Colleen is having all the fun

August 15, 2023

HelloQuery: https://helloquery.com
Aaron: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis
Colleen: https://twitter.com/leenyburger
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Transcript

Aaron
00:00:00 – 00:00:01
Hello, Colleen.
Colleen
00:00:01 – 00:00:05
Hey, Aaron. What a pleasure to be back on the mic with you.
Aaron
00:00:05 – 00:00:14
I'm back on the mic, same mic, different location, different background, but, fortunately, this is an audio podcast and nobody can see me. So it's good to be back.
Colleen
00:00:14 – 00:00:19
Yes. You have a door behind you instead of your usual very gorgeous, curated office.
Aaron
00:00:19 – 00:00:30
I know. And there are no lights in this room that I can control by pushing a button on my desk, and so I feel very out of my element. I have to walk over like a pedestrian and turn on a light switch. It's very embarrassing.
Colleen
00:00:31 – 00:00:33
Oh my goodness. Just the worst.
Aaron
00:00:33 – 00:00:33
Can you imagine?
Colleen
00:00:34 – 00:00:44
Just the worst. So we haven't chatted in a while because you have been doing a world tour for a United States tour. Tell us about your adventures.
Aaron
00:00:45 – 00:00:59
The world, first of all. So, yes, I have been doing a world tour. Texas man leaves Texas, discovers better weather. Yeah. So it's it's been a minute, and I think the first thing that happened was I went to Laracon.
Aaron
00:00:59 – 00:01:06
It was my first in person Laracon, and I was the emcee, and I gave a talk.
Colleen
00:01:07 – 00:01:11
That's amazing. Wait. So this was your first in person Laracon,
Aaron
00:01:19 – 00:01:37
the power of asking. I mean, it's after one of my lair so I did 2, I think, 2 Laracon online talks. And after each one they both went really well. And after each one, I just DM'd Taylor and was like, hey. If you ever bring back Laracon in person, I would like to be considered for MC.
Aaron
00:01:38 – 00:01:47
And both times she was like, sure. Sounds cool. And then Laracon in person finally came around, and it was like, alright. You're the MC. It's like, hey, that worked.
Aaron
00:01:47 – 00:01:54
Like, it's okay to just ask for things, and that actually worked. And so it was super fun. It was a freaking
Colleen
00:01:54 – 00:01:56
blast. That's awesome. Were you nervous?
Aaron
00:01:56 – 00:02:09
Yeah. I was. I I wasn't really nervous about like, I don't really get super nervous on stage, except when the WiFi doesn't work, and our demo fails, and we have to come up with an hour of content.
Colleen
00:02:09 – 00:02:10
Good times.
Aaron
00:02:10 – 00:02:27
But even then, I don't really get super nervous on stage. I feel pretty good on my feet. I was a little bit nervous because I didn't know exactly what my duties were going to be as as the emcee. Right? So I didn't know, like, how much vamping am I gonna have to do.
Aaron
00:02:27 – 00:02:47
Like, am I gonna have to get up there and do a little bit of, you know, a little bit of, like, stand up? Because if so, I would like to prepare some material. And so that that's what I was most nervous about. But I think, like, I just kinda took over because the the AV crew was amazing. The event organizers were amazing.
Aaron
00:02:48 – 00:02:59
And Taylor was just like, yeah. You're you're the MC. Like, you can figure it out. And so I felt empowered to just kinda decide, which is really nice. And so what I decided was, alright.
Aaron
00:02:59 – 00:03:34
I'm gonna lean heavy into, like, the hype man and I'm gonna prepare, you know, speaker intros that actually are more than just, like, our next speaker is this person and this is the topic. So I prepared, you know, I prepared some speaker intros and tried get the crowd hyped. And then after each speaker, I had prepared a question. And so then I would meet the speaker on stage and ask to do a little q and a that was kinda like a little bit back and forth trying to, you know, give them a softball, but give them something interesting. And while that was happening, they were switching out laptops, and then I would go straight into the next speaker intro.
Aaron
00:03:34 – 00:03:47
And so there was never any dead air. Like, there was never any, you know, empty stage time. And there was never really any time that I just had to, like, hey. So how's everybody doing out there? So which that after I figured that out, I was like, alright.
Aaron
00:03:47 – 00:03:53
I I I have a pattern. I know what I need to do. I can just go out there and kinda execute. So, yeah, it was fine.
Colleen
00:03:53 – 00:03:58
Awesome. That's great. And you got to, give the talk.
