it's having a like I I

(18:00):
signed up for Blue Sky over ayear ago and then I abandoned it
a year ago.

Jordan Gal (18:03):
I remember seeing it but right. Not doing anything.

Brian Casel (18:06):
Threads also like I I've been trying to make it
work, it just hasn't clicked forme. So we I remain on Twitter x.
But I feel like Blue Sky ishaving a moment right now.
Something something clicked inthe last two weeks. I think I I
I first saw Justin Jackson startto start to pull people over

(18:27):
there.
But there's there is somethinghappening over there. I
definitely recommend peoplecheck it out because it's like
they I think one of the thingsthey did from a product
perspective that was so smart isthey have this thing. What do
they call it? Like lists? Whatwhat is it?

(18:47):
Hold on. Let me just find it.Oh, starter packs. So there are
these starter packs and I'vebeen added to a couple of them
of like, you know, likebootstrap start start up
founders and I just one calledlike podcasters and then and
then there's so there's thesestarter packs that you can just
send a link out to people andlike here's a whole long list of

(19:07):
people that you could just startfollowing right now. And and so
and so so these starter packshave brought in like not
bringing over individual usersbut bringing over circles of
users, groups of users.
Right? So we have you know,there's a couple of these
starter packs that are floatingaround. Start up founders,

(19:29):
Laravel people, Ruby people,podcasters like So you get in a
couple of these then you startto gain followers and all of
your friends are following thesame people and so it's like
there was a really smart hackfor them to pull I think that
somebody at at at Blue Skyrecognized that the way to get

(19:50):
people to to come over Like,they have to come over. They
they're not just gonna startfresh on a new network here.
They have to bring their friendsover.
And that's why threads hasn'treally connected for me because
like only, you know, only a afew people that I actually
connect with on Twitter are alsoover there. Super interesting.

Jordan Gal (20:10):
I'm gonna get myself on to blue sky.

Brian Casel (20:11):
Yeah, man. Alright. Let's talk about real business.

Jordan Gal (20:16):
Business? Business y'all. Alright. Alright.

Brian Casel (20:19):
You you want me Yeah. To Go ahead.

Jordan Gal (20:21):
Alright. Cool. So something great happened this
week. You know, we we are withthe new product, you got users,
you got paying users. You're nota 100% sure if you're actually
doing well or not.
Mhmm. You know, like, they putthe credit card in, seven day

(20:42):
trial went through. We see someusage. MRR is climbing, but you
don't really know if you'redoing a good job. The truth is I
assume we're not doing a goodjob yet because the product is
early.
So this week, we had a fewtestimonials come in and
comments on intercom thatthat's, you know, that show us

(21:06):
like the first inklings of, oh,okay. This is solving the
problem. You know, we had one ofthese like, just wanted to let
you guys know we've been usingit for two weeks. It's
incredible.

Brian Casel (21:17):
Oh, hell

Jordan Gal (21:17):
yeah. Almost nobody can tell that it's an AI. Thank
you so much. You guys are ontosomething. Like, one of those
type of messages.
Oh, wow. And I was like, oh mygod. That is like, you know,
that's Yes.

Brian Casel (21:28):
And you know, when when when those kind of messages
come in, it's so it's so nicebecause like, you you know you
do know that there are people,like really happy customers, but
very few of them actually writea message like that.

Jordan Gal (21:42):
Yes.

Brian Casel (21:43):
90 the act 5% of the messages are, I've got a
problem. Something's notworking. Help me. Or yeah. Help.
Yes. How do

Jordan Gal (21:49):
I cancel my trial? You know, like these like

Brian Casel (21:51):
Yeah. Or or there's a bug here or this is not or how
do I do this? Or it's a featurerequest or something because
it's not quite solving theirproblem yet. Right? Yes.

Jordan Gal (21:59):
Happy people are kinda quiet.

Brian Casel (22:01):
They are they are quiet. They're they're quiet
because they're happy. Yeah.

Jordan Gal (22:05):
Yeah. So so in the absence of, like, happy
comments, you just fill it withyour own doubt along with all
the negative things that come inand support and help and I did
this or about that. This didn'twork. Can I upload this? So that
that just felt that felt great.

Brian Casel (22:20):
Especially unprompted when that stuff comes
in like Yeah. Unprompted. Yep.

Jordan Gal (22:24):
Yeah. It's it's great. I gotta take a screenshot
and send it to my investors,know.

