Robber Baron Mentality

Ian

Back on the

Aaron

mic? Back on the mic. A year older, but we're back on the mic.

Ian

That's birthday, Aaron Francis. My favorite Aaron Francis. Birthday Aaron Francis.

Aaron

The birthday Never never been this old before.

Ian

So you were gonna go away and have a night away, I think, last we discussed. Right? That happened?

Aaron

You know what I'm doing right after this podcast?

Ian

Oh, shit.

Aaron

I'm going away.

Ian

Way.

Aaron

I'm going away.

Ian

That's right.

Aaron

Yeah. I booked a I booked a hotel downtown. And so right after this, I'm gonna go back home and pack up some stuff and then head head downtown into the big city. And, yeah, I've got a I've got a a staycation all to myself. So I looked at I looked at the spa treatments, but they were, like, dollars 400.

So I think I'm gonna go down.

Ian

Spa treatments. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

But, yeah, I'm gonna go down there, drop off my bags, go somewhere nice for lunch, and then hopefully get an early ish check-in. And then I don't know. Ian, what do I do? What? I just really should I not work?

Ian

Right now for you. Right?

Aaron

I should not work, I think, is the plan.

Ian

You're gonna be so at the door. So here's the thing. We gotta work on you here. Okay. You need a couple hobbies.

Right? Because, like, this is where Can

Aaron

you imagine?

Ian

A, the poker comes in.

Aaron

You know?

Ian

Dallas has poker. You could go play poker. Mhmm. Or b, my other main hobby is photography, which would be perfect for this. You could be, like, on the streets of Dallas.

You could be taking photos, finding cool shots, wandering around, out with the people. What about

Aaron

I do I do like to I do like to yuck it up with the normies. Common folk. Here's what you need to do then. Up here in my ivory apartment tower. You know?

Ian

You need to go find a camera store. There'll be one in there somewhere. Acquire a camera.

Aaron

I I got I got six cameras right off right out of shot here.

Ian

Take one of those with you. Take a camera. Yeah.

Aaron

I really I really do have some pretty good walking around cameras. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not gonna do that.

Ian

Take a camera.

Aaron

I'm not gonna take a camera. And then because you know what?

You know what?

You know what? You know what happens? And maybe this is, like, the root issue that we need to fix. Actually, we don't need to fix anything. I'm doing great.

Ian

You're perfect. Everything's fine. Yes.

Aaron

Here's what we need to fix.

Ian

In theory, theoretically.

Aaron

If I were if I were to go take a bunch of photos, immediately, it becomes, alright. How do I edit the photos? How do I store the photos? How do I process the photos? How do I display the photos?

How do I make money

Ian

off of

Aaron

the photos? See? It's like, it's not very many steps. It's like we go from having fun to digital asset management to sales.

Ian

Sure. That's it. But, you know, you could like, I also have that same train of thought. Right? But I've never I've never actually tried to sell the photos.

Like, I could sell the photos, but I haven't tried I don't like that. Have my services available, but I haven't done that. Although, as we talked about wanting to go to the site back side product idea of, like, decline photography. But whatever. I haven't actually got a idea.

Aaron

Probably not. Idea.

Ian

Right? You take the photos. It's quick to scan through them. You know the couple you're looking for that were good. You pick those ones out.

You do a little editing in Lightroom. It's great.

Aaron

And then what?

Ian

And then what? And you could you could you could post them to Twitter. You could post them if you have Instagram or whatever. You could post them. No.

Aaron

You got

Ian

them just for yourself. You don't have to post them. In the past, people didn't post them.

Aaron

I can't imagine enjoying something quietly by myself. That makes no sense to me.

Ian

You could collect them up. I sort of had this idea that I had to collect them up. Make a book. Four years from now, make a book.

Aaron

That that is I that's viable. I buy that.

Ian

Secret project. What is secret project? If you came out with

Aaron

a photo of those I love a secret project.

Ian

People would lose their minds if you came out with

Aaron

I wish I could tell you a secret project. There are two secret projects I'm working on right now. I don't wish I could tell you, but they're great. They're great. They're great.

I

Ian

have an intervention for you, man. Intervention.

Aaron

No, no, no, no. This is this is why

Ian

it works. Together. No, no, no.

Aaron

We're not having an intervention. Yeah. It works. No, it's it's going great.

It's going

Ian

fine. Are these so, you know. Secret projects in these code secret. Oh, of

Aaron

course. Of course. Of course.

Ian

You got to get one of them. You got to have something that's not for work. I got it.

Aaron

No, I just don't. I don't know that that works. So here's what here's what I would do. That's not for work.

Ian

Yeah. Okay.

Aaron

Is is play Factorio. Play that video game. You said you could

Ian

do that on this trip.

Aaron

Yeah. And I might still do that. But the problem is with Factorio, it is work adjacent. It feels like It's

interesting.

Let's go refactor some bases. You know, like, refactor some complicated systems. Wait a second. So it it is adjacent. There are a few books that I want to read, so I'll bring a few books.

Okay. Maybe maybe I'll do a little bit of writing. That's something I enjoy doing. I enjoy that. I have to have some time for that.

Yeah. I don't know. We'll see.

Ian

We'll see. What a vlog. Do you vlog it? I wanna be along on this trip.

Aaron

See, but then a vlog immediately goes back to this is work.

Ian

Right? Editor, though. So if you do the vlogging, the editor edits, you're good.

Aaron

I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see.

Ian

Shouldn't do

Aaron

that. You should just try to. I'm trying to I'm trying to relax, and we'll see if it's possible.

Ian

Bring a camera.

Aaron

Just bring a camera.

Ian

Yeah. Just have it. You got, like, six hours before they even let you into the hotel. So, like.

Aaron

I know.

Ian

You gotta do something. You can't just sit in the if you just sit in the coffee shop with your laptop, it's just gonna work.

Aaron

Well, I could sit in the coffee shop with my laptop and just write. You know? That's nice. Alright. Write about my hopes and dreams.

Write a book.

Ian

Gonna do that. If you bring your laptop, you're gonna work. You're gonna check Twitter. You can't bring your laptop. So bring a journal.

Okay. Bring a camera

Aaron

and

Ian

bring a book and go full hipster. You know digital items. Right? I mean, you have your phone if you're needed for something. Right?

But otherwise, no digital stuff. You could journal. You could read. Snap a few pictures. See what strikes you.

Maybe when something pulls you. Is the weather nice today? How's the weather?

Aaron

You know, the only thing I need to complete that ensemble right there, just a pack of cigs, man. I just need I just need to sit at the cafe, burn through some cigarettes, literally write some stuff, change the world. It's a great idea.

Ian

Those. They're still out there if

Aaron

you wanna I know. They're they're so gross, though.

Ian

Your age group, I think you're supposed to be vaping.

Aaron

No. That's a little bit below me.

Ian

Oh, it's below you?

Aaron

You're Yeah. My age group is hip like American spirit cigarettes.

Ian

There you go.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, they're not they're not, you know, Marlboro Reds. They're American spirits.

Ian

Or maybe you roll your own. You acquire the tobacco and, like, you chop it.

Aaron

That You That happened in college. We had friends who rolled their own cigarettes. I was like, what? Cigarettes. Yes.

Definitely. I was like, what? This sounds like a lot of effort, guys.

Oh, my

But they also rode fixed gear bicycles. So it was like it was a whole thing. You know?

Ian

Whole thing. There you go. You could rent those. I don't know if Dallas has that in the

Aaron

Okay. The last thing I'm doing is riding a bike and riding it around Downtown Dallas. Of all the things I wanna do, that is not on the list.

Ian

I love this idea. I love this a lot. I want a photo with the journal and the pen, the nice moleskin. Get yourself a nice moleskin.

Aaron

No. You see, I'm at Amazon Basics, Amazon Basics, yellow paper yellow ruled paper guy. Yeah.

Ian

That's fine. That works.

Aaron

I like that. That's good. It's, like, it's a long running. It's a longitudinal journal. So I've got, you know, a couple of years back right behind me and

Ian

Oh, wow. You really do. So you're already doing this. So you could do that. Yeah.

Aaron

I'm telling you, man. I'm telling you, I'm an artisan. So, yeah.

Ian

I don't think you're on the poker, though, because the poker cuts off that step. You play it and you earn money. So making money and you're relaxed.

Aaron

I know. And you get to feel superior because there is, like, a there's, like, an actual mental like, there's actual skill to the game.

Ian

Yeah. But it's a different type of mindset. You know? There's, like, competing, which you have in business, but it's totally different sort of it's direct competition against the person across the table instead of this abstract, like, everybody on the Internet you're competing with, whatever bullshit.

Aaron

Right? Because, boy, does that get exhausting? Yeah. To compete with everyone on the Internet all the time.

Ian

It's it's exhausting.

Aaron

It's starting to get a little exhausting. I must admit.

Ian

It is very exhausting. So this is like, no. I'm I'm competing against this, what my brother would call stupid face for me. Right there, this stupid face right here, I'm gonna beat this guy. Mhmm.

That's Jim.

Aaron

The old school. I like that. That is pure. That's nice. Pure.

Zero sum game.

Ian

And Texas has great poker games. That's the other thing.

