Aaron Francis

We talk about the future of Rails and how it differs from Laravel. Aaron has been experimenting with Cloudflare, Edge Workers, and Fly.io.

Refine: https://hammerstone.dev/refine/laravel/docs/main
Refine Nova: https://github.com/hammerstonedev/refine-nova
Torchlight: https://torchlight.dev
Aaron: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis
Colleen: https://twitter.com/leenyburger
Sean: https://twitter.com/sfioritto

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Transcript

Aaron

00:00:00 – 00:00:13

Okay. So we're gonna do, I think, a quick one today. But, Colleen, you were recently I think you talked to Jason Charms. Is Charms his last name?

Colleen

00:00:13 – 00:00:17

Well, I talked to 2 different Jasons. But, yes, I did also talk to him.

Aaron

00:00:17 – 00:00:19

Oh, that's right. You talked to Jason Sweat.

Colleen

00:00:19 – 00:00:21

Jason Sweat has the podcast. So I was on Rails with Jason.

Aaron

00:00:21 – 00:00:22

And then

Colleen

00:00:22 – 00:00:23

And then

Aaron

00:00:23 – 00:00:27

talked to Jason Charms, who I also talked to. So tell us about one of the Jasons.

Colleen

00:00:27 – 00:00:51

I know. That was a funny coincidence too. So Jason Charnes, who's a Rails developer, had tweeted out about building an active record record course, which Mhmm. I just submitted a proposal, a workshop to RailsConf, that is an advanced active record course, essentially. So I wanted to chat with him to see kind of what he was building and where he was in the process.

Colleen

00:00:51 – 00:01:12

And we chatted yesterday, and we had a great talk. It was really fun to talk to someone else who cares about this stuff as much as I do because active record is very stable. It's not Hotwire. Like, it's not, oh, we're getting rid of Webpacker. Like, it's not exciting per se, but incredibly important.

Colleen

00:01:13 – 00:01:18

So, most people don't care. They, you know, they don't they don't really like.

Aaron

00:01:18 – 00:01:19

They don't think about it.

Colleen

00:01:19 – 00:01:37

They don't think about it. They just use it however they use it until it gets in their way and then they sequel it. So it's great. It was super fun to chat with him to kinda see where his head was at with all this stuff and, you know, some of the things he's been doing and the course he's building, which is different than the course I'm building. Well, I may be building.

Colleen

00:01:37 – 00:01:51

We'll see. In terms of goals, like, he's because he's building a a beginner course. He's gonna start with that. So that's kind of just the basics and, and then his advanced course. He's not quite sure which way which direction that's gonna go in yet.

Colleen

00:01:51 – 00:02:04

So it was a great chat. It inspired me. So I'm speaking at the end of the month in Vegas at Sin City Ruby. So it inspired me to do my talk on AREL and building a composable query builder.

Aaron

00:02:04 – 00:02:04

Love it.

Colleen

00:02:04 – 00:02:20

And so yeah. So I've decided that's I mean, I'm hoping to write that talk, you know, this weekend while I'm away from home and have all this time. And so or at least get started on it. Mhmm. So that, that's all really good.

Colleen

00:02:20 – 00:02:49

I I've been making a dedicated effort to talk to more rails developers about active record, about what we're building with Hammerstone, about struggles they have been feeling. So it's kind of a mental mind shift as we get closer to getting this ready for production Mhmm. To get you know, to start thinking about what is this gonna look like for other clients, customers? How is it gonna fit into their stack? How excited are people about this?

Colleen

00:02:49 – 00:03:02

Rails is very mature at this point. What is the appetite for a Rails only product? Things like that. And I was also on Rails with Jason, different Jason, and we talked quite a lot. We had a great chat.

Colleen

00:03:02 – 00:03:15

I'm not sure when it's coming out. I'll ask him. But we talked quite a lot about, like, Hammerstone and AREL and and, you know, using that to build queries and things like that, and he was super excited about it. He thinks it's super cool.

Aaorn

00:03:15 – 00:03:15

That's good.

Colleen

00:03:15 – 00:03:45

So, yeah, I think a lot of people are excited about it, but I think it is fundamentally, like, when you look at the excitement around Laravel in general, is at a you guys are at a fundamentally different stage, I think, than rails. So, I think with rail 7, there's gonna be a resurgence in new people and excitement, but we will be selling to a more I don't wanna say mature because that's maybe not the right word. Maybe a more established customer base. So you're gonna have a lot

Aaron

00:03:45 – 00:03:48

I don't wanna say grumpy, but that's because that's not the

Aaorn

00:03:48 – 00:03:48

right word.

