Aaron Francis

Some big changes happening at Hammerstone.

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

Learn more →

Transcript

Aaron

00:00:00 – 00:00:28

Okay. We're back, and it is just Colleen and I. And big news, I guess, at the top so we don't bury the lead is going forward, from now on, it is just going to be Colleen and I. You know, historically, it's been me, Colleen, and Sean. And we talked with Sean, I guess, last week and just kinda talked about, like, where's everyone at in terms of life commitments and desire to keep working on this stuff.

Aaron

00:00:28 – 00:00:59

And it just kinda became clear. We all mutually agreed that this is not, like, a good fit for Sean right now. I think this stage of company building requires a lot of just pure grinding, which is not super fun. And Sean is getting I think he's getting the company building that he desires out of his day job. He's in a really good role there, and he's got a lot of, I guess, a lot of, ownership, just kinda in where that company goes.

Aaron

00:01:00 – 00:01:33

And so Colleen and I are a little bit more excited about, like, the put the nose to the grindstone and just work part that is obviously necessary right now. And so yeah. So from now on, this is the Aaron and Colleen show, and I think, you know, I guess I am speaking directly to you, Colleen. So I think you and I are more excited about this phase and have a little bit more energy for this phase maybe. And so I'm I'm thinking that our velocity is gonna increase quite a bit because I think you and I are kind of on the same page there.

Aaron

00:01:33 – 00:01:42

You know, this was obviously a tough conversation, but that's kind of where we're at, and things are gonna change a lot going forward today. To accurately summarize that, Colleen?

Colleen

00:01:42 – 00:01:44

Yeah. I think you did a great job.

Aaron

00:01:44 – 00:01:50

Okay. So with that out of the way up top, you put together some Notion stuff.

Colleen

00:01:50 – 00:01:55

I did. So while you were on vacation, did you have a nice vacation, by the way?

Aaron

00:01:55 – 00:02:10

I had a lovely vacation. It was for my wife's, 30th birthday makeup. So 30th birthday was last year. Yeah, exactly. And so this year, we went to Bend or again with some friends, for her fake 30th birthday, and it was amazing.

Colleen

00:02:10 – 00:02:18

Nice. Yeah. I would like to pat myself on the back for the amazing restraint I showed by not sending you any messages for 4 days.

Aaron

00:02:18 – 00:02:26

You did a great job. And Thank you. When I got back and Slacked you, you freaked out because I was back, and you had made it. So congratulations.

Colleen

00:02:26 – 00:02:48

I totally did. I totally did. Okay. So while you were gone, I feel like I don't have good exposure to everything that is going on in our company. So I put together a Notion doc for us, and I want to go over that with you because I wanna make sure I have complete understanding of where we are and what needs to be done and what time frame we expect to have these things done.

Colleen

00:02:48 – 00:02:50

Did you get a chance to, like, glance at it yet? Okay.

Aaron

00:02:50 – 00:02:52

Yeah. I read it all over last night.

Colleen

00:02:52 – 00:03:06

Awesome. So I broke it up into hammerstone products, tasks, and we'll live in tasks, refined products, repos, because we have a lot of refined products. Mhmm. And then customer sales leads and trialing. Okay.

Colleen

00:03:06 – 00:03:10

So let's let's go through this, so I know exactly what's going on.

Aaron

00:03:10 – 00:03:10

Okay.

Colleen

00:03:11 – 00:03:24

So let's start with let's start with the Hammerstone products, which is just high level overview of all of the products. Mhmm. And all I so Torchlight Mhmm. Which we sold one big license. We occasionally sell Mhmm.

Colleen

00:03:24 – 00:03:27

Sell, but is mostly open source.

Aaron

00:03:27 – 00:04:04

Correct. So, Torchlight, we sold $1,000 license for self hosting. There are paid plans for, like, businesses, and we have some less than $1,000 MRR there. I think the plan there the plan there is to make it free and widely available, and use that either primarily as top of the funnel marketing, or sell it to one of the big developer experience focused companies. So GitHub, Vercel, Fly, something like that.

Aaron

00:04:04 – 00:04:05

So Okay. That's where that stands.

Colleen

00:04:06 – 00:04:11

Okay. Sidecar. That's everyone loves it. Are you you're doing something with that, aren't you?

Aaron

00:04:11 – 00:04:14

Yeah. I got, invited to speak at Fullstack Europe.

Colleen

00:04:15 – 00:04:16

That's right. Michelle speaking there.

Aaron

00:04:16 – 00:04:29

Yeah. So I'm gonna be sharing a stage with Michelle. So that'll be in Antwerp in, I think, October. But, yeah, that is, and that's also the subject of my Lyricast's course, which is forthcoming.

Colleen

00:04:29 – 00:04:34

Got it. Okay. And then refine, we'll talk about in a second. And then I have AirDrop.

Aaron

00:04:34 – 00:04:43

Yeah. I added AirDrop. It's just another open source package that gets some love. Like, some people really love it, but it's not widely popular.

Colleen

00:04:43 – 00:04:49

So these products, outside of refine, there are no action items associated with these products right now?

Aaron

00:04:50 – 00:05:00

Not on your plate. No. On my plate for Torchlight, I've got, the design agency Titan is working on a new

Colleen

00:05:00 – 00:05:01

That's right.

Aaron

00:05:01 – 00:05:23

Landing page for that, which will coincide with the, making it free and available from, client side instead of just server side. So they're working on that, and I'm working on, bringing like, changing the infrastructure. So it's on Vercel right now, and I'm taking it to fly dot io.

