Eye on the Future

Aaron

Hello? Morning, Ian. I got I got one for you today.

Ian

Oh, it's kicking us off with something.

Aaron

I saw a billionaire in person this weekend, and I want you to guess who it is. So we'll start broad, and then I can narrow it down if I have to.

Ian

Where were you?

Aaron

We went

Ian

Roughly.

Aaron

We went out to a little hotel bar for Jennifer's birthday to listen to some jazz.

Ian

Okay. So in the area, around your house.

Aaron

In the Dallas area, add a little jazz bar. Alright.

Ian

Well, obviously, first, guess, we're gonna go Mark Cuban.

Aaron

Close. No cigar.

Ian

Close. Okay. Close.

Aaron

And you'll understand why.

Ian

Close to Mark Cuban.

Aaron

Close to Mark Cuban.

Ian

So know this person.

Aaron

Oh, definitely. Definitely. And I feel like you could get it in two. You could get you could get it in this very next guess.

Ian

There's a lot of pressure here. Mhmm. Alright.

Aaron

What what are aspects of Mark Cuban that could make it close?

Ian

I'm thinking you're you're talking about the sports angle, I assume. Okay. Man, Man, there's a lot of billionaires on sports teams, though. Jerry Jones?

Aaron

Jerry Jones. Alright. He got it too. Jerry Jones. Famous Dallas Sports Billionaire.

Yes. We're at we're at this we're at this low little bitty bar. It's at a very nice hotel. I think it's called the Mansion Hotel, which, obviously, we don't stay at because we live here in Dallas. But Mhmm.

They have this, like, fancy bar where there's live jazz, and that's what Jennifer wanted to do for her birthday. So we're out. We're listening to live jazz, and I kid you not, like, 18 inches, two feet away from me, old man walks by, and I look, and it's Jerry freaking Jones. Jerry Jones walks in, and I look him up on my phone. $17,000,000,000 net worth.

Trying to tell Jennifer how much money he had. And he just goes and sits at a table with three other friends, and, you know, he's wearing a suit, of course. And there's a big old bodyguard standing next to him. He's like, I'm ask you that. I'm watching him ask people to move away from his table.

It's like this little bitty bar, and this guy's like, you gotta move. But, yeah, he just hung out and chilled with his friends.

Ian

Gotta have a bodyguard if you're a billionaire. You know?

Aaron

Gotta have a bodyguard. Yeah.

Ian

I know, I'm, I've been in the presence of a billionaire quite a few times because one of Jamie's high school friends is married to a billionaire. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he's he's really old. He invented the hedge fund, like, legit invented the hedge fund.

Oh, wow. Well, I

Aaron

don't think he's ever

Ian

gone anywhere with a bodyguard, but he's one of these guys who, like, everybody in finance would know his name and probably would even know him. Right? But, like, the average drunk guy in the street doesn't know him. You know? So I don't think he really doesn't really do the bodyguard thing as far as I'm even aware.

Aaron

That's the ideal that's the ideal way to be rich is nobody knows really who you are. I think of all the of all the famous people, like musicians, athletes, actors, that kind of stuff, I feel like Jack Johnson is probably right where you wanna be. Or Johnson. Or, like, the drummer from Coldplay. You know?

Because, like, Jack

Ian

Johnson groupies and all the money.

Aaron

Yeah. Jack Johnson can walk down the street, and nobody's gonna know who he is except maybe, like, some surfer, and he's Die hard or whatever. Hey, Jack. You'd be like, hey, man. How's it going?

And that's it. You know? Same for, I feel like, probably the drummer from Coldplay can walk down can go into a grocery store and not be just, like, mobbed. You know?

Ian

Yeah. I think there's that's, like, obviously, the ultimate. It's, like, mega rich, famous when you want to be, like, you can make stuff happen, but, you could also just be yourself whenever you wanna just be yourself in a public place. And that's fine. I feel like a step down from that, but still good would be like, like, happy famous.

You know, like, everybody loves you famous.

Aaron

Like, I'm

Ian

thinking, like, Tony Hawk

Aaron

Yes.

Ian

Or, or Tom Hanks.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Tom Hanks. Martin Martin Short.

Ian

Like, nobody's coming up to them and, like, I'm gonna punch you in the face. You know what

Aaron

I mean? Like, they're

Ian

just they love them. Everybody loves them. And, no, I think Tom Hanks actually got hooked up with some weird conspiracy stuff, you know, against him, not by him. So I don't know if that's true of him anymore. But in general, there's this group being a people

Aaron

zero for COVID, like, in in public's mind. So that didn't, you know, end up going well for him.

Ian

So, anyway, but, yeah, that's, like, the next level of, like, ah, well, people recognize me, but at least, like, they're just, like, hey. They're yelling cool stuff at me, and it's fine and whatever.

Aaron

I love how people yell cool stuff at me. That is that is the ideal.

Ian

Then you just have Jerry Jones. Like, everybody hates you. You haven't won in a million years. You know? Like, people are mad sports fans are mad at you and hunting you down for

Aaron

And you're a scumbag, so everybody's kinda mad at you. I did see, I did see Martin Short in an airport one time. He was he was going through, you know, the rich person's line, and I was standing out with the cattle. And he walked by, and I just I don't know why, but I just said, Martin. Like, no.

Hey. Is Martin short? I just said, Martin. And he looked over at me, and I just stared at him and gave him a thumbs up. Yeah.

Give me a thumbs up back. That's

Ian

a nice level of, like, bothering a famous person. You know?

Aaron

Like, I'm

Ian

not asking for your time. I don't want your autograph. We don't have to do a selfie. Just like, you're cool.

Aaron

You're cool. I know you. So there you go. There's my billionaire story for the weekend.

Ian

I I haven't had many of these, famous people encounters, I have to say. Like, remember when I was really young, like early, maybe even like late teens, early twenties, went to New York City One night and they were filming an episode of The Nanny. Don't know if you remember that show, The Nanny. It's like Fran Drescher. Yes.

But for sure. I must it was going on. The show was on, so I must have been a teenager, actually. We must have been there when I was, like, 17 or something. And so that was kind of a thing.

I don't know how many famous person stories to say. Little bummer.

Aaron

I shook T. Boone Pickens' hand once. Yeah. First billion is the artist.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

I went to some some talk he was doing somewhere, and afterwards, I walked up and shook his hand, and I think he might have signed I actually have his book, The First Billion is the Hardest. He might have signed it. I don't remember, but I feel like that's the other famous person I've

Ian

met. So we were at, I I did the PHP NYC meetup

Aaron

last week. I saw all across all of my podcast feeds this morning. Bonus episode. PHP NYC. Like, 06:00.

Yes.

Ian

That's kinda funny. It's just like people's podcast players are just overrun with the same exact,

Aaron

same exact media file. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

Well, how was it? It was good. They only came out an hour

Ian

ago, so you haven't even listened yet. I haven't even

Aaron

listened to it.

Ian

It was good. We had some Aaron Francis talk, which is always fun.

Aaron

We love it. We love, personally, I love an Aaron Francis segment. We got to

Ian

close now with an Aaron Francis

Aaron

segment. That's great. Love that

Ian

for me. We had some audio issues, but my understanding is producer Dave resurrected it from the, the grave. And, so yeah, I think people like that was really fun. Great meetup. I also, afterwards, I was at Zillow, which was cool.

Like, you know, it's like, I'm so detached kind of from like tech startup scene at this point. You know? It's like I have my little office in my little town. I work from home a chunk of the time, whatever. And you just go to, like, Zillow's New York City offices, and it's, like, multiple floors.

We're in this room with, like, 320 inches televisions hanging on the screen. And, like, you know, they have soft seating and, like, you know Sodas?

Aaron

You get some free sodas?

Ian

Oh, oh, we had killed

Aaron

the free sodas.

Ian

Jeez. Those people came in the next morning to restock the sodas. They were like, what the hell happened in here?

Aaron

Wait. Wait. You gotta get a return to office mandate here at Checkered Studios. I gotta get back in there, man.

Ian

Yeah. It was great. So so I was, like, just, it's been a while since I was at that kind of space. I was like, oh, man. Maybe I should've gotten help a lot bigger.

We could have a a big office with snacks. You know? Not many snacks here.

Aaron

But anyway You can if you'd gotten bigger, you could have a bodyguard right now.

Ian

Right now, you're walking around.

Aaron

You're exposed.

Ian

That would be awesome. If I'd gotten bigger, I wouldn't have to work an extra ten years because of my four zero one k today. Wow. Yeah. Oh, good night too.

Aaron

You know? Not great.

Ian

Not great. But, anyway, so we're at Zillow. We're doing the thing. Good talk. I mean, one of the talks was about a guy it was a guy who made a PHP package, which he turned into a PHP extension for doing poker odds.

I mean, is it, like, faith that I'm at this event for once?

Aaron

That talk was made for you.

Ian

Oh, it was great. And then, we stayed at late. Some of us, we did a podcast, whichever we'll be hearing. And, yeah, then then we went for drinks at the jazz club Good choice. You, in my hotel lobby, which is a funny story.

This the world's messed up, man. The world's messed up.

Aaron

That much we know.

Ian

So we got there.

Aaron

Why don't they just play the notes? Is this a jazz rant, or or is this something else?

Ian

I think it's part of the whole thing.

Aaron

I'm with you on

Ian

a jazz.

Aaron

Just just resolve it. Resolve the song. Yeah. So we get in there. No.

No.

Ian

It's even worse than that because it's midnight, which midnight in New York City is not that late. Okay? It's not that late. And it's a hotel bar. Okay?

