Aaron Francis

Things are starting to look up!

Refine: https://hammerstone.dev/refine/laravel/docs/main
Torchlight: https://torchlight.dev
Aaron: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis
Colleen: https://twitter.com/leenyburger

Learn more →

Transcript

Colleen

00:00:00 – 00:00:00

Hey, Aaron.

Aaron

00:00:01 – 00:00:02

Hey, Colleen. How's it going?

Colleen

00:00:02 – 00:00:09

Good. I would love to hear what has been going on with refined front end stuff.

Aaron

00:00:10 – 00:00:30

Yeah. So I picked it up from our 2 contractors. So one's been working on Vue, and one's been working on React. And I picked up the Vue 1 because it's, you know, the only one I know, and started playing with it. And the first thing that went through my head was, oh, man.

Aaron

00:00:30 – 00:00:38

I don't know how any of this works. I should just rewrite it all. And then I thought, no. Don't do that. Please please don't do that.

Aaron

00:00:39 – 00:00:57

So I kept pushing. And after about, I don't know, an hour of, like, trying to figure out, okay, where are these files? What is going on here? What what am I even looking at? I, like, I found my footing and started actually using it, and it's amazing.

Aaron

00:00:57 – 00:01:16

It's really, really good. So the place we got hung up with or or or the place we got hung up the first time when we onboarded Neil was just like, this is great. I wanna be able to customize the look and feel of all of this. And that's what sent us off on this, you know, death march.

Colleen

00:01:16 – 00:01:17

Right.

Aaron

00:01:18 – 00:01:38

And now it's all customizable. So the the thing that I think Sean envisioned and then, Dave and Robin carried out is this, like, flavoring system. Okay. So it's it's a totally, totally made up concept. So there it don't go look up, like, react flavoring, because it's not a real thing.

Aaron

00:01:38 – 00:02:07

It's just, like, that's what we call it. And it's really cool. It it wraps everything in, like, our own kind of, like, higher order components, and then applies the styling there. So we have, like, this dictionary that says, you know, this component is styled with these classes and this component with these. And then in our query builder package itself, it looks it up in that dictionary.

Aaron

00:02:07 – 00:02:45

So what that means is with all of the same components and 2 different JSON files, we could have a Tailwind version, and we could have a Bootstrap version. And with another flavor, we could have a Material UI version. And with another flavor, a Nova version, which is gonna be my first thing. And then finally, like, a Neil's special app version. So it it, like, it gives you complete control without having to, you know, resort to, ejecting completely, and you can customize everything about the look and feel.

Aaron

00:02:45 – 00:02:47

So it's pretty great.

Colleen

00:02:47 – 00:03:07

So does that mean if I have, like, a custom theme, and so all of my drop downs are styled this way and all of my inputs are styled this way, there's some kind of JSON file I can write with the name of those styles, and that will automatically style refine in the same way.

Aaron

00:03:07 – 00:03:09

Yes. Mostly.

Colleen

00:03:09 – 00:03:09

Okay.

Aaron

00:03:09 – 00:03:11

So that that's mostly true.

Colleen

00:03:12 – 00:03:12

Okay.

Aaron

00:03:13 – 00:03:21

Actually, that may be fully true. Additionally, if you need to eject and, like, input your own, let's say, date picker

Colleen

00:03:21 – 00:03:22

Yeah.

Aaron

00:03:22 – 00:03:30

Like, we ship an optional date picker. But if you already have 1, you can still control which component gets rendered.

Colleen

00:03:32 – 00:03:32

Okay.

Aaron

00:03:32 – 00:03:45

So you could use our date picker or you could pass your own. But for the most part, I think 90% of people are gonna use what we have and just want it to look like their app, and this gives them that ability.

Colleen

00:03:45 – 00:03:46

That's amazing.

Aaron

00:03:47 – 00:04:14

Yeah. So the thing I have been working on is getting like a fresh Laravel app, with the Laravel back end and the Vue front end, and just trying to iron out every little sticking point along the way there. And that's it's been it's been going great. I need to I still need to get, it all published to NPM Mhmm. Because now we're in this, like, one massive mono repo.

