November 25, 2024 • 42 mins
Thinking about starting a side hustle or launching your own app? In this episode, I chat with the founders of Little Planets about their journey from idea to execution. We dive into their challenges, tech stack choices, marketing struggles, and valuable lessons learned along the way. Perfect for developers looking to turn their passion projects into reality!
James Ebentier (guest):
Twitter - https://x.com/jebentier
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jebentier
Website - https://jamesebentier.com
Danny Peck (guest):
Twitter - https://x.com/upwithdanny
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannypeck
Website - https://www.dannypeck.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
If you're a developer trying to start a side
hustle, like I know a lot ofyou out there are trying to do,
this is the podcast episode towatch.
So I brought on two founders ofLittle Planets and they're
still kind of fleshing out theidea and trying to build it up
and they're going to talk abouttheir journey and you know the
good, the bad of it and themistakes they made and hopefully
(00:20):
you know some of their wisdomcan rub off on you and encourage
you to start your own sidehustle and you know maybe some
things to avoid.
But I really appreciate both ofyou coming on.
James, danny, it's really niceto have you on.
Let's go and do a quick introso people kind of get a feel for
who you are.
We'll start with you, james.
Danny Peck (00:38):
Sure.
James Ebentier (00:39):
My name is James Ebentier, working with Danny
for like three, four years now.
A little about my background Igot started in security when I
was fresh out of college.
I did security consulting andthat has been my passion thread
throughout my entire career.
(01:00):
I moved into web dev shortlyafter that with Ruby on Rails,
python, django and now venturinginto entrepreneurship and
starting my own thing.
Danny Peck (01:23):
Fun.
I love entrepreneurship.
It's nice to 2001, when I gotout of school for computer
science and I've just been sortof a contributor ever since.
Number of different roles inthe industry as a professional
developer, but then a number ofjust sort of side projects as
well, yeah, and I kind of mixprogramming with my other
(01:47):
passion, which is making music.
So just kind of two ends of thecreative spectrum, I think.
So, yeah, I'm excited to behere.
Don Hansen (01:56):
Awesome, all right.
Thanks for sharing.
Well, let's dive into it.
So you know, this can come fromeither of you, both of you up
to you.
But what is Little Planets?
Danny Peck (02:07):
Yeah, so you know it all clicked sort of like during
a late night stream with afriend of mine and he's a Twitch
streamer and they were justtalking about their community
and just sort of these likeamazing people who like come
together through gaming, shareincredible moments and then just
sort of drift apart.
And you know that kind of hitme because I've experienced that
(02:28):
as well.
So you know, I think we can allrelate where you've had, like
you know, as from a gamingperspective, like you've had
this sort of experience withpeople and there's just this
incredible energy among thegroup and everyone's excited,
wanting to stay connected.
No-transcript, so no accounts,no apps to download, no
(03:11):
commitment.
You just a space that appearsexactly when you need it and
then, you know, disappears whenyou don't.
So it's just this, basically anidea of these small, like
self-contained worlds.
Like each planet is that sortof spot for you to create.
Your planet.
You share like a link, and theneveryone can just suddenly be
(03:33):
right there, sharing, chatting,posting photos and being like in
the moment.
And then there's this sort ofseven day.
They're ephemeral by nature, soafter seven days, kind of like
a festival-like energy whereeveryone knows this is sort of
seven day.
They're ephemeral by nature, soafter seven days, um kind of
like a festival, like energy,where everyone knows this is
sort of like a special fleetingthing um, after seven days, by
default the planetself-destructs and everyone kind
(03:56):
of goes on their way.
Uh, there's options to makeplanets permanent if you'd like
uh through like a, you know,either a one-time unlock to make
uh like rename a planet, orlike a one dollar a month to
sort of create like a permanentplanet if there's a space you
want to keep around indefinitely.
But yeah, that's, that's thegeneral idea, cool I, you know
(04:23):
what comes to mind.
Don Hansen (04:24):
So so immediately I think about, like, what could go
wrong whenever I think of anidea that seems like a
moderation nightmare, right,because a lot of people lock
people into signups and stufflike that, and what happens when
they post just porn or you know, whatever content you don't
want on there.
You know, I know it's stillprobably early, early stages,
but have you guys thought abouthow to deal with that?
Danny Peck (04:47):
yeah, it's, you know that's a thought.
Uh, we, we have the ability toreport content, the fact that it
is an ephemeral planet whereyou don't need accounts, and
because planets self-destructafter seven days, then if there
is inappropriate content, itdoesn't like stick around.
So the goal is just to make itsort of super lightweight,
(05:12):
drama-free and a simple way forfriends to connect without, like
all the usual like social mediabaggage.
And so, and interestingly, justby looking at some of the
metrics from the planets beingcreated, like, we're not seeing
any of that, at least yet.
I don't know if you take it toscale.
If this thing was hitting likemillions of planets created, I'm
sure like some of that contentwould start to emerge.
(05:35):
But I think we've taken theapproach of like let's see the
usage by the people and we willadjust accordingly, like you
know, if and when that problemcomes along cool, um, okay, uh,
I'm kind of interested in theengagement.
Don Hansen (05:54):
You dove into that a little bit.
What, what kind of engagementare you seeing?
Who, how many people aresigning up and using your
application?
Danny Peck (06:01):
yeah, we've had some , uh, initial bursts, like
incredible early bursts ofactivity, especially when we had
a couple of posts on a planet,um, and sort of like, posted
like a test message trying tofigure out, like kick the tires,
(06:29):
how does this thing work, um,and there was, like we noticed
it tapered off a lot.
Uh, a lot of people create aplanet, post a message and then,
like you know, they wouldbounce, um, you know, and then a
subsection of those wouldactually like share with friends
and you'd see like somecommunities forming in there and
(06:50):
stuff like that perspective tolike guide people more about
like coming in and, like youknow, here's how you use the
site, sort of like a real quick,interactive tour type of thing.
You know, maybe a little bitmore about how to like share
(07:15):
with other people and get theminvolved, because I think a lot
of people don't understandexactly what it is, despite like
messaging and stuff on thehomepage and click to create a
planet and the planet appears.
And you know we kind of leanedinto this sort of sci-fi thing.
So it's like some people werelike, is this a game?
Like what did I just do, likeyou know?
So that was kind of.
James Ebentier (07:35):
One of my favorite Reddit comments was
like I clicked on this expectingto play a game and it wasn't
what is this Exactly.
Danny Peck (07:43):
So we're still learning those lessons as we go,
but the initial I think there'ssomething there that people are
interested in this idea of likeephemeral social network, like
micro community with like oneclick.
So we're still exploring likethemes of how to keep people
engaged.
Don Hansen (08:01):
Okay, I'm just taking a look at your website
again.
Um, that's.
Yeah, that's always fun tofigure out how people are going
to stay engaged, but that'spretty incredible to get 1500
planets with one reddit post andwithin 24 hours.
Danny Peck (08:18):
Yeah, and we ran into quite a number of problems
because of that.
We, you know, we were stillgetting things set up as far as
transactional email and thingsof that nature.
So immediately people weresigning up and they were getting
all of these notifications fromour system about thanks for
signing up and creating a planetand this, that and the other,
(08:40):
and we did not have our domainset up properly with the SPF and
the DKIM and the DMARC stuff.
So we were very quickly likeblacklisted from all of Gmail
and it sent us down this likehorrible, like three week rabbit
hole trying to figure out howto like redeem ourselves with
(09:02):
Google and like how to, you know, improve our reputation with.
That is like they just thought.
They thought it was like a spamthing and it wasn't.
Um, so, like you know that thatsent us down a whole rabbit hole
of things.
We ended up having to likeliterally register another
domain as our mailer and do somelike redirects between the two.
(09:22):
It was just amateur hour,honestly.
You know what I mean.
So that was my bad.
Don Hansen (09:29):
Yeah, I feel like everyone that creates an app
goes through the email spamthing.
It's a pain in the butt.
Danny Peck (09:35):
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, exactly Right of passage, I
guess.
Don Hansen (09:38):
Yeah, exactly, so let's dive into some of the
technical issues that you guysface.
I'm also curious about yourstack and why you chose it and
kind of like, would you stickwith it if you had to redo it?
But kind of just talk aboutsome of your choices with your
tech.