Colleen

00:03:48 – 00:04:10

That's the word that comes to your mind. So we'll be we'll be it'll be a different I think the sales cycle is gonna be a little more interesting with Rails because we have more established companies that have already built their own solutions. So, what is their appetite for switching? So I've just started exploring all of that.

Aaron

00:04:10 – 00:04:21

Have you so besides the, 2 Jasons, have you been able to talk to any other any other Rails developers? Or how are you starting how are you starting that process?

Colleen

00:04:21 – 00:04:28

So for me, it's been very small. You know, I was thinking I was talking to a friend about this. Oh, maybe the friend was Aaron. You you friend Aaron about this.

Aaron

00:04:28 – 00:04:29

Yes. I am Aaron.

Colleen

00:04:30 – 00:04:41

Yes. Bad friend. You know, confidence is built brick by brick. Right? You just don't wake up and tell yourself you're gonna be confident about something and it happens.

Colleen

00:04:41 – 00:04:55

Like, you just although the mind is very powerful, you have to convince yourself that this is true. And I think the key to success is confidence. Period. Like, I think that is the key to our success. That's gonna be my key to success, selling this to rails people.

Colleen

00:04:55 – 00:05:19

And so what I have started to try to do is believe myself that I am as knowledgeable about this as I am. So the steps have been small. Like, I've tried to tweet more about active record and then just interact with more people, you know, people I talk to online and chatting with people who come on software social. I had Nate Birkopec on software social. Not about Wow.

Colleen

00:05:19 – 00:05:21

Yeah. Not about Hammerstone, but

Aaron

00:05:21 – 00:05:21

Sure.

Colleen

00:05:22 – 00:05:37

You know, offline, just chatting a little bit about what we're building and the rails community. Because I think that people who are really active in the rails community, everyone wants to see a resurgence of the rails excitement of 2,007. Like, everyone wants that.

Aaron

00:05:37 – 00:06:02

Yeah. It's so interesting as an outsider that to hear you say that because I look at it from the outside and think it's kinda like, obviously, it's very mature and stable, but it also seems kind of boring. And I know that that's worn as, like, a badge of honor. Like, it's very boring. But it doesn't seem like there's a lot of excitement inside the community, and that's just from looking from the outside.

Colleen

00:06:03 – 00:06:22

I don't think you're wrong. I think we have the huge problem with the head of rails being who he is, and, you know, obviously statements he has made, which has been have been very divisive. And we you know, it's been around a long time. I feel like you're right about that. And people are excited.

Colleen

00:06:22 – 00:06:39

I think Rails 7, people are getting excited. I also think Rails really struggled with JavaScript. I mean, Sean could probably come in. But, you know, as an independent developer, like, as a consultant, I have seen every way you could add JavaScript to an application ever. It's every version of Rails that felt like they were like, oh, we're gonna do this.

Colleen

00:06:39 – 00:06:41

Now we're gonna do this. Now you need to put it here.

Aaorn

00:06:41 – 00:06:46

They're trying to not use JavaScript. Right. Like, ideally, JavaScript didn't exist.

Aaron

00:06:46 – 00:06:48

Which is how Laravel treats it.

Aaorn

00:06:48 – 00:06:54

That's the main the main problem. And then but the problem is in Laravel, I that's how Laravel treats it, you're saying?

Aaron

00:06:54 – 00:07:06

Yeah. We treat it or or rather, the Laravel team treats it as if it doesn't exist in that they don't make any they don't make any really first party decisions about JavaScript at all. Yeah.

Aaorn

00:07:06 – 00:07:51

So then what I guess, in the Rails community at least so I'll just speak to that because I know that more. But, like, the the so Laravel didn't have to go through the period of time where we switched from completely server side app web applications, you know, very server heavy. And we and then over time, we transitioned to very client heavy slash turn the server into a REST API. And now there's this realization that there's a middle ground, that there's these, you know, ways that you can go about making fairly high fidelity user interfaces without having to write a ton of JavaScript. I mean, there's still JavaScript, but, like, we can there's some tooling now that you can use that makes it a lot better.

Aaorn

00:07:52 – 00:08:18

And there's you know, it's coming out and I think you know, mainly, it was like Phoenix. I think it's the first time I saw something like that. And that's now that's now swinging us back towards these back end frameworks versus before it was like, you're gonna be a Rails developer, you're building REST APIs. You know, like, that was like, all my Rails dev friends, like, that's what they did. And everything is about that domain modeling and, you know, SQL queries.

Aaorn

00:08:18 – 00:08:50

And, like, that was that's, like, what they did. And then and so, like, I think Laravel got to skip that pain in the middle there. So, like, their whole the whole the whole, like and there was this whole also, like, the most popular thing I've ever written ever was an article called why JavaScript development is crazy. And that got tweeted by DHH, like, instantly, basically. And then it went from there to, like, everybody, including I was telling Aaron, like, John Carmack, like, retweeted it and talked about it.