Aaron
00:03:59 – 00:04:22
I gave a talk. So I got to I got to shut it down, which was fun. I gave I gave the very last talk of the conference. So it was a 2 day single track conference, and I gave the the last talk. And I got to reprise the, the fabled GitHub universe talk, this time to an audience and not a bunch of empty chairs.
Aaron
00:04:23 – 00:04:49
So that was really, really nice. In a couple ways, the cheesiest way is I didn't have to prepare anything. Like, it's like, you know, I didn't have to, like I did practice a few more times, because I added a little bit of content, changed a little bit. And then, of course, like, every time I give a talk, I feel like this is a big deal, and I need to take it seriously. And so I I practiced probably all the way through 4 or 5 times again, but I didn't have to write anything new.
Aaron
00:04:49 – 00:04:59
And as you know, writing a new talk is is a full time job in itself. So that was that was nice. But more importantly, I got to give the talk to people.
Colleen
00:04:59 – 00:05:00
That's the best part.
Aaron
00:05:00 – 00:05:09
And That's the best part. Nobody. And you know what? It went really, really well. I think it totally landed.
Aaron
00:05:10 – 00:05:30
Yeah. I felt I felt like I did an incredible job, and then I went out to mingle, you know, during the happy hour after. And I I think other people thought I did a good job, which is, you know, a super nice feeling. I think one of the the coolest things is people kept saying, like, I felt like you were talking directly to me. It's like, oh, that's good.
Aaron
00:05:30 – 00:05:34
That means it works. Like, that means I kind of knew the audience. So it was good.
Colleen
00:05:34 – 00:05:41
That's awesome. Is this the first time you've given that talk since the GitHub flop? Not that it was not that you flopped, just that there was no one there to see you.
Aaron
00:05:41 – 00:05:49
You're you're generous calling it a flop. I would have gone with disaster or nightmare. I gave it at Laracon EU.
Colleen
00:05:49 – 00:05:50
Oh, that's right.
Aaron
00:05:50 – 00:06:05
And it went well. It went well. But one, that video was never released, so it's a little bit, of a less a little bit of a smaller splash. And 2, at at Laracon EU, I did not talk, publicly about the GitHub failure.
Colleen
00:06:06 – 00:06:06
Okay.
Aaron
00:06:06 – 00:06:14
At Laracon US, I did. And I think that was a big I think that was a big addition to the content of the talk, frankly.
Colleen
00:06:14 – 00:06:20
Oh, I totally agree. It was funny hearing you. So I watched your talk online. It came out really quickly, like, the next week.
Aaron
00:06:20 – 00:06:20
Oh, like, the next week.
Colleen
00:06:20 – 00:06:33
It was incredible. I've never seen a conference turn videos around like that. And it's awesome because everyone's still kind of hyped about the conference instead of, like you know, when I've given talks, they're, like, 4 months later. You're like, I don't even remember what this is about. Mhmm.
Colleen
00:06:34 – 00:06:43
But it was fun it was funny that you did retell some of the GitHub stuff because I remember when you were giving that talk the same day, and you had told me
Aaron
00:06:43 – 00:06:43
it
Colleen
00:06:43 – 00:06:50
was gonna be live streamed. So I'm looking on the GitHub Universe website trying to find the live stream of your talk, and it wasn't there.
Aaron
00:06:50 – 00:06:58
It wasn't there. Embarrassingly, it wasn't there. Yeah. Yeah. You were there for you were there for all of
Colleen
00:06:58 – 00:06:59
it. It was so fun.
Aaron
00:06:59 – 00:07:01
You saw everything.
Colleen
00:07:01 – 00:07:17
Yeah. Everything. It was so fun, for me to hear that talk because I feel like that really, really like, the timeline of that all kind of aligned when we started working together. Mhmm. So we started working together, and then all those things started to happen.
Colleen
00:07:17 – 00:07:37
And I still remember the very first talk you gave, I think, on Sidecar Yeah. That was virtual, and that was, like, the very first one, and then and then things started to pick up. And so it was really fun for me to listen to that talk, because I was like, oh, I remember I remember that. I remember that. And then I was like, we've been doing this for a while, because I remember
Aaron
00:07:37 – 00:07:40
We've been together for a long time now.
Colleen
00:07:40 – 00:07:45
We really have. Yeah. Sometimes I forget. And I was like, That was a couple years ago. Couple years Mhmm.
Aaron
00:07:46 – 00:07:49
Yep. That really puts it in perspective, doesn't it?
