Hey, Brian. I made you a little something a little a little something while I was waiting for you to fix your technical issues. Let's see if this works. That is crazy.
Brian:How'd you do that?
Justin:That was Suno. Have you played with Suno?
Brian:No. But I I want to. You know, my favorite thing on on, like, TikTok these days is, like, classic soul versions of, like, rock songs. You know? Like like, last night, was I I saw one.
Brian:It was, like, Rage, like Killing in the Name of as a classic soul song. And they're just incredibly good. You know? It's all AI generated, but it's ridiculous.
Justin:I mean, it is unbelievable how good that Suno is. Suno is the most impressive generative AI I've ever used.
Brian:It Really?
Justin:Like, however they've trained that their model to produce songs, they've figured out. Jeffrey Way was mentioning this on the most technical podcast. But however they've trained it, it they've figured out what makes a good song.
Brian:You know, as a I haven't really played with it, but I've heard, like, AI generated songs. Mhmm. It really is it's incredible to me. As as someone who like, because I I write and compose and produce songs in my free free time. I've been doing it my whole life.
Brian:And, like, it's sort of like like we we've come we've become accustomed to like, okay, AI can generate written content. Like, it can create words and stuff. Mhmm. But the amount of content that needs to be generated to create a fully produced song with multiple tracks, multiple parts arranged and composed is incredible. Mhmm.
Brian:You know? And also, like, there's one like, I I guess, like, what you just did was sort of like a totally generated, like, original song, which is Yeah. Pretty impressive. But I think it's even more impressive. Like like I was saying on on TikTok, there's this whole ongoing meme of all these different popular songs completely reimagined as, like, classic soul songs.
Brian:You know? Yeah. But it's it's not just like taking the original song and, like, putting it through a filter. It's literally rewriting the parts with, like, different rhythms and different variations on the melody a little bit, you know, and it's it's crazy. You
Justin:know? It it's also crazy how fast it can generate a song. Like, I could even do this live, I think, where you just so there's a simple mode and a more complicated mode. By the way, can download all the stems and everything else too. But I could just say, who've we got in the chat.
Justin:Write an upbeat old school punk rock song, New York City style, about people in the chat. And then we could just say, we got Zach. We've got Beau. We got Pascal. We've got who else did I miss here?
Justin:Dave. We got Dave. Emmett. Okay. So watch how fast this is.
Justin:And actually, I'm not sure if I'm I'll be able to play it through these speakers, but I can download it. But I just wanted it's generating right now. Wait. Watch how quickly it gives you a result. Almost there.
Justin:And I can play this now. Like, it's that fast. And you yeah. Again, I don't think I can play it through these speakers, but I'll download it for you. And you'll you'll be like, I can't believe Yeah.
Justin:That, you know, it's it's that quick.
Brian:It's crazy. I'm not so up on all the latest tools in in, like, music production, but one thing that I really want in that world is, like, AI to help with the mixing and mastering of of songs. You know? Because, like, personally, like, you know, in stuff that I create and write, like, I'm not interested in using AI to, like, write stuff for me because that's just it's it's like a creative outlet. Right?
Brian:Yeah. But but the the process of mixing and mastering, it's like I know how to do it, but I'm not very good at it. And it's sort of a grind, and it takes a lot of time, like, getting all the compression and the EQ and the levels and the processing right. Like, that's something where I I think that I should be able to put some, like, AI plug ins on my mix and have it, like, you know, dial in just the right amount of, like, multiband compression and stuff like that. You know?
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Here. Let's see if I can play this quick, and then it might be terrible.
Justin:So we we don't have to listen to the whole thing. But this is this is the track. Zach with a smirk, tearing through the night. Bo's gotta laugh like a fist in a fight. This is for you, Chad.
Justin:I
Brian:mean, it's great. It's it and it's, like, it has all the stylistic cues of, like, that that, like, subgenre of punk. Right?
Justin:You know? Yeah. That's right. It's crazy. Sounds better than, like I don't remember T Pain and all that that that whole auto tune world.
