Yes Man

Ian

Hello.

Aaron

Good morning.

Ian

How's it going? Going on.

Aaron

Last time you were hat guy, we spent, like, ten minutes talking about hat guy. You're coming in strong on hat guy today. You got you got big old block text on there that says night patrol. What does that even mean?

Ian

I thought I'd sneak this by you. Surprised you noticed this.

Aaron

You're not as subtle as you may hope.

Ian

I don't know. I just wanna wear a hat today that I got this hat recently. This is from, Galaxy Falls. I don't know if you know that cartoon. It was, like, big in 02/2013 or '14.

Anyway, my oldest son turned me on to it. It's very funny. It's only two seasons, so it's nice. It's, like, tight kind of, you don't have to watch ten seasons or whatever. And the second season, he has this awesome night patrol hat and there's this whole, you know, whatever.

There's some guy who has a little company that makes swag for the show. I don't even know if it's official. I think it's sort of official. A night patrol hat. It's just an awesome hat.

Although, I don't like this whole flat room situation.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Not a flat room guy.

Aaron

Last time I think last time, it was the chrome dinosaur hat and had a weird horn weird horn situation. Like, the front was the front was too was too pointy.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

So you couldn't wear it forwards, and now you got now you got a flat bill. You're all over the place.

Ian

I don't know. Should I should I tip it down more? How do you wear one? What do the kids do?

Aaron

I don't know. I've never worn a flat bill in my life.

Ian

It is very bulky up here too, but then this is how it is on the show. You know, on the show, like, kid wears it. It's just like a big billboard type of thing. Yeah.

Aaron

I think the top part is right. It's the flat bill, but I don't I I don't ever know how to style.

Ian

Yeah. Whatever. I'm just going with it today. Luckily, this is mostly audio, so it's fine.

Aaron

Do you have you ever watched 30 rock?

Ian

I have. I haven't, like I don't I I need to re go back through it. I watched it in real time, but I didn't catch every episode. You know, it's one of those kind of things. Yeah.

I haven't rewatched. I need to do the real

Aaron

There's a character whose shtick is that he wears a different hat every episode, and it always says something it always says something ridiculous on it. And that's that's the same vibe. You're giving me hair.

Ian

I just saw a, clip of that show recently, and it was it was related to him. Yeah. Whatever he had, he had the hat with whatever he's saying was relevant. And I was like, that was such a good bit. And then I said, that was like, they're making these custom hats every show.

Aaron

Every show. Such a good bit.

Ian

Yeah. Just I love an ongoing bit like that. And I do too. Often they didn't even, like, address it. Right?

I think most of the time they didn't, like, address it. Yeah.

Aaron

No. There was, like, one episode one one that I recall where I think Liz is, she's been suspended for sexually harassing Alec Baldwin, her boss, which is hysterical because it didn't happen. But, she, like, tries to come into work, and she stops by security. And she says, what does Frank's hat say? And somebody says and she says, ah, could be better.

And that's it. Like, I think that's the only time they acknowledge that there's something written on the hat.

Ian

We go down, sort of, that that angle for a second. Do you ever watch or listen to the rewatchables?

Aaron

No.

Ian

Oh, so Bill Simmons, his podcast. You know what it is or no? No. Okay. It's, probably the biggest movie sort of, review podcast, but it's not modern movies.

It's all rewatchable movies. So it's all old movies, like, Ferris Bueller or whatever. Right? And they did a disclosure recently. Do you know what disclosure is?

Aaron

Nope. Oh, man.

Ian

Alright. So we came out of

Aaron

the This segment's not going well, and that's mostly my fault. So I'm sorry.

Ian

It's basically just an awesome tech movie where, like, Demi Moore sexually harasses, Gordon Gekko. Why is his name,

Aaron

Michael Douglas? Yeah.

Ian

Michael Douglas. And but the whole thing's in Seattle, and they're this awesome office. And it's, like, the beginning of the Internet. It's, like, '95 or '4 or something. This movie's in.

And the whole the it's, like, it's just an amazing movie. So go out and watch Disclosure when you have Yeah.

Aaron

Sorry. I can't I can't give you anything. I got nothing I got nothing to add here. Well That's my bad. Alright.

You wanna do a so it's, you know, the end of the year. It's December 23 today.

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

Do you wanna do a little we could do a little, you know, what's going on this week, of course, but we could also do year end review and hopes, plans, and dreams for 2025. How does how does any of that strike?

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. I got a present for you.

Aaron

You got a present for me?

Ian

Yeah. I got a present.

Aaron

Tell me.

Ian

So I was, driving into the office. It's only, like, a four minute drive. So I pop on Joe Tenenbaum's, side project podcast Yes. Which you are a guest this week.

Aaron

Correct.

Ian

And so I I've heard five minutes of this podcast. Mhmm. So I'm just going out the first five minutes. But the first five minutes, you guys were talking about mostly technical. Right?

We had we had a little discussion about that. So my present to you this week this week, I am yes, ma'am. No. Whatever you throw at me, your goals for next year,

Aaron

I am a yes, man.

Ian

Yes. Yes, man.

Aaron

Gonna ruin the show, but it's gonna make me feel so great.

Ian

One day only. It's just a Christmas miracle. Yeah.

Aaron

It is a Christmas miracle. Yes. Oh, that's fantastic.

Ian

Yeah. So you gotta throw out some crazy

Aaron

stuff. Did I call you a no man in the first five minutes?

Ian

You did. But that's okay. That's my role. But that

Aaron

is your role.

Ian

But today. Yes, man.

Aaron

Okay. Oh, man. Oh, yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. You're going to do it yourself.

Aaron

Yeah. This is exciting. I have to give you some of my real hopes and dreams.

Ian

Yeah. When do you get the guy who has everything? I'm like, okay. What can I buy you? All I could give you I could give you yes, man.

That's better than anything.

Aaron

Love yes, man. Yes. That's great. Yes. Oh, wow.

Okay. Very exciting stuff. I'm thrilled to death about this.

Ian

I am excited to listen to the rest of your show too, though. That you were it was it was very good the first five minutes. So

Aaron

Oh, that's good. Let's let's stick on this for a second. Yes. Did you also watch the Nuno review of Solo?

Ian

I did. Okay. So that was great. I thought he did a really nice job of, like, condensing it down. It was just, like, five minute little segment.

And, yeah, it's you know what? Actually, it was really interesting. So I thought Nuno's thing was great. Mhmm. Nobody should go check that out.

But even in your first couple minutes of, of the side project podcast, I thought it was interesting the context of because I have in Laravel new double project either in this new world order of composer, dev, or whatever this thing is. So that was also a little interesting nugget of, like, oh, like, you're sending people down this this new path, but then, like, yeah, like, who would want all that stuff mixed together?

Aaron

That's Right.

Ian

That sounds terrible. So that is, more context for solo, which is very cool.

Aaron

Yes. Yeah. I I felt like, I felt like the tide turned a little bit on your, your takes on solo.

Ian

Well, I mean, I don't know if I had a take on solo specifically. My last week take was more just more generic since I hadn't even, like, really seen solo. It was more of just everybody's on this TUI thing, and I don't know if I wanna do stuff in the terminal. Mhmm. But, you know, this is a little different because there's stuff you have to do in the terminal.

Right? Like, see, that's the thing to me. Stuff you have to do in the terminal is different than stuff people are forcing into the terminal, which does not belong there. So that is kinda my dividing line. So yes.

So in the context of here's an HTTP error, and here's a log thing, and here's a dump of a, you know, bug and, like, all that stuff mixed together, that sounds horrible. Solo bringing order to that sounds great. So I love the idea of that. Great. I love it.

Aaron

That's great for me.

Ian

And you have a quit button. A quit. I do. You have a help right there. It tells you how to get out.

It shows

Aaron

you how to quit. Yep.

Ian

And isn't, like, doesn't require special dance like VIM does. Yep. So I probably don't even need it, but I like that it's there because you have other commands there too, which would probably be less guessable. So you got all the good news

Aaron

the good news about quitting solo is you can also just hit control c like you're used to.

Ian

Just the regular You

Aaron

can just interrupt, and it just quits, and everything is fine. That's how it's supposed to work.

Ian

Is it control c weird? Like, it just, like

Aaron

It is. It makes no sense at all.

Ian

Yeah. The the the actual command makes no sense. What it does after you do it makes no sense. Like, you just return, but it's like, you're not even sure what happened. Sometimes it doesn't make sense in the year that, like, you quit the thing.

Is it even actually quit or, like, whatever? Like, it's all it's all, yeah, very old.

Aaron

Once again, building something like solo, in this case, solo itself, has shown me how little I know about anything. It's just like, I don't really understand I think I've said this before, the difference between, like, a terminal and a shell and the command line. Is one of those the same as one of the others? Are they all three the same? Who can say?

I have no idea. Yeah. Whatever. Not not a problem.

Ian

Is an actual thing. See, that's where I think it starts to get messy. Like, in in the old days, you had mainframe computers, and you had terminals into the mainframe. So, like, the terminal was just a dumb thing that was the interface to the smart thing, which was the mainframe, which was somewhere else.

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

And now this is all but that so that is, I think, the, like, origin of the terminology, but then, like, yes. With the specifically in the modern era, like, what is a terminal?

