Just Do Stuff

Ian

Hello?

Aaron

Good morning. How are we doing?

Ian

A little tired.

Aaron

A little tired? I feel that. I feel that in my bones. Why are you a little tired?

Ian

Oh, I got a okay weekend. I don't know. My sleep's still been a little off for a while here. I don't know if it's sleep. I don't know if it's, you know, we're we're doing this hiring thing that's stressful and tiring, a lot of brain cycles.

So sign up with that kind of thing or random. Yourself? Are you tired? You look tired. I'm

Aaron

I'm thank you. I do look tired. I appreciate that. I, yeah, long long weekend, which, used to be awesome, but now with, you know, 4 kids, it's exhausting. So happy just so happy to be back at work in the quiet.

But, yeah, it was it was good. Good weekend. We went to a little parade on, whatever 4th July was Thursday, I guess. Went to a little neighborhood parade and then went to the in laws last night. And, yeah, it was good.

Just long long weekend. Lots of lots of kids' stuff to do.

Ian

Did you actually so you actually took, Friday off too. You made it an official long weekend?

Aaron

No.

Ian

Actually, no.

I gave

Aaron

you no. I I definitely I definitely came back

Ian

up here.

Aaron

So okay. Let's let me rephrase. Regular weekend plus a bonus Thursday before that Hey. Yeah. Like a long, long weekend.

Ian

I was surprised. I was like, oh, that's good for him. Newly self employed. He's taking taking the long weekend.

Aaron

No. Not good for him. Bad for him.

Ian

Bad

for him.

Aaron

Bad for him. We did watch, like, a got a little when this happened, I thought I can't wait to tell Ian. We watched, Jennifer and I watched Vegas Vacation. Great movie. Love that movie.

Grew up on that movie. Yep. We watched Vegas Vacation on I think it was maybe Thursday night after, you know, we put everybody to bed. And the there's the scene in Vegas vacation where they're driving along and, good vibrations comes on. Great song.

You know? Yep. Just setting the scene. It's wonderful. And Jennifer looks over at me and goes, you know, the Beatles are really great.

Ian

And I

Aaron

said, yes. This, however, is the Beach Boys.

Ian

I was like, this is

Aaron

not even close to the Beatles. I guess, same, like, same era, but not not even a little bit close.

Ian

Yeah. A little bit little bit after. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. So I thought, oh, you definitely know you definitely know your classic music here.

Ian

Funny.

Aaron

The Beatles and the Beach Boys.

Ian

I haven't been I like the Beatles a lot. I haven't been as much I mean, I like the Beach Boys like that. Whatever. Obviously, the 5 hits or whatever the big top five are, like, the Mhmm. Songs.

I can't say I've I've ever listened to a Beach Boys album.

Aaron

Oh, man. I grew up on the Beach Boys. My dad had the Beach Boys blasting all the time.

Ian

Interesting. There's a lot of Beatles around. The stepfather was big on the Beatles, but not as much of the Beach Boys. Other than that, it was everywhere, you know, just I feel like it was a big 80s 90 because they were still around in like the 80s like they were doing some stuff there They had a big song even when I was a kid. What the hell was They had one last big song like in the maybe it's early nineties or late eighties or something.

Aaron

In the early nineties?

Ian

The

Aaron

Beach Boys did?

Ian

I'm pretty sure.

Aaron

What?

Ian

It might have been late eighties.

Aaron

No way.

Ian

Yeah. They did.

Aaron

There's no way they were active in the nineties.

Ian

No. I'm telling you. They had some kind of song. I mean, it might have been the eighties, but it was like

Aaron

Kokomo was 88. Kokomo. Yeah.

Ian

There you go. That's what it was.

Aaron

You're right.

Ian

It was it was huge. It was everywhere.

Aaron

Crazy. Yep. Surfin' USA was 1963. Good Vibrations was 67. Wow.

That sounds awful. 66.

Ian

I always think of them as seventies, but I guess not. They're sixties. Look at that.

Aaron

Pet Sounds, I remember that one. 1988. Good.

Ian

Holy, man. Because everybody was like, what? This is The Beatles or there's that's me doing it. Is The Beach Boys? That's

Aaron

vile. Kokomo. That's pizza.

Ian

Kokomo. Yeah. It was kind of like. Fast and then. Yeah.

Take it somewhat. Sure. Oh, man. 88. That was like 6th grade or something like that.

Aaron

Who should have a we should have a singing contest on the pod. That sounds like a disastrous idea.

Ian

And now we do that the last episode. That's how we go out Yeah. Blazing blazing glory.

Aaron

Definitely be our last episode. That's for sure. So you're tired because you're hiring. I've seen I've seen you tweeting. The hiring.

Ian

The hiring. People love the hiring tweets.

Aaron

They love the hiring tweets.

Ian

Or they hate that because of your

Aaron

business, dad. They love they love to hear it from an authority. So tell me

Ian

They do love that.

Aaron

You've gotten 600 applications.

Ian

No. It's a 595.

Aaron

95 a 1,000 applications. Yeah. 995 of them are crap. So tell us about these applications.

Ian

Yeah. It's interesting. I think that it's, definitely 800 are complete crap in state protection. Right? Then the rest you gotta go through a little bit.

Luckily I have Dave producer. Dave is is point man on the first pass, so it's not totally overwhelming me, which is good. And then, you know, I kinda go through the finalists, and and give my thoughts. But, yeah, you know, it's it's been good. I think I think we got a pretty you know, I think it's

Aaron

this gloves off.

Ian

I've been thinking about you a lot in this process. Okay. Because I've been thinking about like the, the whole, like, just do stuff mentality. And on both sides, both for myself, it's like, I have this little bit of notoriety, like very small compared to other people in our industry, but it's just by been doing stuff randomly, basically. And I do think that's helped with the qual, the caliber and quality of the software developers who've applied because, you you know, people know me and they know we're interesting and serious and like, it's a good place to work and all that stuff, or at least it appears that way.

I think it is, but, you know, unknown a little bit more than if you're just random hiring manager. Right? So Mhmm. And then on, on the other side, I think the Aaron Francis technique is especially important, to just do stuff, because like you see so many resumes come through and people haven't done stuff done stuff. And it's

like, you

must just

give me a little something, like give me anything to like, because it's also hard for people to talk about People got mad at me about this. I tweeted something along these lines, but like like your resume. Okay. It's like, here's your current job in 3 sentences. Like, that's just not enough most of the time to really get a feel for the person.

And then so you have the cover letter to explain yourself, but then even there, you need to, like, have done stuff in order to have stuff to say or, or to link to ideally or things like that. And so, yeah. So yeah, it doesn't have to be huge. Right. But it has to be, I think, having something is definitely better than nothing, especially in a competitive application process.

Aaron

So when you see the ones that have done something rather than nothing, what are the some things that they have done that are catching your eye? Is it open source? Is it side projects failed or successful? What is it?

Ian

Yeah, it could be. It's lots of different things. It's definitely, you know, open. I always obviously look at the GitHub and things like that. And so I think there is like an important thing, right?

If you have some stuff on GitHub, like having something, you put some weight behind and gotten 50 stars for, right? Like it's not a giant hit of a packet. But it's like a, some people used it and liked it and are invested in it on some level. Right? Like that's a big separation from the person who has 3 one star repos.

Right? Like it's not the only fact like everything I'm gonna say, and this is it's not the only factor ever, but it is, you're just looking for data points when you're trying to filter through a 1000 people. And it's a data point that like, okay, like this person not only produced something, they produced something somebody liked and that they then in some fashion marketed or got the word out about, enough to get some people interested in it. Right. So it's a data point.

Yeah, I think like, obviously like things like having a podcast or being on podcasts. Like, people got me out of me about this. It's like, well, I don't have time for podcast. It's fine.

Aaron

High bar. It's a high bar. Like, having a podcast.

Ian

Having a podcast is a high bar, but I don't think being a guest on a podcast is a high bar. And Okay. I mean, lots of podcasts are out there desperate for guests. Like, they come in every week and then, like, what the hell are we gonna talk about this week? And they love when people approach them.

So approach them and try to get on the shows. Like, I think literally a single show. And And that's kind of

Aaron

a proxy for the thing you're looking for. Because if you're gonna go on a podcast, you have to have something to talk about. If you're gonna have something to talk about, you have to have done something interesting. And so it's it's coming back to the same thing that you're looking for, which is, like, having done something that I can look at.

Ian

Yes. Produce things that people can look at. Not always a lot of time the majority of your work that won't be possible. Right? Because it's like whatever we build some internal tools at some company.

Right. Yes. Like you're not gonna have be able to show the code or the tool or whatever. Fine. But like there's still, you know, this is also software developers.

Like, you're not tricking me. Like, I know that you're out thinking about side projects and do another thing. Like, there's not a lot of web software out there that are literally like, I just only ever think about and do my day job and nothing else. There's no offshoots of any kind over a 10 year period like, I don't know. It just it's hard even if it's just your own personal website like I mean, I've seen a lot of really mailed in personal websites and I'm like man, make yourself a nice personal website.

There's

Aaron

no such thing

Ian

to have a nice personal website.

Aaron

Control over.

Ian

Full control. Like, I mean, just there's and there's a 1000000 templates out there. Like, I'm not even saying you have to be a graphic designer. I'm saying, like, care enough about it to make a reasonable looking personal website. Maybe have, you know, you know, you're going on the job market, have a couple blog posts in the last few months.

Like it's not like that. Or again, that's a thing totally in your control. It will instantly separate you from 95% of people who don't have that. And it's just one more little data point of like, okay. Like the person took a little time, made their personal site nice.

Like a lot of bad personal sites out there, even people who are selling consultants are like, obviously I see a lot of people who are like I have a day job and then You know, I also have this consulting company where I do side gigs Mhmm. And like a lot of times that consultant company website is very bad and it's like, man, like, come on, like give me something here. Like give me something to work off of. So, you know, again, it's like, it's unfortunate. It's not fair.

