Aaron Francis

Ian & Aaron discuss the launch of Screencasting.com, whether or not babies are "super tough", down migrations in Laravel, and a lot more. Sponsored by LaraJobs & HelloQuery. Sent questions or feedback to mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com #laravel #php

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Transcript

Ian

00:00:03 – 00:00:03

Hello?

Aaron

00:00:04 – 00:00:05

Good morning, sir. How we doing?

Ian

00:00:06 – 00:00:09

Great. How's it going with you? Big week.

Aaron

00:00:09 – 00:00:14

Good. Big week. Big week. Yeah. Glad it's over.

Aaron

00:00:14 – 00:00:23

It went it went well. It went well, but I've I took, you know, I took the whole weekend to not work, which just you know? Wow. Crazy concept. Right?

Ian

00:00:23 – 00:00:25

Yes. Very crazy.

Aaron

00:00:25 – 00:00:27

I could get I could get used to that. There should be a

Ian

00:00:27 – 00:00:28

whole yourself.

Aaron

00:00:28 – 00:00:34

There should be a whole society built around that notion that you work for a little while, then you rest for a little while. That's really interesting.

Ian

00:00:34 – 00:00:36

We're inventing whole new concepts here

Aaron

00:00:36 – 00:00:48

in the pod. I know. Yeah. It was great. Last the, you know, last week, screencasting.com launched, and it was just a lot of work.

Aaron

00:00:49 – 00:01:13

A whole lot of work leading right up there to the very end. I ended up so, you know, I told you I I ended up rerecording a bunch of stuff because I didn't think it was good enough. Super glad I did, but that meant. So I decided I was launching on Wednesday, and I decided on Friday night that everything needed to be rerecorded.

Ian

00:01:14 – 00:01:17

Oh, I didn't realize it was that that recently.

Aaron

00:01:17 – 00:01:23

Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I looked at it all on Friday night, and I was like, great.

Aaron

00:01:23 – 00:01:29

I've got, you know, 10 more videos to do, and then realized, no. This is all terrible. I've got, like, 50 more videos to do.

Ian

00:01:29 – 00:01:30

Oh my gosh.

Aaron

00:01:30 – 00:01:40

So yeah. So Friday night Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights were all 2:30 AM nights.

Ian

00:01:41 – 00:01:41

Wow.

Aaron

00:01:41 – 00:01:55

Tuesday night, for the first time in a long time, was a 5:30 AM night. Woah. Yeah. How do you how? Done that haven't done that straight through in a long, long time.

Aaron

00:01:55 – 00:02:08

But it was it was weird because, you know, there have been projects recently that I've been working on where I feel like it's such a slog and it's such a drain, and this was just totally different. I was just cruising.

Ian

00:02:08 – 00:02:09

I was

Aaron

00:02:09 – 00:02:15

like, this is good. I'm I'm happy. This is what I need to be doing. This is working. This is gonna pay off.

Aaron

00:02:16 – 00:02:21

And so I just kept going. But, you know, at some point, your body's like, I don't care how happy you are. You gotta get fit, man.

Ian

00:02:22 – 00:02:25

Especially when you no. Were you actually recording? You were editing?

Aaron

00:02:25 – 00:02:43

Yeah. I recorded, you know, I recorded as late as late as I could, but then at some point the words the the words just don't come out right. And so I I switched over to editing at that point. And then there's the whole, like, alright. Now you gotta upload everything to Vimeo, and you gotta tie all the Vimeo IDs into the website.

Aaron

00:02:43 – 00:02:47

And so there were still a lot to be done, even after I finished.

Ian

00:02:48 – 00:02:53

Oh, man. So did you redo everything you wanted to redo, or you had to go with

Aaron

00:02:53 – 00:02:53

I did.

Ian

00:02:53 – 00:02:54

Some stuff? Wow.

Aaron

00:02:54 – 00:03:11

No. Everything everything that was done, I redid. There are a few videos near near the very end that I still need to do. And so there are there are some there are, like, maybe 3, 4, 5 placeholders at the very end that are, like, hey. Thanks for your early support.

Aaron

00:03:11 – 00:03:26

I still have to finish this video. I'll email you when it's done. Right. And that's what, you know, I that was the last video I recorded because I thought I'm not gonna make it. And so I just recorded like a, you know, know, 45 second thing that was like, I didn't make it.

Aaron

00:03:26 – 00:03:40

So Yeah. But, you know, I got I got the bulk of the material done. There there's few things and the extra last modules that still need to be finished. But I did it. Got it done.

Ian

00:03:41 – 00:03:52

That's crazy. Because I I think we talked a couple weeks ago and seemed like you were on cruise control because you were like, hey. The videos have been done and everything's set. And Yeah. And then, I'd have to go back in there.

Ian

00:03:52 – 00:04:03

And not like coding too where you're like, okay. You're just, like, in your dungeon coding like this, you have to be you know, you're on camera. You have to be a little more alert and on. A little more energetic. Yeah.

Ian

00:04:03 – 00:04:05

Right. Yeah.

Aaron

00:04:06 – 00:04:12

I would not do it this way again. That's that's for sure. That's for being sure.

Ian

00:04:12 – 00:04:17

Have it all scripted, though, and, like, were you able to just go through it again? Or The second part was

Aaron

00:04:17 – 00:04:26

the second time was a lot easier, because I could just watch the first one's back and basically say the same thing.

Ian

00:04:26 – 00:04:27

Yeah.

Aaron

00:04:27 – 00:04:50

And it was also easier because I had already edited in, like, the, like, the screen part of it. And so in some videos, I didn't have to even redo some of that. Like, I didn't have to redo, like, the animations flying in and that and that kind of stuff. So it was a whole lot easier the second time. It's just the the sheer amount of material that needed to be rerecorded was was pretty high.

Ian

00:04:51 – 00:04:57

Oh my gosh. So Yeah. So how was the launch? So did you sell what you thought you'd sell? What's been the reaction?

Aaron

00:04:59 – 00:05:09

Yeah. So the launch the launch went really, really well. I'm I'm happy with, I'm happy with how much we sold. I don't know if I should say it or not.

Ian

00:05:10 – 00:05:16

No. It's it's up to you. I don't think you have to say, but if you wanna say just if it met your expectations or above or below.

Aaron

00:05:16 – 00:05:29

Yeah. I don't know. Well, I'll sit on it, because once it's out there, I can't I can't take it back, and I haven't thought about it. So I'm gonna I'm gonna sit on it. It met the it met the minimum expectations that I had.

Aaron

00:05:29 – 00:05:35

So I told Okay. My wife a certain number. I was like, if it does this, I'll be happy. If it does less than that, I'll be sad. And Right.

Aaron

00:05:35 – 00:05:36

It got to the happy level.

Ian

00:05:37 – 00:05:37

Okay. Great.

Aaron

00:05:37 – 00:05:46

So that's good. It didn't get to the it didn't get to the, Adam Wadden, like, I made, you know, a $100,000. I'm gonna quit my job level.

Ian

00:05:46 – 00:05:49

You're independently wealthy. No. No. No. Right.

Aaron

00:05:50 – 00:06:05

So it did it did really well, and I'm very, very pleased. 1, I'm I'm pleased with the, you know, the US dollars. That's a a great thing. I'm more pleased with the fact that people have already watched it all the way through.

Ian

00:06:05 – 00:06:07

I saw people doing that.

Aaron

00:06:07 – 00:06:31

Yeah. And said that it was really, really helpful and really valuable and recommending that other people go buy it. That is just, like, because I I think I told you last week, I was watching it all back, and I was like, this is really good. I'm proud of this. But even still even still, you put it out there, and you're like, it's gonna it's going to encounter people and what what are people going to say about it?

Aaron

00:06:31 – 00:07:07

Yeah. And to see to see people that many of whom I know and respect, like, say, yeah, I actually watched it and it's actually very, very good and you should buy it too. It's like, what a relief. So that feels that's honestly the best part, because I think that means that, like, I've done something that not only I think is valuable, but, like, the market thinks is valuable, which means I can continue to push this further and further, and I think it could be a long term durable asset. So really, really happy with how it went.

Ian

00:07:07 – 00:07:13

That's great. Yeah. I think that's the key thing with this. I feel like it's this especially. I mean, you see so many I don't know.

Ian

00:07:13 – 00:07:37

I've seen so many of these content things over the years, right, where it's very common to just have the big spike at launch. And then pretty much they don't sell a lot after that, it seems like. I mean, some people I know for sure that's the case, and other ones it kinda seems that way. So I think with this, since it is so applicable to so many different people, I think that's the key is just like, now I just gotta now it's a business. Right?

Ian

00:07:37 – 00:07:38

Like, now you

Aaron

00:07:38 – 00:07:38

have to

Ian

00:07:38 – 00:08:08

run it like a business, and you have this asset, but you have to run it like a business, find customers, market to them, convert them, and then, you know, can sell so much more and not maybe fall into that trap of, like, you had the big spike and now the 2nd month is kinda weak because, obviously, like, you've Mhmm. Gone through your mailing list and all those things you had, you know, predone. And so, then you can lose momentum and stuff there. But I think if you keep up the momentum with this, I don't see why you can't keep selling it for a very long time.

Aaron

00:08:08 – 00:08:29

Yeah. That's my hope. And my hope is also that as I I feel like this may be particularly high on word-of-mouth or recommendations, and I hope as more people watch it, they recommend it to other people. Because I feel like these circles, the circles of people that watch this kind of thing or want to do this kind of thing, they run around together. Like, they're pretty tight circles.

Aaron

00:08:29 – 00:09:03

And I'm so I'm hoping that, you know, as people take this course and produce content, the word-of-mouth continues to grow. And that that's a big hope of mine. And then I am furiously trying to go through and, like, clean up all of the video descriptions that sit below the videos because I think there's a ton of rich SEO value there. Yeah. And so that'll be, like, the initial seed, and then I will do I'll do some long form content basically of, like, what is a screencast, how to record a screencast.

Ian

00:09:04 – 00:09:04

Right.

Aaron

00:09:04 – 00:09:21

And of course, at the end, it'll say, like, just watch this course, like, buy this course. But I think it'll be I think it'll be really good SEO content to play off of the domain authority and then have, like, the super duper top of funnel, how do you record a screencast kind of content.

Ian

00:09:21 – 00:09:23

Yep. For sure.

Aaron

00:09:23 – 00:09:29

So and I hope, I hope also over the long term that affiliates become a bigger thing.

