Aaron's New Job, Balancing Client vs Product Work

March 16, 2022

Aaron got a new job! We're trying to figure out how to balance client work and product work.
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Transcript

Aaron
00:00:00 – 00:00:10
Okay. Just Colleen and I today. So we're just diving in. I think there's a lot to cover because I think we missed last week. So lot lot of stuff to talk about.
Aaron
00:00:10 – 00:00:13
Do you wanna do you wanna bring up anything to start with?
Colleen
00:00:13 – 00:00:22
Yes. I do. So, Aaron, I saw on Twitter just kidding. You told me that you're taking a new job. Tell us about that.
Aaron
00:00:22 – 00:00:53
I'm taking a new job. Yeah. So that was one of the things I think I said the last time we recorded that was really exciting, but I couldn't talk about yet. So I am taking a job as a marketing engineer at Tuple. So probably everyone listening is familiar with Tuple, but it's a, pair programming screen sharing app for developers, and is universally universally beloved in our little, you know, corner of the Internet.
Aaron
00:00:53 – 00:01:15
Everybody knows them. Everybody loves them. And so I saw, you know, several weeks ago, maybe 2 months ago at this point, Ben Ornstein, the CEO tweeted something that basically said, like, are you a developer that makes things other developers find interesting? If so, we want to hire you. And I was like, yeah, I could.
Aaron
00:01:15 – 00:01:34
Yeah. I am that. I think I could do that. So I put together a little landing page of, you know, all the you know, I've linked off to some articles I had written, to some tweets that had done really well, to to my live coding talk, and I just put it all there. And it was basically like, hey, man.
Aaron
00:01:34 – 00:01:46
I don't, you know, I don't really know what you're hiring for because it was kinda unclear in his tweet. But here's some stuff that I've done. And if you wanna talk, let's talk. And about a week later, he responded immediately. It was like, great.
Aaron
00:01:46 – 00:02:05
I'll look at it. And then a week later, he responded and was like, yeah. Let's talk. And so we talked a couple times, one with him and one with, you know, all 3 of them, their 3 co founders and it just, it felt right. I mean, it was, it was a lot of fun talking to them.
Aaron
00:02:06 – 00:02:42
I think it'll be really interesting because, one, it's it's a new role, so it's not like I'm coming in to a role that somebody previously defined a lot of processes or expectations or anything like that. So I think that's always exciting. I get to come in and kind of figure it out, which is fun for me. And then it's, like, I'm excited about the prospect of being a marketing engineer because, one is I can't, you know, I can't code their core product. It's very much over my head.
Aaron
00:02:42 – 00:03:08
So that's you know, it's good that I'm not doing that. But I think it's gonna be a lot of fun because I I imagine it's going to be a lot of experiments. Right? It's gonna be a lot of, bets on what can I make that developers will find interesting that will bring them to check out Tuple? And so it's not gonna be like write 30 articles about why pair programming is great, because that sounds miserable.
Aaron
00:03:09 – 00:03:34
Sounds miserable to do, and I don't think it would work. And so I don't think, you know, they want that's not the kind of content they want. So I'm really excited to get in there and, you know, I've got a whole list of, like, 20 ideas of things that I could potentially do that would attract developers that they would then, you know, kind of be in the Tuple universe, if that makes sense.
Colleen
00:03:35 – 00:03:49
So marketing engineer. So you're marketing engineer. Can you to make developer tools or open source open source stuff, and then how does that bring people to Tuple? Are you going to be pairing with people?
Aaron
00:03:50 – 00:03:50
Well, that
Colleen
00:03:50 – 00:03:51
And using soup
Aaron
00:03:52 – 00:04:37
open question on on the will I be pairing with people? So things that are on the table, I won't give too many specifics, but thing, like, general things that are on the table would be like perhaps a YouTube series. Maybe, you know, there are a couple ideas weirdly for physical products. There are a couple ideas for, like, content, but not necessarily blog posts, but a lot of content around other things the developers would find interesting. And so, like, that's a good that's a good one to highlight because it does feel extremely tangential to 2 people as a product.
Aaron
00:04:37 – 00:04:58
Like, even the physical products, it's like, that's insane. What you know, how does that benefit Tuple at all? But you can imagine, like, let's say one of those niche micro tools. Like, I think there there's Mike has For A Good STRF Time. You remember that one?