Colleen

00:05:24 – 00:05:24

That's right.

Aaron

00:05:24 – 00:05:46

So I'm working on that. And then on sidecar action items for me, I'm finalizing the branch that allows it to run on Vercel instead of only AWS Lambda. And once that is, in, like, a semifinal state, then I'll start or finish recording my layer cast course. So from your side, no. From my side, yes, a lot.

Colleen

00:05:47 – 00:05:53

Okay. Alright. Let's look at let's look at refine products and repos.

Aaron

00:05:53 – 00:05:53

Mhmm.

Colleen

00:05:54 – 00:05:58

So before we jump into all of this, can we talk about the Nova package?

Aaron

00:05:58 – 00:05:59

Sure.

Colleen

00:05:59 – 00:06:02

Is that available and ready for sale?

Aaron

00:06:02 – 00:06:06

Yeah. So I listened to y'all software social software social this morning.

Colleen

00:06:06 – 00:06:06

Right. And

Aaron

00:06:06 – 00:06:14

I was like, god dang it. Michelle is super right. Yeah. It's it's ready. It's totally done.

Aaron

00:06:14 – 00:06:19

People are buying it, using it. It's working. It's published. Everything.

Colleen

00:06:19 – 00:06:28

Okay. This is super embarrassing, Aaron, but I went I went to our home page. I couldn't even figure out how to buy it. Like, I literally can't.

Aaron

00:06:28 – 00:06:32

There's no there's no way to buy it. Everything so far has run through

Colleen

00:06:33 – 00:06:33

me. Okay.

Aaron

00:06:33 – 00:06:45

In terms of like people reaching out and letting them buy it, I think. Yes. Very embarrassing. Who knows why that decision was made? I think it let's see.

Aaron

00:06:46 – 00:07:17

I think there was a notion upfront that, like, while it was while it was in early access or whatever, we would funnel everything through me and get this, like, a ton of feedback and, like, learn so much and all of this stuff. I mean, that that hasn't really happened. The people that have used it have just generally liked it and bought it. And so it's not like we're getting this onslaught of support that I couldn't handle if we opened the floodgates up. That's just that's just is not happening at all.

Aaron

00:07:17 – 00:07:19

So I think we just need to sell it.

Colleen

00:07:19 – 00:07:22

Yeah. So I'd like to propose a new a new game plan for this company.

Aaron

00:07:22 – 00:07:23

Tell me.

Colleen

00:07:23 – 00:07:26

We're selling licenses at $1,000 a license.

Aaron

00:07:26 – 00:07:27

Correct.

Colleen

00:07:27 – 00:07:35

It is should be completely within our reach based on the number of people using Laravel Nova to sell 30, 40 licenses in the next couple months.

Aaron

00:07:35 – 00:07:36

Correct.

Colleen

00:07:36 – 00:07:46

I think that should be our focus. I think Michelle is right. We have something we can sell. Everything else has to keep going. But we need to know if this is going to be a business in a timely fashion.

Colleen

00:07:46 – 00:07:48

And so I think that should be our focus.

Aaron

00:07:48 – 00:07:50

Okay. That is now our focus.

Colleen

00:07:50 – 00:07:55

Okay. Cool. So let's go to our tasks. I jumped ahead because I got a little excited about this. No.

Aaron

00:07:55 – 00:07:55

That's fine.

Colleen

00:07:55 – 00:07:58

Well, and then I had this moment because didn't Nova just release an update?

Aaron

00:07:58 – 00:08:00

They did. Nova 4.

Colleen

00:08:00 – 00:08:05

So I didn't know if that was screwing us. And I'm telling Michelle to buy it. I'm telling everyone to buy it. And I'm, like, wait. Okay.

Aaron

00:08:07 – 00:08:11

So I can't guarantee that it works with Nova 4 at this point.

Colleen

00:08:11 – 00:08:11

Okay.

Aaron

00:08:11 – 00:08:48

I can guarantee that if somebody bought it and they're using Nova 4, I would get it working for them inside of a week. So I can guarantee that. Now between now and then, I want to get it working with Nova 4 without someone breathing down my neck. But, there are a lot of Nova 3 apps that didn't migrate to Nova 4 overnight. And so I think we're in a fine position to continue selling to continue selling it as a Nova 3 app or a Nova 3, plugin, and then I can get it working with Nova 4 in a very short amount of time.

Colleen

00:08:48 – 00:08:54

Okay. So practically speaking, like, Michelle bought it. She said she bought it. How did she do that? She texted me.

Colleen

00:08:54 – 00:08:56

She was like, I bought it. I was like, how?

Aaron

00:08:56 – 00:09:14

Yeah. I she DM'd me on Slack, and I sent her some license keys. And Oh, okay. I think then when they got back into Denmark, she sent me an email maybe yesterday that was like, how do I actually pay for it? So she's using it, but I need to respond and say, like, here's how you actually pay for it.

Colleen

00:09:14 – 00:09:19

So my goal or our goal, I think, this week so today is whatever, Tuesday?

Aaron

00:09:19 – 00:09:20

All day.

Colleen

00:09:20 – 00:09:34

This week, it should be should be to get some kind of landing page up for Nova and make that accessible for sale. Practically speaking, what do we need to get? Aren't we using Phil's things? So shouldn't that be pretty seamless in terms of Stripe integration and getting that set up?

