Aaron Francis

Transcript

J.R.

00:00:00 – 00:00:04

Okay. Alright.

James

00:00:08 – 00:00:41

Hello, and welcome back to the Make Lemonade podcast. The show for creators, by creators, where we hope to inspire you to earn money from your own lemonade stand. I'm on your coast, James, and I'm back here with JFR, cofounder of Lemon Squeezy. And today, we're joined by our first guest of the series, Aaron Francis, who is currently an educator at PlanetScale, but you would have seen him all around the Internet doing courses, YouTube videos, podcasts, and more. In this episode, we discuss the creation and launch of screencasting.com, a course that I made teaching you how to make better screencasts.

James

00:00:41 – 00:00:52

We go into detail on how we structured the course, marketing, pricing, and what Aaron plans to do with it in the future. Oh, and we discuss JR and Aaron's priciest domains. Let's get into it.

J.R.

00:01:01 – 00:01:06

Aaron. Yeah. So good to see you. You look stunning on your setup here. What's in the background?

Aaron

00:01:06 – 00:01:17

The the background is a lot of stuff. The background is a collection of of trinkets and knickknacks from years. Of course, I've got a picture of the kids. I got a little, you know, my sequel plaque. I got an old iPhone.

Aaron

00:01:17 – 00:01:22

I got a drawing my wife did. I got all kinds of stuff back there. It's, you know, it's the studio setup.

James

00:01:22 – 00:01:25

How how intentional was all the stuff you put in the background?

Aaron

00:01:25 – 00:01:44

Extremely intentional. Just, yeah, extremely thoughtful and systematic. Yeah. I had to move a bunch of stuff around because, like, this this plant used to be, like, right by my head How's how's Dallas right now, Aaron? How's Dallas treating you?

Aaron

00:01:44 – 00:01:44

Have you

J.R.

00:01:44 – 00:01:49

How's how's Dallas right now, Aaron? How's Dallas treating you? Have you always lived there?

Aaron

00:01:50 – 00:02:00

Yeah. I have. So I I grew up on the south side of Dallas in the suburb and then went to Texas a and m and then came back. So I've been in Texas the whole time. It's Dallas.

Aaron

00:02:00 – 00:02:18

I mean, we we don't we don't super love it here, but we just have so much family and so many, like, true deep friendships here that it is good enough for us to stay here. Like, we have both sets of my parents and my wife's parents and some of her sisters, and it's just, like, with this many kids and this much family.

J.R.

00:02:18 – 00:02:28

Speak speaking of speaking of family, I heard on your Indie Bytes episode that you have twins, and you're gonna have another set of twins. I also have twins, so I know.

Aaron

00:02:28 – 00:02:29

I did not know that. Yeah.

James

00:02:29 – 00:02:30

I didn't know that.

Aaron

00:02:30 – 00:02:32

Yeah. How old?

J.R.

00:02:32 – 00:02:40

My son when my son was 18 months, I had twins. So I had 3 kids at that yeah. Pretty much felt like all the same age.

Aaron

00:02:40 – 00:02:46

We're doing basically the same. We have 2 and a half year twins, and this week or next week, we're having twins again.

J.R.

00:02:47 – 00:02:49

Holy shit.

Aaron

00:02:49 – 00:02:51

Get the button ready, James. Yeah.

J.R.

00:02:54 – 00:02:54

Wow.

Aaron

00:02:54 – 00:02:56

What are how old are yours and what genders?

J.R.

00:02:57 – 00:03:05

So they're twin girls, and they're 14. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I had kids young.

Aaron

00:03:06 – 00:03:12

Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. Ours are 2a half, and they're boy girl, and the next set is also boy girl.

J.R.

00:03:12 – 00:03:13

Awesome.

Aaron

00:03:13 – 00:03:14

Not a lot.

J.R.

00:03:15 – 00:03:19

I mean, it's probably daunting and scary, but at the same time, it's amazing. So

Aaron

00:03:19 – 00:03:34

Yeah. I'm, of course, scared, but I'm also looking forward to when they're a little bit older and just what a wild family unit that's gonna be. Like, 4 kids so close together. Everyone has a twin. Everyone has, like, an opposite gender sibling.

Aaron

00:03:34 – 00:03:40

It's, like, same gender sibling. Everyone has everything. It's, like, this is the wildest thing I've ever heard of.

J.R.

00:03:40 – 00:03:41

It really is.

James

00:03:41 – 00:03:49

How how does having kids as a founder or someone who dabbles in side projects affect both of you in your various lives?

Aaron

00:03:50 – 00:04:33

It changes literally everything. I mean, the it's all a function of time, in my opinion. There are things like there are things I am still willing to to sacrifice on and that would be like I don't watch a lot of TV or play a lot of video games, but when it's, you know, between 5:30 and 6 pm here, I leave I leave my office and I go out because it's it's kid dinner, it's kid bedtime, it's kid bath time, it's, you know, dad throws them on the bed and they giggle. It's like I'm just not gonna miss that. And so my time is a lot more precious and a lot more, like, focused and I'm not willing to sacrifice time that belongs to other people, primarily my kids.

J.R.

00:04:34 – 00:04:49

I think, like, the underlying thing there I heard you say this too. Like, I don't watch football. I don't watch but I think the big thing that kids do sometimes people look at it as a negative. But for me, it was it was such a motivator. Like, I you know, like, there's a fire lit under you.

J.R.

00:04:49 – 00:05:01

Right? You're kinda, like, I got like, he just said, like, the time that I do have when I do work, I have to be focused because if I'm you know what I mean? Then I'm just wasting and spending time with my kids. So I don't know. I I actually think it's been a positive for me.

J.R.

00:05:01 – 00:05:05

As hard as it's been, it was it was it's extremely motivating. So

Aaron

00:05:06 – 00:05:22

Yeah. Absolutely. I think, James, you had a question at some point about burnout, which we can talk about later. And JR is absolutely correct that having kids and in our our household situation, I'm the the primary breadwinner. My wife works harder than I do, but I'm the primary breadwinner.

