Stay Lean, Stay Clean with Caleb Porzio

Aaron

Okay. We are back with with cohost with the most Hey,

Caleb

Keith. Though. Fake Ian. Not Ian. Co host.

Aaron

And we're on we're on Aaron's super bad camera because, you know, I came back to the studio and turned everything on, and it said plug in or charge battery. And it's literally never been unplugged in the entire existence of the studio. So I don't know what the primogen did to my camera, but we're gonna blame it on him. So I've got the I've got the good one over here and the bad one on the tripod, so sorry about that.

Caleb

Well, now we're we're more even of a, like, production. You're on

Aaron

my level. We both

Caleb

I don't know if you're on my level yet, but you're coming down. So

Aaron

It's it's a man of the people move. I'm just trying to make I'm just trying to be approachable.

Caleb

You gotta keep it real.

Aaron

That's right.

Caleb

Gotta have a poorly lit office Yep. If you're gonna keep it real.

Aaron

That's how that's how I get people to trust me as I downgrade my my production equipment.

Caleb

You put the lenses back in the glasses Mhmm. Dim those lights.

Aaron

Exactly. Yeah. It's weird. You can see more of the background than I'm used to. Anyway, this is not interesting for an audio podcast.

Caleb, you're back home.

Caleb

As are you. As I am. As you are. You never left.

Aaron

I never left, in fact, because I do indeed live here in Dallas, Texas.

Caleb

Shout out to Dallas, Texas, because I gave you some some crap on the last show for making us all go to Dallas and Yeah. And sweat. Okay. Not that hot.

Aaron

Okay. It wasn't that bad. It really wasn't. Not that bad.

Caleb

It's hot, but, like, it's not Arizona hot. Yep. It's not that hot. Like, your steering wheel didn't doesn't, like, melt off your car. Like, it's Correct.

Fine. And who cares?

Aaron

You're in AC the whole time. Yep. Who cares? No one cares. No one cares.

Caleb

No one cares.

Aaron

The only time I care is when we're at the, the after was it the after dark party that was outside? And I was carrying around my backpack like an idiot, so I got sweaty back. You know? That's not right.

Caleb

Right. Yeah. It's not great.

Aaron

But

Caleb

it I mean, it was nighttime. You know? The the only time that I think actually sucked a little was, the line, you know, going in. Like, the line was so big. Yep.

People were waiting out there for so long, and I did, like, man of the people.

Aaron

Mhmm. Like, I'm gonna

Caleb

wait in this line. I'm just gonna queue up talking with folks, whatever, just hanging out. I made it about a half hour, and then I was like, guys, I'm so sorry. I'm bouncing out. Half hour?

Yeah. Is that a little

Aaron

long? No. That's forever.

Caleb

I know. Yeah.

Aaron

I was just hanging out and, like, kinda just yeah. I I was walking with somebody to the conference, you

Caleb

know, just, like, met up some folks. I'm like, I'm just like you. We're just walking to the conference. Right. We're walking into the line wherever that is around the block,

Aaron

and then it was just like, guys, I'm so sorry. I gotta bounce. And then you came clean, guys. I'm not like you at all.

Caleb

I'm not like you at all, and

Aaron

I just went, I gotta get out of here.

Caleb

And they went, oh.

Aaron

The, the speaker escort ran over and pulled you out of the out of the muck and the mire.

Caleb

Yeah. With their finger in their ear. That's right. Aaron, can I do a quick ad read?

Aaron

Yeah. Do an ad read. I love an ad read.

Caleb

Alright. Because I never do this on my own podcast, and I keep forgetting. But I have the T shirt now. K. This app is brought to you by Transistor FM, baby.

Yes. I just real like, Transistor is the most useful piece of software that we all adore, but it's, like, invisible. It is. No? It's invisible.

The listener doesn't hear that it's Transistor. This podcast is coming to you from Transistor FM as is all of my podcasts and every podcast. And it's run by Justin Jackson, who's just the best and reminds us all of that when he blesses us with his presence at Laricon.

Aaron

And on the basketball court. And on the basketball court. Right.

Caleb

Which to you

Aaron

So we need we need we need to talk we need to talk about the basketball court. But first, this episode is actually brought to you by Spotzi, and so we'll have a ad for that.

Caleb

Oh, is it really? Yeah. We could do a Spotsy. I could we could do an impromptu Spotsy ad read in auction.

Aaron

No. There's an actual there's an actual ad read I gotta read later, but, there's a free one for love Justin. Yeah. There you go. Basketball game.

Yeah. Hit me hit me with a recap of the basketball game. So I I was I was recruited to be on the basketball team, and I know thyself and thought not a freaking chance. No no way I'm gonna be on the basketball court. So I put on the suit and did

Caleb

a little bit so that I wouldn't have to play. Coaching is less stressful to you than playing basketball.

Aaron

Yes. Absolutely. Coaching coaching is just like, there's no there's no one else doing it, you know, besides Will King, and then he abandoned me at halftime. So Sure. Shouts out to Will King.

He's a traitor. But, yeah, if you go if you actually go out on the basketball court, you have to play basketball. That's the problem.

Caleb

You do.

Aaron

And I I don't play basketball.

Caleb

Same. But I did.

Aaron

I'm shocked. I'm shocked to hear this.

Caleb

Did did you do before? Be honest. Did you know what zone defense was?

Aaron

I did, in fact. Okay. So you could coach. Yeah. There, the own the extent to which I was useful is the extent to which, basketball and soccer overlap.

And Mhmm. Surprisingly, it's not 0. So I my entire life,

Caleb

I played similar shaped courts. Yes.

Aaron

You know? Similar shaped courts. You use your hands in 1 and feet in the other, but it's like, you know, those are kinda the same thing.

Caleb

Similar.

Aaron

But the only thing I could contribute was 1, don't sub out Taylor and don't sub out Tom. Those that that was my biggest contribution was, like, Taylor and Tom, leave them in the game.

Caleb

Leave them in

Aaron

the game. 2nd second contribution, You'll let him sweat. You're the boss. I I serve at the pleasure of Taylor and Tom. And I actually told them that.

I was like, hey, guys. I'm just here to be funny, so don't, like, don't listen to anything that I say. Yeah. The second place that I was useful was here here's here's an actual tactic. Here's a tactic.

Y'all gotta slow down. You gotta spread out, and you gotta talk to each other. Just look at Eric. Because, coach, guys, it was it was not great. It was not great basketball.

Caleb

Oh, basketball. So briefly, like, I similarly was asked to to play basketball, and I gave a wishy what like, I'm stressing out about my talk. I'm stressing about the blocks. I got so much stress out about. Like, the last thing I need to stress out about is looking like an idiot playing basketball,

Aaron

which I don't play. I've never actually, like, played a team sport

Caleb

since soccer when I was, like, a kid. You know? So I'm not, like, a team sport guy. I've, like, played basketball, you know, just with friends. So so I don't know what zone defenses or anything like that.

Whatever. You any basketball I've played is just there's a ball, and you chase it, and you don't double dribble, and you put it in the hoop, and it's all good.

Aaron

You know? You check.

Caleb

Like, that's as far as I go. It's, like, I know how to check. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah.

Caleb

Wishy washy, like, probably not, maybe, but whatever. And they're like, we'll buy you a jersey. You can keep it as a souvenir. And I was like, alright. Cool.

Whatever. So I'm thinking I kind of escaped this and got us and got, like, a jersey. Right. Oh, this is a win win. And then Dave Hill, like, saw me.

Is it David Hill or Dave? Like, can you call him Dave?

Aaron

You can call him Dave. I think his name is David. I think he goes by David. But if you're doing, like, a folksy thing, you could call him Dave.

Caleb

Like, he wouldn't mind. Well, because you know, like Oh,

Aaron

yeah. I have no idea. I don't know about that. That's what I was looking for. We'll stick with David.

You know? We'll stick with David.

Caleb

If the Twitter profile says David you know, this is like the Michael Dorinda and Jake Bennett thing where it's,

Aaron

like, Michael Dorinda, Jake Bennett. Not Jacob Interesting. Bennett

Caleb

And not Mike Dorinda. And Mike Dorinda.

Aaron

He's not Mike. Dorinda sounds super off.

Caleb

Yes. So that that was, like, something at first I had to dial. I was, like, wait. So you are okay with Jake or Michael. So Jacob Dorinda.

Aaron

So basketball So Dave so Dave hits you up.

Caleb

So Dave hits me up, and he sees

Aaron

me at the hotel, and,

Caleb

like, everybody's going to the game.

Aaron

And he's like Mhmm. Oh, you made it. Alright.

Caleb

You're in. You know? And I was like No. It's like everybody's there, and they're all like, well, you're in. And I'm like, alright.

I'm in. Whatever.

Aaron

I did not know that. So then we get there. They don't have my jersey.

Caleb

There's What?

Aaron

It was like he's like, oh, it might have been, like, a last minute thing. Like, they might you know? Like, it was a Chinese thing that they're slow, and

Caleb

they didn't whatever. And so he hands me a a terminal shop jersey. So now I'm on the team with all

Aaron

the people who are good and don't know me. You know? Right. Of course.

Caleb

Yes. Me and Justin Jackson. He's, like, all the money. Jackson. Yeah.

Me and Justin Jackson. So and they're far better than you know.

Aaron

You're the token funny guys on that team.

Caleb

Oh, Oh, man. I know. And so I'm gonna come back to that. But at the end of the game, Nuno Maduro, shout out to Nuno.

Aaron

Not a great shout out, Nuno.

Caleb

Uh-oh. Comes up to me comes up to me and goes, hey. Is this your jersey in his hand? He's got my jersey.

Aaron

And I'm The whole time.

Caleb

The whole time. And, like, everybody just thought I did this along. You didn't announce me on

Aaron

the roster. It says Porzio on the back. I got

Caleb

a whole jersey with my name on it on the Laravel team. I don't know how he got it

Aaron

and why he held on to it the whole time. So literally after he comes up to me and then he's like, do you wanna trade, you know, for I was like, Nuno.

Caleb

Come on, man. Woah. So anyway Yeah. The fact that he had

Aaron

your name on it, and he still hit you with the, is this your jersey? Well, I don't wanna say that he got

Caleb

there because, like, Nuno.

Aaron

Not Oh, man. That's good that's good comedy, Nuno. Definitely. Right. It was, I was like, oh, no.

Caleb

Who found this? Where This

Aaron

is my this is my jersey.

Caleb

Honestly, and and he just, like, picked it up for me, you know. Probably.

Aaron

Good guy, you know, would do that too.

Caleb

Nuno. It's funnier to to paint him like a a a thief, you know, a Jersey thief that intentionally robbed me of my identity.

Aaron

I did not realize you were supposed to be on the Laravel team. I was Yes. I was on the Laravel team. Have

Caleb

right? They didn't announce me on

Aaron

the roster at all. I just stood there. Oh, so they didn't they didn't like me.

Caleb

They were going on the lineup? Not at all. And

Aaron

I'm so

Caleb

not only do I suck at basketball,

Aaron

I don't have a jersey.

Caleb

They didn't announce me, and here I am. So

Aaron

yes. If it makes you feel better, I showed up to the actual conference that I was, the MC of, and I didn't have a badge. So I got Nice. I got I got one of the lame, like, hey. This guy was added late badges, so we're on the same page there.

Caleb

Yeah. There should be a you know, I don't wanna again, we're trying to be a man of the people here, but

Aaron

Of course. Yeah.

Caleb

It's not it's not easy sometimes. Come on. Hey. You know, my badge is just like anybody else's badge. It's just a badge of the people.

You know? It doesn't say anything.

Aaron

It doesn't have, like, speaker Doesn't have speaker.

Caleb

4 stars, like, you know, he's

Aaron

like narratives or anything like that. Right. Yes. So I tried to get backstage, like, right away, and

Caleb

they were, like, giving me a hard time. And I'm, like, trying to find somebody, like, hey. Hey. Hey. Tell them.

Tell them who I am.

Aaron

Tell them who I am.

Caleb

Tell them who I am.

Aaron

Do you have any idea who I am?

Caleb

Oh, you're gonna hear about this later.

Aaron

Do you know who my father is? Have you ever met big

Caleb

guy? So, Aaron, we also have to clear that, like, everybody said nobody cares about this game. Nobody cares. It's just for fun. Yeah.

Bald faced liars. Yeah. You got

Aaron

super heavy boozled on that one. Forever.

Caleb

We don't care. I saw

Aaron

It's just for fun. We're just gonna it's just gonna be silly. Okay.

Caleb

The only window. The only the only people who kept it real were Daniel Coborn and

Aaron

Justin Colbourne.

Caleb

Jackson. If it works with those 2 guys

Aaron

That's right.

Caleb

Oh, man. Everybody they're like, oh, yeah. We suck. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah.

You guys suck. So do I. Great. Yeah. It's getting fun.

No. No. They took it crazy seriously Yep. And are very good compared to

Aaron

non good people. Meanwhile, Daniel's sitting on the bench ripping sweet vapes, and we've got people we we've got we've got college athletes out there, and Daniel's, like, put me in coach. Literally. Man.

Caleb

Toehe. Toehe. Right? He was

Aaron

And Justin Jackson Justin Jackson has on his his, like, hip dress sneakers, and these other guys are, like, wearing Air Force ones. And I'm like, alright. I kinda got a read on the teens here. I know who's who.

Caleb

Oh, yeah. I was wearing a d like, not a sporty Adidas. Like, these were not these are not basketball. So my wife They're

Aaron

fashion, fashion Adidas.

Caleb

This is so much funnier through the lens of Hannah and her comments to me among many of them were afterwards. I'm like, okay, give it to me for real. Like, how how dumb did we look? You know, like, how bad was it? And she because she watched the West Boston Scott DeLisi stream, and I

Aaron

was like, were

Caleb

they, like, grabbing at straws or whatever, trying to come up with stuff? And and they said well, she said one thing. She said they didn't know who you were because they never announced you. So they're both, like, they're both it took them forever. I'd already I made my my big basket.

You know?

Aaron

Yeah. Your big basket. We all remember the big basket.

