Luck Surface Area | Multithreaded Income Episode 43 with Aaron Francis

Kevin

Welcome back to the show, everyone. I have an extremely special guest today, mister Aaron Francis. How are you today, Aaron?

Aaron

I am doing great. It's always a joy to talk to you. We've known each other at this point 10 10 years, 8 years, something like that.

Kevin

I, what I tell people is I knew Aaron before he was famous. And

Aaron

Let's could include right now just for the record.

Kevin

No. No. No. You're you're incredibly famous, and I didn't have you on the show earlier just because I wanted to save you until I had more than, like, 10 downloads. And I I think we're getting to that point.

So everyone, Aaron Francis is on the show. And, yeah, we've we've known each other through our we have a business Slack that we were both in. I think we both been in for over 10 years. Mhmm. Close to that.

And it's I tell everyone you got you got to find your group. You gotta find your, like, core tribe of people, and you've been a part of that for forever. I don't think we need to go in too much detail of our of our group because there's a lot of there's a lot of people in there you probably wanted to expect to

Aaron

It's a secret cabal, but you you gotta you gotta find your secret cabal of of friends that you can talk to.

Kevin

But it's been nice to just kinda watch everyone become more successful. It's like, what's the saying? Like, rising tide raises all ships. Uh-huh. And Uh-huh.

I feel like everyone in that group who has been active over the past couple years, everyone's just gotten better.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

And it's fun to watch people be successful. And I really it should be a lot just to you. You've just been super successful, and I feel like almost everything you've touched. And so it's actually a real pleasure for me to to chat with you a little bit deeper about this because we don't get this opportunity very often.

Aaron

Well, you're kind you're kind to say so. Where where do you wanna start? I'm an open book.

Kevin

Well, let's start with what you're doing now. So TryHorse Studios. Mhmm. Just anyone who's not up to speed to with what you're doing. What's Try Hard Studios?

What's the what's the goal with that?

Aaron

Yeah. So my friend, Steve and I, just recently, like, literally in the past, you know, 2 or 3 months, have started a business, called TryHard Studios, and we make video. We make video that developers wanna watch. And so the way that that, expresses itself is sometimes on YouTube. So I have, like, my personal YouTube channel, and sometimes also with courses.

So right now, I'm working on a big, course for a database called SQLite. So it's kinda like, it's actually actually, like, the most widely used database in the world, but very few web people use it. And so I'm having a fun time, learning all about that and translating it into a thing that would be useful for more, like, web or application developers.

Kevin

It's actually funny. You're the first person I've seen talk seriously about SQLite in 15 years.

Aaron

It's Yeah. Exactly. Because you're

Kevin

you're right. I've only ever seen it in not in web applications, but in, like, small desktop applications or background services central for what it been used for for 20 years? Yeah. Central for what it been used for for

Aaron

20 years? Yeah. So it's been used for, you know, literally, I think it was written in the year 2000, maybe 99 or something. And it's incredibly good for, it's an embedded database. So you'll you know, on your your iPhone or your Android, you probably have a 100 to a 1000 SQLite databases just on your phone for various different things.

And it's just so rock solid because it's been battle tested in environments where the power could go away or the flash drive could be pulled out in the middle of a transaction. And so it's just incredibly rock solid, and the format's super stable that it's actually the, archival format of the Library of Congress here in the US. And so it's a very good database, but it's got this, you know, giant glaring limitation that it's not client server. So you have to, like, be in the same place as the database file, and that's really limited a lot of people using it on web. And so my goal is to, teach people how to use it, but also teach web developers that they can use it.

And it'll probably honestly, it'll probably be good enough for the first many, many years of your application. And if you don't make it past those many years, then that's okay. You haven't wasted a lot of time setting up some other database.

Kevin

It's kinda funny. So many people go into a greenfield application and thinking about scaling. Oh, I need to scale to Mhmm. Million concurrent requests. And, really, they need 5 concurrent requests per second.

And Exactly. I'm gonna have to pick that up. I don't use, SQLite for for web applications, but I like to talk about potentially using it. I feel like there's use cases for that plus, if you're using production MySQL or Postgres or SQL Server or something else. Yeah.

I'm looking forward to that. How'd you come up with SQLite as the topic, though?

Aaron

Yeah. So that's kinda interesting. So Steve and I both worked at a company before we started our own, and we got caught up in, giant layoffs. So they laid off all the marketing team, all the sales team, a bunch of engineers, bunch of security people, like, fully half the company got let go. And so at that point, we were both kinda like, well, well, this this sucks.

What do we what do we do now? And one of the first one of the first calls I had post layoff was with the CEO of a company called Terso. And I got on the phone with him and was like, hey. I would you know, because it's a database company. I just came out of a database company, and I was like, hey.

I'd love to hear about your company, what you got going on. And he was like, woah. Let me just just, like you should go out on your own. This is the CEO of a company I thought I was interviewing with. He's like, you should go out on your own, and we will be your first client.

Like, I don't have a job for you, but I want to tell you you've got what it takes. And I was like, what is going on in here? This is this is wild. And so I took, you know, I took a bunch more calls during the layoff and then finally was like, no. We should we should start our own thing.

