Aaron Francis

Refine: https://hammerstone.dev/
Aaron: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis
Colleen: https://twitter.com/leenyburger

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Transcript

Aaron

00:00:00 – 00:00:00

Hello, Colleen.

Colleen

00:00:01 – 00:00:02

Hey. Good morning, Aaron.

Aaron

00:00:02 – 00:00:03

How's it going?

Colleen

00:00:03 – 00:00:06

Pretty good. Can't complain. How about you?

Aaron

00:00:06 – 00:00:28

It's going amazing because I launched finally launched the database course at PlanetScale. And, one, it just feels good to have, like, to be working on something for a super long time and have it released. But it also went really well in terms of the feedback. So it was, it was a big launch. So today's Thursday.

Aaron

00:00:28 – 00:00:40

It was on Tuesday, and it sat at the, on the front page of Hacker News for the entire day, and people were pretty positive about it, even on Hacker News. So it just feels it

Colleen

00:00:40 – 00:00:46

just feels really, really good. That is awesome. Congratulations. I know that has been a long time coming.

Aaron

00:00:46 – 00:01:06

It has been a long time coming. Yeah. The past month or so I've been done with videos, which is that was a relief in itself, but then we had to get, like, the course site and everything done, which I didn't I didn't have too much to do there. I was cleaning up some, like, content descriptions and that kind of thing. But still, people, you know, messaging me being like, hey, dude.

Aaron

00:01:06 – 00:01:13

You've been talking about this for a year. Where's the freaking course? I'm like, I know. I'm trying. I'm doing what I can.

Aaron

00:01:13 – 00:01:16

So it just feels good to not have that hanging over my head anymore.

Colleen

00:01:16 – 00:01:19

Yeah. That's spectacular. I cannot wait to take it.

Aaron

00:01:19 – 00:01:21

Yeah. You better take it.

Colleen

00:01:21 – 00:01:32

I will. I'm we're flying to Florida, and we're in California. So it's a 6 hour flight on Saturday. So I'm prepping by getting as many MySQL videos as I can

Aaron

00:01:32 – 00:01:39

for you. Yeah. That will make the flight maybe go very, very slowly. So I don't know. I don't know if that's a good idea.

Aaron

00:01:39 – 00:01:52

But, yeah, I'm I'm really happy with it and I'm pleased that, people seem to be, 1, enjoying it and, 2, saying that they're, like, learning a bunch of stuff. So just makes me feel makes me feel good.

Colleen

00:01:52 – 00:01:53

Awesome. Yeah. That's great to hear.

Aaron

00:01:53 – 00:01:56

So what's been going on, on your side?

Colleen

00:01:57 – 00:02:14

Well, customer interviews, as I said on the last podcast, I was trying to hit 10 in 2 weeks because I'm off next week. And, you have participated in many of those, which I appreciate. I think it's great when we can both show up. And I think we've done 12 in 2 weeks. Yes, ma'am.

Colleen

00:02:14 – 00:02:21

It has been a tremendous amount of work, but I am really, really happy with how it has gone.

Aaron

00:02:21 – 00:02:33

Yeah. We we should talk about everything we've learned. But before we do, didn't you say on the last episode something like I don't know. It's probably one of your Jason Cohen things. Like, the people that are successful say they're gonna do something and then do it.

Colleen

00:02:33 – 00:02:35

Yes. I did say that. That is Feels good.

Aaron

00:02:35 – 00:02:36

We did it.

Colleen

00:02:36 – 00:02:36

Feels good.

Aaron

00:02:36 – 00:02:38

We said we're gonna do it, and we did it.

Colleen

00:02:39 – 00:02:44

Feels good to do the thing you said you were gonna do. Absolutely. Imagine that. Relentless execution.

Aaron

00:02:45 – 00:02:58

Okay. So where do you wanna start? Do you wanna start with, how the first ones were, like, massively depressing and we wanted to give up everything and move to the woods or talk about how some went really well? Where where do you wanna start?

Colleen

00:02:58 – 00:03:23

So I think one of the interesting things I think the best place to start is in the initial group of people that we asked to sit down with us. And I think it's important to give context here that we weren't targeting a specific industry or a specific company size for this first round. It was kind of a grab bag of people that we know or that we know on Twitter. Like, there was some they're all warm yeah. Warm intros.

Colleen

00:03:24 – 00:03:40

And for this first round, we did more mostly Rails developers, some Laravel developers. Mhmm. But, yeah, we hadn't and and I think that's important context because as we get into the emotional swings of these interviews, it's important to remember we weren't targeting a specific group yet.

Aaron

00:03:40 – 00:04:04

So Yeah. And I I think that's I don't know if we could have done that better, but I think doing a first round with a bunch of people who are friendly across a broad spectrum actually ended up being very, very helpful, because we're trying to prove out kind of our broad hypothesis at this point. But I think as you're about to say, the first few people, it did not go super great.

Colleen

00:04:05 – 00:04:12

Yeah. And I think in the spirit of full disclosure, we got off of that first call, and we were like, we should just quit. Like, this

Aaron

00:04:12 – 00:04:12

is Literally.

Colleen

00:04:13 – 00:04:15

Literally, we said, I never say that.

Aaron

00:04:15 – 00:04:15

Yep.