Brian Casel (22:28):
Oh, yeah. Send it to the team.

Jordan Gal (22:30):
Yes. Send it to the team. Right. Make sure everyone
sees it. And we are we've gotnice momentum.
Sign ups are increasingsteadily. Cost of registrations
from our ads are decreasing.Overall, I'm looking at things
with a blended CAC. Sobasically, how much are we
spending on all marketingactivities between all of our

(22:52):
stuff, between the writer, theSEO, the ads, the ad format,
like all the stuff. And then Ijust take that divided by the
number of sign ups in the month.

Brian Casel (23:00):
Yep.

Jordan Gal (23:01):
So say, okay. This is about how much we're spending
per sign up. Mhmm. And that'sjust that's just creeping down
which, you know, it started offtoo high. So it it could not
stay where it was and the hopewas it it's going down so now it
is starting to go down.
Yep. Tuesday next week, welaunched the new onboarding. It
is sharp. It is the best Mhmm.Onboarding that I've created in

(23:22):
a product.
Because we, you know, we saidthis gotta be self serve. People
have to be able to do this ontheir own.

Brian Casel (23:27):
I wanna ask you about the onboarding, but before
that, just wanna call attentionto the thing that you said, like
so the testimonial, they saidthat, like, their customers
can't tell the difference thatthis is AI? Yeah. That's crazy.

Jordan Gal (23:39):
Yeah. It's crazy. Because people don't expect AI.
People expect two things, ahuman or voice mail. And and you
know voice mail the second itstarts talking.
Yeah. Thanks for calling H and WPest control.

Brian Casel (23:52):
Yeah. Of course.

Jordan Gal (23:53):
We're not available. Leave a mess. Like everyone
knows exactly instinctually assoon as the voice starts, you
know it's voice mail.

Brian Casel (24:00):
It's also interesting to me that the
business wants their customersto not know that it's AI.

Jordan Gal (24:05):
It depends on the business. Yeah. And and we are
building in the feature tobasically we we like to make
requests. We'd like to makerelatively complex requests into
dead simple like options. Solike we don't want you to have
to train Rosie to talk aboutwhether or not she's an AI or

(24:28):
not when asked.
We just want you to check thisbox or not. Do you want Rosie to
admit to being an AI, you know,or do you want Oh, okay.

Brian Casel (24:34):
That's like a setting.

Jordan Gal (24:36):
It it that's the thing. All these things that are
kind of like murky, we justwanna turn it to settings. Yep.
So if for example, there's likea legal disclaimer. Thanks for
calling you know H and H PestControl.
This call may be recorded fortraining purposes. Like that's a
legal setting and you can justcheck that off.

Brian Casel (24:52):
Mhmm.

Jordan Gal (24:52):
So can have that or not have that. And that's what
our lawyers basically said. Youshould probably have that, but
if you give them the choice andmark that in your database,
you're you're you're clear.

Brian Casel (25:01):
Yeah.

Jordan Gal (25:02):
So all these different things we just kinda
wanna make very very simplechoices.

Brian Casel (25:05):
I like it.

Jordan Gal (25:06):
Yeah. So all this stuff is kinda happening all at
the same time. We'll launch theonboarding and then in November,
we expand channels. So thatthat's like what's coming up in
in November to go beyond meta,TikTok, influencers, YouTube,
and just start to expandoutward.

Brian Casel (25:23):
Very cool. I like it, man. Trying to think if I
have any questions. I think youyou

Jordan Gal (25:28):
were gonna say something onboarding.

Brian Casel (25:30):
Yeah. Like, what what's like the big change that
you're that that's gonna belaunching?

Jordan Gal (25:37):
So the guided part of it. So before you you got to
the admin and you got to like,you know, the page that said,
what what do you wanna call youragent if not Rosie? What's your
business name? Do you want it tobe, you know, casual, formal, or
professional? Mhmm.
Right? The the first thing yousaw. And then you had to look on

(25:59):
the left hand panel and click onsettings and start to explore.

Brian Casel (26:03):
Alright.

Jordan Gal (26:03):
And what we did in this is we just made it very,
guided. Yep. So it's this, thenthis, then this, and then step
two, and then step three, andthen ta da, you're done, and
then everything else.

Brian Casel (26:13):
Now you have like an up and running. Yep.