And so then I circled back to Glauber, who's the CEO of Terso, and was like, hey. What if what if we took you up on that? What if we really you really were our first client, and we create a SQLite course and Terso sponsors it? So Terso is, hosted SQLite. So they can take your SQLite and make it distributed and put embedded replicas in your different apps all over the world, stuff like that.

So it's very, very interesting. And he was like, yeah. Sounds great. And so coming out of my old job, which I was a database educator at a company that doesn't matter. I was a database educator, and I thought I kinda have, like, I kinda have the attention of of database people and full stack developers, and they kind of already view me as an authority on databases.

And so this feels very, like, this feels very directionally correct. And so we started, with SQLite, and then after that, we have a a Postgres course coming as well. So kind of trying to stay in that database vein for as long as I can, because that's kind of where people, where they know me.

Kevin

How'd you even get into that niche of databases? Because I know I know your background, and we'll we'll talk about your background before for tech. But niching into databases, how how did we get there?

Aaron

Yeah. It was one of those things where, it was one of those things where I kind of thought everybody knew more than me about everything. And I started writing a little bit and talking a little bit online about database performance and database optimizations and stuff just because I grew up, you know, I grew up PHP, MySQL, LAMP stack, you know, MAMP or WAMP. I just grew up on that stack, and it was in that in that time, you just did everything. Like, you just you had to know how the database worked.

Right? And I come by it honestly because my dad was a DBA for his whole career for with, Microsoft SQL Server. And so, like, I just kinda, like, knew and liked the database. And so I'm in the Laravel ecosystem a lot, and I started talking about database stuff. And people were like, oh, dude.

I didn't know any of that. I'm like, really? Oh, man. Maybe, like, maybe I do have a little bit of knowledge here, which I think is always interesting that, you know, how much we discount ourselves. So I started writing about it, and, you know, I I bought some more books so that I could I could, like, actually bone up on my knowledge because I'm not I don't have a computer science degree.

So I started reading and writing about it, and that's when the CEO of the database company that I used to work at reached out and was like, hey. I see what you're doing. Do you wanna just come do that for our company and get paid for it? That's that's awesome. I would love to do that.

So it was kind of like it came out of me naturally, but other people, like, I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't been putting myself out there and saying like, hey, here's some content and people being like, like, wow. This is great.

Kevin

So you're doing the course on high performance SQLite. Mhmm. Is that the only income that you're really expecting to try hard studios? Are you are you really going deep on YouTube as well? Mhmm.

What other forms of income should the studio be looking forward to?

Aaron

Yeah. So we are definitely looking forward to YouTube income and looking back on it. We've already got it. Like, it's, we've this is this is our model is I do developer videos, put them on the YouTube channel, and, hopefully, you know, hopefully, some people come along and want sponsored videos, and that has been the case so far. We've already, you know, we've already booked and shipped and gotten paid for several of those.

I think going forward, I'm looking for more, like, durable long term channel sponsors. So we can say, like, hey, company x, y, z. For the next, I don't know, 2 months, we'll put a mid roll in every, you know, every video that we do or something like that. That's kinda what I'm looking for because making one off videos is tough, because I want it to kinda be authentic. Right?

I don't wanna just be a shell, and so I kinda have to, like, research and use the thing and get used to it and understand the trade offs. And so it's just a lot of work for a dedicated video. But yeah. So the YouTube is a big a big portion of our income. We're hoping the courses the course we we will sell the course to end users, so there's money there.

And is sponsoring the course, so there's money there as well. So Turso is a part of the course, and they paid us for that privilege, but we're also selling it to end users. So we'll get we'll get paid for that.

Kevin

Oh, okay. I didn't think I knew that. I thought it was, like, the West Boss style of company is paying for the creation of the course and the sponsorship of the course so it could be provided freely to whomever might need it. But they are just a they are a name on the course, and you're still gonna sell it separately from

Aaron

okay. Yep. Exactly. So our goal our goal with the course is to teach honest to goodness, open source SQLite. That being said, has made a lot of these things really easy.

So let me show you exactly what you need to do to do everything yourself. Also, course sponsor Turso, you should go check them out because you wouldn't have to do any of this. And so, hopefully, it kind of it kind of lines up well, in that the learner gets actual, like, genuine knowledge, but the sponsor gets, like, attention and hopefully customers because those people are gonna be like, yeah. I don't wanna do it the hard way.

Kevin

What design considerations are you taking for the course to make it not seem like a just a sleazy

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

Ad for the sponsor?

Aaron

I think I think the, the overarching principle is I'm going to teach you SQLite. Now, like, that includes if we're talking about in a web scenario, what if you have 2 servers? Well, shoot. SQLite is one file. Right?

So now what do we do? So there are ways there are open source tools around that, something like, you know, Lightstream or something to replicate or to get backups out or something like that. And so we'll cover some of that. So my goal is always that the learner walks away knowing everything they need to know about SQLite to be successful. Also, they walk away knowing if they want to take the easy path, if they wanna take the done for you path, in my opinion, is the best way to do that.

But if they wanna take the DIY path, you are armed with enough knowledge to do that. And so that that's kind of the angle. And, honestly, when I was at the old company, that that's how I did it there too. I taught I taught MySQL, like, through and through open source version of MySQL. And, also, if you wanna put your MySQL database somewhere, I think our company is the best place to do that, but you don't have to do that.

