April 19, 2023 • 45 mins
Jon and Justin welcome Joshua Anderton to the Transistor team! Josh is an amazingly talented full-stack web developer (Laravel, Rails, Tailwind CSS, Alpine, and more!) He's been helping us as a part-time contractor since Oct 2022, and we're excited to have him on board full-time! In this episode, we discuss why we hired another person and how we think about hiring at Transistor.
- (00:28) - 150!
- (01:27) - Trials into paid customers
- (09:17) - Hiring philosophy
- (27:40) - Hiring Josh
- (31:34) - Hiring people you know
- (40:30) - Product updates
- (43:49) - Patreon supporter thanks
Links:
- Joshua's personal site
- Joshua's podcast: Getting to Ramen
- Jason Cohen's article
- Acquired.fm is now on Transistor!
- Pascal from sharpen.page
- Rewardful.com
- Greg Park
- Mitchell Davis from RecruitKit.com.au
- Marcel Fahle, wearebold.af
- Bill Condo (@mavrck)
- Ward from MemberSpace.com
- Evandro Sasse
- Austin Loveless
- Michael Sitver
- Colin Gray
- Dave Giunta
🎙️ Podcast hosting is provided by Transistor.fm.
📺 Learn how to start your own podcast!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon (00:12):
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the
behind the scenes story ofbuilding a web app in 2023. I'm
Jon Buda, a software engineer.
Justin (00:21):
And I'm Justin Jackson. I do product and marketing.
Follow along as we Buildtransistor.fm.
Jon (00:29):
We, we reached episode 150.
Justin (00:32):
Yes. Episode 150, Good milestone. I we we just hit
another milestone in terms oftotal episodes published on
transistor. Yeah. Over a 1000000episodes, Which is pretty cool.
Jon (00:48):
That's a lot.
Justin (00:49):
Lot of episodes. You know, we're still a small little
company, but 1,000,000 episodesis, that's that's significant.
We're we've hosted a lot ofaudio.
Jon (00:59):
We have to set up a behind the scenes, Master feed for all
of them, and then just we haveto listen to all of them at,
like, 3 times speed.
Justin (01:07):
Just get, like
Jon (01:08):
Every episode.
Justin (01:09):
Hilarious to just get I mean, that would that would
actually probably be difficultbecause I was I was thinking
it'd be cool to have an AI thatjust summarizes every episode on
transistor every day, itprobably cost you a fortune.
Jon (01:23):
Take forever and cost a fortune. Yeah.
Justin (01:25):
Because every day I think Jason's recording that.
Right? No. He's recording newshows every day. So every day,
we get about sometimes 30 newpodcasts creative, 40 new
podcasts created, every singleday on transistor.
It's one of those things thatI've tried to communicate to
(01:49):
folks about this idea of volume.Like, in any business, You need
a certain amount of volume, acertain amount of momentum out
in the world. And for us, itmeans hundreds of new people
signing up every month. That'sto make this business work even
(02:09):
though our churn is quite low. Ithink we're around 2 and a half
percent, churn.
So and for the prosumer product,that's incredible. But even with
just 2 a half percent churn, westill in order to grow, we need
hundreds of new trials everymonth. And then you take that
(02:31):
even further. We're converting alot of those trials to paid.
It's I won't give you the exactnumber, but it's above 70% of
people who start a trial convertto paid.
And Then you think how manyvisitors does it take to, you
know, to get a a trial? And Ithink those numbers are bigger
(02:56):
than people realize that youneed a lot of A lot of traffic
Mhmm. That then turns into atrial or a lead. And then for
us, we just know we can reliablyconvert, you know, a big
(03:17):
percentage of those folks to, topaid.
Jon (03:22):
Because there's a, yeah, there's a lot of competition. I
mean, people have choices tomake.
Justin (03:25):
One, that's the other element that I think is tricky
is, like, There has to be enoughmomentum in the world towards
your type of product thatthere's enough of that
percentage that you can reliablyget for your business.
Jon (03:41):
Mhmm.
Justin (03:42):
My guess is It takes about a 100,000 visitors of,
like, people that are interestedin podcast hosting. About a
100,000 visitors would lead tomaybe 2,000 leads, something
like that. And then You wanna beable to convert, in our case, a
(04:03):
big percentage of those becauseit's credit card up front.
Jon (04:06):
Yeah.
Justin (04:07):
And That's just like if you think about that, like, a
100000, people with intentvisiting your website. And then
even then, you're only getting,if you're lucky, 2,000 of them.
It's it It's wild.
Jon (04:25):
Yeah. It's pretty wild. Yeah. It's big numbers. I mean,
the other thing kinda related tothis that Jason said before and
I agree with is that, I mean,having having more customers and
having a large customer basethat uses your product every day
is just more fun to work on.
Like, before this, I mean, Ihadn't worked on anything like
that and neither had Jasonreally where it was like
(04:47):
something that actually took offand had some traction and had
people using it all the time.So, you know, you're getting
feedback every day, you push outa change, and immediately people
will find it even we even if wehaven't announced it yet. And
Justin (05:01):
Yeah.
Jon (05:01):
Yeah. I mean, it's just nothing worse than, like,
working on where nobody's usingit. Yeah. It's like, what's
you're just making guesses andpushing stuff out, and no one
sees it or uses it. And
Justin (05:11):
Oh, for sure. Jason Cohen's been writing these great
articles lately, and he has onecalled, excuse me. Is there a
problem? And his byline for thearticle is many startups failed
despite identifying a realproblem and building a product
that solves that problem. Thisthis article explains why so you
can avoid their fate.
(05:31):
Highly recommend that folks getinto this. He has this awesome
flowchart, which just talksabout, like, you know, is there
10,000,000 plus people or a100,000 plus organizations that
have this problem? No. Themarket's too small. Do you want
no employees or a niche highprice?
Well, maybe you can still do it.So it's like, he really goes
(05:55):
through all these differentelements that you need for a a
company to succeed. And one ofthose things is You wanna before
you build something, you'rereally just guessing. You know?
And guessing actually sucks.
It's what's frustrating. Right?It's like putting yourself out
(06:17):
there constantly, and nobody isresponding to what you're you're
doing, whether that's a newstart up, a new product, a new
feature, or a podcast even. Ifyou're getting no response, It's
not very fun.
Jon (06:31):
No. It's terrible.
Justin (06:33):
But as soon as you get response and if people are
actually using your product todo some sort of job in their
lives, man, that's when it getsexciting because then even if
they're giving you feedback youdon't wanna hear, it Still means
somebody cared enough to useyour product, put in their
credit card, and then give yousome sort of feedback. And,
(06:57):
yeah, that is in terms of goingto work and working on
something. And we're such asmall team that for folks like
Jason are in customer supportchat all the time. He gets to
see The response to a newfeature, he gets to hear the
feedback. He gets to see howpeople are trying to use it.
(07:18):
He gets to see what it means intheir lives. You know? And that
is a, powerful force.
Jon (07:27):
Yeah. And, you know, being a small company, 1 person can
make a change that affects Alarge amount of people, which is
kinda cool.
Justin (07:34):
Exactly. Exactly. I think for a lot of employees at
bigger companies, they justnever get to talk to the user.
You never get to see who'sactually using it. And this is
one of the advantages of smallindependent companies is not
only do we get to talk to users,But we actually care, and this
(07:54):
becomes a a competitiveadvantage is to show up at work.
And when someone messages us inchat, we care enough to be like,
We're gonna answer this. We careenough to think, okay. We're
gonna make this better, andthat's just such a a different
(08:14):
experience than the way mostproducts get built. You know?
Jon (08:18):
Yeah. I really haven't been on I mean, I haven't been on a
team like that either, but I canimagine, like, You know, it's
probably fun working on a teamand building something, but then
you might be building it for 6months to a year, and then it
gets released, And no one's usedit yet. Yeah. And then, I don't
know, you're not gonna heardirectly from the customer
because you're 2, 3 stepsremoved from that process.
Justin (08:39):
You're 10 layers down, and there's yeah. I think this
is the advantage of starting andbuilding independent product
companies, and It still has thesame difficulty that in the
beginning, you've gotta findsomething that people want. You
gotta find something that youcan reliably provide. You've
gotta find something whereyou've got some sort of
(09:00):
marketing advantage so you canactually attract customers. But
Once you do it, it really isbetter for the employees, for
the team, and for the customer.
They just get a better product,better service, And then the
people who go to work every dayhave a more, gratifying life.
Jon (09:19):
Yeah. Definitely. Talking about teams Speaking of
employees
Justin (09:23):
Speaking of employees, we just hired Josh Anderton.
Yeah. And, I thought we couldtalk quickly about why we hired,
how we hire at Transistor. Thiscomes up every once in a while,
and I think, Josh, like Jasonand Helen, is a good example of
how we think about hiring andThe kinds of, like, job to be
(09:48):
done that we're hiring for asowners and, just how we think
through all that. So, yes, wehired Josh.
He's he started on 11th. So he'sjust oh, this is his 1 week
anniversary. So, yeah, we hiredJosh a week ago. And, if you've
been following our updates,you'd know that he'd been
(10:10):
working with us as a Contractorsince, I don't know, at least 6
months, I'm guessing. Somethinglike that.
I've hired him to help me withsome, stuff on the marketing
site. And and then we also hadhim, build a new podcast website
theme for us, which we justreleased. If you are a if you
(10:33):
wanna try it out, actually, andeven if you're not with
Transistor, if you go to freepodcast websites .com, You can,
try it out. It's calledcardboard. Very unique theme
for, for podcast websites.
Yeah. And, yeah. So let's goback a bit. Let's go back to the
(10:53):
pandemic. And and, this is Ican't remember exactly when this
happened, but There wasdefinitely this feeling.
