Sean's Birthday, Mental Health, and Hotwire

February 12, 2021

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Transcript

Sean
00:00:01 – 00:00:07
Hey, yo. We're here. Alright. It's my birthday.
Aaron
00:00:07 – 00:00:11
Today's your birthday? Mhmm. I did not know that. Happy birthday.
Sean
00:00:12 – 00:00:14
Thanks. Yeah.
Aaron
00:00:14 – 00:00:16
What what number are we sharing?
Sean
00:00:16 – 00:00:20
No. I'm 38. 38. Yeah.
Aaron
00:00:20 – 00:00:20
Okay.
Sean
00:00:22 – 00:00:34
That's that's good, though. You know what's funny is, I used to feel bad about, like, comparing where I am now to where I kinda thought I should be
Aaron
00:00:34 – 00:00:35
Oh, definitely.
Sean
00:00:35 – 00:01:07
Career wise. You know? But I think, you know, what helps me actually is is Buckbee because he's, you know, he's older than me. He's older than us, which he probably and so it was right around my age when I met him, and then he went from there. Now he's had a couple of these pretty successful little businesses that he started.
Sean
00:01:08 – 00:01:15
And I learned the other day that the average age of a successful entrepreneur is 45.
Aaron
00:01:16 – 00:01:22
Is this from this isn't from the micro comp SaaS thing, is it? Is it is that just in general?
Sean
00:01:23 – 00:01:28
In general. Okay. I don't know what it is, you know, for, like, our little Yeah. Software community.
Aaron
00:01:28 – 00:01:30
Well, that makes me feel really good.
Sean
00:01:30 – 00:01:52
I do not see a ton of of, you know, kids in their twenties or whatever, like, knocking it out of the park with their first little software company. I I just don't see that. So, I mean, it's it's, like, different in start up land. I don't know why.
Aaron
00:01:52 – 00:01:56
Yeah. And we we hear about that a lot, especially on on Twitter.
Sean
00:01:57 – 00:01:57
We hear
Aaron
00:01:57 – 00:01:59
all the the name And
Sean
00:01:59 – 00:02:17
then it turns out, yeah, you are actually building nice little b to b software company that has big margins and, you know, really profitable and fun like, a nice easy place to work at, it's harder.
Aaron
00:02:17 – 00:02:26
Yeah. It's Turns out it's hard. Yeah. Well, what are y'all what are y'all gonna do?
Sean
00:02:26 – 00:02:30
On that a little bit. Probably nothing. Actually, I'm working. That's what I'm doing. You know that.
Aaron
00:02:30 – 00:02:30
Oh, yeah. Fantastic.
Sean
00:02:34 – 00:02:48
I've got the whole weekend, including Monday, dedicated to getting, like, a demoable Hotwire version of the front end for the query builder. So that's what I'm gonna do. Happy birthday to to me.
Aaron
00:02:48 – 00:02:53
Happy birthday to you. If it makes you feel better, my birthday's on Sunday, and I'll be working as well.
Sean
00:02:53 – 00:02:55
Wait. Your birthday's that close? That's so funny.
Aaron
00:02:55 – 00:02:57
I didn't know that either.
Sean
00:02:58 – 00:03:03
Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. Now it's just so I was just reflecting on that a little. You know?
Sean
00:03:03 – 00:03:08
I was starting to feel old, but that's good. Like, I'm I'm experienced. It's more like that.
Aaron
00:03:08 – 00:03:08
Yeah.
Sean
00:03:10 – 00:03:23
I am sort of settling into that. I think once I went past 35 for a few years there, I was like, oh my god. I'm getting old, and I've done nothing. But, of course, that's not true pretty much on both counts. So
Aaron
00:03:24 – 00:03:43
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. There are a couple there are a couple of, like, 17, 18, 19 year old Laravel developers I follow on Twitter, and it just seems like they're insanely productive and always putting out cool stuff. And I'm like, man, I'm I'm past my prime, and I'm 31.
Aaron
00:03:44 – 00:03:58
I I will be 32, but it's still very early. And you're right about Buckbee. He had, like, he had a million little side projects before anything actually hit, and it probably hit when he was, I guess, when he was 40 or something.
Sean
00:03:58 – 00:04:02
Mhmm. Yeah. Now he definitely knows what he's doing.
Aaron
00:04:03 – 00:04:04
Oh, yeah.
Sean
00:04:05 – 00:04:07
Like, that's not a fluke. He could do it again.
Aaron
00:04:07 – 00:04:09
And And he has. Yeah. And
Sean
00:04:09 – 00:04:21
he has. That's quite a bit different than, you know, knocking out interesting Laravel side projects over and over again Yeah. I think.
Aaron
00:04:21 – 00:04:22
Yeah. Definitely.
Sean
00:04:22 – 00:04:30
Because they were these 17 year old Laravel programmers. What are they are they, like, knocking out businesses left and right that make $400,000 a year?