Aaron

They named poker after us.

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

That's what I'm saying. We'll see. I I do like the book, the book journal, pen, optional cigarettes idea.

Yep.

That seems that seems good. So, yeah, I'm gonna head out right after this, spend one night, and then tomorrow, I will see if I can get a late checkout. It's Tuesday, so hopefully. And then I'll come back. I'll leave the hotel and come back to the office, do a little bit of work, and then go home.

Right.

Right. Because

I'll probably have to check out at, like, eleven. So, yeah, I'm excited. Jennifer did this for her birthday.

Ian

Oh. So I

Aaron

don't know if I don't know if this is, like, the stage of life we're in or, you know, emblematic of something else, but it's like, oh, this is the best thing I could ever think of to do for my birthday.

Ian

Well, I said we we have had to go to this quite a bit. I do have a hard time always convincing Jamie to do it, although I have succeeded a few times in it. So I so there's just like because there's such a chasm. It's a literal chasm between you go away by yourself and you take a family trip with the whole crew and you pack them all up and you're, like,

Aaron

getting close. Not even on the same side of the spectrum.

Ian

Right. Exactly. So this is like it's like, it's so much easier. It's so much more relaxing. Right?

And the family trips are great and, like, especially when you have and looking back at the photos of the family trips. I'm glad we did all these did a lot of big trips and everything. And it's great. But you also just, like, it's it's impossible to get away the two of you. Right?

It's so much harder to even coordinate that. So it's like Yes. Once in a while, you just go like, again, I do the poker trip. She went to, like, Florence once and did, like, a cookie thing. She went to Arizona.

So, you know, whatever. Like, these are even bigger trips than what you're talking about. Yeah. We used to have the tiny kids. Like, when they when they level up just, like, a little above tiny, then it's like, yeah.

You could, like, go for four days somewhere. Right? And, like, chill out. Go to Yeah.

Aaron

I'm not taking two one year olds anywhere for four days. I'm sorry. They're stay they're staying at home.

Ian

So having the individual trips, I do feel like is, very nice.

Aaron

So

Yeah. We each so we each have an individual trip that is, like, guaranteed to happen every year. So I have a guy's trip. She has a girl's trip. That happens every single year.

Yep. We I'd say maybe once a week or every other week, she goes out on some weekday night to get her nails done. So it'll be like, put the kids down, eat a quick dinner, and then she's gone. It's like, that's super fun. Yeah.

I do, like, a a guy's breakfast. So I I have you know, I sneak out some mornings to do that. We alternate. We have a weekly bible study. We alternate who goes to that because we're not, like, we're not gonna pay $50 for some babysitter to come watch monitors every week.

Man, babysitter. What a scam.

Ian

Oh, man. I'm glad I'm out of the babysitter game. That was crazy. Big money. We paid the baby.

Aaron

Big money. And then I don't know if there's anything else. Oh, we do like a once a month supper club like we've talked about, but we both go to that. And that's that's when we do pay a babysitter for. So I feel like we get our, you know, we get our get out of the house, but you're right.

It is very hard at this stage to get both of us out of the house because it's just, like, it's expensive. And sometimes it's logistically hard to find a babysitter that's Yeah. Like, willing to watch four, you know Right. Four kids under four.

Yeah.

Ian

That's a big project. And, yeah, it's like even we even it's like there were definitely times, like, any amount of money. Money. It's like there just isn't somebody to do it. Like, we just don't have to tell you for any amount of money.

We can't require a person to come here and do this for an overnight or whatever. Even Or it's a 17 year

Aaron

old and they text you at 06:45, and they're supposed to be there at seven. And they're like, oh, I'm sorry. I can't come tonight.

Ian

You're like We totally ditched them. What? We never even did it. Once we got into the mix heavy with it, we were like, no. No.

No. They all have to be college

Aaron

or

Ian

older. Yeah. Like Yeah. The the high schoolers can't cut it with the three kids. Like, now three kids plus, like, even the college kids don't there was some rough ones, but they were overall better.

We ended up going more with the college kids or, like, when you get the day we already talked about this before, but when you get the kids in daycare at some point or preschool or whatever, like, that's a great place.

Aaron

Steal some teachers.

Ian

Choir, the test babysitter. She likes, oh, what's your deal?

Aaron

What come to you? I actually I was at the YMCA the other day dropping the kids off, and I heard one of the other moms I'm not a mom. I heard one of the other parents saying, saying, like, well, you'll see miss so and so tonight. Bye. We'll see you soon.

And I was like, you are recruiting YMCA teachers to be babysitters.

Ian

You gotta grab them up. That's one of the best thoughts.

Aaron

Very, very smart.

Ian

Yeah. They are, of course, the most expensive. So now you're paying $4 an hour or whatever.

Aaron

Oh, easily.

Ian

Or more probably now. That was it's been, like, five years. Why is it babysitter? So yeah.

Aaron

Well, you wanna talk to Fusion release?

Ian

Yes. No. I wanna do an ad read first since we're sprinkling.

Aaron

Let's do an ad. This podcast this podcast is brought to you by Packetly. Prevent malicious content by using our simple s three compatible content identification API. You can find more at packetly.com. Links will be in the show notes.

Ian

I just tickled pink tickled pink with any tool that is s three compatible.

Aaron

Oh, it's great.

Ian

Love the idea of, like

Aaron

it's easy.

Ian

Three compatible. Like, you already have some library that connects to s three. You just change this key, and now

Aaron

you're using this ownership over here.

Ian

Ever. Yes. So great. I love it. It's like, what are these things?

I have no interest at all to solve anything with developers. We talked about this terrible customers. But if I ever had an idea for something that was s three compatible, that could flip me.

Aaron

I I

one time, looked up all the s three compatible file systems, and there are, like, a dozen of them.

Ian

Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. If you're doing some kind of file system thing, right, you have how can you do it?

Aaron

Like, Cloudflare r two, Backblaze b two, Azure's, all their stuff. And then, like, all of these ones that you've never heard of in your life, it's like, we're s three compatible. Just use the s three driver. And you're like, that is incredibly smart. Good for you.

Ian

Digital oceans thing. I'm

Aaron

gonna get it.

Ian

Let's, you know, whatever their block storage, whatever it's called. Mhmm. Yeah. Anyway, s three compatibility is so good. Love it.

Aaron

Anyway Now that's a good hack.

Ian

Fusion release on your birthday. You dropped Fusion on the Release.

Aaron

Blue

Ian

steel. It came out.

Aaron

Yes. Gave people what they wanted. So

Ian

How'd it go? How would you

Aaron

I think it went really well. I I think I think it went really well. It was a it was a tough week. I have done this to myself a whole bunch of times, but there's nothing to learn from here. But it was just like, oh, man, I got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.

I've been yet again hoisted by my own petard.

Ian

There's always a lot to do.

Aaron

There's always a lot of hoisting.

Ian

You're done.

Aaron

Yes. And so, to my to my great credit, rather probably to my wife's great credit, I didn't push it from Monday to Tuesday. I pushed it from Monday to Friday. So that was that was.

Ian

Major key. Very.

Aaron

Major key. So, you know, Friday comes around, and I'm like, I'm I'm not done. It's Friday morning, and I'm like, this is not ready. Yeah. So I sat down, did a little more, like, a little more, development, and got it to a place where I was like,

Ian

okay.

Aaron

This is this is done enough. Yes. It works. Both the one of the things I discovered Thursday night Okay. Yeah.

Was, that, you know, there's, like, the procedural approach and the class based approach. And one of the things, like, the state syncing on the class based approach just didn't work at all.

Ian

I was

Aaron

like,

Ian

well, that's a problem.

Aaron

Honestly, it's really bad. And I realized I had just never written it. Never ever written it. Just, like, it didn't work because it didn't exist.

Ian

That's a problem.

Aaron

It was in a null state.

Ian

I was thinking you shoulda ditched that class based one. Like, not maybe forever, but I was wondering if you actually needed it both passed. You know?

Aaron

It's very funny that you say that Yeah. Because, I've heard almost an exactly equal number of times. Well, I really like this one, but I really hate that one. And this and that is the procedural in the class. And it was, like, immediately after the talk, people were like, oh, I'm so glad that it's procedural.

Right.

And people

were like, oh, I'm so glad you showed class based at the end because I love that. Yeah. It's like Yeah. Yeah. Well yeah.

Ian

I'm thinking about them both, but I was just thinking that for launch wise, it could be that But whatever. Obviously, you

Aaron

can put that That would've wisdom would've dictated that I chose one from the beginning, and yet here we are. So, yeah, I finished it up, finished up the last bit of the documentation, which as you noted is extensive.

Ian

Big old

Aaron

read me. Big old read me. And then, you know, started tuning up to just the last few like, I squashed all the git history because it was, like, literally a 70 WIP commits. Every single one.

Ian

That little, I thought, might be more. That's not too bad.

Aaron

No. It's not too bad.

Ian

You guys

Aaron

have to

Yeah. Squash them all.

Ian

Nobody needs to look back at some No.

Aaron

Don't want anybody seeing all that. Yeah. And then it was, like, 01:30, and I was getting my hairs cut at two. And I was like, okay. I don't need to I don't need to turn this live and then go be trapped in the barber chair and freaking out.