Ian

00:09:29 – 00:09:29

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:09:29 – 00:09:49

Because it's a, you know, it's a pretty it's a not a high ticket, but it's a it's a medium item. You know, if you sell something for $300 and you as the affiliate get 30% of that, like, just for putting the link on your website or sending it to your mailing list or whatever. Yeah. So I hope over time those step up a little bit.

Ian

00:09:50 – 00:10:03

Yeah. I think there could be some other avenues along those lines too or even just like, I know I think ConvertKit has, like, a way you can advertise in other people's newsletters and things like that. I don't know if any other mail providers have that. Like, you can maybe try some things like that. Yeah.

Ian

00:10:04 – 00:10:19

I think Overcast used to have a thing. I don't know if he still runs it where, like, you could advertise around different podcasts and things or, like, I I don't know. There's, like, different you know, could you advertise, through one of the networks on Yeah. You know, video related podcasts and things.

Aaron

00:10:19 – 00:10:19

I don't know.

Ian

00:10:19 – 00:10:28

There might be some stuff like that to try. But, yeah. And then can you build up the word-of-mouth? I don't know. Can you come up with an incentive for people to talk about it too beyond just even the money?

Ian

00:10:28 – 00:10:38

Like, even just, sharing somehow you share something back if they share you or, you know, I don't know. Something like that. Like, you kinda share your audience in some way. I don't know. There's probably something there.

Ian

00:10:38 – 00:10:52

But, or if they make a test video, you do something with that or I mean, obviously, the teardowns are kind of similar because if you tear down somebody's test video, they're likely to then share that you did that and things like that. So Mhmm.

Aaron

00:10:53 – 00:10:54

Yeah. This is A

Ian

00:10:54 – 00:10:55

lot of possibilities.

Aaron

00:10:55 – 00:10:57

This is the fun part, I think.

Ian

00:10:57 – 00:10:57

Right.

Aaron

00:10:57 – 00:11:02

Like, now we get to, you know, we get to figure out, alright, we've got the thing done.

Ian

00:11:03 – 00:11:03

Right.

Aaron

00:11:04 – 00:11:19

Now how do we how do we push it out even further? And I'm excited. I'm excited about this part, which is a good I think a good sign for me to be like, hey, I did the, you know, I did the body of work part, which is usually the part that I like the most.

Ian

00:11:20 – 00:11:20

Right.

Aaron

00:11:20 – 00:11:27

And historically, that's the part where it's like I do a bunch of coding and then it's done and I'm like, well, what do you wanna code next? Let's

Ian

00:11:27 – 00:11:28

move on.

Aaron

00:11:29 – 00:11:42

And with this one, I enjoyed the body of work production. Like, I enjoyed that part. But now I'm also excited to do the next part. And that feels that feels a little bit new and a lot of bit encouraging to think. Yeah.

Aaron

00:11:43 – 00:11:45

Alright. This one this one's got legs.

Ian

00:11:46 – 00:11:49

Yeah. Yeah. Keep up that business momentum. And Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

00:11:49 – 00:11:56

Yeah. Just really put it in that mindset of it's it's a business and you're marketing it. And yeah. I mean, that's a really amazing part of it. Right?

Ian

00:11:56 – 00:12:14

Is there's not gonna be a lot of unlike software. Right? It's not gonna be a lot of feature requests most likely, you know. I mean, occasionally, somebody might have a question that spurs you to add a video or whatever, but it shouldn't be, you know, the endless onslaught of why doesn't it do x, y, z and all those things. And so you can kinda just have that.

Ian

00:12:14 – 00:12:19

Bam. This is a it's it's done. Here's the thing that is complete. Like, what an amazing feeling. Right.

Ian

00:12:19 – 00:12:24

And then, and then now how do I just roll it out to the whole world? Because there's a lot of people

Aaron

00:12:26 – 00:12:41

out there who wanna make videos and And and the great part about people asking for a new video is I could make a new video and then email the entire list and say I made a new video, and I guarantee you some small percentage will convert to to buying the course. Like, it's a great excuse to email them and say, like

Ian

00:12:41 – 00:12:42

Right.

Aaron

00:12:42 – 00:12:52

Hey, the thing you bought has become more valuable. And also if you haven't bought yet, look, I continue to make it more valuable. Yep. So, yeah, I think that's gonna be a good thing.

Ian

00:12:52 – 00:13:14

Yeah. Or even break and breaking these down into, like, you know, short videos, or can you, like, get TikTok rolling in YouTube Shorts? And can you take 30 seconds and pull out one useful part of a 10 minute video, you know, and, start to build up that maybe a bit? And, yeah, obviously, you're working on your YouTube channel in general and all that. So, yeah, it's all it's all working.

Ian

00:13:14 – 00:13:16

Alright. Well, that sounds good. I'm glad that we know.

Aaron

00:13:16 – 00:13:17

Higher grows.

Ian

00:13:17 – 00:13:19

I love it. We're here for the beginning of it so we

Aaron

00:13:19 – 00:13:24

can watch it dry. Higher. A little foundation reference there.

Ian

00:13:26 – 00:13:33

Yeah. But those late nights, I I know. I stayed up all night, 3 or 4 weeks ago for the first time in a very, very

Aaron

00:13:33 – 00:13:34

long time. Doing it?

Ian

00:13:34 – 00:13:39

In, like, 10 years. Not coding. I was playing poker. I could never do it. I could never do it working now at this point.

Aaron

00:13:39 – 00:13:40

I think I was about this.

Ian

00:13:40 – 00:13:53

It was poker. But, but, yeah, it killed me the next day. I was like, I think think my days are up all night or past. But, and if if you got to sleep at 5:30, that's okay. See, up to 5:30 and then you get, like, 3 or 4 hours, no problem.

Ian

00:13:53 – 00:13:57

But up to 5:30 and then, like, get ready for work and go to work.

Aaron

00:13:57 – 00:14:04

Oh, hell no. No way. Better. Yeah. I I cruised into the bedroom at 5:30, and I woke up, and it was super bright in the room.

Aaron

00:14:04 – 00:14:15

And I was like, wait. This doesn't feel like 7 AM. And my wife had let me sleep in, and it was, like, 8:15 or something. Yeah. So got a

Ian

00:14:15 – 00:14:16

few hours.

Aaron

00:14:16 – 00:14:22

Got a few hours and put in put in the old eye drops and hit it again and Right. Made it work.

Ian

00:14:22 – 00:14:24

There you go. Sometimes you gotta do it.

Aaron

00:14:24 – 00:14:32

Sometimes you gotta do it. Don't recommend it for anyone else, of course. You know, work life balance or whatever. But, yeah, sometimes you gotta do it.

Ian

00:14:32 – 00:14:40

Nah. This is some crunch time. Crunch time, you gotta put in the hours. That's how it goes. Now you'll be able to dial it in a little bit at least.

Ian

00:14:40 – 00:14:51

And marketing stuff sometimes a little more about thinking and planning and, you know, there's obviously executing, but usually not gonna be quite on this level of you're up till 5 in the morning too often, hopefully.

Aaron

00:14:52 – 00:14:55

And for the record last night, I was in bed at, like, 9:0:5.

Ian

00:14:56 – 00:14:58

Wow. Look at this guy. Weekend off, in bed at

Aaron

00:14:58 – 00:15:00

9. Bounce back. It's fine.

Ian

00:15:01 – 00:15:05

Yeah. When when are the the new set of babies coming?

Aaron

00:15:05 – 00:15:07

The new set comes end of November.

Ian

00:15:08 – 00:15:12

Oh. Yeah. That's even that's even closer than I thought. Okay. So You're telling me.

Aaron

00:15:12 – 00:15:14

Imagine how I feel.

Ian

00:15:14 – 00:15:18

I I feel I feel scared, and I'm not even you. I know.

Aaron

00:15:18 – 00:15:18

I know.

Ian

00:15:20 – 00:15:23

Oh, baby. Alright. Well, you got this out. At least you got this done.

Aaron

00:15:23 – 00:15:24

Mhmm. You

Ian

00:15:24 – 00:15:31

got the other stuff going. So, I mean, I think, oh, oh, you're in a good spa here. I mean, as good as you're gonna be considering all you're trying

Aaron

00:15:31 – 00:15:40

to do. Can be, when you have 2 year old twins and you're expecting twins and you have a full time job and you're trying to do other stuff. Yeah. That's the best.

Ian

00:15:40 – 00:15:40

Oh, okay.

Aaron

00:15:40 – 00:15:44

Doing as good as anyone in that situation can do. I agree.

Ian

00:15:44 – 00:15:53

Baby. No value. You're right. Oh, here's hoping. The big key the key to this whole situation is these new babies, their their personalities.

Ian

00:15:54 – 00:16:10

Right? Like, it's all about personality. Like, if these babies are solid babies and they're getting, you know, even like the 3 or 4 hours of sleep in the beginning, you'll be fine. Like, it's no problem. You know, if they're tough babies, you know, We may not we may not see you for a while.

Ian

00:16:10 – 00:16:11

Yeah. It's not

Aaron

00:16:11 – 00:16:22

it's not gonna be great. Yeah. We we really we really need them to be good babies. If they're if they're, you know, terrible little weaklings, that's gonna be trouble. But if

Ian

00:16:22 – 00:16:23

they're good,

Aaron

00:16:23 – 00:16:34

strong, solid sleepers the first ones were fine. The first ones were sleeping through the night, like, probably at, 3 months.

Ian

00:16:34 – 00:16:36

Oh, yeah. So that's good.

Aaron

00:16:36 – 00:16:48

So I think we'll make it. Yeah. I think we'll make it. The first one is One of the things that is, like, I I've never had a single child. I've only had twins, and so I don't super know.

Aaron

00:16:48 – 00:17:01

But I think one of the things that we were real big on was both twins do everything all the time at the same time. Yeah. And so every nap, you know, if sister doesn't sleep, well, sorry brother, we're all we're all waking up.

Ian

00:17:01 – 00:17:02

Right.

Aaron

00:17:02 – 00:17:14

And like everybody goes to sleep at the same time. Everybody wakes up. Everybody eats food. Yep. And my wife was super good about getting them on the same schedule because, you know, they divide and conquer otherwise, and we'd be hosed.

Ian

00:17:15 – 00:17:15

Right.