Aaorn

00:08:50 – 00:09:17

It was surreal. But I think, like, that hit this. That was in this moment in 2014, which was, like, they I think that what that that what that article hit was, like, a feeling in the Rails community of, like, we're being left behind. But, like, you shouldn't you shouldn't do that because the JavaScript ecosystem is terrible, which is true. Like and it's very complicated and difficult to work with, which is true.

Aaorn

00:09:17 – 00:10:24

And and it's it's definitely less true now than it was then, but, like, still a little bit true that it's still incredibly difficult to build these complicated UIs and stuff with JavaScript, though it's better. But anyway, like, then and then and now Rails exists in they, like, stuck to their guns the whole time, so there was, like, not a lot of, like, innovation happening there in on that side. And so then it really I think what you felt is, like, it's sort of killing the momentum of, like, innovation and the excitement around, like, new new ideas, new ways of doing things. But now you get a little taste of that back because there's this middle ground that you can actually, like, do these fairly decent UIs with just Rails. And that gets people excited again because that's the exciting thing about Rails is it is much more fun and to sit in the Rails world, and you can get in this Rails flow, and you can be really, really highly productive cranking out, you know, web application features for your users very quickly, all while writing in Ruby, which is, frankly, a beautiful language.

Aaorn

00:10:25 – 00:10:36

So, like, the that's that's coming back. So it's like a but it's like a snowball right now. And, like, I put this in our Slack. It was a couple years ago. It was, like, 2, 3 years ago.

Aaorn

00:10:36 – 00:10:59

And I predicted that, like and this is before turbo or Hotwire was a thing, but I was like, I think that we're gonna go to heavy we're gonna make a swing back to heavy servers. It's because, like, I think there's tons of apps where we can, like, do this. And, I did not predict that Rails would figure that out. So that's cool. But and that's but I still think we're, like, building the momentum behind that.

Aaorn

00:10:59 – 00:11:22

And in another couple years, this will be, like, the thing that everybody's talking about. And Rails will be back on the scene, and, you know, there'll be some more excitement. But it's, like, they went this trough of sorrow for a while where they just did not have a place in in the world of web development, other than, like, just grinding out REST APIs. So it was like and that's just I'm really speaking super broadly. That's totally not true of everything.

Aaorn

00:11:22 – 00:11:35

But, like, that that that is what you feel is, like, that momentum that momentum that they had went away, and now it's just this inertia of, like, you know, of that combined with all the stuff that Colleen said too with the leadership and stuff there.

Aaron

00:11:36 – 00:12:21

I think my hottest prediction, and it's a super hot take, is that there's going to be a framework a Ruby framework that takes advantage of Rails in terms of using some of the Rails components as, like, as its base, and it's going to be even more Laravel like than rails currently is. Because I think there's a lot of stalled momentum. There's the whole DHH thing, and I think there's not very much excitement in the younger, we'll say, web develop well, web development world. Anything below, I don't know, 35. I don't think a lot of those people are, like, super amped about Rails.

Aaron

00:12:21 – 00:12:50

So in the same way that Laravel looked at Symfony, which is a huge framework in the PHP world, looked at Symfony and was like, man, this is rock solid, but it just doesn't feel great to use. And there's this all this, you know, legacy stuff. And Taylor took all of those components, wrote a whole bunch himself, and then made Laravel out of it. I think in the next, we'll say, 3 years, somebody's gonna do that with Rails, and there's gonna be a new Rails.

Aaorn

00:12:50 – 00:12:58

No. No way. Rails is really, this is not the same. Like, I remember Symphony, like, from college. Was it college?

Aaorn

00:12:58 – 00:13:14

It was after that because it was something different in college. But, anyway, I I do remember Symphony came out, and it was better than the other things that came out for PHP. And but I still remember PH like, Symphony coming out and looking at that and being, like, like, this is no Sol. You know? Like, it wasn't that was my reaction to it.

Aaorn

00:13:14 – 00:13:20

Rails still has Sol, and Rails is still, Rails is really good. Really good. It's not

Aaron

00:13:20 – 00:13:21

I agree.

Aaorn

00:13:21 – 00:13:32

Stale. It's not boring. It's not like it it's not like I don't think you could re intake what they've done, that type of thing, and do it better. Like, no. I mean, I can't even picture it.

Aaorn

00:13:32 – 00:13:43

Like, if if they hadn't done the turbo hotwire thing, then they then they woulda then it woulda been true. But they did the turbo hotwire thing, which is the exciting bits, I think.

