Guidance Counselor 2.0 · May 2, 2024
I am joined by Aaron Francis who just left his full time job at PlanetScale and is doing his own thing! We are going to dive into starting your own business and the state of DevRel.
Taylor
So we can chitchat some more. Alright. So we are live. Text me. So, everybody, good morning.
TikTok. We are live, but, we're not live. I'm just waiting for it to hit the inter interwebs real quick. Let's see here. Say hey if you are.
I just got the email about we're live on YouTube, and we are good on LinkedIn. That was really fast. That was a lot faster. LinkedIn coming through today. Alright.
Sweet. What's going on, everybody? Good morning. Happy hump day. We made it halfway through the week.
If you're not wearing black today, you didn't get the invite. You didn't get the memo, 1 of the 2. So, please go change your shirts and, come back to us. But, really excited to hang out with Aaron today. You know, again, the power of Twitter x and the power of DMs.
I saw I saw, fantastic Michael Cham, who I interviewed a few weeks ago on the show. I saw a video that he did. I highly recommend it. Actually, Aaron, actually, in preparation for this week, I put that video I linked to that video, in my email newsletter because it's so good to have, like, a content recommendations one. But highly recommend go to go to chantastic's YouTube.
Check out Aaron Francis' interview. It was really good, but I saw it. And I I was telling Aaron, I was like, you know, there needs to be more authenticity, especially among dudes, and and he was incredibly authentic. And so, I'm really happy to have him on to have more of an authentic conversation. So for those of you watching, tune in, say, hey.
We'd love to hear from you. We're starting to get some comments. Michael, it's good to hear from you. Good to see you. But say, hey.
We'd love to hear from you. Again, I I was telling Aaron this backstage. We've been doing this for 4 years now. What I've realized over the course of the last 9 months is this is a networking platform. Right?
You get to show up. You get to drink some coffee in your pajamas or your black T shirts, and you get to hear 2 dudes or or or 2 people talking, and there you go. Exactly. And so, please comment. Say, hey.
We have people from all around the world tuning in, which is always really cool. And then also, second thing, ask questions. Right? Aaron is a wealth of knowledge, and so I want you to ask questions. This is a time, this is a time where you can ask some questions, and he doesn't bill you for it for
Aaron
once. So
Taylor
please take advantage of that. Aaron's like, wait a minute. So, also, I I wanna do another thing too. I kinda get away from it. I wanna celebrate you today.
I feel like I I feel like we as human beings, we're always on to the next thing. Right? So we get a promotion, and we're like, when's my next promotion? We get a raise, and and when's my next raise? And so if you've if you've got a title change or you deployed code on a Friday and didn't burn the house down, please throw it up in the comments.
I I really wanna celebrate you today. Even even if you feel weird celebrating yourself, throw throw throw some flowers up for, for for some other people as well. So let's see here. Emmett, it's good to see you, buddy. RJ, what what's cooking y'all?
Richie, it's good to see you. Chris. And then my goalie from hockey, Kent, what's going on, buddy? Are we skating tonight? No.
We're not skating tonight. We're not skating tonight, just FYI. So, but thanks for tuning in y'all. One of your shots to my partners real quick, and I'll stop yapping. 1st and foremost, that conference, I have 3 free tickets left.
So if you want to go to that conference in Wisconsin, it's an amazing event. I keynoted last year. This year, they're having Mark Thompson from Angular, and they have Kent, the great Kent c Dodds, keynoting as well. So go check that out. It's a great event.
Highly recommend. Again, if you want a ticket, let me know. And, also, I wanna give a shout to render ATL, the premier platinum pro sponsor, whatever you wanna call it. It's gonna be a heck of a time, June 12th through 14th. I will be there.
It's gonna be great. Check it out. It's gonna be fantastic. So, and we got a few more comments coming in this morning. Travis, it's good to see you.
Will Johnson, it's good to see you, buddy. The goats, last week, I've had a team retreat in Mexico. Yeah. Again, Evan, it's been awesome following your journey, buddy. It's really, really, really cool.
Alright, Aaron. Enough that this isn't this is your show today, not mine. So let's get the people out there, man. Who are you? What do you do?
We'll go from there.
Aaron
Well, thanks for having me. Excited excited to be here. This live stuff is cool. I'm seeing all these comment. Yeah.
I'm seeing all these comments pop in. I'm like, this is awesome. I gotta do this more often. Yeah. So my name is Aaron Francis.
I'm a software developer by trade, I suppose, an accountant by schooling. I haven't done that in a long time, but now I'm out on my own with a friend, so we're out on our own. And I'm excited to talk about what we're up to so we can we can talk about anything. So y'all ask questions. Taylor, I'm sure you've got some queued up, but, yeah, I'm kind of an open book here.
Taylor
I love it. Alright. So first off, I wanna talk about your story real quick. Right? I mean and, again, for those of you tuned in yesterday's pod, I've had it's been a string of guests, and it hasn't been intentional.
It's just kind of happened because it's the way the market is. This is why I love this show. It kinda just ebbs and flows with the market. But, Aaron, you you left a full time job. Right?
Aaron
I did. Yeah.
Taylor
I feel like that's happening more in Vogue now. Can you just talk about your experience? Right? I mean, obviously, I'm sure it wasn't easy, but kinda walk me through just your career at a high level and Sure. Obviously, that decision to go out on your own.
Aaron
Yeah. You're you're an expert, expert, interviewer because you said you left a full time job, which is very generous. I got laid off. I mean, that's the honest truth, but that's good good for you for making me look good. So, yeah, I was at PlanetScale, which is a database company up until well, they're still a database company.
I was there up until, you know, maybe 2 months ago, when they laid off, you know, the sales organization, the marketing organization, a few engineers, and I was in the marketing org and that was it. Game over. So I was on paternity leave. I was about to come back on a Friday and I got laid off on a Wednesday and I was like, shoot. That was kinda exciting.
Taylor
Curse if you want, by the way. You can let her know.
Aaron
I appreciate that. So I said shoot and a few other things and then was like, alright. Well, now now what do I do? You know, I've I was on paternity leave because we just had our second set of twins.