Colleen
00:04:58 – 00:04:58
Oh, yeah.
Aaron
00:04:58 – 00:05:06
It's foragoodstrftime.com. And then there's another one. I think it's like chronify.com or something like that where
Colleen
00:05:06 – 00:05:07
Oh, right. Yep.
Aaron
00:05:07 – 00:05:15
Where, you know, you go and you, like, type in a bunch of numbers into the stars and it tells you when the cron will run. Yep. So stuff like that.
Colleen
00:05:15 – 00:05:16
Okay.
Aaron
00:05:16 – 00:05:50
That that's a great example of the type of thing. So those things draw developers, right? Because if you're a developer, if you're a Ruby developer, you know what, for a good STRF time, you basically know what it's gonna do. And those things draw developers and it's very top of the funnel, like almost brand awareness. But if Tupelo's name can be on something like that, that is likely more valuable than a, you know, the umpteenth blog post about why pair programming is great, right?
Aaron
00:05:50 – 00:06:20
So if we can do more engineering as marketing, instead of just crapping out 500 words as marketing. I think those things will get shared more. Those have more legs in terms of, like, Hacker News and Reddit and, social sites like that because it's more of a useful thing. And so it kinda not virality, but it kinda has shareability built into it versus a blog post that's just gonna age away, if that makes sense.
Colleen
00:06:21 – 00:06:31
So how will you separate the things you make for you and the things you make for your company? Do those become 1 or is it if you do it at work, then it belongs to 2 people?
Aaron
00:06:32 – 00:06:46
Yeah. Standard stuff. The, IP agreement is pretty generous in terms of they don't, like, attempt to own my thoughts or anything like that. That was something I was explicit about upfront with Ben. I was like, hey.
Aaron
00:06:46 – 00:07:07
You know, on my list of things that I sent you is this work I'm doing for Hammerstone, which I clearly called out as, you know, a company and a side project. And I said, so I just need to know from you that Tuple is like cool with side projects. And he said, yeah, I think it's great. It like stokes creativity. You know, a lot of people have them.
Aaron
00:07:07 – 00:07:18
I want you to keep going. And so that gave me comfort. And then the, employment agreement put it in writing. That gave me comfort as well. So, yeah, it is weird though.
Aaron
00:07:18 – 00:07:30
Right? Because a lot of, a lot of what I do kind of for hammerstone and my own personal, you know, brand or whatever is similar to what I'll be doing for 2 people.
Colleen
00:07:30 – 00:07:31
Right.
Aaron
00:07:31 – 00:07:54
But in terms of so in in one way, that's good. Right? Because our we're both kind of heading the same direction. Right? So when I put out the tweet about me joining Tuple, that was really good for me, but it was also really good for Tuple because it got, you know, something crazy like a 120 comments or something, which was wild for me.
Aaron
00:07:56 – 00:08:26
And I think it'll be fun because I have all these, like, I have all these ideas for things, that developers would find interesting, but they don't really make any money, and I can't really justify, like, spending time on. And now I can justify spending time on that, on some of them because it will be a tupel marketing project. Right? And that's why I had all these ideas ready to go. Because for our second meeting, he was like, hey.
Aaron
00:08:26 – 00:09:03
If you have any marketing ideas, I'd love for you to bring them. I was like, do I have marketing ideas? Boy, do I. And it was all these, like, you know, several of them were these ideas for, you know, side projects or products or something that I've had for a long time, but never been able to justify, spending time on because they don't make money. But when the goal is attention, that changes the whole equation, and makes it a lot easier because now some of these things that I was gonna build that I would have to, like, bolt monetization onto to make sense, now I don't have to do that.
Aaron
00:09:03 – 00:09:28
And that removes that burden of monetization and increases the shareability of those types of things. So we'll see how it plays out. I think it's gonna be really great for both of us, for me and Tuple, and I'm really excited to do it. And I told, like, you know, they were asking kind of what's your long term plan. And I was like, you know, long term, I don't want to be employed.
Aaron
00:09:29 – 00:09:51
But I think, you know, in the next several years, like, this is gonna be a great place for me to be because I think I can bring a lot of attention to Tupelo. And, frankly, like, it'll be good for me personally too. And I said that I mean, that's being very honest in an interview, but that's that is my plan. And Ben was like, yeah, that's great. That's what I did at thoughtbot.
