Try Hard Empire

Ian

Hello?

Aaron

Welcome back to Mostly Arguing About Mars.

Ian

We're gonna do another hour and a half on Mars today. Everybody strap in. Get ready.

Aaron

Yeah. Before you turn it off, we're not doing that. But, I I think it went pretty well. I mean Yeah.

Ian

The people got the answers they wanted.

Aaron

The people did. I think most people were on my side.

Ian

They were.

Aaron

It's nice

Ian

to have that finally be true. Usually

Aaron

It's good to have the drink my way. They do. What is the deal? I am glad most people were on my side. And, I don't know if you listen to what's it called?

Bootstrap Web. What's the one with Jordan? I do. Brian. Yeah.

You got a you got a special shout out on Bootstrap Web.

Ian

You got all out for

Aaron

being wrong.

Ian

Those guys don't know what they're talking about. That's all.

Aaron

Yeah. That's what it is. Sure. That's all.

Ian

I'll be proven right. Just give it time. Twenty twenty eight is not far away. We're not gonna be on our lives.

Aaron

We're gonna have, we're gonna have, like, leaps and bounds forward and technological advancements, but we haven't gone to Mars, and you're gonna be like, see? I told you. I told you so.

Ian

Elon promised me Mars in 2028. That's what he said.

Aaron

See, like, aft right moments we got after the call that they launched a new probe to Europa?

Ian

I always say this is

Aaron

what I'm talking about.

Ian

Oh, that's good stuff. Probes everywhere. I'm all about the probes. Send pro why do we not have I was thinking about this. Why is there no probes to, like, places beyond the human lifespan?

Right? Like, forget our solar system. Like, why haven't we sent probes to, like, the nearest nebula, the nearest star of any type? Right? Just go send a probe to the nearest star.

Why are we not on that? Like, it's gonna take a long time. Fine. It's gonna be two hundred years or whatever since we can't travel at light speed. Great.

Why are we doing that? Like, that's the concept we're spending money on. That would be awesome. Wouldn't you wanna see a picture of another star? How cool would that be?

Aaron

That would be pretty cool.

Ian

That'd be cool. That would be pretty cool. It cost, like, $2,000,000,000 or something. It's like pocket punch.

Aaron

Yeah. What is what is the James Webb Telescope? Isn't that kind of that? Isn't it, like, headed out there and it's gonna take pictures and stuff?

Ian

It's not that. So it's headed out to the Lagrange point. I mean, it's there. So it's at this point where it's it doesn't move.

Aaron

Oh, I thought it was just, like, go go go. Like, didn't Hubble just keep going?

Ian

No. No. No. Hubble's like Hubble's not very far away at all. Like, remember they sent a space shuttle to, fix it, like, fifteen years

Aaron

ago. Hubble?

Ian

Yeah. They said that. Yes. When they launched it, it had a bad mirror. It was broken when they launched it, and then they kind of dealt with it.

It had bad eyesight and then you could look it up and then they had to send a space shuttle to fix it. And I think they put another lens in front of the, the bad lens or they replaced the lens, whatever. So it can actually see. And then yeah. So it's, like, within space shuttle range.

And but so the James Webb Telescope is way farther out.

Aaron

What in the world? You're right. It's only 320 miles above Earth's surface. I thought the Hubble was, like, on its way to another, like, to another

Ian

universe. Telescope. So the James Webb is farther out and in such a spot that, like, there's less interference from whatever things, and it doesn't orbit. It just, like, stays locked because it's in this special spot. Voyager.

Aaron

That's the one that's just they just

Ian

Voyager.

Aaron

Tepid going. Right?

Ian

Yeah. Voyager one and two are the farthest manor probes objects, I believe.

Aaron

There you go.

Ian

But they weren't designed for that. Like, they weren't built with that function. So they're mostly nonfunctional. Like they keep shutting things off to make it barely work. And it's like, nice to meet you.

Because they were really just designed to see Jupiter and Saturn or whatever. Like that was their main thing. They weren't even designed to be interstellar. It's just that like, when you, they just kept going and they're out there, but they don't have the equipment to survive for hundreds of years. And they're also headed towards nothing.

So like, they're not going

Aaron

we know of. Right. There's some there's some paradox where it's like, if if, spaceships get faster, we have the ability to make faster and faster spaceships every year, then launching a spaceship now makes no sense or, like, a probe now makes no sense because in two years, we'll launch one that can overtake it. And so we're on this, like, never launch anything because we'll always make one that's faster to overtake it.

Ian

So what's the point? Something to that.

Aaron

Yeah. I don't know if that's real or just something I read in science fiction, but it's it's at least interesting.

Ian

I was gonna I just wanna note that for the people out there who sided with Aaron on yesterday on last week's podcast, this is the argument between someone who knows where the Hubble Telescope is and someone who doesn't know where the Hubble Telescope is. So I'm just gonna say.

Aaron

Was I. I was the one who

Ian

didn't know.

Aaron

Dang. Shoot. Okay. That's the point.

Ian

But, anyway, we should be Anyway. Yeah. A a a Hubble telescope, but in a different solar system. How cool would that be? So you get really

Aaron

close photos of

Ian

the sun. The jean web is awesome. It's very cool. It's taking very cool pictures, but everything is still tiny. It's like, look at this tiny dot.

This tiny dot is a galaxy. That's really cool, but it's still just a tiny dot on the screen. And it's cool. There's lots of tiny dots, and it's very if you'd sit in it and think deeply about it, it's very impressive.

Aaron

Can you imagine a galaxy is just a tiny

Ian

dot? I know.

Aaron

It's so big out there.

Ian

It is big. Things are far away.

Aaron

Man. Very

Ian

far away.

Aaron

So far away. That's the most depressing part is that we're never gonna see it ever.

Ian

That light's been traveling, like, for eleven billion years in that tiny dot. So, like, you know, stuff's far away in space. That's what I'm trying to tell you people. Far away. Even the stuff that's close to far away.

Aaron

You people me. Don't you people me. Don't you people me.

Ian

Don't you people me.

Aaron

Don't you people. Don't you don't you dare.

Ian

But can we send the Hubble's telescope to somewhere else with other planets and other suns and whatever and see a real up close picture that's like, woah. It fills the whole screen. It's amazing. It's a giant picture of the sun. How cool would that be?

If it's red.

Aaron

That would be cool. It's a good thing we have those, SpaceX rockets that are so cheap to launch and land.

Ian

Main miss that's the problem.

Aaron

That's a good thing.

Ian

If we just had a self landing rocket, it would we'd be sending probes everywhere. We we haven't been because we don't have the self landing rock. But now we do.

Aaron

Now now that we do, it's very, very exciting. And what a what a glorious future ahead of us.

Ian

And then so, yes, they sent the probe to Europa, which is very cool, which is one of the most promising spots for

Aaron

because it's like a water heater.

Ian

And stuff. Yes. There's, in theory, like, a ocean below the ice there and stuff like that. But we're not supposed to go to Europa, and you didn't even know about this either. You know?

Aaron

No. I didn't know this

Ian

reference. In there. 02/2010 Space Odyssey. They're like, you can the whole galaxy story.

Aaron

One Space Yeah. Space Odyssey? Mhmm.

Ian

I really thought this quote was in 02/2001, but it's actually in 02/2010.

Aaron

I thought I was I thought I was doing a sick burn, but it really is, like, a sequel. Dang it. Thought I was making fun of you.

Ian

Oh, shoot. You're right. Dog boy. Yeah.

Aaron

Oh. Leave

Ian

me. I'm alright. Boom. Fire it off. You are.

Aaron

This is not my day.

Ian

Anyway, it's right in there in the movie. You can't go the aliens tell us you can't go to Europa. Go anywhere else you want, not Europa. So I'm a little nervous that we're gonna get there. We're breaking the rules.

Who knows what's gonna happen?

Aaron

Wow. Hope you John Lithgow, Ellen Maren. Maybe I gotta see this.

Ian

It's good. It's not as good as 2,001, but

Aaron

Maybe I gotta see that.