So I waited, came back, and then I just flipped it. I flipped it live and didn't tell anybody and, like, tested it that I could pull it down and install it. Because before that, it's like it's not on Packagist. It's not on public GitHub. It's very hard to have, like, a full run of testing Yeah.

In a way that a user would actually do it, which is like composer install or composer require.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And so I flipped it live, did a little bit of testing, was like, hey. This all actually works. I installed it in a new app. Like, the NPM stuff worked. Everything worked.

And so then I took the old video, the launch video, and put together a little tweet thread. And I'm I'm calling it a developer preview, which is, like, basically another name for alpha, but base saying, like, hey. Y'all this is literally day one, and I'm competing with, like, you know, Next JS that has the the power of the Borg behind it and has been, you know, working for five years on it. And it's like, this is not going to be as good as that. And so that was a little bit harrowing just thinking, like, this is not as good as, you know, next or next or anything else.

And so, but I'm happy I'm happy with how the launch went, and I'm happy with the reception so far.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you gotta get it out there. Right? Because you need the feedback.

You need people using it. Like, at some point, you just have to have devs trying to do stuff with it Yeah. And, see what they say and how it goes and all that stuff. So I saw some people posting about, kind of digging into how it works, which I think is usually a good sign. Like, if you get some of that attraction of, like, people, like, doing articles and posts about here's the weird inner workings of

Aaron

how this

Ian

this magic thing works. Like, that's usually good for just getting the ball rolling on

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Interest and all that. Have you had people I assume some people have installed it and are tried some stuff out with with it and Yeah.

Aaron

I got

Ian

some feedback going?

Aaron

Yeah. I got a I got a few, like, hey. I I played with it. It's awesome. Way to go.

But then I got some that were like, hey. Is this how you would do, like, a counter component infusion? And it wasn't. Like, it was not how I would do it. And it's very interesting because there's like a it's almost it's almost like a mixed paradigm.

Like, you can declare the state on the back end, but then you don't like, you can you have your full front end framework, and you can just, like, keep the state down there until you need to send it back. Yeah. And so it's it's not like, you know, it's not like, you gotta sync the state back and forth very often. And so he I assume it was he he had the, component. It was like count was on the back end.

And he had tied a click handler to increment, which was a function on the back end that would increment the count. And it's like that

Ian

turning it into Livewire kind of

Aaron

Exactly. It's like Right. That works, but you'd like, you don't need to do that. Send it down, do all the counting in view. And then if you ever need to send it back, you can do that with the state syncing, but, like, you don't keep the state on the back end.

And that's one of the things, like, this is not their fault. This is like a like a communication thing. But that's one of the things that I super like about it is it's basically, like, an easy way to throw stuff over the wall in either direction. Right. And then once you're over there into front end's land, like, just live there.

Do your thing over there and then come back if you need to. And that's that is kinda, like, one of the things I super like about it is that the lines of demarcation are super clear between front end and back end.

Ian

Yeah. I think that makes sense. And, like, to me, that's sort of, like, would be the definitely the angle on it for you, right, for you. Because I feel like the with the adoption push being more towards, like, JavaScript developers. Right?

It's like, yeah. Like, whereas, like, livewire pitch is to, like, back end minded developers. Right. It's like, I want everything on the server. I always want it to be on the server.

I wanna know where everything is based on server variables, and then the front end reacts to that. Whereas the JavaScript crew is obviously generally coming more from the, like, everything's in the front end. And then occasionally, I throw something over the wall to be stored when I want a sword. And so I like that idea of it being, like, like, in your examples, you eventually build and all that stuff. It's like, look at all this is front endy, front endy.

Aaron

Yes.

Ian

And then when you want to store something because you don't want it to get lost or whatever, then great. You push the button and it goes and stores it or whatever. But, but yeah, it's like mental model wise, that would seems like it makes sense if you're going to the, JavaScript people for them to

Aaron

Yeah. And that's that's my whole that's my entire goal is to get to get these JavaScript people over like, lower the the barrier to entry into the Laravel ecosystem. I think it would be great for Laravel. I think it would be great for the people that flee the JavaScript back ends. The JavaScript front ends are fine.

Ian

But Back ends are weird.

Aaron

And I think it would be great for for us if they came over and we're like, Fusion's the way to go. Let's who is this Aaron person? So it feels like if I could get to a point where JavaScript developers are like, yeah. That seems like an a nice ramp onboard ramp for me. It's gonna be good for everybody.

So that's that's the hope.

Ian

So I guess then, obviously, then it's nice that you're the guy who can do the videos and things like that around the evangelism of this as well. Mhmm.

Aaron

That's what

Ian

I'll see in your wheelhouse here. So any progress on how's the backstage doing? And, like, the idea of, like, maybe I

Aaron

can check.

Ian

Helpers and things like that.

Aaron

Let me check to see how many people. Just anecdotally, it's been it's been great.

Ian

Cool.

Aaron

It's been very helpful. Lots of, like, great feedback. I can ask a question, and I get 10 people with, like, well considered opinions very quickly. 41 people in in the backstage.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Yeah. Not bad. No. It's great.

Ian

Okay. It's a cool chunk of money and, like, a nice group of people to, like Yeah.

Aaron

And that's like all. Too.

Ian

It'd be nice to have, like, a because I always think about this from, like, what Sanderson does, author Sanderson.

Aaron

Which I started listening to that. Maybe we should talk about that.

Ian

Oh, shoot. We should definitely do that.

Aaron

Well, no. No. Sorry. I don't wanna get you too excited. I started listening to his interview with Tim Ferris, Not

Ian

one of the yeah.

Aaron

We can still we can talk about that. Yeah.

Ian

So I don't know if you got I think he talked about it in that interview, but, like, he has, like, a hundred beta readers, and he, like, sends it out to get feedback on these, you know, books he writes before they publish. Let's say now that you have, like, a crew

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Backstage who's like, for the like this, you could have put it out to them a couple weeks ago if you had this kind of maybe, you know, it was more established at that point.

Aaron

I

actually gave it to them on Monday. What did you did? I added them all to the GitHub repo and was like, hey. It's not public, but you're free to go look around and tell me what you think. So yeah.

Totally.

Ian

So there you go. That kind of thing. It'd be having a group where you could be like, here's our early to some new feature or whatever it is. And let a small group kick it around before, you know, you just release it for Apple.

Aaron

Before I unleash it to the horrors of the Internet. Yeah. I have I have my my friends that can help me before then.

Ian

Exactly. Oh, that's cool. Okay. So that's great.

Aaron

Yeah. So, backstage is going great. Very, very helpful to have, thoughtful people giving me, you know, early feedback on like, I popped in there and was like, hey. What do I name these variables? Like, these these public facing variables.

Like, what do y'all what would you expect them to be named? We got some good feedback on that. Already gotten a lot of interest in the React version and, like, how it could work in a very React y way, which is nice because I don't know.

Right.

And yeah. So that all that all is going super great. I am I'm I'm very excited about it. Like, there sometimes I get in this sometimes I'll do a thing and then, like, publish it and be like, I don't actually wanna, like, look at that or think about that. Is this Yeah.

Like, it's done. I'm I'm kinda over it. Let's, like, move on. This, I'm thinking, like, oh, you know what would be fun? If I forked, like, the, inertia view starter kit from Laravel and practice, like, turning it into a fusion starter kit and see what I bump into along the way.

Because, like, right now, I even don't know the best way to submit a form and do validation in fusion. Right. That's a problem. I gotta figure that out. Like Yeah.

And and likely, I will need to build something to make form submissions, like, stupid easy. And so I'm excited about that. Whereas, you know, before, I would have been like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Like, it just it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Don't use it. So I feel good about it. I'm I'm super positive.

Ian

Are the starter kits out yet? I don't think they're out yet.

Aaron

The new ones are not. No.

Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. No.

Aaron

I think that's, next Monday, actually. I think it's the twenty fourth. And Taylor just just tweeted, I've got a I've got a surprise for the starter kits.

Ian

Uh-oh. Like, what? How do you what do you gonna be?

Aaron

I have no idea. I don't know.

Ian

Why is it for the starter kits? What could it be?

Aaron

I don't know. It's not gonna be something like Stripe integration in the starter kits. That's just like a long term maintenance nightmare.

Ian

Yeah. And Stripes, maybe they're gonna do, like do they still have any pay Nova is still paid. Right? Could they be making, like, Nova

Aaron

Nova and Spark are paid. I guess they could make Spark free.

Ian

Oh, Spark is still there and paid?

Aaron

I think spark is still a thing.

Ian

Okay. Lighten up with the

Aaron

Nobody talks about it. Yeah. Laravel spark. Yeah. Wild that Laravel spark is still a thing.

Ian

I could see them

Aaron

99 and $1.99. I could see them. I could see them. Free.

Ian

Right?

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

Added in or

Aaron

Alright. I take it back. This is my prediction. Spark becomes free.

Ian

Yeah. I can see that. And it's, like, just, like, option in the installer that's, like, those park ins. You get

Aaron

Yeah. So you can have payments and all this stuff.