James Ebentier (09:56):
Yeah, I think I was the one that dictated the
stack more than anything.
Danny was just like yeah, I'llplay ball with whatever you're
doing.
So we did Ruby on Rails becausethat's something that I'm super
familiar with, and I alsowanted to play around with some
of the new features in Ruby onRails around Hotwire and how
(10:21):
it's moving away fromsingle-page app land and trying
to move back to traditional HTMLCSS served over the wire and
doing more efficient server-sideloading and rendering.
So this was a really funapplication to try and use those
(10:42):
tools at a kind of a, a widerscale of that um, social, uh
social media type applicationwhere you want like really
instantaneous, uh feedback oflike made a post, somebody
posted and I'm getting notifiedin the application immediately,
(11:02):
uh kind of environment.
So we're doing that.
And then we started out beingdeployed onto render and saw the
, the monthly costs going up asthose thousand plus planets
started getting created and soquickly switched over to just a
(11:24):
$ dollar a month box.
That's a static box and we justdeploy everything on that and
it has enough hardware to um runour database, our web server
and everything and we have alittle bit more control there.
Um, which was a.
That was a fun migration tomake and it like dropped our our
(11:45):
costs while still being able toserve just as fast to everybody
that was trying out the app,which was a lot of fun.
Danny Peck (11:53):
Yeah, you switched us to something like is it
called Cabal?
Is that the tool?
James Ebentier (11:59):
Yeah, it's the new DHH Rails addendum Kamal.
Oh, that's right, kamal, kamalfor deploying K-A-M-A-L, and so
it's leveraging Docker forcontainerizing the environment
(12:21):
and then, essentially, insteadof using like kubernetes to
distribute across a network oflike your own private network of
instances, uh, it just hotdeploys directly onto the, the
docker daemon, on on whatevernodes you have ssh access to,
which is really nice whatdatabase are you using?
(12:44):
Postgres, postgres.
Okay, we're going very, verylike run-of-the-mill basic,
out-of-the-box Rails stack,which has been a bit of a
blessing.
I think it's been nice kind ofto get back to just like basic
core framework, moving away fromadding a bunch of like bolts
(13:08):
and addendums to make kind ofthis like perfect environment
and just getting back to barebones and like out of the box
environments.
Danny Peck (13:19):
I like it yeah, there's absolutely sorry to
interrupt.
I just wanted to throw to thatend, on the front end, where
we're absolutely doing nothingfancy whatsoever as far as
technology goes, where it'sstraight up rails, views with
tailwind and that really helpedus to iterate extremely quickly.
(13:40):
On on the front end side ofthings.
It's actually pretty lightfront end, so there's really not
a ton to it, like honestly, andyeah, so Tailwind helped us to
iterate quickly.
There's absolutely zero React,which is kind of weird for me to
say, because that's usuallywhat I immediately reach for on
(14:01):
the front end, but we justdidn't see that as a need, at
least not yet.
James Ebentier (14:06):
I think the one main change that you made was
upgrading from Webpack to Vite.
That's correct.
That's the main thing that wechanged for out-of-the-box
framework.
Don Hansen (14:19):
Yeah, okay.
What was the reason for that?
Danny Peck (14:22):
Yeah, yeah, I, um I was looking at vite.
I wanted to use it um in uh, aa project, a side project,
because I hadn't really had aton of familiarity with it.
Um, there wasn't a huge uhpassion like sort of behind that
(14:44):
, aside from just wanting tolike, get familiar with it, and
this seemed like a good projectto to start getting familiar
with it.
So, um, yeah, we switched fromwebpack to vite at the very
beginning and that's the eitherthe really the best time or the
worst time to do an untestedtechnology because, as you know,
um, some of those decisions cancan haunt you for for many
(15:07):
weeks and months to come.
Don Hansen (15:08):
But fortunately, that was a good one that didn't
hasn't given us any, any issues,so bite's been great yeah and
well, and I think side projectsare a really good opportunity to
try stuff that you've alwayswanted to try.
Um and I like for my project Ibrought in nest.
It's a pretty heavy back-endnodejs framework and it's
(15:29):
probably delayed my app bymonths from launching, to be
honest, and I think it's one ofthe best decisions I've made.
I wanted to learn something newand I'm tired of kind of the
crazy Nodejs Express ecosystemand I want to try something new.
I think that's a greatopportunity inside projects and
not enough developers willbranch out like that.
(15:51):
They always go with whatthey're comfortable with, so
awesome, yeah and if it slowsdown the launch.
Danny Peck (15:56):
But, like the, the learning experience is super
invaluable.
Um, yeah, absolutely, sometimestake.
Sometimes taking the longerpath pays off, especially when
you're building something youreally care about yes, very much
so, um, would.
Don Hansen (16:14):
So what was your second biggest issue?
You mentioned, like the emailthing, which is a pain in the
butt.
Um, did you deal with any othertechnical issues or smooth
sailing?
Danny Peck (16:26):
uh.
So we I found it reallydifficult to, and james seemed
to navigate this like a champ,but we we sort of evolved this,
uh, this platform, fromcompletely anonymous to having
like planet level usernames, tohaving like global usernames
that spanned all planets, and Ifound this really difficult to
(16:47):
wrap my head around, the thearchitecture of um from a
database perspective, as well asjust managing those different
scenarios on the front end.
Um.
James might have a differenttake on it, but I found that to
be challenging to, to to wrestlewith um personally myself.
Yeah.
Don Hansen (17:08):
Okay.
James Ebentier (17:09):
Yeah, I think I think that was a.
That was an interesting problemto get through, yeah,
originally.
So I mentioned that security islike a big passion thread of
mine across my career, and so Icame into this because we're
entering this like new age oflike data privacy and data
protection and like peoplewanting to protect their
(17:30):
identities online more and morewhile also being able to be
authentic, and so one of thethings that snapped with me when
Danny was explaining thislittle planets was initially the
idea of it being completelyanonymous, so people can come in
and not have to share theiridentity with their guildmates
(17:51):
from video games in order tobecause when you, when you have
like a discord account, that isfor everything, you are
instantly kind of likeconnecting your identity to your
guildmates and might notnecessarily want to be sharing
that Right.
So we started with thatanonymity at first, but then
very quickly found out likethere's a lot of limitations to
(18:12):
that, because how do youidentify that somebody wrote the
post that you're reading?
How do you actually serveauthenticity on the platform?
How do you allow people to edittheir posts or react and
unreact to posts, posts or reactand unreact to posts?
(18:33):
You have to kind of like tryand juggle IPs, and IPs are very
finicky when you start thinkingabout VPN usage and people
traveling between differenthomes and different internet
connections, and so that's notreliable for authenticity.
So then we had to figure out away to add that layer of
authenticity on top, which cameto, like danny was saying, like
planetary level users to evenglobal users on the on the
(18:55):
platform um, okay, so it wasn'tjust about making themselves
anonymous to the people thatthey were talking to, but to the
platform itself.
Don Hansen (19:06):
That was your original goal.
Yeah, okay, um, interesting, um, yeah, it, I mean, I even find
decentralized technologyfascinating and what it tries to
solve too, but it it has itscons versus kind of like a
centralized um of, orcentralized identification or
(19:30):
whatever you want to call it.
But little planets has thatfeel where it's very spontaneous
and and this is immediately whyI thought, like people are
going to be posting like illegalstuff or porn, because, like
this can be, like, if I werecorrupt, I would use a platform
like this to post random stuffthat's going to get destroyed in
(19:53):
seven days.
That's fantastic, right, andthat's something you you got to
be aware of.
Like people might use it forthat use case.
Um, but you know the the focuson privacy and anonymity.
Um, I think it's, it's very, um, I think it's awesome and I
think a lot of platforms shouldconsider, like, what information
(20:14):
do we truly need about you?
What is a bare minimum possible?
So I I like that you guys aretrying to solve that in this app
.
Um, what about marketing it?
How has that gone?
And like what strategies haveyou tried?
What do you plan on trying?
What hasn't worked?
Let's talk about that.
Danny Peck (20:34):
Yeah, marketing has been a little challenging.
I think the core demographic,you know, has been tough to
narrow in on.
Obviously, like tech savvy,like younger audiences, like
people who are, um, you know,keen to the, to the web and used
to, you know, early adoptingnew platforms and things like
(20:56):
that.