Ian

Aaron, you're

Aaron

killing me. I know.

Ian

You're just killing me. I know. You gotta make the time. You gotta see these movies. 02/2001, yeah, is epic.

I mean, it's all time classic. It's, you know, it's for your generation, you might be a little slow. You might not be able to handle the pacing of it. And it's kind of like, you know, it takes its time.

Aaron

This seems to last longer than like seven or eight seconds.

Ian

They do last longer. There's scenes. It's just like it complete silence and a spaceship just moving and you just see the spaceship going, and it's, like, you know, forty five seconds of that. It's just that's it.

Aaron

Well, I'll be sure to have Twitter up on my phone just in case just in case I happen into that scene. I won't be able to handle that.

Ian

So it gets got the AI. It's like it's got AI. It's got space. It's got all the stuff.

Aaron

Dude, it's right up my alley. Sounds like I gotta see it.

Ian

Spoil it, but the AI

Aaron

Don't spoil it.

Ian

Irrelevant. It's very relevant to This

Aaron

came out in 1968. The statute of limitations has not run. It's a one hundred year, no spoilers rule.

Ian

Oh, jeez. Alright. Alright. What's going on? What's going on?

We're coming

Aaron

to you soon. Alright. Alright.

Ian

You got a lot of stuff going on.

Aaron

This is a good day. Going on.

Ian

Aaron episode this week. What do you got?

Aaron

We love an we love an air o sode. Well, first of all, house update. We had to have the floors redone. So the the contractor did

Ian

his floors. A nightmare.

Aaron

And then we moved in, and it was like there were cracks and gaps and

Ian

Like, the floor

Aaron

is the

Ian

last thing thing you want redone. Like, you gotta repaint everything fine. Like, go repaint

Aaron

everything.

Ian

Whatever. You gotta replace the fridge. Yeah. It's annoying. Replace the fridge.

Whatever. You gotta repair a wall. Rip down a wall. Whatever.

Aaron

I But don't

Ian

redo the floors.

Aaron

Don't redo the floors. Nightmare.

Ian

Oh, my.

Aaron

So we moved in, and it was it was they did the floors. Then we moved in. It was crappy. Then they redid the parts that were crappy. They were still terrible.

Like, still, like, dips that then began to crack. I'm like, guys, look at this and tell me that this is good. And he's like, oh, you're right. This isn't going.

Ian

Thing on this floor.

Aaron

Yeah. Oh, dude. It's terrible. Felt like I was walking on the deck of a ship. The moon.

Yes. And so then he was like, yeah, that is terrible. We're gonna fire fire my floor guy and get a new floor guy and still redo him. Like, alright. Now we're talking.

Yes. This is good. And so Wednesday Wednesday, they started, like, sanding and ripping out boards and putting them back. And then, of course, they have to stain it, and you gotta stay off of it. And so Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we had to go stay at our in law's house.

The whole crew, everybody. It looks like it looks like we were packing for a move west across the plains. It was unbelievable. We were going somewhere for three three days, two nights, and we just had we had an just an unbelievable amount of stuff. So stayed at the in laws for a couple days, which was nice.

I'm glad we had that ability. But then, you know, you come home and it's it's still stinky. The floors look great. The, you

Ian

know, they're smooth.

Aaron

Yeah. They look great. They match the color just right. But then the whole house smells like, you know, garnish or lacquer, stain, whatever, all of it. And so we got windows open and bathroom fans on, and it's just like, And then the kids got sick, and so they can't go to school.

It's like, dude, brutal. Brutal. Brutal. Every every Monday, every mostly technical. It's like, man, weekends are tough.

Weekends are tough. And, boy, weekends are tough. Just really exhausting.

Ian

I saw you talking to some guy on Twitter. It was a guy in the loop somehow. I don't really know who he is, totally. But, like, he was like, you know, I don't understand why people don't have any time. They have some kids, and I'm like, dude.

Like, that because the kids absorb every ounce of free time that there is either directly or indirectly. Like, you have a bigger house now. You got a bigger house because you got more kids. That absorbs more time. Like, the whole thing, it's all more time all the way down.

Aaron

Yeah. I don't I don't really have a ton of patience for these takes that are like, why are kids taking up all your time? I'm like, guys, guys, maybe you're talking about nine, 10, 11, 12 year olds. And, like, sure. They should go they should go ride bicycles around your nineteen fifties neighborhood.

That's great. I love that. My kids will do that as well. Oh. But when your kids are you have two, three and a half year olds and two 10 olds, what what are you supposed to do?

There is no time. So how

Ian

do you get work done on

Aaron

the weekends? You don't. You just watch kids all weekend. And then on I think on both Saturday and Sunday, when they took a nap, I took a nap. It's like, I don't know.

Ian

I don't

Aaron

know what you expect of me, guys.

Ian

We talked about this on here before, but, honestly, it actually gets worse, not better, because it's just like the stuff you have to do with them is worse, and you don't get the nighttime break. It's like, alright. Everybody goes to bed at seven. And now at least I've got three, four hours of, like, I could spend it with the wife. I could do some work.

I got I know I got this Yeah. Before people start waking up and eating shit again Yes. I gotta block a time, like, at normal human hours. And, like, it gets harder, man. Like, we just spent all weekend running around.

My daughter has a horse show. She was at the barn the other day, and my son wanted to go to the gym, and then he wanted to do this other thing. And, like so now you're just an Uber driver, which is much less fun than at least, like, well, I'm holding this baby. I'm rocking it to sleep, and it's, like, terrible, but also awesome because it's like a baby and you're rocking it and it's cool. Like, no.

It's just like, okay. I'll drop you. Oh, when do I pick you up? Okay. It's just like, alright.

Just message me when you're ready. And, like, you just gotta be there on call for to pick them up and, like, yes. Yeah. The time time doesn't get better. And your pacing gets less and your energy gets less, so it's all yeah.

Aaron

That's awesome. That sounds great. I I look I look yeah. It's terrific.

Ian

But the big issue is, like, you touched on nine everybody think it's nineteen fifty. Like, I don't know. Like, you're not supposed to let your kids run around when they're five. Like, yeah, my dad's always like, when I was five, I left the house. I didn't come home till 8PM.

Like, that's what I did from age of five on in New York City. Like, I just went out the door and come home. They can't do that now. Nobody wants to do that now. Even they wanted to, you're not, like, supposed to.

Like, the whole thing is a mess.

Aaron

The the neighborhood kids you know, I live in the big city. The neighborhood kids in our cul de sac Mhmm. They they're outside playing made up games all the time. Always in the cul de sac doing stuff. But our your kids are three.

Right. They're gonna just go outside and just be like, alright. We'll see you later. So, you know, sometimes I'll go outside and sit with our kids as they watch the big kids play, and I think it's the funniest thing ever. They're like, oh, I I hi.

Oh, that's my friend. I waved to my friend, and I'm like, yeah. They're so nice. But they're, you know, those kids are, like, seven to 12 years old. Yeah.

They're great. Go outside. I never see a parent out there. It's always kids running back and forth into each other's houses and garages. I'm like, this is this is awesome.

Ian

Okay. So Big question for you here, though. How big is your, like, cul de sac region? Like, how many houses? It's like a a lot of houses?

Aaron

No. Not a lot of houses. It's, two, three, four, five. Five.

Ian

Alright. So I'm gonna this is Ian poops on Aaron's parade, morning as well.

Aaron

Yeah. Seriously. Goodness.

Ian

This is what we had in our we had, like, there's, like, nine houses in our cul de sac. And then and we don't really even have, like, other ones directly nearby. So it's, like, kinda this is it. And when we bought the the lot and we built the house, there was, like, kids everywhere and everything was awesome. We're like, this is gonna be so cute and amazing.

All those kids were a little bit bigger than our kids. And then as it all worked out, like, our kids basically don't have anybody to play with now. Like, there's, like, one there's, like, one house with some kids, but Yeah. They don't all really get along. It's, like, whatever.

It's, like, different schedules and stuff too. And then that's it. And there's nobody plays at all. And the whole thing we were all excited about. Everybody's gonna play.