Aaron

What is a shell? Is a shell.

Ian

I think the shell is the software. Right? I think the shell, like, you know, z s h or whatever the stuff is. Like, that's the shell. It's the software.

Aaron

And is the terminal my, like, my application? Like, iTerm, is that my terminal?

Ian

I guess so.

Aaron

Or is that an is that a terminal emulator? Y'all

Ian

I don't know. And is there any See, that's what I don't know. Local machine is the it's a command line. And then maybe that's the difference. Right?

I like how we're like, we could look this up. We're not quite

Aaron

No.

Ian

No. The it's a command line on your local machine, but now when you, like, go into a remote server, you're it's sort of more like a traditional terminal, though it's sort of a little different too. So I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. Comment down below.

Aaron

Yeah. Let us let us know. I'm I'm sure I'm sure somebody knows the exact difference. I feel I feel like Florian knows the difference. No.

He's he's he's the one that left the how to quit them. He knows he knows the difference. Florian, tell us the difference here.

Ian

Do we want to know? I don't know if we want to know. Sometimes ignorance is blessed.

Aaron

That's true. That's true. I do operate on that principle quite a bit. Don't know. Don't care.

Works for me.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

It's kind of nice. Alright. Well, your terminal, your terminal convert. So

Ian

Well, I wouldn't go that far. I This little thing I like. I I now I want them to bake it in. They gotta bake it in. You gotta have Taylor take it over.

Aaron

Yeah. You haven't gotten to that part in the episode yet. What what is your what are your thoughts on, did we did we do this last week? I think we might have done this last week where I said it could end up in the application starter. Yeah.

Ian

Like yeah. Just if they would take it over, how that works, the application starter. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. Okay. We already did that.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Alright. Do you want to do so we could do we could do a few things. We might we we could have a tease. Let's do I'm just gonna make a call, and you're gonna be, yes, man. So this is awesome.

Ian

This is your show, sir.

Aaron

We will, at the end of the episode, we will talk about the mostly technical 2024 revenue and if we can beat it in 2025.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

So stick around stick around to the end if you wanna hear dollars and cents.

Ian

For the business y stuff.

Aaron

Don't fast forward. Just stick around.

Ian

You got good stuff in between.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't

Ian

wanna miss the good stuff.

Aaron

If you fast forward, you'll miss it, so don't do that. So 2024 in review. Why don't you start why don't you start with a look back on 2024?

Ian

Man, I don't know. See, my year is so dominated by this whole gallbladder situation. Mhmm.

Aaron

That's fine.

Ian

Sick from, like, March till, you know, sort of September when they hacked it out, but then I didn't really feel good before March. And then after they hacked it out, I didn't really feel good. You know, it was better, of course, but I would say only in the last, like, month have I felt almost normal. And only in the last, like, couple weeks have I been, like, really normal normal. So yeah.

So I thought I was like, man. So I don't feel like I have I definitely obviously hurt my productivity, all that kind of stuff. Mhmm. Super annoying. So, yeah, I feel like we you know, this is where, of course, it's awesome to have employees because, like, things still happen without me, which is very good.

And we didn't really have, like, any huge stuff. I guess we did, I don't know. Help slot, we did this, like, a rearchitecture of some of the internal stuff to put it more on Laravel fully, which is still a work in progress. That's gonna be some of the upcoming goals too, but a lot of internal big changes, which is nice. Hired a developer again.

So we have another just full time developer, which is nice, and that's working out really well. So, yeah, that's like I don't know. I don't really have, like I was thinking about this earlier. I was just like, it's so dominated by being sick that, like, kinda overshadowed everything. But good news is I don't feel sick anymore.

So

Aaron

That's great news.

Ian

That's that's the good news. That's kinda my big takeaway. My big takeaway of 2024 has been get to 2025. And so, like, that's kinda the big the big takeaway. You know, sold the parents' house, which we haven't had an update on a while, but that's like I signed the contracts last night.

So, hopefully, that'll be closing soon. Get that done. Clean slate. So I don't know. Maybe we can talk about 2025 stuff in a bit.

But, yeah, 2024, that I don't even have a good look back other than that. So, yeah, let's jump to your look back. You have a lot of stuff that happened in 2024. Lots of stuff. Big, big stuff, man.

Aaron

You had a big a big year

Ian

on the on the, happy, good side, I would say. So it's

Aaron

it's Yes. Big year big year on the happy, good side. I will also say 2024 was and is the hardest year of my life so far. Yeah. Without without a doubt.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Without a doubt.

Ian

Close. Yeah.

Aaron

Not even close.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

There have been, you know, there have been some things, before 2024 that were emotionally very difficult to process. But in terms of just, like, raw stress and pressure and Yeah. Front to back. Oh, dude. Worst year.

Worst year.

Ian

Worst year.

Aaron

Worst year by far. Easily. Oh, man.

Ian

Worst year. Wow. Worst year or hardest year?

Aaron

Yes. Both.

Ian

Both. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Interesting.

Aaron

It It was it was also a very good year. Which, you know, is a bit a bit of a dichotomy, but it was was easily the worst year for sure.

Ian

Welcome to entrepreneurship, sir.

Aaron

Boy. Yes. Welcome, I guess. Yeah. So January, we're gonna we're going all the way back.

January, I'm on paternity leave. I get stricken with rheumatoid arthritis. I have two two brand new babies, you know, two months old.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

It's just, like, devastatingly depressing. I'm, like,

Ian

just crushed. Shape. I remember that back then.

Aaron

It was it was really it was the darkest for sure around then. So I'm struggling through not being able to get up and down off the floor, pick up kids, not being able to do anything, trying to build out this apartment studio. Right. At the same time

Ian

Building a house. We do we're doing a house.

Aaron

Remodeling a house. Yes. All of that, and then I get laid off in I think that was early March.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

I think that's right.

Ian

But you're before that? Jeez.

Aaron

I'm on paternity leave. I'm depressed. I've got rheumatoid arthritis. I'm on the hook for a studio. I've got four kids.

Two of them are brand new, and then I get laid off on paternity leave. Yeah. So that was that was pretty bad.

Ian

That's that was yeah. That's yeah. That's true. I've kinda blocked that whole part out. That's You and me both.

Yeah. Only when I went post layoff. Yeah. Yeah. So So layoff rough.

Pretty bad

Aaron

start. Yeah. And then, you know, took all those interviews, and then Steve and I decided, now let's give it a go. So Yep. We decided to start our you know, start TriHard Studios.

And it this whole year has been kind of like a I feel like it's been a exploration process of figuring out what exactly it is that we do. You know, we started out trying to do, like, almost like DevRel video consulting, and nobody really wanted that at all. Right. And so we quickly abandoned that, and moved more sorry. I'm also sick.

Moved more into making our own stuff. And so we released, we released high performance SQLite in July, and that was the exact same time as the remodel was finally being finished. It was supposed to be finished, the December before, and they finished six months later in July.

Ian

Close enough.

Aaron

Yep. So that was awesome. And I wouldn't even wanna talk about all the stuff they did wrong.

Ian

Yeah. I was gonna say that they weren't actually done because they

Aaron

weren't coming back. Done. They just said you can move in. So it was a sprint to SQLite. And then on that same thread, it was a sprint to Postgres, which came out in October.

And so both of those were just absolutely, like, huge amounts of work and stress and pressure. But I've got them got them both done in the middle there. Had Laracon, Laracon US that I was emceeing. Fortunately, I didn't give a talk, so that made that part a lot easier. But after, you know, after launching Postgres, I feel like TryHard is on pretty stable footing in terms of revenue.

And so Well, cash

Ian

in the bank.

Aaron

A little cash in the bank. We're able to slow down a little bit. We had that retreat in Boise, where we sat down and, like, figured out kind of what the plan is for the next three to six months and what it is we do here. And that was extremely helpful. So I feel like going into 2025 or wrapping up 2024, we have a pretty good sense of what we do, pretty good sense of, like, what the plan is, and I think a clear line to make, you know, as much money as we're planning to make in 2025, I think.

So we can talk about that in a second. But 2024, stressful, stressful, brutal. The number the number of times I stress cried this year higher than any other year. Wow. By oh, my goodness.

Easily by triple, probably. Yeah. It's just been, you know, because all of that's going on. Meanwhile, we've got four kids, a stay at home wife, an au pair. So that's seven mouths to feed Three three vehicles that we have to pay, you know, insurance and maintenance and all that on new house.

All the expenses are just, like, continuing to increase.

Ian

They don't go down usually. Yep.

Aaron

They don't go down. Maybe the tariffs will make everything go down. I don't know much about tariffs, but that'll probably be the opposite way. Shoot. Dang it.

So, yeah. You know, property taxes in Texas are crazy. So incredibly stressful. But I think I think the bulk of the stress is behind us. That is that is my hope.

Now that like now that like.

Ian

Mystic of you.

Aaron

I know. Now that, two of these courses are out there, the company is set up and running. We have Kelsey. We didn't get Kelsey until, like Yeah. Many, many, many months into being, in existence.

And so, you know, that has already helped in a massive way. So a lot of the things that needed to be started up have been started up, and now it's just, like, keeping the ball rolling. So that is that is hopefully gonna make 2025 a lot better. But, yeah, not not a great year. I'll be honest.