I'm not saying any of this is fair, but like, you have to make quick judgments when you're trying to get to a 1000 people. And like, I'm trying not to judge the book totally by

Aaron

its

Ian

cover, and I'm going to that

Aaron

next reader. Books. What else do you have to do?

Ian

So I gotta I'm making the effort to go into that. I'm not just like, okay. The resume is an ideal to cover those is an ideal. Like, I'm going to that next level in. I'm like, okay.

I'm clicking through to your website. I'm taking a look. And then what's there. If it's not good, like, okay, then I have to stop. Right.

Like I can't go farther than that. So right. That's that's just the reality of it.

Aaron

This is very much a fight or win callback because it's not fair. Like, it's just totally not fair. Not the fight or win. At all.

Ian

It does.

Aaron

Yes. It's not fair, but this is reality. Like, what are you Yeah. What are you, Ian, supposed to do with a 1,000 applications?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

You can't you can't be the one doing the work to, like, look through a terrible application and try to figure out why this person is actually great.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Because you don't have time. Right. And maybe in a, like, in a perfect society, the best person for the job would just bubble up to the top, but that's just not how it works. So you can be mad about the system and, like, I shouldn't have to have a personal website, or you could just spend, you know, 2 or 3 hours making a personal website and get a leg up on everybody else that's mad about the system. Yeah.

Like, which one do you want?

Ian

It doesn't even have to be built you know what I mean? You could literally use WordPress. It's not even about, like, did you build this yourself and handcraft it? It's like, you don't have to go to Aaron Francis. I created a whole crazy scheme to like

Aaron

good, static

Ian

site generate.

Aaron

That's good.

Ian

Right? Good. Like you could literally just use word anything. Like

you

it's just, yeah, it just is. And I think, yeah, I mean, the reality is even when it's down to 200, right? It's like, if we wanna put it down to 100, like you can't spend 30 minutes on each one. That's a lot like, so, and this is where, again, the doing stuff mindset, obviously, especially with small companies, there tends to be an advantage. I'm trying to not factor in as much with this process, honestly, but there does tend to be an advantage to people who the owner knows because it's like, the owners value trust.

They value that they like, there's probably only 1 or 2 of these roles and they wanna know somebody reliables

in them.

And if they've had an interaction with that person, that's gonna give that person a big advantage. I mean, I think you can even see it with, like, all the people Laravel hired recently. Right? There's a lot of people that, like, we all have seen in the community. Like, there's not a lot of like, hey, random person who just came out of the blue.

There's some, but there's also plenty of people who are like, oh, yeah. I've seen that guy around. Like, they've been doing stuff

Aaron

pretty well. Get an owner to know you? You know how you get Taylor to know you or Ian to know you? You do stuff.

Ian

That is helpful. Yes. Doing stuff.

Aaron

That's how Joe Tennenbaum got hired. I mean, he just did a bunch of stuff, then he got a Laracast course, then he now he works at Laravel. It's like,

Ian

this is not that hard.

Aaron

It's not that complicated. It is hard.

Ian

Yes. It is hard. And but it's not complicated. He's and he just had a blog post, like, a love blog post that was kind

Aaron

of crazy. And he's

Ian

like that lands when guys like, he was calling me crazy all the time and it was great. And it was like, yeah, that's got him notice. Right. Cause he

was

doing something insane. I will say that for the flip side, there are okay. A few people that are definitely gonna be interviewed, who don't match any of the stuff. I just said, like one guy, right. I'm thinking of in particular, like he just had a cover letter, no links.

I think you just had personal website link and the personal website was reasonable. So that, that was good. Okay. But besides that, like, and it was just the resume, doesn't have a lot of GitHub stuff. Doesn't have that much other stuff.

He does have more than nothing cause he has like a personal website and has like some videos and stuff. So it's not nothing but it's not over the top at all, but he's also like got some experience. That's like really tight to what we would need. And so, you know, that is if you have a lot of highly relevant experience, of course, that's that's good. Yeah.

It depends a lot on each job. Like, our job's a little more complicated in that than other jobs because it's not just like

Aaron

Working all over the stack on this job.

Ian

Right. You're all over the stack. There's gonna be you might talk to customers. You are right. It might be occasionally that you're on servers doing stuff.

So, like, you don't need to be proficient in all these things, but somebody with some experience in a lot of these things definitely has a leg up. Otherwise, other jobs are gonna be like, yes. Like, you are in a pure Laravel stack in 1 app doing one part of this app. And, yeah, then you that's a a different situation. But, so yeah.

So it's not impossible to get through the first layer sieve, without having gone over the top, but I do think you stand out more and it gives you an advantage. I have a I have a I have a controversial topic.

Aaron

Yeah. I love it. Wanna

Ian

talk about that. I was gonna Yeah.

Aaron

Of course you wanna talk about that.

Ian

This. I have a tweet, like, written.

Aaron

Oh, yeah.

Ian

But but I I I haven't sent it because I just know people get very frumpy about this topic and I just I didn't I didn't wanna deal with it this morning. So I didn't send it. I don't know. Maybe I'll just maybe they'll only live on the pod and we'll never Alright. Give me

Aaron

give me the take and then I'll make a ruling. I'll make a determination.

Ian

And there are definitely different opinions on this.

Aaron

No. No. No. No. No.

Don't don't soft pedal. Don't. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No.

Ian

No. No. And I want to say this is not

an auto rejection for me. I'm qualified

Aaron

for more. You're so qualified.

Ian

I don't love it. It's not my favorite. When a developer has a bunch of 1 year stints or less than that, it's like 4, 5, 1 year stints.

Yeah.

Yeah. They don't like this take. Nobody likes,

Aaron

they don't like this take.

Ian

But you know, it's like, you're making a big investment in somebody. And if their history shows that, like, they tend to leave after a year, I mean, most of the time the person's not even not useful till a year, like in reality, like you hope that they're useful before a year. So think about all the things I just said, right? Like, yeah, go on our servers and be able to do stuff, code up and help spot, bring it up until clearly Laravel 11. Also working on Lara jobs, also working back office stuff.

Also work on maybe you're helping customers. Like, these are a lot of different things that you're, that's a lot of different things. Not gonna be great at all at once. Right. And so, you know, I don't think, I think it's, I like the, I think it's good for the employee.

The fact that, like, I think about it more as like, it takes you a year to even get started. Like I'm not on, I'm not thinking about like day 1, if this person's not productive, right.

Aaron

You're gonna cut firing them

Ian

onto the next one. Right? Like, so I think there, I mean, obviously somebody's literally doing nothing. That's a different scenario, but the idea of like, yes, you're productive, but you're not like out there perfect at everything. And, you know, in the first three months of the job, because you're just getting your feet wet.

So, alright.

Aaron

So that's I yeah. So here's

Ian

I agree.

What do you think about that?

Aaron

Yeah. 1 year a bunch of 1 year stints in a row is usually a bad look. Here's what here's what they're gonna say. I don't know who they is, but here's what they're gonna say. Yeah.

They're gonna say, that this is, like, a ploy by capital to I'm I'm I'm channeling my inner Daniel Coburn, workers' rights. What would what would he say? This is a ploy by capital to keep you at an underpaying job when the best way to increase your salary is switch jobs. That's what Yeah. That's what they're gonna say.

Ian

So I think that's that's definitely the obvious take, I think. And I think that here's my counterargument to that. K. Which is especially in software development more than other types of jobs, or really anything in tech. Let's say tech The way this usually plays out is like and a lot of these resumes reflect this.

It's like I'm moving often between like VC backed sort of things. I'm trying to like on paper get the better next better job, right? It's gonna have options. It's gonna do all this So with the goal ideally I presume of having a better financial outcome,

like I'm trying to move up

the financial ladder, right? Outcome. Like I'm trying to move up the financial ladder. Right. But I guess that

you have 4 of them on your resume is the counterpoint in and of itself. Like if

one of them had been such a great financial

windfall, you're gonna have to

go with the goal, ideally, I presume of having a better financial outcome.

Like I'm trying to move up the financial ladder. Right. But I guess that you have 4 of them on your resume is the

counterpoint in and of itself. Like if one of them had been such a great financial windfall, you wouldn't have then moved on to the next one. Right? Like it wasn't. And so you moved on to the next one.

And so, I don't know, like, I just feel like it's not as automatic as it, as that. And I also think those days are maybe over. I mean, we'll see. Yeah. But I feel like, yeah, the last 5 years, like you could just pop around and nobody cared and That's fine because we're just like so desperate to hire anybody with a pulse.

Let's let's get you in here I don't know if those days are coming back and those days aren't coming back then I think it's especially bad. Because yeah, if I if I have a 1,000 applicants then I'm looking for things to filter and one of them might be people who seem like they don't stay at their jobs very long. Like, that seems like a reasonable thing to filter on. So yeah. But I That is that

Aaron

is the difference between VC and Bootstrap, your big business, little business. Like, somebody comes to a big business, somebody goes to Dropbox for a year and then leaves. You know who cares? Nobody. Nobody freaking cares.

But if somebody came and worked at your company for a year and then left, that would be like, well, shoot. We, like That's a bummer. Counted on that person, and we put a lot of time, energy, and effort into training that person, and now they're gone. So I think that is that's a fundamental difference. That also happened that also happened like, that difference was illuminated when I got laid off, and I got 1 month of severance.

And I was like,

Ian

that's

Aaron

that's feels crappy. And bootstrap companies were like, wow. 1 month. That's crazy. And big companies were

Ian

like, woah.

Aaron

1 month. That's crazy. And I'm like Right. You guys are using crazy

Ian

differently. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole a whole other end of it. But, Yeah, I don't even, even with the you're gonna join a VC company and you're looking for the big payday, right?