No play. So

Aaron

Why do I do this show, Ian? I've come on here just when I

Ian

to the therapist after

Aaron

is a little tat tat, you know, have a little banter. You're telling me everything gets worse. That's all.

Ian

Maybe it's gonna be fun. I hope it's not

Aaron

for you.

Ian

I hope that the kids stay and that the all those people move out and the people who move in have nice kids exactly your age.

Aaron

Here's here's what I hope. I hope that one of our neighbors moves out. And by that time, we're super rich, and we buy their house

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Knock it down.

Ian

We talked about, you know, underground lair.

Aaron

Underground lair, mega house. Yeah. That's what I hope. That's the goal. I was actually thinking I was actually thinking I went on a walk last night because it was a very stressful day.

I went on a walk and I thought, man, these house because, like, one side of the street is kind of up on a hill and the other side is low. And I thought these houses on the hill, you could easily I don't know anything about construction. You could easily dig out, like, a 12 or 15 foot basement, and you could have your fancy factory underneath the house. That's That you got a great idea. I don't know.

Ian

You have

Aaron

problems in Texas? Probably. No. It's incredibly hard to dig here. But what in my imagination, it's easy

Ian

to see. Big. I don't know about that. Yeah. The big machine was shovels.

Aaron

No. Yeah. We have the machines, but the soil the soil is, like, I think we're a lot of limestone, maybe. I don't know. Is limestone soft or hard?

We know a lot of things on this podcast. I

Ian

think it's soft. I think it's Yeah. They don't dig because there's no, they don't need a foundation. Like, they don't need, below frost foundation, I think it's usually the reason in the South that they just it's a financial why dig and pay all the money and build a bigger, taller thing when they can cheap out.

Aaron

We we do have a friend who is building a house across the street from us, and they dug out, because they're kind of on a slope. And so they dug out the back part to be the garage and, you know, put cinder blocks all in and, like, built out basically a basement garage.

Ian

Basement. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. And I think it was I think it was pretty expensive today. I don't I don't know exactly. But

Ian

We spent, like, it was almost I think it was, like, $70,000 in excavation or something like that. It was crazy. Wow. Our house is not, like, humongous or anything. Like, when we hit rock, we hit, like, rock rock.

Aaron

So we

Ian

then they screwed us on that. They're like, we'll bring this big Jack camera in that attaches to the excavator and we'll, we'll Jack it out. I think that'll work. And so that's what they did for weeks and weeks and weeks at $200 an hour. And it's like, they could have just paid the dynamite guys to blow it up or like, like, but you know, the excavator doesn't do the dynamite.

That's a different guy. So the excavator kind of skewed the dust. He wants

Aaron

to be like,

Ian

oh, it'll be a week, but then it's two weeks. But then you're already in. So am I gonna get the dynamite guys now when I've already paid this guy? You know? So it's like

Aaron

When when you have the option to get a dynamite guy, you always get a dynamite guy. What are you thinking? I don't care how long it can take. We have a chance to do dynamite. Let's do dynamite.

Ian

Thought we should blow it up. And now even now, we kinda wish we blew it up because whatever. But yes. So, yeah, excavation is quite expensive, which always makes me feel like I wanna be an excavator. Like, that's what I should be doing.

Like, just Mhmm. I got good credit, get a big old excavator for $250 or whatever it costs, be out there, charge your $300 an hour, and then an excavator, dig the hole here, dig the hole there. Beautiful. I love it.

Aaron

Boy, that seems great. You'll have to argue with people on Twitter. You don't have to you don't have to worry about CSS. You just go out and you dig a hole.

Ian

That's awesome.

Aaron

Yes. No marketing.

Ian

Every once in a while, you get a government contract.

Aaron

Excavator@Gmail.com, and you'd be booked solid. That's all these guys do. It's unbelievable.

Ian

It is. They don't market. They don't do anything. They go pay our logo badly on the side of our truck. Yep.

There we go. That's what

Aaron

we answer the phone because we're too busy.

Ian

We'll get Ow. Hey, Rosie. You're there. And We'll get to the phone phone for me, and that'll be fine. Yeah.

Aaron

Sound of it's unbelievable.

Ian

Alright. So you're on the walk.

Aaron

I'm on the walk.

Ian

So maybe you should do that. You just, you know, you just got this house. You sell this house. You buy a lot and build the home studio house thing.

Aaron

No. That is the goal. Yeah. Yeah. Don't tell Jennifer, but that is the goal.

After after this remodel, Jennifer's interest in building a house has gone from 0% to negative infinity percent. Oh, sure. So we're trying to we gotta slow play that. If you're listening, darling, don't worry. This is just a bit for content.

Come on. You're just being silly. Hey.

Ian

Actually gonna do this.

Aaron

But, yeah, that's that's the goal is to, like, you know, one, I everything this is interesting. Everything hinges on step one being get super rich, so maybe we should investigate that first. That's phase one. Yeah. That's phase one for sure.

And then, yeah, hopefully, buy a house within, you know, ten houses of where we live because our friends you know, our best friends are building a house across the street.

Ian

Yeah. That's crazy how it don't happen. The the I assume it's obviously not random. That's pretty cool.

Aaron

No. It's not random. They found the lot. We were both, looking in this neighborhood. They found a lot and decided to start building.

And then the house we currently, bought or the house we currently have came up for sale, and they texted us and were like, hey. Go look at this one. Oh. And we did. And we bought it.

So

Ian

Oh, maybe you should give us a, Francis Real Estate Empire update. Like, at one point, you had, like, a house you were renting and another house you owned in this house and you yeah. Like, where are we at now? What's left of the empire?

Aaron

Oh, praise be. We're down to two properties and only one only one on the Aaron Francis payroll. So the house, you know, we own and pay for. The rent house, we no longer have because, you know, we moved into the remodeled house. And then the apartment studio where I'm currently sitting is on the, try hard books.

So this lease is up this apartment lease is up in February, at which point we may transition to a factory, which we can talk about. But Yep. Our house is our house is the only property that we are actively paying for, which is good.

Ian

And didn't you sell you had a house you owned before or no?

Aaron

So we had a house we owned, which is where the shed quarters was.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And that was the house we owned. We found out we were having twins again. We sold it immediately, moved into a rental.

Ian

Oh, it's already sold. Okay. Before the rental. Yeah.

Aaron

We sold thought you were that. Okay. No. No. No.

And then we had the rental and the remodel overlapping for a while, but now that's over.

Ian

Alright. Yeah. But okay. So then this is the nice transition to the tryhard factory. So you're not done with real estate.

You love real estate.

Aaron

Love it. You're still

Ian

having it. It's amazing. Gotta have it. They're not making any more of it. They're not.

.Com. It's like Mhmm. Once you have it, it's yours. So so what are you looking at here? Buying, you're renting.

Aaron

So You

Ian

looked at some

Aaron

sketch of what's going on. So I was looking to rent, and then Steve and I talked, and we're like, should we just buy a commercial property?

Ian

Yeah. I knew it. See, you haven't even told me this. All I've seen is the pictures that you have places you looked at, the rent. And I was like, you know, that's just not big enough for him.

He's gonna go big with this because he's a big idea guy. And I was just I had that feeling. I was like, he's gotta at least thought about buying something. And there you go. You got it.

Aaron

There you go. We absolutely thought about it. Okay. We thought about, you know, getting an SBA loan and buying a piece of commercial property, looked around, and I don't think now is the time. Mhmm.

So when it came time to look at stuff to buy, this is all within the past week, of course. But when it came time to look at stuff to buy, I started looking around and, like Mhmm. The flex space slash industrial, all of that is there's nothing that's, like, cool enough. It's all kinda lame. And so what I wanted was, you know, a a warehouse with giant windows that used to be some sort of, you know, wool factory or something Right.

Or or cotton. I don't I'm not partial.