So, but at the same time, likeit's, it's a little bit
difficult to reach those people,um, through traditional
marketing and things like that.
Like, we tried some like targetadvertising.
Um didn't really like yield anyresults for us and you know
it's it's a niche platform andyou cast a wide net and like, if
(21:21):
you're scrolling Twitter andyou see a link you know with
like, uh, some planets, and itsays little planets create your
own micro community.
I mean, like, what is that?
How do you like get people, thepeople who actually have this
need to like get eyes on yourplatform?
So, like, we're still justtrying to figure out the best
way to reach that audience.
(21:41):
So, you know, it's a lot oftrying to get involved in
conversations, like on Redditand like other social platforms
like that.
But, um, you know, I think weall know that Reddit is pretty,
they have a pretty hard linewhen it comes to any sort of
self-promotion.
Um, like, if you, if you coughand say the name of your
(22:05):
platform like, you might getlike permabanned from the
subreddit you're on.
So Reddit's been extremelychallenging, so you have to sort
of engage with people on a verylike non-marketing level,
almost, as if, like you know,getting involved with
communities and finding peoplewho are talking about this
problem and like trying to likeget involved with that
(22:25):
conversation.
But that still feels very like.
You know, manual acquisition,like, but maybe that is the
strategy for a lot of thesesmall startups is manually
acquiring your first thousandusers, like literally one at a
time.
I've heard, you know, the YCombinator guy can't remember
(22:48):
his name, don you probablyremember his name talking about
Nope, I always forget it themanual acquisition.
So, yeah, very unhelpfulanecdote for everyone listening.
But you know, I do think thatpaid marketing was not very
helpful for this.
Word of mouth has been good, butit's like I only know so many
(23:08):
people.
Word of mouth has been good,but it's like I only know so
many people.
So, um, you know, I've had alot of people sign up and try it
out and they're like, oh, thisis cool.
You know, I don't really needit for me, but I will pass it
along and so, uh, I think it'sone of those things where it's
just like it needs to sort ofpermeate itself into like the
internet subconscious as like athing that exists, and then, uh,
(23:30):
it can be a thing that peoplereach for, naturally.
You know, if it were to reach alevel of like ubiquity where
people are like, oh, you know,let's cluster up, we'll use
little planets, um, we'll createa, uh, a little space to have
this conversation, um, and thenon.
But, yeah, still haven't reallylike narrowed in on what that
(23:53):
is specifically yet strategyMakes sense.
James Ebentier (23:58):
Yeah, I would say marketing is the learning
edge for both of us on this, onthis project, and has been the
most difficult part, for sure.
The tech, like technicalproblems, we know how to solve
and it's pretty, pretty easy tonavigate them.
(24:18):
We're we're seasoned, we'reveterans at this point in that
regard.
But the, the marketing, the.
How do you tell a story to yourusers?
How do you get it in front ofthe right people at the right
time?
Danny Peck (24:30):
It's a grind Like that's the part, that's the
grind.
Yeah, agreed, and you know Ideal with the same thing as like
a music producer as well.
Like, love the creative process, but then, when it comes time
and it's the same with this,there's so many parallels when
it comes time to like actuallylet people know that it's out
there, it's just um, the funstops and it becomes work.
(24:54):
At that point, like you know, Ithink we're all happy to like
wake up early and start workingfirst thing on a project that
we're passionate by, but likeand I tip my hat to people who
like love the marketing angle ofit, and that's just not me so
it's hard to get excited aboutand stick with something that
you find not personally like fun, or you know, it's just, it's
(25:18):
just not fun for us becausewe're developers, right.
Don Hansen (25:20):
So, yeah, that's the struggle it's kind of like css
you hate it until you you getcomfortable with it.
Then it becomes fun maybethat's it yeah I do.
I I do feel like marketing isthat thing and I at you know
what maybe I'm kind of justspeaking for myself, but I do
feel like I've talked to otherpeople that have gained this
excitement for.
(25:41):
But when you start getting goodwith it, you start seeing
results, you start learning, youstart iterating, you try stuff,
it fails, you try stuff, itfails, you try stuff again.
It starts working a little bit.
You get those aha moments, justlike you would learn to code
and just like anything else, soyou can have fun with it
eventually, and I do have trustthat you guys will.
But that's the hard thing.
(26:01):
A lot of developers you know weknow how to code, but you know
getting it out there and gettingit in front of people and
telling the story and marketingand branding.
It's all new, it's really newto us and so, um, to me, you
know that's that's reallyexciting.
But it could be frustratingwhen you you want to see this
project flourish and the onlything stopping it is like the
thing that you really have, no,I clue no idea what to do with
(26:24):
Right, um, I got a question foryou guys, though, so like not
saying you you need to write ablog.
But I've talked to Danny aboutthis, but I think like writing a
blog is a fantastic way fororganic search.
It's really good for a lot ofdifferent applications that a
lot of you know developers thatare just launching applications
(26:45):
they don't think about likecontent creation as a marketing
strategy.
It doesn't have to be a blog,right, that are just launching
applications.
They don't think about likecontent creation as a marketing
strategy.
It doesn't have to be a blog,right, it could be posting to
other, uh, social platforms withdifferent mediums, different
types of content.
But if you were to write a blog,what?
What kind of content would youcreate for little planets?
Is it?
Is it educational?
Um, and don't just lean on likehow to use little planets, like
(27:07):
that's a tutorial.
That's not a blog, that's notgoing to gain you much traffic.
But like, if you had to thinkabout, like, what does little
planets represent?
Like who is this for and whatkind of content can I create for
these types of people?
When I identify my audience,like, what would that content be
?
Would it be educational content, about something?
Maybe it is about privacy.
But like, what would thatcontent be?
(27:29):
Would it be entertainment?
Would it be like maybe youtarget the gaming, a gaming
audience, and there's some kindof like entertainment value in
covering like gaming news orsomething like that.
I don't know, but like whatwould that content be for you
guys?
Danny Peck (27:45):
Yeah, I think you know the whole idea of Little
Planets came from sort of gamingcommunities and just how
fleeting those connections canbe.
So I feel like writing aboutthat experience and the problems
we're trying to solve feelsnatural.
Friendships inspired theplatform.
(28:11):
Discussing the challenges ofkeeping communities together
across different social networks, we could highlight how some
early users are using theplanets in creative ways.
I've always found that you'rereally onto something when
people use your platform in waysthat you didn't expect.
I feel like the early days ofTwitter was like such a great
example for that, when theyreally started having people.
(28:33):
It was a flexible platform.
They could just just kind ofbend it and use it like in
completely like avant-garde ways.
I would I'd love to see usagelike that.
So, yeah, I think, if it'sauthentic to our mission, you're
right.
I think that would really helpwith organic discovery for sure.
James Ebentier (28:51):
Yeah, and as you were describing that, my mind
was going through this kind oflike aha moment of why didn't we
think about that, of like apermanent little planet that is.
Our blog is kind of the like aquintessential usage of our
platform too.
Like we write a blog post, weput it on the feed.
(29:14):
That's the little planet andother people can subscribe to it
and follow it and get notifiedthrough being attached and like
active on our planet.
Right?
So like the little planetsplanet, yeah, I love that.
Danny Peck (29:30):
Yeah, it's a great way to dog food our own.
Like software as well, and umand.
And that gives me other ideastoo about and we've talked about
because right now planetsaren't discoverable at all, like
they're islands unto themselves, they're not searchable via
google.
So, like we've started to talkabout a permissions system at
(29:51):
the planet level where, you know, creators can decide who they
want to be able to join theirplanets and stuff like that.
So I think the idea, this ideaof like having discoverability
of planets if you think aboutthe universe metaphor, like that
kind of works where show melittle planets that are
frequently visited and are abouttechnology or about, like you
(30:15):
know, X, Y, Z, any any giventopic I guess that cracks the
door for who knows what sort ofpeople are going to start using
it and moderation becomes moreof a deal.
But uh, yeah, I love that ideaof using little planets as as a
blog.
That just makes all sort ofsense.
Don Hansen (30:33):
Yeah, that's an interesting concept.
It does feel like that movesaway from your original idea of
kind of something that'stemporal, is that the word I'll
just say temporarily.