So I'm gonna understand. It's like, whatever. It's a hotel bar, but I still think midnight, you gotta be open later than midnight. So they're like, we're shutting down. The people had already stopped playing.

Okay? So they had some jazz playing off some CD or whatever, streaming service or whatever they got back there, but there's no humans there playing anymore. And then this is what pissed me off. So they're like, we I don't like this at all. They started to clean the bar.

So they're like so, like, they don't wanna serve us drinks. They're like, oh, you can have a beer. And I and nobody wanted a beer. Is this

Aaron

before midnight?

Ian

I mean, it's like a it was a little after midnight or whatever, but they were they were still letting you walk in, but it wasn't close. Like, they didn't shut the door. So, like, we went in, but then they're not serving everything they sell. They're only serving

Aaron

Okay.

Ian

Alright. You know, things they can just throw at you. Right? Not, like, anything that's gonna make anything dirty, I guess. I don't know.

It just really rubbed me

Aaron

the wrong way. So then

Ian

I just did the New York City thing, and I'm like, listen. I go to the bartender. I was like, I will give you a huge tip. Can you just make it happen?

Aaron

Bribery, the New York City thing.

Ian

Bribery. Yes. So I'm going to bribe you to dirty four, you know, glasses.

Aaron

Right.

Ian

And, like, I mean, the alcohol's back. I mean, there can't be that much for this. So he begrudgingly sort of grunts at me. The waitress is like, well, he'll he'll do, you know, old fashioned for you. I was like, okay.

Fine. And then he delivers us literally the worst old fashioned I've ever

Aaron

had in

Ian

my life.

Aaron

I'm, like So surprised to hear this.

Ian

Worst old fashioned I've ever had. There's probably spitting it. Like, I mean, it tasted like dishwater. It was terrible. Very mad.

Very mad. The whole thing was not good in that regard. And we had a nice little time while chatting, so that was fine. But I was very irked about the setup. It's not you know?

In the old days, if you tip somebody nicely,

Aaron

you got Well, you used to be a country. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought we'd go back

Ian

to that. But now we're

Aaron

Yeah. Well, in some ways

Ian

We're trying to go back to the fifties. Tipping somebody big should freaking get you some shit. Like, that that is the point here.

Aaron

Let's produce some steel, bribe some people, go back to the glory. Yes.

Ian

Here's my problem. Doing it or we're not?

Aaron

Here's here's my problem. I hate I hate a premature close. Right? If I'm going in if I'm going into if I'm going into, Chick fil A and it says you close at 9PM and I go in at 08:45 and you're mad that I'm there.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

I'm mad that you're mad. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? It says on the window, 09:00. It's 08:45.

I want some chicken nugs. Like, that I'm so sorry. Like, I get it.

Ian

It sucks.

Aaron

It sucks that you have to close a restaurant. But don't be mad at me for coming before the restaurant is closed.

Ian

And you can't fool me. I worked in retail. Your hours fool me.

Aaron

Me once. Shame on me.

Ian

Time on the door. It's not like at the time in the door, you run out. Like, no. You are scheduled for beyond the time on the

Aaron

door. Yeah.

Ian

That is how it works because you have to clean up. Everybody knows you have to reset and clean up whatever it is. It's a restaurant. It's a

Aaron

And listen. I'm I'm not I'm not walking into a TGI Fridays or Chili's at 08:59, and I know that you close at nine. And I'm asking to be seated, and I'm gonna order, you know, I'm gonna order whatever they have at TGI Fridays. Potato skins, loaded potato skins, probably. I'm not doing that.

I'm going to Chick fil A fifteen minutes before it closes. Yeah. You got the chicken back there.

Ian

Like It takes you one second. Let's do

Aaron

it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially at Chick fil A.

Ian

Question. I thought their whole thing is they're, like, ultra nice, and they

Aaron

have to

Ian

take your order.

Aaron

This may be the opposite of stolen valor. I might be putting bad things on them that actually belong to McDonald's. I don't remember. But here's my question. Did it on the window say midnight, like, we close at midnight, and you're ordering drinks past midnight?

Because then I'm on I'm on the side

Ian

of the bar. Thing. Like, it's like the hotel bars. No. There wasn't even there was no hours put anywhere.

It was open. The door was not closed. We walked in. She's like, okay. Well, we're we're kinda sorta cleaning up, so but we can serve you a beer.

I don't know. Just, like, shut the door. Shut the door. You don't wanna serve me everything back there. Shut the door.

I think you can still clean up. Okay. It's not like we came in with 40 people, and we're like, oh, man. We're taking over for two hours. Like, it's four guys or whatever it was.

Aaron

So we might we might have a procedural infraction at the very least. They should've shut the doors.

Ian

I think so. Yes. You shut the doors and be like, oh, we're closed. Or even if we try to walk in, be like, oh, we're closed. It's just the people in here finishing up their drinks.

That's it. I mean, I think this is horrible customer service, and you're in a hospitality thing, and they've been New

Aaron

York City. New York City, that's just a mob front. That's all it is that's in there.

Ian

Oh, man. There was so much good New York City stuff. I was missing you there. I was like, I need air

Aaron

in here.

Ian

He's missing all the juice. You woulda loved this beat up.

Aaron

I'm sorry I missed all the juice. Well You didn't miss him. I have to I can't I can't fully endorse your position because I don't know the rule, like, the closing hours. Sure. It's unclear, but I I'm leaning Ian on this one, I'll say.

I'm leaning Ian. Like, if you wanna close if you wanna close the bar, shut the doors. That's a pretty that's a good stance. I like that stance.

Ian

And if I offer you a large bribe

Aaron

to pour a bribe anything.

Ian

Yes. Anything goes. Yes. A bride back in the day used to get you way more than just a couple drinks of alcohol. Now

Aaron

That's inflation. The bare minimum here. That's that's a bad economy. Alright. What else you got?

We got some we got some follow ups to do. You've been gone.

Ian

Yeah. Let's do follow ups.

Aaron

You've been you've been gone for a little while. So we had a Jordan Goll episode.

Ian

Yeah. It's a good episode. Very good episode.

Aaron

We had an Adam episode. It's a good episode.

Ian

Very happy with that episode.

Aaron

Do you wanna which ones do you wanna follow-up? Or do you have any follow ups on either? We can lump them all in.

Ian

I had follow ups on both. And now it's been now it's been a few minutes, and I'm like, oh, what were my follow ups? But, alright. Jordan yeah. I think that was all really good stuff.

Man, I really had a Jordan follow-up too.

Aaron

No. Wow. You put Jordan to follow-up on the board, and now you're just swinging the message here.

Ian

Didn't I put the notes on there from what I wanted to say. But too

Aaron

many bartenders. You lost your full train

Ian

of thought. Oh, man. I don't know. Like, I thought it was, it was great hearing his story, all the stuff with Rose.

Aaron

No. No. No. You're looking for it. You've got no idea.

You've got no clue.

Ian

We would not agree with you. Talking about your stuff. What was the thing he said about your stuff? Because there was something towards the end, actually, that I'd signed

Aaron

up for him. Yeah. We're getting somewhere. We're getting somewhere. Yeah.

I'll figure

Ian

that out.

Aaron

Alright. Alright. He asked, guess what the business model was

Ian

Right.

Aaron

When I told him. That was Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty right down the middle. You knew that one already.

That's interesting. Okay. Alright. Alright. We're finding it.

Well, Vamp, let's see. Yeah. I got nothing.

Ian

Yeah. I don't know. Alright. Let's push ahead. It was a good episode.

I like that.

Aaron

Oh, man. You gotta write it down next time. I didn't write it down. Believable. Alright.

Did you have do you wanna talk about the Adam episode, or should we just skate past it because you've got no idea what I'm

Ian

talking about? No. I listened to all these, and I Adam one I mean, Adam was mostly I feel

Aaron

like it was primarily about his

Ian

stuff. It was.

Aaron

And I

Ian

think I think you kind of nailed that. Like, I felt like It

Aaron

was, like, 30% therapy session, maybe 40. Right. And then I

Ian

feel like you hit everything. Yeah. I get that his stuff would, like, their breakout of the podcasts and what they should do there. It is tricky.

Aaron

Breakout of the YouTube channels. You're you'll get there.

Ian

Yeah. Well, YouTube channels. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're close. You're just Yeah.

Ian

Whatever. Did did he say if he was gonna also make them into podcast? I guess not. He didn't really say that.

Aaron

So I

Ian

guess he was just gonna he was just gonna have him be be on YouTube. But I guess he's kinda thinking they'll be mostly visual. Like, he's gonna have visual elements there and stuff. Yeah. I don't know.

The Steve, like, if he just wants to work on Tailwind stuff, it seems like Adam should have his own channel and Steve's stuff should just go on Tailwind channel and that the extra channel should be separate. Yep. That seems fun. Like, that Seems I think it was just where you got we're at with it. Right?

And, I was just nodding along. I think that that makes sense to me and seems logical. Like, he's not gonna wanna do the stuff that's, like, when he's forced to Yep. Edit himself for Tailwind.

Aaron

That was that was my that was my whole that was my whole line of reasoning is Adam needs to be happy to be productive. So Yeah.

Ian

Let's give him a sense of channel. Stuff on Tailwind when he wants to. And Yeah. When he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to. And, don't yeah.

Yeah. I think it's hard to do those kind of things for, like, purely for the business. You know? It's like he still needs his own space to do weird stuff in.

Aaron

He does.