Aaron
00:04:30 – 00:04:37
No. I don't think so. No. They're putting out cool products, but I don't know I don't know that any of them are making any money.
Sean
00:04:38 – 00:04:41
Yeah. Because I feel like that's easy. Well, it's not easy, but, like It's
Aaron
00:04:41 – 00:04:41
easier.
Sean
00:04:41 – 00:04:59
I know how to do that. You know how to do that. We we probably will do some of that for marketing stuff once we get to that phase. But certainly, that's much easier than like, identifying a thing that other people, other developers would think is cool and would share. That's a skill but also
Aaron
00:05:01 – 00:05:03
Not the one we're optimizing for.
Sean
00:05:03 – 00:05:11
No. Yeah. That's not like the business making one. It's, you know, that's it'll play its role. Like, we'll we'll use that for sure.
Sean
00:05:12 – 00:05:22
So I don't know. I wouldn't feel too bad about it. Also, you crank out work so fast, like, faster than other developers that I've worked with 100%.
Aaron
00:05:23 – 00:05:23
You should
Sean
00:05:23 – 00:05:27
not feel like you're over the hill or whatever.
Aaron
00:05:27 – 00:05:53
I have I have found I think, historically, that's been true, and then I hit a pretty low spot recently, but I have found some energy again the past couple of weeks. And, man, when when that energy goes away and you just sit there staring at the screen and can't do anything, that's that's pretty bad. You did you had a whole year where you were rebounding from that. Right?
Sean
00:05:54 – 00:05:59
Yeah. Yeah. I would say it wasn't really it was a combination of burnout, just depression.
Aaron
00:06:00 – 00:06:00
Yeah.
Sean
00:06:00 – 00:06:06
So that's a little different, but yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. For took a year. It's been more than that.
Sean
00:06:06 – 00:06:17
I honestly have been I, like, got out of the pit of despair after a year and then I've been grinding my way back to some semblance of my former productivity.
Aaron
00:06:19 – 00:06:19
Yeah.
Sean
00:06:19 – 00:06:34
And and, like, just well-being. Right? Like, like, productivity is not my only metric for things that I care about. But Yeah. But it is sort of like it was obvious to me that I could not do as many things for a while there, and then I had to sort of build up that capacity again.
Sean
00:06:35 – 00:07:04
Because you do get older and you do actually have to it's first of all, you get busier because you have other life things, like kids and, you know, house and all that all that jazz. Parents get older, you get to start dealing with that stuff. So there's way more stuff going on. They're trying to balance. And so you really have to get really skilled at balancing all of those things with taking care of yourself and putting, like, deposits back in your sort of energy bucket.
Sean
00:07:04 – 00:07:27
That's real hard. And then there's just not that I have it more now. So okay. I have discovered that exercise and getting into shape and getting some sort of aerobic fitness has actually helped me to gain some of that, like, ability to grind it out and, like, put in, like, some hours when I need to. I just couldn't do that for a couple years there.
Sean
00:07:27 – 00:07:48
It was just not not an option. But now I'm I'm gaining that ability. Like, that's not a great idea to do that all the time. Sometimes, like, this weekend, I have to. So then I'll have the ability to do that, and then I can sort of, like, go take a step back, recover, you know, put some more deposits in, get back to it.
Sean
00:07:48 – 00:07:56
So yeah. I don't know. You the older you get, the harder it is. Because I think that when you're young, you have nothing to think about. But you don't even realize it until you do have stuff to
Aaron
00:07:56 – 00:08:14
you have stuff to think about. Yeah. Absolutely. And I've one of the things that has put a lot of energy back in my tank because I went I haven't been to I have a counselor that I have seen regularly whom I love. I haven't been since the pandemic started.
Aaron
00:08:14 – 00:08:34
And finally, I booked a virtual session, like, last week or the week before. And turns out therapy is better than Twitter because I left I left that hour and was like, oh, man. I forgot how helpful that is for me. So maybe maybe less time doom scrolling on Twitter and more time talking to my counselor.
Sean
00:08:35 – 00:08:50
That's funny you feel like that therapy for me. I did it for a couple years, and it was incredibly beneficial. But for me, it was also incredibly draining. I almost died. Like, it just it was I didn't look forward to it.
Aaron
00:08:50 – 00:08:52
Oh, I don't I don't look forward to it either.
Sean
00:08:53 – 00:08:54
Okay. I misunderstood.
Aaron
00:08:54 – 00:08:58
No. No. You're totally I maybe misspoke. You're totally right. I don't look forward to it.
Aaron
00:08:58 – 00:09:11
It is draining, but it's one of those it's probably like exercising. Like, once you're done, you're totally exhausted, but somehow that has given you, like, a longer term type of energy, if that makes sense.