And I think even listeners tothe show had mentioned, like,
man, Jon kinda seems down. And,you were kind of maybe you wanna
(11:14):
do you wanna describe the thethat feeling at the time? The
Jon (11:18):
Yeah. I mean, I was, You know, it let's see. I left my
job in August 2019. Right? Sohad a few months there before
The pandemic hit.
And then
Justin (11:30):
That's interesting. That it wasn't that long. You didn't
have that long before thepandemic wasn't. Happened.
Jon (11:35):
I mean, I was, like, super energized, you know, when I left
my job because it's oh, this isgreat. I get to spend all my
time in this. This is awesome.Yeah. Yeah.
And then I think, you know,pandemic hit. Everyone's sitting
at home. We had obviously hadthe luxury to work at home, and
we were working at home anyway.So there wasn't much of a
transition there. But Yeah.
It just got, like, Too easy tokinda sit around, take breaks,
(12:01):
Not maybe not work or just,like, piddle around on little
things that they weren't weren'tbig features. It was, like, it
was hard to get motivated. Andso, I mean, some of that was
pandemic related. Some of thatwas just like, You know, lack of
social things going on outsideof working, and it was like you
(12:23):
and you know? And I I think I Ididn't really even realize it at
the time, I don't think.
Mhmm. But I was just like, youknow, things were going well.
Like, we could have just Kindataking it easy. Right? It was
things are going well.
We didn't need to necessarilybuild anything huge, but, you
know, work is motivating. Itgives you a sense of purpose and
fulfillment. And, Like, youdon't want that necessarily
(12:46):
missing you and especially ifyou're just sitting around home
all day. And so I don't know. Idon't remember how it came up
with With Jason.
I think I had been talking toJason. He was talking about
leaving his job, and then maybeI mentioned to you.
Justin (13:01):
I think we'd had discussions about it before that
I was like, I wonder if becauseI had had this experience of,
You know, I would, like need tomotivate myself, and I would,
like, do a live stream. And thethe that feeling of having other
(13:21):
people kind of come alongside meand work on a problem or I'd bug
Adam Wavin or Jack McDade or,you know, somebody or somebody
in MegaMaker too, like, hey.Let's do a call and, like,
figure this out. And I foundthat very energizing. And I
think I'd said to you, you know,I wonder if maybe you could
(13:41):
find, you know, someone to paira program with or Something.
Jon (13:45):
Yeah.
Justin (13:46):
And, and then, yeah, I think Jason maybe had reached
out to you, and you were like, Iwonder if we should Maybe hire
him.
Jon (13:55):
Yeah. I think may yeah. I mean, I think he was he was
telling me about leaving hisjob, and I was, like, kind of
jokingly being like, oh, man. Weshould hire you. And then, like,
he was like, yeah.
I like, let's talk about that,actually. Yeah. At this point,
Jason had already moved. He washe was in Chicago. We moved
away.
And so he was I mean, he wasn'tin town either. I couldn't
really hang out with him, but, Ithink we kept talking. Don't
(14:19):
know. I don't remember how longthat process was. You met him.
You we talked we all talkedtogether, and then we Gave him
an offer in August 2020. Is thatright? July, August?
Justin (14:31):
And I had I mean, I had I I think my only apprehension
at was like, wow. We're gonnahire someone else. We'd just
hired Helen, and I was like,woah. Like, are we gonna be able
to do this? But The flip side ofthat, I was, like, very pro
because I felt like it would beI had a sense that it would be a
big upgrade for your quality oflife.
(14:52):
Yeah. Because you and I couldtalk, but in terms of, like,
having someone that's workingalongside you, and going back
and forth on code stuff, I couldnever really do that for you.
And Mhmm. Every time you had,like, a call with, like, Jack
Ellis or, You know, you met withsomebody else. You always came
back from those meetings kind ofvisibly fired up.
(15:14):
Just it's fun talking to otherpeople that are smart, that know
their shit and that you can,like, bounce stuff off of? Yeah.
Jon (15:22):
I mean, you know, everyone has a different way of looking
at things, and
Justin (15:26):
Yeah.
Jon (15:27):
Sometimes it's like, oh, that's, like, such a simple
idea. I never would have thought
Justin (15:30):
of that. Yeah. So I I I felt like it would be a big
upgrade. And then Jason came on,and it was, like, almost
noticeable from day 1. It was inthe same way that we hired
Helen, and it was like, wow.
This really improves Our lives
Jon (15:46):
Yeah.
Justin (15:46):
Also helps us serve customers better. But I think
what was interesting in bothcases, In my mind, at least, the
leading motivation was we wannamake our lives better as
founders. Right. So because wecould you're right. We could've
just kept going as a 2 personcompany.
It was technically possible forus to Do all the customer
(16:10):
support ourselves, and it wastechnically possible for you to
stay as the only, you know,developer on the team. Yeah.
And, you know, that was thatwould have been achievable, but
there is all of this quality oflife stuff. Like
Jon (16:28):
Yeah. Yeah. At what cost? I mean, it would have been
especially, you know, given howmuch we grew, like, it would
have been that would have beentough. Would've been really
hard.
Justin (16:38):
And so the motivation being primary motivation being,
hey. Let's upgrade our qualityof life as founders. Let's give
us One less thing to worryabout. Let's take some things
off our plate. Let's, balanceout and smooth out and share The
weight of responsibility ofserving all of these customers
(16:59):
and, you know, for you, theweight and responsibility of
keeping all the infrastructureup, I'm sure that was a huge
thing when Jason came on.
All of a sudden, you havesomeone else that's, like,
sharing that load.
Jon (17:08):
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's a huge A huge
relief. I mean plus, you know,like, together, we made a a
number of upgrades, and Jason,you know, worked his magic on
the code and made things a lotmore reliable.
Obviously, built a bunch of newfeatures that we Otherwise,
would not have so, yeah, I mean,from day 1, yeah, it was it was
(17:29):
great. I think it turned outbetter than we could have
expected. And, plus, you know, Iget to Go to work with another
friend.
Justin (17:35):
Exactly.
Jon (17:36):
Every day.
Justin (17:37):
Exactly. So I think I was kinda watching all of this.
And for a long time, I just feltlike, well, this is perfect.
Like, we've got Helen. She'sgreat.
Jason, great. Jon and I. And,You know, you and I had our
retreat last year, and that wasamazing. And then we went on
this awesome team retreat withJason and Helen, and that was
amazing. And I was feelingoverall just like, wow.
(17:59):
This is perfect. Like, we've gotthe perfect setup. But I started
to have more and more moments oflack of motivation, lack of that
spark and that energy. It becameharder for me to do those kind
of, live streams and ad hoccalls partly because we're more
(18:23):
I kind of felt bad actually. Itwhen we were, like, the
underdogs and really kind ofbuilding stuff up, it was like,
okay.
Well, I can grab someone's timefor free because we have no
money and we have But I startedto feel like, I kinda feel bad
about, you know, asking peoplefor free time. And so I started
hiring different contractors fordifferent things and found that
(18:46):
really got me unstuck, gave memotivation, gave me purpose for
my day. And In many ways, thepair programming metaphor, I
think, is so helpful for a lotof things in life. Having
someone that's kind of therewith you, it's like if you have
to clean the backyard byyourself, you'll procrastinate
(19:06):
on that all day. But if a friendsays they're gonna show up at
your house and help you cleanyour backyard, you're gonna do
it.
You know what I mean? Like, it'sit's incredibly motivating. If
you're gonna if you say you'regonna go for a run at 6 AM, it's
like, maybe I'll do it. But if afriend says, I'm gonna be at
your house at 6 AM.
Jon (19:22):
That is 100% true. I mean, yeah, the same thing with Jason.
Like, I definitely worked more,but it was more fun. Because it
was like, oh, we're working onthis thing together. Let's,
like, talk about this.
Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,otherwise, I would have been
like, we should do this thing,but, like, I don't know. There's
some video games over here.
Justin (19:41):
Yeah.
Jon (19:42):
And the couch, I could just hang out. What's the rush?
Justin (19:45):
And I think as founders, especially when you're doing a
remote team, you need Thatmotivation. Otherwise, like,
look at where we both are rightnow. We're both in these tiny
little offices by ourselves. AndYeah. Without Some another human
being kind of are there.
It's easy to be just, like, kindof glum or, to lose your
(20:09):
motivation. And, I mean, therewas also just things I was
running into, that I built the1st version of our marketing
site myself with but it it tooka big push for me to get myself
in a kind of web developmentmindset, learning about
(20:30):
Tailwind, learning aboutLaravel, learning about the
statemix CMS. And I could do it,and it was it was really
heartening work, but I justrecognized, like, there's some
of the stuff I just don't wannain make that big of an
investment in. You know?
Jon (20:47):
And you were, yeah, you were talking to other people a
lot about it too. And I didn'tknow any of it, so I was like, I
can't really hop in here andhelp you.
Justin (20:55):
Yeah. And And I think there's just, like, that feeling
of I really want wanted you tohave as much time on the product
as possible. You know? Anyway soI started having that feeling of
like, man, I think I need kindof what Jon and Jason have, but
over on the marketing side. Andso I hired a few contractors to
(21:15):
help me on some differentthings.
And eventually, I started hiringJosh more often, and then It
really helped my motivation. Andeventually I said to him, can
you just book a bunch of timesin my calendar where you and I
get on a call. And Yeah. I foundso he he would book maybe 2
(21:39):
sessions a week, And I wouldjust found myself so fired up
during those sessions and wereable to look at the site
together. I'm like, okay.
We need all this built, and hewould go away. And then the next
call, he would have all thisstuff to demo for me. And just
having somebody that couldexecute my vision, and even,
(22:02):
like, go back and forth andoffer their own ideas and
Jon (22:05):
Yeah.