Aaron
00:09:51 – 00:10:07
Like I went to a lot of conferences on behalf of thought bot and I did great things for thought bot, but it also built my personal brand. That's great. And so I feel very, like I was very forthright with them and they were just super on board with it. And so that made me feel really good.
Colleen
00:10:07 – 00:10:21
Yeah. So it's funny because you made the announcement and after you made the announcement, almost every person I spoke with that knew, you know, knew about Hammerstone said to me, what's gonna happen to Hammerstone?
Aaron
00:10:22 – 00:10:48
Somebody actually reached out to me and was like, oh, no. Are you leaving Hammerstone? And this this kinda goes back to, like, I don't know if we've talked about it here, but Twitter is I think I'm very authentic and honest on Twitter, and I never, you know, say anything that's not true or try to present a false front. I just I'm also very strategic about it. Right?
Aaron
00:10:48 – 00:11:12
I I'm thoughtful about how I use Twitter, and it's funny because I think a lot of people think I don't have a job. Like, I have a full time job before 2 people. I currently right now I haven't started at 2 people and won't for, you know, almost a month. I have a full time job. It just so happens that my full time job is neither interesting nor sexy to anyone else.
Aaron
00:11:12 – 00:11:30
And so I don't talk about it. Right? So I'll do a lot of work at night And then the next day be posting a bunch of stuff on Twitter about some of the stuff I did the night before. Right. Or I'll do a podcast at like 8 am in the morning before work starts.
Aaron
00:11:30 – 00:11:53
And then 3 weeks later, it's released in the middle of the day and I start tweeting about it and everybody's like, wow, you, you know, doing podcasts in the middle of the day. And I'm like, no, I did that 3 weeks ago at 8 AM before I started work. And so it's not like, I I don't think I have no qualms with it. I don't think I've been disingenuous at all. I'm just like, I don't, when I finish something at 10 pm, I don't tweet about it usually then because everyone's asleep.
Aaron
00:11:54 – 00:12:05
And so it leads to this perception that I don't have a job, even though I've said many times on Twitter, in my job at a property tax company, I've been doing this. People just don't, they don't read it.
Colleen
00:12:05 – 00:12:06
Right.
Aaron
00:12:06 – 00:12:30
So, yeah, it's it's funny. It's not different. Like, I had a full time job and I'm about to have a full time job. It just so happens that my new full time job is in the industry that I want to be a part of, which was part of what was so compelling about this for me. I think there are 2 companies that, you know, I've been at my current job for four and a half years, and I think there are I've never applied for anything else.
Aaron
00:12:30 – 00:13:17
And then in the past month, the 2 companies that I think I would, you know, have wanted to work for both advertised job openings and I applied for both of them. And it just so happens, you know, one of them worked out. So it's kind of been a whirlwind for me because, you know, I've been at Resolute for so long, and I feel like I've managed to, kind of through sheer force of will, like gain mindshare in the, you know, developer community on Twitter, without really being a part of it day to day. Like, I think I am a part of it, but my day job, I I work as a Laravel developer at my day job, but I'm not like as fully into it now, Or or or I wasn't as fully into it as I am now, which I think is exciting.
Colleen
00:13:17 – 00:13:23
Well, Tuples seems like a great fit. I mean, I think this is this is awesome. I think it's gonna be wonderful for everyone.
Aaron
00:13:23 – 00:13:48
It's gonna be so fun. And there will be, like, there will be super normie stuff I have to do. Like, I need to I need to set up, you know, conversion tracking, and I need to set up some mailing lists, and I need to make sure analytics are firing correctly. Like, there's there's some very normal blocking and tackling stuff that I need to do. But yeah, I think it's going to be great.
Aaron
00:13:48 – 00:13:53
I'm really excited about it. Awesome. Yeah. So don't worry. Don't worry, friends.
Aaron
00:13:53 – 00:13:59
I'm not I'm not going anywhere. Things, things will remain the same. You just weren't aware that I was working at a property tax company.
Colleen
00:14:00 – 00:14:11
It made me laugh a little bit when people asked me and, because I was like, he has he has a job, you know. Like Yeah. It's not it's not a fundamental shift. He has a full time job. He's going to another full time job.
Aaron
00:14:11 – 00:14:12
Yeah. Exactly.
Colleen
00:14:13 – 00:14:14
So what else is going on?
Aaron
00:14:14 – 00:14:20
Well, you and I got together last week or no, almost 2 weeks ago now That's right. At this point.