Ian

And then Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

Not picky. And then, potentially, like, a fire station or a church or a auto body shop with giant, roll up doors that have huge windows in them. That kind of thing. Something that's like something that's like industrial, but can be, like, you know, new wave, modern, that kind of stuff.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

And I looked around, and there just really there wasn't anything, anywhere near us. And I thought and I went and looked I toured a few properties that needed a lot of, like even for rental that needed to be, like, built out. And so I went to one, and it was, you know, 2,000 square feet, and it all it had was studs and insulation. And he's like, yeah. The landlord will work with you on tenant improvements and rent duration and free months.

And I was like, okay. Boy, that seems like a lot of work. And then I looked around and saw this was a two two unit building, and then the unit I was in was unfinished. And there was there was no AC. There was no ductwork.

There was no fence. There was nothing.

Ian

You're concerned.

Aaron

Bathroom. There There was plumbing. There was nothing. He's like, yeah, if you wanna move the bathroom, you could probably trench through the concrete. And I was like, for a note, this is I'm just a computer guy.

I'm not I'm not signing up right now to do a six month commercial real estate project. Yeah. And so that's when I was like, maybe this is maybe this is not the time. So Right. What we did was I did tour a bunch of other, bunch of other, like, industrial flex spaces, and I think I found the one.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

So it was, I think, maybe the first one that I sent you. It is a, it has it has an office in the front, and then it has an attached, like, warehouse, like, garage. It's all, it's all heated and cooled, including the warehouse, which is pretty important. Yep. It's only, I think, a thousand square feet, which is not huge.

It's good for you, though.

Ian

It feels like a

Aaron

Yeah. That's kinda what I what Steve and I decided was, like, I think this is probably good for now. And if this works, then in two years, we can discuss, like, should we buy a property? Should we buy a lot and build a warehouse? That sort of thing.

But, yeah, it's it's very aesthetic, like, concrete concrete walls, concrete floors, polished, very nice windows in the back of the warehouse, in this particular unit. And so that that would be a good thing as well, very aesthetic for filming. And so we're waiting on a lease. I think we're gonna do it. Yeah.

So we're gonna we're gonna get the lease. You know, we'll look over the details and stuff. But, hopefully, by January 1, we're moving into the the try hard factory.

Ian

Wow. So Mhmm. So is there anything to build at all, or it's just you're think because No.

Aaron

I'm not taking it as is.

Ian

Set stuff. But, like Yeah. In the structure itself, it's it's pretty good.

Aaron

I'll take it as is, in the structure itself, which is nice. Super nice. Yeah. The it's interesting because it's in a little it's, like, in a little Flex Industrial Park. Mhmm.

You know? And so, like, the whole thing is gated. It feels like driving kinda like driving into, like, a, like, a storage unit area. Right. Like, it's gated, and then you drive around, and you see a bunch of roll up doors, but also man doors because the front, you know, has an option

Ian

for doors.

Aaron

That's right. Yeah. No no women doors here. I actually I think I got on to Jason I got on to Jason Beggs once because he called it a man door, and I called him a sexist. But I think that's what they're called, a human a human door.

We'll call him a human door. Yeah. And all of the other, like, all of the other tenants are basically, like, there's some interior designers. There's some home builders.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

There are some, like, he said there's, like, a wine club that just stores all their excess wine in the the warehouse part. There's some ecommerce shippers, which would be interesting to talk to. But it's that kind of tenant where it's like, hey. We have a satellite office that nobody ever really goes to. But if we need to store some tile samples that came in or we need to store a couch that was delivered and the client's not ready for it.

We'll put it there, that sort of thing.

Ian

So pretty

Aaron

cool. Yeah. Pretty cool.

Ian

New too. Like, I don't know if it's very new, but it did it didn't look like, oh, there's been twenty years of truck grease on this floor type of thing.

Aaron

That was that was the other thing with the other warehouses. It was, like, built in 1968. And you look inside, and you're like, it hasn't been touched since then. This one was built in 2016.

Ian

And

Aaron

so it's it's very, very new, and it's fundamentally different than a warehouse. It's like Right. You need an office and you need some storage, this is where you go.

Ian

Yep. Yep. Wow. So how far from your house?

Aaron

Ten minutes.

Ian

Okay. So Yeah. Not too much more

Aaron

than the apartment. More than the current. Yeah. Right. And that was the other thing is I looked at some spots in De Bellum, which is where Laracon was, and incredibly cool hip, very awesome down there, but it's thirty minutes away.

Ian

Yeah. You know what? In a flight thirty minute commute. That's not

Aaron

No. What am I doing if I'm having a thirty minute commute? Especially, like, you know, last week, I had to, you know, pop home to talk to the contractor. You you don't do a pop home if you're thirty minutes away. You do a go home, and that's it.

And there goes the day. I can't do a go home just in the middle of the day. So, yeah, unfortunately, I think all the cool hip spots in Deep Ellum are out because they're just so far away.

Ian

Do you, do you have a home office?

Aaron

No. Okay.

Ian

Do you have room for a home office?

Aaron

Not until, not until the au pair leaves.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

And provided we don't get another au pair.

Ian

Mhmm. So you really need a place to go?

Aaron

I need a place to go. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. But it was in your master bedroom, maybe. Like, obviously, it wouldn't be optimal for, like, streaming or whatever. But

Aaron

No. I don't wanna do that. Yeah. But once once the au pair leaves, we will have a very small room, too small to be a guest room. It's where the the babies are right now.

And they'll go upstairs into her room, and then we'll have that little bitty room in the front that could be just like a sitting a sitting a coffee.

Ian

To have a place at

Aaron

home. I think so. So we'll put maybe a day bed and a chair in there, and that could become like a place that I can work if I have to.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to have that flexibility if you wanna be home as well. I actually just restored my home office from, like which had become, like, basically the Minecraft Warzone office, because the Windows gaming computer was in there. But, like, we got the pool table for the basement, which has been a big hit.

And then we were like, well, let's just like move all the kids stuff into the basement. So because we have a big, like, the basement's all finished. It's like our house, like the basement's like part designed to be part of the house. It's not like a basement door. It's like just an open staircase and like, it's like another level.

So all the kids are down there now and all their stuff. And then I took my office back. So now I got the office again, which is kind of nice to have a place at home. That's just my stuff in it.

Aaron

Yeah. That would be nice.

Ian

Alright. So factory is coming along.

Aaron

Factory is coming along.

Ian

Move in?

Aaron

So the lease here is February 9, and so we'll try to get the lease at the factory for January 1 so we can have a month of overlap. Yep. It's like I got a lot of stuff I gotta move.

Ian

Stuff to unbilled that you just sold?

Aaron

Stuff to unbilled. Yeah. The good news is, I asked for two.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

So I think the default I think the default was three, and I said, listen. I'm not gonna try to hammer you on the rent, but I do need a shorter term.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And so hopefully hopefully that'll work out because, I, you know, dream big. I think in two years, we'll need a bigger space. That'd be awesome. So Either way,

Ian

yeah, you don't wanna be locked in for three or five years or anything. Yeah.

Aaron

No. And the good news about this backdrop is I can disassemble it without destroying it. It was built in such a way that I knew this is not its final resting place. So I'll disassemble it, move it over, and then, yeah, there will be there will be a lot more to build. We're gonna we're gonna build out a lot of stuff.

We also big moves. Big moves. We also potentially found a videographer here in Dallas. Oh. Yeah.

So we had a had a call with him on Friday. And, basically, you know, he's a I think he's 21 or 22 year old kid who's trying to do his own thing, which is just, like, exactly what we want. Right. We want somebody that's, like, talented and flexible and doesn't need full time work. And had a call with him on Friday, and the vibe seemed right.

And Steve, you know, asked him some technical questions about video, and he seemed to totally get it. And so I think we're gonna start so I think we're gonna start with, him coming up here and doing a studio tour of this studio. And so that'll be our first test with, like, what how do we get along? Because if he's gonna be around one or two days a week, he and I need to get along pretty well. And then Right.

What's his output like? Is it is the quality good? So we're gonna we're gonna run a little test and make a few videos with him in this space before we give it up.

Ian

I feel like you need to back up here. Why do we need a videographer, Twish? Oh, wow. What are we what are we videoing?