Colleen

00:04:16 – 00:04:16

And to be fair

Aaron

00:04:16 – 00:04:30

Oh, it was it was bad. So bad. It was so bad. We got off the call, and I think we immediately called each other and were like, Hey, how did you think that went? They were like, Pretty bad.

Aaron

00:04:30 – 00:04:38

I was like, Yeah, pretty bad. Like, We should we should just pack it up. And you're like, Yeah, I think we should just pack it up. Oh, and that lasted a that lasted an entire day.

Colleen

00:04:38 – 00:04:40

Oh, that was a rough day. That was a rough day. I remember

Aaron

00:04:41 – 00:04:41

day.

Colleen

00:04:41 – 00:04:49

I was at my coworking space, and I left at noon because I was like, I just need to go home. Like, this I don't have any energy for this.

Aaron

00:04:49 – 00:04:52

Yeah. That was really discouraging.

Colleen

00:04:52 – 00:05:08

It was super discouraging. I feel like the context though, last week, I was getting up at 5 AM for workouts instead of 6 AM. So I was already tired. And so I think I was already kind of, like, you know, tired. So to get off that call, it was just, whew, it was soul crushing.

Aaron

00:05:08 – 00:05:16

Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't have a lot of extra context. I was just depressed about it. I don't really have any good reason except it was a depressing call.

Aaron

00:05:17 – 00:05:28

Yeah. What was it that was so like, what was it that was such a bummer about that? It just felt like we weren't making any progress over the past 1000 years, or or what was it?

Colleen

00:05:28 – 00:05:59

So my take on why that went the way it went was because this company, we thought was potentially our target market. This company was, you know, over 500 k ARR. The company had very few developers, so they had more money than time. And they seemed, from the outside, to have a need for the service we were offering. So to find out that they might have a need for it, but, man, it it just didn't feel like the pains we thought they had were not there.

Colleen

00:05:59 – 00:06:07

The ideas we had already kind of concocted in terms of an MVP were clearly not something they were looking for.

Aaron

00:06:07 – 00:06:07

And

Colleen

00:06:07 – 00:06:25

so I think the biggest mismatch there was this was the kind of company we thought we would be targeting. And for them to come in and be like, yeah. This is not even close to what we need was just like, oh, is our entire we we came out of that one interview, and it was our first. And it was like, is our entire hypothesis wrong?

Aaron

00:06:25 – 00:06:34

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we even got feedback on, like, hey, if you're gonna do these customer interviews, you gotta do them differently. So it kinda felt like

Colleen

00:06:34 – 00:06:35

felt like

Aaron

00:06:35 – 00:06:37

a 1 a 1, 2 punch.

Colleen

00:06:37 – 00:07:07

So that was interesting, though. I you know, we can talk more about how we do the customer interviews later, but that was actually really good feedback for me because I think, you know, I've been coached by Michelle, and I've read her book, and that is incredibly valuable because I've learned so much. But now that I've done, you know, 12, 13 of these, I do think there's some kind of balance between who I really am and that, like, super calm, don't say anything person. I have found my sweet spot for these is, like, I'm still the I'm still me. Right?

Colleen

00:07:07 – 00:07:16

Like, I'm still I'm just a high energy individual. And so, I still have to be me in these interviews, or else it's just weird, but, like, just mute it a little bit.

Aaron

00:07:16 – 00:07:26

Yeah. I did notice on that first call. I was like, man, Colleen is she's really downbeat. I wonder I wonder if this is a strategy. And, yes, typically, it was.

Aaron

00:07:26 – 00:07:26

It was

Colleen

00:07:26 – 00:07:28

a strategy. And it did not work, by the way.

Aaron

00:07:28 – 00:07:30

It did it did not work. No. It was

Colleen

00:07:30 – 00:07:31

not a good strategy.

Aaron

00:07:31 – 00:07:35

It was not a good strategy. It was not effective, and I didn't I didn't buy it.

Colleen

00:07:36 – 00:07:41

Yeah. So that that one, I did that way. And that but that was good for me to realize. It's like, this is almost too much.

Aaron

00:07:42 – 00:07:42

Yeah.

Colleen

00:07:42 – 00:07:46

Because I studied. Right? Like, I studied, like, here are my questions. How do I do these questions? Mhmm.

Colleen

00:07:47 – 00:07:59

And I stuck to the script in that first interview. And, again, as I've done more of these, I've gained a lot of confidence in the best way to do them. And, yeah. So I'm just getting better, I think. I'm just learning how to do it.

Colleen

00:07:59 – 00:07:59

Yeah.

Aaron

00:07:59 – 00:08:11

I think so. And that I mean, by the end, by the, you know, 12th one, I feel like we had it down we had it down pretty good. Yeah. So okay. So we did the first one, maybe the first two, and decided

Colleen

00:08:12 – 00:08:23

First three, Aaron, were not very good in terms of Yeah. What we heard. Like, the first three we did, we basically heard no. Like, this is not this is not a problem, like, the way you think it's a problem.

Aaron

00:08:23 – 00:08:39

Yeah. Yeah. So we did the first three, decided we should quit. We should quit or we should, we should do something entirely different that is like not even related to what we're currently doing. And then we kept going, and things got a little bit better.

Aaron

00:08:39 – 00:08:40

Mhmm.

Colleen

00:08:40 – 00:08:42

Yep. Things started to turn around. And So

Aaron

00:08:42 – 00:08:46

what was it about the next ones you think that that got better?