Ian

Yeah. I think we're both in the camp of, like

Aaron

Great great outcomes.

Ian

Good outcomes. I think we're both in the bad year, good outcomes, camp this year. Yeah. It is hard when you especially with the kids, like, you wanna have a certain level of, like, you wanna have a good interaction level. It's not like nineteen fifties where you just wanna, like, go out for the day at your office and come back and go to your library and

Aaron

And smoke inside. Wipe. Right?

Ian

Not not interact with the kids at all. Mhmm. So you're trying to do that and keep that up, and, obviously, babies are just their own thing. So, yeah, I think, yeah, I don't know. That's that's the summary, I guess.

I don't know what to say. What about what about a rheumatoid arthritis update, though, since you brought that up? Like, how's that going?

Aaron

It's going so much better.

Ian

It's going good.

Aaron

So I still don't drink Diet Cokes regularly. I'll get them when I go out sometimes, but I haven't had as a treat. I haven't had a Diet Coke in the house since, you know, we talked about that. The diet is the diet has relapsed a little bit back to, like, normal.

Ian

Same.

Aaron

But the I think the the real game changer was getting on this medicine. Mhmm. Also, I started sleeping so much better. So, like, lots of things have gotten better.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

But I think sorry. I keep muting to cough. I think the, the real game changer was this methotrexate. Mhmm. And so I started on that.

I was on I was on, like, four medications at once. Right. And I didn't like that. And so just just because I wanted to, I I, started quitting some of the medications. And so I quit all of them except methotrexate, and I was still totally fine.

So then phase two has been taking less methotrexate, each, like, I don't know. I maybe do change it each month or something.

Ian

Like stepping it down a bit.

Aaron

Yeah. I started on eight pills every Sunday. So it was like eight pills at once, once a week. Very strange delivery mechanism. Yeah.

Okay. That's really.

Ian

And

Aaron

now I'm down to four. So I'm down to four pills once a week. I didn't tell my doctor or anything, but it's fine. You do whatever you want. Yeah.

So. Texas. Yeah. The goal the goal is to see how low I can get it because I figured less mess is better. And there's still part of me that thinks that was it was all situation dependent.

And now that a lot of a lot of the stressors have gone down, not necessarily away Sure. And I'm sleeping, I'm hoping that everything is is fine now. So I'll continue to to march it down and see how low we can get.

Ian

Interesting. Mhmm. Well, that sounds pretty good. Yeah. I mean, that's so hard when they're mixed in with, like, the extreme stress and all that stuff, and you're not sleeping.

And, obviously, it makes everything so much worse. And then it's like, who knows what fixes it? And then, yeah, then you're on a bunch of medicines or you're going for a bunch of tests and who knows what's what. And then you don't even know what help they're not because you're on all the different things and doing different things and all that stuff. So alright.

Well, that's that's good then. And, also, it's nice too where it's like, yeah, if it gets worse or whatever, it's like you have something that is working for you. It seems like. So it's like, okay.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

You gotta go back up, you go back up or whatever, but it's not, you can probably, most likely avoid the whole, you know, round and round of what is even wrong and what works or doesn't work. It's like you kinda have that a little more dialed in, so you

Aaron

can Skip the debilitating depression part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We like to skip that one.

Ian

Oh, man. That part's the worst. Yeah. No.

Aaron

Part is

Ian

the worst. Modern science. I'm all here for it. Like, hacking this gallbladder out was great. It's like, boom.

You're in. You're out. It's like, now, like, that's healed up pretty fully. It's like, you can barely even see the scars. It's like crazy.

I'm like, sort of just killed me, like, a hundred years ago, and now

Aaron

Mhmm.

Ian

Can't even tell anything happened. So

Aaron

Oh, I would have been so dead a hundred years ago from just from the first one, from diabetes. I would have never would have made it to rheumatoid arthritis.

Ian

Yeah. Crazy. Hey. Science is good. Let's get out there.

We need more scientists. We're we're down with the science. So get out there.

Aaron

Science here on the pod. Love the science.

Ian

Oh, man. Alright. So 2024, that's behind us. We're moving on bigger and better.

Aaron

Moving on.

Ian

All that stuff. Alright. So 2025.

Aaron

You tell me.

Ian

Me first? Alright.

Aaron

Yeah. Hoping some dreams.

Ian

My stuff's so it's it's interesting we do this podcast, you know, because, like, my stuff is so, sort of stable and long

Aaron

term. Yeah.

Ian

And so Yeah. You are. Definitely have goals. I think the big couple are, continued, like, heavy reworking of, like, the internals of HubSpot and some of the not, like, just internal internals, but just the structure architecture, with the big thing in the nearest term being, getting more on Livewire, probably redoing most of the front end actually Wow. Livewire.

And just and in conjunction with that, like, modernizing a bunch of stuff, which is all old school PHP right now, and just also just, like, jQuery Mhmm. And, you know, all all that kind of stuff. So Flux has been the thing I've been sort of waiting for for that because I don't wanna build a component library myself.

Aaron

Of course not.

Ian

And so now we have Flux. It's like, okay. Great. And I know I also didn't wanna do React. Like, I mean, whatever.

Being in podcast, I was going through that.

Aaron

I know. You're a React

Ian

guy for a second. I just don't like the React. That's just me either. So, Yeah. So now we have flux and we have live wire three and everything's wonderful.

So now we can proceed kind of down that path of staying in mostly PHP land and, you know, sprinkle of Alpine here and there and all is well with the world. So that's gonna be a big project. Marketing slash website stuff is kind of the other big one, kind of a new website in process. That's gonna take more of like a just trying something totally different. You know, obviously every other help desk out there is standard b to b SaaS template.

So gonna do more of like a sales letter kind of thing. A little bit of a hybrid. I don't wanna go like pure sales letter and the, like, there is only one page Mhmm. And there is literally nothing else.

Aaron

Thousand words.

Ian

Right. Yeah. So I think it's gonna be a little bit of a hybrid where it's, there are gonna be other pages on the site to some degree, and there will be, like, feature list if you wanna go through all the features, but it's gonna be, like, de emphasized. And, and just the homepage will be more sales letter rate, probably not the full, yeah, 10,000 words.

Aaron

But I won't more than a manifesto, more than, like, a once.com manifesto?

Ian

I would say that that kind of length probably, but not that style either of, like, theirs is just text. So it'll still have, like, you know, some other elements of, like, screenshots, but not like not like the box of screenshots, screenshots, screenshot with Mhmm. More of text, like standard b two b SaaS. More like, more text to start for sure than, like, there's maybe just one row with screenshots. That's like, hey.

If you want screenshots, great. You could click this and go see the screenshots, but we're not gonna have, like, 40 screenshots on this page. You know, the, like, social proof and all that stuff, testimonials. But more of the idea of, like, starting with the person their problem and the problem that it solves was most obviously are just, like, focused on features. And even if they focus on the problem, it's not, like, descriptive necessarily.

It's more just like, hey. You probably have too many tickets, and then it just goes into features. So I don't know if it's gonna work better than what we do now, but I figure it can't hurt. And if it, you know, it's easy enough to switch back to the more standard Definitely.

Aaron

It definitely can hurt, but you'll know pretty quickly if you can switch it back.

Ian

That's true. I guess that's a better way to put it. But, but yeah. So we'll switch it back fast enough if we need to. Gonna do a new logo

Aaron

for Who's gonna do this long form copywriting? Is that gonna be you?

Ian

Yeah. It's, like, me. Jamie's working on it. Dave's and Snyder. So, yeah, so mix, of people kind of in there on that.

But, yeah. So we'll see how that goes. It's almost still like this week. I thought I was hoping to get out before this week because this week I'm gonna mostly be off just for various things. So we will see, when it actually gets out.

But hopefully in the next couple weeks, that'll be out. And gonna do a new HubSpot logo. I don't really even have a good reason for this, but, just to I want a new logo, and so I'm doing a new logo. I don't really love the current logo. I'd love the original logo I loved and but it's definitely, like, really old school now, so I wouldn't wanna use the original logo.

So gonna do a contract with, actually, icon factory to do a logo and some, stuff along those lines. And so that'll be fun. Little, sort of design, logo y project. And, yeah, that's kind of it. Like, once we get through that stuff, then it's gonna be new features.

It's all in the help spot realm. Trying to stay focused on on help spot, and I could also decide projects. No man for myself. No man for myself. But I think there's gonna be so much stuff mixed in there that that's not really like, the side projects are gonna be, like, if we redo the whole front end of the app to, like, LiveWire and Flux, that's like that is that's like making it a side project in a sense.

Aaron

That scratches the side project is?

Ian

Yeah. It's like, here's the whole new interface for a thing, and it's like, well, yeah, it's just the thing we already work on, but it's gonna be a lot of new stuff. So, that's kind of the current thinking. Yeah. It's kind of as far as I've gotten.

I'm not a big, like, I don't know. I just feel like we're we always operate in such a long timeline. I don't like usually light. I I actually have more plans this year, I would say, than I normally do in terms of, like, this interface stuff, the website. Normally, I'm not even like that.

I don't have that. That's already more things than I normally am planning. So that's kind of the big plan. Personal stuff, I don't know.