Sean
00:09:12 – 00:09:23
Mhmm. Yeah. Definitely. Well, it's not you're just learning all these new skills for you're learning about yourself, then learning these new skills to work with, you know, what comes up in your life, and
Aaron
00:09:24 – 00:09:24
Yeah.
Sean
00:09:24 – 00:09:27
It's incredibly beneficial long term. Short term, yeah, those
Aaron
00:09:27 – 00:09:29
Short term, it sucks.
Sean
00:09:30 – 00:09:30
Terrible.
Aaron
00:09:32 – 00:09:42
I talked to Colleen this week, and she said, well, I finally caught up on your podcast, and you guys sound tired. I was like, yeah. Yeah. Maybe so.
Sean
00:09:45 – 00:09:47
It's probably just me because I
Aaron
00:09:47 – 00:09:48
I don't
Sean
00:09:48 – 00:09:50
know about that. Old man tired energy. That's
Aaron
00:09:51 – 00:10:06
I don't know about that. So we'll try to sound less tired, but I think we may actually just be tired. So you're doing you're doing Hotwire. Last time we talked publicly, you were doing React. So what gives?
Sean
00:10:07 – 00:10:24
Yeah. It just turns out I misunderstood. Like, I went to their little show and tell presentation, and people are showing their stuff, and here's what we're working on. Here's what we're working on, and I'm just seeing React apps everywhere. And so and then including some mock ups of React apps that had our query builder embedded in them.
Sean
00:10:24 – 00:10:38
So I was like, oh, I should be doing this React, like, not Hotwire. This is gonna be nobody's gonna want this to be Hotwire. Mhmm. So I brought that up in their in their Slack channel, because initially I thought we were doing Hotwire. Like, it seemed to be what they wanted to do.
Sean
00:10:38 – 00:11:08
Right. I'm like, hey, Hotwire or React? Discuss. And, it turns out, like, 90% of the places where this is gonna be used is gonna be just in plain Rails views where we should just use Hotwire. And, really, what we need to do is just we we build a Hotwire version, and then, in React apps, they're gonna just figure out a way to blend in the Hotwire version of what we're doing into React app, which will be it'll probably be, like, kind of maybe like a model solution.
Sean
00:11:08 – 00:11:08
So
Aaron
00:11:09 – 00:11:17
I see. Is that up. Is that our problem? Or if we deliver the good Hotwire version, they'll figure out how to integrate it where it's React?
Sean
00:11:17 – 00:11:35
I think what I'm gonna do is deliver the good Hotwire version, and then, you know, we'll be around to help. Sure. I think for a few months, that'll be we'll have to we'll have to help out with that stuff. But I I don't know. Like, as far as integration goes, I I think I think he wants us to work on integrating it into their app.
Sean
00:11:37 – 00:11:44
But and then, I mean, I guess that's what we like, we can't just ship the builder to them and then be like, here you go. Yeah. No.
Aaron
00:11:44 – 00:11:57
That's and we can, like, get it all on the rails views and everything. But in the parts where it's React, I wonder, is it up to us to figure out how to make Hotwire and React play together, or are they gonna do that?
Sean
00:11:57 – 00:12:05
I think that's gonna be a team Yeah. A team effort. Because I'm so at this point, we've had discussion and then they know, like, like, okay. I'm doing an auto version.
Aaron
00:12:05 – 00:12:06
Yeah. That's true.
Sean
00:12:06 – 00:12:20
But then, and and we also like, their director of engineering knows, like, oh, yeah. Alright. So we're just gonna have to figure out what we're gonna do in these React parts of the app where we wanna use a query builder. And I think, honestly, they might just not do it. You know?
Sean
00:12:20 – 00:12:30
Like Yeah. It's it's like, hey. It'd be cool if we threw this query builder into this step, but in fact, they don't have to do it. So maybe they won't. Maybe it's not worth it.
Sean
00:12:30 – 00:12:30
I
Aaron
00:12:30 – 00:12:31
don't know.
Sean
00:12:31 – 00:12:37
It'll be up to them. But I think it will help them. Right? But it'll, like, ultimately be up to them.
Aaron
00:12:37 – 00:12:41
So have you started the Hotwire exploration? How's it look?
Sean
00:12:41 – 00:13:11
Yeah. I started digging to that, you know, just looking at it, looking at docs and stuff this week, and then right now, I'm trying to get just a simple rails view going with just, like, a demo running of the query builder and building the little you know, the models and views that I need for the builder itself. So I just just started. My initial glance at the docs and everything, I I can see how this will work.
Aaron
00:13:11 – 00:13:12
Right. There's
Sean
00:13:12 – 00:13:25
weird stuff. There's weird stuff. Like like, really, it wants you to have, like, Hotwire really wants you to have the object in the database. Yeah. Because it's gotta persist between requests.
Sean
00:13:25 – 00:13:44
Yeah. So that's a little weird, but, like, we can work around it. You know, like, it'll be, like, maybe you just keep a query ID in the session. Because also, I noticed that bullet train has cookie sessions instead of like, a lot of rails apps, you can specify sessions live in the database.