Colleen

00:08:46 – 00:09:13

So I think 2 things happened. I think, one of my friends who, we actually interviewed her, because she has a rails company, But she also took some time out of her schedule to talk with me a little bit about the way I was doing these interviews. And one of the things I realized, which I knew but I hadn't really synthesized yet, was you need a pretty specific hypothesis, and you need a pretty specific user group. So it's not just everyone I know who's a Rails developer. Let's talk to them.

Colleen

00:09:13 – 00:09:21

Let's segment these people. What size are their companies? What do they do with their companies? Are they consultancies? Are they, you know, head of product?

Colleen

00:09:21 – 00:09:38

Are they head of engineering? Are they an engineer? And so she really helped me focus in on the user groups and the questions I was gonna I was going to ask them. And so now we're 3 interviews in for context, and I'm going into my 4th interview. And my 4th interview is with a consultant.

Colleen

00:09:38 – 00:09:59

And, honestly, after having you know, after doing a deep dive on what we're looking for, I thought about canceling it. So I was like, consultants are not gonna be our market because we we think now we're going for, like, small to midsize companies. And we've just had 3, like, in a row where people are like, this is not a pain point. Like, you were you were in the wrong space. They didn't say that.

Colleen

00:09:59 – 00:10:02

They're way nicer. If we interviewed you, I really appreciate appreciate your time.

Aaron

00:10:02 – 00:10:03

Thank you for your help.

Colleen

00:10:03 – 00:10:04

Thank you so much.

Aaron

00:10:04 – 00:10:09

It did feel like a punch in the face, but we really appreciate you. Right.

Colleen

00:10:09 – 00:10:27

And I go into this 4th one with this consultant, and he was talking about a company he worked for where he without me prompting him. Right? Like, I learned something from Michelle. I didn't prompt at all. Literally described the pain that was our original hypothesis for this business, almost word for word.

Colleen

00:10:27 – 00:10:31

And I had to sit there and not be like, that's what I've been trying to say.

Aaron

00:10:31 – 00:10:38

Yep. I I was not there for this when I watched it all on recording, and I think as he like, as I was watching it, I was slacking you, and

Colleen

00:10:38 – 00:10:42

I was like, he said this. Oh, he said this. I'm so proud of you. You didn't you didn't say anything.

Aaron

00:10:42 – 00:10:45

Yeah. That one that one felt like a turning point.

Colleen

00:10:45 – 00:11:18

And that felt like a turning point because he literally described our pain, the pain in the way we originally hypothesized it, and told me they paid money to fix it and told me how they paid to fix it. And he just also surfaced surfaced some issues that I hadn't really thought of in-depth or realized how big they were. And so I got off that call, and I was like, oh, okay. This guy had the exact pain, and he struggled to find a good way to solve it. And then the one after that, again, completely unprompted.

Colleen

00:11:19 – 00:11:34

Same situation. Exact pain. They they weren't paying to solve it. They were just living with it. But, you know, so I feel like once we hit, like, 5, 6, we started hearing similar things from people surrounding the pain, which was awesome.

Aaron

00:11:34 – 00:11:56

And I remember I think it must have been it must have been this Tuesday, because I remember you and I were talking on the phone, like real phone, and I was driving around the rich neighborhood again. And I had I had another McFlurry. I promise I don't I don't get McFlurry's like every week. It just so happens that they come up on on this show. But we had just launched the course.

Aaron

00:11:56 – 00:12:28

Everything was great. And so I went out to get a celebration McFlurry. And I remember I was driving around the neighborhood, and we were talking on the phone. And I think that is when we had had some good interviews, and I laid out what I thought our hypothesis should be. And that is what we what we took into the next several, that turned out to be, I think, accurate, because we reached that magical point where people start saying the same things that everyone else has been saying.

Aaron

00:12:28 – 00:12:55

And so we started to hear the same things over and over again as as pains unprompted. But I remember, I think it was this Tuesday, so it was 2 days ago that we decided, hey, maybe, like, maybe our original hypothesis is correct, but maybe we're approaching it. Like, maybe our solution is incorrect, or the people that were pitching our solution, maybe we're doing it from the wrong side. So I don't know how much of that you wanna talk about.

Colleen

00:12:56 – 00:13:05

Yeah. I'm comfortable talking about that. I think that you are correct. We started to hear the same thing, and that's very exciting. Because you hear about hearing that.

Colleen

00:13:05 – 00:13:22

But in any customer interviews I have ever done in the past, I haven't really been able to converge on something. It's like when you're trying to build a new product, and they're like, just talk to people. Like, what? Like, that's the most broad, unhelpful advice ever. Because, people have crazy different pain points if you don't have any focus.

Colleen

00:13:22 – 00:14:26

So we you know, as if you listen to this podcast, I'm sure you know, we build this query builder, which right now, is packaged as a as a gem or a package, I think, in Laravel, and you add it into your application. And, talking to people, we have come up with this new hypothesis, which in very broad strokes is non technical users need access to company data without having to learn SQL or understanding the nuances and flaws of the data model. So there is this In every company that we spoke with that was bigger than 3 people, there was this disconnect between the sales and marketing customer success teams that need access to the data and the engineers who who are providing the data. And what we one of the things we heard more than once, which I really think is is interesting, is people using Heroku data clips to get the specific piece of information and then bouncing that to a Google Sheet or to Excel or something to give the report to their I hate to use the word nontechnical because these people are usually Excel wizards. So non software developer decision makers.

