Aaron Francis

In this very special pilot episode of 'Mostly Technical', Ian & Aaron discuss everything from LK-99 to Screencasting.com & Aaron's 'Maximum Effort' era. Sponsored by LaraJobs & HelloQuery. Links for this week's show: Aaron's talk at Laracon 2023 Screencasting.com ScreenFlow Lemon Squeezy Aaron on his 'Maximum Effort' era

Watch on YouTube →

Transcript

Ian

00:00:01 – 00:00:09

Alright. Hey, everybody. It's me, Ian Landsman. I'm here with Aaron Francis. This is our first episode of the Mostly Technical podcast.

Ian

00:00:11 – 00:00:15

So really exciting to have you here, Aaron, and for us to be starting this podcast.

Aaron

00:00:15 – 00:00:25

Yeah. I'm super excited. I I'm a long time listener of your old podcast, and it was one of my favorites. And when I'll I'll let you tell the whole story. But when you reached out to me, I was like, yes.

Aaron

00:00:25 – 00:00:26

I'm in, baby.

Ian

00:00:26 – 00:00:32

Let's do it. Yeah. It's crazy. So, yeah. The yeah.

Ian

00:00:32 – 00:00:59

Bootstrap FM was a podcast I had with Andre Butoff for years, but that's been already, like, 6 years ago or something crazy. Time time flies when you have all the kids and the business and everything. So, yeah. So it kinda actually leads into this because it kinda felt like I was kinda getting the itch for doing a podcast. And so I've been just had this noodling in my brain for quite some time, but just haven't had kind of the right moment.

Ian

00:01:00 – 00:01:36

Didn't really feel like I had the right person, because, you know, find the right cohost, you I feel like the the, you know, the cohost is obviously super important for us to have a good rapport and to have kind of topics that we can, you know, riff on and everything kinda be in the same zone. So, yeah, so I've just been had my eyes out. And then, Laracon in Nashville just a couple weeks ago here, we were catching up. We did an amazing talk there and, MC'd the whole thing, which was, incredible job there on your part. And, yeah, it just hit me.

Ian

00:01:36 – 00:01:51

I was like, oh, Aaron. That'd be the perfect guy. So, you know, we're both obviously deep in Laravel. We're both business people, and, we both have a lot of things going on with our businesses. Both have a lot of things going on in the Laravel world.

Ian

00:01:53 – 00:02:04

So it just seemed like a good fit. We could have a podcast. We could discuss what's going on in Laravel. We could discuss what's going on with us, both, you know, personal, fun stuff, business stuff. Yeah.

Ian

00:02:04 – 00:02:13

So it just seemed like it would be interesting and entertaining for, you know, the people out there. And, so yeah. So I reached out to you and you agreed to do it.

Aaron

00:02:13 – 00:02:23

So And and I'm excited. You forgot the most important part. We've both watched Seinfeld enough that that we'll we'll get we'll get our little one liners and our little our little jokes. So it's gonna be

Ian

00:02:23 – 00:02:28

the traditional version. The Seinfeld. Yes. We got Seinfeld in common for sure.

Aaron

00:02:29 – 00:02:50

Yeah. There's there's a lot to there's a lot to talk about, and I I think, I like the fact that we named it Mostly Technical because I think on our list, we've got lots of fun stuff that's like, is that really technical? But who cares? This is a mostly technical podcast. Of course, we'll talk about of course, we'll talk about Laravel and the happenings in the community, but there's a lot of fun stuff going on.

Aaron

00:02:50 – 00:03:05

I've got a full time job. You own a company with a bunch of employees. I'm trying to build something on the side. You're learning React for some reason, which I can't wait to continually roast you about. It's just there's a lot of there's a lot of fun stuff to talk about, so I'm excited.

Ian

00:03:05 – 00:03:10

Yeah. For sure. You have babies coming. I mean, there's a there's gonna be a lot of stuff.

Aaron

00:03:10 – 00:03:12

Bunch of babies on the way. Yeah.

Ian

00:03:12 – 00:03:22

My babe my babies are kinda getting big. The oldest is 17, so you have the new babies coming in. So we got a lot of stuff there on both sides of that equation we could talk about. So

Aaron

00:03:22 – 00:03:23

Yeah.

Ian

00:03:23 – 00:03:37

Yeah. That there's all good stuff there. Yeah. So I'm I'm excited that this I mean, we have a, a huge list of coming starting this right after Laracon, there's like Mhmm. I mean, we could do, like, probably 4 hours of Laravel stuff.

Ian

00:03:37 – 00:03:52

So we're gonna try to sprinkle that in throughout. Try to do these every week, I think. We'll see how that goes. But I think we should be able to, most most of the time, pull that off with a few exceptions. And then, you know, Chadiya, keep you know, Laravel moves so quick.

Ian

00:03:52 – 00:03:53

That's that's the thing.

Aaron

00:03:53 – 00:03:54

It does. Yeah.

Ian

00:03:54 – 00:04:13

Even in these the off, you know, times where there's nothing going on, like, Taylor's always got dropping new things with you know, little little enhancements and stuff that are, fun to talk about for sure. So and we'll see. It's always fun to talk about code on the podcast and see how to walk that line.

Aaron

00:04:13 – 00:04:21

Yeah. How much how much code can we actually talk about in in the audio form? We'll find out. We'll find out together.

Ian

00:04:21 – 00:04:34

Yeah. That's, it'll be exciting. I've never done a purely not well, this isn't purely code either. But, like, even more heavy technical podcast because Bootstrap was not really technical at at all.

Aaron

00:04:34 – 00:04:35

No. It wasn't.

Ian

00:04:35 – 00:04:43

So this will be this will be fun, new challenge here. Alright. So what do we wanna jump into 1st? We got a big list here of all different things.

Aaron

00:04:43 – 00:04:50

Okay. So I kinda wanna talk. Let's start mostly technical. I kinda wanna talk about l k 99.

Ian

00:04:50 – 00:04:52

I know. That's a good one. I'm not really

Aaron

00:04:52 – 00:04:54

Have you been following the whole saga?

Ian

00:04:55 – 00:04:57

Yeah. A little yeah. I have been. So what do you

Aaron

00:04:57 – 00:04:57

what do

Ian

00:04:57 – 00:05:00

you think? I mean, I don't know. It was very exciting to start, but, you know

Aaron

00:05:01 – 00:05:16

Okay. So for for the listener, I will explain, what I know about LK 99. And I will I will caveat it with just because I'm on Twitter does not make me a superconductor expert. You know, I know that Really? That may surprise Yeah.

Aaron

00:05:16 – 00:05:56

That may surprise you, but I do not claim to be one. So from what I understand about LK 99, it is a room temperature, ambient pressure superconductor, which stands opposed to all the superconductors that we have, which are just like negative a 1000000000 degrees and super high pressure. And so this would be a just a monumental breakthrough if it was, you know, room temperature. And so whenever you see like a maglev train that's, like, flying above the ground, it's doing that because it's got, like, cryogenically cooled superconducting material. It takes a huge amount of energy to, like, cool the thing down so it can conduct.

Aaron

00:05:57 – 00:06:18

So that's my understanding of, like, what is going on. And supposedly so I think the story is now that these 2 scientists, like, were working under their professor in 1999 and, like, found this material. And since then, they've been unable to replicate it. And now, you know, 25 years later or whatever, they've replicated it. Kind of on accident.

Aaron

00:06:18 – 00:06:25

Like, they were pulling a tube out of the furnace and the tube cracked at just the right time, introducing oxygen, and it, like, made a super conductor.

Ian

00:06:25 – 00:06:26

So it's, like, it's got

Aaron

00:06:26 – 00:06:33

all it's got all the hallmarks of, like, this is a movie. Right? Right. Like Yeah. And that's that's part of that's part of where it's, like, hang on.