Like I just think like going into the mindset of like giving it at least 3 years plus, like obviously it might not work out. You might get a great offer. And especially the last like 4 or 5 years people were just like being attacked with offers so fine but But you don't get paid at the bc company Like, yeah, they're throwing these big numbers at you when you sign up, but you don't get that money for 10 years. Like, it's not like

Aaron

Right.

Ian

You join, especially, especially if it's early, it's not like you join and you've got options and those options are worth 1,000,000 of dollars, like in a month or a year. Like those options aren't worth anything for a long time. And so

Aaron

Probably forever.

Ian

Most likely, 95% of

the time,

they're never worth anything. And then even the 5% thought they are worth something it's a long time from now. So like, you wanna be in the mindset of like, I'm going to be there to like fully vest my options and take maximum advantage of this thing if I really believe in it and if it's doing well so Yeah, so I guess that that to me is like yeah, we got it's not a total rejection automatic rejection anything like that, but Especially I am grading on the curve a little bit because I know the last few years been a lot of demand. You should tweet it.

Aaron

Get ready to be called a boomer, but you're gonna There you go.

Ian

You should tweet it. Yeah.

Aaron

You're gonna get a quick tweet that says, this is such a boomer take.

Ian

Producer Dave doesn't like this take either of mine. So

Aaron

Woah. Producer Dave doesn't like it.

Ian

In house conflict on this one. Yeah. Oh, no. He's a new he's a new generation

Aaron

doctor. You're a you're a show up to the office with donuts for the boss. Like, shake the man's hand, you get the job.

Ian

That's the kind of guy I'm talking about. Yeah. Sit around and have some scotch after work. You know?

Aaron

Yeah. Exactly.

Ian

But overall,

Aaron

it's good. Overall, it's going good. Where are you at? And when are when are you gonna be done? Like, when are you gonna pick?

Ian

I don't know. So we're we still have like 300, I think that have not been burst past bedded. Holy. Yeah. So, so the, so that's large, it has trickled down now to like, we're not getting that many new ones.

I think there was only like 10 new applicants over the weekend or something. So, or maybe it was yesterday. I'm not sure what the month was, but so the it's slowing, like, whatever the job post has been out there for a bit. Mhmm. I've been tweeting about it for a bit.

So, I think there

Aaron

for a second. I didn't I didn't I didn't think about the fact that you got a 1,000 applicants for a job. Yeah. That is an unbelievable amount.

Ian

That's a lot of

Aaron

Why why is that?

Ian

And we didn't even do any other job boards. We only did Lara jobs. And then the workable thing, I think, put us on some random job board and there was some, like, that just happens automatically or something. So some did come through that. Like, I don't think literally anyone good came through that.

And then, quite a few people reference the podcast so that

Aaron

you do

Ian

stuff you do stuff and then people hear about what you're doing.

Aaron

Good luck.

Ian

Yep. And, and then, you know, people who know me from Twitter and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, it's, I mean, even

Aaron

job market bad because a 1,000 applicants for one job

Ian

for I think a niche, like, we're in

Aaron

kind of a corner of the Internet here.

Ian

I will say I do think, you know, I did we did open up to a very wide time zone range and outside the US. So there's a lot of people applying, you know, from the UK and France and Brazil and, you know, there are, it's not just, the United States. You know, a lot of jobs tend to limit to their country. We're cool with outside the country. So that I think is a factor definitely in it.

And you know, I think being somewhat known in the community I'm hiring for is a factor for sure. But yeah, I was a little worried. I was like, I don't know. You know, I, I didn't know how I was gonna go. Like, I mean, I knew we'd get some applicants, but, I didn't I didn't think we'd get a 1,000.

I will definitely say that.

Aaron

A lot.

Ian

So go out there. If you're a hiring person, you better choose a job on Lara Jobs. Post your job on Lara Jobs for

Aaron

real works, which is kinda fun.

Ian

Like, when you see the workable thing tells you, like, where the job came in from, there's a lot of larger jobs in there and I'm like, yes, it's nice to be able to use the thing I built myself once in a while and know it actually works, which is cool. Yep. Yeah. So it's a lot. It's a lot.

It's a lot of work. And I think again, there has been some interests from the Twitter folks of like, I would love to find a way to do this. I can't figure out how to do it. I'm like, literally like just sitting there in the job applicant tool and be like, all right, I'm looking at this person. I'm reading their cover letter.

I'm clicking their links. I'm reading their resume, which is the order I do it by the way. And I'm like, here's what I'm thinking as I go through this, what I like, this, what I don't like. Yes. They're yes or they're no or whatever.

So, yeah. So I think that would be really fun. I can't figure out a way to

Aaron

do it.

Ian

I mean, there's no way to do it. There's people have said, like, you can use my resume or whatever, which I've actually done some resume tear downs before and stuff on, like, large office channel. But that's a little different, because it's also, like, the whole context of the whole it's like you're going through a whole bunch of people at once and what you're thinking. You're trying to move through it, but you're trying to also do each a time.

Aaron

And Boy, oh, boy, does that open you up to illegal, the scrutiny.

Ian

To do with people who have not given their consent. That's No.

Aaron

That weird thing

Ian

is that

Aaron

so, like yeah. You have to

Ian

be real clear. What I'm saying is

Yes.

Would be nerve wracking. Yes.

Aaron

Yeah. So it would be very nerve wracking.

Ian

Yeah. And so I'm I'm I'm doing the best I can to give out some generalities. I think I could come up with some more stuff that might be useful to people. That's, you know, just general advice, on the type of stuff I look for. But I do think there is an aspect of if you've never hired somebody before, you don't really understand Mhmm.

Deeply what's involved. Like, I would hope I never have to apply to a job again. But if I ever did, I feel like I could do it pretty well because I

Aaron

could do it pretty well.

Ian

Understand what you're gonna do for, in a way that it's just hard if you've never done it. But, Yeah. So, so far so good. I mean, we've narrowed it down. I'm being pretty ruthless, because there's just no choice.

Like we can't interview like 30 people. Or I hope not to anyway. So I'm being pretty ruthless, which is what you have to do, but, definitely have some good applicants. I'm pretty excited. I think we'll get somebody really good in in the role and, which will be super helpful because we have tons of stuff backing up on me as we speak here.

Yeah. So so far, so good.

Aaron

So far, so good. Lot of applicants. I that that's the part that's just that's amazing. I wonder if I wonder if that is, if that bodes poorly for the future. Is there that many people that don't have jobs, or do they want out?

Or is it just living in not America and making American money? Like, yeah. I'm just curious how we got to a1000.

Ian

I think it's a, like a mix of a whole bunch of things. I think there's, like, people who think it would be, like kind of the people in the circles a little tighter who are like, oh, it'd be cool to work at youth escape or kind of in the mix on stuff. Like can know about that stuff and are like, that would be fun. I think there's people. Yeah.

That, like, if you're in the UK and, like, this is a way higher salary than you would get as a senior dev in the UK. There's You could buy air conditioner

Aaron

with that kind of money, man.

Ian

You don't need air conditioner in the UK, but you could.

Well, I

Aaron

tend to disagree.

Ian

And, yeah, I think there are people who are in, like, maybe, there are just definitely some people don't have jobs right now who are applying. Mhmm. So there it's been a pretty a mix.

Aaron

I'll tell you what. If I was living somewhere where the US dollar was, like, you know, 10 times the local currency, I would do everything in my power to get

Ian

a US

Aaron

job remote job. That is just the biggest leverage point possible. Even even if the currency was equally valued, the the salaries in the US versus other countries is crazy.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely, I think, for, if you can get that it's, it would definitely be something to look at, I think. And you know, from the company's perspective, it's hard to work that way. So you have to have a company willing to, like, have somebody who's 5 hours off or whatever is not always ideal.

But, I think the way we tend to work since we're small and, like, you know, we do a weekly 1 on 1, but like we don't have a ton of real time, especially for the Deborah where like, I kind of almost look at as an advantage potentially for, Yeah. And thought, I mean, we have like some great us applicants too, who are gonna be interviewed. So it's not like I'm indifferent, but if it works out where somebody's 3 or 4 hours ahead, actually think it's not terrible because it's like nobody But I mean, it's like I like to work late at night for the same reason. It's like nobody's around nobody's bothering you. There's no questions.

Aaron

I love that. That's the dream

Ian

It's just like yeah, you could turn these things off, but it's always just there in the back of your mind.

Aaron

Can you? You can't really.

Ian

Exactly. So where you just know everybody's sleeping, it's like, okay, great. They're all sleeping. Yeah. No worries.

I can just be doing my, you know, in the zone for 3 or 4 hours for things like

Aaron

I love to be in the zone. I love to be alone and in the zone. There's just Oh, god.

Ian

There's nothing going on. Zone.

Aaron

Love it.

Ian

Yeah. Well,

Aaron

okay. Hopefully hopefully, you find them soon. I'm excited for you. It's a lot of work.

Ian

We will update the next phase. Yeah. The next phase is gonna be a whole, yeah, a whole bunch more work. And then it's like, yeah. Yeah.

No. Just have a lot of balances. Like, can we have producer Dave working on this for 2 months? No. Like, no, you know, so it's like you have podcast supplies.

He's got, yeah. He's got stuff going on. So, you know, my time, obviously, so you're trying to always balance those things. Hard. But yeah.

So this I think at some point this week, we're gonna start the, kind of first pass culture bit sort of call to see see where the person's at. Yeah. And then go from there. Oh, yeah. K.

So how's your stuff going on? What's up with the course?

Aaron

You want some you want some, you want some numbers?

Ian

Yeah. We're still doing numbers. Where are

we at?

Aaron

Numbers. We're gonna stop doing numbers at some point, but we're still doing numbers. Alright. Give me your number guess.