Aaron
00:13:44 – 00:13:44
Mhmm.
Sean
00:13:44 – 00:13:56
And then the cookie just hold the key to that session object. But Bull Train is not doing that. So I was initially, I was like, oh, I'll just put it in the session. Then I realized, no. I'm gonna be just loading up cookies with Right.
Sean
00:13:56 – 00:13:58
Or blueprints, and that's not that's a no go.
Aaron
00:13:58 – 00:13:59
Yeah. That's too bad.
Sean
00:14:00 – 00:14:16
So but yeah. I don't know. I'll just probably put an ID to a query object in there, and we'll have to write some little bash thing that goes and, like, kills old ones or I don't know. I'll I'll think about it, but I'm just gonna bang out the demo with just the, you know, it'll just have a query object in the database. And then
Aaron
00:14:17 – 00:14:47
So I'm confused about so I watched the Hotwire, you know, announcement, if you're supposed to use Hotwire like, if their use case includes using Hotwire for, like, an unpersisted form, like you're filling out a create form or whatever. Well, 1, does that one of the use cases? And 2, how do they do that if there's no object in the database?
Sean
00:14:49 – 00:15:03
I mean, I'm thinking for a create form that that that doesn't make sense for Hotwire. Okay. I don't I don't know why would we would they would do that. Maybe for editing, like, if you wanna do, like, editing
Aaron
00:15:03 – 00:15:04
Mhmm.
Sean
00:15:04 – 00:15:13
An object that exists live and have those edits show up in another view somewhere as you're editing? I don't
Aaron
00:15:14 – 00:15:38
Yeah. Okay. So this is that. This is super different from Laravel LiveWire, which LiveWire, it keeps track of state between requests outside of any sort of database thing. So it sends down it sends down kind of, like, encrypted state because PHP is, you know, build the world from scratch every request.
Aaron
00:15:39 – 00:15:49
So LiveWire has to send the state back and build it back up, then operate, and then sends the operated state back to the front end. So it sounds like Hotwire is a little bit different.
Sean
00:15:50 – 00:16:03
That sounds about right. I mean, it has that it's basically bunch of pieces. Like Hotwire is not one technology. It's a bunch of pieces of technology. So one is turbo, and then the other's plus stimulus.
Sean
00:16:03 – 00:16:21
I think that's the main the main two things. So you get the ability now with new turbo versus turbo links is the old thing. Turbo gives you streams. So instead of Yeah. So you can sort of precache links, and so they'll load in the page without having to reload the entire page.
Sean
00:16:21 – 00:16:45
That's Turbolinks. So you click on a link, and it just reloads the part that is new. Turbo streams lets you, reload parts of a template by stream name. So in our case, the query builder, we have, part of our query builder template will be, like, one line, which is a condition. Mhmm.
Sean
00:16:45 – 00:17:01
Or, like, say groups. Right? So, like, we'll have a group of conditions. And then when we wanna add a new condition, there's a turbo streams thing, which will say, add a new, you could do, like, append. Mhmm.
Sean
00:17:01 – 00:17:11
So you could say, like, append to to the main template rendering this sub template with this new query group or whatever. That makes sense?
Aaron
00:17:11 – 00:17:12
Yeah. So
Sean
00:17:12 – 00:17:23
you would so then you would on the back end so everything is happening on the back end. The front end the JavaScript thing would just the stimulus controller on the front end would just say, okay. I would click on the add group button.
Aaron
00:17:23 – 00:17:23
Mhmm.
Sean
00:17:23 – 00:17:44
And then it would tell the back end to add a group to the blueprint, and then the back end would then tell the front end what to render now. Right. And it would render it only in that part. And then stimulus, the way it works is you'd think, like, that's blowing away all your JavaScript listeners and stuff like that, but the way stimulus works is that's not a problem. It's meant to kinda like play well with that
Aaron
00:17:44 – 00:17:44
Mhmm.
Sean
00:17:44 – 00:17:55
Style of of thing. So the front end is like, the JavaScript itself is gonna do very little. It's kind of like like they say, like, sprinkling in
Aaron
00:17:56 – 00:18:07
Right. Stuff. Because the idea is you render you render it from the server and turbo figures out what's new and what's changed, and it adds updates and replaces
Sean
00:18:16 – 00:18:36
like, basic utilities of streams, which is, like, allows me to just update specific parts of the template with stuff. So with those tools combined, you can sort of and it's you can imagine, like, it's really easy to build chat apps and stuff like that with this bottle. It's incredibly easy.
Aaron
00:18:38 – 00:18:51
Yeah. Interesting. Surprised a little bit that they're going so hard on a brand new technology for a complete rewrite of a huge app, but Me too. That's their prerogative.
Sean
00:18:52 – 00:18:54
Yeah. Yeah. Me too.