Ian

That isn't necessarily, you know, doesn't have to be ROI, directed. You know? So yeah. But yeah. No.

I thought they were they were great ups, and it's nice. A little pod vacation, but now I'm back. I'm ready.

Aaron

Well, I'm sorry I sprung this question about the pod recaps on you when you put recap the pods on the board. So that

Ian

that feels like notes.

Aaron

That feels like a hoisted by your own batard situation there. But

Ian

Good note taking. Both times, I was in the car, so I wasn't in, like, good note taking zone. I was just listening and Mhmm. Should've done the notes.

Aaron

In one year, out the other. Alright. Alright. We

Ian

got another guest coming up, though. In in a couple weeks, We gotta cut Who

Aaron

we got? Give us give us break the news here.

Ian

No. Are we breaking the news, or are we keeping a secret?

Aaron

Let's keep it a secret.

Ian

Let's keep it a secret. A couple weeks.

Aaron

It's very obvious, but let's keep it let's keep it a secret.

Ian

Someone no one would expect.

Aaron

Yeah. Exactly. But we'll

Ian

both be here for that one.

Aaron

We'll both be here Presumably. Hopefully. We'll both we'll both be prepared for that one. It'll be perfect.

Ian

So kinda speaking of oh, you got something?

Aaron

No. I'm excited for the sew.

Ian

Sew? I'm excited about this art you got. So I thought see it? Yeah. I hopped on it there earlier this morning just to see what you're up to since I'm not, you know, always there anymore.

So I wanted to just check it out. And you and Aaron got some art. Like, this is great. Look at this.

Aaron

Look at this. Woo hoo. Build it

Ian

to cool, baby.

Aaron

Look how cool. Very cool. Metal?

Ian

It is very metal. Yes. And so I'm a big black and white guy. As you might know, most of my photos I take are black and white, especially when they share like my white

Aaron

to see what you are up to.

Ian

So I like my black and white photography. As soon as I saw that, I was like, damn. That is a good piece of art. I like the subject. Like, it's I like how it's, like, centered focused there and, like but you got the staircase.

You got the dudes. You got stuff going on. Like, it's a really nice piece of art there. So and you're hanging it. It's, I guess, on the sidewall there?

Aaron

Or Yeah. So right now, it's just resting. I don't know if I'll, I don't know if I'll replace anything and, like, move stuff around or if I'll just, like, expand out off a frame. But, yeah, I'm, I'm thrilled to death with it. I think it's amazing.

So Did

Ian

you pick this up?

Aaron

So this guy, Gustave Dore, very prolific, artist French from the eighteen hundreds, I think. Lots of, like, like, wood wood carvings, and then I think they print off of that. And so that's why it looks all you'll have producer Dave will have a link to it in the show notes, but that's why it looks all kinda, like, striated because it was, like, carved. And so found this on just somewhere in the public domain, some, like, art preservation institute, whatever whatever, downloaded it, uploaded it to Framebridge.com, clicked a bunch of buttons, and four days later, it was here. They printed it.

They framed it. They shipped it. It's great. I love it so much. So Amazing.

This one behind me is Framebridge. That one's Framebridge. That one's Framebridge. That one's Framebridge. They're all basically, everything framed in here except for that tweet above my head is is Framebridge.

And so, yeah, super cool, super metal. Love the old school biblical art that's like, be fearful of God. I'm like, oh, that's kinda cool. I love that.

Ian

This is this is for the podcast listeners. This is the resurrection of Lazarus.

Aaron

Yes. The title of the piece. The resurrection of Lazarus. And it's That's

Ian

what it depicts.

Aaron

As Ian said, there's some guys. In fact, one of the guys is Lazarus. One of the other guys is Alright.

Ian

He's in the sea. Guys. Yeah. Whole main characters.

Aaron

Some pretty big guys there. And, you know, he's standing up outside the tomb with his arms raised. It's like, oh,

Ian

he's been resurrected.

Aaron

Man. Yeah. It's very cool. So I have a friend who has, the valley of dry bones, a Gustave Dore print, and it's like it's like three times the size of this one. It's like, you know, four feet.

You're really close enough. It's yeah. It's framed on his mantle, and it's this, like, old school, you know, standing in the valley of skeletons, and then there's an angel above him. It's just so metal. And so I thought, hey.

I like some artwork. Let's put some in here. And I like the story of Lazarus. So pretty cool.

Ian

It's very cool. I was, quite taken with it. I, yeah, I like that old art. I took art history in college, and we did a lot of, like, obviously, all your kinda renaissance y, pre renaissance y kind of biblical art stuff. Also as well, the best part of that class was actually all the parts of a church and, like, looking through the old Cool.

Churches and, like, you know, whatever, all the different formal names for all the different, parts of, of a church and everything. But,

Aaron

We used to build great churches. Actually, not we.

Ian

No. Yeah. Not us. But in Europe, they did.

Aaron

Yeah. Our friends across the pond

Ian

used to build great churches. Yeah. And then we'd spent a lot of time in the, the Louvre, which has pretty

Aaron

good Cool.

Ian

Yeah. So very cool. I like it. Yes. I like the black and white.

Yeah. I would think the original wood would be cool. Maybe Oh, man. When you hit billionaire status, you can acquire the original.

Aaron

I I might because I'll be an interesting billionaire. All these billionaires right now have no imagination. I'll be the most interesting billionaire ever. So maybe I'll do it. I think somebody replied and said that they saw they found the original.

It was 1,200,000, which is reasonable. I

Ian

can get that.

Aaron

I can get that. I don't I I can't do it right now, but, you know, once once once the old stock market returns, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. It'll be great.

Ian

No problem

Aaron

coming up

Ian

with that case.

Aaron

No problems. So probably not gonna acquire the original, original print one day.

Ian

What about you create one? Carve your own.

Aaron

Now that's thinking. Okay.

Ian

There we go.

Aaron

Alright. Here's something. I could I could do this.

Ian

You're looking for a project? You love projects.

Aaron

Steve, turn off this part of the podcast. Don't listen to this part.

Ian

You can have a little you could still have hobbies, something you can do for yourself. Like, see, don't turn it into a business. Don't turn it into

Aaron

a 30,000 of these. No. No. It's already a business.

Ian

Buy them. You could just win that for yourself.

Aaron

No. I could for me. I could do I could get an XCarve, which is like a a CNC, like a desktop CNC.

Ian

Okay. I

Aaron

can get an XCarve, like, easily I mean, it's just it's just stealing at this point. But I could easily take his his print Yeah. And turn it into a wood carving path, wood carve it, and then print my own.

Ian

Man, I didn't even, like, consider that this is a thing that exists, but, of course, it's a thing that exists. Like, you can just carve wood with a laser.

Aaron

I think we I think we just described forgery and or fraud, but I can do this.

Ian

No. Don't you know anything before a hundred years ago, you could do whatever you want with. Like, it's only That

Aaron

is true.

Ian

You know? It's just it's all fair game.

Aaron

That is a good point. Now this is interesting. I've always wanted a project for a CNC.

Ian

I think you should do this. How much would be so you need one big enough. You don't wanna make, like, a little tiny.

Aaron

Oh, no. That would be embarrassing.

Ian

Imagine. In particular has a lot of detail. Like, it needs to be a certain size.

Aaron

I think you can get

Ian

detail out.

Aaron

I think these X Carves, you can get, like, three by three beds or four by four beds, which is pretty big. Like, four by four feet?

Ian

Yeah. Oh, shit. That's really big.

Aaron

The the Avid CNCs will do a whole sheet good, so they'll do four by eight. Oh, okay. Those are, like, $9,000. So it'd

Ian

be, like, kind of a pretty big spot to buy.

Aaron

Yeah. I got it. Then we're we're back to digging a garage at that point. So

Ian

Yeah. That's good. I like it.

Aaron

This is good.

Ian

You could you could sell them, I guess. You could sell some stuff maybe. If it's just, like, automated, it's like, yeah. Buy a wooden resurrection of Lazarus. Why not?

Aaron

Why not? A reproduction print.

Ian

Of you having, like, a whole, like, reproduction of biblical art section of the Aaron Francis website. It's just like I sell e online courses for

Aaron

databases, and I

Ian

do YouTube videos, and I sell wood carved biblical art. Like I

Aaron

sell I sell ripoffs of old biblical art.

Ian

And then when you go to that forgeries. When you go to that page, like, it's gotta just be, like, nineteen six looking, like, website piece wood background. Yes. Just mail me

Aaron

a check, and I'll send

Ian

you a painting. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Check only.

Oh, man. This is the best idea we ever had on here, to be honest with you. I think this

Aaron

is the best idea. I don't remember what the idea we had a few weeks ago was where we told people they should be paying for this. That was a good idea. This is this is even better.

Ian

This is

Aaron

Aaron sets up a a catch me if you can style forgery in his dugout basement.

Ian

Oh, I love it.

Aaron

That's a

Ian

forgery. These are the public domain.

Aaron

It's public domain. It's public domain. I'm allowed to do this. You are.

Ian

And you don't have to claim it's your own. You'd be like, hey. Gustav Weber. Right? That's the guy who did it.

You're just making reproductions. It's all good. That's right. It's not Mickey Mouse. You can't do Mickey Mouse, but you could do this.

Aaron

You can do Mickey Mouse.

Ian

No. You can't do Mickey Mouse.

Aaron

You can. It's over. It's over?

Ian

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It did kinda end. I thought they found some reprieve from that. No.

No. No. No.

Aaron

I think it's over. Oh. And then the it came and went, and everybody was like, okay. So I guess copyright doesn't matter that much.