Taylor
Yeah. For the record, backstage, I was catching up here, and he goes I was like, how many kids you guys see? He goes he goes, we have 2 sets of twins. My mind broke for a second.
Aaron
Yeah. 22 sets of twins that are all under 3. So we have 22 year olds and 25 month olds. You know? And then at that time, they were 3 months old, and I just lost my job.
And I was like, well, f. What am I gonna do now? So, yeah, I was at PlanetScale for maybe a year and a half, and my primary responsibility there was, content. So I made a bunch of database videos. I did a full on database course.
It was like an 8 hour course, so super duper long, very in-depth. Before that, I was, you know, I was a software developer at a small local company here in Texas, and now I'm just out there. I'm just out there, man. I'm out there in the market. So that's kinda a little bit of my backstory there.
I'll pause there for a second.
Taylor
Yeah. Absolutely. Got got some comments coming in. 2 sets of twins. Absolute math.
I had twins or 3rd set coming. Yeah.
Aaron
Never. We're I I am taking steps to make sure that that never happens. Yeah.
Taylor
Oh gosh. It's good to see how this one we got definitely crew this one. It's really, really cool. Alright. So, man, so Emmett comes in, and I wanna talk about this and kinda more just high level.
I I you know, my yesterday's yesterday's conversation was the exact same thing. I said, I feel like the 2 things that people freak out about and the more people don't go out on their own is benefits Yep. And really the first few things to I I don't wanna get caught up in, like, setting up an LLC and all that stuff. That that's just that people will be bored and, like, to to sign off. But, like, can you just talk about some steps that you did Mhmm.
When you got laid off to kind of set the framework for other folks?
Aaron
Yeah. Absolutely. So I got laid off, I think, on, like, you know, March 6th or something. And that matters because no matter, you know, when you get laid off, you get benefits through the end of that month. And so it's kind of I don't know if they did it on purpose, but it's kind of a homey move to lay everybody off at the beginning of the month.
Right? Because you at least get benefits through the end of the month. I got COBRA, which is something in the US that allows you to keep your employer health care coverage, but you pay for it. So I got COBRA covered for another month. So at that point, you know, it's March 6th, and I'm thinking I've got health insurance through the end of April, which was yesterday.
So, you know, I'm freaking out, and I had been listening to a podcast for forever where one of the guys has, like, a marketplace health care start up. And so I reached out to him immediately, and I was like, hey. I know that you do something with the health insurance marketplace. I'll be honest. I don't know what you do.
Can you help me? And so I talked to this independent agent and he walked me through like, got on a call and walked me through the, the health care marketplace. And the thing that I didn't know that I discovered was there are, there are this is all US specific, by the way. There are health care like, there are tax credits. And so if you just go to the open market, you can buy a plan.
But if you know what you're doing, you can get tax credits off up front. So that made my health insurance like instead of, you know, $2,200 a month, it made it like $900 a month. And that was the point where I was like, okay, I can do this. This is like, we're gonna have health insurance. We looked at cost sharing plans, which are like traditionally religious, which is fine, with me, but I have type 1 diabetes and they don't allow they don't allow those those conditions into the cost sharing plan because we're terribly expensive, which is why I need insurance.
So we ended up going with a marketplace plan with some some tax incentives.
Taylor
Yeah. I love that. And, like, for me so when I left my last company, I didn't know what to do, and I called my financial adviser, and I went with Farm Bureau. I don't know. It's like a public plan, but, honestly, it was better than anything I had at my last company anyways.
So Yeah. You know, again, like, I I don't this may be naive of me, but but I I don't think it's quite as huge of a roadblock as most people think, but I think you gotta ask. Right? You asked your your contact. I asked my contact, and now
Aaron
Big time.
Taylor
My family has benefits that now it's a little annoying because everything they don't they don't cover initially because they think it's preexisting and it's not. But that's a whole another conversation of myself. But for the most part, my deductible and my cost per month is better than my last company. So
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Find somebody that knows what they're doing. That's my that's my advice on that.
Taylor
Exactly. Exactly. Kevin, that's why I got off cost sharing plans. I didn't trust to cover me. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And, again, I don't this isn't a benefit live show. So, we could have a whole another conversation about that. Yeah.
So, Aaron, I wanna ask you this, man. Like, business development? Like, how are you kind of, like, getting putting yourself out there? Because that's another thing. Right?
So benefits, it's getting the business set up, which you won't get into, but then it's really going out and prospecting, which I don't think people realize how much work that is.
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. I so I think my my biggest point on on that would be you gotta start way before you think it's time. And so, like, I when I, you know, when I got laid off from PlanetScale, I tweeted that same day, hey, I just got laid off. And that, you know, there were more words, but that tweet got 500,000 impressions, which just like completely blew my mind.
And I think the reason it got that much attention was because of the prior 3 years of work that I had been doing. And so my, like, one of the things that I'm always on about is, like, putting yourself out there and publishing your work and, like, making stuff that you do public because it will increase the chances of good things happening. Now what are those good things? I can't guarantee anything. So if you're like optimizing for a single particular outcome, I don't really have a lot of advice, but if you're optimizing for, I want my life to be better somehow, well, shoot.
My advice is, like, write a blog post and put it out there and make a video and put it out there and tweet about things that you're working on, and something is going to happen. And in my in my story, my life, many things have happened up to and including when I got laid off, I had 30 calls scheduled the next day. And so, like, that is a result of
Taylor
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. Wait. That tweet garnered 30 calls?
Aaron
Yes. I had I was waiting to serve. I was waiting out of my inbox and my Twitter DMs.
Taylor
Props to you, man. That gives me goosebumps. That gives me goosebumps.
Aaron
Yeah. I think it's like it gave it gave me goosebumps, and I was like, I don't think it I think it's really hard to have an accurate view of how other people see you. And so all of this time I've been doing all of this work and thinking like, oh, I'm doing a good job. And like coming from coming from like a evangelical religious background and continuing in that tradition as an evangelical religious person, you're you're taught, like, you don't do not be proud. Like, be be ye not proud.