Um, if you create or if you usea planet as a space, that is,
(30:56):
that can gain organic traffic asa blog, is that like you're
probably going to think ofpotentially like meta tags and
how it's going to rank in thesearch engine and you start
thinking about like how this isa blog, now Right, and that does
kind of change fundamentallywhat it is.
And so do you have this specialplanet for yourselves where
(31:19):
this is searchable, where youcan kind of showcase what it can
do, and does that communicateeffectively or accurately what
this is meant to be?
But that's a hard decisionbecause now you're starting to
think about like you're startingto change what this is and that
is going to change your targetaudience.
But that I think that targetaudience and like really
(31:41):
figuring that out and going intothose communities like you said
you were Danny, but figuringout that target audience is
going to be that's the key tofiguring out how to make this
like really, really work.
Danny Peck (31:56):
Yeah, and I feel like the target audience would
inform our decisions on thedirection of the platform, like
because we can't be too likefirm on what the platform is
like.
It has to be malleable, and ifwe need to pivot it in some
minor way to like better suitthe needs of the users, then
(32:17):
that's definitely what.
What we should do.
That's like the best kind offeedback we can get is like you
know, I really wish the littleplanets did you know this thing
and immediately we can startimplementing meaningful changes.
And it kind of snowballs Like.
You get those users that arekind of following you and then
you know they're finding valueand they're telling friends and
(32:39):
then one thing leads to anotherand that's how you build that
community in your product, Iguess.
Don Hansen (32:46):
Yeah yeah, it's a tricky thing to figure out.
James Ebentier (32:49):
Yeah, the idea is definitely like, no idea is
going to be void of evolution,and so that's one of the things
that I've learned most is theidea you start with isn't always
the one that even makes it toyour V1, that gets in front of
an actual audience, becauseyou're going to take in feedback
, you're going to evolve it,you're going to adapt it, you're
(33:11):
going to try different thingswith it and see what catches and
, um, the, the, the core oflittle planets, I believe, like
right now, is communities right,and so there's a lot, there's a
lot of different directions youcan go in for the simple idea
of communities and still keepingthat ephemeral nature that we
(33:36):
have currently right, and soit's all about just like, like
you said, like finding thattarget audience, actually
connecting with them and gettingthat feedback so that we can
let the users decide what thedirection of the idea is.
Don Hansen (33:52):
Yeah, um, yeah, honestly, if you guys had a blog
where you talked about how thisexperience went, I I could tell
you I would personally followthat blog.
Um, but sometimes, um,sometimes, you could even get
ideas from an audience thatwouldn't use your application.
(34:13):
But that's fascinated, with yougrowing an app to begin with
and you diving intoentrepreneurship.
That's at least what I found,too, and I've gotten some good
ideas from twitsprout, with justdevelopers who are just coming
in to watch me code and they'relike, hey, what about this idea?
And I, I have a list of reallygood stats to like record that
(34:33):
are going to be relevant forstreamers and, um, yeah, but
it's tough.
I, I know this journey is reallytough to solidify.
Um, so what advice would yougive to people that want to try
to push out their side projectand they want to try to grow it?
(34:56):
Um, and they, they want toflush it out, they want to build
it, they want to, or whateveryou think they need to do to try
to make this successful basedoff of, like, what you guys have
tried with your personalventures?
What would you share?
What advice would you give?
Danny Peck (35:22):
Yeah, I would say you should always start with an
idea that you're reallyinterested in and passionate
about, because that is going tohelp you push through the times
when you don't, when you get,you know, when you just get
discouraged or tired and youneed to push through.
Like, if you just have that coreidea that you're really excited
about, I think that will keepyou, keep you going.
(35:42):
But yeah, I'd say, start small,like be ready to move fast,
find, try to build community, acore community, as early as
possible and also don't like getstuck in the development cycle
(36:03):
in a cave to your point.
Don, you told me this once.
Like you know, don't isolate ina cave trying to figure out
what people want the product tobe.
Like, get it out there quicklyand engage that core community
and just try to iterate inpublic I guess's on Blue Sky or
(36:24):
something like that.
It can help just keep youmotivated because you're getting
instant feedback from otherpeople who are also going
through the same challenges andI think that can be good
inspiration to keep pushingforward.
James Ebentier (36:47):
Yeah, I agree with all of that, and something
that I would add on top isespecially around trying to get
feedback from the public ordirect contacts that you're in
contact with, that are users ofyour prototype or anything like
that.
As engineers myself includedand especially I'm always
(37:15):
inclined to ask very specific,narrow than just trying to
validate my like, what I thinkis right.
Ask them and let them tell thefull story of what, what they
(37:40):
need or what they see, and thathas always been a lot more
valuable in the feedback yeah,yeah, I like that, especially in
the beginning, where you, whereyou know your identity of what
your app is, isn't flushed outthat much.
Don Hansen (38:01):
And, yeah, I think that's really.
I'm even thinking about it formy own app and, like you guys
are just reminding me, I need toget this in front of people a
little bit sooner, because I'vebeen in the dev work for a while
now months and I think it'sabout time I pushed that out.
Um, okay, cool.
Um, you know, just like theother app, danny golden record,
(38:22):
I'm going to be paying attentionto little planets as well and
seeing how that journey goes.
But, um, yeah, I, I reallyappreciate you guys coming on
and sharing this Um, so we'llactually just wrap it up there.
Um, yeah, I, I reallyappreciate you guys coming on
and sharing this Um, so we'llactually just wrap it up there.
Um and uh, I definitely want to.
I again, I probably want to domore episodes like this, but, um
(38:43):
, if anyone has kind of built aside project and gained users or
gained revenue, um, I'd love tohear it in the comments below.
Um, how did that like whatworked for you and you know at
what point did you finallyfigure out what to do, to change
, to pivot.
What did you like?
Feel free to join me in thelive streams and share those
kinds of stories, but I'm likeI'm.
(39:04):
I'm definitely on this journeyright now and I want to hear
other people doing this.
So, um, but yeah, we'll goahead and wrap it up with that.
Um, james, if people want toreach out to you and anything
else, you know, if you wanted tosay anything else, uh, that we
didn't cover, uh, where couldpeople reach you?
James Ebentier (39:22):
Uh yeah, so across the internet I'm at uh,
my first list, my first initiallast name, like everywhere on
socials, so just jayabenteereverywhere, and so that's super
easy, which is really nice.
So Twitter is at jayabenteer,linkedin jayabenteer.
I have my own site.
(39:45):
That's my online CV and some ofthe cool stuff that I'm working
on, which is justjamesebenteercom that one's
slightly different.
I'm working on, which is justjamesebentiercom that one's
slightly different.
Um and um other than that.
Just like, my top advice isjust go out and do it, just just
build, try stuff, fail, succeed.
Just get out there and and tryit.
Don Hansen (40:06):
Yeah, how about you, danny?
Danny Peck (40:09):
Yeah, Uh.
I'd say the easiest way is justgo to dannypeckcom and that's
kind of an entry point.
You can find me online andother projects like music and
otherwise there, Yep.
Don Hansen (40:25):
All right, cool.
Well, the goal of this episodeis to get people to just kind of
build that side project, causeI know most developers have
thought about it and they justdon't execute.
And you know, james, like yousaid, just get out there and
build it and it's it's.
It's also one thing I'venoticed and I just want to share
(40:46):
this, when I, you know, Iworked for Danny at Analyte
Health for my first dev job.
You know, I worked for Danny atAnalyte Health for my first dev
job and one thing I noticed isif I had a 40 hour week at that
job and I did nothing on theside no dev work, no content
creation, anything like that Ieventually got burned out.
And it wasn't until I addedhours in my personal time
building what I wanted to buildthat that burnout went away.
(41:08):
And it was a crazy thing.
I never would have discovered,but I think a lot of if I didn't
try it.
But I think a lot of developersmight even find, because I think
a lot of us get into thisbuilding something that we are
interested in building, that weenjoy with our own conventions
and our own stack, and we get toexplore and that kind of gets
(41:29):
snuffed out in a professionaldev job right, and you can get
burned out and there's a lot ofpolitics at work you got to deal
with and a lot of differentdepartments and stakeholders,
and that can kind of just crushour original enjoyment at least
just a little bit of why we gotinto coding in the first place.
So I even think pushing out aside project is just a healthy
thing for developers to do so,even if it's for that reason,
(41:52):
even if your app fails, maybeit'll leave a lot of that
burnout that you're feeling atwork too.
