Create A Spectacle

Aaron

Hello? Good morning, sir. How are we doing?

Ian

Oh, man. You gave me a big belly laugh. We were working on our what we're gonna do for the show. We're just dropping huge, like, big big brain, meaning of lifetime things on here. So we're gonna have to it might be a long one.

Might be a long one.

Aaron

All the good all the good stuff happens in Trello, and this is this is gonna be a good one for sure.

Ian

Alright. Well, I don't know. I moved my parents this week. This was my big this is my big weekend project.

Aaron

Tell me.

Ian

It was crazy, man. Moving your parents out of the house, they've been in for, like, fifty years.

Aaron

Mm-mm.

Ian

It's like I'm old. That means I'm old. Right? Like, I'm old. They're older.

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

But they got there.

Aaron

They have stuff that hasn't been touched for thirty years.

Ian

Stuff. They got stuff, dude. Oh, boy. The stuff. I mean, they got just stuff that has to be thrown out.

They have stuff to move. They have stuff that they wanna move that shouldn't be moved. They have all kinds of stuff. And we have this whole interesting psychological study going on too, because it's like, it's hard to kind of quickly describe this, but basically my mom is like really kind of easygoing. She's not gonna like make waves and that kind of

Aaron

thing.

Ian

And both me and my brother married women who are kind of the opposite. Like they're like type a they're in there. They're like throwing stuff. They're moving stuff. Stuff's happening.

They're just making calls on things. Right. And so it's like, you have those two Tasmanian devils in there, like, just making stuff happen. Kids running around. All the kids are big enough to be useful, so kids are hauling stuff.

And it was a nice little family family event, but yeah, it was crazy, man. I don't know.

Aaron

So are they moving from house to house or house to, like, community? Or

Ian

Yeah. So it's not like an official, like, over 55 community, but it is this, like, really nice, I mean, I guess they're technically apartments, but they look more like condos kind of thing. Mhmm. And, Yeah. It's because that's a big part of it.

It was it's like, they're on one floor in this new place. They, like, like, they don't have to think about anything, right? Like the grass, the snow, the, all this stuff. There's nothing they have to think about. Even like, gosh, there's the option to rent the washer dryer from the place.

We're like, yes, let's rent the washer dryer. Like, just think about nothing. If anything breaks, you just call somebody. It just magically gets fixed. So that was kind of

Aaron

the way that I want that. That's that's

Ian

what I want. I was like, this is amazing.

Aaron

Also, I want it to be really nice, and I want everyone to leave me alone. So apartments isn't it. Dorms isn't it. Although, that was it at one point in life. Man, dorms were awesome.

Ian

Warms. Yeah.

Aaron

But, yeah, I want some sorta I want some sorta and maybe I need I think what I need is to be rich enough to have a house manager. That's what I need. You need

Ian

the house manager. Yeah. We can have a house manager. Or just why don't they do houses like this? Like, just have a community where it's full on houses, but it's managed like apartments.

Like, they'll do it. They handle everything. You don't wanna think about anything. But the full like, in Disney, they have this whole housing thing in Disney, Florida, and I'm not sure if they go that far with it, but I in my brain, they do. It's just like a wonderful, magical place where they manage everything for you.

Yep. And, you know, I never think about it.

Aaron

This is this is actually a terrible business idea that I've had, which is basically, like, landlords for a house that you own. Basically, like a house a house manager for rent, a part a part time house manager. Mhmm. So anytime anytime some and this would kill with millennials and, Zoomers and people that don't know how to do anything. Right.

Basically, like, when something happens at the house, you call your designated house manager, and they figure it out.

Ian

Yeah. Like,

Aaron

they figure out the right plumber. They figure out the right electrician.

Ian

They've got the right out

Aaron

the test guy. Exactly. They have people. And then, you know what? The house manager bills you instead of trying to figure out how do I pay this rinky dink mom and pop that only accepts checks and has given me grief because I wanna pay with a credit card, and he's gonna take it to the van and write it down on a piece of paper.

Like, just just give me an invoice in an app where I can say, great. That's awesome. Or give me, like, hey. When can the plumber come? And I'll give you a date, and they figure out how to make that happen instead of me having to do all that.

That's a terrible business idea, but I want it. I want it.

Ian

You know what's not could be not terrible about it, though, is that it kind of already exists in all these companies that do Airbnb management for you. I mean, it's basically the exact same thing. So why aren't they just doing then how what's the difference? If I'm managing this house for Airbnb or I'm managing this house for Bob, who cares? Like, it doesn't matter.

Like

Aaron

That is good for me.

Ian

I got the cleaning people. I got everything you need. I bill you every month some, you know, $250 a month for the service plus, obviously, any fees you have to pay or whatever if there's somebody comes and does something.

Aaron

Yeah. Honestly, it could be it could be just like a, like, an affiliate thing or like a server like a service a finder's fee. You know, every time somebody books a plumber or something through you

Ian

That's true too.

Aaron

You get, you know, you get 10% or whatever, and you negotiate with your plumber. But still

Ian

dip both sides.

Aaron

Yes. You could dip both sides. Give me an app where I can say, I need a plumber to fix my sink. And you, the house manager, are on the hook for finding a good one, getting them here on time, and then making sure that they get paid. I don't care.

You pay them whatever you want. If you tell me it's a hundred dollars,

Ian

then you

Aaron

pay them 10, that's your problem. That's not my problem. So I don't know. I think it's that's something that I want. And it's something that, like, a bunch of young idiots wouldn't would totally do.

I don't know how to do anything.

Ian

I'm not even that young. I do it.

Aaron

Freaking I hate finding a plumber or AC guy for goodness sakes. Are you kidding me?

Ian

It takes decades. Like, we have a group now that I feel pretty good with. Well, maybe not the landscaper. He's just okay. But, like, yeah, it's like you gotta go through three or four different ones till you find the ones that are good.

And, yeah, it's a whole disaster. So Yep.

Aaron

It's a whole disaster.

Ian

Anyway, that was my that was my weekend.

Aaron

Do you

Ian

have any, exciting weekend stories

Aaron

for us? No. No. No. No exciting weekend stories.

Just weekends are tough. Surviving. Yeah. Weekends are tough. So our au pair is off every weekend.

And so we have all four we have all four, just, you know, to ourselves all weekend. And it's just a lot it's it's just a lot of, like, what are we gonna do for the next forty eight hours? Because, you know,

Ian

they're people occupied.

Aaron

They're three and 10 old, and it's like Yeah. Can't I can't just take the three year olds to the hardware store and then come home and do projects. Right? They're not Right. They're not interested in that.

Yeah. So it's just a question of, like, how do we entertain these humans for an entire weekend? And then it's it's tough.

Ian

But The the hardware store for three year olds is the, toy department at Target. Yeah. It's the hardware store.

Aaron

We we ended up going to, so Saturday, we went to I always take them to break I take the older kids to breakfast every

Ian

Saturday, which is

Aaron

very fun. That was very cute. We went to breakfast, and then we went to the y because they have free childcare. And so I was gonna take them straight to the bookstore, but on the way to the bookstore, I found out it didn't open till ten. So I took them to the y.

They they got to play with their friends for a little bit. I did a little nice little walk and listened to some podcasts for a little bit, and then I took them to Barnes and Noble right when it opened.

Ian

Oh, yeah. Barnes and Noble.

Aaron

Bunch of books and played with the little train setup they have. And Man,

Ian

I remember doing that.

Aaron

It was fun.

Ian

It was so fun. Fun.

Aaron

So I was happy with that, because I got to spend, you know, I got to spend a lot of time with the older two just

Ian

without,

Aaron

you know, fighting for attention from the younger two, which is nice. So

Ian

Yeah. But, man,

Aaron

it's tough. It's tough. I love a Monday morning. Love a Monday morning. Remember?

My coffee talking to you. This is great.

Ian

Out of the house. Yeah. We had a similar our oldest, you know, freshman in college, and, my wife's birthday is today. Happy birthday

Aaron

to you. Birthday, Jamie.

Ian

But me and my oldest have been planning this, subversion where he was gonna surprise visit home. And he actually has off for, like, a long weekend here. And my wife's like, oh, he's not coming home, it seems like. And so this whole ordeal or, like, I've been having to lie incessantly about why he's not coming home and if he should come home or should we ask him and all this stuff. And then he just I made it happen where he just appeared here, and it was fabulous.

And everybody was happy and there were tears. For you. Great. Yeah. Oh, man.

Tuesday and the Wednesday night, Jamie was in the hospital with, like, this crazy migraine. Like, turn on the mic.

Aaron

Jamie's in the hospital. She's fine. I'm like, what

Ian

what then?

Aaron

Why is she in the hospital?

Ian

Dude, this week every week this year, 2024, man, I need it to be over. Every week is just, like, boom. Just thing after thing after thing. Yeah. She was in the hospital.

She called me. She couldn't have this, like was, like, kind of, like, almost confused and, like, wasn't feeling well. Get her to the hospital. They do all the tests. Everything's fine.

Like, okay. It's just, like, this complex migraine. Give her some cocktail of drugs or whatever, but she'd never had this before. So it was, like, kind of a first time thing. So it was, like, yeah.

You got that fear. Then you're, like, okay. It's fine. But, yeah, American health care system is all crazy, right, where it's like, okay. So why do MRI even though they think, you know, it's fine.

They're just like, you know, you're here. Let's do MRI just to make sure it's nothing crazy. Right? And like, okay, but you're gonna have to spend the night if we do the MRI, because like, it has to be tomorrow. There's no room tonight.

Bye. But so she doesn't, spend the night. She's kind of feeling better. And they're like, okay, but the thing is, if you don't do it, if you don't spend the night, then if you go out and have to, like, then go to the doctor and then schedule the MRI and do all that outside, it could be, like, two months. So it's like, well, I guess we'll spend the night because otherwise, it's two months, and then that seems not ideal.

So she spent the night and got breakfast in bed and did them all, and it was all fine.

Aaron

For the low, low price of $40,000, she got breakfast in bed.

Ian

That's why I gotta have insurance. I know there's people out there without insurance with insurance. Get that insurance.

Aaron

If you're listening, you're say, you gotta get insurance, man. What are you doing?

Ian

Insurance. Yes. With one night in the hospital where they do an MRI, you're literally out tens of tens of thousands of dollars. Like, got out of the insurance. So Gotta have the insurance.

Bucks, it cost us whatever. Not until the end of the world. So Yeah. It's less

Aaron

than a hotel. That's nice.

Ian

Yeah. It's not bad. So, anyway, that alright. That's my week. It's it was crazy.

It was crazy. I'm I look forward to the Monday morning too. It's like, we got in the pod. We do it. Alright.

What about the product you're building? Let's talk about that. People emailed them with guesses.

Aaron

Physical product. So give us give us some guesses. I'm curious. I'm curious what people guessed.

Ian

Alright. So we got, like, seven guesses here.

Aaron

Something like that.

Ian

We have desktop plant holder. We have two votes for drink coasters.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

We have well, I've kind of made up the name of this one. We have two votes for calendar, but with a murder spike, which is, you know, your little receipt spike thing you use, pen holder, a cup abstract art, which I'm kinda think that would be cool, and a mic stand. So

Aaron

Oh.

Ian

Yeah. So

Aaron

Okay. I don't know what you

Ian

think about those.

Aaron

Those are all very good guesses.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

And they most of them are directionally correct.

Ian

Okay. Interesting.

Aaron

So we're narrow we're narrowing in on, Yeah. We're narrowing in on, like, a a feeling or an idea.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And I think I think the

Ian

Orientation.

Aaron

Feeling that is being, captured here is some sort of, like, desk ornament. Not quite ornament, but, like, desk accessory, perhaps. Right.

Ian

And

Aaron

that is that is in the right universe. That's correct.

Ian

Okay. Alright. Yeah. Stuff's happening.

Aaron

One of I will say of those six or seven, one of them is very close. One of them is very, very close.

Ian

Close enough to win the prize or not close enough to win the prize?

Aaron

I'll let you decide that when it's revealed.

Ian

Okay. That's good.