Colleen
00:07:49 – 00:07:58
So while you were busy wowing the crowd in Tennessee? Tennessee. Tennessee. Alright. Well, I was busy talking to potential customers.
Colleen
00:07:59 – 00:08:07
And, man, I wish you could sit on some of these calls because the energy and excitement around what we're building feels palpable.
Aaron
00:08:08 – 00:08:15
I wish I could sit on these calls too, to be to be honest with you, because working in the salt mines is not quite
Colleen
00:08:16 – 00:08:17
Yeah.
Aaron
00:08:17 – 00:08:23
Everything's not palpable down there. Yeah. So please transfer energy to me. What what what's going on?
Colleen
00:08:23 – 00:08:52
It just I just keep getting on these calls with people, and they keep feeding this pain back to us. I mean, it just feels like it consistently is happening where people's customers need access to their data. And I can't it's been a while since we recorded, so I can't remember, like, which calls specifically I've talked about. But one interesting use case of someone I talked about was I'm sorry, someone I spoke with was his customers have their own data scientists. So they literally just want the data.
Colleen
00:08:52 – 00:09:05
And I was like, this is kind of our ideal use case where, again, they don't want visual renderings of anything. Like, they just want their own data for whatever, magic those data scientists wanna whip up.
Aaron
00:09:05 – 00:09:07
That's interesting. I have not heard of that one. You
Colleen
00:09:07 – 00:09:09
usually Good. So I probably didn't say that.
Aaron
00:09:09 – 00:09:24
Yeah. You keep me updated on most, but you try to spare me gory details. That is an interesting one that they have their own data scientists. So does this does this company have a few big customers? Surely, it's not like a generalized SaaS.
Colleen
00:09:24 – 00:09:26
They're using Metabase right now.
Aaron
00:09:26 – 00:09:26
K.
Colleen
00:09:27 – 00:10:05
And the UI is not as flexible or, I mean, it really doesn't look as nice, but it's really not also not as flexible as his customers need. And so he has a few, like, really big customers that have the data scientists that are trying to analyze their own data. And this might be you know, I've been playing around in the data science world a little bit, and it's like the fastest growing career field or something crazy like that. And I think we're gonna see more and more of this where people just want the customers want their data so their data people can do their data people things. So I'm hoping that, you know, that seems like a perfect fit for us.
Colleen
00:10:05 – 00:10:16
So I was I was pretty excited about that as well. Yeah. It just seems like, you know, this is a problem and people wanna pay to solve it. And they're already paying to solve it and they're not super jazzed about the solutions they have right now.
Aaron
00:10:16 – 00:10:26
Mhmm. That is wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. Does it feel does it feel different than the refine, calls that we had early on?
Colleen
00:10:26 – 00:10:31
It does. But if you ask me to put my finger on it so something I'm very aware of on
Aaron
00:10:31 – 00:10:32
this your finger on it.
Colleen
00:10:34 – 00:10:45
Something I'm very aware of in these early calls is my natural optimism and enthusiasm. I don't want that to cloud my judgment in terms of
Aaron
00:10:45 – 00:10:51
Which is why you played downbeat, Colleen, on that one call that I was on. And I was like, girl, you gotta you gotta snap out of it.
Colleen
00:10:52 – 00:10:59
Alright. Super serious. Overcorrect. Overcorrect right now. Oh, man.
Colleen
00:10:59 – 00:11:29
I think being aware of it has really helped me be like, okay. With refine, I was just so excited that anyone wanted the thing Mhmm. That we didn't ask a lot of, like, probing questions, and we didn't really realize we really, too, with Refine, I feel like we didn't realize the challenge the integration hurdles we were gonna come up against. And so to me, this does feel different. It feels different because a lot of early refine users were, this is a good way to say it, I think.
Colleen
00:11:29 – 00:12:00
Because it was a package Mhmm. A lot of early refine users were hobbyists who love tech, who are early adopters, and could see the value in Refine. And I super appreciate all of that, but I think because of the way it was packaged, it was more attractive to your kind of purist developers who really wanted to get their hands on it to play with it. And so this seems different in that there's no fun tech here for you. You just do it.
Colleen
00:12:00 – 00:12:03
Like, there's no, like, I wanna see how this works.
Aaron
00:12:03 – 00:12:18
That actually the last thing you said feels like the key differentiator. There's no fun there's no fun tech here. If you're interested in this, it's because you're trying to solve the problem, not because you think it's a neat exercise that you wanna play with. Yeah. I can see that.