Aaron

00:06:33 – 00:06:51

This feels too good to be real. Yeah. So the fun part is, like, there there's this internal drama and fighting in this in this team out of South Korea. One guy releases a paper, and then the other the other guys are like, whole crap. We weren't ready for that, but we gotta rush to release our papers.

Aaron

00:06:51 – 00:07:05

So the papers were super sloppy, bunch of mistakes. But now all these teams around the world are racing to replicate it. Because it's just like lead and copper and phosphate or something. So it's very easy to replicate. And so now they're just on Twitter.

Aaron

00:07:05 – 00:07:26

All these all these, like, you know, material science cowboys are on Twitter being like, I'm cook I'm cooking it up in my lab. It's gonna work. Yeah. And we're starting to see like, we're starting to actually see the rocks float, which is like a sign of superconductive materials that it, like, gets in this magnetic lock where it floats in the air. So here's the deal.

Aaron

00:07:27 – 00:07:38

I'm always like like when when crypto came around, and we should talk about crypto. Oh, it totally depends. Came around, I was like, nah. This is not it. This is just not gonna work.

Aaron

00:07:38 – 00:07:44

I feel differently about this. I feel like lk 99 is it. So Wow. I I don't know. I feel hyped.

Aaron

00:07:44 – 00:07:48

What that's the backstory. What what are your thoughts on it? And then I'll I'll tell you why I'm so hyped.

Ian

00:07:49 – 00:08:03

Yeah. I mean so I didn't even actually I knew that the, group that published the the 2 different papers were, there was disagreement there. I didn't actually have all that backstory of what was actually 20 whatever years ago they first did it. So that's really interesting. I don't know.

Ian

00:08:03 – 00:08:09

You know? It feels like, I absolute yeah. When I heard it, I was like, yes. It's super exciting. I tend to be sort of optimistic.

Ian

00:08:09 – 00:08:15

And so, I was like, oh, yeah. Like, this is gonna be real. Like, I'm excited.

Aaron

00:08:16 – 00:08:17

Then, I

Ian

00:08:17 – 00:08:37

don't know, then pessimistic Twitter has been wearing away at me. Right? And it's like, people have stuff floating, but other things can make things float. So, like, that by itself is not definitive. And then it's like, it has you know, I don't feel like we've heard from, we have, like, the armchair people trying to do it, but I don't think there's been, like, you know, big lab that's been in the national lab.

Ian

00:08:37 – 00:08:56

We definitely did this, and it's super amazing and all that stuff. So, so now you're in this, like, I don't know. I'm like, should I still be super jazzed or or not? But, I mean, obviously, the possibilities are incredible. I didn't realize one thing I learned in all this was that there's already, like, thousands of superconductors that are known.

Ian

00:08:56 – 00:09:18

But, yeah, they're all require, you know, incredibly low temperature or pressure or both. So there's only, like, a handful that are even practical for, like, commercial usage. And even there, obviously, it's, you know, very, you know, narrow use cases. You're not gonna, yeah, build a huge thing or mass produce wire or something in these conditions. So it's more like for in labs and things.

Ian

00:09:18 – 00:09:24

So yeah. So I I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to think now.

Aaron

00:09:24 – 00:09:45

It does feel like this is a, I don't know, it feels like people on Twitter, at least early on, were, like, universally optimistic, and it was like, hey. And we all have something to be excited about instead of, like, be mad at each other about. You know? Instead of, like, oh, you're using JavaScript in a bad way. It's like, we made rocks that float.

Aaron

00:09:45 – 00:09:53

Right. So that part that part was super fun, but then, of course Yeah. Of course, you know, it went in a cycle, and it's like, no. You're all stupid. This is never gonna work.

Aaron

00:09:53 – 00:09:57

You should not be excited about anything ever. It's like, oh, dang it.

Ian

00:09:57 – 00:10:02

I know. I don't know though. I hope we I hope it's real. Hope it's real. It's like

Aaron

00:10:02 – 00:10:28

Super hope it's real. It would be amazing. I feel like so I feel like even if it's not real, it it is close enough to being real that it will unlock it will unlock these scientists to go down this path and find the thing that is actually real. So my my guess is, as a material sciences expert, my guess is, like, it's it is doable. Like it's real.

Aaron

00:10:28 – 00:10:50

I don't think anybody's lying. I think it's real. I think it's probably not the final form that is, like, gonna be commercialized and revolutionize the world. But I think that this is gonna be the one where they say, oh, we should go down this path and discover what's one step after this. And then that will be the part that takes us on to, like, flying cars and, you know, free clean energy forever.

Aaron

00:10:50 – 00:10:53

Right. May maybe a little maybe not that far, but, you know.

Ian

00:10:53 – 00:11:01

It's like, have you ever seen The Saint? I think it's called that movie where it's, like, the fusion reactor, you know, free energy for all and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Are you are you a movie guy?

Ian

00:11:01 – 00:11:03

This is this could be important. I'm a big movie guy.

Aaron

00:11:03 – 00:11:12

I know you're a big movie guy. I'm not as big a movie guy as you are. But I've seen I I grew up watching lots of movies with my dad, and we watched a movies with my dad, and we watched a ton of movies.

Ian

00:11:13 – 00:11:13

Okay.

Aaron

00:11:13 – 00:11:15

So I I could probably hang. I'll hang.

Ian

00:11:15 – 00:11:33

Yeah. That's the right era for me. I'm not you know, the new movie I like new movies too, but, you know, those, like, nineties movies and earlier. It's kind of my wheelhouse. But, but, anyway, yeah, like, the I mean, I one interesting thing that I read about this too is how this is based it's kind of, like, I guess, rock, you know, rock based essentially, which is why some people are pessimistic on it.

Ian

00:11:33 – 00:11:52

But, also, it does make it potentially, theoretically harder to commercialize because, like, rocks are brittle. And so, you know, if it does work and, you know, it's not like a wire you can just roll out and and things like that. So, yeah, who knows? But like like you said, I mean, it's kinda like, chat g p t, right, and, like, large language models. Like, initially, you're like, woah.

Ian

00:11:52 – 00:12:14

This is, like, does does everything. And then, you know, I mean, I use it every day still, on code and stuff. We could talk about that. But it's definitely not like you know, there's a long way to go till it's like JWT runs everything and large language models run everything. But it's the the possibility has been sparked in enough people that money then is just, like, piling in there.

Ian

00:12:14 – 00:12:42

And so, like, just like you were saying with, you know, superconductors, it's like, oh, if you get that spark that takes it out of just, like, geeks in labs who are like, yeah. We could do this to, like, more broad appeal, then sometimes that generates a lot of, just money in the space, which generates more research and so on. So even if this doesn't isn't real real, then maybe it still, helps lead to funding that does find the the easier to use superconductors, which

Aaron

00:12:43 – 00:12:43

Yeah.

Ian

00:12:43 – 00:12:44

Solves some of the issues.

Aaron

00:12:44 – 00:12:52

One thing that it's been really like, it's been really fun for me because I'm not on science Twitter. I actually don't know if science Twitter exists.

Ian

00:12:52 – 00:12:58

Yeah. I think it does, but I'm only I have a tangential, but not like that. I have a lot a lot of people I follow in the science Twitter.

Aaron

00:12:58 – 00:13:28

Seems like it seems like in the past, you know, 2 weeks, science Twitter has been main Twitter. And I think it's really fun for me because it's not just, like, them arguing about which beakers to use. It's like them, you know, showing videos about, hey, we're pulling this thing out of the furnace or, like, here's a close-up of the floaty rock. And it's like, this is what I this is all I ever want Twitter to be. All I ever want Twitter to be is really cool, interesting, smart, fun people sharing the cool, interesting, smart, fun things they're doing.