Aaron

00:05:22 – 00:05:33

Boy, you better you better believe I am super focused on making sure that we can have food on the table. And, like, yeah, that lights a fire under me for sure.

James

00:05:33 – 00:05:41

Mhmm. There there was a question on JR's thread, which is related. How do you find time to do your hair so nice with all of those ident with all of those twins?

Aaron

00:05:43 – 00:05:43

I didn't

J.R.

00:05:43 – 00:05:46

see that one. Oh, I did see that one. I did see that one.

Aaron

00:05:46 – 00:05:57

That was elwyn ransom, my dear friend on Twitter. You know, you just gotta have a system and a hairdryer. I use my wife's hairdryer, and it just it takes me it takes me 3 or 4 minutes, and I'm I'm back in front of the camera.

James

00:05:58 – 00:06:02

So you're willing to sacrifice some things, but your hair routine is not one of them.

Aaron

00:06:02 – 00:06:07

You know, it's part of the brand. If you're gonna go on camera, you gotta look camera ready.

James

00:06:07 – 00:06:10

So you were 22 when you had kids' tail. Is that right?

J.R.

00:06:10 – 00:06:14

Yeah. Mhmm. Yep. I had 3 kids by the time I was 25.

Aaron

00:06:15 – 00:06:16

Oh my goodness.

James

00:06:16 – 00:06:18

And what what were you doing then?

J.R.

00:06:18 – 00:06:28

Well, that's okay. So I had the 3 kids. We brought the kids home, the twins home from the hospital. I was at an ad agency, and I quit my job and started Mojo.

Aaron

00:06:29 – 00:06:31

That is a bold, bold move.

J.R.

00:06:31 – 00:06:41

That was ballsy. And it was Yeah. That was in 2009. So it was right after 2008. And if, you know, not a lot of people maybe know.

J.R.

00:06:41 – 00:06:48

It was, like, the housing crisis. There was it was a mess in the economy. Yeah. Kinda like I mean, kinda similar to now, but

James

00:06:48 – 00:07:20

To what you've both said about, like, the kids lighting a fire under you. I often think that because I don't have that, there's often none of that fire, and that fire has to be self generated in order for me to reach my goals. I'm only doing it for me, and that's kinda hard sometimes. I know my sister who's just become a mum a few years ago, but her like sole focus now is providing for the kid and that has turned into, she's turned into a completely different person. And I don't kinda know how to replicate that as a as someone who doesn't have kids.

Aaron

00:07:20 – 00:07:41

Yeah. It's I don't know, man. It's different. I think before before I had kids, I was primarily I think I was primarily focused on, like, tinkering and and kind of, you know, exploring hobbies and didn't really matter how much time I spent on, let's say, a side project. And post kids, I'm like, oh, this this has gotta work.

Aaron

00:07:41 – 00:08:16

I'm gonna be ruthless about cutting things and, you know, contracting scope and shipping things because I'm not, you know, 22 without kids or, you know, sorry, JR. You had them at 22. I I'm not 22 without kids. I don't have infinite time. So it's like, I'm gonna sit down and work on this thing, and I think that has cured me or at least alleviated a little bit of, some of my perfectionist tendencies where I have now decided that, like, getting the thing out the door is almost the entire game.

Aaron

00:08:16 – 00:08:27

That's it. Of course, I still, like, I have a personal, like, intrinsic desire to do things well, but, like, if it doesn't get out the door, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all.

J.R.

00:08:27 – 00:08:50

It's it's funny you say that too because the time thing, when you don't have kids and, obviously, I didn't, you know, but I look at people that are, like, oh, I just don't have enough time in the day to go to the gym and get my work done and then do a side pocket and go to the you know. It's like, wait till you have kids. You have this no time. So you realize how much time you wasted, you know, after you have kids too.

Aaron

00:08:50 – 00:09:06

Yeah. And I I, like, you know, I have 2 kids right now and I'm sure people with 4 kids are looking at me and being, like, wait till you have 4 kids. And people with 8 kids are, like, wait till you have 8 kids. It's just, like, yeah. It it's just, like, it turns out life is hard for everyone and you just have to, like Yeah.

J.R.

00:09:06 – 00:09:06

It's all relative.

Aaron

00:09:06 – 00:09:16

I'm gonna yeah. I'm just gonna freaking do the thing and make my life what I want it to become regardless of, like, if I have 2, 4, 8, or 16 kids.

J.R.

00:09:16 – 00:09:16

Exactly.

James

00:09:17 – 00:09:33

So let's let's get into a little bit about you. And if those haven't heard, sort of your background will link to podcasts that can talk more about your background. But I guess briefly tell us about your story of being an accountant, a software developer, to now what you're doing now.

Aaron

00:09:33 – 00:09:51

Yeah. I'll make it as as short as possible. I graduated, from college with a master's in accounting, specifically in tax, and then I got my CPA license. So I was a I was a professional accountant. I worked at Ernst and Young for 1 year and I thought, boy, this sucks.

Aaron

00:09:51 – 00:10:14

I gotta get out of here. And, you know, I loved, loved, loved the academic side of accounting. And then I got into the real world and I was like, we just put numbers on forms? This this is lame. And I had been, you know, I was one of those kids that grew up like playing with HTMLgoodies.com and, like, just tinkering with the computer and reading books and stuff.

Aaron

00:10:14 – 00:10:38

And so I just went back and was, like, I'm gonna I'm gonna be a developer. And so I bailed on accounting after a year and then have been a developer ever since then, all the way up to now where I work. I have a full time job. You know, we're here to talk about, you know, making side projects and all that. I still have a full time job, and I work as a developer educator now, which is a really nice, like, intersection of the things that I care about, primarily teaching.

Aaron

00:10:38 – 00:10:57

I love to to teach. I find a lot of joy in that. And I work at a company called PlanetScale, which is a MySQL platform company. And so my my role there has turned into I was hired as just, like, developer educator. It has turned into basically teach people about MySQL on on video.

Aaron

00:11:04 – 00:11:07

You know, being you know, being on video and and helping people.

J.R.