Justin:Like Yeah. It sounds better than that already. So yeah. Pretty impressive.
Brian:Oh my god.
Justin:Alright. Let's let me do well, let's do an official intro. I've I've just noticed a bug with segments, which is I started it, but now it's I can't go back and stop it from like, can't restart this this thing here. So now we're just we're in a
Brian:Yeah. And like a little bug report for you. I was I guess it's not, but I I was adding, like, a segment earlier. And instead of, like, clicking new segment, I I I clicked, like, start show by accident.
Justin:Oh, that's probably what happened. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:Yeah. Well, I bet, like, this was, like, half an hour ago. And then I just refreshed the page, and it was back to normal. But I don't know.
Justin:Yeah. It it does I mean, it keeps where you're at. But, anyway, we'll just keep track of everything here. Welcome to the panel where bootstrappers talk about building a better business and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, cofounder of transistor.fm.
Brian:And I'm Brian Casel. I am building builder methods.
Justin:Nice. You know what? I I have I I finally where were you? You were a guest on another pod oh, no. I was in your workshop, and I realized you pronounce it castle.
Justin:And I have sometimes said castle.
Brian:I noticed that. You know, but I I I didn't want you know what's interesting? You pronounce it in a way that nobody has ever mispronounced my name. But, like, my whole life, people have
Justin:been
Brian:mispronouncing Castle. Like, most of the time, they say Cassel. Cassel. They'll say Cassel. Yeah.
Brian:But it's it's not spelled like Castle With A T. You know? So yeah. But it is it is pronounced that way. Yeah.
Justin:I mean, I should have known because our AI transcription engine on transistor keeps correcting it to CASL. And I was like, oh, okay. Well
Brian:Oh, yeah.
Justin:I I should have just known. I should have just known. Yeah.
Brian:Yeah. My all my friends that I grew up with, they they call me Cas. Oh, okay. Like, nobody calls me Brian, you know, from from that crew.
Justin:So that's where Cast Jam came from?
Brian:Yeah. Probably.
Justin:Yeah. Cast. I like Cast. Cast is good. That's a good nickname.
Brian:Yep.
Justin:Talking about high school, I spoke at my son's entrepreneurship class.
Brian:I wanna hear about this.
Justin:I have so many thoughts. So to catch the listener up, my son's entrepreneurship teacher well, I actually reached out to her and said, if you ever want me to speak, I can't speak. And she said, oh, that'd great. Why don't you come this past Friday? She had no idea what I was going to talk about.
Justin:I, for a while, didn't know what I was going to talk about. And Aaron and I chatted about it last week. So I ended up giving about a twenty minute talk. People can see me practicing the talk on my website. But what I want to talk about is just this experience was really significant for me.
Justin:So giving the talk was fine. That was like, I think that was interesting enough for the kids. I think it probably, you know, illuminated some things for them. But the best part was after the teacher invited me to just hang out and kind of circulate while they worked in at different tables. And that part there was just so I'm trying to figure out how to describe this experience.
Justin:It felt like as I'm interacting with these kids who are grade 11, grade 12, that I started seeing these moments where light bulbs are just turning on in their brains. I'm illuminating different parts of the world that they'd never seen before. And just having that experience, seeing like these young people who are really at the beginning of their lives, you know, they're about they're on the precipice of adulthood. And it it was just wild. Like, you're these two guys came in late, ten minutes late.
Justin:And they're both holding skateboards, like every kind of stereotype. Like, they're just kind of walking in.
Brian:Sit And They
Justin:sit down, you know, ten, fifteen minutes late. And so I'm circulating and, you know, I see these guys and I walk over to their table. It's just the two of them sitting there. And they're like one guy is, like, like, graffiti all over his worksheet, and the other guy's just kinda sitting back, like, not doing much. I'm like, hey.
Justin:What are you guys working on? And they're like, we're kinda slackers. We're not really working on anything. And they're kind of giving me vibes like, yeah, you know, move along.
Brian:Get out of here, old man.
Justin:Get out of here. And I was just like, I'm going to hang out. So I just sat down. I was like, man, you guys, you missed most of my story about running this skateboard shop, one of my first businesses. And that they just lit up a bit.