Ian

90. 90 6. Oh, wow. Okay.

Aaron

A bonus 6. There. A little extra. A little extra.

Ian

And that's up a pretty good percent from last week. So That's up.

Aaron

That's up.

Ian

Still going.

Aaron

So we're still going. When did we launch? It must have been a week before this past Thursday. So it's been a week and a half now. Yeah.

Right. Week and a half, almost $100,000. I feel pretty good about that. I feel very good about that.

Ian

Make sure you were get getting to a 100 was definitely, I

Aaron

think, a

Ian

goal, so you will get there. Steve For sure.

Aaron

Steve and I were targeting a 100 for the 1st month. That was our our goal. Feel really good about it. People seem to enjoy it, which is, of course, my greatest, my greatest fear is that a bunch of people are gonna buy it, and then they're gonna be like, maybe this sucks, and you're an idiot. So that hasn't happened yet, which is good.

That's good.

Ian

Good sign.

Aaron

Maybe they think it, but they haven't told me it. So that's good.

Ian

I think that's enough people that if they thought you were an idiot, somebody would have told you. Somebody would have told me. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody has told me yet.

So please don't write in and tell me

Aaron

Somebody would have told me. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody has told me yet. So please don't write in and tell me that if if you're listening right now.

So it's good. I took last week to not record any SQLite videos, which was very, very nice. This week, I'll get back to it. I've got a few modules to finish out. Right.

And that'll be good excuses to send more emails and to talk about it more and to say, like, the, you know, the early access is going away soon. Like, go buy it now, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Feeling pretty confident about it.

Ian

Are you doing more, like, marketing YouTubes around it or videos, like, on YouTube?

Aaron

We will continue to do, we'll continue to do database school interviews, and I have a few SQLite just YouTube videos that are coming out.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

And we'll continue to push on that. And so that's part of what we're trying to figure out now is, like, what's the long term, like, marketing strategy for this. Right. And YouTube videos are definitely, like, basically the top of our of our list. Yeah.

So that's going well. I feel I feel really good about this, not because it's a ton of money, which it is a ton of money, but, again, 2 people full time with families. But I feel good about this because, it's a lot of money, I think, for the the material. I think SQLite is really good and powerful, and people should know it and use it more often than they do. Mhmm.

But, again, I'm not trying to change the world. Right? And so if I'm if I'm looking at the market of databases, and I'm like, well, which, you know, which course would make the most money?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

It's not gonna be SQLite. And the fact that SQLite has made this much money makes me feel really confident about the next one, which is Postgres. That, like, I don't have to like, I'm not I'm not fighting an uphill battle to, like, tell remind people that Postgres is good. Like, people just left Postgres for some reason. I think it's Right.

That's that's great. So the fact that we were able to do so much off of this more niche, maybe more hobbyist in its current incarnation database, I feel like is a really, really good sign. Now I think the industry is definitely waking up to the fact that SQLite is great and can be used in a lot more places, and that's good. Like, that's a rising tide that will lift my boat. But I'm not the one that's trying to be like, everyone move to SQLite and also buy my course.

Right. So, yeah, I feel I feel really good about it. You know, we're we're still we're still trying to iron out a few you know, there are a few kinks on the platform itself because, you know, we coded that from scratch. So we're ironing those things out, preparing it to also host the Postgres course. So this one platform that we're building, this is going to be an asset for us.

This is going to create, a moat for us that we own. We own the platform. We can do whatever we want with it, and we can launch quickly because we do own the platform. I think that'll be good long term, and it's a lot of fun. I like programming, of course.

So, yeah, gotta finish. Main main thing right now is finish the course, market it some more, remove early access, and then get the flywheel turning on, durable durable marketing, durable distribution. Ongoing sales motion. Yeah. Yeah.

If we level if we level out at, like, $2,000, 3, 4, $5,000 a month with the SQLite course, that's a great that's a great base.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. If you can get to, like, 5,000 a month. Not that that many sales. The full price is 200.

Right? So Yeah. Once we're done with

Aaron

all the coupons and stuff, it should be, like, 199 or something.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. So that's 25,000. That's only, like, what, 25 or whatever. So it seems doable.

Seems doable. Yeah. And then post even Postgres is like I think that's the logical next one. And I think, but I don't think it's the one kind of in terms of the Yeah. And then even, like, SQL Server probably, although that's not really in your marketing wheelhouse as well.

Aaron

No, it's really not.

Ian

Probably, but, it's really not. So I don't know. It's kind of interesting that you saw it might have some big ones out there, some big fish, in the future. I know you've already done a MySQL course, pineapple.

Aaron

You know what's interesting? MySQL

Ian

course, but

Aaron

I'm gonna be competing with myself.

Ian

Right. Exactly.

Aaron

I'm gonna be competing with myself from a year and a half ago who is who is selling his course for free, and I'm gonna have to convince people that I'm better than that guy.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And you should you should pay me money to watch my course, and don't listen to that idiot. That guy's an idiot. Very, very interesting.

Ian

That is

Aaron

It's almost it's such like a I don't know what it's an experiment. Like, I don't know what the experiment is, but it's like the purest experiment possible because we're holding constant we're holding constant me. Yeah. And so it's like, what are what are we learning? I don't know, but how interesting is this?

Ian

I think here's the thing is now it's a little trickier because you used a lot of your, like, personal marketing effort on that first course. Like I did people you've talked about a lot. People are aware of it and you're gonna

be

talking to a lot of those same people, although it's, you've grown since then a lot.

Aaron

So there

Ian

are plenty of new people who haven't heard about that or didn't at least get as much of it as, you know, somebody who'd been following you for several years or whatever, but You know, this is just like regular normal commercial stuff like this to me is nothing at all, in that like yeah, like very often in commerce, the what the customer finds first is what they buy. Correct. And so like, they're not out there looking for every Aaron Francis, my SQL course. They're not even necessarily out there looking for free my SQL courses. Like Yep.

If they come across your paid one first, they will buy it and then they will be happy because they'll learn stuff. And that there is also a free one by Aaron Francis somewhere is completely irrelevant because they don't even know it exists. And so it's just like kind of not that big of an issue. It's like even like a help desk software, whatever. There's 18 1,000 different help desk software apps, and a lot of the game is, like, getting the people to find you before they find so many of the other 18,000 because

Mhmm.

Like, 85 percent of what all of them do are exactly the same. And then it comes down to like, yeah, there are some differences. There's obviously the UI is different and maybe one just jives with you more than another and whatever. There there's stuff in there. But the core feature set is pretty much standard.

And so

Aaron

You I mean, you're you're absolutely right. There there are a lot you can go to the grocery store and buy a 100 different kinds of toothpaste. Like, the it exists, and they're actually all made by the same person. So maybe that's a good possibility. It's a good analogy.

Yeah. That's that's that's true.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like, Procter and Gamble and, you know, one other company make all the toothpaste, but there's 17 brands and each brand has its own sub segments. Yeah.

And this is why the grocery store charges for shelf space. They're like, oh, you wanna be at eye height in the middle of the aisle or you wanna be on the end cap? Well, then you're gonna give us a discount for so long or you're gonna pay us because we know and you know that the first thing people see is often what they buy, and they're just gonna buy the thing on the end cap even though there's 20 more options in the aisle. So

Aaron

Yeah. So my when we when we get there, it's gonna be very interesting and very fun, and my goal is going to be to crush Aaron Francis and and not absolutely win. I'm gonna make that loser yeah. I'm I'm totally gonna win. That Aaron's not a stand doesn't stand a chance.

Ian

I don't think you have the I don't think you'd have I don't know. I don't think you wanna do this, like, whatever, because they're not gonna be happy about it, but it would be super fun. If like, you were taking bits of the old Aaron Francis and like, being like this guy was an idiot, like from the actual course, you know, and be like, now I know better and, like, slicing between them or Aaron Francis with some horns or whatever, like, on the old one and like new and improved Aaron Francis that like, you know, Steve's adding little, like, little shine stars on your head, because now you're so much better and shiny and smarter.

Aaron

I am so much better now.

Ian

Well, but

Aaron

No. No. I don't wanna I don't wanna poke the beast.

Ian

There's a

Aaron

beast in these. A lot of stuff you

Ian

can go into though that you didn't get into in the first course. There's things that I don't know.

Aaron

Things I know better now?

Ian

Yeah. Things you know better. Things that are even different. I don't know if that was, I guess, it was MySQL 8 already at that point.

Aaron

Yeah. It

Ian

was. Yeah. So I guess you know that stuff. But

Aaron

Wait. They did just announce MySQL 9 is coming out.

Ian

I wonder

Aaron

if I should just wait for that. Oh. Because that would be that would actually be a pretty good

Ian

Just a pretty good pitch. If it actually comes out on time?

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. I forget when. Okay. This post is from good.

July 3rd that says MySQL 9 release notes.

Ian

So Does it say when?

Aaron

I don't know. I think these are the release notes from July 3rd.

Ian

Like, they've released my sequel 9?

Aaron

Think so. Yeah.

Ian

Well, then that's yeah.

Aaron

What's new in

Ian

my sequel 9? My sequel 9.

Aaron

My sequel 9 is out. Thank you for your contributions. 5 days ago. Oh, suck it, Aaron. Aaron's gonna win.

Yes. Yeah. So I can

Ian

Wow. I

Aaron

can say that that other course, boy, that other course that other course is outdated, isn't it? That other course sucks, doesn't it? Pure nightmare status

Ian

here for me. They're already a 9 and 8

Aaron

barely got 8 to work. You're just limping along with. Yeah, we go.

Ian

A 9 for a long, long time. I hope that that it's bug fixed for a long time because I really

Aaron

Oh, I'm sure it will

Ian

be for a while.

Aaron

I just hope they continue. I hope they make it faster. It's really going downhill.