Ian

Right. Nobody's trying to

Aaron

do Mickey. Nobody else can do anything with it.

Ian

If you own an entire brand for the last hundred years, it's

Aaron

not that easy to overtake it. Yeah. Exactly.

Ian

So you got resurrection of Lazarus

Aaron

I got it.

Ian

The 10 commandments, Moses coming down Mhmm. And Mickey. Right? Exactly. Those are your three things you start with.

Aaron

The hell of an online store. Yeah. Some something for everyone there. D0larnFrancis.com.

Ian

So good. And you know you can just get it designed. So what like, who who I love the opportunity to design something that looks old and hysterical. You know? What a great opportunity.

You gotta do it.

Aaron

This is a good use of AI. If I could I could rip off all of Disney's characters in the style of Gustave Dore and then have the X Carve carve it, and then I'll print it, and you can get honest to goodness woodblock printings of your favorite Disney characters. I can make many tens of dollars doing this.

Ian

Right. Tens of dollars.

Aaron

This this could absolutely be worth a couple a couple of dollars or cents an hour. Well, they'll But, hey. We're building in America, baby. So that America today. Manufacturing's coming out.

Manufacturing in my own garage. I love it.

Ian

Starting it in his garage probably.

Aaron

Oh, man. Should we, should we should we pay for the show after we talk about all this fraud for a little bit?

Ian

Let's We should probably do

Aaron

that. Frame back to the straight and narrow. Alright. You pick one. I'll do the other.

Ian

Alright. Let's start with, WorkOS auth kit. Laravel twelve's new starter kits include WorkOS auth kit. Future proof your authentication stack with the identity layer trusted by OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, and Vercel. Check them out at workOS.com.

Aaron

Podcast is also brought to you by our friends at Bento. Bento is the refreshingly smarter email marketing platform. You can find out more at bentonow.com. Thanks to Bento and our friend Jesse for sponsoring the show.

Ian

Jesse just puts in there for Aaron to say something nice, so that makes it hard for me to do the reads.

Aaron

It does because we all know you can't say anything nice, man. You're just yes. You're just gonna say, come on, Jesse. You gotta follow the instructions, Jesse.

Ian

So yeah. Yeah. Oh, man.

Aaron

He does he does leave that one up to me, which is it was great. We love we love a little, creative freedom. You know?

Ian

I mean, that's true. Thank you all. Alright. What do we got now?

Aaron

I got, I got two that are both you and both related. Ian's reworking his computer organization, and you're still on Monarch money. And we got a few requests for a little bit more about Monarch money. So Yeah. Let's let's hear are you did you get a new computer, and are you rolling forward, or are you just starting from scratch?

Ian

Oh, I got a I mean, I didn't even totally get an I wasn't even thinking that angle. But, yes, I do have a new computer.

Aaron

K. So

Ian

alright. So I have my my what I had up until this point was a m three MacBook Pro, couple years old, zillion gigabyte. It maxed out RAM.

Aaron

Love it. Love being a business owner.

Ian

A 28 gigs of RAM or whatever. Great computer. Don't have any trouble with it. It's a little on the heavy side. It's not crazy heavy, but it's a little on the heavy side, little on the thick side.

Carrying it back and forth to the office, kind of annoying. And my interest got peaked. So I was traveling. So I went to Disney traveling with the computer, kind of heavy, like I'm carrying this huge thing through security, whatever, blah, blah.

Aaron

And I

Ian

saw a thing about the M four MacBook Airs.

Aaron

And I was

Ian

like, oh, this is intriguing. Now I used to never, I used to just never even consider MacBook Air because I was like, ah, it's 13 inches screen.

Aaron

I can't do it with 13 inches screen,

Ian

but now they have 15 inches MacBook Airs. So I acquired M four fifteen inches MacBook Air with max out RAM, which is only 32 gigs, but whatever, it's fine. And thing is unbelievably good. I'd say

Aaron

It's good?

Ian

It's very, very good. I can't even really tell the difference between the MacBook Crona. It's just super fast at everything. And other than the screen being inch smaller, which I would, I would love it to have a 16 inches screen, and still be lighter like it is. But, other than that, it's fine.

Like the 15 inches is fine. Like 13 inches I could not deal with, but the 15 inches it's enough. So it's fine. So So that's where I'm at right now. So now that's my home travel.

I got the MacBook pro at the office. I may You're running two computers? I'm back to two computers, which I

Aaron

don't love.

Ian

I don't love two computers. It's easier than it used to be because most everything is just like synced in the cloud anyway. So it's not as hard as it was. We got to figure out, well, how do I sync these files between the computers or whatever?

Aaron

Like, no, I'm not doing that.

Ian

So there is a chance here that I just sell the MacBook pro. I'm kind of debating that it's so much lighter now dragging it back and forth. It's not so bad. I got just like a little tiny bag and drag it back and forth with. So there's a chance I sell them back pro, but for right now I'm running both, which then ties into my organization, which actually made this more doable to run both, which is so I always used a bunch of desktops.

I think that's what you

Aaron

call them.

Ian

Right? Like, so I had, like, five spaces.

Aaron

Or what I think they

Ian

used to be

Aaron

called spaces.

Ian

And I'd like, you know, swipe between them, swipe between but, like, there's so many, it's kind of annoying, like, going, you have to go all the way to the other side. So you go all the way over and it's like six swipes and whatever. So I started using stage manager. I don't know if you ever use stage manager.

Aaron

Is this apple or is this third party?

Ian

Apple. No, it's apple built in and I think it started on the iPad, but it's basically puts like, it kind of puts the apps. It's like you could make desktops essentially. It's kind of more focused on a single app, but you could have like as many as you want in theory, some place type two or three apps, but, it lets you kind of group them and then they go off to the side. So along the left side, you'll have like groupings of different apps on one desktop.

And so by doing that now I have I'm down to three desktops. Like I have a coding desktop on the left. I have like web browsing kind of general business y stuff center, and then communication is the right desktop. So I can always just go one swipe left to right from my main kind of web browsing desktop, between wherever I have to go. And the communication desktop has like the email and Slack and messaging services, but they're all in different stages.

So I can just bring up the one and just be focused on that. Okay. I'm doing email. I just see email and the other stuff's off to the side. And it's really pretty good.

I'm enjoying the stage manager way more than I thought I would. It's actually very weird. It is weird. I've always avoided it because it seemed weird.

Aaron

It's like a

Ian

a lot of settings and stuff, which is kinda weird too. It's, like, sort of just works how it works, and you can't do much to change it. But

Aaron

It looks like a a dock, but it only shows the apps that are open, and it shows little, like, little screenshots of them instead of just their icons.

Ian

Yeah. It is. And it it's it is basically like a dock, but it's sort of just around the running apps, and you can see them, which is kind of useful. It's not a screenshot. It's actually live.

So if stuff changes, you see it

Aaron

or That's interesting.

Ian

I mean, in other words, like some kind of real time screenshot y thing, but it's like a live view into the app. And I don't know. Just kinda keeps it all organized.

Aaron

Not a full screen. I don't know about this. I don't know about this. I'll be honest.

Ian

You're not feeling this? It looks

Aaron

a little it looks a little cluttery to me.

Ian

I don't know. I haven't you know, it's what's un what it's that it's sort of true. It is cluttery, but also now I just really have one app open at a time, but it also doesn't have to be full screen. I don't love the full screen and, like, switching

Aaron

Don't I don't like the full screen.

Ian

Yeah. So then rather than having, like, all these, like, little windows, I'm going to corners and clicking them. It's like, I just have taken up the whole thing. I'm just focused on that one thing. And then I just switched to the other docked item when I wanna switch to it.

And that takes up the whole screen. So it's actually less cluttery overall. That was my fear about it. I'm like, oh, I'm kind of dedicating the left side space. You can overlap it.

So you don't actually it doesn't have to take up the left side. Like, it could also like, if you totally overlap it, it'll hide. And if you just put the cursor all the way left, it'll come out.

Aaron

So Interesting.

Ian

That to me then makes it a little too slow. So I'd like to, like, at least have part of them visible so I can, like, get to it. And for most apps, I don't cover them at all, but, like, the code editor does cover them and whatever, stuff like that. But, it's pretty good. I think you should try it.

If you're out there listening, try stage manager if you feel a little cluttery. And I I think it actually declutters, especially with the desktops. You get the multiple desktops. Each one has stages. You can have a lot of stuff going on without feeling, like, the overwhelmed sort of nature of it.

And the other thing I did is I switched to Safari. Oh, wow. Yeah. So this was kind of the other thing with the MacBook Pro is, like, it eats through the battery. Like, I know in theory, it's with a pretty solid battery.

And I don't think it's totally MacBook Pro. I think partially, at least, it's probably with Chrome, which was sort of the impetus that kicked this all off was I first switched to Safari before I did these other things because, like, I'm so tired of having no battery. And let's see if Safari fixes that, and it has been much better on Safari. So that does help.

Aaron

Man, I don't think I could leave Chrome. It's just too convenient.

Ian

It's Safari is definitely not as good as Chrome. It's not as fast, I would say, at this point, which used to be faster. I'd say it's not as fast now, in a few instances. And, I think I have all the extensions I need. So I think I'm sure the Chrome extension situation's better, but it's fine on Safari.

Mhmm. But I don't know. Like, I'm also trying to just keep less tabs and stuff open. So I, like, I'm actually using the start screen. I've had a cold kinda reorg there, so I'm not, like, with 200 tabs open all the time.