Aaron

Well, do you have revenue, hopes, dreams, and goals for

Ian

Revenue coming up? Revenue coming up.

Aaron

Yeah. By how much? Goal.

Ian

I don't know. I don't I don't know. I don't play that game. Do I have revenue goals? I would say I don't actually have revenue goals.

I would say I have, more it's sort of the same thing, but not exactly. I have more of a new customer goal. So, like, I I'm more interested in the the count of new customers K. And increasing that a bit over our current levels. And then, the revenue, you know, hopefully obviously, you know, if that customer count goes up, generally, the revenue number goes up below.

It's not a % true depending on, like, the size of the customers and things like that. But yeah. So I'd say, the new website is sort of more targeted in, I think, kind of the core customer group we usually serve, which is sort of, like, very small up to, like, 25 to 50 users. So we're gonna dial in more on that and see if we can get more of that that kinda user. So I don't have a percentage though for sure, but I would just say, yeah, increases there, even modest ones, I would be fine with that.

Jeez. I had some notes along the lines of that. New customers. Yeah. I can't remember.

Lost it. But, yeah. So that's kind of that's kind of the thing there. Yeah.

Aaron

I'm bummed to hear about this about no side projects. No no budget apps. No no nothing.

Ian

Apps. No budget apps. Maybe I'll come on here and talk about one, and

Aaron

it's just gonna have to

Ian

be no man to me. You know what I mean?

Aaron

That's not gonna happen. Sorry.

Ian

You never know. Sometimes stuff pops up too. I mean, it depends a lot also on, like, how fast things go and, like, you know, we have the dev again who's full time and really just working on help spot stuff. And so, you know and, you know, he's been great so far. So if this project goes faster than I think it will, then that opens up more time a little bit even for myself.

So if there's something pops up, who knows? Maybe maybe I'll still work on something, but not not a goal. And the other thing is, like, I'm kind of if I ever did something else, I just wanted, I don't know, software. Okay. Okay.

Aaron

Here's a side project. Here we go. Here we go. We got this.

Ian

Me here. Here's my if I do a side project Yeah. In terms of ones I'm actively have given any actual thought to, it would be something along the lines Mhmm. Of equine photography.

Aaron

Wow. Yes. Okay.

Ian

This is something I've been studying a little bit. My daughter rides horses.

Aaron

K.

Ian

There is, like, a whole you know, there's, like, there's, like, levels, obviously. There's, like, people who would just be like, okay. You know, $200, I'll come take a picture of you and your horse or whatever. Obviously, I don't really have any interest in that. But I would, a, just be interested in doing it as a hobby and just for whatever my, niece rides, my daughter rides.

We know other people. They have friends. Well, maybe I'll get into a little bit and just do photos for people I know. K. But if I get good at it, I would consider doing maybe something in that as a side project is like, hey.

Aaron

Wow. If I could

Ian

find the right amount of money that's motivating, like, whatever. Maybe it's, like, $3,000. I don't know. I know how much you can get away with. But then again, like, people at my kid's barn are, like, the CFO of, you know Yeah.

Aaron

Horse horse people, you can charge them whatever you want. Yeah.

Ian

We're we're we're we're, like, we are, like, the very bottom of the barrel. We have no business even being there. Everybody else is, like, fabulously wealthy. So

Aaron

Yeah. This is this isn't YMCA soccer. This is this is equine.

Ian

Right. So so, yeah, I think that is money around, if I'm gonna give up, you know, a half a day somewhere and go take some photos or something like that. But yeah. So I've been studying that

Aaron

a lot. Expect that coming. The

Ian

Yeah. I

Aaron

didn't see that one at all.

Ian

Left field. That's great. Yes. I like the photography a lot. Photography is fun.

And the the thing that's tricky about it is I like the cameras. I like to do real photography with real cameras. Right? But the phone is so good. Like, the the phone is very, very good.

And it can

Aaron

is very good.

Ian

Do everything the camera can do, but it's like, you really have to push the camera now to do things that the phone can't do. Yep. You gotta really be kind of a little bit more on the edge, in order to get a look that your phone can't produce. Right. And so that kinda ties in with that a little bit.

Like, okay. Like, where could I actually use my camera? Like, my kids don't want the camera in their face. Even if I do do that, it's like, whatever. It's not that much better than if I just pull out my cell phone and take a picture.

So how do I use this in more interesting ways? So I'm kinda dabbling a little bit in some architecture, photography, and things like that, but

Aaron

that's not really

Ian

convenient for me, like, around here necessarily that much. So

Aaron

See, we all just wanna be artists at the end of the day. That's all we want.

Ian

Software development is very artistic. I think it's some very, very artistic, profession

Aaron

I agree.

Ian

In my opinion. Yeah. People always think it's, like, math. Like, if you just talk to a common person, they're like, oh, it's all math, and I'm not I don't

Aaron

have a

Ian

great job. I'm like, it's like

Aaron

It's problem solving. Puzzles.

Ian

Yeah. It's like puzzles, and art is basically, like

Aaron

Fully agree.

Ian

It's much closer to that than to, like, science in

Aaron

terms

Ian

of a scientist kind of angle on it. So yeah. So that's something I've been thinking about. That that would be

Aaron

the stretch. Guy. I like it.

Ian

Yes. Horse photo guy. We there's tons of horses around here. There's Saratoga, which is like a big horse mecca kind of thing couple hours away. But even just right around me, there's all these horse farms, various flavors.

And so it could be something. We'll see. I mean,

Aaron

I'm gonna

Ian

take some horse photos starting with my daughter, and we will, see. It's not the best time of year for horse photos. So this is more of I'm in a kind of a prep phase and then, get to springtime. Maybe we'll do some do some shoots. Plus you

Aaron

get to buy new gear.

Ian

Love because

Aaron

now it's now it's a write off. If you if you get paid, you get to buy stuff, and it's a write off.

Ian

Oh, you think I haven't thought about that that long? You made an impetus, baby. I'm like, how could I How can I

Aaron

buy more stuff?

Ian

This camera gear and

Aaron

write it

Ian

off. Feel it. Exactly. Feel it in my budget. Some of the stuff, like, which I don't have yet, which is, like, really long lenses and

Aaron

things like that.

Ian

So there's just no good justification for me personally owning. It's like, I can't I even I haven't bought this because I can't justify owning this thing. Like, there's nothing

Aaron

to take apart from this. The horse is far away. What are you gonna do?

Ian

Yes. You actually need it for that. That's what it's for. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

Totally has a purpose for that.

Aaron

Perfect sense to me. Yeah.

Ian

I'm not really a zoom lens guy, but there are cases for them. And the horse photography might be one of those because the horse is moving at depending on what you're doing. It's not always moving in these photos. But at times, you would be capturing action shots.

Aaron

That's that is one thing about horses. They they move. They just They do. They move a lot. This is interesting.

Ian

Interesting aspect of this. How the horses move? Yeah. Like, well, well, just like working with the horse. Right?

Because the horse is has its own is a prey animal, so it's very sensitive to sounds and lights and things like that. So you're trying to get the horse to do what you want it to do when a person's there, and you're trying to take photos, and how do you keep the horse chill?

Aaron

And Mhmm.

Ian

Yeah. There's this cool podcast, Cowgirls with Cameras, which is a horse photography podcast, which is quite good.

Aaron

Gut. Yeah.

Ian

So if you're interested in equine photography, I would check that podcast out. It's really good. Yeah. So there you go.

Aaron

Maybe only search that in, like, the podcast store because I bet if you search cowgirls with cameras, it's I don't know. It seems troublesome to me.

Ian

Good. That's a question.

Aaron

Yeah. It's questionable.

Ian

Don't do it at work. Don't do it

Aaron

at work. Yeah. Just open open overcast and search just in there. Yeah. That's probably wise.

That's probably Okay. Horse guy.

Ian

Horse guy.

Aaron

I like it.

Ian

A little different.

Aaron

A little a lot different.

Ian

That's the thing. Side project could feed maybe some other aspects of me rather than just more software. You know? That's the thing. That's the thing I'm currently on.

Aaron

I agree. So I like that.

Ian

Yeah. Alright. What do you got going on? I know you got big I know you got 8,000 plans, and I'm here to say yes.

Aaron

You're here to say yes to all of them. This is my day. This is awesome. This is your day.

Ian

Let's do it.

Aaron

All right. 2025. Try hard studios, Inc. Well,

Ian

try hard

Aaron

studios, LLC. Yeah. And myself. Alright. At least Mhmm.

Three courses

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

From TryHard that I I am the instructor for.

Ian

Aaron Francis based courses.

Aaron

To say to say nothing of potential guest courses, at least three Aaron Francis led courses under the try hard brand.

Ian

All database?

Aaron

I think we talked last week about intro to SQL.

Ian

Yes. So I think that is definitely

Aaron

definitely on the table. There is a possibility that we do a full Laravel from scratch course. Oh, that's

Ian

what I'm talking about.

Aaron

Mhmm. That would also that would also skew slightly, beginner. So this would follow the same line as intro to SQL, not targeting intermediates.

Ian

Now beginner to programming or be like, or beginner Open question. From JavaScript Yeah. And you wanna learn Laravel.

Aaron

Oh, oh, open question for sure. Okay. But importantly, not relevant to you. Like, not relevant to, like, the people who have been using Laravel. Like, you're not gonna learn anything new about Laravel in this course if you've been using it for five years.