Aaron
00:18:54 – 00:18:55
And we will do it.
Sean
00:18:55 – 00:19:04
It's not like, like, I'm gonna do my version of this. It will probably not be what everybody else will be doing with Hotwire in 2 years once it's Right.
Aaron
00:19:04 – 00:19:09
Because there's there's no, like, community agreement on any anything at this point.
Sean
00:19:09 – 00:19:11
Yeah. Exactly. But there's
Aaron
00:19:11 – 00:19:19
no problem. You'll figure it out. Yeah. That's great. Anything else on your side?
Aaron
00:19:19 – 00:19:20
I have a few updates.
Sean
00:19:24 – 00:19:26
No. I think that's that's about it.
Aaron
00:19:26 – 00:19:37
Okay. 1, I think we have all agreed, all being you and I and members of our chat, to move to hammerstone.dev. Is that is that right?
Sean
00:19:37 – 00:19:38
I put it. Okay. Good.
Aaron
00:19:38 – 00:20:00
Yeah. We were hammerstonehq.com, and I thought, wait a second. I wonder if hammerstone.dev is available, and it is. And I know that dotdev is not super standard, but it is a Google registrar h t t p s by default, and so it's a normal thing. So I'm gonna move us over there.
Aaron
00:20:00 – 00:20:09
That does mean we'll probably need to change our email addresses, which sucks, but they're not out they're not out there very far yet. So better now than later.
Sean
00:20:09 – 00:20:10
Yeah. Exactly.
Aaron
00:20:11 – 00:20:43
Okay. So I'll do that. And then you and I had talked, I think, offline at some point last week about, like, an option condition where the options can come from, like, an Ajax request. And so I got that done in Laravel, and it totally rules. So now, like, now you you as the developer can define how to find options based on a string that, like, the end user has typed in.
Aaron
00:20:43 – 00:21:04
And so and we'll handle all the routing and everything. So you just have to have one route that you expose that's basically, like, refine, you know, deferred option or whatever. And then everything will work together and be tied up from there. So you can hit your database. You can hit a 3rd party API.
Aaron
00:21:04 – 00:21:12
You can read a file off the disk and return stuff from there. So it's gonna be pretty cool. So I'm very excited about that.
Sean
00:21:13 – 00:21:13
Sweet.
Aaron
00:21:14 – 00:21:34
Yeah. And then, I talked to Colleen this week who is doing, obviously, doing our rails implementation, and I think that is going pretty well. She had a couple of questions, and then at some one point, it was like, oh, okay. I get this. This is really cool.
Aaron
00:21:35 – 00:21:55
It's like, yes. It's working. So I think I think now she's gonna be moving right along now that she's got some more of that fundamental understanding. And I I told her after she had that epiphany, I told her, this sounds like the conversation Sean and I had all summer. It was like, wait.
Aaron
00:21:55 – 00:22:03
What? What are you saying? What are you saying? And finally, at some point, it just kinda clicks and starts to make sense. So Mhmm.
Aaron
00:22:03 – 00:22:06
I feel pretty good about that. So
Sean
00:22:06 – 00:22:07
Yeah. Totally.
Aaron
00:22:08 – 00:22:27
Hopefully, some point soon, I'll have our public website up. I've been working on a better version. Right now, it's just a template with some tweets on it. But I'm working on a better version that hopefully I'll be able to get up pretty soon, and we'll start to look like a real company.
Sean
00:22:28 – 00:22:31
Yeah. Looks awesome. Like, the new the new version looks
Aaron
00:22:31 – 00:22:52
really good. Thanks. It's, it's very heavily tailwind UI, which is amazing, and then some customizations. I'm gonna move our podcast. I put, like, our, transistor podcast embedded player on there so we can have a podcast link on the side and, you know, just to have a couple more pages.
Aaron
00:22:53 – 00:22:58
So it's looking good. Hopefully, this week or next, we'll have something out there.
Sean
00:23:00 – 00:23:07
Yeah. That's great. It'll it'll help to have a more cohesive website presence.
Aaron
00:23:08 – 00:23:08
Yeah.
Sean
00:23:08 – 00:23:11
You know? It'll it's like a good starting point.
Aaron
00:23:11 – 00:23:34
Yeah. For sure. And there's that I think I told you earlier early on about this secondary Laravel package that I worked on, like, at Christmas, maybe, not this past Christmas, but the Christmas before. Just like a little package. And I I wanna release it as, like, content marketing, basically, but I have to have the site done first because I want it to look legit when we do.
Aaron
00:23:34 – 00:23:48
And so, again, everything needs to happen first, but I think we're getting close and then I can release that little package and hopefully start getting a little traction and just laying the groundwork.
Sean
00:23:49 – 00:23:56
You know, I was reading Twitter this morning. I think his name is Ruben Gomez.
Aaron
00:23:57 – 00:23:57
Ruben Gamas?