And it worked incredibly well. So that's that's kind of the goal for their Terso SQLite course as well.

Kevin

I want you to talk about the difference in production quality of a try hard studio video versus, I don't know, your most typical YouTube video on developer topics. Like, you all you and Steve do a superior job of anything we've ever seen before. Could you kinda talk about, like, what's the secret sauce of the production value for try hard? Sure.

Aaron

Yeah. You know, is I'm I'm happy to give away all the secrets. The secrets, you just gotta work really hard. I mean, that that that really is a lot of it. I think there's an there's an unspoken thing there too that you have to, like, you have to personally have good taste.

And that is that's a big part, I think, of what Steve and I, have. And Steve has it in spades, and I I have some of it. But Steve is like he is a video producer. Like he he is a video guy, not like a screen casting guy like me. He's like, I could do cinematography.

And I'm like, well Mhmm. As long as I can record my screen and sit here, I'm happy. So I think a big part of it is we know we know what we like and what we what we don't like, and I think we have taken the time to identify 10 to 15 to 20 little things that add up to make the video feel super super polished. And so, you know, setting up this studio in here was a big a big thing, and Steve helped me, like, dial in the lighting to make sure that I, you know, looked good on camera. Like, the way that I record, I record like, I end up doing it a lot.

I end up redoing a lot of stuff, and that's that is solely or primarily because I want the final video to not be super choppy. So I think there are some YouTubers that, like, will chop up literally every 3rd or 4th word, and it just becomes a series of jump cuts. And that's a style, and I I don't I don't think that any any style is ever objectively wrong. I just don't like that style. And so I think Steve and I have developed what our style is, and we're willing to put in just like the work to make it look like we want it to look.

And so, like, Steve is, you know, matching the rounded corners of the camera inlay with the UI that's shown on the screen and color correction and all this kind of stuff that, like, other people would look at and say, oh, that's just a little detail. And we're like, yeah. It is a little detail, and we're gonna do it.

Kevin

And it's the combination of all these things. I feel like it's easier to learn if you're not put off by jump cuts and bad audio and bad video. And I say this I'm like like, I'm looking at my video right now. My video is awful. And I'm, super jealous of of your setup.

But I have also not put in the effort to to try to clean it up. And I and I'm inspired to do that now. I just need to get off my butt. But, yeah, I've I watched those videos, and I generally don't like watching developer YouTube. I like to polish videos.

Mhmm. I watch your videos. I don't even do Laravel. Like, I'll watch it and go, that's really interesting Yeah. To know and follow along, and it's scripted.

I've heard you on other podcast talk about that you'll go through the entire in in demo, throw it all the way Mhmm. And then record it. Yep. So you have that more seamless, alright, do a then b then c. Yep.

It just makes for a better video in the end.

Aaron

And Yeah. I think I think there's a so I I I'm of 2 minds. One one mind is you should just start. Start wherever you are with whatever you have and do whatever you need to to get anything out the door. Yes.

Then after that, I personally think, I I think there is a little bit of a shift going on in developer video that, like, we've been doing we've been doing, like, the the live stream kinda chaotic, kinda like dark neon. We've we've been doing that for a long time. And so just when I'm looking at that, I think, man, it could be a little more fresh. Right? And so we went you know, in here, we went with light mode.

Like, my studio is is is light and airy, and it has plants, and the background is white. And when I use the editor, like, when I'm showing my screen, I'm in I'm in light mode because I think there is, like, a a little bit of a shift to more, like, more polished and less, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but, like, gamer in the basement. That has been like, that's an identifiable vibe, and that has been the vibe for a long time. And I think we're kind of like, hey. Let's let's put some effort into this now.

Kevin

I think we've talked about try hard quite a bit. Let's move backwards into your life before try hard because I know you had a lot of interesting endeavors before that. So you worked at database

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

Company. And were you doing anything on the side at database company? I know you had YouTube. Always. Alright.

Let's let's get into some of the things you were doing outside of the day job.

Aaron

Yeah. Outside of the day job. So we're here. It's multi it's multithreaded income. Right?

It was we we got we gotta talk about the side stuff. So I've been doing side stuff for forever as you well know. The big one the big one in the past year and a half, maybe maybe just in the past year, is, it's another it's another course actually at screencasting.com. And so I took everything I know about recording video and creating screencasts and teaching so that people can understand, and I turned that into a video course and put that available for sale. And so when I, you know, when I got laid off, it sucked, of course, but it was also like, I'm not starting from a standing stop.

Right? I I'm already in motion. Things are already happening. And if I decide to, which I did, I could just pick up those things and push them a little further or a little harder, and that's that's kind of the plan. So screencasting.com has now been folded into the TryHard Studios brand, and so we'll be after this SQLite course, we'll be readdressing that course and making that even better.

And so these things, like, these these threads that have been open for a while, really, really paid off when when the downturn my my personal employment downturn hit.

Kevin

Do you feel your life got easier or harder post layoff?

Aaron

So much easier.

