I don't love SaaS anymore
#15

I don't love SaaS anymore

Justin:

Welcome to the panel where two bootstrapped founders talk about building a better business and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, cofounder of Transistor.fm

Brian:

I'm Brian Castle. I am building builder methods.

Justin:

Oh, yeah. Builder methods. It's weird. Yeah. You you had a few different intros.

Brian:

I know. I've had too many different businesses, but right now, I am going hard on builder methods, and I I hope I will be doing so for the long foreseeable future.

Justin:

How's that going? Is it are you still getting sign ups? Is it still I'm I've been watching your YouTube channel. Actually, I I did a little math on your YouTube channel. Let me see if I can find this.

Justin:

A little bit of math on your YouTube channel. So the last four videos you did have averaged 27,000 views, which is pretty Yes.

Brian:

And then the the one just before that is, like, over 50 k at this point.

Justin:

So but before that, your average was between

Brian:

300.

Justin:

700 to 1,300

Brian:

is what I calculated. And also, like, that's now. Like, in the in in the first, like, month or two of those videos when they came out months ago, they only got two, three, 400 views, and and then they trickle in a few more over the course of the year. But but yeah. Like, since I've been covering building with AI, it's not just the fact that I, like, I'm that I have the keyword AI in my title or anything like that.

Brian:

It's I am make I think I just got better at creating in general Mhmm. And choosing topics and framing topics and

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Positioning, like, what problem does this video solve and, like, just and also just targeting problems that I feel that I know that other people are thinking about as they're getting getting into these tools. So I I think I'm, like, I'm covering topics that I think resonate.

Justin:

That was my comment. I think I sent this did I send this to you or to Aaron? But when they've reviewed, you know, people are reviewing the YouTube algorithm or whatever. I mean, this has always been the lesson is essentially who is this video for and who is this channel for? And that's still too generalized.

Justin:

It's it's more like getting into like, there's somebody out there that is in motion or is actively looking for stuff like this, or this is just right in their pocket. And you're you're making the video for that person. And it's it's so easy to forget about this. And and

Brian:

It it it is so easy to it's like that one of those lessons that I relearn over and over and over again in my career doing content and stuff. And it's I'm really into that question right now because I'm I'm also getting a a ton of comments. Yeah. And I'm getting a lot of email sign ups and and and a lot of replies to my email every Right? Because I Yeah.

Brian:

Because I there's a auto responders. It's like, are you what are you building? What what's your top question? So I get a lot of emails about that. And what I what I'm really excited about is is the target audience, the target customer for builder methods for this business that I'm building.

Brian:

Like, I have a picture in my mind of of who I want that to be, and that's the person who's resonating, and they're telling me Mhmm. That's what so specifically, it's professional developers, right? Yeah. People who are-

Justin:

They're stressed out right now.

Brian:

It's not the vibe coder who wants to just spin up an MVP and they have no knowledge of coding whatsoever. It's the professional developer who wants to leverage AI and become more efficient and build at a professional level. So I'm getting a lot of comments that speak to like, I love how you're talking to the professional developer with a more serious tone.

Justin:

Yeah. You're like the antithesis to the vibe coding boy. Hey, everybody, I got this. I'm tired of million dollar app. Yeah.

Justin:

Instagram influencers going, watch this on stage. And they're like, Hey, Siri. I'm not, Hey, Siri. Hey, Chad GPT, build me a And then it like builds a bunch of stuff. It's like, come on.

Brian:

Yeah, totally. Totally. So that's been really fun. And like, I don't mean to like hijack the whole start of this episode. No, did.

Brian:

But the

Justin:

That's why we're here.

Brian:

You know, I did a lot of reflection this week. I did like a private podcast on my feed, which I do a couple times a year. And the thing that I'm really interested in with builder methods right now is that I have a sort of a concept of what the products might end up being, but I really don't know what they are yet. Like most new businesses start with a product. A product idea, or you start building a product and maybe it turns into a business.

Brian:

Yeah. And this one with builder methods, this is like a creator led business, right? Like starts with a YouTube channel and building an audience first. Yeah. And so it's like product comes much later or comes last in evolution of this business.

Brian:

Right? So it's like curiosity first.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Like, I wanna build with AI. And spark And then it's like educate, right? Like I learn and I teach it every every single day. Like, I'm learning because I wanna use it, but I'm learning because I also want to teach it. And that turns into YouTube content, which attracts an audience.

Brian:

I learn from the audience with comments and emails. And then I start to think about like, I know that I'm gonna go down the direction of, like, selling courses and Yeah. Maybe some coaching. But, like, which courses to do? And and what how should they be angled?

Brian:

And what other prop like, right now, I'm working on a thing called Agent OS because a a really, really top question and need that I hear again and again and again is, like, how do I make it more predictable and how do I get the results from from building with AI without wanting to redo all the code myself? And, like Mhmm. This is this is a system for that. You know? And so, like, I'm I'm building that, and then I'll be I'll be doing a video about that.

Brian:

So, anyway, I I I'm just really enjoying this whole cycle of, like, creating and responding to what people need. And then the challenge, I think, will be figuring out how to how to make money from all.

Justin:

Dude, it's time it's time for the drawing pad to come out because this reminds me of this thing I heard Jordan Harbinger talking about is he he kinda talked about it like a bowling alley. Like, you've got all your bowling ball your your bowling pins over here. These are bad bowling pins, but I didn't want to draw anything not safe for work on the livestream here. And you're you're down here. Right?

Justin:

And he says, like, if this is the audience and what they want and down here, this kind of is what he's interested in, he's just always tried to kind of be down down this line without getting the ball in the gutter. Right? And I think what's hard is, like, you could start with something you're interested in, but the audience isn't interested in it. But once you have something that, you know, you are interested in and resonates with the audience, like, you've got a check mark for both, that's the golden opportunity. And it feels like it feels like there's gonna be stages of this for you.

Justin:

Like, you're in stage one where this is true. But then the next stage is gonna be whether or not there's a product that aligns for both you and for the audience that

Brian:

That is a huge open question for me right now. Because I the thing I'm most excited about right now compared to my previous stuff that I've ever done is that, like, I feel like I really have a good a good grasp on, like, what the distribution channel is gonna be for this business. Like, right out of the gate, like, start like, that's step one, and that's the YouTube channel into the email list. Mhmm. And that's already working.

Brian:

Like I'm literally gaining thousands of YouTube subscribers and email subscribers in a matter of weeks from a few videos. Yeah. And I'm continuing to push on that channel every day.

Justin:

I noticed you had the call to action in your video for builder methods specifically. Is that that's paying off?

Brian:

That's in every new video now going forward. I just wrote the script for my next one. I'm gonna record it tomorrow. Always in there. Yeah.

Brian:

Yeah. I mean, I'm getting subscribers every day.

Justin:

You know? What what does your script look like? Because I always find, like, that's tricky. You know? I like I don't I don't script out very much.

Brian:

Takes me at least half a day to to get it written and finalized.

Justin:

Okay.

Brian:

Plus a lot more time, like, if if if it involves, like, a demo app that I need to do, then

Justin:

I'll work look like? Like, do you have things in brackets that says Brian enters the shot?

Brian:

Most of my personal writing I do in Obsidian.

Justin:

Okay.

Brian:

I like, I do personal journaling and note taking in there, but then I also have a folder in there for, YouTube scripts.

Justin:

Okay.

Brian:

And so my flow is I mean, I'll spend a whole day, like, writing the script, and then usually the next day, I'll actually record. And when I'm recording, I'm reading a paragraph, and then I say the paragraph to the camera. And I usually say have to take, like, every paragraph, like, probably five takes before I really

Justin:

nail it. Interesting.

Brian:

And that's where all the editing comes in after the fact. But there's a lot more of that during the intro. Like, I I spend a ton of time and focus on the intro section. So, like, the first minute of the video. Like, literally the first sentences that I say, and then when I introduce what is the topic of the of the video.

Brian:

And near the end of that intro is when I do a call to action into builder methods, that is by far the most important. Because, you know, you need to capture their attention, and you need them to buy in to, okay, I'm gonna settle in and watch the rest of this video because he's promising what I wanna see. You know? Yeah. And then there's all like and then, like, the editing on that too, like, I have to make sure that the first thirty seconds have enough action.