00:11:07 – 00:11:40

What a crazy background. The the I love it's accounting but attacks. So, instantly, what I think about is is just the depths of your mind, like, where you can go, like, from teaching to numbers to and then you have a you have an eye for design too, like, the stuff that you do. Like, screencasting looks really good and, you know, the way you brought up, like, I have a job, I actually think it's great. I think it's you're probably exposed to a lot of other things that you might not be exposed to when you're, like, an indie hacker or a creator.

J.R.

00:11:40 – 00:11:51

Right? You get to I don't know. There's something that's good about that too. And so it sounds like you found your niche with teaching. Have you ever done any teaching the same way you do with MySQL but with accounting?

J.R.

00:11:52 – 00:11:53

Have you ever done anything like that?

Aaron

00:11:53 – 00:11:58

I have. Yeah. I've I've done it. I've got a video course that Do you? Niches.

Aaron

00:11:58 – 00:12:12

This is Yeah. Prepare for the the niche of all niches. So I went to a university called Texas A&M University here in Texas. I took a class called Accounting 229, which is Introduction to Financial Accounting. Loved it, thought it was the best class in the world.

Aaron

00:12:12 – 00:12:37

It was the class that made me an accounting major. I wasn't originally one. I ended up tutoring that course in person for, you know, the 3 or 4 years that I had remaining after I took the course. And then after I graduated many years later, I was like, that was a fun course. I'm really good at 100 videos going through the syllabus and the curriculum and the practice problems and everything.

Aaron

00:12:37 – 00:12:54

And you can still find it at accct229.com, and it teaches financial accounting to sophomores at Texas A&M. And I just recently, this, like, 6 months ago, took the paywall down because I haven't fixed it yet, but it's made over $100,000 just selling

J.R.

00:12:55 – 00:12:55

I believe it.

Aaron

00:12:55 – 00:12:59

Just selling videos to sophomore to college students.

J.R.

00:12:59 – 00:13:16

Yes. And I think you could go I mean, this is gonna my I was on TikTok the other day, and I was, like, the reason why I'm asking is because I saw someone that was just, like, in Excel just dominating Excel, and he was like an account. And I was my mind was blown. I was like Mhmm. I wish I had this skill.

J.R.

00:13:16 – 00:13:29

So I'm, like, I'm bringing all this up because I'm I'm genuinely envious that you have that background and you can fall on that when you need. Because that is, like, that that takes a very unique mind to be able to, yeah, just get behind that.

James

00:13:29 – 00:13:40

JR, if if you were gonna go from accounting to learning software development, what route would you go down? What medium would you choose to learn about it?

J.R.

00:13:40 – 00:13:43

I mean, YouTube. I just go to YouTube and learn, I guess.

James

00:13:43 – 00:13:47

Aaron, how did you learn software development or why did you get your start in it?

Aaron

00:13:47 – 00:14:23

Back when I got my start, I was, you know, 10, 11, 12. So this was, like, late nineties, early 2000. And I bought books. I bought, like, you know, html5 andasp.net unleashed and, like, PHP 4 and I still I still feel pretty strongly that when I encounter a new subject area, reading a book or reading the documentation is the best way to establish like a landscape. And then beyond that, I'll dive into details and specifics through blog posts or YouTube videos or something like that.

Aaron

00:14:23 – 00:14:28

But that that's how that's how I got my start was, like, I just bought asp.net unleashed@barnesandnoble.

J.R.

00:14:29 – 00:14:48

See, because that's the thing. You're you're a you're a mechanic you're very mechanical and that's why I'm so envious because I'm more visual. So that's why I was, like, YouTube, because I would just watch and I I learn better that way where you you have the ability to digest, and I don't know. I I'm so jealous of that, because I just can't I can't learn like that. But that's amazing.

James

00:14:49 – 00:15:07

Yeah. Aaron completely changed my perspective on using books to learn things because I was the same as you, JR. Immediately to YouTube, read it, wherever. And, like, I'm learning bike maintenance at the moment. And I was watching YouTube video after YouTube video after YouTube video, and I couldn't find the specific thing.

James

00:15:07 – 00:15:31

And sometimes I just wanted a diagram, and I was trying to Google for a specific diagram. I bought a book. I bought a book and it had everything I could need, and I started flicking through it. And now I had a deeper understanding of each individual thing because someone's fought through this book to do it. And so I hadn't considered how useful books can be in terms of learning something or getting, like, a base understanding of something that's really complex.

Aaron

00:15:32 – 00:15:40

Yep. And I still do it. Like, nothing has changed. These are these are all of my programming books, all of them recent. Like, I don't keep, you know, 12 year old books on the shelves.

Aaron

00:15:40 – 00:16:20

Those are all my sequel books from the past, you know, 2 or 3 years. Still, that's exactly how I I do it. And it's I think to me, that was like you know, I produced this huge course for PlanetScale called MySQL for developers, and I think one of the encouragements to me producing that course was I bought all of these books and read them, and then I actually have, you know, the documentation sitting right here on my desk so I can reference it. And the encouragement to me was, oh, like, you can learn enough to teach other people without intrinsically knowing it based on 20 years of experience. And that was nice to me to be like, wait a second.

Aaron

00:16:20 – 00:16:42

I can try really, really hard. I can try really hard. I can learn something new, and I can package it up with my own spin and flavor, and it will be valuable to other people. Because I think I had thought at some point, like, the only people that can teach are the people that, like, have been gifted the knowledge from god and or 20 years of experience, and they just happen to, like, alright. I can teach this one thing.

Aaron

00:16:42 – 00:16:47

And I realized, oh, no. You can just study. You can study and teach. That totally works.

J.R.

00:16:48 – 00:17:26

Which I mean, honestly, I really wanna talk about screencasting because I wanna hear about, obviously, the domain's amazing, the the content's amazing, but I just I don't wanna brush over anything. I wanna actually get into, like, your mind of, like, the way you structured the chapters and the content and, like, how you thought about doing that because it's extremely interesting and maybe this is self serving. But, like, I don't know where my mind would go if I had to create or write a book. And so I'm actually curious to learn someone that's meticulous like you and mechanical. And I think it'd be very, like, useful to to learn about.

