Idea About Ideas

Ian

Hello?

Aaron

Good morning, sir. How are we doing?

Ian

Hanging in there.

Aaron

That's not good. I I forget the scale, honestly, but hanging in there is not good. It's not it's not high up there.

Ian

It's fine. No. I'm actually doing pretty good. But I did I just last 10 minutes, I've been in a little bit of a panic.

Aaron

K.

Ian

I'm I'm coming into this with the wrong kind of energy. I'm coming into

Aaron

this with

Ian

panic energy. So I was reviewing something stirred my thoughts and reminded me of this idea I have. That's an awesome idea. And this thing that reminded me

Aaron

of

Ian

I was like, I gotta execute this idea. Right? I have this whole idea about ideas. So we're we're already, like, we're in such training

Aaron

goes 2 levels deep. Yeah.

Ian

Which is I kind of wanna do this at some point where I have a lot of ideas. I'm not gonna be able to do them all. Right? I could barely handle the ideas I have, right, that are actually generating money. I have no room for new ideas.

Aaron

Hate that for us.

Ian

You just put that aside and you're like, there's more room. But see, I I've learned that I can't make more room. There's just no more room. So I kinda wanna do a thing where I'm like, listen. I'm gonna put it out there like a job ad almost.

Right? And I'm just gonna be like, listen. I'm gonna front 30 grand and my backing, my idea, you come in, you know, whoever you are, you get half or whatever. We work out whatever arrangement makes sense, equity wise. And somebody else just, like, builds the good idea because it's a really good idea.

I'm willing to pay some money for it to exist. I'm willing to give away a lot of equity for it to exist. I just want it to exist, but I can't build it. So You

Aaron

you know that that that offer right there will have people beating down

Ian

a path to your door.

Aaron

$30 to build out an idea with Ian's support and get 50% equity, people are gonna your inbox is gonna be blowing up.

Ian

That's probably true. But here's the thing. It can't just be like, is this not a developer job? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, yes, you have to be a developer, but this is like this is a business.

Right? It's like somebody has to do the marketing. Somebody and like that I can buy and all that stuff, but it's not just like build this for 30 grand. It's You are a founder, right? And you are not just the technical founder But you're probably got to be the person doing a lot of the work because I don't have time to do any work really.

So it could be available for some things, but, you know, not Can you share what this idea is? Or you won't be able to go to

Aaron

the show just now?

Ian

Come on. Not yet. Because here's the thing. So here's the second part that's got me I'm literally depressed right now.

Aaron

You're tilted here. You're on tilt. That's a popular term.

Ian

I've till I'm super tilted in my notes. This idea has a domain. And now a lot of my ideas have domains. Right? And I don't feel like they're very good most of the time.

This one has literally the perfect domain. It was available. It was Just

Aaron

straight up available?

Ian

It was straight up available. It's literally the perfect name.

Aaron

Did you buy it?

Ian

And so apparently, I didn't buy it. Apparently, I didn't buy it.

Aaron

Is it gone?

Ian

It's gone. And I've gone through all my registrars. It's not in any of them. It's when I look at the DNS entry, it's like some weirdo name server that from some domain service

Aaron

I've never

Ian

used or anything about. No. I don't even understand how this could domain could be gone. I I really don't understand how I can buy it because usually, I just buy if I have a if it passes through my brain for 2 seconds, I just buy the domain.

Aaron

Listen. If I do too many projects, you buy too many domains. So I am shocked that you didn't buy it.

Ian

A lot of domains, and I bought domains on way, way less, of a strong feeling than this. And so I I don't know what happened. I don't know if I told somebody

Aaron

what the domain is?

Ian

No. I can't.

Aaron

You've given me nothing here. I'm trying to make radio.

Ian

You're giving me nothing. No. This is one of one of those unfortunate things. But I I do I gotta figure out what's going on in the domain first. If I find out for sure it's gone forever, then maybe we'll talk about it.

I gotta I gotta be

Aaron

sure first.

Ian

It's very sad. There are some, like, lesser domain extensions available with the same No. No. No. Get it back.

But I know. I think No. Uh-oh.

Aaron

No. You're telling me there was a dotcom off the shelf for 9 99?

Ian

It was a dot AI, but it was perfect for this. It was perfect. It was a good use for AI. It's AI play. It was a good use of dotai.

Man, it's, like, right in my wheelhouse of, like, products. It's just, man, I can't believe I didn't bother this domain. And I can't believe you didn't

Aaron

bother this domain.

Ian

Because it's not like a dictionary where it's, you know, it's a 2 word domain.

Aaron

It would be awesome. It would make a great story if you would tell us the domain.

Ian

That would just really flesh it out.

Aaron

That would really make it a lot better.

Ian

Can I do it? I don't think I could do it yet. I can't do it yet because, you know Sorry. Here's the thing. Yeah.

Sorry. Sorry, listeners. But you'll just have to go on my word that it's a very good domain, and it's a very good product idea And I'm very tilted. It was a perfect word for it. I'm tilted.

I don't have this domain. And so now I I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't know. I wasn't gonna say I do anything anyway, but now I feel like even more compelled to do something, but because I've been this is, like, negative event has happened. You know?

Aaron

You got you got scooped,

Ian

and you wanna show them. You wanna stick it to them.

Aaron

I love sticking to people. I love it. I gotta stick

Ian

to them.

Aaron

You get you build a whole business, a spite business. I I love that. That's great.

Ian

A whole spite business.

Aaron

A whole business just

Ian

for spite.

Aaron

I I gotta admit, Ian, I haven't I've rarely seen you frazzled. You're frazzled.

Ian

I'm frazzled. You're frazzled.

Aaron

You do not like to be frazzled.

Ian

Because when have I I I mean, I own a 100 stupid domains for things I will never ever build. And even if I never built this It's not a stupid domain and it's a perfect domain for this product plenty of domains that come back to a month later. I'm like, this is what the hell was I even thinking? How was that? Like, high.

Is it cut you? What the hell was I doing? But, like, this one, no. I I've come back to it now several times. I'm always like, that I should I need to do this just because the name is perfect.

No. No. Apparently, I don't have the domain. So So how close are how close are

Aaron

you for real to to building something else? You've got you you have been you've been dipping your toe in the I wanna build something else waters for a long time.

Ian

Though I am farther away than ever from building something else myself. Okay. Is just a ship that has sailed. I just can't do it. There's too much going on.

So you're no longer having to do it.

Aaron

Your labor. You're capital now. That's what you're telling me.

Ian

Well, yes. I mean, the thing is with my labor, unfortunately, it's not totally true. My but my labor has to be for the things that actually make me money already. So I I have to be then if I have other ideas, then I need to be the capital of those ideas. I can't be the labor and the capital of those ideas.

It's just not it's just not gonna work. So I would like to do I I mean, I've had this idea forever of, like, different variations. There's, like, the idea of, like, hire a full time person who just build out ideas. Like, they're just a little island of their own, and they just do it do stuff like this.

Aaron

The entrepreneur in residence.

Ian

Yeah. Something like that. Section 134 stuff makes that really bad. It's like a like, this is, like, people this is a thing. Like, it's important who you vote for.

Important what you vote for. It's important. Anything matters. You're literally wagging your

Aaron

finger. You're

Ian

not really wagging. Finger at the camera. You kids out there who don't vote and all this stuff, go vote because these things have real impact. 1 of you out there listening could be hired by me right now to sit around and make products for a whole year, but you're not gonna be because it's gonna literally cost me, like, 70% more than if I do nothing. So I'm just gonna

Aaron

be honest. Still on effect? They didn't they didn't, like they didn't fix that?