Brian:

Like, they can't be bored. That I'm I'm doing a lot of b roll in the in the first thirty seconds. You know?

Justin:

Yeah. I've heard that's key too. Like, it's like many developers are stressed out about how to incorporate AI into the end, but you have to have b roll for all that stuff. Like, you know? Yeah.

Brian:

It's a long time. It's crazy. Like, like, the amount of effort. I okay. Like, at least a whole day of just writing the script and preparing what I'm gonna put in the whole video.

Brian:

And then, like, a half a day of recording it, I I end up with, like, over an hour of footage. Mhmm. And then lately, it's been, like, two days of editing. Yeah. And out of all that, I get a twenty minute video for

Justin:

you. Yeah. It feels like this is still the piece that nobody's cracked yet. And maybe Adam Waddon because Adam Waddon said he's working on some video editing thing. Is I don't I don't think anyone has realized, like I think people understand people wanna edit videos faster.

Justin:

But to me, the full AI approach has never worked. Like, just feed it your raw video. It's gonna magically make all your cuts. Never that I've never seen that work. Yeah.

Justin:

Just seems like

Brian:

much harder than it seems to to get AI to do that.

Justin:

I think for people who wanna ship videos fast, there's still not a great product. And and and the weird thing is it's sometimes it's like maybe you face this too. It's like, do I just use ScreenFlow and because I know how to rip through it really quick using my existing tools. Or do I use Descript because then I can edit it like a Word document? And a lot of the questions you just don't want to have to answer, like, how can I stylistically do this the best way possible, like fades and transitions and

Brian:

I I've gone deep on every one of these tools? Like, I've used them all for many months, each of them. I I I've used ScreenFlow for many years. I've used Descript for a couple of years. Now I'm going deep on on DaVinci Resolve.

Brian:

The thing that I noticed about this market is that none of them really capture the need of the serious YouTuber.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

You know, like, they're I feel

Justin:

like

Brian:

Descript comes the closest, but they still miss it. And, like, DaVinci Resolve, which is also similar to, like, Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro, that's a little these are more pro level they're pro. So so they're really catering to, like, the editor of TV shows and films. Mhmm. Right?

Brian:

And then there's, like, ScreenFlow, which is really originally just for, like, screen casting kind of stuff. Yep. Which, yes, I'm doing a lot of screen casting, but I'm also doing a lot of camera work. And, yeah, technically, you could do that, they but have no script based editing. For me, script based editing is huge.

Brian:

Yeah. Right? So so Descript is pretty good with that. DaVinci now now finally has some screen some script based editing in there. ScreenFlow does not have any of it.

Brian:

And then you have like super consumer level stuff that's like just magically click a button and and it spits out a a TikTok video. Like, no. I'm not trying to do that kind

Justin:

of thing. Although, did you see you can now upload, like, one hour videos to TikTok? That's a new thing that just came out.

Brian:

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, wow.

Justin:

Our editor Chris Enns is experimenting. I told him he could start a TikTok a TikTok account for the podcast, for the panel. So I think he's gonna try to upload some videos there.

Brian:

If anyone's listening, and and Adam, if you are building this, this is the product that I want you to build. Okay?

Justin:

Yeah. Let's hear it.

Brian:

I I want the AI to first have a solid script of my video. That's easy to do. Yep. Yes, I wanna be able to edit the script. But the main thing that I want is I always wanna keep my last take.

Brian:

So I'm gonna read my script, and I'm gonna say most of the lines like five or six times. Yeah. In a 100% of the cases, I want the last one. I wanna cut the rest. So, and I've tried to do this like using Claude and using descript and and everything.

Brian:

And, like, it it is really hard to get the AI to understand, like, oh, that's the best that's the last take. I'm gonna cut everything else. And I might say things slightly different in the takes, but I wanted to know, like, alright. That's a complete take, and and that's the last one. Yeah.

Brian:

And and then just repeat that throughout the rest of the thing. So that literally the the goal for me is to get it is is to get the raw footage in there, press a button, AI cuts out all the bad stuff, and I'm left with a good at least a draft of, like, the the final, like, a role of the video. Mhmm. Right? And then I'll I'll go in and, like, tweak the the transitions if I need to and and the cuts between the camera and screen.

Brian:

Yep. But I don't wanna spend time cutting out the the bad takes or piecing together takes.

Justin:

You know? What does that look like for you? Like, does it look like the last take is always the right take, and then you wanna push a button that says this is the right take? Or is it just you want the AI to know this is the last take? That's almost always the best take.

Brian:

And Because I because when I'm recording it, I'm just letting it roll for now. Yeah. You know? So, like, when I import it into the editor, it should just get the whole video. It gets the whole script.

Brian:

Yeah. And then and then it can just use its AI magic to understand, like, okay, this 80% all needs to be cut out, and these are the final takes of each line. Yeah. Because I don't because I don't stop the the recorder. I don't it's not like I have, like, 50 video files that I import.

Brian:

It's one long video file. You know?

Justin:

Yeah. Have you tried this Corey Griffin is recommending this CapCut desktop editor. Have you tried that one?

Brian:

I've looked at that. It's like too consumer. Mhmm. Like because then it's like you then you can't, like, edit it like a professional final like, the everything else past the the script editing, I wanna do at the professional level. Right?

Brian:

Like like, the cuts, the the transitions, the color correction, like Mhmm. All that kind of stuff.

Justin:

Ryan Hefner's pointing out, like, for skateboard videos back in the day, what you would do is after a good shot, you would cover your lens twice like this so the editor could see it. And

Brian:

That's a good idea. Like, maybe do a

Justin:

pop something like that in AI. Like, oh, good take. Like, that's because in skateboarding, you're taking hundreds of takes to, you know, get a trick down.

Brian:

Anyway, that's a lot of inside baseball. What what do you got? What what what's on your mind now?

Justin:

Interesting. Well, one thing I just wanted to show quick is how one thing I've liked about Descript that I think they are getting right is lately, I've actually been using the web editor a lot more. My machine here at work is still Intel based machine. And so I I don't even know if I can use their app anymore. But the web editor is pretty good.

Justin:

And even just making decisions like this, like, hey, we're gonna lay it out like this. Where's a new scene? Do I have a scene here? Just having something that you can easily, like, create a scene, create a transition. That stuff is so helpful.

Justin:

Oh, yeah. Here. I got lots of scenes here.

Brian:

Yeah.

Justin:

Like, this it's not loading right now, but they it allows you to transition between, like, single view, dual view. And you can see I've got tons of edits here down here.

Brian:

Yeah. I mean, it's like they have all the features. I I just found that for me, they were, like, hard to use.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. It just needs to get faster.

Brian:

That's the thing.

Justin:

Everything needs to be faster.

Brian:

What Descript, I think, is really best in class at right now is the automatic cuts between words. Right? Like like, it'll they they do a really good job of, you know, just cut out all the ums. Mhmm. And then they don't just cut them out.

Brian:

They they have a perfect transition so that you don't notice them at all.

Justin:

Oh, I actually haven't tried that yet. I've always been nervous to try that.

Brian:

Yeah. And you can like you can really fiddle with it. But the other cool thing about da Vinci that I've never seen before is they have some magic that goes on on the video edit side. Right? So if I if I'm cutting a couple sentences together, usually, you need to, like, hide hide it a little bit with cuts.

Brian:

They have some sort of like this thing called, like, smooth transition where it looks like I just set it in one long perfect take.

Justin:

Oh, sweet.

Brian:

But it's like multiple takes, and and it just blends, and it's crazy how how good it is. Yeah.

Justin:

I I've just really like, this is a drop zone for an image. Right? And if I go into the layout section, I can easily pick what I want for this scene. I find that stuff really helpful. Just like don't I don't want to think about it.

Justin:

You know, I just want to be able to quickly build it. And, I think they've nailed a lot of this kind of like, you know, here's a nice side by side view that's kind of stylized, and we're going to transition between it. And here's an easy way to bring in other clips. And and it's just drag and drop, you know?

Brian:

What was that thing you you you texted me earlier this week?

Justin:

Yeah. So I got a book recommendation. I've been reading Apple in China. And this I thought this would be boring because I thought it'd be about logistics about Apple in China. And like they're basically manufacturing and all that stuff.