Colleen
00:14:20 – 00:14:21
I flew to Dallas.
Aaron
00:14:21 – 00:14:38
To get, yeah, we were supposed to get together on a Thursday, and I became violently ill. Thanks to my children. So that didn't work. So I took Thursday Friday off sick, and I did manage to meet you Friday, for some co working, which was a freaking blast.
Colleen
00:14:38 – 00:14:49
Dude, I'm saying, like, I love remote work, and it is wonderful. But if we could do we were we had a week's worth of work done in a day. If we could
Aaron
00:14:49 – 00:14:49
do that, like,
Colleen
00:14:50 – 00:14:55
once a month, I mean, oh, my goodness. It was so good. It was
Aaron
00:14:55 – 00:15:02
so good. And and truly we, you know, we could try to replicate that by hopping on a pair all day, which is not something we've ever done.
Colleen
00:15:02 – 00:15:04
Yeah. We haven't tried. That's true.
Aaron
00:15:04 – 00:15:16
So we did kind of skip that step, but you were like, I'm getting out of here. I'm gonna fly to Dallas and I came over and hung out at the hotel and then we just like, we were jamming. We got it all done.
Colleen
00:15:16 – 00:15:16
It was pretty I
Aaron
00:15:16 – 00:15:18
feel really good about it.
Colleen
00:15:18 – 00:15:33
I feel really good about it too. Like, I oh, my gosh. The push we have made as a team these past 2 weeks, I feel so good about it. Like, it's awesome. It's like all of these pieces are finally coming together in the way I want them to come together.
Colleen
00:15:33 – 00:15:36
Yeah. It's gonna be awesome. I'm super sick. Yeah.
Aaron
00:15:36 – 00:15:49
And I mean, I did, you know, I did one day of it with you, but you've I feel like you've been seeing the whole thing through to the finish, and it sounds like your demo went exceedingly well with the client. It
Colleen
00:15:49 – 00:15:56
It went really well. They were really happy about it. Yeah. So we totally delivered. They've started doing 6 weeks sprints.
Aaron
00:15:56 – 00:15:57
Okay.
Colleen
00:15:57 – 00:16:12
And so you meet with the I I think it's a really nice the way they've organized it. So you meet with kind of their upper management. This, I guess he's a CEO and the engineering manager and kind of make your 6 week plan. And so we hit all of our deliverables, like gave the demo.
Aaron
00:16:12 – 00:16:13
Love that.
Colleen
00:16:13 – 00:16:46
It was it was beautiful. It was really nice, and I feel like our core work is so close to being I'm not saying we're close to being done, like that's not Sure. Quite the word I would use, but like the core the core feature set of hammer stone for rails is done. Mhmm. So the additional things the client wants are gonna be great additions to the product, but I feel like like the core work feels really solid, and so that's that's cool.
Colleen
00:16:46 – 00:16:46
Feel good about that.
Aaron
00:16:46 – 00:16:48
That's an amazing feeling. Yeah.
Colleen
00:16:48 – 00:16:50
Yeah. It feels really good.
Aaron
00:16:50 – 00:16:52
And then go ahead.
Colleen
00:16:52 – 00:17:05
Oh, I was just gonna say it was just so great to some of the stuff I had been doing for them in terms of the way I was doing nested filters, and I had added a I had to, like, added these things to solve a short term problem.
Aaron
00:17:05 – 00:17:05
Mhmm.
Colleen
00:17:05 – 00:17:21
And so taking the last I mean, it was really, like, the last 3 weeks and revisiting all of that. Like, I pulled out, like, submitting this PR. I pulled out, like, this an entire module. Like, it was beautiful. Because I had written this has nested filters module, essentially.
Aaron
00:17:21 – 00:17:22
Right.
Colleen
00:17:22 – 00:17:29
And, like, I don't need it anymore because of this refactor. So it was just like, it's like when you just do a beautiful refactor and you're Yep. Yes. This is so much better.
Aaron
00:17:30 – 00:17:38
That's how it felt when we were working together. It was like, wait. If we do this here and that there, then this all just slots together.
Colleen
00:17:39 – 00:17:44
I know. So beautiful. Yeah. It's like a moment. Like, I even had a I mean, that's the back end.