Aaron

And how how long what how long are we into this? Because I wanna see how much of this is, like, like, newfound energy, and how much of this is we're gonna keep this.

Ian

We're about two weeks into it.

Aaron

Oh, it's pretty good. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. It's not just like yesterday. It's two

Aaron

maybe two

Ian

weeks into it. Two or three weeks into it.

Aaron

I don't know how you're running two computers. That that just never ever ever works for me.

Ian

We'll see how it goes. Right now, I have the stages set up the same. Everything's the same on both of them. There's no way to sync it, which would be, like, super primo. I wish Apple just gave you a, like, hey.

Keep my desktops the same everywhere. It doesn't do that. But, so far it's okay, but we'll see. I, last week I wasn't at the office that much. So, we'll see this week.

I should be here a lot more. So we'll see the annoyance level of going back to the other computer and be like, oh, like that thing's not where I thought it was and all that kind of stuff. But, so far it's okay. So far it's okay. It just sucks when you, like, forget to push some code or things like that.

That tends to be the things that are the most annoying. I get to go, I didn't push that. Now I'm now it's at the office.

Aaron

Or, like, you gotta keep your settings in sync between all those different apps.

Ian

That part's kinda crappy too. There's probably a better way to do that. I have not researched that, but, like, I mean, a lot of the apps, like, the code editors, some of them have, like, syncing services a lot. I always

Aaron

have problems with those.

Ian

Like, I don't know. Like, every time I do this, it's like, oh, it should be able to pull PHPStorm should be able to pull down the settings, but then it, like, never is exactly the same. And, like, it's, like, it's ostensibly, the extensions are supposed to be synced, but then they don't actually install. So then, like, I guess you're supposed to install them or something. I don't know.

There is a lot of weird stuff with like how the syncing of those types of things work, which is super annoying. So I don't know. Like I said, I could see that going by the wayside. That's sort of unrelated to the actual reorganization of, the work environment, which I definitely am liking. And I think I'll keep, but we'll see.

Like you said, it's it's still kinda early, but it has so far held up and I have been liking it.

Aaron

Well, I need to get an m four at some point. I'm on an m one

Ian

still. Oh. I know. You got it. I'm just, like, crawling some

Aaron

gravel over here. Do that, like, today before

Ian

they go Before

Aaron

the m before the tariffs sit. Yeah. Yeah. That one becomes $34,000

Ian

by a computer. I would, like, legit buy that today, like, right after the show.

Aaron

Damn it.

Ian

Yeah. But you should do it. And it's cheap. I mean, like, the m four maxed out. I mean, not cheap cheap, but it's way less than a MacBook Pro.

So, like, I'm I'm in max RAM. I put a dead terabyte of disk, and it was still under 2,000, I think.

Aaron

Wow. That's surprising. Yep. Yeah. Apparently, those m fours just rip through video encoding, which would be pretty important for me.

Yeah. Got it. And I have I have, like, an external enclosure for my capture card, and so I do get a little I get a little bit of offload there. So the camera runs into, like a thunderbolt enclosure that has a a card in it, and then the thunderbolt goes into my computer. So I have to imagine that's doing some work for me.

Ian

Yeah. What's that for? Like, what's that just to, like, what's it what's what's in there?

Aaron

So I had the Cam Link four k, which is great, which is just a standard HDMI on one side, USB on the other. But then I wanted to start capturing more cameras. So I have a overhead cam that I use sometimes, and this is a, DeckLink quad. And so I can run four HDMI into that, and then it shows up in my computer as four different webcams, which is kinda cool.

Ian

That's cool.

Aaron

Yeah. That's crazy.

Ian

Have you done anything with that yet? I feel like I haven't seen

Aaron

over with you. A little bit on livestream overhead where I'm, like, drawing on stuff, but not not in any recorded videos.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. We gotta do gotta get Casey Neistat on us. Next video, I wanna see you drawing some stuff out and

Aaron

I know. Let's let's actually let's talk video. Let's talk Screencasting.com. Okay.

Ian

What you got for me?

Aaron

It's almost here. Yay. It's almost here. So so far in the can of of, like, things we have done, we've got, how to screencast, which is the main course philosophical, you know, whatever. We've got the, editing with ScreenFlow, which is me teaching.

So I taught those two. Steve taught editing screencasts in Premiere. That one's done. We've got, an editor that we have been using who's great, has recorded a course editing screencasts in Final Cut Pro. That one's done.

Then we found a guy online on YouTube who does DaVinci, and so we've got editing screencasts in DaVinci. So we've got five courses done and ready to go. Yeah. Five. That's crazy.

And

Ian

then we've got

Aaron

we've got, I think three more in the wings that are that are, in progress. So we've got OBS, Screen Studio, and then, we found somebody on YouTube to do, Camtasia, which is the other big editor. And so I'm still looking for somebody to do Descript because I understand that their, stuff is quite advanced now, and I know nothing about it. But we've got five courses ready to launch, three more on the way, and then we've got some, we've got some digital downloads. So, like, the guy that did the DaVinci course also made a DaVinci plug in for us to, like, automatically edit the face cam into the right position and make it look good and stuff like that.

Right. And so we'll be selling we'll be selling those digital downloads as well.

Ian

So So it comes with the course, or it's, like, a separate thing you bought?

Aaron

There's a there will be a bundle that you can bundle the, plug in as well, or you can just buy the course. That'll teach you how to do it. But if you want the easy way out, the plug in's the way to go. Yeah.

Ian

Wow. So when Think about all that. That's a lot's got done in a couple weeks here.

Aaron

I know. You go you go on one trip or two trips and stuff happens.

Ian

Stuff happens. Wow. That's great. So I guess you're gonna do the big launch and all that kind of stuff?

Aaron

Yeah. We'll do the launch April, I think, May.

Ian

Alright.

Aaron

So right now, what's what's left is, I think they're all edited because we have that editor. So I think they're all edited. I think they're all uploaded on CloudFlare already, and so, like, they're in the system. And so all the videos are there. We are just redesigning, the website because Screencasting.com does not currently live on the try hard platform, but we're designing it so that it will.

And then, I have to finish the billing the billing, and it's just it's just

Ian

gonna be forever. You're never done. First of all,

Aaron

you're never

Ian

supposed to done. You just gotta get shippable, but then you'll have months of work after that.

Aaron

It's just so shocking to me that all of these systems are so bad. Like, I get it. They they cater to to, like, the 90% use case, and we're not really in that use case because it's like, hey. We wanna sell courses and downloads and do it all across multiple domains and also, like, do upsells across multiple domains. It's like we're not we're not totally a normal use case, but, man, these these shipping or I'm sorry.

These, shopping cart solutions are just not great.

Ian

But the the thing is that you're not the normal use case in a sense, but I bet you're much more like the successful use cases. I think a lot of people who are successful at this do sell a lot of different things and do have a lot of different courses and do brand them differently. Right? Like like, yes. They're not 90% of, like, your bad customers who, like, I'm gonna build a course.

And then they build a course, and then they sell four copies, and then that customer disappears. And Yeah. You don't have them anymore. Like so you would think they would want to cater to, like, oh, like, these are successful course retailers, and they have more sophisticated needs than the ones that never got past one course. And, Yeah.

Aaron

Boy, if I accidentally end up building a course platform, I'm gonna be really bummed. Like, if if this becomes the speed the piece of software that we build, I'm gonna be not

Ian

Here's a question for you.

Aaron

Okay.

Ian

Question. This is this is gonna be so insightful. I love this question

Aaron

Oh, no.

Ian

Of where your mind's at. Yep. So you're building out this platform. Right? So you can sell your stuff.

Yep. Do you have tenant IDs in the database already?

Aaron

We do not.

Ian

Okay. So you're building it for yourself right now.

Aaron

We're building it for ourselves.

Ian

You haven't gone till I have an eye on the future. You're keeping me focused on your stuff. Okay.

Aaron

I have I will say I will say part of that is because in the database, each site is basically a tenant. So Postgres will, like, screen casting. It's all kind of, a tenant already. And so

Ian

be aggregated. Like, you would wanna aggregate them. If you had other people in there, you would want those together under some bigger account idea. Exactly.

Aaron

Yes. So the only thing we could do right now is bring on someone else, and, like, host

Ian

Sure.

Aaron

You know, one of their sites or something. But, yeah, it would be all mixed up with But that would

Ian

be, like, a bespoke. Yeah. That Totally bespoke. Yeah. Somebody you know, you wanna bring them in, that's fine.

But, like, it wouldn't be you couldn't sell it that way. No. No. No. No.

No. Yeah.

Aaron

And, you know, I just just don't really want to. I would much I would much rather produce Gustave Dore forgeries than build a course a course platform. I'll I'll say that much.

Ian

Alright. So here's a this is a topic I had. I didn't know if we wanted to get into it. I didn't know if I even wanted to get into it, but it kinda relates to this and your stuff. So I'll

Aaron

tell you if I wanna get into it. So tell me what it is.

Ian

So I'm thinking about these tariffs. Right? I'm thinking about Uh-oh. Recessions. Right?

That's why I didn't start with it because I don't know before I get into it. But Okay. I think there's some interesting stuff to talk about besides in and of itself. Right? The reality is there's gonna be a recession.

Maybe there'll be worse than that, that, but there's definitely gonna be a recession. So I'm

Aaron

just gonna say Let's just say upfront that this is financial advice.

Ian

This is fine. This this part will be financial advice of a certain

Aaron

listen to us and make trades based upon this and hold us personally responsible.

Ian

So what do you do as a small software company

Aaron

Oh, boy.