You know? Right. You might, but it's not targeted at you.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

So whether it's, you know, switching from a JavaScript stack to Laravel or it's just like, I wanna start dabbling with programming that much, I'm not sure. Yep. So intro to SQL, probably intro to Laravel. New new screencasting courses, several of them. So one taught by me.

Mhmm. Just the flagship course we'll redo again. So this will be the third time I've redone it. Wait.

Ian

Is this now on Screencasting.com or something? Okay. So Screencasting.com, of course.

Aaron

Uh-huh.

Ian

Okay. Uh-huh.

Aaron

So Screencasting.com, is going to grow to be the second leg the second major leg of the business. So we'll have Right. Databases, and screencasting. And then there's

Ian

I'd love that. I feel like that hasn't got enough love. I wanna see the screencasting get get love because I feel like you guys have such expertise there, and it

Aaron

just feels,

Ian

logical, addition there. Yeah.

Aaron

I love yes, man, Ian. This is great.

Ian

That's not even yes, man, Ian. That's just Ian.

Aaron

That's just regular. That was no man agreeing with me. That's awesome. Yes. So screencasting has been, has been neglected, for, you know, good reason.

We needed to do this other stuff. But now is the time. So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna redo the main course, which is like the flagship theoretical philosophical thing. Mhmm. You know, what to do, why to do it, how to teach, how to record, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Steve is going to do at least three courses that are editor specific. So he's gonna do, you know, Premiere, Resolve, Final Cut, because he's worked professionally with all of them. Right. So he's gonna do all of those.

He's already he's already rented a little, storage pod and moved all his garage stuff into the pod so he can set up his garage as a studio. So he's like, he's cooking. He's he's he's ready to go. Okay. So we'll have a full revamp on Screencasting.com.

Mhmm. And then there are a few others that we could potentially, we could potentially knock out. One one would be the MySQL flagship course.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

So we would round out round out the big three, by doing the MySQL course, with hopes of, you know, absolutely decimating the previous MySQL course that I did. Yes. You know? Vengeance.

Ian

I love vengeance. Let's do it. Yeah.

Aaron

Yes. Vengeance is the Lord's, but, also, I kinda want a little bit for me. So that's probably healthy. So that is on the table. And then there are a few, there are a few, like, minor courses that I could potentially do.

And whether these are free or paid is still an open question. Mhmm. But, I could do one on and I want to on, building building a a two e application, building solo. I think that would be very interesting and a lot of fun. And then there's one that I have thought would be very practical.

The market would be relatively small, but it would be very practical. So at the property tax company, a big part of what we did was importing data, and we're talking, like, you know, four, five, six gigabyte CSVs.

Ian

Really? Parson

Aaron

stuff. Many millions of rows of CSVs that you're importing. And I think it would be fun to do a course on that in Laravel specifically, like for proper back office. Like, we're we're we're just we got to build a freaking app and we got to import massive CSVs and all the tips

Ian

and tricks.

Aaron

Your data. Yeah. All the tips and tricks I learned from, you know, these multi hour imports, I think, would be a lot of fun.

Ian

Now hold now at one point, there was discussion on here about something along the lines of a high performance Laravel.

Aaron

Yes. That's still on my mind.

Ian

That being part of that Mhmm. Potentially.

Aaron

Yes. But, you know So that that is still that's still on my mind. It is a it's a bit vague in terms of, where it will land. Yeah. I think it's potentially I think, additionally, we need or I need to do an eloquent course.

Like, that I think that is clear. That is the crossover.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

That's database. That's Laravel. That's obvious. Now the question is, is that high performance Laravel? I don't think so.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Because high performance Laravel includes so much other stuff. You know, it includes caching and Octane and all of this other stuff. But, yeah, I still need to figure out the shape of all of that because it is obvious to me that, an eloquent tips, tricks, and patterns, advanced eloquent needs to exist, and needs to exist in our stable of of offerings. So Yeah. Not entirely sure yet.

Ian

Okay. I like all that. Yes, man. Ian's on board.

Aaron

Yes, man. All all that's good. Okay. So other things. I will be speaking at Laracon EU in February,

Ian

on

Aaron

a library that is, you know, 60% done. So I gotta I gotta hustle hustle on that.

Ian

It's farther along that path.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I definitely started. I don't talk about it because it's supposed to be a big reveal. You know, the that's the whole point. So, that'll happen in February. I would like to shore up, I think that's a theme for 2025 is, like, we did a lot of expansion in 2024 and just kind of going in every direction.

And I think we found the directions that work and are profitable, and now it's time to, like, hone those. Right. So shoring up the open source side of the empire, so there's lots of issues and lots of, like, enhancements and that kind of stuff. That is the vision there is to, like, shore it all up, consolidate it, and then put all of the docs and everything on aaronfrancis.com and make aaronfrancis.com the destination for lots and lots of content. So that is, that's also a goal for 2025.

TryHard Studios will release one, if not two, desktop applications in 2025. What?

Ian

Is that what you're talking about, Willis? I don't

Aaron

know what

Ian

that is. But

Aaron

I do. Yeah. I I know it from the quote. Never saw it originally. Yeah.

So at least one desktop app, maybe two. Stretch goal of two.

Ian

Yes. Yes, man. Ian likes it.

Aaron

Okay. What's under you?

Ian

Little worried. I think he's a little worried about all that, but okay. Okay. Now is this a Aaron Francis production? Is this Steve working on these?

Is this Outsource? Is this combination?

Aaron

Combination. So far so far, producer Steve has gotten about 90% done on one of these desktop applications.

Ian

Oh, wow.

Aaron

This is

Ian

stuff happening.

Aaron

Haven't touched

Ian

it. Behind the scenes.

Aaron

I haven't even freaking touched it.

Ian

Oh, that's beautiful.

Aaron

Yeah. So these would both fall in the, these would both fall under the screencasting arm of the business. Oh. And so they are they are video related.

Ian

Oh, I didn't even realize that. I'm like, how you're really throwing curves at me. Okay. Oh, yeah.

Aaron

Oh, yeah. So producer Steve has been diligently working

Ian

on even more, honestly.

Aaron

Oh, yeah. Do

Ian

you? Yes.

Aaron

Okay. I like this.

Ian

That's an area where you guys have, like, a I feel like an interesting advantage in some ways Mhmm. Where, like, you know, things that people in that market more inherently are maybe not as sophisticated in Mhmm. When it comes to, like, marketing and things like that. And so I I like that sort of leveraging that there. That sounds good.

Aaron

Okay. Good. Got the sign off.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

This is my day. Yeah. So, yeah, that the the first one will maybe come out, you know, the first one, two, three months of of next year. And then the second one, we are in talks with a with a potential partner to help us build that one out. Interesting.

And this is our the second one is I think it is our best I think it's our best idea, this this second app. This is our our

Ian

biggest opportunity, I think. And so,

Aaron

whether or not whether or not it gets done in 2025 is an open question. There's I imagine there's some form of it that will ship next year. That is that is the goal, at least.

Ian

It sounds like you wouldn't be doing the production or not entirely?

Aaron

No. So the person that we're in talks to, to partner with is somebody who has built an adjacent app, and has just incredible skills and somebody that I've known for ten years and trust. And so, I think it's gonna come together that the three of us will will work on it. They have the deep they have the deep technical knowledge on, like, like, on the rest side and all this stuff that I don't know and don't wanna know. Yeah.

Steve has the the deep knowledge on some of, like, the UI UX of what this thing should feel like.

Ian

Right. And

Aaron

I I can create a spectacle. And so I think between, you know, between the three of us, it'll it'll come together.

Ian

On the spectacle side, I was wondering about like, so you're doing I know you're talking at like, you're the, keynote at that web dev conference. Yep. I forget the name next year. And Mhmm. I'm sure you're you're talking to LarraconyU.

Mhmm. Not in probably US. Let's assume whatever.

Aaron

Talking to Kent's conference as well.

Ian

Okay. What about on the screencasting side of the world? I wonder if there's, like, some big conferences

Aaron

interesting.

Ian

You know, for you to be speaking at or other types of things in that ecosystem where you can be out there with, I don't know, producers, maybe in, like, a pot podcast conferences where it's, like, people wanna get more into Mhmm. Video in some form for their podcast or whatever. Or craft

Aaron

and commerce is something that I could speak at.

Ian

Craft and commerce. Yeah. Like that. Just like the expansion of outside the pure demos. You know?

Aaron

That's also a big goal for 2025 is to just to break out even further.

Ian

Yeah. Can you have all the obviously, you can point to a million talks you've done. So, like, you have Mhmm. Which is, like, a big thing people are usually looking for, obviously, when especially Mhmm.

Aaron

If it's

Ian

someone they don't know, it's like you can point them to here's 10 talks I've done and that were were well received and all that. So

Aaron

That's interesting. Watch watch this. Kelsey, I know that you're listening. Can you figure out if there are any conferences like that that I should be speaking at? And let me know.

That would be awesome. Thank you. Real time. That's amazing.

Ian

That's amazing. Look at that.

Aaron

That's a great idea. Yeah. I should I should, look into that, which I just did by asking Kelsey to look into that.