Colleen

00:04:14 – 00:04:15

Okay.

Aaron

00:04:15 – 00:04:39

But, yeah, I was super encouraged because I think for a long time, the front ends have been this dark. Like, I don't know what's going on there. It's not really my area of expertise, and I really haven't had to manage it too much. Yeah. And so it's always been this this scary unknown, but now playing with it, it's like, yeah, this is gonna work.

Aaron

00:04:39 – 00:04:49

So I'm super pumped about it because I think this is it. Like, I think this is there are no more roadblocks. This is awesome. So my plan yeah.

Colleen

00:04:49 – 00:04:50

That's awesome.

Aaron

00:04:50 – 00:05:10

My plan is to meet with Neil next week. He's got it working in Nova, but he also wants it on his like, in his app. Right. So Nova is his, like, back end for his staff, and he wants it in the front end for his customers. And so I told him, you know, give me a week to, like, iron out this front end stuff.

Aaron

00:05:10 – 00:05:14

And then next week, we can get it in your app, and you can start playing with it.

Colleen

00:05:14 – 00:05:14

Nice.

Aaron

00:05:14 – 00:05:30

So next week, he's gonna be the first, he's gonna be the first one to, like, use the the new fully customizable UI. And then beyond that, that's when we can start scheduling one off people from our email list.

Colleen

00:05:30 – 00:05:33

Awesome. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty great.

Colleen

00:05:33 – 00:05:33

Amazing.

Aaron

00:05:33 – 00:05:45

I'm super I'm I'm feeling really encouraged. If every you know, if the last 10 podcasts have been like, wow. This sucks and is really hard. This one I feel this one I feel like, hey. This is some good news.

Aaron

00:05:45 – 00:05:46

I'm feeling good about this.

Colleen

00:05:46 – 00:05:50

This is amazing. Yeah. I love it. So that is view.

Aaron

00:05:51 – 00:06:10

That is view. React is, from what I can tell, in the exact same place. It uses the flavor system. Dave has a tailwind flavor and a base flavor already defined, And even the 2 libraries even share a little bit of, boilerplate code.

Colleen

00:06:10 – 00:06:11

Okay.

Aaron

00:06:11 – 00:06:14

So we will probably need do you know React?

Colleen

00:06:15 – 00:06:17

No. I mean, really poorly.

Aaron

00:06:17 – 00:06:28

Okay. So we'll probably need to get together with Dave. Yeah. And have him walk us through it again now that I have a full understanding of it, but I think I think it's in the exact same spot.

Colleen

00:06:29 – 00:06:49

Okay. So yeah. Because I am pre selling this for rails, but it has occurred to me it has occurred to me. Like, this flavoring system is sounds amazing. And right now, our rails views, if you use Hotwire, are tied to Tailwind.

Aaron

00:06:50 – 00:06:50

Sure.

Colleen

00:06:50 – 00:06:54

So that is just something that has come up in my brain that, like, oh, that might be an issue.

Aaron

00:06:55 – 00:06:58

It might be. I wouldn't touch it until it is.

Colleen

00:06:58 – 00:06:59

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

00:06:59 – 00:07:10

I mean, it might be. I my my guess is that most people are gonna want to use React. I I just don't think that many people are gonna wanna use Hotwire.

Colleen

00:07:10 – 00:07:29

I think I think it'll be great. I mean, well, this is why I'm trying okay. So I'm doing this concept of, like, founding customers. I'm trying to do this concept of I'll accept 5 founding customers. So I as we talked about, I had 2 people that have already purchased it and, 2 people that are very interested that I'm gonna schedule calls with, both of us.

Colleen

00:07:29 – 00:07:41

I'm gonna schedule us, calls with them in the next couple weeks and just hands on with those people and see what they need. And I think that's gonna be really instructive in terms of what we need to do there.

Aaron

00:07:42 – 00:07:49

Yeah. I think that's the ticket. I wouldn't even think about flavors for Hot Wire. I just don't even see I don't see how that would be possible.