Aaron

00:13:43 – 00:14:14

And I think you are a perfect example of somebody who is above 35 that loves the boring rails as it is. And I think there's just not a lot of excitement in anyone that's I I you know, I'm 33, but somebody that's 25, I don't think they're using Rails. And I think there is an opportunity for somebody like Taylor to come into the Rails world and or the Ruby world, I guess, and shake things up with something fresh.

Aaorn

00:14:15 – 00:14:25

I mean, I suppose. I can't I lack the imagination to know what it is that they would do that would be so exciting. It might just be a cultural difference. That could be it. I could do

Aaron

00:14:25 – 00:14:26

that. Totally.

Aaorn

00:14:26 – 00:15:20

I wouldn't see, like, technically, like like, the the thing is, like, the things that would be exciting for me in web development these days would be anything that helps me, build complicated, beautiful UIs with animations and stuff faster. Like because right now, to do that is it involves this is a reason why I think JavaScript developers wanna own things end to end because, like, when I work with Rails developers, they hate JavaScript. And so, like, it is this constant, like, I always had this thing where, like, a Rails developer sees the, the domain model and, like, immediately wants to, like, leak this through to the user. Like, there's there's I'm building these database tables, and now I am supplying them to the user. Like, the domain model equals the language that the user is presented with, which is which is a very simple and fast way to build web applications, and it's the way Rails works, best, I think.

Aaorn

00:15:20 – 00:15:41

But then it's real limiting because sometimes the way you need to represent your data in your data models is not the way you need to actually represent it to users. And so and this is being really, really high level. But this is generally the problem where it's like, okay, I really need you to give me the data so that it looks like this. Right? Like, totally separate, weird format, and it needs to look like this.

Aaorn

00:15:41 – 00:16:15

And that so that way I can make a UI that does these things. And this I have, actually, this problem with all back end developers, but more so with Rails developers, where it's like, look. This data format makes no sense for UI that you're giving me, which is why I think there's this, like, we want to build on the front end, like, beautiful, slick UIs that are really intuitive, and we want to do this, you know, really quickly. But, like, a lot of it is held back by, like, what what I'm working with on the on the back end. So, like, for me, the most exciting bits of innovation that could happen are on the front end.

Aaorn

00:16:15 – 00:16:55

And if then, you know, like, if there was, like, some way that, like, I could build, you know, we could be using turbo for, like, the middle ground of, like, really quick, like, CRUD apps, like, what bullet train lets you do, amazing. But then also when it's time to actually build a a legitimate, like, user like, rich user interface, To me, the innovation there's so much innovation yet to happen there, and that's all JavaScript. So, like, I again so both both, I think, like, Rails is already, like, as, like, a beautiful solution and amazing. And I say when I say boring, I'm not saying that Rails is actually boring to use because it's not. It's boring because it's just it's there.

Aaorn

00:16:55 – 00:17:17

It's always been there. And there's no, like, there's no, like, the the the pace of change there is the same that it's always been, and but that's because it's it's solving, like, that type of problem. So I think Rails is there for that niche. And then if there is something that's gonna be new and exciting, it won't be a replacement for Rails. It will be doing something different, which I think will probably be with, like, developing better UIs.

Aaorn

00:17:18 – 00:17:31

Like, that would be my guess. If there's some new super cool exciting innovation that happens and might not even be in Ruby or PHP or any of those things, maybe we're doing stuff at WebAssembly in the browser. I don't know. Something like that.

Aaron

00:17:31 – 00:18:14

Yeah. I think inertia is the middle ground that you seek because inertia lets you build it's it's like server rendered pages, but it's also like single page apps. And so you kinda get the benefits of both worlds, and inertia, like, sits in between and is kind of a translation layer and handles a lot of that for you. So you still get all the benefits of not having to write full on REST APIs just for your front end, but still getting to use full Vue or React front ends and not having to figure out, you know, Vue router or React router, all that nonsense. So I think that's a pretty pretty good middle ground that a lot of people seem to have picked up.

Aaorn

00:18:14 – 00:18:17

Yeah. That sounds interesting. I've never looked at that. Sounds cool.

Aaron

00:18:17 – 00:18:31

Yeah. It's it's very cool. They did they've done a great job. I think they have Laravel, Rails. I don't know if they have Python, but then they have react views, Svelte, I think, but it's, it's super cool.

Aaron

00:18:32 – 00:18:44

So anyway, now that we've figured out the future of web development, I'm glad you're talking to rails developers, Colleen. So anything else

Colleen

00:18:44 – 00:18:47

for you, Colleen? Not for me. Working.

Aaron

00:18:48 – 00:18:51

And coming to hang. Yeah. I'll see you in person tomorrow.

Colleen

00:18:51 – 00:18:53

Tomorrow. Yes.