Ian

It looks like there is the vector database aspect, which every database needs now and all that stuff. So you'll have a whole bunch of new angles there. Yeah. So that's perfect. There you

Aaron

go. Boom.

Ian

Boom. You got that's when people are always looking for it's scary to move to 9. It's like, what are the differences? What's gonna blow up? Yep.

You have a whole segment on all this Migrating

blow up.

Aaron

To 9. Yep. Yeah. This is great. This is great.

We just solved we just solved one of my one of my

Ian

faster. Management here. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

That's great.

Aaron

Cool. I did.

Ian

How? I'm ready.

Aaron

It's out.

Ian

Yeah. I need to on it. Get on it. That's it.

Aaron

I need a sponsor. So if you are, if you're listening and you work at Percona or Oracle, that's about all I can think of.

Ian

AWS. What about AWS?

Aaron

AWS. AWS. Hey.

Ian

What's The new ocean. I am all hosted MySQL.

Aaron

I am all about taking money from AWS. That would be a nice turn of events.

Ian

Great way for money to flow.

Aaron

Yeah. If if we could get that if we could get that queued up, that would be awesome. Yeah. That'd be really awesome. Update on the email conversation from last week.

West Boss does send all his emails from one domain. Yep. Kent c Dodds sends most of his. I asked him, and there was, like, one thing he doesn't send from that domain. He sends most of his stuff from the one domain.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

And so I talked to and I talked to Jesse Hanley, the founder of Bento, who's my email guru. Yeah. And he was like, yeah. You could do whatever you want. I would recommend from, like, a marketing and branding perspective, send it all from one domain.

Ian

I was

Aaron

like, okay. This is interesting. We're coalescing around an idea. And so I talked to Steve. I was like, Steve, what do, like, what do we wanna do here?

Do we wanna send everything from try hard studios, or, like, what what are we gonna do? And good guy Steve was like, listen. I've been thinking, we just we gotta double down on this being a personality driven business. Yeah. And so we gotta send everything from aaronfrancis.com.

And, you know, all the time all the all the while, I'm thinking, like, well, but it's you and me, Steve. And Steve is like, dude, listen. I do not care. I do not want the spotlight. I just wanna be the guy doing the thing, and I don't wanna build an audience.

And I'm like, okay. Interesting. So I think we've decided, the Aaron Francis domain, by the way, is 20 years old. So Wow. We should be okay with, like, domain age and authority there.

Yeah. That's always great. Maybe even maybe even older. I don't know when my dad got it, but he got the.com.net.org for me when I was a kid.

Ian

But it

depends when he actually utilizes it too, though. You know, there's a that's a fact for me to play Yeah. More than just the registration.

Aaron

So, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna move everything over, all sending domains to aaronfrancis.com. Nice. And it's gonna be it's gonna be more fully a a personality thing like a Wes Boss or a Kent c Dodds or something, which makes me, of course, a little bit uncomfortable, but I think that's what the market is dictating, and therefore, I shall do it because I'm not morally opposed to it. I'm just somewhat, somewhat reluctant, but I can get over that.

Ian

Yeah. I think it makes sense. I mean, I think there is a weirdness. To me, it's more like even the down the road weirdness of, like, just even, like, 20 years from now, and this is all over. And it's like, this thing is associated with your domain, and, like, you might wanna use your domain for other stuff or personal stuff or whatever.

But, like

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

Also who cares? Like, because ultimately if like this makes you 3 x more money then

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

That'll be much better outcome and everybody will be much happier. So Correct. Yeah. I mean, it's so clear that you are the whole personality of the the marketing effort, right? Like I, you know, that's the focus of the marketing.

It's like you on the videos, your YouTube, but all these things. And so like, yeah, even with YouTube, like trying to rebuild a whole new channel of like,

Aaron

you

Ian

know, it's hard, you know? So, and

Aaron

that's what we talked about was like building a second brand from scratch is just Yeah. 1, it's it's very, very hard. And 2, I just don't know that it's necessary. Right. We can just use my brand.

Ian

Yeah. And to re it took you a long time to build your brand. It's really

Aaron

long time to build the brand. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

It's not just like a you're a b to b app, and it's like, yeah, we need all the social accounts so we can auto post some shit on there and whatever. Like, no, like you content marketing is your entire marketing strategy, really, at least for now and presumably for the future, it will always be the core, even if there are other channels you explore. And so you really all the benefits of a long lived existing brand are quite valuable. Yeah. Even all your audience, like, trying to get them to sign up to a new YouTube channel, it's just really hard.

Like, it's not like the new YouTube channel has as many as yours. It's not like you can just tell people to go sign up or that you're doing a new thing and they go do it. Like they're not gonna do it. And so yeah, it's a huge advantage and or now you're gonna end up double producing all the time. It's like, well, we produced it over here, but now I know I need to put it out on my channel anyway, because that's like where all the eyeballs are, and then you're over there.

And it's like

Aaron

No. It's no good. It's no good. The good the good news is the, separation by sending domain was always superficial. Everyone that has ever signed up for anything that I have is in Bento.

They're just in Bento with a tag on it. So it's not like, oh, shoot. I'm gonna have to move this mailing list. Like, whatever. I just changed the domain that I'm sending it from.

So I was never super concerned about it, but now I'm gonna start consolidating everything, which feels nice. It feels that does feel like, that feels like, relaxing mentally to just think, alright. This is a simplification because now I don't have to have 8 sending domains with good reputation, which I was willing to do. And I you know, if that's the optimal way to do it, I was totally willing to do that. But now I don't have to, and that's kinda nice.

I do like I do like to simplify so that that helps that a whole lot.

Ian

And it's it's it's like the email sending is one aspect of it, but it's just even the whole bigger picture of like now, you know, the default state and like kind of simplifies. Yeah. The whole stack of like, where do these go and all that. I don't know what you're gonna do with, I assume. I mean, I don't know.

What are you gonna do with the actual courses themselves? Are they gonna stay on their own domain or move to something

Aaron

to Aaron Francis? Open question.

Ian

What is West doing

with that?

Aaron

I think he's got I think he's got stand alone properties for all of his courses.

Ian

Right? Like, for the actual websites, I think they're standalone.

Aaron

Which I I haven't really like. Guy, his website is good.

Ian

I haven't been over there in a while.

Aaron

I haven't don't know if I've ever been here. This is a great guy.

Ian

Short name. You know, I wish I had a short name.

Aaron

Oh, man. That's a great short name. Six letters. Six characters. Yeah.

So he's got he's got separate domains for everything, which I think is correct, in my humble opinion. I think it's correct from a marketing standpoint. So mastergatspeed.com, beginner javascript.com. Oh, what a domain.

Ian

Are you

kidding me? Solid.

Aaron

Yeah. Advanced React? These are great these are great domains.

Ian

Flexbox.io. JavaScript. I think that's

Aaron

a big one for him. React for beginners.com. Learnnode.com. How long has

Ian

he been

Aaron

in the game to get domains like this?

Ian

He's been in there a long time.

Aaron

Mastering markdown.com. Alright. So let's click on, a premium one. Give me a premium one. Learnnode.com.

The best way to learn server side JavaScript premium training course, and it's just a picture of Wes. So, yeah, everything is, everything has a standalone site. Man, this landing page is so good. I gotta I gotta do better. It's a good one.

A stand alone site, but everything is also, like, very clearly West Boss.

Ian

Oh, so this is interesting. So if you go to my account top, it takes you to courses.westboss.com. So like maybe your platform should

Aaron

be courses.

Ian

Aaron Francis or whatever. But yes, I do think each core should have their own domain so that you get the SEO benefits of that as long as you know, and all that stuff. And I think just, yeah, Click click dues will be better with a domain that's right on people's search target and stuff. Yeah. So yeah.

Yeah. So I like that as, like, the nice middle ground, but obviously you only wanna deal with 1 platform and all that. You don't wanna have, like, a bunch of different platforms.

Aaron

Okay. So we're we're we're circling on every, every course has its own domain, which I think is good and correct. Then the dashboard could live on aaronfrancis.com, and all emails come from all emails for all courses come from aaronfrancis.com.

Ian

I think that all makes good sense. I

Aaron

think that makes sense.

Ian

Because even these pages, if you're gonna go full west boss, right. It's like your face at the top in the video, your face, right. They're down. Right. Like as the guy who's built the course and all that stuff.

So, like, it won't be weird that it's coming from Aaron Francis because Aaron Francis is gonna be kind of plastered on the landing pages anyways. So it'll all still make sense. Yeah. Well, I think that's the play. And I also like, I mean, this is, I even like the names he's picked for the courses in terms of, like, their length and things like that.

Like, where, like, the high performance x is kinda a little less a little more unwieldy. Mhmm. Not not that you're gonna change this course name, but, like,

Aaron

And I can change this course name.

Ian

You know, keeping it, I think that's an interesting angle to it where he all this stuff is kind of really tight for the most part.

Aaron

His stuff is really tight. I wonder if master Postgres. I'm just gonna steal his idea live on the air.

Ian

Yeah. Why not?

Aaron

Oh, man, master postgres .com is available, which means I have to buy it before this airs.

Ian

You gotta at least buy it. Yeah. Dotcom is the cheapest to buy. So you Yeah. Pay your $10 and

Aaron

Is master MySQL? Is that what we're gonna do now? Master MySQL? Yep. It sure is.

That's available. Is master SQLite? Yep. That's available. Damn it.

I gotta buy all of these.

Ian

These are

Aaron

great domains.

Ian

Gotta go get through all master, SQL Server. I'd get them all just, you know, I wouldn't well, it's only $10 a year if you don't use it.

Aaron

Master Redis is available. Master Duck DB is available.

Ian

Kinda surprised Master Redis is available.