Aaron

00:14:26 – 00:14:27

Yeah.

Colleen

00:14:27 – 00:14:51

Non SQL decision makers in the company. And I think as we refine this and we're still refining because, you know, we haven't synthesized all this data yet. But as we refine these ideas, these people who need the data live in Excel. They're making business decisions, and most of them like Excel. But getting the data in a smart, understandable format from the database to Excel can be a pain point.

Aaron

00:14:51 – 00:15:22

Yep. I think that was I think that was the the big realization is we've been trying to do this. Like, we've been trying to enable developers to do this for their people, And I think we were right in that this is a pain. I think we were wrong in that the way to solve it is give developers a tool to solve it for their people. And And so what we ended up hearing over and over and over again was like, I I just need to get the data to CSV because they will do, like, they will do what they want in Excel.

Aaron

00:15:22 – 00:15:46

And I actually don't know what they're doing in Excel, and I don't wanna know what they're doing in Excel, but I need to give them the power of Excel or Sheets or whatever. And I don't, like, I don't wanna build I don't wanna build all that out. I just need to get them the data. And some people were saying, like, every time they ask, I'll go write a SQL query. Some people were saying, every time they ask, I'll hand code a new report.

Aaron

00:15:46 – 00:16:14

And some people were saying every time they ask, I just kind of ignore it until it goes away. But what we kept hearing is these people that are trying to make that are trying to make decisions to, like, help the customers or analyze marketing, like, they need the data. And not only do I, as the developer, have access to the data, I know where all the data bodies are hidden. Right? So I know that this field activated at doesn't actually mean activated at.

Aaron

00:16:14 – 00:16:48

You also have to look at this status column to determine if they've actually activated or, you know, whatever, stuff like that. And so it's not it's not even that these people are non SQL users and they don't wanna teach them SQL. It's also that they're non SQL users, and our data model is, it has some lovable quirks that only the developer knows about. And I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna have to teach them, like, where all these things are munged and where we've papered over problems. And so that was super encouraging to me for a couple of reasons.

Aaron

00:16:48 – 00:17:16

One is we don't have to recreate Excel. Like, to solve this pain, we don't need to make the best charting, application, the best application to deal with pivot tables, and, like, we don't have to do all of that. And that has always been super intimidating to me because I can't, like, I can't do that. That's just too much. And so when we when we have talked about in the past competing with something like Metabase, it's like, I can't do that.

Aaron

00:17:16 – 00:17:34

It's too much. I just can't do it. But now it feels like there's a path forward where we can offer what people are actually wanting without having to recreate something that, you know, people with 1,000,000 of dollars of funding or slash Microsoft are are creating. So that felt really good.

Colleen

00:17:34 – 00:17:44

Yes. I agree. Felt like there is opportunity there. There is a pain there. Now different companies of different sizes and different people had different level of how they were feeling that pain.

Colleen

00:17:44 – 00:17:49

Mhmm. But it feels like there's something between data clips and Metabase that could be us.

Aaron

00:17:49 – 00:17:57

I think so. So by the end of the week, I mean, I e yesterday, feeling a lot better. We're not gonna pack it up. It's not game over yet.

Colleen

00:17:58 – 00:18:01

Me too. Feeling a lot better.

Aaron

00:18:01 – 00:18:02

A lot, lot better.

Colleen

00:18:03 – 00:18:19

Very encouraging to start feeling like, like I said, like, we've zeroed in on a pain that we're gonna try and solve. We think it is painful enough that people will pay to solve it. Some people told us right then on the phone that, like, yeah. I would I would pay you x amount right now to solve this.

Aaron

00:18:19 – 00:18:21

And x x was high.

Colleen

00:18:21 – 00:18:21

X high.

Aaron

00:18:21 – 00:18:22

That was a good amount.

Colleen

00:18:23 – 00:18:43

Yeah. Well and the cool thing about this well, the interesting thing about this is if we are if we sit between I just use this as an example, but between, like, do it yourself and BI tools. Right? BI tools are like $1,000. And so if we can zero in on solving this problem, we have a lot of wiggle room in terms of value and pricing.

Colleen

00:18:43 – 00:18:44

I think And

Aaron

00:18:44 – 00:19:10

we have talked we have talked historically about how we have 0 wiggle room now because on my side, it's Nova, and on your side, it's Sidekick, and those set the price. Like, that sets the top of the market. And here, we're talking about BI, which I think starts at, like, $1,000 a month. And so they're running cover for us to be like, hey, you could you could use these BI tools, but you can use us for way cheaper. And still, it's a pretty good price for us.

Aaron

00:19:10 – 00:19:12

So that feels a lot better.

Colleen

00:19:12 – 00:19:43

And I think the real key to win here is because Metabase is only $85 a month. But Metabase, I think, is overkill for what a lot of these people need. And so if you're even easier I mean, I think and, again, we're not sure yet because we're early in this process. But now if our if our customer is non SQL person trying to access the data so they can make business decisions, if that's our customer, you wanna make you wanna remove as much friction as possible. And I use Metabase, so I I feel like I can say this confidently.

Colleen

00:19:43 – 00:20:10

It's a great tool, but there's a fair amount of friction there, especially if you don't know SQL. Like, it doesn't even yeah. There there's a fair amount of friction in terms of, like, setting it up and and getting the information you need. And so if you just wanna get your data out of the database to excel, like, specifically what you want, I think we can solve that feels small enough. Like, we can wrap our hands around it, and we can solve it in this really, really low friction way and iterate from there.