Aaron

00:18:53 – 00:18:54

It's gonna be fun.

Colleen

00:18:54 – 00:18:55

Super excited.

Aaron

00:18:55 – 00:19:00

It's gonna be great. Sean, what's going on over there?

Aaorn

00:19:00 – 00:19:12

Yeah. Not a not a lot of crazy updates for me. I'm just helping Colleen with the with the front end stuff for the clients. So that's that's my primary focus. Got some I thought real good updates from our designer.

Aaorn

00:19:12 – 00:19:37

So I'm gonna mix and match the logos and stuff that we got from him and then go to the next step with him and get start getting some colors and stuff. That's still like buckwheat keeps bugging me every week to be like, hey, let's do a market because I I'd reached out to him and I was like, dude, I wanna do marketing power hour with you every week, you and me. And I because he's always asking to help how he can, like, help people and, like, work with people. And I was like, this is what I want. Help me with the SEO stuff once a week.

Aaorn

00:19:37 – 00:19:54

So we were starting to do that, and then I have too many things happening. So there's I'm like, I can't do a single I can't spend a single minute on that right now. I have to do these I have to focus on getting these other things off my plate. So that's basically that's basically what I'm doing. I'm getting that off my plate, and then it'll be the the other stuff.

Aaorn

00:19:54 – 00:20:03

I'm just gonna start checking these things off and getting them getting them done. But, yeah, that's my that's all I'm that's all I'm doing right now.

Aaron

00:20:03 – 00:20:25

Great. Okay. On my side, lot of good stuff going on. I think I've got several people reaching out to me about refine, just in mostly in Twitter DMs, a couple of emails. Some of the DMs have gotten lost because they get stuck in that message requests thing

Colleen

00:20:25 – 00:20:25

Yes.

Aaron

00:20:26 – 00:20:47

Which sucks. The whole interface is really I it's never been a problem for me because I haven't really ever cared. It's always just been, like, either friends or total strangers. But the whole interface is really bad. And I'll see something, and, like, I'll click over to the message request, and there'll be, like, 4 spam and one real one, and then hop back to the main inbox.

Aaron

00:20:47 – 00:21:13

And then they never show you a notification again about those ones that you just looked at. So I'm trying to manage that a little bit better. But I also got an email this morning from somebody that said, hey. I saw your, Nova package on nova packages.com or whatever that website is. So I did list us there just as a regular package, no promotion or sponsor or anything, and somebody found it.

Aaron

00:21:13 – 00:21:28

So that's already a non zero win right there. So I'll email her back today. Yeah. So that's good. I think I'm gonna help Keith a little bit more sometime next week, finalize the stuff for his app.

Aaron

00:21:29 – 00:21:59

And then on the Torchlight side, there's, I think, some really exciting things going on there. I've accidentally become like a hipster web developer. I was, like, working with CloudFlare Edge Functions and CloudFlare Workers and, Vercel. And I've since moved to fly dot io, where Sean, I believe you worked for a day. So I've Legend has it.

Aaron

00:21:59 – 00:22:20

Yes. I've I've moved to fly. So here's the story. I'm moving forward with Torchlight being, accessible from the front end, and in theory, free for everyone, save for enterprise and German customers. More on that in a second.

Aaron

00:22:21 – 00:22:42

So I'm having to, like, rearchitect some of it because with the back end libraries, I can take advantage of just, like, massive caching. So every client that I write just caches the blocks for, like, 30 days. And so, I can do that because everything is on the server. Right? So there's one place where these people are highlighting.

Aaron

00:22:42 – 00:23:15

It's on the server, so I have access to one cache. When it becomes a front end thing, the highlighting takes place from the, you know, the client's browser, and so there's no centralized cache I can populate. So I'm having to re architect some of it, so that I can hold a cache on my side. Anyway, so I did it with Cloudflare Workers, and it worked great, but it was kinda complicated. The whole serverless thing was a little too complicated.

Aaron

00:23:17 – 00:23:52

The it was more complicated than it needed to be. And then I think the real problem was it's obviously charged by request, and so every every request, like, anytime someone loads a page that has Torchlight highlighting on it, Torchlight, the the client library is gonna send off, like, 5 requests because it chunks the blocks up. So it could be 2 requests. It could be 10 requests, whatever. So if you imagine somebody, you know, with a 1000000 page views a month is loading that, that's 5,000,000 requests just from that one site.

Aaron

00:23:53 – 00:24:33

And it gets really expensive really fast. And if this is gonna be free, that's not gonna work. So serverless is out for this use case, but I saw fly dot io will basically it feels like Heroku, where you don't have to worry about servers, except they run it all on, I don't know if the edge is right, but they have many, physical points of presence. And you can just, like, spin up a new data center somewhere else. So I have one running in DFW, and you can just add one, like, in Paris and one in Tokyo, and it's extremely cool.