Aaron

Gotta have videoing everything, man. Okay. So this is, this is, a continuation of what do I want to do with my life. Right?

Ian

Right. I figured.

Aaron

So I think the answer the answer last week was, like, we're a content company. Right? We make content. Mhmm. And in that content, we either sometimes place our own ads, house ads for our

Ian

own

Aaron

back end, or replace other people's ads, and we get paid for it. So that was extremely helpful, very clarifying, discussion. And then I, Ben Orenstein, friend of the show, friend of the pod, friend of ours, Ben Orenstein sent me a, an episode of a podcast where a guy named I guess, flip back to Trello here. A guy named Dan Shipper. I wrote it down in our cards.

A guy named Dan Shipper was on this podcast, and it was, again, very clarifying because he talked a lot about his company. I don't even know what his company is. I think it's, like, every year or something like that. I have no idea. But he talked about how his company is different than the companies that he would, like, observe on the Internet, and he thought he was doing something wrong when in reality, his company was a media company, and he was observing, like, software companies.

And so one thing he was saying was, like, I'd go on Hacker News, and everybody would be talking about doing stuff like this. And I'm like, oh, no. That's not how we do anything at all. And are we doing everything wrong? And then he went to a retreat with other media companies, and they were like, yeah.

No. This is exactly how we do everything.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And it was very clarifying to me because one thing that he talked about was, like, the product market fit for a media company is the voice of the main person producing the media.

Ian

Right. And

Aaron

so in that case, that would be me. Like Yep. I need I I think have found product market fit with our content. Mhmm. And so we need to increase that.

And then the other thing was, he talked about, like, with a media company, you have to have many sources of income at different levels of, at different levels of, like, the funnel or, like, audience participation, basically. Yeah. Yeah. So you have, you know, you have the biggest portion of people that are just, like, passive consumers. And then down from there, you have some low entry price.

And then, like, for his thing goes all the way up, I think, to, like, very high ticket consulting, cult coaching, that sort of thing.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

And so us figuring out what our funnel kinda looks like and what our product offering looks like is gonna be pretty important. But I do think that put my mind at ease a lot in terms of, the whole, like, you gotta focus on one thing. No. You gotta have many small bets discussion. Like, ours Yep.

Ours is fundamentally different than, you know, launching a bunch of sasses and, you know Yep. Seeing which one works. And so the videographer back to the point, The videographer is to help us broaden the scope of our content just a little bit beyond me sitting behind the screen. And so I think we've mastered me teaching, doing screencasts, that sort of thing. And the area in which we want to broaden is more of, like, the creator, maker, business owner, that sort of stuff.

So a little bit outside of, like, hey. I'm just gonna sit down and talk to the camera and more, shots where somebody actually has to be operating the camera.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And so that's what the videographer would be. Because Steve, you know, Steve can't come down here and do it, and I can't do it all. So having somebody else shoot the footage is gonna be really helpful.

Ian

Like it. Yeah. That

Aaron

There you go.

Ian

Alright. So we're gonna get different kinds of video of air in

Aaron

advance. Kinds of video. Yeah. We're doing it.

Ian

Obviously, as you're building stuff, that'll be really cool to have somebody not just a stationary camera, but somebody who can move it and look around things. And then I assume you're gonna have them maybe do rough edits or at least

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

Cut down the quantity for Steve to then look at, you know Exactly. The good stuff only and that kind of thing.

Aaron

Yep. So when we when we go to the factory, this kid will be a part of it, and we will film we'll try to film basically everything that we're doing over there Yeah. And do, like, factory build out videos and Yep. You know?

Ian

Woo hoo.

Aaron

All the stuff that people like, like desk setup and, like, tours and all that crazy stuff.

Ian

All the smooth brain stuff. Like, yeah,

Aaron

I just

Ian

gotta see your desk. It's all the

Aaron

stuff that I watch on YouTube on a, you know, Sunday before I fall asleep. It's like, hey. I wanna watch these guys build something. I'm never gonna build a house, but I wanna watch these guys build a house. That's all I wanna do.

Ian

Have you been recording already, like, your first visits, or you didn't do any of that?

Aaron

Haven't done any of that. Okay. If we do get this particular spot, I will go over and shoot some footage of it empty and, like, me walking in. I may even bring the kid. Why not?

I mean Yeah. One month.

Ian

This will be a good first,

Aaron

you know,

Ian

trial run.

Aaron

Yeah. So, yeah. Big week.

Ian

Man, that's one of the first travel item.

Aaron

I know. Got a factory. Found a kid. Launched Postgres. It's all it's all happening.

Ian

Yeah. Launched Postgres. Oh, yeah. We should talk about that. That's that's not on the solo list.

What what

Aaron

We launched it.

Ian

It it went it went out. You released your child out into the world.

Aaron

It went out. I don't know if we're sharing numbers. That's, that's something I I will have to ask Steve. But I will say it hit our we had a I think we had a one week goal of revenue that we wanted to hit, and we hit that in the first, like, forty eight hours. So Alright.

That was good.

Ian

Very good. Yes.

Aaron

That was good. And, of course, you know, it's falling off a cliff now, but that's fine. Smart. Well So things are looking great. We've gotten several we've gotten several team sales and several team inquiries, including a 40 person sale.

Yeah. Wow. And so Okay. That is, terribly exciting because that's, like, that's inklings of a real business there.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

And something that, I think, again, it was in this podcast with Dan Shipper. And just a note for the dear listener, if you listen to this podcast with Dan Shipper, it's very good, but the host talks way too much. It's unbelievable. So many bad podcast hosts seeing.

Ian

They're out there, man. Okay. Can we take a little side adventure? Yes. This quickly, a little side adventure, because I don't want to talk about this and you just hit on the perfect point.

I have this kind of evil idea.

Aaron

It's a

Ian

little bit evil. It's a little bit uncouth, I would say. Okay? And as somebody this would affect, I understand this could be emotional and people might get mad about this kind of thing. Uh-huh.

But I think there is a % of market. Okay?

Aaron

Oh, no.

Ian

A podcast player

Aaron

Uh-huh.

Ian

That uses a little AI or whatever magic you wanna use and lets you only listen to one host or one person on the street. Wow. Just Brutal. Rid of the other people. I don't wanna hear the other people.

I only care about this person's takes on things, and just give me that. Cut the whole thing down. Now it's not sixty minutes. It's fifteen minutes of just this person or just this guest or whatever it is. And I I think there's kind of a market for that because there's some some podcasts work better than others for this.

Like, some, it's like, there's too much intermingled and re confusing. Mhmm. But there's a lot of them where it's like this person does their take and that person does their take and not Mhmm. Thought, like, a conversation back and forth so much. And it's just like, I don't wanna hear these other people.

Like, I just wanna hear the person I care about here. Brutal. About that. I

Aaron

love it. It's it's brutal. It's a little brutal. Have the AI summarize what the other person says.

Ian

They could film it. Yeah. They could interject it. Yes. Exactly.

Yeah. Oh, I hadn't thought of that. That's nice. Yes. Yes.

If there's, like, there's, like, an actual question or something there.

Aaron

So bad that people are replacing you with AI.

Ian

That's a but see, I don't think that's the right take. That's the that's the evil take. That's the

Aaron

bad guy

Ian

thing. Said.

Aaron

That's what you said.

Ian

It's more that there's just it's not that they're bad. Like, other people might keep that person and eliminate the other person. Right? Like, it's just a matter of it's more of a taste thing. And I don't necessarily have a taste for person x on this show, and I just wanna hear from person y.

And for you, it might be opposite, and that's fine. But the I feel like we have the technology now to do that. If we could land a rocket on its own, I feel like we could give me just one We

Aaron

can eliminate David Sachs from the podcast. Yeah.

Ian

Exactly. Nobody wants to hear

Aaron

David Sachs.

Ian

I know what you're saying. Filter that dude out. Exactly. That's, like, a perfect example. I I like Jason Calacanis a lot.