Ian

I think that would make sense.

Aaron

Man, that's kinda not believe Spark is still a thing.

Ian

Yeah. I guess I guess I guess when Stripe kinda really pushed, like, their own checkout page thing and has all that stuff on my end, that kind of

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Maybe took the need for Spark down a notch I

Aaron

think it did. Days. But Because I think what Spark ended up becoming was basically a customer portal a la Stripe.

Ian

Right. Yeah. It was, earlier. But now I think when you use it I think I was in there not that long ago looking around, and it basically just I mean, there's options to do it the old way, but I think you could also just, like it's just a router to the Stripe checkout, basically Yeah. Too.

And so, like but then still there is I think it does the user management and stuff. Right? If I recall. So, like

Aaron

Yeah. Maybe so.

Ian

Stuff in there. Well, we'll find out. Useful. You know, you don't want to build all that. I mean, all that.

Aaron

Yeah. Interesting, man. Sparks bringing back memories. That's crazy. That's crazy.

Yeah. I don't know what the surprise will be, but they've got Tony Lee working on all those starter kits. And I think it just seems like it seems like Laravel is just executing the perfect playbook. Like, having someone in house building starter kits for, you know, whatever it is, three different ecosystems, Livewire, Vue, and React, and maybe a plain bladed one. It just seems like this is the obvious thing to do.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Why let all these randos out there sell starter kits? Like, just have first party awesome starter kits. And, like, there'll still be a market for, like, the if you want something maybe more

Aaron

Of course.

Ian

Farther down. Right? So something more sophisticated than makes sense to release as, like, a baseline starter kit. But, yeah, I think that makes sense. I didn't realize he was building them.

I thought. So is he is he but he's still doing the developer evangelism too. Right? Or no?

Aaron

You might be mixing two people up. Tony Mhmm.

Ian

I don't

Aaron

I don't know that Tony is doing developer evangelism at all, actually. Alright. He might be. I don't know. But I know that, like, Kristoff, Josh Siri, and Christophe Rumpel are all doing the the public facing, DevRel stuff.

Ian

Yeah. It's awesome now than a full time person on,

Aaron

on,

Ian

yeah. I don't know. When Cloud's released in the twenty fourth too. Right?

Aaron

Twenty fourth as well. It's all twenty fourth.

Ian

I know. Twenty fourth. Big day.

Aaron

Big day.

Ian

Is there about twelve that day?

Aaron

Laravel twelve is that day.

Ian

Damn. That's all shit on top

Aaron

of that. Some packages updated. Yeah.

Ian

I totally forgot

Aaron

about that.

Ian

Oh, no. They're gonna be after you.

Aaron

Oh, they're always after me. Better get on that. I know. I need to do that. Now that now that open source is, like, part of our business, I need to be a better open source boy.

Ian

Oh my goodness. Yeah. We gotta hire somebody. It could be the

Aaron

I know. We've actually, we've talked about that. Hiring a a part time, utility player slash open source maintenance person. And I think it's probably in the cards. The goal the goal is to still get screen casting out or get it all recorded before the end of this month, so we probably won't do it because whoops.

It's the seventeenth. So we probably won't hire someone before the end of this month. But, after that, we may look into that. And there are actually some some people in the backstage that, like, I could, you know, talk to and be like, hey. You're here.

You've been around. What's your deal?

Ian

Yeah. Or even, like, one offs. Like, you can't even start lower commitment. Like, I mean, just to update these packages to Laravel 12. Right?

Like, you can't your x dollars 1 time. Like, just get these all updated Laravel 12. Like, know what I mean? Like, it's not Yeah. It doesn't even need ongoing and that's not like, it could just be sprinkling in one time contracting.

Aaron

It's a

Ian

good idea. Along the way until you get where you wanna maybe more of a commitment of somebody part time or whatever. But you could do both. I did. I I've had a good experience, with a contractor here recently with the new HelpSpot logo.

We did a new HelpSpot logo, and I like how that came out.

Aaron

So Yeah. Let's talk let's talk about HelpSpot. Let's let's let's move on to HelpSpot.

Ian

Segment. Alright. Hold on. This HelpSpot segment is brought to you by Moonbase Labs. We're the rocket fuel your lab project needs to reach escape velocity.

Houston, we have a solution at moonbaselabs.com. So thank you to Moonbase Labs for sponsoring the help spot segment.

Aaron

Flawless. Alright. I got two help spot things.

Got it.

You got a sick new logo and then Sick new logo. Recently, you posted, you posted, like, an all time revenue chart, and I'll I'll kinda wanna talk about that. So let's talk sick new logo first.

Ian

Sick new logo. So HubSpot's had kind of two logos over the years. There was, like, the original logo, which was actually pretty cool, but it definitely got a little dated. And then the logo we have now, which I hate, which is just, like, totally generic, like, just lowercase letters kinda thing. And so, yeah, one new logo.

Tried last year to contract with some people for a logo, totally crash and burn. They they had, like, they had, like, the and this is a big known entity. Not it was, like, not even clip art level. And it was, like, stolen stuff. Like, they had, like, an Amazon smile thing, and they had, like, the AT and T logo.

Aaron

I was

Ian

like, this is just like I don't know. Like, these are just, like, super huge company known logos. Like, if you're gonna steal

Aaron

If you're

gonna steal steal from someone that can't defend themselves.

Ian

Yeah. Like, I'm not gonna go ask them strategy. Smile. Like, I don't know. Like, that's a little and it's, like,

Aaron

not even

Ian

a little crap. It was, like, just, like, really stolen. So

Aaron

Oh, man.

Ian

It's okay. So I lost $3,500 there. Whatever. You trash that. And then Dave at, Lara County U bumped into Will King.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

And they were talking about the logo stuff, and so he was interested in doing it. So he did it. And,

Aaron

Will Will King, who is, famous for making logos for fusion. That that's what he made. Yes. Super famous. In case y'all don't know first.

That's why he's so famous. Yeah.

Ian

Fusion and the other your other open source. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, those really nice logos there. And he, it's kind of I don't know if this is just the vibe he's in right now, but it's kind of thick lines and that stuff. I think that stuff, a lot. And so yeah. So he did whipped us up a whole slot logo, and it's, like, nice.

It was, like, fat like, for me, the logo is, like, we are a small company. I'm not, like, so much worried about the branding. It's not, like, the it's never gonna be, like, a everybody knows this logo kind of thing. Right? So I don't really care about it.

It's, like, let's spend six months on, like, making sure it's FedEx quality and

Aaron

Right.

Ian

Secret meanings and all the stuff. Right? It's, like, just want something distinctive and that looks good, and that maybe has some fun things we could play around with. They're gonna do some bug or stuff on the website or whatever. So and I think he nailed it.

I was very happy with it, so it looks good. Yeah. So new logo and new color scheme, which would be nice. We're gonna do new websites.

Aaron

So is this full, like, full refresh for HelpSpot?

Ian

Full refresh. So I've been working on the new website, and that's, like, very close to being ready. Here's a little side adventure for you. I was trying to push through, which, whatever. I've I just try to try to do this too much anymore, but I was like, I'm just gonna work.

Alright. We have half day fries. I'm like, I'm just gonna work all day Friday. I'm gonna work all weekend. Cause it was supposed to snow and freezing rain and there wasn't gonna be much going on.

I'm just gonna get this website done. And then I'm just gonna get like a sort of like generic V one of it done. And then will's gonna work with us on like making it a little snazzier. Right? Great.

And I'd like to get this all done before my trip, which is March 9. And I'm gonna be away for, like, week and a half and whatever. So we're trying to move it along Friday afternoon, my parents' house, which we're trying to sell as we talked about. Right. And is in contract for now months and still hasn't finished closed.

And the people asked us not to put too much oil in the tank because they're getting rid of the oil tank and they're replacing it. And we're trying to be nice. And you know, when you're nice, it never works out.

Aaron

Never be nice. No.

Ian

It's always the wrong decision in these kind of things.

Aaron

Being nice is just a cover for being a psychopath also. So you don't don't be nice. Don't forget. Yeah.

Ian

Knowledge we've received. Yeah. Yes. I was being nice. And, it's like, okay.

Let's put in a little oil. And then we had to put in a little more oil. And we have them come back. So, of course, it ran out of oil on Friday.

Aaron

Right.

Ian

And it's, you know, freezing temperatures. There's no oil. The house is already down to, like, 40 something degrees when we figured out that it was out of oil.

Aaron

Oil. I don't even understand oil. Like,

Ian

I know.

Aaron

What you guys don't have. You guys have, like, furnaces from the forties?

Ian

You use wood?

Aaron

Gas, I guess.

Ian

Yeah. I my house has natural gas, which is way better, obviously, because it's infinite supply and pipe

Aaron

It is free.

Ian

It's very cheap, but, a lot of houses use oil up here. So Wow. They're banging the dead dinosaurs. I mean, not if you ask

Aaron

Serves them. Right?

Ian

But whatever. Anyway, there's oil tank there. So we got to get oil. No place will deliver oil. They don't do emergency delivery anymore.

Nobody can deliver it. They're gonna deliver it Monday. Cool. So what we had to do, I don't have any gas tools. I don't have any gas.