Aaron

00:24:33 – 00:24:58

I'd never used it for anything before, but it's it's wild. I'm very impressed by it. And they give you, like, a full on server. So it's really great because I don't have to manage a server, which running an API makes me really, really nervous about managing servers. I don't wanna do that because that's just not my highest skillset.

Aaron

00:24:58 – 00:25:29

And so I don't want to be there. So fly is great because they'll manage the servers for you, but it still feels serverless because you're not you don't ever touch them. So I got that working, which is great, and it's, you know, sending responses back in under 50 milliseconds, which I think is well, I'm in DFW. The server's in DFW as well. But I think that's as fast as a client side highlighting library could do it.

Aaron

00:25:30 – 00:25:53

So that feels really great. I got that working last night, and it's really, really powerful and very easy to use. There's there's some weird stuff. It's it's over my head technically, but their docs are pretty good, and so I've been able to figure that out. So that's been good as I'm moving forward to making this more and more open.

Aaron

00:25:54 – 00:26:14

And then the other thing, I I think I told y'all briefly last week is a a German company reached out to me and was like, hey. We wanna use Torchlight. We can't send you all of our stuff. We can't, like, send all of our blocks to the API because you're in the US and we're in Germany. So would you be willing to give us a self hosted version if we pay you an enterprise license?

Aaron

00:26:15 – 00:26:28

I was like, yeah. Definitely. Of course. So I think that's an interesting use case for the future. It's free for everyone, save for you know, if you wanna do self hosted, it costs.

Aaron

00:26:28 – 00:26:49

And if you have more than, I don't know, a 1000000 visits a month, it costs something like that. And I think that would allow us to go super, super wide and just basically be everywhere, which I think is gonna be really good in terms of, you know, publicity, I guess. Yeah.

Aaorn

00:26:49 – 00:27:11

Well, hell yeah. But also, not I I would think that one in terms of publicity. Although, I mean, it's that'll be some part of it. That's for SEO. Like, that is that is a huge win for us, which is, like, of the marketing channels that we've talked about or have spent any cycles on at all, that one is, like, for long term, like, like, growth to, like, a bigger company.

Aaorn

00:27:11 – 00:27:19

So any anything that we're doing that's moving us, like, putting deposits into that bank account are is, makes me excited.

Aaron

00:27:20 – 00:27:45

Yeah. That's a good point. I think this will pay continue to pay off for hopefully years years to come. And I reached out to that, that agency I've mentioned here a couple of times, they just released a new site and the, just a random new site that they have, and the design was just gorgeous. And so I reached out to, the owner of the agency, and I was like, hey.

Aaron

00:27:45 – 00:28:08

Does this designer take on any side work? Because I would love to have her do the home page or, like like, redo Torchlight in preparation for, like, this public release. And he's like, no. We don't really do side work, but we can talk about, you know, getting y'all in through the agency for, you know, kind of like a friendly rate. And I was like, great.

Aaron

00:28:08 – 00:28:26

Let's talk about that. So I don't have any specifics yet, but I'm hoping that this this woman who did their site can redo ours and make it nice and sexy because the way I did it is I mean, it's good. I I don't think the way I did it is bad. I just think it could be a lot it could be a lot catchier.

Aaorn

00:28:26 – 00:28:28

The Torchlight home page?

Aaron

00:28:28 – 00:28:28

Yeah.

Aaorn

00:28:29 – 00:28:31

Wow. Okay. I thought I thought it was great.

Aaron

00:28:31 – 00:28:44

Oh, thanks. That's that's good. Yeah. So we'll see we'll see what she comes back with or they come back with, and we'll see if it's even viable. And then there was Don't give me

Aaorn

00:28:44 – 00:28:45

the formula on that web page.

Aaron

00:28:45 – 00:28:46

The copy formula?

Aaorn

00:28:47 – 00:28:47

Yeah.

Aaron

00:28:47 – 00:29:15

Okay. I do want to so that that's interesting. I do want to highlight, while I was thinking about highlighting the fact that it can be completely static, in terms of no external JavaScript required, obviously, that's not the case for the client side stuff. But, I kinda wanna highlight the fact that it works super well with static sites and that you can ship completely finished stuff.

Aaorn

00:29:16 – 00:29:22

Oh, yeah. I mean, that wouldn't change the formula of, like, what you're doing on that page. So that makes sense to me.

Aaron

00:29:22 – 00:29:40

Okay. Cool. And then finally, the, the sidecar stuff, has continued to move along at a pretty good clip. There are, lots of people using it, reaching out to me. 1 person reached out and was like, hey.