Aaron

00:13:28 – 00:13:33

And this past few weeks has been just, like, peak what I want out of Twitter.

Ian

00:13:33 – 00:13:44

Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole that's a whole interesting topic, like, philosophy of Twitter. Right? Like, I know you're you're very big on the, like, kind of, yeah, trying to take the good parts of Twitter Yes.

Ian

00:13:45 – 00:13:58

With and not be pulled down so deep into the into the negative parts of Twitter. I'm I'm more on the line. Like, sometimes I get down in negative Twitter. Twitter. But, yeah, I don't know.

Ian

00:13:58 – 00:14:14

That's the thing. Yeah. I don't know if we aren't going all into Twitter, but Twitter is sort of a a interesting topic. And it has been yeah. The science Twitter can I feel like the whole thing, like science Twitter, chat GBT Twitter, LLM Twitter, and people, like, experimenting with all that stuff?

Ian

00:14:14 – 00:14:34

And there's, like, the Lang chain AI guy. Yeah. All kinds of different people doing interesting, AI type stuff. And, yeah, it's been a nice injection of, optimism and kind of, science and technology moving forward and, things like that that's been really cool and refreshing for sure.

Aaron

00:14:35 – 00:14:49

Yeah. I like I like the vibe shift that's happened recently. I will say the the problem is if we get to the point where it's like, you're using lk 99 incorrectly. Here are 10 things you you can do to use LK 99 better. That's when it's gone too far.

Aaron

00:14:49 – 00:14:59

That's when we've entered back into, like, okay, popular thing of the moment turns into grifter Twitter, and I'm like, god, freaking this happens every time. So yeah.

Ian

00:14:59 – 00:15:00

It's just human nature.

Aaron

00:15:00 – 00:15:14

It happens every day. Got lots of I've got lots of opinions about Twitter, so we could talk about that at some at some point. But Yeah. This one has been fun. This has been a very show and tell week on Twitter, and those are my favorite those are my favorite types of content to consume.

Ian

00:15:15 – 00:15:29

Well and that's such a interesting thing with, like, hard science type stuff. It's like, yeah. We're like, there's videos of, like, people trying to replicate this thing, and their things are on fire, and there's beakers, and there's Mhmm. Containers that do stuff. Who the hell knows what it does?

Ian

00:15:29 – 00:15:52

Like and just even just watching those is interesting. And that's actually kinda like one of the problems even, you know, with what we do as I feel like sometimes it is just hard to show. Like, obviously, there's, like yeah, you can have your screenshots with the cool background and here's my code snippet or whatever, but it's still just like a hard thing to show. Like, I run into this all the time with even my kids. It's like, what do I do for a living?

Ian

00:15:52 – 00:15:59

Like, dad looks at the screen all day. Like Yep. If I was, like, a scientist and I could bring them to the lab and they could see, like, oh, look. Here's a thing on fire. Right?

Ian

00:15:59 – 00:16:18

Like Yeah. That resonates with a child when it's just like, I'm looking at the screen and you could come next to me and look at the screen with me or, you know, you one of my kids is taking, like, a coding class or whatever, but it's just not it doesn't, like, click like what No. Dad does all day. You know? I think that's, one of the unfortunate things for me.

Ian

00:16:18 – 00:16:20

It's a little hard sometimes to convey what we do.

Aaron

00:16:21 – 00:16:37

Yeah. And even, like, even the final output of what, you know, both of us and most of us do is, like, okay. So maybe we can't show them the process because we don't have a cool furnace. At least we can show them the end result, which is b to b SaaS. Like, You can

Ian

00:16:37 – 00:16:39

query this database. So exciting.

Aaron

00:16:40 – 00:16:46

Like, look. You can put first name equals Aaron, and all the Aaron's show up. And they're like, why? I don't care about that. Right.

Aaron

00:16:46 – 00:16:51

Like, I wanna see a rock float. So, yeah, that is Yeah. That is Yeah.

Ian

00:16:51 – 00:17:04

Kinda frustrating. Unless you're gonna make, like, a a music app or a social media app maybe, although my kids aren't into that too much. So, like yeah. There's just it's hard to, yeah. It's like my, oldest son's been working in the business this summer.

Aaron

00:17:04 – 00:17:05

Oh, cool.

Ian

00:17:05 – 00:17:25

And it's been really interesting. Dave Hicking, who works at Userscape with me, has been his manager, actually. And, but it's been cool. I think he's had a kinda interesting time digging into the business and figuring out what the hell we do because he's 17, like, not really sure essentially because, like, he knows the very broadest strokes, and that's it. Because, you know, what's, like, b b b b.

Aaron

00:17:25 – 00:17:28

He in? Is he, like, in a ops support or customer support

Ian

00:17:28 – 00:17:47

or what? Been doing like, he did a little bit of, just, like, shadowing, and then, he's been doing a bunch of research. Like, so far, he's mostly done competitive research in help for HelpSpot. And then he's moving on now to some Lara Jobs, like, competitive research. So, yeah, just good, like, intern.

Ian

00:17:47 – 00:17:56

Like, hey. Go look at everybody in this space and aggregate a bunch of information and, come up with some recommendations and things like that.

Aaron

00:17:56 – 00:17:58

Cool. Do you think he's liking it?

Ian

00:17:58 – 00:18:06

He is. He said he's liking it. Yeah. He's actually probably gonna be a history major, so he's not really into the business stuff so much. But he's liked it.

Ian

00:18:06 – 00:18:22

And, yeah, so far so good with that. But, yeah. But so it's been interesting to have have one of the kids in in the mix on the business and, learning more about it, but I still wish I had a lab where I could blow things up and For sure.

Aaron

00:18:22 – 00:18:41

100%. Yeah. I think it is, like, in terms of, like, sharing stuff on Twitter. I don't know that, you know, your 17 year old history major son's ever gonna love b to b sass. But I our peers, you know, it is possible, like, the code with the pretty background or short little videos.

Aaron

00:18:41 – 00:19:03

I think it is possible for people to, like, train themselves to see the things that they're doing and, like, just even have a little notepad and be like, oh, that thing that I just did was interesting. I should share that later. Because everybody's always like, man, I don't know what to share on Twitter. I'm like, did you do anything interesting, even mildly interesting? Just, like, barely interesting this week in your code base.

Aaron

00:19:04 – 00:19:17

Just write it down, put that on Twitter, and see what happens. And once you do that enough, you start to get used to, like, oh, this is a good piece of content that I just produced as a part of my regular job. I'm gonna put that out there. And, yeah, you get used to it.

Ian

00:19:18 – 00:19:55

And that I mean, that kinda touches on a couple of our other topics here because it's like, well, first of all, this was kind of the theme part of the theme of your talk at Laracon was just, like, to get out there and share things. And it is hard to get over that hump of, like, actually just putting things out there, especially if you're, you know, not as comfortable doing that. And then even your specific example here is Tobias, and, like, he does a lot of database info just exactly in that format. And I know on our list here, we have he's coming out with an indexing book. But if you're not familiar with him, I don't know his last name off top of my head.

Ian

00:19:55 – 00:20:08

Petrie. But, okay. Tobias Petrie. So he does he just does shares a lot of interesting little database factoids on Twitter, and, I think he has some other places too. But, and a newsletter.

Ian

00:20:08 – 00:20:15

That's why I tend to actually see it if I miss him on Twitter because I'm not always, like, completing Twitter anymore. So, he does send them out on emails too. And,

Aaron

00:20:15 – 00:20:18

the SQL for devs newsletters. Yeah.

Ian

00:20:18 – 00:20:32

Yep. And it's great. It's just like, here's a little nugget of, like, database wonderfulness. And, and, yeah, I mean I mean, the data just one database platform has, like, practically infinite nuggets in it. And then if you cover he does usually cover at least my

Aaron

00:20:32 – 00:20:33

He has all of

Ian

00:20:33 – 00:20:44

them. Yeah. So, and then in my world, I also deal with Microsoft SQL Server. So, yeah, there's always, like, yeah, database platforms are infinite fountain of, interesting topics.