Ian

They almost fixed it. But unfortunately, it would've been awesome.

Aaron

Well, congrats to them for almost doing something. That's really great.

Ian

Yeah. So yeah. So, yeah, that thing so whatever.

Aaron

Okay. So entrepreneur in residence is out. What about the e n incubator?

Ian

Yeah. I mean, the Ian Incubator is still possible. Right? Like, whatever. We throw some money at it, find the right person.

But that's, you know, find the right person. Those people I know, but they're all busy doing other things. So I don't know. I will say that you are correct. I will get a bunch of emails now because the number of people who reference this podcast on the job, applications is quite impressive for, like, given the amount of people who listen to us, I think, but you know, podcast, that's one of those weird things that you can't really trust.

Like they're not very accurate, just by the nature, but so there's a lot of people either out there actually listening, which I think is true or at the very least smart people are figuring out what I'm doing and going listening to some stuff to see what I'm talking about and then referencing that, which is good. So Here's

Aaron

a here's a strategy. You gotta continue to hire so that people keep listening so they can look for stuff to put in their applications. They boost we gotta boost those numbers by hook or by crook.

Ian

You keep getting laid off. I'll keep hiring. Those are that's what the the things that move the needle. We'll have Ted

Aaron

and Adam come back on every now and then, and we're good.

Ian

That's all you gotta do. It's easy. You're a

Aaron

perfect podcast.

Ian

Yeah. So I don't know. I I'm I'm not ready. I wanna talk about this idea actually on here, but I'm too frazzled right now. I don't even wanna I I just I am not mentally prepared to do it because I'm so upset and distraught.

I wasn't expecting to start my day like this, you know, so I spent the last, like, 20 minutes phonetically searching all my registrars. I know we got we're recording at 10. I'm on the clock. I gotta hurry. So I don't know.

We're gonna go back through everything after the podcast to make sure I didn't somehow miss it It's a whole other issue here as I have like a 1,000 domain name registrars I've used over the years.

Aaron

Say. You gotta consolidate.

Ian

Yeah. And I'm gonna I've gone the opposite now because now, like, Cloudflare does it directly. So I got so many Cloudflare. I got, you know, I got I literally have, like, 10 registrars. So that's on my list of someday projects, but it's such a hard one.

Like, you could obviously know that they're used or easy. Fragile one. It's so fragile. Like, you're just gonna screw stuff up, stuff that you you didn't remember you were using or whatever. Then you have a couple big huge domains that are really important.

How do you move those? Like It's getting something's gonna get

Aaron

lost in the ether, and you're

Ian

gonna have to

Aaron

call, like, 8 levels deep into GoDaddy and be like, hey. You don't know anything, but my most important domain is missing now.

Ian

And I'll

Aaron

be like, I'm sorry. I don't know anything. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. All domain registrar is the support. I just assume the support is nonexistent. Yeah.

So Terrible. Yeah. It's like you can never that's where, like, I think I think healthswap.com is on, like, something insane, like register.com or something. Like, literally something from, like, 20 years ago. And Mhmm.

It's just like, yeah, I can never move it because how could I ever move it? It's gonna be if and if it's down for minutes, it's like a huge problem. And so in theory, you're supposed to be able to move it, but in practice, it just seems

Aaron

In practice, it seems a little terrifying.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

So are you committing to revealing this name on next week's episode? Can I get that out of you?

Ian

No. I can't I can't commit. No. Okay. Should I?

Aaron

I think you should. It's content. It's all content.

Ian

If I can if I don't end up building it, then it should be content. That's true.

Aaron

Here's the thing. If you reveal the idea, is anyone else gonna do it? Doesn't everyone else have 50 ideas they're gonna do?

Ian

They do. Are they gonna build it? I don't know. I I'm old school like that. See this little old school side of me.

It's like, I know that new school way is just like talk about it, whatever, like get it out there and nobody's gonna take your idea, which is probably true, like, 95% chance that's true. But, man, that 5% where somebody just goes out there and nails it, that that Scoops you. Like that. Yeah. They just scoop me.

I don't like that. So if I was already in process on it, that's different. I'll I'll talk every day about it on here. The minute it's, like, going, fine. I'll talk about it every day.

But or if I decide, I'm not gonna talk about it.

Aaron

A new product. I I I want this storyline to evolve. We need a new product. We need we need something like that for for the content. So I say build it.

Ian

Somebody out there will pitch me so wonderfully that I'll have no choice but to go ahead with the idea I just said. And somebody will be rolling on it by next episode, And then I would Oh, man.

Aaron

Can you imagine that'd be such a great storyline?

Ian

No. A great storyline.

Aaron

I mean, I would be happy for you. Like, you're getting to, you know, whatever. Build your dreams.

Ian

But think

Aaron

of the content.

Ian

The content. Amazing.

Aaron

Yeah. It'd be wonderful. So I imagine you would you would want somebody that is probably some sort of freelancer or solo founder themselves and probably a Laravel developer, with some sort of track record of producing things on their own slash marketing, something like that. Right?

Ian

Well, I'm gonna be honest with you here. Okay.

Aaron

Here we go. Gloves off.

Ian

Gloves off. The likelihood of you of me doing this with somebody, especially on this type of speed Mhmm. And also with, all the other stuff I have going on, the likelihood of me taking this on right now with somebody and that I don't know is, like, very, very small. Like, it would have to be incredibly impressive. So I just think if if you'd never interact with me and you're out there listening and you're like, maybe this is me

Aaron

ain't it.

Ian

I would say don't bother, like, putting together a big pitch because this is not this is beyond just, like, high like, hiring somebody, whatever. The worst worst case scenario is I fire you, and it's I don't like doing that, and it's sad and all that stuff. But at the same time, like, it's kinda clean, whatever. Mhmm. But, like, if we go into business together, there's, like, we got

Aaron

a It's a big

Ian

deal. Corporate. We got a Yep. Accountant. We got lawyers.

We got it's a whole project just to even get to phase 1 of that. And, like, just where I'm at right now. It's like, yeah, if I, if somebody I know and trust and I feel like, okay, like this is a person who's gonna actually try. Yeah. And all the things you said are accurate, like somebody who could actually do some has some idea of having marketed something before and all that stuff.

Because, again, I'm not gonna be able to do a lot of stuff. Like, I could have ideas

Aaron

Capital, man.

Ian

Guide, but, like, I'm not gonna be the one writing the blog post and stuff. So, you know, it would have to be the right person. That's the thing.

Aaron

So So, again, it pays it pays to know a guy. You gotta be out there. You gotta be out there so that the guy knows you so that when it's time to know a guy, you know a guy.

Ian

It's so true. I mean, I will say, like, with the job, we've been trying to, you know, not make that a high you know, I wanna have a broad net, so it's not a criteria that I've interacted with somebody before or whatever.

Aaron

There's a

Ian

lot of good devs out there. Right? But but yeah, but there's still even there there's going to be some advantage I would think. And then here certainly, I mean, there also is true. I'm not doing the 1st pass.

So, you know, it's not it's not the biggest advantage because I don't even know you applied potentially. But with this, yeah, it would be you know, this is that next level of, like, the trust factor is so overwhelmingly important that, yeah, getting out there, doing stuff, making connections, definitely very valuable at times where you just make your own luck sometimes where you happen to know a guy who can do something for you or

Aaron

Who wants to give you 30 grand to start a business?

Ian

Who wants to give you 30 grand?

Aaron

I just made up that number. Good to know Ian at this point. Condolences to all of you that don't know Ian.