Aaron

00:09:35 – 00:09:49

Oh, yeah. Like, you can already pay for it, and it's already, like we already have the host to checkout page that'll, you know, take them through to licensing and all of that. So we're already we're already set up there. What we don't have is a public link to that from the home page.

Colleen

00:09:49 – 00:09:53

And a home we do not have a home page for Nova Right.

Aaron

00:09:53 – 00:09:53

Right. Right. Yeah.

Colleen

00:09:53 – 00:09:54

Specifically. Okay.

Aaron

00:09:54 – 00:09:59

We don't have we don't have a landing page or anything for Nova specifically. Honestly, we don't have a landing page for Refine.

Colleen

00:09:59 – 00:10:03

Refine. Okay. Let's talk big picture landing page stuff.

Aaron

00:10:03 – 00:10:03

Okay.

Colleen

00:10:03 – 00:10:06

This hammerstone.dev, this is in Laravel right now. Right?

Aaron

00:10:06 – 00:10:07

Mhmm. Yeah.

Colleen

00:10:07 – 00:10:14

Okay. Do you want to move to a I don't know. What do you wanna do? What do you wanna do our landing pages in?

Aaron

00:10:14 – 00:10:25

What do I wanna do them in? The thing that we have right now. Like, I I just wanna keep doing it in in HTML and CSS. It happens to be inside of a Laravel app

Colleen

00:10:25 – 00:10:26

Okay.

Aaron

00:10:26 – 00:10:35

But there's no there's no Laravel here. It's just a it's just a view. We could here's here's my thing. We could move to something sexy and or different. Yeah.

Aaron

00:10:35 – 00:10:56

I don't have any experience in something like Webflow, and I feel like I just get furious trying to, like, make things align. And I don't wanna waste any time, frankly, trying to move to something like hip. Right. I don't want to move to like react or something just because it's hip. I just frigging, let's just ship it with what we have.

Aaron

00:10:56 – 00:10:58

So that's my take. What's your counter take?

Colleen

00:10:58 – 00:11:08

My my take is on it. I'm with you. Like, what is the easiest way to get it on the Internet? I tend to do marketing pages in with Jekyll because it's just an easy static site generator. I don't know.

Colleen

00:11:09 – 00:11:12

I mean, you're saying this is just normal HTML CSS. Are you using

Aaron

00:11:13 – 00:11:18

It's just a giant It's just a tailwind? Blade. Yeah. And it's a tailwind UI.

Colleen

00:11:18 – 00:11:20

I could talk us the dots. Why do they have these dots?

Aaron

00:11:20 – 00:11:24

Because they look good once, and now we all use them. And it's like, oh, that's tailwind.

Colleen

00:11:24 – 00:11:26

It's like the tailwind giveaway is you have the

Aaron

00:11:26 – 00:11:30

I know. That's on that's just on us for not really customizing it.

Colleen

00:11:30 – 00:11:37

No. It's fine. Here's here's the goal. We need to here's what I would like to make set as our goal for this week. We get a Laravel landing I'm sorry.

Colleen

00:11:37 – 00:11:40

A Nova page up by next Tuesday.

Aaron

00:11:41 – 00:11:41

Colleen

00:11:41 – 00:11:48

My only concern with keeping it in this is can I help you? Like, don't I have to get Laravel running locally and all that stuff?

Aaron

00:11:50 – 00:12:00

Yes. You would. It is pretty straightforward. Okay. And once it's set up, I mean, even like, this doesn't even require I don't even think this has a database behind it.

Aaron

00:12:00 – 00:12:17

So it's really it's just getting PHP set up, which I can set you up. We can pair on that, and I can set you up pretty quickly. And then after that, there's no, like, I don't even think there's a build process. You just refresh the page, and it'll show up. So, yes, if the big hang up is, like, is Colleen gonna be able to help?

Aaron

00:12:17 – 00:12:23

We can accomplish that much faster than getting some other things set up.

Colleen

00:12:23 – 00:12:38

Okay. Yeah. I think for this stage, when we just wanna get something up, that's the best plan. You know, if in the future we're hiring content writers and we need a better way to manage that, we can sort that out. But I think for right now, we're early enough where throwing up a landing page for Noah should not be a big deal.

Colleen

00:12:38 – 00:12:40

And if this is the fastest way to make it happen,

Aaron

00:12:40 – 00:12:46

Yep. Okay. I think that's I think that's the case. So out of an abundance of clarity, who's doing what on this?

Colleen

00:12:47 – 00:12:53

That's what I wanna talk about. What is your would it be faster this time for you just to put something up since you have the

Aaron

00:12:53 – 00:12:54

It would.

Colleen

00:12:54 – 00:12:54

Since I

Aaron

00:12:54 – 00:13:05

have the technical context and the product context since I, you know, am in the Nova space, it would just be fastest for me to do it, I think.

Colleen

00:13:05 – 00:13:06

Okay. Can you do it in a week?

Aaron

00:13:06 – 00:13:08

I can do it in a week.

Colleen

00:13:08 – 00:13:09

Okay. I'll put you down, Aaron.

Aaron

00:13:09 – 00:13:10

Colleen

00:13:11 – 00:13:25

Okay. So I think that's I mean, according to Michelle, and I think she's right, like, number one priority is get that out there, let people buy it, and just see see how it goes. And we'll we'll touch base next week to see if we want to because we have a couple hundred people on our list. Right? Uh-huh.

Colleen

00:13:25 – 00:13:30

Yeah. Okay. Alright. So that feels like a good goal for this week. K.