Right?
Taylor
I have a great Southern Baptist. You keep your mouth shut. It's not heard, man.
Aaron
Exactly. And, like, there's a good there's there's something good about that, like, understanding your position as, you know, in our faith. Right? That's a good thing. That can also mean that you just really, you don't take time to, like, say, like you were saying at the beginning, give yourself some flowers.
Like, you just really don't take time to do that. That's not a tradition that we have. And so there, I think, are moments where, your perception of yourself can lag and then it catches up. Like, it's it's snappy. Right?
And so, like, this whole time I'm doing all this work and I'm thinking, wow, I'm doing, I'm doing good work and this is the right thing to do is work hard. And then something happens and you realize, oh, wow. There are a lot of people on my team. I didn't know that. Like, I knew that there were like friends that we talked to on Twitter and like, we hang out and we're buds and we see each other at conferences and we're buds.
And, but then this happens and people DM you and you're like, hey, man, whatever it takes, I got your back. It's like, oh, this is different. This is something that I didn't really fully understand until my moment of need. And so, yeah, so that like, you know, that leads into a bunch of interviews, which I would I I took in good faith and was like, man, if there's a job out there that's awesome and lines up with where I wanna go with my life, I'm gonna freaking take it because I got 4 kids and a stay at home wife. Right?
And so that was that was step 1 was like, let's see what the world has to offer in terms of jobs. And I did, and there were a lot of wonderful people. And several of the people in the interviews were like, dude, you don't need to come work here. You need to start your own thing. Literally in the interview.
Yes. CEOs. In the interviews, the CEOs were saying this.
Taylor
I was told multiple times that too.
Aaron
Yes. It's wild.
Taylor
So what are your thoughts on that? Like, obviously, you chose to be on your own. I chose to go with the company when, really, my CEO currently was like, why do you wanna join us?
Aaron
Yeah. It was another I think several things conspired. It was another moment where I like, my lagging perception of reality caught up, and I was like, maybe I do have this thing. Like, if other people are telling me this if other people are telling me this without prompting, that means if I prompted people, I bet a lot more people would tell me this. The fact that it's bubbled up to unprompted is like, that's something.
And then I kinda thought, like, this is the perfect moment professionally to go out on my own. This is the worst moment fam in terms of family to go out on my own. But professionally, this is the perfect moment to go out on my own because a few things. I think I had done a really good job at PlanetScale, and I think the record will show I did a great job.
Taylor
Yeah. What was your stat on YouTube from the conversation I had with Chan? You grew it substantially.
Aaron
From, like, a 1000 to, like, 34,000 in, like, 6 months before I left on paternity leave.
Taylor
Yeah. Yeah. I hope my boss doesn't hear that because Yeah. Yeah. I'm not gonna be able to do that.
I'm not
Aaron
as talented as Aaron. Yeah. So I I and, like, the the database course that I did for PlanetScale just, like, completely blew it out of the water in terms of numbers. And so all these things are conspiring. Right?
The the timing the timing works out great because I happened to kind of become like the public face of PlanetScale in this little niche, you know, in Twitter, YouTube. And that's a tricky spot to be in, like, because then you kinda like, personally, I felt like, oh, I can't leave. I can't like leave them high and dry after like kind of weaseling my way into being the public face. I was like, well, you know, this is a great company. I'm going to stay here because that's the right thing to do.
Boom. I gotta let go. Right? No fault of my own. And so now it's not like, oh, Aaron became the face and then turned around and left.
It's like, no. I I'm I'm the no fault person, and I can just put hang out a shingle. And so, like, leaving of no fault of my own and having, like, the the attention, which is fleeting, but I had the attention for a moment on Twitter, I thought this is my opportunity to leverage that into going out on my own. And now, like, now is the best time to try it because if I fail, which is entirely possible, if I fail, I come back in 6 months to these people that I interviewed with and said, like, hey. I tried to live the dream.
Like, I tried to live the American dream, and I I couldn't pull it off. Can I have a job? That's not so bad. Right? If I if I, like, went out and was like, no, I'm gonna go work for your competitors and then quit after 3 months and come to you for a job, then it would be like, oh, that's kinda icky.
But it's it's like I tried to live my dreams Right. And it fell a little bit short. Who's gonna who's gonna fault me for that? Nobody.
Taylor
Exactly. Dave David goes, oh, I thought he was just gonna say 34 for a second. 34 thousand makes money. Yeah. Yeah.
It was just from from from from 1 to 34.
Aaron
From 1 to 34. Yeah. Yeah. It's all of my extended family.
Taylor
So alright. There's so much I wanna cover. And so the first thing I I wanna kinda get into DevRel marketing, in full transparency. I'm gonna use this time to pick your brain for me to be totally transparent. So I I feel like marketing is shifting
Aaron
K.
Taylor
Like, tremendously. This is, again, my hot take. I I don't think people need marketing as much as they knew they need content community. K. I also think that companies need to have an Aaron or a Taylor or a Michael Chan or these figures because people relate to people and not companies.
Like, people wanna hear from people, not brands. Mhmm. I'll I'm a leave that there. Pick it apart. Yes or no.
Disagree with me. I don't care. What are your thoughts?
Aaron
Fully agree about people wanna connect with people. K. And so I, like, I don't really have a lot of strong opinions on what DevRel or dev advocacy is or isn't because I've never been a DevRel person. I've never been a Dev Advocate, and I understand that those communities have, like, lots of history and lots of, like, culture and, like, I don't know. I'm just not a part of that.
At my role, my role at PlanetScale was a developer educator, and that's that's the place where I like to be because I think in, like, in my heart, I want to teach people, and I think teaching is, like, pure and noble. I also think that teaching happens to be great marketing. Like, I think if you can come to an audience and say, I'm going to teach you how to do something that you need to know. And as an ancillary benefit, you're going to learn about a product or service or company. Then developers will pay attention.
I think if you come, if you come to developers specifically this this is so interesting because you see you see it on Twitter. You hear it on Hacker News all the time. Developers hate marketing. Well, maybe developers just hate bad marketing. Like, developers like things that are interesting, things that are entertaining, things that are helpful.