Kevin

So much easier? So much easier. You're fully responsible for your ends meet and Mhmm. Doing all this extra work, it's so easier in the long run.

Aaron

It feels so much easier for I think I think for a few reasons. One is screencasting did pretty well. I think I've said publicly on other podcasts, it's it's done a $100,000. And so, like, that's pretty good on top of a a full time tech job. Right?

And so when when the storm comes and it's like, oh, shoot. I just lost my full time tech job, but I kind of been socking away some money for a little while, so I'm okay. And then all all of a sudden, like so that's one reason is that the, the projects produced income which provide a buffer, which is huge. Because I have 4 kids. I've got I've got 2 sets of twins.

I got a I got a lot of mouths to feed. And then the other reason I feel so, like, at ease is I just have it feels like it feels like I just have so much more time because I'm not constantly serving 2 masters. Right? I'm not trying to do my day job faithfully and then also push on side stuff. Now it's like, you just you have the one thing, and the one thing is actually many things, but I don't have like, it's all mine.

You know, it's all me and Steve together. We're not like, oh, shoot. I, you know, I can't do this until 5 PM. Because at 5 PM, you know what I wanna do? Go home and see my kids.

And so a lot of that stress has kinda just, like, melted away. And it helps that, you know, 1, I had a buffer, and 2, we've already landed sponsors for these courses. And so there's a little like, I'm not rushing to get this course out the door to make money because that's what the sponsorship is for. And so a lot of these things have come together to to kind of be like, okay. You can you can work hard, but you don't have to stress out about everything.

Kevin

Remind me, does your wife work,

Aaron

harder than I do, but she doesn't get paid for. So she works She does. Works at home. Yeah.

Kevin

So you are essentially the the breadwinner for the family. You have to go out and make the money.

Aaron

Mhmm. Is

Kevin

it was it any stress on your wife when you lost your job? I I know that can be a difficult thing for spouses who don't don't really under. My wife doesn't necessarily understand what I do every day. Of course not. That's No.

Aaron

I don't I don't understand what I do every day. Yeah. When I called her, she was foremost to her great credit supportive of me. So I, you know, I was up here in the studio when I got the call from my boss, and then I immediately called her, and she was just like, I'm so sorry. We will figure it out.

Like, I understand. Like, it's gonna be okay. And beyond that, I mean, unless unless she's not telling me, which I she tells me everything. It's been it's been totally fine. I think, she puts she she does and has put a lot of trust in me for a long time to to basically figure out the income side of our of our family.

Like, we have pretty traditional gender roles in our family. She works really hard. I work really hard. We just work really hard at different things. And so, like, it has been very nice to have a spouse that is so supportive and believes in me to to figure it all out.

And, of course, that is, like, that is a a a not a bad burden, but that is like a do that's a burden or a duty for me to bear up under, and I think, you know, that that's a good thing. Like, that is it is a responsibility for me as a husband and a father. And so far, it's it's working out pretty

Kevin

well. I'm in a similar camp. My wife spends the day with the kids. She homeschools. So she is constantly in mom mode.

Aaron

So she's she's working way harder than any of us.

Kevin

She is. And I I feel that responsibility of I I literally have one job. It's to provide for the family so she can continue doing what she needs to do. She doesn't have to go to work. The kids benefit from having mom and dad around all the time.

Yep. Literally, 5 minutes before we jumped on this call, I went inside, said hi to everyone, just checked in. My son got his first mowing gig down

Aaron

the street. Yeah.

Kevin

So he mowed a yard, and I helped him with that and, just generally checking on everyone. And then I just walk out to my shed quarters and Yep. Into, do my work. Mhmm. And, you know, we won't even talk about the shed quarters because you used to have a way better shed quarters than I did.

And then you give that up for a full on apartment. Yeah.

Aaron

Perfect. Yeah. The, the shed quarters was awesome. You know, rest in peace. We we it's it's still exists.

We just sold the house because, you know, we had the second set of twins. And I am now here in a 1 bedroom apartment that's, like, 3 minutes from my house, and this is now my, my co working space, but it's just me. And so I've turned it into a YouTube studio slash, you know, research headquarters, and it's it's pretty awesome.

Kevin

Are there other sets in the studio that we just haven't seen yet?

Aaron

There there's one in progress. So I am in I am in what would traditionally be the bedroom if I were a normal human and not just like a a guy working here. This is the bedroom. Out there is the living room, and I have, I just got a new couch, and I'm gonna put up a dark background behind it. And so I can do a little bit more, like, lifestyle content, talking head, that kind of stuff out in the, out in the other room.

Kevin

Oh, I can't wait to see that.

Aaron

Yeah. It's gonna be fun.

Kevin

So you had screencasting.com. People should go pick that up if they wanna learn the, I guess, the try hard method. Right? Because it's Exactly. Probably all in

Aaron

there. Right. Mhmm.

Kevin

Now I know you had other courses before that. Mhmm. You wanna go even farther back to some of your older courses?

Aaron

Yeah. Let's go all the way back. All the way back to the beginning, I, got my degree from Texas A&M in accounting, and I got my master's in accounting. And then I spent 1 year as an accountant, and I was like, this sucks. I gotta get out of here.