Ian

Related industry. Right? And it's like, I don't know about if I have a lot of ideas on, like, what you do to survive. I feel like a lot of it happens beforehand, and I kinda wanted to get into the idea of, like, the kind of businesses that survive this sort of thing.

Aaron

Okay. I can take that angle. I I will allow this. Let's let's carry on. Let's carry on.

I'll I'll give you a yellow card if we get too close, but let's carry on.

Ian

To me, I feel like one of the key things where like, so we HealthSouth was around for 02/2008 recession. Yeah. And I think there's been a recession somewhere in the 2010 too or whatever. Actually, it was some of our best years. Right.

And whatever. You know, I think there's an element if you want to be selling something that's not easily gotten rid of. Right. That's not easily or not easy to push till later. And things like that.

And so if you're out there trying to start something or you're already in something like in my case, right. It's helped us software. It's hard to not have helped us software. Like you might fire staff and you may use less of our help desk software. But it's hard to just be like, ah, let's save this money because You know, cause the email is coming in from your customers.

So as long as you're still in business, people are going to need help. And as long as you need to organize that help, you're probably gonna need some kind of tool to do it. Right. And so not perfect. Especially now with AI, I think help us summarize some other possible tricky parts we have to navigate, but just big, big picture.

It's like companies aren't going around being like, let's get rid of our help desk software to save money. Right. But that's not true. Consumer stuff is a little trickier. This is what I was thinking about your stuff.

It's like, ah, am I going to buy this course? Like I work at a job. I want to get better at X. Do I want to spend $200 on that right now or not? Right.

With economic uncertainty. And so then that's like, how do you position things you already have? You know, you and the object you have like, you know, how can you sell the businesses? How can you sell? I think screencast.com is actually really cool and like awesome for right now because it's the kind of thing that's like, I think it's a lot different than the database courses.

I think it's, like, people wanna improve on their own, wanna, like, maybe have a side gig, maybe wanna Yes. Maybe there'll be more impetus to do that kind of thing of, like

Aaron

It's very this is something

Ian

aspirational. Aspirational or even beyond aspirational. Like, now it it was aspirational, but now I'm worried about my job. I'm worried about necessary. Now it might be like, hey.

How do I create some, like, additional income and things like that? Right? So, like, this is something that can help me do that. Whereas, like, the database stuff's a little more like, oh, I'm already a programmer. If I learn this new database or not, I don't know if that's gonna turn into more

Aaron

dollars anyway.

Ian

Right. The jobs are getting tight. Like, so that's a little different. Now you guys are already started on the angle of like selling it to businesses, which I think is maybe something that like doubled down on like, Hey, maybe instead of those database consultants, you pay your in house staff. I like that.

You could get them trained up on the databases you use and save you all that money you're paying to Percona right now or whoever. Right. So like,

Aaron

I like that.

Ian

There are angles there for that stuff. So I don't know if you've thought about any of this, but this is the kind of stuff and the stuff I've been thinking about is like, if, and just for people who are out there, it's like, if you're thinking about doing something, like I would not do anything in the consumer and I would not do anything like it doesn't really impact the business. Like if it's tangential, I feel like this is not the time for the tangential sort of startup. This has it has to be something that's deeper. And I know it's gonna save people money.

Like, people will be very hot right now on, like, how does this save me money? So I think, you know, that's probably a good angle. But

Aaron

Yeah. I've I've you know, I do think about it a lot. Lots of social fears. Yeah. Yeah.

I agree with the characterization between the two or the distinction between the two courses or types of courses. I think that's one of the reasons we're leaning into screencasting so heavily right now is it does feel it feels like a a different type of content Yeah. And can, like, can be sold more easily, than some of the database stuff, frankly.

Ian

It's it's more actionable

Aaron

It is.

Ian

If you like. Right? Like, you are teaching me how to do this, and then I will know how to do it Correct. In a way that, like, the programming stuff is like, this is a part of a bigger picture that you would need to then you need this other stuff too, and actually to order you know, in order to do something with it. As in screencasting, it's gonna take you from not knowing how to screencast to knowing how to screencast and edit.

Aaron

And yeah. And you don't need

Ian

be able to do it.

Aaron

You don't need anyone's permission. You don't need to get hired by anyone because you have all this new database. Not no. It's just Right. Now you can go produce your own stuff.

Yeah. So I do think there's a a more, more direct line to potential value for the, you know, the consumer there. So, yeah, we're trying to we're trying to lean into that pretty heavily and Yeah. Part of that's part of the reason we're going so big on the content. Like, we're, you know, we're paying a good amount of money to these people to, like, produce this content for us.

But I think that is what I think that is what the opportunity demands. I think this is a big opportunity for us for try hard, and, maybe the timing is going to work out perfectly where everybody's back into grind mode because party's over, and they're thinking, what can I do to, like, make some money? So, yeah, we'll see. But I definitely think about, you know, the looming, apparently great collapse that is coming and thinking, like, well, shoot. I feel like we just barely got our feet under us.

You know? It's been one year. So, yeah, felt great.

Ian

Screencasting to me also has, like, really direct, like, market I mean, like, outside of your circle marketing opportunities, which I think is interesting. Like, I mean, this is, like, begging for, like, Instagram video I know. TikTok video, like, whether it's sliced up portions or probably better, like, dedicated little skits for lack of a

Aaron

better word. I don't know what

Ian

the right term is, but, I could see you guys really like leaning into that and, yeah, just reaching like new audiences rather than just kind of the core Aaron Francis crew, because it's gonna be a wider That's product. You know? But just having a a larger addressable market is really nice, I think, as well. So yeah.

Aaron

I think, unfortunately, I think, unfortunately, I may have to go back into goblin mode after after screen casting is out. I may have to go back in into the lab and do, like, crush out three or four more courses this year.

Ian

Oh, you're gonna go that route with it?

Aaron

I think so. I mean so there are just some that are just, there are just some that are just so obvious.

Ian

They're just missing.

Aaron

Yeah. That are missing. I think, like, an indexing course. It's just indexing. Just a short course about database indexing.

Like, that seems like a no brainer. Intro to Postgres or just enough Postgres, just enough SQLite, just enough MySQL, and then a MySQL course. And then, obviously, I gotta do I gotta do a Laravel course, man. Like, what What the hell are we doing?

Ian

It's kinda crazy. You don't have a Laravel course.

Aaron

What? What's going on?

Ian

Okay. I agree with the Laravel course. I don't know about the other one. I don't know. I'm a little worried about the idea of, like, the beginner entry level stuff

Aaron

if I know.

Ian

The if the economy goes bad. I don't know. So I don't know. I'd love to see you go goblin mode on, like, Instagram and TikTok for the stuff you already have. Like Yeah.

That's interesting. A month of, like, marketing goblin mode of, like, we are gonna create a hundred different little variations of different ideas, see which ones actually resonate, double down on those more. And, which is some of the stuff you talked about with, with, Jordan. Hey.

Aaron

It's coming back. Yeah.

Ian

It's all coming back now. That kind of thing like, well, I mean, he was talking about from his perspective, and he's paying people to do it, but you don't need to pay people to do it. You can just do it.

Aaron

I don't know. So that's my next question. Do you follow Marshall Haas on, I guess, not on Twitter. I think I

Ian

know who he is. He didn't buy some service or something.

Aaron

He sold some service. He sold service.

Ian

Shepherd or whatever? Is that what

Aaron

I'm talking about? Shepherd,then Shepherd, now somewhere, Com. Okay. So mega rich now. And he hired some kid locally.

I think he's in North Carolina now. He hired some kid locally to come, like, basically record a bunch of short form content and edit it and put it out. And, he just got his first million view thing on TikTok, like, you know, three weeks in. And he's doing a lot of, like you know, he's driving his, you know, sports car his custom sports car around town and giving business advice and whatever. What's he selling?

Ian

Or he's just a random I don't know.

Aaron

I have no idea. Yeah. I have no idea. Yeah. But I feel like I would need to do that.

Like, I would need to get somebody who is a TikTok native. I am not a TikTok native. I don't have the app. I don't get it. Like, I just need somebody.

I need somebody unhinged to come and just, like, record, I don't know, three days worth of content and then give me 50 different edits or a hundred different edits.

Ian

Well, but that's still the same idea. Right? Like, hey. We're gonna take a couple weeks. We're gonna hire somebody to come in here for a couple weeks to work with me to, like, spruce me up into TikTok, Aaron, and do whatever that requires.

Right. And do all that stuff. And then yeah. And then yeah. Then courses for sure.

I mean, I think the Laravel one would be a high priority, I would think.

Aaron

I know.

Ian

But, I don't know. Maybe the index indexing's sorta interesting for sure. It's like a nice discreet thing that people are interested in.

Aaron

They could apply across all database flavors, which should be nice.

Ian

Yeah. For the most part.

Aaron

Yeah. I think I think there is something missing in our catalog at the lower end Mhmm. Of the the market. So Yeah. I think that that could potentially be very lucrative, whether it's good timing, I don't know, but I do know it's missing.

It's easy. Sure. And with the new, basically, ecommerce platform, I think it's a good, like, a good bundle. Yeah. We gotta fill it up.

It's a good bundle opportunity, cross sell, whatever.

Ian

Mhmm. Wonder if you could, I don't know. There's probably even, like, other things that you could sell at some point too. I I wonder if, like, you got relationships with consultants or something and, like

Aaron

Yeah. Maybe.

Ian

Cross sell some services or whatever. Never gonna be huge money, though. It's kind of the annoying part of that, but it could be a little something like referrals and things.