Aaron

00:20:10 – 00:20:42

Yeah. I think that's I think that's the key is we can create something between the 2 of us, and that's not very many of us. Between the 2 of us, we can create something valuable, that we can then iterate on. So maybe one day we do have to get into charts and graphs and pivot tables and whatever, but I don't think that needs to be the first version. Like, there's there are enough people so far that are saying, we just wanna get our freaking data out and put it in Excel, and we wanna do that regularly, we wanna do that easily, and we wanna do that on a schedule.

Aaron

00:20:42 – 00:20:56

It's like, Hey, I can do that. Yeah. Like, I can I can as a as a solo developer, I can do that? So that that feels good. And being, being in a market that exists also feels good.

Aaron

00:20:56 – 00:21:07

Like, if if we're competing with Metabase, that's that's okay. Like, it's nice. It's nice to be in a market that actually exists instead of convincing people that paid packages are a real thing, and you should you should do it.

Colleen

00:21:07 – 00:21:35

Yeah. I really I really think it's the right move because our paid packages just because it's not a pattern that people are familiar with. And, you know, the product is is coming along really well, and, the paid package is great, but the people who have purchased it are in our network somehow. And so I feel like since this is not really a pattern people reach for, that but a SaaS is a pattern people are comfortable with and reach for. So, yeah.

Aaron

00:21:35 – 00:21:47

Yeah. Yeah. You've been on about this for a little while, wanting to get away from paid packages. First, it was, Aaron, you can never open source anything. And now it's we can't sell packages.

Aaron

00:21:47 – 00:21:56

We need to be a SaaS. And, you know, I'm not afraid to admit it. You're right. Again, I think I think this is the move. This is so much easier to charge for.

Aaron

00:21:57 – 00:22:37

And I have this I have this unformed theory in my head for, not based on this, but based on an entire lifetime of things, that there are, like, there are patterns and structures and games that, like, you should, like, fight against and try to change, and there are patterns and structures and games that you should play within and exploit to your benefit. So, like, I think work politics is a good one. Sure. You can rage against the machine and try to change everything about, you know, your workplace, or you could just kinda like knowingly play the game and get a promotion and go home and be happy, that kind of stuff. I kind of feel like with the paid packages, that's not a game.

Aaron

00:22:37 – 00:22:58

That's not a game I wanna change. Like, I would love for there to be more developers that are able to sell packages, and it's a common thing. And why don't we just say also that open source is a sustainable business model as well? Like, that would be awesome. I'm not willing to dedicate the time and energy to change the entire market on that.

Aaron

00:22:58 – 00:23:04

That's not a game I'm gonna try to change. I'm gonna try to play the existing game, which is people pay for SaaS.

Colleen

00:23:04 – 00:23:14

I agree, especially with our limited resources. Right? Like, if we Yeah. We were a different kind of company and and we're like, we are gonna change how this is fundamentally done, like, that would be that'd be a different challenge.

Aaron

00:23:15 – 00:23:41

Yeah. And that is a noble, like, that is a noble cause that someone should take up. I and that's the thing with, like, what systems am I willing to rage against the machine and which ones do I just have to play within and exploit, you know, to my benefit? And we can't change we can't change the ecosystem. I would I would much rather have a business that funds, our lifestyles and contribute to open source if we want.

Aaron

00:23:41 – 00:23:54

So, yeah, I think I think this is at least this is the, right thing to take into the next round of discovery. So what what happens now? I guess that's the question.

Colleen

00:23:54 – 00:24:01

Well, that's what I was so we're we're saying all these things. I feel like Asterix. Next time you hear us on the podcast, we reserve the right to have completely changed our minds again.

Aaron

00:24:02 – 00:24:04

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's our standard disclaimer.

Aaron

00:24:05 – 00:24:06

I should put that in the intro.

Colleen

00:24:07 – 00:24:20

Because we are so early in the process. But I think you're and again, for people who are listening, we're we're just figuring this out right now. Like, we do not have the answers. We have not pre briefed on this. We now have a new hypothesis.

Colleen

00:24:20 – 00:24:49

Mhmm. Right? And so I think next round like you said, we're taking that hypothesis into the next round of discovery to see if we can hone down more on, if this is if this is the right hypothesis. Like because our original hypothesis 2 weeks ago was, you know, people have some kind of ambiguous pain around data. So we have narrowed the funnel to what we have now, and we may or may not need to do another round to kinda narrow the funnel even a little bit more in terms of what the deliverable is.

Aaron

00:24:50 – 00:24:51

Mhmm.

Colleen

00:24:51 – 00:24:57

Yeah. I have lots of thoughts and feelings, and, like, it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple months.

Aaron

00:24:58 – 00:25:06

Yeah. I think so. I have felt more optimistic, I think, in the past week about this than I have in a long, long time.

Colleen

00:25:06 – 00:25:08

That's awesome. I didn't know that.

Aaron

00:25:08 – 00:25:31

Yeah. And we even We had a call with somebody in the Laravel ecosystem yesterday who wanted like, who wants the current product refined, but also wants it with a React front end. And as we were talking to him, and he was, like, he was exceedingly helpful. He was telling us all kinds of stuff, and that was, that was a very good call. But as we were talking to him, I had to tell him, like, dude, I don't know React.