Aaron

00:17:15 – 00:17:26

So I think, you know, I think I'm optimistic that we will be able to, get them on the same schedule and get them sleeping. So Yeah. We'll see. That's a

Ian

00:17:26 – 00:17:35

big key. We'll see how it goes. We're excited to hear back on that too. This is but is it, like, as exciting or more than screencast.com? I wanna see how this Twins launch goes.

Ian

00:17:35 – 00:17:36

It's gonna be great.

Aaron

00:17:36 – 00:17:46

Yeah. There's gonna be a lot of what it is it is it schadenfreude where you delight in other people's misfortunes? There might there might be a lot of that on this in the next, you know, season of

Ian

00:17:46 – 00:18:01

this type of pod. All my kids were not very good. The first one was all absolutely horrific sleeper, and then the other 2 were just okay. But see, unlike the twins, like, we would try to play that game too, but but the first one was, like, 4 years older than the second one.

Aaron

00:18:01 – 00:18:01

The second

Ian

00:18:01 – 00:18:07

one's 2 years older than the third one. So they're just in very different places, and we're like, please go down for a nap. But the 4 year old doesn't want a nap.

Aaron

00:18:07 – 00:18:07

The 2 year old wants

Ian

00:18:07 – 00:18:18

you know, wants you know, it was impossible. So we're it was chaos. But, so yeah. So if you can get them all dialed in, Yeah. Have you do you have helper plans?

Ian

00:18:18 – 00:18:19

Like, do you have a We do.

Aaron

00:18:20 – 00:18:21

We locked those down along

Ian

00:18:22 – 00:18:22

the

Aaron

00:18:22 – 00:18:28

day we found out. So we have, are you familiar with the concept of night nurses?

Ian

00:18:28 – 00:18:29

I am.

Aaron

00:18:29 – 00:18:30

So we have a night

Ian

00:18:30 – 00:18:31

nurse company.

Aaron

00:18:31 – 00:18:58

So the night nurse is there there's an agency that provides night nurses, and they are, traditionally I I can't speak in absolutes, but traditionally they are, like, early childhood development nurses who no longer work in, like, hospitals or anything like that. And what they do is they come at, like, 10 PM to your house and stay up all night to, like, help with the babies.

Ian

00:18:59 – 00:19:00

Why did I never do this?

Aaron

00:19:01 – 00:19:01

Listen You're

Ian

00:19:01 – 00:19:02

so much smarter than me.

Aaron

00:19:02 – 00:19:13

I I have heard, and there's absolutely no judgment here. If you have the money for it, do it. I have heard that some people do this for their first and only child. They'll get a night nurse to, like, watch it throughout the night. Right.

Aaron

00:19:13 – 00:19:15

And I'm, like, that's amazing. That's

Ian

00:19:15 – 00:19:18

I should have done that. I'm telling you. I am very upset I didn't do that.

Aaron

00:19:18 – 00:19:25

Yes. So we had a night nurse for the first set of twins, and Yeah. She just, like, fully saved our lives.

Ian

00:19:25 – 00:19:26

Oh, that's huge.

Aaron

00:19:26 – 00:19:31

And so for the first 2 weeks, we had her come every single night.

Ian

00:19:31 – 00:19:31

Right.

Aaron

00:19:31 – 00:19:54

So she would show up at 10 and then leave at, like, 6 AM. And, basically, what that allows for is overnight. It's, you know, it's nice to have somebody, like, there and watching over them, but it's even better to not have to think. So when they get there at 9:30 or 10, you can say, like, this is the schedule. You know, they're gonna eat at 3 AM or whatever.

Aaron

00:19:56 – 00:20:04

Come wake me up. Bring me one of the children and bring me a bottle of food, and I will feed 1 and you feed the other. I'm gonna go to sleep until then.

Ian

00:20:04 – 00:20:05

Right.

Aaron

00:20:05 – 00:20:19

And so it's nice to know, like, I can put in my earplugs, I can put on my eye mask, and the night nurse is gonna handle anything that goes wrong. And when it's time to, like, do my part, she's gonna come wake me up and hand me a baby. I'll help, and then I'll hand the baby back.

Ian

00:20:19 – 00:20:24

Yeah. But it's huge because they always cry. There's a cry. You get up. Yes.

Ian

00:20:24 – 00:20:28

Whatever. It's nothing. You gotta go back to sleep. You can't go back to sleep. Like, the whole thing, like, yeah.

Ian

00:20:28 – 00:20:34

Being wrecked. And that's the thing. Then the next day, you're actually reasonable. You're not, like, freaking out on the kids and on everybody else.

Aaron

00:20:35 – 00:20:35

Yeah.

Ian

00:20:35 – 00:20:44

So yeah. Especially with you're gonna have the toddlers running around too. So you're gonna have to be on your, at least, you know, c game to manage the, the rest of the team. So

Aaron

00:20:45 – 00:20:48

Yep. Yep. So we we have the night nurse that's gonna come for How long

Ian

00:20:48 – 00:20:49

how long you go

Aaron

00:20:49 – 00:20:49

with that?

Ian

00:20:49 – 00:20:50

I think

Aaron

00:20:50 – 00:21:03

we're doing the same deal. I think we're doing Okay. Every night for 2 weeks straight, just in the very beginning. Yeah. And then I think we switch to every other night for, like, maybe 6 weeks or something like that.

Aaron

00:21:03 – 00:21:15

And that just that just gives you a little bit of boost throughout the week. Good. Because, you know, we her our first one was named Kelly, and we'd always be like, is tonight a Kelly night? Tonight's a Kelly night. Right?

Ian

00:21:15 – 00:21:16

And It's okay.

Aaron

00:21:16 – 00:21:32

It's just, oh, it's the best nights ever because you know somebody's gonna help. So I think that's what we're doing is is 6 weeks, after the the solid 2 weeks. And then if if you can believe it, we're getting an au pair as well.

Ian

00:21:32 – 00:21:36

I was I was gonna be the next question. You need the au pair. You need

Aaron

00:21:36 – 00:21:37

the au pair. The au pair.

Ian

00:21:37 – 00:21:40

I never did that either. We always cobbled it together with, like

Aaron

00:21:40 – 00:21:42

You just raise your own children, Ian?

Ian

00:21:42 – 00:21:43

What are

Aaron

00:21:43 – 00:21:44

you doing? This is

Ian

00:21:44 – 00:21:55

just a not recommend this. I do not recommend it. Don't do it. Believe this. Don't raise your own children, and don't hobble to get help because we spend more money hobbling to get help than just hiring an au pair.

Ian

00:21:56 – 00:22:10

And, you know, it's way worse because they're, like, leaving or they're delinquents and whatever. And so, like, you're just always you're literally it's just having, like, an employee like that, but it's always a random person, and you're always trying to, like, schedule them for next week. Yep. Horrible. Just have an au pair, be done with it.

Ian

00:22:10 – 00:22:13

Are they gonna live with you? What's what's your au pair plan?

Aaron

00:22:13 – 00:22:14

That's the whole deal. They're gonna live with us.

Ian

00:22:14 – 00:22:15

Au pair.

Aaron

00:22:15 – 00:22:18

Volan au pair. Volan 20 From

Ian

00:22:18 – 00:22:19

5th or whatever.

Aaron

00:22:19 – 00:22:20

From Germany.

Ian

00:22:20 – 00:22:21

Germany.

Aaron

00:22:21 – 00:22:22

Yep.

Ian

00:22:22 – 00:22:23

Wow. 1 year?

Aaron

00:22:23 – 00:22:52

So the deal 1 year. So the deal with the au pair is, again, through an agency, and the au pair is traditionally someone from a different country. So we interviewed people. We interviewed we actually, wanted the first one that we interviewed was from Brazil, and we tried to get her and she said, no. She turned she didn't match with us, and I don't know if it was the twins or the Texas thing, but she said no.

Aaron

00:22:52 – 00:23:10

Okay. So we matched with this German woman, who's I think 24 or 25. And so she's gonna arrive October, like, 15th or something. And so the deal with the au pair, it's really really interesting. You give them room and board.

Aaron

00:23:10 – 00:23:25

So, like, they they live in your house. You you feed them. You provide them, access to a vehicle or a vehicle. You put them on your car insurance. So it's basically like your, you know, your niece or your Right.

Aaron

00:23:25 – 00:23:42

Sister that's 10 years younger comes and lives with you, and you're basically providing for them as well. Yep. And her scope of responsibilities is the older twins only. So she's not like she's not a a newborn caretaker. Right.

Aaron

00:23:42 – 00:24:17

And that's kinda like in her contract. Department. And so part of their part of their stipulation is they have to do like 6 hours of schooling here. So it's like an exchange program, but with a little bit different spin on it. So we provide them place to live, house, food, car, you know, probably cell phone, and then a stipend, which is vanishingly small considering the amount of work they're doing.

Aaron

00:24:17 – 00:24:24

And then we get 45 hours a week work, from them, which is a huge amount of work.

Ian

00:24:24 – 00:24:28

Yeah. That's a that's, like, a good chunk every day. You could be, like, prepping dinner

Aaron

00:24:28 – 00:24:28

and all that

Ian

00:24:28 – 00:24:34

stuff, like, to not have to worry about the the 2 of the kids anyway while you're doing all that stuff.

Aaron

00:24:34 – 00:24:39

We're gonna we're gonna manage these 2 6 week old children if you could take the 3 year olds to school, please.

Ian

00:24:39 – 00:24:41

Right. Yeah. That's Oh,

Aaron

00:24:41 – 00:24:41

that's a

Ian

00:24:41 – 00:24:49

big deal. People around. Man, this is a whole other thing. I should've had an au pair the last, like, 15 years. Like, I'm telling you, like, the driving around, it's just never ending.

Ian

00:24:49 – 00:25:03

And, yeah, you're getting into that zone now with, like, their 2a half or 3. Right? So, like, yeah, they start to have places to go and stuff to do and, like, just having another person who can drive. Well, that in and of itself is a humongous, advantage.

Aaron

00:25:03 – 00:25:14

Yeah. So we are, we're gonna go broke, you know, employing household employees, but we're gonna survive. So screencasting.com. Please go buy a bunch of copies. There you go.

Aaron

00:25:14 – 00:25:15

Yeah.

Ian

00:25:17 – 00:25:22

Yeah. You know, at least you got you got that something to do with that money. You got some new money, found money here.

Aaron

00:25:23 – 00:25:23

Yep. You

Ian

00:25:23 – 00:25:35

got a good plan for it. It's gonna make your life so much easier and better. You're gonna accomplish so much more over the next year. Like, if you just had to hunker down with these 4 kids, like, there would be nothing going on. Like, you'd be doing your day job.