But that's just my personalopinion.
So anyways, thank you so much,james and Danny, for coming on
and sharing this.
James Ebentier (42:08):
Thanks for having us, thanks for having us
yeah, pleasure.
If you're a developer trying to start a side
hustle, like I know a lot ofyou out there are trying to do,
this is the podcast episode towatch.
So I brought on two founders ofLittle Planets and they're
still kind of fleshing out theidea and trying to build it up
and they're going to talk abouttheir journey and you know the
good, the bad of it and themistakes they made and hopefully
(00:20):
you know some of their wisdomcan rub off on you and encourage
you to start your own sidehustle and you know maybe some
things to avoid.
But I really appreciate both ofyou coming on.
James, danny, it's really niceto have you on.
Let's go and do a quick introso people kind of get a feel for
who you are.
We'll start with you, james.
Danny Peck (00:38):
Sure.
James Ebentier (00:39):
My name is James Ebentier, working with Danny
for like three, four years now.
A little about my background Igot started in security when I
was fresh out of college.
I did security consulting andthat has been my passion thread
throughout my entire career.
(01:00):
I moved into web dev shortlyafter that with Ruby on Rails,
python, django and now venturinginto entrepreneurship and
starting my own thing.
Danny Peck (01:23):
Fun.
I love entrepreneurship.
It's nice to 2001, when I gotout of school for computer
science and I've just been sortof a contributor ever since.
Number of different roles inthe industry as a professional
developer, but then a number ofjust sort of side projects as
well, yeah, and I kind of mixprogramming with my other
(01:47):
passion, which is making music.
So just kind of two ends of thecreative spectrum, I think.
So, yeah, I'm excited to behere.
Don Hansen (01:56):
Awesome, all right.
Thanks for sharing.
Well, let's dive into it.
So you know, this can come fromeither of you, both of you up
to you.
But what is Little Planets?
Danny Peck (02:07):
Yeah, so you know it all clicked sort of like during
a late night stream with afriend of mine and he's a Twitch
streamer and they were justtalking about their community
and just sort of these likeamazing people who like come
together through gaming, shareincredible moments and then just
sort of drift apart.
And you know that kind of hitme because I've experienced that
(02:28):
as well.
So you know, I think we can allrelate where you've had, like
you know, as from a gamingperspective, like you've had
this sort of experience withpeople and there's just this
incredible energy among thegroup and everyone's excited,
wanting to stay connected.
No-transcript, so no accounts,no apps to download, no
(03:11):
commitment.
You just a space that appearsexactly when you need it and
then, you know, disappears whenyou don't.
So it's just this, basically anidea of these small, like
self-contained worlds.
Like each planet is that sortof spot for you to create.
Your planet.
You share like a link, and theneveryone can just suddenly be
(03:33):
right there, sharing, chatting,posting photos and being like in
the moment.
And then there's this sort ofseven day.
They're ephemeral by nature, soafter seven days, kind of like
a festival-like energy whereeveryone knows this is sort of
seven day.
They're ephemeral by nature, soafter seven days, um kind of
like a festival, like energy,where everyone knows this is
sort of like a special fleetingthing um, after seven days, by
default the planetself-destructs and everyone kind
(03:56):
of goes on their way.
Uh, there's options to makeplanets permanent if you'd like
uh through like a, you know,either a one-time unlock to make
uh like rename a planet, orlike a one dollar a month to
sort of create like a permanentplanet if there's a space you
want to keep around indefinitely.
But yeah, that's, that's thegeneral idea, cool I, you know
(04:23):
what comes to mind.
Don Hansen (04:24):
So so immediately I think about, like, what could go
wrong whenever I think of anidea that seems like a
moderation nightmare, right,because a lot of people lock
people into signups and stufflike that, and what happens when
they post just porn or you know, whatever content you don't
want on there.
You know, I know it's stillprobably early, early stages,
but have you guys thought abouthow to deal with that?
Danny Peck (04:47):
yeah, it's, you know that's a thought.
Uh, we, we have the ability toreport content, the fact that it
is an ephemeral planet whereyou don't need accounts, and
because planets self-destructafter seven days, then if there
is inappropriate content, itdoesn't like stick around.
So the goal is just to make itsort of super lightweight,
(05:12):
drama-free and a simple way forfriends to connect without, like
all the usual like social mediabaggage.
And so, and interestingly, justby looking at some of the
metrics from the planets beingcreated, like, we're not seeing
any of that, at least yet.
I don't know if you take it toscale.
If this thing was hitting likemillions of planets created, I'm
sure like some of that contentwould start to emerge.
(05:35):
But I think we've taken theapproach of like let's see the
usage by the people and we willadjust accordingly, like you
know, if and when that problemcomes along cool, um, okay, uh,
I'm kind of interested in theengagement.
Don Hansen (05:54):
You dove into that a little bit.
What, what kind of engagementare you seeing?
Who, how many people aresigning up and using your
application?
Danny Peck (06:01):
yeah, we've had some , uh, initial bursts, like
incredible early bursts ofactivity, especially when we had
a couple of posts on a planet,um, and sort of like, posted
like a test message trying tofigure out, like kick the tires,
(06:29):
how does this thing work, um,and there was, like we noticed
it tapered off a lot.
Uh, a lot of people create aplanet, post a message and then,
like you know, they wouldbounce, um, you know, and then a
subsection of those wouldactually like share with friends
and you'd see like somecommunities forming in there and
(06:50):
stuff like that perspective tolike guide people more about
like coming in and, like youknow, here's how you use the
site, sort of like a real quick,interactive tour type of thing.
You know, maybe a little bitmore about how to like share
(07:15):
with other people and get theminvolved, because I think a lot
of people don't understandexactly what it is, despite like
messaging and stuff on thehomepage and click to create a
planet and the planet appears.
And you know we kind of leanedinto this sort of sci-fi thing.
So it's like some people werelike, is this a game?
Like what did I just do, likeyou know?
So that was kind of.
James Ebentier (07:35):
One of my favorite Reddit comments was
like I clicked on this expectingto play a game and it wasn't
what is this Exactly.
Danny Peck (07:43):
So we're still learning those lessons as we go,
but the initial I think there'ssomething there that people are
interested in this idea of likeephemeral social network, like
micro community with like oneclick.
So we're still exploring likethemes of how to keep people
engaged.
Don Hansen (08:01):
Okay, I'm just taking a look at your website
again.
Um, that's.
Yeah, that's always fun tofigure out how people are going
to stay engaged, but that'spretty incredible to get 1500
planets with one reddit post andwithin 24 hours.
Danny Peck (08:18):
Yeah, and we ran into quite a number of problems
because of that.
We, you know, we were stillgetting things set up as far as
transactional email and thingsof that nature.
So immediately people weresigning up and they were getting
all of these notifications fromour system about thanks for
signing up and creating a planetand this, that and the other,
(08:40):
and we did not have our domainset up properly with the SPF and
the DKIM and the DMARC stuff.
So we were very quickly likeblacklisted from all of Gmail
and it sent us down this likehorrible, like three week rabbit
hole trying to figure out howto like redeem ourselves with
(09:02):
Google and like how to, you know, improve our reputation with.
That is like they just thought.
They thought it was like a spamthing and it wasn't.
Um, so, like you know that thatsent us down a whole rabbit hole
of things.
We ended up having to likeliterally register another
domain as our mailer and do somelike redirects between the two.
(09:22):
It was just amateur hour,honestly.
You know what I mean.
So that was my bad.
Don Hansen (09:29):
Yeah, I feel like everyone that creates an app
goes through the email spamthing.
It's a pain in the butt.
Danny Peck (09:35):
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, exactly Right of passage, I
guess.
Don Hansen (09:38):
Yeah, exactly, so let's dive into some of the
technical issues that you guysface.
I'm also curious about yourstack and why you chose it and
kind of like, would you stickwith it if you had to redo it?
But kind of just talk aboutsome of your choices with your
tech.
James Ebentier (09:56):
Yeah, I think I was the one that dictated the
stack more than anything.
Danny was just like yeah, I'llplay ball with whatever you're
doing.