Aaron

What's another what's another database? Name another database. SQL Server, you said. I'm not gonna do SQL Server. My dad is a SQL Server DBA.

He should do that course. Hey.

Ian

Hey. I'll bring in dad. I mean, those are big I mean, Oracle. What do I know about Oracle? Should get all of them.

Aaron

Master Oracle is definitely

Ian

taken. Yeah. I think there is, like is it master? Is it mastering? I think it's master.

Yeah. I like master better, I think.

Aaron

Interesting.

Ian

They might not all I mean, I don't know if they all should be the same. Like, his actually aren't all the same like that, so it's kind of interesting too. But I also think you should buy all those because I'm all for buying extra domains. And, if you decide to go that route, then you have it. Oh, here's a check.

Should you check master master Laravel?

Aaron

Oh, no. Taken. Okay. Who's taken that? Oh, it's this freaking side didn't even load.

Ian

Yeah. It's a nonloader. I think, yeah, I would buy all these just to have them. I think I I think you need to think it through a little bit more, and if that makes sense for all that.

But,

Aaron

to get through a little bit more. I just we just went over this with 12 seconds on podcast live on the air. What what could possibly go wrong?

Ian

But I do, in general, like this concept, I think. I think master

Aaron

I think this list is

Ian

is a good word. Yep.

Aaron

And I think that means I need to I think I need to redo my personal site, to be more focused as a, like, a a business property.

Ian

Yeah. Not just what you're up to.

Aaron

Not just what I'm up to, which what I'm up to is is helpful. That's good concept, but I need to put these courses front and center.

Ian

Well, I think it's like I think, again, like, I would totally be just cribbing off West Plus since he's the master, but it's like, okay. Like, courses, the navigation's really big and courses is the first thing. Right. And then it's like, Hey, I'm here to help you become a really good web developer. That's like, okay, I'm here.

And then again, courses, but then he is like, yeah, here's my podcast. Like I was gonna do that. You know, whatever. He's got tweets and there's a free course that can like get you into stuff quick. So like, it's got the YouTube link at the bottom.

So he's I don't think it's, like, the good balance of, like, you can still see it's him and where his personal ish content is, but also Yeah. It's really clear that he sells courses, and this way you should go for that. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Mhmm.

Aaron

Alright, Wes. I'm coming for you in a way that means, like, I'm just gonna try to copy your business model. That's about it.

Ian

People get upset about stuff like that, but I think it's totally fine. I don't even think I I don't think Wes to be upset about it, but, like, Justin, people on the Internet are like, oh, you shouldn't got everything's gotta be a 100% unique and original and special flower. And I'm like, you know, all the people you think are we are, you know, unique and original. If you, like, actually dig around, like, they've just cribbed it off other people. It's like, yeah, you're putting your flavor on it or whatever.

And your words, certainly, I'm not, like, for, like, stealing people's content at wholesale or things like that. But, like, the layout of a website or, like, that

Aaron

sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Navigation

Ian

being a problem. Like, oh, the navigation is like this other site's navigation. Like, no. That's not a thing. Like, every website's been done a 1000000 ways now, like, this prior history and everything.

Like

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

But, I like where you're going with this. I think I think we're on something here.

Aaron

I think we're on to something. This is, the seeds of an empire, so we'll keep it going.

Ian

Now you gotta just, give yourself a 6th, character name.

Aaron

Give myself a new name.

Ian

A stage name. You need a stage name.

Aaron

I do need a stage name. I would love a stage. But, again, a stage name, I gotta build a whole new brand just for the stage name.

Ian

We redirect everything. We got redirects.

Aaron

No. I'm not doing that.

Ian

Update the update the YouTube channel name.

Aaron

No. I'm not I'm not doing any of that.

Ian

I'm doing

I'm doing absolutely none of that.

Todd Raw. How about Todd Raw?

Aaron

Okay. Of things of things that we would have to think about a little bit more, rebranding my personal name to Todd Rah is maybe one that we would wanna spend a few more minutes on.

Ian

Not your real life thing. I mean, just it's just your stage name for, like, your website and your courses. Like, Steve, I'm I'm taking Bob. He's a Todd Bob.

Aaron

That's the most sorry to all the Todd Ross out there. That's the most average, weird,

Ian

Todd Average?

Aaron

Raw. Todd. First, Todd is

Ian

Todd.

Aaron

Sorry. I mean, you don't

Ian

have Todd.

Aaron

I do not look like a Todd.

Ian

Oh, comment below if Aaron looks like a Todd. Come on. He really looks like a Todd. And if we go back to your college picture, you're a 100% a Todd.

Aaron

I'm not a Todd in college.

Ian

Oh, yeah. You're totally a Todd. Okay. All that blonde hair flying around. That's a total golfing Todd.

Aaron

Oh, man. That was good. That was good times.

Ian

Those are the days.

Aaron

Still had it, man. Alright. I'm not Todd Ra. What else? Where do you wanna go?

Do you wanna go to automation, or are

Ian

we are we calling it? No. Let's do it. I we need to let's let's just do a few minutes on this automation. Like, you're building I don't I haven't I haven't had chance to watch.

You're building some crazy life automation tool. I don't understand what you're doing.

Aaron

Ian Ian Ian, why is everything I do crazy? Why is everything I do crazy?

Ian

A lot

of great stuff. I love the core a lot of great stuff. I love the YouTube videos. But then you go off on these tangents. Sometimes they're a little out there.

You're building a life app. I don't even know what that means. Like, what is the life manager you're building?

Aaron

Listen, Ian. Yeah. Everybody everybody everybody wants to be so sterile and so, like, oh, everything you gotta focus on only focus on the the things that matter. And I'm like, listen. I I just I wanna do stuff.

There's just stuff I wanna do, and everybody's telling me stuff. Everything is content. That is true. But sometimes, you know, sometimes I just do stuff because I wanna do stuff, and I just love doing stuff. So

Ian

You're like the opposite of the people who apply to the job and haven't done anything. You're doing too much stuff. You're at the

Aaron

other half. I'm doing more than average. That is for sure. It is possible it's too much.

Ian

It's fine.

Aaron

I haven't started digging a pool yet because I do feel a little bit overwhelmed. So it is possible that I am doing too much. I don't know any other way to live, unfortunately. I don't,

Ian

like Get a handle on that.

Aaron

There's just so much stuff I wanna do. Like, there are in my head right now, there are 3 books that I want to write. I wanna write 3 books. What? Yes.

Writing books. Writing a couple of books. Thing in the world. I know.

Ian

That literally makes no sense.

Aaron

I spent probably 10% of sausage fest, which is the annual gathering that I go to where we cook sausage, of course.

Ian

And Obviously.

Aaron

I spent 10% of that of that weekend talking about how to write a nonfiction book. It's just a great idea, first of all. I spent I spent also 20% talking about digging a pool in my backyard. So, you know, it comes and goes. But there's just so much I wanna do.

There's so much that I

Ian

want to

Aaron

do, and there's just not enough time. You know? No. There's not enough time. And that, like, that that's kind of frustrating.

And it's There's so much to do and so little time. I'm sure I'm the 1st person to experience this. What is ever experience? Feels new to me. I don't like it.

Ian

Yeah. Well, you know, you you did have 4 kids, so you also have added a

Aaron

little extra.

Ian

Whoopsie there

Aaron

on the 4th kid. Oopsie doopsie.

Ian

So, yeah. You're I don't know. You've not you've stocked the odds against yourself a little bit on writing 3 nonfiction books on top of all the other stuff you're doing as well as taking

them off.

Aaron

What's gonna make it such a great story

Ian

when I do

it? Be great when you pull it all off. Yes.

Aaron

It's gonna

Ian

be a great story.

Aaron

I'm only in it for the story. I just want people to think, wow. What a great story. What

Ian

a great story. Yeah.

Aaron

Can you imagine can you imagine can you imagine the 2 years that I went through where we had twins and then found out we were having more twins? Like, in 2 years, I went from 0 to 4.

Ian

That's wild. That's wild. And the layout and starting a business. And

Oh, man.

That's a lot. You need a vacation. That's what you need.

Aaron

I need a vacation. Yeah. I need a

Ian

vacation. Not a vacation doing stuff. See, this is I've always made this mistake. Don't make this mistake. We always were like, if we're gonna vacation, it's gotta be stuff the kids will remember, and it's gotta be special.

We're going to Disney. We're going I'm

Aaron

not going to Disney.

Ian

Europe and dragging them around, whatever. Just go sit on the beach. Don't do any other stuff.

Aaron

Just go to, like, a resort in San Antonio where there's literally nothing else to do but float in the lazy river at some McMansion resort. Yeah.

Ian

That's exactly what you should do. Not even, like, we've also done that. We we usually go to Martha's Vineyard in the summer and the love Martha's Vineyard. It's great. But, a, it's very expensive, but also b, it's there's nothing included.

Right? It's just a city. It's just towns. And, like, you go and every night, what are we gonna eat? We gotta go find something.

Let's go hunt and

Aaron

gather for some work on what I'm gonna eat. I would have stayed at home.

Ian

Exactly. So you just want the all inclusive lazy river, float around.

That's what you need.

That's what you need right now.

Aaron

I know. I know that all inclusive resorts are, like, are a poor person's idea of a rich person's vacation, but I do not. I want to go somewhere where I can order as many plates of chicken tenders as I want, and they're like, yes, sir. Thank you, sir. That's all I want.

I just wanna order chicken tenders and sit by the pool and drink maybe Diet Cokes if I'm on vacation. Okay? That's all I want. And maybe eat

Ian

a bunch

Aaron

of books and plan out my next book. Oh, no.

Ian

There you go.

Aaron

I've done it. I'm working now. The life automation, it's good. It's

Ian

very good.