James

00:17:26 – 00:17:47

No. Absolutely. I mean, we we kinda set up the and I'll put in the intro a bit about Aaron, but we know he works for Planet Scared at the moment. He's done this course, MySQL for developers, and screencasting.com is the thing that you've launched, I guess, most recently. Talk to us about how it came about.

James

00:17:47 – 00:17:55

You you know how to do great screencast. You know how to make courses. Why is this the thing you decided to put some effort into?

Aaron

00:17:55 – 00:18:15

Yeah. I think it's it's interesting how this came about because, you know, like, we're talking about a little while ago, I I don't spend too much time tinkering anymore. I really have to, like, cut scope because of my my life setup. And this is, like, a direct result of that. I I produced this course for PlanetScale, put it out, and everyone was like, wow.

Aaron

00:18:15 – 00:18:22

This content is really great. Side note, how did you do all these screencasts? Like, hey. Can you show me your setup? I would love to learn.

Aaron

00:18:22 – 00:18:41

And they did the, like, you know, shut up and take my money. Send like, show me teach me how to do this. And that was the first big, like, that was the first big moment, I I guess, in my life where people told me exactly what they wanted from me, and I was very confident that they would, in fact, pay me for it.

J.R.

00:18:41 – 00:18:41

I love that.

Aaron

00:18:41 – 00:18:57

And so that was yeah. That was, like, hang on. It's finally happening. And so I I decided, like, this is a good thing for me to work on. And kind of, like, the way that I did the curriculum because, like, you've got this thing that you wanna teach.

Aaron

00:18:57 – 00:19:02

You decide you're gonna teach screencasting. What next? Like, what do you do now?

J.R.

00:19:02 – 00:19:03

Exactly. Exactly.

Aaron

00:19:04 – 00:19:43

And so the I I'm not like a formal instructional designer, and so my method of working is very much like a a humble workman. Like, I like, I put on my overalls and I go to work. And And so the way that the, like, the way that I do it and the way that I've done it with every course is, you know, in in the initial phase, I'm, like, researching and gathering either that's reading books for the MySQL course or for the ScreenFlow course, it's like or the Screencast course. It's like, I just I am teaching out of experience on this one. And so, you know, whatever that research phase is, I move on to, like, literally open a text document and write down everything that you think should go in the course.

Aaron

00:19:43 – 00:19:57

Don't worry about order. Don't worry about structure. Don't worry about if it should actually go in the course. Just write down, Yeah. Maybe maybe that one maybe that one should go in the course, and just blow through it all all in a single don't open Notion.

Aaron

00:19:57 – 00:20:00

If you open Notion, you've already lost the battle. Like,

J.R.

00:20:00 – 00:20:07

keep it Just to make keep it raw so you don't overthink. Like, it it allows you to just freely just basically dump everything on the table. Right?

Aaron

00:20:07 – 00:20:20

Yes. Because people get wrapped around the axle of, like, what is my, you know, learning management system? What what is my, you know, my Trello board gonna look like? And it's like, I don't know. You're you're you're losing already.

J.R.

00:20:20 – 00:20:30

Which is which is which is big for you because you're you've said it. You're such a perfectionist. So Mhmm. The you know, you're you're, like, the person at the top to say this. Right?

J.R.

00:20:30 – 00:20:34

To learn from, because if anyone would struggle with, it would be you. But

Aaron

00:20:34 – 00:20:41

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Like, I love a system. I want to, like, move a card to a different lane and have 6 automations kick off.

Aaron

00:20:42 – 00:21:00

I want that, like, with all of my heart. That's what I want, but it's a trap. It's a super trap at the beginning to do that. And this, frankly, relates back to, like, reading books or documentation to get a landscape. All you're trying to do when you open the text document is put down the landscape of this is everything that I think exists.

Aaron

00:21:00 – 00:21:23

That's, like, that's step 1. And, you know, whether you're pulling that from experience or the books you read, it doesn't matter. Write it all down. And then the fun part the fun part is you start looking over this document of, like, this, you know, a 100 lines with, like, ideas or half ideas or little turns of phrase or whatever, and you just kinda start moving them around such such that related things go together. You're like, hey.

Aaron

00:21:23 – 00:21:39

These two ideas are kinda you know what? They're they're super related. I'm gonna move those up a line, move those down a line. And as you do that, you're starting to, like, you you move the whole you go it's like a, you know, a sorting algorithm. You're just going over it over and over and over until everything kinda is like, yeah.

Aaron

00:21:39 – 00:21:56

That all flows together. And what you see what you see in most cases is, like, a very rational linear structure comes out of that because you're like, alright. These 8 things are about editing. How am I gonna edit a video if I haven't recorded a video? Alright.

Aaron

00:21:56 – 00:22:07

Well, those I'll move those guys down. I'll move the recording section up. How am I gonna record a video if I if I we haven't talked about cameras and lights? Oh, okay. Well, I'll move I'll move that guy up.

Aaron

00:22:07 – 00:22:22

How are you gonna record a video if you don't know what you're teaching? So let's put the curriculum design at the top, and you look at it when you're done and you're like, holy crap. There's my linear flow. There's all of the topics, and you can decide, you know, what 3, 2, 1 topics go in a video. That's fine.

Aaron

00:22:22 – 00:22:31

That's just packaging, But there's your entire curriculum set up for you basically with just, like, writing a bunch of stuff down and moving lines up and down. That's it.

J.R.

00:22:31 – 00:22:39

It's obviously all this is broken down in the the course, I assume. Yeah. Yeah. I'm reading it now. You you talk about ideal video length and do you use a script?

J.R.

00:22:39 – 00:22:49

And I didn't realize the depth of this. And I'm, like, now I'm very, very intrigued. But how long I mean, start to finish, how long did this take?