Justin:

It's been so good.

Brian:

I'll check that out.

Justin:

There was a quote in there that I've been thinking about, which is actually from a he the authors quote a different book, Becoming Steve Jobs. The quote is next would turn out to be the full unfortunate blooming of Steve Jobs' worst tendencies at Apple.

Brian:

Yeah. So they're talking about next computer.

Justin:

Just hearing the story because they kind of go through the story. And when you hear it, you're just like, man, it's so clear that Steve Jobs' impulses, not just at NeXT, but early on at Apple, were really ruined those companies. Like his his impulses, his way of doing things. Like when he left Apple, Apple was not in good shape. That's why the board ousted him.

Justin:

And if all of us were on the board, we would have made the same decision. Like, he was like building his own factories and like micromanaging everything. And the original Mac launch was a total disaster. They didn't sell nearly as many as they thought. They priced it completely wrong.

Justin:

And then he goes to next full of hubris and ego and just makes a series of more mistakes. Right? And really, the only thing that saved him personally was he kind of like accidentally fell into Pixar. And Pixar just

Brian:

Yeah, Pixar took off. Well, they

Justin:

were and they were doing other stuff. They I think they were a software company first, and none of that worked. And then there was just this one little group that was doing storytelling, and that took off. So it's wild for me to think about Steve Jobs, this like, know, bigger than life figure in the tech industry. And to think, look at his early life and go, wow, he was just it was one calamity after the other.

Justin:

Like, he was just not killing it.

Brian:

You know, I remember reading the Steve Jobs biography and just like, obviously, like, that's when the world found out, like, sort of like how much of an asshole he was, like, with people. Yeah. Internally. And I I think that's that's that's always sort of, like, the legacy of of people who knew him. But I think that there's also a flip side to the and and the next thing, I was I was a little bit young at the time, but from what I understand looking back on the history, I I think I there was also like a product market fit issue with with Next compute.

Justin:

Yeah. But it all it all erupted out of his personal tendencies. I think this quote What's interesting to me about it is that you have a situation where in a bunch of circumstances, Steve Jobs' character and personality and even things that would later become advantages in these earlier contexts, like something wasn't right. So a lot of the Steve Jobs that ended up winning was present back then when he was losing. And it just made me think about myself.

Justin:

And I think we've could all observe people from the outside and go, like, I think people are looking at Steve Jobs and going, dude, like, what are you doing? You're you're pricing this machine you know, back then, the next computer was, like, $5 or something, $6?

Brian:

Yeah. Like, that's what I mean. It's like, it it was really targeting this, like, super high end professional and that market, I think, just didn't really develop yet. You know? Like, it's there now, and they'll buy the Mac Studios now.

Brian:

But like, I don't know.

Justin:

Yes. And so the question I had for myself is what can we as indie makers do? What kind of self reflection can we have? What kind of looking at ourselves and thinking, you know, these characteristics we have that can be real strengths in certain circumstances can also be real weaknesses in other circumstances. Yeah.

Justin:

I

Brian:

hear you.

Justin:

And I was just trying to think about what does that look like for me? What are ways of exposing, you know, those those things?

Brian:

I wanna get into that question, like, with with you and and with me and with others. But actually, just real quick on the on the Apple thing, I think another interesting angle on that is to think about Tim Cook. Right? Like, I'm a I'm a huge Apple nerd, and I'm and, like, in terms of my reading and consumption right now, I'm super into Apple news and and, like, big tech news. I I listen to dithering with with John Gruber and Ben Thompson.

Brian:

I read his blog. I read Daring Fireball

Justin:

a lot.

Brian:

Mhmm. I think it's really interesting, especially this year, the stumbles that Apple is going through. I mean, they're they're making they're just printing money continuously with the iPhone and

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

And computers, but they completely missed the missed the show with AI. Yeah. And and then it's also like And the web. Revision pro was a flop. Come on, that didn't work.

Brian:

And it's really interesting. And then there's a huge backlash from developers who release apps in the app store. Just the pure greed

Justin:

of

Brian:

Apple with, you know, the 30%. And then like and then they go to if if you follow the details of this, they go they get sued in in in court, and then they they kinda pull some shenanigans to be like, okay. It won't be 30%. It'll be 28%. Mhmm.

Brian:

It's ridiculous. Right? Yeah. And then and and then they're like, lately, there's been all this news around, like, like, now they're promoting the new f one movie through the Apple Wallet. So all these people are getting these notifications.

Brian:

It's like, not not really cool to be coming from your Wallet app. And it's and it's just like a lot of like hypocritical kind of marketing stuff and sales stuff and like revenue optimization stuff. And Mhmm. Meanwhile, they are asleep at the wheel on product vision and design choices. So you think about Tim Cook, right, is the leader and people are literally starting to call for him to step down.

Brian:

It's like, well, think he's been a fantastic CEO for Apple over the last decade or so, but you do think about his tendencies, right? Like he was always an operations guy and like a numbers guy and like revenue optimization guy.

Justin:

Yeah. He shows up a ton in this book. Like, you really get a sense of What was interesting is he was at IBM. So he came over from IBM and brought a bunch of IBM people over. And you'd think like those cultures wouldn't work.

Justin:

And he was the one that really led them. Like they were not an outsourcing company. And it was really under Tim that they said, no, we need to go to China and work with Foxconn. And like Foxconn was just building little connectors for them previously. And yeah.

Justin:

So what that's such a great example of what Tim's good at in a certain circumstance, in a certain environment, in a certain period of time. You know, that's perfect.

Brian:

Like, he's he's great for blowing up the revenue and the and the profit and the services line from Apple now and and all that. But, like, new product innovation, nailing product market fit with cutting edge stuff, like, they're they they don't have that leader anymore. You know?

Justin:

Yeah. I I I think blind spots is such an interesting question. And and also interesting just like this when you go to therapy, this comes up a lot is you'll say I might say something like, man, like this part of my personality really Where'd you go? Brian's like, oh, you're talking about therapy. I'm out of here.

Brian:

I'm done with

Justin:

You know, I'll bring up to my my therapist list, like, this part of my personality, man, it causes me all sorts of trouble. And I think therapists are really good at saying, yes, that causes you a lot of trouble. But can you also see throughout your life how that part of your personality has really served you? How it's benefited you? How it's been benefited other people and where you work and other things?

Justin:

But at the same time, having the ability to point it out when it's happening. So yeah, like how can we expose those blind spots? One thing that has been helpful for me, and I honestly kind of miss this in a way because when you're a solo developer, you kind of look for all these things to help you figure this stuff out. But one thing I did for years is I did a weekly mastermind call with Paul Jarvis and Jared Drysdale. And I just found that so helpful to like, did it for maybe three or four years straight every week.

Justin:

And to eventually have these people that knew so much about you, and had seen you try different things and could say, you know, we know what you're good at. We know what you're not good at. We know when you get into trouble. We know when you go off the rails. Like, that was so helpful.

Justin:

And you kind of once you've got a team and like you know, John and I do this together as well. But there was something about being a solo founder, and it was just like in a little group of other solo founders. It can be detrimental sometimes too. I think you've mentioned that, but I I found that really helpful.

Brian:

I found it incredibly valuable for many years. I was in multiple masterminds, very similar thing. If you followed the Bootstrap web podcast, me and Jordan met through being in a mastermind group together, like two years before the podcast even started.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

And I was in a few other really solid groups. Sometimes a year they last or sometimes a little bit longer over the years. Right now, I'm not in one, but I'm in a few I I have a bunch of contacts that I chat with on a regular basis, and I'm in a few like Slack groups and stuff. And then I've been going to Big Snow Tiny Comp every year to go snowboarding with a group of like 12 guys. And that's sort of like a mastermind group that meets, like, once a year Mhmm.

Justin:

Which is

Brian:

kind of interesting.

Justin:

Yeah. I found I found that piece helpful too, these founder retreats. I think I mentioned that in this one too. Oh, yeah. This is the year I also went on this Colorado retreat that Sean Blanc organized.

Justin:

In particular, I remember we did some hot seat stuff. And again, sometimes those can work and sometimes not. But I remember James Clear was there, and he specifically said to me like, dude, like, I think at the time I was working on a new course or something. And he's like, this isn't it for you. Like, You're investing all this time and energy into this thing.