Aaron

00:25:31 – 00:25:58

I don't I don't think I can support React in the in the long run. And he was like, yeah. That totally makes sense. But as we were talking to him, I was thinking, man, there are so many permutations of our current product that it it is it is hard for me to keep it all straight. And the idea of moving it to a, you know, a SaaS that people don't install and I don't have to account for every configuration of Laravel Vue React Rails.

Aaron

00:25:59 – 00:26:00

Oh, boy. That sure feels good.

Colleen

00:26:00 – 00:26:01

Feels good.

Aaron

00:26:01 – 00:26:23

And not only that, like, not only does it sound technically more fun, people want it. People actually want it more. People are saying, this is a pain I would love to have solved versus us telling people, like, you could do all of these very neat things with this product, and then being like, Yeah, maybe. It sounds like a lot though, doesn't it? It's like, God freaking.

Aaron

00:26:23 – 00:26:26

Yeah. So, yeah, I'm feeling so much better.

Colleen

00:26:26 – 00:26:39

Yeah. Me too. I feel like this gives us the so something we have been trying to do on the rail side is the same as you, like, twist ourselves into a pretzel to meet every possible use case. And some people want it internally. Some people wanna show it to their customers.

Colleen

00:26:39 – 00:27:03

But if they wanna show it to their customers, they want this infinite level of customization. And so what this means, I think, for us is we are gonna offer the 2 views, which you have seen, the view we have now, which is a drop in modal that allows them to build up complicated filters, including or conditions. And and we're about to roll out this kind of, like, I call them Stripe like filters, but kinda like the thing you tweeted, filter pills view. And because

Aaron

00:27:03 – 00:27:10

Stripe legal is listening. It's nothing Stripe. Let me tell you that. But, yeah, it looks just like Stripe. Yeah.

Aaron

00:27:10 – 00:27:11

That one.

Colleen

00:27:12 – 00:27:23

We're gonna roll out this filter pills view once I get back vacation. And then it's that's gonna be it. It's gonna be like, here's what you got. You got 2 views. You can add your custom CSS on top, but I like, this is it.

Colleen

00:27:24 – 00:27:55

I'm not making you any more, you know, any more custom views. And so that really just just kinda takes stress off a little bit because Yeah. It does. One of the things I was finding with the package is our initial hypothesis was people need this on their index views, and their customers were gonna see it, potentially. And if their customers are gonna see it, it has to perfectly we've talked about this ad infinitum, but it has to perfectly match their UI, and that is harder than we anticipated.

Aaron

00:27:56 – 00:28:12

And, first of all, good use of ad infinitum. And we don't wanna be in the front end- Front end game. Customization component game. Like, I'll let I'll let the the Tailwind UI guys play that game. They are exceedingly good at it.

Aaron

00:28:12 – 00:28:23

I I kinda suck at JavaScript, and I don't wanna I don't wanna figure out how to make something infinitely customizable while still being easy to maintain. Like, that's just not my skill set.

Colleen

00:28:24 – 00:28:28

Yeah. I, I feel similarly, and we have a lot of job

Aaron

00:28:28 – 00:28:32

About my skill set, or you feel similarly about your skill set?

Colleen

00:28:32 – 00:28:33

About I feel similarly about

Aaron

00:28:33 – 00:28:36

your job script. Okay.

Colleen

00:28:37 – 00:29:05

And so, I am excited to have these 2 options, which we'll have for Rails. And they'll be somewhat customizable. But you as the implementing developer like, this was a thing we were getting into was this first group of customers needed it, and I was trying to do it for everyone because it's a first round of customers. Like, you wanna know how to turn this into a sustainable business. And I think with this new focus, the refined package will will be what it is.

Colleen

00:29:05 – 00:29:14

It's like, this is what you get. If you don't like the way it looks, you can eject your views and write your own. Like, that's fine. Just like any other gem. So I don't know.

Colleen

00:29:14 – 00:29:24

That feels good to be like, okay. This is this is what it is. We don't have to force this into a market that just doesn't seem to be there. Like you said, we don't have to define a market.

Aaron

00:29:24 – 00:29:27

Yeah. Turns out that's super duper hard.

Colleen

00:29:27 – 00:29:46

Oh, so I was listening to a podcast this morning with Natalie of Wild Bit Post Market. And she was talking about the way they build products. They have built products because they had Wild Bit for 20 years. And she said they usually were able to crank out an MVP in 3 months, like, in a quarter Wow. Which I thought was was kinda cool.

Aaron

00:29:46 – 00:29:48

They do high quality stuff, so that's very impressive.

Colleen

00:29:48 – 00:30:05

Yeah. Which was an impressive goal. But she also talked a lot about I was thinking of you because she talked a lot about the minimal part in the MVP. Like, you don't ship crappy software, but you ship the minimum thing to deliver value, and then you build off of that.

Aaron

00:30:05 – 00:30:08

And what, of that made you think of me?

Colleen

00:30:08 – 00:30:09

I knew you were gonna say that.

Aaron

00:30:10 – 00:30:18

I mean, what what am I supposed to do? This is this is, this is radio. We're making good radio here. Oh. I don't know the answer, so I'm a little bit nervous.

Aaron

00:30:18 – 00:30:18

But

Colleen

00:30:18 – 00:30:25

So I think, you know, one of the interesting things if we go down this path will be we are developers in different framework.