Colleen

00:07:49 – 00:07:52

Yeah. Like, you're talking about it. I'm thinking about it. I'm like, how how would

Aaron

00:07:52 – 00:07:54

that work? Don't worry about it.

Colleen

00:07:54 – 00:08:13

Yeah. I'm not gonna worry about it until it becomes a problem. Especially since we have React and that covers I mean, that that covers rails for not I don't wanna say most people, but, you know, we'll see we'll see what we run into. We'll see what we come across, and we will modify as we go. So how do you feel about, like, selling this?

Colleen

00:08:13 – 00:08:24

Are you ready to do you wanna do a presale? Do you like this idea of founding customers? Should we accept people, like, 5 people on the Laravel side, and those people get, like, really personal attention from you? What do you think?

Aaron

00:08:24 – 00:08:41

Yeah. I think I think that sounds great. I think the first step is going to be get it working in Neil's app because I've been in that app already, you know, 4 or 5 months ago. Okay. And he is interested in getting it working.

Aaron

00:08:41 – 00:08:42

Like, he really needs it.

Colleen

00:08:42 – 00:08:43

Okay.

Aaron

00:08:43 – 00:08:52

He likes it. He's been using it on Nova. He likes the concept. And so I count him as, like, founding customer number 1.

Colleen

00:08:52 – 00:08:52

Right.

Aaron

00:08:52 – 00:09:25

So next week, getting it working in his app is going to give me I'm gonna learn a lot from that. And then beyond that, yeah, I I really don't think there's anything like, there's nothing left to do except get people to start using it. Yeah. So, yeah, that sounds great. I mean, we'll get it in Neil's app, and then we can either email 1 on 1, like we talked about, and try to schedule calls, or I saw you tweeted today about, you know, finding 5 people.

Aaron

00:09:25 – 00:09:26

I could do either one of those.

Colleen

00:09:26 – 00:09:40

Yeah. I think and we'll talk again next week. But my my gut is that tweeting about it is more effective and, like, DM ing people on Twitter. At least for me, I found that's strangely more effective than email. Like, people ignore email, but not Twitter DMs.

Colleen

00:09:40 – 00:09:41

I don't know what that's about, but

Aaron

00:09:41 – 00:09:41

Yeah.

Colleen

00:09:42 – 00:09:51

Maybe just because it feels more like like you're chatting. But I think that'll be the move after you work with Neil next week. That's really exciting. I'm super pumped. Yeah.

Aaron

00:09:51 – 00:10:10

This is great. I I, like, ironed out a few bugs in the front end and then was like, okay. So if this works like, I I still need to publish it to NPM, and we all know that that's gonna be a nightmare. But once this works, what's left? And I was thinking, nothing.

Aaron

00:10:10 – 00:10:22

There isn't there's nothing left. This is it. Yes. Like, sure, the front end doesn't have documentation. I don't really care about that because the first, you know, few people I'm gonna be talking to directly anyway.

Aaron

00:10:24 – 00:10:31

And you know what this you know what else this does is the view front end is, both view 2 and view 3.

Colleen

00:10:31 – 00:10:32

Okay.

Aaron

00:10:32 – 00:10:35

And Nova 4 is view 3.

Colleen

00:10:36 – 00:10:36

Okay.

Aaron

00:10:36 – 00:10:41

And Nova 3 stay with me. Nova 3 is view 2.

Colleen

00:10:41 – 00:10:41

Okay.

Aaron

00:10:42 – 00:10:50

So what this does is this allow now that this is, like, fully working, this lets us do Nova 4 with our new front end.

Colleen

00:10:50 – 00:10:51

Awesome.

Aaron

00:10:51 – 00:11:01

And so we can quickly once I get this up, we can quickly spin up Nova 4, so then we'll have Nova 3, Nova 4, and then, you know, regular Laravel, Rails, all of

Colleen

00:11:01 – 00:11:05

that. Awesome. Mhmm. Nice. That's phenomenal.

Aaron

00:11:05 – 00:11:10

I know. So I'm feeling much, much better about this.