You can't use regular gas anymore. So I had to go to Lowe's and I had to buy two five gallon gas holding things. Right? And then I had to go

Aaron

to Spoken like a true expert.

Ian

Yeah. You guys got gas holding things. Work at manual labor. Okay? Here, buddy.

So

Aaron

Oh, good, sir. The The gas holding thing.

Ian

What do you have that holds gas in this dump? So I had to go to the gas station.

Aaron

I had

Ian

to get diesel fuel because that's basically home heating oil is just diesel gas. So

Aaron

Good lord.

Ian

Bring it to the house. And my brother's there. We're, like, trying to figure this thing out. We're dumping the gas in manually.

Aaron

Sloshing 10 gallons of diesel through this house.

Ian

And well, the so the way it works is there's a pipe that comes out on the outside. Okay. So you don't have to go into the house, but so you we're dumping it down as pipe, but you know, it's a messy process. Diesel fuels all

Aaron

over the course,

Ian

diesel fuel, but going back and forth, because 10 gallons not gonna be enough because this is Friday. So it's gotta make it till Monday and it's freezing out. So we go three runs. We get 30 gallons of diesel fuel. It takes a lot of time

Aaron

to go.

Like this.

Ian

It's like so that was Friday. So Friday is shot. Then we were supposed to go away Friday too. We we were the

Aaron

concept of gassing up the house. Like, you're standing on the outside, pouring stuff down a tube. You're like, well, I gotta gas up the house.

Ian

I gotta gas

Aaron

up the house.

Totally totally foreign to me. Yeah.

Ian

It's crazy.

Aaron

National Lampoon's level foreign. Like, gassing it up.

Ian

I think they picture my brother gassing up the house, and it is quite a funny picture because it's just like Jeez. Yeah. It's a weird spot. It's a big, you know, five gallons of gas. It's heavy.

We're trying to lift this thing, try not to spill it all over us, failing at that, spilled all over us. Luckily, I have a pickup truck. Gotta have a pickup truck.

Aaron

Gotta have a pickup truck.

Ian

Dirty gas in the back of the pickup truck at least. So we're running back and forth.

Aaron

So in your in your electric truck saving the world, you're you're slapping gallons of diesel fuel around and pouring it on the ground.

Ian

Yeah. Exactly.

Aaron

So we'll we'll call that day a net neutral. Yeah. That one that one's just even Steven.

Ian

Electric car save the world guy. I'm just electric car is a better guy.

Aaron

Okay. That's fine. I'm into that. That's cool.

Ian

Okay. So that was Friday. Shot So

Aaron

the refresh didn't happen on Friday is what you're saying?

Ian

End up running kids around to a million different things till 5PM, Saturday shot. So Sunday, I'll

Aaron

work for you. I'm just hearing excuses, Ian.

Ian

I know.

Aaron

I'm just hearing excuses.

Ian

This is where people get mad and people say this, but you gotta do this stuff before you have the kids. Go out there. You start your business. Do that stuff for you. The kids.

Don't get the kids. I've only done this with kids, and it's very hard. They they eat in all the time. But They they do. Anyway, so that was all side adventure on the new HubSpot website, which is closer to being done than it was because I did get a lot of work yesterday.

But it is not as done as I wanted it to be. So whatever. It'll be done soon. And then we'll give it a coat of paint, and we'll be off to the races. On a new little bit more, wordy not crazy wordy, but a little bit more wordy.

Manifesto? I mean, it's not full. It's sort of more manifesto in that, like, you have a problem. Here is the problem. It is painful to you.

This is the pain. We hear your pain. Here's how we solve it.

Aaron

And we've

Ian

been solving

Aaron

it for

Ian

a long time this way, that kind. So got a little two minute video, which we've never really had.

Aaron

Oh, nice. Before. Video guy.

Ian

Video guy. Dave's the video guy. Dave did the, producer Dave that is. Yeah. So that's that's help spot design land, but nice to have a new logo.

Maybe we'll get some swag, do some stuff like that, have it for Laracon, pass out some help about swag, whatever. Yeah. So

Aaron

You gotta get I'm sure help spot swag would would do great. You gotta get Ian as godfather stickers.

Ian

I should

Aaron

think Use some AI model. Make yourself the godfather. Dad. Or business dad. Print those stickers, leave them on tables, and people they would be gone.

Ian

Yeah. That's a good idea. Okay. We gotta do that. We gotta do some type of Ian's sticker.

I want my face on a bunch of laptops somehow.

Aaron

Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Okay. That's what I'm talking about.

Alright. No no no offense to Will King's logo, but I want Ian's face on a bunch of laptops.

Ian

Producer Dave, note note that. We need that for Laracon US. We gotta do something there. I don't I don't know what. We'll we'll figure out something.

But, yeah, some kinda Ian Ian on your laptop sticker.

Aaron

That that's what I want. I won't put it on my laptop

Ian

for sure,

Aaron

but I I will I will goad people into putting it onto their laptops for sure.

I

Ian

love a good sticker.

Aaron

Love a good sticker.

Ian

I'm not gonna get sticker. Pop star.

Aaron

Oh, of course not. I gotta get these Will King logos turned into stickers because they're, like, made for that, basically.

Ian

Will King, I will say very nice, very fun to work with, very nice to work with. I don't even know what how he works his availability. It's not really clear to me. This is a side gig from his, you know, main gig. So I don't know.

If you're interested in stuff like this in terms of having some design, I'd reach out to him. I don't know if he just does it for everybody. I think he might be a little more, you know, taking gigs he's interested in, you know, being, particular, but was, definitely a great guy to work with on. So

Aaron

Yeah. He's excellent. Yeah. That's funny because he was there with his company, the the company that he works for, Crunchy Data, which is just, you know, a great Postgres host, really like those people over there.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And everybody was coming up to Will and being like, oh, you did this logo. Oh, you're gonna come work for Laravel? Oh, Laravel should hire you. And I'm just kinda sure that I'm sure that his boss, Craig, who's very, very funny, I'm sure that his boss, Craig, is like, what the hell, man? You everybody's trying to hire you.

Like, they need to come buy databases from us. But, yeah, he's he's super nice. I like working with him a lot.

Ian

Yeah. I haven't interacted with him too much until more recently, but, yeah, he's a good guy. And, Craig, I've known for a long time on the Internet. But Oh, really? Yeah.

Just random database stuff. Whatever. Yeah.

Aaron

I'm I met him in person for the first time at EU. Very fun. Very funny.

Ian

Yeah. I've never met him.

Aaron

Very dry, very sarcastic. Funny guy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what oh, I

Ian

just never know what this stuff would like. When people are doing things on the side, you never know what you're supposed to push them. Should I push them? I know. I push them.

I I push them. I get them fired. I don't know. I want

Aaron

them fired. He was Yeah.

At there at there

Ian

at all.

Aaron

Yeah. And he only does it on nights and weekends and never on, company laptops, obviously.

I don't

know if that's true, but now it's on the record as being true. So you're welcome, Will. Let's talk help spot total sales by year. So here's something. Yeah.

You released this, this line chart after claiming after claiming to Caleb that you need all these fancy charts and everything. He goes and puts out a simple line chart.

Ian

I don't know. I'm horrible. Ticks. It sounds like the chart does do ticks.

Aaron

But it

has no y axis, so you should be fine.

Ian

There's a full Apple, Apple style chart where there's no you know, when they do their performance stuff, like, there's never any, like, actual numbers. It's like It's just better. Faster. Right? It's just better.

Like, there's no, like, data, but how much better? That's what I did.

Aaron

So starting in 02/2005, you've got barely anything.

Ian

So little.

Aaron

It's a little. It's a little.

Ian

It's only a couple months now.

Aaron

Had a pretty good run up to 02/2008, and then the great financial crisis hit, and your your trajectory changed a little bit, but it's still quite, like, pretty good slope from 02/2005 to 02/2012. Not a lot wrong with that. Then we hit 2012 to 13 to '20. All the way from 2012 to 2020 is basically a plateau. Yep.

And then 2020 That's

Ian

a little bit every year for the most part, but, yes, not a lot of projected

Aaron

No. Level of one. If you zoom out, that's flat from 2012 to 2020. And then 2020 to 2021, we got a huge jump, and then it leveled out again. So walk us through I think, the thing I'm primarily interested in is this 2012 to '20 kind of plateau and then how you got out of that because that's a that's a big old jump from 2020 to 2021.

Ian

Yeah. So I think it's like, so the early years are, that was kind of like the people moving to help desk software, from client server to web based help desk software. And so there was just, like, kind of a lot of it's like people building AI stuff now. Right? It's like there's a lot of interest.

Although I don't know if you've seen as many, like, actual AI tools being successful, which is sort of an interesting side thing. But, anyway, yeah. And then, like, 02/2011, you start to have, like, the Zendesk and those really big funded SaaSes and stuff start to take off. So that's kinda like the start of the plateau, I would say. All but also in combination with, like, kids getting to be like, I think by then, yeah, we have by 02/2011, we have two of the three kids.

And then by 02/2013, we have all three kids. And so I also just, like, have a took a different task of, like, whatever. I've just spent time on other things now. Like, I just can't work all the time. And so, you know, I was fine there.