Justin (22:06):
Creatively, that energy was just like, it it felt way
different than
Jon (22:13):
Yeah. Those are the yeah. Those are the best kind of
people too because they youknow, you have this idea in your
mind, and then you explain it.And they go away, and you're
like, I don't know what they'regonna come back with. And then
it always just, like, surprisesyou, and you're like, wow.
This is better than I even wouldhave expected.
Justin (22:28):
Yes. Yeah. And, I mean, that's the hardest part. Right?
Is often just Having someonebeing able to do the work while
you're focused on other stuff,and it it really is a multiplier
in So many ways in terms ofactually practically getting
things done, but on the humanside, just enjoying my job more.
(22:49):
I was just Coming to workfeeling like this is freaking
amazing. And even, like it'sfunny because, of course, with
Helen, Jason, and Josh, we'rehoping that we overall, we're
hoping that we serve customersbetter, that we increase the
number of customers we have, allthose things. But I was like,
(23:10):
even if this these changes tothe marking marketing site get
us no new customers. It's stillworth it for me because I'm
having more fun. I'm enjoying itmore.
I'm We're we're putting stuffout into the world, and I feel
like, wow. Josh and I did thattogether. And it's that same
kind of feeling I had with youand I. Like, we came together,
(23:32):
And it was like the sum of eachof our parts really is more than
either of us could doindividually. Yeah.
And It's really exciting seeingthis team come together where
the sum of all these parts ofHelen really thinking about
customer success all day andreally strategizing around that
(23:55):
and then you and Jason reallystrategizing around code and
product and infrastructure andthen having over on the
marketing side, Josh and Ithinking about, And then all of
us mixing together in Slack andteam meetings and going you
know, sometimes all comingtogether and, strategizing and
(24:16):
thinking and throwing out ideas,and it just felt like, wow.
Like, this is this is a bigger Abigger, better machine, a
bigger, better
Jon (24:27):
Yeah.
Justin (24:27):
Yeah. So that was the motivation. Was, primarily for
me, a quality of lifeimprovement. We built this
company to give us a betterlife. What is the company for?
The company is to give the teammembers and their families a
better life. That's how I that'show I view it. And the product
(24:48):
is to give customers a betterlife, to improve, to help them
do whatever they set out to dowith a podcast. And that
distinction is really importantand motivating for me because
every day I show up going, Iknow this is the best job that
(25:08):
Jon Buda has ever had, and Iwanna make sure that the company
continues to do its job ofgiving Jon a better life. That's
motivating to me.
Jon (25:19):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Justin (25:20):
And then as we've brought more people on, it's
like, I know this is the bestjob Helen's ever had. I know
this is the best job Jason'sever had. I know this I want
this to be the best job Josh hasever had. And how are we gonna
do that? Well, we gotta keepworking on the product.
We gotta keep signing up newcustomers. We gotta reduce
churn. We've got to, make itenjoyable. You know? We've got
(25:42):
to add things into our everydaylife that makes it worthwhile.
We've got to give them a pieceof ownership. You know? All
these things kinda come out.And, Yeah. It's that that piece
is motivating to me.
And in some ways, all theproduct stuff, like making
customers' lives better, Eventhat feeds into eventually
(26:05):
making the company better sothat the stakeholders in the
company, have a better life.
Jon (26:10):
Yeah. I mean, there's there's many many days where I'm
like, I don't quite finish whatI was working on or what Jay is
now working on. I wake up, andI'm, like, excited to get back
to it Still, and it's, like, 5years in
Justin (26:21):
Yeah. Totally.
Jon (26:22):
Which is which is great. Like, yeah, there's nothing
worse than, like, showing up atwork at your job, and you're
like, oh, god. I gotta continueworking on this mess of an idea
that someone else had.
Justin (26:34):
Oh, I mean, this is this has been the motivating factor
so many times for us where wefeel and in many ways, we're
lucky because in order for thiscompany in order for the company
to have higher purpose, likemaking people's lives better,
you have to be making sales. Youhave to have revenue. You have
to have margins. We were luckythat we've Found this thing. It
(26:56):
worked.
We were able to execute on it,and we were also able to get
lucky enough that it it became Afinancial engine that helped us
to have a better life. So thatpart's lucky, but, you know,
showing up for a company thatyou think doesn't care about you
As an employee that thatdoesn't, you know, that doesn't
(27:17):
give a shit is It it's justincredibly demotivating for a
human to feel like you have nopurpose, to feel like your work
actually doesn't matter. I thinkeverybody at Transistor feels
like my work matters. You knowwhat I mean? And that is such a
good feeling that we couldprovide that for ourselves and
(27:39):
other people.
So just to to expand on it more,so we I've we've hired Josh full
time to primarily assist me,partner with me on the marketing
side. So that means buildingstuff for our website. It means
doing some projects likebuilding podcast website themes.
But because he's also just Agood full stack web developer
(28:03):
with Rails experience,eventually, he might start to
work on stuff on the app side aswell. Mhmm.
Jon (28:10):
Yeah. I I hope so.
Justin (28:11):
Yeah. I mean, the the practically, like, the utility
is Josh can Execute on thetechnical and design stuff. When
it comes to building web webstuff, he can just do that way
better, at a higher quality andfaster than I can. Him being
this full stack developer thatcan help us on a variety of
projects also made him, a goodhire from a utility standpoint.
(28:37):
Like, oh, wow.
He could do a lot of jobs forus.
Jon (28:40):
Yep.
Justin (28:41):
And the fact that he had been a longtime customer, user
of Transistor, had usedTransistor with many of his
consulting clients. He was alsoediting podcasts for a bunch of
different people on the side. Sohe had seen the product from a
variety of perspectives as apodcaster himself, But also as
somebody who's offeringpodcasting services to other
(29:04):
folks, that really kinda roundedhim out as, You know, a good
option for hiring. But, again, Ithink and anyone that wants to
work for a small Startup. Ioften hear people, oh, I wanna
really work for a small company.
I think figuring out what thejob to be done is for the boss,
what the boss actually Wants isimportant, and the the the blunt
(29:30):
kinda general answer is peepbosses hire employees to make
their lives better. And thatcould be it could be something
that's very utilitarian. Like,I'm just looking for someone to
take this off my plate and dothe job better than I can. But
it could also be emotional,which is I wanna work alongside
somebody. I want more energy inthis place.
(29:52):
I want more people with apositive attitude around this
place. I can't tell there's afew times I've been apart. I've
been at startups where they'vehad layoffs. You know, they
would lay off a bunch of people.I I wouldn't get fired, and I
would go to the CEO and go,like, what?
Like, I'm just curious. Like,why'd you keep me? And sometimes
(30:13):
the answer was, you're just Apositive, high energy person
that's nice to have around. AndI think there's that that idea
of People are hiring people todo jobs in their lives, and some
of it is just, like, Emotional.I just wanna be around somebody
(30:37):
that could
Jon (30:37):
I mean, that's kinda why, like you know, early on, that's
why I I kind of agreed to bringyou on. Like, when I I had
started that and didn't reallywant necessarily want a
partnership. Yeah. But I thoughtabout it, and I was like, Yeah.
I don't know.
It makes sense. You're a nicehigh energy guy to have around.
Justin (30:56):
Which is why we had to solve this this this glum
problem because, You know, whenI if I'm not if I'm not high
energy or nice, then, it's timeto show me the door. Yeah. So,
those are the reasons, we wepicked Josh, and I think it's
also, interesting to look at nowwe've hired 3 people. In every
(31:17):
case, Helen, Jason, Josh, we'vehired somebody we've known for
years. So I met Helen in themega maker community And Josh
also in the mega makercommunity, and you had worked
with Jason previously.
Jon (31:31):
Yeah. And has been friends with him before that.
Justin (31:34):
And And even even the way Jon and I met this is this
is the thing people sometimesforget is that Jon and I met in
2014. It would it would be 4years until we Yeah. Started
working on Transistor together.But in the in between time, You
keep up with people. Youcheck-in with them.
(31:54):
Maybe you see them every year.Maybe you're chatting with them.
Maybe you're sending them theoccasional note. Like, those
things matter, and relationshipsmatter. And I think Another nice
thing about a small company iswe don't need to hire a ton of
people, and it's given us thisoption of every time, You know,
(32:18):
I'm kinda looking around for,like, who could I hire, as a
contractor, which Both Helen andJosh were contractors first, and
that's usually, I think, gonnabe the first step for us is
We're gonna hire people ascontractors.
And, you know, when it comestime to, You know, fee that we
(32:40):
get that feeling of like, it'dbe really great to have a full
time member of the team. Thefirst folks we're gonna look at
are folks we've worked with inthe past as contractors, former
coworkers, And and we've hiredmany contractors over the over
the years. And, of course, wecouldn't hire them all as full
(33:01):
time people, but that's thethat's Part of the step.
Jon (33:04):
Yeah. I mean, you know, we certainly could hire someone we
didn't know, but, man, thatwould That would be much
different. I feel like unlessit's a certain type of person,
it takes a while for people to,like, really get used to each
other and, like, It's just yeah.That'd be tough. I mean, there's
obviously great people out therewho would be a good fit, but
(33:27):
for, yeah, for our for our case,I think it Just makes a lot of
sense.
Justin (33:31):
I I I wish people could see the tension because when
you're thinking about hiringsomebody, There's even in each
of the cases, Helen, Jason,Josh, even though we knew them
before, we had worked with thembefore, That decision is still
weighty. It
Jon (33:51):
Yeah.
Justin (33:51):
It weighs on you as a founder. And until you've been a
founder and you you arepersonally responsible
financially for other people'sfamilies. I don't think people
can fully understand The weightof feeling like we are gonna
take another risk or movementor, additional responsibility on
(34:12):
our shoulders as founders toprovide for somebody else. It's
just a heavy decision.