Jordan Gal (26:15):
Yes. And what we try to do is we try to insert the
things that we believed wereabsolutely necessary in order to
launch a successful agent. Mhmm.And anything other than
absolutely necessary

Brian Casel (26:28):
Yes.

Jordan Gal (26:29):
We put at the end and said recommended. Like,
exploring.

Brian Casel (26:33):
Yeah. I'd I'd love to hear you say that. That's
dead on. I Literally thismorning before this call, was
working on an app for a clientthat I'm working with. Working
on the onboarding for this app.
Okay. And that's exactly thestrategy in general that I try
to do with with these sort ofguided onboarding things. Mhmm.

(26:54):
You are you are pulling thething that they need to build,
the thing that they need tocreate in the app, like the core
thing that gets them to becomean active user. And then just
that thing might have ten,twenty different settings and
and customization that you canmake to

Brennan Dunn (27:08):
it.

Brian Casel (27:08):
Mhmm. But really only like two or three are
critical. Like what's the nameof the thing? And and maybe this
or that thing. And then like, ifif you just wanna launch it as
is, you could.
So go so so there. But it maybea smaller link like other
customizations, you can you candive into the menus and the

(27:29):
settings and do that. But stepone, like what's the name of the
thing? Step two, what's this onesetting? Step three, click go or
activate.

Jordan Gal (27:37):
Yes. Or publish. Wherever that line is, one side
of it is mandatory, required inorder to get the value. The
other side of it is optional.What happened to us was that we
looked over at the side with theoptional pieces and there were
too many.
And instead of saying, well,let's move some of those over to

(27:57):
the mandatory, we just removethe features.

Brennan Dunn (28:00):
Mhmm.

Jordan Gal (28:00):
So this is a bit of an experiment to see, do we have
it right that the core of whatpeople want is actually much
smaller than where the productwas. Yep. And people don't
actually care about appointmentsyet. We just remove
appointments. It's a reallyvaluable feature.
It wasn't a 100% reliable. Soinstead of fixing it or jamming
it, we just removed it. Our planis to add it back in when we

(28:23):
know it is awesome. And part ofmy strategy there is to define
the base tier and build up acustomer base on the base tier.
Keep working on the the highervalue features, and then
introduce them into an existingcustomer base at a higher price.

Nathan Barry (28:43):
Mhmm.

Jordan Gal (28:44):
So right. So let's just say for example, let's just
use round numbers. We get to$25,000 a month with the base
tier. $50, let's just call itright, 500 customers. Let's just
round numbers.
At that point in time, let's saythree months from today, we're
there. That's like a nice goal.If we then can introduce
appointments when we know itworks really well, we've

(29:05):
listened to feedback, we knowexactly what the feature should
do and how it should work, andthen we introduce that as a $99
a month tier, my goal is to thenbe able to pull, call it 10 to
20% of the existing customerbase, and then effectively
double our revenue. Right? So wecan get a 100 people out of the
500 to go to the $100 tier.
All of a sudden, we addsignificant revenue when we add

(29:28):
a feature instead of having itin right now when it's actually
not necessary for the base tierand it actually doesn't work
that well. So actually createsfriction to conversion, to
growth, to churn issues, allthat.

Brian Casel (29:39):
Yeah.

Jordan Gal (29:39):
Yeah. So that's kind of what I think over the next
few months.

Brian Casel (29:42):
I like that. Kinda like like build it like a think
of the the MRR growth as like alayer cake. Like it literally
is. Right? Like Yes.
A base a base tier is gonna havethis growth and then and then
we're gonna introduce this thingwhich adds a whole new color to
the graph and that's gonna havethis higher level of of ARPU and

Jordan Gal (30:00):
Yes. And then if we take those four or five key
features that we removed and ifwe keep introducing them one at
a time to the higher tier, it'lljust convert more and more
people over the next, right, sixor so months as we release
those.

Brian Casel (30:15):
I did that to a certain extent with Clarity
Flow. We had we we've always hadour core thing, like the
conversational messages in thein the base. And then when we
introduced Clarity Flow Commercewhich you know, our our big
Stripe integration to sellcoaching stuff, that was a big
driver and we only made thatavailable in our middle tier and
up. Okay. And so that was a bigdriver.