Aaron
00:12:18 – 00:12:19
That feels super different.
Colleen
00:12:19 – 00:12:44
Yep. So I am getting on the calls with people who want to solve this problem. They want to solve it from their customer's perspective. They wanna solve it well and they're very business focused so they do not have the time, energy, or resources to solve it themselves or they're using another product that is more expensive or just kind of a pain. And and I don't want to I mean, I am still so grateful to our early refined customers and, like, people.
Colleen
00:12:44 – 00:12:44
And that could have been a thing. It just wasn't the right,
Aaron
00:12:52 – 00:13:06
been a thing. You have also been you have, like, a live version of the products running against your simple file upload database. So you're actually dogfooding the thing.
Colleen
00:13:06 – 00:13:29
Oh, man. So And this is so great because I I pay for Metabase. So this Aaron, I'm so excited about this because I use Metabase, and I pay for Metabase. And so, having the actual product on my database, simple file upload, has been really, really interesting because immediately there were things I think I've told you about that. I was like, oh, I need a I need a little bit of aggregation here.
Colleen
00:13:29 – 00:13:44
Like, if I do a filter, I I need to know how many users are returned. Right. And we've talked about that. And that was kind of something we we didn't have in our initial prototype. So it's been great to quickly and easily see those kinds of things.
Colleen
00:13:45 – 00:14:03
I think what I am seeing and I use Metabase with what's gonna be so interesting for us going forward is if we add charts later or not. I told someone who did I tell? I don't remember if I was describing it to someone. Oh, yeah. It was at I was at a tiny seed meetup yesterday, and I was describing it to someone.
Colleen
00:14:03 – 00:14:09
And I said, well, our joking h one is your customers don't really want charts and graphs. They just want their data.
Aaron
00:14:09 – 00:14:10
Mhmm. It's a
Colleen
00:14:10 – 00:14:21
great h one. I know. Right? Once we're successful, we can we can put that up. But, you know, I was explaining it to someone, and and I said, we're approaching this in a very opinionated way.
Colleen
00:14:21 – 00:14:47
And our opinion, based on all of these conversations and working with customers ourselves, is that you think they want charts, and, really, that's not what they're trying to figure out. And so this has been a fun experiment for me because in Metabase, I use a lot of the charting. Like, I have a chart of users who've signed up by week. I have users who have canceled by week. And then ours, you know, our product doesn't offer charts.
Colleen
00:14:47 – 00:15:06
Yeah. Yeah. And so far, I have found, and this is true, this is not just because it's my own product, I like our product better because, because the filtering capability is so much more powerful.
Aaron
00:15:06 – 00:15:07
Good. Yes.
Colleen
00:15:07 – 00:15:08
Like Good. Yeah.
Aaron
00:15:09 – 00:15:14
I I don't I don't toot my own horn a lot, but we build some good filters, man.
Colleen
00:15:14 – 00:15:15
Like We really do.
Aaron
00:15:15 – 00:15:17
I still feel really proud of that.
Colleen
00:15:17 – 00:15:37
I I totally agree. And even if you look at even some of the stuff we do, like, if I'm in Metabase, and let's say I wanna get the number all of the users that have signed up in the last month. And so I can build it's it's kinda first of all, it's clunky. Like, I've gotta open another UI on the side. I've gotta click through.
Colleen
00:15:37 – 00:15:40
It feels very, like, cumbersome even to build
Aaron
00:15:40 – 00:15:47
the filter. Metabase has no taste. I'm okay saying it. They got no taste. That's what you're trying to say.
Colleen
00:15:49 – 00:16:08
And, you have to build the filter. And then even what it shows you, like, the way it shows you the index I call I'm gonna call it an index view, but, like, the table Mhmm. It's just it's just ugly and hard to work with and I can't, like, get the data I need because I have a 100 columns, and I can't turn them off. And it's just like, ugh.
Aaron
00:16:09 – 00:16:15
You need you need somebody with with taste and opinions. And you know what? For all that we're lacking, we've got a lot of opinions.
Colleen
00:16:15 – 00:16:17
We have a lot of opinions. That's for
Aaron
00:16:17 – 00:16:23
dang sure. Maybe Metabase has more money or more customers, but we've got more opinions.
Colleen
00:16:23 – 00:16:30
Yeah. So it's been super fun being able to run the 2 things side by side and see what I reach for when I need to answer a question.
Aaron
00:16:31 – 00:16:40
Oh, that's really valuable, actually. Because if you have to bail from HelloQuery to go back to Metabase, that's a good note. Like, that's a good thing to to mark down.