Ian

00:25:35 – 00:25:39

That would be absolutely it. And Barely. Barely be doing that. Right. Exactly.

Aaron

00:25:39 – 00:26:09

So And, like, if you think about it, there's there's no way, like, there's no way for my wife you know, if I'm working during the day, which I am, there's no way for her to get 4 children of that of those ages anywhere. She just can't you just can't do that as a single individual Yeah. To get 2 let's say, 2 1 month olds and 2 two and a half year olds into a car and buckled in. Yeah. And then you get to the grocery store and do what?

Aaron

00:26:09 – 00:26:24

Like, what are you gonna do when you get there? Yeah. So it's just completely untenable to have 1 adult manage 4 children of that age. And so you know what? We're we're gonna burn down the reserves for a little bit.

Ian

00:26:24 – 00:26:27

Yeah. That's what it's there for. You know? What are you gonna do? You gotta you gotta spend the money.

Aaron

00:26:27 – 00:26:29

Gonna do? Buy a lake house? Give me a break.

Ian

00:26:29 – 00:26:33

No. You can't. I mean, listen. That's what the money's for. Yep.

Ian

00:26:34 – 00:26:55

And, yeah, I mean, I think the other thing to me is always which we you know, between my wife's somewhat personality and just, like, chaos in our house, we didn't even do enough of this, but just getting breaks for your wife too. Like Yeah. You know, if you have, like, some help, then you can take the twins here and there and whatever and, like, you know, just give her a little mental break, because it's a lot dealing with

Aaron

00:26:55 – 00:26:56

It's a lot.

Ian

00:26:56 – 00:27:00

These little individuals 247 ish. So, it's

Aaron

00:27:00 – 00:27:01

a whole lot.

Ian

00:27:01 – 00:27:06

Yeah. Even you get to go to work or whatever. Like, you get that break. Yeah. They do not go away.

Ian

00:27:06 – 00:27:18

No. They need stuff all the time. But, that's always the thing with the babies. The nightmare is such a good idea for those first couple weeks too because, you know, the baby they changed so much. Like, I mean, by 3 weeks, it's like a totally different thing.

Ian

00:27:18 – 00:27:23

Like, it's, like, doubled in size, and it's it's really remarkable because I just love when they first come out.

Aaron

00:27:23 – 00:27:24

Doubled in size.

Ian

00:27:24 – 00:27:25

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

00:27:26 – 00:27:27

When they first

Ian

00:27:27 – 00:27:28

come out

Aaron

00:27:28 – 00:27:30

They gave humanity at some point.

Ian

00:27:30 – 00:27:38

Yes. They get way more human. No. The first two 2 weeks, they're, like, not even human almost, but then, like, they get human after that. Yeah.

Ian

00:27:38 – 00:27:51

And but those first two weeks when they're not even human, I just love that phase. And you never remember it because you're exhausted and dead the whole time. So, like, you get nightmares. Maybe you remember a little piece of it, which would be great. And then, yeah, then they're human.

Ian

00:27:51 – 00:27:54

By the time he gets a month old, they're like, they're tough and they're big.

Aaron

00:27:54 – 00:27:56

Yeah. They're walking around. They're getting jobs.

Ian

00:27:56 – 00:27:58

They're walking, but they're they're they're hardy.

Aaron

00:28:00 – 00:28:00

This is one

Ian

00:28:00 – 00:28:15

of the top things people don't understand is that, like, a baby from, like, beyond, like, the very first couple days is, like, super tough. Like, this is I didn't really understand this in the beginning, but they're actually very tough. Like, they they could take a lot more of your

Aaron

00:28:15 – 00:28:16

You're sourcing on this?

Ian

00:28:16 – 00:28:33

I'll tell you. I'm my own sourcing. I made my own study. The first one, we were so scared about everything. We're like, ah, see, you've only really had kind of a first one experience, but I'm telling you, this is gonna be the 2nd round is very, very different because you know I'm telling you, instinctively, you're gonna realize that they're tougher than you think.

Ian

00:28:33 – 00:28:39

And then, like, you're gonna be like, oh, they're tough. And that changes a lot because, like, you can leave them somewhere for a second. Like, they get a little something.

Aaron

00:28:39 – 00:28:41

They're gonna bonk their heads. They're gonna eat off

Ian

00:28:41 – 00:28:42

the floor.

Aaron

00:28:42 – 00:28:43

You don't care.

Ian

00:28:43 – 00:28:48

They're bleeding. They're eating new things, and then they're fine. And you're like, oh, man. They're tough. That's right.

Ian

00:28:48 – 00:29:00

It's just fine. So the the twin you know, the the older one's gonna be, like, pulling on their hair or, like Yes. Riding cars on their head and stuff like that, and you'd be like, don't do that, but it's it's actually not

Aaron

00:29:00 – 00:29:01

But it's

Ian

00:29:01 – 00:29:02

fine. It's fine. Yeah.

Aaron

00:29:03 – 00:29:07

Yeah. Don't do that. But if you do keep quiet I'm trying to I'm trying to rest here.

Ian

00:29:07 – 00:29:13

Keep energy. Yeah. You brought keep pushing that toy train on on her head. That's fine. Just like, don't wake me up.

Aaron

00:29:14 – 00:29:15

Oh, man.

Ian

00:29:15 – 00:29:19

Yeah. The 2nd round is better, though, because you do you have to lay the land, plus you got the helpers.

Aaron

00:29:20 – 00:29:20

Yeah.

Ian

00:29:20 – 00:29:34

Like, it's it's very different than the first round. The first round's completely overwhelming. But the second round, at least you're not overwhelmed by what to do. You know, you are overwhelmed by then. Like, there is other ones who need things from you, which is unfortunate.

Ian

00:29:34 – 00:29:43

But, but, yeah, you at least know what's going on. So that's a huge advantage. And then you have the helpers. So Yep. You're gonna be you're gonna be alright, I think.

Aaron

00:29:43 – 00:29:47

We'll see. Stay tuned. Stay tuned to Mostly Technical Pod to find out.

Ian

00:29:47 – 00:29:51

Yeah. This is now, like, days of our lives out here. We got all kinds of stuff going on.

Aaron

00:29:51 – 00:29:56

Yeah. Seriously. Well, you wanna you wanna move away from week of Aaron part 2?

Ian

00:29:56 – 00:30:01

I know. Week of Erin part 2. That's alright. I guess we can cover some some real stuff here. What else do we want?

Ian

00:30:01 – 00:30:04

We wanna do, I guess we can cover this Laracon EU stuff.

Aaron

00:30:04 – 00:30:08

Let's do it. So Laracon EU pricing. So give me give me your thoughts. I have many.

Ian

00:30:09 – 00:30:30

Yeah. So, I mean, quick rundown for I wasn't even aware, but, apparently, people were kinda freaking out about the Laracon EU pricing. That was super expensive. And then I think it's 750. €750 is what the pricing is, and it's €650 if you opt into the selection that, like, you're just paying your own way and a company is not paying for you.

Ian

00:30:30 – 00:30:48

So Oh, cool. I mean, my two second analysis is I don't think it's expensive at all. I think to run a conference in Amsterdam just costs a lot of money. I know Taylor's never made any money on the conferences. And most business oriented conferences.

Ian

00:30:48 – 00:31:09

I mean, you can't even find one for less than, like, $1200 or more, and most of them are 1700. So, yeah, I think that that's kind of my take on it. And then, you know, we have Laracon online, right, which is way more affordable. We have you know, there's all sorts of other things in the Laravel ecosystem going on too. So, I mean, I I I'm listening.

Ian

00:31:09 – 00:31:19

People don't like to spend money on things. I get it. And for some people, it certainly will be too much money. But, I think in general, it seems pretty reasonable. And don't forget it's a write off, people.

Ian

00:31:19 – 00:31:20

You're writing it off. If you go to Laredo

Aaron

00:31:20 – 00:31:21

write off, baby.

Ian

00:31:21 – 00:31:25

Write off. Don't pay that out of your pocket. That is a write off that you're So

Aaron

00:31:25 – 00:31:29

there's what? 30 Your business. 40 40 percent there? Yeah. Yes.

Ian

00:31:29 – 00:31:31

Even if it's just you.

Aaron

00:31:31 – 00:31:35

So so Wait at all. T l TLDR is Ian is unmoved by the outrage.

Ian

00:31:35 – 00:31:37

That's what I hear. Unmoved.

Aaron

00:31:37 – 00:31:40

Ian is unmoved. Very unmoved. Alright. So what's your take?

Ian

00:31:40 – 00:31:41

Are you moved?

Aaron

00:31:42 – 00:31:58

I am, I am unmoved, but I think there are some there are some meta principles here. So the €7.50. So first first concept is I don't know what a euro is. So I don't really know if this is expensive or not. Right.

Ian

00:31:58 – 00:31:59

It's close to 1 to 1.

Aaron

00:31:59 – 00:32:03

Yeah. But people are saying, like, oh, we don't make any money in Europe. Mhmm. Like

Ian

00:32:03 – 00:32:04

Oh, it's all these other stuff.

Aaron

00:32:04 – 00:32:11

I can't I can't speak to that. I don't I don't live in Europe. I don't know anything about Europe. I know kind of where it is. It's that direction.

Aaron

00:32:11 – 00:32:11

But so

Ian

00:32:12 – 00:32:13

We gotta get your little there.

Aaron

00:32:13 – 00:32:40

Here here's the thing. Like, I think many multiple things can be true at once if you are an individual. That's fine. I feel like that can be true. €750 can be the amount that they need to charge for tickets to break even, not even to make money.

Aaron

00:32:40 – 00:32:56

Like, Taylor said he doesn't make money on this. I think that can be that can be totally true. I think, like, €750 is a can be a cheap price to pay for what you get out of Laracon. Like, I still think that that is true. Like Right.

Aaron

00:32:56 – 00:33:10

I think I think The value you're getting. In my opinion, it is worth it to pay a lot of money to go to Lyricon just to be around the community, the people, meet friends, make connections, network, the whole deal.

Ian

00:33:11 – 00:33:11

Yep.

Aaron

00:33:11 – 00:33:27

So I think the I think what happened was so let's say that all of those things are true. It's expensive. It's as cheap as it can be, and it's worth it. Like, if all of those things are true, I feel like everyone took a single side of that and started arguing as if the other sides were not true.