We're humans too. Like, we we're not that different. We just don't like being, like, tricked with pop ups and, you know, whatever else, right? Whatever traditional marketing is, I don't super know. I think the pure and unselfiled marketing is teach them how to do something and associate good feelings between them and the company that you represent.
Taylor
I
Aaron
think that's like, that's the easiest way to do marketing, but you need a teacher, you need a person to do it. And I think that's where dev ed comes in. I don't know necessarily about advocacy or relations, but I think dev ed comes in in that place where you just say, hey. I love to teach. Let me teach, and you can get paid by a company to do it, and the company gets the benefit.
So I think there's something nice and symbiotic about that.
Taylor
Absolutely. Where where where do you think a lot of companies are missing the mark right now? Like, just just in regards to putting out content. You know, I haven't gotten the time to I actually texted Michael Chan. I was like, you need to put your shit on audio because I wanna hear all your conversations.
I don't have time to watch on YouTube. But that conversation with Theo
Aaron
Mhmm. Yeah. It was great.
Taylor
Yeah. And I haven't I haven't listened to it yet, but, basically, the caption was, like, get rid of companies' YouTubes, which is fascinating because
Aaron
I totally disagree with.
Taylor
Right. And
Aaron
and I I I I told Theo this. I've told him this on on Twitter many times. Like, so, you know, so to recap, Theo and Chan went on and Theo was like, you need to companies need to delete their YouTube channels because, it's not it's not working. And what what you did. Yeah.
Which is There's one glaring exception, I think. One one that I can think of, you know, and Theo has said publicly, PlanetScale was the only company to make it work. And so it's like, ah, so it can work. But I think the the place where a lot of companies go wrong, frankly, is they look at the medium instead of the platform. So the medium is video.
Right? Let's say a medium is video. So you have a video. Let's say it's a webinar recording. Right?
Terribly interesting webinars. You have a webinar recording and you're like, where can I put video? I can put video on YouTube and you put your webinar recording on YouTube.
Taylor
It becomes like a waste plan. Most YouTube
Aaron
people watch it. Yeah. And you're like, what are we doing? This is not anything. And so then companies will look at YouTube and be like, oh, YouTube doesn't work.
I'm like, yeah. Because you're putting webinars on there. And you're literally competing with, Marquise Brownlee, who's destroying, you know, humane AI and, mister Beast, who's living in a fake abandoned city for a week, and you're like, what about my webinar on 6 ways to secure your endpoints? And you're like, nobody cares. Nobody cares about that.
And so I think where a lot of people a lot of companies are missing the mark is they're not taking into account the platform. What does YouTube what does YouTube want? What does Twitter want? What does LinkedIn demand?
Taylor
They're all different, too. And that's what I'm doing differently.
Aaron
Completely different. I can. I'm very good on Twitter. I go to LinkedIn, and I'm like, I have no idea how to interact. Like, I have no idea how to make it on this platform.
And on Twitter, it's like, oh, man. This is it's in my blood. But on LinkedIn, it's totally different. I think companies say video, YouTube, done. It's like, Yeah.
There's a little bit more there.
Taylor
Yep. A 100%. A 100%. Oh, man. This is so good.
Alright. What else? I wanna talk about man, talk about content. I know we've mentioned it, but, like, I feel like so many people are terrified to get started. I saw a video on Twitter yesterday.
It was Marquise Brownlee's very first
Aaron
Like, he was
Taylor
a kid. Did you did you see that?
Aaron
I saw that.
Taylor
I was like, who is it? It didn't look like him. And, like, it's just where he's at now. I no. I mean, I I tweeted it before we went live.
I saw a video of myself from just 4 years ago. I used to record everything in horizontal. I sat down for 3 minutes and, like, posted everything in one take. And so I was like, man, I've come a long way. I mean but, like, I had to get started.
So can you kinda give some general thoughts on that?
Aaron
Yeah. Absolutely. I think, first of all, I think everyone is scared to put themselves out there. I think that is the human condition. And so if you feel that way, like so everybody else feels that way too.
And if you feel like, oh man, the people that put themselves out there must not be afraid of putting themselves out there. Wrong. I mean, I can't speak for everybody. I can speak for myself and some of my friends. Nope.
Super wrong. Still still scary every time. But I think I would go back to the point of, like, if you want to optimize for a more opportunistic life, if you want good things to, like, happen to fall into your lap, the most durable and repeatable way that I have found to make that happen is to have little advocates out there championing you as a person. And those little advocates are blog posts and tweets and YouTube videos, and they're all point it's like this is your distributed resume that anyone can happen across at any point in time and think, oh, look, that person, Aaron, is already doing the job that we're trying to hire for. He's just doing it for himself.
Like, maybe we should just hire bring him in house. I he's derisked. He's already derisked. I I know that he can do the thing. And so that's that's what I would say on, like, why you should do it in terms of, like, getting over your fears.
I don't know that, like, it's not been useful for me to try to get over the fear, but rather to say that, like, this fear doesn't control me or doesn't matter as much. Because I think my greater my greater fear is that I reached the end of my career and think I could have done a lot more if only I just hadn't been scared of what people thought of me. Like, that is kind of terrifying to think I could end up, you know, 65 years old looking back and thinking, if I had been a little bit braver, I wonder what I could have done. And there are gonna be regrets that I have at 65, but if I know some of them now, I'm gonna try to make sure that I don't end up there. Right?
So I may look back. I may look back at my career and say, like, oh, that choice to go out on your own, yeah, that was okay. You know, it didn't end up that great, but I much rather would take a risk out of, like, more bravery than more safety, because I'm afraid I think I'm afraid of reaching reaching the end of my career and thinking, God, I wish you had tried harder. I wish you had not been so scared. Like, that's terrifying to me.
So that's kinda how I get there. I don't know if that resonates with other people, but that's what that's what made made me move.
Taylor
I love that. I love that so much. There's a few questions come in. I and maybe we can get a little tactical here. Do you have a hard stop in 5 minutes?