Justin:

This isn't gonna get you where you want to go. And I remember I came home and I kept working on it. But then a few months later, was like, ah, yeah. And then think about this. This is 2017.

Justin:

So I had these big, like a big retreat in Colorado. And for the first time, Paul, Jared, and I got together in Victoria. And then oh, and then I also went and hung out with Mike Vardy in Victoria. And the next basically, this year, I started talking to John about building transistor. Like, I don't even know if I mentioned it in here.

Justin:

I don't think I do. But it's like that happened. That happened after all this stuff happened. Like, they were able to expose me to

Brian:

I mean, definitely looking back on the earlier years, even more recent years, but like I remember the earliest years of my of my self employment career, I was totally alone. Mhmm. Right? Like, freelance web designer. And then and then I I started to venture out to some local meetups here in Connecticut.

Brian:

Met met a few people through that. But then I started going to micro comp, and I started to actually meet people. And then I joined this mastermind group with Jordan and a few more micro comps. And then me and Brad started big snow tiny comp. Definitely that's when more interesting things started to happen.

Brian:

Mhmm. Like, yeah, like Restaurant Engine was starting back then, and then and, you know, discovering Mixergy was a big eye opener for me.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

It's like, oh, there's other people that have the same skill sets as me building bootstrapped businesses. Why do I just have to be a web designer? I could actually build a business. And then meeting people who do that.

Justin:

It

Brian:

was huge for me. Then that continued. I I did similar retreats every year. Yeah. I think in more recent years, in the last year or two, three years, you know, I love those guys.

Brian:

I love I love hanging out with them. I have a ton of fun snowboarding and talking business, and I love digging into other people's businesses. We've been doing the hot seat thing Mhmm. Every year. And and it's and it's it's helpful in that, like, it's like a state of the union type of thing.

Brian:

Yeah. Showing all the numbers and showing the history and how you got here and what's on what's on your mind right now. I think for me, I've struggled with, like lately, I've gone into a different direction. You know, we've been talking about builder methods. It's like a creator led thing.

Brian:

Like Mhmm. Among the groups that I've been in, I I have not really been in a in a group with other people who take a personal branding or or content led approach to business. Most of the other people that I know in these groups have been really successful with the traditional b to b SaaS model, which I've always been extremely envious of and inspired by. And obviously SaaS is something that I've been trying to do for years. But one of the things that I've learned is that like about myself through a ton of reflection and really hard times over the years is like, what works for me is teaching and creating and podcasting and videoing and translating that to influence and then translating that into products and businesses.

Brian:

But for other people, they can just blow it up with an SEO strategy or an ad strategy or product market fit that just nails it at the right time with a SaaS. And that just sort of, no matter how many times I tried, like that hasn't really worked for me. And so like, that's where it's like, I want to take everyone's advice in these groups because I really respect their opinion and I trust their opinion, but at the same time, every person's opinion, every person's advice is based on their lived experience. If we have a different lived experience and we're coming from a different set of strengths and weaknesses, it's really hard to reconcile that. And that's why I've, in the last couple of years, I started to lean much more heavily on like trusting my own gut instinct and hearing advice, trying to internalize it, but understanding like, this is where I'm different, and I I sorta understand the reasons for that.

Justin:

Yeah. I wonder if that's do you think that had anything to do with why you and and Jordan were also kinda feeling like maybe it's time to mix it up? Because there was I mean, that's what made the show fascinating as you guys knew each other for so long. But Jordan just has such a different way of building a business. And you're over here.

Justin:

And, you know, you were trying out this other approach. And sometimes that can be helpful and sometimes

Brian:

yeah. I I definitely would not say that was the reason we stopped the podcast. I I love Jordan. I I I literally just today, hour ago, I was DM ing with him. We're talking about doing like a mid year check-in on the Bootstrap Web.

Justin:

Oh, yeah. You got it.

Brian:

Podcast. So we're gonna do that sometime in the next month, I think. And he just started up a podcast, by the way, talking to some folks.

Justin:

That's Yeah. I noticed that.

Brian:

No. I mean, Jordan's great, dude. I've listen, I'm a fan of Bootstrap Web too, and I always loved the difference in approach and where we come from and where we're going in our approach to business. I loved how we were completely we saw things very differently. Some things the same as some but and then we also have a lot in common.

Brian:

Like, we both literally come from I mean, he comes from Israel but we grew up in Long Island, New York together. So we have that, like, East Coast thing that always

Justin:

Yeah. What worked, I think, when Paul Jarvis and Jared Drysdale and I were doing the mastermind is our businesses and our approaches to marketing and personal branding were very similar. And so, in that group, it did make it easier to like, be like, oh, Paul's trying this. Well, I'm gonna try this. And then, well, Justin's doing this.

Justin:

I'm gonna try this. And so we were able to it really worked for us for a while. And really, the reason the big reason that group stopped meeting was Paul was, like, not interested in

Brian:

Paul sort of quit the Internet.

Justin:

He's kind of quit the Internet. And then Paul and I had both started a SaaS company, and Jared was going more towards the consulting angle. Yeah. I think what makes this question challenging, how can we make sure that our worst impulses, which might come out of really positive attributes that we have, but how can we make sure we're not making these like really damaging mistakes, you know, to our lives and to our businesses? What kind of holds us in line?

Justin:

And the question sometimes is like a mastermind group of people that are kind of doing the same thing as you and are like know you. I also have a friend, Tim, that I I call and message who's in a completely different business and is not really like me, and but he's able to, like, sometimes call me out on stuff.

Brian:

I've had a good My brother, my younger brother, he's two years younger than me. We've been doing some calls pretty regularly. He and I both go through a lot of challenges in our lives in different ways. He's a business owner. You know you know what kind of business he

Justin:

runs? Farmer.

Brian:

Oh, you knew that.

Justin:

Oh, I I did.

Brian:

Was that

Justin:

is that true?

Brian:

He's a farmer.

Justin:

Oh, he's a farmer. Okay.

Brian:

Yeah. He he runs a farm in Northern Connecticut called Claff and Clover Creamery. They they do raw milk. They do yogurt, cheese. Oh, wow.

Brian:

He's got a ton of challenges. And to I mean, you think our shit is hard? Like like, try try running milk chips every day and waking up at four in the morning. Yeah. It's super, super difficult what he does.

Brian:

And and, you know, and so we we talked about So

Justin:

do you find that helpful? Like, do you think that's a good

Brian:

Yeah. I mean, you know, he and I have always been close. You know, it's interesting, you know, because I know nothing about the farming industry or the farming business, but but I but I do try to coach him on, like, mindset and, like, how to keep keep a cool head when when you're having difficulty with an employee or or or whatever it might be. And and, you know, he hears me out on my shit even though he even though he's, like, afraid of computers and AI and all that. Like, you know

Justin:

I mean, I think this is one reason just to kinda kinda maybe wind down on this topic is one of the reasons I've liked doing this, just podcasting in general, is for myself, I think talking things out loud and having someone else that's listening and kind of responding and asking questions, that has helped me as well. Because it's like once I have to explain it.

Brian:

Yep.

Justin:

And then often after these episodes, I'll be like thinking, I'll be like, oh, man. Like, when once I had to explain that, it kind of exposed like, maybe something I hadn't thought of or an angle I hadn't thought about. And yeah. I think I find that helpful too.

Brian:

One I think one of the reasons that we ended Bootstrapped Web, at least on my side of things Like, when when you and I started the panel, it it it wasn't gonna take the shape that that it is now, or it's sort of you and I just ripping on what whatever we're working on. But, like, I think what for me, if I'm honest, like, one of the things that started to hinder more than help, I think, was not anything between me and Jordan. It was just me knowing that there are all these people out there listening every single week and, like, really just I loved that that people were so loyal to the show, but it's also, like, every move I make in my business

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Is a is a is a point in a story for other people

Justin:

that

Brian:

people are turning into. And and there's a lot of times when I'm just thinking about, like, alright. If I'm gonna make this this or that decision in my work, how is this gonna play on Bootstrap Web? And, like and that is, like, not helpful.

Justin:

I know. When you're starting to think about the storyline, like, you're starting to think of

Brian:

your life as an art not helpful in what I'm trying to do.