Jordan Gal (30:39):
Identify themselves

Brian Casel (30:40):
I mean, you can it in the graphs. Like, not only is
it converting more newcustomers, but the expansion
revenue. It's it's just likeupgrades revenues. Like, that
started to tick up when once welaunched that. And a few other
features too like like customdomains were were like that as
well and

Jordan Gal (30:58):
Just keep making more attractive. Right? Keep
making more attractive. Our ourproblem

Brian Casel (31:02):
But like we're we're circling back now like
we're about to launch forms andwe and we recently launched
appointment booking. And so withthese like we still want
versions of those features onthe base tier but with limits.

Jordan Gal (31:16):
Right. You don't wanna leave them behind
entirely. You still wanna makethat base tier very attractive.

Brian Casel (31:19):
Yeah. Yep.

Jordan Gal (31:20):
Yeah. I I think that's the next year for us is
to understand which feature goeswhere. Is this something
everyone needs? Is thissomething higher tiers? My my
concern and my focus around thatexpansion revenue is because
right now we are reliant on paidadvertising.
Mhmm. And as long as we arerelying on paid advertising, any
dollar that we can create fromupgrades instead of totally net

(31:44):
new customers that we had to goout and buy is gonna end up
making a huge, huge difference.

Brian Casel (31:48):
For sure.

Jordan Gal (31:49):
Yeah. So I I mean, I'm considering, like, lowering
the price in the bay. I thinkthat base tier needs to be big,
big. Yep. Right?
Relatively speaking to the otherother tiers so we can pull from
it.

Brian Casel (31:59):
Yeah, man.

Jordan Gal (31:59):
We'll see. Alright. What do got going on?

Brian Casel (32:02):
I just typed into my my notes for this thing. I I
typed the storm.

Jordan Gal (32:06):
Okay. Not to be dramatic.

Brian Casel (32:09):
I feel like I'm in a storm. Like, it's the the rain
has begun, and the storm and andwe're not even at the at at the
at the most intense part of thestorm yet, but it's it's it's
not just cloudy skies, like nowwe're in it and it's getting
more intense. Alright. Let meThere And it's it's all like I I

(32:33):
guess pretty good problems todeal with but it doesn't make it
any less stressful. I just feela massive crunch of forces
coming at me that I all of themseem like high priority and I
just don't have even close tothe amount of time in my day

(32:56):
that I need.
So things get pushed off. Andand I'm dealing with that by
hiring. I have two newdevelopers starting with me on
Monday. But that's not evengonna solve the whole problem
and even bringing on two brandnew developers means that's even
more work. Alright.
So like the the the the list thelist of forces right now are

(33:19):
number one, the consultingpipeline has started to explode
this quarter. Like multipleprojects are now booked and
happening. Okay. I've gotmultiple other ones that are in
the proposal stage and I wouldsay most of them are pretty

(33:41):
likely to like accept theproposals. I told one of those
proposals yesterday like, hey, II told you the start date could
be November 15.
Like now that start date is isDecember. So now like the
projected availability pushesout a little bit but there's a
limit on that because I don'twant I I don't I don't want it

(34:03):
to get to a point where like anew lead is interested in
starting a project now and Ihave to tell them like my start
time is three months out. Likethat's just Mhmm. That's that's
enough for someone to say likeI'll just find another option
because that's too far out. Youknow?
So I I don't like to push out mywaiting list farther than like a

(34:24):
month, six weeks. So I have acouple that are coming through
and then and these are all likereally good projects too. Like
really really great people asclients, really interesting good
product concepts that I'mexcited to build that I think
really have legs. So they're allreally good in that sense. But I

(34:47):
have so I I I need a team tostart to execute more of these
simultaneously.
That's why two developers arecoming on to work with me in on
the consulting projects. Sothere so there's that big force
and and the time of that lookslike a lot of time invested in
proposals and revising proposalsand coming to terms. And then

(35:09):
the time of actually making surethat each one of these product
like my active projects aregetting serviced every week and
we're and we're still on trackin terms of our timeline. And
with these new developers comingon, I spent a lot of this past
week like just preparing for fortheir Monday next week.

Jordan Gal (35:28):
Like Mhmm.

Brian Casel (35:30):
Like my developer on Clarity Flow, like we we've
got a flow, we've got aworkflow, we we know how we
communicate, we we know exactlyhow we do things.

Jordan Gal (35:40):
Sure. It takes time.