Ian

Yeah. Or maybe they're Making it happen. Appearances on pod other Right. Podcasts or vlogs or whatever. Yeah, all that kind of stuff.

So that'd be cool to see you out there on the other side. I'd be able to

Aaron

see you on the other side. I would I would love that. Yeah. There are there are days not not with our friends, but with the broader tech community. There are days that I'm very tired of of the tech community.

Tech is so bad. Tech is the worst, man. It's the worst. Okay.

Ian

That's one of the worst customers too, even though they're your customers and for what you do, they're fine because they're not coming back to you with stuff. But man, selling stuff to developers, just generally speaking, we've talked about this before.

Aaron

We've talked about this. The good news is there won't be developers in in five years. They're just gonna be all gone. There's gonna be more.

Ian

AI, right, will license your content so it can learn from you and There you go. Boom. OpenAI is gonna be paying you. Yeah.

Aaron

I can't

Ian

paid. Sam I

Aaron

think if there's a paying. If there's a track record of anything, it's the AI companies paying to license content. That sounds about right,

Ian

for sure. Oh, they're calling Mary Frances for the content, baby. They were the check, a big check, big juicy check.

Aaron

We'll see. So one or two apps, three or four courses, some open source consolidation. I don't think this will get this this next part will get completed in 2025. But I mentioned it on the last episode, a non technical book out of. Right.

Out of Aaron Francis's brain.

Ian

I know. Something.

Aaron

Yeah. You

Ian

gotta get on the Nathan Barry five hundred words a day thing. Like, you just gotta set aside, you know, half an hour or whatever.

Aaron

I really do. 500 words. 500 words. There's also a very high possibility that try hard releases a, sequelite book, that is Right. Yeah.

That is, the course above and beyond or with different examples, stuff like that. So that's also on the table.

Ian

Like, with a publisher or self published?

Aaron

No. Probably self published.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. I think, if I can pull off this this other book the way that I want to, it'll be proper look for look for a publisher kind of thing.

Ian

Man. I know. You really you you really you got to give us some give us something. Give us a taste. We want a taste.

Aaron

Oh, it'll be directionally similar to a lot of my non technical articles.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

With a unified there's a unified.

Ian

Things that

Aaron

kind of. There's a unifying theme that, like, ties them all together, but it will be directionally similar. And so some of, like, what I'm what I'm writing, some of the non technical stuff that I'm writing is workshopping for chapters in the book. Right. So write a non technical article, publish it, get some feedback, get some examples, some counterpoints.

That all goes into the notes to workshop for the eventual book. So there's a there's a strategy here.

Ian

When you become Tim Ferris I know. That's only good for mostly technical. So I might become Tim Ferris.

Aaron

I know. I agree. Do it. Right. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Ian

Exactly. There we go.

Aaron

Or lifts Ian's boat. That's all

Ian

we care about.

Aaron

Boat. I know. I'd better live with all boats. Give me a break.

Ian

Give me a do nothing job where I should

Aaron

have been

Ian

so you can record for two hours. No problem. I'll be here.

Aaron

Gladly give you a corner office and a do nothing job. Revenue goal revenue goal for Yeah.

Ian

2025. Money.

Aaron

Twenty five calendar year revenue goal for Tricard Studios. Top line, $1,000,000.

Ian

Lot of zeros.

Aaron

It's a lot of zeros. Six of them.

Ian

Another number. That's right. Okay. I think you

Aaron

could do it. Imminently doable.

Ian

I think you could do it. How's the existing courses going? You wanna give us, like, a, you know, just generally their sales are holding up

Aaron

Sales are holding up?

Ian

Kind of thing.

Aaron

Yep. Sales are holding up.

Ian

That's a huge leg up there on, like, getting to a million.

Aaron

Huge, huge, huge leg up.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you have to invest in stuff every time.

Aaron

There is there is a possibility that in the twelve months since having started the company, which it's not happened yet, I think that'll be, you know, March, April, whatever. There's a possibility that in those twelve months, we hit a million.

Ian

That's great.

Aaron

There's a possibility. It would be it's a little bit of a stretch goal, but that that's definitely possible.

Ian

That's awesome. And

Aaron

I'm cooking up I'm cooking up a tweet for, you know, end of the year, year end review kind of stuff. Yep. And I'm trying to find the the most, the pithiest, most compact way to, like, write the lead, but I think the lead is basically I got laid off in March, and since then, we've earned three times my salary. Right. You know?

So I'm trying to figure out how to, like, compress that into to make it the most punchy. But Right. It's a pretty good lead.

Ian

That is a good lead. That's a really good lead. I think people will be very excited about that and will want to hear more for sure. So that will be very good. How do you plan on like, what are your thoughts, I guess, on deploying this capital?

Aaron

Because So far, we've deployed it into our personal bank accounts

Ian

and spin off. Well, that's Right? So, like, every sort of bootstrapper founder has this, you know, question you have to ask yourself. Like, am I putting the money into the business to grow the business, like, aggressively? Or am I more taking it as profit?

Not for myself, like I've mostly taken it as profit. Like I have employees, but I have not like said, okay, I'm gonna take all every dollar and I'm gonna like double down and have twice as many employees, or we could be having big marketing budgets or whatever. Like, that's not the path I've at least previously chosen.

Aaron

Right.

Ian

So what is your thoughts there on what you guys are gonna do?

Aaron

Yeah. So thoughts looking back were, you know, we spent six, seven months without getting paid, so we just kinda took massive amounts of distributions when the time finally came to, like, get back to normal. So Yeah. Steve and I have talked a lot about, we need to spend money to move faster. Right.

And I think 2025, provided the income or the revenue stays the same, we will try to spend money to move faster. Yeah. And I think in some regards, that will be, hiring an editor for some of our screencasting stuff. Steve doesn't need to be wasting his time editing. He just really he doesn't.

Okay. So hiring an editor to do some of that, potentially hiring, a part time Laravel developer to both help build out, continue to build out our screencasting platform and also, help push some of the open source stuff forward because that is like a a marketing vector for us, and I am the bottleneck there. Yep. And so we've talked about spending money in those two ways. And then silly stuff, like, Steve and I both pay for o one pro.

So we're paying $400 a month between the two of us for chat g p t o one pro.

Ian

You got right up on that upgrade to the Floshee upgrade, like, two weeks ago or something. I

Aaron

know. We're we're

Ian

on it. Okay.

Aaron

And so

Ian

like it. The o one pro isn't good.

Aaron

It's amazing. Alright.

Ian

Maybe I should check

Aaron

this out. I also pay for Gemini. I pay for Gemini advanced research mode.

Ian

More. How do I get on these things?

Aaron

I gotta check

Ian

these out.

Aaron

Steve is the one who's really been good about, leveraging these AI tools. Yeah. Like, I told you, he's been building this app. And, I mean, he is I I don't know if he's used Electron before, actually, but it's an Electron app. But he's like, oh, yeah.

Every every time I have any question, I just go to o one pro and it, like, writes it all out and spits it out.

Ian

And then I

Aaron

take it and tweak it and put it back in. And he and I are on the same page about, AI that it's very good at discrete tasks. And so he'll, like, copy out a chunk of code and take it over, get the answer, and come back. Neither of us like the, you know, the AI editors that are trying to, like

Ian

Right.

Aaron

Intuit what you want because they're always wrong.

Ian

Yeah. I've been searching

Aaron

the cursor.

Ian

It's it's nice to have it right in there, but, yeah, it's not, like, it's not that much better than when you copy paste it out. It's just more convenient in some ways, but then it's not as convenient as you feel like it could be. It's not it's not as more as it's not as convenient as I feel like it should be given that it's moved in in some ways. But, yeah, I think you

Aaron

know one. Stuff like that. Like, I just, I just resubscribed to Midjourney, and I bought this is gonna this is gonna make some people so mad. I paid $50 for a PDF

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Of Midjourney prompts.

Ian

I love it. I love it.

Aaron

It's business, baby. It's business. Here's here's what happened. We're redesigning aaronfrancis.com.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

And it's in a very, like, it's in a very news website style, so, like, Atlantic, CNN, something like that, where it's got lots of lots of cards, lots of columns, lots of stories, that sort of thing. And it was becoming very heavily image dependent, and we needed something that was, like, a consistent theme across all of the images. Yeah. And we looked at, like, hiring a designer to do it. And then not only was it expensive, but the turnaround was so slow.

Like, you'd say, hey. I need this image, and it would be, like, a week and a half later. They get you something, and you're like, I don't know. So I, you know, played around a bunch with, like, ImageMagick and these APIs that can, like, apply a style to an image, and none of them really looked great. And so I finally went back to mid journey.

Now that they're out of freaking discord, they have an actual web app.

Ian

Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah. Last time I use it

Aaron

was just going on. To try

Ian

to use the thing. Yeah, this is ridiculous. Yeah.

Aaron

I went over there and I was like, All right, This is cool. What do I type? I was like, I have no freaking idea. Right. And so I went looking and I found this pack of it was a PDF.

I think it was $50 and it had, like, 460 prompts with, you know, example images.

Ian

I was

Aaron

like, perfect. That's what I need. And so I bought that and scrolled through the whole thing until I found a style that I liked. And now I'm using they have like a I think it's like a reference string or something. And now I'm just using that, and it's just generating consistent images for me over and over and over.