Aaron

So here's here's part of here's a glimpse into my brain. I think, I think there are so many things that, like, I know that I should do, but because there's no good system to do them, I don't do it. Right? So, let's take, for example, bookkeeping. Bookkeeping for, like, my personal LLC, and we'll even say budgeting for our family, for our household.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

I know I should do that. I'm a I'm a 35 year old man with a wife and 4 kids. I should be able to budget and bookkeep. But you know what I do? Not that.

Right. I don't do that at all. Not even a little bit. Right. Not even not even a tiny little bit.

And so I think in my head, okay, well, if I had a system that, like, that presented me with the information, and I can just say business expense, this thing, household expense, this category. And, like, I've tried YNAB. I get it. I know. Everybody's like, oh, you should just use YNAB.

I've tried it. I don't like it. It doesn't work the way that I want it to work.

Ian

K.

Aaron

And so there there's like, that's one microcosm of Okay. Something. There are, like, 10 others of things that I definitely should do, but either forget or put off or don't do because there's no, like, there's no system, and I just really desire a system. And so I'm building I'm building systems. Yeah.

We got a lot of work here.

Ian

We got

Aaron

a lot a lot to unpack.

Ian

And this is

Aaron

this is one of those things where it's like, okay, guys. I've tried I've tried doing it every other way. I really have. I've tried. And maybe I just need to do it the way that I think would work for me.

And maybe that will maybe that will help. Skeptical, Ian. You're you're not even speaking. This is how I know. We we 30

Ian

minute segment.

Aaron

We didn't get we didn't even get the Seinfeld register on The Voice. We got complete silence, which means I'm gone off the rails.

Ian

That's the worst

Aaron

thing you could have done.

Ian

The most outrageous thing you've ever said, to be honest. No. I don't know. Like, I mean, bill so you literally, like, taking data feeds of, like, your Amex bill and banks and, like, trying to pull it all into a database somewhere. Yeah.

Mhmm. 100%. That's insane. It's insane. Good idea.

Yeah. Doesn't know. It's a horrible idea.

Aaron

You know who else you know who else they thought was insane? Probably Einstein. Probably Newton. I don't know. But I bet Oh, boy.

You thought they were insane.

Ian

I don't know.

Aaron

And therefore and therefore, I am Einstein. That was what I was saying. That was the corollary.

Ian

Alright. Can I propose something slightly different?

Aaron

Yeah. I'm not gonna listen, but I I will allow you to propose it. So, yes, go.

Ian

I mean, first of all, that's I mean, our feeds break all the time in our business data feeds and stuff. And this is, like, with a team of people at the, like, bookkeeping app that are, like, presumably on all the time. So it's just it's not gonna be possible for you to maintain feeds. Like, they're gonna break all time. My system's gonna be closed.

Right? Like, that's just

Aaron

gonna happen. Definitely. It's gonna be a maintenance nightmare. Okay.

Ian

It's gonna be a maintenance nightmare. And not because of you, not because of your code or anything else, because this is how that system works. It's not really set up for you to be doing what you're trying to do. But Okay. I mean, some of this you shouldn't even be doing.

Right? Like, it's not what your bookkeeper for the business that does the business books. And there should never be anything coming in where you have to decide if this is business or not, because if it's on the business credit card, it is business. Now you have to categorize it perhaps, but you shouldn't have to separate. So So if you're not separated, the first thing to do is separate business and personal

Aaron

Oh, I'm separated.

Ian

Spending. Okay. I figured you were. I mean, categorization auto categorizes after you initially categorize usually. So that's, you know, the bookkeeping apple take care of that and the bookkeeper will take care.

So you forget the business stuff. You're gonna hire a bookkeeper.

Aaron

Forgotten, Dawn.

Ian

Good. Now personal. I mean, personal. I don't know. I I'm not a fan of the categorize all of your your spending.

It seems ridiculous.

Aaron

It does. It does. Whatever.

Ian

If you if you wanna try to do it, I guess, you know, you could do it. I think it's useful to have, like, big picture

Aaron

with I understand. It's useful. I Yeah. Couldn't tell you from personal experience.

Ian

I mean, I've I've only gotten recently into more serious budgeting. And even now, I'm keeping it just like it's very high level. It's like, here are the big chunks of money. And, like, it's not necessarily every transaction. It's like, hey.

These are the big things we spend money on.

Yep. I

know about how much we wanna spend in these different zones, and that's kinda it. So I I mean, I still think there's there's literally thousands of tools that do what you're saying you're gonna build. But

Aaron

Yeah. But not not like I'm gonna do it.

Ian

Mine my will be different.

Aaron

Mine will be different.

Ian

Okay. So if you were just building that fine, but it sounds like this is gonna do other stuff. Like, you're not just building it other stuff. SaaS app or personal finance organization. Okay.

Aaron

No. All kinds of other stuff.

Ian

What what what else? What's another thing it's gonna do?

Aaron

Alright. So I've got, I've got the list over here. So here's here's part of here's part of the

Ian

deal. Okay.

Aaron

One is I just I want to do it. Okay. K. I want to have I want to have a system. Okay.

And I need I need a system. The other thing is the other thing is it's great content. Right? It's very content. Okay.

That was disrespectful, Ian. It's great content. Here's the thing. Yeah. The streams the streams are the streams are good content.

But already, I'm doing stuff in building out this little application that's like, oh, this is an interesting stand alone video. It's good fodder. Now I now I am, like, actively developing something that's relatively complex, and so I'm doing interesting things, which makes more good YouTube videos that I can put out. So it's kinda like

Ian

market research.

Aaron

Yeah. Part of me feels like almost almost anything I do is justifiable as content. And it's kinda nice because it's like, yeah. I kinda wanna kinda wanna build it. It's not doesn't make super much sense, but it's gonna make a great video.

So we'll do it for we'll do it for the gram. Alright.

Ian

Well, I guess my 2¢ on that would be, in terms of the things you're actually trying to accomplish, there's no doubt in my mind that it's makes financially more sense to hire an assistant who just does all that stuff and, like, categorizes all your expenses and whatever. And that your time is better spent on other things and just like the straight dollars and cents trade off. Now k. There can be a reason to build something as part of the time better spent. So I'm thinking of, like, a Jeffrey White here.

Like, he did k. A big course on, like, building the I think he's built a forum, like, 7 times. 6 times. Yeah. Forum.

Right? And then he rebuilt the forum and then built the forum again. Right. So, like, great. So, like, you're building this course platform where you and Steve are, and the course platform could be, like, you have to build this thing anyway.

Let's do yes. I can stream it while I do it and we're gonna hit all we can make it do a bunch of crazy stuff. It shouldn't even do, but like, whatever, we're gonna push it. So it's interesting. And yes, I get into other areas that like maybe spur on videos or whatever That that all makes sense to me This whole tangent where you're like just building a personal calendar financial system.

I don't know.

Aaron

You don't buy it?

Ian

I don't buy it. I just think your time is so valuable. You're a guy with 4 kids and a business and a chorus and another course, and you're gonna take a pool.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

I think, like, there's only so much time in the day. And, like

Aaron

Yeah. Even the streams, like, a streamer. Enough time. There's not enough time.

Ian

Put on the streams. They're not as good as the videos, like, for your business. No. I know it's not. Thing.

Right? So I don't know. It's a little time value of money situation going on here.

Aaron

It is. It is. This is this is very interesting. I it's this is gonna shock you. I think I'm right.

I think I'm in the right here. In a in a twist, if no one saw coming, I think I'm right. I no. I have no idea. This is just, you know, totally uncharacteristic of me to think I'm right.

Ian

Possibly you are.

Aaron

I agree with you on purely looking from a dollars and cents point of view. I agree that this is not the highest and best use of my time. However, there is only so much highest and best use of my time that I can do in a day, a week, a month, And there's some amount of time that needs to be spent doing things that feed the other things, if that makes sense. So, like Exploration. Exploration, quality of life type things.

Like, I I just can't I can't sit here for 3 months and only work on SQLite or Postgres. That's just very depressing. Like, it just not depressing. It just run out of steam.

Ian

Yeah. No. You can't be motivated at the right level, that length of time. Yeah.

Aaron

You need to And so

Ian

mix it up.

Aaron

Doing doing livestreams gives me energy. Like, I I get a high off of that, and it's very enjoyable for me. Mhmm. It also, like, I do think it grows the brand, the audience, the distribution.

Ian

So I

Aaron

think that is that's, like, a positive. Mhmm. And I truly do, like, for years years years, have desired a a system. And so I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna do it.

Ian

Alright. I'm with you now. I'm with you. You've given me

Aaron

You just gotta you know, sometimes you just gotta do it to find out if it's a good idea or a bad idea. And like like my, spiritual twin, Einstein or Newton or maybe Steve Jobs, you know, you're gonna think we're crazy until it works. And I'm just like those people in that way.

Ian

Alright. Two questions then.

Aaron

Or Okay.

Ian

Yeah. Two questions. One is, are you building it as a SaaS that other people could use, or are you building it without that concept?

Aaron

Which one is better in each one?

Ian

No point if you don't make it so that other people can use it.

Aaron

Shoot. I'm doing the other ones. Dang it. I thought you were gonna say I thought you were gonna say, just build the thing that you need without the confidences from what the market demands.

Ian

I I do also agree with that in a sense. Like, I do I do see both sides of, like, it's gonna take you way more time, be way more complicated to make it something other people can use,

Aaron

like, their

Ian

security, all kinds

of stuff.

Like, so I do agree with that in that sense. So I don't know. I, I, I did waffle between them, I guess, a little bit And

Aaron

because building itself I'm building it just for myself so that I can build it to match my idiosyncrasies and so that, like, you know, integrate YouTube, Twitter, transistor, Deepgram. I'm not, like, I'm not having to build OAuth connectors or I'm just putting the freaking ENV keys in my thing, and that's it. I move on.