Aaron

00:22:49 – 00:23:21

So, you know, I think it's like, I wanna say 4 hours of edited content. So, of course, you know, many, many, many multiples of that. I recorded the entire course, and then I realized I'd made a fundamental mistake in my positioning. And I got to the point where it was like the course is functionally done, and I feel hesitant or even icky to, like, go out there and promote it. And I I I investigated that and I was like, you put all this work into it, why do you feel like, I don't wanna I don't wanna launch the thing.

Aaron

00:23:21 – 00:23:48

I I don't wanna do it. And I I dove into that and realized it's because you know that you could have done a better job and you made a fundamental error. And my fundamental error was positioning it strictly to developers. And I think having a tight scope is good and can help marketing, but with something like this, fundamentally, I should have been positioning towards people with any sort of technical expertise that wanted to teach. That doesn't need to be developers.

Aaron

00:23:48 – 00:24:08

That can be that can be attorneys that happen to know Microsoft Excel. You know who doesn't know Excel? Other attorneys. And so, like, you could you could make a great video course on that, but everything that I talked about in the videos was like, well, open your text editor and get in the command line. And if somebody watches that, they're gonna be like, this is not for me.

Aaron

00:24:08 – 00:24:27

And so after I realized that, I was like, holy crap. I gotta redo every single video. I've gotta reshoot everything. And I turned that around in a week. It was many, many, many nights straight of 2 to 4 to 5 AM just recording.

Aaron

00:24:27 – 00:24:53

So I would work all day, go play with the kids, put them down for bed, come back, and work until, you know, 3 or 4 in the morning, and I turned that around in 5 or 6 days. At that point, it was easy. I did know exactly what I was gonna say in each video and I just had to just change, you know, 6 phrases in every single video. And it came out it came out being a lot better, and it came out being something I was proud of. And I was ready I was ready to tell people, yeah, you should buy this.

James

00:24:54 – 00:25:13

That's interesting because the positioning towards developers helps in some sense for your marketing because you can have a position, an angle. There's a niche. People know it's for them. Whereas if you go broad, potential market bigger, you can help more people, but harder to market. Did you feel that at all?

Aaron

00:25:14 – 00:25:38

Oh, big time. And even the homepage, like, the the still image still has, like, a, you know, an IDE on there. And that is somewhat calculated because my initial audience, the people that that know me, follow me, and like me are they're developers. All of them are developers. And so, you know, in the beginning, some of the marketing some of the visual marketing is still like, that's a little bit geared towards developers.

Aaron

00:25:39 – 00:26:28

But the the hope is over time, I start to be able to broaden my reach outside of, you know, our friendly little community into more of the creator, the economy, or if that's still a thing, but, like, into more of these people who just generally need to produce videos. So at some point, that still image on the homepage is going to change, but I don't want right now all of the friendlies to go there and be like, oh, this is this is not for me. And so I'm trying to have it both ways. And the the videos are much, much harder to, like, obviously, to to change. And so I went with making those more broad, but still speaking, you know, still speaking to developers, but also peppering in 3 or 4 other examples so that other people can ignore the developer examples and take the the content creator examples.

James

00:26:29 – 00:26:45

And where in this process timeline did the domain come about? We can't not talk about it. It's beautiful, Aaron. Screencasting.com. It's the perfect domain for a screencasting course, but it did not come cheap.

James

00:26:45 – 00:26:52

So where did it come in your decision making process? How much did you spend on it, and why did you make that decision?

Aaron

00:26:52 – 00:27:27

Finding that domain was the thing that pushed me over the edge, frankly, of doing it. So I, you know, I released this course for PlanetScale in February of 2023, and I think my GoDaddy history tells me that I bought this domain in April of 2023, and then I launched the course, like in, I think, September, October, something like that. And, you know, as we all do, I'm looking around at domains and I'm like, you know, betterdeveloperscreencasts.com. It's like, boy, screencasts for devs, like how to screen cast dot io. It's like, these suck.

Aaron

00:27:27 – 00:27:46

It's brutal. It's like, these are terrible. And, you know, so I'm just kinda tooling around one day, and I go look at GoDaddy's, like, premium, buy it now. So, So, like, not the auctions, not the, like, inquire within. It's like, these are fully listed and you can just, you know, pay for them.

Aaron

00:27:47 – 00:28:18

And I type in screencast and screencasting.com pops up as a premium buy it now and I'm like, holy, are you kidding me? This is perfect. And I saw the I saw the list price and I did a quick little mental math and thought, this is worth it. So I pulled it up and it was, like, $5,000, which is a lot more than, you know, 1499. The most I've ever paid by let's see.

Aaron

00:28:18 – 00:28:41

That would be 2 orders of magnitude. So 100 times more than I've ever paid for a domain. But I was like, I don't understand how I could pass this up. It gives it an unbelievable amount of gravitas, and my like, part of what I'm going for is I want to reach out side of my friends on on Twitter. And this, I think, above all other things, this allows me to do that.

James

00:28:42 – 00:28:59

What was your mental math to decide on that number? Because you're saying it's worth it, but that's also a huge gamble or something you haven't launched yet. You haven't even started. You're about to rerecord anyway because your positioning is changing. It seems a bit a bit of a risk.

Aaron

00:29:00 – 00:29:02

Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't be shy. A bit of a risk. Yeah.

Aaron

00:29:02 – 00:29:14

For sure. 1, it's an asset. I could turn around and sell it even if I sell it. You know, if if I sell the domain for half because nobody else needs it as much as I need it. It's not 0.

Aaron

00:29:14 – 00:29:39

So that's not great, but it's not nothing. The other thing is I bought that with, you know, I bought that with business money. So I'm not walking in to tell my wife, like, hey, by the way like, I had done I had done another course for laracasts.com, and they just paid me outright for it. And so in inside the, you know, Aaron Francis Side Project LLC, there's money sitting around. And so, like, I'm not, you know, I'm not going negative to buy it.

Aaron

00:29:39 – 00:30:20

That's for dang sure. And then, you know, I did a little bit of calculations and I thought I'm not gonna sell this course for $39 Like I sell I sell to college students for $39 and that makes sense, but I'm gonna sell this course for $300 And if worst absolute worst case scenario, well, maybe middle case scenario is I sell enough courses to cover the domain and like, kinda sucks. I made $0 but I have this long term durable asset that I could continue to grow. And, you know, for the record, I made more than the the domain cost and so it, you know, it paid off. The gamble paid off, but I just really didn't think it was that much of a risk for those reasons.