Sean
00:23:58 – 00:23:59
Docs Gammes.
Aaron
00:23:59 – 00:24:00
Big Bidsketch guy.
Sean
00:24:00 – 00:24:15
Bidsketch. Yeah. Mhmm. And he was saying that he thinks that making audience building a precondition for starting a software company is maybe a mistake.
Aaron
00:24:15 – 00:24:18
Mhmm. I saw this thread. This was very good.
Sean
00:24:19 – 00:24:27
Yeah. Which I totally agree. That's kinda what I was pushing back on at our last, you know, get together with the b biz Slack crew
Aaron
00:24:28 – 00:24:30
Yeah. Which it was like treat where we got roasted.
Sean
00:24:31 – 00:25:04
Yeah. But it was kinda like but I I know, like, we're, yeah. Building like, I've done the build the audience and sell a product to the audience and, like, prelaunch and build up anticipation and all of that. It just doesn't make sense for this. Like, once we have, it's it's it's this horribly awkward phase that we're in right now where we have to have this product before we can really start figuring out, you know, the ways that we're gonna sell it because of the nature of the product that we're selling.
Sean
00:25:05 – 00:25:22
Like, I mean, I still I still think they're right. Like, it's good to let people know that it exists. So that way it's on people's it's on developers' radars, and when we can do that. But also, I think it's okay. Like, I think it's okay that it's taking time upfront to build it, and then and then we'll be able to start working on that stuff later.
Sean
00:25:22 – 00:25:43
And, like, worrying about SEO right now, Not worry about SEO right now. Like Right. I mean, it's gonna take us, like, a year of spinning through all the other sort of marketing stuff that we can do that's not SEO related to be building up our reputation and getting sales that way. There's all these things that we can do that are not SEO. And in the meantime, all that stuff contributes to SEO.
Sean
00:25:43 – 00:26:04
And as long as we have that longer term SEO strategy in the back of our minds and we're, like, working towards that, then I think we'll be good. Like, I think we'll be make basically, what I'm saying is I think we'll be making sales before our SEO stuff is happening. Absolutely. But then but then that stuff will start kicking in, you know, when we want it to or need it to.
Aaron
00:26:05 – 00:26:18
Yeah. This is And it's This is the hard part about what we're doing is it's not like it's not like we're saying the product's not good enough. We can't start marketing. We're saying there's no product. It's not done.
Aaron
00:26:18 – 00:26:21
Like, it doesn't work. We can't start marketing. So
Sean
00:26:22 – 00:26:29
And it's also not like we're not selling it. Like, we have we have sold it a few times.
Aaron
00:26:29 – 00:26:30
Right.
Sean
00:26:30 – 00:26:40
Like and so, also, it's not like I'm building a thing that I know that nobody's gonna buy. Like, we did some market research, and we know this is a thing. People will buy it.
Aaron
00:26:41 – 00:26:52
And of the few people that know we're doing it, we've had 2 or 3 client inbound leads saying, hey. Do this for us. So, I mean, we have some pretty good pretty good data here.
Sean
00:26:52 – 00:27:08
I feel okay about it. That's that's one of the reasons why I jumped on this with you because I was like, oh, this is so obvious that it's a thing that will sell. Then I don't have to, like, worry about that part. Yeah. I'm not like I don't have to jump people through hoops to learn how like, what this value this brings.
Sean
00:27:08 – 00:27:25
I don't have to, like, do some crazy onboarding stuff. It's gonna be, for the most people on the front end, a one liner and then, you know, minimal work on the back end, which is the whole point. So it's all this stuff that makes it was just so obvious. Like, yeah, we could sell this.
Aaron
00:27:25 – 00:27:28
Yep. We can and we have and we will. Yeah.
Sean
00:27:28 – 00:27:37
Exactly. So I guess I would say is I'm not encouraging people to, just build in isolation Yeah. For a year.
Aaron
00:27:38 – 00:27:39
But Yeah.
Sean
00:27:39 – 00:27:43
They'll they'll build for a year. I recommend not doing that.
Aaron
00:27:43 – 00:28:04
Yeah. It's not very fun, and it may not work out for other types of products. I'm confident it will work out for us, but it sure is, it sure is painful to not have it out there for such a long time. I think we're both looking forward to, like, phase 2 where we get to do other types of work. This is
Sean
00:28:04 – 00:28:31
a lesson to learn, I guess. Like, in the battle of like, there's so many battles that you're fighting when you're doing something like this. Like, the psychological battle of staying motivated is important. And so to that end, getting some momentum is important. And then to that end, we should have picked the even though I think in the end, building a more versatile open source front end is, you know, I think it'll pay off.
Sean
00:28:31 – 00:28:46
We'll see. But even if it doesn't, like, it just would have been better to just have a version, like, crank out a query builder that just works, that doesn't do everything that everybody wants and, you know, but it it works for a lot of customers
Aaron
00:28:47 – 00:28:47
to do that.