Justin:

Yeah. I can tell. Of course,

Brian:

this show is start different, but it's starting to take that direction.

Justin:

Yeah. But it's a group different group of people. Sometimes even mixing that up can I think can be helpful? Cool. Well, I yeah.

Justin:

I think it's something to think about. How am I operating? And how can I be aware of the ways, you know, I could be damaging or hurting Well more than not?

Brian:

One of the maybe this weaves into the one of the topics I've been that's been on my mind this week. Okay. It's sort of a question for both of us. We were doing those matrixes.

Justin:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian:

With the emojis and all that. Yep, yep. And the emoji that is most interesting to me, remember we had like the dollar sign, we had the clocks, like how much money is this business making? How much time are we investing in it?

Justin:

Yeah. How

Brian:

many shovels are we That's I guess, like sweat investment into it. It's like breaking Yeah. Battery. Yes. Battery And was what's energizing us the most, right?

Brian:

So I wanna sort of like zoom in on the battery. Right? Okay. What is it about your current business or my current business that gives us energy? That that makes us say, like, yeah, this one has the most batteries.

Justin:

Man, I've been I've been really thinking about this today and because I I I haven't been sleeping well the past couple nights. Maybe getting like five and a half hours sleep or something like that. But both the nights I didn't sleep very well, I had just wildly productive days. Like, I was just on fire. And both days, I was working on this podcast standards project stuff, exploring this new spec for doing audio and video in the same podcast feed and allowing people to switch back and forth and behind the scenes doing all of this, like talking to people at different platforms and emailing people and trying to get some leverage for this coordinated push to try to make something happen in the world.

Justin:

And, know, I get to the office at 8AM. And then before I look at the clock, and it's 06:30, and I'm in trouble. I'm late for dinner, you know. So that has been interesting to me. Because then there's some days where I can't keep my eyes open.

Justin:

Like, I'll have some lunch, and I'll be like, I got a nap. Yeah. So what is that? You know? Causes one day to make you feel like you're low battery?

Brian:

You're one of the people that I know who's to me, it just seems like a natural extrovert and community led person. Yeah. And then I know that you also have a side of, I don't know what the word is. You wanna make positive change in the world. Yeah, yeah.

Brian:

So I know that's very important to you on a bunch of different topics, right?

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

And so I think that it's obvious that those all converge in this podcast standards project.

Justin:

Well, and that's interesting even to, I think ask yourself. There was a video by Daniel Pink. Just did a video on, I think, kind of exploring for young people, like, how do you explore what you wanna do as a career? And he just has a series of questions. And one of the questions is, yeah, kind of what fires you up?

Justin:

What would you do if you didn't get paid? What do people consistently reach out to you for? Like for advice or for help in? I found that really interesting. What what is it for you?

Justin:

Like, what are some of your thoughts around like what gives you energy and battery and what drains you?

Brian:

Well, I know that for me, it's always like create like spending my time creating. Mhmm. And that can be a number of things. Like, I I really do enjoy the we were talking earlier about creating video content. Like, I love the whole process from the script to the delivery to the editing.

Brian:

It's it's fun and and creative for me. And then also, like, building software, designing and building software, spending hours in deep work mode. Mhmm. You know, figuring out an interface, figuring out how I can solve a problem for users in an app. Like, that is really interesting to me.

Brian:

Yeah. And and on that note, the other thing that I that is rattling around my brain in my journal this week is I love designing software. I don't love SaaS. Okay.

Justin:

Explain that for me. So I love designing software, but I don't love SaaS.

Brian:

I think I thought I loved SaaS for many years, that's been the goal for many years for me, and it's not the goal for me anymore.

Justin:

Okay. Why

Brian:

not? I love creating, designing, building software. The the SaaS business model is not for me. As as believe me, I as I know how great it is and and when it when it works and how valuable it can be. Yeah.

Brian:

And the sustainability of it, you know, it can become profitable. There are ways that it doesn't become profitable.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

It can it can lead to life changing exits and all sorts of stuff. It can lead to life life changing now while while you own it.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

That's all absolutely true. Yeah. But for me, in my experience with it, it's it's so hard, and it's always getting harder. And it feels like it's getting harder at the personal level. It's getting harder inside the business level, in the industry level.

Brian:

Like, all aspects of it are they're not just hard. They keep getting harder and harder. Like, competition is harder. Talent is harder. Team operations are harder.

Brian:

Product work is easier in some ways, but harder. Dealing with churn, like, customers the the way customers interact with SaaS products is harder. Mhmm. All of that gets harder. Right?

Brian:

Especially if you if you haven't broken out of the of the desert, if

Justin:

you will.

Brian:

Yeah. Is the thing sustainable? Right? And so all of the hard parts suck the joy out of what I love most about software, which is designing and delivering a great solution to a customer's problem. Mhmm.

Brian:

Right? Like, love that process. I love talking to customers. I love understanding what is the job to be done that they're trying to do and how I can design an elegant, simple solution to that and perform a software. Like, I love that cycle.

Brian:

But when you're working on a SaaS, when you're working on trying to make a SaaS business work, yes, that's an important part of it, getting the product right and solving the problem for a customer. Obviously that's important. You're also constantly having to, like, justify, is this going to solve our churn problem this week? Or is this go or I shouldn't be building right now. I should be only focused on marketing.

Brian:

Mhmm. Or what what is like, how how should we go about marketing? Because the audience led creative stuff doesn't really work for SaaS. Mhmm. Like, you sort of need to have some unfair advantage of a channel, whether it's SEO or ads or some integration into some channel that can just drive lots of traffic and customers your way.

Brian:

And then the other thing that I've been thinking a lot about is this idea of customer satisfaction. I don't know if it just gets to be more when people cancel, when people churn from my SaaS. Churn is a fact of life for every single SaaS. Even if you have a great low churn rate, there's still people who are going to churn. To me, if one person cancels today, it's like, Ah, they didn't like my product.

Brian:

What was wrong? What went wrong? Because they thought they would like it. They came in and they even paid for a month. Why did they leave?

Brian:

Why does that bother me so much? I know that it's a numbers game, but like And so you think about it, it's like, have a lot of happy customers on my SaaS, right? Even the happiest customers, they still see like customers see a SaaS product as it it just plugs a hole in their operation. It it checks a box for them. Like and I'm talking about the happiest customers.

Brian:

Yeah. Like the ones who are like who who stay subscribed for months or years. It just it just fills a gap in their in their business. Yeah. That's great.

Justin:

I like the way that Ryan I can't I can't remember his name now, but he has this this pull framework, and he he says it has to be a project on their list. That's like so yeah. It plugs a hole in their business or it's a project on their list. Like, it's something

Brian:

Yes. Especially for that initial conversion, like getting them to sign up and and convert. Right? Mhmm. It's also like even if they're a happy customer, eventually, their business is gonna change and my product is not relevant for them anymore, so they'll churn.

Brian:

Or the next hot competitor comes along and they end up switching for whatever reason. And it's like, okay, again, you can build a great business that way. But then I think about what I'm building now with Builder Methods, which is not even really a business yet, and I don't have products on it yet. The customer satisfaction of someone who invests in themselves, in their skills, in their you know, they're coming in with an eagerness with a goal. Like, if I can upgrade my skill, then I can change my business or I can change my career or I can change I can make more value for myself, make myself more valuable to a company or to my company, and that can be life changing.

Brian:

And like and I think about, like, the in 2018, I spent most of that year investing in my skills becoming a full stack software developer. And it's like by far and away, like the best return on investment

Justin:

of

Brian:

my career was like that.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Right? And it unlocked all these doors for me and like personally, professionally, creatively, financially, like all of it. And so the meaning of creating something and delivering it and delivering a product that, yeah, obviously, want to optimize a business that has a strong customer lifetime value financially. Also, the impact for customers long term is starting to become more important to me, I think. Yeah.

Brian:

I hope that doesn't come off as like lofty that like SaaS is like not important because like there's incredible SaaS businesses to be built. But like, I just think the way that customers interact with their SaaS tools that they buy, it's really hard to cross the threshold of is it valuable enough for them to even pay for your tool? But then even at the highest level of customer satisfaction, it's still just another tool that will come and go for them. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian:

Which makes it really difficult to keep them because there's so many more SaaS tools coming online all the time.