So we did Ruby on Rails becausethat's something that I'm super
familiar with, and I alsowanted to play around with some
of the new features in Ruby onRails around Hotwire and how
(10:21):
it's moving away fromsingle-page app land and trying
to move back to traditional HTMLCSS served over the wire and
doing more efficient server-sideloading and rendering.
So this was a really funapplication to try and use those
(10:42):
tools at a kind of a, a widerscale of that um, social, uh
social media type applicationwhere you want like really
instantaneous, uh feedback oflike made a post, somebody
posted and I'm getting notifiedin the application immediately,
(11:02):
uh kind of environment.
So we're doing that.
And then we started out beingdeployed onto render and saw the
, the monthly costs going up asthose thousand plus planets
started getting created and soquickly switched over to just a
(11:24):
$ dollar a month box.
That's a static box and we justdeploy everything on that and
it has enough hardware to um runour database, our web server
and everything and we have alittle bit more control there.
Um, which was a.
That was a fun migration tomake and it like dropped our our
(11:45):
costs while still being able toserve just as fast to everybody
that was trying out the app,which was a lot of fun.
Danny Peck (11:53):
Yeah, you switched us to something like is it
called Cabal?
Is that the tool?
James Ebentier (11:59):
Yeah, it's the new DHH Rails addendum Kamal.
Oh, that's right, kamal, kamalfor deploying K-A-M-A-L, and so
it's leveraging Docker forcontainerizing the environment
(12:21):
and then, essentially, insteadof using like kubernetes to
distribute across a network oflike your own private network of
instances, uh, it just hotdeploys directly onto the, the
docker daemon, on on whatevernodes you have ssh access to,
which is really nice whatdatabase are you using?
(12:44):
Postgres, postgres.
Okay, we're going very, verylike run-of-the-mill basic,
out-of-the-box Rails stack,which has been a bit of a
blessing.
I think it's been nice kind ofto get back to just like basic
core framework, moving away fromadding a bunch of like bolts
(13:08):
and addendums to make kind ofthis like perfect environment
and just getting back to barebones and like out of the box
environments.
Danny Peck (13:19):
I like it yeah, there's absolutely sorry to
interrupt.
I just wanted to throw to thatend, on the front end, where
we're absolutely doing nothingfancy whatsoever as far as
technology goes, where it'sstraight up rails, views with
tailwind and that really helpedus to iterate extremely quickly.
(13:40):
On on the front end side ofthings.
It's actually pretty lightfront end, so there's really not
a ton to it, like honestly, andyeah, so Tailwind helped us to
iterate quickly.
There's absolutely zero React,which is kind of weird for me to
say, because that's usuallywhat I immediately reach for on
(14:01):
the front end, but we justdidn't see that as a need, at
least not yet.
James Ebentier (14:06):
I think the one main change that you made was
upgrading from Webpack to Vite.
That's correct.
That's the main thing that wechanged for out-of-the-box
framework.
Don Hansen (14:19):
Yeah, okay.
What was the reason for that?
Danny Peck (14:22):
Yeah, yeah, I, um I was looking at vite.
I wanted to use it um in uh, aa project, a side project,
because I hadn't really had aton of familiarity with it.
Um, there wasn't a huge uhpassion like sort of behind that
(14:44):
, aside from just wanting tolike, get familiar with it, and
this seemed like a good projectto to start getting familiar
with it.
So, um, yeah, we switched fromwebpack to vite at the very
beginning and that's the eitherthe really the best time or the
worst time to do an untestedtechnology because, as you know,
um, some of those decisions cancan haunt you for for many
(15:07):
weeks and months to come.
Don Hansen (15:08):
But fortunately, that was a good one that didn't
hasn't given us any, any issues,so bite's been great yeah and
well, and I think side projectsare a really good opportunity to
try stuff that you've alwayswanted to try.
Um and I like for my project Ibrought in nest.
It's a pretty heavy back-endnodejs framework and it's
(15:29):
probably delayed my app bymonths from launching, to be
honest, and I think it's one ofthe best decisions I've made.
I wanted to learn something newand I'm tired of kind of the
crazy Nodejs Express ecosystemand I want to try something new.
I think that's a greatopportunity inside projects and
not enough developers willbranch out like that.
(15:51):
They always go with whatthey're comfortable with, so
awesome, yeah and if it slowsdown the launch.
Danny Peck (15:56):
But, like the, the learning experience is super
invaluable.
Um, yeah, absolutely, sometimestake.
Sometimes taking the longerpath pays off, especially when
you're building something youreally care about yes, very much
so, um, would.
Don Hansen (16:14):
So what was your second biggest issue?
You mentioned, like the emailthing, which is a pain in the
butt.
Um, did you deal with any othertechnical issues or smooth
sailing?
Danny Peck (16:26):
uh.
So we I found it reallydifficult to, and james seemed
to navigate this like a champ,but we we sort of evolved this,
uh, this platform, fromcompletely anonymous to having
like planet level usernames, tohaving like global usernames
that spanned all planets, and Ifound this really difficult to
(16:47):
wrap my head around, the thearchitecture of um from a
database perspective, as well asjust managing those different
scenarios on the front end.
Um.
James might have a differenttake on it, but I found that to
be challenging to, to to wrestlewith um personally myself.
Yeah.
Don Hansen (17:08):
Okay.
James Ebentier (17:09):
Yeah, I think I think that was a.
That was an interesting problemto get through, yeah,
originally.
So I mentioned that security islike a big passion thread of
mine across my career, and so Icame into this because we're
entering this like new age oflike data privacy and data
protection and like peoplewanting to protect their
(17:30):
identities online more and morewhile also being able to be
authentic, and so one of thethings that snapped with me when
Danny was explaining thislittle planets was initially the
idea of it being completelyanonymous, so people can come in
and not have to share theiridentity with their guildmates
(17:51):
from video games in order tobecause when you, when you have
like a discord account, that isfor everything, you are
instantly kind of likeconnecting your identity to your
guildmates and might notnecessarily want to be sharing
that Right.
So we started with thatanonymity at first, but then
very quickly found out likethere's a lot of limitations to
(18:12):
that, because how do youidentify that somebody wrote the
post that you're reading?
How do you actually serveauthenticity on the platform?
How do you allow people to edittheir posts or react and
unreact to posts, posts or reactand unreact to posts?
(18:33):
You have to kind of like tryand juggle IPs, and IPs are very
finicky when you start thinkingabout VPN usage and people
traveling between differenthomes and different internet
connections, and so that's notreliable for authenticity.
So then we had to figure out away to add that layer of
authenticity on top, which cameto, like danny was saying, like
planetary level users to evenglobal users on the on the
(18:55):
platform um, okay, so it wasn'tjust about making themselves
anonymous to the people thatthey were talking to, but to the
platform itself.
Don Hansen (19:06):
That was your original goal.
Yeah, okay, um, interesting, um, yeah, it, I mean, I even find
decentralized technologyfascinating and what it tries to
solve too, but it it has itscons versus kind of like a
centralized um of, orcentralized identification or
(19:30):
whatever you want to call it.
But little planets has thatfeel where it's very spontaneous
and and this is immediately whyI thought, like people are
going to be posting like illegalstuff or porn, because, like
this can be, like, if I werecorrupt, I would use a platform
like this to post random stuffthat's going to get destroyed in
(19:53):
seven days.
That's fantastic, right, andthat's something you you got to
be aware of.
Like people might use it forthat use case.
Um, but you know the the focuson privacy and anonymity.
Um, I think it's, it's very, um, I think it's awesome and I
think a lot of platforms shouldconsider, like, what information
(20:14):
do we truly need about you?
What is a bare minimum possible?
So I I like that you guys aretrying to solve that in this app
.
Um, what about marketing it?
How has that gone?
And like what strategies haveyou tried?
What do you plan on trying?
What hasn't worked?
Let's talk about that.
Danny Peck (20:34):
Yeah, marketing has been a little challenging.
I think the core demographic,you know, has been tough to
narrow in on.
Obviously, like tech savvy,like younger audiences, like
people who are, um, you know,keen to the, to the web and used
to, you know, early adoptingnew platforms and things like
(20:56):
that.
So, but at the same time, likeit's, it's a little bit
difficult to reach those people,um, through traditional
marketing and things like that.
Like, we tried some like targetadvertising.