Sean
00:28:48 – 00:29:00
That way, we'd have had a little bit of momentum going. We could have been working on other stuff as we went. So I would say that's my lesson learned from this. We gotta manage our momentum and our psyche a little bit.
Aaron
00:29:00 – 00:29:18
Yeah. I would totally agree. And I wonder, like, I wonder what the takeaway because the takeaway is not ship a crappy first version. I think it's probably ship a smaller, but still fully complete, but but smaller first version. Mhmm.
Sean
00:29:18 – 00:29:21
Yeah. I mean, we added scope that we didn't need to.
Aaron
00:29:21 – 00:29:32
In the name of marketing, honestly, because we're like, oh, the open source the front end being open source and flexible is gonna be a great marketing channel, which I still believe is probably true.
Sean
00:29:32 – 00:29:42
I think so. And I think it yeah. Also, I think that I'm sorry. I said I think so. Alexa decided to talk at me.
Sean
00:29:42 – 00:29:58
Alexa, stop. Yeah. I think that it took me longer than that I realized it would. And part of it was understanding the problem domain Yeah. Which you just talked about with Colleen also.
Sean
00:29:58 – 00:30:07
Yeah. I'm, like, happy to sort that out. And, like, yeah, I just you know, I was I mean, 2020 high site. Right? Like, there's no way I could've known
Aaron
00:30:07 – 00:30:08
Oh, no.
Sean
00:30:08 – 00:30:16
That it would turn out this way, but I think we could try to make choices to avoid something like this happening again for sure.
Aaron
00:30:16 – 00:30:47
Yeah. And that brings up an interesting question. I don't wanna go too long here, but I I do think this is interesting of what's gonna be next. Are we gonna go super deep on this into, like, Python or, I guess, Django and, you know, whatever node frameworks exist in Symphony and maybe Yi, which is still a PHP framework. Like, how deep do you think we'll be able to go on this versus doing another component pretty soon after this?
Sean
00:30:49 – 00:31:01
I don't think we're gonna need to touch another component for at least a year or 2, and I don't think that we'll even have to go into those other frameworks to do that. Like, I think we'll see growth with just Laravel Rails Communities.
Aaron
00:31:02 – 00:31:04
Those are definitely the biggest, I think.
Sean
00:31:04 – 00:31:18
And they're big enough. I mean, I I I don't think we'll need to branch out to other components for some time, and I don't think we should because I'm already looking at the amount of code that we have that we have to be in charge of and maintain being like,
Aaron
00:31:18 – 00:31:18
oh, this
Sean
00:31:18 – 00:31:19
is a mistake.
Aaron
00:31:19 – 00:31:28
No kidding. Yeah. I mean, Laravel, Rails, View, React, Hotwire, probably Laravel Nova.
Sean
00:31:28 – 00:31:32
And maybe react version. Maybe we won't even have a react version.
Aaron
00:31:32 – 00:31:35
We'll see what happens. I guess that's true.
Sean
00:31:35 – 00:31:43
But I just wanna try and sell to rails and Laravel communities. And then and what I do think we should do is integrate to other things.
Aaron
00:31:44 – 00:31:45
What do you mean by that?
Sean
00:31:45 – 00:31:51
Like, with bullet train, we're integrating so you can, you know, you could just do it as an add on to bullet.
Aaron
00:31:51 – 00:31:51
Got it.
Sean
00:31:51 – 00:31:55
I mean, there's probably other platforms like that. Yeah. I know there's the one in Laravel. Novos. Yeah.
Sean
00:31:56 – 00:32:09
Like that. Maybe there's, you know, little quick little add ons we could do, like, a WordPress plugin for query builder on your WordPress page or something like that, you know, which is kinda like a smaller thing, but it's lead gen and
Aaron
00:32:10 – 00:32:10
Mhmm.
Sean
00:32:10 – 00:32:21
I don't know. I think I'd be more inclined to do, like, marketing things like that. Integration is marketing, basically. What platforms can we embed ourselves in? You know?
Sean
00:32:22 – 00:32:23
Yeah. So Yeah.
Aaron
00:32:23 – 00:32:51
That I think that'll be a I think that'll be a good angle. Nova, bullet train, maybe even, like, maybe even something crazy like statamic, which is a CMS in Laravel. Like, I know that they have extensions, and you can buy extensions for static. So I wonder I wonder what other types of, integrations we could do without having to rewrite a whole new core, which we would have to do in Python. So
Sean
00:32:52 – 00:32:54
Exactly. I do not want to do that.
Aaron
00:32:54 – 00:32:55
No. No meat.
Sean
00:32:55 – 00:33:11
I think there's so many things we could explore and do that don't involve adding a ton of code to what we already have to maintain. And, yeah, I think we'll be able to I think we're gonna be able to press, like, pull way back on programming, way back for at least a year. Oh, that
Aaron
00:33:11 – 00:33:12
that would be awesome.