Justin:

Yeah. The challenging part about all of this is in general, I think we end up getting the most fired up when what we're interested in matches up with what's making money. And so, it's, you know, I've tried so many things over my lifetime that I was really wanting to do. You know, I had a snowboard shop and I was really into snowboarding. I was really thought I would be really into retail.

Justin:

But there wasn't an alignment there between, like, I swam out for that wave and that wave just sucked. Like, when I started surfing it, it was no good. But everybody has had that experience of, Jordan, your friend Jordan goes skiing. He hates skiing. Every day on the mountain is terrible for him.

Justin:

He can't identify with that feeling of there's some days you get out on the mountain, and it does suck. There's some days you get out on the mountain, and you're like, this is the best thing in the universe. There's nothing better. This is incredible. This is just know, when everything is going well, it's a real difference between when things aren't going well.

Brian:

For sure.

Justin:

And so I think It's worth

Brian:

the trek from the car through the parking lot onto the chairlift. Yeah. That all sucks. Once you get up there.

Justin:

I mean, and it's hard. Some days you really don't want to drive up to the mountain and get your gear on and then you end up having a great day. Other days, think it's going be amazing. It snowed a bunch and you're just like, can't wait to get out there and you get out and it sucks for whatever reason. You don't know why.

Justin:

Whatever. And I think business can be like that. It can seem unfair even. I'm sure like this has frustrated me too in the past where I tried something. I tried building a product and it didn't work.

Justin:

And then two years later, somebody built it and it worked. It's like, what the hell? Like, I had that insight. What was it about? And truth is, it could be a mix of things.

Justin:

It could be the timing was wrong, my execution was wrong, it just didn't align with my skills. It just sometimes the world just you just miss you know, it just slips out of your hands and that's it. Peter Soom had reform and wasn't really working for him and he sold it. And now Tally is a new form builder that's taking off. And you can compare those and go, well, that doesn't seem fair.

Justin:

Like, Peter's a super talented, awesome dude.

Brian:

They And were happening at the same time.

Justin:

And they're working hard. And it's just like, why does one work and not one not?

Brian:

I think you were saying this maybe off air before we we started today, but, like, how there are some SaaS products that really are winner take all or a few take off.

Justin:

Yeah, like Riverside.

Brian:

Riverside is one of them. But there's always room for competition, but to a certain extent in SaaS, competition is real. I deal with it every single day with Clarity Flow. When a person comes into Clarity Flow, they are definitely comparing us against other competitors, or they're coming from another competitor, or they might go to another competitor when they churn. That's always a real thing, you know?

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

In SaaS specifically, what and that's what I mean. Like, the like, there are just things that are just so difficult to overcome to make a SaaS business work. Mhmm. And and those things are are increasingly challenging, which, again, like, make like, Peter built a a beautiful product with Reform.

Justin:

I'm still a customer. I still use it.

Brian:

Yeah. And like and and it's like, that's not good enough. You know? Like, you you still you still need to obviously figure out product market fit and distribution channels and and all that.

Justin:

I mean, I think, yes, that the there's still part of the interesting thing for me is and again, this is no slight against Peter because this happened to me many times before as well. There is

Brian:

Story of my SaaS life.

Justin:

You know? But but there is an interesting question about how come it didn't work for Peter, but it did work for Tally. And there are reasons. Part of it could be marketing. It could be didn't start with the right initial group.

Justin:

There's all sorts of questions that I think are worth reflecting on in our attempts to do things. I think also, the other thing that's just true is like for you right now, you're really fired up about this new idea and builder methods and stuff. And it's really feeling like it's jiving. And it's like, yeah, this is working. There's alignment between what I'm interested in and what the market wants.

Justin:

And you definitely have to go after those moments. Like that is the time to go after an idea. And so I think that's what people should be doing. I think they should be going when an opportunity presents itself, they should go after that idea. They should go and pursue it.

Justin:

But I do think there's also I was looking at this old blog post I wrote back in, I don't know, February. And it was after I had a series of attempts at SaaS that weren't working.

Brian:

What year was that?

Justin:

Here did I let's go scroll to the bottom. So I wrote this in 02/2016.

Brian:

Oh, okay.

Justin:

So 02/2016, and I'm basically, I'm like, look, 2004 to present, Software as a Service, the pendulum swung from desktop applications over here. But now I think we've had the SaaS gold rush. I think we're at peak SaaS. I think that, you know, it's gotten easier to make CRUD apps. I I predicted, you know, the return to desktop apps, self hosted cloud applications, like everybody would be just one click installing open source projects from onto Heroku and DigitalOcean and pay once web apps, all in one apps, like more bundling.

Brian:

You were talking about once before once.

Justin:

I had all these things. Then two years later, we're building transistor and it just worked. And so I changed my mind because it was working.

Brian:

You made it out of the desert. And that's when SaaS is like a beautiful thing, you know?

Justin:

I think the lesson to take from what you're saying is not necessarily SaaS or not SaaS or whatever. I think the truth is that you've just got to keep pursuing things when it seems like there's an alignment between your interest, your passion, your skills, your advantages, and what the market wants in whatever form that should take. And, you know, like, I'm not doing courses anymore. But Right. Aaron Francis is killing it with courses.

Justin:

And so I could have given him advice to say, dude, like, don't go into courses. Like, it's it's tough. It's not. And a lot of those things might be true.

Brian:

Yeah. The way that I'm navigating this this whole, like, I I love software, but I hate SaaS thing is that I think what a lot of people who are in SaaS who, you know, would probably look at that and say, okay. Well, you're not cut out to be a founder of a SaaS, but you should go work for a SaaS, or you should do consulting and build and be the be the designer and builder for other clients or for an employer. And and I've I've looked at that, and I and I've done consulting to pay the bills a bit. But like, But that's not the answer for me.

Brian:

I'm still an entrepreneur. I came close to taking a position and decided I can't hang it up. I've gotta remain a business owner. So that's not the solution for me. For me, it's with builder methods, what I'm so fired up about this business is that it is all about software.

Brian:

Yeah. But I don't have to use the SaaS business model. So obviously I'm teaching how to build software. I'm teaching how to build with AI. I'm gonna be building and teaching and building a lot of stuff for material of teaching, right?

Brian:

That's exciting. But I'm also building actual software tools for myself to use. I talked about this newsletter builder idea that I'm building out.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian:

To help assemble my newsletter for this business. Like that's a piece of software that I'm gonna be building. Yeah. I've got other kind of scratch my own itch ideas for software tools that I'll be building and showing on YouTube and using in my own operation. Like it's a big part of making this business work is automating and streamlining using AI and using software.

Brian:

Yeah. So that's exciting for me, but that doesn't have to be the way that I have to find a way to find hundreds of customers to pay $49 or $99 a month in a matter of months in order for this business to become viable.

Justin:

Yeah. Know? Yeah. I mean, I think this is this is definitely, I think, the best approach for you right now. I I've said that too.

Justin:

I think the the you know, pursuing this idea at this moment is right in your wheelhouse. It's like you've already been in motion. You've been showing up on this beach, checking out the waves. You've been swimming some of these waves. And now it's clear there's this massive wave like AI is going to totally transform the way that developers work.

Justin:

And so this is the moment.

Brian:

I'll tell you one sort of open question that I'm maybe starting to get a little bit nervous about. But, like, I think it's good that right now I'm really just focused on, like, the distribution channel for this Mhmm. Business first, the the YouTube channel and and growing the email list. And I'm getting a lot of responses, a lot of survey responses. So people are sort of showing interest in what you're showing there, like like courses.

Brian:

I'm I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around, like, what is actually the pay the the paid value that can turn into a because, like, there's gonna be a lot of free I'm already doing a lot of free teaching on YouTube. Mhmm. And I'm just trying to I'm I'm really just trying to put my best possible voice and ideas forward totally for free on YouTube. Yeah. That's that's sort of like priority number one.

Brian:

And then the the next thing like, right now, I'm I'm actively building a thing called Agent OS, which I think is an insanely valuable tool in in building with AI. It's like a set of of cursor rules and cloud rules to to standardize and operationalize your agents. Right? So Mhmm. But I'm gonna I'm gonna be releasing it for free as, an open source thing for anyone to use.