Aaron

00:20:44 – 00:21:03

It's totally an infinite content glitch for him that he can just talk about databases. And yeah. So he's got a he's got a book coming out. It's like indexing beyond the basics or something. I immediate I immediately bought whatever the highest package was because anything that anything that Tobias does on databases, I'm gonna buy for sure.

Aaron

00:21:04 – 00:21:25

And it's like this is probably a very good example because I think all of the stuff that he, you know, puts in tweets and newsletters, he's known that stuff for 10 or 15 years. You know? And it's kinda hard to be like, do I really wanna share this? Because, like, this seems very simple. But then he puts it out there, and you look at the numbers on his tweets, and it's like, oh, nobody else knew this but Tobias.

Aaron

00:21:26 – 00:22:00

But Tobias knew it for a super long time. And so, yeah, he's he's one of the ones that has been he's grown a very, like, stable, solid, steady audience by just talking about the thing that he knows and loves, and that's, like, perfect example. So, yeah, we'll put a we'll put a link to his book in the show notes, but definitely go check it out. In in actually, in my Laracon talk, I mentioned, like, when I was really trying to get good at databases, I thought, like, I'm I'm smart, but I'm not as smart as Tobias or Kai. And this is the Tobias this is the Tobias that I was talking about.

Ian

00:22:00 – 00:22:01

Oh my gosh. That's funny.

Aaron

00:22:01 – 00:22:01

Yeah.

Ian

00:22:02 – 00:22:17

Yeah. I mean, indexing book. I I don't know if I've ever seen an indexing book. I mean, there's probably some out there, I'm guessing, like, quite long ago would be my guess is, like, you know, late nineties, somebody produced some indexing books. But, yeah, I think that's gonna be interesting topic.

Ian

00:22:17 – 00:22:18

I definitely signed up too because, like,

Aaron

00:22:19 – 00:22:20

you love database stuff.

Ian

00:22:20 – 00:22:30

Indexes. I just love it. Do. If I wasn't doing this, I think I could be like, if I had to have, like, an actual job, like, database guy, I think could be one. Like, I don't know enough right now.

Ian

00:22:30 – 00:22:33

That's me. But, like, I have an interest in the database. Yeah. I could be.

Aaron

00:22:33 – 00:22:37

Full time job as database guy. You want to be me, and I want to be you. It's amazing.

Ian

00:22:37 – 00:22:41

There we go. We maybe we should trade places at work. We can

Aaron

00:22:41 – 00:22:48

actually freaky Friday. Podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I remember I did a database talk at Lyricon online, and you came on afterwards.

Aaron

00:22:48 – 00:22:55

And you said as the host, and you said something like, oh, man. I just love database talks. I could just listen to database talks all day long.

Ian

00:22:55 – 00:23:09

It's so good. You always learn something, and everybody needs the things. And, you know what I mean? Like, even if it's just simple things, it's like there's so many gotchas and Mhmm. Edge cases and everybody's always looking for them to be optimized or faster or whatever.

Ian

00:23:09 – 00:23:18

Store something that you didn't think you could store. Like, there's just a 1,000,000 things, and every app in the world basically touches on them. So, yeah. It's like a cool

Aaron

00:23:18 – 00:23:51

Yeah. He's got I I like I like his angle because I think his angle is the same angle that I took for my SQL for developers, which is a more, like it's it's broader than just indexing. He's going super deep on indexing. I think his angle is, like, what does the application developer need? Like, what do you actually need to know not to be a DBA, like a database administrator, which is a, you know, fine calling, but I think his audience is all app devs and it's like, we need to know slightly different things than than DBAs.

Aaron

00:23:51 – 00:24:10

And I think that's his angle. There's a good book called, I think it's use the index use the index luke.com or something like that. And that's a good one, but it's very, it's extremely broad in that it covers, you know, 6 different databases. And Mhmm. It is it's pretty it's pretty technical and less practical.

Aaron

00:24:11 – 00:24:18

So I think this will be I think Tobias' book will be the spiritual successor to use the index. That's that's my hope at least.

Ian

00:24:19 – 00:24:20

Ah, I didn't know about use the index. Interesting.

Aaron

00:24:20 – 00:24:21

Yeah.

Ian

00:24:21 – 00:24:35

Yeah. That's what the home page for it seemed kind of like, I think, from what he has out there now. It's, like, just explaining how, like, compound indexes work and some stuff like that. It's just like in his examples. But I thought the really interesting part is he's gonna use illustrations in a lot of it, which is a genius idea.

Ian

00:24:35 – 00:24:48

Mhmm. Because to have it, like, well illustrated for how the index operates, I think, is really useful since it tends to just devolve into, like, outputs of explain or whatever. And you're like, okay. Like, I don't know. Whatever.

Ian

00:24:49 – 00:24:55

It says it used this index. I don't get it. And then, but having it visualized, should be really cool.

Aaron

00:24:55 – 00:25:07

Yeah. I don't know who did his landing page, but it is not a database landing page. It's a proper full on, like, this is a beautiful I mean, it's an info product, but it looks like a beautiful SaaS landing page.

Ian

00:25:07 – 00:25:07

Yeah.

Aaron

00:25:07 – 00:25:14

And then I know that Tobias didn't do that. He's very good at a lot of things. I don't think he's a designer. This is He didn't know. This is next level.

Ian

00:25:15 – 00:25:20

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe he's working with somebody. Because, obviously, he's had somebody do the illustrations too. I assume he didn't do the illustrations.

Ian

00:25:21 – 00:25:23

So maybe he's, got a partner on it or something or

Aaron

00:25:23 – 00:25:34

just Yeah. We talked a little bit because when I I recently did a a screencasting website and he reached out and was like, hey. Who did you use for your designer? I used this person. I forgot who he said, but his designer did a great job.

Aaron

00:25:34 – 00:25:34

Yeah.

Ian

00:25:35 – 00:25:41

Yeah. So let's talk about your endeavor here. You are a man of many new endeavors. So I'm

Aaron

00:25:41 – 00:25:46

a busy, busy man. You wanna talk screencasting.com?

Ian

00:25:47 – 00:25:49

Yes. Let's do it.

Aaron

00:25:49 – 00:26:03

K. So, yeah, I so I did this I did this, you know, big MySQL for developers course for for PlanetScale where I work. And afterwards, people were like, hey. The course is really good. How did you do it?

Aaron

00:26:03 – 00:26:13

Like, hey. How did you do this? Like, hey. How can I do how can I do screencast like that? And, you know, I would answer and be like, oh, here's some of the things I did, and it just kept happening.

Aaron

00:26:13 – 00:26:28

And I was like, hey. This is an opportunity. Maybe I have, you know, something that I can say or, like, I'm uniquely positioned to to teach something here. And so I just recorded a bunch of videos. I'm not I'm not totally done yet.

Aaron

00:26:28 – 00:26:33

I have, like, maybe 40 recorded, and I have just a few more to go. Yeah. It's a lot.

Ian

00:26:34 – 00:26:35

That's a lot.

Aaron

00:26:35 – 00:26:58

And I started looking around and was like, okay. What am I gonna, like, what am I gonna name this thing? I could do something like, you know, technical screencasts for developers.com because, you know, everything's taken. There's there's nothing available. And I didn't wanna do, like, I didn't wanna really do like a dot dev and I didn't wanna do a dot so or dot io.

Aaron

00:26:58 – 00:27:20

And I just wanted to, like, I wanted to go for it. You know? And so I started looking around and I looked at the I started looking GoDaddy premium domain auctions, and there were some there were some good domains on there. And then I came across screencasting.com, and I was like, are you kidding me?