Jon (34:18):
Not to mention, like, financially, obviously, but,
like, is this person actuallygonna enjoy working here? And,
like, for in Jason's case, likealright. We're gonna hire Jason.
Like, obviously, I like Jason.He's a friend of mine.
But is he gonna get in here and,like, open the code up and be
like, wow. This is garbage.Like, What did you do? Because I
don't wanna work on this.
Justin (34:36):
Yeah. Yeah. 1 and and also just, like, you you can be
you can know somebody, Butthere's still that thought of,
like, what's it gonna be likewhen they're actually on the
team? Like, how is that gonnachange the team dynamic? And,
You know, that team retreat, Ithink, really cemented the fact
(34:56):
that we've got something specialhere.
It might not last forever. Wewanna enjoy it while we can, but
we also want to be as protectiveabout that this thing we've
built as we can. Yeah. And everysingle person, even though we
love them and we've you know, wewe had worked with them
(35:17):
Previous, there's still thatthought, that that worry of how
is that gonna affect the team?You know?
How is that gonna affect theteam dynamic? And it's heavy.
And I think once you understandthis hopefully, we're painting a
picture here. How much more of arisk is it to get a cold call or
a cold email or a cold resumefrom somebody. It's just you
(35:39):
have to travel so much moreground.
You're taking such a bigger riskon hiring that person, and I
honestly can't imagine it. Ican't imagine having to make an
even even bigger jump.
Jon (35:53):
Yeah. Especially with a small team like us, like yeah. I
mean, adding in 1 person to ateam of 4 Yeah. That's a a huge
I mean, Yeah. How's everyonegonna interact?
And, like It
Justin (36:04):
it it probably is why there's a a lot of big companies
are shitty to work at Becausethey just need to hire people
and the they they they have toput it out for Tinder, and they
have to, you know, they have todo all those things. And it's
just You you really don't knowwhat this person is like Right.
Until you've had a bunch ofshared experience with them. It
(36:27):
takes, what, 72 hours of timefor somebody to become an
acquaintance and then even morehours for them to become, like,
a closer friend. That's that'san investment of time that You
just don't get getting someone'sresume and then being like,
let's bring them in for aninterview and a second interview
(36:48):
and asking them, You know, whatwhat's the biggest professional
hurdle of their life so far?
You know? And Right. Sell methis pen Or, you know, like,
show me, a time where you youreally, had to figure out you
like
Jon (37:05):
Yeah. What do you see as your biggest weakness?
Justin (37:07):
Yeah. What is your biggest weakness? It's like,
well, that's not deep enough.You you really can only get a
sense of a person once you'vespent some time. And even then,
like any relationship, There'sthis ongoing risk for all of us
(37:28):
that each of us is still any ofus, If we're not taking care of
our own shit, are at risk ofbecoming assholes.
And then there's also just lifestuff That can happen. That can
affect people individually aswell. So there's always a risk
of other stuff. But Yeah. Whenminimizing it and and and and
(37:50):
Hiring folks that you're like,you know what?
I feel good about this risk. Ifeel good about this bringing
this person on. We know enoughabout them that, you know, we
can do this, and it's going tobe a net positive. You could
only get that with shared time.
Jon (38:08):
Yep. Absolutely.
Justin (38:09):
That's, yeah. So congrats to Josh. We're really
excited to have him on. Helen iscelebrating her 2 year work
anniversary this month,
Jon (38:18):
Yeah.
Justin (38:19):
Which is just wild to think.
Jon (38:21):
It is.
Justin (38:22):
Have like, we've said multiple times, having Helen,
Jason, and now Josh, it's justbeen Just awesome to have work
alongside these people. And,Yeah. That's how we think about
hiring. My guess is we willProbably not hire again for
quite a while. We took a wedidn't hire anybody last year.
So Helen and, Jason both gothired in 2021. Nobody in 2022.
(38:47):
Josh, now in 2023. I think it'sgonna be a little while,
especially with the economy theway it is. We're we're, and
there's a the you know, allthis, Section 174 and all this
stuff.
Text stuff. We
Jon (39:03):
Yeah. I don't I don't even know what we had pester the hire
for. I mean I think
Justin (39:07):
Customer success maybe. The that's still one
Jon (39:10):
Yeah.
Justin (39:11):
Area that I I find a hard some of this is just my
personality. I personally findit difficult to turn that part
off. Like, if I'm on vacation,I'm answering tickets. And
Jon (39:23):
Yeah. You You gotta stop doing that. I know.
Justin (39:26):
I know. I gotta stop doing that.
Jon (39:27):
I mean, we, you know, we have every everyone pitches in,
which is great.
Justin (39:32):
It's just so nice. Like, Helen, While we're sleeping is
covering all those that thosehours, and, it's so nice to just
know somebody's taking care ofit, while I'm sleeping.
Jon (39:43):
Yeah.
Justin (39:44):
And, I could see in the future as maybe hiring someone
customer success, but One of thethings we do is wait and see. So
now we've got 1 person on theteam. Jason's on vacation right
now. Hopefully, not opening hislaptop. And, you know, now Josh
is gonna be able to pitch in andhelp with customer support.
And it's gotten way better forsure. Like, it used to be You
(40:07):
and I would leave on a trip orsomething, and it would be like,
okay. Well, hope they got Wi Fiat the campground. I I have been
able to turn my brain off moreas I'm away. So we're gonna see
Jon (40:22):
It is it is a lot easier. Yeah.
Justin (40:23):
I think now with Josh someone else to help answer
support tickets. Yeah. We'll beable to do that. Absolutely.
Cool.
I think we should end it there.We've been we've been chatting
for a while. Is there anythingyou wanna talk about in terms of
features and stuff we're workingon? Another thing that maybe
listeners can Keep usaccountable. Jon and I need to
(40:44):
do our founder retreat, and, wegot Yeah.
Jon (40:47):
We didn't we were gonna go snowboarding in the winter, and
now it was 85 in Chicago lastweek. I don't think there's much
snow left.
Justin (40:54):
Yeah. I think April or May is well, probably not April.
It'd probably be May. Are youdoing anything in May? May.
May or June? No. May or June.Jon and Jon and I need to get
together.
Jon (41:07):
Do a summer we should do a summer thing.
Justin (41:08):
The summer? Yep. Exactly.
Jon (41:10):
Well, yeah. June, I guess, summer. I don't know.
Justin (41:13):
So, yeah, we're gonna work on that. I'm working on
some video studio stuff, but Ican talk about that next week.
We've got the Patreon featureout. We talked about that
already. Anything else we wannachat about?
Jon (41:24):
Yeah. I mean, the new the new theme came out, I think, on
Josh's 2nd day, the 1st day,which he worked on, you know,
previously, but that was a nicewelcome gift.
Justin (41:34):
Yeah. And getting to see people use it, already. We're
gonna try to get him to work onanother one. He has already got
some other ideas. But thoseThose themes that that podcast
website feature that we built,it's it's really an app within
an app.
We have
Jon (41:49):
Yeah. It's it's quite flexible, I think, what you can
do with it. So there's, I mean,there's there's a lot of stuff
like that, which I think willbring Josh and on within the app
of, like we've been talkingabout updating, for example,
like, embed players andcustomizability forever.
Justin (42:03):
Yes.
Jon (42:04):
And, like, I have ideas about it, but I we've just been
busy with other stuff.
Justin (42:07):
Yeah. Yeah. That would be awesome, actually, for you
and Josh to pair on that. Ithink I think Yeah. You 2 would
would, would energize each otherwhen it came to, like, throwing
back ideas and stuff.
Jon (42:17):
Yeah. For sure. There's other stuff, Jason, I've been
working on around, likecampaigns and dynamic audio and
things that we're gonna we'regonna release pretty soon, which
be kinda cool. And then,
Justin (42:27):
I think we can announce this now. I it's I mean, anybody
could see from looking at theirfeed, but the acquired podcast
switched to Transistor, Whichis, really awesome for us. We
were fans of that show. If youhaven't heard of it, it's like
hardcore history, if you've everheard that podcast. But for
great companies, they go throughthe history of it used to be
(42:49):
just tech companies, but nowit's any great company.
They just did a 2 part series onNintendo. That is excellent. So
I highly recommend
Jon (42:59):
There's a lot of good episode. The the Taylor Swift
episode is amazing.
Justin (43:02):
Taylor Swift the Walmart episode is actually very good.
The Sony episode is very good.They they do just an
unbelievable job at researching,Doing the research on these
companies and then giving itthis narrative that's like,
these are sometimes 2, 3 hourpodcast episodes. And Yeah. I
(43:25):
like, I'm a I I'm a fan.
Like, I'll I'll when they dropin my my in overcast, it's like,
I'm listening.
Jon (43:33):
It's great having them on. They're super nice guys. So,
yeah, give it give it a listen.
Justin (43:36):
Give it a listen. And, Yeah. Jon, why don't we thank
the the fine Patreon supporters.Anybody can support us on
Patreon. Go tosas.transistor.fm/supporters if
you wanna see the other folks.
But, yeah, who do we have?
Jon (43:52):
Yeah. Thanks, everyone, for supporting us. We have Pascal
from Sharpen dotpage, the folksat rewardful.com, Greg Park,
Mitchell Davis from Recruitkitdotcom.au, Marcel Follet from we
are bold.af, Ethan Gunderson,Anton Zoran from Prodcamp .com,
(44:12):
Bill Kondo, Ward fromMemberSpace, Russell Brown from
Fotivo.com, Evander Sassy,Austin Loveless, Michael Sitfer,
the fine folks at FathomAnalytics, Dan Buddha, my
brother.
Justin (44:28):
Hey, Dan.
Jon (44:28):
Colin Gray, Darby Frey and Dave Giunta.