Aaron

I think I think we could I think we could give him an attaboy, but I'll let you I'll let you decide that. Alright. In in my DMs, I got two correct spot on % guesses.

Ian

Five seven one. There you go.

Aaron

So we got it. Yes. I I wanna get his name right because he's he's branded himself with a personal brand here. It's, Mitch, the elixir tools guy.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

So friend friend of the pod, friend of mine, Mitch, the elixir tool guys. Alright. And then then we got we got a call from inside the house, Laravel Holdings Inc, Joe Tannenbaum Oh. Got a got a 100% guess.

Ian

Wow.

Aaron

So Mitch and Joe Mitch and Joe got it. Jason's bags came in the DMs begging, and I told him what it was, but he didn't even get close. He's just

Ian

Oh, god.

Aaron

He didn't even try. Come on, Jason. Unbelievable. But I told him. Yeah.

So we got we got a few winners.

Ian

Congratulations to the winners. Very good. Apparently, they know you pretty well. They've they've heard you a lot of times.

Aaron

They've been paying attention.

Ian

Yes. That's

Aaron

all I will say. It has, in my opinion, become clear. But they they they agree, but apparently not everyone agrees. So there you go.

Ian

So you have not, started production.

Aaron

Correct. I have not started production. I have received, some sample materials. And so Postgres launches tomorrow. We'll probably spend the rest of the week ironing stuff out, and then we will do I'll start doing production shortly thereafter.

It might be it might be into November. Yeah.

Ian

You

Aaron

know, I have my big, no more kids surgery early early November.

Ian

So it

Aaron

might be shortly after that, I start the start the party.

Ian

Yep. No. That would be good. You're gonna need a recovery period after that so you can just kinda hang out,

Aaron

put them in the house. Oh, and I'm going to freaking, San Francisco for, like, a Next JS pre party conference.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Most absurd thing that Aaron Francis could ever be a part of.

Ian

Well, how'd this come about? What's going on here?

Aaron

So, you know, Jason Lengsdorf, guy on the Internet? So he does this show. He does this YouTube show. It's like web dev challenge where he gets Josh Siri was just on one, where he gets a bunch of not a bunch. He gets, I think, three or four web developers from different ecosystems comes up to port they all come up to Portland into his studio, and they do, like, a YouTube video.

You build they all build the same idea over four hours.

Ian

Oh, interesting.

Aaron

Yeah. Neat idea. Very, very cool show. And he invited me to come to one. And the one that I was able to come to after lots of, like, trying to make it work was this one that's after Postgres.

I was like, great. Let's go to Portland. Sounds fun. And so then he emailed me shortly thereafter and was like, hey. Turns out we're gonna do it in San Francisco, and it's gonna be a Sanity IO, event, which, oh, you weren't at Laracon.

Capehay, who spoke at Laracon

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Is a Sanity IO team member, and so she'll be there as well. And so moved to San Francisco, and it's a, like, live Sanity hackathon that also doubles as, like, a pre party for next j f Next JS conference. So I'm gonna be like I'm gonna be like fish out of water for sure. I'm gonna be a sheep in wolves clothing trying to walk in there. But I think Kent C.

Dodds will be there as well. And then a bunch of friends, of course, will be at the the event, but I think Kent is participating in the challenge as well. So Are you going to the conference? Week.

Ian

No. Are you kidding? No way.

Aaron

Postgres launches, and then next week, I'm in San Francisco for for that. So I know. Crazy. So you

Ian

just go for a couple days or you do it? How long are you going?

Aaron

No. Just for I go, like I think I arrive Tuesday afternoon. The thing is on Wednesday, and I I leave Thursday morning.

Ian

Okay. So in and out. I can go to Tartine. Go to Tartine. You gotta I love Tartine there.

Aaron

I don't know what Tartine is.

Ian

Oh, it's like the best bakery in the world. It's like something they do, like, sandwiches. You know, it's like a modern bakery where there's, like, sandwiches. And I actually smuggled home a gigantic sourdough loaf for my wife, when I went to San Francisco in, like, February.

Aaron

Is that is that illegal?

Ian

I don't think so. Because I think it's a weird look.

Aaron

It just felt more fun to smoke.

Ian

Yeah. You know, the security was a little.

Aaron

Nothing. I don't know. Just a

Ian

towel rolled up.

Aaron

Sir, it's it's legal to take bread on an airplane.

Ian

It's a huge bread, though. It's a giant bread. Because, you know, they make those really big ones. It's like, huge bread.

Aaron

Yeah. I'll check it out. So I'll check out Tartine, and then when I go to New York City, Los Tacos number one.

Ian

Los Tacos. I I'm telling you, we have upped their business, this podcast, because I've gotten, like, 10 people. Taylor Tweedy went there. Everybody went there after the show. Everybody knows now about Los Tacos.

Number one, you've gotta go there. It's okay. I gotta get back down there. I was just talking to my daughter about this. We need we need tacos.

And the only place to get good tacos is New York City.

Aaron

Los Tacos.

Ian

Down there. Yeah. We gotta make the run. Alright. So that's your product update.

Now you got something else on here. I don't even know what this is. It sounds like yet another new initiative. What's going on here?

Aaron

What's it called?

Ian

It's called Try Hard Factory.

Aaron

Oh, that's such a good name. Wow. We love the name. We love a name. Here's here's the name.

Here's the thing. I'm in the studio of Light and Sound right now. Yes. Of course.

Ian

You are.

Aaron

Which is, in fact, an apartment. Right. When I built the when I built out the studio, I was very cautious and purposeful to be friendly and folksy with, apartment management. Right? Mhmm.

You know, give them the old, hey. How's your father? How we doing? Hey. Come on.

What's going on?

Ian

Little drag ending?

Aaron

Yeah. A little bit. And so to the extent that the apartment manager and, like, the property manager, whatever, whatever's one above him, or maybe he's leasing manager and she's apartment manager or something like that. They both came in here and looked at the studio and were like, this is awesome. Way to go.

How fun. Yeah. So, like, I feel like I was on the up and up. Both of those people have now left. Oh.

Neither of them work at the apartment anymore.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

And so now I feel like I'm flying under the radar a little bit. Like But

Ian

then I thought they haven't done anything, though. It's all removable stuff.

Aaron

No. I know. I know. It's all movable. There's no nails in the wall.

All of that is true. I'm just afraid you know how some how some, some people some middle managers can see a thing that is out of the ordinary and say this is illegal. Like, you can't do that.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Like, it doesn't fit into my box. She says you can't do that. Building a wall in front of some windows might fall into that category. It it just might. Little mass

Ian

shooter ish maybe. Like, you know, a little bit of what's going on.

Aaron

What's going on? More thinking more thinking a little fire hazard ish, but, you know, mass shooter, whatever. E 50 fish.

Ian

A little fire escape issue there, potentially.

Aaron

So, so my fear is, you know, they they sent an email a couple weeks ago. It was like, hey. We're gonna come inspect the fire sprinkler heads, and I'm like, this is it. Game over for a

Ian

laryn. Oh, shit.

Aaron

And either they never came or they came and were like, what the hell is going on in here?

Ian

Sprinklers look good, though. And then they laugh. Maybe they don't even know

Aaron

there's a window there. They're like, oh, yeah. This is the one unit in the whole complex that

Ian

where the bedroom

Aaron

has the windows. So that's got me a little bit that's got me a little bit on edge. Like, what's gonna are they gonna come in here and be, like, tear this wall down? I'm gonna have to say no. Are they gonna hit me with a Reagan?

Is it Reagan that said tear down this wall? I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. So they're gonna hit me with the mister Gorbachev.

Ian

Dude, you gotta have you gotta live stream. Like, when they're there, I need you live streaming the whole thing. It's like a mad guy with, like, a bad part, and he's like, you gotta turn down this wall. And you're like, I'm not tearing down the wall. I think how you're like you're like the Russians in this example.

You're you're the East Germans. You're like, I'm not tearing down this wall.

Aaron

Yeah. Bad news. You never wanna be you never wanna be the East German. So I'm getting scared. Yeah.

I'm getting scared. The the lease is coming up, I think

Ian

Wow. Already?

Aaron

January or February, something like that.

Ian

K.

Aaron

And I barely remember when I got the lease because when I got the lease, I was still working at a company which we shall not name. I was on paternity leave. I had just gotten rheumatoid arthritis. I wasn't sleeping at all.

Ian

That's right. Had a

Aaron

million kids. Two of them were brand new babies, and so it's all kind of a blur. And then I got fired.

Ian

Doing this for that company. I thought I was doing this for the company, and they

Aaron

were paying

Ian

for it.

Aaron

Talk about the ultimate bamboozle.

Ian

This is my guy.

Aaron

Sure. Sign a lease, big guy.

Ian

Oh, man. You gotta get it's like this is the bad vibes of your old ex. You know? You gotta you can't hold on to that apartment you shared together anymore. You gotta you gotta move out.

Aaron

And move on to something bigger and better. Yeah. Just to show them. So Okay. So here's here's the thought.

Here's the thought. Mhmm. If I'm gonna do this this physical product light manufacturing, which Sure. Sure.

Ian

I don't think we should plan for, but okay. Continue. We're holding as

Aaron

a constant. We're holding that as a constant for the purposes

Ian

of this building that. For for

Aaron

the purposes of the this discussion.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Which leads us nicely into the next Trello card, which we'll get to. But for the purposes of this discussion Yes. If I'm if I'm doing a little just a little bit of light manufacturing as a treat. Yeah. Right?

Right. I need some space. Need some more space. I can't be doing it in here. I've kinda pushed the the bounds of the power tools I can run-in this department.

Yeah. That was back under friendly management was when I was running power tools. I I I dare not run them anymore. And so I started thinking, okay. So light manufacturing is one.

Also, different backdrops, different, recording locations is the other. Mhmm. Because if we had had our Dreher's high performance SQLite and Postgres would be kind of in different sets a little bit. Right. Yeah.

And now when we're talking about, picking screencasting back up, I don't want I we want it on a different kind of on a different background. And so that's just not possible in this location. But where it is possible is a little bit of a warehouse, a little bit of a speaking of light industrial. Maybe

Ian

a factory

Aaron

with a big roll up door, some 20 foot ceiling, giant cavern.

Ian

What have they done?

Aaron

Yeah. It just keeps going. It's just getting bigger and bigger. So then, we can build, you know, backdrops that are kind of, like, that are false walls of themselves, but also on wheels. And so we can just, like, roll one out, roll one back.

Yeah. Put put a few put a few drill presses, table saw, you know, table tabletop router, some stuff in there for the manufacturing. Got all these different sets. Just have a ton of space, and nobody's, you know, nobody's breathing down my neck because, you know, next door, they're, you know, running a car auto body shop and whatever. So it's like, who cares?

So that's the that's the thought right now. I don't know if we'll do it this year or next, but Mhmm. We will get we will get some new space, and I think the next space we get will be, industrial flex, which will hopefully be primarily, like, warehouse with a roll up door and maybe, like, an office up front where we could do stuff. But, you know, I would need I would need a bathroom, and I would need potentially, like, just a sink and a fridge. So we'd have to figure that out too.

So Right. That would be the try hard factory, which sounds awesome.

Ian

It does sound awesome. Have you actually looked at places?

Aaron

I have. Well, not not, physically. I've looked on LoopNet, which is, like, commercial Yeah. Space website.

Ian

And what's the cost for these?

Aaron

So the cost from what I've seen and I just got the name of a proper, you know, commercial realtor from my residential realtor. The cost I've seen generally so far is $10 a square foot a year. So if we did 10 times we'll say let's go big. Let's say 2,500 square feet

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

Divided by twelve months. That's 2,080 a month.

Ian

Okay. That's not too bad.

Aaron

The apartment's, like, $141,500.

Ian

Yeah. You have a pool at the apartment. But yeah.

Aaron

Have a pool and a gym and a kitchen and a bathroom.

Ian

Oh, awesome. Yeah. You definitely need a bathroom.

Aaron

You have a bathroom. It's not just an empty warehouse. But I don't I don't know here's the thing. I don't know anything about commercial real estate, but you can just tell them, like, hey. I need some tenant improvements.