Aaron
No. Okay.
Taylor
What
Aaron
do I have to do, Taylor? I don't have a job.
Taylor
Stop. You're busy. We were talking about it backstage. Shut up. Alright.
So let's get a little let let's get a little tactical here. This is what I like about the show. Where should webinars or live streams go? I'm gonna let you answer this first Yeah.
Aaron
And talk
Taylor
about structuring this because I because I'm literally actively doing this with Gun right
Aaron
now. Yeah. That's a great question. I think you can I think you can, like, have them just purely listed on on your website? I feel like no one in history has gone to YouTube looking specifically for a webinar.
That's just that's just my guess. You can also, like, you could also have a second channel because I think the the my fear with just throwing webinars on YouTube is YouTube wants to find the audience for your videos slash for your channel. Right? And so if you're putting 5 to 8 minute videos about, we'll just go back to databases, about my SQL on there, and it's like little fun infotainment, education tainment. You're putting those on there, and then you have a 1 and a half hour webinar that nobody watches, YouTube's going to be like, what is going on with this channel?
Like, some of these videos are really good. Some of them don't work at all. Like, who should we push this, these videos, this channel to? And so you could separate them out to be like sales enablement and like platform native. You could do that.
And I think that's, that's probably fine. Like, a lot of people will put, you see, like, you know, My First Million or Joe Rogan or some Tim Ferris, they have, like, Eclipse channel and then, like, the full, you know, they they kinda separate the channel based on, like, is it long form or is it, like, quick hits. Yeah.
Taylor
So so I'm gonna I'm actually gonna share my screen real quick. This is what we did, Rizelle. And, Rizelle, thanks for this question. I appreciate you. Also, Rizelle is a former guest of the show.
So this is this is what I what what we've done, and, Aaron, I mean, you could pick it apart too. But let's see here. So shout out to Jason Torres. He's actually been kind of the mastermind behind this. So what we've done is we figured out kind of the main pillars for my YouTube, and that's my my my weekly vlogs that I do, educational content around the job search
Aaron
Mhmm.
Taylor
Conference talks, and other, like, long form podcast, right, that I'm on with other people. So we kinda built that out, but one thing that people don't take advantage of is the playlists. So I wanna talk about this, and this is what I would do is what we've done is I wanna make it really easy. My whole goal for my YouTube is to make it easy for a developer to come to my YouTube and find places quickly to go to to to be able to navigate
Aaron
all this.
Taylor
So my live solos, we separate out. My lives with my guests, we separate out because they're very different. Right? Aaron and I are kind of high level. We're getting tactical.
My live, which just means, like, very tactical. Like, open up LinkedIn. Like a person's comments and a DM. Mhmm. Educational content, conference content, and vlog content.
I would leverage playlist. People don't leverage playlist enough. Aaron, what are your thoughts on this?
Aaron
Levitt. Yep. I think you can leverage playlists. You can also you can also, like, publish a video, and I forget what the more sales enablement stuff. Okay.
Taylor
I didn't I didn't know you could do that. That's cool.
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. And I think people usually do that for, like, you know, the the featured trailer. They wanna, like, have a featured trailer on the channel, but it's not like I'm pushing this video out. So you could do that.
Throw it in a playlist, publish it, but don't, like, notify subscribers or whatever the setting is. And then people you can then direct people. Because I get it. YouTube's a great place to host video. It's free.
Everyone knows how to use it. And so I wouldn't say don't put them on YouTube, but I would say be thoughtful. Be thoughtful about it. And separate channels, separate playlist, whatever. Just I think be thoughtful about it.
Yeah. It says, Ryan goes,
Taylor
I think YouTube is a great place for live streams webinars to go, but you have to be to funnel your audience there, like email blast. Yeah. So we're getting very tactical here. Right? This is top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel.
How do you this is a very terrible term, but massage people through the process. Right? I I've saw a TikTok the other day, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts that marketing has essentially changed and that you don't old marketing is creating ad, creating a billboard, incentivize that person to buy. That person goes directly to your website, your catalog, and they buy. Now it's very much like, well, I wanna follow the brand.
Mhmm. I wanna learn about the brand. Oh, brand's got a Discord. I wanna hop in because I'm passionate about, let's say, they're a health fitness company. Mhmm.
Aaron
I'm passionate about health.
Taylor
I wanna jump in the Discord, see what they're talking about. But then I wanna get on their email newsletter. I saw and and they kinda and then they and then they buy. Right? So it's kind of this really long form thing, so, yeah, this is incredibly important.
Thoughts on this, Aaron?
Aaron
Yeah. I I don't know I don't know enough about the wider marketing world to say with certainty. Like, I don't know enough about, you know, the mad men to say Sure. Necessarily. But I think within our little sphere and our little space, it seems to me like everything is going much more personal.
Like it just like you even see it from Microsoft for goodness sakes. Like every, everything is going more personal. Personalities within companies are coming forward, and kind of being the tip of the spear in terms of marketing. And I think that I don't know what it's a reaction to, but I get it. Like, people want to connect with people.
I think that has been true forever. Yeah. And there's a possibility. I don't I I I I'm hesitant to to speak in absolutes, but there's a possibility that AI is driving this push towards humanity. Like, there may be such a thing that we are seeing more and more AI generated stuff, including blog posts and images that we're like, god.
I just want to connect with a human.
Taylor
Preach. Preach. A 100%.
Aaron
That's my that's my guess. I'm not, you know, I'm not studied. I don't know the research, but I am I I go on vibes, and that's my vibe.
Taylor
Well, I'm gonna tell you this. Listen. I'm not I mean, I went to school for marketing, but I didn't learn anything about marketing. I will tell you this. I I think some of the best marketers I've seen are don't have a traditional background.
Like like, one of my buddies who helps me manage my content, he said that it's gonna be fascinating with when mister beast takes over, like, a creative director spot for, like, a Fortune 10 company. Because because I think it's that type of out of the box thinking now that probably needs to start happening in in marketing to really get eyeballs.
Aaron
Yeah. So Yeah. I think so. And I think I have come to realize, like, I think I have come to realize that that distribution is just so incredibly, 1, important and too hard to come by.