Justin (44:32):
Giunta. Tell Giunta he needs to update his Patreon
photo. Alright. Darby.
Jon (44:39):
I will.
Justin (44:40):
Darby, Franky. Dan Buddha. Phantom Analytics.
Jon (44:43):
Just a faceless smiley.
Justin (44:44):
Yeah. Go go update your Patreon Photos folks. And,
thanks for listening. If youlike this show, please recommend
it to a friend. Just text them amessage.
Hey. You should listen to thisepisode. And we always love
hearing your feedback. Tweet atus, email us, pop into the live
chat. Just say, hey.
I listened to the episode.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the
behind the scenes story ofbuilding a web app in 2023. I'm
Jon Buda, a software engineer.
Justin (00:21):
And I'm Justin Jackson. I do product and marketing.
Follow along as we Buildtransistor.fm.
Jon (00:29):
We, we reached episode 150.
Justin (00:32):
Yes. Episode 150, Good milestone. I we we just hit
another milestone in terms oftotal episodes published on
transistor. Yeah. Over a 1000000episodes, Which is pretty cool.
Jon (00:48):
That's a lot.
Justin (00:49):
Lot of episodes. You know, we're still a small little
company, but 1,000,000 episodesis, that's that's significant.
We're we've hosted a lot ofaudio.
Jon (00:59):
We have to set up a behind the scenes, Master feed for all
of them, and then just we haveto listen to all of them at,
like, 3 times speed.
Justin (01:07):
Just get, like
Jon (01:08):
Every episode.
Justin (01:09):
Hilarious to just get I mean, that would that would
actually probably be difficultbecause I was I was thinking
it'd be cool to have an AI thatjust summarizes every episode on
transistor every day, itprobably cost you a fortune.
Jon (01:23):
Take forever and cost a fortune. Yeah.
Justin (01:25):
Because every day I think Jason's recording that.
Right? No. He's recording newshows every day. So every day,
we get about sometimes 30 newpodcasts creative, 40 new
podcasts created, every singleday on transistor.
It's one of those things thatI've tried to communicate to
(01:49):
folks about this idea of volume.Like, in any business, You need
a certain amount of volume, acertain amount of momentum out
in the world. And for us, itmeans hundreds of new people
signing up every month. That'sto make this business work even
(02:09):
though our churn is quite low. Ithink we're around 2 and a half
percent, churn.
So and for the prosumer product,that's incredible. But even with
just 2 a half percent churn, westill in order to grow, we need
hundreds of new trials everymonth. And then you take that
(02:31):
even further. We're converting alot of those trials to paid.
It's I won't give you the exactnumber, but it's above 70% of
people who start a trial convertto paid.
And Then you think how manyvisitors does it take to, you
know, to get a a trial? And Ithink those numbers are bigger
(02:56):
than people realize that youneed a lot of A lot of traffic
Mhmm. That then turns into atrial or a lead. And then for
us, we just know we can reliablyconvert, you know, a big
(03:17):
percentage of those folks to, topaid.
Jon (03:22):
Because there's a, yeah, there's a lot of competition. I
mean, people have choices tomake.
Justin (03:25):
One, that's the other element that I think is tricky
is, like, There has to be enoughmomentum in the world towards
your type of product thatthere's enough of that
percentage that you can reliablyget for your business.
Jon (03:41):
Mhmm.
Justin (03:42):
My guess is It takes about a 100,000 visitors of,
like, people that are interestedin podcast hosting. About a
100,000 visitors would lead tomaybe 2,000 leads, something
like that. And then You wanna beable to convert, in our case, a
(04:03):
big percentage of those becauseit's credit card up front.
Jon (04:06):
Yeah.
Justin (04:07):
And That's just like if you think about that, like, a
100000, people with intentvisiting your website. And then
even then, you're only getting,if you're lucky, 2,000 of them.
It's it It's wild.
Jon (04:25):
Yeah. It's pretty wild. Yeah. It's big numbers. I mean,
the other thing kinda related tothis that Jason said before and
I agree with is that, I mean,having having more customers and
having a large customer basethat uses your product every day
is just more fun to work on.
Like, before this, I mean, Ihadn't worked on anything like
that and neither had Jasonreally where it was like
(04:47):
something that actually took offand had some traction and had
people using it all the time.So, you know, you're getting
feedback every day, you push outa change, and immediately people
will find it even we even if wehaven't announced it yet. And
Justin (05:01):
Yeah.
Jon (05:01):
Yeah. I mean, it's just nothing worse than, like,
working on where nobody's usingit. Yeah. It's like, what's
you're just making guesses andpushing stuff out, and no one
sees it or uses it. And
Justin (05:11):
Oh, for sure. Jason Cohen's been writing these great
articles lately, and he has onecalled, excuse me. Is there a
problem? And his byline for thearticle is many startups failed
despite identifying a realproblem and building a product
that solves that problem. Thisthis article explains why so you
can avoid their fate.
(05:31):
Highly recommend that folks getinto this. He has this awesome
flowchart, which just talksabout, like, you know, is there
10,000,000 plus people or a100,000 plus organizations that
have this problem? No. Themarket's too small. Do you want
no employees or a niche highprice?
Well, maybe you can still do it.So it's like, he really goes
(05:55):
through all these differentelements that you need for a a
company to succeed. And one ofthose things is You wanna before
you build something, you'rereally just guessing. You know?
And guessing actually sucks.
It's what's frustrating. Right?It's like putting yourself out
(06:17):
there constantly, and nobody isresponding to what you're you're
doing, whether that's a newstart up, a new product, a new
feature, or a podcast even. Ifyou're getting no response, It's
not very fun.
Jon (06:31):
No. It's terrible.
Justin (06:33):
But as soon as you get response and if people are
actually using your product todo some sort of job in their
lives, man, that's when it getsexciting because then even if
they're giving you feedback youdon't wanna hear, it Still means
somebody cared enough to useyour product, put in their
credit card, and then give yousome sort of feedback. And,
(06:57):
yeah, that is in terms of goingto work and working on
something. And we're such asmall team that for folks like
Jason are in customer supportchat all the time. He gets to
see The response to a newfeature, he gets to hear the
feedback. He gets to see howpeople are trying to use it.
(07:18):
He gets to see what it means intheir lives. You know? And that
is a, powerful force.
Jon (07:27):
Yeah. And, you know, being a small company, 1 person can
make a change that affects Alarge amount of people, which is
kinda cool.
Justin (07:34):
Exactly. Exactly. I think for a lot of employees at
bigger companies, they justnever get to talk to the user.
You never get to see who'sactually using it. And this is
one of the advantages of smallindependent companies is not
only do we get to talk to users,But we actually care, and this
(07:54):
becomes a a competitiveadvantage is to show up at work.
And when someone messages us inchat, we care enough to be like,
We're gonna answer this. We careenough to think, okay. We're
gonna make this better, andthat's just such a a different
(08:14):
experience than the way mostproducts get built. You know?
Jon (08:18):
Yeah. I really haven't been on I mean, I haven't been on a
team like that either, but I canimagine, like, You know, it's
probably fun working on a teamand building something, but then
you might be building it for 6months to a year, and then it
gets released, And no one's usedit yet. Yeah. And then, I don't
know, you're not gonna heardirectly from the customer
because you're 2, 3 stepsremoved from that process.
Justin (08:39):
You're 10 layers down, and there's yeah. I think this
is the advantage of starting andbuilding independent product
companies, and It still has thesame difficulty that in the
beginning, you've gotta findsomething that people want. You
gotta find something that youcan reliably provide. You've
gotta find something whereyou've got some sort of
(09:00):
marketing advantage so you canactually attract customers. But
Once you do it, it really isbetter for the employees, for
the team, and for the customer.
They just get a better product,better service, And then the
people who go to work every dayhave a more, gratifying life.
Jon (09:19):
Yeah. Definitely. Talking about teams Speaking of
employees
Justin (09:23):
Speaking of employees, we just hired Josh Anderton.
Yeah. And, I thought we couldtalk quickly about why we hired,
how we hire at Transistor. Thiscomes up every once in a while,
and I think, Josh, like Jasonand Helen, is a good example of
how we think about hiring andThe kinds of, like, job to be
(09:48):
done that we're hiring for asowners and, just how we think
through all that. So, yes, wehired Josh.
He's he started on 11th. So he'sjust oh, this is his 1 week
anniversary. So, yeah, we hiredJosh a week ago. And, if you've
been following our updates,you'd know that he'd been
(10:10):
working with us as a Contractorsince, I don't know, at least 6
months, I'm guessing. Somethinglike that.
I've hired him to help me withsome, stuff on the marketing
site. And and then we also hadhim, build a new podcast website
theme for us, which we justreleased. If you are a if you
(10:33):
wanna try it out, actually, andeven if you're not with
Transistor, if you go to freepodcast websites .com, You can,
try it out. It's calledcardboard. Very unique theme
for, for podcast websites.
Yeah. And, yeah. So let's goback a bit. Let's go back to the
(10:53):
pandemic. And and, this is Ican't remember exactly when this
happened, but There wasdefinitely this feeling.
And I think even listeners tothe show had mentioned, like,
man, Jon kinda seems down. And,you were kind of maybe you wanna
(11:14):
do you wanna describe the thethat feeling at the time? The
Jon (11:18):
Yeah. I mean, I was, You know, it let's see. I left my
job in August 2019. Right? Sohad a few months there before
The pandemic hit.
And then
Justin (11:30):
That's interesting. That it wasn't that long. You didn't
have that long before thepandemic wasn't. Happened.
Jon (11:35):
I mean, I was, like, super energized, you know, when I left
my job because it's oh, this isgreat. I get to spend all my
time in this. This is awesome.Yeah. Yeah.