But, like, the other guys, I don't need to hear from any of them, honestly. Like, just give me Jason, and that's it. Like, make the two hour thing thirty minutes of just his takes on stuff.

Aaron

Oh, the just Jason podcast Yeah. Might be the only one. You might be the only one that wants to listen to that. You might be.

Ian

See, I've been investing on in Jason's syndicate for, like, ten years, so I'm biased.

Aaron

Okay. Yeah. You're biased. But Friedberg's great. He does all the science.

I love Friedberg.

Ian

I've honestly never listened to the All In podcast. I'm not.

Aaron

Oh, it's great. It's a train wreck every week. I love it.

Ian

Yeah. That's the thing.

Aaron

I can't listen to this guy. This guy, the host talks too much. Okay. So we can filter him out with this new brutal tool from Ian. Yeah.

Brutal tool. Brutal. Justin Jackson, you need to get on that.

Ian

You need to

Aaron

do that.

Ian

Put the mute button. We can call it

Aaron

mute

Ian

button or something. It's just like I don't wanna

Aaron

just mute it. I want it filtered. You know? Very clear that we're the bad guys. Mute button.

Okay. So this guy talks too much. Oh, what Dan Shipper was saying is at the beginning, you kind of have to, like, you kinda have to, like, scratch and claw and do these, like, basically, these launches to get the thing going, which is where we're at right now.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

But then you have to figure out you have to figure out how to make it sustainable. And, but the launches give you, like, the runway to do that. And so that's exactly where we are right now. We've done these launches that are very hype dependent, which has been fine. It's worked.

And now we have money in the bank, and we have some good amount of runway to slow down a little bit and, hopefully, in the future, rely less on hype, to launch these things. And so one thing one thing that Steve has already started doing is, like do you remember when we talked to Jeffrey Way, and he was like, yeah. I've got all these people at Disney that signed up. And you're like, you gotta email the people at Disney, man. We we started doing that.

So we started combing through the customer list, looking for good domains, and Steve is just manually reaching out and being, like, hey. Do you wanna expand? Do you wanna get a team account here? What's going on? And so we're like, if you can believe it, we're, like, approaching proper sales strategies here.

Ian

Love it.

Aaron

I know. Yes. And we've got a list of we've got, like, a list of prospects too that we're just gonna, like, email and see what happens. And so Yeah. There's gonna be more and more sales content potentially coming from, the old try hard studios as we figure out how do we make this a sustainable thing.

Ian

Could what's the Postgres course? $2.49? Something like that?

Aaron

I think right now it's $2.49.

Ian

2 40 9? Yeah. So, I mean, if you could get, like I mean, when you sell to 20 a 20 user team account, it's $5 and maybe you kick a little off, whatever, blah, blah. Mhmm. But, like, yeah, that's, like, adds up really fast.

And if and there's tons of big medium sized companies out there.

Aaron

Tons.

Ian

Now you've sold any is promising.

Aaron

Yeah. So we've sold some

Ian

do that.

Aaron

Without speaking to anyone.

Ian

Right. So if you can get in front of people, because those are also the kind of companies people aren't necessarily out here

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Following Aaron Francis and stuff. You're just inside the board, but you use post for us every day. And if you can get ahold of the right person and they could be like, oh, yeah. Remember that time we were down for four hours because nobody knew about this setting or whatever? And, like, hey.

Let's just spend $4 on this and everybody watch it and get trained up. Like, that's a no brainer for I know. Many companies if you can get to the right person who can make that decision, which is, of course, the hard part. But, yeah, I like that.

Aaron

Yep. So that'll be that'll be an interesting ongoing storyline is how how are sales going, like, outbound sales. Yeah. I like that. Yeah.

So far, everything we've gotten is inbound, including the one that was, like, 40 seats, which is right.

Ian

40 seat a sale or just an inquiry?

Aaron

The 40 seat is an inquiry that they have passed us on to what is it? Requisition what's the what's the department maybe? Procurement? Procurement. That's the one.

Yeah. They passed us on procurement.

Ian

So Then that's a done deal. It's just

Aaron

That's that's something. Yeah. Yeah. So if we could get, you know, two or three I don't I don't think we'll get many 40 seat ones, but two or three, you know, $3.04, $5,000 deals a month, we're in business, baby.

Ian

Let me tell you, man. Everybody underestimates this. There are so many big ish companies out there. You can't even imagine if there are. So, like I You could easily do one a month.

Like, I, I, like, that's not even in, it's not hard in the terms of there are sufficient quantities of companies that could buy that, that you could absolutely do it. You know, whether you can get in there and get the sales process down to make that happen obviously is something you have to figure out. But like, it's a lot of companies in the world with a lot of money and so you're selling is nothing. It's $0 I know. Every other cost they have, so definitely possible.

And Postgres is kind of interesting too, because it's not and SQLite too. I feel like you should be kind of even bundling them or talking about both of them when you do this because, like, they have different use you can imagine, like, a company uses Postgres on its back end, but SQLite in its apps and whatever and all that kind of stuff. And there's just not as much good documentation and training material on those as there is MySQL and certainly Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server and all those big dogs that have tons of the stuff and official stuff and all that. So, yeah, I think there's probably a demand out there that's untapped.

Aaron

Once again, am incredibly grateful that I think I don't think this was as strategic as I want it to be that I ended up in the database education space. Mhmm. Like, I wanna claim that it was like, well, I, you know, observed a gap in the market. Right. I I just historically have loved it, and Right.

I think there's some part of me that did observe a gap in the market, but it was it was already

Ian

lost the bed.

Aaron

I was already here. It wasn't pure mercenary. Yeah. But, yeah, imagine, like I mean, imagine trying to sell React training. It's everywhere.

Right. Everyone has React course. Yes. And so this just it does feel a lot easier that, like, hey. You want a Postgres training course?

Where where else are you gonna go?

Ian

Right.

Aaron

So, hopefully, hopefully, that winds up being true.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well, I guess we'll keep keep us informed of that, but that's very intriguing. So this is all part of the multilayer strategy.

But Yep. Yeah. If you could get a handful of those corporate sales a month, I mean, not right there is a huge amount of money. That's just baseline. And obviously is more than enough to, like, pay for a person to do outbound sales at some point, which then keeps the flywheel rolling, that sort of thing.

So definitely looking forward to your outbound tips and tricks because that's not some I've never done too much outbound, but, I would like to do more at some point. And maybe you're gonna crack it for us and give us all your secrets and make a video about it. Make a course about it.

Aaron

That's the goal. That's the goal. We're we're gonna crack it. Steve has a friend. Steve has a friend who, is like a proper salesperson and historically has been selling to series a and series b companies.

And, like, that's his his real job. And so Steve talks to him a lot, and there's there's, there's a chance there will be some content around sales because, you know, I think sales everything is content. I think sales for founders is another woefully, under, underappreciated niche in the market. And so we're headed that direction.

Ian

Yeah. Just there is so much there's stuff stuff out there, but it's also very overwhelming seeming. It's like, well, you gotta start up 42 domains and you gotta buy all the services and you gotta do all the stuff, which maybe at a certain point you do, but also, like, yeah, just I just email the people that I sort of already have access to is, like, probably a much more approachable start and then, you know, scaling up, more linearly versus, yeah, starting at the end of we have a hundred fake domains that we're, you know, mass emailing out of and all that.

Aaron

But Nah. I don't like that. Yeah. So three years from now three years from now, we will Steve and I will own a giant warehouse that's super aesthetic. We'll have a course on sales.

We'll be selling we'll be selling these, database courses, you know, many tens of thousand dollars a month. It's going to be it's going to be good.

Ian

Advertisers, big advertisers, advertising.

Aaron

Yep. And then that

Ian

leads into what you'll be doing, which is try hard off sites, whatever that is. I don't know what that is. Is that something I can go to? But, that's on the list here. So what's that?

That's that's

Aaron

so we're having our we're having our first we're having our first company off-site.

Ian

So Okay.

Aaron

Me and, Kelsey are gonna go to Boise, and we're gonna hang out with Steve for two days. And we're gonna scheme and plan and Nice. And do stuff. Yeah. So I think it's, like, November 11 we're headed up there.