Ian

00:27:20 – 00:27:23

How is that just available when you need it? Like, that's unbelievable.

Aaron

00:27:23 – 00:27:37

Why screencasting.com? And I sent it to, I sent it to like, I sent a screenshot of the auction. It was actually a buy now. I sent a screenshot of the buy now to, Andrew Culver, who who I think you know. Right?

Aaron

00:27:37 – 00:27:48

You know, Andrew, he's a he's in the Ruby community. He builds Bullet Train. I sent it to him, and I sent it to Chris Vidal and Jason Beggs. And I was like, hey, y'all. Should I should I do this?

Aaron

00:27:48 – 00:27:54

And I forget who, but somebody came back and was like, if you don't do this today, I'm gonna buy that out from under you.

Ian

00:27:54 – 00:27:54

I was like, you.

Aaron

00:27:54 – 00:27:58

I don't know if you're being a friend or an enemy right now. Like Yeah. Like, I appreciate

Ian

00:27:58 – 00:27:59

Put some pressure on you.

Aaron

00:27:59 – 00:28:02

I I appreciate the push, but this feels

Ian

00:28:02 – 00:28:03

bad.

Aaron

00:28:03 – 00:28:27

And so I just I went for it. And so I will I will, I will reveal for the first time on the pod as as exclusive content. So here, let me before I so I'm gonna tease it. Before I do, here was my thought process. My thought process was, 1, I didn't have to get approval from the boss, aka my wife, because it's running through the business account.

Aaron

00:28:27 – 00:28:30

So that's, like, that's It's a write

Ian

00:28:30 – 00:28:30

off, baby.

Aaron

00:28:30 – 00:28:31

It's a

Ian

00:28:31 – 00:28:31

write off.

Aaron

00:28:31 – 00:28:40

It's a write off. They just write it off. That's hurdle number one. Totally, totally cleared. And so I didn't, you know, I didn't have to be like, hey, babe.

Aaron

00:28:40 – 00:28:49

I wanna buy this domain. She's like, what's a domain? And it costs how much? So I didn't have to do that. Second thing was, of course, it is a write off.

Aaron

00:28:49 – 00:28:51

Like, it is absolutely a write off. This is no

Ian

00:28:52 – 00:28:52

A 100%.

Aaron

00:28:53 – 00:29:06

This is no fake. This is a real write off. And so Yeah. That counts. And then the the third thing is, like, if it doesn't work, which I think it will work, if it doesn't work, the domain still retains value.

Aaron

00:29:06 – 00:29:32

Like, I could just around and resell it maybe for a little bit less, but it's it's screen it it's a one word domain that has an obvious back end, you know, business that you could build on it. So all of those things, I sound like I'm justifying. It's not that much. I was I I felt like, okay, this is a reasonable mild to low risk. And so it was well, let me how much do you think it was?

Aaron

00:29:32 – 00:29:37

Because I think I won't I won't poison the well. I won't poison the well, but how much do you think it was?

Ian

00:29:37 – 00:29:45

Well, you've always already poisoned it a little bit by saying it wasn't that much. So Yeah. I know. That's kinda limiting me down a little bit. But let's say I mean, wow.

Ian

00:29:45 – 00:29:56

It's a good domain. Domains are, off of their highs for sure because, like, with the startups kind of falling off here and the funding Free money is over. Down. Yeah. The free money's over.

Ian

00:29:56 – 00:30:05

People just, like, drop in big money for any random domain. So, that helps you a bit too. When was this, by the way? Like, was it just, like, less?

Aaron

00:30:05 – 00:30:07

In April of this year. April of 2023.

Ian

00:30:07 – 00:30:15

Okay. So a little while ago. So I'm gonna go 35100.

Aaron

00:30:16 – 00:30:18

35100 is more than that.

Ian

00:30:18 – 00:30:20

Okay. It was look at

Aaron

00:30:20 – 00:30:22

It it was 6,000. Okay.

Ian

00:30:23 – 00:30:25

5,000 was kinda my initial thinking, but okay.

Aaron

00:30:25 – 00:30:27

And then I poisoned you, and so you went down. Yeah.

Ian

00:30:27 – 00:30:28

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

00:30:28 – 00:30:34

Yeah. So 66,000. And so huge huge amount of money for a domain. Investment for a domain.

Ian

00:30:34 – 00:30:35

Yeah. Sure.

Aaron

00:30:35 – 00:30:52

But I and so the other thing is, like, I'm selling a course. I'm not like, I'm gonna get a bunch of traffic and make AdWords money. And so I do feel like the back end is there where I can at least recoup that. My goodness. If I don't recoup that, then I've made a huge mistake.

Aaron

00:30:53 – 00:31:08

But, yeah, I saw that, and I was like, I really expected a one word domain to be north of 10,000. And I think by by the reactions by the reactions on Twitter, I think everyone expects it to be, like, way north of 10,000. Right. How did you do

Ian

00:31:08 – 00:31:09

that? 30,000.

Aaron

00:31:09 – 00:31:11

I just kinda I I bought it.

Ian

00:31:12 – 00:31:27

So Just that it's even available is always amazing, though, because that's the kind of thing where I'm sure there's other screen casting courses and people who've done startups. I was you know, there's, like you know, it's kind of a specific word. There's not, like, a lot of other words for this content. My my

Aaron

00:31:27 – 00:31:35

my question is, like, what the hell is ScreenFlow doing that they didn't buy screencasting.com and turn that into, like, a standalone marketing asset. Right. Like

Ian

00:31:36 – 00:31:36

Well, it's

Aaron

00:31:36 – 00:31:43

wanna do screencasting, well, use ScreenFlow. Like, that seems totally obvious to me, but I'm glad they didn't.

Ian

00:31:43 – 00:32:10

Well, so here's the theory behind it, of why it's maybe available. But, see, I think for your case, it's great. So the the sort of generic term for things like that, like screencasting or or database or calendar, things like that, They are a little bit tricky in the domain world, because because they are somewhat generic. So, like, is it defensible, like

Aaron

00:32:11 – 00:32:11

Yeah.

Ian

00:32:11 – 00:32:12

Purely from

Aaron

00:32:12 – 00:32:18

me this now, Ian. I've spent $6,000 on it. Where were you in April?

Ian

00:32:19 – 00:32:26

No. No. No. I think it's see, but I think for your use case, it's perfect. Like, if you were building a a screencasting platform

Aaron

00:32:26 – 00:32:26

Yes.

Ian

00:32:27 – 00:32:40

I think I would be I I wouldn't like it as much. Just because I think there is more risk to it. I think, like, anybody can use the term. There's all this, like, prior art, and so people are gonna say, hey. You can't, like, trademark that, and I'm gonna open up my own thing that says this or whatever.

Ian

00:32:40 – 00:33:06

And, like, you know, it's even then, it's not necessarily the end of the world that you can't totally own a term, but at the same time, people tend to like to be like, well, I own this, and nobody else can use it for a similar type app. Right? So there is value in in that. But I think for a course, it's, like, totally different because it's like it lends this, like, authority to it that I Totally. It's like, this is the course on screen it's literally screencasting.com.

Ian

00:33:07 – 00:33:18

Yes. This is it. This is the guy who knows everything about this. And, like, so I think it's great for that. And I don't think it's it's not an issue for you that, like, trademark wise.

Ian

00:33:18 – 00:33:29

Like, I mean, you probably should try to trademark it anyway. But, like, it's not a huge deal if you can't, like, totally own the term screencasting because it doesn't matter. You don't even necessarily want to.

Aaron

00:33:29 – 00:33:30

It's like I

Ian

00:33:30 – 00:33:30

don't even know what

Aaron

00:33:30 – 00:33:31

to do with

Ian

00:33:31 – 00:33:32

the term. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

00:33:32 – 00:33:37

Like, you want people out there talking about screencast, and then when people look for how to do them, like, they find screencasting.com.