Colleen

00:13:30 – 00:13:31

Let's keep going.

Aaron

00:13:31 – 00:13:32

Let's do it.

Colleen

00:13:32 – 00:13:38

Through our tasks. Okay. So then the second I have 3 4. I have 4 tasks marked as priority 1.

Aaron

00:13:39 – 00:13:41

Priority 1, fire, just so that listeners clear.

Colleen

00:13:43 – 00:13:51

Which I would like to say, yeah, priority 1, fire. So number 1 was a landing page for Laravel Nova, which you're gonna do.

Aaron

00:13:52 – 00:13:53

Time out real fast on that.

Colleen

00:13:53 – 00:13:53

Yeah.

Aaron

00:13:53 – 00:14:02

Do we want hammerstone dot dev to be just by Nova as, like, the main thing, and then at the bottom, oh, here's all the other stuff we're doing?

Colleen

00:14:02 – 00:14:04

Yeah. I think so. Okay. Cool. Let's do that.

Colleen

00:14:04 – 00:14:07

We can always change it. But for now, I feel like let's do that.

Aaron

00:14:07 – 00:14:08

Alright. Carry on.

Colleen

00:14:08 – 00:14:11

Okay. And oh, another thing we talked about was a video,

Aaron

00:14:12 – 00:14:15

Of me doing a demo. I can do that as a part of this.

Colleen

00:14:16 – 00:14:23

Okay. Awesome. Great. Other great news is, Zach sent me the he called it an LP. I don't know what an LP is.

Colleen

00:14:23 – 00:14:26

But, a a lit it's landing page.

Aaron

00:14:26 – 00:14:27

Is it landing page?

Colleen

00:14:27 – 00:14:40

It's landing page. It was like LP refine. I was like, okay. Landing page. Zach, sent us a bunch of kinda, like, edits and suggestions and stuff for our entire, like, refined landing page.

Aaron

00:14:40 – 00:14:40

Okay.

Colleen

00:14:41 – 00:14:54

So I am gonna review that. I'll put myself there to review that, and then I'll touch base with you. That's probably a 2 week task, because we have other fire tasks that are more fiery. I'm not

Aaron

00:14:54 – 00:14:59

sure Were you gonna compliment how much you left the fire emoji or what was about to happen there?

Colleen

00:14:59 – 00:15:01

I mean, it is a nice fire emoji.

Aaron

00:15:02 – 00:15:08

Does any of what Zach has done feed into the Nova page?

Colleen

00:15:08 – 00:15:12

Yeah. That's I was just thinking that. I should have you seen it?

Aaron

00:15:12 – 00:15:19

No. Oh. Frankly, I don't even know what you're talking about. I know who Zach is, but I think Sean had worked with him a while back on getting something.

Colleen

00:15:19 – 00:15:32

Oh, yeah. This would be a fun one maybe next week or the week after once we're we have a little less craziness. I'm gonna send you this to walk through on the show. Aaron, there you are. Yeah.

Aaron

00:15:32 – 00:15:36

Alright. Let me open this and see what we're talking about. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. This is great.

Colleen

00:15:36 – 00:15:40

This is great, because you could just do Laravel Nova for all of this.

Aaron

00:15:40 – 00:15:44

Oh, yeah. This is super great. Okay. I am going to steal some of this.

Colleen

00:15:45 – 00:15:45

Perfect.

Aaron

00:15:45 – 00:15:46

Cool. Alright.

Colleen

00:15:46 – 00:15:47

Cool.

Aaron

00:15:47 – 00:15:50

And then you're gonna do what with it?

Colleen

00:15:50 – 00:16:01

Nothing. Just because I didn't even make that connection. I'm gonna delete myself. Okay. I believe as part of the package we purchased from Zach, like, you get to do back and forths if you want.

Colleen

00:16:01 – 00:16:11

Okay. And so let's just see where we are. Like, after you get it up there, see what you think, and we'll decide if we we want any more feedback. But he's he's great with his feedback.

Aaron

00:16:11 – 00:16:22

Cool. I will try to get the Nova page done and include some of this, some of this copywriting stuff, and then see if we can get him to critique it again.

Colleen

00:16:22 – 00:16:29

Okay. Perfect. And then the other big thing we have to discuss is RailsConf, which is coming up.

Aaron

00:16:29 – 00:16:37

Before before we do that, how how strict are how strict are we on this task list? Do we need to, like, remove this task as a priority 1? Or

Colleen

00:16:38 – 00:16:53

Yeah. Let's make it a priority 2. I would make it a p 2 and reviews and and so I'm gonna review Zach's feedback and incorporate into landing page. And then I'll just leave that. That's both of us.

Colleen

00:16:53 – 00:17:11

So my thought is it my thought is we'll do you'll do the Nova landing page, and we'll see how we feel about that. And then as a lower priority, we'll build out a I don't even know if we'll need, like, a refine specific page and a nova specific page. We probably will eventually.

Aaron

00:17:11 – 00:17:21

And if we don't, I feel like we'll roll a lot of the Nova stuff into the refine one. Yeah. And so I don't think we'll have wasted any work here.

Colleen

00:17:21 – 00:17:23

Yeah. I agree. I agree. Okay.

Aaron

00:17:23 – 00:17:24

Okay. Workshop.

Colleen

00:17:25 – 00:17:29

Workshop. So RailsConf is coming up in a month, a month.