Colleen
00:16:40 – 00:17:01
Yeah. And the biggest thing is I told you was just aggregations. Like, I wanna know quickly how many users signed up last month. And we don't and and this is an easy thing we're gonna add by the time we we launch in a couple weeks. But, stuff like that I found was the biggest the biggest thing that I was like, oh, I really need this final number or I really need to see, you know, x y z.
Colleen
00:17:01 – 00:17:07
So it's been good. It's been really fun to play with, and and kinda see see it in real life.
Aaron
00:17:07 – 00:17:20
Yeah. It was a, my my I think my promise to you was before I left for Nashville, I was gonna get you an embed, and I think, like, Saturday night, I sent you an embed, and I was leaving on Sunday or something, but I was like It
Colleen
00:17:20 – 00:17:20
sure did.
Aaron
00:17:20 – 00:17:36
It's done. I got it. Here you go. And I was very very happy that I, like, got that done into you. And now we've got a whole, you know, we've got a whole linear board of of stuff that, like, some really easy and some are just big things we knew we're missing.
Aaron
00:17:36 – 00:17:50
We got a whole board full of stuff that we can, like, burn down, basically. So it's really nice to have, you know, have this feedback because I've been working in a cave for 1 1000 years, but now you're using it and we can work together on it, which is super
Colleen
00:17:50 – 00:18:09
Yeah. I thought it was super valuable that you and I were able to sit down and start to define like, clearly define what needs to be done for a v one. I think before this before we, had that embed done, I had just kind of been like, hey. Go make a thing. Make it mostly look like this.
Colleen
00:18:09 – 00:18:32
And this is what people are telling me, But we didn't have, like, a very clear set of requirements, which I think in a lot of part was to give us some room for creativity and flexibility. But now that, you know, I've had all these calls and we have a physical piece of software that I can play with, It was really nice to be able to find those, benchmarks to get this thing shipped.
Aaron
00:18:33 – 00:18:39
I know. So do you wanna talk linear, or do you wanna talk timeline? Which one do you wanna talk first?
Colleen
00:18:39 – 00:18:40
Let's talk timeline.
Aaron
00:18:40 – 00:18:42
Let's talk timeline. What's our timeline, Colleen?
Colleen
00:18:42 – 00:18:49
So the plan is to have a v one ready to onboard our first customer in 4 weeks.
Aaron
00:18:50 – 00:19:02
And then Aaron had a heart attack. It's okay. I already knew that timeline. Yeah. So early slash 1st September, we should have, the embed.
Aaron
00:19:02 – 00:19:09
So we we're kinda thinking of the app as 2 separate pieces. 1 is the embed and 1 is the admin. Is that what we call the other one?
Colleen
00:19:09 – 00:19:11
Yeah. That's kind of what we're calling it.
Aaron
00:19:12 – 00:19:29
So the embed is, like, done and usable. It needs a few tweaks, whatever. The admin, you know, the back end admin part, needs a lot of help, because I've just kinda been I've just kinda been doing some throwing it in the database for your setup. There is a back end. It's just not finished yet.
Aaron
00:19:29 – 00:19:45
And so I think those are the 2 those are the 2 areas, and the back end needs a lot more love than the embed. And, yeah, the goal is to ship both of those to someone who is going to pay us money, 1st week of September.
Colleen
00:19:45 – 00:19:53
Yes. I am so excited I know. To get this in front of customers. I mean, we have been wandering in the wood on this product for, like, two and a half years.
Aaron
00:19:54 – 00:20:05
Yeah. Which in in startup time is 40 years in the desert. We we are Moses in the desert. A little bible reference there for all the the die hard fans. Yeah.
Aaron
00:20:05 – 00:20:08
We are wandering, but I think we're close.
Colleen
00:20:09 – 00:20:24
I think we're close. I I mean, again, I wish you could sit on some of these calls and see how people are like, this is what I need. I mean, even and I'm even aggressively qualifying people now. I'm like, yeah. We're not gonna do that.
Colleen
00:20:24 – 00:20:31
If they're like, do I get charts? I'm like, nope. I mean, I'm nicer, but I'm kinda like, no. We don't think you really need charts. And, like, every person I have said that to except one was like, yeah, you're probably right.
Aaron
00:20:31 – 00:20:33
Amazing. 6 Just truly incredible.