Ian

00:33:27 – 00:33:28

Right.

Aaron

00:33:28 – 00:33:41

So people took the side of, like, it's really expensive, and everybody else was like, no. It's totally worth it. And then other people were like, this is what conferences cost. And I'm I'm watching the whole thing, and I'm like, you're all

Ian

00:33:41 – 00:33:42

right. Right.

Aaron

00:33:42 – 00:33:47

Like, everyone is right. Everyone is right, and you're arguing around each other as if the other side doesn't exist.

Ian

00:33:47 – 00:33:49

And as if, like optimism.

Aaron

00:33:49 – 00:34:08

I mean, it's what what are these people thinking? Like so I don't know. I feel I feel I see a lot of arguing online, as everyone does. And I just think, like, yeah. What what do you think the other side like, what do you think the other side of your argument is?

Aaron

00:34:09 – 00:34:40

And I think the hard part is people people think that they are owed something out of Laracon or the Laravel community. Like Mhmm. They're owed the conference being $300 or $350 instead of instead of 750. And I think the hard part is for those people to realize, like, they don't they don't get to say how much the conference is. The conference is gonna be what it is, and then you can decide to go or not.

Aaron

00:34:40 – 00:34:44

And I feel like some people feel disenfranchised by that, which I get. Like, that's

Ian

00:34:45 – 00:34:45

Right.

Aaron

00:34:45 – 00:34:58

That's too bad if you look at that and think that doesn't make sense for my business, and you wanted to go, and now you you can't. Like, that's frustrating. But I think, I don't know, guys. Like, this is the reality.

Ian

00:34:59 – 00:35:18

Yeah. I mean, you can't expect people to run an event and not break even. Right? So I think that's, like, kind of a starting point. There are things that could be done to make it less expensive potentially, but then if you have it in, like, a a secondary city, then it's really hard for people to get to.

Ian

00:35:18 – 00:35:20

So now, like, you're spending more money.

Aaron

00:35:20 – 00:35:21

Insulated costs go up.

Ian

00:35:21 – 00:35:30

You're right. All those kind of things. Maybe they don't even have a facility. So now you have a smaller event in general. So there are downsides to doing things like that.

Ian

00:35:30 – 00:35:41

And, also, you know, this is once a year. I mean, there's there is US. So even if you count US, it's twice a year. You're talking about 1400 tickets for the multimillion members of the Laravel community.

Aaron

00:35:41 – 00:35:41

Right.

Ian

00:35:42 – 00:36:05

Just to be an official live event. And so and, and India too, I guess. So but, you know, and and anyway, there's a few of them around, but you know what I'm saying. There's, like, 2,000 or 3,000 total tickets in the world every year for, in person official Laracon's. And so, I mean, the reality is, like, I think they could charge $25100 a ticket.

Ian

00:36:05 – 00:36:06

And I think Yeah.

Aaron

00:36:06 – 00:36:06

It would

Ian

00:36:06 – 00:36:20

sell out, and Taylor would make money. So I think it already is kind of a lot given back to the community there of saying, listen. I'm gonna run this to break even. You know, this is also I mean, this is another huge difference. I mean, Taylor runs this.

Ian

00:36:20 – 00:36:40

Like, you have the guy in charge of the framework running the conference. And, you know, I run conferences, and I can tell you, it's a ton of work. It takes up a bunch of your time. It takes up it, like, ruins a bunch of your other time because it's, like, now intermingled. You're doing these calls and dealing with a sponsor, and, like, so now you're off track on the thing you were trying to do, and, you know, you're just disrupted.

Ian

00:36:40 – 00:37:01

So it's an incredible amount of time that goes into it, and sacrifice on, you know, Laravel commercial products and everything on the framework itself even. So, I think there are a lot of sacrifices to then break even seems reasonable. And then the trade offs to, like, try to do it less expensive than that are pretty significant. Yeah.

Aaron

00:37:01 – 00:37:04

Have you ever been to a less expensive conference? Most of them are depressing.

Ian

00:37:05 – 00:37:06

Most of them are done

Aaron

00:37:06 – 00:37:08

in the Hilton ballroom, and it's depressing.

Ian

00:37:09 – 00:37:25

There's nothing worse than an airport hotel conference. It's literally the worst thing in the world. Yes. And, yeah, like you said, I mean, there if you don't wanna go, right, then I think you know, most of the time, there's videos. I don't know if I assume he's planning to do videos again, so you can get, like, the raw content.

Ian

00:37:25 – 00:37:40

Right? So you're not really missing anything there. But what you're missing, of course, is the networking, and people then pooh pooh that kind of and say, well, that's not worth money, but I just I couldn't possibly disagree more. I think I couldn't either. Yeah.

Ian

00:37:40 – 00:37:49

Incredibly worth an it's worth 10 times what you pay for the ticket. If you do it right. Do it right. Yeah. If you go there with the right mindset of, like, I'm gonna meet people.

Ian

00:37:49 – 00:37:52

I'm gonna go out to dinner with people. I'm gonna insert myself in the conversation.

Aaron

00:37:52 – 00:37:54

I'm gonna make friends.

Ian

00:37:54 – 00:37:58

Make friends here. I mean, we're doing this podcast because of Laracon. Like, we hooked I mean, we

Aaron

00:37:58 – 00:37:59

moved each

Ian

00:37:59 – 00:37:59

other before that.

Aaron

00:38:00 – 00:38:02

Hot chicken place. Yeah. That's right.

Ian

00:38:02 – 00:38:09

Talk more. It's like, hey. That might be a guy to do something with. And so you never know what comes out of it. Yep.

Ian

00:38:09 – 00:38:23

I'm, there's a story I've told before, but, not on this podcast, I don't think, where I went to a conference. It was like a XPression engine conference or something. I mean, like, 14 years ago or something. Old man ever. XPression engine.

Ian

00:38:23 – 00:38:37

Way, way long time ago. And I didn't even use expression engine, but I just went to network with people because I actually knew some people there. And I was like, I'm just gonna go and hang out. So I went and hung out, and I paid for this big pizza dinner for everybody. And it was, like, $300.

Ian

00:38:38 – 00:38:46

And people like, I got, like, 2 customers out of that. And on top of that, people talked about this forever. People tweeted about it. People mentioned it. People told their friends.

Ian

00:38:46 – 00:38:48

I can't believe this guy bought us dinner. Like Oh, yeah. Pizza guy.

Aaron

00:38:48 – 00:38:51

I believe. Expression pizza guy.

Ian

00:38:51 – 00:39:01

There's just stuff you could do like that. And people remember this exists, only gonna happen in real life. Like, you're not gonna do that. Even, like, Lyricot online, we try to, like, have viewing parties and things, but it's still, you know, ultimately, like

Aaron

00:39:01 – 00:39:02

It's yeah.

Ian

00:39:02 – 00:39:14

It's not the same. It's totally totally different. So yeah. I think that if you make make the most of that, yeah, and do stuff like that. 1 another conference, I bought hot cookies for everybody at, like, midnight.

Ian

00:39:14 – 00:39:29

Everybody was hanging out in the hotel lobby, and I just ordered up a hot and this was, like, my hot cookies were kind of a new thing. I know they're, like, everywhere now, but it's maybe, like, 8 or 10 years ago. People freaked out, and they loved it. It's like you can just make the most of these conferences by doing little stuff like that. Yes.

Ian

00:39:29 – 00:39:31

And, you know, that's even better money. You don't have to have that.

Aaron

00:39:31 – 00:39:40

Year's Laracon, I was down in the hotel. We were staying at the same the same hotel, and I was down in the lobby. And I got a drink, and I went to pay. And Dave looked over. He was like, oh, no.

Aaron

00:39:40 – 00:39:44

No. No. It's on it's on UserScape. I was like, oh, cool.

Ian

00:39:44 – 00:39:45

You remember that drink?

Aaron

00:39:45 – 00:39:46

Yeah.

Ian

00:39:46 – 00:39:48

Yes. Little things like that, they just

Aaron

00:39:48 – 00:39:50

move. Good good job.

Ian

00:39:51 – 00:39:55

Yeah. Everybody's on board at UserScape. Nobody nobody buys drinks around us.

Aaron

00:39:55 – 00:39:55

That's crazy.

Ian

00:39:56 – 00:39:56

The rule.

Aaron

00:39:57 – 00:40:14

Yeah. So I think I think the I think the outrage is, a little bit overdone and a little bit silly. I understand the frustration of feeling like I wanted to go to this, and now it's €750, and I can't go. Like Yeah. That sucks.

Aaron

00:40:14 – 00:40:29

Totally get it. I think, you know, raging against the machine and telling everyone that it should be cheaper is a little bit. It's like, should it? Like, Laravel have you ever been to a Laracon? They don't suck.

Aaron

00:40:29 – 00:40:32

It's gonna cost what it what it costs. Yeah.

Ian

00:40:32 – 00:41:04

And 2 years ago or 3 years ago, whenever I looked it up, and it was, it was €6.50. So and there's been incredible inflation between 2020 or whatever year I looked up and, you know, and now. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it's the kinda thing where maybe people weren't expecting it. I wonder if there's, like, been but maybe there's a bit of a different crew involved now, and, like, they haven't been to the latter county used before, and so they were you know, it's a little bit, they weren't expecting that. And so perhaps it's the kind of thing where, like, now for next time, you know, and you can plan for it and be like, yeah.

Ian

00:41:04 – 00:41:15

I'm gonna budget. So I have, you know, €800 or whatever it's gonna be next time, and I'm ready to to go and, yeah, and write it off. And so I I saw you can write things off in Europe. Who knows in Europe? Yeah.

Aaron

00:41:15 – 00:41:15

Yeah.

Ian

00:41:15 – 00:41:25

Absolutely. Yeah. Write things off. And it's you know, that it's only it's only costing you, whatever, 60%. So and taxes are higher in Europe, so it's only costing you 50% in Europe.

Ian

00:41:25 – 00:41:28

Yeah. So there you go. Not a right at all.

Aaron

00:41:28 – 00:41:33

Come to us for all your, European accounting advice. Something we definitely know about.

Ian

00:41:33 – 00:41:36

We have 1 year of professional accounting experience between us and

Aaron

00:41:37 – 00:41:38

In a different country.

Ian

00:41:38 – 00:41:42

Years of 4 years of well, 8 years of college of in accounting.