Aaron

00:17:30 – 00:17:33

And I have been invited by you to speak at RailsConf, which

Colleen

00:17:33 – 00:17:36

And I invited my Laravel friend, Aaron.

Aaron

00:17:36 – 00:17:38

Hysterical. I

Colleen

00:17:38 – 00:17:53

mean, the backstory is I can give a short backstory, is a friend of mine was gonna do it with me who is also into this stuff, and he decided not to go for personal reasons. So I was gonna give the workshop by myself, and I invited you.

Aaron

00:17:53 – 00:17:54

And here I am.

Colleen

00:17:54 – 00:18:05

And here you are. So, yeah. So the workshop, that's I mean, that's my biggest task for the next couple weeks is is figuring out how we're gonna do that and what we're gonna do with that. I'm kinda sweating it. I'm gonna be honest with you.

Aaron

00:18:05 – 00:18:08

Yeah. I I heard on the show you're you're super sweating it.

Colleen

00:18:08 – 00:18:11

Yeah. I'm super, super sweating it, dude.

Aaron

00:18:11 – 00:18:17

Yeah. It sounded that way. And I mean, it's a big deal. So it is it is sweat worthy. Alright.

Aaron

00:18:17 – 00:18:30

So I heard you talking to Michelle about you're doing this alone, and Michelle's like, well, you're not really doing it alone. And you're like, yeah. But Aaron doesn't really speak rails. So where can I like, how how are we gonna do this? Like Right.

Colleen

00:18:30 – 00:18:31

So What am I Am I

Aaron

00:18:31 – 00:18:35

gonna be the ring master, or what's it gonna be?

Colleen

00:18:35 – 00:18:56

So my thought is you have a good understanding of the front end, and you have a good understanding of the sequel. Mhmm. And it will be good, I think because at first, honestly, when, it was suggested to me that I invite you, I was kinda like, I don't know if that really value you know, I'm gonna start a business with him, but I don't know if I wanna

Aaron

00:18:56 – 00:18:57

be Yeah. Isn't that yeah.

Colleen

00:18:59 – 00:19:24

I didn't know. I honestly I was hesitant at first because I didn't know if it would be value added to have you there. But the more I thought about it, I think you have a good understanding of the front end structure, and you designed it So you can give a good explanation of why you designed it that way. And you have a good understanding of SQL. And I am quite sure we will get a lot of questions about, like, how do I add in aggregations, or how do I do this?

Colleen

00:19:24 – 00:19:47

Yeah. And that is something I think you will be able to speak to a little bit better than I am. Even though we're mostly Postgres, I still think it'll be helpful there. And, honestly, it'll be great to have you do some of the planning with me because our structures are incredibly similar. Like, the the fundamental architecture of how this thing is put together is the same.

Colleen

00:19:48 – 00:19:54

So you speak my language when I talk about, like, how much are we gonna do? How far are we gonna take them? What do we wanna build?

Aaron

00:19:55 – 00:19:55

Right.

Colleen

00:19:55 – 00:20:10

All that stuff. The only thing you don't have is the rail specific syntax, but I don't think that's gonna be a huge problem. I think I said this in software social, but, like, my goal is to have, you know, each step mapped out, committed, like, so we can just walk through the commits to get them where we wanna get them.

Aaron

00:20:11 – 00:20:19

Okay. Yeah. That sounds doable to me. I think things I could I think you're right. I could help field some of the SQL questions.

Aaron

00:20:21 – 00:20:40

I think I could also explain I think we have a few philosophical, like Yes. Guidelines that we follow. And I think I could help kind of explain and set the scene for some of those. And I can vamp. I mean, if you need somebody to vamp while you're while you're coding Right.

Aaron

00:20:40 – 00:20:51

I can I can do it? So Yeah. But, yeah, I I'll happily do that, and I would love to plan out something with you so we can spend, you know, however much time we need to get in that ready.

Colleen

00:20:51 – 00:21:01

Yeah. I think it'll be interesting. I well, I submitted you for approval, so they have to approve you. But, I assume that won't be a problem. So I think it'll be good.

Colleen

00:21:01 – 00:21:14

I think, too, it just makes, like, the ownership of the workshop more clear. Like, everything is just a little more clear doing it with you than doing it with a friend, but then, you know, where you don't necessarily have incentive alignment.

Aaron

00:21:15 – 00:21:15

You know

Colleen

00:21:15 – 00:21:15

what I mean? That makes

Aaron

00:21:15 – 00:21:17

sense. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Colleen

00:21:17 – 00:21:30

So I think it's gonna be good. It'll just be a syntax thing, and we can sort that out as we go. But I think SQL, front end, I think you're right. Like, kind of overreaching principles, you can speak to that, and I think it'll be good. Okay.

Colleen

00:21:30 – 00:21:31

And so

Aaron

00:21:31 – 00:21:36

So we need to plan out some time at some point to start that process. Is that what's next?

Colleen

00:21:36 – 00:21:47

Yeah. So I actually have a super detailed outline that I had to give them, you know, as my comp proposal. Yeah. So I have a super detailed outline. Like, but what I think my thought is what I'll do is I'm doing a long day.

Colleen

00:21:47 – 00:22:04

So I've kind of changed the way I'm working. I think I mentioned I used to work, like, 3 nights a week. I'm now doing like long days, which has been wonderful, by the way. And so I have a long day on Thursday. So Thursday is the day I'm gonna really wrap my head around this and try to figure out what I think.