Taylor
Or the distribution at scale across all social is incredibly
Aaron
difficult. Difficult to come by. And that was one of the things that, you know, I was talking with, my partner, Steve, Steve, the the editor, formerly. He's now producer Steve. I was talking to producer Steve about this back when we were like, hey, are we gonna go out on our own?
And one of the things that kept coming up was like, companies want distribution. You, Aaron, have distribution. We can make something work here. Correct. And that was when I realized, like, yeah.
We can make we can make something work here.
Taylor
Yep. A 100%. Ryan comes in here. What Taylor said, I got a sample of the product, then I gotta see if I want more. I watched many of Rizelle's lives, but I wouldn't have known about them if I didn't get to know her in this format.
There you go. Chris, connecting with others at a human level goes farther than just a billboard. My previous work at Apple, they teach us a bit of about that point, how a product would enrich someone's lives, and it's different for each and every person. A 100%. RJ comes in here.
DevRel has been huge in that space, having a real face. Yeah. Again, I I I really think I I think companies need a point person. I just I I just I just think they do. I think they need somebody.
Like, I wanna give Michelle a shout out for g two I. Right? Like, Michelle and her work at React Miami. Like, when I when I when I think of React when I think of g two I, I think of Michelle. Also Gabe.
I love Gabe to death. But, like, I think of Michelle. She's out there. She's public. Right?
She's kind of that face, and I think it's incredibly important.
Aaron
Yeah. You look at Vercel. They've got, you know, both Guillermo and Lee Robb.
Taylor
Yeah.
Aaron
I mean Yep. Micro Microsoft has a ton of people, but Scott Hanselman has been out there for, you know, forever at this point.
Taylor
Yeah.
Aaron
And it's like the reason I'm, the reason I'm cautious to say, like, our part of the world is I am under no illusions that that, you know, Microsoft is not, like, doing enterprise deal. Like, they're not relying on Scott Hanselman on Twitter. And they're not, you know, Vercel is not relying on Lee Robb and Guillermo on on Twitter, but it's an effective way to reach this part of the world. And, you know, as a part of a larger strategy, I think it's extremely I think it's extremely important. I know that not all developers are on Twitter.
I know that enterprise deals rarely happen from, you know, a tweet, but the whole thing is kind of
Taylor
like altogether.
Aaron
It's it all has to be cohesive.
Taylor
Yep. Absolutely. Alright. As we wrap up here, I wanna kind of leave this, last few minutes just for you. Any words of encouragement for people on the job search?
Any other kind of wise words of wisdom before we wrap up?
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, if you're on the job search, I would go I would go and listen to the most recent podcast by Ben Orenstein, the the Tupole podcast, to u p l e, with Thorsten Ball. And he talks about how he ended up working at, I think it's zed, but the the t l d r, the t l d d l, if you don't listen, the t l d l is, like, the number of people that follow the directions when applying to a job is, like, 5 or 10%.
Taylor
It's You go go Why? Go look
Aaron
at some Adam Wavin of Tailwind CSS or Tailwind Labs. Go look at some of his recent tweets as he's been hiring. And he says literally 10% of people follow the directions. And so my I think my, since I started at Ernst and Young as an accountant, I haven't submitted a resume. Status right there, man.
Yeah. Seriously. And I think the reason is is not because I'm, like, not because I'm better, but because I'm different. Like, I instead of submitting instead of submitting a resume, I, like, say, hey. I read your job application.
Here's what I think you're looking for. Here are examples of me having done that thing already. And this goes back to you gotta have public examples of your work. Like, the way to stand out is to follow the directions and point to public examples of your work. Yep.
And, like, I don't know, maybe write a little note. That's like, hey, Adam. I you know, if you're applying for Tailwind Labs. Hey, Adam. Been following you for years.
Here's what I like. Here's how I think I can help. Here are some links to what I'm doing. That will set you apart from, like, almost everyone else that applies that just sends in a cover or no cover letter at all and just a blank resume. So I think just, like, put in a little bit of effort, and you can stand out in front of almost everybody.
Taylor
I posted. I'm so glad you brought this up. I I posted something yesterday in our the the Nashville tech has, like, a big Slack channel, and I was working on a UI UX job. We needed help filling. And I post, I was like, hey.
Email me. I didn't say DM me.
Aaron
I said email me. Yep. Yep.
Taylor
Everybody DM me except one person. That's who I went with.
Aaron
I can only imagine.
Taylor
Yep. Follow directions, people. I ain't got time to sift through DMs. Send me an email, and we'll move forward.
Aaron
I also like, you see stuff, like like, dream opportunities come up. Like, Taylor Otwell of Laravel tweeting like, hey. I wanna hire I wanna hire a video person. And people just respond on Twitter and say, I would love to have that job. And you're like
Taylor
so much laziness. So much laziness.
Aaron
It it that you're shooting your shot with that. Like, that's the way that you're gonna say, I wanna work at Laravel. And it's just like, yo, come on. I know. So, yeah, it it's hard.
Like, I totally get it. Searching for a job sucks. It's discouraging. It's depressing, But you gotta, like, you gotta hang in there and put your best foot forward and just spamming the inbox or the DMs when they say email me, that's not your best foot forward.
Taylor
Chris goes, I saw that thread too. Cringey. Chris goes, it's it's a bit sad how little effort it takes to stand out these days. Even sadder how few yeah. Again
Aaron
Yes. From a society standpoint, it is sad. From an individual standpoint, it's amazing. Because you look at that and you think, oh, I don't have to try that hard to beat everybody. Like, is that good for the world?
Oh, I don't think so. Is that good for you and your family? Yeah. It's amazing. Nobody tries.
And that's amazing for you, but it's not bad for the world. Sure.
Taylor
A 100%. Alright. I do rapid fire. Again, thanks for everybody. Chris, thanks for posting that, that that link to that podcast that that Aaron just mentioned.
But, Aaron, I do rapid fire last 4 questions. K. The first question, I know you love your family, but Love my family. That's not the answer for this. Okay?