Brian Casel (35:42):
But I need to communicate like, look, this is
how we communicate, this is howmy development workflow goes. We
use these, we use linear, we usewe use linear for this, we use
Slack for that. We, you know, Ineed to make all this stuff
clear. And and and then theyneed and then I need to actually
assign them projects to work on.So I spent a lot of time like

(36:03):
specking out issues to to betheir first tasks for them to
do.
You know? And that always takesmore time. And and the
frustration that a lot of peoplehave with hiring is like, oh,
like, in this time, I could havejust done it myself, and that's
absolutely true. But I need toget this to a point where we are
able to execute multipleprojects without me doing all

(36:25):
the work myself. Right?
So so there's that. But then,like, at the same time, there's
clarity flow happening, sothat's going fairly well. Okay.
Like we just the forms featureis like my developer has
finished her job of building it.You know, I I talked a few weeks

(36:47):
back about how the cyclesusually go like, I go deep for a
week and I prepare a newfeature, I design it, and I
start I I build the first 10,then I hand it off to her and
she spends about six weeksbuilding out the rest.
And then at the end of the sixsix weeks, it comes back to me
to do deep dive q and a andtesting and polishing and
finishing up everything. And Iprobably send some stuff back to

(37:10):
her to fix and then we do adeployment and testing and all
this stuff. It's now at the endof her six week cycle on that.
She has finished all of hertasks, checked off all of her
lists, and now it's back toMyPlate waiting for me to even
just open it and look at it. AndI I should have looked at it
like Monday of this week.
I have not had time. It's gonnapush to next week. And so that's

(37:32):
like a whole finished That's amajor new feature. Forms. Like
custom forms in Clarity Flow.
It's done.

Jordan Gal (37:38):
But be pushed out.

Brian Casel (37:39):
And it's just sitting there on a branch
waiting for me to look at it.And and so that means we're
still at least two or threeweeks away from getting that
shipped. And then oh, and thenlike the last thing is is
Clarity flows like marketing. Solike, you know, we have our our

(38:00):
organic channels. We're we'regetting customers and sign ups
and stuff, but like our demoneeds an update.
Like the video demo for ClarityFlow, which takes a brand new
visitor to our website who'strying to get as much
information about it as possiblebefore they make the purchase
decision because we don't offera free trial anymore. The the

(38:20):
video demo is like critical andwe still have a old one from
like at least a year ago. I needto recreate that and rerecord it
and re edit it and and includeall the new features in it and
all that. And I have no ideawhen that's gonna happen. It's
not gonna be soon.
But it but it needs to happen inorder to help drive conversions

(38:41):
for Clarify flow. And that'simportant. You know? So all of
these things are time sensitive.All these things are important.
I there's only one of me. Idon't Okay. I don't know what to
do about that.

Jordan Gal (38:53):
Okay. What's what's your what's your way out? What
what you know, what path do yousee to getting out of the storm?

Brian Casel (39:02):
Hiring so the thing and I also talked about hiring
the the video editor which I Imean really good talks with
someone. We haven't finalizedyet, but that's probably gonna
move forward. I I hope it does.But yeah, the hiring thing with
the developers is there'sthere's gonna be it's gonna be

(39:22):
more time intensive for a coupleweeks but my hope is that we're
just gonna settle into a groove.And my hope is that both of
these developers really aregreat.
And all the developers that I'veworked with from this team in
India have been have been reallygood. Some of them have been
outstandingly great and theyjust pick things up and they and

(39:44):
they can they can they can besuper productive pretty quickly
within a couple of weeks. Otherswere slower to get to that
point. Like, it it took them acouple of months to get to a
really good productive level. Idon't I just don't know what's
gonna what what the experienceis gonna be with these two brand
new developers.
That remains to be seen. But Iknow that once I get through

(40:09):
Once I can transition from mycurrent state of things where I
am a 100100% of responsible forevery active client project
Yeah. Yeah. That's to to like Ihave at least two and maybe a
growing team of like trusteddevelopers that I can assign to
projects. Then it's like, okay.
Now we're we we were like rightnow we're still sort of like

(40:33):
running and then I'm trying tolike lift off the ground and get
to like a a flying state withlike a, you know, like and and
because I felt that withaudience ops in the first six
months of that, going back to2015, it was like, okay. A lot
of hustle right now. A lot offiguring out our processes,
getting the right team on board,a lot of learning experiences
there. But then eventually, wegot to this state where we're

(40:54):
just at like a cruisingaltitude. Like, okay.
Now we've got projects comingin. We've got team executing.
We've got sales happening. And Icould see that at the at the end
of a road. It's not too far inthe distance, but we're still on
that like lift off stage rightnow with this.