So what I do is and I think I'll make a video on this because it's it's pretty interesting. I think I find I will start by going to Unsplash and finding a free to license Unsplash photo and then taking that photo over to MidJourney and using that as a starting point. So you can, like, upload a photo and then type out the whole prompt and then add that little reference code and hit generate. And it kinda takes the Unsplash photo and uses that as structure, but then kinda, like, does its whole, like, dream thing and Vudu and draws it in that exact style. And then I'll wait I'll do it over and over until I find one that's that's directionally correct, and then I take it into Photoshop and just manually clean up all the mistakes and then add, like, an accent color.

So we have this red accent color. So then I add the accent color somewhere. And then I put it on the page, and it's look it looks like cohesive and identical, and it took me, you know, it took me twenty minutes to make the perfect image that is, like, this abstract representation of this nontechnical concept. You know? Right.

So, yeah, try to do stuff like that. Spend spend money to move faster. In this case, it was like, you know, mid journey is $20 a month and the prompts were 50. So what it you know, who cares?

Ian

Yeah. Right. Wow. I didn't know. Yeah.

Every time I'm going with the AI images, it's like, it does yeah. The can't get the same image back out. Mhmm. Super annoying. So but Midjourney, it sounds like has a solution to that problem in

Aaron

some There's like a I think it's like a s ref flag or something. Mhmm. And I'm very sensitive to AI images that look like AI. And so the style that we chose excuse me. The style we chose is not, like, photorealistic or, like, you know, flying through outer space or some of these that are very clearly AI generated.

It is much more like, half tone or dithered, like, black and white, almost newspaper style. Yeah. And so I feel like, it fits better because it's not trying to be realistic. Yeah. And so it it is like a it's like an art artistic representation of the idea, not a picture of the idea.

Ian

Yep. I like that. Okay. Check out this mid journey again. Yeah.

Because I yeah. I haven't tried it out since it was just in discord and I'm like, this is That's so good. I can't deal

Aaron

with this. It's embarrassing.

Ian

Although, I guess it worked for them. Right? Like it it worked, but it wasn't for it wasn't for us at that point. It

Aaron

wasn't for the old

Ian

for us.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Interesting. And so the o one pro, what does that get you that the regular o one doesn't? Just more capacity or speed? Or

Aaron

a lot longer, like, chain of thought. And so it'll think for, like, three or four minutes and then come back with a much, much longer response. So it's not great for, like, hey. Write me a loop that iterates this and then does this in reverse. You don't need it for that.

That's a waste of money or time rather.

Ian

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I had to check that too. I'm always looking for ways to spend more money.

So I know. There we go.

Aaron

End of the year.

Ian

O one pro. Yeah. Get it in now. Yeah. I wonder if they'll do annual.

Sometimes they don't these days.

Aaron

Yeah. I don't know if they do.

Ian

Yeah. I don't know if they do. Okay. So I like all that. That's all good.

Aaron

K.

Ian

So what what do you got? What else you got? That's it. That's only only, like, 20 things. Come on.

Aaron

I know. That's only 20 things.

Ian

Personal? Well, personal.

Aaron

A little business is personal, man. It's the most personal thing in the world. It's Michael Scott. You got, what

Ian

about trip? Any big trips? You packed the whole crew up on a big trip? 25?

Aaron

No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No.

Amsterdam in February, Utah in March, maybe. I'm going to Poland, I think, for a conference

Ian

Oh, wow.

Aaron

In June or July. And then the the keynote the one I'm keynoting is here in Dallas, and that's, like, October, November.

Ian

Right. But that's all just you stuff. That's not the crew.

Aaron

Yeah. Big personal update. This is pre 2025, December 27. So four days from now is Jennifer and Mai's ten year anniversary.

Ian

Congratulations.

Aaron

Thank you. Thank you very much. Ten years. Wow. So pretty big deal.

So this is personal. And in 2025, once the au pair is back, because she's out of town right now, which is killing us. Oh, man. The au pair can be

Ian

I hate that.

Aaron

We'll do a a one night staycation. That's all we can that's all we can get away with. So we'll send we'll probably send the older kids to grandma and grandpa, and then the younger kids will have Jasmine watch them, you know, overnight. Yep. And we'll go we'll go somewhere and have a nice dinner and have a nice, like, hotel, and we can sleep in and get a breakfast and a coffee.

And so that that would

Ian

be our That's not a staycation, though. That's still outside the house.

Aaron

It's outside the house, but not outside the city.

Ian

Yes. Okay.

Aaron

So we'll go, like, we'll go to, you know, ten minutes away to a hotel. Right. But it'll be great. It'll feel it'll feel amazing.

Ian

It'll be We tried

Aaron

that last winter,

Ian

like, before I got sick. So, like, I don't know. It was January, February. And, like, two in the morning, my daughter somehow texted this crazy message. I'm sure I talked about it on the show.

And then so we ended up coming back from the station at two in the morning, to the house, and she was sleeping, and it was fine. She, like, woke up and slept walked or something, to her iPad and wrote a weirdo message to me. So good luck. Hopefully, nobody, nobody nobody messages you oddly at two in the morning.

Aaron

Yeah. I did not.

Ian

No. That's a good plan. That's a great plan. We did also something like that also last year, which was, yeah, it was, like, forty minutes away, but not too our kids are bigger.

Aaron

It wasn't too bad.

Ian

And it was nice. Just that one night away, it is quite restorative, when you can make it work. Even just the one night of, like, not preparing dinner, not cleaning up, not people screaming and yelling and all that stuff. So I just Can

Aaron

you imagine having a slow morning?

Ian

No. Just anytime.

Aaron

That sounds amazing.

Ian

That phase you're in. It's like well, I just, Apple just randomly brought up this, like, video the other day that I was watching, and it was like, all the kids. This is like, jeez. Like, it's supposed to be, like, 02/2015 or something. And Mia was, like, two, and she's, like, learning to potty train.

She's at at the table with food, and she's, like, she's just yelling. Pink underwear. Pink underwear. Over to pink underwear. She's yelling.

But she's, like, laughing. Like, she knows she's, like, pushing it right away. She's, like, pink underwear. Because I think there was something with, like, you know, to get underwear, you gotta go to the toilet, whatever, all that stuff. So she's yellow and pink underwear.

She's getting food, thrown it on the floor. Then the middle kid, I pan to him. He's got a huge Gandalf staff. Yep. And he's banging her in the head now with the Gandalf staff.

And then the oldest one is coming over. Like, I told you not to go pee pee in your pants and, like, he's yelling. And it's just like people yelling and screaming and hitting, but and they were all actually having fun. It wasn't actually even bad, but it was just, like, just the sound of it all, like, the cacophony of chaos. I was like, boy, that was that was something back then.

Just like Boy.

Aaron

That is exactly that is exactly where we are.

Ian

Exactly. So yeah. My youngest or

Aaron

or my oldest daughter lost one of her cheap little, you know, nothing like gloves. And so I asked Jennifer. I was like, Amelia only has one glove, right? And she said, Yeah, I'm going to buy her some new gloves. I actually ordered them at Target, and I need to go pick them up.

And Amelia starts saying, What gloves? And we're like, We're just going to get you some new gloves. What are the gloves? We're gonna we're mommy's gonna pick up some new gloves. No.

What are the gloves? I'm like, I don't understand. What do you want?

Ian

Not a sensible question. Right?

Aaron

I think she was leaving out the word color because my wife then said, we're just gonna get you like, we we got you some new blue gloves. And she's just like That was my started smiling. Like, what are the gloves is a different question than what color are the gloves. That's great. So we're, like, standing outside this this park, and she's screaming, what are the gloves?

And we're both like, I don't know. I have no idea.

Ian

Oh my goodness.

Aaron

Yeah. That is totally, totally the phase that we are in right now.

Ian

You go. Yeah. Yep. Good stuff. Oh, man.

Aaron

So I don't know. Other personal updates, probably no probably no underground garage, but it's you know, it's still there. We'll see.

Ian

We'll be in there.

Aaron

A quote yet. We could do it.

Ian

See how the revenue goes.

Aaron

Yeah.

Ian

Housing stuff's done, though, right? You're good with housing.

Aaron

Mostly. Mostly. Yeah. Mostly. Just.

Yeah. It's never done.

Ian

Well, I guess you might have a you might have a try hard studios move potentially at some point.

Aaron

Yep. Might have a hopefully have a factory, April, May, June, something like that.

Ian

Okay. That's a lot. You're you're That's a lot. Good on stuff.

Aaron

Good on stuff. I got enough stuff.

Ian

None of that was really side project to you, though. No side projects? What about something a little out there? Nothing out there?

Aaron

You know, I think

Ian

Just gonna let it come?

Aaron

If we can if we can still pull off the factory, which I think I think we can, I think the physical product is gonna scratch the side project itch? And so that that's where I'm really placing that's where I'm really putting my hopes on, you know, whatever the side project hobby kind of, like, outlet is. Yeah. That's where I'm putting my my hopes and dreams is on that physical product creation. So

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

I'm still I'm still about 90% sure that we'll be able to do that. The timeline has just shifted back as we've honestly, as I've realized, the business is make courses to make money. So Right. Gotta get gotta get more of those out there to get the, get the baseline a little higher, and then it makes a little bit more sense to allow me to, like, go off and explore a little bit.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. No. It makes sense. Yes, man.