Ian

Wait. Are you having your surgery, like, early November?

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think November, like, first or second or something.

Ian

When did you sign a Cisco trip?

Aaron

Tomorrow.

Ian

Oh, okay.

Aaron

Yeah. Alright. Is that all good? Because that pass does that pass the sniff test?

Ian

I don't know. That's surgery. I I did, Amsterdam, like, three days after my surgery or four days or something for, with Laracon EU, the first Laracon EU, and I would say it wasn't great. It was a little

Aaron

bit Three days three days is too soon. Amsterdam is too far. So let's see. Surgery is on November 4, so you'll need to get a you'll need to get a guest cohost for Monday the fourth. Oh,

Ian

I can

Aaron

And then I go to Boise, yeah, on the eleventh. So that's a full week. Okay. That seems fine.

Ian

Yeah. Alright. Ice down. You'll be alright.

Aaron

Yeah. It seems fine.

Ian

I mean, you're not, like, running around. You're just, like, sitting around No. No. No. Chatting.

What am I

Aaron

gonna do? Am I gonna go ride bikes or anything? Right. Yeah. So, yeah, we're

Ian

gonna go off-site. Alright.

Aaron

We are. Yeah. And we're gonna we got you know, we have a lot of things we want to do, and we're gonna try to plan them plan them out. Put us put a little schedule together, and it's gonna be great.

Ian

Are you videoing this?

Aaron

That's a great question. We are now.

Ian

There you go. At least some chunks of it. You know? You know how to release the whole thing. You know?

Aaron

Gotta do it. Gotta do it. Do it. I feel like

Ian

the building of try hard like, this is a whole series that, like, has, like, a weekly ish vibe to me. And so you're gonna need a lot of content. Like, when you're doing something, it needs to be recorded or every other week or something. You know? You wanna have, like, a regularity to it, I feel like.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Or it's a bit of a three hour segment you record and kinda talk about stuff. Yeah. Like like the kit people have been doing, you know, with, like, their rebrand stuff.

Aaron

It's like Right. Right.

Ian

That's I've watched all those videos. They're really interesting. Just kinda, like, behind the curtain of how you Uh-huh. Do that sort of thing.

Aaron

So, Yeah.

Ian

You're gonna be all over. Yeah. We're doing it. Flyer miles. Look at this guy.

Aaron

Oh, man. You know what's the best thing in the world? Airline points. Having Kelsey do stuff.

Ian

Yeah. His employees are awesome. Other employees.

Aaron

Awesome. I just The

Ian

best thing.

Aaron

Said, hey. We're going to we're going to Boise. She was like, do you want me to book your flights?

Ian

I was

Aaron

like, you bet I do. And so she sent me a screenshot of a little spreadsheet that was like she didn't even send me a link to the spreadsheet because I don't wanna what I will open a spreadsheet. I don't wanna open a spreadsheet. I got stuff I gotta do.

Ian

No. You're busy now.

Aaron

She sent me a screenshot, and it had, departing flights were numbered one through four and returning flights were numbered five through eight. And I just said, let's do number one and number seven, and that was it.

Ian

Thank you.

Aaron

And it's done. It's just done. It's the best thing ever.

Ian

Oh, man. It's the

Aaron

best thing ever. So, yeah, the the first try hard off-site is is coming up.

Ian

Are you renting a space for that, or what are you doing there?

Aaron

I don't know.

Ian

I just coffee shop it and wander around?

Aaron

Probably coffee shop it slash Steve's house it. Mhmm. Because he, you know, he lives there. So and the hotel we're staying at is, super awesome in downtown and various aesthetics. So if we do end up recording, we could do some stuff there.

But, I don't know. It's gonna be pretty pretty low key. Last time I spent, you know, time in the coffee shop, and then I scootered over to Nathan Barry's Kit Studios and then scootered over back to the hotel, and it was, like, totally perfect. So I imagine it'll be something like that.

Ian

They got the limes there or equivalent, I take it?

Aaron

Yep. Yep.

Ian

I love limes.

Aaron

So You know what? We could actually, just book Kit Studios, probably.

Ian

That would be fun to do something there.

Aaron

Maybe one of them. Yeah. Yeah. Problem is I'm not a Kit customer, but maybe I could just get by on being folksy.

Ian

Yeah. It could be tricky. I don't know. It's a it's a hard requirement. You just sign up for an account and be like, I'm a customer now.

Yeah. It would cost you, like, $20 for access to the studio

Aaron

for a day. That's not bad.

Ian

But, anyway, that's a bit of a more formal thing. I kinda wanna I wanna, like, see video of you guys at a coffee shop, like, chatting and, like, walk through the park and you're at Steve's house and you're meeting his wife. And

Aaron

I'm so excited for this new lifestyle era. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be so fun.

Ian

Yeah. I want the Aaron Francis lifestyle videos. That's what I'm looking for. Gotta bring what about

Aaron

the kid?

Ian

Are you bringing the kid? No. He hasn't earned that yet since you you haven't actually worked with him yet.

Aaron

Yeah. I don't know him. I don't know him yet, and it seems like a lot to bring him up there for that. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

Where's Kelsey though?

Aaron

Kelsey lives somewhere.

Ian

That's probably true.

Aaron

Potentially, Iowa.

Ian

Interesting.

Aaron

There's no difference to the

Ian

board here.

Aaron

There's no difference between Idaho, Iowa, and Ohio. Those are the same places. Mhmm. And so now to me,

Ian

I don't know about that.

Aaron

She lives in one of those places.

Ian

See, to me, Ohio is very different. I'm with you on Idaho and Iowa, and maybe Nebraska, I would lump in there.

Aaron

I don't know where that is. Yeah. I think Steve lives in Idaho. I'm a confident of that. So she lives in Iowa.

I think that's right.

Ian

The Buckeye State. No. That's the other one. Is that right?

Aaron

That's what I'm saying. The Buckeye State. Something I know for sure. So there's the try hard empire update.

Ian

Oh, I gotta look this up. No. My brain. No, it's Ohio. Okay.

Yeah.

Aaron

Ohio. I'll look up. I'll look up where Kelsey actually lives. KR Patrick. Is that her?

Yeah. KR Patrick lives in Iowa, USA. Ah. Iowa. Is that what I said?

Ian

You did. Sort of.

Aaron

That's great.

Ian

You hedged it. But yeah.

Aaron

I hedged. I super hedged because I still don't know anybody

Ian

in Iowa. Who who lives in Iowa? Kelsey. I will I don't think I know anybody who lives in Iowa.

Aaron

Kelsey.

Ian

I know Kelsey now.

Aaron

Kelsey lives in Iowa.

Ian

I know Idaho. I know Nebraska. I don't know.

Aaron

I this is maybe my most embarrassing thing. I could probably pick out six or seven United States. It's, like, cold.

Ian

I just wanna be clear.

Aaron

Maybe eight or 10. Maybe eight or 10.

Ian

We had a whole argument about Mars and rockets and space.

Aaron

Different planets.

Ian

Know anything about geography. You You don't know anything about the space things that are in space already. So everybody out there who took Aaron's side might just wanna reconsider a little bit. You know, I just wanna think about your sources. I can name all 50 states right now.

It's it's

Aaron

I could name them. I could name probably You

Ian

could name them, but you can't you don't know where they are.

Aaron

I could probably name 49, if not 50 states. There's probably one I'm forgetting. There's probably one I'm forgetting. But, yeah, pointing them out on a map. Once you get North Of Oklahoma, they all look the same.

Texas. Once you get into the North Of Houston.

Ian

This is why I can't move to Texas.

Aaron

Nah. There are lots of reasons you can't move to Texas. But, yeah, I just geography is not is not my strong suit. Also, I don't care. I don't care.

That's a big part of it. I just don't care.

Ian

Part of

Aaron

it. I like to think where Ohio is does does mean zero good. It does mean zero good.

Ian

Yeah. I know the state's cold, man. You could just draw up an outline of a state. I'll boom.