Colleen

00:11:10 – 00:11:12

June is gonna be our month.

Aaron

00:11:12 – 00:11:13

I think June is gonna be our month.

Colleen

00:11:13 – 00:11:14

Yeah.

Aaron

00:11:14 – 00:11:19

Yeah. It's awesome. I think so. I think we're gonna I think we're gonna make some money this month.

Colleen

00:11:19 – 00:11:22

It's awesome. That is great news. I love that.

Aaron

00:11:22 – 00:11:24

Yeah. It's nice to have a win. Right?

Colleen

00:11:24 – 00:11:30

It is nice to have a win. It is. It feels really good. That is, like, really exciting news.

Aaron

00:11:30 – 00:11:39

Yeah. Yeah. It sure sure is. And our landing page is looking much much better since you and I have been working on it.

Colleen

00:11:39 – 00:11:40

Yeah.

Aaron

00:11:40 – 00:11:41

You know, for 2 weeks now or whatever.

Colleen

00:11:41 – 00:11:51

I love I love doing the co working, the daily co working. Yeah. It's been almost daily when we can. I think that's been great, to keep the momentum up there.

Aaron

00:11:51 – 00:12:01

Even if it's, like, 30 minutes, I feel like getting together for 30 minutes in the morning and knocking anything out has been really helpful.

Colleen

00:12:02 – 00:12:23

I agree. Like, I was talking to my sister was in town this weekend, and I was talking to her about that. And I was like, it used to be that, like, we kinda, like, everyone went to their own corner and, like, did their own thing, and then we only, like, touch base once a week. And that just didn't feel right for the pace we're trying to move at. And so, yeah, I think that, like, daily 30 minute, what are we doing?

Colleen

00:12:23 – 00:12:32

Where are we? Has been has been really good. So we're almost done the landing page. Wouldn't you say? I feel like we're we're maybe a couple hours away from actually getting that out.

Colleen

00:12:32 – 00:12:40

So that'll be really helpful. It'll be great to be able to point people to something that actually explains what the product is. Mhmm.

Aaron

00:12:40 – 00:12:51

Yeah. I saw some response to your tweet today. It was like, can you tell us can you tell us more of what's going on? And you're like, yeah, you could check here, but Yeah. We've got a better page coming.

Colleen

00:12:51 – 00:12:58

Don't really actually yeah. So, yeah. I'm pumped to get that up. I think that's that's gonna be really good.

Aaron

00:12:58 – 00:13:02

I also saw Mike Purim, quote tweeted your tweet.

Colleen

00:13:02 – 00:13:03

Wasn't that nice?

Aaron

00:13:03 – 00:13:04

No. It was so nice.

Colleen

00:13:04 – 00:13:06

I thought that was so nice. Yeah.

Aaron

00:13:06 – 00:13:08

Thanks. Thanks. Get a job, Mike. Yeah. That was really nice.

Colleen

00:13:08 – 00:13:12

That was nice. Yeah. Cool. Well,

Aaron

00:13:13 – 00:13:15

So you're making deals over there on your side?

Colleen

00:13:16 – 00:13:24

I'm doing my best. Yeah. I'm I'm pounding the pavement, selling the thing that doesn't exist, which is a whole interesting skill set.

Aaron

00:13:24 – 00:13:27

Okay. Well, it does exist.

Colleen

00:13:28 – 00:13:29

Okay. It totally

Aaron

00:13:29 – 00:13:31

exists. And it's, I'm not going

Colleen

00:13:31 – 00:13:32

to speak

Aaron

00:13:32 – 00:13:34

for you. It's totally done.

Colleen

00:13:34 – 00:13:37

It's like 99.9% done.

Aaron

00:13:37 – 00:13:38

Yeah.

Colleen

00:13:38 – 00:13:43

If you're using Tailwind and Hotwire. Yeah. No. It it is done. Actually.

Aaron

00:13:44 – 00:13:48

It is done. Yeah. I'm trying to get this out of your head that it's not done.

Colleen

00:13:48 – 00:13:50

I know. So every time every time you say

Aaron

00:13:50 – 00:13:51

it, I'm gonna say it is done.