Aaron

00:33:37 – 00:33:45

So That is my hope is, like, I think it will be good I think it will be good for, SEO, maybe. I don't super

Ian

00:33:45 – 00:33:46

care about that.

Aaron

00:33:46 – 00:34:10

I think what is like, what you mentioned is it's good for perceived authority. So, like, when you when you Google how to record a screen cast, and I have eventually an article on how to record a screen cast and it's screencasting.com, people are gonna look at that and go, oh, that's the word. That's the dot com. There's something going on here. Like, that there's I don't know who this guy is, but this is screencasting.com.

Aaron

00:34:11 – 00:34:13

It must be, like, there's some kind of business or money behind it where I can trust these people. At the very least,

Ian

00:34:22 – 00:34:38

for. Like so at the very least, like, I know I'm gonna click this Google link and go to a place that's at least about screencasting. Like, maybe they're gonna try to sell me something I don't want or maybe it's a service, and I'm looking for info or whatever. So there's, you know, that. But the baseline, like, it definitely lends a lot of authority there of, like, yeah.

Ian

00:34:38 – 00:34:52

This is this is where I wanna be at least, in terms of the time type of information I'm looking for. And I think SEO would be huge for you. I think you should definitely I think you should really put a lot of thought into the SEO. What would you do, Johnny? Yeah.

Aaron

00:34:52 – 00:34:53

I mean,

Ian

00:34:53 – 00:35:25

I would definitely like, you wanna own, like, how to screen cast. Like, you need, like, the definitive article on, like, how to screen cast and, like, getting all the people who follow you to, like, link to that and, talk about it and, like, come up with something awesome for that one page, especially. I'm sure there's, like, long tail keywords and stuff you could research. But because somebody's searching for how to screencast or how do I screencast or how to create a screencast, like, those those main topic terms, like, I mean, that's just, like, absolute gold for you. Like, those people are ready to buy something to learn how to do it.

Ian

00:35:25 – 00:35:47

And so, yeah, I think that you wanna do that. Because, I mean, even with, like, in our world, like, Tailwind UI, like, so much of their success is basically SEO of, like, the Tailwind Docs, The docs. Yeah. Being monetized by Tailwind UI. And, because people are out there searching for, like, how do I do this CSS thing?

Ian

00:35:47 – 00:36:01

Right? And they come to the docs, and then they say, oh, I don't even have to build all the stuff I was gonna build. I can just pay $200 to Tailwind UI and copy and paste all the HTML and CSS I need. So, kinda same thing with this. Like yeah.

Ian

00:36:01 – 00:36:07

You wanna you wanna own those, like, how do I type related terms, I think, on the SEO front.

Aaron

00:36:07 – 00:36:29

I think I think I could do that. I think I could have 2, maybe 3 big pieces that are high super high quality that tell you how to do, you know, as much as you can in text and then be like, hey, do you wanna, like, really know how to do this? You should go watch these you should go watch these videos because you're you're trying to learn how to do video. It it's gonna make more sense if you watch the video. So that's a good Yep.

Aaron

00:36:29 – 00:36:31

That's a good kind of segue

Ian

00:36:31 – 00:36:47

to it. For sure. And and how you know, I think it's an area you could own. I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of articles out there, but you got to go to the main. You have, like, pretty good audience that's gonna link to you and, like, all that stuff that, will help out a lot versus somebody who's just, like, wrote that same article and just putting it

Aaron

00:36:47 – 00:36:48

Right.

Ian

00:36:48 – 00:37:06

On their own without, you know, an audience. And so, I think that you definitely wanna try to own those couple ones. And then, like, whatever. The long tail stuff, like, you could get into that, but there's just gonna be, like, 2 or 3 that are, like, you know, super obvious. You could use, like, a h refs or even Google, AdWords.

Ian

00:37:06 – 00:37:31

It sounds like a keyword planner tool, whatever. There's different ways to do it, but you could just run, you know, spend an hour poke it through one of those apps to find, kind of what the big keywords are around it and phrases, and then just plan out a couple articles around that that are, like, landing pages for those. And, yeah, that that would be huge. Because no matter how far your reach is, right, like, Google's is bigger.

Aaron

00:37:31 – 00:37:33

Google's is a little bit further. Yeah.

Ian

00:37:33 – 00:37:38

So, so, yeah, you just wanna be able to reach everybody in the world who's like, hey. How do I do this?

Aaron

00:37:38 – 00:37:45

Yeah. I run out of Laravel friends at some point. And Right. Exactly. I would like to I would like to go a little bit further with this project.

Aaron

00:37:45 – 00:37:45

That's for sure.

Ian

00:37:45 – 00:37:49

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I'm excited. It's really cool.

Ian

00:37:49 – 00:38:11

I mean, I've never done a lot of screencasting, just like a couple little more, like, support videos or things like that, but nothing formal, in terms of, like, a more flushed out series or anything. But yeah. I mean, just even using ScreenFlow. Like, I have ScreenFlow, but, you know, it's like it does all kinds of stuff. What do

Aaron

00:38:11 – 00:38:11

I need?

Ian

00:38:11 – 00:38:24

What do I not need? And what's the baseline setup? What are the baseline, like, resolution dimensions? Like, just even, like, the really baseline stuff of, like, when you only go in there once every couple years and you're like, oh, I don't know. Like, is this gonna come out right?

Ian

00:38:24 – 00:38:29

Like, all that all that kind of stuff. Just a lot of technical setup stuff.

Aaron

00:38:29 – 00:38:32

Wait. Do I have the thing for you, Ian? Okay. There we

Ian

00:38:32 – 00:38:34

go. Yeah. Awesome. I will be a customer.

Aaron

00:38:35 – 00:38:49

Yeah. So it was great. The I, you know, I just, you know, the the launch. So it's like, it's not done, and so it is majority done. And so I felt like I was comfortable, you know, putting it out there and saying it's almost done.

Aaron

00:38:49 – 00:38:58

Please please sign up. Went super great. I just I tweeted about it. I'm working. Jason Beggs has built out the whole site, and he's handling he's handling everything.

Aaron

00:38:59 – 00:39:18

So he's handling, like, the lemon squeezy integration. And if there's ever any, like, support or anything, he's gonna handle all that. And so we tweeted it out on I guess it was sometime last week, and the reception was great. And we got a bunch of people to sign up on the Mailchimp list. I think we're up to, like, almost 500 now, which is awesome.

Ian

00:39:18 – 00:39:20

Wow. That's great.

Aaron

00:39:20 – 00:40:02

And so, yeah, the plan is, like I think the plan is send them all an email and, you know, maybe give them access to, like, the first few lessons, and then also solicit. So I'll be curious your your thoughts on this. Solicit feedback or, like, not feedback, solicit submissions from them and be like, hey, do you have a screencast that's public somewhere that I can, like, do a tear down of? And if you do send it to me, I'll, you know, if it's okay, I'll include it in the course. And then I can make I can make a few videos of that, and that can be good content to, 1, include in the course as, like, a, you know, an examples module at the end.

Aaron

00:40:02 – 00:40:04

But, 2, to, like, put on Twitter as short little videos

Ian

00:40:15 – 00:40:28

is the exact thing we're gonna be doing actually pretty soon. We were supposed to do it last Friday, but we had the technical difficulty, so it didn't happen, actually, with Lara Jobs. Like, me and David are gonna do this with resumes because, like, everybody's resumes are horrible. Sorry, everybody, but your resume is bad. You've got

Aaron

00:40:28 – 00:40:31

good tweets about that. You've been consistent about that for a long time.