Colleen
00:20:34 – 00:20:40
And people are like, hey, can I, you know, make the table look like this? I'm like, no. This is just what it looks like. The table
Aaron
00:20:40 – 00:20:42
is good. You will like the table.
Colleen
00:20:42 – 00:20:44
You will like the table. Give it give it a minute.
Aaron
00:20:44 – 00:20:45
The table is good.
Colleen
00:20:46 – 00:21:01
The table is good. So I am just so excited. I mean, I feel like the train is going in the right direction. Mhmm. We are, you know, we're teeing things up for a good soft launch to get a couple customers in there, and then we're just gonna learn.
Colleen
00:21:01 – 00:21:26
Right? We're just gonna learn really quickly, like, what do people need. This is always a challenge, I think, with with early sales is super excited that people are excited and people want us to win and we wanna win, And so there's a lot of alignment here. But, ultimately, like, it has to provide quite a lot of value, especially since our price point is gonna be, I'm gonna say high, but it's funny. It feels high to us, but, like, to a normal business person, it's not high.
Colleen
00:21:26 – 00:21:44
And so, you know, we have to really be providing that value. And it's possible we get it in people's apps, and their customers aren't exporting data. And they're like, oh, maybe we don't need this as much as we thought. So there's obviously a huge amount of risk still, but I feel really good about the path that we're on. And, like, I'm gonna start lining people up.
Colleen
00:21:44 – 00:21:59
Actually, yeah, I'll start lining people up. I think maybe how many people do you wanna start with? Just, like, 1 a week? Maybe, like, do I think I I identified 5 people to be in our initial founding customer group, and so I feel like 1 a week is probably the right cadence. Yeah.
Colleen
00:21:59 – 00:22:01
Because we wanna get them Ideally, I
Aaron
00:22:01 – 00:22:09
don't wanna learn the same thing from 2 different people. So I don't wanna do, like, 3 the 1st week, and then I'll be like, hey, this button doesn't work.
Colleen
00:22:09 – 00:22:09
Right.
Aaron
00:22:09 – 00:22:10
So that would be
Colleen
00:22:10 – 00:22:16
good. That's what I'm thinking. And I'd like to kinda get people, like, before the holidays and everyone's like, yeah. I don't even know. You know?
Colleen
00:22:16 – 00:22:34
Mhmm. Before before Thanksgiving, it'd be nice to kinda have a good a good set of people trying it out and and using it in production, and and we can see what people need and where the holes are. Oh, are you gonna we're not gonna have time to set up billing and stuff on this 4 week timeline. We're just gonna do that manually for now? Did you think about that?
Colleen
00:22:34 – 00:22:37
Or is that I guess Stripe checkout is pretty easy these days.
Aaron
00:22:37 – 00:22:39
Stripe checkout is pretty easy these days.
Colleen
00:22:39 – 00:22:40
Yeah. We
Aaron
00:22:40 – 00:22:51
can we can decide. Yeah. There's a pretty so the back end or the admin is all Laravel, and there's a great first party package for integration with Stripe called Cashier.
Colleen
00:22:52 – 00:22:52
Oh, okay.
Aaron
00:22:53 – 00:23:02
So we could do that, or we could just we could just YOLO it and send the check out link and be like, hey, you're early. We built the important stuff and not the billing. So
Colleen
00:23:02 – 00:23:06
Yeah. We're here. That feels like, we'll figure that out a couple days before. I'm not worried about that.
Aaron
00:23:06 – 00:23:07
Yeah.
Colleen
00:23:07 – 00:23:10
So how are you feeling about this this 4 week timeline?
Aaron
00:23:12 – 00:23:15
You know, it's I'm glad we're getting some help.
Colleen
00:23:15 – 00:23:18
Yeah. Well, that's big news. We hired someone. Yay.
Aaron
00:23:18 – 00:23:33
Yeah. We're getting some help. So there's somebody that I know in the Laravel community who is just a ruthless builder, and just churns stuff out. And we're gonna have him we're gonna have him help me out. And I feel good about that.
Aaron
00:23:34 – 00:23:36
I feel like it's doable. I feel like it's doable.
Colleen
00:23:36 – 00:23:37
Okay.
Aaron
00:23:37 – 00:23:50
And especially with him, I feel like it's totally doable. Yeah. I think we're gonna make it. And I think once once it's in the hands of people, I will hopefully get a little bit of that endorphin rush that you've been getting.
Colleen
00:23:51 – 00:23:51
Yes.