Caleb

Hoping that's the term that you use. And, like but, hey, I did contribute. Yeah. And I came in hot, and and, apparently, they're, like they had no idea who it was, and then their name who says that. Right.

No name. Literally says 0. How what kind of metaphor is that? Mhmm. And and then

Aaron

great. That that's Caleb. What is that kid? Didn't he just bust a million on GitHub Sponsors, and now he's playing basketball?

Caleb

So

Aaron

hitting the big basketball.

Caleb

Now he

Aaron

says awesome.

Caleb

Yeah. But nobody So she said she said the only thing that I think stood out is, like, you could tell you didn't you weren't wearing basketball sneakers. She's like, everybody else was wearing basketball sneakers, and you were wearing just, like, shoes, you know? Mhmm. So

Aaron

Justin was Anyway. And I'm I guarantee you, Daniel wasn't wearing basketball sneakers either.

Caleb

No way. Flip flops.

Aaron

Yeah. Gotta be. Chacos. I don't know. I bought I bought some new coaches sneakers just for that just

Caleb

for that game.

Aaron

Those look to to match the blue suit. Coach. The right? It was a it was a good outfit. People were giving me a hard time about the whistle.

Like, coaches don't wear whistles. I'm like, have you ever seen a movie in your life? Yeah. Like, yeah, we don't go out there and call penalties or fouls or whatever you call them, but still, coaches wear whistles. Of course, they wear whistles.

Caleb

Don't tell me coaches don't wear whistles.

Aaron

That's what I'm saying. They wear whistles. They wear whistles. Maybe maybe not to a game, but this is like, this is a scrimmage. You know?

Coaches wear whistles. Coaches wear whistles. They gotta wear a whistle.

Caleb

And then, like, just let it drop out of their mouth, you know? Exactly. Like, they're just, like, kind

Aaron

of playing on their chair and trying to, and then just

Caleb

go, mhmm. You know?

Aaron

Yeah. Okay. So We've watched all the same movies. You get it.

Caleb

We've seen the same movies. But, yeah, the the tweet of Laracon, the tweet of the entire weekend was John Traxler's

Aaron

tweet.

Caleb

That's like, as soon as I saw this what was it?

Aaron

It's so much better than what I'm saying. It was like, as soon as I saw

Caleb

Danny hitting the vape on the bench, I knew what we were enforcing.

Aaron

I knew it was over. I think

Caleb

I knew it was so bad. Daniel's vaping on the bench.

Aaron

Oh my god.

Caleb

So so yeah. Alright. So so but yeah. Hannah did again, I wanna tell every story through the lens of Hannah's text to me And her, you know, was like, oh, how

Aaron

was it? Looked, like, pretty fun but kinda awkward

Caleb

is what she said.

Aaron

Oh, brutal.

Caleb

She's like, oh, no. Brutal.

Aaron

He's so

Caleb

That means it looked so awkward. He did cut That

Aaron

means it looked terrible.

Caleb

Wasn't just me. It's it's it's the whatever. So, anyway

Aaron

I I mean, I think we played 4 quarters of 9 minutes each, and the final score was, like, 24 to 16 or something. It was like, yo, we are we're not we're not putting these in.

Caleb

It was not great. So yeah. Basketball. Fun, though. I think Fun, though.

We we'd gotta do it again, but next time, it's gotta be with, like, people play basketball with, like, a volleyball or something. I don't know. Something stupid. Like, there need somebody needs to sub it out for, like, a rubber chicken or something.

Aaron

A little bit more low stakes.

Caleb

Then it'd be fun. You know?

Aaron

I still think, I still think dodgeball would be so fun. Dude, dodgeball can be dodgeball can

Caleb

be the same where people really I've seen some things with dodgeball. You've seen you've seen some I worked at summer camp.

Aaron

Decimate some some 8th graders. Seriously.

Caleb

The most, like, kind hearted, like, fruit of the spirit, folks. Right. Just with big limbs. You know? Just freaking windmill.

You know?

Aaron

Just roasting some And you just boys in the face. Yeah.

Caleb

Yeah. Seriously, no mercy.

Aaron

No mercy. Cartoon style. Leave their feet. Yeah. Yes.

We should do it. That'll be awesome.

Caleb

Yeah. That's probably great.

Aaron

We gotta do dodgeball. Yeah.

Caleb

Oh, great.

Aaron

So, yeah, basketball. What a way to kick it off. What a way to kick it off. What a way to kick it off. Good time.

Good time. And we roll into, let's see what else we roll into day 1. Big big day 1. Good day 1. Good day 1.

Caleb

Any anything

Aaron

I don't wanna go over all the talks because Yeah. That sounds boring.

Caleb

Let me just shout out to you, Aaron Francis.

Aaron

Shout out to me. I shout out shout out

Caleb

to me. In person, but let me put this out there that, like, when I was coming up, you knew I remember looking at certain folks who I considered, you know, the Laravel elite, and I was not an elite. Mhmm. And when I first got, like, my big break to go on stage Mhmm. Made it in as a nobody, just submitted a talk, whatever.

Like, nobody knew who I was. I just put out a talk. It got accepted. I was thrilled. This was, like, the thing for me, and I gave this talk, and I knew it it killed.

It did yeah. This was the embrace the back end, I think. Yeah. I remember that. Everybody loved it.

It it was like I won lottery or something. It was just people coming up to me just it was a whole thing because whatever. For me, it was a big deal. And I knew that the people I wanted to see it the most didn't see it. You know?

I knew and it was a long struggle of, like, you know, now I think Taylor watches my talks, but, you know and I'm not well, I'm not saying this. This isn't whatever. I don't watch people's talks anymore for the most part, just so you know. So I'm the problem. Totally.

I get it. Mhmm.

Aaron

But at that point, I I remember having like, I gotta do that again and again and again, and eventually, maybe one of them will hear that his talks are good. You should have him back next year.

Caleb

Yep. You know, whatever, that kind of thing. Aaron Francis has the, you know, the pedigree or the privilege or whatever of somebody who could easily not watch talks, but people want him to know that if they're good, they want him to know, and Aaron watches every single talk, which is insane. And I remember I I was principled for a few years. I tried to watch everybody's talk.

Now it's all over. I just it's all over. But anyway, kudos to you. It's a it's that's a that's a power move because you don't have to, and you do.

Aaron

Wow. That's nice of you to say. I appreciate that. I, so I take my responsibilities, all of them. Every responsibility, every duty, I take all of those very seriously up to and including being an emcee.

And so, like, part of it is I gotta come I gotta come back out on stage and have, like, a

Caleb

part of the job. Right?

Aaron

You can't let conversation with the speaker and not, like, not phone it in because I think if you come out and you're you're phoning it in, it's, like, rude to the speaker. It's a little bit demoralizing. It's a little bit the audience is like, this guy didn't even watch the talk. And so I would love to, like, I'd love to bebop around backstage and, you know, shake hands and point at people. But, yes, I watched every single talk from side stage peeking through the little curtain with my with my phone out, taking notes to make sure I knew what was going on.

Yeah. That's fun. I you know, I enjoy it, but it is a lot of it's a lot of work.

Caleb

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's I mean, that's great. And that we're in a unique position where we have somebody who's who's, like, uniquely good at emceeing and things like that, but also knows the community, knows the people, knows the tech, and has the grit to watch, you know, these talks and whatever.

It's like like, there's fair it's a small list. Like like, Matt Stauffer is somebody I could think of that could do this, like, that would, you know it's a small list, and, and you do it well. So Aaron Francis.

Aaron

Oh, thanks.

Caleb

Good man.

Aaron

Thank you. I appreciate that. I, Chebloin. They they asked me after the event staff asked me after the conference if I'd wanna emcee some of their other events.

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

And I told him, send me an email. I I'm up for anything. You know? We'll write

Caleb

in the bin, but, too.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. See what you got. But I I did think about, like, how would I how would I host, you know, century 21 mid rest Midwest Regional Sales Conference? Like, that would be a lot harder.

Caleb

Do it. It would be a lot harder.

Aaron

You could do it. Much harder.

Caleb

Oh, yeah. No. That's true.

Aaron

And be like, well, houses. Am I right? You know?

Caleb

I'm hoping that the fact, like, the people who do stuff at the factory are, like I'm thinking all those people, they gotta be going to the hotels, conferences, you know, like

Aaron

Yeah.

Caleb

Like, if you're at the factory, like, you're at least a little cool. You're

Aaron

at least a little cool. These but this this group is the same one the same one that did Nashville last year. So I don't know where this events group is based. Oh. But maybe they do like, if they do purely tech conferences, like, I could totally host rails world or Sure.

I could host some sort of, like, tech agnostic, you know, GitHub universe style thing. I could totally do that. Yeah. But some of them might be like, y'all, I have no idea what any of y'all are talking about, and that would be kinda tough. Yeah.

It's nice. It's nice. It's very nice. Though. I like it.

I like being out on stage. I I have a great time.

Caleb

Yeah. It's, but you gotta do all that other work. That's the problem.

Aaron

All that other work.

Caleb

It's nice to just be on stage. Like, I just get to go on stage, you know, and I don't have to do all the other work. And then they just have technical problems, and then I get to just vamp with you. Man. And How was that?

And we have fun. That was great.

Aaron

That's great.

Caleb

That was that was the highlight of the conference for me.

Aaron

I think that was the highlight of the conference for me too.

Caleb

Yeah. It it just it was, like, you know, I mean, something that that we're just uniquely good at, and it just, like, fell into our lap. I know. You know?

Aaron

It's just, like, a lot of a disaster where everyone is, like, this is gonna be a disaster. And you and I are, like, oh, this is our opportunity. Go. And everybody's on our team because they're, like, I can't imagine doing this. I know.

What an opportunity.

Caleb

Most charitable crowd in the world. Uh-huh. Because the baseline the expectation is just, like, seeing your way off stage or sweating a lot and being silent. You know? Yeah.

Aaron

So When I saw you so, of course, I'm sitting side stage watching. You know? Yeah. And when I saw that it wasn't working, I gave it, you know, a few, like, 30 seconds, minute and a half, and then was like, this is not going to work. And so I looked at Aspen, who's, like, the production manager.

I said, turn on my mic. I have to go save him.

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

And so I just she turned on my mic, and I ran out there and had no idea what was gonna happen next. Yeah. And I'm so grateful we had the whole backstage, we we had a whole episode of, you know, Seinfeld backstage talking about handshake. Literally just right before I went on stage. Yeah.

Caleb

We're doing this whole handshake bit for an audience of 4, and and it's funny and we're whatever. And one of us probably said, like, this I don't know. We and then just happened to be able to replay the bit. That was great. Like right away.

Yeah. That was great. Part before that, it's like a blur because that was the only part that, like, I wasn't nervous because something's going wrong. I didn't. It's not like I was the reason it was going wrong,

Aaron

you know,

Caleb

so I wasn't nervous. I didn't feel like like, oh, this is going solid and it's whatever. It's not like if my demo stopped working or something, you know. But it was, you know, like, kind of a flurry. And I I remember make I can't wait to watch the video because I remember making remember doing a doing a, like, you know, 60 minutes on my name pronunciation or something.

Like, literally just

Aaron

Do you remember that at all?

Caleb

Oh, I think I think literally my opener is, like, yeah. So I'm Caleb K LUB is how you pronounce it.

Aaron

Oh, brutal.

Caleb

Or Caleb, you know, I was actually getting laughs, but that but it was like, how long am I gonna wait? Ran out because

Aaron

that might have been my

Caleb

my signal to be like, oh,

Aaron

he's he's dying all the time.

Caleb

Like, well, how much I don't think I can do much more on this name thing. You know?

Aaron

Because we've only got 2 syllables, and we just got that whole thing.

Caleb

We got through all the pronunciations. So anyway.

Aaron

Yeah. And then watch it. And I told I told, I told Hank, the Laravel marketing guy. I was like, listen. I'm sure that's not gonna end up on the channel, but I want I want that footage.

Please preserve that for posterity.

Caleb

Right.

Aaron

Because that was good. That was good content, man.

Caleb

It was great bit. It was good content.

Aaron

Yeah. And then I get to, you know, I get to announce you back on stage. Caleb Horsey for the first time today. That's great. Come

Caleb

on. Hey. It it, I mean, talk about the easiest entrance ever. You know?

Aaron

Yeah. You just I was just working the room.

Caleb

How long was I on stage for before I even started my talk?

Aaron

I think it was a full 30 minutes. Because I think you were supposed to start at 9:30, and we pushed it to 10. And I gave you I gave you an out. I was like, alright, guys. This is not working.

We will come back at 10, and you're like, hey. What if we take some q and a? Like, this guy. What a freaking pro, this guy.

Caleb

Do it. And you just work the room. It was awesome. That was super fun. Yeah.

That was really fun. And there was hilarious questions. You know, the one dude was like, why does the LiveWire logo

Aaron

look the way it does? Yeah. There was some

Caleb

funny ones. So, yeah, that was a good time. But, yeah, reentering the stage after, like, we're we've already been chilling for a half an hour. And I gotta say the first slot second day is generally a pretty good like, there's a lot worse slots. You know, there's plenty of worse slots.

It's maybe the 3rd best slot. I don't know. But, looking at, like, when when I got on stage, I was actually glad we had an extra half hour because there weren't that many people there. Yeah. Like, 2nd day.

Daniel wasn't there.

Aaron

He rolled he rolled in sleepyhead at, like, 9:50 to be, like, hey, what's this what's this show going

Caleb

on here? So this is what I get.

Aaron

I get, like I I was gonna say it's on stage when I did.

Caleb

He messaged me, so I you know, I'm, like, there for for my d c, you know. Like, I'm backstage with him, pumping him up. Dude, so pumped. Like, sitting front row, screaming, obscenities, obscenities, obscenities. Getting off stage for obscenity.

Okay. I don't think you clarified it.

Aaron

What is it? Obscenities.

Caleb

Obscenities? Okay. Yeah. So, pumping him up, whatever. He's grateful.

He messages me, like, late at night. I was already sleeping. So this should be my first sign, but he messaged me. He's like, dude, you know, being a bro.