Ian

00:40:32 – 00:40:47

So we're gonna do some resume tear downs and try that on Lara Jobs just because it's, like, fun, and I think people so much people can learn from just getting some feedback from the other side. Because you don't usually get feedback from the other side. Like, the only feedback you get is, like, you don't get a callback. Right? Like, but but you don't know.

Ian

00:40:47 – 00:41:00

Nobody ever stops to tell you, like, what's wrong with your bad resume. So, yeah. So I think that teardown idea is great. Like like you said, you can use it in all different ways, and I think people will get a get a kick out of getting your feedback on that. Yeah.

Ian

00:41:01 – 00:41:11

This brings up another thought for me here. I know we're on the we're really leaning into the mostly part. Right? But, because this is the question everybody's gonna have. Everybody has this about you.

Ian

00:41:11 – 00:41:19

So I'm gonna ask it here in the first episode. How do you get all this stuff done? Because you got babies. You got more babies coming. You got a job.

Ian

00:41:19 – 00:41:27

You got a hammer stone. You got, you know, all all the you got the screen the screencasting.com. You got new podcast with me.

Aaron

00:41:27 – 00:41:27

You

Ian

00:41:27 – 00:41:33

got all the stuff you're doing. So are you are you one of these, like, super organized? Are you

Aaron

00:41:33 – 00:41:34

I wish. You

Ian

00:41:34 – 00:41:38

know, give us a give us a behind the curtain a bit on how you handle all this.

Aaron

00:41:39 – 00:41:58

So a couple of things. One is, I have and I've been very public about this. I have decided that this is, like, this is my moment. And Right. Now is the time like, now is the time for me to work really, really hard in a way that is not long term sustainable.

Aaron

00:41:58 – 00:42:24

And so for me and not for thee, like, this is not this is not advice, to anyone, but this is what I'm doing. Like, I have decided that right now, I'm just gonna work all the time. And what that means is, like, like, I don't watch I don't watch a lot of current TV shows except Foundation. I'm a few I'm a few episodes behind on Foundation, but I do love Foundation. But, like, all these new shows, like, I haven't seen Succession.

Aaron

00:42:24 – 00:42:36

I I never watched Game of Thrones. I'd never, like, whatever the new one is. Suits, I don't think that's new. But any of these shows that people Mhmm. Like, I'll go hang out with my friends, and they're like, hey.

Aaron

00:42:36 – 00:42:44

Have you watched this, you know, 8 season or 8, yeah, 8 season series? And I'm like, I haven't watched any of it. I don't even know what you're talking about.

Ian

00:42:44 – 00:42:44

Right. So that

Aaron

00:42:44 – 00:43:08

that's part of it. I think the other part is I have a lot of, like, long running projects, and so, like I mentioned, I bought this domain in April, and we're in August right now. And so some things some things just stew for a really long time. Like, we've been more Colleen and I have been working on Hammerstone, which is now Hello Query. We've been working on that for for years.

Aaron

00:43:08 – 00:43:32

And so Right. There are things that just, like, burn in the background for for a long time, and some of them come to some of them come to fruition at, like they they all come to a head at the same point. So it's like, I'm doing Laracon, and then I launch screencasting, and then we start this podcast. And it's like, okay. Some of those things, like, the Lyricon talk and hosting was locked in, you know, in January or December.

Aaron

00:43:33 – 00:43:37

And it just so happened that it came up at, you know, the same time, like, this summer.

Ian

00:43:37 – 00:43:38

Right.

Aaron

00:43:39 – 00:44:16

So there's that. And then there's also, like, there's also just this thing inside me that I just feel like this is, like, I I'm gonna I have to make it. And if I'm if I'm gonna make it, this is the moment. And, like, if I'm gonna break out of the way kind of the way that, like, I grew up and the way that me and, like, our family was when I was a kid, if I'm gonna break out of that for these these 1,000,000 children that I'm gonna have, Like, my job is to work. And so that's kind of the the feeling that I have now, and I don't think it's sustainable.

Aaron

00:44:16 – 00:44:51

I really don't. Like, I'm I'm I feel like I do feel like I'm starting to see, like, at some point, you're gonna run out of steam, man, and I'm starting to see that more clearly. And I think, I think, you know, what a lot of people, the the trouble that a lot of people get in is that they adopt, like, they adopt this level of effort or this level of, like, god forbid, hustle, and they just think this is, like, their life. And I I just don't think that. I think this is a moment in time that I feel like like I have an opportunity, and I'm riding a wave.

Aaron

00:44:51 – 00:45:05

And I'm gonna do everything in my power to, like, catch this wave, and it hope hopefully at some point, the wave is pushing me. Right? Hopefully at some point, I'm just surfing. I don't have anything to do. I got I'm just swimming in gold coins.

Aaron

00:45:06 – 00:45:13

But at this point, you know, at this point, I'm paddling trying to catch the wave, and, god, I hope I catch it. So that's kind of that's kind of behind the curtain.

Ian

00:45:14 – 00:45:24

I like it. I mean, I think we're very similar in those ways. Like, definitely the start of Userscape. Like, I just worked a totally unrealistic number of hours. Just insane.

Ian

00:45:24 – 00:45:37

And this was whatever. This is, like, in the early 2000, so there wasn't Laravel, and there wasn't anything. And I was literally just having to write every line of code in my app. If the app did anything, JavaScript, anything, I wrote every line, every line of PHP. Right?

Ian

00:45:37 – 00:45:47

And so it was just, like, 12 hours a day, all day, every day because there was no packages, no anything. And so, yeah. But it was like, okay. I quit my job and I'm I burned the boats. Right?

Ian

00:45:47 – 00:45:59

And I'm like, this is what I'm doing. And kinda similar to you, like, we had our first kid, baby. It's crying, like, the whole thing. You know? And so, yeah, I mean, I know you took some heat for kinda having that stance.

Ian

00:45:59 – 00:46:08

I'm totally on board with that stance. I think everything else is kinda BS. Like, Tim Ferris and working 4 hours a week. Like, you know, it's all BS. Like, to me, that's none of that's realistic.

Ian

00:46:08 – 00:46:18

And, like, you can, like, come up with the handful of people that those things have been true for. But I think for most people, just hard work and outworking other people is, like

Aaron

00:46:18 – 00:46:30

If work DHH can work 10 hours a week and be a supercar driver, like, that's awesome for him. I wish that was true for me. That just hasn't that just hasn't been true for me. So I don't know what else to do. I can I can work harder?

Aaron

00:46:30 – 00:46:52

I can do that. And I will say for, like, people that don't fully haven't fully listened to this saga of of my life. When it hits 5:30 or 6 o'clock, wherever I'm working, I'm I'm downstairs or I'm inside. I'm helping with the kids, and I'm doing dinner and playing and then bath time and bedtime. And so those are things I'm not, like, willing to compromise on.

Aaron

00:46:52 – 00:47:12

But then when it hits 7:30 at night and the kids are asleep and, you know, I have dinner, it's, like, okay. Now now I can sacrifice things that belong to me, and I'm comfortable doing that. I'm sacrificing things that belong to me. That's that's fine. But, like, sacrificing things that belong to my children, I.

Aaron

00:47:12 – 00:47:16

E. Time with their dad, like, I'm not I'm not just not okay with that.

Ian

00:47:16 – 00:47:34

And this is also some, advice from the other side of that is that, like, there's sort of this illusion that it gets easier when the kids get bigger, and it does not. It is way harder when the kids get bigger. So, actually, like yeah. Like, I mean, just when you said 7:30 bedtime, I was like, woah.

Aaron

00:47:34 – 00:47:36

Oh, this man is free. Yeah.

Ian

00:47:36 – 00:47:53

Yeah. Like, 7:30 bedtime. Like, yeah. Of course. You gotta utilize that time after 7:30 bedtime because, like, you know, it's not too much longer when they're gonna wanna be outside playing ball at at 30 or doing whatever, or you're gonna be running them all around to, like, all their different activities, and you're not even gonna be done with that till 9 o'clock.