James

00:30:21 – 00:30:52

So you you talked about price, and I guess now might be a good time to ask why you chose that price or how you decided on it. Because when everyone's launching a course, it can be intangible what price you set it up, what value are they getting. When I lost launched my podcast course, I said Mhmm. In it, if you sell sponsorships at the price I say to do it, you'll cover your cost and cover the cost of course and more. So how are you deciding on that price around $300, which is the mid tier for it?

Aaron

00:30:52 – 00:31:14

I will be honest. It's a little bit it's a little bit of a guess. I think as all pricing decisions are. I looked at a lot of other courses that I thought were of comparable quality. I think I don't know if Jack Ellis has been on here, but you all know Jack Ellis, and he's got he's got a course he's got 2 courses actually, server serverless Laravel and a single store course.

Aaron

00:31:14 – 00:31:35

And, you know, they were they were expensive. I think one was like 4.99 and the other was maybe 2 or $300. And I bought one of them and was super happy with, you know, the the value that I got out of it. And so, you know, know, I looked around at other courses and that kinda like set me up directionally. But then my market for this is basically it's prosumers.

Aaron

00:31:35 – 00:32:16

I mean, it's it's people that want to take this thing that I'm teaching them and turn around and, like, better their professional lives because of it. And that helps me a lot because if I reach developers that want to grow their following they are gonna take, like, they're gonna take that seriously and they're gonna look at that and say, like, frankly, like, I've watched Aaron grow his following by producing content. Now I want to do the same thing. And I've seen I've seen people level up their career by putting themselves out there with good content and I want to do the same thing. And it's like $300 for that seems like seems like a good trade off.

Aaron

00:32:16 – 00:32:30

And so that was just kind of my my mentality. You know, if it were if it were a hard tech course and it were like if I were to sell the MySQL for developers course, I may even sell that for more. But this kind of lands in the prosumer aspirational category.

James

00:32:30 – 00:32:35

Yeah. That makes sense. Jay, I forgot to ask you. How what's the most you spend on a domain?

J.R.

00:32:39 – 00:32:42

65,000. Oh my.

Aaron

00:32:42 – 00:32:44

Yeah. What was it?

J.R.

00:32:45 – 00:32:57

So after I did, like, my mojo run for, like, a decade, I resigned. Right? That that we were public, 4,000 employees, 1,000,000,000 5 revenue type stuff. Right? And I was just kinda done.

J.R.

00:32:57 – 00:33:14

And then I got into, like, retention, like, SaaS retention and churn and and all that, which is, like, kinda different. But, anyway, yeah, I I went on this, like, thing where I yeah, so it was Weave. It was called Weave. It was a 4 letter domain, w e a v, so just weave.com. W e a v.

J.R.

00:33:14 – 00:33:15

I still own

Aaron

00:33:15 – 00:33:17

it. Four letters. You still own it?

J.R.

00:33:17 – 00:33:25

Still own it. Yep. But, yeah. It's sitting in the graveyard right now, and, I don't know what I'll do with it. But one day, I'm gonna bring that puppy out, and we're gonna do some damage with it.

J.R.

00:33:25 – 00:33:30

But I don't know. It's gonna it's gonna take a while. So Oh, I got one idea.

Aaron

00:33:30 – 00:33:38

I I I got one idea that's, you know, probably worth a $100,000, and that would be just sell it. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I should.

J.R.

00:33:39 – 00:33:40

I should.

Aaron

00:33:40 – 00:33:43

That's crazy. What a great domain.

J.R.

00:33:43 – 00:33:50

Yeah. It was. K. So speaking of, like, few okay. What is your ultimate, like, plan with this?

J.R.

00:33:50 – 00:33:59

Is it was this just to kinda get out there? Are you hungry for more? Do you wanna grow it into something bigger? I have tons of ideas that I wanna share with you that I would do.

Aaron

00:33:59 – 00:34:02

I'll I'll tell you my thoughts, and I wanna hear all of your ideas.

J.R.

00:34:02 – 00:34:02

Okay.

Aaron

00:34:03 – 00:34:18

Yeah. So I think twofold. 1 is to get the the big influx of cash, frankly. I mean, with with 2 kids and 2 on the way, gotta have a minivan. And so, like which we which we have now.

Aaron

00:34:18 – 00:34:51

So, yeah, I I think that was that was the first thing is I, like, I felt like I had something good to say, and I felt partially, like, I want to produce this and get this out there. I think one of the great benefits of this content is that it's extremely evergreen. It is not a course on Laravel 10 and Laravel 11 is gonna come out next year. Like, I love laracasts and I love Jeffrey Way. I don't want to be on that content treadmill if I can avoid it.

Aaron

00:34:51 – 00:35:00

And here I've avoided it. Like, screencasting. You know, my accounting course, I haven't touched in 10 years because you know what never changes? Academia. Financial accounting, it doesn't change.

Aaron

00:35:00 – 00:35:27

And so that's a good like, that was definitely a decision factor upfront. I've got a full time job, a family. I can't be rerecording a course every 6 months. Provided that it's evergreen, I think I now have a marketing I have a marketing challenge in front of me. So I have exhausted or almost tapped my personal and Twitter network, and I'm very careful about, like, not overdoing it because I don't wanna turn into course guy.

Aaron

00:35:27 – 00:36:03

I want to continue to be helpful, like, realistic, down to earth Twitter guy. And so I'm cautious about that. So going forward, I have a few, like, content strategies that I'm gonna try to execute on to keep people coming back and to keep having an excuse to email them something of value that's not just, hey, you haven't bought yet, please buy. So the first the first, like, content vein that I'm trying to mine, that's what I'm always thinking about is like where's a rich vein of content that I can go back to and mine it over and over and over? One is screen caster spotlights.