Jordan Gal (41:12):
As an outsider, outsider, it feels unlikely to
be solved without one higherlevel higher.

Brian Casel (41:24):
That'll be the next that's the next thing that I'm
that I'm that's on my mind and Idon't even know what that's
gonna look like.

Jordan Gal (41:30):
Right. Is a PM? Is that a that

Brian Casel (41:34):
Like I don't know. Of some type. That's what I've
been thinking. So like, youknow, I can't help but think
like two or three steps ahead.The the first step ahead is just
go from me to a couple of juniordevelopers working under my
direction.
Right? Yeah. But yeah.Definitely the next step after
that is somebody more senior andI don't I don't know if that's

(41:54):
just somebody who's good withtalking to clients and can be
more of just an account managerand like a project manager.

Brennan Dunn (42:01):
Mhmm.

Brian Casel (42:01):
Or do I need work at the top. Or do I need like a
full stack developer who can owna whole project? Someone more
like my my skill set. Yeah. I

Jordan Gal (42:10):
mean, the good thing is you seem to have enough
demand that there is some roomto raise prices in order to
absorb the expense Yeah. Of anadditional person or two. And
and

Brian Casel (42:20):
that's that's gonna happen. And just to be And this
is another thing like like withthe sales on this, I It's
promoted as 1month.app. That'sthat's the website. Right? I do
offer a proposal for a one monthproject.
But that's the starting point.Like almost every project that I

(42:42):
end up doing ends up being morethan a month. Or or even signs
on at the very beginning for itto be two or three months. And
like part of my job and part ofthe service is like, let me hear
out your idea. Here's my take onwhat a four week version of that
idea looks like.
We're gonna cut a lot of scopeand focus just on these things
first. That's your four week.Here's your six week. Here's

(43:03):
your eight week and so andsometimes it's like a twelve
week, you know. And and so likethat's that's been my method of
logistically extending the timeframe but also it it adds the
cost, you know.
Mhmm. But the Yeah. At at somepoint in 2025, early twenty five

(43:23):
like the next wave of leads isgonna have a higher rate than
what I have right now for sure,you

Jordan Gal (43:28):
know. Cool. Alright. Well, we're we're gonna see you
through the storm. Doesn't

Brian Casel (43:33):
Sorry. Sound I I didn't even I didn't even talk
about the other thing that thatI'm that I'm because like part
of part of servicing all this isbuilding my components library
for Instrumentl.

Jordan Gal (43:43):
Okay. Longer term. It's longer term

Brian Casel (43:46):
but I'm I'm I'm building it right now because
I'm using it in my currentprojects.

Jordan Gal (43:52):
Do you find that it's taking longer to Yeah. Do?

Brian Casel (43:56):
I'm literally slow I'm I'm slowing down to speed up
essentially. Yeah. Right. Icould I could keep building the
projects like I've been buildingthe projects all year, which
would be fine. But look, it's ait's a goal to have this
components library a, as its ownproduct.
I do want to I it's it'sdefinitely a high priority for

(44:18):
me to have a more digital selfserve product and not just build
an agency here. But it's alsosomething to power the agency,
to to make it easier to delegateto developers, to spin up Rails
applications with a componentslibrary. Like, that's a high
priority. So so like theprojects that I'm actively

(44:40):
working on right now, like, I'mbuilding them, I'm building the
components for these products.Like, so I was talking about the
onboarding thing.
One of the generators, one ofthe components in this thing is
is an onboarding flow. Like asimple starter onboarding flow
for your Rails app. I I builtthat yesterday and it's it's a
it's a component and it's athing in my client's project.

(45:04):
Modals, buttons, know, tailwindconfigurations, you know, like
all this stuff that like Ihappen to be building the
features for and I happen tohave components, I'm
productizing those and workingon like, and so I've I've been
building the rails generatorsfor these things and making it

(45:24):
like a product that a developercould use. Anyway, so that's
that's also taking a lot of mytime.
I don't I don't know how likeit's it's crazy to hear me even
talk about it out loud.

Jordan Gal (45:36):
Oh, Hold on. I forgot this other thing. That's
25% of my my brain.