Um didn't really like yield anyresults for us and you know
it's it's a niche platform andyou cast a wide net and like, if
(21:21):
you're scrolling Twitter andyou see a link you know with
like, uh, some planets, and itsays little planets create your
own micro community.
I mean, like, what is that?
How do you like get people, thepeople who actually have this
need to like get eyes on yourplatform?
So, like, we're still justtrying to figure out the best
way to reach that audience.
(21:41):
So, you know, it's a lot oftrying to get involved in
conversations, like on Redditand like other social platforms
like that.
But, um, you know, I think weall know that Reddit is pretty,
they have a pretty hard linewhen it comes to any sort of
self-promotion.
Um, like, if you, if you coughand say the name of your
(22:05):
platform like, you might getlike permabanned from the
subreddit you're on.
So Reddit's been extremelychallenging, so you have to sort
of engage with people on a verylike non-marketing level,
almost, as if, like you know,getting involved with
communities and finding peoplewho are talking about this
problem and like trying to likeget involved with that
(22:25):
conversation.
But that still feels very like.
You know, manual acquisition,like, but maybe that is the
strategy for a lot of thesesmall startups is manually
acquiring your first thousandusers, like literally one at a
time.
I've heard, you know, the YCombinator guy can't remember
(22:48):
his name, don you probablyremember his name talking about
Nope, I always forget it themanual acquisition.
So, yeah, very unhelpfulanecdote for everyone listening.
But you know, I do think thatpaid marketing was not very
helpful for this.
Word of mouth has been good, butit's like I only know so many
(23:08):
people.
Word of mouth has been good,but it's like I only know so
many people.
So, um, you know, I've had alot of people sign up and try it
out and they're like, oh, thisis cool.
You know, I don't really needit for me, but I will pass it
along and so, uh, I think it'sone of those things where it's
just like it needs to sort ofpermeate itself into like the
internet subconscious as like athing that exists, and then, uh,
(23:30):
it can be a thing that peoplereach for, naturally.
You know, if it were to reach alevel of like ubiquity where
people are like, oh, you know,let's cluster up, we'll use
little planets, um, we'll createa, uh, a little space to have
this conversation, um, and thenon.
But, yeah, still haven't reallylike narrowed in on what that
(23:53):
is specifically yet strategyMakes sense.
James Ebentier (23:58):
Yeah, I would say marketing is the learning
edge for both of us on this, onthis project, and has been the
most difficult part, for sure.
The tech, like technicalproblems, we know how to solve
and it's pretty, pretty easy tonavigate them.
(24:18):
We're we're seasoned, we'reveterans at this point in that
regard.
But the, the marketing, the.
How do you tell a story to yourusers?
How do you get it in front ofthe right people at the right
time?
Danny Peck (24:30):
It's a grind Like that's the part, that's the
grind.
Yeah, agreed, and you know Ideal with the same thing as like
a music producer as well.
Like, love the creative process, but then, when it comes time
and it's the same with this,there's so many parallels when
it comes time to like actuallylet people know that it's out
there, it's just um, the funstops and it becomes work.
(24:54):
At that point, like you know, Ithink we're all happy to like
wake up early and start workingfirst thing on a project that
we're passionate by, but likeand I tip my hat to people who
like love the marketing angle ofit, and that's just not me so
it's hard to get excited aboutand stick with something that
you find not personally like fun, or you know, it's just, it's
(25:18):
just not fun for us becausewe're developers, right.
Don Hansen (25:20):
So, yeah, that's the struggle it's kind of like css
you hate it until you you getcomfortable with it.
Then it becomes fun maybethat's it yeah I do.
I I do feel like marketing isthat thing and I at you know
what maybe I'm kind of justspeaking for myself, but I do
feel like I've talked to otherpeople that have gained this
excitement for.
(25:41):
But when you start getting goodwith it, you start seeing
results, you start learning, youstart iterating, you try stuff,
it fails, you try stuff, itfails, you try stuff again.
It starts working a little bit.
You get those aha moments, justlike you would learn to code
and just like anything else, soyou can have fun with it
eventually, and I do have trustthat you guys will.
But that's the hard thing.
(26:01):
A lot of developers you know weknow how to code, but you know
getting it out there and gettingit in front of people and
telling the story and marketingand branding.
It's all new, it's really newto us and so, um, to me, you
know that's that's reallyexciting.
But it could be frustratingwhen you you want to see this
project flourish and the onlything stopping it is like the
thing that you really have, no,I clue no idea what to do with
(26:24):
Right, um, I got a question foryou guys, though, so like not
saying you you need to write ablog.
But I've talked to Danny aboutthis, but I think like writing a
blog is a fantastic way fororganic search.
It's really good for a lot ofdifferent applications that a
lot of you know developers thatare just launching applications
(26:45):
they don't think about likecontent creation as a marketing
strategy.
It doesn't have to be a blog,right, that are just launching
applications.
They don't think about likecontent creation as a marketing
strategy.
It doesn't have to be a blog,right, it could be posting to
other, uh, social platforms withdifferent mediums, different
types of content.
But if you were to write a blog,what?
What kind of content would youcreate for little planets?
Is it?
Is it educational?
Um, and don't just lean on likehow to use little planets, like
(27:07):
that's a tutorial.
That's not a blog, that's notgoing to gain you much traffic.
But like, if you had to thinkabout, like, what does little
planets represent?
Like who is this for and whatkind of content can I create for
these types of people?
When I identify my audience,like, what would that content be
?
Would it be educational content, about something?
Maybe it is about privacy.
But like, what would thatcontent be?
(27:29):
Would it be entertainment?
Would it be like maybe youtarget the gaming, a gaming
audience, and there's some kindof like entertainment value in
covering like gaming news orsomething like that.
I don't know, but like whatwould that content be for you
guys?
Danny Peck (27:45):
Yeah, I think you know the whole idea of Little
Planets came from sort of gamingcommunities and just how
fleeting those connections canbe.
So I feel like writing aboutthat experience and the problems
we're trying to solve feelsnatural.
Friendships inspired theplatform.
(28:11):
Discussing the challenges ofkeeping communities together
across different social networks, we could highlight how some
early users are using theplanets in creative ways.
I've always found that you'rereally onto something when
people use your platform in waysthat you didn't expect.
I feel like the early days ofTwitter was like such a great
example for that, when theyreally started having people.
(28:33):
It was a flexible platform.
They could just just kind ofbend it and use it like in
completely like avant-garde ways.
I would I'd love to see usagelike that.
So, yeah, I think, if it'sauthentic to our mission, you're
right.
I think that would really helpwith organic discovery for sure.
James Ebentier (28:51):
Yeah, and as you were describing that, my mind
was going through this kind oflike aha moment of why didn't we
think about that, of like apermanent little planet that is.
Our blog is kind of the like aquintessential usage of our
platform too.
Like we write a blog post, weput it on the feed.
(29:14):
That's the little planet andother people can subscribe to it
and follow it and get notifiedthrough being attached and like
active on our planet.
Right?
So like the little planetsplanet, yeah, I love that.
Danny Peck (29:30):
Yeah, it's a great way to dog food our own.
Like software as well, and umand.
And that gives me other ideastoo about and we've talked about
because right now planetsaren't discoverable at all, like
they're islands unto themselves, they're not searchable via
google.
So, like we've started to talkabout a permissions system at
(29:51):
the planet level where, you know, creators can decide who they
want to be able to join theirplanets and stuff like that.
So I think the idea, this ideaof like having discoverability
of planets if you think aboutthe universe metaphor, like that
kind of works where show melittle planets that are
frequently visited and are abouttechnology or about, like you
(30:15):
know, X, Y, Z, any any giventopic I guess that cracks the
door for who knows what sort ofpeople are going to start using
it and moderation becomes moreof a deal.
But uh, yeah, I love that ideaof using little planets as as a
blog.
That just makes all sort ofsense.
Don Hansen (30:33):
Yeah, that's an interesting concept.
It does feel like that movesaway from your original idea of
kind of something that'stemporal, is that the word I'll
just say temporarily.
Um, if you create or if you usea planet as a space, that is,
(30:56):
that can gain organic traffic asa blog, is that like you're
probably going to think ofpotentially like meta tags and
how it's going to rank in thesearch engine and you start
thinking about like how this isa blog, now Right, and that does
kind of change fundamentallywhat it is.