But I loved I loved loved loved accounting in college. And so after I was gone, I created basically introduction to financial accounting for college sophomores. I had spent many years in school tutoring it to individuals and just, like so that was my first, like, kinda gig in in college was I'm I'm an accounting tutor and it was fun and I loved it. And so when I got out and quit, accounting, I was like, I kinda wanna I kinda wanna have something that pays me on the side. And so I created, an accounting course, and that has made over a $100,000.

I mean, it's not it's not it's been live for, shoot, 8 years, 7 years, something like that. So it's not like a huge, source of income, but it's better than a poke in the eye. And I haven't rerecorded the videos in 7 years because you know one thing that doesn't change? Accounting. That didn't change at all.

And so, yeah, students pay me $39 a pop, and that's it. That I mean, it's just it's very straightforward. I mean, I I kinda love it for its purity. Like, I will teach you accounting, and you will pay me for it. Great.

Kevin

And it's still going. People can still buy it today. Yep. Do they still buy it today?

Aaron

I actually turned off payments this past semester because I had to get something up to date with the Facebook login, and I was like, I'm I can't do this right now. So I just turned off payment. So everybody's getting it for free right now. But, yeah, it's still it's still up and still online. And hopefully, by next semester, it's about to be summer, so I have a good amount of time.

Hopefully, by, you know, August or September, I'll have the payments back on, and I can start getting it's usually 8 to 15,000 a semester. And at this point, like, also better than a poke in the eye. So I'm gonna I'll I'll have to turn that back on. But yeah.

Kevin

It I think it goes back to prove. You pick a evergreen topic.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

So accounting, it's pretty evergreen. It never changes. SQLite. That's the hope. Yep.

As I'm aware, it's pretty evergreen. It hasn't changed much in 20 years.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

As so you're not picking your random thing on AWS that's gonna change next year, and then we have to rerecord all the material.

Aaron

Or or worse, something JavaScript. Can you imagine? It'd be out of date before I hit publish. Yeah. Like, there there really is there really is an art to picking course material because it's a huge amount of work, and you don't wanna redo it every 6 months or even every 2 years, for goodness sakes.

I mean, screencasting is the same way. Like, that that could still be relevant in 5 years. Maybe some of, like, the software specifics had changed, but the course is not how to do this thing in software. The course is how to do this thing. And I will show you a few of the software bits, but it's like, philosophically, how do you record and edit and produce and teach?

And so, hopefully, that's gonna stay relevant for a long time. But, yeah, it's a real it's a real, like, you you really have to think about, is this thing gonna be relevant in a year? Because you're about to embark on a whole lot of work to, to record a course.

Kevin

If he went to school for accounting, how'd you make the jump into software development?

Aaron

I grew up programming just at home for fun, and I was doing stuff on the side while in college, you know, high school, college, out of college. I was I was doing programming on the side, and I was just I had a blog, and I was writing about, like at at the time, there was a PHP framework called Yi, which is impossible to say out loud, y I I, Yi. And I was just as I learned something new or, like, how to do something, I would write a blog post and be like, hey. I just learned this, which is a lot less pressure than let me teach you how to be the best developer. It's I learned this, and maybe it's interesting to you.

So that that's just like a a side note. That's a good way to approach content is what have what have you learned? I bet other people might wanna learn it. And a company contacted me, just out of the blue. I live in Dallas, Texas, and they were in Ventura, California, and they were like, hey.

Can you work for us? It's like, sure. That sounds great. And so I, you know, went back and forth to California, and this is before I was married and had kids. And so I did that and then, started getting serious with my now wife, Jennifer, and I was like, I gotta I can't be in California 2 weeks out of every month.

And so then I just found a local startup job here, and that was kind of that was kind of it. At that point, I was I was in. And so, you know, I think, proof of work is pretty important, and blogging and videos and, open source is all is all proof of work, and that gets you in that gets you in the door.

Kevin

I have mentioned you on the podcast multiple times either directly or indirectly. And you coined a term that I love, and it's called luck surface area. I want you to just talk more about that for a couple minutes because you've had some amazing luck

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

At least publicly that I've seen in in your career. But it's all the fruits of the hard work that you've done leading up to it. So I would love for you to talk more about Luxe surface area because I think that's the most beneficial thing that anyone could get out of this conversation.

Aaron

Yeah. Totally. To to give to give credit where it's due, it was coined by Jason Roberts on texting in, like, 2009 or something. And so the the idea there is that, like, you have a surface area. You have, some amount of of material upon which luck can fall.

Right? Luck is very random, very hard to predict, but you can catch it. Right? And the bigger the bigger your luck surface area, the more luck you're just gonna catch as it flies by. And so the way to increase your luck surface area is is twofold.

Do things and tell people. That's it. That, like, those are the rules. And I think, as developers, primarily, we we do a lot of things and then we just never tell anybody about it. Right.

And then as like, I don't know, because this is derogatory random. Somebody else, All they ever do is talk about stuff. They never actually do anything. Right? And it's like, okay.

You you kinda your paper thin at that point and people see through it. The real the real power is in doing something and and telling people about it. And so the way that that actually manifests itself in the real world is you write a blog post about it. You submit a conference talk. You make an open source package.