Aaron

00:41:43 – 00:41:50

9. I did 5th year. So 9 years of college, 1 year of firm work in a country that is based on the country that we're talking about.

Ian

00:41:50 – 00:41:52

But yeah. There we go. Yeah.

Aaron

00:41:52 – 00:41:54

We came from your country a long time ago.

Ian

00:41:54 – 00:42:01

We might need to change the name of this podcast. My my my my father's from 1948. He immigrated. So there we go.

Aaron

00:42:01 – 00:42:02

There you go.

Ian

00:42:02 – 00:42:04

From Europe. We're 1st generation, baby.

Aaron

00:42:04 – 00:42:07

So we're now mostly European accounting advice pods.

Ian

00:42:07 – 00:42:08

There you go.

Aaron

00:42:09 – 00:42:10

Yeah. It's perfect.

Ian

00:42:10 – 00:42:13

There we go. We gotta change the name of the pod.

Aaron

00:42:13 – 00:42:18

Do you wanna revisit, Shbigford Corner and talk about user tweets for a second?

Ian

00:42:18 – 00:42:19

Let's do it.

Aaron

00:42:19 – 00:42:37

So we talked about Josh's lawn care AI business thing last week, and, somebody said forget who it was. I think it was Daniel Colbourne, said he loves mostly technical pod, and I said, I gotta get that on a laser tweet. You're like, I've got laser tweets. So I've got one laser tweets. I've got lay I got one laser tweet up here.

Ian

00:42:37 – 00:42:37

Oh, it's

Aaron

00:42:37 – 00:42:47

back there. Okay. This is when GitHub tweeted my article about, publishing your work. And so I got that one done on a laser tweet. Yep.

Aaron

00:42:47 – 00:42:50

And which ones what do you have on laser tweets? Alright.

Ian

00:42:50 – 00:42:56

We're gonna this is gonna be special. So I got one. I took it down, so I have it. I'm gonna show I got this one's one of my favorites.

Aaron

00:42:56 – 00:42:57

Oh, it's huge.

Ian

00:42:57 – 00:42:59

Oh, is it backwards? It's backwards, I guess.

Aaron

00:42:59 – 00:43:00

No. It's good for me.

Ian

00:43:00 – 00:43:01

It's good for you? Okay.

Aaron

00:43:01 – 00:43:07

Oh, okay. The programmer's credo. We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy. We love it.

Ian

00:43:07 – 00:43:09

Just it's so perfect to me.

Aaron

00:43:09 – 00:43:10

So perfect.

Ian

00:43:10 – 00:43:17

Now before we had even talked about this k. K. Got a guy had 1 on order.

Aaron

00:43:17 – 00:43:18

You had 1 on the way?

Ian

00:43:18 – 00:43:25

We are going to unbox. I didn't open it because I was like, you know what? Let's save it.

Aaron

00:43:26 – 00:43:28

Live unboxing on audio? This is crazy.

Ian

00:43:29 – 00:43:32

Unboxing. Gotta watch us on YouTube, and then you get to save.

Aaron

00:43:32 – 00:43:36

That's right. This is ASMR. Alright.

Ian

00:43:36 – 00:43:39

It's today. This is my

Aaron

00:43:39 – 00:43:50

Oh, this is the one. This is the Tony one. Okay. Here we go. Every product should have a story, a narrative that explains why it needs to exist and how it will solve your customer's problems.

Aaron

00:43:50 – 00:43:53

Tony Fadell, August 27, 2020 3. This is

Ian

00:43:53 – 00:43:55

There we go. Not even

Aaron

00:43:55 – 00:43:57

a month out of the oven here, this tweet. That.

Ian

00:43:57 – 00:43:58

It looks a little

Aaron

00:43:58 – 00:44:00

bit different than that. Classic for Ian. So

Ian

00:44:00 – 00:44:01

tell me classic.

Aaron

00:44:01 – 00:44:04

Tell me, what is what is the obsession with this tweet?

Ian

00:44:04 – 00:44:14

I know. We this one's been on our list to talk about too, so I was like, it's perfect. Well, first of all, laser tweets. Just an amazing service. Like, there's some tweets just need to be made physical.

Ian

00:44:14 – 00:44:22

And now I think I'm not wrong about this. I think this is the, Shifford also started laser tweets. You know?

Aaron

00:44:22 – 00:44:23

He did. Yeah.

Ian

00:44:23 – 00:44:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

00:44:23 – 00:44:25

That's why it's Wigford Corner. Yeah. Yeah. I think

Ian

00:44:25 – 00:44:31

he might have he might have sold it off. Yeah. I think he sold it. I think he sold it. So, man, the the coating shawl.

Ian

00:44:31 – 00:44:32

I mean, I got this coating shawl here.

Aaron

00:44:32 – 00:44:33

Yeah. It looks great.

Ian

00:44:33 – 00:44:35

A little hot. It's a little hot. I walked by

Aaron

00:44:35 – 00:44:38

I walked by Banana Republic this weekend and thought, should I get a coding shawl? You gotta

Ian

00:44:38 – 00:44:42

get a coding shawl. The fact that it doesn't get cold enough in Texas, maybe that's the problem. When it's like Yeah.

Aaron

00:44:42 – 00:44:44

A couple couple weeks of the year.

Ian

00:44:44 – 00:44:53

Nah. It's like you just wanna be cozied up when you're coding. But, alright. So I love this tweet. I was like, this tweet should be it needs to be on the wall.

Ian

00:44:53 – 00:44:59

I need to think about this tweet. I need to, just embed in my brain.

Aaron

00:44:59 – 00:45:00

Ian

00:45:00 – 00:45:31

Because I think, oh, man. It's, like, just encapsulates so much of what I think about products these days, especially for, like, boots droppers and small companies. And, I think especially for coders. Like, it's just so easy to get to the coding, and that's the fun part, and then to not really think about the product and why it even needs to exist. And then extrapolating from that, like, how you're gonna bake that whole narrative into the product itself.

Ian

00:45:31 – 00:45:37

Like, how does the narrative become part of the product? And so Interesting. That's the part where I think people in the center part

Aaron

00:45:37 – 00:45:39

of that tweet again? Read that back to me.

Ian

00:45:39 – 00:45:47

Yeah. So every product should have a story, a narrative that explains why it needs to exist and how it will solve your customer's problems.

Aaron

00:45:47 – 00:45:52

So The product should have a narrative that explains why it needs to exist. Okay.

Ian

00:45:52 – 00:46:05

Okay. So that's like so to me, I took it to that next level of, like, yeah. So you should have this narrative. And this is something I've never been that good at either. Like, in the very beginning of HubSpot, I had it, and then I feel like I've kind of lost it along the way a little bit as as the mark like, the market changes.

Ian

00:46:05 – 00:46:20

Like, things change. The market change. The world changes. Right? And then, like, your original narrative is maybe not as it's not as useful as today as it was 18 years ago, for example.

Ian

00:46:20 – 00:46:26

Like, 18 years ago, like, oh, help desk software in your browser was, like, a very interesting narrative because that wasn't the thing that really existed.

Aaron

00:46:26 – 00:46:28

Quite as hard anymore, does it?

Ian

00:46:28 – 00:46:34

That that doesn't yeah. Exactly. It doesn't hit quite as hard. I think people got that. They know what's up with the browser, basically.

Aaron

00:46:34 – 00:46:35

Sure guy.

Ian

00:46:36 – 00:46:53

Right. So so, you know, how do you so I've been thinking a lot about this stuff in general, especially in terms of HubSpot, but also even in other things we do. And it's like, alright. Like, what's the narrative? Like, you have down the narrative, and then how does that seep into the product at a super deep level?

Ian

00:46:53 – 00:47:20

Like, the features in the product, the pricing of the product, the go to market of the product, like, the narrative and those things all have to work together. And so I just think that's something that I know I definitely overlook a lot, because I'm like, oh, cool feature. Like, that'll be fun, and, like, people will find that useful. But, like, maybe that's not the right feature because it doesn't actually go with the narrative of what the story you're trying to tell about the product. Right?

Ian

00:47:20 – 00:47:35

And so and I think that stuff's even more true now because, you know, I think the world's changing again. Like, SEO, how long is SEO gonna last? I don't know. Like, does do these sort of chat models take over?

Aaron

00:47:35 – 00:47:36

They'll have

Ian

00:47:36 – 00:48:02

their own sort of version of SEO, but it'll be different. How do you spread the word about things? Advertising is very expensive if you're a small company or bootstrapping because there's a lot of competition in most online spaces and products at this point. So how do you differentiate, and, how do you afford the go to market? So I feel like having that all that stuff being baked in gets to, like, what we were talking about earlier, where, like, more word-of-mouth and those type of things.

Ian

00:48:02 – 00:48:27

If you can get that alignment of the story and the narrative with the product and the pricing and all those things going together, then it makes it much easier for people to tell that story on your behalf and to get that word-of-mouth, which is always the best way. Because word-of-mouth is just the best way to sell any product, I think, because it's just so powerful. When somebody asks somebody else, hey. What do you use for this? And then you tell them I use this, and it's great.

Ian

00:48:27 – 00:48:34

Like, that is a sale, like, 75% of the time. Yep. You know, even better than a search. So

Aaron

00:48:34 – 00:48:56

So how does how does a point of, like, having your your product have a point of view, is that the same as narrative? Because I feel like one of one of the things that I, especially on the second recording, leaned into of screencasting was, like, I have a point of view. I'm not gonna tell you all the ways you can do it. I'm gonna tell you the ways that I think you should do it. And we talked about this a little bit last episode.

Aaron

00:48:56 – 00:49:01

Is that the same as narrative, or does that help you develop a narrative?

Ian

00:49:01 – 00:49:12

I think it helps you develop a narrative. Right? But I don't think it's quite the I think it yeah. I think you'd need that. Like, I think the product has to have some type of point of view that's powerful.

Ian

00:49:12 – 00:49:39

I think or at least that I think helps. Like, maybe that's not true of all products, but I think that's certainly helpful to have a a point of view on it because then that feeds into presumably, like, the story around the product and why people should buy it, what it's helping them accomplish. Like, in your case, right, like, that having a powerful point of view lets you get to producing a video faster because you're gonna tell them a strong right way to do it. Right. That they can riff off of.

Ian

00:49:39 – 00:49:52

But, presumably it's helping them get to where they wanna go faster. And so, now how do you then bring that up and out of those are in the videos after you buy. So how do you

Aaron

00:49:53 – 00:50:02

So then the the narrative or, like, the headline is create high quality screencasts efficiently. That feels like that feels like the narrative.