Aaron

00:36:03 – 00:36:36

And so I have told you throughout the whole course about my setup, my lights, my camera, and I've tried to offer you a broad perspective about what else is out there, but I am but one man. Right? And so screen caster spotlights is a way to have other screencasters in whatever community, which I think is important, do a showcase of their setup, of their lights, their camera, their office, the the software that they like. And then we'll put all of that on a single page and be like, hey, here is the spotlight of Geoffrey Way from Laracasts. Come learn and see how he does it.

Aaron

00:36:36 – 00:37:09

And I think that's a good one that it can just be forever. I can just keep finding people to do that. And then the second one is there's a lot of great content on how to set up, for example, a canon m50 with a sigma 16 millimeter lens. There's a lot of great content on that. What I have found is that people who make content on how to set that camera up also cover how to use it for lifestyle vlogging and how to take beautiful pictures with it and how to go out into the world and record videos with your DSLR and how to use a handheld tripod with it.

Aaron

00:37:09 – 00:37:31

And the content that I think is lacking is here's how you set up a DSLR as a webcam. Here's the specific cables that you need. Here's the battery that plugs into the wall. Here are the settings that you need to turn on to get clean HDMI out. If you sit all day on zoom, here is what you need to know to get this camera looking great.

Aaron

00:37:31 – 00:37:47

And I can just do 10, you know, of those. I could do that with all kinds of gear, honestly. So that's the long term, like, marketing road that I need to hoe to try to get this out to the broader community as I slowly morph into this is for everyone, not just my friends.

J.R.

00:37:48 – 00:37:52

So more of a curation kind of thing. Is that what you're thinking? Mhmm. I see.

Aaron

00:37:52 – 00:38:11

Yeah. Curation, weights, like, heaviness for Google to see, like, oh, there's there's ungated content here. And then some of that translates nicely also to YouTube, which can serve as a top of funnel over there. So I can put these gear guides on YouTube and then drive them back to, like, oh, you're setting up a camera? Just a DSLR for a webcam?

Aaron

00:38:11 – 00:38:15

Are you screencasting? Well, boy, do I have good news for you. That sort of thing.

J.R.

00:38:16 – 00:38:54

What about so one of the things that goes comes to my mind is, like you said, there's always there's a lot of content to be created, you know, underneath this name. So do you and you're such a good educator. So this is agnostic in the sense that it's a screencasting for any sort of, you know, niche, which is cool. But do you think that you'll, like, have a section in here that's called screencast and you can filter by category? So you could show all of the, you know or maybe it's by finance and then developers and design, and you have all these different screencasts that maybe you create, sell, or you create your own.

J.R.

00:38:54 – 00:39:09

Right? Like, Screencasting just announced its new course, and it's all about Mhmm. Personal finance, or it's all about accounting, or it's all about and then you start to create content underneath screencast as Aaron Francis, so you're more than just yeah. Like, here's screencasting. Here's everything about it.

J.R.

00:39:09 – 00:39:16

But then also, here's all this content, that we put together. Have you thought about that at all? Like, the content side of it that way?

Aaron

00:39:16 – 00:39:29

Yeah. So becoming almost, like, becoming a, you know, a learning platform. Yeah. I have thought about that, and I think that is, like, that's the home run vision Yeah. For sure.

Aaron

00:39:29 – 00:39:54

Like, singles and singles and doubles is continuing to sell the course. Mhmm. I think the home run vision is become a learning platform, maybe commission courses from other people, or do do the platform play and say, like, hey. You can sell on on screencasting.com/, you know, adobepremere if you're doing a premier course or whatever. Something like that and and partnering with other people.

Aaron

00:39:54 – 00:40:17

I have thought about that, and I think that plus some sort of community for screencasting professionals is is the bigger vision that I'm I'm frankly Yeah. Still trying still trying to wrap my arms around like, wow. That is, like, that is a big vision. That's, like Mhmm. That's that's almost linda.com, but, like, scaled down.

Aaron

00:40:17 – 00:40:22

And that's a that's a big vision. So, yeah, I I'm trying to mentally ascent to that.

J.R.

00:40:22 – 00:40:38

Yeah. Step by step. I get it. I mean, you could do another another, like, iteration towards that could be and maybe this is these are bad terms, but even, like, add ons. Like, I noticed in your FAQ, it was, like, you teach this whole course in ScreenFlow, and this is not a ScreenFlow tutorial.

J.R.

00:40:38 – 00:40:50

But if you wanna learn about it, here's an add on for, like, a full in-depth tutorial on how to use ScreenFlow. Yeah. Right? So, like or here's all the stuff. If you really wanna get your set up to the next level, here's a whole course on just that.

J.R.

00:40:50 – 00:40:54

That's an add on to to the screencasting course. Anyway, just like that could be No.

Aaron

00:40:54 – 00:40:55

That's an easy one. That's a

James

00:40:55 – 00:40:56

good idea because

Aaron

00:40:56 – 00:41:18

that that's Yeah. Yeah. That's an easy one where I can say, like, I I can turn around, you know, right now and do a ScreenFlow deep dive tutorial because a lot of my focus in the course was, like, I don't want this to be a ScreenFlow deep. Like, I I want to teach you philosophically how to edit, and you can apply these rules to your editor. But, boy, I know ScreenFlow.

Aaron

00:41:19 – 00:41:22

I know a lot about ScreenFlow, and and so I could do that.

J.R.

00:41:22 – 00:41:33

Yeah. Yeah. And and it's, like, it's also a nice it's a nice way. It's a it's a more targeted way as a saying, like, I'll teach you how to screen cast. It's, like, I'm gonna teach you how to use ScreenFlow and come use it.

J.R.

00:41:33 – 00:41:43

If you if you get this, you also get access to Screencastings course as well. Right? Like, it's another wedge to bring people in Yeah. Maybe a little bit more clear and concise of that consumer looking for it. So

Aaron

00:41:44 – 00:41:56

Yeah. I really, really like that. Because at some at some point, one would have to assume that I pick up one of these bigger editors as well. And that, like, that is gonna be great content, frankly.

J.R.

00:41:56 – 00:41:56

Exactly.