Ian

My wife's out there

Aaron

listening. Ian doesn't know you.

Ian

Jamie's listening to the podcast. Like, what are you talking about giving $30,000 to someone? You're giving who?

Aaron

What? I didn't sign off on this. Jamie, I'm sorry that I'm encouraging it, but it's great content, you must admit. So I gotta spur him on to great content. Sorry about your finances, but come on.

Imagine

Ian

They could come in here once in a while. Listeners. Yeah. Right? They come on the pod.

There's a little a little maybe Aaron Francis takes a piece. Maybe try hard media takes a little few percent too. You know? We get some of that

Aaron

Aaron Francis money. Like I like the

Ian

sound of this. We need an empire. We love an empire. An empire. This is great.

Aaron

I'm in. I'm in.

Ian

Look at that. He doesn't even know the idea. This is what he's idea. Trust these things.

Aaron

That's exactly right. I don't even know the idea, but I'm in. You got me. I'm here to help.

Ian

Now

Aaron

Oh, that's a great idea.

Ian

All the work. All the work. That's all. We can just find that person all the way to Chrisette.

Aaron

This person gets none of the glory. I just wanna put that on the record. First of all, they'll do all the work, and we'll take all the glory.

Ian

No. We need them to be super perfect. We need them to

Aaron

be as well.

Ian

They get some glory.

Aaron

We'll give you some reflected glory. Yeah.

Ian

They can. Yeah, they can. They would be able to absorb some of the glory and shine we send their way, which I think

Aaron

is. Exactly.

Ian

Is it a developer

Aaron

product? Would you be marketing to developers?

Ian

No. Well, I

Aaron

mean, you

Ian

know, one of these things where, like, developers might use it for their own products, but it's a business type product.

Aaron

It's a b to b? Oh, do you love a b

Ian

to b? Email related products.

Aaron

Oh my gosh.

Ian

Gosh. And every email idea.

Aaron

B2b email.

Ian

I know. Man. I know. It's great.

Aaron

You're gonna print money.

Ian

I know. That's the thing. That's where the money's at. What do you want from me? It's not my fault.

Aaron

I I want you to make money. I love I love that for you, especially when I'm involved. I love that for me. That's amazing.

Ian

Wish it was a pure developer product. Developers could definitely use this, but, it's not you know, if they have products. I I do. I never had any good developer ideas. This is a great regret of mine.

I do wish I could cope with I the I I hate developers as customers. I think that's like so so I have this block where, like, I don't want to sell anything to developers because I think they're horrible customers. And so remember who listens

Aaron

to the show, but carry

Ian

on down. They know they know they are. You all know your horrible, terrible amazing. Mad customers. Like, I do like it.

You know, for the one off sales, fine. Developers act quickly. They make decisions. They're like, yeah. I'll buy that.

They tell other people. So they're all like that. They have a lot of money. I love all those parts, but, like, I don't love the, like, we're always looking for the new shiny thing. Yeah.

Oh, man. There's a new product that's got one feature yours doesn't I'm leaving. I'm leaving if you don't do it. Oh, you're done in the dark mode. We got out of the dark mode.

I'm leaving. Whereas, like, guess what? The rando in HR, some manufacturer in Ohio, he's not leaving because you didn't build dark mode in 2 weeks. Like,

Aaron

that's okay. Hospital grade fluorescent lighting anyway. He doesn't care about dark mode.

Ian

He's not going anywhere. That's the kind of customer I like. Like, he's just there. He's just reliable. You're providing the service.

He likes it. Like, yes. Yes. That's what I like. But, anyway,

Aaron

Oh, man. What a great segment.

Ian

That is a good segment.

Aaron

Great segment.

Ian

Maybe we should let's do let's do give us a course update. I'm I'm my throat, I'm losing my voice. Give us give us a little Get

Aaron

a calm down.

Ian

Got a call. Bring my

Aaron

blood pressure down a little bit.

Ian

To get down a level or 3. I'm a little worked up this morning.

Aaron

Alright. Well, good segment. Great job. Good content there. Let's see.

Course update. I treated this recently. We crossed a 100,000 in sales. We did it. Six figure launch.

I still I still count that as launch. That still counts as launch. Right?

Ian

Doesn't have to be

Aaron

launch day.

Ian

People should think about launch. It shouldn't be like launch day is the launch and, like, then that's all the money comes in. It's like, no. Let's stretch it. Let's

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Expand.

Aaron

We're at we're currently at, just checking 105542.

Ian

I mean, that's a nice amount since you even did that tweet, which was, like

Aaron

It was, like, 101 something.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

So Wow. Crazy. Right? A $100,000 still going. Still going.

Yeah. Course update. I'm recording a bunch of module or a bunch of videos this week, and doing some so, I can't tell you why, but Steve came in town last week. Oh. Nancy Steve.

Ian

Steve. He's in town.

Aaron

Steve. Producer Steve. We've got producer Dave. I've got producer Steve. Yeah.

So he came in town for a few days, which was awesome. You know, we'd cat it around town, you know, got dinner and drinks and stuff. But we also did a bunch of work, and it was super good. We've instituted some more, some more, like, planning and process stuff because I was kinda feeling like I'm behind on stuff and stuff's getting on top of me. Mhmm.

And, you know, Steve is in this weird spot because, like, he can only do so much. Right? If videos is is what we need, then I'm kind of the limiting factor there.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And so, you know, he's trying to, like, do everything he can do, but some things are waiting on me, but I forget things. And so it was like, alright. We gotta we gotta start writing some stuff down. You know, up until now, we've been operating on Imessage, and that's it. Just like, hey.

Just text each other. So now we have, like, proper planning, and we have, like, you know, boards and lists and to dos and stuff. So we're trying not to go overboard because, you know, when you get a project management tool, you're like, I'm gonna fundamentally change who I am as a person. You're like, no. Wait.

Hang on. No. I gotta back up. I gotta back up a little bit. Yep.

But we wrote down everything that, like, had kinda been rattling around in our brains and, you know, either put it on a list or on a calendar, and that was super helpful. So we spent, you know, we spent 5 or 6 hours just talking and, like, trying to figure out what we're actually doing here. And that was good. And so one of the things that we talked a lot about is, like, back to your point, we gotta we gotta focus on the stuff that makes the money. And the stuff that makes the money right now is the SQLite course.

And so we need to focus on that a little bit, but we also need to plan ahead much better for the upcoming Postgres course because that's gonna be so much bigger just in terms of, like, content and hopefully in terms of of money. Yeah. Oh, wow. Is just so freaking

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

It just it's all things to all people, which is kinda, like, terrifying, honestly.

Ian

There's also just infinite path. If you get into, like, the modules, like, there's a million, like, pretty solid module. I don't know. Forget what they're kinda like, plugins or whatever they're called, but, like like, not just, like, throwaway ones. Like, people are, like, use these plug ins.

Yeah. So you

Aaron

We could do we could probably do 8 hours on post GIS, which is their,

Ian

you know, their

Aaron

That's a huge information systems or whatever it's called. Yep. And that's just one. Like, that's just one thing to to speak nothing of vectors

Ian

or, you

Aaron

know, full text search. Anything anything else that they claim they can do, which I believe they can do. I just haven't, you know, experienced all of the Postgres plugins and stuff. So Yep. Yeah.

So we talked a lot about that and also talked about kind of, like, the same same kind of thing you and I talked about last week, which is, like, I need, I need exploration and discovery time, and then I need, like, production and exploitation time. And how do we how do we balance those things such that I'm still able to explore, which produces, you know, great YouTube videos and articles and tweets and stuff, but that's not necessarily the money. Right. And how am I still able to exploit, which, you know, explore, exploit is like a math thing, I think.