Brian:

Mhmm. I think it's good enough to be a paid product, but I just think that, like, the nature of what this is sort of demands that it should be free. There's there's other things like it developing people talking about their cursor rules and stuff that are free. So

Justin:

like Yep.

Brian:

This wants to be free, so I'm gonna be putting it out for free. And I think it can I think it can hopefully bring a lot more people into my audience and lead flow and all that? But then the question becomes like, okay, so if I do course that covers like Cloud Code, obviously anyone can go on to Cloud Code and learn it themselves. Anyone can watch my videos or many other videos out there to figure out how to use Cloud Code. What is the actual added value of paying a couple $100 for a course?

Brian:

Right? And maybe it's like, okay, you're learning from my style of teaching it, and we're doing projects together, and maybe you're in a group with other people who are building, so there's some value in that. Mhmm. But I'm I'm still that's an open question of, like, how how is this thing gonna be monetized? Right?

Brian:

I

Justin:

mean, I think I, like I said, I've I have really been enjoying this guy's articles. His his thing is called the path to product market fit, I think, on Substack, howtogrow.substack.com. And he had this poll model, which is there's a project on their to do list. I think it's such a good way of framing all this, which is like, I can tell you one project on our to do list now. Even if you just take one part of our business, which is building podcast web website themes.

Justin:

So we do that internally. And Josh is primarily the one that does that, but John will sometimes do it as well. But you can also imagine a future where the whole team equipped with AI could also contribute in some way. And so now we're like trying to figure out how one project on our to do list that we just talked about today is how can we and some people are using Claude code, and some people are just copying and pasting it to ChatGPT, and some people have tried Cursor. And we're all over the map in terms of our usage of this thing.

Justin:

And so there's a number of projects there. First, how can we all get on the same page on this? Like, how do how do we get a whole team aligned around an approach and best practices? And so we're not just working in our individual silos. Like, it goes from cave experimentation, like we're all experimenting in our cave to actually like, no, this is something the whole team is doing.

Justin:

So that's a project that's on our list right now. And it's unavoidable because it's like the more that all of us are kind of doing our own thing, the more it kind of like we're not really taking advantage of AI. Like for us to truly take advantage of it, it feels like we need a unified approach. And we're looking into options. We're trying to figure out how to do it.

Justin:

But it's piecemeal. Like I find a video and I post it in Slack, and someone else finds a workaround and they post in Slack. But nothing is bringing this together for us.

Brian:

I do think that there's gonna be value in coaching. I've I've done a coaching engagement with a with a SaaS team already. And I've had some inquiries from others. And like like one idea is so, like, once I have this AgentOS thing out, I'm hoping to get it out by next week or the week after. Like, that's gonna be the basis of of everything that I sort of do.

Brian:

Whether it's coaching or courses, it's all gonna sort of point back to, like, you know, implement Agent OS because this is the whole strategic way to do this And I could think through some value coaching options, especially for teams. Okay, you get like X number of calls with your team, or maybe I put together a private workshop just for your developers, just for your company and charge a lot of money for that. Like, you know, part of me is like, I don't I don't really wanna do coaching. I don't you know, like, I'm I am trying to make this more of a passive not like, passive is the wrong word, but, you know, I'm not trying to book appointments on my calendar.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

I know that there are great coaching companies that can be built where especially if it's, like, built around a methodology, like an AgentOS where, like, I can train other coaches and we can deploy coaching offers with a team of coaches. Like, that's That's a direction that could take form eventually. I don't know, it's just a huge open question, where the revenue streams are going to be. And there's also sponsorships for the channel, for the courses.

Justin:

I think that's the challenging part about the exploration phase is you're really trying to figure out, you know there's something there. Like, you can you can see that there's demand for something. Like, people are struggling with it. But then on your side, you're like, does this align with what I want to do? Does this align with my passion?

Brian:

Yeah. And I'm not closed off to I'll say nothing is off the table. Even software tools to sell. I'm sure I will sell software tools again at some point. But all I know at this point is like, it's still just good to keep putting videos out and get the newsletter going and just keep growing the audience.

Brian:

Because the more that I can grow the audience, especially the right audience, that professional developer, the more of them I can get into my Orbit, the easier everything else is gonna be. Whether it's figuring out what the products are, whether it's getting traction with those products. I have to keep this audience engine going. And that's the big difference with this compared to other businesses. I spent years just trying to figure out how to get more than 10 customers a month.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

And hopefully this one It's weird to build a business and not really know what the products are gonna be yet. But I sort of already know who the customer is, and I already know how I'm going to find and expose to that customer. So it's like a backwards way of thinking.

Justin:

Yeah. And there might be different ways to thread that needle. I mean, this is such a great this this idea of like aligning like, you know, here's what I'm interested in on this side, and here's the customers and all the money on this side. It's like, yeah, you might have to throw a few balls that are gutter balls before you you figure out, like, something that's actually gonna hit this market that both gives you what you want and gives the market what they want.

Brian:

It's also interesting to think about Adam Wathen with all this. Right? He's someone who's built an incredible audience. He might not say this, but I think he has an incredible business. But he will say that everything that his business offers is basically free, and they've had a hard time figuring out how to really monetize that sustainably, you know, with a growth curve.

Justin:

Yeah. Did you see what he launched? He launched sponsorships.

Brian:

I did see that, which makes a lot of sense.

Justin:

Yeah. The other thing I was thinking about as you're trying to create alignment between these things because I'm the same way. It's like, I've been like, I don't really wanna do consulting the rest of my life. And so, you know, sometimes it's easy to just like throw that off the table. But there's examples like Profit First came to mind.

Justin:

Oh, there you go. So he wrote the book, and then he created the Profit First, methodology.

Brian:

Did you listen to him on Jay Klaus' podcast?

Justin:

Oh, yeah. Maybe I did. Because then

Brian:

He just did a replay of his interview with him. Yes. It's probably from a few years ago. He replayed it this week. I love that interview.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

It's so interesting.

Justin:

It's so good. And I think what was interesting is he had all this demand for coaching and consulting and how can people actually businesses wanted people to help them put this into practice, which I think is similar to you. And he just franchised it. He said, don't wanna do it. And he's like, you can become a Profit First professional.

Brian:

I didn't realize that was his model until I heard this podcast. It's really interest so he you know, he he's the author of Profit First, but also like eight or nine other books. Yeah. And he partners with other vendors to each be like the exclusive partner to deliver the Profit First done for you service. And there's like a revenue share agreement there and like all this different stuff, and it's really interesting.

Justin:

Yeah. So he's got this whole model of other people, and he's kind of empowering other people to, you know, earn revenue on their own. And you know, for some people, this business is perfectly within their, like sweet spot. Like they're like looking for something like this. And they're just like, you know, help me.

Justin:

This opportunity for them is exactly what they want. So, yeah, I think that's interesting to think about that model there. Rob Fitzpatrick is another one that's kind of done something similar, I think, with his mom test, but then figuring other models for delivering it. This is definitely the and sometimes pursuing a wave is like this, which is you're like, I know there's something here. I'm out here, but I have not figured out this.

Justin:

You know? I mean, I guess that's product founder fit, product market fit, product audience fit.

Brian:

I also think about it like, what is what is just the freedom line? Right? Like, what is the and that's, like, not very high. Right? Like, just just how can I make this business earn enough on a sustainable level every single month Mhmm?

Brian:

To cover my needs so that I that I so that I could literally cut out everything else. Like, no more other consulting, whatever will happen with Clarity Flow, all that doesn't matter. I can just like, if I can get just the baseline revenue Mhmm. Of Builder Methods up to a certain level, you know, where it's like it's sort of like paying my my income and and just a little bit more, and it's sustainable, repeatable every single month. So whether that's like, you know, course sales, we'll we'll always sell like 50 copies a month because this that's how much that that's the level of audience that I have, and that's the conversion rate.

Justin:

Like Yeah.

Brian:

That's a good start. And, like, maybe that won't be the flagship product down the road, or maybe I'll go in totally different directions. But once I get to that line where it's like, okay. Now I have breathing room. This is profitable and sustainable.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Now let's start cooking. Now now let's figure out what what is the big play. Like, for for right now, it's just like get the audience and and get the like, just tread water and and get to that get to that point where it's like, know for a fact that over the next six months, I'm gonna get this much revenue. Yep. Then then I can be strategic.