Aaron

Yeah. Riddle me this. We've thought about for screencasting well, I don't think we

Ian

wanna program for that, for sure.

Aaron

Think we wanna be an agency. That's one thing. But it is it is actually hard to find, video editors that, like, have good taste and know, like, how to make a good professional screencast. And, like, we loaned our editor to Adam for his email course, the videos he did for that. And Adam was like, this guy gets it.

And I'm like, I know. Like, yes. He's so good. Yeah. And so having, you know, having a stable of editors who can do this kind of stuff, but also having, like, the front door.

Like, you're coming to Screencasting.com. It would make sense if there's a slash editors that you could, like, hire or pay us through or you know what I mean?

Ian

Yeah. I'm with you.

Aaron

So what does that what does that look like?

Ian

I like that. I mean, presumably, these things sort of exist, but I guess this would be, like, maybe it's more vetted. Right? And it's, like, more senior probably in general, and you guys have vetted them, and they're Screencasting.com approved

Aaron

Right.

Ian

Kind of thing. And, yeah, there's something there.

Aaron

There's something there. Right?

Ian

Idea. I mean

Aaron

because we do get a lot of, like, primarily dev tool companies coming to us and saying, like, hey. Can you edit our videos? It's like, no. Not really. And I will say some of the times what they actually want is motion design.

Like, they want they look at Steve's, you know, trailers that he makes and, like, hey. Can you edit me a video? And it's like, that's, like, 2% editing, 98% sound and motion. But so maybe even that's in there. You know?

Ian

I like two angles on this. I like you guys just hire somebody and sell this as a service when especially for the people who come to you, be like, yeah. We'll do it. Yeah. Why not?

Like Yeah. If it doesn't work out or you can't make enough on it, then you get rid of the editor and you move out with your life. But it sounds like if there's, like, a fair amount of inbound with you not even saying you do this, and then

Aaron

if you

Ian

actually said you did it, then more revenue. Like, I don't think it's gonna be the majority of your revenue, but, you know, if it's an extra 20% or something at some point, that's I'm

Aaron

not mad about that. That covers one tariff. I like that.

Ian

Yeah, exactly. It covers the tariffs and, you know, if, You know, it's like something that's not gonna require that much time of either of you. I, I don't think, you know, it's like kind of, yeah. Okay. Like we collect the money and then we hand it off to the editor and there's a little project management stuff.

But if you get a good editor, maybe there's not even that much of that. And, so I kinda like that. And then I like, like an editor directory, which I think you could go a couple of different ways with, the simpler way would be that people just pay money. Like we do this on our jobs. Like, that's true.

Just, Hey, you wanna be listed? You apply. If you got, depending on the level for you could just have it be money and that's it. You can have it be, we certify you to make sure you actually know some shit.

Aaron

That's true.

Ian

We let you in, but either way, and you can have like two tiers or three, whatever. It's like, Hey, just to get listed. So people know you're around is X, but then you could be placed higher on you're always at the top of the list for y. Right? And that keeps it really simple where you're not trying to figure out, like, well, we want a percentage and how do we track what they actually build, like, all that stuff.

Like Yeah. It's just like, hey. This is just some extra money. You're providing a a platform for people to find them. It's just, like, transactional and straightforward and not all the complexity of a deeper business arrangement.

Aaron

It's like, pay start with basically just a directory. Yeah. Just a directory. Directory.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Don't hate that?

Ian

Yeah. I mean, I think people would pay to be on there, I think, because, like, how do they get surfaced? You know? And this is a Right. Site that's got a lot of activity, and you're gonna be pushing people towards it.

So people are gonna find it. And everybody's gonna be like, yeah. I wanna

Aaron

make the content, but I don't know why I edit it. Yeah. So This is, I don't know if you're familiar with with Dave Ramsey. Probably for some sort of scandal. He's a very, very rich, very public radio Christian guy.

Familiar. Save all your money. Also, I have, you know, a hundred million dollars. But, anyway, that's very much his style is, he's got his stable of trusted, you know, mortgage people, life insurance people, financial agents, that kind of stuff. And I think it's all it's all that you pay a fee to Ramsey Solutions.

I'm sure they do some vetting, but there's this massive industry of people paying to be listed as, like, a Dave Ramsey specialist.

Ian

Yeah. And the bigger you get and screencasting gets bigger, like, you could have like, I'm sure that guy is not just like, hey. You pay me money. It's more like, you know, I'm driving I'm driving a huge percentage of your total business. Right?

Aaron

Oh, yeah.

Ian

You're paying me a lot of money. Like, you're you're paying me a percentage of your overall revenue or whatever. Like, because it's just it's a bigger operation. So, like, when you get,

Aaron

you know, if you get

Ian

to that point and be like, oh, man, we're sending these guys, like, lots of business, you know, then you can, obviously, you can, at the very least charge more or you can have more sophisticated arrangements or whatever. But, like, I think day one, just like, Hey, build a little redirect or whatever contact forms you can kind of track at least on some level, how much action they're getting and just a list. They hook it up to Stripe, they pay money, they then they're on there and that's it. You couldn't even have like, anybody can buy it, but there's a different tier. That's like, you guys have given your stamp of approval, which is like, they pay extra money for you to take the time to actually give a stamp of approval.

And then that gets them whatever other perks along with it. It's like, Yeah, I think that would be really good. And And I don't again, I don't think it's gonna be like your whole business or anything, but I think it'll be nice extra income and one

Aaron

We're we're in the business in of having a lot of businesses, so that's fine with me.

Ian

And that's what's it's, like, so easy because it's not like once it's built and going, like Right. Don't really have to do much. It's like, occasionally, somebody wants a refund or somebody has some little random problem, but, like, you're not gonna be thinking about this every day. Like, oh, man. People need something.

Aaron

I do I do like starting with a directory and not being in the middle of it.

Ian

Yeah. I think you don't wanna be in the middle. You don't even know if you're providing that much value yet. If you started a directory, it's like you could see how much value you're actually shipping out to them and then decide what the appropriate level of compensation is later. But, can just start with a paid directory, and you make some money.

They get some promotion. All good.

Aaron

I like this. Okay. I'll pitch I'll pitch this one to Steve. The broadening of that empire is very important to us, so I like I like that idea directionally.

Ian

Yeah. No. I think that it should should have, like, kinda SEO, but you got to do all the SEO stuff, man. Like, all the cameras reviews and all that stuff kills.

Aaron

I know. We're working on it. It's happening. Do. I know.

You're telling me.

Ian

Oh, man. Yeah. That that stuff didn't get done either. Jeez. Alright.

We got lots to do this year.

Aaron

Got a lot to do. Already a

Ian

third through the year.

Aaron

Everything I'm always stressed out about. I got so much to do.

Ian

Oh my goodness. Alright. What What you got? You went to Epic Web Conf while I was gone.

Aaron

I did. Yes. It's old news now, but I went to Epic Web Conf. It was great. Saw a lot of friends of the pod.

Hank was there. Laravel Hank. Bunch of Laravel people were there. Josh Siri was there. Really?

Yeah. Was there. Yeah. Sam, the new, event swim in was there. So got to see a lot of people.

Got to see some WorkOS people. Thanks for sponsoring the pod, WorkOS.

Ian

Love the WorkOS.

Aaron

What? Love the WorkOS. Yeah. It was great fun. Obviously, Kent was there.

Kent C. Dodds, it's his show. Put on a good conference.

Ian

I didn't think it had, like, pushed its way into the Laravel circles to this level. Like, have you been to it previously?

Aaron

I have not. Yeah.

Ian

And I'm not the first year where it's

Aaron

I think this is the first big the big showing.

Ian

When Laravel's come in.

Aaron

Yeah. And I don't know I don't know why. I'll be honest with you. Don't know why. But, yeah, a lot of Laravel people showed up.

You're not talking about right? I did give a talk. Okay. Hank and Sam are close, like, physically to Salt Lake City. Josh was historically a JavaScript guy, and Leah, I think, has done a lot of JavaScript.

So maybe, you know, they're all in that community. But, yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, I gave a talk, went great. Working on turning it into a series of articles. It's it's similar to talks I've done before, but it's it's there are more tactics.

So this is five five strategies for increasing your odds of success. One of which is, like, a talk I've done before, which is, like, publishing your work, and then there are some others. So Oh, interesting. Yeah, working on turning all of those into articles and getting those published, which is great. I've because I've already done the work.

Right? Did all the work.

Ian

I was like

Aaron

It's in one medium. Now I just gotta translate it to a different medium, and now I've got five new articles, which is always good.

Ian

Love the repurposing.

Aaron

Love it. So good conference. And it made me think, we gotta put on a conference, Ian. We gotta do it. There's no money in it, apparently.

Ian

You lose money in the conference.

Aaron

Yeah. I don't like losing money. I like gaining money.

Ian

Lose money, Especially if you factor your time. If you don't factor your time in, you can run a physical world conference, like, breakeven or making some money. But if you do factor your time in, you're definitely losing money.

Aaron

Definitely losing money.

Ian

But I do think I would like to do something.

Aaron

Something. There's something there.

Ian

Maybe there's, like, a a smaller, less committal version that's, like, a phase one. I don't know what that is.

Aaron

Yeah. I think if I I think if we had been thinking, we could have done a, pre or post Laracon Day conference.

Ian

So I was thinking along those lines also, or even like, you know what a lot this is not quite like having your own conference, but, like, it's just like an evening thing. It's like we're throwing a party sort of thing, or like we rented out a bar and everybody can show up and just hang out for three or four hours or something like

Aaron

Yeah. That's very different. Fun, but very different.