And then I think, you know,pandemic hit. Everyone's sitting
at home. We had obviously hadthe luxury to work at home, and
we were working at home anyway.So there wasn't much of a
transition there. But Yeah.
It just got, like, Too easy tokinda sit around, take breaks,
(12:01):
Not maybe not work or just,like, piddle around on little
things that they weren't weren'tbig features. It was, like, it
was hard to get motivated. Andso, I mean, some of that was
pandemic related. Some of thatwas just like, You know, lack of
social things going on outsideof working, and it was like you
(12:23):
and you know? And I I think I Ididn't really even realize it at
the time, I don't think.
Mhmm. But I was just like, youknow, things were going well.
Like, we could have just Kindataking it easy. Right? It was
things are going well.
We didn't need to necessarilybuild anything huge, but, you
know, work is motivating. Itgives you a sense of purpose and
fulfillment. And, Like, youdon't want that necessarily
(12:46):
missing you and especially ifyou're just sitting around home
all day. And so I don't know. Idon't remember how it came up
with With Jason.
I think I had been talking toJason. He was talking about
leaving his job, and then maybeI mentioned to you.
Justin (13:01):
I think we'd had discussions about it before that
I was like, I wonder if becauseI had had this experience of,
You know, I would, like need tomotivate myself, and I would,
like, do a live stream. And thethe that feeling of having other
(13:21):
people kind of come alongside meand work on a problem or I'd bug
Adam Wavin or Jack McDade or,you know, somebody or somebody
in MegaMaker too, like, hey.Let's do a call and, like,
figure this out. And I foundthat very energizing. And I
think I'd said to you, you know,I wonder if maybe you could
(13:41):
find, you know, someone to paira program with or Something.
Jon (13:45):
Yeah.
Justin (13:46):
And, and then, yeah, I think Jason maybe had reached
out to you, and you were like, Iwonder if we should Maybe hire
him.
Jon (13:55):
Yeah. I think may yeah. I mean, I think he was he was
telling me about leaving hisjob, and I was, like, kind of
jokingly being like, oh, man. Weshould hire you. And then, like,
he was like, yeah.
I like, let's talk about that,actually. Yeah. At this point,
Jason had already moved. He washe was in Chicago. We moved
away.
And so he was I mean, he wasn'tin town either. I couldn't
really hang out with him, but, Ithink we kept talking. Don't
(14:19):
know. I don't remember how longthat process was. You met him.
You we talked we all talkedtogether, and then we Gave him
an offer in August 2020. Is thatright? July, August?
Justin (14:31):
And I had I mean, I had I I think my only apprehension
at was like, wow. We're gonnahire someone else. We'd just
hired Helen, and I was like,woah. Like, are we gonna be able
to do this? But The flip side ofthat, I was, like, very pro
because I felt like it would beI had a sense that it would be a
big upgrade for your quality oflife.
(14:52):
Yeah. Because you and I couldtalk, but in terms of, like,
having someone that's workingalongside you, and going back
and forth on code stuff, I couldnever really do that for you.
And Mhmm. Every time you had,like, a call with, like, Jack
Ellis or, You know, you met withsomebody else. You always came
back from those meetings kind ofvisibly fired up.
(15:14):
Just it's fun talking to otherpeople that are smart, that know
their shit and that you can,like, bounce stuff off of? Yeah.
Jon (15:22):
I mean, you know, everyone has a different way of looking
at things, and
Justin (15:26):
Yeah.
Jon (15:27):
Sometimes it's like, oh, that's, like, such a simple
idea. I never would have thought
Justin (15:30):
of that. Yeah. So I I I felt like it would be a big
upgrade. And then Jason came on,and it was, like, almost
noticeable from day 1. It was inthe same way that we hired
Helen, and it was like, wow.
This really improves Our lives
Jon (15:46):
Yeah.
Justin (15:46):
Also helps us serve customers better. But I think
what was interesting in bothcases, In my mind, at least, the
leading motivation was we wannamake our lives better as
founders. Right. So because wecould you're right. We could've
just kept going as a 2 personcompany.
It was technically possible forus to Do all the customer
(16:10):
support ourselves, and it wastechnically possible for you to
stay as the only, you know,developer on the team. Yeah.
And, you know, that was thatwould have been achievable, but
there is all of this quality oflife stuff. Like
Jon (16:28):
Yeah. Yeah. At what cost? I mean, it would have been
especially, you know, given howmuch we grew, like, it would
have been that would have beentough. Would've been really
hard.
Justin (16:38):
And so the motivation being primary motivation being,
hey. Let's upgrade our qualityof life as founders. Let's give
us One less thing to worryabout. Let's take some things
off our plate. Let's, balanceout and smooth out and share The
weight of responsibility ofserving all of these customers
(16:59):
and, you know, for you, theweight and responsibility of
keeping all the infrastructureup, I'm sure that was a huge
thing when Jason came on.
All of a sudden, you havesomeone else that's, like,
sharing that load.
Jon (17:08):
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's a huge A huge
relief. I mean plus, you know,like, together, we made a a
number of upgrades, and Jason,you know, worked his magic on
the code and made things a lotmore reliable.
Obviously, built a bunch of newfeatures that we Otherwise,
would not have so, yeah, I mean,from day 1, yeah, it was it was
(17:29):
great. I think it turned outbetter than we could have
expected. And, plus, you know, Iget to Go to work with another
friend.
Justin (17:35):
Exactly.
Jon (17:36):
Every day.
Justin (17:37):
Exactly. So I think I was kinda watching all of this.
And for a long time, I just feltlike, well, this is perfect.
Like, we've got Helen. She'sgreat.
Jason, great. Jon and I. And,You know, you and I had our
retreat last year, and that wasamazing. And then we went on
this awesome team retreat withJason and Helen, and that was
amazing. And I was feelingoverall just like, wow.
(17:59):
This is perfect. Like, we've gotthe perfect setup. But I started
to have more and more moments oflack of motivation, lack of that
spark and that energy. It becameharder for me to do those kind
of, live streams and ad hoccalls partly because we're more
(18:23):
I kind of felt bad actually. Itwhen we were, like, the
underdogs and really kind ofbuilding stuff up, it was like,
okay.
Well, I can grab someone's timefor free because we have no
money and we have But I startedto feel like, I kinda feel bad
about, you know, asking peoplefor free time. And so I started
hiring different contractors fordifferent things and found that
(18:46):
really got me unstuck, gave memotivation, gave me purpose for
my day. And In many ways, thepair programming metaphor, I
think, is so helpful for a lotof things in life. Having
someone that's kind of therewith you, it's like if you have
to clean the backyard byyourself, you'll procrastinate
(19:06):
on that all day. But if a friendsays they're gonna show up at
your house and help you cleanyour backyard, you're gonna do
it.
You know what I mean? Like, it'sit's incredibly motivating. If
you're gonna if you say you'regonna go for a run at 6 AM, it's
like, maybe I'll do it. But if afriend says, I'm gonna be at
your house at 6 AM.
Jon (19:22):
That is 100% true. I mean, yeah, the same thing with Jason.
Like, I definitely worked more,but it was more fun. Because it
was like, oh, we're working onthis thing together. Let's,
like, talk about this.
Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,otherwise, I would have been
like, we should do this thing,but, like, I don't know. There's
some video games over here.
Justin (19:41):
Yeah.
Jon (19:42):
And the couch, I could just hang out. What's the rush?
Justin (19:45):
And I think as founders, especially when you're doing a
remote team, you need Thatmotivation. Otherwise, like,
look at where we both are rightnow. We're both in these tiny
little offices by ourselves. AndYeah. Without Some another human
being kind of are there.
It's easy to be just, like, kindof glum or, to lose your
(20:09):
motivation. And, I mean, therewas also just things I was
running into, that I built the1st version of our marketing
site myself with but it it tooka big push for me to get myself
in a kind of web developmentmindset, learning about
(20:30):
Tailwind, learning aboutLaravel, learning about the
statemix CMS. And I could do it,and it was it was really
heartening work, but I justrecognized, like, there's some
of the stuff I just don't wannain make that big of an
investment in. You know?
Jon (20:47):
And you were, yeah, you were talking to other people a
lot about it too. And I didn'tknow any of it, so I was like, I
can't really hop in here andhelp you.
Justin (20:55):
Yeah. And And I think there's just, like, that feeling
of I really want wanted you tohave as much time on the product
as possible. You know? Anyway soI started having that feeling of
like, man, I think I need kindof what Jon and Jason have, but
over on the marketing side. Andso I hired a few contractors to
(21:15):
help me on some differentthings.
And eventually, I started hiringJosh more often, and then It
really helped my motivation. Andeventually I said to him, can
you just book a bunch of timesin my calendar where you and I
get on a call. And Yeah. I foundso he he would book maybe 2
(21:39):
sessions a week, And I wouldjust found myself so fired up
during those sessions and wereable to look at the site
together. I'm like, okay.
We need all this built, and hewould go away. And then the next
call, he would have all thisstuff to demo for me. And just
having somebody that couldexecute my vision, and even,
(22:02):
like, go back and forth andoffer their own ideas and
Jon (22:05):
Yeah.
Justin (22:06):
Creatively, that energy was just like, it it felt way
different than
Jon (22:13):
Yeah. Those are the yeah. Those are the best kind of
people too because they youknow, you have this idea in your
mind, and then you explain it.And they go away, and you're
like, I don't know what they'regonna come back with. And then
it always just, like, surprisesyou, and you're like, wow.
This is better than I even wouldhave expected.
Justin (22:28):
Yes. Yeah. And, I mean, that's the hardest part. Right?
Is often just Having someonebeing able to do the work while
you're focused on other stuff,and it it really is a multiplier
in So many ways in terms ofactually practically getting
things done, but on the humanside, just enjoying my job more.