Colleen

00:13:51 – 00:14:13

I think it's because, you know, there's always, like, scope creep, and the client has asked for this super, this super customized, like, segmentation stuff Mhmm. Which is not done. But that's like a super advanced feature, and it's gonna be super cool when it comes. But I don't think your average user needs that.

Aaron

00:14:13 – 00:14:14

No. They don't.

Colleen

00:14:14 – 00:14:21

And so, and we'll know as we start talking to them, and we'll start talking to them as we're able to roll it out very shortly.

Aaron

00:14:22 – 00:14:22

Mhmm.

Colleen

00:14:23 – 00:14:26

So, yeah. It's it's good. You've

Aaron

00:14:27 – 00:14:29

booked 2 so you've sold 2.

Colleen

00:14:29 – 00:14:29

Sold 2.

Aaron

00:14:29 – 00:14:33

And you have a you have a call booked with 1 Mhmm. This week. Right?

Colleen

00:14:33 – 00:14:52

Yep. And, I have 2 other people who verbally said they wanted to buy it. So, I'm gonna reach out to them. I was hoping if we finish the landing page, like because I I, you know, I haven't talked to them in a couple weeks. And so if we finish the landing page this week, I might wait to send them messages till Friday

Aaron

00:14:53 – 00:14:53

Mhmm.

Colleen

00:14:53 – 00:15:04

Till we finish the landing page just so I can be like, just to remind you, this is what it is. Mhmm. Yeah. And I'm only gonna sell 5 slots. So and one might be to my real estate clients because they desperately need this.

Aaron

00:15:04 – 00:15:05

Colleen

00:15:05 – 00:15:26

the 5 slots might fill up real quickly. But I think 5 is like a manageable number that I can handle, that I can so it's been great. We've been having a contractor is amazing. Our contractor is amazing. And he is starting to do more of the technical work, which has enabled me to focus a little bit more on this business work.

Colleen

00:15:26 – 00:15:41

And because before, I was, like, 40 hours a week technical. Right? And so he has been incredibly helpful. So he's been working on getting it integrated in bullet train. And so he's found a couple things like CSS was purging one of our, you know, style sheets, etcetera, etcetera.

Colleen

00:15:42 – 00:16:06

So figuring all that out has been really good. So I think the reason I only wanna take 5 is because I think each app is gonna have, like, unique challenges that we are gonna be able to sort out and learn and improve the product. And so I'm hoping, like, after this alpha round, we'll be able to open up another round. But, that's kind of the the pace, the speed at what what I want to release at least for this first release.

Aaron

00:16:06 – 00:16:17

Seems totally reasonable to me. I mean, each one I'm I'm hoping it's gonna I don't know what the mathematical term is, but it's gonna fall off a cliff on, like, the amount of stuff that needs to be done.

Colleen

00:16:17 – 00:16:17

Oh, yeah.

Aaron

00:16:17 – 00:16:25

The first 2, 3, 4 people, there's gonna be a huge amount that needs to be done. And then I'm hoping after that, it's just gonna be just onesie twosies here and there.

Colleen

00:16:26 – 00:16:32

I think so. That's what I anticipate. So it's it's exciting. It's really exciting. Like, this

Aaron

00:16:32 – 00:16:32

is happening.

Colleen

00:16:32 – 00:16:33

This is happening.

Aaron

00:16:33 – 00:16:40

This is like What's the, what's the timeline? August is is your 5 licenses a month date?

Colleen

00:16:40 – 00:16:44

Yeah. This is June. So if we start Yeah. I think we can make it.

Aaron

00:16:44 – 00:16:45

Get that for sure.

Colleen

00:16:45 – 00:16:55

I think we can hit it. I think having the Laravel stuff done is huge because I think that's gonna be a great market for us. So Yeah. I definitely think we can hit that.

Aaron

00:16:55 – 00:17:20

This also makes me feel a lot better about starting to do videos because now I have a front end that I can use that's not, like, directly tied to Nova. But I can, like, start showing how the front end works together with the back end and start pushing out some of that kind of content. I think it's gonna be really interesting and fun. Yeah.