Justin:They're like, oh, yeah. Like, I was wondering what was going on there. And so then I knew, okay, they're a little bit interested here. And I said, well, that ended up being one of the biggest, most expensive mistakes of my life. I ended up losing like a $100 on that business.
Justin:They're And like, what? How does that work? And then we got into all this conversation about, I know the local skateboard shops here, so we were kind of comparing the two. One is like stuffed full of inventory, but the inventory doesn't move that fast. Other one is he's run a shop before and his is way more minimal.
Justin:He's got better turnover. And it was just fun, like kind of building up this this, again, illuminating things kind of as we went up the stack and then saying, You know what business I would start? I wouldn't start a retail business. But if I was in skateboarding somewhere again today, I would start a manufacturing business. Because now in manufacturing, the retailers all of the orders.
Justin:Sorry, the retailers give you the orders six months before you have to deliver. So manufacturers just take all these orders, which are guaranteed money. Take the orders, send it to the factory in China. They receive the orders in four or five months, ship it out to the retailers, and then invoice them. So there's less risk for them.
Justin:Asking these kids, in that scenario, who's taking on
Brian:Who's taking the risk.
Justin:The risk. And they're like, holy shit. It's the retailers. And I'm like, precisely. And this is what I was talking about in my talk.
Justin:You guys missed it. But I was like, you want bets where you're lowering your risk, asymmetric bets where you're lowering your risk, but creating the chance for a better outcome. And then I said, you know what is the best business ever started by a skateboarder or snowboarder? They're like, what? And I'm like, well, we talked about Tony Hawk for a bit, but then I'm like, you know who's really killed it Is the founder of Shopify.
Justin:I said he got started with a snowboard
Brian:Do these kids know Shopify?
Justin:Yeah. As soon as I said Shopify, they're like, what? Really? That guy was a snowboarder? No way.
Justin:And so just getting to share the stuff because and you just get such a it's so clear when you're hanging out with kids. They know nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Their world is so small.
Brian:I have some questions about this whole situation. Like, first of all, like, are you the only speaker or, like, other parents coming in?
Justin:No. No. I was the only speaker.
Brian:Okay.
Justin:I I I, like, introduced myself, like, personally to kids walking around as they were coming in. And then I was like, alright. I'm gonna talk for about twenty minutes. I'm gonna tell you three stories about how I made a couple thousand dollars in high school, how I lost a $100,000 when I was in my twenties, and how I built this business I have today. And then I just went into it.
Brian:And how much and is it just like a general, like, class of, like, kids? Or is it like kids who have, like, opted in to learn about entrepreneurship?
Justin:Yeah. This is one of their options. So this they can take
Brian:So so they're so people who are attending this have some sort of interest in, like
Justin:or
Brian:they're curious about or at least they're curious about, like Yeah. Or or they're or they're supposed to be curious about. That's right.
Justin:Yeah. The teacher's pretty cool. And I think it's like, for some kids, it's an easier class.
Brian:Mhmm. Okay. And then how much are how how tech obviously, they're tech savvy in terms of users and consumers. They're they're twelfth twelfth graders. But, like, how many people are interested in the tech industry or business in tech versus just business in general versus just getting a job?
Brian:Like,
Justin:Yeah. I would say that maybe a third of the kids were kind of interested in tech. I mean, broadly, I think, again, we live in this small little town. And so they haven't most kids haven't met anybody that run a business that's not like a local business. And so just anyone running anything like, oh, you're in podcasting?
Justin:Oh, wow, that's kind of cool. And, you know, I could put up the homepage and they could see like, you know, kind of have an Spotify, I recognize that logo, and Apple Podcasts, not so much. YouTube. Yeah. You know?
Justin:So they they're yeah. And some of them listen to podcasts. Like, maybe Okay. A third of them do.