Right? Can't you just be like, hey. Why don't you give me a bunch of money for for build out or something?

Ian

In an office, definitely. I don't know about if you go really industrial, I don't know if that's the same thing, but presumably you could do whatever you want if you're willing to pay for it and they're okay with it, whatever. Then you're but, yeah, I mean, you're improving something that somebody else owns.

Aaron

Somebody else owns.

Ian

All that.

Aaron

And probably, if you're getting if you're getting tenant improvement money, you're probably committing to, like, five years, aren't you?

Ian

Right. A lot of time yes. Five years is a pretty standard commercial lease. But, I mean, I don't I I would think you'd be able to get less, but maybe three years or something like that, or maybe pay a bunch and do one year. Right?

Aaron

We should be straight because three years from now, we're gonna need even more space. We're gonna it's we're

Ian

we're gonna go full on 30 sets. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. We're gonna go full on 20,000 square foot warehouse in a couple years.

Ian

Found any in not sleazy parts of town and

Aaron

more be close

Ian

to you?

Aaron

There are some that are pretty close to me. Okay. But it is in it is in, like, the the crook of two highways, you know, because it's like, you need to get access to the highway because you're a shipping company, and you're like, well or I'm a YouTuber. Right. So they're they are kind of in, like, industrial office parks.

I wouldn't say they're sleazy, but they're uninspired. Like, you just drive around, and it's just big warehouse, little warehouse over and over and over again. There are some that are in a pretty cool little part of town and were recently built,

Ian

but I

Aaron

don't know what those cost. And so I would need to get I would need to get the agent over there to help me figure it out. I've also seen, this is like I didn't name it this, so I shouldn't feel embarrassed. But like man caves for rent where you can, like, basically, from their website, it just shows, like, you know, Porsches and motorcycles parked in this little garage, and then there's a loft above it where you can watch football. And I'm like, hey.

I don't wanna do any of that, but maybe I could do some videos there. Yeah. It truly it truly is like this guy bought, it's like a franchise now. I think I think the guy bought, like, storage land or units. Yeah.

And now they're they're double height. They're super tall, and they are sold as,

Ian

like Man.

Aaron

Man garages. Yes. It's so embarrassing.

Ian

Alright. Well, what about I think you've gone all the way to the far edge as you are want to do sometimes. What?

Aaron

This is

Ian

the first time hearing that. Can we bring it back maybe a little bit? What about just regular not maybe totally regular, but fairly regular office space?

Aaron

You lost me at regular, and you lost me at office space. Well, it

Ian

could be cool. See, I think office space would give you the opportunity for maybe cooler space in more interesting areas.

Aaron

True. True.

Ian

True. People there, like the demand for I don't think the demand for, like, raw commercial industrial space is as down as the demand for office space. So I think you probably get a better deal.

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

And you're not actually manufacturing anything. So that's like, you know, once in a while, a couple times a year, you might run a drill. Like, that's not you don't necessarily need, like, you know, a floor drain. Interesting. Like, you can That's interesting.

Run the drill in this office space once a while. It's fine. And most of the time, it's YouTube production studio space, and that's great.

Aaron

Uh-huh. So Uh-huh.

Ian

You might want to consider that.

Aaron

That's interesting. Yeah.

Ian

Because you're not gonna park a portion there. You're not going to have oil and grease and things. So even what you're talking about manufacturing, at least if it's similar to what you've already talked about, I think Mhmm. Not heavy. Right?

It's like

Aaron

It's not heavy.

Ian

Sawdust. Some sawdust. You know, it's not like

Aaron

So I've run I've run some light manufacturing out of an office before.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

The problem is, we were on the Seventh Floor. This is where I built the robots. We were on the Seventh Floor.

Ian

And Okay. You just dropped that. We're about the robots. Oh, con continue, Elon.

Aaron

Oh, if I if I have a penchant for anything, it's going too far. So this is where we built the robots on the Seventh Floor. The problem we ran into, one, was getting materials up there was a pain. Right? So getting sheets of plywood through the office lobby up without oh, no.

It's nothing. Don't worry about it, sir.

Ian

That's not happening. Manufacturing. Yeah.

Aaron

The other thing that, ended up being the reason we moved out of there was running the laser cutter in the office with windows that don't open. And so what we ended up doing was we vented it through a makeshift, a makeshift carbon filter.

Ian

Filter. Yeah.

Aaron

And then blew it out into the hallway.

Ian

Okay. And

Aaron

there there were actually days when, coworkers would, like, come back from lunch and be like, hey, man. The elevators all smell like like laser burnings from all this because it look like going to the hallway and then go into the elevators and go down to the lobby and

Ian

just walk the elevator.

Aaron

So then then we had some security guards come up and be like, hey, is, you guys cooking up here? And I said, we are not cooking anything, sir.

Ian

We're cooking. That is true.

Aaron

That is true. So Oh. That that's my fear is, like, what if I get what if I get what if I need to start doing laser cutting, which I probably will. I have to do

Ian

reframe this a little bit.

Aaron

Okay. Reframe it.

Ian

I was what I was actually I've I said office space, but really what I was thinking is really more like retail space. So First Floor Storefront. Storefront, big panes of glass, doors, backdoor, front door, like a cool logo on the glass. For that.

Aaron

Fly hard

Ian

factory with a little icon logo thing and, like, yeah, I think

Aaron

Oh, that'd be amazing.

Ian

I mean, there's there there the retail real estate is bad right now. So, like, I think you could probably find something like that. Maybe in a cool part of town that used to be, like, the old main street, but now Maybe I could do it in the

Aaron

vellum where like, you didn't you didn't come to Laracon. Where Laracon was.

Ian

Yes. There you

Aaron

go. Something like that. Down there?

Ian

Yeah. You wanna be somewhere hip. You don't

Aaron

wanna I do. I wanna get tattoos.

Ian

Topping up stolen Lexuses, man. That's just not gonna be for you.

Aaron

But if I am next to that guy, you better believe I'm bringing them beer on the first day and being like, hey. I'm your new neighbor. We're friends. We're cool. Don't worry about it.

Ian

Pod too. I want them on a pod.

Aaron

Oh, for sure.

Ian

I got questions.

Aaron

Meet the most interesting people if I do light industrial, but maybe you're right. Maybe there's, like, maybe there's, like, a I'm thinking, like, a empty strip mall almost, but in a cooler Yeah. In a cooler little spot.

Ian

I mean, ideally, like, a main street, but maybe in Texas, they don't have those things. They're all, like, ghost towns now. So now you gotta, like, just go

Aaron

to a

Ian

strip mall, but it's a strip mall. It's like in, in Texas, all the poker places are in strip malls. Because that's like what you have a lot of that are empty. So they just take over like half a strip mall. It's a big, huge poker place.

Aaron

Yeah. It could be, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ian

Toy hard factory could be a half of a strip mall somewhere. That's the thing. Maybe that's a garden idea. Storefront, but if you actually get into manufacturing more stuff or you have other people working there with you, you could take the one next to it over or whatever.

Aaron

And then and then this is good because then I could, you know, vent stuff out the back door instead of being stuck on the Seventh Floor. Yeah. You don't wanna

Ian

be on the Seventh Floor. You definitely don't wanna be on it. I I don't even like that in general. Like, even in our, like, little office space, we are on the First Floor. I can walk right out the door.

I can walk down the street.

Aaron

Right. Now

Ian

you'd be able to get out. Normally trapped elevator distance away. So

Aaron

No. No elevator

Ian

for sure.

Aaron

Interesting. Okay. Okay. It. It was worth the price of admission right here.

I like that.

Ian

And when you do events, like, how cool would that be? Like That would be cool. You know? You have people at the factory, and you could walk down the street to the bar and hang out. And That'd be cool.

Aaron

Okay. Shoot.

Ian

I like that idea. Done.

Aaron

K. So I'm gonna look for, either retail space storefront. I'm just afraid that's gonna be terribly expensive, but I could be wrong. I was wrong one time before. I could be wrong again.

Or light industrial.

Ian

Yeah. I would keep your keep your mind open. I'll tell you why, though. Be a little more expensive, but they are kind of hurting. I mean, it's like Walmart and Target have taken over everything.

Like, there's, you know, these storefronts are empty. You see a lot of different types of things go in them now. And way back in the .com era, I worked in a startup that was in a storefront and that was even back then. And it's like, it was cool. It was awesome.

Like, you walk down the street, you get coffee, you get food. It's like you walk back to the office. It's great. You're like right there. You don't have to drive everywhere and all that kind of stuff.

Aaron

I'll I'll still drive everywhere, but it'll be a closer drive.

Ian

So

Aaron

it's just

Ian

my thing.

Aaron

Alright. You gotta drive. Walking?

Ian

Come on. What am

Aaron

I an insane person? Am I gonna walk? Alright. Okay. Yeah.

I like it.

Ian

So let's transition to your next one. This is gonna take a little time. And you just wrote on the card, what do I want to do with my life? So that's a big one. It's a big one.

Aaron

That's the one that got you.

Ian

It was a big belly laugh when I saw that. And it's because we're we're on video, and you're just typing the card out, and the card pops up. What I thought you're writing, like, something normal, like what I ate last week or the cool thing we did with the kids. You're like, what do I wanna do with my life? Yeah.

More intense than I was expecting to pop up on the Trello card. So

Aaron

Well, you know

Ian

What's the epiphany you had? Did something happen?

Aaron

A little bit and no. Yes and no. But we have we we have these thoughts. Right? So here's here's here's where I'm at.

So we do the way we make money right now is we make courses. Right?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

That's fine. I like it. I enjoy teaching. I think I'm good at it. I enjoy studying.

I like that part. It is it is, of course, a little bit stressful to, like, get it all done, but I think anything worth doing is a little bit stressful. So I'm not really I don't really, mind that so much. But I don't want to do that forever. Right.

Like yep. Let me rephrase. I don't want to do only that forever. Mhmm. Because if in ten years, I still do a course or two, I'm happy.

But what I don't wanna do is between now and ten years from now, only produce courses. Right? Mhmm. So there's this tension between, like, where do we currently make money, which is courses, and that's great.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

What do I want to do? What do people tell me that I should be doing? Mhmm. And what makes what makes money and, like, what is fun. And so Right.

Some things I'm thinking about are, like I mentioned on the last episode, November and December are gonna be optimizing for fun. Right? Optimizing for exploration, interest. And maybe this is another thing, exploration versus exploitation. Right?

So that's kind of been my successful formula. My whole life is explore, find something that works, exploit, and then explore, find something that works, exploit. And so I do like I do like that as a cycle. Mhmm. I think part of part of, like, the, dissonance is, for example, when I say, like, I'm gonna do physical manufacturing.

Everybody's like, why do physical products make more courses? And in my head, I'm like, I don't wanna be course guy. Yeah. Like, I don't I don't wanna just do that. And I think some people some people are saying, like, you can make more money if you just made more courses.

And I say, that is correct. You are in fact you are in fact correct.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

At least right now, you are correct. Right. But how do we know Here's a question. How do I know I'm not stuck at a local maximum? Right?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Mhmm. So if I if I continue to make courses, that would be a way to maximize money for now. But if I start exploring, you know, physical product, lifestyle, brand, maker, like, what if I became the next Ugmonk, which is a big physical product guy? Right? That would be I could make more money doing that.

So that's one of the questions. And then the other question is, like, I see a lot of people that just aren't happy. A lot of people have these great businesses, and they're just not happy. Mhmm. I'm like, do I wanna do that?

Because I don't think I wanna do that. Like, if I made a SQL Server course and then a a Maria and then a MySQL and then a Redis and then a DuckDB and a ClickHouse, it'd be like, I can make a ton of money, but would I just be miserable? Yeah. And so I'm trying to figure out I'm trying to untangle, what do I want to do? Am I okay with people telling me that I'm doing something stupid and or, like, suboptimal?

Right. And how do how do Steve and I turn this, like, business into a going concern, you know, to borrow some shared language that you and I share from accounting? How can we make it a going concern? So that's where it all comes from. And and the factory is part of that because I think, oh, if we got the factory, then we could transition the YouTube channel from strictly programing content to more like business maker behind the scenes plus programing plus builder, like all of this cool stuff that seems a little bit broader.