Ian

How

Aaron

am I still able to exploit and, like, make the videos that make money and send the emails and, you know, tag people in Bento and, like, how do I do all the blocking and tackling stuff

Ian

as well?

Aaron

That's a tough question. It's it's hard because, I want, like,

Ian

beyond what

Aaron

we need. What I want to do is just explore all the time. I just wanna, like,

Ian

I just wanna go way

Aaron

too deep on something that barely matters and then emerge victorious. And that, like Yeah. That feels really good to me. And I do think it's very important, for our business, but it needs to be constrained. So it was good.

It was very, very productive. In fact, we had plans to this is not the reason he was here, but we had plans to shoot, like, a more kinda like a, you know, we we had a 100 k, like, more of like a lifestyle video.

Ian

Mhmm. And

Aaron

we're like, hey. You're gonna be in town. Let's do that. And we like wrote down, we sat down and wrote the script and we're like, all right, all right. This is going to be great.

You know, it's going to take us basically all day to do this. And then I said I said to Steve, should we do this? He's like, what do you mean? I was like, no. Should we like I think this script is good, and I think the idea for the video is good, but should we even do this video?

Like, should we do this content? Yeah.

Ian

And He was like, well, you know, where would we put it?

Aaron

And I'm like, a second channel, like, another channel. It can't go on the developer channel because that's, like, not developer content. That's, like, you know, lifestyle guru content. It's like, it it would go on a second channel, which I think eventually will happen. We'll have a second channel where it's, like, studio tours and behind the scenes and fun stuff like that.

We don't have it now. And he was like, no. I don't think we should do it because we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this. Steve's the best.

We're gonna do we're gonna do this, and then it's gonna be great. And then we're not gonna be able to sustain it. We can't do vlogs every week. We can't do lifestyle shoots every week. We can't even probably we can't even probably do it every other week or every 3rd week.

We can't justify, like, making a video about your studio when you've got a 100 Postgres videos to make right now. Yeah. And so this gets to this kinda gets to, like, my, inter in inner turmoil that I'm experiencing, which is, like, I just wanna do everything.

Ian

We've just

Aaron

And you you're like, I'm too old and wise to do everything. And I'm like, well, I'm young and stupid, and I'm just gonna do everything.

Ian

That's how it goes.

Aaron

That's how it goes. And so it's good to have it's good to have Steve by my side to to be like, I feel like, Steve is more the, like, the responsible adult and, like, the executor, and I'm more like the, hey, dude. What if we did this? Wouldn't that be crazy? And, like, I think this particular business needs both.

I think our particular business needs a guy with that has a wild hair and disappears for 4 days and comes back with, you know, tablets from the mountain, And also guy that, like, just make sure that the trains are running on time. Like, we need we need both of those things to to mix a metaphor that would never happen. You know, Moses comes down from

Ian

the mountains next to trains that are still running,

Aaron

but but we need both. And it's just a matter of finding the balance between both of our skill sets, I think.

Ian

Do you think, like, Steve should be the one to do some of the, like, blocking and tackling marketing, emailing stuff? Even though I don't know if that's in his skill set right now, but like, you can obviously learn because like, it feels like the pressure of you to like literally always have to keep him busy. Like he's so dependent on you to, for his primary work right now that, like, that's a lot of pressure on you to just always be making videos, which probably isn't pre like any creative endeavor like that. You just can't do it like continuously because you just get that correct. You're not gonna have the creative juice to do it well.

Right. So Mhmm. I feel like he's gonna need some other aspect. Like, in the beginning, you had like, he was kinda doing the sales calls with some of that stuff right now, and he was doing, like, the business setup and the website, whatever. But, like, for the more day in, day out, once you get rolling, might make sense to think about jiggling some of those things that are more day in, day out stuff that you do that maybe he could do, or, you know, partially or whatever.

Yeah. I mean, I think that all makes I mean, the other thing is you've taken on another I don't we could've cut this out, but I think you've said this on here that you have another, sponsor for the next video, for the post request video.

Aaron

For the course. Yeah.

Ian

For the course. Yeah. For the course. And so, you know, you've back to back that, which in terms of your creative juices, I could see being like, man, I just did this, like, big uphill push, and now I'm contractually obligated to do another big uphill push, which is So

Aaron

there were, like, a story about a man pushing a stone up a hill and it keeps coming back down and you have to push the stone uphill again. That would be a great So We'd call it, like, Sisyphus or something.

Ian

It is like that. You have, you still have an end goal. I feel like that, like, I feel like I don't you might wanna be careful about stacking a third one. Right? Like maybe it's like you get through post, give yourself a little breather on just like contractually obligated work.

Right. And maybe that's your time to let your hair down a little bit and be like, I'm gonna pencil in 6 weeks after postgres. That is just nothing. There's nothing that can definitely produce. And Human management.

Aaron

Do same stuff I would produce during that time. Go.

Ian

Maybe build your home management system system then or whatever, you know, like or or do more on it, like, you know, keep a baseline now.

Aaron

System. Yeah.

Ian

Your life operating system. Maybe you could structure it that way. So I'm I've been personally that effective with these type of structuring my time things and motivating myself that way, but I know people definitely do where it's like, okay. I'm gonna put this end goal postgres. Here's the date.

And then that way when I I'm motivated to get to that date and then beyond that, I know I have this, like, freedom after that. So maybe maybe something like that.

Aaron

Yeah. We have talked about, we've we've already decided that after Postgres, we're gonna put just a a a brief pause on the massive sponsored courses. Yeah. Because yeah. I mean, it already feels tight.

I don't think we're launching this till October, and it already feels like,

Ian

all right,

Aaron

well, I've got to be I got to be produced. Like, I got to be studying right now. I need all my books

Ian

so I can read. Do it cool. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Truly. So, yeah, we we have talked about that for sure. And I think something else you said, struck a chord, which is this. This is a creative this is a creative act.

And so I think that's not something I super appreciated. I kind of thought, like, I could just be a machine and just, like, turn out widgets, which I think is a good mindset because it's like, oh, well, yes, it's creative, but you have to do the work. Now go do the work. And that's, like, that's a good thing. But, yeah, it is a creative act, and I need to, like, recharge and have, like, the opportunity to, like, replenish that creative wellspring.

And I think, you know, doing doing only things I'm supposed to do or have to do back to back to back is, like, draining in terms of coming up with interesting things to say. And so, yeah, I think that's pretty important. And in terms of, like, me keeping Steve busy, it's less like he's he doesn't have anything to do and more like, the best marketing we can do for the sequel light course is make more videos.

Ian

Sure.

Aaron

And so while we have a bunch of other stuff to do, it's like, hey. The to move the money needle, you gotta make

Ian

the money. Best one. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. So we're moving lots of needles, and they're all going they're all going in the right direction. It's just the money needle needs to be moving, which it is, and it can will continue to be. But, like, now we have you know, we've got a calendar that says, okay. Once every I think it's 2 weeks or something, we need to do a SQLite video.

And once every week, we need to do a what is Laravel series video.

Ian

That going. Yeah.

Aaron

And then here are the days you have I put them in there as dealer's choice. Here are the days where you can just produce whatever you want. Like, you can just Yeah. You can make up some crazy video and just put that out, and that is refreshing for me. But, again, those videos have to come from somewhere.

And I can't just I can't just say like, I can't just pick 101 level Laravel stuff and be like, this is how you do something because,

Ian

like, nobody freaking cares about that.