Aaron

00:29:40 – 00:30:09

Can you do some consulting around this? Can we hire you to do a little bit of work on this part aside car? And, so that continues to be a win. And then there are a couple other, I think, exciting opportunities in the pipeline that I can't really talk about publicly yet, but I think, good things are happening there. So continue to be, pleasantly surprised with the legs that that sidecar has.

Aaron

00:30:09 – 00:30:19

So lot of stuff. I feel like there's a lot of stuff going on right now and even more, you know, than I can I can talk about at the moment, but all very, very good?

Colleen

00:30:19 – 00:30:26

Awesome. How's it going with the people who are I I don't wanna say beta testing, but beta testing it?

Aaron

00:30:26 – 00:30:45

Yeah. That's something I've been thinking about. Good. I mean, you know, they'll ask me questions in our Slack from time to time, and sometimes it's a bug that I can fix, and sometimes it's just a misunderstanding. But so far, everyone has been just universally thrilled with it.

Aaron

00:30:45 – 00:31:37

I think the thing that I need to work on, I think I need just, like, basically a Trello board, and to move people through the stages because I've been super laissez faire about, yeah, y'all try it, get it integrated, and let me know what you think. And I kinda leave it up to them, and I think I need to be like, I don't really have a sales process, and I don't know that I ever want to, but I could use something between here and there because I don't like, I kinda I kinda just leave them alone, which I'm sure in a lot of regards they like. But in some regards, it would be nice if they were thrilled and totally implemented, and I could just ask if they wanna pay and they'll be like, yeah, sure. That sounds great. So I don't really I don't really know, to answer your question, and that's a process that I need to figure out.

Aaron

00:31:37 – 00:31:52

So if either of you have thoughts on that, I would be open to it. And that could also help with my Twitter DM thing. I could just drop cards into, you know, the leads column, and then I'll see, like, oh, I haven't actually followed up with that person. I need to respond.

Aaorn

00:31:52 – 00:32:21

So now If they're if they're to the point where they have or, like, they have the code in hand and are, like, trying to put it get it in their code base, then I'm kinda with I'm I'm kinda like you, and this is maybe our blinds collective blind spot, but where I'm like, well, then okay. Then they have access to our Slack. They have the code. They have the docs. I wouldn't bother them then at that point because it's just like, you're gonna need to take whatever time you need to take.

Aaorn

00:32:21 – 00:32:39

You have I don't know what other things are going on on your end. It's It's, like, nagging you about this. It doesn't seem like it helps either of us. But, like, all the other stages up to that point, that makes sense to have just, like, a little bit of a a checkbox. Like, because sometimes people just drop things off their plate that they they are do intend to do, but just, like, forget.

Aaorn

00:32:39 – 00:32:45

So it's, you know, actually helpful to bring things up again at the right time for people. So Yeah. I don't know.

Colleen

00:32:45 – 00:33:06

My instinct is not that. My instinct on this is different and that it would look like you get a lead, you give an onboarding call, and then you schedule at that call in 2 weeks. Let's have a 30 minute call to see where you're stuck, you know, to see how it's going. And you go ahead and schedule that because sometimes people get tired. They get distracted.

Colleen

00:33:06 – 00:33:15

They need you to force them to think about it. Mhmm. And if you're on their calendar, there's a higher probability that they're gonna think about it.

Aaron

00:33:15 – 00:33:18

That's a good idea. Okay. I like that.

Aaorn

00:33:18 – 00:33:30

That's that's a great idea. There is the, like, Highcharts model, which is more just like, you know, here it is. You can install it. Here's all the docs. Here's everything you need.

Aaorn

00:33:30 – 00:33:44

Here's contact information for us. And then none of them. There was no pressure. Like when we did this with their with their library, there was no pressure from them whatsoever the entire time we were sort of looking at it. And it took us over a year, and then we bought it.

Aaorn

00:33:44 – 00:34:00

But that doesn't matter to them because they didn't have to spend any effort on it, really. I don't know. That seems both seem fine to me. And what what you described probably seems like a a really good idea. Like, get on the calendar, and I'm you know?

Aaorn

00:34:00 – 00:34:12

And then we could help them. Especially since with the Nova thing, it's, like, probably you could sit down. And if you're, like, pairing with somebody, you could get the whole thing, like, knocked out, like, an example filter, like, pretty fast.

Aaron

00:34:12 – 00:34:27

Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like for specifically one of them that, that's, I guess, you know, trialing it or whatever. They've they're well beyond, like, initial filters. Now they're, okay.

Aaron

00:34:27 – 00:34:48

What are what are these specific use cases in our business, and how do I represent that best? And they're, like, super far down the rabbit hole of what's the best business way to do this part. Based on the questions they're asking me, they're they're deep into it. And I guess, I don't know. They're they're kind of a bigger company.