Aaron

And he's like Yeah.

Caleb

You know, I'm gonna be there for you, man. Like, you know, this whole thing. I'm not

Aaron

going to go well for Daniel. I know where this, I know where the story is going.

Caleb

Like on stage, like, so we're like, oh, well, Daniel, wait, where's Daniel?

Aaron

Where's that guy? Where's that shaggy guy?

Caleb

But anyway, Daniel and many others were not there because I don't know, like first talk, first day has full attendance. You know? Last talk, first day has full attendance. Mhmm. 1st talk, second day does not have full attendance.

Aaron

Well, yes, sir. It's a crack of 9:30. Who can be expected to get

Caleb

Everybody's been after dark. 30.

Aaron

I know. I couldn't believe it. It's like, do you guys have kids? This is, like, noon in

Caleb

kid time.

Aaron

Like Exactly.

Caleb

We've been up for days. Yeah. And then what do you think of, like, last talk second day? Because then you have people who are starting to leave or whatever.

Aaron

Like Starting to leave early.

Caleb

How well attended is that you think?

Aaron

I think extremely well attended.

Caleb

Mhmm. I think

Aaron

the only reason you wouldn't be there last talk second day is if you, for some reason, had to go home

Caleb

early. Yep.

Aaron

And I think, who was it that told me, oh, Jess Jess Archer told me last year at Nashville that that slot is called the lock note. So you have the keynote at the beginning of the day and the lock note at the end of the day. Uh-oh. And that is supposed to be a big name that keeps people around.

Caleb

And so I think that's

Aaron

why they put Primogen at the very end so that people would stay throughout the whole conference.

Caleb

Yep. For sure. Yeah. That's essential. It just felt intuitive, but that that's cool.

Yeah.

Aaron

No. I

Caleb

know. I'd never heard that.

Aaron

Yeah, that's cool. It's the worst slot as a speaker, you know?

Caleb

Yeah. Because you

Aaron

get to experience, anxiety all the way up until the conference is over.

Caleb

You get to enjoy none of the conference. None of it. All none of it.

Aaron

Although, I will say, I think Prime is, extremely relaxed and enjoyed the whole conference. And then walked out on the stage, no slides, no notes, and just gave 15 minutes and just crushed glory.

Caleb

So Yeah. And I think most, I mean, most professional and I I could be totally wrong on this, but it just seems like you know, usually the keynote is somebody who does this a lot. Yeah. Like an uncle Bob or something. Like, they this is what they do.

And may and a lot of times, I think they've they're only there for their talk. You know?

Aaron

Yeah. That's one thing I really appreciate about, Lyricon is all the speakers are just there the whole time. All the time. Like, Primogen was there from before day 1 to the very end, and he was hanging out and chatting and bebopping. I I love that.

Caleb

Yep. That is huge. Those are the things those are special things. They're rare. They're special.

I remember Sandy Metz in 2017 or 18 or something. I don't know. But she I think so. It was, like, Louisville. I don't even know what year that was.

And she, like, showed up, and, you know, she's pretty big name and

Aaron

Yeah. She's a big name.

Caleb

Speaker and whatever. And I don't think she stayed the whole conference, but I remember, her being in the audience, the the talk before her talk. She was, like, sitting there enjoying the talk. I sat next to

Aaron

her and just chatted it up, and it

Caleb

it and then in high, it was, like, wow. Like, you were on next, and you were the the closer. And the talk before your talk, you were mingling with people. You were sitting in the seat, paying attention to someone else's talk and cheering for them and being interested in the content. Like, those are the things that I aspire to.

It's like, that's really cool.

Aaron

That's the ultimate, quiet display of power right there. True. To be like, I'm gonna go on next.

Caleb

I have

Aaron

a big name, but I'm gonna sit here, relax, and support other people. That's, like, that's quiet confidence. That's crazy. If I were whenever I give a talk, I never listen to the person right before me. Yeah.

Caleb

No one does. You're like Because I'm growing up or you're just whatever.

Aaron

Sure everything's good, you know, shaking shaking out the jitters. But Yeah. Yeah. Maybe maybe someday I'll get there. That's awesome.

Caleb

I know. Yeah. You gotta be pretty I mean, I'd I at least needed, like I think I had more of that vibe this time than ever, but I definitely needed that. I've done this before where you forget to take

Aaron

a minute to, like, put

Caleb

your brain in the space. Yep. Yep.

Aaron

And then you go out there

Caleb

and you're feeling all good because you're feeling all good backstage, but then you, like, remember that you have to know, like, your intro bit. You have to be able to, like, you have to know what slides coming up to know these things. You can't be unprepared in that way. And so I've remembered this time and I just took, like, I think it was like 5 minutes of just cone of silence to, like, I

Aaron

say this, then I say that, then I say that, then

Caleb

and okay. And keep it fresh and then go, you know?

Aaron

So anyway,

Caleb

yeah, it's a good conference. There needs to be, a day to something so that people don't just disperse and stuff, and they kicked us out pretty early and stuff. I don't know. Yes. Right?

Like don't they need a day to something?

Aaron

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Back to the show. So you wanna do more than a day one something. You wanna do notes? You wanna compare notes on

Caleb

Let's do notes. Yeah.

Aaron

Let's do notes. I have some notes,

Caleb

and Cool.

Aaron

I'll I'll start by saying best conference, most favorite conference, extremely well done. Love the conference.

Caleb

Same.

Aaron

Minor notes that I will, forward on to the production staff. I have promised them that I would give them my feedback. Loud music at the post conference hangout is real tough.

Caleb

At the, like, at the after dark, not in the

Aaron

thing? Either.

Caleb

Either. Yeah.

Aaron

At the at the mix and mingle or the after dark, it's tough.

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

Because that was the case this year and in Nashville. In Nashville, I felt so bad for the artist because he literally cleared the room when he went on the stage.

Caleb

Nashville was brutal.

Aaron

Everybody's like, well, I'm here. I I flew to America to talk to people. Right. Let's go where

Caleb

we talk. Yeah. And I don't fault people for that at all.

Aaron

Oh, no. I'm Yeah. I'm,

Caleb

with this that bad.

Aaron

Yeah. I'm I'm the first person to be like, hey. Let's step outside so we can talk. And so that would be I think that's maybe one of my number one pieces of feedback. Like, I love the vibe that it creates.

The live music creates, like, an energetic vibe. Yeah. But I think it needs to be, like, a Spotify playlist played much lower.

Caleb

Yeah. Like, like, that's not right now?

Aaron

This is

Caleb

like a week. What? Like, 4 days since seeing home or something. This is my voice still. It's not like this normally, you know.

Aaron

The whole time I was there, I was sucking on cough drops because I was like, my voice is wrecked.

Caleb

Yeah. You're just yelling the whole time.

Aaron

Shouting at people the whole time. So that was that was tough. And then one other this this is along the same vector. I think we could have 1 fewer talk per day.

Caleb

Yeah. Yep. I think, one fewer talk per day would give it oh, and it it would build in more space for technical difficulties, obviously. Yeah. But it would just build in space, and and it obviously talks are what percentage of talks are so important.

They need they are the the, you know, the backbone Right. Of the conference. And for so many people who are there solo and whatever Yes. The talks are what they're doing because

Aaron

Mhmm.

Caleb

The alternative is social awkwardness. Right. So talks are super important. But, yeah, like, having it more breathing room, definitely, definitely better. I mean, they we talked about this stuff, me and you.

But, like, they used to be longer talks, so going down to 30 minutes was an innovation. I remember being, like, oh, this is so much better. Yep. It makes everyone's talk harder. Mhmm.

It's much harder to do 30 minutes than it is 45.

Aaron

But That makes the audience's experience so much better.

Caleb

So much better. Yeah. Similarly, if they were 20 minutes, honestly, it'd probably be

Aaron

even better. That'd be crazy.

Caleb

Who doesn't who like, you're it should be, like, TED talk length, you know? Yeah. Little micro talks. Yeah. Because I mean, whatever.

So, yes, agreed. One less talk per day music. Yeah. I mean, even if it's a hard problem to solve because you have no music.

Aaron

I know. That's you you wanted to be vibey. You wanted to be vibey.

Caleb

Just background. Whatever. Put on I think background. Radio, like Yeah. At an after dark event or something.

Yeah. Even that.

Aaron

Well, you remember after dark Nashville, 3 Oh, that's interesting.

Caleb

Floors vastly bad.

Aaron

3 floors of of live bands and everyone in the room.

Caleb

Empty floors and a packed roof.

Aaron

Packed roof. Yeah. That was that was crazy. It was tough.

Caleb

That was much tougher than this. This was fine. Like Yeah.

Aaron

It was not ideal. Second day was totally fine.

Caleb

What second day?

Aaron

Jet Black. That was the artist's name.

Caleb

Oh, gosh.

Aaron

Cool name. Yeah.

Caleb

Right. Yes. Cool name. Cool name. Very cool.

And, yeah, it it was fine. I was standing actually, like, not that far in front of him just talking with people. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Totally fine. Like, a single artist or whatever with, you know, one of those stand up speaker things, maybe got a loop pedal, and they're just providing ambiance, and people can tune in who want to tune in and hang out for a second or don't have somebody to talk to. But the whole band thing, they're just giant amplification.

Aaron

It's Right.

Caleb

It's just not it. And this is coming from somebody who hates playing. I hate playing bars. I haven't played that many of them, but it's the worst experience. Like, you know, I would much rather you're playing for a crowd that doesn't care about you, and it's the worst, so you're just background music.

Anyway, yeah, those are 2 good notes.

Aaron

Good notes. Right?

Caleb

Good notes. Well, keep going.

Aaron

Oh, what are other notes? I think badges should have people's profile pictures on them or picture photos.

Caleb

Everybody's been saying that forever. Yeah. There's gotta be a a specific reason that they don't do that.

Aaron

I'm sure it's just logistics kind of a nightmare. You gotta go through the the file upload process. I mean, it turns what is a CSV mail merge of people's names into where do these files live? How do we get them to the printer? How's everyone you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Caleb

That's unbelievably important. Unbelievable. That would be such

Aaron

that would be

Caleb

such a lever to pull. I know. There are people that I talked to that I'm sure it's same for you. It's like, I know your the it's I either know your face or Yep. So there's this.

The there's the I know your face, but, or I know your face, and I'm looking at your name, but I can't place you because I'm not seeing your your profile pic. I'm not

Aaron

seeing your ad in the card. I'm just yeah.

Caleb

It's this, like, it's this pattern recognition. The only pattern recognition I have for you that's not matching, and I'm having this whole conversation, and it's getting increasingly uncomfortable. Mhmm. And yeah. So that stinks.

And profile pictures would solve so much of that. So much of

Aaron

that. Yeah.

Caleb

Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah.

Aaron

You gotta do it. And then and then I didn't experience this, but as a man of the people, I understand the check-in line was just brutal.

Caleb

Brutal.

Aaron

And so

Caleb

Dude, half an hour. Brutality.

Aaron

I think check-in the night before. Like, you know, if there's a main hotel where people are arriving, you could knock out 40, 50, 60% of the check ins and get people their badges, and that gives them their swag bag to, like, put in the hotel room instead of carry around like a goofus. Yep. And then on the morning of, you get the people who weren't able to check-in at, you know, one of the given hotels, and I think that would speed everything up quite a bit.

Caleb

Yep. Yeah. That would be that'd be big. Yeah. Check-in was full of friction.

I'm sure I have I know I have others. I just have none of them written down, but hotel proximity.

Aaron

Oh. I can't go back. Can't go back. It was super ideal.

Caleb

Has to be walk it has to be less than a 10 minute walk.

Aaron

Yeah. Can we talk about Deep Ellum? Perfect Yeah. Venue besides a little bit of heat, but perfect venue.

Caleb

Yes and no. I know. It's perfect in every way except the roads, bro.

Aaron

Oh, yeah. That one's on us.

Caleb

Freaking roads, man. How awesome they are or what? City. There are just giant roads everywhere.

Aaron

Yeah.

Caleb

Hell yeah. You have to cross a giant road. Everywhere you go.

Aaron

And don't be short because our trucks are tall. You'll get hit by a big truck. True. We can't see over the dash because the trucks are 6 feet tall. They are.

Caleb

Yeah. Yeah. It's brutal. So that Deep Ellum and the hotel and the just imagine that whole experience but with no giant road, like, just not everywhere. You know?

It would be

Aaron

Europe. It would be Europe.

Caleb

It would be Europe. No. There's a lot of other places that are like that. Even, like, you know, New York is so much more walkable than that, you know, to me. Anyway, because it's just, like, double, triple lane each side situations

Aaron

Mhmm.

Caleb

Just cutting through everything. So Yep. And it ruins the vibe. It's like you're in a good vibe, and then all of a sudden you're, like, on a freeway.

Aaron

Hit by a truck.

Caleb

Yeah. Like, oh, I just got hit by a truck. Sit back. Oh, man. Yeah.

So that that's my only yeah. Honestly, the weather wasn't an issue, and this was the roads aren't that big of an issue, but they ruined the vibe. They ruined the commute. They just they make you wanna take an Uber, because you don't wanna cross

Aaron

that road. But but but the walkability was great. So the

Caleb

walkability was great. You

Aaron

can walk from the hotel to the venue, to the taco shop, to the after dark, to Terry Black's, barbecue. You could do it all.

Caleb

Best. It's great. Best. It was great. Yes.

And it and a perk of it is we felt like we were the only ones in town. Yes. You know? That was nice.

Aaron

And and I think you and I talked about this. You don't get pulled away. You don't get pulled away 25 minutes to one thing, and then you can't you can't be bought back to another hang. You know what I mean?

Caleb

Yep. Yeah. That's huge huge huge huge huge. Not having to get in an Uber to go to the after dark and then not having to get an Uber to go to your hotel.

Aaron

Mhmm. So huge. There's so

Caleb

many times where it's, like, oh, where are oh, I'm at the hotel. No problem. I'll walk over there. It's Yep. A 5 minute walk.