Aaron

And so to come up with those, like, videos that grow the channel, which is very important. Yep. I need to be able to do stuff where

Ian

I come up with sparks of, like, ah, that was clever. Let's make a video about that.

Aaron

So it's a whole thing. You know? I I have to give myself a little grace. It's sweat month. July is month 7.

We got laid off in month 3. So it's only been 4 months.

Ian

It's been 4 months. Done a lot.

Aaron

And more than more than what we've done, I think we're figuring out we're figuring out how to do it, which I think is super important. So, you'll hear me lament. But to put it in perspective, I feel like we're doing pretty good.

Ian

Yeah. No, I think so. Obviously, you're doing pretty good with that. I really love the idea of, like, staying on the SQL light videos. Like, just just you gotta keep keep those coming because there's all new people out there trying to learn SQL light.

They don't know about you. So you gotta keep keep that going. I don't know if you haven't talked much about SEO, but I would think that you should be trying

Aaron

to do at least

Ian

some SEO stuff, for some key, like learn SQLite or whatever, some things like that, at least how about even if it's only literally one page on your site, that's like Yeah. Heavily SEO optimized, like slash learn SQLite off the main domain. Like Mhmm. I think that would probably be a good use of some time. So, yeah.

I mean, have you thought about one thing that strikes me is like, can you turn some of what you do into requiring less creative energy? And so to me, could it be something like you hire a writer, they produce a script for video. Like obviously if it's approved, whatever you just are the talent and you show up and do the video. So it's like, you haven't done all the research on the topic. You haven't done all the, like, that end of it.

It's like you show up. There's a script. You do it. You know, I'm oversimplifying. I'm sure you'd be involved in, like, checking script and tweaking it so it sounds like you.

But it's still, like, all that overhead of, like, where you have to do the deep dive and do all this stuff and, like, come up with everything. I mean, unless this is a hard person to find who's, like, technical enough and able to do it. But I don't know. There could be something there also, of course, just the idea of having other people on video, but I think that's harder more expensive, more complicated. So, like, a writer could be something that's sort of a an in between potentially and would be much less expensive.

Aaron

Yeah. That's a very compelling idea. I worry that I worry that we would lose some of the magic Because I feel like

Ian

It's possible.

Aaron

Some of some of what makes it work is, is the fact that I do know the material really well, which means I can add in the little, you know, the little half thoughts side notes, the little, like

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Oh, well, actually, when you're doing this, do remember that, you know, you could do it that way, but the reason you wouldn't is this. And if I'm just, like, if I'm just coming in at the end to, be on camera, I feel like I would miss a lot of, like, the the richness of the material, which makes me nervous.

Ian

Maybe. Or a good writer puts has that in there. Right? They know

Aaron

the process. In. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. They know the asides. And, I mean, I think listen. Here's the thing. This is, this is a 100% do, as I say, not as I do.

But this is a very standard, like founder thing is to be like, I'm the only one who can do this. Right. But really it's not true. There's lots of very capable people out there who could do things well. And so it's probably not true that you're the only one who can do any of it.

Right? So, so I do think that's, like, just interesting to keep in mind, not something I've lived by myself, but but still, advice to cater to pass through. But anyway, obviously, a lot of it too is like, like you already just said, like, I think if maybe it's like a lesson learned here is like the pacing and controlling the pacing and that kind of thing to make sure there's some spacing and what's hard in the beginning because you obviously wanna build up the coffers because yeah, there just is no business if the coffins are 0. So Yeah, but once you have sequelite and postgres, I mean, that's a lot of stuff you can market like you should be able to provide that for a little bit. I think with like kind of minimal just the regular 10 minute marketing E useful videos every week or a couple weeks or whatever, but like, yeah, I don't have to be like, I'm doing 50 videos at a time and all that.

Aaron

Correct.

Ian

That's real deep stuff.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think, in terms of hiring help, the yes, I agree with you that I'm not the only person in the world that can do this. I do think it is a pretty it is a pretty small pool of people who can understand databases well enough to teach competently enough to hit the right target market.

So there's, like, 3 circles, and the overlap of those is pretty small, but it's not it's not 0. But

Ian

I think Is it I don't think you should outsource the Postgres. I think that the communication without somebody writing the, like, the Laravel ones, the ongoing SQLite ones. Like, these other things where you could just show up and do them. And, like, yeah, they'll not the courses. I don't think for the courses, but I do think that all this other stuff, like, whether it's literally just somebody else or there's a writer who's helping produce some of that.

Right. I mean, mean, I feel like didn't you have somebody who kinda did this? Yeah, the other company there. So, like

Aaron

Yeah. Alright. I

Ian

don't know. Maybe there's something there where, like, some of those things are a little more just easier. Yeah. That's interesting.

Aaron

That that would be good. Yeah. At the at the they who shall not be named. Sometimes I would get research packets, and I would come in and be like, great. Here's, you know, 3 or 4 pages of research on topics.

Now you go and, like, turn this into a video. Right.

Ian

Oh, okay. That's super helpful.

Aaron

And I could totally I could totally do that. In fact, Sorry. I just hit the mute button just a half second too late there. In fact, I've had, both Jason Beggs and Mary Perry, friends of the show. I've had them help me with what is Laravel stuff before.

So they've both, like, done some research and put together some, you know, minimal repos to, like, demo some of these. What are what is Laravel videos, which is crazy helpful. It's awesome. And so, yeah, I guess I thought you were talking about courses, which seems crazy. But Yeah.

Ian

I don't

Aaron

think it's a course. Yeah. Because even even then, it's more of, like, a this kind of a dealer's choice for them. If I tell them, like, hey. Give me 4 packets that would be SQLite videos.

I don't care what they are. Just, like Right. Go find something interesting or some concepts. Yeah. Give me give me a video in written form.

And then I know enough about SQLite to where I can look at it and be like Yep. Oh, yeah. That's a that's a great idea, and I can add this bit of color or this bit of, you know, nuance or whatever.

Ian

Yeah. Because just you going off to do that research. Right? That's, like, an hour or 2 of poking around or whatever. Oh, so.

It's just like taking you out of stuff. And so, yeah, I think that, yeah. Stuff like that, that just like takes the edges off. I think the courses, I mean, I think even the courses, obviously we talked about this, I think before, but like, I think obviously these ones you're doing now are have to be all Aaron Francis, but you could imagine a future where like, Hey, Secondary database, we don't it's not gonna be a giant moneymaker, but maybe it makes sense for us to have in the mix or topic or whatever. And there's another face that's part of the, you know, your stable, you know, at some point, but that's probably a little more down the line.

Aaron

Yeah. That that's something that I'm actively pursuing and is definitely down the line. I think going back to hiring someone, when I was misunderstanding what you were saying, I think it would be much easier to hire and it's something I'm considering for, like, alright. I have produced, you know, 65 SQLite videos to that needs to be better text content. Right now, we just, like Right.

Did the transcript and put it on the page because it was, like, get something on there. Mhmm.

Ian

But that needs

Aaron

to be each each video needs to at least be an article, if not, you know, 2 or 3. And the the raw materials are already there. I just need somebody to come in and, like, take that and refine it and, you know, put in the code samples and the screenshots and whatever, and we'll make it a real article. And I think right there, we've got just massive amounts of s SEO potential.

Ian

You need to have somebody doing that yesterday. That should be, like Yesterday. Priority number 1. Behind. Man, I'm behind again.

I hate the fun. Works, man. SEO, it still works. All nobody likes to talk about the SEO anymore. It's ugly.