You you you record a YouTube video. You you put out a tweet for goodness sakes. Like you just tweet, Hey, I learned this thing or wow, look at this, you know, whatever I just built and you put that out on Twitter. And the interesting thing is, you cannot optimize or you cannot predict what is going to come from that. And that's kinda like that's the, that's the fun part, but that's also the frustrating part.

So if you have a very specific goal in mind where you're like, I need to get a job either in this industry or with this company or I need to get in front of this person. I don't really have a lot of strategies for that. What I have strategies for is, hey. Do you want your life to be better? Well, start putting yourself out there and your life will be better.

How? I can't exactly explain. But some of the things that have happened to me, I've gotten a couple of jobs through, like, literally through putting myself out there. The CEO of my old company DM'd me and was like, come work here. I read your blog post.

I wrote a post, put it on Twitter. It ended up on Hacker News. Somebody sent it to him, then he DM'd me. There's no way for me to orchestrate that. There's no way for me to, like, make that happen, but it's good that it happened to me.

The other stuff that's happened is, like, I've been invited to speak at conferences. Like, that is a dream. Like, that's a dream come true. And I can't force that to happen, but I can, like, influence the odds by by putting stuff out there. And then, you know, I just make friends.

Like, it it's just you you make a lot of friends when you're out in the conversation, you know, mucking around with people. It's like you make a bunch of friends. And so I think that is like, that has been the, if there's an inflection point in my career, and there is, it's when I decided I am not gonna I'm not gonna hold back anymore. I'm just gonna put out everything that I possibly can. And that is when, like, my career just totally changed.

Kevin

What's the, I guess, the highlight of your career up to this point?

Aaron

Oh, it's gotta be doing my own thing. It's gotta be this past. And every single thing that I've done until now has led to this. I mean, do being able being able to not have a w two job and still, like, have enough money and, like, the opportunities, The the the opportunities for making way more than my w two. They're right there.

I just need to seize them. And that is by far the most exciting and the thing I'm most proud of. And and frankly, everything that I have done has, like, has has led me to be here today, which is kind of exciting.

Kevin

On your other podcast Mhmm. That you do, I listened to an episode you're talking about, dealing with health care, health insurance because Yeah. We're both u US citizens, and we have to deal with this crazy thing called health insurance. What Mhmm. Did you eventually end up falling on?

Because I know that's an important thing for a lot of people out there.

Aaron

That was that was my biggest that was the thing that was holding me up the most. You know, stay at home wife slash mom, 4 kids. I I have, type 1 diabetes. So, like, we're not a cheap family. Like, we and and we can't get by, unfortunately.

We can't get by with one of those, like, faith based, health sharing programs, which we would otherwise qualify for. But I have type 1 diabetes, and it's like, ah, shoot. You can't yeah. You're no good here. And so figuring out the health care was a huge a huge, like, barrier to entering this self employed world.

I got the COBRA notice, which for people outside the US is like you you as an individual can pay to continue your employer sponsored health care. You just have to pay the full portion, like, the full amount. And we got it, and it was $38100 a month. And I was like, well, I know what I'm not going with. And so I found, I found through, through another podcast actually that I listened to, I found Leg Up Health, which is basically independent agents.

And so I talked I spoke to their independent agent, and we had a couple of Zoom calls, and he walked me through navigating the marketplace. The, you know, I think Obamacare, the marketplace. And Yep. The thing that I didn't realize was, Obamacare, yes, provides the marketplace, but it more coordinates the tax savings of being a a self insured, basically, person. And so what I was looking at was the sticker price, but I wasn't looking at, like, what the the true price would be after tax credits, which are immediate, not when you file your taxes.

And so, like, our health care now is, like, $800 a month for a family of 6 or something, and that's because that's because those tax credits come off the top. Now at the end of the year or or come tax time, if TryHard Studios has made a ton of money and my income has gone way up, I'm gonna have to true up some of those tax credits because those are gonna go away. But right now, as it stands, you you know, I don't I'm not gonna have a lot of money on my tax return, and so I get a lot of those credits up front. And so lot of stuff I didn't know. I would definitely recommend talking to an independent, agent or broker.

Kevin

I'll tell you my story.

Aaron

Please.

Kevin

So one thing with the marketplace, it's it's different state to state. So you're in Texas. I'm in Virginia. So anything I say about Virginia doesn't apply to Texas. Anything in Texas doesn't apply to Virginia.

It doesn't apply to California or whatever state you're in. So went through the process of figuring out what plan we wanted to be on through the marketplace. Mhmm. That's all I had access to. Virginia now has a state marketplace, which is, like, slightly better, but we're going through the health care dot gov marketplace.

Yep. And they do a questionnaire asking you what your income is gonna be for the next year. And they Mhmm. They ask a series of bad questions since government. And they asked me, like, what was your income for October 2020, whatever?

And I said, I I know the question you're asking me, and it's the wrong question because I didn't make very much money in October, but I did make a ton of money in all the other months. So I answered the question. And if you went back and look through my P and L statements and such, it would it would show I made very little money in October.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

So he said, oh, well, you qualify for all these subsidies. And I go, no. I don't.

Aaron

No. I don't. No. I don't wanna get hosed. Yeah.