Colleen

00:22:04 – 00:22:20

And I'll just and then we'll discuss it, what I think it should be within the constraints of what I've already provided them. How because because I think the question is my vision is I'll send you the outline so you can look at it. But my vision is, like, we build out the text condition. And what you only have 2 hours. So what how much can you get done in 2 hours?

Colleen

00:22:20 – 00:22:29

You build out maybe the text condition without validations or something. Right? Whatever you can get done in in the 2 hour block of time. So that's kinda what I'm thinking.

Aaron

00:22:29 – 00:22:30

That sounds great.

Colleen

00:22:30 – 00:22:46

But I'm gonna take Thursday as the day. Like, I'm really gonna dive into this. And so Friday or Monday, depending on once you get settled in your new work schedule and you know what that looks like, I really, really don't like to leave things to the last minute. So I've really Yeah. Okay.

Colleen

00:22:46 – 00:22:55

Like, I really wanna be on top of this. This is coming so fast. It's like It is. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 weeks away. So, yeah.

Colleen

00:22:55 – 00:23:03

Let me see how far I get Thursday, and I'll let you know Friday. But then I'd like to meet and and go over it and make sure we're on the same page with that.

Aaron

00:23:03 – 00:23:04

Yep. Okay. That sounds great.

Colleen

00:23:04 – 00:23:07

Tickets flight hotel for RailsConf. That's also fire.

Aaron

00:23:07 – 00:23:09

Yes. I saw you sent me an email

Colleen

00:23:10 – 00:23:10

I did.

Aaron

00:23:10 – 00:23:20

With a place to grab a ticket. So I will do that. And then, are you staying at the conference hotel that was listed? Okay.

Colleen

00:23:20 – 00:23:24

And the rate is only valid until tomorrow, so you need to book it today.

Aaron

00:23:24 – 00:23:27

We should put a double fire next to that one. Right? Okay.

Colleen

00:23:27 – 00:23:38

Yes. I didn't realize that. I booked mine yesterday, and I swear it said it was only valid until April 13th. So just I haven't booked my flight yet, but just book your hotel today. There's a speaker dinner the night before.

Colleen

00:23:39 – 00:23:42

I think it'd be good if if you can to come to it. You don't have to.

Aaron

00:23:42 – 00:23:46

I cannot believe I'm a speaker at a Rails conference. This is so hysterical to me.

Colleen

00:23:46 – 00:23:47

You're so famous.

Aaron

00:23:48 – 00:23:50

I I'm not. That's the thing. I don't

Colleen

00:23:50 – 00:23:56

belong here. Though. Like, at Sin City Ruby, people, like, knew you. Like, I've ran into people.

Aaron

00:23:56 – 00:24:01

It's like Basically, like, half of the conference was my friends, which is so weird, but it was great.

Colleen

00:24:01 – 00:24:10

It was such a good conference. Yeah. So RailsConf just I feel like this is gonna be such a boring podcast. Sorry, everyone who's listening. It's like all logistics.

Aaron

00:24:10 – 00:24:11

No. This is great.

Colleen

00:24:12 – 00:24:15

Hey, man. It's all in the execution. Ideas are cheap.

Aaron

00:24:15 – 00:24:16

That's true.

Colleen

00:24:16 – 00:24:32

So I think in that email, it says when the speaker dinner is, but you have to come in the night before the conference to go to the speaker dinner. If you cannot, you cannot, but that's ideal because those kinds of events I find are the most value added events. Yep. Right? Because you get to interact with leaders in the community.

Aaron

00:24:32 – 00:24:34

Yep. For sure.

Colleen

00:24:34 – 00:24:38

Okay. K. So you're gonna do that. You're gonna get your hotel today. We'll worry about flights.

Colleen

00:24:38 – 00:24:42

Whatever. Hotel today. Okay. Alright. So let's review our p one fire.

Colleen

00:24:42 – 00:24:44

You're gonna do landing page for Laravel

Aaron

00:24:44 – 00:24:45

Mhmm.

Colleen

00:24:45 – 00:24:57

Full next week. I'm gonna crush some workshop on Thursday and see how far I get, and I'll touch base with you at the end of the week. And then we're both gonna get our tickets flights for RailsConf, which is only a month away. Okay. Great.

Colleen

00:24:57 – 00:25:05

P 2. Zach's feedback, we'll talk about that at another day another date, I'd say, once we get the initial landing page up.

Aaron

00:25:05 – 00:25:05

Colleen

00:25:05 – 00:25:09

Let's talk about all of our front ends. Can you walk me through these?

Aaron

00:25:09 – 00:25:11

I can. Okay. So some of this,

Colleen

00:25:12 – 00:25:16

Let me get to our refine page. Okay. I'm on our repo page.

Aaron

00:25:16 – 00:25:26

Some of this, I'm gonna have to pick up from Sean and the 2 contractors, but I can give you an overview of where I believe they all stand.

Colleen

00:25:27 – 00:25:27

Okay.

Aaron

00:25:28 – 00:25:36

So refine rails, you know that. Refined Laravel, you know that. Refined Nova, we've already talked about. So we have vue 2, vue 3, and React.

Colleen

00:25:36 – 00:25:36

Right.

Aaron

00:25:36 – 00:25:54

The never the never ending story of v 2, v 3 and react. Here's where we're at. V 2 and v 3, are so v 2, view 3, and React, they're working together. We have 2 contractors. Dave is over React, and then Robin is over view 2 and view 3.