If that Mhmm. And it's, like, I'll work

Aaron

in the shuffle. You're at the Kimpton Pimpton. Yes. Let's just I'll just walk over. Exactly.

Caleb

Yeah. Where where's everybody at? Oh, we're at the electric shuffle. Great. You know, I'll just walk over there.

Even Yep. Everywhere we went, even the speaker dinner. Yep. And that was even closer to the other direction. Mhmm.

It's just, like, I walked to every one of those places. I didn't end cost, like, as a cheapo. I remember last year at Lyricon. I didn't even think about it. I'm just lifting everywhere.

Aaron

I know.

Caleb

And then I get like, I look at this lift, like, the receipts on my, like, monthly little It's not great. And I'm like, damn. Like

Aaron

If you listen. That's a lot of money. Save it once, you earn it twice. That's what I'm saying.

Caleb

Tell me more about that.

Aaron

I'm not gonna tell

Caleb

you more about that. No. We're gonna end that right

Aaron

there. Oh, no.

Caleb

So, yes, huge walkability. So huge. I so that honestly, that's the thing I care about most. It's, like, whatever it is next year, please, just a nice hotel. It has to be nice.

Aaron

Has to be nice.

Caleb

Has to be nice.

Aaron

Come on. You have 35.

Caleb

It's got to be nice. Premier. You know? Yeah. It has to.

And Kimpton, except for denying Adam Wadden his his room and Oh, yes. I heard that Adam. But for those who don't know that this is an actual thing, which I didn't, Adam had a room, just showed up at midnight or whatever, and they were, like, we gave away your room. So that can happen.

Aaron

They work on airline rules. We'll We'll sell a 106% and hope that some people don't show up. That, man. Don't know. That's crazy.

Caleb

I don't know if

Aaron

you can Here's here's the ultimate here's the ultimate dad move to prevent that. If you're gonna check-in super late, you call them at noon, and you say, hey. I'm coming. I just won't be there until 10 PM. Yeah.

But I just wanna let you know I'm on my way. Yeah. That's, like, the that's the Uber dad move.

Caleb

That's just being a that's just being on top of things. Yeah. That's just being an experienced boy. You know?

Aaron

That's right. Which is dad. You know? That what what more is a dad besides an experienced boy?

Caleb

Boy. That's crazy. A dad. Oh, random. Can we shout out, quote at the conference, maybe one of them, that I it might have passed by if you didn't draw attention to it.

Mhmm. But because Aaron watches all the talks, he's taking notes, he's got his bits ready for when he comes out on stage. Mhmm. Daniel Colbourne. Sheesh.

Oh, Daniel.

Aaron

Wisdom. Sweet Daniel. Wisdom.

Caleb

His, In passing. In passing. Yep. Which he did tell me after, which we haven't even said the thing yet. He told me after that, like, you know, they were flashing him off stage.

Aaron

Yeah.

Caleb

So he had to blow through like

Aaron

the full eye pull,

Caleb

you know, all that stuff. Yeah. I had the flash. I know. Yeah.

Trust me.

Aaron

I know. Hit the

Caleb

button.

Aaron

I got my shepherd's crook ready to pull

Caleb

them off. Yes. You know. Yeah. Trying to rush Bob's stage, we had to rush some stuff and, like, just kinda say some things that he could have said in a said he said profound things in passing that could have had a little more punch, but you helped him out with that.

What what happened doesn't change. What it means does. Mhmm. And that will stay with me. It it is both Right.

So unbelievably perfect for his talk and life. I'm not sure I've witnessed a better tie in No. Than that.

Aaron

That was tangential perfection. It it Literally perfection. One point in history, and that was the perfect point. And then ne'er the twain shall meet, off they go.

Caleb

Say no more, Daniel.

Aaron

That was the crossover between verbs and deep philosophy. It was amazing. Oh, it's it's one of those things that's so philosophically and just, like it's one of

Caleb

those things that that rings of of, like, true in a sense Exactly. You just kinda feel it, and you go, oh, but it it rings in that deep truth that you go, oh, this could apply to both technology Mhmm. And life because it is so fundamentally true. You know? It's just one of

Aaron

those things where you hear it like revelations. You know? Oh, he just discovered an ever existing truth and said it out loud. He didn't come up with that. That is a truth of the universe.

It was great. Like, I love could have been watching,

Caleb

that could have been said anywhere. Almost about anything. Mhmm. You're watching National Geographic, and remember, what happens never changes, but what it means does, you know, or whatever you could and somebody could say that. And so just real quick for the listener in case you didn't see his talk.

His talks on event sourcing. Verbs is the tool that he likes to do it. Yeah. It's not event sourcing, what it is, but

Aaron

it's not It's new event source.

Caleb

It's new event sourcing. We're trying not to say event sourcing. It's basically, like, don't don't don't, whatever your your users do is what matters. Store that.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Caleb

Then you can change what it means, meaning, like, you know, your database tables and columns, all that mutable state. You can change the form of that because that's what your interface reflects, which is ever changing, but the but it is cool to at least hear that, like, yes, everything is changing in apps. Right? Like, isn't that Mhmm. You're optimizing for change.

That's that's one of those evergreen programming wisdom big four things, optimizing for change. Everything's about change. But there is something that doesn't change, and it is what your users did. Mhmm. You know?

And that's really cool, and it's a cool way to think about it. Shout out to d.

Aaron

Shout out to d. Cole. Shout out to the d. Just like a 100% true in real life. The past never changes.

Only your interpretation of it and what it means

Caleb

to you does.

Aaron

Changes. And it changes often. And

Caleb

that is yeah. Crushed it. Good job. Great.

Aaron

Good job, Daniel.

Caleb

Good job, Daniel. And, well, whatever. His talk was the most entertaining thing in the world. Yes. He has a way of being so excited and lovable.

Yes.

Aaron

Shaggy dog. Yeah. Which isn't a quality you always see

Caleb

in person. This and then not in the way that, like, he's a different person on stage. He is still that person, but, right, like Yep. In person, he's much more discerning and whatever. He'll he just you know, whatever.

Everybody knows his in person is what he was on the last time he was on the show, this last Yep. Episode. But on stage, he has just this extreme energy and lovability that is cool to see, and it's like Yep. There's there's more to Daniel even than than what I know. You know?

Aaron

So my wife watched to to her great credit, just a a long suffering saint. She watched She

Caleb

watched a lot.

Aaron

A dog.

Caleb

She yeah. She was feeding me She's a Francis.

Aaron

Did you catch that part? She watched many of many bits of many talks, and she texted me at one point and said, did one of the speakers do their whole talk with sunglasses on his head? And I think that was Daniel, and I was like, yeah. That guy's pretty chill. Like, he's pretty laid back.

He's pretty easygoing. And the fact

Caleb

that Somebody sat, like, right backstage before he went on, somebody was like, dude, your

Aaron

your sunglasses on your head, and he was like, oh, oh, yeah.

Caleb

And I think he he said he was gonna take them off. I don't think he did. So who knows?

Aaron

I was wondering if it was intentional. Who knows?

Caleb

I wear a backwards hat on stage. Yeah. It's I could see doing that on purpose, but go on. And the the

Aaron

I know that I know that, John was just sitting in his seat white knuckling. John Rudolph was just watching him white knuckling as as Daniel's giving this talk because it's, like, no big deal. Just the future of our business and our livelihoods on the line. And Daniel

Caleb

Daniel. Yes. John.

Aaron

Daniel's like, whoops. I accidentally dropped the migrations table. I wasn't supposed to do that here. I'm gonna do it locally and then copy and paste as a SQL sequel insert and then run it again just like that blew that blew

Caleb

my mind. I thought, man, I

Aaron

know that I knew that he had planned, like, one of the bugs, you know, the fake bug or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But this was clearly not planned, and he was like, I think I know what I did here.

Caleb

Jeez, man. I mean, it really just becomes I mean, you know why people enjoy watching sports. It's just this constant, like, oh, are they gonna make it? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I bought it. Exactly. It was that. Just like, oh, he's gonna

Aaron

make it.

Caleb

Is he gonna make it? Please make it. Please make it.

Aaron

Please make it. Please make it. Oh,

Caleb

no. It got worse. It's worse. It literally got worse.

Aaron

It's not gonna make it. There's no way he's gonna make it. Yep. He made it.

Caleb

You know? That's when

Aaron

he puts the bobsled on his shoulder and carries it across the finish line. He made it.

Caleb

I love it. Right? Like, just the best.

Aaron

That's so good. Good job, Daniel.

Caleb

Can just totally, unravel on stage better than Daniel Goldberg.

Aaron

Yeah. He's pretty good at that.

Caleb

Because he doesn't unravel. Yeah. So,

Aaron

bravo, Daniel.

Caleb

Bravo, Daniel. I think I thought I hit there's one other, like, subtle note that I thought you should type this up, but it's like, who do you tell this note to? You know? Tell tell

Aaron

it to me. I'll tell it to the people. I don't remember. Well Who do you tell?

Caleb

Where do you put stuff? There's is there comment cards or something?

Aaron

I don't know, but I I have an email, drafted to Aspen, who is the production manager to the stars, and Tara, who works with Aspen, they're the events team. Because I know they're having a a, like, a post Lyricon meeting to talk about what went right, what went wrong, etcetera.

Caleb

Yep. Yeah. That's really important. That that's something that I felt like missed in previous years and with other conferences. It's like, if you're there's certain things that if you're an audience member, you see so clearly.

Aaron

If you're

Caleb

an organizer that you're completely blind to. Totally. It's like so critical to hear those things if you don't have a vector for that. Oh. It's just, so lost.

Especially, like

Aaron

Number 1. Number 1 comment.

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

Move the vendors out of the speaker room.

Caleb

Oh, yeah. True. So true.

Aaron

That was it. That's number 1.

Caleb

Although it did work after that. Be I mean, I agree.

Aaron

Because the vendors sacrificed themselves upon the pyre of silence. Yeah. They just agreed not to talk to anyone during talks, which is, like, very generous of them, but not not, like, probably what they wanted. Right.

Caleb

I mean, it yeah. It'd be great if they were just down at that entrance floor and the doors were closed. You know?

Aaron

Or put them in the secret room where the talks are being live

Caleb

streamed. Think about if I was a vendor Yeah. I wouldn't wanna be in that secret room.

Aaron

You wouldn't wanna be in

Caleb

the secret room? No way.

Aaron

I think it would be fine because Maybe

Caleb

it would be.

Aaron

Still we still have to they everybody still has to get their bingo stamps to win, you know, a MacBook Pro or whatever.

Caleb

Right.

Aaron

True. Everybody still needs to go visit the vendors. Vendors have elephants. Vendors have giveaways and, like Do you

Caleb

know how many submissions there were for the bingo card? I don't. Because that would be telling. It's, like, were there a 100 people, or were there 700 people?

Aaron

That's a good that's a good question. I'd say

Caleb

if there were above 500 people, then that is a smash hit. Yeah. And then you can put them anywhere because you'll get they'll come to your booth. You know? Yeah.

Aaron

I I do think that that secret room, it would have worked just fine. I I am hesitant to say put the vendors in an annex without knowing that the annex will be highly trafficked. I think that's the problem.

Caleb

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It it just feels like you have such a better you wanna be in the path of in and out.

You know?

Aaron

Like, you just wanna Maybe we could do that

Caleb

especially for entrance. Imagine just on the conference day entering. Mhmm. Crickets for vendors, you know, if they were in the back there. Crickets.

Aaron

Unless all specialty coffee goes back where the vendors are as well. There you go.

Caleb

Yes. You have 2 birds. You need a mechanical you need it built into the mech the mechanism. It needs to be something that there's actual flow Yep. Built in, and coffee is the way to do that for sure.

Aaron

Because then then you get the beam grinders you get the beam grinders out of the speaker room True. Or out of, like, the main venue, and you get the vendors out, and the coffee pulls them back towards the vendors. So

Caleb

It's so tricky because you also want the main stage well attended. But if the main stage is what you go through to get there, it's like,

Aaron

You do.

Caleb

It's tricky, man. It is. It's tricky. Conferences are tricky. But Yeah.

Aaron

I would I wouldn't wanna be the organizer. I just wanna opine on things and then say, good luck. Have fun.

Caleb

Oh. Way

Aaron

better. I can't do all that work. Are you crazy? No. They, I will say they they adapted extremely quickly and extremely well to the whole vendors, like everybody talking situation.

Caleb

Yep.

Aaron

I was impressed by that.

Caleb

There if you weren't there, folks, it was brutal.

Aaron

It was kinda it was kinda loud.

Caleb

I remember standing there watching somebody's talk and just feeling so bad for them, like

Aaron

Feeling so bad.

Caleb

This is Filo's up there

Aaron

trying to talk, and there's, like, a murmur, a roar A roar. Talking. Literally a roar. Yes.

Caleb

Like, oh, it would be so it'd be like trying to give a talk with an echo in your own ear where you can barely think

Aaron

Yes.

Caleb

Because you're just fixated on that. Like, it just I don't know. I don't know.

Aaron

And also you're a little bit embarrassed that, like, nobody Yeah. Is listening.

Caleb

Right. Yeah. Yeah. That really stinks. But it was policed and

Aaron

It was. Yeah.

Caleb

Was handled. And it was handled. So Yep.

Aaron

I sick I sicked Tom on him. You know, you don't wanna you don't wanna go against Tom. You don't wanna face Tom. I was, like, hey, Tom. You gotta figure this out, and Tom

Caleb

figured it out. Yeah. He's the guy to figure that out.

Aaron

He's got that presence. He does

Caleb

have that

Aaron

presence. Tom. Tom. Good guy, Tom.

Caleb

Tom's new. Tom's

Aaron

new. Tom's new.

Caleb

Tom's new. Tom's one of those people who's, like, you know, a person to know, but is brand new and, you know, and I just had no idea Yep. Of, like, Tom, you know, but, like, he's a real so low key. He's like he's like a guy to know, you know, but he's just Tom.

Aaron

What what is it they say about real, they say this about lasagna. Real g's move in silence. You know? And that's that's Tom.