It's like whatever. You gotta do a couple little things, make you feel uncomfortable maybe, but SEO, man, not so much good SEO. And let me tell you a secret chat gbt does a fantastic job of taking a transcript and turning it into like a a pretty solid outline of an article. And then in your case, you would definitely need somebody to then take that probably and like streamline it add in, you know, clips from the course probably or whatever. Video is also really good for SEO.

You should definitely have a video clip, at least one on all those pages taken from the course, I would think. Yeah. And also somebody maybe clip the courses into other formats. Like, why aren't you having a YouTube short every single day just with a piece of the thing?

Aaron

Talk to me about this. I feel my Steve asked the same thing. And my my gut feeling is, like, YouTube Shorts are a disaster. That's my gut feeling. We did this we did this at, RIP company, and it never, like, it never moved the needle.

I mean, people would like, we sometimes we would get, like, 50,000 views on a short, and you'd go to the analytics and be like, you got 3 subscribers from this. I'm like, then why am I doing it?

Ian

That's what I don't understand. I'm no shorts expert. I do think it is mostly my understanding is that's the game of, like, trying to get the couple that hit. Right? Like, you're just producing them every day, Not because they produce 3 subscribers every day, but because sometimes they produce 500 once in a while.

And that if you're not spending that much money to do that, That that's fine. Like as long as you occasionally get the one that hits And if it's like in what we're talking about here, like you're doing 0 extra work Somebody's just slicing and dicing up all this video you already have into picking spots to slice into shorts, and then throwing them up there and seeing how they do. Mhmm. I don't know if it YouTube show I mean, obviously, I would put it everywhere. Like, right right?

The same short goes to YouTube shorts and TikTok and Instagram, and, like, you just push it out everywhere.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

That seems to be the playbook. Gotta know

Aaron

how well it was. I mean, that that does sound very professional production production ties. Like

Ian

You do have a professional producer.

Aaron

Yeah. It's true. That sounds funny. Like, hosted by my own card. That that

Ian

is good.

Aaron

Like, we've got 65 videos.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

But I don't know. Maybe I'm being ideal. Maybe I'm being too precious about, like, the content and the medium and stuff. But, like, this content is not gonna do well on YouTube shorts.

Ian

I do think it's definitely not as good as, like, you produce something specifically for shorts. Right? Like, that's like but that's maybe where it's more of an edited thing with somebody who actually has to go through it and be like, listen. Alright. I got 65 videos.

I'm gonna watch them all. I'm gonna pick out the spots where Aaron does something crazy or wild or says something really interesting or whatever. That's like, where is the 30 seconds of fun in these videos? And maybe there's only 20 of them across the 60 videos, not just like literally let's take every anecdote or useful piece of information, but like, where are the ones that are like, stand out a little bit? They have some extra energy or whatever it is.

And yeah, maybe it's there's only whatever 10 to 30 of them or whatever. But and then those are your shorts and you sprinkle those out over the next 6 months or whatever. Something like that. I don't know. Or maybe there's some tweaking that can go beyond that to judge them.

Aaron

Right.

Ian

With graphics or something. Right. That make it a little more like snappy and you're cut, you're cut up in interesting ways or whatever. Like, obviously this is like a Steve area. I have no idea what I'm talking about exactly, but

Aaron

But you sound good.

Ian

Feel like yeah. I sound like I know what I'm talking about. So I don't know. It just seems like there's so much there and to, like, repurpose it in some way for not much extra work seems

Aaron

Right.

Ian

Interesting. But the SEO part for sure, like, that other stuff is way more secondary. The SEO part is like, you must do this, like, right away.

Aaron

That's just money. That is that's my feeling. It's like, okay. If we're if we're, you know, finite individuals, which unfortunately we are, then Terrible. It's the worst.

I hate it. Then I think the effort is probably best spent first on SEO and second on long form videos every other week, like, before we before we chop up stuff that wasn't made for shorts and try to make it for shorts.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

I feel like those other 2 are the places we should knock it out first.

Ian

Yeah. And the SEO stuff, especially, I mean, you don't even have to be really involved in that. So, like, that's something you could just pretty reliably outsource. Yeah. And have somebody turn it into articles and look, I mean, go next level and get a H refs a bit and poke around on which of the specific keywords you should target.

I would recommend doing that probably. I mean, some of them are gonna be super obvious, like learn SQLite and things, but there might be some other ones that are a little less obvious that you could just totally dominate because I just think that you have enough going on out there that, you would be able to create pretty good, like, linking from other people who Mhmm. Who link to your stuff. And then, and just in general, you're gonna make the SQLite world is not built out as much. Right?

So, like, there's just more opportunity for you to absorb a large percentage of the search traffic, versus, like, even post press or things like that. So Mhmm. It might be one where you can dominate a bit more, empire build.

Aaron

Love to empire build. Okay. So we'll we'll put we'll put SEO super high on the list, and

Ian

I would think so.

Aaron

We'll stick to our content calendar of let me just see if I can infer from this calendar what we decided here.

Ian

It looks like. October. Oh, that's tight, man.

Aaron

That's tight. That's tight. I'm gonna have to

Ian

snow time to build a pool between now and then. The pool is going to have the pool. The pool

Aaron

is going to go on hold, unfortunately. Yeah, it looks like every 2 weeks is a sequel light video.

Ian

Mhmm. Now are

Aaron

you gonna just on the main channel.

Ian

Go, like, pick a day and make 8 of them and then not think about it again?

Aaron

Depends. Like, that kind of like, that depends on when inspiration strikes.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

Like, after Steve left I know. It's crazy. After Steve left, I think he left on, how many left on Thursday? On Friday, I recorded I just did 2 videos straight, like, right off the top because because I was like, I got it. This is it.

I'm doing it. Yeah. And they were they were awesome. And so yeah. But another part of having the calendar is being able to get ahead.

Like, being able to say, hey, we've got 6 in the hopper. Like, you can you can just pump the brakes or you can, you know, work on the course or whatever, and the YouTube channel is not going to suffer. That was one of the that was one of the main things that, you know, we identified as, like, that we did poorly the first time was we rightfully got so wrapped up in the course, you know, to Yep. I think, make the most money and fulfill our contractual obligation that we let the YouTube channel slide a little bit. Yeah.

And that is, I think, just the most obvious top of funnel that we have. And so we need to keep it we need to keep it thriving. So we're trying to rectify that this go around.

Ian

And you still have some videos to finish for the SQLite course itself. Right? I do. Or did you do the you did that. You didn't do that yet.

Right? So

Aaron

I have not done that. Yeah. So

Ian

yeah. Man, you better you better find some ways to build those creative juices up. We gotta Boy. Gotta get you powered back up here

Aaron

for that. This is why this is why when you're dogging me about streaming, I'm like, Ian, I need this. I need this, buddy.

Ian

This and the crack pipe, 1 or the other.

Aaron

Your your time is better spent elsewhere, and I'm like, listen. I'm gonna die if you don't let me do this.

Ian

But then you go home to 4 kids all under 3. Right? So, you know, 3 or

Aaron

3 and under now.

Ian

3 and under.

Aaron

That's what I'm saying. Whew. I I'm pressed, but not destroyed. Yeah.

Ian

Not a lot of recharge there. I mean, in some ways, it is, obviously, but in physically, it takes its toll.

Aaron

Getting me? No freaking way.

Ian

Yeah. So, okay. Alright. I I do like this October deadline in that if you go with what we were just talking about and maybe make a little space after, that's a great time for space. Yeah, like if by end of october early november, you're kind of like It's mostly wrapped up in my house some like whatever a couple modules to finish whatever But then, like, going into December, like, alright, I'm taking all December off.