Aaron

00:25:55 – 00:26:34

They are working together. So these things are like, marching in lockstep, and they're working together to share, like, I don't know, TypeScript type definitions across both, some common code across both so that the blueprint and everything's built the same way. And then the thing that's most important is they're working on a, UI theming customization layer across both. Right? So we don't want, like, we don't want to end up in a spot where we're in just completely different, styles and structures of doing things because that's gonna maintenance burden over the long term.

Aaron

00:26:35 – 00:26:49

Great. So I will check-in with the 2 contractors this week because I feel like this is now my responsibility, unless you just have a burning desire to be the front end person. Yeah. I didn't think so. So this is now my responsibility.

Aaron

00:26:49 – 00:27:10

So I will check-in with Dave and Robin and figure out, 1, where are we? And, 2, like, what is stopping us from merging everything into Maine? Like, are we are we close? Are we not close? What are you are you guys waiting on Sean for something, which would then, you know, become my responsibility?

Aaron

00:27:11 – 00:27:29

So that's that's where I understand us to be. I will probably just go directly to the 2 of them and ask those questions. And if I can't understand something that was done technically, I'll loop Sean in, but I think just going directly to them makes the most sense.

Colleen

00:27:30 – 00:27:33

Okay. And I would put that after the landing page. Like, that's not

Aaron

00:27:33 – 00:27:34

For sure.

Colleen

00:27:34 – 00:27:40

That's that's not super high priority. I mean, we gotta get it I wanna know. We gotta know, but it's not like Right. You don't have to do it. Not burning desire.

Aaron

00:27:40 – 00:27:41

Okay.

Colleen

00:27:42 – 00:27:49

Some cool stuff about the rails is I was talking to Andrew. I feel like we're feature complete for our baseline product.

Aaron

00:27:50 – 00:27:50

Great.

Colleen

00:27:50 – 00:27:52

So we're gonna pull it out.

Aaron

00:27:52 – 00:27:52

Huge. Yeah.

Colleen

00:27:52 – 00:28:14

It's huge. I mean, we're not feature complete for the consultant or the consultant from the client because they want a lot of really cool stuff, which we're gonna build them, which is gonna be great. Otherwise, I think we're good. So I'm talking to Andrew this week about getting that pulled out of the repo and doing that as a standalone, you know, making that a standalone gem.

Aaron

00:28:14 – 00:28:14

Great.

Colleen

00:28:14 – 00:28:42

That, I think, is what we're gonna the thing about this workshop is what are we gonna use for the front end? And I think because React isn't done, so I can't wait for that for the workshop. So I think the front end component, I'll have to see how Andrew feels about us using, like, his bullet train styles. I don't think he'll care. So I think when we do this workshop, it's gonna be the baseline level bullet train, maybe, with our hot wire front end, and then we'll build out the back end.

Aaron

00:28:42 – 00:28:47

You could also use the Vue front end. I mean, the Vue 2 front end is done. It's just not customizable.

Colleen

00:28:48 – 00:28:52

Okay. So maybe alright. So we could use view 2 too. Okay. Alright.

Colleen

00:28:52 – 00:28:58

I'll sort that out on Thursday. I'll figure out what we're gonna use. Okay. Okay. So rails in progress.

Colleen

00:28:58 – 00:29:07

I feel like something else exciting happened with rails. I can't remember right now. All right. Nova's ready for sale. You'll check-in when you have time, but that's lower priority.

Colleen

00:29:07 – 00:29:13

With our contractors okay. That sounds good. Oh, man. We have a lot to do.

Aaron

00:29:13 – 00:29:15

We have a whole lot to do.

Colleen

00:29:16 – 00:29:16

Okay. We

Aaron

00:29:16 – 00:29:24

have a whole lot to do. We've always had a lot to do. We've always had a lot to do. Now, there's renewed vigor, and it feels like, holy crap. We've got a lot to do.

Colleen

00:29:25 – 00:29:40

Okay. So I think okay. So I also put on this list, you know, figure out when it's gonna be done and find out realistic deadlines for front end completion. And then we gotta circle back with the designer. Because Sean had hired a designer, so someone has to pick that up from him.

Colleen

00:29:40 – 00:29:50

But again, I feel like oh, my comment is no idea what the status is here. Okay. The designer is a lower priority. That doesn't have to happen this week.

Aaron

00:29:51 – 00:29:51

Agreed.

Colleen

00:29:51 – 00:30:11

So I think this week is focused on the the way I kind of like to work, and happy to hear your feedback on how you like to work. Take a short list of things that we can get done in a week, get them done, revisit, you know, re attack with the next list of things instead of holding 20 things in our head that's kind of like background noise.

Aaron

00:30:11 – 00:30:14

That sounds amazing to me. I'm very tired of background noise.

Colleen

00:30:15 – 00:30:16

Okay.

Aaron

00:30:16 – 00:30:25

Yeah. So that sound that sounds great to me. Okay. So by next week, we'll have a landing page for Nova, and I will have a hotel room.

Colleen

00:30:25 – 00:30:27

And I will you need a hotel room today, but okay.

Aaron

00:30:27 – 00:30:29

Yes. But that's still by next week.

Colleen

00:30:29 – 00:30:38

By next week. Yes. And I am gonna do deep dive on this workshop. I'm gonna figure out exactly what we're gonna do. My biggest challenge is how I'm gonna do the front end, like, how I'm gonna build the repo.

Colleen

00:30:38 – 00:30:47

Do I wanna build it in bullet train with our stimulus controllers, or do I just wanna make us a clean package with Vue? So do you have strong thoughts on that, by the way?