Aaron

No. No freaking lie. They're all they're all rectangles. They're all rectangles.

Ian

Nope. Colorado. It's a square. I could still nail it. No problem.

Aaron

I could I could I could get Colorado. Yeah. I don't need to list the ones I could get because there's only, like, 10 of them. But yeah. I could get I could get several of them.

Ian

Oh, goodness gracious. Alright. I don't know. We got anything else? I don't have anything else.

Aaron

I don't know. Chris Morrell sent us a link to an actual home services company that does exactly what we were talking about, which seems interesting. He says he says it's mediocre because you don't have control over who shows up.

Ian

They just send you randos.

Aaron

They send you randos. Someone else sent me a link to one as well, but I forgot who.

Ian

But even that brand, you know, it's it's kinda a rando when you get them too, though.

Aaron

Like It is. I don't

Ian

I don't know anything about them. I'm just like, okay. Well, I guess that sounds alright. And then Yeah. They are good or they're bad or whatever.

But Mhmm. Yeah. It's probably not gonna happen. I don't know.

Aaron

No. No other follow ups. I don't unless you haven't got any good emails or anything.

Ian

I don't have anything. I feel like there was something else we need to talk out, but damn it. What do you think of it?

Aaron

You gotta put it on the cards, man. Gotta get back to the cards.

Ian

So busy, man. This this, like, past couple weeks just totally insane. Moved the parents, cleared out the house.

Aaron

Are you still doing a project you're not telling me about?

Ian

There's no time for projects.

Aaron

House. Unbelievable.

Ian

I really wanna build this project too, and you'll love it. Dave Hicking will producer Dave will lose his mind if I even tell him.

Aaron

He doesn't know.

Ian

I can't even tell him. No. I can't tell him. He'll love this project, so I can't even

Aaron

tell him. You gotta tell me. You gotta you gotta either you have to either do it or decide not to do it and tell me what it is. I'm not gonna do it. I don't like this.

I don't like this. I'm not gonna do it, and I'm also not going to tell you.

Ian

What the what do you think about this? So this is kind of a inspiration from you.

Aaron

Okay.

Ian

So all my ideas, like, literally a % of my ideas I've ever had are very, like, high probability. That doesn't mean they always work, but they're like, hey. This is an existing thing, an existing market.

Aaron

K.

Ian

If you do a good job with it and you market it right and you build it right, you're gonna probably do fine, especially on the scale that I needed to do fine on, which is not huge.

Aaron

So if you market it right, you build it right. You're probably gonna do five.

Ian

Well, that's that's how most things are. Right? But, like, as opposed as opposed to, like, I'm gonna send rockets and re land them, which is a crazy thing to do. Right? And it's unlikely to succeed.

But once in a while, you do, and that's cool. Right? And that's great.

Aaron

That's awesome.

Ian

So, but so that always makes me feel a little bit like, do I just wanna build a thing that's like probably gonna do okay. And if it doesn't, but it has a high probability of success. It's not really taking a risk per se. There is always a financial risk in your time and all that, but it's not like pushing the boundaries or anything. It's like, yeah, this product category exists.

This will be another entrant in it. And it's my take on it. And maybe there's some interesting bits to it. But you know, that's kind of what it is. First, like, oh, this thing doesn't exist at all.

And that would be fun and interesting to build something that doesn't exist at all, but I don't even ever have those ideas. Like, those ideas don't even cross my mind. I have none of those ideas.

Aaron

Too practical.

Ian

You're too business that practical.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

I'm very business dad. So that's where I also feel like, Hey, I just don't have my time right now, but B I'm a little bit like, when I get a little time, hopefully in the coming months, like, do I wanna spend it on thing that is reliable and probable? And how do I my problem let's say it's probably success is twenty five percent, which is, like, pretty high for, like, a new business venture. Let's just say that. Or do I wanna find something that's 1% and be like, hey.

This is probably not gonna work, but maybe it'll be interesting. Maybe it'll be more fun to talk about in the show than kind of a standard business thing. Whatever.

Aaron

Does it have is it lower chance of success with better outcome?

Ian

Well, I mean, usually, the 1% thing is the thing that has the better outcome. Right? Because it's like Oh,

Aaron

but you're you don't have a 1% idea at this stage. Should I wait around for a Right. Potential big step? Got it. Do I

Ian

wanna have, like, a little side thing I work on that is just another practical b to b type out.

Aaron

The middle.

Ian

Straight down the middle.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

You know, it has some different takes on things, but, ultimately, like, it's a product category that exists and people use it and people buy it and there's no, like, doubt about any of that. Like, the market is a % sure versus, like, you know, other types of things that might be out there that the market's not a % sure and that vibe. I don't know. I got

Aaron

I got the easy way to answer that. You just gotta figure out what you want out of your life.

Ian

That's it. Gotta figure out what I wanna do in life. And then Yeah. That's it.

Aaron

Yeah. That's it. That's easy. Because if you want if you want if you want something stable that makes money that is just, like, kinda boring, there's your answer.

Ian

If you

Aaron

wanna do

Ian

I only have one.

Aaron

Have if you have stability and you wanna do something more fun, take a little bit of a swing, you wanna live your life, maybe go for maybe go for the 1% chance.

Ian

Well, here's the other thing. So, but, but that's a problem. I never had those kind of ideas, but, but maybe the side project thing, if I stick with the idea I have that

Aaron

I do

Ian

like, but the different part about it is I'm talking about it on the show. I'm doing it in public more. Because, like, that's not something I've ever really done that much of. I'm more of a like build it. And when it's done, here it is kind of guy versus, I'm talking about Laravel newing it up and, you know Mhmm.

Aaron

Starting with all

Ian

the other stuff. Content guy. Mhmm. So it could be content guy is part of it. Maybe that's, like, the new angle that makes it interesting and fun as opposed to, like, not so much the actual product, is necessarily super exciting.

Although it will be exciting for you know, certain group. But, I don't know. But I have some time now.

Aaron

I'm at

Ian

my parents' house three days a week. I'm running all around. I got no time, but hopefully in the coming weeks, I have to.

Aaron

Here's what's gonna happen. The people that are optimizing for business success in their life are gonna DM you, and they're gonna say, Ian, do the twenty five percent one. Are you crazy? That makes so much sense. You're insane to do the other one.

The people that are optimizing for something different are gonna say, do the one percent one that's so interesting. It could be fun. Are you crazy? And you're just gonna feel like you're crazy. That's what's gonna happen.

It's like everybody's helping me to do something different. Everybody thinks I'm crazy. I just have to decide what I want out of my life. Don't ask me how I know this. Okay?

Don't ask me how I understand these things.

Ian

Here here's the only rub on that. So that's your previous situation.

Aaron

And Interesting. So I went

Ian

through that. Okay. What I what I want if you say, actually, if you're the person who's gonna DM me and say I should do the 1% idea, also send me the 1% idea. I actually don't have a 1% idea. Mhmm.

So if you have a crazy idea that you want me to be involved with, then you could go ahead and give me a crazy idea and maybe that'll be cool. And I'll think that's awesome. We can work something. There you go. There you go.

There's your opportunity.

Aaron

This is your chance, folks. Alright.

Ian

Alrighty. We'll keep it tight this week. Even this is

Aaron

on the last five. We could

Ian

talk about Mars some more. It's a possibility.

Aaron

No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. We're not doing I don't have all the emotional bandwidth to talk about Mars some more.

Ian

Alright. Thanks everybody for listening. Follow us mostly technical.com at mostly technical pod, mostly technicalpodcast@Gmail.com. Like and subscribe. Watch it on YouTube, which is how a lot of people do consume us.

Aaron

Gotta grow the empire.

Ian

Want our beautiful faces.

Aaron

That's right.

Ian

Their beards. So we will see you next week. And then the week after, we'll have a guest host currently. So that's gonna be exciting.

Aaron

Let us know who we should have on.

Ian

Oh, yeah. Let us know who we should have on. That's a really good idea. Alright. Let us know who we should have on.

We'll try to make that happen and, talk to you later. Bye.

Aaron

See you.