Like, holiday matches. People aren't around. Nobody's buying courses. What I don't know if that's actually true. They probably are, but whatever.

You got to do black.

Aaron

I can, like, I

Ian

guess at least, but

Aaron

play a video game, like, over Christmas

Ian

break videos. Yeah.

Aaron

That would be actually, I think Factorio is coming out with a big release at some point around that time. I mean, just you don't know what Factorio is.

Ian

Oh, man. Oh, I'm from the dude.

Aaron

Stay away. It is like crack.

Ian

Should I look this up? Oh, yeah.

Aaron

Oh, it is so fun. Okay. So while you look this up, it is, it's a world building resource allocation overhead, whatever type game. So it's like the same the same view as, like, red alert 2 in the age of empires, which already already is, like has a good place in my heart. Right.

And the the game is basically you know, you're a character, single character that's crash landed on this planet, and you have to go from mining, you know, stone and copper by hand to, like, then creating machines that do it and put it on conveyor belts with, you know, factories, and you have

Ian

to go all the way

Aaron

up to building a rocket to launch back into space to get back to your home planet.

Ian

Are are things attacking you or no?

Aaron

You can play in peaceful mode or not, but there is a mode. I think the standard mode is aliens will attack you once your city starts producing too much pollution, which, like, come on. Hey. Propaganda. Pollution's not real.

So it's

Ian

It's not red alert, like, though. It's just

Aaron

red alert. It's

Ian

not fire. Your neighbors or anything. Okay.

Aaron

That's the that's the only thing that I wish was different as I wish it was a, like, a combat game. I wish it had all the same mechanics where it's like you have to build a factory and and, like, efficiently produce widgets based on all of these conveyor belts and trains, and and also you're fighting on the western front. Like, that's all I want. That that's what I want. I want red alert 2 meets Factorio.

Right. Okay. I would lose I would lose a year of my life if they can. Would be alright. Yeah.

Ian

Oh, it's so fun. And it's be our welfare.

Aaron

I truly mean it is very dangerous because it is so addictive. It's so much freaking fun.

Ian

Looking for a new game. I've been off of games a bit. If I'm looking for something, maybe I'll give that a shot. Is it only on the computer or is it,

Aaron

to my to my knowledge, it's only on the computer. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's a blast, man. It's it's one of those things that, like, I'm trying to think of the of an a good example, but I can't.

But it has, like, infinite depth. Right? So you could you'll play it, and then you'll be like, I could do it better. I'll do my base different this time. And you play it again, and then eventually, you're like, I can I can, yeah, I can launch the rocket, but instead, I'm going to take over this whole planet and build trains?

You're like, alright. That's my next 6 weeks. It's just it's so fun. Yes. And you can watch YouTube videos about people that have actually done, like, the train empire, and it's just so yeah.

Yeah. If we hit October, which we will, if we hit October, we'll finish the course. We'll be super rich. It'll be Christmas, and I'll just play Factorio and hang out with my kids. It's gonna be awesome.

Ian

It's gonna make for great content on here. What what do you

Aaron

do this week, Aaron? Play Factorio.

Ian

Factorio again. What'd you do, Ian? Oh, man. That's great. Alright.

Aaron

Enough of me. You wanna go back to you? I gotta hear these hiring updates.

Ian

Oh my god. Like, I don't really have a date. I don't really have a big update. It was good. Tons of good people.

It's gonna be very sad to a lot of very good people that I mean, there's gonna be a lot of good people who aren't even making it to like the next stage because like it's just we can't just have everybody at the next stage. So that's gonna be a bummer. Definitely had some good people come in kind of late, which is interesting. Generally, I don't know if you have a take on this. You've done done some hiring.

Right. Do you, I think, I think in general, as my advice to people would be to apply earlier, it's sort of tricky because applying earlier, I feel like people who are doing the hiring already get their favorites. They get, you know, just natural, like the, oh, this person seems like a great fit. You feel a little less motivated for like the next person because you already feel like you got somebody who's a good fit, just like a human nature kind of thing. As much as you try to not do that, it just kinda creeps in a little bit.

But the people who apply later do in some ways, like, they stand out a little bit more because, like, they're not in the society rush. But yeah. But even just like, okay. I gotta plow through 800 people who applied over a day. Okay.

I'm doing that. 1st, like, okay. Now you're applying when there's 5 other people applied today or 10 or whatever. And it's like, okay. I'm spending a little more time with each one.

So I don't know. But, yeah. So this week, I think we should be getting today's the last day people can apply. So there'll be a final. I'm

Aaron

hearing this.

Ian

Sorry. It's too late. Yeah. Too late. Sorry.

Next job. But yeah. So they'll be we'll be going to the next phase where I'm gonna have people, like, write a spec, and see how they do with that. And then we'll have a conversation with them. The people who make it past that, I'll do I'll talk to them.

Kind of a partially technical, partially just, vibes interview and go deep

Aaron

on the background also. It's a it's a mostly technical interview.

Ian

Well, that's exactly what I would say. That's a good Mostly technical. Good name. We should have called it. That.

Hey. You did a good job with this name. You were you were like, what should we call the podcast? You're, like, mostly technical. I'm like, okay.

There we go.

Aaron

That was crazy. We looked at it and the dotcom was there. I was like, is this is not something to be.

Ian

Yeah. I I thought for sure, like, it would take us forever to come with a name. You're like, no. I got it. It's right here.

Mostly technical. I feel like you were sitting on it for, like, years or something. You're just like, I just had it.

Aaron

It just it must have been subconscious because it just came to me.

Ian

Yeah. It's good. But, anyway, so I don't really have a ton of report. We're down to, like I don't know. We had, like, a grouping of, like, maybe you know, we narrowed a 1,000 down to probably, like, a100, and we at a100 down to maybe we're that, like I think it's gonna end up probably around 15 to 20 that Dave and Matt, producer Dave and Matt are doing did mostly already, but there's still a few to go interviews on of, like, a first pass interview.

Then those who they select, so I'm not involved in that at all. So you gotta get past Dave and Matt. Dave and Matt then select the next level and those people are gonna get to do the spec writing and then, we will go from there. So there's gonna be probably I'm being pretty tight on this because I just don't wanna have that many people at that next level. So it's like, I think we're gonna probably have, like, 4 to 6 at the speculating level.

And then, and we're paying them. So it's like, you know, it's good. Like, you're you take a few hours. We'll pay for the hours. Also like the security own it in case you write something that we build, like, which I don't intend to build anything anybody writes, but whatever, I don't wanna get sued years from now in case we do So whatever.

And, yeah. So we'll have that sort of finalist group, and then we'll go from there. We'll see.

Aaron

And you're the final boss.

Ian

So after they get through

Aaron

after they get through Speck, they come to you.

Ian

Yeah. Okay. And there's people from all over. It's pretty interesting. We do have, like, some people from all over the world, dealt with Americans to Europe.

Aaron

You almost revealed the information there. I saw it going through your head.

Ian

You're like, should

Aaron

I should I say where exactly they're from? And then you didn't.

Ian

There's there's people out there. So people I think everybody will know by the time this comes out to think it might be another day or 2 after that actually where everybody's notified of the next level, but we are notifying people when they don't get selected, which is awesome. Producer Dave has been killing this process. So shout out to producer Dave. Good job, Dave.

I would it's not always been the thing I've been best at, in terms of full notification on those things. It's just so many people and

Aaron

a lot of people.

Ian

A lot of people.

Aaron

I will say notifying everyone when they didn't make it, paying for take home projects. Sounds like sounds like you're doing it right.

Ian

You're doing a good job. Do it right. Yeah. How hard it is. It's like hard to do it right.