Aaron

00:30:25 – 00:30:26

Mhmm.

Colleen

00:30:26 – 00:30:42

So we won't really be able to work together too much on the development side. Yes. On the product the product side, we will, but, like, the actual writing of the code. And so I think one of the things we have to be careful about, and by we, I mean you, is Uh-oh.

Aaron

00:30:43 – 00:30:45

Man, that turned quickly. Okay. Keep going. I'm ready.

Colleen

00:30:45 – 00:30:46

It didn't turn quickly.

Aaron

00:30:47 – 00:30:50

Yeah. By we, I mean you. That's never something you wanna hear.

Colleen

00:30:50 – 00:31:02

Is figuring out what the minimum is to ship and shipping it. And, you know, we made that joke last week about the foreign key on the joints table primary key. It was killed. Yeah. Killed.

Colleen

00:31:02 – 00:31:03

Everyone loved

Aaron

00:31:03 – 00:31:05

that joke. People everywhere dying.

Colleen

00:31:06 – 00:31:16

But really, really being specific. When we scope out what is the very first version of this ship look like, it it's gotta be really scoped down.

Aaron

00:31:16 – 00:31:16

Yep.

Colleen

00:31:16 – 00:31:31

And so I think I mean, for both of us, that's gonna be a challenge, because, actually, we both have that issue of a little bit of perfectionism. And, at least we have each other to push each other to get out of it. But I think that's gonna be that's gonna be important, on our timeline.

Aaron

00:31:31 – 00:32:10

Fortunately, this is not, news to me. So I'm I'm glad this that little conversation went because this I am fully aware of, and I super agree with you. And I know that I know that I tend to, I tend to care a lot more about the code than some people do. I will I wanna I wanna listen to this Wild Bit thing because if she said don't ship crappy software, then she's speaking my language. Because one of my frustrations is I see a lot of people on Twitter being like, my MVP sucks, and I shipped it, and it's super broken, but I shipped it fast, and I don't care.

Aaron

00:32:10 – 00:32:22

And I'm like, that's not what I'm I'm never gonna do that. I don't I don't I don't want to do that. That wouldn't make me happy. I wouldn't want to live my life that way. But you can't swing too far the other direction.

Aaron

00:32:22 – 00:32:49

I think it's gonna be extremely important, like you said, for us to figure out the feature set that is minimum viable. Because one thing I'm also prone to is thinking, this is a this is a scenario where if I add another feature, it might be useful to a subset of people. And so we're gonna have to define, like, you know what? No. We can't you can't write your own PDF generator for the 1st round.

Aaron

00:32:49 – 00:33:02

Like, you just can't do it. So yeah, you and I will have to work together closely on how to figure out what do we think, based on conversations, what do we think people are jonesing for, and how can we do that quickly?

Colleen

00:33:02 – 00:33:18

And I second your statement. I totally agree with you about we are not a company that ships crappy software. Like, that's not our move. Like, we are we want to be known as a company as like a Wild Bit, like, that ships high quality, well thought out, well designed software.

Aaron

00:33:18 – 00:33:26

Yeah. Yeah. We're on we're on the same page there, and we'll yeah. You'll have to keep me you'll have to keep me on the straight and narrow. As I want to optimize joins.

Aaron

00:33:26 – 00:33:27

You'll have to tell me do not do this.

Colleen

00:33:27 – 00:33:35

Okay. I feel like I need so I was listening to the podcast this morning before we recorded this one. I feel like I need to defend myself here because No.

Aaron

00:33:35 – 00:33:39

No. No. You were you were right. There's no defense needed. You were correct.

Aaron

00:33:39 – 00:33:40

I was ridiculous.

Colleen

00:33:40 – 00:34:00

But, I mean, the thing is if they've called the filter differently, then they skipped the joints. So I just had to teach them the proper use of the filter, which was a teeny bit intuitive because you it felt like you were skipping a table. Right? Because you weren't going through the join table to the primary key. You just go right to the primary key, or not go right to the key on the join table.

Colleen

00:34:00 – 00:34:04

Still got the same impact with a little bit of customer learning. Just saying.

Aaron

00:34:04 – 00:34:32

Yeah. So so the solution was actually just teaching them how to use the thing and not spend a week coding some new awesome feature to allow the user to be, we'll say, sub we all we all have our things. I just wanna fix things. I just wanna fix things and make make things awesome. That's all I want

Colleen

00:34:32 – 00:34:47

to do. Yeah. So I was thinking, like, once we're successful and we're making lots of money, again, being inspired by Wild Bit, listening to I've been listening to her and reading some of her stuff, then you can maybe someday, you'll get to open source it and just fix all the things you wanna fix and just, like, play in your playground.

Aaron

00:34:47 – 00:34:50

You'll find you'll finally give me that freedom.

Colleen

00:34:50 – 00:34:53

Maybe someday. Check back in 5 years. So you

Aaron

00:34:53 – 00:35:11

know how much you love to talk about Jason Cohen? I think he's got he's got the dream spot. He, like, he is not I don't think he has any direct reports. He just he just does stuff inside his own company. I feel like he's, like, he gets to be, like, a mad scientist and kinda just build stuff and then yeah.

Aaron

00:35:11 – 00:35:13

That's that sounds awesome.

Colleen

00:35:13 – 00:35:17

Yeah. It does. But it is cool. I think you're absolutely right. Like, he just gets to play around and do whatever he wants.