Right? Mhmm. And would be a lot of fun. So what am I gonna do, Ian?

Ian

Man, I don't know. I think,

Aaron

it's a

Ian

I mean, these are all fair questions. Right? I think, obviously, people are gonna tell you to, like, just do the thing you're doing. That's always the default, especially when it seems like it's working. Right.

A lot depends on your goals, but a lot of those also depends on like part of what you've done for your personal happiness and that you wanted to do was to have four children. Right?

Aaron

Yes.

Ian

And so that I do feel like you're gonna get into the phase here soon where that's just a lot. You're already to the phase where it's a lot.

Aaron

What do

Ian

you mean soon? You know, there's just, like, different trade offs in there. And it's like, I kinda feel like I've had a very similar arc to you. I'm not quite as much on the bouncing around on lots of different ideas necessarily. But Mhmm.

It's like I have my phase where I was building out help spot. We're building. I'm working crazy hard million hours, whatever all

Aaron

of that. Right. Right.

Ian

And then the kids, you have a kid, they have another kid, they have another kid, and it starts to get to where, like, just if I'm going to be involved with the kids, then there's going to have to be trade offs on, like, how much I could possibly work. Right. Okay. So that starts to happen. And then basically, like, thirteen years go by.

And then then where you then you're to now. And you're like, okay. There's definitely stuff I could have done to make way more money in those years, but I had to balance those things. Right? Like, well, do I wanna do, like, we did a huge trip to Europe for four months and we went to Disney twice and we did whatever we got.

We built a house and like all these other things that also I wanted to do along the way. And so it's like, do you want to just run a business that supports your life? Or do you want the business to be the interesting thing in your life? And I think it's a little tricky to have your cake and eat it too at some point, especially with this number of kids. Cause there's a lot of expenses.

There's a lot of stress. There's a lot of things that go with it. You wanna have spend time with everybody, spend time with your wife, blah, blah. So I do think that's to me, that's the thing that stands out to me is like, you know, cause I, I think of like west boss now now I'm gonna make up a bunch of stuff about west boss. I don't actually know.

Aaron

Of course

Ian

he's he's not here.

Aaron

Yeah. Make it up.

Ian

But my, what my, from the outside view of the little bit, I know about west is that he seems to make a course a year. I would say if I we average it out. Like, he's not making a course every three months. And between that, you know, he's streaming and he's doing some videos and but he I I don't know what he does between them. Like, he kind of just does, you know, he's doing stuff.

Right? And so Yep.

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

He's like found a frequency where he could probably make more money if he did more courses. Yep. But he's not doing more courses, but he is doing a good job of selling the courses he already has. And then I presume I'm totally making stuff up is in the time he's not making these extra courses that would make him extra money. He is doing stuff with his family or other things he enjoys.

Right. And so that's where, like, is there a balance there for you? Like, should you be more like putting the business on, like, a more of a, like, schedule sort of not a schedule. Right? But, like, you're trying to get a baseline there and, like, establish a healthy business, and these other things become hobbies.

You know what I mean? Like Mhmm. That type of thing. Or do you wanna say we wanna do woodworking and I'm going all in on the woodworking, but you're taking a huge risk, obviously. Right?

You're gonna incur a bunch more expense for this, a a bigger production thing. You're going to be not working on courses. Kids are still gonna need you. Wife's still gonna need you. All that stuff.

So I don't know. That's, like, the balance. In some ways, like, if you have a stable business, it it lets you do more

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Other things. Right? Because it's like, if we got the business to where every year, I know whatever your number is. Right? Like a reasonable number, 300,000, 5 hundred thousand, whatever.

And you have a partner, which also makes it harder, easier and harder. Right?

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

But it's now you have to make more money, right. For you both to feel like you're at the number you wanna be at where it's like a solid, nice living. So, you know, but if you were at that, then it's like, okay. Like if I wanna go off and spend two months woodworking, you could do that and it won't really matter. And then you could come back and do something else or whatever.

But they're more like hobbies. If something really takes off, you can always go into it more. But I guess, yeah. So I don't know. My, my concern is you're not to stable business yet.

And so without that, it makes these other things much riskier versus you had this under your belt for like a couple years and you were like a couple years, like, Hey, we do a course a year or two courses a year, and we do a good job. We figured out how to continue to market the old courses.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

And now the revenue is recurring, whether it's literally recurring or it's just recurring and that you know how to market and sell it continuously so that you, you know, continuously are making money. I don't know. But only you can answer that. It depends, of course, law on your how much money you have in the bank and all those kind of things. Obviously, if you have more, it's easier to take bigger risks, all that kind of stuff.

I don't know. That's my thoughts. K. What what are you thinking about it?

Aaron

These these are good thoughts. Okay. So thoughts. I think you're probably right about West Boss. He's not here to defend himself, so I think you're I think you're probably right.

He is maybe a good, corollary because it does seem like he does a bunch of other stuff too. You know? Like, he does he's always on doing these crazy he did a receipt printer. He did an old VHS cam. He built out his basement studio.

He's always doing he's always doing stupid stuff, and I wanna do stupid stuff. Right?

Ian

Right. Yeah.

Aaron

That's what I wanna do. So maybe that's good. Maybe that's good. So, yes, good good analogy. Good example.

In terms of the stable business thing, a few years, that's forever. And a few years from now is a hundred years from

Ian

now.

Aaron

Mindset. Okay. Not. Mhmm. We have we must accelerate.

I have to go faster. Okay. Okay. So let's

Ian

What the hell? How does going off on an adventure to construct wooden things get you there faster if you're trying to get to where to where you have a big pile of money in the bank, and you don't have to worry about it.

Aaron

Well, it doesn't get me to the big pile of money in the bank faster. It gets me to doing doing interesting and varied things faster. So if I'm if I'm to if I'm to do courses for the next three or four years, and then I can do interesting and varied things, that's a thousand years away. Right? But Yeah.

Let's let's say let's say for the sake of argument, this is, this is within striking distance. Let's say that try hard makes $500,000 a year.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Is that enough to just, like, have a few have a few explorations? I mean, that's a pretty that's a pretty solid business for year one. Right?

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

So if we do that, if we pull that off Mhmm. And then, one thing I will rebut is, the characterization that I would go all in on manufacturing. I think I'm not gonna probably go all in on almost anything, which I think is part of the tension. Right? So and there's another there's another, angle.

There's another angle to this or or another layer to this onion in that, done right, everything is content. Right? Right. And so this this whole experiment is, like, just do things that attract people, and then eventually, you know, you'll make money off of it somehow. And doing a factory, doing a limited run manufacturing, like, like, all of that is just such great content.

And if that if that part wasn't there, I would say, oh, I don't know if this makes sense as a whole. You know?

Ian

So do you think the I guess, to me, that is the those are kind of, I guess, to me, the the rub there is when you say, like, like, doing courses two years from now. Right? Like, to me, then if that if that other stuff is content, which I totally agree with

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Then the the courses are the monetization of that content.

Aaron

It's the back end. That is the current back end. I agree.

Ian

So that now I think you maybe maybe I could see you feeling burned out right now because you've kinda done these two you kinda came out the gate

Aaron

Huge mistake.

Ian

Too fast. Right? And, like Yep. It's like these courses back to back. You're sick of courses.

Like Good,

Aaron

good for money, bad for morale. Yeah.

Ian

Right. So then, like, if it's more planned now that you've kind of established how you do it, how long it takes, blah, blah, blah. Like, could it be that it's more like, Hey, now we're gonna do course every January and every June or whatever it is. Right. You could even do eight months between them and it doesn't have to be within a year.

Right. We're gonna do January and August and then whatever, every eight months we're gonna do it then. Like, it's like, you have a structure there where it's like, yes, there's still gonna be tons of time in between to go off totally on side trips and make cool content. But then there's also already a plan for like, we're gonna come back then to the courses that feed the machine. Right.

And like, that's what we're doing. Versus like, you know, if you describe it kind of the initial way, it sounds a little bit more like, well, I might not be wanna do courses two years from now, which is fine, but then it's like, now you have to reinvent a new business of some sort to pay you guys two years from now. Right.

Aaron

Versus right.

Ian

If it's like, at least the base plan is like, we're gonna make courses. We're gonna do things that feed into our, you know, marketing essentially. Empire. Distribution. Yeah.

Our following and all that stuff. Then that's, you know, that's totally different. This is just like your marketing strategy again for the courses or whatever other stuff you decide to sell. I think that makes sense, but it's just like more of a structured plan that you can then execute over and over versus the kind of having to, like, figure out what you're gonna do every time, which seems harder.

Aaron

K. I will I will hit you with a yes and. I agree with all of that. And perhaps I overstated the extent to which we would leave courses behind. So, I agree that, courses right now are the back end.

So, like, all attention, hopefully, eventually funnels down into some portion of people buying courses. That that is currently the business model

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

Which seems great to me. Yeah. I don't wanna change that necessarily. What I do want is, I think, like you're saying, spread the courses out a lot further. And in the meantime, do other interesting things that have a potential to become additional back ends on the attention distribution empire.

Right? Right. So let's say let's say that, I just finished Postgres. We can say that because it's true. So let's say that.

Yeah. Mhmm. Now it's like, great. You don't have to you don't have to make another course for eight months. Let's say let's say you're gonna do you're gonna release MySQL in eight months, which is not a promise, just a hypothetical.

Between now and eight months, I wanna do some interesting stuff. Yeah. And I want I want to reap two benefits from the interesting stuff. Three, perhaps. One is have fun.

Yeah. Two would be make good content, which is, like, I think, a a byproduct. And three would be potentially come up with a new a new, offering in the product mix. Right? So hopefully, ten years from now hopefully, ten years from now, I've got 15 courses that print money.

Maybe we do between one and ten physical products. Maybe we have a piece of desktop software. Maybe we have a SaaS, something like that. I think that's the feeling that I get, which is, like, ten years from now, regardless of what it is, I don't wanna just have one thing. And in this case, that would be the one thing that I don't wanna just have as courses.

It could just be you know, if we were doing SaaS, I would say, maybe I just don't wanna run a single SaaS, which, you know, I don't wanna run two SaaSes, but I I don't wanna just have one single thing.

Ian

I make people push back against your thinking here is that, like, most successful businesses are fairly boring to operate.

Aaron

I agree.

Ian

That's kind of their nature. If it's not boring, it's often because things are going wrong or it's the very beginning when it's super exciting and you don't know if it's going to work. But once you know it works, it's pretty boring, basically. You know, there's different levels to that. Like, I don't necessarily think I feel bored all the time in the strongest sense of that word, but at the same time, sure.

It's not as it's definitely not exciting. Like, I'm just starting a new project and it's, you know, who knows what's gonna happen. Right? It's a different type of thing.

Aaron

Doesn't that sound fun? Right. Yeah. It does sound fun.

Ian

But so that's the rub. Right? It's like, well, then how do you, I mean, that's the other thing. It's like there's the other forms of revenue generation that maybe lend themselves better to where you wanna be if we're sticking with the, like, what do I do wanna do in my life? Like in the big picture.

Right? Like I would think just forgetting how realistic this is at this point. Like, I would think advertising is a much better fit for what you are talking about.

Aaron

Like Say say more. Advertising how?

Ian

Because if you just wanna have a big like, if you're Casey Neistat, you could do anything. Right? Like, he had products, then he sold them and he has, but most of his revenue, right, is like, he does ads. Like, that's where

Aaron

he's traditionally

Ian

made most of his money. Right? So like, yeah, you're out there creating stuff. Maybe you go this direction. Maybe you go that direction, do this other thing.

It's all content. And the base plan for how you monetize it is the traditional one, which is advertising, which

Aaron

Sell ads.

Ian

Is easy and not easy to do. Right. But it's like fits naturally with Yeah. A content business. Yep.

And you don't have to, like, figure out how you're gonna get revenue or how you're gonna tie the people who joined you because you made did woodworking and sell them on my sequel course. Right? Like, some of that stuff gets weird potentially over time.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Whereas, like, hey. They like you. People like you. It's fun to watch you do whatever it is you're doing. You might be running like Casey.