Colleen
00:17:44 – 00:17:55
I pull out this whole nested filters module. I pull up all of this other stuff. And the front end, I had written a partial, like, a partial view for, like, same filters. But since our new we're now using a filter condition, that's essentially an option condition. Like, all of that just slot it in so nice.
Colleen
00:17:55 – 00:17:56
It's
Aaron
00:18:06 – 00:18:09
pulled, like, a ton of hours working on the front end
Colleen
00:18:09 – 00:18:17
for the company. He and I were working, yes, many nights. And poor Sean, like, we'd be working till 10 o'clock my time, which is midnight his time.
Aaron
00:18:17 – 00:18:18
Yeah.
Colleen
00:18:18 – 00:18:41
He came through like a champ, the front end API. So what he did is because of Hotwire is complicated. I mean, just the way we are trying to implement Hotwire is is a little tricky. So, originally, the way they had to tie in with their stimulus controllers was a little confusing. And so he simplified the API so we can give them something.
Colleen
00:18:41 – 00:18:50
It's still not plug and play because you're gonna have to respond to the filter being stabilized, the filter not being stabilized events because we don't know what you wanna do with that information.
Aaron
00:18:50 – 00:18:51
Mhmm.
Colleen
00:18:51 – 00:19:02
But he was able to simplify the API down to hopefully make it easier for other, you know, teams to implement it outside of a standard view. So that's that's solid.
Aaron
00:19:03 – 00:19:12
Yeah. He and I we've, you know, we've all talked about it, but he was really pulling some long hours on that, and it sounds like it paid off.
Colleen
00:19:13 – 00:19:17
Totally. It was so good. Yeah. Everyone came through. It was awesome.
Colleen
00:19:17 – 00:19:18
Everyone just coalesced.
Aaron
00:19:18 – 00:19:41
And and then you, me and Sean had to talk about, like, okay. How do we like, if Sean's gonna be pulling these crazy hours on client side, how are we how can we move forward? Because we've been stalled on, you know, the view 2, view 3 side for quite some time because Sean is a finite resource. And so the 3 of us had to talk about, like, hey, where is this going? What are we doing?
Aaron
00:19:41 – 00:19:56
Are we gonna make it? Like, we gotta freaking pull this thing together. And I think we landed in a pretty good spot in terms of, like, we've got a short term, like, deadline, which I think is RubyConf or Sin City. Which one is it?
Colleen
00:19:56 – 00:20:01
It's RailsConf in the May. In May 15th, May 17th, mid May.
Aaron
00:20:01 – 00:20:24
Okay. And we're gonna pull in another, another person to help because Sean being the bottleneck just can't. We just can't keep having that be the case. And so I'm feeling pretty good about that because I think, you know, all 3 of us expressed frustration about how slow that was going. And Sean Sean was like, I know I'm the bottleneck.
Aaron
00:20:24 – 00:20:39
You can say it, and I'm also frustrated by it. And so I think that was that was good. And so I'm hoping that this is, you know, we're able to move past us relying on Sean for everything. If we can get this other person knocking some stuff out.
Colleen
00:20:39 – 00:20:43
Is it gonna work out with the other person? You haven't Yeah. Made an update? Okay. Great.
Colleen
00:20:43 – 00:20:45
Yeah. So he start?
Aaron
00:20:45 – 00:21:13
Me. Yeah. He me, him and Sean met last week and kinda talked through it. And I think they they're starting this Saturday, I think. They're gonna have him and Sean are gonna have a whiteboarding session about, like because the big the big problem that Sean's been trying to solve is how do we make the front end customizable without forcing people to eject and write their own front end, which is never gonna work.
Colleen
00:21:13 – 00:21:14
Right.
Aaron
00:21:14 – 00:21:57
And so he's got a lot of ideas, and this person that will be implementing them has a lot of experience with headless components and stuff, and so I think they're gonna start on Saturday. They book, like they put it on the calendar. They booked it. They figured out time zones and everything. They're gonna start I think it's this Saturday, and Sean's gonna try to transfer all of his knowledge to this new guy, and then they'll and then he'll take it away and try to, like, figure out the customization story, which is the last big, like, this is the last big thing we need to be able to pull in non Nova Laravel people is the ability to, like, make the UI match their UI.
Colleen
00:21:57 – 00:22:16
Right. That makes sense. I think I think something I brought up in our conversation is I have not kept my finger on the pulse of what is going on on the Laravel view side. So I am going to try to make a more concerted effort to just be fully engaged in what you guys are doing, because it kinda feels like like you guys are over here. I'm over here.