(22:49):
I was just Coming to workfeeling like this is freaking
amazing. And even, like it'sfunny because, of course, with
Helen, Jason, and Josh, we'rehoping that we overall, we're
hoping that we serve customersbetter, that we increase the
number of customers we have, allthose things. But I was like,
(23:10):
even if this these changes tothe marking marketing site get
us no new customers. It's stillworth it for me because I'm
having more fun. I'm enjoying itmore.
I'm We're we're putting stuffout into the world, and I feel
like, wow. Josh and I did thattogether. And it's that same
kind of feeling I had with youand I. Like, we came together,
(23:32):
And it was like the sum of eachof our parts really is more than
either of us could doindividually. Yeah.
And It's really exciting seeingthis team come together where
the sum of all these parts ofHelen really thinking about
customer success all day andreally strategizing around that
(23:55):
and then you and Jason reallystrategizing around code and
product and infrastructure andthen having over on the
marketing side, Josh and Ithinking about, And then all of
us mixing together in Slack andteam meetings and going you
know, sometimes all comingtogether and, strategizing and
(24:16):
thinking and throwing out ideas,and it just felt like, wow.
Like, this is this is a bigger Abigger, better machine, a
bigger, better
Jon (24:27):
Yeah.
Justin (24:27):
Yeah. So that was the motivation. Was, primarily for
me, a quality of lifeimprovement. We built this
company to give us a betterlife. What is the company for?
The company is to give the teammembers and their families a
better life. That's how I that'show I view it. And the product
(24:48):
is to give customers a betterlife, to improve, to help them
do whatever they set out to dowith a podcast. And that
distinction is really importantand motivating for me because
every day I show up going, Iknow this is the best job that
(25:08):
Jon Buda has ever had, and Iwanna make sure that the company
continues to do its job ofgiving Jon a better life. That's
motivating to me.
Jon (25:19):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Justin (25:20):
And then as we've brought more people on, it's
like, I know this is the bestjob Helen's ever had. I know
this is the best job Jason'sever had. I know this I want
this to be the best job Josh hasever had. And how are we gonna
do that? Well, we gotta keepworking on the product.
We gotta keep signing up newcustomers. We gotta reduce
churn. We've got to, make itenjoyable. You know? We've got
(25:42):
to add things into our everydaylife that makes it worthwhile.
We've got to give them a pieceof ownership. You know? All
these things kinda come out.And, Yeah. It's that that piece
is motivating to me.
And in some ways, all theproduct stuff, like making
customers' lives better, Eventhat feeds into eventually
(26:05):
making the company better sothat the stakeholders in the
company, have a better life.
Jon (26:10):
Yeah. I mean, there's there's many many days where I'm
like, I don't quite finish whatI was working on or what Jay is
now working on. I wake up, andI'm, like, excited to get back
to it Still, and it's, like, 5years in
Justin (26:21):
Yeah. Totally.
Jon (26:22):
Which is which is great. Like, yeah, there's nothing
worse than, like, showing up atwork at your job, and you're
like, oh, god. I gotta continueworking on this mess of an idea
that someone else had.
Justin (26:34):
Oh, I mean, this is this has been the motivating factor
so many times for us where wefeel and in many ways, we're
lucky because in order for thiscompany in order for the company
to have higher purpose, likemaking people's lives better,
you have to be making sales. Youhave to have revenue. You have
to have margins. We were luckythat we've Found this thing. It
(26:56):
worked.
We were able to execute on it,and we were also able to get
lucky enough that it it became Afinancial engine that helped us
to have a better life. So thatpart's lucky, but, you know,
showing up for a company thatyou think doesn't care about you
As an employee that thatdoesn't, you know, that doesn't
(27:17):
give a shit is It it's justincredibly demotivating for a
human to feel like you have nopurpose, to feel like your work
actually doesn't matter. I thinkeverybody at Transistor feels
like my work matters. You knowwhat I mean? And that is such a
good feeling that we couldprovide that for ourselves and
(27:39):
other people.
So just to to expand on it more,so we I've we've hired Josh full
time to primarily assist me,partner with me on the marketing
side. So that means buildingstuff for our website. It means
doing some projects likebuilding podcast website themes.
But because he's also just Agood full stack web developer
(28:03):
with Rails experience,eventually, he might start to
work on stuff on the app side aswell. Mhmm.
Jon (28:10):
Yeah. I I hope so.
Justin (28:11):
Yeah. I mean, the the practically, like, the utility
is Josh can Execute on thetechnical and design stuff. When
it comes to building web webstuff, he can just do that way
better, at a higher quality andfaster than I can. Him being
this full stack developer thatcan help us on a variety of
projects also made him, a goodhire from a utility standpoint.
(28:37):
Like, oh, wow.
He could do a lot of jobs forus.
Jon (28:40):
Yep.
Justin (28:41):
And the fact that he had been a longtime customer, user
of Transistor, had usedTransistor with many of his
consulting clients. He was alsoediting podcasts for a bunch of
different people on the side. Sohe had seen the product from a
variety of perspectives as apodcaster himself, But also as
somebody who's offeringpodcasting services to other
(29:04):
folks, that really kinda roundedhim out as, You know, a good
option for hiring. But, again, Ithink and anyone that wants to
work for a small Startup. Ioften hear people, oh, I wanna
really work for a small company.
I think figuring out what thejob to be done is for the boss,
what the boss actually Wants isimportant, and the the the blunt
(29:30):
kinda general answer is peepbosses hire employees to make
their lives better. And thatcould be it could be something
that's very utilitarian. Like,I'm just looking for someone to
take this off my plate and dothe job better than I can. But
it could also be emotional,which is I wanna work alongside
somebody. I want more energy inthis place.
(29:52):
I want more people with apositive attitude around this
place. I can't tell there's afew times I've been apart. I've
been at startups where they'vehad layoffs. You know, they
would lay off a bunch of people.I I wouldn't get fired, and I
would go to the CEO and go,like, what?
Like, I'm just curious. Like,why'd you keep me? And sometimes
(30:13):
the answer was, you're just Apositive, high energy person
that's nice to have around. AndI think there's that that idea
of People are hiring people todo jobs in their lives, and some
of it is just, like, Emotional.I just wanna be around somebody
(30:37):
that could
Jon (30:37):
I mean, that's kinda why, like you know, early on, that's
why I I kind of agreed to bringyou on. Like, when I I had
started that and didn't reallywant necessarily want a
partnership. Yeah. But I thoughtabout it, and I was like, Yeah.
I don't know.
It makes sense. You're a nicehigh energy guy to have around.
Justin (30:56):
Which is why we had to solve this this this glum
problem because, You know, whenI if I'm not if I'm not high
energy or nice, then, it's timeto show me the door. Yeah. So,
those are the reasons, we wepicked Josh, and I think it's
also, interesting to look at nowwe've hired 3 people. In every
(31:17):
case, Helen, Jason, Josh, we'vehired somebody we've known for
years. So I met Helen in themega maker community And Josh
also in the mega makercommunity, and you had worked
with Jason previously.
Jon (31:31):
Yeah. And has been friends with him before that.
Justin (31:34):
And And even even the way Jon and I met this is this
is the thing people sometimesforget is that Jon and I met in
2014. It would it would be 4years until we Yeah. Started
working on Transistor together.But in the in between time, You
keep up with people. Youcheck-in with them.
(31:54):
Maybe you see them every year.Maybe you're chatting with them.
Maybe you're sending them theoccasional note. Like, those
things matter, and relationshipsmatter. And I think Another nice
thing about a small company iswe don't need to hire a ton of
people, and it's given us thisoption of every time, You know,
(32:18):
I'm kinda looking around for,like, who could I hire, as a
contractor, which Both Helen andJosh were contractors first, and
that's usually, I think, gonnabe the first step for us is
We're gonna hire people ascontractors.
And, you know, when it comestime to, You know, fee that we
(32:40):
get that feeling of like, it'dbe really great to have a full
time member of the team. Thefirst folks we're gonna look at
are folks we've worked with inthe past as contractors, former
coworkers, And and we've hiredmany contractors over the over
the years. And, of course, wecouldn't hire them all as full
(33:01):
time people, but that's thethat's Part of the step.
Jon (33:04):
Yeah. I mean, you know, we certainly could hire someone we
didn't know, but, man, thatwould That would be much
different. I feel like unlessit's a certain type of person,
it takes a while for people to,like, really get used to each
other and, like, It's just yeah.That'd be tough. I mean, there's
obviously great people out therewho would be a good fit, but
(33:27):
for, yeah, for our for our case,I think it Just makes a lot of
sense.
Justin (33:31):
I I I wish people could see the tension because when
you're thinking about hiringsomebody, There's even in each
of the cases, Helen, Jason,Josh, even though we knew them
before, we had worked with thembefore, That decision is still
weighty. It
Jon (33:51):
Yeah.
Justin (33:51):
It weighs on you as a founder. And until you've been a
founder and you you arepersonally responsible
financially for other people'sfamilies. I don't think people
can fully understand The weightof feeling like we are gonna
take another risk or movementor, additional responsibility on
(34:12):
our shoulders as founders toprovide for somebody else. It's
just a heavy decision.
Jon (34:18):
Not to mention, like, financially, obviously, but,
like, is this person actuallygonna enjoy working here? And,
like, for in Jason's case, likealright. We're gonna hire Jason.
Like, obviously, I like Jason.He's a friend of mine.
But is he gonna get in here and,like, open the code up and be
like, wow. This is garbage.Like, What did you do? Because I
don't wanna work on this.
Justin (34:36):
Yeah. Yeah. 1 and and also just, like, you you can be
you can know somebody, Butthere's still that thought of,
like, what's it gonna be likewhen they're actually on the
team? Like, how is that gonnachange the team dynamic? And,
You know, that team retreat, Ithink, really cemented the fact
(34:56):
that we've got something specialhere.