Brian Casel (45:40):
Yeah. Right. Like the to to try to help listeners
understand what this actuallylook like in practice, it's like
obviously not all those thingsare happening in any single day.
Usually, one of those thingshappens in a day and everything
else waits. And then tomorrow, Iwork on one of those things
again.
And then everything else is onhold and

Jordan Gal (46:01):
separate separate out by days? Like Monday,
Tuesday, I'm gonna focus on thislike morning or

Brian Casel (46:07):
Yeah. By days I I usually like to know like
there's one most importantthing. This has to be done
today. Like I know what my thingis today. And usually, I can
usually, a couple other thingsfit into the day or make their
way in.

Jordan Gal (46:26):
But Intrude.

Brian Casel (46:27):
Or at least like emails about those things or
messages or, you know, give givesomeone an update on this. But I
don't finish my day until thatone thing is checked off, know.
Because like the last thing Iwant is like what I was supposed
to do today gets thrown over thefence to tomorrow. Like that's

(46:48):
that's the thing I try to avoid.

Jordan Gal (46:50):
That's how everyone else works so congratulations on
on that discipline.

Brian Casel (46:55):
Yeah. It's just like but but a lot of stuff is
just sitting there waiting.Nothing's happening, you know.
Oh. That's that's what happens.
Yes. Yes. What else you got?

Brennan Dunn (47:08):
I don't know, man. I think that's it.

Jordan Gal (47:10):
I look I got something I got a board meeting
coming up in two weeks. Startingto think about that. I I don't
know if it maybe I talked aboutthis last week, but maybe it was
this week where I had a funnymoment where we're trying to
minimize meetings, and werelooked at all of our regular
meetings because we have sixpeople on the team now. So let

(47:33):
it's worth looking at everythingand making sure, you know, we're
not just doing things because weused to do them that way. And so
the go to market side startedjoining, the Tuesday engineering
meeting and because it was therewere already four people on
there, product plus engineering.
And so Sam and I started joiningon Tuesdays. And so Tuesday came

(47:54):
around, we like Zoom opens upand there's six people and it
like hit me like, oh, it's justus. This is the whole team right
here. Yeah. You know?
And I like said something. Was,hello.

Brian Casel (48:05):
How does that feel? You like it? You like the
smaller team Yes. Versus versuslike, if you think back to when
you had like, I don't know,like, Cart Hook, like a a huge
team.

Jordan Gal (48:14):
Not not huge huge,

Brian Casel (48:15):
but like you had a lot more people than you have
now.

Jordan Gal (48:17):
Yes. It's definitely, you know, 2025 is
still there's distance betweenpeople, there's distance between
myself and there's there's moredistance.

Brian Casel (48:25):
Yeah. What do you like better?

Jordan Gal (48:27):
I really this is more fun. I like the the 20 plus
because it gives me thissuperpower feeling of, oh my
god, look how much is happeningwithout me. Right? Like that is
that aspect and seeing peopleform relationships on their own
and seeing inside jokes that I'mnot a part of and like that that
is the fun of the twenty twentyfive people. Mhmm.

(48:50):
But the six people is literallyjust more fun like, okay, it's
just us. Like, it's just casual.So before that meeting started,
was like, I just wanna say, thisis awesome. Yep. Thank you for
being here.
You know? If this was not theright thing, you would not be
here. Maybe there was some painin getting there, but some good,

(49:10):
and I just kinda saw everyone's,like, face just like a little
smile. Like, yes, this is fun.This is like Yeah.

Brian Casel (49:15):
Yeah. For sure.

Jordan Gal (49:16):
Combination of the smaller tiny team and the little
beginnings of momentum and,like, excitement and, like, this
slow we might be on tosomething. Let's see what
happens here. It keeps growing.The numbers keep going up. Like,
that combination.
I was like, oh, man. I I haven'tfelt that in a long time and
that's that's as good as itgets. Just optimism. Nice.

Brian Casel (49:39):
You know, yeah. Like I like when I was working
on audience ops, had around 25people on that team and now I'm
down to like three or four of uson Clarity Flow plus two more
coming in on the consultingstuff and maybe a video editor
soon. But like the I I do likethe smaller team better I think.