Caleb

Well, I just He's just a force

Aaron

moving through the crowd.

Caleb

How you know what it is? It's like, I didn't know how important he is to the Laravel team, you know, and the Laravel company. And that's something that I, like, quickly realized the difference between people like me Mhmm. Who aren't in the team at all

Aaron

Same. And

Caleb

just, like like, oh, hey, Tom, and oh, hey, Vasey, and oh, hey, Rant. Yeah.

Aaron

It's just, like, oh, hey.

Caleb

Just, like, people, you know, just other people to meet, but the people inside understand what's going on and who Tom is. So that, yeah, it's cool. But seems like a great guy. Seems super

Aaron

I was accidentally on LinkedIn the other day, and I saw Tom. Tom's the president of Laravel. There you go. President and COO.

Caleb

Gotcha. Yeah. Exactly. Right?

Aaron

See? Two titles. Literally the president. One of which is president.

Caleb

One of which is president. Exactly. And that's the final yes. To people not in Laravel, that is not knowledge. You know?

Oh, Tom and Hank and new other faith in David. New faces at Laravel.

Aaron

Good to see you. Hey. Hey. Good to see you. I'm Caleb.

Have you heard of me? Do you know who I am? Have you met me?

Caleb

Actually, he he said he introduced himself at basketball. He had he just, like, wiped my, the floor with my face, and he, like, beaten down.

Aaron

As he does.

Caleb

Yeah. And he, like, wiped the blood streak off

Aaron

Mhmm. And

Caleb

said said, hey, Tom, you know, nice to meet you. And he's, like, nice to meet you. Wiping blood out of my eyes. Right after he spit on me, I think to cool me down. Right.

But he reached down, picked me up and said, yeah. He's like, nice to meet you, whatever. And, and he's like, I'm excited for your talk or something.

Aaron

And and I was like, oh, what

Caleb

do you yeah. It's like, okay. Like, cool. Yeah. Thanks.

You know? And he's like, yeah.

Aaron

Just another fan.

Caleb

You do right. He's like, you you do a great job or something like that. And then

Aaron

I was like,

Caleb

I I said, you've seen my talks? You know? And he's like, yeah, I watched everyone or something like that. You know? I don't know if everyone, but it yeah.

Like like, oh, yeah. Real g. Part of the job. Yeah. And I was like, oh, oh, yeah.

You're a total outsider. Now you're on you're like a big man, you know? And, and he's you know, he did the work. Like, let's know even more than the product. Let's know the community Yep.

And what's going on outside there. So another one of those,

Aaron

Nothing nothing speaks to my my heart more than

Caleb

d u t y.

Aaron

Someone says, part of the job.

Caleb

Part of the job.

Aaron

Just doing my job. A man a man of duty and honor.

Caleb

That's right.

Aaron

We love that.

Caleb

Part of the job.

Aaron

Part of the job.

Caleb

Yeah. So that's cool. So, yeah, things are but there's so there's a, you know, there's a video that's coming out soon. Right?

Aaron

There is. There's an interview with you and Tom. Yours truly, which is, like, folksy way of saying me. There's an interview with me and, Taylor coming out soon.

Caleb

You and Taylor?

Aaron

Yeah. Okay. Me and Taylor. No Tom. When

Caleb

does that come out?

Aaron

I think that comes out today is September 2nd. I think that comes out maybe Thursday. I think it's September 5th or something like that.

Caleb

Okay.

Aaron

So I'll give you a little behind the scenes. I won't tell you what the content is, but Taylor rolled over to Dallas. Steve flew down to Dallas, and we did this video and, you know, we we we set up in the apartment. There's, like, a, gathering space in the apartment where I studio, and we kinda just blocked it off. We just pretended it was ours.

Caleb

So we blocked

Aaron

it off.

Caleb

Ask or anything? You just, like,

Aaron

No. I'm friendly with the manager, and I was like, hey. Here's the deal. He's like, that's fine. Just, you know, put up a sign or something.

Caleb

It's great. Yeah.

Aaron

You know, it's the middle of a middle of, like, a Tuesday or whatever. Sure. And Taylor finally gets there, and I, like, walk out of the apartment, like, the building to go find him because, you know, apartments are just a bizan team. You can't find anything. And

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

I'd see him walking down the street. He's got his laptop and a 12 pack of Coke 0 under his arm.

Caleb

Come on.

Aaron

He brought his own 12.

Caleb

That's great. That's great.

Aaron

I was like, dude, you brought your own 12 pack?

Caleb

He's like, yeah. I didn't know how long we would be. Oh my god. That's hilarious.

Aaron

I know. It's so funny.

Caleb

Oh, it's very funny. Yeah.

Aaron

So that comes out soon. It's great. It's fun. It's my first, like, it's my first, like, you know, sit down 2 person live interview type thing.

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

So that'll be that'll be fun to see. Yeah. Great. Okay. Looking forward to it.

Looking forward to it.

Caleb

Yep. Leaving it leaving it at that, Aaron.

Aaron

Let's leave it at that. Yep.

Caleb

Leaving it at that. Yeah. So so that's Lyricon here.

Aaron

That's Lyricon. Do you wanna talk you wanna talk about your talk, and Oh. And what you're thinking currently

Caleb

mention it. We should. Yeah.

Aaron

The flux situation, Yeah. Fortunately, having a it's

Caleb

times like these that having a podcast is, a really great thing for me. It reminds me that people listen to it, and I can act it's actually a way to get, like, really good feedback. You know? So that's been pretty awesome. But yeah.

Okay. So here's bay here's the gist. Caleb goes off and thinks he's making the coolest thing in the world for months months months. Every other day, I feel like I'm either discovering something cool or innovating in some cool way that I'm just foaming to the mouth to share with people, and I go, no, no, save it. Save it.

You know, make a splash, like,

Aaron

you know, put it out there with a splash. You make a splash,

Caleb

you know? So toiling away in obscurity for many, many, many months and giving a talk on it, you know, prepping the talk pretty hardcore, put a ton into that talk,

Aaron

you

Caleb

know, give the talk and, feel like I smashed it. You know? It's just like, yeah. That that's this is what I I wanted to do. I got the applause is at the times.

I wanted the applause is, and people were pumped about it. I knew that I was charging for something that that, like, at many points, I thought was gonna be free, and I'd forgotten that I that that was, like, an expectation shift, you know. I'd just forgotten that because, you know, you make a decision, you move on, and you think everybody understands the decision you made, whatever. So launch the thing, really pumped about it, and then there's just, like, little things from people, like, oh, so how do you feel about, you know, the reception or how do you you know, things like that or, like, are you are you happy about and it's, like, well, you're testing happy about

Aaron

yeah.

Caleb

Instead of saying, like,

Aaron

dude, you smashed it. So sick. So pump flux is nuts.

Caleb

It was a lot of, like, yeah, how do you

Aaron

feel about that? Or, like, how do you feel? You know, and I should have taken I guess

Caleb

I knew some amount was up because I heard some somebody or a few people told me, like, yeah, you know, there was some shit in the comments. Can I can I say that on the show? I'm sorry.

Aaron

Sure.

Caleb

Yeah. Is it it's not folksy enough? No, you can say that. Okay. And yeah.

So, people were like, you're getting some shit in the comments about, you know, pricing, whatever. And at this moment, I'm like, I just displayed the value. I think I did it well enough, you know, and people are pumped about it. Of course, people want something to be free.

Aaron

Of course.

Caleb

It's not free. And, like, yeah, like, we how many it's the LiveWire keynote, and it's a paid thing. How many keynotes have you seen that have been a paid thing? Like Mhmm. That's it does not mean a keynote does not mean it can't be a paid thing.

I watched Nova drop. I watched Spark drop. I watched all those things drop, and they're paid, and we all clap. It was like, this is great, and we all bought it. And it's Mhmm.

Like, whatever. You know? Sometimes it's free. Sometimes it's paid. Thought no problem.

And the next day I woke up and I started looking at some of these comments and it's like, oh, and then it starts to sink in. And so Taylor shouts me out in a tweet and goes, flux is super impressive. Here's a link to the pre order. And just heaps of people. What is impressive about this?

There's 9 components, you know, heaps and heaps. And and they whatever. I I impulse put a preorder page up the day before. The day before. The day before.

So the day before during the conference, Logan crashed came up to me and was like, you would be, silly guy. I have a preorder. Good guy. He's he's the best guy. I mean, I love Logan.

Love Logan. Good job, Logan. Love Logan. This is

Aaron

your fault, but good job, Logan. It's your fault.

Caleb

Right? Logan You ruined me. Oh, so, like, he tells me this and I'm like, Logan, you're totally right. I need to have a pre order. I'm leaving, you know, money on the table.

It's he's like, give some put something in people's hands that they can do something with after they're really excited. And I'm like, you're totally right.

Aaron

It's a killer instinct. He was right.

Caleb

Yeah. So I find one of those one off speaker rooms, and I call Hugo. I'm like, Hugo, can you take a call right now?

Aaron

Mhmm.

Caleb

I call Hugo, and he I'm like, here's the deal. You know? Like, we need to have a preorder page. Like, we strategize a little bit, and then I just start cranking on my laptop. I rip out everything on the site except for the landing page, and then we make this preorder page.

I rip out parts of the code that it that, like, issue licenses and everything and just get

Aaron

it Mhmm. Stripped down, tested a few times.

Caleb

Okay. Good. And then put it public the night before, and people started buying it. There was, like, $1,000 in sales the night before. Just I didn't even know people had a URL.

Yeah. So so, like, $1,000 in sales comes in overnight. I'm feeling really good about this. It's, like, this is great.

Aaron

But then we need to

Caleb

talk about this. This is a complaint of layer 2.

Aaron

Don't don't wag your finger at me. I didn't do this. Whatever's false.

Caleb

Whatever's about

Aaron

to happen.

Caleb

It's pure fault.

Aaron

It's not my fault.

Caleb

The finger came out, and it pointed at you. Seriously. So so the you know, I did the talk, but loved it. Yeah. Then talk's gone.

Talk's gone.

Aaron

So Taylor tweets out the link being a bro. Yep. Good. Good. Good.

Caleb

Nobody sees nobody people just see this link. They go to this site. It's a temporary preorder page, and they're royally pissed, and now they're smearing me all over Twitter and Reddit.

Aaron

And Reddit. A total oh, yeah. Total smear campaign.

Caleb

Just gruesome. Mhmm. And so I emergency recorded a video the next morning from the hotel, trashed the first one where I'm, like, you all suck. Right. Then recorded the one where it's, like, I barely am even paying attention to you guys being the worst.

You know?

Aaron

Are people talking to me? I haven't seen it.

Caleb

Oh, yeah. Oh, no.

Aaron

I'm, like, I'm, like, I'm, like, I'm, like, I'm, like, I'm, like, I'm, like, I'm, like, there's some clarification

Caleb

that's needed. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So yeah. Then record and that and since that has been sort of that's the only thing out there that demonstrates what's

Aaron

So your beef with Laracon is that they took your talk down?

Caleb

It's that they took I was going to record my talk the day before. Yeah. They have ready an email out, but I'm so busy, and I'm, like, they they said they're gonna stream it. It's, like, oh, it's gonna be on YouTube. Yeah.

So why would I do that? Yeah. So I'll instead, I'll just tweet I'll just email out the link to my talk Sure. And then it'll be there. And then it's perfect.

Right? Perfect. No. It streamed live, and then it was

Aaron

autumn. And then it was

Caleb

it was oopsie doopsie because all

Aaron

the walk in music got copyright stricken.

Caleb

And here's my beef, Aaron Francis. Tell me.

Aaron

We knew that the day before. Oh, yeah. What? Who why did this happen? Like, if we knew that,

Caleb

save the 10 seconds of Blink 182. No one needs it.

Aaron

I need it.

Caleb

No one needs it.

Aaron

That's a good question. Here's I don't know. Here's my, that's fault. Yeah. It's Logan's fault, honestly.

Caleb

It's Logan's fault.

Aaron

Here's my outsider's point of view.

Caleb

But my fault.

Aaron

Yeah. That is a healthy way to approach life. I think it was probably the livestream was a bonus. It was never promised. It was never guaranteed.

Caleb

And we

Aaron

just, like Taylor was just, like, hey, by the way, we're doing it. So if it gets stricken, math, it was a bonus it was a bonus

Caleb

to start

Aaron

with. That's that's my guess.

Caleb

Okay. And nobody and I wouldn't care. Nobody would really care much. It it wouldn't be an expectation that people would have per se, and they wouldn't care much unless there was a smear campaign. I could step on to a different

Aaron

kind of a niche use case, honestly.

Caleb

Niche thing. Yeah. But in yeah. Whatever. Okay.

So that's my very specific beef

Aaron

Yeah.

Caleb

With Laracon is I'll make

Aaron

sure to definitely pass that one on. Copyright.

Caleb

I do wonder if other people would care. Is this a thing that nobody else would care?

Aaron

I don't think anyone else would care because in past experience, the Laracon US talks get turned around in, like, less than a week.

Caleb

Right. Yeah.

Aaron

I would be shocked if those talks aren't out this week. And I think for most people's use cases, that's fast enough.

Caleb

I think Yeah.

Aaron

Anyone that was watching live fast. Anyone that was watching live that then got cut off because of copyright, they're probably frustrated.

Caleb

But I would imagine Which I think Taylor is among them.

Aaron

I think I think Taylor's got cut off. Yeah. Yeah. But I would I would imagine, people are okay with the turnaround time. That's just Yes.

Caleb

Okay. Yep. So, anyway, that's that's the story, and then that's the only thing that's been out on the Internet since my tweet, and it's been good now because, like, literally, some people apologized. Some trolls apologized. Woah.

That's awesome. Like, an actual troll who I who just writes on the tweet, like, I think I was definitely too harsh. Like, this looks awesome. You obviously put a lot more work into this than I thought. There's way more components than I thought.

There's 24 component pages. It's not even the amount of components. It's, like, there's so much there. It's missing, like, a date picker, which a lot of them don't even have a date picker. You know?