Aaron
00:23:52 – 00:24:13
Momentum. I'm, you know, sitting here all day working, and then you're having these calls with people being, like, it's amazing. And I'm, like, doing my day job, which, you know, is great, but doesn't provide me endorphins of, you know, people telling me the stuff I do is amazing. Yeah. And then, you know, go do nighttime stuff, and then get back to work.
Aaron
00:24:13 – 00:24:32
And so it'll be nice to, like, get that kind of direct feedback from people. I think that will energize me. Because I feel I do feel like the the, the energy meter is running is running low. Yeah. Which is fine because the you know, we're getting close to a big milestone anyway, and I think that's how it goes.
Aaron
00:24:32 – 00:24:32
But
Colleen
00:24:32 – 00:24:35
Yep. I think so. That sounds about right.
Aaron
00:24:35 – 00:24:43
So feel like it's totally doable. Glad we're getting help. Glad we're getting this guy specifically to help, and excited to, like, get it in people's hand.
Colleen
00:24:43 – 00:24:44
Cool.
Aaron
00:24:44 – 00:24:44
Yeah.
Colleen
00:24:45 – 00:24:50
Yeah. Awesome. Anything else? I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I've been writing a lot of content Mhmm.
Colleen
00:24:50 – 00:24:52
Which has been man, writing.
Aaron
00:24:52 – 00:24:52
Yeah.
Colleen
00:24:53 – 00:25:05
Right. You write a lot for your job. Oh, man. So, you know, I wrote 2,000 words about Tableau and 2,000 words about the founding story of Hello Query. Yeah.
Colleen
00:25:05 – 00:25:06
Amazing. Which was all
Aaron
00:25:06 – 00:25:06
Amazing.
Colleen
00:25:07 – 00:25:20
All interesting. Interesting. So I think it's been really good for me to exercise that muscle because it's just not something I do. Mhmm. And so it definitely has been good, but I was surprised at how I was like, wow, this is this is hard.
Aaron
00:25:20 – 00:25:21
It is hard.
Colleen
00:25:21 – 00:25:22
Okay. This is great.
Aaron
00:25:22 – 00:25:25
Wait till you start trying to do videos. You should do videos next.
Colleen
00:25:25 – 00:25:28
Yeah. Videos next. You you would That sounds like a whole
Aaron
00:25:28 – 00:25:29
fresh on video.
Colleen
00:25:29 – 00:25:31
Whole another level. Like, You would ill.
Aaron
00:25:34 – 00:25:40
Man. We should talk about it. You would totally kill on video. Maybe Yeah. You have been writing a lot.
Aaron
00:25:40 – 00:25:42
That's gonna serve us really well, I think.
Colleen
00:25:42 – 00:26:01
Yeah. I, I think so. And so that's been that's been kinda fun, and it's also good, I think, you know, as we build this business together, it's good to have a large cross section of skills. Mhmm. And I think we both do really well at something did I tell you this publicly or privately?
Colleen
00:26:01 – 00:26:07
I don't remember. But something I really like about I don't know yet. Keep going. But we're still record we still Yeah.
Aaron
00:26:07 – 00:26:08
We're definitely still recording.
Colleen
00:26:09 – 00:26:38
So something I really like about you, Aaron, is you take on new challenges with gusto. And something I see a lot in developers, and this is the reason I think a lot of developers don't cross over to be startup founders very well, is because we have a hierarchy in our mind about how important something is. And so if it's not real tech, like it's making screencasts, we think that's not as important. I am not gonna devote. Yes.
Colleen
00:26:38 – 00:26:59
That's soft skills. So I am not gonna devote as much time, energy, and attention to that thing as I would if I were writing code. And I think what you're doing with, like, your screencast course is a perfect example of you're, like, I'm making all these screencasts. And then you're, like, how do I become the best at making screencasts? Right?
Aaron
00:26:59 – 00:27:00
Yeah.
Colleen
00:27:00 – 00:27:14
And I think that is a skill a lot of people or maybe it's just an excitement or an energy level a lot of people don't bring to their jobs. They say, this is my job. This is the thing I do. I do it well, and and that's what I'm gonna do. Yeah.
Colleen
00:27:14 – 00:27:34
And so yeah. Anyway, I just think it's very admirable how when you take on these new challenges, you're like, this is totally outside my area of expertise. It's not it's a soft skill soft skill, air quotes. But I'm still gonna treat it with the same level of intensity I would treat a, air quotes again, real programming problem.
Aaron
00:27:34 – 00:27:40
Well, I'm just gonna ride I'm just gonna ride that high through the whole weekend. That that's amazing. Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Colleen
00:27:41 – 00:27:42
Well yeah.