It's also, like, 02/2011 is, like, the there's enough money that, not that I don't have to worry about money at all because it's never made that level of money, but it's, like, it makes good money. If we stay around this level, it's fine, Mhmm. Level of money. And so that wasn't that much urgency in that point. And then, like, mostly then, it's more about, like, just, obviously, over time, you have to pay people more because, you know, grow with the company or just and wages go up in general, inflation, all that stuff.

So that's the part where it's like, okay. Like, keeping the growth more on that end just to, like, you know, we don't wanna run into any issues there. But, but yeah. So it was, like it's actually, it seems flat on this chart, but it's not quite as flat as you might think. I bet you it's still, like, 15% higher or something like that.

But, yeah, it's, like, tripping along. Twenty twenty, couple of things. Definitely, like, sales increase. I think, like, partially, you have, like, COVID and stuff. You have people buying software and things like that.

And then you have, I we tend to do well in, like, economic uncertainty Mhmm. Uncertain times too because we are generally much less expensive than, like, your Zendesk and things like that. So I think that is a bit of a factor also there. And then also, we did a big price increase, which is something that people, don't always think about. People don't like to increase prices.

But, I've always been pretty good about increasing prices along the way. So, price increases also in there. 02/2015, we started HelpSpot cloud

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Where we would host it for people. And then all those years, we were adding people to HelpSpot cloud, which is, like, a really big process of, like, migrating people off their on premise servers into the cloud servers. And so as that builds up, then you have more, like, of a locked in recurring revenue situation. Because beyond help cloud, you have a subscription, whereas the older installs, it's, optional. Basically, it's like a support contract, so you don't have to renew it.

And so some people don't, and still use the software. So you kinda have a few different things going on there, But, it's like the recurring revenue price increase, increased sales, kind of all coming together in that time frame. And then, yeah. And then mostly the again, kinda like in a neutral zone the last couple years. But that's where we're getting back into marketing, more focused on it.

A new website. We got some different ideas for maybe some paid marketing, which we've never done really paid marketing and things like that. So yeah, but I think a lot of it is kinda like what my tweet or whatever was was like, this is sort of the real software world. I mean, like, it's like Yeah. People like the post to drive, like, it's just up or your ConvertKit and it's like only up.

And now we have five employees, 10 employees, a hundred employees. Right? And it's like up, up, up every year. But like there's so many software businesses that are just much more like that's like that are successful software businesses that are like, Hey, we had a good idea. We got it to a certain point and then we're kind of like coasting at that point.

Like it goes up a little bit every year, and maybe you have some big ups or maybe you have a couple big downs in there here and there. But, like, you know, you're just servicing your customers for the most part, and you're getting those expansion sales when people move to other businesses or whatever or inside the same organizations. But, you know, you're just kinda showing up every day with your lunch pail and doing the work. And that's kinda like that's what, that's what I've been doing for twenty years, which is freaking insane, actually.

Aaron

A working man business owner.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. You just show up and take care of the customers, and then that's it.

Aaron

Twenty years is crazy, by the way.

Ian

Crazy. Right? Crazy. Crazy. Well, that would I look back at it.

I'm like, boy. It's starting to get I didn't used to feel this way, but the last couple years have gotten really I don't know if it's like the AI stuff maybe. But it's like 02/2005, '2 thousand '4 is now like a really long time ago in Internet. You know? It's like now that there's several phases of the Internet ago.

Right? Yes.

Aaron

So like

Ian

now it's like, oh, man. Like, it was like 02/2011, you had kinda social media

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Lies, you know? And it's like, should we have social media connectors and all this stuff, which we never did. Now you have, like, AI, which we're doing more with AI than we do with social. But yeah. I don't know.

So it's like multiple phases of the Internet. It's

Aaron

like, I mean, 02/2005 was, like, maybe the very beginnings of web two point o. Like, do you remember, like, Ajax becoming a thing? And then it was

Ian

like the beginning of

Aaron

web two point o. And you're like, what is going on? And yeah. Yep. Yeah.

There were a lot of phases between then and now. That's crazy. Twenty years.

Ian

Yep. Twenty years. So I don't know. I would like to do I would like to have this chart have another little peak. We'll see in a couple years if we can do another big we get one more big run, you know, then that'd be nice.

Kind of, run it up one more time. I think a new new plateau level would be pretty cool.

Aaron

Run it up. Drive it off the cliff. Sell it to somebody else.

Ian

Either way, could either could happen. Hopefully, not drive it totally off the cliff, but, you know, running out another fifteen years or so.

Aaron

Fifteen years. Yeah. Another fifteen years?

Ian

Yeah. What else am I gonna do? You know? I don't know. I don't

Aaron

know what I do. Holy.

Ian

This is what I do. Even if I sold this, I'd probably just do, like, another help desk type of product. Like, I don't have any other ideas. All my other ideas are bad. So it's like I don't know.

At some point in here, we might get into Ian does a side project phase, which does happen sometimes.

Aaron

You keep saying this. This is all I want for you, Ian, is for you to just do a bunch of weird stuff.

Ian

Yeah. Like, these, like, long running things on HubSpot are not, like, the best and stuff.

Aaron

Stable stuff where

Ian

it's like, oh,

Aaron

I thought about doing a I thought about doing a thing, and then I realized that it was a lot of work, and we'll just spend the money on marketing. It's like, no. That's terrible content. Yeah.

Ian

I'm doing a new website. I'm taking, like, six months to do it and

Aaron

Yeah.

What the hell? Long. Like You gotta be a little more reckless. I'm carrying the reckless side of

Ian

the show here. You are.

Aaron

Maybe if

Ian

I do some paid marketing, that could be my reckless contribution because if I There

Aaron

we go.

Ian

I'm blowing some cash.

Aaron

Yes. We need a little chaos.

Ian

This is not you know, I just blew $15 and, like, we got

Aaron

Oh, that's great.

Ian

Final sign ups. You know? Like, that could come in here

Aaron

and cry. I would love for you to blow 15 grands.

Ian

That would be

Aaron

great contact. It'd be

Ian

amazing. So we might get to that. We might get to that. Yeah. No.

No. No. I just think it's cool to, like, I don't know. I just think the stability is an interesting aspect of it. Even though it's, like, not the, like, sort of what you would vision when people think I'm gonna start a software company and, like Yeah.

It's gonna be all straight up and blah blah. It's like, straight up for a little while and then, you know, it might plateau and that's fine.

Aaron

Like Yeah. I mean, it's gotta be it's gotta be nice that you've had, like, one down year. No. Two. Two down years.

In twenty years, there are two years where the revenue was less than the year before.

Ian

Right. That's the way I look at it. Right? Like, that's the way I look at it. That that's where, to me, like, the plateaus are not, like, so plateau y because it's like, well, we made more money last year.

And Yeah. We're not out here we're not going Laravel Inc and, like, hiring everybody and then getting overextended and then which Right. They're not that they're doing that part. Right? But, like, I never was, like, I'm gonna hire a bunch of people and really, like, push it and, like, hire farther than I should dangerously.

Right. Right? It's, like, I've always been pretty conservative with that. We have the core group that we need to run things. And so, yeah, even like I said, in both the down years, we're, like, pretty slight.

So it was fine. And, even they're so slight that some of them might have been even, like, you know, whatever. It's towards the end of the year. We we sometimes play some games around, like, do we wanna Right.

Aaron

Curve this revenue this year

Ian

or not? Because, like, people send us checks. So, like, we'll be like, well, maybe the December, we'll just hold on to these couple of checks and whatever. You know, the accountant the accountant.

Aaron

Yep. So. Yep. That, my friends, is called tax avoidance, and it is 101% legal.

Ian

Listen, we're getting rid of all the IRS agents. I just.

Aaron

The moment the moment you cross the line, you end up in tax evasion, and you go straight to jail. But sitting on a check for a week, that's tax avoidance, my friends.

Ian

That that's right. That's totally legal. I can not I'm just there's no laws

Aaron

in that

Ian

to cash this check.

Aaron

Nope. Yeah. Nope. I think you have, like, ninety days until the check, you know, expires. And so, like, great.

We'll recognize it when we recognize it. Yep. You

Ian

know, another interesting thing I didn't put on this chart, I could have a second line. I don't know if Caleb's chart chart, does two lines. I think it does. Wow.

Aaron

We'll find out.

Ian

Or, really, I would need an area, actually. I wonder I'm not I really wonder if it does an area. I would need an area.

Aaron

I guarantee you it does not do an area. Yeah. To do

Ian

this correctly, I need an area.

Aaron

That sounds insane.

Ian

But, in here too, we have, like, other revenue streams. Not, not in this chart though. This chart is just help spot. So along the way, we've added, like we did Lara cons for a while. Right.

Aaron

And

Ian

then we did, and we still do Lara jobs. So then there is these new revenue streams on top of this. They're minor in comparison to HubSpot, but they're still not nothing.

Aaron

So Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. They exist and, are a reasonable amount of money. So yeah. So that's there too.

Aaron

Yeah. What's the rest of the portfolio? Don't you have, like, an NPS thing as well?