I thought his whole videos were just running.

Aaron

Like, he just runs.

Ian

I'm not into running, but he I watch him run because that's what he's doing in this 10 episode. Right. So, and then at the end, he sells me a NordVPN subscription. Right. And that's like the deal we've all made.

So there might be other options like that. I don't know if your audience is big enough for a sufficient revenue yet, but maybe if that's the focus, you make the audience big enough. That kind

Aaron

of thing. So maybe maybe that maybe that is maybe that is the real business model. Maybe the real business model is, maybe is this every business model? Monetizing attention. I don't think that's every

Ian

business model. Brain. Brain is getting huge.

Aaron

The real business model is monetizing attention. And and perhaps it is the height of conceit to say the real business model is follow Aaron Francis. Maybe that is the real business model. And we already get decent amounts of money from sponsorship slash advertising. So, like, that already exists.

We're already doing that.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

The courses make up the biggest, you know, percentage of the revenue. But in terms of, like, dollars per effort dollars per unit of effort, I think advertising is way easier. Sponsorship is way easier. And so that is another that is another thing we would get out of this, like, continued and varied exploration is exposure to a broader audience, bigger sponsorship numbers, and the whole thing just becomes kinda like a like a a flywheel almost.

Ian

Okay. So then here's what Here

Aaron

we go. Now we're talking. Excited.

Ian

Now we're getting into it. See now? This is exciting. Okay. So you're making content.

You're Aaron Francis. People like Aaron Francis. Right? Okay.

Aaron

Open question. But, yeah, let's let's operate as if that's

Ian

true. Ev, you're now just putting our Gordon Gekko business system on here, which you'll watch someday and understand.

Aaron

Oh, he's in the

Ian

second one.

Aaron

I've seen it. Yeah.

Ian

He is in the second one. Your from the business perspective Yep. You are making inventory. Right? Advertising inventory is what you are creating.

K? Now underneath that Yeah. It's just how you fill that inventory you have. Sometimes it's with your old products. Right?

Sometimes it's your courses. Sometimes it's your handmade widgets that's filling your advertising inventory and you're selling through your channels. Other times, it's other people's products that they put effort into that you don't even have to think about. Yep. You don't have to have anything to do with.

You just stick their thing because they're paying you to stick their thing. Just like everybody's very comfortable with that idea. Yep. Which then kinda creates an interesting idea to me of, like, the try hard studios courses.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

And we've talked about this a little bit before, but we're Tell me. You are just not doing them anymore. K. So somebody else does the courses. Now I think it's probably not even one person.

Right? But you you've already talked about maybe pulling in some other people.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

But you start filling your ad inventory. This is like a thing Steve could be be working on. Right? This doesn't even now even need all of your attention necessarily. Right.

Right. Lining up future courses. That's a whole management process that you're probably overseeing as the course guru, but at the same time, Steve's very knowledgeable in that stuff too and could do more of the day to day. So you

Aaron

have the

Ian

partnership aspect. Your energy and focus goes into making advertising inventory.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

And then you're backfilling that with your own stuff, but also with other people's stuff. And that then is like a focus that it feels like if you're just going and trying stuff, doesn't have that same business focus. But now this has a business focus. We're building advertising as well.

Aaron

You're correct. Yes. That is it.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

That is the business model.

Ian

That I like that. I like that model.

Aaron

Okay.

Ian

That's good.

Aaron

I like that too. I like that too. And that helps me. That helps clarify, that helps clarify that courses are an implementation of that business model, but not the only implementation.

Ian

Right. Right. The business is advertising. That's the

Aaron

The business is advertising. Sometimes we sell our own products. Sometimes we sell other people's products.

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

But my job is to create a spectacle.

Ian

Yeah. So if you want to be interesting So

Aaron

Dove can sell soap. Yes. My job is to create a spectacle.

Ian

This is very clarifying. Like

Aaron

This is very clarifying.

Ian

Can now go off and do anything. That's interesting. Right? That makes total sense in this model. You're mister beast.

Right? Yes. I was like, I'm just gonna pay somebody $10 to do something stupid or maybe Aaron will live in a industrial complex for a week and see what happens. Great. Great.

Great.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Any of it. But that idea of you're making advertising spaces and, you have to be interesting to do that. And that's what you that's your part, your end of the deal.

Aaron

This is great. This is great.

Ian

Yeah. The business of try hard is maybe doing the other end of the deal, which is finding advertisers and or building products to put in advertising, basically.

Aaron

This is perfect. We've by the way, we've just invented from whole cloth, like, television, basically.

Ian

Newspapers, television.

Aaron

Basically, everything that exists is is this. We invented it. That's We we came to it. Yeah. Yeah.

That's it. That's the one. That's it. And so Okay. And so when when people are like, now I have an answer for when people are like, why are you going to Sanity Hackathon?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

I just got to go create a spectacle. I got it. I got to I got to create some inventory. Why are you why are you doing physical manufacturing? Then you're all part of business.

Gotta create a spectacle. Right. It's great. I love it.

Ian

You're entertaining people.

Aaron

That's what you do. Entertaining people.

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

Just like you messaged you messaged me, and you're like, hey. You're speaking to EricCon EU on a JavaScript thing? That seems weird. Nope. It's all part of the business, baby.

It's all in there. Part of the business.

Ian

He's a he becomes a JavaScript developer one day. You don't know. Anything could happen.

Aaron

Anything could happen. And that that is that is what I'm optimizing for. Anything could happen.

Ian

Yes. There is I like it.

Aaron

I am, 100% not saying that this is the optimal business strategy. Not even I don't even I don't think that. I'm not saying that. So when people when people say to me, like, oh, you could make more money, I'm yes. Probably.

Right. You're right. Probably.

Ian

That's a no. I don't know. I don't know if I even agree with that statement. I think that this is the optimal business strategy for you because you don't like being tied down to one thing. I feel like you have established this very well.

Like, you have some products you already tried to build that didn't work out. You've had things you've done that have worked out, but now you're kind of like, maybe they get boring or you you know for sure you don't wanna do this, you know, for the next five years and have three courses a year and you're the face of every one of them and that kind of thing. Like, you seem pretty sure that that's not what you wanna do. Right?

Aaron

So Very sure.

Ian

So, yeah, I think that that that this could be the optimal one because it's like it's like how we talked about a couple weeks ago where I was like, HubSpot could have been Zendesk in this abstract theory.

Aaron

Right.

Ian

But in reality, if I, in 02/2005 just said, yeah, I can host a bunch of servers and that's gonna work. The reality is I would've just been out of business and I wouldn't have become Zendesk because I would've been out of business. And the same thing is kind of true here potentially. It's like, Yeah. In theory, might you make more money if you were like super course guy and you just become super course guy, maybe, but also if you can't can't actually execute that because you don't want to do it Yes.

Then it won't be the best physical. Exactly. And also, I think certainly on the sort of high end, the the advertising model is uncapped. I think there is a cap on courses. Like, you're only gonna be able to sell so many database courses.

It could be many millions of dollars, but it's still a cap to it. Whereas, like, on YouTube, anything's like, you have no cap. Like, you could become Casey Neistat and have 10,000,000 followers or mister beast and have a hundred million followers. Like Right. It's unlikely.

Right? Like, you

Aaron

could literally make millions of dollars per video Right. If if that if that came true, which I doubt. But yeah. Right.

Ian

But, I mean, it's possible. And you're already you know, you have something that people enjoy about you. Right? And so it's like, obviously, you could easily have half a million followers. I don't think that's gonna even be I think

Aaron

that is true.

Ian

Outside the realm of possibility at all. So and even at that, you're gonna be able to have reasonable ad sales. You're gonna be able to do well with your own products into a market that size because you already deal with one that's a tenth the size. So Mhmm. Yeah.

That seems I I love this. Yeah. Because you've been making me nervous. I know. I'm making everybody nervous.

Nervous. But I do like this. I mean, I do think it's riskier in the short term. Right? Because, like, hey.

If, like

Aaron

Live a little.

Ian

You don't get the advertising, the balance, or the courses, you know, just course sell at that initial jump, but you're not able to, like, really keep it going. You know, there's short term risk, but you could always come back. You could always double down on what you've already done. Like, it's not crazy risk. Like, you could there's there's other options there.

Yeah. You could do more courses if you had to do a a run-in back end of 2025 of MySQL and ClickHouse or whatever.

Aaron

Like Right.

Ian

Great. You could do it. Like or you have somebody else do it or whatever the

Aaron

case is. So proven that I can grind it out if I have to. That that much is true. And without sharing without sharing full numbers, we've been, Steve and I, incredibly, encouraged by how well SQLite continues to sell. Great.

And so I think adding on Postgres on top, and then we have a few more we actually have two guest courses in in the hopper. And so, like, adding those under the umbrella, I think we'll continue that wheel turning. Yep. And part of I think part of my historic failings have been doing the spectacle thing, making it really cool, and then being like, alright. Well, that's I'm done with that.

Moving on. And so having, having a structure and much of this includes, you know, Steve Steve and Kelsey on kind of the back end to come back after my my wake of destruction and be like, alright. Well, now we need to, like, now we need to support this course. We need to Alright. Do ads.

We need to get, you know, we need to do, like, emails. Having that sort of, like, infrastructure back end of of people continuing on after I've, like, gotten it from zero to one and, like, what's next, baby? Right. That's I think that is that is the thing that's differentiates me historically from try hard now. That that's my hope at least.

Ian

Yeah. And I think it just makes clear your role. Right? And it's like, what's the thing that's hard to do? Is the thing that's hard to do to get people to subscribe to things and follow somebody and believe in what they're saying and trust them and trust their product recommendations and things like that?

Or is the hard thing to build a course about MySQL? And I think the hard thing is to get the followers and the distribution and the trust. Yeah. Like, there's a lot of people who know MySQL. There's a lesser number who know MySQL and would be good on camera, so you have to filter through that.

But there's still those people are out there.

Aaron

And what those

Ian

people can't do is make a course and then have distribution to sell into, which is the where you come in. So

Aaron

and, frankly, I I can still do both of those, but I cannot do respond to emails. I cannot do send out regular updates. I cannot buy ads. Like, at that point, I'm like, well, I'm gonna go Yeah. Go build out a factory instead.

Ian

I'm gonna do a good job with that. Yeah. That's that's fine.

Aaron

Not. And I think, you know, I think I've, at some point, subscribed, that to myself as a moral failing of, like, you should just be better at that. And maybe that's true. Who knows? But now, like, I have a role in the business, and that's not my role.

Like, I don't have to be better at that, in fact. Yes. I don't have to collect testimonials and put them on the website because we have a person that's very, very good at that. We have Arlinda, whose name is Kelsey, and she's just incredibly good at doing stuff. And I'm like Yep.

That was great because I woulda let that sit for four weeks. You know? Yep. So I think this is a good spot for me. Be the be the guy out front, create some inventory, dove will come in and sell some soap, and we'll all get rich.

Ian

Yeah. And if you get that dove contract, that's gonna be something.

Aaron

Imagine. That's right. Look how

Ian

moisturized my

Aaron

face is.

Ian

It's this Dove brand Dove. Nail moisturizer. Serum.

Aaron

I'm ready. Dove, call me. I'm ready.

Ian

Yes. Do it. We gotta get the spin drift people. We get the Dove people. I know.

I think it's possible. I like it. Oh, so watch the television anymore. People are out there trying to advertise on YouTube who have, you know, a reasonable following because people aren't that's where people are. So I know.

Aaron

I'm the future.

Ian

Alright. Another business problem. Knocked out of the park.

Aaron

That was a good card. Right? What am I gonna do with my life? That worked out great.

Ian

Good good prompt. Oh, jeez.

Aaron

We're an hour and seven in. In. Are we gonna talk about why you hate Elon, or are we gonna wrap it?

Ian

We do that? No. I don't know. If you have time, we can talk about that.

Aaron

I have time. What do I have to do? Oh, first of all, before we do that, Postgres launches tomorrow. So everybody listening, please go please go help.

Ian

Let's talk about that quick since we we kinda touched on it, but, like,

Aaron

we'll start

Ian

that that end of things up. So Postgres is ready. Postgres is ready. Just it's do you have a launch video? Is there a launch video?