(50:02):
But it was it was also great forme with with the larger one. But
but we are super different inhow we interact with our teams,
I think.
You're much more in touchpersonally. I think and and
you're doing you're doing a lotmore face to face. Even if it's
remotely but still like, I'mjust so leaned into async that
like sometimes I forget that Ihave all these people like being

(50:24):
productive for my businessesthat like, you know, like it's
not like I'm completely out oftouch with them because I I do
communicate with them Mhmm. On adaily basis. But it's either
text messages or the occasionalvideo message.
We're not really hopping on onmeetings. Mhmm. But it yeah. In
audience there was there was thelevel of management where I

(50:48):
there were most of those 25people like I did not interact
with at all on a daily basis. Itwas their managers who did.

Jordan Gal (50:55):
Yeah. I I feel like I have a bit more paranoia now
around if everyone's happy.

Brian Casel (51:01):
Yep. I I have that sometimes too with my best team
members. Right.

Jordan Gal (51:06):
Like, I

Brian Casel (51:06):
really don't wanna lose them, you know.

Jordan Gal (51:08):
Yeah. Do you wanna lose them, and then I'm not sure
like what will if it's tooasync, then I haven't seen them,
and they haven't seen me, and wehaven't formed that bond, and we
can't go out to lunch together.And so I there's some paranoia
there. I don't know if it's likea people pleaser thing or a
middle child thing, but I livein a little a little of paranoia
around. Are they happy?
Is this good for them? Mhmm.Like, I need to do anything

(51:29):
else? Can I do anything else? Myconclusion is usually the best
thing I can do for them issuccess.
Not like giant outcome by ahouse success. I mean, just
momentum and energy andexcitement and sign ups and
revenue growth and that is whatkeeps people engaged and happy

(51:49):
and interested and motivatedmuch more than me giving a good
speech or me seeing them moreoften. So that's kind of how I
usually end up like, alright,don't go tell them to, you know,
buy lunch on the company kind ofthing. Get more sign ups. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. People wanna be partof that much more than anything
else.

Brian Casel (52:08):
Yeah. Yeah, man. For sure. I guess one more thing
that that this was actually thething I was gonna talk about.

Jordan Gal (52:15):
Was I got a hard stop in in in just a minute.

Brian Casel (52:17):
Okay. Yeah. This is like a quick one. I just wanna
call attention to I'm I'm such afan of 37 signals and and
especially Jason Fried'sthinking and writing on concepts
and I thought he had a reallygood one this past week. I think
it was called like he put itlike sort of like a blog post.
V one is for us. And it it'stalking about dogfooding your

(52:41):
own Mhmm. Or scratching your ownitch with with brand new
products getting off the ground.And they talked about their
experiences with like differentlike like how Basecamp was very
much scratched their own itchand and some new product that
they're working on like italmost wasn't and now it is and
like

Jordan Gal (52:59):
The email is for them. It's interesting concept.

Brian Casel (53:01):
Yeah. He's been like good. They really talked
in-depth about like what it whatit feels like to like in terms
of like deciding what goes intoyour v one, what goes into the
the first version of what you'rebuilding, like you it's it's so
true that it's so much easierand more powerful and you're
probably gonna be moresuccessful if you are literally

(53:22):
solving your own personalproblem because you are customer
number one. And I it it justresonated with me a lot because
what I'm building withinstrumental dot dev feels like
the most I am the customer forthis. Like Yeah.
I'm building it for literallyquite literally for myself more

(53:43):
so than any other product thatI've ever done. And that means
it's gonna be super opinionated.At least the first version of
it. Because I because I I knowexactly how I want this type of
product to be and how I've beenunhappy with similar products.
But just hearing them talk aboutit DHH and Jason on their

(54:04):
podcast talking about the sameidea like it just really hit
home.
I I think it's a good listen.It's a good reminder like what
because they were talking abouthow it really dictates your
roadmap. Like you know exactlywhere you what you need to build
next because because like theywere talking about how they use
their their tool internally atat thirty seven signals and
their team got really upset thatthey were being forced to use

(54:25):
their own tool because it's notquite good enough yet to solve
their own prop problems Andthat's your road map. You know?
You know how to solve your ownproblems.

Jordan Gal (54:34):
Yeah. And I I I agree what you're doing now is
the closest. For me, the closestthing would be open a schnitzel
restaurant in town because Iwant good schnitzel. And my
mom's not around right now.

Brian Casel (54:42):
Yep. Hey. I'll I'll be customer number one. Hell
yeah.

Jordan Gal (54:46):
Alright, brother. Have a

Brian Casel (54:47):
great weekend. Alright. Thanks for listening.
Later, folks.
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