Ian

That's very different. It is

Aaron

very different. Spend a bunch of money for people to come hang out at the bar.

Ian

Still cheaper than talking to conference,

Aaron

but Maybe. Yeah.

Ian

And we're already there, such as a factor. Alright. If we did a con let's just I don't know. I don't think we're gonna

Aaron

do a conference.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Aaron

If we were. Let's just hey. Come on. Hey. Three

Ian

people were. Are we are we just doing micro conf? You know what I'm saying? Or are we doing

Aaron

some different We're we're doing old school micro confs. We're doing we're doing throwback micro confs.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

We're doing, we're doing a conference for developers who are building businesses.

Ian

We're having talks.

Aaron

We're having a few talks.

Ian

All talks? Is it eight is it eight hours of talks a day? We're having 16 speakers,

Aaron

or we're having We're doing one day, first of all.

Ian

One day?

Aaron

We're starting with a one day.

Ian

Yep. Hard to do one day, though. How do you get people to travel for one day? That's the problem with one day.

Aaron

Kent did it. Did he? Yeah. Because

Ian

Epic Web was one day?

Aaron

Mhmm. Wow. There's a so there was a speaker dinner the night before.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

There was a, like, a an event the night before that was or the day before that was, sponsored by Mux. It was the Jason Lingsdorf TV show that I did Okay. You know, a while back. And then there was a ski day after. Of course, it was optional, which I didn't do.

I just went home.

Ian

Like, kinda padded it out with some optional activities. Yes. Kind of intriguing.

Aaron

Kind of intriguing. But we would do we would do a one a one day program, maybe a night before and a day. Alright. Couple of talks, some hang time, and then maybe an optional day after thing.

Ian

One day is intriguing.

Aaron

Nah. One day makes sense. We got it. Yeah. You got it.

Ian

Well, no day. You're so exhausted by the second day. You're just like You're

Aaron

so exhausted. But imagine the second day the second day is just like you go, you have a nice long brunch with your friends. You have, like, a there's a, you know, whatever or walking tour. I don't wanna do that. But there's something the second day that people can do, or you can just sit around and hang out with your new friends.

Ian

Second day would be cool to have, like, where you had the space still or some kind of space. Yep. Probably not the same size space. Some kind of space with, like, brunch provided. Yep.

And it's, like, part of the conference, but it there's no talk right. This is just a talk work hangout. This is, like, we provide food. Yep. We provide space.

Oh, the people you met the day before, you can, like, chat further with or meet some new people, whatever. It's a big hallway track kind of, like, one one PM, it's over, go home kinda thing. That could be interesting.

Aaron

Could be interesting.

Ian

How many talks did he have?

Aaron

He had a lot, actually, because he had a few lightning talks that were five minutes. Okay. So there ended up being a lot of talks. Uh-huh. I wanna say, like, 15 or something.

Ian

Wow. But some of the lightning, but still it's a lot.

Aaron

So it was a lot.

Ian

It's epic, though.

Aaron

It is. A big web. Big day.

Ian

How many people do you envision? Like, what's our goal for the attendance?

Aaron

Oh, a 50. Thinking.

Ian

Yeah. Why do we do it? Where? Yeah.

Aaron

All roads lead to and are in Dallas, so we could do that.

Ian

Dallas has a good air situation.

Aaron

Do we do have a good air situation? Very clear.

Ian

Man on the ground.

Aaron

Oh, you mean easy to get to. I see. Yeah.

Ian

Easy to get to.

Aaron

We do have a man on the ground. Everybody loves Dallas.

Ian

Good. Everybody loves Dallas. We know that.

Aaron

I do think type

Ian

of thing.

Aaron

Anchoring it or positioning it around another anchor event is probably, you know Could be useful. Probably ideal, but too late this year.

Ian

That would be Denver then, though, which we don't have a man on the ground in.

Aaron

We don't have a man on the ground?

Ian

Yeah. I see. I kinda think I mean, if you anchor to the other events, sort of a little different anyway. Comes it's sort of always gonna be then, like, it's not really its own thing. It's sort of just an after show or preshow for the main thing, which is fine, but I think it kinda gets back into that.

It's a different kind of thing. Mhmm. That would kinda push me more towards, like, let's just do a night, a party. There's a party the night before for people who aren't speakers dinner. It's the most technical party, and it's awesome.

And we just

Aaron

Sounds fun.

Ian

That sounds like That sounds fun. Mostly technical party for the people who aren't speakers, and you just come and hang out. Sounds fun. I I wouldn't be totally opposed to that. Like, that's something that this could actually be kind of a great

Aaron

idea. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

Ian

we could even have cheap tickets so that it's not, like, all on us to pay for everybody's booze for four hours or whatever. We could, like even if it's, like, $20 or something, like, just enough to take the, like, edge off the cost of it. We could get

Aaron

a sponsor for that for sure. We could

Ian

get a spot we could get a sponsor for sure. Yeah. I think we get a sponsor. So that that's that's a possibility, which is one kind of thing. On the pure conference thing, I do think a huge city is very useful because we could probably get, like, 20 people who just live around Dallas.

Right? Or 30 people.

Aaron

Yes. Totally.

Ian

So, like, you they're right there. It's like, okay. Well, we know we have, like, a third of the conference attendees done just by people who can drive. And then, you know, that lowers the numbers you need to actually get to get on an airplane and come to Dallas for two days to come to the conference. So, so I do like the idea of a really big city, which Dallas is.

And between then, if you consider the other sort of drivable Texas cities, you have a pretty good amount of people who could come from there. Obviously, we could do New York, which can be very expensive. We could do, you know, those kind of cities, really big cities that will have just a lot of listeners in them inherently, and, we could drag them in.

Aaron

So it's interesting. Alright. Seed planted.

Ian

Seed planted. I think I like the idea of the before party better just because, like, it's it's less work

Aaron

It is less work. By a lot. By a mile. Yes.

Ian

Even if we wanted to have a a speaker at that or something. Like, hey. Somebody's gonna give a talk for thirty minutes as, like, a I think you need you need I don't know. Well, this is something

Aaron

AV. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. You need AV and all that stuff. I know. There's probably a way we could do something at it besides just everybody gets drunk, but, you know, and or hangs out. You don't have to get drunk.

Aaron

You don't have to get drunk, but

Ian

you do have to

Aaron

hang out.

Ian

I I've, like, I had my the last, like, couple weeks is, like, the first drinks I've had in over a year. It's been crazy, and they really hit me too. I was like,

Aaron

yeah. Gallbladder. Listen. If you guys if y'all want if y'all want a mostly technical party the night before Laracon starts in Denver, let us know because that sounds awesome to me.

Ian

That does sound kinda awesome.

Aaron

Mostly technical. Speaker dinner, but

Ian

true. I'll be holding it down.

Aaron

You'll be holding it down, and then I'll I'll flee and come over. And

Ian

that would certainly be good because you could drag the speakers over to the party.

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

Yeah. So that would be a nice thing for, like, halfway through the party or whatever, all the speakers show up or, you

Aaron

know Mhmm.

Ian

Some chunk of them and, mingle with the people. So I got the the other nice thing is I got the whole user escape team there. Yeah. So, like, we have people who can help and Yep. Run the show.

So it's not Dave. Now it's a party producer. Here we go. Dave. Oh, Dave's gonna love this idea.

So, yeah, it's not like an additional expense, though. Like, well, we have to get

Aaron

a bunch of people to Dallas to help

Ian

us actually check people in and set up and do all the stuff.

Aaron

And We the good ideas per minute on this show. It's so high.

Ian

Way, way up here, man.

Aaron

It's way up there. We're easily at, like, point one to point two good ideas per minute.

Ian

We're one percenters on the good ideas.

Aaron

Easily. This is awesome. Okay. I like this idea. This is a good Okay.

This is good. This is this is what we call a yes and. You know? This is you back and forth. You figure out where we're going.

Everything's agreeable, and then we land on something that's that's a great idea. I

Ian

think that I think that could work. It's also, like yeah. We dip our toe in without, you know, the full commitment. It's fun. It's fun.

Aaron

Fun. And it's so cool. Like imagine having a mostly technical party.

Ian

I think people will be very excited about that.

Aaron

That'd be so awesome.

Ian

And we know all our people are there. You know what I mean? Like the core listeners, a lot they either want to go to Laracon or they are going to Laracon. Like, so we don't have to convince them to go. And we can just have we can do the fun parts of the conference, which is have a party and Have a party.

Aaron

Chat

Ian

with people and not worry that the speakers aren't doing their slides until the last second and all the stressful parts of all that.

Aaron

Have to start speaker wrangling pretty soon. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Alright.

Ian

Yeah. Let us know if you wanna party. Maybe we'll make that happen. I like that idea. Alright.

I think that's a good spot. Let's wrap it.

Aaron

Just out.

Ian

Thanks. Thanks, everybody. You can, find everything you need about the show over at mostlytechnical.com. You can sponsor the show. We have another sponsor probably coming out next week, which would be cool, but there's still a few slots.

Talk to your boss. Get on the show. Sponsor the show.

Aaron

Very inexpensive. Please sponsor

Ian

the show. Expensive. You know you guys all know. You know WorkOS. You know Laravel Cloud.

You know Bento. Like, think about how much you think about these things.

Aaron

You know the sponsors. Come on.

Ian

You know them. That could be you and your business. Thanks for listening. Catch you next week. See y'all there.

Aaron

See you.