What's your plan there?

Aaron

That's an open question. I think Steve is working on potentially working on that today. We've got I think we have 97 videos for launch, which is just

Ian

absurd. I wonder why you feel burned out on it.

Aaron

Yeah. I wonder. What could what could be the root cause there? So I finished recording the last ones, on Friday, and so that was good. Ahead of ahead of schedule.

Well, a few days behind schedule, but ahead of launch. So I'm not, like, you know, gonna be up recording tonight, which would be insane.

Ian

Like you did last time.

Aaron

Like I did last time.

Ian

You're doing something last time anyway right before. Yep.

Aaron

So this weekend when the kids were asleep, and then today, just shoring up the actual website, making sure that all, like, the multi tenancy stuff is is correct. Because now we're running two courses that people can buy access to. We gotta make sure they get access to the right one and not the other, and, you know, whatever. All that stuff.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

So, yeah, I feel, very I feel very proud of the content. I think it's very good. There's so much of it. And in fact, there's a lot more that is yet to be done. So we're doing the same kinda launch thing of early access.

And then as we add modules, that gives us a reason to send emails. And then as we finish the course completely, that gives us a reason to say price is going up and stuff like that. Mhmm. And, of course, it gives me an out to not, like, have to finish the last, you know, 30 or 40 videos right now. So Yeah.

It kinda works out. But, yeah, it's it's great. I think I think the course is very, very good. It was one that I was kinda nervous about because of its breadth and depth, But, it turned out good, and we're launching tomorrow. I'll probably do another livestream on Twitter because that worked super well last time.

Yeah. And then, yeah, send it out to the email list and hopefully hopefully make a bunch of money. Otherwise, I'm not gonna be doing any light manufacturing.

Ian

Yeah. I mean, sounds good. I don't know. I guess they go smooth. It sounds like it it seemed like it went pretty smooth once you got to recording that, like

Aaron

Yeah. It went pretty smooth. I have, like I don't know. It's some sort of, like, mental thing where I'm either I'm either just, like, absolutely struggling to record or I'm in goblin mode, and I'm knocking out 10 videos in a day. But there's this whole emotional roller coaster of, like, I can't do this.

Who am I? I'm not gonna and then I can't start. And then it's, like, 02:30 in the afternoon. I'm like, I gotta start recording videos. And Yeah.

And then it's, like, just like it's it's, I wish I do not wish it upon anyone. But, yeah, it's Yeah. It's pretty rough.

Ian

Especially when you have the time deadline because, like, you know, it's the time that you really have to do it.

Aaron

That's one thing that we have agreed on, Steve and I. We're never gonna announce, a course until it's, like, 80% done next time.

Ian

Yeah. Just have it, like, in the can pretty much and, like, then you can do two months of the lead up or whatever and just know it's just marketing time and not, all that stuff. Yeah.

Aaron

What a what a mess. But, you know, live live and learn. We came out of the gate. We came out of the gate strong, and maybe it was necessary just for from a revenue perspective. Yeah.

But we I don't think we will we'll never run them this tight again, and I doubt we'll even run two in a year that I produce that I teach. Right. But we'll see.

Ian

Yeah. No. Anyway, I mean, it was you have to always remember that, like, you were kind of capitalizing on a specific moment. Like, you got laid off. Exactly.

A big thing. Like, you had some opportunities. Like, so you gotta kinda take those opportunities when they come. There's no guarantee that if you waited two more months at that point that the sponsors you've gotten would be wanting to do it still or all those things. So for the first year, I think it made sense to crush your soul and get it done.

But, yeah, I think tweaking the, process for the future definitely makes lots

Aaron

of sense. Less soul crushing. Yes.

Ian

Yeah. It's probably good.

Aaron

No. I I think you're absolutely right. That was a moment that I think we fortunately identified. We identified that we were in a moment, which is not always possible and sometimes often missed. We identified we were in a moment, we capitalized on the moment, and then we worked like hell to to fulfill what we'd said we were gonna do.

And I don't know if I would change anything. We won't do it again this way, but I don't know if I would change anything because I think, you're right that we the the wave could have passed us if we didn't paddle quite as hard as we did. And so we did. Here we are.

Ian

Yeah. I mean, moments are really hard to get. Like, dude, you can't manufacture them. No. They just appear, and you kinda have to take advantage of that moment.

So I think

Aaron

that's a

Ian

good move. Me. But now it's time to be a little more a little more chill. Chill.

Aaron

A little more chill.

Ian

Five is your chill.

Aaron

It's the year of chill. It's the year of systems and processes to, like, make the back end even more profitable and then hopefully expand the top of funnel with interesting spectacles.

Ian

Yeah. And that's the thing. Like, you have an inventory of products now that, like, getting even I mean, Kelsey seems good at it, so maybe that's even enough. But even if you needed more people over time to, like, who there's tons of people out there who like that. That's what they like, and that's what they're good at.

And they're like, great. We have all this stuff that's awesome to sell. Let me, like, build the marketing

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

You know, steps that do that and the automation and all the stuff and Facebook ads or whatever. Who knows? There's all those things that probably would work good for some of these things, I would think, and be profitable. It's like you just have to have the people to do it, and you're just not that person. So that can all be that's just like a cost equation of, you know, if I hire someone and they cost x and they can sell y, then as long as that's positive, it's like, great.

Just get out there and sell stuff. So, yeah, I think that that could be something for the coming year or two. So Yep. Cool, man. Yeah.

So let's cover this other thing quick because lots of people on the Internet wanted us to talk about this.

Aaron

Yeah. Because this is an unbelievably historic bad intake. It's it's historic. Alright. Give us give us give us the take.

Ian

Alright. So SpaceX launched some big rocket thing that went up into the air, like, all of the other rockets have done. And it landed itself, which, again, hundreds of other rockets have done. And then apparently, the difference with this one is that two arms came out and caught it in the spot where it was they knew it was going to land, and it did land because they've done it a hundred times before. And then they they caught it.

And it's cool. And it's fine. But I just don't think it's that big a deal. Everybody's, like, freaking out. Like, this is changing the world.

Like, your life is not any different because of this rocket being caught with arms. Big arms. Big arms.

Aaron

Okay. Alright. Here we go. This has never been done before. So Yeah.

I guess. The the rockets the rockets that have landed so much smaller, so much smaller. And so they have they have launched and landed rockets, and it should be noted that that is so commonplace now because they were the ones that did it.

Ian

They did. They did.

Aaron

And they they failed, you know, however many times, 10 times. And it was like, last one. Hope it works, and it worked. And now it's like, ah, yeah. Right?

Of course, rockets land themselves. Of course, they do. Exactly. That that never that never happened in the history of the universe

Ian

Not in the history of the world.

Aaron

We don't know what else is out there because we haven't left yet. Thank you. So that's never happened. Okay. Cool.

Commonplace. Right?

Ian

Right. Right.

Aaron

And so now the biggest rocket in the history of humanity that has left the Earth is now coming back to the Earth and being caught, and you're like, ah, it's just kinda commonplace. This is the biggest it's, like, 40 stories tall or something insane like that. And it brings down the cost of, you know, kilogram to orbit from, like I think they already brought it down from, like, $50,000 to, like, 2,000, and Starship Heavy brings it down to, like, 200.

Ian

Right. Yeah. That's cool.

Aaron

It's cool. Okay. So here's here's here's the other here's the other thing here's the other thing I I I take umbrage with

Ian

in your,

Aaron

in your tweets was Mhmm. Something like, oh, this isn't exciting. We can't really do anything with the current tech that's, like, that exciting. Right. So think about the That was the point.

That was the point.

Ian

The point the point was that we don't do cool things like we already did the go to the moon, which was the cool thing. That was, like, the inspiring humans have looked at the moon for millions

Aaron

of years,

Ian

and, like, now we got there. That's amazing. Right? So now we have to pretend this is as amazing as that. Like, people are like cheering and losing their minds as if like this was equivalent even to that.

And it's not, it's not, it's not equivalent at all. We've already had the inspiring moment. The here's the example. The first thing you go to is the cost per kilogram of weights of the shit sent to space. That's not Mitch.

Inspiring and exciting. Like, it's It is. From a business thing, I love it. If we're having just a business conversation, I think

Aaron

We're not. We're having a total humanity conversation.

Ian

Yeah. It's not interesting in humanity conversation. When anybody have a choice of something as interesting in a humanity conversation. It's just not

Aaron

Because the cheaper

Ian

inspired the guy.

Aaron

It costs to get to space, so much stuff goes to space.

Ian

Yeah. That's alright.

Aaron

And we want stuff we want stuff in space.

Ian

SpaceX making money, which is cool. I'm all about it.

Aaron

No. No. We want we want stuff in space. And here's the thing. Here's here's the thing I was here's the thing I was gonna complain about your complaint about Give

Ian

it to me.

Aaron

With the current technology. Mhmm. Where do you think the new technology comes from? Stuff like this. This is the new techno it's like, this is, like, the first time that what's his name?

John Glenn orbit the orbited the earth or whatever. Mhmm. Like, that's not the moon, but that was pretty cool. Right? Yeah.

And the first time that the space shuttle, like, they launched it off, you know, whatever rocket, and then it lands on a runway, and they're like Yep. Woah. That's super cool.

Ian

It was cool.

Aaron

It was cool. And this is that because this is, like, in in terms of, you know, the tech tree, this is unlocking all of the things that come next, which is like, let's go build some stuff on the moon. Let's take some robots to the moon and build

Ian

some stuff. The moon. What a

Aaron

fucking waste of time. Some medicine. Let's go make some medicine on here.

Ian

Waste of time, the building stuff on the moon?

Aaron

This is this is all

Ian

waste of time.

Aaron

This is this is all you're playing a character. You're playing a character of Ian. This is Ian the character. This is There's no point

Ian

in going to the moon. There's literally no point.

Aaron

Points go to the moon. You're going to the moon. There. There's double stars. Because we haven't brought anything to the moon yet because it's too expensive.

Ian

The moon's insane.

Aaron

Wait. Wait. Wait. Don't we have Starship heavy? But there's nothing there.

Ian

There's nothing there.

Aaron

I know. That's why it's a perfect

Ian

place to do crazy stuff. That's the stuff that's already here. No. No. No.

There's nothing there.

Aaron

This is unbelievable. Listen. I'm poor. We want manufacturing. We want we want medicine production.

We want these cool things happening in outer space.

Ian

I don't think that we don't know that that's true. No. There is no medicine made in outer space right now. They found something that's like, this only works in space. There is.

Aaron

No. They Yes. There is.

Ian

Give give me what medicine is that.

Aaron

In orbit.

Ian

They are making tried it. I'm saying they haven't used anything that it.

Aaron

Right? Yep. They are.

Ian

Proven that it does it's anything different and does something. That's my point to you. But also even if that is true, which is I'm all for that. That's great. First of all, that'd be an actual use.

Second of all, you don't have to do it on the moon. Like, you could do it 50 miles up in low Earth orbit.

Aaron

And how are they getting 50 miles up?

Ian

They're gonna take a

Aaron

rocket rockets.

Ian

Which is great. That's fine. I'm all for the rocket. That's what I'm saying. Not against rockets, and I'm not against space.

I'm against stupid stuff like building a base on the moon that you're gonna send people to Mars, and all that is dumb because there's nothing there. No. You know it's there. You're you're

Aaron

telling the

Ian

stream right now of what's on Mars.

Aaron

There's nothing there. Fish, don't go on the land. That's stupid. Don't go on the land. Why would you go on the land?

We've got water over here.

Ian

Yes. Exactly.

Aaron

It's it's it's unbelievable. The fish starts walking, and Ian's like, don't do it.

Ian

It's a trap. There's nothing else there. A trap. No. There's nothing out there.

I know. Out there. Here's my biggest beef. Maybe my number one beef is that Tell me

Aaron

the beef.

Ian

All the money that SpaceX is gonna trick us into spending as a society. Okay? Who? The The US taxpayer.

Aaron

Okay.