Sean
00:33:13 – 00:33:19
I think so. I yeah. There's some too much stuff to do first before we Before we
Aaron
00:33:19 – 00:33:21
give up and try to program some more.
Sean
00:33:23 – 00:33:24
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Aaron
00:33:25 – 00:33:28
That hasn't stopped me from thinking about next components, though.
Sean
00:33:29 – 00:33:40
Yeah. It's good, though. It's good to keep our eye out and stuff because then we'll be able that then that's also good because, like, there are probably some co components out there that would be a bad idea for us to do.
Aaron
00:33:40 – 00:33:40
Mhmm.
Sean
00:33:40 – 00:34:08
Right? Like and we'll also kinda learn, like, what what is what's really good about this component and these 2, like, ecosystems that we're in Mhmm. And what's bad. And then when we do the next thing, we can optimize for the things that we learned. So I think it's good to not do more products until until this is there's so much potential for for this just as it is with those 2 ecosystems.
Sean
00:34:09 – 00:34:10
Yeah. I think.
Aaron
00:34:10 – 00:34:31
I agree. I agree. I think it's gonna be it's gonna be I think part of what I'm feeling is, like, wanting to work on a different aspect, and I think the marketing is gonna bring that. But also, you know, building a new component would bring that, but that doesn't give us any value. That's just going down the same road again, which would take a 1000 years.
Sean
00:34:31 – 00:34:33
Totally. Yeah. Exactly.
Aaron
00:34:35 – 00:34:40
Well, we'll save that conversation for a year from now and see if we even need to have it.
Sean
00:34:41 – 00:34:49
Yeah. Like and I don't know what like, what are the metrics that we would use to decide? Okay. It's time to I I think we'll know. I think we'll know because it'll be like, okay.
Sean
00:34:49 – 00:34:53
We've explored all of these different ways to market and grow
Aaron
00:34:53 – 00:34:53
Right.
Sean
00:34:53 – 00:35:09
This one product that we have, and growth is slowing. Yeah. So then we should we you know, we're, like, stabilizing. So then and then at that point, it would be like, okay. And also it might be a resources thing.
Sean
00:35:09 – 00:35:26
Yeah. So okay. If we if we're just making a boatload, you know, on licenses, then maybe you're like, alright. Well, let's, hire some people to maintain this, and then we, you know, we can just go at it for some other thing. I don't know.
Sean
00:35:26 – 00:35:28
You know, we get to decide. That's the fun part.
Aaron
00:35:28 – 00:35:39
And we'll see. Maybe there maybe a big another ecosystem starts pulling in a big way. Like, maybe Symfony is like, hey. We really, really, really need this in Symphony. It's like, okay.
Aaron
00:35:39 – 00:35:42
Well, we can start building it in Symphony.
Sean
00:35:44 – 00:35:57
Mhmm. Yeah. Step 1, we just have to figure out, like, how how to sell just licenses of this, which we we've only done that, you know, the one time. Yep. I think we'll I think we'll figure it out, but, yeah, I mean, we still have to figure it out.
Sean
00:35:57 – 00:35:59
Yeah. So we'll get there.
Aaron
00:36:00 – 00:36:09
Well alright. Other and final piece of big news for me is I'm getting my first round of COVID vaccine in 3 hours.
Sean
00:36:10 – 00:36:11
That's so exciting.
Aaron
00:36:11 – 00:36:21
I know. I'm super pumped. I'm tier I'm tier 1 b in Texas because I have type 1 diabetes, so I'm a high risk category. So
Sean
00:36:21 – 00:36:31
Oh, you're about to say you're tiering up. No. To be honest, when I get when I get mine, I know there's zero doubt in my mind I will be crying for sure.
Aaron
00:36:31 – 00:37:08
I'm I'm already I'm already planning to take a picture because, like, while it's happening, unashamed selfie while it's happening because this is, like, a truly historic moment. Like in 50 years, people are still gonna be talking about COVID. So, yeah, I I recognize what a big deal it is, and it's absurd that trying to get an appointment was, like, trying to get, you know, limited edition Nike shoes or something. I've I've got 4 browser windows open, and I'm, like, waiting and waiting in line, and it's so stupid. But I got one.
Sean
00:37:09 – 00:37:13
That's so cool, man. Yeah. Beth is getting hers the 23rd, I think.
Aaron
00:37:13 – 00:37:14
Nice.
Sean
00:37:14 – 00:37:21
So and Beth's a teacher, so she's on one she's in one b in in Chicago at least. Perfect. So it's super exciting.
Aaron
00:37:22 – 00:37:24
Cool. Alright. Anything else?
Sean
00:37:25 – 00:37:28
That's it, man. Let's let's wrap it there.
Aaron
00:37:28 – 00:37:28
K.
Me

Thanks for reading! My name is Aaron and I write, make videos, and generally try really hard.

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