Ian

00:50:02 – 00:50:06

Right. Right. Exactly. And, yeah, I think that is the narrative. Right?

Ian

00:50:06 – 00:50:25

And then when they get in there, the product lines up with that narrative because it's like, okay. Like, obviously, you're showing them how to do things at a quality level, but then also since you're giving them these guidelines, they're getting it through it faster and producing what they want to produce quicker. So I think that makes sense.

Aaron

00:50:25 – 00:50:26

I like that.

Ian

00:50:27 – 00:50:43

Yeah. So but that's the thing. It's like that really think it through from somebody's first experience all the way through down to their, you know, a long time user of the product. And, and then, you know, having that narrative makes it easier for other people to tell the narrative. I mean, that's the other thing.

Aaron

00:50:43 – 00:50:44

That is very true.

Ian

00:50:45 – 00:51:02

Yeah. That is a good point. A narrative you're presenting for people to you know, like, they other people can absorb, and then they can express that narrative for you. Obviously, then that gets into, like, is your narrative tight and something somebody can easily remember and can easily express and all those things. And, you know, so I don't know.

Ian

00:51:02 – 00:51:27

I mean, this is all new stuff to me in terms of, like, really thinking about this deeply, and I'm definitely not an expert here. But these are all the things I've been thinking about. And I've actually been thinking about them all kind of independently, so to speak. And then this tweet to me was just like, oh, yes. Like, this is a single sentence that encapsulates a whole bunch of different ideas about how you build and market and sell a product in this one tweet.

Ian

00:51:27 – 00:51:38

And so that was kind of my, yeah, obsession with it over the past month was, like, just, yeah. I love when you find stuff like that. I was like, oh, just brings it all together for you. You know?

Aaron

00:51:38 – 00:51:46

Well, I'm finally I I'm glad we finally got the rundown on it because because it's been, you know, it's been on our list of to talk about. I didn't know it dovetailed with with laser tweaks so nicely.

Ian

00:51:47 – 00:51:47

Yeah. But

Aaron

00:51:47 – 00:51:52

Who who needs writers? We got this thing on lock. So we got we got it all down. This is perfect.

Ian

00:51:53 – 00:51:53

Oh, boy.

Aaron

00:51:53 – 00:52:02

Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, good job good job, Shbigford, on starting laser tweets. I don't know who owns it now, but glad it's still up and running.

Ian

00:52:02 – 00:52:08

Yeah. It's Bigford Corner. He he's doing he's on new stuff. I just saw you know, Twitter today, he's building something new. I'm like, this guy, he's everywhere.

Aaron

00:52:08 – 00:52:25

He, so the guy, I think his name is, I think his name is Hassan. Right? That's right. Yep. Hassan Zahirina, who did some of the who did Tobias' landing page, who did an animation for screencasting.com, Filament guy.

Aaron

00:52:25 – 00:52:38

He just did an animation for Josh, for his detangle AI thing. So he just did an another little motion thing for Josh's landing pages. So it's all it's all coming it's all coming together.

Ian

00:52:39 – 00:52:42

Everything's coming together. All the circles are

Aaron

00:52:42 – 00:52:45

connected. Small place.

Ian

00:52:46 – 00:52:55

I've never had anything animated. I need an animated logo. This is part of my narrative I need for my, you know, when we get to that point of stuff we're working on with health problems.

Aaron

00:52:55 – 00:52:57

Just the guy just the guy for you.

Ian

00:52:57 – 00:52:58

Yeah. There we

Aaron

00:52:58 – 00:53:01

go. He's great. Yeah. He does great motion stuff.

Ian

00:53:01 – 00:53:07

That's so cool. That stuff blows my mind. Every time I go into anything design y like that, I'm like, how you do this stuff is just

Aaron

00:53:07 – 00:53:08

Oh, man.

Ian

00:53:08 – 00:53:10

I can't wrap my mind around it. I can't do it.

Aaron

00:53:10 – 00:53:15

No. No. Well, where do where do you wanna go next? Do you wanna go to you wanna go to down migrations?

Ian

00:53:17 – 00:53:20

We can. It's up to you. Should we go back to Laravel for a bit?

Aaron

00:53:20 – 00:53:31

Yeah. Let's go back to Laravel for a bit. You, you ignited the Twittersphere talking about down migration, saying they're more likely to get you fired than to fix the thing you were trying to fix.

Ian

00:53:32 – 00:53:32

So Yeah. I don't know.

Aaron

00:53:33 – 00:53:33

Defend yourself.

Ian

00:53:34 – 00:53:39

I've been caught maybe am I now the outrage marketing that we were really against? I was

Aaron

00:53:39 – 00:53:40

DHH of Laravel.

Ian

00:53:40 – 00:53:45

You might be. Maybe. I don't know. But, I don't know. Down migration.

Ian

00:53:45 – 00:53:56

I feel like it's so obvious you don't want a down migration. Down migration, very bad. And people have, like, you know, whatever. There's there's reasons to have them. I'm not saying there's literally never a reason to have a down migration.

Ian

00:53:56 – 00:53:58

I'm sure there's use cases where you can for

Aaron

00:53:58 – 00:54:04

a few a few non Laravel listeners. Our migration classes come with an up and a down. Yes.

Ian

00:54:04 – 00:54:04

And the

Aaron

00:54:04 – 00:54:23

up does it forwards, and there's a way to undo a migration, and that runs the down method. So that's why we're calling it the down. Yep. And and so in the class, when you do migration create, it's like, here's your up method, add the column. Here's the down method, presumably, drop the column.

Aaron

00:54:23 – 00:54:25

Ian Ian is saying down will get you fired.

Ian

00:54:26 – 00:54:48

I know it's it's more likely to get you fired than to fix whatever you were trying to do when you decide to run migrate rollback, which runs the down method. So Mhmm. Because it's just so there's a couple things in there too. There's, like, you roll I mean, so, like, the you roll something out, and you instantly know it's bad for whatever reason. And you, k, you can roll back in theory.

Ian

00:54:48 – 00:55:11

But, I mean, first of all, just even that, the simplest scenario of its use case of a production use case, I feel like, it's not even real. Like, there's code in there. You're gonna have to roll back that code to obviously Yep. Maybe somebody inserted something in there and stuff there's errors when you go to roll back, or even if you do, you've now lost this data. There's just even in that simple case, it's it's you know, there's there's problems.

Ian

00:55:12 – 00:55:27

And then there's just other thing. Like, you can tell it to roll back farther. Like Yeah. So now those down migrations are just there forever, and somebody fat fingers a 3 next to the migration rollback or something, and now you're, like, rolling down, you know You just dropped 3 migrations. Yeah.

Ian

00:55:27 – 00:55:56

Dropped a bunch of tables. So some new person is there and has isn't as experienced and does it by accident. Like, there's just a million ways this can go wrong, and I feel like the upside of someday, I may have the perfect use case to roll this back. When the alternative is, I just go into the database and drop the column with, like, literally 3 words. There's, like, not saving me a bunch there, and the downside is tremendous.

Ian

00:55:56 – 00:56:02

So I just feel like you should always you should always get rid of that down migration, method to me.

Aaron

00:56:02 – 00:56:10

This is this is not gonna be, too long of a conversation because I agree. Forward only. No doubt. Never backwards. Forward only.

Aaron

00:56:10 – 00:56:33

If you make a mistake if you make a mistake, you make a new migration and you fix it. Forward only. Alright. Here's here's the problem is you I feel like you roll it back, and then suddenly you you're in this weird state where you have unapplied migrations. And the the rollback is hardly ever as clean as you think it is.

Ian

00:56:33 – 00:56:33

Right.

Aaron

00:56:33 – 00:56:44

Right? So what happens is you end up partially undoing because you write it by hand. It's not Right. Like it's not like there's a programmatic reversal of the thing in the up. You write the up, and then you write the down.

Aaron

00:56:44 – 00:56:59

And I feel like it's never as clean as you want it to be, or, like, the down migration gets half applied. Like, you try to roll it back and, like, an error happens and half of your down migration Right. Is applied. And then then what's your state? Yeah.

Aaron

00:56:59 – 00:57:14

And so then suddenly you're, like, I actually don't know with regards to my migrations what state my database is in. And so now you're left trying to, like, untangle an up migration and half of a down migration on productions. Like, no, dude. Forward only.

Ian

00:57:15 – 00:57:16

Or the database.

Aaron

00:57:16 – 00:57:30

Yes. Like, just make a new migration and keep going. Also also, you're gonna be log you're gonna be SSH ing into your production server to run a down migration? No freaking way. No way.

Aaron

00:57:30 – 00:57:43

You put you put the migration in your deploy script, and you just it only ever goes up and you do not you do not log in to play with migrations in production. No freaking way. So Yeah. Well, you're just I'm with you.

Ian

00:57:44 – 00:58:04

Somebody forgets I mean, I don't know. There's probably varied opinions on this too, but I if I have a migration or an update of any type that requires editing the something with the existing data. Like, I need to adjust the data in another column. Like, I put those in the migrations because I feel like that's where that should go. Yes.

Ian

00:58:04 – 00:58:18

Maybe other people wanna have a command that's specially built for it, whatever. I feel like those should go in migrations. So now that's a very complicated thing to roll back. And you've if you have this thing to roll, sometimes we just roll things back. Well, maybe this one had something else besides just adding a column.

Ian

00:58:18 – 00:58:25

It had this other data. So, okay, in the down, you put the thing to try to undo that, but you know that isn't just a whole nightmare scenario right there. So, like

Aaron

00:58:25 – 00:58:28

trying to unmanipulate data. You manipulated it in the

Ian

00:58:28 – 00:58:35

That's a very difficult freaking way. So I just feel like there's a lot of stuff there. So there we go. We're on the state page. The official

Aaron

00:58:36 – 00:58:36

Yes.

Ian

00:58:36 – 00:58:41

Database guy of Laravel has given his blessing to me on this strategy. We're up over

Aaron

00:58:41 – 00:58:42

only. That's right.

Ian

00:58:42 – 00:58:46

We go. Alright. I like it. Yeah. I think that's that's the full case.

Ian

00:58:46 – 00:58:53

And if you have a special weird case that's different, fine. Whatever. But I think, yeah. It's it's up only

Aaron

00:58:53 – 00:58:55

to me. Crying to us when it when it breaks

Ian

00:58:55 – 00:58:57

and production is trying to run down. Yeah.