Ian

00:47:53 – 00:48:11

And so, that's, like, where I am now where it's, like, it's harder to utilize those other time slots. And, yeah. So I think when they're little, like and when they're little, like, they can be put in a spot and they kinda stay in that spot. Like, when they're 8, they don't stay in the spot. Like, they fly into the office, and they're like, what do you think about this role?

Ian

00:48:11 – 00:48:24

Yep. Like, you you know, there's a lot more there that you're also, like, sacrificing too because, like, yeah, they're not just sleeping and you're then busy or whatever. It's more, like, you're saying no to them,

Aaron

00:48:24 – 00:48:25

and you're

Ian

00:48:25 – 00:48:33

not gonna do something with them because you're gonna work on this other thing. Right? And so then it's a more more of a trade off, obviously.

Aaron

00:48:33 – 00:48:33

See on the

Ian

00:48:33 – 00:48:35

horizon. Significant other too.

Aaron

00:48:35 – 00:48:46

But Besides running out of steam, I see that. Like, my kids are 2. Right. And starting to get to the point where it's like, I think you guys are you guys are gonna be kid kids soon. Like, you're not gonna be, like, toddlers.

Aaron

00:48:46 – 00:48:56

You're gonna be full on kids, and you're gonna wanna, like, dig for worms into the evening. And I wanna do that. So it's I do feel like the time the time is running out. So

Ian

00:48:57 – 00:49:04

yeah. I can have, like you're gonna have these other other 2 too. So, like, you're gonna have a lot close together too. You know what I mean? It's, like, all that stuff's gonna hit close together.

Ian

00:49:04 – 00:49:23

Like, everybody's gonna have all these activities all at once, and they're gonna have all their different teams and different whatever they do. Right? And so, like, that's just as a little bit to the complexity, especially of, like, the after hours stuff. Like, obviously, they go to school and stuff, which then opens you up and makes sometimes the days easier. But but yeah.

Ian

00:49:23 – 00:49:39

No. I mean, I think that's a big upside of this job. It's like I mean, it's definitely a potential downside too. And I've had definitely issues with overworking and different, you know, things that can come from that for sure. Something you always wanna be cautious about, but it's also an upside that you can get more done.

Aaron

00:49:39 – 00:50:02

It's gonna be a great if I'm if I'm fully aware that if I just, like, super crash and burn in a very public manner, it's gonna be a cautionary tale. And so I'm kinda like I'm kind of just piling on I'm piling on the stakes of being, like, boy, I hope I make it here.

Ian

00:50:02 – 00:50:13

But I think, you know, so much of this goes back to your Laracon talk, which I think has been published. Right? So we should put a link to that. But it's just like just by being out there. Right?

Ian

00:50:13 – 00:50:30

Like, even if you totally crash and burn and, like, Hello Query doesn't work and Screencast.com makes a little money and then peters out and, like, whatever. Like, you've built this reputation. You've you know a lot of people. You've put yourself out there. And, like, you're never gonna not have a job.

Ian

00:50:30 – 00:50:48

Right? Like, Plan Skilled, heaven forbid, goes out of business tomorrow. Like, you're not gonna be unemployed for, like, a really long time. Right? So, so you still have all these upsides that have already been created by working hard, getting out there, and, then, yeah, hopefully, like, you have the really the really big payoff is what everybody everybody wants.

Ian

00:50:50 – 00:51:06

But the even the worst case scenario, like, short of, like, you go totally insane as long as you pull back before you totally crash and burn. Yeah. If it comes to that, then, short of that, like, it's it's still good outcomes. Like, Like, it's still outcomes that most people would be really happy with. Right?

Ian

00:51:06 – 00:51:06

Aaron

00:51:06 – 00:51:06

Yeah.

Ian

00:51:06 – 00:51:16

So, like, in that way, it's, like, low risk, because you've already built a lot and have a lot of upside here. So then, yeah, hopefully, you know, you're able to take it that next level.

Aaron

00:51:16 – 00:51:36

That's funny because you're 100% right that it's low risk, that if, you know, everything goes up in flames, I'll just get another job tomorrow. It's funny because I think it's high risk because I think, what will people think of me if everything goes up in flames, which goes back to my whole problem. I'm just worried about what other people think of me. Yeah. That's funny.

Ian

00:51:36 – 00:51:45

That's so hard. I mean, it is, like, it's such a hard thing, and everybody suffers from it. Especially, like, you know, everybody out there. You just put yourself out there. And it's like yeah.

Ian

00:51:45 – 00:51:46

Obviously, the armchair quarterbacks are gonna

Aaron

00:51:46 – 00:51:47

be quick to

Ian

00:51:48 – 00:51:54

say their 2¢ or whatever. But the upside of nowadays is, like, then you're you're old news by, like, 12 hours later or whatever.

Aaron

00:51:54 – 00:52:13

That's one thing that's one thing I wanted I wanted to say I wanted to fit into my talk somehow and into my article somehow, but it it it could come off as kinda, like, nihilistic. But it's like, I promise you that people are not thinking about you. Like, I'm so worried about what people are thinking about me. The real answer is people just aren't thinking about me. People aren't

Ian

00:52:13 – 00:52:14

Like, you just

Aaron

00:52:14 – 00:52:16

thought you were gonna be thinking about themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

00:52:16 – 00:52:21

They're not gonna remember. They're, like, you might they might remember you, like, 5 years from now. They're like, oh, that guy.

Aaron

00:52:21 – 00:52:24

Like I wonder if he crashed and burned. I don't know. Well, anyway.

Ian

00:52:24 – 00:52:27

Exactly. Yeah. It's so true.

Aaron

00:52:27 – 00:52:35

Yeah. Well, mostly technical. Maybe, like, we got maybe we gotta revise the we gotta revise the name, at least in the first episode.

Ian

00:52:35 – 00:52:39

Barely technical. Technical? Yeah. That might be a play.

Aaron

00:52:40 – 00:52:45

Over a long over over a season arc, it will be mostly technical. How about that?

Ian

00:52:45 – 00:52:47

Exactly. Exactly. On average. We're going

Aaron

00:52:47 – 00:52:49

for average. Exactly. Yeah.

Ian

00:52:50 – 00:53:02

Anyway, this has been awesome first episode. I think it's really, really fun, to do. And, hopefully, the the Laravel community and the wider audience gets a kick out of it. Yeah. So

Aaron

00:53:02 – 00:53:07

Yeah. Do we have any asks of the audience? Do we want them to do we want them to do anything?

Ian

00:53:07 – 00:53:08

We should. Right?

Aaron

00:53:08 – 00:53:09

You should

Ian

00:53:09 – 00:53:24

ask them to do stuff. Well, we'll we'll definitely, obviously, you should subscribe to the podcast kind of the name.

Aaron

00:53:24 – 00:53:26

Oh, the dotcom's available. Yeah. We're gonna go for it.

Ian

00:53:27 – 00:53:34

Yep. Aaron thought of the name, and then, we saw the dotcom was available. I'm like, oh, yep. Done. So yeah.

Ian

00:53:34 – 00:53:45

So definitely subscribe. We're on we have a account on Twitter and the other places, I'm sure. So, subscribe to us on there. And, Yeah. I mean, definitely check out screencasting.com.

Ian

00:53:46 – 00:53:52

Do that for sure. And, Yeah. We'll be back next week with more more fun antics.

Aaron

00:53:52 – 00:53:55

No. This has been great. Great first episode. I'm super glad we're doing this.

Ian

00:53:56 – 00:53:58

Yeah. So much fun. Thanks, everybody.

Aaron

00:53:58 – 00:54:01

See you. Alright.

The Pilot

Transcript

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