Justin:

Yeah. And unfortunately, like, especially with that kind of business, that's often how it works is that you generate a bunch of excitement and then audience and

Brian:

I don't like with courses, I don't think it has to be. I know that traditionally it's like, oh, like a big launch and then and then it drops off. But I think that's when the courses are way too personal brand driven, where it's like people just love this person and it's like this launch event. But I think if your training business is focused on a topic or a skill that people are continuously wanting to come and learn, like building with AI, right? And if you have lead magnets and traffic sources like a YouTube channel that will just always attract people who are, that's what a wave looks like.

Brian:

It's a wave of demand. People are always coming into this wave because more and more people want to use tools like Cloud Code or whatever. Mhmm. So then hopefully, when they do, they're gonna find my videos and that will take them into my course. Yeah.

Brian:

Right? Like, it it doesn't have to be the the traditional whatever, like nation the the the Nathan Barry thing where it's like, if you follow his story, you can be excited about his Black Friday sale, and then it drops off. Mhmm. I know he's had more than more much more success than that. But, like, that's what I'm trying to build here.

Brian:

Like, of course, it's my face on the YouTube channel, but, like, it's not about me. It's about it's about zeroing in on the topic that people really want.

Justin:

Yeah. You know, I think the the thing that did actually really help me with marketing for developers is it was a checklist on people's lists. If I had if I I haven't I haven't redone this marketing page forever. But, you know, if I had to rebuild this, I think I would add something like this, which is like a checklist where I show I know that this is a checkmark on your list. So it's like prototype, build the app, find a domain.

Justin:

I could add more. But the advantage of this particular course was it was like it did it was a project on their to do list. And I think figuring out the positioning for whatever you're going to do, like figure out what is the checklist that people have that they're just like, okay, got this. Yep. Got this.

Justin:

Got this. Oh, wait. This is the one that I need to solve right now. And it made selling marketing for developers easier because the people signing up were already either they were aspirational, which is like, one day I'm going to build an app and, you know, whatever. But then there was a lot of people who had built something, and they're like, no.

Justin:

I gotta figure out how to promote this. I gotta figure out how to market it. And

Brian:

I can see that being so valuable. I I remember when you were doing that, like really promoting it. And like, I could see how that's so valuable because it can lead to a customer being so successful with it because it's like they're doing nothing. Like they're going from doing nothing to doing something. So it's like, if you do any marketing, it's gonna be a huge win.

Brian:

Yes. So that's where it makes it like, that was a challenge that I had with Audience Ops, right? We had a lot of clients. Some of them were clients for many months, some of them were not. It's like, we can deliver the best possible content.

Brian:

We can be the most reliable partner for them. But if content marketing doesn't work for their particular business, they're gonna churn. And that gets me back to that customer satisfaction metric. I don't know why that I I think it really does matter. It shouldn't matter.

Brian:

Like, it it it always sort of like got me down thinking that, like, alright. I'm just selling a service. I'm just selling a thing for somebody to, like, park their marketing budget for a while until until that marketing budget goes somewhere else.

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, that's always gonna be part of any product. Consumption and satisfaction can mean different things for different people. Like, there's a lot of people who bought marketing for developers, and it was enough for them to have just bought it and watched a few videos, and then it just sat on their shelf. But they're like, if I ever need it, I've got it.

Justin:

It's doing the job I'm hiring it to do. And, you know, we have people signing up for transistor, and they don't use it for six months. And we, like, message them like, hey, like, what's going on? And they're like, oh, yeah, we're just getting it ready. Like, we just want to have it ready when we're ready to use it.

Justin:

It's like, okay. So for that, for them, that's what they want. But of course, ultimately, you want to be making a difference in people's lives. You know, that's the ultimate goal. And a good product, I think, delivers on that promise somehow.

Justin:

Right? It's like

Brian:

I think that's important, but also making enough money.

Justin:

That's what makes this all so hard. It's tough. One variable that I don't wanna ignore that you're bringing up, you said You talked about all these structural issues with SaaS, and then I pushed back on it saying, well, people have complained about those structural issues forever. I do think that on one hand, I don't want that to dissuade people.

Brian:

Yeah. I should have made that more clear throughout, and and I'm gonna do the same disclaimer on every episode. I'm talking about me. Yeah. Like, everyone else should do SaaS because it's a fantastic business.

Brian:

But, like, I what I that's what I learned about for for my

Justin:

Yeah. And and I think the the point I wanted to pick up on here though, is there are businesses and markets and categories that are just structurally difficult. And so that should be part of your calculus is like, for example, would I recommend that anybody go into Main Street retail in a small town? No. Because it's an incredibly difficult business.

Justin:

You have to it's very sophisticated for the potential reward. So in terms of a bet Yeah.

Brian:

It's like figuring out that trade off. Right? Like, is it is it worth

Justin:

Is it worth the bet? Is it worth I think anytime in life, we are making bets all the time. We're saying, I'm making this investment of time, energy, and money. And we should be asking ourselves the question, is this like once we dip our toe in the water, is this a good use of our time, energy, and money?

Brian:

A good use of our time is the key phrase there. Because especially as you get older, but even when you're not, like every a whole year, a whole one year is a long time and it's significant. Yep. And that's a whole year of choosing to do one thing and not choosing to do something else.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

And one year is typically not even enough to make a SaaS business work. Yep. Right? So and then you don't and then again, like, I hate to be the guy all the time that's just like that's trying to persuade or dissuade our whole audience to not do SaaS, but I guess I am gonna be that guy. It's like, again, I'm just talking about myself here.

Brian:

But the conclusion I came to is like, even if you land on a pretty good idea for a SaaS business, and even if you execute as best as you possibly can, the unknowns is like, a, how long is it gonna take to become viable? But b, how much harder is this product in this market going to become in twelve, eighteen, twenty four months? Because it's probably going to get harder and you don't even know the ways that it's going to get harder. But it's going to keep getting harder no matter what. Even if you are semi successful, it's going to keep getting harder.

Brian:

So then it's like, how many years am I going to throw at this one idea?

Justin:

Yeah, that's business.

Brian:

At the expense of, you could say that about anything you choose to do, of course. But that's also sort of part of my calculus. Over the last couple of years, I looked at new SaaS ideas that I might do as a business. And all of them, that's ultimately what I landed on. I was like, I I really like that idea.

Brian:

I think I can get some customers on that, but I don't know if I can do years for that idea. Whereas this one, we're how we're talking about it, it's like, I don't know what even what the product is.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

But I I could push on this YouTube channel for a year or more and figure out where to go from there. Mhmm. Like, I I feel like there are multiple ways that that this could be successful.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

And I'm going to learn what those ways are and what the challenges are. But like, if commit to one SaaS idea, like, yeah, you could pivot a little bit, but like, that's really hard to do. I sort of like this idea of like a seed and then a then a blooms, and you don't know really where it's gonna end up. But like, I I I can navigate it in a in a healthier, like Yeah.

Justin:

No. I think this is a great topic. I think it's like I mean, I think of our friend, Marie Poulin, as well. Like, she was pursuing SaaS for a long time. And then just being in motion, all of a sudden had a bunch of people on YouTube following her.

Justin:

Then, you know? So Yep. Yeah, this is great. We're gonna end it there. Thanks for listening and watching everybody.

Justin:

Thanks to everyone in live chat. We've got Jim Hill, we got Louis Nichols, we got Ron.

Brian:

Oh, Louis is here. Yeah. See, gotta like start to like scroll back up and see everyone who's actually hanging out.

Justin:

Yeah. He's saying maybe he should kickstart another mastermind for

Brian:

was in a mastermind

Justin:

with Yeah. Think that's

Brian:

Yeah. What he

Justin:

We got Ron, we got Jim Hill. So many folks stopped by today. Ryan Hefner again. Thomas, so great to see everybody. Thanks for watching live.

Justin:

And we'll see you again next week.

Brian:

Later, folks.

Episode Video

Creators and Guests

Brian Casel
Host
Brian Casel
Building software products at Instrumental Products.
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Justin Jackson
Host
Justin Jackson
Bootstrapping, SaaS, podcasting, calm companies🎙️ Co-founder of Transistor.fm
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