Mhmm. But it's got pretty much everything else. And so, anyway, literally apologized. And I was like

Aaron

That rules.

Caleb

Exactly. And my my reply to him was very, like, you are forgiven, dude. Like, I you know? Yeah. Like, thank whatever.

Then I look at his profile.

Aaron

Oh, no.

Caleb

I'm like, well, let's just see what you did say, and I'm like, dude, hate your guts forever. Never forgive me. Like, you're the worst. You have the worst instincts. You're such a bad person that something like this happens, and you make it your I so I blocked 2 people.

Aaron

Nice. Which level of blocking? Do we? Gotta block. Got to block.

Listening to?

Caleb

Oh, levels. So he doesn't block anybody. Yeah. He mute he just muted, like, 50,000 people. I think that's what he set on live.

Aaron

He actually has started blocking for AI generated replies. I've saw I saw that recently. So if he's one of those tools to, like, engagement, do this farm Yeah.

Caleb

He'll block you. Okay. Yeah. So I it was, like, this is when I knew something was wrong because I'm getting Twitter notifications during the conference. I look at my phone, and I just see somebody being an absolute jerk.

Okay. Would people do that sometimes? I'm Sure. Used to it. Move on.

That person is following me around and commenting everywhere that anybody is saying something good Not great. Smearing, you know, like, really bad personal type, whatever. Not just, like, flux sucks, but, like, Caleb sucks, you know.

Aaron

Don't like that.

Caleb

And so I immediately, I'm, like, self preservation block, whatever. I'm never going yes. And and then then I'm getting more notifications. Oh, they're commenting on the block. They're even more Really?

Because their friend, their troll friend under the bridge got blocked. And they're mad at me,

Aaron

and they're smearing me for blocking, and it's, like, somehow a

Caleb

bad reflection on me even more so.

Aaron

Block block block. Don't Block. Yep. You don't owe You all pay 1. You don't owe anyone anything on Twitter, especially not mental health.

You don't owe them that.

Caleb

Yeah. So those are the only people I've blocked in my life is the people in that span of 5 minutes that were Yep. That I just saw being the worst and whatever. So yeah. Anyway.

Hope y'all

Aaron

are listening. Yeah.

Caleb

But so so many people, I, there was a time where I thought this preorder was a massive mistake. Logan, you ruined my life. Mhmm. But I would say, at this point, I think it's a benefit. Like K.

Aaron

Tell me.

Caleb

I think. We'll see.

Aaron

Just because it's so hard

Caleb

to estimate these things, because all you see is this very thin surface. But just so many people have been, like, so nice to me about this problem. Mhmm. Like, both in DMs, publicly, you know, on replies on that tweet, just so many people checking in, like, literally today. Tons of messages of people just being, like, hey, like, you know, whatever.

And yeah. So that it it at least makes me feel better than I would have even felt if I never did a preorder. So Sure. I don't know. What do you think?

Aaron

I follow much of the same journey because I was watching you side stage, and I thought this is going great. This totally rules. And then you got off stage and you got the big applause line and everything. And then I thought, oh, it's gonna make a ton of money. Everybody loves it.

This went great. Yeah. And I didn't know I didn't know that there was there was bad blood until much, much later because, like, I'm not I'm busy. Right? You and I are both busy doing conference stuff.

Caleb

Yeah. Barely loaded with my phone.

Aaron

Yeah. Then I start to see some of it come up, and I start to hear, like, oh, man. Did you see what they're saying about Flux? You know, I start to hear that, and and I'm like, no. What's going on?

And then I felt I just I felt sad. I was like, guys, $99, I understand is not the same to everyone, but this is a huge amount of work, but also, it doesn't matter. Honestly, it doesn't matter how much work

Caleb

you put in. It's how

Aaron

much value I get out of it, and it's more than $99. And so the

Caleb

top part is people think so many of these UI component libraries are the same.

Aaron

They do.

Caleb

They're not

Aaron

the same. Tough space to be in. Oh, I see. It's true. Chose to play on hard mode here.

Caleb

Yeah. Yeah. And it it's, like, to do a UI component library of quality the way that Tailwind does and whatever.

Aaron

To do some and, like, I would say shoelace, similarly,

Caleb

is, like, those are the 2 that come to mind that I go, you guys put in all the work. Yep. You did it right. People who use your stuff, they're better off. Most of the other ones, I look at and I go, this is a hodgepodge cobble mess.

Right. And I would never wanna use this in my application personally. Yep. Yep. And I wanted to make something that was of that level.

And then once you crack that box open, you realize that just a badge component with no JavaScript functionality, just the API decisions, the the design decisions, all of those things, just those things alone can be weeks. I don't know. Maybe that's an overestimation for a batch, but a long time. Like, it's not simple, and no. But you don't know that.

So, of course, it's, like, it's also it's, like, work in versus, like, value out. It's, like, how much value is somebody getting from this batch? There's a lot of value they don't understand they're getting. Mhmm. But whatever.

It's the things like building your own combo box that, like, if you've done that so Jeff Saggle Sagglebot, view select

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah.

Caleb

Yeah. I talked to him a bunch at the conference, and he's, like, you know, he's one of few people who get it. Correct.

Aaron

He

Caleb

gets it. People who've built a combo box get it. It's almost the hard hardest thing you can do. Like Yep. And they just know, like, Jeff's whole, like, career or open source life is just this that problem space alone.

Yes. The combo box. That thing alone. There's an command k or whatever, you know, and react, like Yep. These projects, their entire existence, and all of that maintenance effort goes towards a combo box.

You know? It's so, so difficult and dropping it, and then people just dropping a handwritten combo box that works super well and is super flexible and is super composable and is like my magnum opus, and people just being, like, oh, another UI component library, but we have to pay for this. It you know, it's just that's a huge disconnect that I hope I can resolve over time. I have to make up for that. If I can't, then whatever.

It's just a bad product space. It's a bad it's a bad space because Right. The value that you perceive and I get it. Like, the browser should just have this. Like, this doesn't feel like like you should have to go out on a limb for this thing, but whatever.

So I I'm just back to, like, I have enough good vibes that it's just stoic mode. It's, like, I freaking love this thing, and I believe that you will too. And if you don't yet, you will over time, if you use it, and that will be what it is. And if it doesn't smash or whatever, it's, like, I know that it is better than the alternatives, and I will love it and use it, and that's good enough for me. But I think people love it.

So

Aaron

I think people will love it. I think, one of your challenges is going to be competing on so it is a very tough space. Very, very tough.

Caleb

And I think It's less tough in Livewire.

Aaron

It is less tough in Livewire, and you already have massive distribution. And so you have Yeah. You know, you have 2 things going for you. Yes. I think I could not charge for

Caleb

this in React, you know?

Aaron

No. No. No. No. No.

Not even a little bit. I think competing on technically better is always hard Yeah. Because people don't appreciate

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

Technically better. Yep. And so that'll be that'll be interesting to see play out. Like ease of use ease of use is a great one. Developer experience is a great one.

But, like, no. No. I promise this is technically better. That's always super tough to, like, make people care about.

Caleb

The only thing that that is a tangible hedge for you is that eventually that word gets out that a thing is buggy, bloated Yes. Whatever. That's that's where you win. Mhmm. But it's not always a guarantee, and it's not always a guarantee how much that helps you.

Mhmm. But it is really helpful that, like, when your competition is not as considered and not as Mhmm. You know, clean and whatever, people use it, and they love it at first because it's so easy to use and it's free and whatever, but then they start to resent it. And then it turns into I mean, look at Bootstrap even, like

Aaron

Yeah.

Caleb

Bootstrap is is not not a great example because it's actually well built, but, like, something can totally dominate in an obvious way, but then when enough people or maybe WordPress is a better example.

Aaron

It's like Maybe Next. Js is a better example.

Caleb

Maybe. I I don't know about Next. Current state to know, but, but React even, you know, just the complexity and things involved in that. I don't It

Aaron

can it can dominate, and then it gets a little bit too complex, and then the vibe shifts. And, you know, that that absolutely happens.

Caleb

It's it's a it's a long play. It's at least a protection against vibe shift. You know? Mhmm. If you stay lean, if you stay clean, and you stay high quality, you're betting that you're hoping that eventually people realize that the alternatives are bloated and messy and whatever.

Mhmm. But

Aaron

And this is this is the opposite of what those examples we just gave is probably Tailwind. People looked at it at first and were like, oh, what a mess. I can't believe. And Adam's like, no. I promise this is actually better.

And you it because it was actually better, stick with it long enough, and it becomes de facto because everybody's like, y'all, It's it is actually better. You just you just need to use it.

Caleb

Yep. Yeah. No. That's that's a a good example of that happening where where it's, like, being technically better, but harder initially Mhmm.

Aaron

When you know?

Caleb

But, yeah, they they obviously imagine tailwind success with poor design or not top tier design. Nonexistent. Right? Nonexistent. So much of it is the design because you type shadow SM at the time, you got a shadow that you didn't get in other libraries.

It looked clean. It's a layered shadow

Aaron

Mhmm.

Caleb

Colored, you know, that, like, off gray, like, a little bit of blue in their grays,

Aaron

in their gray.

Caleb

That was those were huge innovations. It's, like, oh, I'm using this thing now, and I am just crapping out, like, pretty things. You know? Yeah. These rounded all these things are pretty, and that is something that, like, is massive for Tailwind.

And so that's with Flux. Similarly, it's, like, that was a hard moment at first that I realized, like, I have to compete on design. Mhmm. Is that something that, like, I can obviously compete on development easily because that's what I do, but it's hard for me to compete on design because I'm not a designer, obviously. We all suck at design.

You know? Mhmm. TM, Caleb. I have one now. That's good.

Aaron

Oh, you've got one now. That's great. Yeah. You

Caleb

have IP. Yeah. So anyway, working with Hugo and whatever, and just experiencing that, it's like, oh my gosh. Like, you know, I feel like now I'm at that level. My product is at that level that is like premier, and that's awesome.

Aaron

Can we just talk about Hugo?

Caleb

Is Hugo the best? Hugo's the best. Yeah.

Aaron

Hugo's the best. I know Hugo. Hugo designed, aaronfrancis.com. Hugo's the best.

Caleb

I used to

Aaron

work with Hugo at Tupelo.

Caleb

Yes. Hugo is the best, through and through. He's awesome. He works harder than anybody I've worked with, I think.

Aaron

I think that's correct.

Caleb

He's one of those workers where you go, everyone else is a waste of money. Yep. I

Aaron

think that is correct.

Caleb

He makes everybody else a waste of money. You go, not that what you see, what is possible Mhmm. If somebody takes your money and converts it into just high quality output.

Aaron

Mhmm. You go Did he do any of the code for you? Because he when he did my site,

Caleb

he did a bunch of it.

Aaron

He did almost all the tailwinds.

Caleb

Right. He's a programmer. He did 0 of it until that preorder page.

Aaron

Until you call it until the day, like Until the Sunday

Caleb

I was leaving for Lyrica.

Aaron

Wake up. Yeah.

Caleb

So I did all the code because I think it's so important for me to be crazy and I need to have written it all to understand.

Aaron

I didn't know if you did any of like the landing page stuff.

Caleb

So I implemented all that, but then, yes, at the last minute on Sunday Mhmm. He had a call. I threw him on Laravel Herd, and in 5 minutes had him up and running in Laravel, and he started pull requesting. So he pull requested some cleanup stuff. He made the landing page animate.

He did the the, like, Aurora borealis, like, animation in the background, the stars. So now he's in the code base and connect oh, and I even was in that video that I recorded just showing people the docs, I opened the doc, the installation page, and I just saw it change like, there's, like, design in it. It's not just copy anymore. It was, like, oh, Hugo did that too. Like, because he that's who he is.

He's just it's just high quality and attention to detail on a level that I'm not used to, and it's a massive inspiration to me. And it, yeah, just to meet him at that level and be like Mhmm. Yeah. We're gonna actually really care about every pixel on every page in every light and dark mode and way more than pixels, you know, behavior and everything, design systems and UI and everything. It's, like, a pleasure working with Hugo.

Aaron

Good job, Hugo.

Caleb

Yeah. Well done. Here's the thing, Aaron. I want this to be free more than anything, and I know and you can you can flash me off of this show whenever, but I want this to be

Aaron

free so bad. It is so so bad that

Caleb

it is not free. That's the worst part. It's, like,

Aaron

if this was free, it would be huge for LiveWire. Huge. Yeah. It would be huge for everybody in the community. It would be

Caleb

such I feel like I

Aaron

am doing

Caleb

a massive disservice to the world by charging for this.

Aaron

I know. I hate it so much. I know. I know. Is there what did, what did business dad what did what did Ian say?

Caleb

Had a good long talk with Ian this morning. Yeah. Yeah. Tons of chat back and forth. Yeah.

Because I woke up to that essay that you saw Uh-huh. That you saw on the teas, and then we just started chatting back and forth, but he's pushing me towards lifetime. K. He he gave me some words, like, he's, like, this has to be a no brainer buy.

Aaron

K.

Caleb

And he's pushing against subscription or even something subscription esque, like k. Pay for a year, get updates, you know, for a smaller amount every year. It's never gonna be a subscription in the sense that you lose access. It's like you pay, you have access to that version of Flux forever, you know, but I for I guess the listener is not totally following this. I've been toying with a, like, a a Novasque, SatAMIC s, like, pay and then pay for updates every year.

You know? Mhmm. But he's saying it's gotta be no brainer. Lifetime is what's up. You know?

But similarly, like yeah. Whatever. I've just fundamentally it is I wish it could be free so bad. Everybody does. It would be better for everybody if it was free.

Aaron

You you would have much, it would it would go much broader, and it would be much faster if it was free and open source.

Caleb

Is there any world where it's free and open source?

Aaron

Yeah. Of course. But I don't know And I don't know what you make money.

Caleb

And it's, like, a healthy bit like, this to me is the hope of a healthy future business. With I know this, if this was free, at least where I'm at right now

Aaron

I know. Feels like that bubble gets popped,

Caleb

and as you know, like You're you're out

Aaron

there shaking the tin, like, give me sponsor me for $5 a month, and it's, like, I

Caleb

I'm not doing that.