Aaron

00:30:48 – 00:31:00

I don't. I'm not, in it enough to know if the hot wire stuff is easily transferable. I think the view stuff might be easier based on what I've heard you talk about, but I don't know.

Colleen

00:31:00 – 00:31:05

Okay. I think it'll be alright. Oh, I know what I was gonna tell you. I actually took some time. It was so good.

Colleen

00:31:05 – 00:31:11

Last week, I, like, took some time to write docs for the front end stimulus controllers.

Aaron

00:31:11 – 00:31:11

Oh, nice.

Colleen

00:31:12 – 00:31:33

And it was just really good to kinda get because it's kinda murky. Yeah. And we had been changing the API to make it simpler, and Sean has just had just done all of that huge block of work on saving filters. And so that was really good. So now that I have written some docs on it, I have a little more clarity on how to implement it in someone else's repo.

Colleen

00:31:34 – 00:31:38

Okay. So that's all. So yeah. Let me look at that. That would be my ideal.

Colleen

00:31:38 – 00:31:45

So my ideal would be to use what we have because that's railsy. It's hot wire. It's stimulus. It's turbo. People understand that.

Colleen

00:31:45 – 00:31:58

That'll be my ideal situation. But, again, like, I have to see how much work it actually is to pull it out and put it somewhere else. And is it hopefully hopefully, it's as seamless as it is I think it will be, but you know how that goes. You never know.

Aaron

00:31:58 – 00:31:59

Oh, I do. Yep. Okay.

Colleen

00:31:59 – 00:32:11

You never know. Okay. Cool. And then you're gonna move our sales over, and I feel like following up on that okay. So you're gonna move that over to Notion so we have all that in one place?

Colleen

00:32:11 – 00:32:13

Yep. Mhmm. Alright. That's that's all I got.

Aaron

00:32:13 – 00:32:15

That's all you got? That's a lot. That's all

Colleen

00:32:15 – 00:32:17

I got. That is a lot. I know.

Aaron

00:32:17 – 00:32:18

Okay.

Colleen

00:32:18 – 00:32:19

It's a lot.

Aaron

00:32:19 – 00:32:21

So how we feeling?

Colleen

00:32:21 – 00:32:28

Dude, I feel freaking great. I'm a little I mean, like I said, the I'll feel so much better after I figure out how I'm gonna do the workshop. Excuse me.

Aaron

00:32:28 – 00:32:29

Yeah.

Colleen

00:32:30 – 00:32:59

Like, once I have that sorted, I'm gonna feel even better talking to Michelle about this on Software Social, and that's kinda gonna be excuse me. That's going to kinda be the Software Social arc for the next 5 months is, like Great. Similar to what you and I just did. Like, what is the next step to make this business move forward? There is no reason I mean, we shouldn't be able to I think 50 k is a totally reasonable if we sell 10 licenses a month, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to get that handled, like, get that sold by August.

Aaron

00:32:59 – 00:33:00

Oh, I fully agree.

Colleen

00:33:00 – 00:33:16

So we just need to double down on it. I think our problem is gonna be remembering to sell the things that we're building and be vocal about it and, do all of that stuff. Although, now that you have a marketing job, you know, your mindset set should be pretty market y. Right?

Aaron

00:33:16 – 00:33:36

Yeah. Yeah. But there is a distinct difference between markety and salesy. I feel like I've been pretty markety all along with Hammerstone, but not like 0% salesy. Like, I've been good at I've been good at, you know, driving attention, but bad at, like, turning that into dollars.

Colleen

00:33:37 – 00:33:38

Yeah. Okay.

Aaron

00:33:38 – 00:33:38

So Yeah.

Colleen

00:33:38 – 00:33:39

I have we'll we'll make us stay

Aaron

00:33:39 – 00:33:40

on track there.

Colleen

00:33:40 – 00:33:49

Yeah. I think it'll be really good. I think the 2 of us, Michelle, you know, with her her almost being like a business coach on my other podcast.

Aaron

00:33:49 – 00:33:50

Right.

Colleen

00:33:50 – 00:34:05

I think this would be great, but I think this is it. Like, I think we can do it. I think we can get to 30, 40, 50 ks by August, which buys me enough runway to go 4 to 6 months all in, and we can really move the needle on this thing. So I feel This is our shot. This is it.

Colleen

00:34:05 – 00:34:06

Yes.

Aaron

00:34:06 – 00:34:11

No more no more dilly dallying. This is our this is our chance. It's either gonna work or it's not.

Colleen

00:34:11 – 00:34:17

Oh my goodness. Side note, one of my favorite children's books is What Do You Do With a Chance? Have you ever seen it?

Aaron

00:34:17 – 00:34:18

No. Never heard of it.

Colleen

00:34:18 – 00:34:19

Oh my gosh. I'll send you the link. I love it.

Aaron

00:34:19 – 00:34:19

Yeah. Absolutely.

Colleen

00:34:19 – 00:34:21

You should start reading it to your children.

Aaron

00:34:21 – 00:34:22

Okay.

Colleen

00:34:22 – 00:34:24

Okay. Anything else? I did most of the talking.

Aaron

00:34:25 – 00:34:30

Let's see. No. I don't think I have anything on my side. No.

Colleen

00:34:30 – 00:34:32

Okay. Sounds great.

Aaron

00:34:32 – 00:34:32

All it there.

Colleen

00:34:32 – 00:34:33

Alright.

Some Big Changes

Transcript

Not enough emails?