Aaron

00:34:48 – 00:35:17

They just got acquired by a very big company. And so maybe they legitimately are spending, you know, 6 to 12 weeks doing this and other stuff, and they just need the time. But I think I think I need to know, like, I need to know that. I think that that's maybe where I feel like I'm I'm falling short is I could just check-in and ask. Like, I could ask that question, and I don't think that would I don't think that would do anything.

Aaron

00:35:18 – 00:35:43

So maybe I'll maybe I'll do that. And maybe for the next ones, I'll schedule a 2 week follow-up when I get them into the Slack. Because I think at this stage, that's probably you know, there's a question of, like, what's best for them and what's best for us. I think at this stage, it's it's definitely best for us to try to get these sales cycles shortened a little bit.

Aaorn

00:35:43 – 00:35:45

Yeah. Yeah. It is.

Colleen

00:35:45 – 00:36:09

I think it's best for them too. I mean, you have to I don't wanna use the word push, but that's kind of the right word. Like, because, again, people are busy. They have all these other things to do. But you ultimately dedicating that time to them, whether, you know, 2 weeks, 30 minutes, whatever seems appropriate, probably what will happen is they will get on a call with you and then all of these questions they didn't even realize they had based on what they have already done will come out.

Colleen

00:36:09 – 00:36:22

And if they haven't looked at it, then you guys can spend your 30 minutes actually implementing it. So it doesn't take 12 weeks for them to know if it's a good fit or not. I feel like this eventually, you know, this isn't something that should take 12 weeks to know whether it's a good fit or not.

Aaron

00:36:22 – 00:36:24

Oh, I totally agree. Yeah. No.

Colleen

00:36:25 – 00:36:27

I like the Trello board idea. Like, right? Like, just,

Aaorn

00:36:28 – 00:36:28

you know,

Colleen

00:36:28 – 00:36:32

leads, 1st call, 2nd call scheduled, follow-up when.

Aaron

00:36:33 – 00:37:02

Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna set that up today, because I have been feeling like almost like drowning in opportunity. Like, I've got a few DMs and an email and these people in our Slack already, and I just don't really have a good overview of what's where and who needs what, which is a a good like, that's a really good thing. It's just not a it's not a path I've ever been down before, so I don't have a well trod, like, system for it.

Aaron

00:37:02 – 00:37:11

So I'll set that up today. And then that'll also be nice. Cause then everyone like Colleen, you could use it as well. And everyone can see where everyone is.

Colleen

00:37:12 – 00:37:13

Yeah. I think that's a great idea.

Aaron

00:37:14 – 00:37:17

Okay. Cool. Nice work. I will do that. Awesome.

Aaron

00:37:17 – 00:37:19

Because, yeah, we still just have Fuck me. I'll do

Aaorn

00:37:19 – 00:37:20

something like that.

Colleen

00:37:20 – 00:37:23

He probably does because he has so many calls. We should ask him.

Aaorn

00:37:23 – 00:37:37

Yeah. Well, and his whole, like, getting installed processes quite a bit more. Although his is flipped where people pay and then do the install stuff just the way the Heroku model works. So it's not part of his sales, really. Yeah.

Aaorn

00:37:37 – 00:37:39

Yeah. He's he's got a system. I know.

Aaron

00:37:39 – 00:37:39

But he has a book

Colleen

00:37:39 – 00:37:49

a demo call on his sales page. Right? So on his Heroku Elements page, he has a book a book a demo. So he does talk to some people before they convert. So, yeah, we should we should ask him about that.

Aaron

00:37:49 – 00:38:03

And his is very he has the benefit that his is very programmatically driven. Like, step 1 is Right. Her add on added. Step 2 is, you know, check the DNS to see if it's there. And if not, he can Yeah.

Aaorn

00:38:03 – 00:38:06

He does have to, like, nudge them along that process.

Colleen

00:38:06 – 00:38:07

Yeah. Right.

Aaron

00:38:07 – 00:38:22

But, yeah, I'll see I'll talk to him and see if he manages it outside of his little local rails app, which I don't think is the case. I think he does manage it all through that app, but I'll ask. But either way, I think Trello is an easy place for us to start.

Colleen

00:38:22 – 00:38:24

Yeah. It doesn't have to be fancy, but Yeah.

Aaorn

00:38:24 – 00:38:25

Trello is a good plan.

Aaron

00:38:25 – 00:38:32

Okay, cool. I don't think I have anything else. I'm good. Either or no? Okay.

Aaron

00:38:32 – 00:38:33

We'll call it there.

Colleen

00:38:33 – 00:38:33

Cool.

Is Rails Over? Aaron Goes Full Hipster

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