Aaron

Cle clearly that has worked, but it's, like, is that what you want

Caleb

the rest

Aaron

of your business to be?

Caleb

Take it a given that I want my business to grow and be a profitable, healthy business Right. That supports my family and my life until I retire.

Aaron

You

Caleb

know? Like, put that as a given. How is this free? There's a sass. There's that this is feeding into.

You know? It's like No. There's no sass. I mean, there could be, but you know what I'm saying? It's like

Aaron

Ah. Yeah. I don't know. I think yeah. The the purest thing is to give somebody give people something and they give you money.

So, like, I I don't I don't begrudge the model at all, but which is to say, like, I don't think you should make it free and then get sponsors. That's just

Caleb

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

That's just a losing proposition. Yeah. But I don't know I don't know what the alternative thing to sell is. Like, you've had great success with screencasts, but it's like, I don't know that that moves the needle. I mean, maybe maybe people would watch Flux screencasts and pay for it and stuff.

But

Caleb

Yeah. I mean, it could do have that. There's, like, content around Flux that, as Flux, like, grows, like, would become unprofitable. Yeah. That would be nice.

But, yeah, I think for I mean, I'm entertaining this just for fun, but, like, obviously, it's on a path. And I I just keep telling myself that, like, it's gonna be so good and I'm gonna make it so much better that that it will be, like, why wouldn't you buy this thing? I gotta just bank on that, but you're gonna lose the mass of people who just aren't gonna pay for stuff like this. You know? And I think I

Aaron

think Ian's point is probably, like, those aren't your customers. Don't worry about them. Think about them never again.

Caleb

And that well, that's why he's pushing me towards lifetime. He's like, just a lot of people, look like that are in financially hard positions or are unsure about their future, you know, at a company or for a project. It's like, if there's a subscription, then they're gonna go, nah, you know, I'll look elsewhere. But the one thing that Ian, underestimates is the uniqueness of this in the LiveWire space.

Aaron

Yeah. To me That is not to be forgotten about. I agree.

Caleb

It's like if this was if we're talking, you know, flux versus Shad CN, yeah, that's one thing. What we're talking about is something, like, as a LiveWire user, you can have a, like, deeply integrated first party thing that, like, is designed with with external attributes. With durable attributes. Right? You're never gonna run you're never gonna have to slap a wire ignore on something.

Aaron

Right.

Caleb

You're never gonna have to fiddle. It's just gonna work, and it's going to make your experience. The only part of your LiveWire experience that sucks,

Aaron

it's going to remove that part.

Caleb

You know? Right. So I think that that is a a huge thing, and it, like, is going to be a good business no matter what. It's just, you know, my heart breaks that it's not, like Right. Going to be the thing that, whatever.

It could be, like, the most valuable IP in the Laravel space in my mind. I mean, that could be, like, a really grossly whatever. To me, it could be the most valuable project to own and to have from a from the standpoint of user adoption and user satisfaction and love and attraction and all those things. People will be will fall in love with me and be attracted to me because of it.

Aaron

Which is all that matters.

Caleb

And I'm turning that into instead, I'm getting money and making it something that is valued and used, but not the the thing to rule all the things.

Aaron

Do you wanna do you wanna be rich, or do you wanna be king? That's the question. Right.

Caleb

Yes. And it's, I I want, Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

Same. Here here's a question for you. Alpine components exists. Right? Yeah.

Mhmm. What's what's the state and status and future of that? Cause that's not a project that I've been following terribly closely.

Caleb

Right. So flux is gonna right. Especially flux was open and free Alpine components would be shot in the face. So that's another thing that's like, oh, not only would I not make more money, I would lose I would lose money. I would have to refund everybody's pre order.

Like this, it's never happening. You're gonna lose it

Aaron

twice instead of save it once, you know?

Caleb

Totally. But, yeah. So what is happening with Alpine components is like, it works the way it works right now. I wanna get the there's some experimental stuff in there that's still in beta, but doesn't need to be. So I'm gonna tag that just so that it's like, doesn't feel beta e.

But right now it's just gonna be what it is until like, what's really valuable to me is that this is in the wild for 6 months and becomes bulletproof. You know? Like once

Aaron

being flux. Right?

Caleb

Yeah. Like once, you know, once a project like flux that's, like, really ambitious and and has a lot of JavaScript and interactions and stuff, once it becomes bulletproof, then that core becomes incredibly valuable. And then it's like, okay, I could do things with this core outside of Flux, you know? Mhmm. And that's where it's like maybe Alpine components people just get, I mean, I could even do this now where like take, make kind of a stripped down version of flux that's just more like copy paste, you know?

For rails and, and such, like I've thought about that. A Lot of rails people have reached out and are like Yeah. Who do we need that core for rails? Like, how do we get that? And maybe Alpine components is the way to do that.

It's like, you know, yeah, I could see that.

Aaron

But but philosophically, what's the difference between Alpine UI components and Flux? Is it just the use of Alpine?

Caleb

No. I mean I mean, Flux uses Alpine some for some things inside of it. No. It's like Alpine components is like like I said, it's it's copy and paste. It's tailwind UI.

You know, it's copy and pastable HTML with behavior that you can do what you will inside of your Rails app, your Django app, your Elixir app, whatever. And it's, like, very helpful for people. It's like like I showed, you know, building a drop down that actually has all the right things is not easy. So without buying components, you can copy and paste that big drop down and then componentize it however you want. Flux is a design system.

It's a component. It's so much more it is so much more than that. It's a composable blade component UI design system for your application. It's like you have yeah. It's the path.

It's everything. Alpine components is just the components in a way that you have to do all that stuff. You know?

Aaron

Okay. So That makes sense.

Caleb

Does that make sense?

Aaron

That makes sense. And I'm looking at the the landing page, for Alpine components, and it is 129 lifetime pricing. And so you have you have a little bit of, experiment here. How would it feel if you made Flex the same kind of model as Alpine? Because you've done that before.

Caleb

I hate the prospect of lifetime because and this is the biggest reason, is that I only paid Adam Wadden one time. Mhmm. I was paying him for stuff. I paid him for TDD course. Yep.

I I paid them for, refact or refactoring to collections. You know?

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah.

Caleb

Yeah. Right? Then Advanced

Aaron

view components.

Caleb

Advanced view components. I paid them for refactoring UI, obviously, and then I paid them for Tailwind UI. And after Tailwind UI, I haven't paid him a dime. And that was, like, 5 or 6 years ago. So I was paying Adam regularly for stuff that he was producing that's awesome and high quality, and it benefits my life and adds value.

Aaron

And then I stopped paying Adam. Mhmm.

Caleb

And I just think about that.

Aaron

It's like He he doesn't love that either, by the way. Right. If you don't like it, he doesn't like it even more. Exactly. And I just don't want

Caleb

and I'm and so Ian Ian would say, if you were here, I think, he would say, yeah. But, okay, the alternate universe where Tailwind UI is a subscription, maybe you subscribe because you're his friend. Yep. How many other people went? And that was a barrier to them where it's like, I could just pay once and have it forever done.

No brainer. Bought it. Yep. How many peep right. So, like, what in the alternate universe where Tailwind UI because a lot of people have said that to me.

It's like, do what Tailwind UI does. It works. Mhmm. And I kinda did that with Alpine components. It's an easy model, but it solely depends on people coming in.

You get nothing from all the people who have benefited for years. And in a world where, you know, the the inroads where there's a block in the road where some competition comes out and whatever, and you're not bringing in as many whatever force of nature there is where the paths into your thing, whatever the marketing, the inbound stuff, when that stuff dwindles, your funnel stuff, then that is what it just changes your business like an immediate thing. There's no lag, you know?

Aaron

Right.

Caleb

And I hate that because it's so much nicer to have experiences with GitHub Sponsors with a ton of subscriptions.

Aaron

Right. There's a

Caleb

giant buffer there. And if everybody decides to just peace out, you have, like, a good long tail, you know, of just, like, alright. I see that this is declining. I'll vamp back up. You know, I'll do that.

But the alternate argument, the Ian argument is, like, yes. That's better, but how much more would you have made total if it was lifetime one off no brainer for people? You know? Dealing with these things, open to opinions. So now that's a whole new thing after talking with Ian is, like, oh, now I'm back to considering lifetime.

You know? Yeah. Because he's convincing me.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. I saw a lot of the complaints for, like, the per project pricing.

Caleb

I think that's just not gonna happen

Aaron

per project.

Caleb

Yeah. Like, it's Yeah. Where where it's at right now is, like, it would be a solo dev price, unlimited projects,

Aaron

you know Yeah.

Caleb

Per seat. So if you're a company with 10 people, you'd pay more, you know, but you'd get 10 seats. So yeah.

Aaron

That seem that seems a little that seems a little more friendly. I don't think one is right or wrong, but that seems a little

Caleb

more So I think the project is just sucks as a solo dev. Like Yeah. It it seems like it the reason I was doing it was because I'd be capturing more value for Mhmm. Like, agencies and stuff, but it's, like, honestly, I think they're the minority of customers for me. Could be wrong.

I think that's a minority of customers for me. And as a solo dev, I'm

Aaron

just not gonna use something that I have to pay

Caleb

for every time. Like Right. I I don't think I would. It only the, it would limit the amount of people where if it's unlimited now, it's like you, you get in the door and now you use this thing on everything. So yeah.

The original plan, the original plan was monetize templates and really a few components. Yeah. That that's where we were at, like, a month ago, maybe 2 months.

Aaron

Do we hate that?

Caleb

Yeah. That's good, but I don't know that that's an I think I'll do much better financially this way. You will. And and the problem with that is you need to have new content coming out all the time.

Aaron

Yeah.

Caleb

Now I'm on it where this is, like, I can just focus on the product and making it good, and then I make money. That is, like, I know what that's like. You're stepping on a treadmill, and you're doing it in an area where screencasting? I'm on that treadmill, whatever. It's not great, but I can do it.

Right. Design templates? I can't do that. So now you're gonna have to, like, make sure that Hugo's on for that or somebody else is on for that and and make sure that that ball stays in the air. You know?

Aaron

So I don't know.

Caleb

But I love

Aaron

that idea. Tough. That would be that would be fun. Yeah. And it would be nice to because then you can make the components free, but I think you'd make less money and it'd be more work.

Just strike 2,

Caleb

you know Can I have that option to transition to it at some point? Like, if I charge people for this and then a year later decide, like, we're only gonna make certain portions of this paid and and the rest can be free. Like, it's fine. Right? It's fine.

You got what you paid for initially.

Aaron

Got what you paid for.

Caleb

There's no guarantees, whatever. It's like, you got what you paid for. You still get what you paid for.

Aaron

Yep.

Caleb

I'm just trying to pay now. If you're mad, you can have

Aaron

a refund, and I'll never speak to you again. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right.

Caleb

I I

Aaron

think yeah.

Caleb

I'll talk with you and your family. Yes. Exactly.

Aaron

I can have a refund, but you're on my bad list. So which one do you want? Yeah.

Caleb

Right.

Aaron

Yeah. I think you totally preserve that optionality. That seems totally fine to me. Yeah.

Caleb

As long as I can preserve that. Kind of the tricky thing is going with this private packages thing. You know, we have an auth dot JSON. Yeah. I wanna know, maybe you could tell me, what types of things am I locking myself in for?

Like, for example, can I do this setup where to use flux right now, you do, you know, whatever? I'm putting a nice command.

Aaron

Sure.

Caleb

It adds some credentials to an auth.json, and now it's, like, it feels like public, but it's it's a private package just repo. K. Mhmm. If I decide at some point, I wanna make 8 of these free and open source, like, is that hard? Can I take the repo, put it on GitHub, make it a public thing now, and then will everybody's auth.json and composer.json, like, set up?

Will it just be like, oh, this is public now, so it's fine. Or maybe what I should do is put this in a Flux Pro repo so that I preserve the potential for the, like, just flux namespace. You know?

Aaron

I don't know how you would go I don't know how you would have one pro package that you maybe with unlock, with Fila's thing, you can just have different tiers. Like, you might be able you might be able, on unlock, to serve 2 separate, like, packages from the same URL based on the license that they're assigned.

Caleb

By the way. No. Anystack.

Aaron

Oh, shoot. You're right. Anystack.

Caleb

Very good product.

Aaron

Yeah. That would be interesting. So, like, if their lights if their light their key hits the license server and it's not a free key, but a paid key, they get dot pro or whatever. That might be doable. I don't know.

Yeah.

Caleb

It's like I just wanna I would if I can make a decision right now that's that's like, whatever, a haircut and not a tattoo, like, that's the decision I wanna make. And so there's all these things. Like, is it better to go from lifetime to subscription or subscription to lifetime if one of them doesn't work out? You know? Just optionality wise.

Which is better?

Aaron

Oh, man. Is it better to go from subscription to lifetime or lifetime to subscription? Depends you wouldn't be able to get the lifetime people to subscribe, in my opinion, because I think you've made them a promise that they bought lifetime.

Caleb

Oh, if they got, like, well yeah. So this is another thing. But, yes, agreed. It I wouldn't be true.

Aaron

Those those people would be lost. You'd be hosed. Okay. Right. But if you went subscription to lifetime, there's a chance you could get the people who were subscribing.

You could get them to pay for the lifetime and be done with it. Right. Yeah. I'm yep.

Caleb

Dude, it's tricky because if the subscription people, if they subscribe for, like, 3 years and then you put out a lifetime, that's, like, maybe even less than the sum of money they gave to me. There'd have

Aaron

to be some sort of consideration given for that.

Caleb

But maybe not. I, at Laracast, I subscribed to Laracast for years, and then I bought a lifetime. I don't know.

Aaron

Maybe I'm, like, too precious. Maybe I just need to be more, like, of a robber baron and just say Yeah. Like, because I mean, really just deal.

Caleb

I think part of it is, like, looking at your own experience and examples and how you feel about those things. Mhmm. And at least for me, yeah, with, like, with larocasts, it's, like, I didn't expect him to calculate how much money I gave him then pro rate me.