Aaron
00:27:43 – 00:28:00
Yeah. I think it's funny because I feel like a lot of developers are self taught. And so they, like, they taught themselves how to get to where they are in the first place, and then there are all these other skills that can, like, magnify your development skills. And they're just like, nah. I'm just gonna not learn those.
Aaron
00:28:00 – 00:28:21
But, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I ended up here because I was interested in development and taught myself how to do that. And there are other things that are interesting. And it is it is really fun to be, like, this thing that I wanna do is learnable, so I'm gonna lean in and learn how to do it. That's that's enjoyable, and I hope that my kids do the same thing.
Aaron
00:28:21 – 00:28:23
I would love for them to like learning. That would be amazing.
Colleen
00:28:24 – 00:28:36
Yeah. I was thinking about that when I was writing this Hello Query article because it was it's, like, super long. I mean, for someone who doesn't write, it's, like, 2,000 words or something. It's, like, multiple pages. And I was, like, wow.
Colleen
00:28:36 – 00:28:54
In no point in my life have I really had I don't blog, so I've never, like, tried to write a story that is entertaining and first person. At first, I was gonna blow it off because I was like, I don't have time for that. That seems like a waste of time. And then I remembered that backlinks are good, SEO is good. Backlinks are good.
Colleen
00:28:55 – 00:29:25
And their big their big, you know, carrot and stick with with this company, Starter Story, is that they have great domain authority and they have great SEO and they have a huge mailing list. And so I was like, okay. It is worth my time to get backlinks and an article from this site back to us because my job right now is to increase our visibility. And then I was still kinda like, how much time should I really spend on this thing? And then, like, I paused and I was like, if I'm gonna do it, like, I should actually spend time on it and I shouldn't.
Colleen
00:29:25 – 00:29:31
Like, I got it was so long. I got, like, halfway through it. I was like, oh, my gosh. It keeps going. There's more questions.
Colleen
00:29:31 – 00:29:43
Good gracious. And I thought of, like, I thought about it. I was like, okay. So this is not a skill that I do or really know how to do. And the only way to get better at these kinds of things is to practice.
Aaron
00:29:44 – 00:29:44
Mhmm.
Colleen
00:29:44 – 00:29:50
And so I'm not saying it's an amazing article, but it's way better than my first try.
Aaron
00:29:50 – 00:29:52
So, And you know what?
Colleen
00:29:52 – 00:29:56
You tried really hard, and that's what counts. Yep. I tried really hard, guys.
Aaron
00:29:58 – 00:30:02
So content. I actually haven't read the whole thing yet because it is so long.
Colleen
00:30:02 – 00:30:02
And they did
Aaron
00:30:02 – 00:30:08
a they did a pop up in the middle, and I was, like, I gotta I gotta get back to work. So I'm curious now to go read it.
Colleen
00:30:08 – 00:30:10
You should read it. I would really like to know.
Aaron
00:30:10 – 00:30:15
Especially, especially since you're speaking on my behalf. So I wonder how I look in this in this story.
Colleen
00:30:15 – 00:30:19
Yeah. You feature prominently in the story, so you should probably go read it.
Aaron
00:30:19 – 00:30:23
I love reading things about myself. I don't know why I stopped. Yeah.
Colleen
00:30:24 – 00:30:25
Yeah.
Aaron
00:30:25 – 00:30:28
Anyway Good job on powering through. Backlinks are important.
Colleen
00:30:28 – 00:30:29
That's right. We have, like, 700
Aaron
00:30:30 – 00:30:30
writing.
Colleen
00:30:30 – 00:30:37
BW. I know. Because of all the podcasts I did too. Remember a couple weeks ago, I did, like, a whole bunch of podcasts? So yeah.
Colleen
00:30:37 – 00:30:39
Anyway, awesome week.
Aaron
00:30:39 – 00:30:41
Awesome week. We're gonna make it.
Colleen
00:30:41 – 00:30:42
We're gonna make it. In the
Aaron
00:30:42 – 00:30:45
right direction. The end is in sight. Well, the beginning is in sight.
Colleen
00:30:45 – 00:30:48
The beginning is in sight. The beginning is in sight.
Aaron
00:30:48 – 00:30:49
Alright. Anything else?
Colleen
00:30:50 – 00:30:51
Nope. That's it.
Aaron
00:30:51 – 00:30:52
Alright. See you.
Colleen
00:30:52 – 00:30:53
Bye.
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.