Colleen
00:22:16 – 00:22:20
We're working different ways to move the product forward.
Aaron
00:22:20 – 00:22:20
Right.
Colleen
00:22:20 – 00:22:27
So, yeah. Keep me posted. So I kinda wanna stay abreast of everything that's going on with Laravel.
Aaron
00:22:28 – 00:22:50
Yeah. And I think I think that'll be good. And I think getting this is like the story of the past year is being crushed by opportunity. I mean, the client has obviously been, like, life changing. We would not be here without the client, but it's just such a resource hog.
Aaron
00:22:51 – 00:23:10
And it gives, you know, it gives back resources in terms of US dollars, which we very much appreciate, but it's like, it just, it just splits our focus so much. And as a client implementation company, we're doing gangbusters. We're freaking crushing it. You're getting paid. We're getting paid.
Aaron
00:23:10 – 00:23:23
It's amazing. We've got this amazing product as a product company, big old nothing. I mean, that's not true. We've sold a couple of $1,000 of licenses. But not as much, you know, not as much as I want.
Aaron
00:23:23 – 00:23:26
And that that's hard for me because I'm on the product side,
Colleen
00:23:26 – 00:23:26
Right.
Aaron
00:23:26 – 00:23:34
I'm on the product side. You're on the client side. And I know that even the product side is hard for you even being on the client side. So
Colleen
00:23:35 – 00:23:36
Yeah. I was I
Aaron
00:23:36 – 00:23:40
don't know if we would do it again this way, but we're here now, and I think we're in a good spot.
Colleen
00:23:40 – 00:23:57
Yeah. I was talking, I think, to Josh about this yesterday, and, I was like, as a productized consulting company, like, we're we're doing it, man. Sure. We're a real company. We're making money, like, we're doing it right, but we're trying to figure out how to make that jump from productized to consulting to just a product.
Aaron
00:23:57 – 00:24:05
Yes. And that and making the jump means doing both at once, which is incredibly hard.
Colleen
00:24:05 – 00:24:06
It's a lot. Yeah.
Aaron
00:24:06 – 00:24:07
It's a
Colleen
00:24:07 – 00:24:35
lot to balance, and I even think about trying to get this pulled out of the client's, code and get it wrapped up, and and we've been deliberate about building it and not making, like, the tests are not client specific. Like, I'd spin up all of my own tables and models and all that, but still, I'm sure it won't be painless. Like it shouldn't be too painful, but it's still gonna be, you know, gonna be a thing. So, yeah, trying to balance all of that is a challenge.
Aaron
00:24:35 – 00:24:50
Yeah. It's super hard. Yeah. Especially from, like, the emotional side of wanting the thing to be released and, like, entering the next phase of, you know, product development. That's really hard for me that we're not, like, fully there.
Aaron
00:24:50 – 00:25:10
I'm getting good feedback on the Nova stuff and, like, that's really encouraging because people seem to to really love it, which makes me feel like we found the right thing. But the fact that we're just still kind of, like, basically at the starting line is just, oh, what a freaking drag. But maybe that's how it goes.
Colleen
00:25:10 – 00:25:19
Tell me about Nova. Is it k. It's completely done? I mean, someone if I use their Velova, can I buy the hammerstone package right now?
Aaron
00:25:19 – 00:25:34
Yes. Okay. You can buy it, implement it, and ship it in probably 30 minutes, maybe an hour. It is completely done, and fully ready to go. And the integration story there is easy breezy.
Aaron
00:25:34 – 00:25:42
I mean, you install one package that installs the other package, and then you write your filter, and that's basically it. You're done.
Colleen
00:25:42 – 00:25:42
Okay.
Aaron
00:25:43 – 00:25:44
Yeah. That's the dream.
Colleen
00:25:44 – 00:25:46
That's the dream. Okay.
Aaron
00:25:46 – 00:25:47
Is that what?
Colleen
00:25:47 – 00:25:58
I was gonna say, is that something you're actively promoting or you're actively marketing right now? Or are you more focused on getting this customizable piece for non Nova Apidor?
Aaron
00:25:58 – 00:26:09
Yeah. That's a good question. I'm not focused on the non I'm I'm sorry. I'm not focused on the customizable piece at all. That's just entirely in Sean's purview, so I'm not focused on that at all.