Kevin

But I so I played the game of, I'll take your subsidies

Aaron

because I

Kevin

could do far more important stuff with my money than give it to you and give it to the health insurance. So I did a year of highly subsidized health care. Mhmm. And I paid it, and I got the tax bill. And tax bill is about I mean, I'm just throwing the numbers out.

It's about 12, $15,000. So I made I made a lot of money. I had to pay I had to pay all the the stuff back.

Aaron

Yeah. Because our use those savings in the meantime to

Kevin

do some all in investments in high yield savings accounts. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm trying to do the proper investment stuff with with my money. But, like, my premium should have been $1700 a month for a family of 5 in Virginia. And I was instead paying, like, $700 a month.

I was paying half almost of what I should have been paying. Mhmm.

Aaron

And he

Kevin

came back to get me because I had her and on top of that, I had my best year.

Aaron

Yeah.

Kevin

And the entire, career I've been independent. But now, like, Virginia's changed his laws again. So now I'm on a small small business employer plan.

Aaron

And Interesting.

Kevin

Which it's it means I pay the same amount of money but for a better plan. And so instead of a bronze level, you know, emergency in case you're gonna die plan Mhmm. It's a silver PPO plan. I have better access to my doctors and all that. And I have a HSA that goes along with it.

So high deductible, so high premium, but it's overall a better plan. But I I don't get the subsidies for that. And I I pretty much have accepted unless I just go completely just stop working altogether. Mhmm. I'm never gonna be able to get a subsidy from from the government.

Yeah. It is a bad position to be in. And, also, my biggest mistake, like, I love my kids to death. It's a mistake having kids because they are super expensive. Get out of here.

Aaron

Get out of here. Come on.

Kevin

Expensive. No. I I wouldn't get my kids for anything. If

Aaron

you're in Europe and you're listening to this and you're like, man, that sounds crazy. Let me just tell you. Yeah. It's crazy.

Kevin

Yeah.

Aaron

It's crazy. It sucks. We know it. We're aware

Kevin

of it. And now it's it's one of those things. It's, oh, because it's a small business, employer plan, it's not a business expense. So I just it's, whereas before, it wasn't a business expense. It was Mhmm.

Yeah. CPA does his job, but it wasn't lowering my my, business income. Right. So I was still reporting high income

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

And getting taxed on it. Now I'm recording slightly less income, getting taxed on that. And it was out to

Aaron

before tax expense and so after tax. That's nice. Yeah. That's a lot of money every month.

Kevin

And, taxes is so what are we? 2024? So my 2023 taxes came back a couple weeks ago, and, I actually got money back because and I still had a really good year. So, actually, it might have been a better year. Yeah.

It all works out. Erin, we've been talking about a lot of stuff. Anything that we haven't talked about before we kinda get to final thoughts?

Aaron

Oh, goodness. I don't think so. I think I think one thing I will caution the listener is that this all sounds very linear and very straightforward. And, like, I I have never I've I've never put a foot out of line, and, like, it's just looking back, like, I can tell that story of it being linear. The whole time it felt chaotic and like, oh, I'm not I'm a failure.

I don't know what I'm doing. And just I'm gonna try as much stuff as I can, and then some stuff worked and a lot of stuff didn't. So don't be don't if you're listening and think, man, he's just he's got the golden touch. Well, I've tried a lot of stuff that didn't work, so don't don't let that put you off.

Kevin

Two more questions and we'll wrap it up. So you're kicking off TryHard Studios. You have a partner, Steve.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

What's the what's your end game with try hard? Like, where do you see yourself in the next 5, 10 years?

Aaron

So the first step is make more than we we made at the old company. That's the first step. The end game, I mean, it's gonna sound I I don't know what it's gonna sound like. The end game is to make each of us more than $1,000,000 a year. That's the end game.

That's that's the goal.

Kevin

Do you foresee it just being the 2 of you? Do you foresee it growing into an empire?

Aaron

Those are not those are different questions. It will be an empire. Yes. Will we have a lot of employees? Doubt it.

I think we will have we might have some additional, you know, people to help edit videos or maybe someone someone else here in Dallas because Steve is in Boise, Idaho. We've talked about having a a videographer come here and help, like, shoot some stuff, and then, you know, Steve can edit it and spice it up. But I don't imagine us ending up in a spot where we're employing multiple, like, educators or anything like that. So will it be an empire? Hopefully, will it be a empire that just Steve and I control?

Hopefully.

Kevin

Said 2 questions, but I'm gonna build on

Aaron

this Yeah. Hit me.

Kevin

Topic a little bit. Do you not even so much to you. Do you think Steve Steve is putting a lot of faith in you as on screen talent. Yes. What the risk factor of Aaron being the only on screen talent?

Aaron

Yeah. There's some existential risk of, like, me dying. Like, that exists, and then he would be kinda hosed, in the current setup. He he has very marketable skills, but that would kinda be the end of try hard, I think. As far as, like, Steve and my arrangement, It's very, it's very interesting because I think, I I think Steve is more talented than I am.

Like, I have no problem saying that. I think it's true. Maybe it's differently and I love being the front man. I think it's fun. I love being on Twitter.