And so do you have this specialplanet for yourselves where
(31:19):
this is searchable, where youcan kind of showcase what it can
do, and does that communicateeffectively or accurately what
this is meant to be?
But that's a hard decisionbecause now you're starting to
think about like you're startingto change what this is and that
is going to change your targetaudience.
But that I think that targetaudience and like really
(31:41):
figuring that out and going intothose communities like you said
you were Danny, but figuringout that target audience is
going to be that's the key tofiguring out how to make this
like really, really work.
Danny Peck (31:56):
Yeah, and I feel like the target audience would
inform our decisions on thedirection of the platform, like
because we can't be too likefirm on what the platform is
like.
It has to be malleable, and ifwe need to pivot it in some
minor way to like better suitthe needs of the users, then
(32:17):
that's definitely what.
What we should do.
That's like the best kind offeedback we can get is like you
know, I really wish the littleplanets did you know this thing
and immediately we can startimplementing meaningful changes.
And it kind of snowballs Like.
You get those users that arekind of following you and then
you know they're finding valueand they're telling friends and
(32:39):
then one thing leads to anotherand that's how you build that
community in your product, Iguess.
Don Hansen (32:46):
Yeah yeah, it's a tricky thing to figure out.
James Ebentier (32:49):
Yeah, the idea is definitely like, no idea is
going to be void of evolution,and so that's one of the things
that I've learned most is theidea you start with isn't always
the one that even makes it toyour V1, that gets in front of
an actual audience, becauseyou're going to take in feedback
, you're going to evolve it,you're going to adapt it, you're
(33:11):
going to try different thingswith it and see what catches and
, um, the, the, the core oflittle planets, I believe, like
right now, is communities right,and so there's a lot, there's a
lot of different directions youcan go in for the simple idea
of communities and still keepingthat ephemeral nature that we
(33:36):
have currently right, and soit's all about just like, like
you said, like finding thattarget audience, actually
connecting with them and gettingthat feedback so that we can
let the users decide what thedirection of the idea is.
Don Hansen (33:52):
Yeah, um, yeah, honestly, if you guys had a blog
where you talked about how thisexperience went, I I could tell
you I would personally followthat blog.
Um, but sometimes, um,sometimes, you could even get
ideas from an audience thatwouldn't use your application.
(34:13):
But that's fascinated, with yougrowing an app to begin with
and you diving intoentrepreneurship.
That's at least what I found,too, and I've gotten some good
ideas from twitsprout, with justdevelopers who are just coming
in to watch me code and they'relike, hey, what about this idea?
And I, I have a list of reallygood stats to like record that
(34:33):
are going to be relevant forstreamers and, um, yeah, but
it's tough.
I, I know this journey is reallytough to solidify.
Um, so what advice would yougive to people that want to try
to push out their side projectand they want to try to grow it?
(34:56):
Um, and they, they want toflush it out, they want to build
it, they want to, or whateveryou think they need to do to try
to make this successful basedoff of, like, what you guys have
tried with your personalventures?
What would you share?
What advice would you give?
Danny Peck (35:22):
Yeah, I would say you should always start with an
idea that you're reallyinterested in and passionate
about, because that is going tohelp you push through the times
when you don't, when you get,you know, when you just get
discouraged or tired and youneed to push through.
Like, if you just have that coreidea that you're really excited
about, I think that will keepyou, keep you going.
(35:42):
But yeah, I'd say, start small,like be ready to move fast,
find, try to build community, acore community, as early as
possible and also don't like getstuck in the development cycle
(36:03):
in a cave to your point.
Don, you told me this once.
Like you know, don't isolate ina cave trying to figure out
what people want the product tobe.
Like, get it out there quicklyand engage that core community
and just try to iterate inpublic I guess's on Blue Sky or
(36:24):
something like that.
It can help just keep youmotivated because you're getting
instant feedback from otherpeople who are also going
through the same challenges andI think that can be good
inspiration to keep pushingforward.
James Ebentier (36:47):
Yeah, I agree with all of that, and something
that I would add on top isespecially around trying to get
feedback from the public ordirect contacts that you're in
contact with, that are users ofyour prototype or anything like
that.
As engineers myself includedand especially I'm always
(37:15):
inclined to ask very specific,narrow than just trying to
validate my like, what I thinkis right.
Ask them and let them tell thefull story of what, what they
(37:40):
need or what they see, and thathas always been a lot more
valuable in the feedback yeah,yeah, I like that, especially in
the beginning, where you, whereyou know your identity of what
your app is, isn't flushed outthat much.
Don Hansen (38:01):
And, yeah, I think that's really.
I'm even thinking about it formy own app and, like you guys
are just reminding me, I need toget this in front of people a
little bit sooner, because I'vebeen in the dev work for a while
now months and I think it'sabout time I pushed that out.
Um, okay, cool.
Um, you know, just like theother app, danny golden record,
(38:22):
I'm going to be paying attentionto little planets as well and
seeing how that journey goes.
But, um, yeah, I, I reallyappreciate you guys coming on
and sharing this Um, so we'llactually just wrap it up there.
Um, yeah, I, I reallyappreciate you guys coming on
and sharing this Um, so we'llactually just wrap it up there.
Um and uh, I definitely want to.
I again, I probably want to domore episodes like this, but, um
(38:43):
, if anyone has kind of built aside project and gained users or
gained revenue, um, I'd love tohear it in the comments below.
Um, how did that like whatworked for you and you know at
what point did you finallyfigure out what to do, to change
, to pivot.
What did you like?
Feel free to join me in thelive streams and share those
kinds of stories, but I'm likeI'm.
(39:04):
I'm definitely on this journeyright now and I want to hear
other people doing this.
So, um, but yeah, we'll goahead and wrap it up with that.
Um, james, if people want toreach out to you and anything
else, you know, if you wanted tosay anything else, uh, that we
didn't cover, uh, where couldpeople reach you?
James Ebentier (39:22):
Uh yeah, so across the internet I'm at uh,
my first list, my first initiallast name, like everywhere on
socials, so just jayabenteereverywhere, and so that's super
easy, which is really nice.
So Twitter is at jayabenteer,linkedin jayabenteer.
I have my own site.
(39:45):
That's my online CV and some ofthe cool stuff that I'm working
on, which is justjamesebenteercom that one's
slightly different.
I'm working on, which is justjamesebentiercom that one's
slightly different.
Um and um other than that.
Just like, my top advice isjust go out and do it, just just
build, try stuff, fail, succeed.
Just get out there and and tryit.
Don Hansen (40:06):
Yeah, how about you, danny?
Danny Peck (40:09):
Yeah, Uh.
I'd say the easiest way is justgo to dannypeckcom and that's
kind of an entry point.
You can find me online andother projects like music and
otherwise there, Yep.
Don Hansen (40:25):
All right, cool.
Well, the goal of this episodeis to get people to just kind of
build that side project, causeI know most developers have
thought about it and they justdon't execute.
And you know, james, like yousaid, just get out there and
build it and it's it's.
It's also one thing I'venoticed and I just want to share
(40:46):
this, when I, you know, Iworked for Danny at Analyte
Health for my first dev job.
You know, I worked for Danny atAnalyte Health for my first dev
job and one thing I noticed isif I had a 40 hour week at that
job and I did nothing on theside no dev work, no content
creation, anything like that Ieventually got burned out.
And it wasn't until I addedhours in my personal time
building what I wanted to buildthat that burnout went away.
(41:08):
And it was a crazy thing.
I never would have discovered,but I think a lot of if I didn't
try it.
But I think a lot of developersmight even find, because I think
a lot of us get into thisbuilding something that we are
interested in building, that weenjoy with our own conventions
and our own stack, and we get toexplore and that kind of gets
(41:29):
snuffed out in a professionaldev job right, and you can get
burned out and there's a lot ofpolitics at work you got to deal
with and a lot of differentdepartments and stakeholders,
and that can kind of just crushour original enjoyment at least
just a little bit of why we gotinto coding in the first place.
So I even think pushing out aside project is just a healthy
thing for developers to do so,even if it's for that reason,
(41:52):
even if your app fails, maybeit'll leave a lot of that
burnout that you're feeling atwork too.
But that's just my personalopinion.
So anyways, thank you so much,james and Danny, for coming on
and sharing this.
James Ebentier (42:08):
Thanks for having us, thanks for having us
yeah, pleasure.
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