Aaron
00:26:09 – 00:26:35
In terms of actively marketing Nova, we have maybe 10 people that are testing it, and of those, I think 4 have purchased. And so I'm not I don't know. I could probably send another email out to the list, of Laravel people and just, like, see if any of them are using Nova. I've done that before and that's where these people came from.
Colleen
00:26:35 – 00:26:36
Okay.
Aaron
00:26:37 – 00:27:14
I think the next thing I will probably do, and this is something I mentioned, I think 2 weeks ago is record a video just showing how it works because I think it is pretty sexy to see. I think it is pretty sexy to see like the thing in action. Especially if you can do a speed run and show that it's like you're literally able to get this in 5 minutes, I think is pretty compelling. And that may be that may may be my next move there. I also wanna reach out to the Nova team and talk about potential business development.
Aaron
00:27:15 – 00:27:43
Like, hey. If you guys sell through our product, we'll give you lots of money. But I know that currently they're working on Nova 4, and so they're they're, like, on I've seen it on Twitter. They're on a, you know, a death march to get Nova 4 done. And so I don't wanna come in while they're heads down and be like, hey, sponsor my thing or sell my thing and then be like, dude, I don't even have time to think about this.
Aaron
00:27:43 – 00:27:48
So I'm kinda holding off there. But I I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
Colleen
00:27:48 – 00:28:06
So first thing, the video, yes, you a 100% should do that. I had someone else reach out to me about it for Rails. And so I would like to see your video as well as a reference because you have so we had talked about it for this reason because you have done so many of these demos. Mhmm. You know what people seem to care about.
Colleen
00:28:07 – 00:28:20
And I don't I mean, I don't know enough about Nova or the Laravel community to know if you should push them or not. Are is there a way right now with Nova to buy add ons? Is that like something they do?
Aaron
00:28:21 – 00:28:34
There is no marketplace. There is a I always forget what it's called. Nova packages or nova resources or nova tools.com. And I listed us there. So that that is is present.
Aaron
00:28:35 – 00:29:22
I don't know what kind of traffic that gets. But, yeah, that would be the that would be the centralized place for it. I think we could potentially we could potentially buy some ads in, like, Larabell News. And I think that would be a couple $1,000 and has incredible reach to the the market we're looking for. My fear with that is within the Laravel ecosystem, the Nova ecosystem is even smaller, Nova immediately, our addressable market of Laravel News people is 10% of whatever they send out, you know?
Colleen
00:29:23 – 00:29:29
Right. Well, and we're not that far off from having the customizable front end done. So to
Aaron
00:29:29 – 00:29:29
me it
Colleen
00:29:29 – 00:29:30
seems like let's just wait
Aaron
00:29:31 – 00:29:31
Exactly.
Colleen
00:29:31 – 00:29:34
Before we spend that money so we can reach more people.
Aaron
00:29:34 – 00:29:49
Yeah. Okay. So my plan before next week will be to record a video or 2 or 3. I think there's an interesting, an interesting play we could do with like the 1 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute versions.
Colleen
00:29:51 – 00:29:51
Okay.
Aaron
00:29:51 – 00:29:55
And that will be that will be my goal before next week.
Colleen
00:29:56 – 00:30:00
Awesome. I love it. My goal before next week, I'll be in Vegas next week for Sin City Ruby.
Aaron
00:30:00 – 00:30:03
Oh, that's right. Yep. And you're giving a talk. Right?
Colleen
00:30:03 – 00:30:10
I am giving a talk. On Yeah. ARL, building a composable query builder. I'm gonna finish it today. That's my goal.
Colleen
00:30:10 – 00:30:10
Okay.
Aaron
00:30:11 – 00:30:12
Well, that's super exciting.
Colleen
00:30:13 – 00:30:28
Yeah. I'm not making it. I mean, it's a it's a hard topic. Right? And especially with a very when you have an audience that goes from beginner to super senior, it's always hard to tailor a talk, so it is accessible to that whole group of people.
Colleen
00:30:29 – 00:31:00
So the talk I have now is, you know, it's it's like very basic, and it's building up to where you can use a rail as, you know, in more complicated, functions. So I'm pretty happy with it. It feels I guess what I'm trying to say is the talk feels like it's very, like, mid level accessible. So right now, I'm trying to figure out, like, how do I widen the scope a little bit to pull in the people who don't, like, know, you know, have have never heard of a rail, which is a lot of people in the rails community. Right?