Aaron

00:58:57 – 00:59:00

If you're trying to run down migrations, I told you so.

Ian

00:59:01 – 00:59:05

Alright. Done. Alright. So we have one last item. We have a light item.

Ian

00:59:05 – 00:59:07

It's wrapped up from the light item.

Aaron

00:59:07 – 00:59:10

Well well, I wanna finish on this. I I need I need to get your thoughts on this.

Ian

00:59:10 – 00:59:11

Yeah. This is a big one.

Aaron

00:59:11 – 00:59:17

This is a big one. So you send a funny message to a friend. Right? Yeah. Pretty pretty good.

Aaron

00:59:17 – 00:59:23

Like, it's pretty funny. And you get hit back with, just h a. Right? Just h a.

Ian

00:59:23 – 00:59:23

Yep. Okay.

Aaron

00:59:23 – 00:59:33

That what how do we read into that? Then you potentially, you get hit back with a It's like, okay. That's that's different. Then we get the 3 's. Yeah.

Aaron

00:59:33 – 00:59:43

Are we reaching and God forbid you get fours. At that point, we're reaching some sort of, like, inflation. I know it's it's inflation season, but 4 has feels like a lot.

Ian

00:59:43 – 00:59:43

It's a lot.

Aaron

00:59:43 – 00:59:47

Or or you get the tap back, Imessage

Ian

00:59:47 – 00:59:48

tap back Tap back.

Aaron

00:59:49 – 00:59:56

Like little little notes. Sure. Like, what it what don't don't even I don't even wanna hear it if you just are gonna tap back. So, like, what We have,

Ian

00:59:56 – 00:59:58

like, the same person here.

Aaron

00:59:58 – 01:00:02

Okay. Yes. Thank you. Alright. So, Tammy, what is The tap back.

Aaron

01:00:02 – 01:00:08

What am I I I put all this effort into a little a little turn of phrase, and you're gonna hit me with a tap back?

Ian

01:00:08 – 01:00:10

Tap back is just straight insulting. Right?

Aaron

01:00:10 – 01:00:10

It is.

Ian

01:00:10 – 01:00:13

I feel like, this tap back is literally insulting, especially on a farm.

Aaron

01:00:13 – 01:00:22

Tap back tap back is I know that you meant this to be funny, and I'm going to acknowledge that you meant it as funny, but I don't find it funny.

Ian

01:00:22 – 01:00:24

No. I'm okay with the top back for a heart.

Aaron

01:00:24 – 01:00:25

A heart

Ian

01:00:25 – 01:00:26

Top back heart

Aaron

01:00:26 – 01:00:27

top back heart is great. That's

Ian

01:00:27 – 01:00:30

good. But a funny requires some typing. Now

Aaron

01:00:30 – 01:00:31

Requires.

Ian

01:00:31 – 01:00:42

I will say I've been, Taylor when he worked at Userscape. And Eric, I think, too had a little they were never sure what to make because I would sometimes use a short Like, I would do a short

Aaron

01:00:42 – 01:00:45

and you guys need to be sure. I remember something. But

Ian

01:00:45 – 01:00:52

I think so. Right? I mean, that's why I remember that we would discuss this, and they weren't sure about the short But I think the short is like, yeah. It's It's funny. Like, I'm I'm with you.

Ian

01:00:52 – 01:01:02

I do think a triple Like, that's you're saying it's really funny. And then LOL. I don't know what you I don't I'm not a big user of LOL. I don't know. I know it's obviously a thing, but

Aaron

01:01:03 – 01:01:08

So here's here's my take on the short hot. I think the short hot is, like, Like, a little

Ian

01:01:08 – 01:01:11

alright. Yeah. Yeah. Good one. It's amusing.

Aaron

01:01:11 – 01:01:30

It's amusing. It's amusing. That's amusing. The 3 has, you you better actually have made a physical noise on your side. If you read something and you give it a you give it a nostril snort or you like an actual out loud laugh alone in your computer, that's 3 That's 3 worthy.

Aaron

01:01:30 – 01:01:44

Again, I think 4 is inflation, and I don't I I think if you overuse 3 has, then you're stuck in a situation where to truly communicate that something is funny, you gotta go 4 haws, and you look like a crazy person. It's just there's no there's

Ian

01:01:44 – 01:01:47

no Something went wrong with your keyboard or something. What's going on there?

Aaron

01:01:47 – 01:01:51

The stomp, like, where you have to just do do do do do do do. Like, that is it's too much.

Ian

01:01:51 – 01:01:52

Too much.

Aaron

01:01:52 – 01:02:06

The the LOL is interesting because it it's another it's another, like, I acknowledge that this is I acknowledge that this is supposed to be funny. I don't find it I don't find it that amusing, so I'm just gonna say LOL. Like Right.

Ian

01:02:07 – 01:02:10

Even though it literally means laugh out loud. I did used to. You know?

Aaron

01:02:10 – 01:02:16

It used to, but not anymore. Laugh out loud. You know what it you know what means laugh out loud now? 3 haws.

Ian

01:02:16 – 01:02:29

Triple I agree. Yeah. Because, you know, there is it it's the level of effort required. Like, you are typing those extra keystrokes. That is that extra level effort to indicate your amusement level with it.

Ian

01:02:29 – 01:02:34

And I feel like that's very important. If you the shorter is less and still appropriate sometimes, but

Aaron

01:02:35 – 01:02:35

Agreed.

Ian

01:02:35 – 01:02:42

You're indicating it on the proper scale there. Whereas if you really had me, yes, making a noise out loud in some manner,

Aaron

01:02:42 – 01:02:46

that's triple Triple This is great. This is great.

Ian

01:02:46 – 01:02:46

I love it.

Aaron

01:02:46 – 01:03:04

This is great. Okay. Well, I'm glad I'm glad we solved that because I see I see some people using it in ways that I now know are objectively incorrect. I thought maybe, like, oh, this is a personal opinion. But now that we've now that we have had this quorum, I know that we are correct and other people need to understand how to appropriately communicate.

Aaron

01:03:04 – 01:03:13

The tap back, if you ever message me something that's funny and I tap back, it's a slap in the face. Exactly. I mean that as an insult now.

Ian

01:03:13 – 01:03:18

I have to reevaluate our entire relationship at that point. Like, I don't know what's going on.

Aaron

01:03:19 – 01:03:21

We use Telegram, so there's no tap back. So that's There

Ian

01:03:21 – 01:03:22

isn't. Yeah.

Aaron

01:03:22 – 01:03:24

That has been taken off the table.

Ian

01:03:24 – 01:03:50

Right. Alright. So one other thing then that's kinda related to this that we should just solve right now too while we're, you know, putting down our edicts on these things is and this comes up now a lot for me, especially with my children. But what's your opinion on, like, completionism on, like, emails or, or messages? Like, I feel like I can't just I have to respond and complete the the thread in the obvious manner.

Ian

01:03:50 – 01:04:01

Like, if you tell me to be somewhere, I'm gonna at least write back, like, okay. See you there. Something like that. Interesting. And I'm hit with this all the time because, like, my children do not write back to their messages ever.

Ian

01:04:01 – 01:04:08

Like, if you're like, okay. I'm gonna pick you up at 4:30. Just dead air. Like, you don't get no anything back, and then you're like, okay. Did you get this?

Ian

01:04:08 – 01:04:13

And they're like, okay. Yep. Or whatever. But you have to, like, make them respond to you. Otherwise, they won't respond.

Ian

01:04:13 – 01:04:17

So I don't know. What's your feelings there? Maybe I'm maybe I'm old fashioned about

Aaron

01:04:17 – 01:04:24

it. No. Well, maybe we're both old fashioned, but at least we're both correct. Object I'm a I'm a sounds good. I'm a sounds good reply.

Ian

01:04:24 – 01:04:25

Yeah. Sure.

Aaron

01:04:25 – 01:04:33

I'll be getting 4:30. Sounds good. Yeah. That I I acknowledge. That is my that is my I have received your message, and I approve of it.

Aaron

01:04:33 – 01:04:43

Sounds good. There's also a thumbs up tap back, which feels a little it feels a little or disconnected and and, not very personal. But, like, At least it gets

Ian

01:04:43 – 01:04:44

the job done.

Aaron

01:04:44 – 01:04:53

It gets the job done. Yeah. Yeah. There's also so I guess I'm a completionist. But what is the deal with people doing the tap back on every message and then responding?

Ian

01:04:54 – 01:04:55

Yes. I know. You don't that's

Aaron

01:04:55 – 01:04:56

That's crazy behavior. Right?

Ian

01:04:56 – 01:04:59

That's crazy. That's people with too much free time. Like, that's people who don't have kids maybe

Aaron

01:04:59 – 01:05:02

or something. Respond. And I'm like, woah. Woah. Woah.

Aaron

01:05:02 – 01:05:04

Woah. Woah. No. Yeah. Okay.

Aaron

01:05:04 – 01:05:05

Yeah.

Ian

01:05:05 – 01:05:05

That's too fun.

Aaron

01:05:05 – 01:05:11

Definitely hit them with the sounds good. See you then. Okay. Anything anything like that works for me.

Ian

01:05:11 – 01:05:15

Yeah. Yeah. Just something an acknowledgment that you received this message and

Aaron

01:05:15 – 01:05:16

and And we have agreed to

Ian

01:05:16 – 01:05:25

a plan. Yes. There is a plan in place or whatever the case may be. I feel like there there has to be that communication. But I don't know.

Ian

01:05:25 – 01:05:30

Wait till you get there. You're gonna see the kids. Yeah. Maybe it'll change by the time your kids are teenagers with phones. But,

Aaron

01:05:31 – 01:05:35

they'll be self driving cars underground at that point, so it may it may matter less.

Ian

01:05:36 – 01:05:41

Yeah. Maybe so. Alright, man. Sounds good. Another good app in the bag.

Ian

01:05:41 – 01:05:42

Let's,

Aaron

01:05:42 – 01:05:44

see where find us?

Ian

01:05:44 – 01:05:56

Find us. They could find us at mostlytechnical.com, at mostly tech pod on x, and, mostly technical podcast Twitter. Dotcom. On Twitter. Twitter for life.

Ian

01:05:56 – 01:05:57

Alright.

Aaron

01:05:57 – 01:06:00

Alright. Talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.

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