Colleen

00:17:20 – 00:17:28

I think it's gonna be so good. Alright. I'm just gonna take a peek at our task database. Alright. Update landing page.

Colleen

00:17:28 – 00:17:40

That's our p one right now. And that's I mean, we're we're almost done. That's that's keep on keep on keep on and on that. And then I have demo question mark. What did I mean by that?

Aaron

00:17:41 – 00:17:46

Demo question mark. That is a good question. Probably videos.

Colleen

00:17:46 – 00:17:47

I think I've done videos.

Aaron

00:17:48 – 00:17:52

Or or or, demo dot hammerstone.com. Like a

Colleen

00:17:52 – 00:17:54

Well, that's a big task.

Aaron

00:17:54 – 00:17:56

Something you could play with. Yeah. That's a big task.

Colleen

00:17:56 – 00:18:04

That's I feel like that's not a p one. No. I think by demo question mark, I meant videos for our landing page, like, just little, like, videos.

Aaron

00:18:05 – 00:18:10

Well, definitely don't update it, so we have to wonder next time we see demo question mark what it means.

Colleen

00:18:10 – 00:18:14

Demo. Videos for landing page. And we can make those now. Right?

Aaron

00:18:14 – 00:18:15

Sure. Yeah.

Colleen

00:18:15 – 00:18:20

Yeah. Okay. Cool. And then schedule one call a week for the next 20 weeks.

Aaron

00:18:21 – 00:18:22

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Colleen

00:18:22 – 00:18:37

That one. So we got one this week. I'll send a couple DMs to see if we can schedule one for next week. I'm gonna keep pushing on the rails until I sell these 5 licenses. So, like, my plan is to just keep keep pushing that until I'm ready to shut that down temporarily.

Colleen

00:18:38 – 00:18:44

And you're having a call with Neil next week. Mhmm. Okay. Yep. So so we're kind of, like, hitting our goal.

Colleen

00:18:44 – 00:19:01

After you have your call with Neil, we will start sending emails, tweets, etcetera, trying to keep that call call volume up Mhmm. To get started. So I have a whatever we don't have to. This is low priority. It's p 2.

Colleen

00:19:01 – 00:19:08

Mhmm. But I do have on here, figure out where we are with the designer and what needs to be done. Did that fall off a cliff? Did we lose that?

Aaron

00:19:08 – 00:19:10

I did. Yeah. Okay. We completely lost that.

Colleen

00:19:10 – 00:19:14

Okay. I don't think that's super high priority. But Yeah.

Aaron

00:19:14 – 00:19:14

I don't really

Colleen

00:19:15 – 00:19:16

It's still on here.

Aaron

00:19:16 – 00:19:17

I don't care about that.

Colleen

00:19:17 – 00:19:25

You know? I don't care about that. I feel like that's, we'll we'll circle back. We'll circle back to that once we're we're selling licenses. Yeah.

Colleen

00:19:25 – 00:19:32

I think we're good, Aaron. I think, like, we know what to do, and now we just have to execute on it. I mean

Aaron

00:19:32 – 00:19:39

And I feel I feel pretty good. I feel like we're making, we're making progress. Like, we're not just

Colleen

00:19:39 – 00:19:40

Oh.

Aaron

00:19:40 – 00:19:45

We're not just moving. We're we're moving forward. Yeah. Feels pretty good.

Colleen

00:19:45 – 00:19:50

No. I feel great. Like, I absolutely feel like we're making progress. Yeah. Yeah.

Colleen

00:19:50 – 00:19:53

Great. Okay. It's like 15 minute podcast.

Aaron

00:19:54 – 00:19:55

Anything else? Is that it?

Colleen

00:19:55 – 00:20:00

Is awesome. No. I I don't have anything else. Yeah. I just execute, execute, execute.

Aaron

00:20:01 – 00:20:03

Okay. Well, we'll cut it there. See you.

Glimmers of Hope

Transcript

Not enough emails?