Ian

So that is, that is was quasi dead. That was just Ian's side thing that, like, Ian doesn't then have time to run two products, so never really went anywhere. I end up giving that effectively to, Titan. Oh. They are now running it and are going they rebuilt it and are going to, market it more in theory.

Although, they they've kind of lost track of it a little bit too. So it's kind of just sitting there the way it's at here, but we will see. It'll hopefully, kick off. It is sort of interesting tool. But There

Aaron

was that. There was

Ian

some more marketing.

Aaron

Snappy was a full on exploration. Right? The d p n o?

Ian

Like Taylor built that, and Eric when so this is, like, in 02/2010. It was, like, a

Aaron

That's so that's way back.

Ian

Or yeah. It was 02/2012. Somewhere. Yeah. It was in there.

It was way back. It was, like, a new help desk platform, like like a SaaS help desk platform.

Aaron

And then Laracon online, which you don't do anymore because they're all back or what?

Ian

Well, Laracon in person, the first two Laracon law US's and then Laracon online.

Aaron

Partner in the first, like, in person ones?

Ian

Yeah. I would say it

Aaron

was like

Ian

I was like, we should do a conference. Like

Aaron

Ah. We're gonna get it. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know that.

Ian

Yep. And then, after the first couple so Taylor left after the first one, I think. And then we still did the second one. And then the third one, he just, like, kinda started taking him over. And then I did yeah.

Then, like, 02/2017, I think we'd started Laracon online.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Yeah. Did that. Now it's time to run its course. I don't know. I'll be I wonder if we'll do another Laracon online.

I don't know. Maybe someday.

Aaron

I don't know. It's tough because it feels like there there's a Laracon every three months now.

Ian

Yeah. Now that there's so many Laracons, and they all stream them, and it's like you just kinda have the same people come on and give, like, the talk they just gave at Laracon EU or whatever.

Aaron

Yeah. It feels tough.

Ian

We We did talk about maybe doing a different sort of thing. Like, could you do, like, a business of Larabel type? You know, something where it's more like

Aaron

You know,

that's that's the mostly technical conference. Yeah.

Ian

I could go into the most technical Don't don't

Aaron

give that one away. That one's ours.

Ian

Yeah. So and, I mean, at this point, like, they're busy with so much other stuff. I tell her I'm sure doesn't wanna deal with, like, another conference or whatever. So No. Yeah.

So I I think, at least for now, it's on hiatus. Yeah. And then Lara Jobs started also in, like, 02/2013 or something. That's ongoing since then.

Aaron

So the two going concerns, HubSpot, Lara Jobs?

Ian

Yeah. HubSpot, Lara Jobs. We do some consulting for HubSpot very occasionally. Not as much as we used to, but sometimes they'll be, like, mostly If

Aaron

you have services revenue for

Ian

Services revenue. Yeah. But, like, I think our biggest year was, like, maybe, like, thirty five thousand or something. So it's not a lot. Unless Mhmm.

Years and less. It's really just if, like, somebody's coming on who's new, but they need, like, something connected or they really need a report that does something that the built in ones don't do, then we'll build them something custom. But that's just kinda here and there. And most of the time, it's, like, we're not really charging them too much because it's, like, mostly to get the sale and get them in the fold because most of our customers end up staying a long time. So it's like you just wanna make the sale Right.

And and, then let them renew for

Aaron

great year. On the services so you get paid on the subscription.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

So It makes sense. Yep. Wow. Twenty years. Well done.

Ian

Twenty years. Oh, you guys are almost to one. When's

Aaron

Almost. Almost. Soon. Yeah. Yeah.

Probably Right? Two or three weeks. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Wow. Holy cow. It's already I know. It goes fast, man.

Twenty four. It'll be twenty years.

Aaron

Boy, you're telling me.

Ian

Alright. We got another important topic here, though.

Aaron

We got we got an important topic. I'll give it a tease. We're gonna we we gotta talk about these microwave power settings. But before we do, this microwave is brought to you by Bento. Bento is Bento is the email service provider that we use at TryHard Studios for both marketing and transactional emails.

Very good deliverability. Check it out at bentonow.com. Thanks to Jesse and Bento for sponsoring the show. Bento gets the microwave section, arguably the most important section of the podcast. Here's the deal.

Came home from church yesterday. I'm like, you know what I want? Just want some nachos, man. Just right down the middle, some chips, some cheese. That's it.

Ian

That's it.

Aaron

Here's the deal.

Ian

Wait. Just chips and cheese?

Aaron

That's nachos. Yeah.

Ian

Is it?

Aaron

Yeah. You could dip you dip it in some salsa, but that's nachos.

Ian

Well, I usually put, like, stuff on it. What about some meat and some, like, jalapenos and salsa on it, maybe?

Aaron

Boy. Chips

Ian

and cheese? That's, like, that's,

Aaron

like, like, a What kind of life of luxury do you think I'm leading that I've got time to put some meat and jalapenos and, like, make some nachos?

Ian

This is, like, some movie theater nachos you're talking about here. This is like some

Aaron

lowbrow nachos. Come from a can, so it's better than that or like a squirt pump. But dry. Well, one, what do you expect from me? Two, what what kind of life am I leading that I can come home from church and get four kids fed and make gourmet nachos?

Not gonna happen.

Ian

Alright. Alright.

Aaron

So I got this sheet.

Ian

Making I've been making sheet pan nachos. Just a little side adventure.

Aaron

Okay. So that's nice.

Ian

You take the sheet pan Yep. Chips, stuff. I could put stuff. You put stuff. Yeah.

You put cheese on top, sheet pan in the oven, take it out. It's wonderful.

Aaron

And then it's a sheet pan of nachos when it comes out.

Ian

And then you do microwave. Microwave make your chips soft and stuff. But anyway

Aaron

Well, we're about to find out. Here's the deal. So I I go up to the microwave, and I'm I've got I've got this plate full of cheese, basically. Right?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And if you just hit if you just hit, like, thirty seconds three times

Right.

You're gonna end up with a boiling plate of cheese.

Ian

Yes.

Aaron

Right? So you'll have a few strands you'll have a few strands that are unmelted, just in, like, these little nooks

Right.

And a few parts that are literally bubbling Right. Because they're overheated. Right?

Ian

Fire hazard in there.

Aaron

Yeah. I'm not doing that. Right. And that's that's what causes that's what causes the the chips to get soggy because you overdo it in certain parts, and so it's like, I'm not doing that. So Yeah.

I punch in 30%

Ian

k.

Aaron

For, like, five and a half minutes. Intriguing.

Ian

I don't think I've ever used the power percentage thing ever. I'm, like, 20% time, time, time. That's it.

Aaron

You are missing out. So five minutes later, five minutes later, I come back. I pull I pull the plate out perfectly even melt. Wow. Perfectly even melt.

No bubbles and no remaining individual, straight it was shredded cheese. So no remaining individual strands of cheese. Wow. Perfectly, perfectly melted as if

Ian

heat level.

Aaron

It just came out of the oven. That's how even it was. Heat level was perfect.

Ian

It wasn't burning hot

Aaron

or anything. It wasn't burning hot, and it wasn't like, oh, this used to be hot. It was like, no. This is perfect.

Ian

3030%. For five minutes.

Aaron

Yes.

Ian

And you let it go the whole five minutes.

Aaron

Let it go the whole five minutes.

Ian

This is very intriguing.

Aaron

So the the deal is when when you have something like I think, Chris Faddow mentioned, like, melting butter. You don't wanna just put the butter in and hit thirty, thirty, 30.

Right.

Because then you come back and it's, like, boiling lava hot.

Ian

Yeah. You have, like, ventilators are, like, not all melted necessarily.

Aaron

Exactly.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. But

Aaron

you do want it to, like, fully melt through, so you turn the power down and the time up, and that gives it more even cooking. And I'm sold. I think it I think it's the way to go.

Ian

There is something, I think, because the microwave, the way it works, right, is, like, the waves are bouncing around. And so, like Impossible. Quicker, they don't, like, actually hit everything enough. Right? So I think, like, like, extending it, presumably, you're getting more wave to item action more evenly.

You know what I mean? Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. I don't know if any of that's right, but sure.

Ian

It's the waves. The waves are in there, man.

Aaron

All I know is that the waves are very small. That's all I can glean from the name.

Ian

So now you are your microwave percentage man. You're doing everything this way.

Aaron

I'm power setting guy, for sure.

Ian

Are you doing everything this way? If you're reheating leftovers, what are you gonna do?

Aaron

So, I don't know why they're all related to cheese, but I was reheating pizza the other day.

Okay.

And I I turned the power down because the worst thing about reheating pizza in the microwave is the edges can get really hot, and then the middle stays relatively cold.

Ian

That's not

Aaron

And so then that is one

of the

worst things. What's worse than that?

Ian

It gets all floppy and gross.

Aaron

Oh, yeah. It's not great. But if you turn the power down and the time up, then it heats evenly, and you don't have the cold metal and the burned or the boiling edges. So I think I'm I think I'm power guy on almost everything. Now in most cases, you know, cheese notwithstanding, I will do 80%, seventy % and bump the time up a little bit instead of just going

Ian

doing this, or this is new?