It's all about it. Yes, man. It's approved. Great.

Aaron

It wasn't even

Ian

I don't feel like you probably leveraged this gift, to be honest with you. I feel like I know it wasn't even that crazy.

Aaron

I know. I've been so I've been so trained that I had to to hold back.

Ian

You've come in line. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't like this.

I feel like.

Aaron

I hate

Ian

it. I hate it.

Aaron

Got to be a got to dream a little bigger, man. Yeah. But no, that's that's I think that's about it. I don't I don't think. Okay.

I don't think there's

Ian

a lot. That's going to be that's

Aaron

a lot.

Ian

I think you're going to be busy to do.

Aaron

That's a lot.

Ian

And half of that. Half of that gets done. Done, I think you'll be feel like it was a lot. And, I

Aaron

think so.

Ian

It took a lot of work. So Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Especially with the open source stuff.

I mean, you've been on that lately, maintaining that or getting somebody to help maintain it or whatever. Like, it's a lot just in that stuff. Yeah. Is a lot. So Yeah.

Yeah. Alright. Very good. Well, I think that's 2025 wrapped up. Hopefully

Aaron

It's a big one.

Ian

Let's just get through all those things we said. I don't want any side adventures. I don't want any illnesses.

Aaron

I make illnesses. I can't actually, I can make no guarantees on any of that. There will probably be side adventures.

Ian

Guarantee?

Aaron

There will probably be illnesses.

Ian

Let's be honest. No illnesses.

Aaron

Not for you. Not for you.

Ian

Okay. Good. Alright.

Aaron

Not for you.

Ian

As long as I'm off the hook. That's fine.

Aaron

You're off the hook. You're off the hook.

Ian

Thank you. Alright. So let's do mostly technical.

Aaron

Let's do it. Let's reveal the big team.

Ian

Wrap it up.

Aaron

If you fast forwarded to get to this point, how dare you?

Ian

How dare

Aaron

you? How dare you? After all we've given you

Ian

ass.

Aaron

Unbelievable. Alright. Give us the numbeys.

Ian

So this year, we did $17,000 Okay. In ad revenue.

Aaron

We love it. That's better than a poke in the eye.

Ian

That is better than a poke in the eye. And we weren't really working at it per se. I mean, there's, like, a page on the site, and that's kinda it. We don't really push it. So, what do we think we so we have a new ad platform coming on at some point here, which I think we're both excited about the possibilities.

I actually had some people messaging me asking me if it's gonna be a SaaS. They're already asking me There we go. All. I was like, oh, I don't think it's built like a SaaS. I don't know how it's actually built, but I'm pretty sure he didn't build it.

Aaron

See, we are ninety seconds into saying no side quests for 2025, and I'm already thinking

Ian

Like, we should do that. Why is this not a SaaS?

Aaron

SaaS. Let's do it, baby.

Ian

See, here's what I think, though. I love that it's not built like a SaaS. I hope he didn't build it like a SaaS because I feel like that's even that's better. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, it started just for us.

No.

Aaron

No. No. Ah, yeah.

Ian

It's it's

Aaron

just for us.

Ian

We're using it just for us. Yeah. And if it demands to be a SaaS, then we will then take the the time or the money or whatever to make it into a SaaS.

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

As opposed to us just being, like, going off down that, it's all SaaS. I want you to do that. They have all these other considerations because it's not just for us, and we can't just hack stuff in there. Right?

Aaron

Mhmm. And

Ian

so now it becomes a whole big thing, and then we're trying to market it and sell it. But no. Like, just for us. Nope. And if it's awesome and people are like, why can't I use this awesome thing, then we could put in that.

I feel like we're putting we're doing it the correct order. Like, we're proving that it's useful, and then then it's useful to other people as opposed to us assuming it'll be useful to other people before we even know if it's useful to us. So I agree. I like that part. So, yeah, so that'll be out, which I'm very excited about.

Me too. And then, yeah, I don't know, though. So what do we think we can do numbers wise? Do we wanna put a number on it?

Aaron

Yeah. Of course. We wanna put a number on it. Are you crazy? Alright.

Let's put a number on it. So we gotta do a little bit of math again. That's the problem. Well, do you have a number in mind?

Ian

I I don't. I don't really have a number in mind. I've thought about the, like, numbers to charge, but honestly, I haven't I don't I haven't thought about, like, what it would be over a whole year. I don't know. I mean, I was thinking my thought was, like, a thousand dollars an ad, and you're basically getting roughly four ads.

You're getting one month of ads. So, I mean, obviously, you could just math that out into being like, well, what how much of our inventory are we selling or whatever? But

Aaron

I don't

Ian

know if a thousand's the right number. Maybe it's too little. Maybe it's too much. I don't know. We haven't talked about this, you and me.

No. We haven't.

Aaron

Alright. I've got I've got a number that I think we can get in 2025.

Ian

What is it?

Aaron

$50,000.

Ian

Okay. I like that number.

Aaron

I think we can do that.

Ian

So we did 17. So it's like three x this year. Mhmm.

Aaron

How does that move you?

Ian

I like it. I think it's good for goal. I think I would love a stretch goal of, like, 70.

Aaron

I love a stretch goal.

Ian

But I don't I think that's gonna be definitely harder. I mean, we know we have the platform on, whatever. We have to see how many ads you can actually sell. Mhmm. See if the the people like the

Aaron

ads and all that stuff.

Ian

I think fifty fifty seems like it should be possible.

Aaron

50 seems imminently doable.

Ian

Yeah. And and that's a nice number. Right? It's like, k. 25 each.

That's real money.

Aaron

That's real

Ian

money. That's useful amounts of money we can use for things. Mhmm. Yeah. I like that.

Aaron

50 it is. Let's do 50.

Ian

50 it is. Alright. 50 is the goal. Write it down.

Aaron

Gotta sell some ads.

Ian

You gotta sell some ads. We can't you can't buy any ads yet, but if you want to buy if you wanna buy an ad, let's put it this way. If you wanna buy an ad, you should email mostly technical pod. Right? Is that the email?

Mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com. And I will put you on a little wait list. And when the ad platform is up, you can be in the first group.

Aaron

First to hear about it.

Ian

Yes. And I actually already do have, at least one, maybe two people on that list already. So, yeah, so I think, hopefully, we can get a few in there. The I think launch day partners will

Aaron

Love that.

Ian

Will benefit by being launch day partners, and we're likely to talk about this quite a bit, I would imagine, once it rolls out. So, yeah, email, and I'll put you on the list. And, yeah, I think it's doable.

Aaron

I think it's doable.

Ian

I'd love to get paid to do stuff.

Aaron

Can you imagine?

Ian

Paid to do things.

Aaron

Can you imagine? That'd be amazing.

Ian

Paid to entertain people like this is truly the dream, right? Like that is the. Paid to entertain people.

Aaron

That is that is the dream. And I think we can

Ian

do it. It's like being a rock star.

Aaron

It is. It's it's exactly the same as being a famous rock star. Yes.

Ian

The only thing it's not the same as, and maybe we gotta think about this. The best part about rock star, right, is not just that you got paid for entertainment people, but that twenty years later, someone plays your song, you get paid again.

Aaron

I know.

Ian

You're just kidding getting paid. Will people pay us for this podcast?

Aaron

In twenty years? How about one year? Not. One year from now. No.

No. No. No. Not even a little.

Ian

Maybe we gotta start singing on here or something.

Aaron

No. That would go that would be worse. They wouldn't pay us currently much less one year from now. I think the expansion move for the podcast is obviously ads and then some sort of some sort of, merch or some other monetization thing.

Ian

There's no money in merch, but I

Aaron

just love

Ian

the idea of merch just being out there. I'd love that idea.

Aaron

People wearing merch

Ian

is is a is

Aaron

really cool. Ads are the ticket. That's what we gotta do. Gotta make a bunch of money on ads.

Ian

If we did merch, would you wanna do I think a lot of podcasting to do the, like there's a merch season. Right? It's like maybe in the fall. It's like, it's a one month run or whatever. It's not that that there's a store there all the time.

It's like if you

Aaron

want merch I do like that. It adds it adds some urgency, and then it lets you it gets you off the hook for the other

Ian

eleven months out of the year. Yeah.

Aaron

Maybe something like that.

Ian

I do like that. Yeah. We need merch, though. We we have a lack of

Aaron

merch. We do have a lack of merch. No. We can figure something

Ian

out there. That's it.

Aaron

Okay. I like it.

Ian

Alright. That's the plan. Everybody chime in. Let us know what you, think about the plan. And, if you're interested in sponsoring and helping the show, let me know.

And we will I don't know. We're gonna see them next week. We're thinking about maybe taking next week off, but we'll see.

Aaron

I think we're thinking about taking next week off. What's next week? Next week is the thirtieth, Monday, the thirtieth. You know, honestly, I think I might I might be back in the office that day. So we'll play it we'll play it by ear.

Ian

We'll see. There's a chance you won't hear from us next week.

Aaron

There's a

Ian

chance you will. Maybe we'll do, like, a ten minute one. We'll do a quick hit. I like that. Alright.

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Aaron

See you.