Ian

Yes. If this whole scam that Elon's running that we're gonna be on Mars in three years, three years, they have no idea how to do any of this. Right? And even if they could, there's no reason to do it. But let's just say that you could figure it out.

It's not gonna happen in three years.

Aaron

Right? Manifest destiny is the reason to do it.

Ian

So those people were going somewhere where they knew where they were going, but anyway, no, they didn't. So yes, they did. They knew that when they get there, there'd be water. So all that wasted money is just a scam on the taxpayer. It's just a straight scam.

Aaron

I have

Ian

straight scam. This is because there's nothing on Mars that you can't do here or on, in the worst case on the moon, but probably just in low earth orbit, which if we're all worried about the cost per kilogram, the cost per kilogram of going to low Earth orbit has to be exponentially less than sending it to Mars. Right?

Aaron

Especially when you're taking Starship heavy. Yeah. It's cheap. Great. It's

Ian

cheap. For Starship heavy. I'm all for loading junk into space. I'm sure there won't be any problems.

Aaron

Here's here's the thing. With junk. Here's the thing you're missing. But the I wanna

Ian

finally be wrong about that.

Aaron

The big vision of, like, let's get people to Mars Mhmm. That drums up well, who cares? That drums up. Important. No.

It's not. He's gonna miss the timeline by a decade.

Ian

From now.

Aaron

He's gonna miss the timeline by two decades. It may never happen. But here's the thing

Ian

years. Yeah.

Aaron

Here's the thing. Mhmm. It energizes it energizes the industrial base to say, let's build a mother, freak it, to get something to learn more therbit.

Ian

Now getting it. See, you're fine.

Aaron

No. No. No. Listen.

Ian

It's just a scam.

Aaron

It's not a scam.

Ian

Big Elon money. That part is

Aaron

just a scam for Elon. Yes. You just said it.

Ian

You literally just said it.

Aaron

Here's what I said. I said the big vision of getting people to Mars

Ian

Sure. The lie. What you're saying is a lie. If it's not gonna be hundred years now, the lie. Sure.

Yeah. It's contingent.

Aaron

We can hold it constant, but it may not happen in three years. Sure. We can hold that as a constant. So the big vision of getting people to Mars Mhmm. Has all these downstream effects that energize the industrial what where did Starship come from?

Ian

No. Research it. There's actually not that much. We could send a guy to Mars right now today. Like, the technology exists to do it.

Where? Why? Starship heavy to send a person to Mars. That's a known thing. We could do it right now.

Aaron

We need Starship heavy to get all the stuff there.

Ian

Not just to send a person. If we just wanna send a person

Aaron

to a plan flag going back because there's nothing there, Ian. There's nothing there. He would just send

Ian

them back. If we want them to walk around, like, Neil Armstrong style and walk around for a day and come back, We don't need any new technology. The technology all exists.

Aaron

Yes. I agree. But you're missing the point. You're missing the point. That is the point.

No. No. Here's the point. My point is Elon Musk says we're gonna go to Mars, and we're gonna have a base. We're gonna have all this stuff.

Right?

Ian

Uh-huh.

Aaron

Right. So the technology to send a human there is already there. Who cares? Whatever. But the technology to go build a bunch of bases, that doesn't exist.

I mean

Ian

That's mostly there too. What's not there is the ability to send all the stuff that we already know how to build, which is where he comes in. Right? That's the scam part.

Aaron

That's the scam part. Finish. Let me finish.

Ian

Spaces on Mars. Woah.

Aaron

The free let me finish the thing you're missing.

Ian

Give it to me.

Aaron

You are saying that his vision is stupid. I am making a null argument on that. Do not care. No. Don't care.

We can leave that alone. His vision is we need to build bases on Mars. Don't freaking care. Alright. Moving down from that, how are we gonna build bases on Mars?

Well, we gotta get a lot of stuff into space, and it can't cost it can't cost billions and billions and trillions of dollars.

Ian

It will.

Aaron

Let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish. You're you're being you're being a you're being an interrupty guy.

We know an interrupty guy.

Ian

I know. I don't like an interrupty guy.

Aaron

Don't be

Ian

an interrupty guy. Look at what you're making me do. It's all your fault.

Aaron

It's not my fault. So the vision Yes. Is is moot. Doesn't matter. Got it.

We can agree or disagree. The point is to accomplish his vision, which maybe is stupid, we have to get a huge amount of mass into outer space. Okay.

Ian

True.

Aaron

How do we get a huge amount of mass into outer space? Well, we can launch some rockets and land them, and that cuts the cost down by a ton. So we can launch and land over and over and over. Alright. How do we cut it down again?

We make bigger rockets.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

That's awesome. Let's make bigger rockets. Well Sure. The bigger rockets, for whatever reason, I'm not a rocket scientist, don't have legs. They can't land themselves.

So we make Starship heavy, and we catch it out of the freaking sky.

Ian

We catch

Aaron

it on these two tiny little hooks somehow. Mhmm. And so that's the way that we're gonna get all the stuff to Mars. Now will it ever be used to get stuff to Mars? I have no freaking idea.

I don't know. But what I do know is that Starship Heavy, a reusable biggest rocket that has ever existed, would not have come to fruition without this vision of, like, we're going to Mars. Agree or disagree?

Ian

I I disagree even with that. I know that that's true. I think there's tremendous demand from governments and commercial organizations to send stuff into space for satellites, for research. That's where it is. Where are

Aaron

all of the government launches?

Ian

The government has been the only ones launching for all of human history up until, like, five years

Aaron

ago. Sucked at it.

Ian

That's why they can't do it.

Aaron

They launched basically nothing in space.

Ian

I would say they are not optimized to do it at a at a low cost. Right? That's not what how government operates, this kind of thing. Right? So They have launched

Aaron

shockingly little into outer space compared to compared to SpaceX. Shockingly little.

Ian

Well, I mean, first of all, SpaceX has done all what they've done without Starship heavy. Right? But also So imagine. Yeah. So there'll be more satellites.

I don't disagree with any of that. There will be more satellites. There will be space ish stations, space ish manufacturing things.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

I'm fine with all that, and I think it's great.

Aaron

And that's all great for the future of humanity.

Ian

I don't think that Mars has anything to do with it. I don't care. I don't think where we are right now has anything to do with Mars at all. I don't think the government's put a bunch of money into SpaceX because they think they're going to Mars with it. I think it's because they want the launch capacity for their own things, their own reasons and commercial reasons.

And that's what's happening. That's where I think the heavy push from Mars, right. It's about, there's a certain amount of government funding and just commercial funding that have come in over the past decade or two. Right. So we can have more launch capacity.

These are commercial pressures that arose and that SpaceX is attempting to satisfy along with others. Right. And that's naturally happened as part of commerce. What this, the next level though, right, is if you wanna get trillions and trillions of dollars, there is not a commercial need for that. So now you have to invent the reason for trillions of dollars to go into your pocket.

And that is what Mars is. Right? Like nobody's going again, I don't, I'm not denying that you could strap a guy to a rocket and send him there and send him back. Absolutely. I think you could do it tomorrow.

Right. But this vision of a base and we're gonna be plant and stuff, I guess, on the dead Martian surface or whatever's gonna happen.

Aaron

Probably.

Ian

That's all fairy tale land stuff to spend trillions of dollars that come into SpaceX. That's what that is.

Aaron

I don't think the government is funding I don't think the government is funding a mission to Mars.

Ian

I mean, even the government has talked about that. That's on their road map. That's why

Aaron

they have this new trip. They're all talking about it. Right. But if if the government is spending money

Ian

I mean, Elon literally says that the other day. He was like, if if Trump doesn't win, that we won't be able to go to Mars. That's, like, literally what he says. That's his what he talks about.

Aaron

Fine. But what I'm talking about is things that are real. If the government is

Ian

I know. That's what I'm talking about.

Aaron

If the if the government is spending money for SpaceX to put stuff in outer space, that is not I have no problem with that because SpaceX is gonna do it cheaper. And so my that's great. So my taxpayer dollars are being utilized more effectively by launching a space.

Ian

Launch a spy satellite. Launch something to the space station. All good.

Aaron

Your only problem is that he says he wants to go to Mars.

Ian

Well, I don't think that's my only problem. I think that first of all, my commentary was about everybody's so excited because they're like, we're going to Mars, and I don't think you're going to Mars, first of all. And then, yes, it's just a grift on the taxpayer. Right? Like, how do we spend $10

Aaron

on this? Not paying anything. That's the thing I don't understand. Point. There the taxpayer's not paying anything except for services to put stuff in outer space.

No. What is the taxpayer paying for if not if not the ability to put stuff into outer space?

Ian

This base base on Mars is a US government funded operation in the mind of Elon Musk.

Aaron

What yes. But that is not real.

Ian

That

Aaron

well, I agree.

Ian

But that's that's why

Aaron

So why are we talking about it? It's not real. You're

Ian

saying he

Aaron

wants it

Ian

to be funded. Arguing with me about right? We're going to Mars. The super heavy is the way to Mars and all this stuff. That's my that's the part I'm pushing it back on.

And then the only other part was that I don't think it's that I think it's cool, but I don't think it's like I'm not jumping up and down because they've already landed the rockets back on Earth. I think they already landed a Starship back on Earth. They just didn't catch it with the hooks. Right? Or didn't they land it into the ocean, but it was, like, vertical or whatever?

I don't know.

Aaron

I don't think they've landed a Starship heavy

Ian

on anything. I thought they at least had it come back down, but maybe they definitely didn't catch it, obviously. But, okay. And they catch it, and that's a cool twist, then I dig it. Okay.

Like, it's cool. I wouldn't I'm not surprised that, like, if I can land a rocket in the same spot every time, I'm not surprised that I can then catch it because I know where it's going to be.

Aaron

That's Yeah. I don't think this one's ever been landed, though. That's kinda the whole point. It's like this is due now.

Ian

The other rockets. It's just a bigger rocket of the thing they already did. That's not surprising.

Aaron

Seems as reductive. It's surprising. My my I think my the thing that I am totally confused about is you're saying the taxpayers funding a trip to Mars, and I say, no. They're not. And you say, yeah.

You're right. It's made up. And so, like

Ian

No. That's the whole point. Go go read into this two seconds. They're like, the government needs to fund this to go to Mars. That's the

Aaron

whole point. What you're saying is that you don't want the taxpayer in the future to fund it. And what I'm saying is Right. The taxpayers is not giving any funding to a trip to Mars.

Ian

Well, I

Aaron

mean, that's true. That is true.

Ian

No. It's not true.

Aaron

They're not even kidding.

Ian

Is trying to go to Mars. NASA is trying to go

Aaron

to Mars. That's that's your thing.

Ian

That's one thing.

Aaron

Care about that. Right?

Ian

Yeah. SpaceX is trying to make the pitch that they wanna go to Mars. Right? And that you should pay them lots of money to do that. Mostly, it's just, yes, I think that the Mars thing is all completely fake so that money goes into SpaceX.

Right? Like, this is the idea. Elon's the one with the vision. We're gonna save humanity and all the bullshit. Right?

Aaron

If you find, some evidence, which may exist, that the government is giving SpaceX money just purely speculatively to fund, like, a Martian base, that's a different, like,

Ian

we The pitch that Elon's making. I understand. Yes.

Aaron

I understand. What I but what I'm saying to you

Ian

Yes. Mhmm.

Aaron

I I'm acknowledging that that's the pitch. Okay. I I we agree.

Ian

That's about that.

Aaron

Is the pitch.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

What I am saying backing up is Mhmm. That hasn't happened.

Ian

Of course.

Aaron

The taxpayer so, like, the taxpayer is not giving money towards Mars towards SpaceX going to Mars. Do we agree on that?

Ian

I think that in general, in terms of where what we're talking about, yes. Like, they haven't dropped a trillion dollars on them yet and said go to Mars.

Aaron

So anything that the US government is paying SpaceX for is services, which would be launching things into outer space. Right?

Ian

Yes. That's I mean, I think there has been some other money besides that, but, generally, yes. It's for things to assist in doing stuff we actually need that is actually useful today.

Aaron

Right. And so your understanding. Your problem is a future potential problem. Your problem your problem is

Ian

my problem.