Colleen
00:31:00 – 00:31:12
It's a private API. But also pulling the people who are like, oh, I only use pure SQL. You know who you are. Like, I wanna those are my people, like, that I want to convert. I wanna you know?
Colleen
00:31:12 – 00:31:48
And so, it's been but what I've been doing is I've been talking to Rails developers to kinda see who have some sort of query builder. We have you know, we know a lot of people who have analytical tools and stuff. And so it's been fun to see how people are using it and and really why. Like, when you look at the risk benefit analysis of using a private private API, what is so enticing about it that it is worth the potential risk of a change in the API? And I really think I can make the case because AREL sits on top of your database, like switching databases, I think that's a huge deal.
Colleen
00:31:49 – 00:32:04
And the composability of it, like, active record is composable, kinda, but this is, like, just so fine grained. I think I think there's I I so I'm gonna kind of work in more info about that, but, like, I'm really unhappy with how it's coming along. I think it'll be a lot of fun.
Aaron
00:32:04 – 00:32:07
Yeah. Will this be recorded? Will I be able to watch it later?
Colleen
00:32:07 – 00:32:14
I don't know. So I have to ask the conference organizer. I'm not sure if he's gonna record it or not. This is a pretty small conference, but
Aaron
00:32:14 – 00:32:19
Have Andrew record it for me if Yeah. If it's not actively recorded. Have him do it for me.
Colleen
00:32:19 – 00:32:37
You know Andrew. He was, like, I'm gonna hire someone. I was, like, okay. So, and he's not I mean, what's gonna be cool is I think I can say this on the podcast. He's gonna make he might be making some cool announcements, and what I'm talking about might and he go we go we we're going back to back, which was planned.
Colleen
00:32:37 – 00:32:50
So it's gonna be awesome. So he's gonna make his but, hopefully, I haven't checked in with him. So, he's gonna be making some cool announcements, and then I'm gonna be following that up our stuff, so it's gonna slide really well together. So I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.
Aaron
00:32:50 – 00:32:55
Perfect. And I'm 0% surprised that he's hiring a videographer.
Colleen
00:32:55 – 00:32:57
He was like, I'm gonna hire someone.
Aaron
00:32:57 – 00:33:01
It's great content for bullet train, like to have that in in perpetuity.
Colleen
00:33:01 – 00:33:02
So Yeah, totally.
Aaron
00:33:03 – 00:33:08
There was one other Oh, speaking of Andrew, we're doing Andrew and I are doing a podcast.
Colleen
00:33:08 – 00:33:10
Saw that. Tell me about that.
Aaron
00:33:10 – 00:33:31
So we're doing a rails Laravel crossover podcast. So he reached out to me a while back and was like, hey, I wanna talk to somebody very technically about, you know, bullet train and rails, and I think it'd be fun to do a compare and contrast Laravel thing. So we just put that out yesterday. Awesome. 1st one.
Aaron
00:33:31 – 00:33:40
So I think I think that's gonna be a lot of fun. I got the good end of the stick on that one and that I show up and record and he does everything else.
Colleen
00:33:41 – 00:33:41
Nice.
Aaron
00:33:42 – 00:33:55
So this is kind of he's driving this, and I'm the, you know, the Laravelle foil for him to talk to. So that'll be good. I think that'll be good for us. That'll be good for 2 bull. That'll be good for bullet train.
Aaron
00:33:55 – 00:33:59
I think that's just good across the board to have that kind of content out there.
Colleen
00:33:59 – 00:34:01
So what's it called?
Aaron
00:34:01 – 00:34:03
Framework friends.
Colleen
00:34:03 – 00:34:03
Nice
Aaron
00:34:03 – 00:34:06
framework friends.com. Isn't it great?
Colleen
00:34:06 – 00:34:09
That's pretty good. I like it. That's pretty good.
Aaron
00:34:09 – 00:34:12
I'm pleased with that. Okay. Anything else?
Colleen
00:34:12 – 00:34:14
Nothing else for me.
Aaron
00:34:14 – 00:34:15
Alright. Let's send it there.
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos, and generally try really hard.

If you ever have any questions or want to chat, I'm always on Twitter.

You can find me on YouTube on my personal channel or the Try Hard Studios channel.

If you love podcasts, I got you covered. You can listen to me on Mostly Technical.