Colleen

00:35:17 – 00:35:18

It's pretty cool.

Aaron

00:35:18 – 00:35:30

So once we how much is WP Engine? Like, a $1,000,000,000 company? So almost there. We are getting close. Can't even figure out it doesn't matter.

Aaron

00:35:30 – 00:35:31

No. Yeah.

Colleen

00:35:31 – 00:35:32

Someday. Someday.

Aaron

00:35:32 – 00:35:33

Man, do you

Colleen

00:35:33 – 00:35:46

know what I thought would be cool? But I'm not gonna do it because I don't have time. I am it is pretty cool to go look at these companies like Jason Cohen's writing or the Wild Bit blog. They have had blog entries for, like, what, Wild Bit? 20 years.

Colleen

00:35:46 – 00:36:03

Like, she has stuff she has written that's, like, 15 years old. And I've been thinking as we're going through this I mean, this is gonna work. Like, I feel very confident that this is gonna work, but it's hard to see that right now. Yes. And it would be fun and interesting to write up some of these struggles, like, as a blog post.

Colleen

00:36:03 – 00:36:16

Like, hey. How do you figure out what to build? Or when do you know it's time to pivot? When do you know you're in the wrong market? Anyway, I've just been thinking it would be cool to we have this podcast, but, you know, we're not gonna go back and listen to the podcast, presumably.

Colleen

00:36:16 – 00:36:16

Aaron

00:36:16 – 00:36:17

Presumably.

Colleen

00:36:17 – 00:36:28

It's it's just kinda cool how they have, like, years years years of blogs from, hey, I'm gonna I have this idea. Right? To, oh, I have this multimillion dollar company. It's like, wait. Wow.

Colleen

00:36:28 – 00:36:28

Cool.

Aaron

00:36:28 – 00:36:47

Yeah. What happened in between there? Yeah. We do we do have the podcast, which I think will be a fun artifact when we are wildly successful. But, yeah, maybe, I don't know, it seems like every time on Twitter somebody gets success, or, like, they get a bunch of Twitter followers, or their business starts doing really well, they turn into a thought leader.

Aaron

00:36:47 – 00:37:15

And so maybe maybe when we become super successful, we can become thought leaders too. Stop stop tweeting about code and databases and start tweeting about, like, I don't know, whatever thought leadership means. But, yeah, at some point, that would be fun. It would be fun to look back after we are wildly successful. It'd be fun to look back and synthesize, like, I don't know, 2 years of podcasts of being an utter, you know, floundering company and then finally having made it.

Aaron

00:37:15 – 00:37:22

So, yeah, that will be nice. Anything else? I think I had something else I wanted to talk about, but I totally forget it now. Do you have anything else?

Colleen

00:37:22 – 00:37:27

That is all. Oh, I do wanna say something else. Since we're I'm feeling very chatty this morning.

Aaron

00:37:27 – 00:37:27

Tell me.

Colleen

00:37:27 – 00:37:44

So after our, challenging customer interviews, I just wanna, like, I just wanna, like, shout out to there were a few people I reached out to. And I didn't reach out, like, oh my gosh. Should I quit? But, like, I I sent an innocuous, somewhat unrelated question. You know?

Colleen

00:37:44 – 00:37:46

Because you're kinda feeling sad. You're like, should I quit?

Aaron

00:37:46 – 00:37:47

Totally. Yeah. Absolutely.

Colleen

00:37:47 – 00:38:08

And so just really, really appreciative of all of the people I talked to that week, that gave me indirect pep talks. And the network, like, through this podcast, I think, and through Twitter and going to conferences, just like the network that we have and the support we've been able to get from those people, super, super helpful, and super helpful when you're going through those hard times too.

Aaron

00:38:08 – 00:38:17

Yes. I would fully second that. Yeah. It was it was it was pretty bad week, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful.

Aaron

00:38:17 – 00:38:35

We have each other, and we have other people that are that are there to help. That was pretty bad. Y'all need to understand, it was very bad. It was like, I'm going to leave my laptop in the shed and never come back. It was bad.

Aaron

00:38:36 – 00:38:52

Speaking of people that help, do we want to solicit help from, our dozens or maybe even tens of podcast listeners for thoughts about, our hypothesis. Do we want to talk to anybody about that?

Colleen

00:38:52 – 00:38:54

Yeah. That's a great idea. Absolutely.

Aaron

00:38:54 – 00:39:22

So our hypothesis is nontechnical slash people that don't know SQL inside the company need access to, company data and have a hard time getting it without going through the developer. And that could be across any industry of any kind, customer support, any role in the company, anything like that. That is our broad hypothesis. Would you refine that any further, Colleen?

Colleen

00:39:22 – 00:39:23

Nope. I think that's good.

Aaron

00:39:23 – 00:39:29

If you work at a company like that, what do we do? Send us a DM on Twitter?

Colleen

00:39:29 – 00:39:30

Yeah. That's easy.

Aaron

00:39:30 – 00:39:45

Send us a DM on Twitter. I'm Aaron, a a r o n, d as in Daniel, Francis. And for some reason, Colleen is Leany Burger on Twitter. So find Leanyburger or Aaron d Francis on Twitter and send us a DM. That would be extremely helpful.

Aaron

00:39:45 – 00:39:48

Okay. Call it there. Alright. See you.

Customer interviews lead to a new hypothesis

Transcript

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