Ian

If people love it and are, like, excited, you could always open source it. We could always add the other stuff later or whatever. You could do other things.

Aaron

I can open source it. Other people involved. I could do, your heroes. I could do a once.com style thing where I'm just like, here's the code. You're gonna have to replace these ENVs and, like, you know, something like that.

But, yeah, I'm building it just for me, which gives me again this is, this is, like, the the freedom part. I just get to do whatever I wanna do, and it's really wonderful.

Ian

It's really just like a hobby activity. So in that regard, yeah, you're right. I I was wrong there. You're right.

It should just be

for you.

Okay.

Aaron

Well, I got one I got one way. Alright. What's the second question?

Ian

Because this actually relates this actually lines it up nicely with my second question or sort of opinion and more than a question, I guess, but, like, are you prepared No. To abandon this if it becomes clear you should? Like, it's like when you're reading a book and it's like bad and like, don't force yourself through to the end, just like a band.

Aaron

Hit the brakes.

Ian

Should be in that mindset of, like, I'm willing to eject this thing if it just seems like it's not gonna get anywhere or it's gonna waste time or whatever. Think so. Too busy.

Aaron

There are parts of this system that already run. Mhmm. And what you have disparagingly called my crazy static site setup runs some of these systems. Right? Okay.

It runs some of the, like, pulling the podcasts, transcribing the videos, republishing the transistor. It runs some of those systems. And so I don't think there's a world in which I say, I want to do everything manually. Game over. I think there is a world in which I trim the scope and I'm like, jeez, Plaid's API sucks.

I'm just going to use, you know, a different bookkeeping Whatever

Ian

it is.

Aaron

Or something. So, yeah, there are parts that I will probably get into and be like, this was stupid, and I will abandon those. But this is the way this is the way that I've learned everything that I know is, like, try stuff that may seem stupid, and then some of it works. You know, some of it's, like, make a $100,000 on selling tutoring videos to college students. And then some of it's like, boy, you wasted 6 months working on that thing, and it's you you're not using any of it.

And then Yeah. 3 years later, it's like, oh, I've actually I've done something like this before. Let me, you know, let me just redo this again, and I've already done all the hard parts. So I don't think anything is for naught. I think there are things that I will abandon pieces of it that I will abandon along the way.

Yeah. But listen, if I'm gonna dig a pool and write 3 books and raise 4 kids and have a a burgeoning empire, I gotta have some sort of system that helps me behind the scenes. Right?

Ian

I guess. I think I think you gotta

do your

I definitely thinking small.

Aaron

You gotta think No. No. I universe, Ian.

Ian

I reorganized myself recently, which I had as a topic for us to talk about at some point, but with this, like, the para method organizational system, it's been awesome. Wow. And I think though there's like other systems out there where you don't have to code the system, like, or invent the system. Like, I think you can just adopt the system that exists and that people already use and that is really good.

Aaron

It'd be nice.

Ian

Benefit from as well as outsourcing different things. Like, you know, which is the Arc Coder mindset. It's like we can

Aaron

we can

Ian

build a solution for that. Right? Like, I've definitely done this

for a couple.

Aaron

Normal, I would just, like, I would just, like, use Notion. And I would be one of those I would be one of those people that, like, has this awesome Notion dashboard, like, keeps track of my bowel movements and stuff. Like, I I don't wanna use Notion. I don't like Notion. I don't get it.

It makes no sense to me.

Ian

And I just Right.

I don't use notion.

Aaron

Wanna have the thing that I, like, built with these two hands. You know what I mean?

Ian

I do know, Adrian. I do worry about you in that.

Aaron

I do too.

Ian

You're you're you're. And I've definitely made this mistake, which is why I see it. And I tell me I'm nervous for you is that when your outlet from all the kind of, like, technical stuff is more technical stuff

Mhmm.

It's not always ideal for the actual outlet. Now your situation's a little bit different because you're not coding all day and then Mhmm. Coding more. You're kind of, you know, you're building the courses and things, which is not that much coding and such. And then, you know, you're doing the coding as the hobby.

So Right. That regard, it is actually

Aaron

And and do do remember that unmissable. Most days when I go home, I don't even take my computer home. So, like, I'm leaving at, like, 5:30 or 6 from here, and oftentimes, I just leave my computer up here. Wow. And so now that this is my now that this is my full time job, it's not like I'm burning the midnight oil, grinding on, coding up something that I really shouldn't be working on at all.

Yeah. You know, it's like I get into the office. I stream for 2 or 3 hours, which has multiple benefits. And then I do with all that, you know, I ride that energy out and do other work that I should do, and then I go home. And so, you know, there's some part of me that's like, this is new for me.

I've never been in this situation where my full time job is also the, like, the hobby and the hobby is sort of the full time job, and everything is justifiable for the sake of content. And so there's part of it that's like, I don't know how this is all gonna shake out. But right now, I think I am optimizing for, rejuvenation and, like, building something that I wanna build is how I do that. And you know what? Why don't I just turn on the camera while I do it?

Ian

Yeah. Fun idea. Okay. You brought me around. I've been brought around.

Aaron

We moved

Ian

him to

Aaron

the middle. We moved him to the middle. I will

Ian

And part of it to me is that I've always, I, I think of you as a coder. Yeah. But see, you're not actually a coder anymore. And most of what you do all day is not coding. You're sitting by

Aaron

the pool

Ian

reading printouts and things, and then you're recording videos, and then you're not actually doing that much coding at all. So the coding as rejuvenation when you're not actually coding all day

Aaron

Bingo.

Ian

Is is, makes a lot more sense.

But

Aaron

There you go.

Ian

So that's, yeah. Alright. I'm with you.

Aaron

Alright. You got

Ian

me. You got me.

Aaron

Oh, man. That was close.

Ian

You got me.

Aaron

I thought you thought I was gonna take all l's.

Ian

I was gonna take

Aaron

all l's on this episode. I got

Ian

I got one w there

Aaron

at the end.

Ian

You gotta

Aaron

tell him. Get you. I really don't. And sometimes sometimes you end up being right, and it just it just That's even worse. Oh, it's the worst.

The HVAC thing, I can't even talk about it. No single not a single single solitary individual took my side on that. Not one person.

Ian

There's been at least 3, I think, that I've seen, and probably more who have mentioned the HVAC situation in their cover letters. And, yeah, they all started with me. So even if people are applying to jobs That's pandering, just

Aaron

so you know. They're just trying they they just want the job.

Ian

I appreciate it. You've done some research. You've

Aaron

you've done your research and you know the hiring manager. That is a very good.

Ian

I think it's awesome. Like, it doesn't again, it's not an auto, like, oh, this person knows me. We're definitely gonna interview them, but, it's a on the little things, signs, and posts I'm looking for, that's a plus side one. Like, hey.

Aaron

To those 3 people that put that on their cover letter, just so you know, you are dead to me. You have chosen your side. You've made your bed, and now you must lie in it. So one you're dead to me.

Ian

One last thing then. What's the HVAC update?

Aaron

HVAC update. With it? Yeah. I haven't moved on it yet, and I have decided, I'm gonna have I'm I am gonna have somebody come out and see if they're what I what I need to find out is, was the system designed poorly and it's working as designed? Or was the system designed well and it's not working as designed?

Ian

That is not

Aaron

fundamentally thing I gotta figure out. Like, is there a broken or leaking duct somewhere in the crawl space? Right. That is the problem, or was it just not designed to push enough air to the back, and then that's a different problem? So that's what I need to figure out first before I implement any changes.

Ian

That makes sense. Get the get the data and then decide which way to go.

Aaron

Yeah. And somebody somebody linked us. I forget who. So if it was you, forgive me. But somebody linked us to a a register that has a fan in it.

And

Ian

Yeah. I've seen those

Aaron

things before. You know, it's, like, $50 or something. So instead of spending $3,000 on a HVAC OS, maybe just get the one with the fan in it and see if that, like, creates enough pressure differential to to get the air back there.

Ian

Because I think that that one, like, it's, like, trying to suck the air forward. It is. Right? Yeah. You put it on the vent in

Aaron

the room.

Ian

That's too hot in

Aaron

your case. So, presumably, there's a long a long run, and the air is not making it back. And so you put a little bit of a pressure with with the register. Like, you it pulls it out, and that should help. Yeah.

Ian

I don't know.

Aaron

Yeah. We'll see.

Ian

Well,

that'll be interesting.

Aaron

So that's the update. Yeah.

Ian

I like that idea. That definitely seems safer than creating back pressure and all that kind of stuff.

Aaron

Yeah. That's some we decided that's not really an issue, but yeah. You're right.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Did we? Yeah.

Aaron

Did and we did. We definitely did. Uh-huh. So

Ian

the whole thing the the

Aaron

point of the the point of the show is I need more people to take my side. That's all I have.

Ian

There we go.

Aaron

I just want people on my team. Yeah.

Ian

I think today I think today, Aaron. Episode. I think they'll be yelling at the at in their car. They'll be like, Ian, you don't get it. He's just hanging out.

Like, he's just doing some fun coding. He's building courses all day.

Aaron

He's not man live. Coding.

Ian

Like, he's not coding all day long. He misses coding, and that's why he's

Aaron

doing it.

Ian

And he's doing a fun little thing. Yes. And I think that when they get to this, they'll be like, oh, you didn't saw the light

by the end. It'll be a

nice little arc of discovery, and it'll be great.

Mhmm.

So I think you're gonna have some people on your side here today.

Aaron

Well, thank you all for joining us on this journey.

Ian

Alright, everybody. Thanks for listening. Follow us at mostlytechnical.com, mostlytechpod on Twitter, and email us in that mostly technical podcast atgmail.com. We will, get back to you. So, thanks everybody.

Have a good week. Thanks, sir. Talk to you next time.

Aaron

Alright. See you all. Bye.