But then also, if we can sort of do it right with only, like, a handful of people, then it's weird when big companies don't do it right. But the whole other thing. So, yeah, I don't know. I think next week they'll probably be more to report, I guess, but it's mostly just been hacking, chopping, trying to narrow it down, which has been an exciting process. It's fun, but also stressful, but it'll be really good to have this person here.

So that's like the you have that carrot at the end Right. Of having having the person here do all the stuff we're backed up on on our

Aaron

road maps

Ian

and things. So that'll be exciting. But,

Aaron

Thousand people. That is Yeah.

Ian

That's a

Aaron

lot of people.

Ian

I mean, presumably over a1000 now. I know we were at a1000. There's still people trickling in. So it's a lot of people. That's crazy.

Aaron

That's a lot of people.

Ian

That's a lot. That's a lot of just like cover letters. Dave's probably gonna be sick of reading cover letters. I'm sick of reading cover letters and I've only read 10% of them probably. So Yeah.

But people did put in good effort. Like, it was really cool to see, like, that's why I feel extra bad on this one. Because it's like, yeah, people people did put an effort. The people who've been hearing me rant, I'm proud of you all. You have put in the effort.

Definitely very few, at least to the ones that made it to the kind of past the initial chopping, all, you know and there's a lot of them. So it's not like, oh, yeah. They've, you know, chopped off a million crappy ones, which which he did. But there was still a huge chunk of ones that weren't just, like, obviously crap. So people put in the effort.

I think it paid off

Aaron

for them. Dash their dreams.

Ian

I'm still gonna dash their dreams because there's only one opening, unfortunately. But I think that they've learned something, and I hope that they keep up with this because it does make a difference. And you do stand out when you put in the extra effort versus, the the peep it's just night and day. I still would love to find a way to go through this list and show people because it's so insanely clear and obvious when somebody mailed it in versus the ones who didn't. It's just literally under 5 seconds.

You can instantly tell, this person mailed it in. This one didn't, and it's just that obvious. So that's that's the difference there. It's like that's the difference between being in the conversation of getting hired and not is when I auto reject you because you clearly mailed it in versus not.

Aaron

So even if even if y'all don't make it, if you put effort into your application, just know business dad is proud of you, and it will work it will work at some point.

Ian

It will. It will work. And put more here's another little tip too. Put more information on your resume. People don't put any information on your resume.

People are still in the, like, people are still in, in the, my resume should be 1 page or maybe 2 page. I'm I'm like, I don't care how long your resume is, man. Like, really some detail. Like, especially for the most recent job, I feel like the most recent job should have a lot of detail. And then, you know, it can, like, phase, like, whatever.

The thing you did 15 years ago, like, yeah, give me the, like, one highlight of, like, the biggest thing you did or the most important project or whatever. But the more recent stuff, like, yeah, like, people are just like, oh, built a website with Laravel. It's like, okay. Like, that's fine. But, again, you're applying for, like, a Laravel developer.

Like, I assume you've built stuff with Laravel. Yeah.

Aaron

That's kinda table stakes, I would hope.

Ian

Right. That's the table stakes. Like, give me like, what did you actually do? What was the hard part about it? What, give me some data after we did this, like X, Y happened or whatever.

Like, because the other thing is the resume, the cover letter is what gets you interviewed. But the resume is where you're the cover letter is what gets you interviewed. But the resume is where you get the questions for the interview. So if your resume's crappy, then I don't have anything to ask you. So that's a factor.

Oh, because again, like, oh, you built a website in Laravel. Tell me about that. Like, that's not I don't wanna spend my time that way. Like, whereas if you have a bunch of details, like this part was super hard. Here's a tough technical thing we solved, whatever.

Like, now I can have a conversation with you about that. Like, I know something to ask you about and I can ask you about it. It's a thing you gave me to ask you essentially. And so you presumably will have a good response to it. And so it's benefits all around.

Like I get more insight into you. It gives me questions to ask an interview. You get that hit home home runs on the questions because I'm regurgitating what you give me back to you. So, yeah, that's a little tip.

Aaron

You know, I have a I have a friend I have a friend who refuses to answer the question. How are you? He's like, that's a terrible question. That's just too open. It's too how am I?

Like, I could go I could go any direction.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Just ask me a better question.

Ian

Yeah. So if you put it

Aaron

if you put enough information on your resume, Ian can ask you better questions

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

And you can have better answers instead of just like, so tell me about yourself. Worst worst question ever. So tell me about yourself.

Ian

Wait. What do you wanna know? I get too much I gotta say. Yeah. That's too much.

Yes.

Aaron

But stuff on your resume.

Ian

If you've done a good job on your cover letter and your resume, I don't even have to ask you that question because I already know a lot about you. And now I can just spend all that time digging into the details of who you are, which is why we're all there, presumably. So that You know what?

Aaron

You should do on the end. You should put out an ideal cover letter and resume fake, but ideal cover letter and resume and, like, annotate why as a hiring person, why this is what you are looking for. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. That would be interesting. Or maybe I could

Aaron

take a couple of the gets you, but it would be good.

Ian

Just doesn't get me anything. But I do like helping people, so I don't know. I I

Aaron

would magnanimous king.

Ian

Could I take a couple of the good ones? Because I I have a hard time with those, like, writing completely fake things. It's like Right. It's fake, so that is tricky for me. But, like, if I could take some of the existing ones and maybe, like, run it through chat gbt to change it a little bit and then obviously make sure, especially specific details are changed.

Right. Like,

Aaron

Make an amalgamation.

Ian

Yeah. Something like that. That could be interesting. It's not gonna happen, but it could be interesting.

Aaron

It's not gonna happen, but it could be interesting.

Ian

It would

Aaron

be good content. I don't see it again. It doesn't get you anything.

Ian

Yeah. If you if you

Aaron

build out a hiring management system or application tracking tool or whatever, that's great content for that.

Ian

That content for that.

Aaron

It's not good content. It's it's good content, but it's not useful content.

Ian

They should just listen to this podcast where I just say these things, and then they'll you can absorb it. Or not.

Aaron

This is where we put all of our good content that is not useful to us. Hopefully, it's useful to the people. But to us, what do you stand what do you stand to gain? You know? This is this is a service to the people.

That's what

Ian

this is. Dumping ground for useless content.

Aaron

A service to the people, Ian. You have to you're bad at marketing. You can't say dumping ground for use content.

Ian

Is that not? Isn't that good? Yeah. I hate the word content. I hate it.

I think we've talked about it before too, but It's

Aaron

so funny. It's so it's so funny.

Ian

I know, but it's so, like, what's the word I'm looking for? It's, like, just degrading. When you're spending all the time, like, building this thing, and it's like, oh, it's a all this stuff you put your heart and effort into, it's just like, just content. Like, just generic.

Aaron

Anything I probably use it ironically, but it's become it's gotten to the point where I'm like, yeah. This is good content. Like, I told Jennifer I told Jennifer. She's like, are you serious about the pool? And I'm like, oh, I'm 60% serious and 40%.

I just think it would be good content.

Ian

And she's like, what are you talking about? That is content. That is. That is

Aaron

great content. It's great content. Are you kidding me? Okay. Anything else?

Ian

No. I think we've covered it. I think we've covered everything we should cover today. K. We're set.

Alright. Thanks everybody for listening. Check us out. Mostly technical.com at mostly technical pod on Twitter, mostly technical podcast at g mail dot com. And, Yeah.

We will see you next week with more updates and random things.

Aaron

And more useful content. See

Ian

you. More useful content. Bye.