It might not last forever. Wewanna enjoy it while we can, but
we also want to be as protectiveabout that this thing we've
built as we can. Yeah. And everysingle person, even though we
love them and we've you know, wewe had worked with them
(35:17):
Previous, there's still thatthought, that that worry of how
is that gonna affect the team?You know?
How is that gonna affect theteam dynamic? And it's heavy.
And I think once you understandthis hopefully, we're painting a
picture here. How much more of arisk is it to get a cold call or
a cold email or a cold resumefrom somebody. It's just you
(35:39):
have to travel so much moreground.
You're taking such a bigger riskon hiring that person, and I
honestly can't imagine it. Ican't imagine having to make an
even even bigger jump.
Jon (35:53):
Yeah. Especially with a small team like us, like yeah. I
mean, adding in 1 person to ateam of 4 Yeah. That's a a huge
I mean, Yeah. How's everyonegonna interact?
And, like It
Justin (36:04):
it it probably is why there's a a lot of big companies
are shitty to work at Becausethey just need to hire people
and the they they they have toput it out for Tinder, and they
have to, you know, they have todo all those things. And it's
just You you really don't knowwhat this person is like Right.
Until you've had a bunch ofshared experience with them. It
(36:27):
takes, what, 72 hours of timefor somebody to become an
acquaintance and then even morehours for them to become, like,
a closer friend. That's that'san investment of time that You
just don't get getting someone'sresume and then being like,
let's bring them in for aninterview and a second interview
(36:48):
and asking them, You know, whatwhat's the biggest professional
hurdle of their life so far?
You know? And Right. Sell methis pen Or, you know, like,
show me, a time where you youreally, had to figure out you
like
Jon (37:05):
Yeah. What do you see as your biggest weakness?
Justin (37:07):
Yeah. What is your biggest weakness? It's like,
well, that's not deep enough.You you really can only get a
sense of a person once you'vespent some time. And even then,
like any relationship, There'sthis ongoing risk for all of us
(37:28):
that each of us is still any ofus, If we're not taking care of
our own shit, are at risk ofbecoming assholes.
And then there's also just lifestuff That can happen. That can
affect people individually aswell. So there's always a risk
of other stuff. But Yeah. Whenminimizing it and and and and
(37:50):
Hiring folks that you're like,you know what?
I feel good about this risk. Ifeel good about this bringing
this person on. We know enoughabout them that, you know, we
can do this, and it's going tobe a net positive. You could
only get that with shared time.
Jon (38:08):
Yep. Absolutely.
Justin (38:09):
That's, yeah. So congrats to Josh. We're really
excited to have him on. Helen iscelebrating her 2 year work
anniversary this month,
Jon (38:18):
Yeah.
Justin (38:19):
Which is just wild to think.
Jon (38:21):
It is.
Justin (38:22):
Have like, we've said multiple times, having Helen,
Jason, and now Josh, it's justbeen Just awesome to have work
alongside these people. And,Yeah. That's how we think about
hiring. My guess is we willProbably not hire again for
quite a while. We took a wedidn't hire anybody last year.
So Helen and, Jason both gothired in 2021. Nobody in 2022.
(38:47):
Josh, now in 2023. I think it'sgonna be a little while,
especially with the economy theway it is. We're we're, and
there's a the you know, allthis, Section 174 and all this
stuff.
Text stuff. We
Jon (39:03):
Yeah. I don't I don't even know what we had pester the hire
for. I mean I think
Justin (39:07):
Customer success maybe. The that's still one
Jon (39:10):
Yeah.
Justin (39:11):
Area that I I find a hard some of this is just my
personality. I personally findit difficult to turn that part
off. Like, if I'm on vacation,I'm answering tickets. And
Jon (39:23):
Yeah. You You gotta stop doing that. I know.
Justin (39:26):
I know. I gotta stop doing that.
Jon (39:27):
I mean, we, you know, we have every everyone pitches in,
which is great.
Justin (39:32):
It's just so nice. Like, Helen, While we're sleeping is
covering all those that thosehours, and, it's so nice to just
know somebody's taking care ofit, while I'm sleeping.
Jon (39:43):
Yeah.
Justin (39:44):
And, I could see in the future as maybe hiring someone
customer success, but One of thethings we do is wait and see. So
now we've got 1 person on theteam. Jason's on vacation right
now. Hopefully, not opening hislaptop. And, you know, now Josh
is gonna be able to pitch in andhelp with customer support.
And it's gotten way better forsure. Like, it used to be You
(40:07):
and I would leave on a trip orsomething, and it would be like,
okay. Well, hope they got Wi Fiat the campground. I I have been
able to turn my brain off moreas I'm away. So we're gonna see
Jon (40:22):
It is it is a lot easier. Yeah.
Justin (40:23):
I think now with Josh someone else to help answer
support tickets. Yeah. We'll beable to do that. Absolutely.
Cool.
I think we should end it there.We've been we've been chatting
for a while. Is there anythingyou wanna talk about in terms of
features and stuff we're workingon? Another thing that maybe
listeners can Keep usaccountable. Jon and I need to
(40:44):
do our founder retreat, and, wegot Yeah.
Jon (40:47):
We didn't we were gonna go snowboarding in the winter, and
now it was 85 in Chicago lastweek. I don't think there's much
snow left.
Justin (40:54):
Yeah. I think April or May is well, probably not April.
It'd probably be May. Are youdoing anything in May? May.
May or June? No. May or June.Jon and Jon and I need to get
together.
Jon (41:07):
Do a summer we should do a summer thing.
Justin (41:08):
The summer? Yep. Exactly.
Jon (41:10):
Well, yeah. June, I guess, summer. I don't know.
Justin (41:13):
So, yeah, we're gonna work on that. I'm working on
some video studio stuff, but Ican talk about that next week.
We've got the Patreon featureout. We talked about that
already. Anything else we wannachat about?
Jon (41:24):
Yeah. I mean, the new the new theme came out, I think, on
Josh's 2nd day, the 1st day,which he worked on, you know,
previously, but that was a nicewelcome gift.
Justin (41:34):
Yeah. And getting to see people use it, already. We're
gonna try to get him to work onanother one. He has already got
some other ideas. But thoseThose themes that that podcast
website feature that we built,it's it's really an app within
an app.
We have
Jon (41:49):
Yeah. It's it's quite flexible, I think, what you can
do with it. So there's, I mean,there's there's a lot of stuff
like that, which I think willbring Josh and on within the app
of, like we've been talkingabout updating, for example,
like, embed players andcustomizability forever.
Justin (42:03):
Yes.
Jon (42:04):
And, like, I have ideas about it, but I we've just been
busy with other stuff.
Justin (42:07):
Yeah. Yeah. That would be awesome, actually, for you
and Josh to pair on that. Ithink I think Yeah. You 2 would
would, would energize each otherwhen it came to, like, throwing
back ideas and stuff.
Jon (42:17):
Yeah. For sure. There's other stuff, Jason, I've been
working on around, likecampaigns and dynamic audio and
things that we're gonna we'regonna release pretty soon, which
be kinda cool. And then,
Justin (42:27):
I think we can announce this now. I it's I mean, anybody
could see from looking at theirfeed, but the acquired podcast
switched to Transistor, Whichis, really awesome for us. We
were fans of that show. If youhaven't heard of it, it's like
hardcore history, if you've everheard that podcast. But for
great companies, they go throughthe history of it used to be
(42:49):
just tech companies, but nowit's any great company.
They just did a 2 part series onNintendo. That is excellent. So
I highly recommend
Jon (42:59):
There's a lot of good episode. The the Taylor Swift
episode is amazing.
Justin (43:02):
Taylor Swift the Walmart episode is actually very good.
The Sony episode is very good.They they do just an
unbelievable job at researching,Doing the research on these
companies and then giving itthis narrative that's like,
these are sometimes 2, 3 hourpodcast episodes. And Yeah. I
(43:25):
like, I'm a I I'm a fan.
Like, I'll I'll when they dropin my my in overcast, it's like,
I'm listening.
Jon (43:33):
It's great having them on. They're super nice guys. So,
yeah, give it give it a listen.
Justin (43:36):
Give it a listen. And, Yeah. Jon, why don't we thank
the the fine Patreon supporters.Anybody can support us on
Patreon. Go tosas.transistor.fm/supporters if
you wanna see the other folks.
But, yeah, who do we have?
Jon (43:52):
Yeah. Thanks, everyone, for supporting us. We have Pascal
from Sharpen dotpage, the folksat rewardful.com, Greg Park,
Mitchell Davis from Recruitkitdotcom.au, Marcel Follet from we
are bold.af, Ethan Gunderson,Anton Zoran from Prodcamp .com,
(44:12):
Bill Kondo, Ward fromMemberSpace, Russell Brown from
Fotivo.com, Evander Sassy,Austin Loveless, Michael Sitfer,
the fine folks at FathomAnalytics, Dan Buddha, my
brother.
Justin (44:28):
Hey, Dan.
Jon (44:28):
Colin Gray, Darby Frey and Dave Giunta.
Justin (44:32):
Giunta. Tell Giunta he needs to update his Patreon
photo. Alright. Darby.
Jon (44:39):
I will.
Justin (44:40):
Darby, Franky. Dan Buddha. Phantom Analytics.
Jon (44:43):
Just a faceless smiley.
Justin (44:44):
Yeah. Go go update your Patreon Photos folks. And,
thanks for listening. If youlike this show, please recommend
it to a friend. Just text them amessage.
Hey. You should listen to thisepisode. And we always love
hearing your feedback. Tweet atus, email us, pop into the live
chat. Just say, hey.
I listened to the episode.
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