Aaron

We might end up giving Elon taxpayer money. That's your

Ian

problem. About Elon. Right? It's not So

Aaron

this isn't about Elon or SpaceX.

Ian

It's about the idea of anybody being like, we can go to Mars, and this is a good idea. Give me $4,000,000,000,000 to do it. I think that that's dumb, that we shouldn't spend $4,000,000,000,000 that way when we wanna have a lot of stuff here.

Aaron

We can argue about a lot of future things that are dumb, that don't that aren't that that don't exist.

Ian

It all layers in. Right. Because if you have people who are super excited, like a lot of people, apparently, according to Twitter who are, you know, on my butt, that they're very excited that we're going to Mars. Right. That people believe this because Elon and others say it, but it's not real.

So you're saying it doesn't matter that it's it's not real and you agree, and so it doesn't matter. But things that aren't real do matter in the real world.

Aaron

I do believe that we are going to Mars. I do believe we're going

Ian

to Mars.

Aaron

What I said is it's a moot point.

Ian

Okay. Well, then I, yeah, I disagree with that then because I think we're not going to Mars, again, other than, like, you could throw a dude out there and have him come back. Mhmm. We might do that. Mhmm.

But we're not living on Mars, anytime in our lifetime.

Aaron

And and my my point is, so holding aside what I believe about Mars, which is that a human will end up there, and there will be a bunch of you know, we'll we'll make a base there eventually, and who knows what we'll do, but it'll be awesome. Right? So holding that aside, I think we would not be unlocking these, these tech tree advances without a big vision. Right? So if you want people who is it?

Let let's look it up. Let's look up the actual one. If you want to build a ship, I think it's Antoine's super yeah. Here we go. I don't

Ian

think these are the big unlocks you think they are. They already got

Aaron

the big unlocks.

Ian

They already did the big unlocks.

Aaron

Do you think those came from? Here's here's the Yes.

Ian

But that's it. They only exist now.

Aaron

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. Yes. That is what I'm talking about. That's the manipulation

Ian

that's going on. I agree.

Aaron

That is not that is the inspiration that you could do something great. And to do that, we have to have a million inventions, so let's get to work. That is what's happening. But that's not true. Almost none of that is true in this case.

That's the problem. That is Almost

Ian

none of that is true in this case. That's the problem. We already have invented the things that need to be invented to do it. They exist. They do

Aaron

exist. We've reached a

Ian

fun

Aaron

They exist. Heavy did not exist until he invented it.

Ian

He didn't invent big rockets.

Aaron

Well, until they invented it.

Ian

It's not even it's just I don't even know if it's bigger than a Saturn five or it's, like, slightly bigger than a Saturn five. They didn't invent big rockets. We've had big rockets. Like, this is not, like, the yes. A bigger rocket, and we could probably have a bigger one after that.

Like, more engines, more fuel. It's not, like, that crazy. We got it. We know how to do it. This is my point.

We We know that's

Aaron

the thing. No. That's the thing is we know

Ian

for seventy years. We know how to

Aaron

do it.

Ian

It's in the space. Yes.

Aaron

We haven't been doing it. Not like this. That's the thing.

Ian

That's fine. This is making it cheaper for commercial use. I agree with that. That's fine.

Aaron

I think we've reached I think we've reached an impasse. I don't think I don't think we're getting to where anybody's gonna be happy.

Ian

Here's the thing. Every I would encourage everybody to actually go real. Everybody's like Mars. It's cool. We'll have a base there.

Like go literally read, like there's a cool book I read. I forget the name of it. It's like city on Mars or something. There's a lot of information about this. It's it's basically impossible.

Okay. Like, because you need the, there's nothing there we need. There's no magnetic shielding. You're just gonna get cancer in a day. Like I agree with all of

Aaron

that.

Ian

All kinds of stuff that makes it very hard to impossible to live there. Now, again, we have the technology, could we for infinite money, do it, build a base and we live underground and there's 500 humans there living underground for $10,000,000,000,000 Absolutely. I totally think we could do that. I think we could do it today if we just wanted to send again. You don't even need the reusable part.

It's like, great. We're shooting a thousand rockets up into space. We know how to do that. And we're shipping the stuff to Mars. And when the guys get there, they're gonna dig a hole and they're gonna go live in it fine.

We could absolutely do that, but there's no point in doing that. That's the problem. And we're gonna ship water to them and we're gonna ship food to them forever, which this is not like a colony. Right? This is just a dependent thing that as soon as something goes wrong or the budget gets cuts on earth, they're just all dead.

So that's not a self sustaining second human civilization.

Aaron

And it never will be with that attitude. It never

Ian

will be.

Aaron

It's also Starship is bigger than Saturn five. Just FYI.

Ian

Great. There you go. It's a little bit bigger than Saturn five. Fine. Awesome.

And we could probably build a bigger one than that. Right? We could probably strap three of those together. We have an even bigger rocket. Cool.

That'd be awesome. Awesome. People watch too many movies, man.

Aaron

See, two video games. You're you're too jaded. That's the problem.

Ian

Not jaded. There's too much out there, man. There is nothing out there.

Aaron

There's nothing there's nothing on Mars. I agree with that.

Ian

So this is my other beef. If let's just cover this one beef very quickly, which is we're gonna spend if we get tricked into spending all this money and see this thing, I'm all about spending money on space. I would love to spend loads of money on space, but let's just do real shit that's smart. Send a bunch of we haven't even been we've I just looked this up yesterday. We've been to I think it's eight other planetary bodies in the solar system.

Eight. That's all we've been to in any form. And most of them were like a lander. It survived ninety minutes and then it died.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Why don't we check every moon, every planet, all these things. We literally haven't sent anything to any of these places. Why don't we spend 1,000 money on that?

Aaron

And how are we getting there? That's the thing. We already have sent probes.

Ian

There's nothing. We were sending the probe the all these probes that happened happened in the seventies. Russia sent two probes to Venus in the seventies.

Aaron

So Like,

Ian

we have this ability already. We just don't do it.

Aaron

Let me let me let me walk down this scenario for you. Yes. Elon Musk is insane. He's got he has no brain in his head. He's operating purely on instinct and Adderall.

Ian

K? He's insane. In the current era. That's true.

Aaron

No. This is this is just a hypothetical.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

He's he's a madman. He's drumming up all these people to believe that we're going to Mars. Right. As a result, he starts he starts a rocket company because he's like, we gotta be interplanetary because I'm a alien, and I need to go back to my people. Right?

And we're like, you're crazy. So he starts this rocket company. In the middle of starting the rocket company, he's like, oh, we need some more money. Let's do space Internet. And so he makes he makes Starlink a thing.

Right? So now Starlink is just printing billions and billions and billions of dollars. He's he's still like, oh, we gotta go to Mars. The US government's like, dude's never going to Mars. And so he keeps building rockets.

For the first time in human history, rockets start landing themselves. And the US government's like, this this guy's never going to Mars. But, hey. Mhmm. At least we can take his rockets up into the air for cheaper.

Right? And then Elon Musk is like, yeah. We're going to Mars. And he builds Starship heavy to get a bunch of manufacturing equipment to Mars because he's an idiot. Right?

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

And the US government looks at him as like, you're an idiot. And then they listen. The US government listens to mostly technical podcasts. Sure. And they hear Ian say, we should send probes.

Right. And they're like, yeah. That's a good idea.

Ian

Uh-huh.

Aaron

Wow. We can't, we can't spend too much money on it. How do we get our probes into space? I wonder if we could use Starship heavy. Let's use that insane person's Uh-huh.

Starship heavy. He thinks he's going to Mars. Isn't that adorable?

Ian

Sure.

Aaron

While he's doing that, let's send probes to every moon like Ian Landsman once. And we'll use Starship heavy. And that way, the taxpayer doesn't have to pay a trillion dollars. They can just pay a billion dollars.

Ian

Sure.

Aaron

That's not bad. I like that.

Ian

That would be cool.

Aaron

That's good. That's what I'm talking about.

Ian

But see, that's unfortunately not how it works. Right? Because that there's no political will to send the probes.

Aaron

That's the time you're

Ian

asking for hearing No. It's not. It's the same question. Because if all the political will is towards Mars, then there is no political will. Obviously, there's no political will.

Because, again, we don't need Starship heavy for any of this. We've been sending probes since the sixties, since the seventies. Right? So the Starship heavy is irrelevant. Like, there's no political will to the

Aaron

comes at a price. Is there a political will at a trillion dollars? No. Is there one at a thousand dollars? Why not?

Ian

In 1972. So And

Aaron

then it became cost prohibitive, and we're like, we we're not discovering anything. I think so. It's not about cost. It's not that much

Ian

when it's in a probe. It's nothing compared to going a human to Mars. It's tiny. I

Aaron

agree. Okay.

Ian

We're missing

Aaron

each other. We're missing each other. The the listener will vindicate the listener will vindicate you. They'll say they'll say, Aaron, you're you're right on this one.

Ian

Maybe there's water on Titan. Right? Let's just say there's water

Aaron

Don't care.

Ian

On ice. Exactly. That's where everybody's attitude is now because everybody's on Mars. That's exactly my point. Whereas if there's water sitting around on Titan, let's just say I'm making it up, we should be going to Titan.

Everything works around water.

Aaron

Let let a thousand space ships bloom.

Ian

How exciting would that be? But it's nothing with the spaceship. You have to know where you're going.

Aaron

Yes. You have to get into outer space. You have to outer space.

Ian

He's not going to go down to space. We've been going down to space for seventy years, man. We know how to go down to space. We know how to go to it. We know how to send things to all these planets.

Aaron

We know

Ian

how to

Aaron

go. Coming down to, an economic you're you don't understand economics yet. I do. I don't understand. You don't.

If you think that the reason we haven't set up a trillion dollars

Ian

to a moon is because the economics, you are not correct.

Aaron

I do think that that is the reason.

Ian

I disagree. Okay. But I hopefully listen. Hopefully, Elon says, listen. As part of this, we're gonna launch the probes now at $50 each, and we're launching loads of probes, and it's gonna be awesome.

That would be fantastic. I hope he does that. He's never saying anything like that. Nobody says anything like that because everybody's on Mars.

Aaron

That is Moon bases,

Ian

which is even more crazy than Mars.

Aaron

Their business is renting space to orbit. That is what they do. And so it's not up to him to be like, I should send a probe to Titan. It's somebody that

Ian

says, hey.

Aaron

We should send a probe to Titan. Whose rocket are we gonna use?

Ian

Called political will. Who does who sends the probes to Titan?

Aaron

Governments.

Ian

Right. So that is political will. So who has the political will, and where is it sent? It's not like, let's do science and discover all the places that might be good for humans. It's, Mars is red.

People have seen movies about Mars. That's really cool. Maybe there'll be aliens stuff there we can use. Two things can

Aaron

be true. Can be awesome.

Ian

Schwarzenegger might be there right now if we just look on the other side. Like, that's that's the level we're dealing with here. Like, that's the

Aaron

That's crazy.

Ian

Mars. They think the guy's gonna get on star ship heavy or whatever this thing is called and fly to Mars in two years from now. That's what people believe. It's crazy.

Aaron

And Just like people don't believe

Ian

they're gonna take Elon's gold taxi into his van, into the Starship heavy, into Mars. Like, that's just gonna be one thing.

Aaron

The taxis don't drive into the vans. You get into one or the other. Yeah. They

Ian

get out. They go

Aaron

underground into the boring tunnel tunnels.

Ian

Oh, those fucking tunnels. Tunnels.

Aaron

This is crazy. You're missing you're missing it.

Ian

I'm looking forward to the hate.

Aaron

People will chime in. Yeah.

Ian

Give me your hate.

Aaron

I need the people to tell me that Ian's fundamentally missing the point. That's what I need.

Ian

Oh, boy. Alright. We'll leave it there.

Aaron

Yeah. That was a good question.

Ian

Forty minutes later. We we luckily we solved that one.

Aaron

Yeah,

Ian

but follow us over on mostly technical.com, mostly tech pods. Send me your hate there and mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com. And we will see you next week. Alright. We'll see you later.

Aaron

Bye.