What do you like to do outside of work for fun, outside of your lovely family, who love your wife and your kids, yada yada yada yada yada.
Aaron
Outside of work. I don't even understand that concept. I don't know, man. I like to build stuff. I I just really like to make stuff.
And so, like, for example, this wall behind me does not
Taylor
It's really nice, by the way. I I was gonna comment you that
Aaron
It exists. Like, it's not
Taylor
It looks fake, but people think mine's fake too, which is hilarious.
Aaron
Behind I'm in an apartment right now. I rented a 1 bedroom apartment.
Taylor
Are you serious?
Aaron
At for my for my coworking space, which is just me.
Taylor
That's brilliant.
Aaron
Behind behind this wall are 2 giant windows that look out into the courtyard. But I needed a place to film, so I built a false wall, 2 by fours, false wall.
Taylor
Okay. That's impressive. You're like
Aaron
my wife. My wife does this. No nails, no screws touch the apartment at all. But this is a false wall with pegboard and Ikea cabinets. And now I have I have my perfect studio.
And so, like, I just like to build stuff. Whether it's digital or physical, I I just I build stuff. So no other hobbies besides just building.
Taylor
I'm your typical millennial male who doesn't know how to do anything with anything in turn comes to handiness. So my wife does all the handiness. We have reverse gender, roles in our household. I do all the cleaning and stuff like that. She does all the building.
So
Aaron
Love it.
Taylor
Tom comes in here to get some attention of the Convex founders. I found the CTO's PhD thesis implemented into Python and shared a video with him. That is how you do it, my friend. That opened the door to the next conversation. Ultimately, I got a role leading developer experience.
Boom.
Aaron
Yep. And you can't you can't do that for every job. But, like, if you want the job, nobody else did that. I guarantee you nobody else got even close.
Taylor
Hey, Tom. I like this. Shoot me a DM. I'd love to bring you on the show to talk about this some more.
Aaron
Yeah. That's awesome.
Taylor
Shoot me a DM, Tom. We'd love to interview you about this. Second question. If money was the same and because you're out on your own, this question may not make the most interesting question. But if money was the same and you couldn't do anything in text or you couldn't do anything in sorry.
I was reading Tom's email. Tom, shoot me a DM. If you couldn't do something in tech, what would you do if money was the same?
Aaron
Oh, man. Probably some sort of regenerative farming.
Taylor
The guy yesterday that I interviewed Lily said farming too.
Aaron
No way. With tech people and farms and open up their houses? I wouldn't I wouldn't maybe regenerative farming isn't right because I wouldn't wanna, like, I wouldn't wanna homes. I wouldn't wanna subsist off of the things that I farm. But what I would wanna do is buy a piece of, like, you know, 50 acres of rundown degraded landscape in Texas somewhere and, like, spend a few years digging swales and planting trees and capturing water.
And, like, that's what I would want to do. And that's what I plan on doing eventually. You know, don't tell my wife, but that's what I plan on doing eventually is we're going to buy some property somewhere. We're going to restore it to its, like, natural beauty, and it's going to be amazing. Not because I'm like not because I'm, like, every you know, I need to change the world, but I'm like, this seems like so much fun.
I would love to have a a project that lasted 3 decades, and I could go out there and, like, dig ponds and see how it restores the landscape. That's what I would do.
Taylor
RJ, I live on a farm. I get it for sure. I'm just saying, like, like, I it's just so funny that, like, people are, like, are leaving to go, like, go to go to live on a farm or open up their own coffee shop and and to do and do their own thing. So far far. I got guys, I live on a farm.
I understand. I understand. 3rd question. Any tools, technologies on the technical side and or pieces of content you've read, watched lately that you wanna give a shout out to?
Aaron
Tools, technologies. I have recently so Steve and I Steve, the editor and I are, you know, working on making videos and making videos better and everything like that. He introduced me yesterday to a tool called QuickShade, which I don't recommend. So he introduced me to QuickShade, which was almost what I was gonna recommend, but instead, I recommend display buddy because I can push this button right here, and, like, my display goes back to full brightness, and then I
Taylor
can push this button. Yesterday.
Aaron
Yeah. I can push this button here and it goes dark, and so I don't look like all blown out. So DisplayBuddy will help you control your external monitors, brightness, contrast, volume, resolution, all of that, without having to, like, reach around and fuss with the buttons. So display buddy is the better version of quick shade.
Taylor
I love it. I love it. Anything you've watched or read lately you wanna give a shout out to?
Aaron
Man, I watched the Steve Martin documentary. This is not this is not tech at all.
Taylor
Yeah. Yeah. No. This is what I like talking about because it's not tech. So
Aaron
I watched the Steve Martin documentary. Love Steve Martin. Grip on Steve Martin, you know, father of the bride just was my childhood. The first half there's a documentary in 2 parts. The first part is about his standup career, which I didn't I didn't know anything about.
I was too young to know him as a standup comedian. Really, really great, really fun. Lots lots of great stuff. The second half, incredibly heavy and, like, really moving. Yeah.
It's very good. And the thing that the thing that struck me was just how lonely he was and is and has been for so long. And frankly, like, the thing that stuck with me the most was he's, he's, like, 75. He's, like, 75 years old, and he still talks about his dad.
Taylor
Yeah.
Aaron
And, like, how how his relationship with his dad wasn't great, and it really hurt him. And he's he's 75. Yeah. And I'm just thinking like, oh, man. Being a dad's a pretty big deal.
Yeah. To have, like, one of the one of the greatest, funniest, happiest, most successful movie stars slash also most successful stand up comedians of all time. And he's 75 and talking about how he's trying to recover from pains of, like, a distant father.
Taylor
Yeah.
Aaron
Good lord.
Taylor
Yeah. No. I mean and again, I and and I I appreciate you being vulnerable. This is this is why I slid in your DMs. But for for me, I I just I mean, there's a whole another conversation on fatherhood and stuff.
I mean, it's heavy.
Aaron
Oh, man. It's heavy. I mean, I'm I'm in the hospital. What a great burden to bear, but it's snow. It's so heavy.