Aaron

Right.

Caleb

I just it just it's like, hunting license. Like, I always dealt with this with hunting licenses. It's like I didn't have the money to get the lifetime one when I was young. Mhmm.

Aaron

And

Caleb

then every year that I didn't get it, it just became, like, less valuable.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Caleb

But then I made enough that I was, you know what? Screw it. Whatever. It's just easier. I'm just gonna buy 1.

Aaron

With the 6 flags season passes. You know? You go to you go to 6 flags bunch, and you're like, gosh. I should've bought the season pass. Should've bought the season pass.

You don't get credit for it.

Caleb

You don't get credit for that. You don't

Aaron

get credit for it. So that's

Caleb

Right. But then lifetime to subscription. So if you do lifetime for, you know, $300. Okay? Yep.

You're in for life. Yep. Obviously, I'm not gonna say this thing's subscription now. That lifetime, that wasn't actually for life.

Aaron

That feels black and white.

Caleb

Oh, that oh, that's totally black and white. Yeah. But so I was talking with this with Ian a little bit. Mhmm. It's, like,

Aaron

what a job We should have him on the show sometime.

Caleb

We should have Ian on the show. Friend of the show, Ian. Friend of the show, Ian Landsman. Yeah. Phone him in.

So what Ian is telling me is, like, because we were is there a way to not say goodbye to revenue forever from a loyal customer? You know? And he's like, well, you know, like, data tables, charts, like Sure. File picker, like, file upload picker thingy and date like, big ticket items.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Caleb

Those could be a Flux Pro, and you could wrangle some messaging. Like, I feel like I would have to do some amount of messaging on the page right now that's, like, lifetime basic pro coming soon or something. You know? It's, like, that's a way. Because the reality is if Adam launched some add on thing and charged for it, I would pay him.

I wouldn't be, like, you said lifetime. He'd be,

Aaron

like, well, no. I said that about that. Like, you got what you want. Right.

Caleb

Yes. Agreed. You know? Right?

Aaron

So is the question, flex and a flex pro and both are paid, or is flex basic free?

Caleb

Not for now, but maybe eventually. Maybe that's the move. It's like maybe it's like do this for a few years or whatever. Just and, like, make it a good solid product that's, like, well funded. And then maybe maybe, like, build up these big things.

Do a second big launch. Make that flux pro, make all this free. But then it's still the same problem of, like, if you paid me lifetime for flux basic Yeah. Now we're at

Aaron

Flex pro. Into Flex pro, because now there's only 1 paid tier, and you paid. I will say just, like, gut instinct, if there's enough there to do a flex basic flex pro, that feels nice to me. That feels like you get to be rich and king if you can, you know, if you can pull it off where the flex basic is, I don't know, 15, 10, 15 components that everybody needs and uses on everything, you get, like, the community momentum, you get the buzz, you get everything. And then

Caleb

Making that free?

Aaron

Making that free. And then any any, like, other components putting in flex pro, I think that feels nice. I think it's a question of is there a compelling enough split to get people to pay? That's the question.

Caleb

Yeah. But making that split right now, making that

Aaron

you should do it right now.

Caleb

You don't think so? Right now? Well, maybe not the maybe not free, but, like, making the split 2 tiered, both paid.

Aaron

I think that's a bad idea.

Caleb

You think so? Okay. I do. Because it's confusing?

Aaron

It's confusing.

Caleb

Well, let let let me first just make it seem like it's not just to make Okay. Just to vet any other problems with it, but, like, if you have, so it's basic and pro. Mhmm. And basic, it just says, like, 12 basic components, and then process

Aaron

badges, etcetera.

Caleb

All components. K. And and, you know, you can expand it to see the the list of components or something. Maybe it's a checkbox or whatever. And you go, yeah.

Alright. I mean, people are gonna go pro, like, for sure. So the reason for having that is that eventually, I can lower that that basic price Uh-huh. And keep the pro price, but

Aaron

I don't know what that solves.

Caleb

And maybe just thinking that it solves dude,

Aaron

I feel like I should put this in

Caleb

a flux pro repo, and that's what you're installing installing so that in the future, I have the option to be, like, here's 8 components for free in livewire slash flux. You know?

Aaron

I, I don't know if I'd worry so much about the mechanics at this point. Really? I don't think I would.

Caleb

It does feel weird, but wouldn't it suck that, like, you have to install, like, Livewire slash flux basic or something?

Aaron

Yeah. I don't think you should do that either. Yeah.

Caleb

I think you need

Aaron

to figure out you need to figure out from Filo if it's possible to switch on certain license keys. Why? To switch what? Somebody so if somebody installs LiveWire slash flux and they have a basic key, you serve them the basic package and they have a pro key.

Caleb

Right.

Aaron

You serve them the pro package, but they don't they don't install flux dash pro, flux dash basic. They just install flux. And then on the back end Right. You switch which package you serve them.

Caleb

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Okay. Well, I'm I'm just thinking of full potential future where a part of this is truly free and open in the sense that it's just composer require this thing. No licenses, no keys, nothing. Go through unlock or anything at all.

Aaron

Because I just feel like

Caleb

it's a barrier. A lot of people have told me it's not a barrier, but I do think it's a barrier.

Aaron

It's a little bit. Yeah. It's a little bit. Yeah. That's interesting.

I I don't

Caleb

know, man.

Aaron

And maybe I'm walking back a little bit, the the free pro thing. If it's just, like, it's the same product or, like, I'm sorry, the basic pro thing. If it's just the same product and you're doing 2 different tiers Yeah. That's a well trod path.

Caleb

Yeah.

Aaron

But I don't know if, personally, I would love to look at it and see, like, oh, man. I may need a chart one day. Do I need it now? Should I buy it now? Is there a way to upgrade?

That's what I just wanna keep it.

Caleb

Simple for launch. It's, like, everybody wants to get in on this thing and use it and mess with it, and let's, like, make it good. It's already good, by the way. Just buy it. Yeah.

That's great. Buy it. Yeah. Like, I just wanna do one price, get in, do the launch thing, get the launch revenue, then start iterating and tweaking and making it more accessible and finding ways to get more people in the door. Right.

Aaron

So some of some of these questions are not applicable to right now. So there's, like, what should we do right now? That's one set of things. And what should we do long term? That's one set of things.

Right now, I think you just put your head down and keep going.

Caleb

The only thing we care about with the long term is what makes it hard and easy right now. You know? Like, is there anything I'm doing that person moves me? Yes. And so if I'm doing let's just say this, like

Aaron

I see.

Caleb

It's a price let's say it's a lifetime price that's $300 lifetime.

Aaron

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Caleb

Whatever. I'm I am sacrificing the future revenue for those people who buy that on launch day. That's the value they're getting. That's why they're paying more for lifetime. Correct.

And is am I okay to live with that? That's the question.

Aaron

That is the question.

Caleb

Say, yes. I would say yes.

Aaron

I think if you are taking the stance that Laravel is getting bigger and Livewire is getting bigger, I think I'm okay with sacrificing that.

Caleb

Right. It is growing for sure. And, yeah, getting it so Ian's point is that being on a subscription, people are gonna go, like, I'm not gonna subscribe to your thing. It's kinda like we talked about with, like, pricing, how there's there's, pricing for the value for the people who really get the value Right. And are willing to pay the price and understand that trade.

Mhmm. Then there's pricing for all the friends and the people who will throw out a flyer. There's that no brainer pricing. Mhmm. And I usually preach to people do the no brainer pricing.

You know, I see that mistake being made by people where they don't do the no brainer pricing. They go, this price totally justifies. They do it and then they suffer because they only get the people who are truly dedicated. I want this to be no brainer pricing. Yeah.

And, yeah, like, honestly, 199 lifetime to me is no brainer pricing.

Aaron

Like Feels no brainer to me.

Caleb

99 lifetime feels, not good.

Aaron

Feels great. Yeah.

Caleb

Feels, great. Yeah. So, yeah,

Aaron

I would up I would up that for sure.

Caleb

Yeah. 199 even I mean, even 199 feels low, but like, 299 feels more like it, but it could be a launch sale. Like, 199 lifetime is launch sale, and then just bump it later. You know?

Aaron

This is, this is not something you should pursue right now. You should keep your head down and power through. I do think stepping sideways into rails for this particular product could potentially be very lucrative.

Caleb

That would be well, so much of this is blade component, whatever. Like, I would have to learn all the ways of the rails blade component, but a good starting point, like we've talked about a little bit, is turning Alpine components into a D live wired flux. You know? Yep. Turn that into a project that uses the same core, but offers just the full template.

Like, you copy and paste this in your app, and then you componentize it yourself. Feels like it could be, an easy enough thing to do. Mhmm. Yeah. I just have to make sure it's, like, bulletproof with turbo, but whatever.

I think it I think it is such

Aaron

a change. 90% of the way there if it's bulletproof with Livewire.

Caleb

Yeah. The only I

Aaron

just haven't I haven't seen, that many people respond and say, like, hey, can you please bring this to rails? We're suffering in this regard. That was surprising to me.

Caleb

Yeah. It's not an overwhelming amount, but I've heard it a handful of times, and especially the people who are crossovers, like, and obviously, Matt Swanson reached out in 2 seconds. And Chris, so sorry, Chris. I'm forgetting your last name. I if his last name if a profile picture would work, he would see it and go, oh, yeah.

Aaron

Yeah.

Caleb

Chris, he's one of the, whatever. He's one of us in the rails community.

Aaron

You know? Mhmm.

Caleb

Okay. And and he's backing for something like that. And, yeah. Because it it would be huge for those communities that can't use shad cn, basically. Mhmm.

A sexy, sleek UI component library to solve these problems. It's not full buy in, like, like, shoelace or something that's Right. You're getting all the styles as well. Yeah. There's another one that just came that's coming out that so the Font Awesome guys are doing wet awesome.

You heard of this? No. It's called web awesome.

Aaron

I haven't heard of them in years.

Caleb

Yeah. Yeah. So they're doing it's called web awesome, and they kick started it. Wow. So that's the thing.

Aaron

And so I

Caleb

think it's gonna be open source, and they just decided to fundraise upfront and do a kick starter. And I think they raised, like, $700.

Aaron

Is it for web awesome. Is it components? Is it, like, it's

Caleb

components? So it's yeah. It's very much like the web components I'm shipping, except it's not headless. So

Aaron

Got it.

Caleb

It is kinda like shoelace if you're familiar with that. That's a web component UI library, whatever, where, like, you're using, you know so the their pitch with Web Awesome is my pitch with the components inside Flux, except with Web Awesome, it's like your dropdown looks like how they made it look Right. Which which makes it super easy and it's, like totally in line with the font awesome, just vibe and it's Right. It's gonna do great. But obviously it's like important to me that you are able to use Tailwind and customize it to your app's needs.

Sure. So this is still kind of a unique offering and whatever, but honestly, a good idea that came out of this is like, just do a little detour after the dust settles a little bit and just like revamp, Alpine components into a D Laraveled flux, you know?

Aaron

Yeah. That's not crazy.

Caleb

Yeah. I feel like that would be good. It would redeem a lot of value there under the hood as well. So

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Alright.

Caleb

So I mean, like, as it stands right now on this show, Aaron, I'm feeling like 199 or 299 lifetime launch.

Aaron

Unlimited projects.

Caleb

Bump that price for more seats. So it's like, if you have a 5, 10 person team, maybe it's like 599, 6 I don't know, something like that. Mhmm. And then anything else is enterprise, and you call me and I, you know, we book a deal. Yep.

Or whatever. However that works.

Aaron

I think that's completely reasonable. And part of me feels like, you're, like, in the storm right now, and a week from now, it's gonna just be, like, oh, yeah. This model's totally fine.

Caleb

Let's just keep going. Right. I know. Yeah. Yep.

Word. Alright. Thanks for joining on Flux. We solved it. You got it.

Is that it?

Aaron

Is that it for today's show?

Caleb

What else you got? I'm I'm good. You got anything else?

Aaron

Oh, I don't think I have anything else. Ian should be back soon. He is, still sick, but he's getting better. Tomorrow's his

Caleb

big day. Right?

Aaron

Tomorrow's his big day. He's getting his his gallbladder removed, which who knows what that does.

Caleb

Who knows?

Aaron

Not me. Yeah. I think that's it. I'll probably unless you have anything, I'll read us out here.

Caleb

Oh, yeah. Read us out. Remember that this episode is brought to you by Transistor FM.

Aaron

It's kinda cool. Spot I'm

Caleb

so sorry, Spot. No. Spotty gets equal. Spotsie is amazing. No.

Spotsie is amazing. Not Thank you, Spotsie. Thank you, Frank. Let me just make up for my sins real quick, Aaron Francis. It's brought to you by Transistor, but also by Spotsie.

And, Frake is incredible, obviously, but Sebastian Dedana helped me a lot on, like, lo fi early days, decision making

Aaron

Good.

Caleb

Because he's

Aaron

one of

Caleb

the brains that, he's a beautiful brain. And He's a beautiful brain.

Aaron

And

Caleb

when you're really in the struggle and you need a beautiful brain, I couldn't think of anyone better than Sebastian. I reached out to him, and he helped me, and he's just the best. So he works at Spottsy. You work with Spottsy. You get Sebastian and Frank and all the other super smart people.

So

Aaron

Totally redeemed yourself. Totally redeemed. You can find us at mostlytechnical.com, on Twitter at mostlytechpod, or you can send us emails that I assume Ian reads at mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com. Caleb, where can the people find you?

Caleb

They can find me on Twitter.

Aaron

Fluxui.dev. Flexui.dev. It's very good. Go buy it. Whatever the price is on the page, that's the price.

Who knows what it is?

Caleb

That's the price. Honestly, if you're preordering, I should take preorder down after after this podcast. But, like, if you're preordering, you're probably getting a deal or something. I don't know. So if you're preordering the preorder folks.

Give a

Aaron

shout out to Logan Craft. It's all his fault. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in to the show. Caleb, thanks for stepping in.

We'll see you next time.

Caleb

Thanks for having me, bud. See