Aaron

00:41:57 – 00:42:16

Going from ScreenFlow to Premiere or Resolve or whatever it is, man, when I'm learning that, the notepad is gonna be out, and I'm gonna be taking down notes of, like, how to use Premiere as a screencast, not as like a Hollywood movie guy as a screencast. And that could be another that could be another add on.

James

00:42:16 – 00:42:16

Yeah.

Aaron

00:42:16 – 00:42:27

Yeah. I like that as a middle step between, like, I am I am a platform and Yes. Where I'm at now. I think that I think that's probably that just moved up on my list of priorities.

J.R.

00:42:27 – 00:42:37

And because they're because they're 2 separate problems. Like, that the former, like, the platform, that is a whole yeah. That is a lot of things to think about to get there.

Aaron

00:42:37 – 00:42:43

So Yeah. He he says with his tired platformer's voice, that is a lot to think about.

J.R.

00:42:43 – 00:43:00

It is a lot. It is a lot. Yeah. And I also I'm a big proponent early on of, you know, when I did Mojo, this was again, like, my story is more of the WordPress era back in the day before it was WordPress. And so but what's nice is there was an audience that I could capture.

J.R.

00:43:00 – 00:43:18

I'm big on that versus building an audience. I've done this before, but where I think, you know, you're you have this kind of you're you're, you know, you're you're trying to go get an audience that's into screencasting, but capturing audience that uses ScreenFlow or Premiere or Mhmm. You know what I mean? It's a little bit easier to maybe acquire those people. So that's that's why I like that.

Aaron

00:43:18 – 00:43:22

Big time. Yeah. I like that. I'm glad I came on. That's a good one.

Aaron

00:43:22 – 00:43:37

That's that that that makes me feel like that doesn't give me the that doesn't give me the oh, no. I have to, like, do a big thing feeling. You know, you get somebody gives you a great idea and you're like, oh, no. I have to do the big thing. This gives me the, oh, I could do that.

Aaron

00:43:37 – 00:43:41

I could do that for sure. That gives me the the excitement feeling. Yeah.

J.R.

00:43:41 – 00:43:46

Yeah. Aaron, you're great, man. Like, you're like, I I think Yeah. No. I I think it's great.

J.R.

00:43:46 – 00:44:07

I'm excited for you. I think I think one of the big things that I would say that's maybe a good lesson for even me is just, like, the balance you've you've seem to to to have. It's really easy to get caught up in your ideas and excited and projects and the domain I bought and, you know, just all these things. And so I I think it's great that you you kind of, like, stop yourself and check. So yeah.

J.R.

00:44:07 – 00:44:08

This has been great.

Aaron

00:44:09 – 00:44:14

Yeah. Thanks. This this has been a delight to be here. Long long time listener, first time caller, so this has been fun.

James

00:44:15 – 00:44:30

I wanna ask one final question, which is how you avoid burnout with all of the stuff going on in your life, full time job, course, making content. Making content especially can be can lead to those burnout times. So how how are you avoiding that?

Aaron

00:44:31 – 00:45:07

Yeah. I have a couple of thoughts on this that have been some of them hard won. I think I think the first is I have really had to train myself to remember, like, what is my job, what is my responsibility, and what is what is not my responsibility. And, you know, this goes back to I gave a conference talk years ago that I poured my heart and soul into and I showed up to give the talk and the room was empty. Literally, the only people there that were staff, and it was devastating.

Aaron

00:45:07 – 00:45:36

And I realized, like, you know what? That's not my problem. My job is to try really hard to do good things and to put myself out there. That is my responsibility. And so I think I've had to train myself to remember that my job is to try my hardest and to publish what I'm working on, And not, as it relates to content, not get a lot of views or a lot of, you know, retweets or whatever.

Aaron

00:45:36 – 00:45:55

Like, I'm trying to pull, like, pull the finish line back to release the thing. Do the thing, release the thing, and you have finished the race. Well done. And then if it goes if it goes great, it goes great, and that's even better. Love it when a video pops off and everybody's like, you're a genius.

Aaron

00:45:55 – 00:46:10

I'll take that. I'm not mad about that. Right? And so I've had to I've had to pull that back in the so so the way that that helps me prevent burnout is I get the satisfaction of the artifact no matter what happens with the artifact. That helps me.

Aaron

00:46:10 – 00:46:34

That definitely helps me. The other thing that helps is success helps. I've stopped things that aren't working. Things that aren't working that I continue to, like, try to push the boulder up the hill and it continues to roll backwards and crush me, I've just, I've just stopped doing. I was working on a SaaS product for a long time that was not working and it burned me out super hard.

Aaron

00:46:34 – 00:47:00

And I realized, like, there is something good to be said for lashing yourself to the mast and, like, working really hard. There's also something good to be said for following what the market is telling you. And what the what the market was telling me was, Aaron, we like your videos. You should make more videos. It's like, oh, nobody freaking cares about my sass that I'm killing myself over, and it's burning me out.

Aaron

00:47:00 – 00:47:23

And when I make videos, people are like, yay, you made a video. And so success, like following the thing that is working has been a huge help to me. And again, that goes back to just, like, cutting everything I can because my life is so like, my life is so hectic that I just can't work on things that don't give me energy anymore. I just can't do it. And so those are the kind of things I have grown to learn about burnout.

Aaron

00:47:23 – 00:47:29

Some, you know, some have been learned by burning out, and that that's kinda where I've landed these days.

James

00:47:29 – 00:47:39

Yeah. Well, Aaron, I can't think of a better place to end, and hopefully people can take that advice to heart. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Lemon Squeezy. Really appreciate it.

Aaron

00:47:39 – 00:47:40

Thanks, y'all.

James

00:47:40 – 00:47:59

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Make Lemonade with Aaron Francis. If you enjoyed the conversation, make sure you hit subscribe or follow button on your podcast player of choice, and we always appreciate reviews. And if you wanna make your own lemonade stand like Aaron has done, you can check out lemon squeezy. We'll put all links in the show notes. See you next week.

Launching Screencasting.com while having a job and a young family

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