I love being on YouTube and on podcasts, And Steve is much more like a, a background guy. And so I, you know, early on I would talk to Steve a lot and be like, Hey man, like I'm gonna tweet this. And I know that it says like, I'm launching this or like, I just put out a video, but I like it. That's just for, and he's like, dude, I do not care. He's he said, you are like, you are the front man.

And as long as we both make money, I am just happy as could be to be in the background. And so that has that has worked out really, really nicely because I feel like I have superpowers because I've got I've got Steve, like, pushing me forward and not really wanting to take any of the credit. And I'm like, this crazy to me. And so that's why I'm always very, thoughtful and cautious about telling everyone who the real talent is, because he he doesn't do it. He won't do it.

He is just in the background. And so, I think the threat for Steve is is existential. Like, if I die, he's in a bad spot. But I think other than that, we're, existential. Like, if I die, he's in a bad spot.

But I think other than that, we're we're pretty aligned as to, like, who does what and what we want out of it.

Kevin

I wasn't necessarily thinking what if Aaron dies, but what if Aaron is incapable of doing work for a period of time? So something happens, god forbid. And Aaron's not able to record videos for 2 or 3 months. The the business and these are this is a symptom of personality based businesses anyway. It's not a Aaron problem.

It's Yep. Anyone out there with YouTube channel who's a creator, if something happens to the front facing person, the the business can't move on because there's no face to be. And I think that's why I was kinda gauging my question is, can try hard studios turn into something that maybe has not just Aaron, but maybe 1 or 2 other personalities building out.

Aaron

Yeah. So the goal the goal there is to operate as if that will never happen, but we are in talks with a few other educators to, like, not not hire them, but get get them to help them record and produce a course that will be under the try hard brand. And so we're we're trying to especially on the course side, there are just a lot of things that I can't teach. Like, I can't teach Rails. I don't I don't know Ruby on rails.

I can't teach it. But there are people who are very good at teaching Ruby on rails, and I think what they need is a little bit of guarantee of money that, like, if you do this thing, you'll get paid some distribution, which we definitely have, and then some help in on the production side. And so I've talked to 2 or 3 2 or 3 creators and gave them them the pitch of like, hey. Listen. We will fly you to Dallas, and we will record this course in, you know, 3 or 4 days.

And then Steve will edit everything, and then we will host it. We will handle distribution and everything. And they've been like, sure. That sounds awesome. So there is there is a little bit in the works there, and it's more of, like, honestly, a studio.

It's more of a studio model than it is, like, we're gonna hire people to do things full time. Because, like, once once this person teaches this SQLite and Rails course, if they were a full time employee, I'd be like, okay. I don't know what you do now. Yeah. So I think that's gonna be a nice way to kinda mitigate some of that risk.

Kevin

I love that. It it puts you you said the studio model, it's like a publisher.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Kevin

I long, long time ago, I worked for a publisher who did exactly that. They flew me out. I recorded the content.

Aaron

There you go.

Kevin

They did all the editing. My life was so much easier. Yeah. And I I got a paycheck out of it. I got something up front.

I got some royalties on the side. Well, I wish you and Steve, oh, for the luck in the world. And it's gonna be fun to watch you guys just go out there and kick some butt. Our last thought, and this is new with you, that we're gonna try this with all of our future guests. And I'm calling this segment action over inspiration.

It's been a super inspirational conversation, for me, hopefully, for anyone else listening. But, Aaron, if you were giving some actionable advice to someone who wants to be just like you, what action item can they take tomorrow to start make that first step?

Aaron

Publish literally anything. You get to decide what it is, where you put it. You get to decide the terms on which you tell it. Put out a tweet about what you're working on. Write a blog post.

Finally, open source that thing that's just been sitting on GitHub as a private repo. Like, just put anything out there, and I think 2 things will happen. Moment you'll get momentum, and that momentum will lead to more momentum. And that's, like, the beginning of a flywheel. And then I think it will serve as an attractor for luck.

That will increase your luck surface area. If you put it out there and the right person sees it, it can fully change your life, and you just never know when that's gonna happen. So just literally publish anything and then keep going.

Kevin

There you go. Aaron, thank you so much for hanging out with me. I'm gonna put a reminder on my calendar. We're gonna have you back in a year. Great.

We're gonna see where Try Hard Studios is. Oh, glad that. I'm looking forward to that conversation.

Aaron

Yeah. Me too. Thanks for having me. I've listened I've listened to all but the most recent episode because I'm behind, and I love the show. So thanks thanks for having me.

Kevin

You can skip that episode. It's not my best.

Aaron

I did see that it said something about insurance, and I was like, I don't have the emotional fortitude to listen to this right now, so I skipped it. So that's that's just

Kevin

the business insurance, general liability, professional liability. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Something I don't have and probably need, so I'll go back and listen to it. So

Kevin

alright. Aaron, thank you again so much for hanging out with us. Everyone else, we'll see you next week on multithreaded income podcast. You've been listening to the multithreaded income podcast. I really hope that this podcast has been useful for you.

If it has, please take a moment to leave a review wherever you get your podcast from. And don't forget, the conversation doesn't stop here. Join us on our discord atnti.t0/discord. I've been your host, Kevin Griffin, and we'll see you next week.