Taylor
Yeah. I mean, I I'm in I'm I'm in counseling working on on my shit and and trying to be a better father. And, man, some days are good. Some days are bad. Right?
And and and you hear stuff like this on Netflix and or you hear interviews like this, and it's just like it just man, it snaps things into perspective how heavy it is, but also how beautifully heavy it is.
Aaron
Yeah. For sure. I mean, on on the other side, you hear you hear other, you know, 60, 70, 80 year olds talk about their parents in a positive way, and they're like, they're long gone. You know? If you're 70, your parents are long gone.
Yeah. And still to look back on that and think, like, have warm feelings about your dad, it's like Yeah. So if you want to cry, watch the second half of the Steve Martin documentary. I love you, man. Just dive dive right in, man.
It's good. It's good. Yeah.
Taylor
Do you I'm I'm curious. As an epic content career like yourself, do you pull inspiration from these documentaries? Because because I because I I mean, I I watch a fair amount of content Yes.
Aaron
As inspiration. 100%. There's, I don't think one of the most impactful books I ever read was, there's 2 of them. There's one about Theodore Roosevelt and one about, Einstein. And the one I read about Einstein, it I was, you know, I was in college and it was I think it's a Walter Isaacson one.
And I'm reading this book about about Einstein, and I'm just, like, weeping because of the way that, like it was, like, the the magic and the mystery and the stuff that, like, he saw in the universe. I'm like, that is to to be able to, like, be so fully immersed in your work and find beauty in, like, this crazy crap that he was on about, which is relativity. Who knows what that is? But he's like, that is his beautiful, like, love language. And the way that Walter Isaacson wrote it, I was just like, man, this is incredibly inspiring.
And if you wanna if you really wanna learn about, like, humility and work ethic and, like, pure love of the game, you got to watch the David Beckham documentary. Unbelievable. The the documentary is on
Taylor
It made me like Manchester United, which, again, is a whole another conversation. I think companies also, by the way, got a comment on TikTok from Ben Yam, who's a comedian. Once again, Steve Martin on on on Netflix. Right? Steve Martin
Aaron
on Netflix? Mhmm.
Taylor
So go check that out. Ben Yam. Thanks for commenting. I I think and one thing I'm trying to do at gun, we're not gonna it's gonna be a process is I think every if if you can't vlog it up or if you can't document it, video, written but I feel like like people want to know the process of brands. And I think there is a reason why like, I'm watching, the Manchester City documentary right now, the soccer documentary about winning them winning the Treble last year.
And, man, sports documentaries get me so excited, but I'm like, how can this apply to business? And it's the same thing. People just want to know all the behind the scenes on what's going on.
Aaron
They do. And if you watch if you watch that Beckham documentary, which I highly recommend to people that don't care about sports, like forget it happens to be in a sports setting. It is not about sports. So if you if you watch that watch that documentary, pay close attention, pay close attention to the part where he gets, like, he gets benched or let go or, like, the team is mad at him. Like, the, you know, I forget the old trap.
The the sir Alex Ferguson is mad
Taylor
at him and won't, like, won't won't
Aaron
let him play or something. Won't even let him practice because he was, like, supposed to go on loan somewhere or was gonna get traded somewhere. So they won't even let Beckham practice. And you know what he did? He ran laps around
Taylor
He literally practiced on the side. That I mean, I was like, dude, what a g, man. What a stud. Like, to just show up and just practice on stuff.
Aaron
I think I
Taylor
I don't know if I could do that.
Aaron
I don't know if I could I think I had this view of Beckham as, like, a a a pretty playboy. Same. Turns out he is he is pretty, but he just he just loves to play the game. And, like, man, to have that kind of, like, passion to just want to play the game and to, like, do it right. Oh, gosh.
It was like I was that was one of the best documentaries I've seen strictly for that reason because he had the entire world handed to him in terms of, like, looks and fame and money, and he just wants to play the game.
Taylor
That's it.
Aaron
God. I love that.
Taylor
I do too. I love that. I love that. Yeah. We got a few comments.
You should check out Einstein's dreams by doctor Alan Lightman.
Aaron
Oh, interesting.
Taylor
Somebody comments, Aaron is everything I expected him to be. Also, same as well. Glad we had this interview. Hard Knocks is one of my favorites, especially the team allows real access. And the, Beckham Beckham doc may wanna give David Beckham a big hug.
Aaron
Yeah. Me too.
Taylor
Again, like and and, you know, you can tell he loves his family. You know, that last few scenes with his wife, I think, was great. So, yeah, I'm yeah. Big, big, big fan. Alright, Marin.
Last question. We'll wrap up here again. The comments
Aaron
Sorry about your rapid fire. I didn't quite get the memo on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
My bad.
Taylor
So the show is called guidance counselor 2 point o because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college. But now as adults, we don't really have a guidance counselor to turn to and ask career based questions.
Aaron
Mhmm.
Taylor
What would be your biggest advice for young Aaron? Like, if you can go back and tell young Aaron a piece of advice, what would it be?
Aaron
Everything that you're looking for is on the other side of your fear.
Taylor
I love that. I love that. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us today. We appreciate it. Please go connect with Aaron.
Obviously, as you can tell, dude's probably one of the most, real guys I've probably interviewed on this show ever. So please go the most
Aaron
cryy guy. That's for sure.
Taylor
Well, same. Same. I I cry at Hallmark commercials over the holidays. It's pretty brutal around the holidays. So Yeah.
So comment. Go go follow Aaron. Thank you again for hanging out with us today. 9:30 AM CST tomorrow, I'll be live on the Unicorn Finders page. We're catching up a really cool startup.
It's a female entrepreneur in Nashville who secured a $1,000,000 in funding in, like, a few hours based off her idea. It's basically around tech and fashion, getting people fitted better, and leveraging tech to do that, especially women. So tomorrow's gonna be great. 9:30 AM CST. Go check that out.
Otherwise, Erin, thank you, my friend. Stay stay on so I can say bye to you backstage. But y'all have a great one. We'll see y'all tomorrow. Peace.