Aaron

This is a new house thing. So we got a new house where the power setting is easily accessible on the microwave. Oh, interesting. And it's like, what's this all about? And I tried it.

I'm sold.

So

Ian

let's go back to pizza for one second because Okay. Microwave pizza is far and away the worst way to eat pizza. You should never eat microwave

Aaron

pizza.

Way to eat pizza.

Ian

Don't eat microwave pizza. Just stop. Just stop.

Aaron

Yeah. That's probably true. That guy. Yeah. But from what I understand about people that like skiing, it's like a bad day of skiing is still great.

A bad pizza is still great. Ew. Well, as long as it's not like a salad pizza.

Ian

For this analogy. A bad day a bad day of

Aaron

This is a family friendly show. This is a family friendly show, Ian.

Ian

You're dead on the side.

Aaron

When the skiing's great, it's great. When the skiing's terrible, it's still pretty good.

That's a

skiing thing.

Ian

Here's the thing. Number one way to eat leftover pizza is you have one of those little we have one of these, a little toaster oven on your counter because they get real fast. Yeah. Well, slice in there. It makes it nice and re crispy and melty.

Aaron

I I agree.

Ian

Unbelievable. And it's like two or three minutes. Okay. Next best way is cold. Because like you just want the instant satisfaction and cold pizza has its own vibe.

Third best way is the oven. So you start your oven, You do the whole thing. It's gonna take you thirty minutes, whatever. And then the fourth best way is to make it. But I just There's

Aaron

one there's one way above the oven that I used to do when I had, an embarrassment of time. I would get I'd get a pan and put it on the the range, the stove top.

Okay.

And then by that. And then you get a piece of foil out, and you you curl it into a circle, and you, like, push it. You get the pizza on the little little pan, and then you push the little foil, and so you make just, like, a little bitty oven, basically. Yep. But very, very close to the pizza.

And that crisp that crisps up the bottom, but also melts the cheese on the top. It was great. It was perfect. But I don't have time to do that. That's the problem.

I'm only gonna spend ten minutes reheating a piece of pizza. No. I'm gonna throw it in, hit it on 30% for five, walk away, wipe some noses, get some milk, get the color straw that I was supposed to get. I'm sorry. I got the wrong color straw.

And then come back and my pizza's ready. You know?

Ian

Well, you went wrong here a little bit. You got this new house. You didn't get the induction cooktop. You need an induction cooktop.

Aaron

Oh, it's induction.

Ian

Is it? It is. It's electric, I thought. Or is it No.

Aaron

It's induction.

Ian

Oh, it's induction. Pan heats in, like, ten seconds.

Aaron

Yeah. But I can't mind a pan while I'm minding four children. You know?

Ian

Okay. Yeah. The wrong straw stuff, man. That stuff's brutal. I don't like the wrong

Aaron

That stuff's brutal.

No.

You gotta give you gotta give them some choices that don't matter, and straw color is one of them because they they literally can't choose anything else in their life. And so you're like, okay. I'll get you I'll get you a green straw. That's fine. I will allow it.

Ian

Man. Oh, man. Are the one year olds, how are they doing? Are they are they they're they're talking and stuff. They must be talking a little bit.

Right?

Aaron

A lot. Yes.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Lots and lots and lots of talking. Alright. Lots of, from the girl. Lots of uh-oh. All she knows is uh-oh.

She wants something? Uh-oh. Something fell? Uh-oh. Mommy?

Uh-oh.

Ian

Get the video of that. You're gonna want the video of that, man.

Aaron

I know. Oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. It's like, what are you owing? And the little the little boy is very, dada, which is just the just the sweetest thing ever. It's the freaking best. It's so good.

Ian

You did post a very cute picture

Aaron

Yes.

Of you

Ian

on the tree swing, I believe.

Aaron

Yep. Mhmm.

Ian

With the two little ones, I believe.

Aaron

The two little ones. Yep. I was swinging with the two one year olds in my lap. Just That's such a great the best. Watching them laugh and smile, and it was sunny in 60, and I didn't have, you know, I didn't have an open source library that was waiting to be released.

And so I'm just, like, swinging. It was great.

Ian

Oh, man. Yeah. That's awesome. That was a good moment. So I love those.

Aaron

Yeah. It really was. And it it's funny how, like, you know, Jennifer surreptitiously took the picture, and it's funny how, like, looking at the picture of yourself from, like, that outside perspective really solidifies that, like, oh, this is good. This is a good thing. Yep.

Ian

Yep. And again, I'm definitely I've been having a lot of the, like, nostalgia phase of this stuff because I I think I talked about this. So we got this, like, digital picture frame, which is awesome from Aurora. And so now I have, like, all these pictures that are, like, rotating through all my favorite pictures. I was like, oh, man.

They're just never they're just all big now. And the big face is awesome in its own ways, but that, like, oh, man. When they're just, like, two to 10

Aaron

I know.

Ian

Is, like, so good. There's just so many cute little things and all this stuff. So yeah, it is, it is it is you gotta appreciate that phase when you're in it even though it's incredibly hard because you're exhausted

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Running a business. Yep. They're keeping going, like, and all the other stuff. But Mhmm.

Aaron

We have started oh my gosh. It's the best dad hack ever. When I put the big kids to bed, we've started going up a little bit earlier just to, like, separate the chaos a little bit. So I'll take the big kids up at, like, six, and we play in their room for an hour, and then we go to bed. Right?

Ian

Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

The new game that they wanna play is they are mommy and daddy, and I am a baby. And so

Ian

That's a good

Aaron

lay down on the floor, and they put a blanket over me. They get me a pillow. They kiss me on the forehead, and they say, night night, if you hear any storms, you can just call for me, and I'll come help you. And I just get to lay on the floor with a blanket. Beautiful.

Awesome.

Ian

Go like, dad, wake up. You're actually sleeping.

Aaron

Best dad hack ever. It's like, hey. You guys wanna play dad takes a nap? Yeah.

Ian

It's like,

Aaron

perfect. So that's a that's a new, a new game that I'm very much behind because then I just lay on the floor and watch them play, and they pretend that they're comforting me because of the storms.

Ian

Yeah. This

Aaron

is perfect.

Ian

Are they in, are they in couch fort phase yet?

Aaron

They are. Very much so.

Ian

Yeah. Couch fort phase too.

Aaron

I am currently every night putting blankets over their cribs because it's forts.

Do you

want me to build your fort tonight? Yes. Okay. So, yeah, we can't see a gosh dang thing on the monitor because they're like

Ian

Oh, yeah.

Aaron

In their cribs with these blankets over them, but whatever. They're three and a half. It doesn't matter.

Ian

They're they're big. They're right now. Oh, jeez. Alright, man. Well, sounds good.

I guess, what are you doing this week? You just, new new adventures or you're just fusioning it?

Aaron

Fusion and screen casting, recording.

Ian

That's gonna be a short week for you too. So is it? Oh, yeah. Today or

Aaron

because I'm not working today. That's right. You're not

Ian

working today. No working.

Aaron

I'm being a head

Ian

start. Jesus. Photos.

Aaron

Yeah. Photos. Yeah. Okay. That's a good idea.

I can do it.

Ian

Have a nice meal. Get a nice meal. Do you have a reservation somewhere? You're gonna you're gonna you don't need a reservation by yourself. You're gonna go to have a fancy steak dinner.

You can get a steak dinner.

Aaron

I'll probably get a steak dinner because I opted not to do the very expensive spa day. I'll probably do a relatively expensive dinner. Yeah.

Ian

Get out there. Have a nice dinner. I love sitting at the bar. Sit at the bar by yourself. Nice steak dinner.

Aaron

Like the ultimate, it's the ultimate flex of being comfortable with thyself to go to a restaurant by yourself with a book and sit at, like, a proper table and just read a book at dinner.

Ian

No. That's

Aaron

And that's what I'm gonna do. It's gonna be great.

Ian

I love it.

Aaron

It's gonna be great.

Ian

Good old stool. Yep. Rockefeller.

Aaron

That's right. Exactly. Vanderbilt. Maybe that's what I should do. Maybe I should get a book on a Robert Baron and read that because that's kinda like

Ian

I think that mindset going.

Aaron

That's right.

That's what I

would do.

Ian

A really good idea. I kinda like I might do that, actually. I might steal that idea.

Aaron

That's a good idea.

Ian

Yeah. I because I need feel like I'm I need that, like like, what we're saying, building up more marketing in 2025, all that kind of stuff. Robert Baron mentality is

Aaron

gonna Gotta be a little more ruthless. It's gotta be a little more crushing.

Ian

Yes. Yeah.

Aaron

I like that.

Ian

Even the content. Right? It's like, you gotta say why your life sucks

Aaron

and why

Ian

you need our product. Right?

Aaron

I agree.

Ian

You gotta be over that's

Aaron

what I'm trying to do. About that. I agree.

Ian

I've always been too shy about that. Less shot this year on Alright. Deal.

Aaron

Deal. We'll go full Vanderbilt. Yeah. I like it. We are the robber barons of the Laravel community.

Ian

Yes. Exactly. Alright, man. Have a good week.

Aaron

Alright. See you

later.

Ian

See you. Bye.