Brian:Interesting. Some something I'm always sort of reminded of when I talk to, like, quote unquote normies, you know, like, whether it's, like, other other parents in my kid's class or, like, other other friends who are just, like, not in our industry. Even people who do really well in life and even some people who own incredible businesses, but not tech businesses. Yep. It's still in 2025, how foreign the concept is of everybody I interact with in my business is remote and everywhere.
Brian:Mhmm. Like, okay. Everyone understands remote work at this point, obviously. Yeah. But but the idea that, like, my team and and team members that I've ever hired in my whole life have been not only in other states, but in other countries overseas and all all across different all across the world.
Brian:And then same thing with customers. Like, the fact that, like, I all of my entire customer base for all of my businesses have has been worldwide and not just in my ZIP code or area code. Mhmm. And, like, that is such a foreign concept to people our our age in, you know, in Oh, yeah. Professional life still today.
Brian:Know?
Justin:It's still we are still in such a small segment. Like, even though, you know, tech right now is the biggest part of the stock market. It's what's driving the stock market up or down. And we think, oh, that's the economy. Or, yeah, we hang out online all day with people who are extremely online.
Justin:And we think, oh, that's just normal. These kids, there were two girls whose families both have a farm. They both have orchards. There was a guy whose dad works runs up a paint store, a franchise paint store. These are kind of like the normal like most of the world still looks like that.
Justin:Which is why it was exciting to, again, just like be in this grouping. Like what I wish someone had done for me when I was in high school, they said, like, listen, there's actually a way bigger world and way more opportunities that you don't even know about. Like, I was extremely online as a kid in the 90s. But I never really thought about building a SaaS business, right? Like, it took me taking my first tech job when I was 28 years old.
Justin:And then my boss gave me a copy of Getting Real by 37 Signals. That's what started turning on lights in my brain like, oh, wow. Like, is a totally different world here. And until someone introduces it to you, and until somebody turns on those lights in your brain, or illuminates that part of the world with a flashlight, you don't know about it. And Yeah.
Justin:You know? So I'm I'm What
Brian:is, like, the general what are they asking? What are the kids well, like, what what were, like, some of the best questions that you heard?
Justin:Oh my god. Well, I mean, there was one kid that asked 80% of the questions.
Brian:Okay.
Justin:Michael. He was he was hilarious. And interestingly Michael's
Brian:gonna be eating our lunch in in a couple of years.
Justin:Yeah. He was, like, he was very and he was familiar I don't know if you know Dan Martell. He was, like, familiar with Dan Martell and had been following him online. So Yeah, he just asked lots of questions. Like, as I was telling my story, he was like because when I talk about the snowboard shop, I said, you know, we I should have declared bankruptcy.
Justin:The business should have declared bankruptcy, but I felt this moral obligation to pay all of our suppliers. So I took out a second mortgage on our house. And his question was like, excuse me, how did you own a house in your twenties? That was a big one. Which was great because it it kept reinforcing this idea of luck, which I talked about at the end, which was like, yeah, Michael, you're right.
Justin:There's some luck involved in that. Like, on one hand, I was unlucky because this business lost a bunch of money. On the other hand, we were able to weather that storm because our house had gone up. And, you know, we bought our house at that point for $160,000 or something. It had gone up to $2.80.
Justin:And so we were able to take out a second mortgage for the difference. Right? In so many ways, shitty, but I guess advantageous if you need to go into debt. And so, yeah, there's a few things that kept coming up where he was like, what about this? And I was like, yeah, you know, that's another form of luck right there.
Justin:And and then at the end, I was able to talk about increasing your luck surface area, which was kind of the the final conclusion, which is here's a bunch of things you can do to increase your lux surface area. And and then I had this handout that I that I made. I wasn't sure if this was gonna be super cringey and, like, whatever, but I I handed it out. Remember my worksheet? Yeah.
Justin:Well, it's it's pretty simple. It's just right here. But I I printed out a bunch of these, and I was like, hey, Michael, can you hand these out to everybody? And someone's like, yeah, Michael. Why don't you hand them?
Brian:Kids are the best, man.
Justin:Oh, dude. And my son and my son's girlfriend are in this class. So I I'd gotten feedback from them beforehand. And after our words, I was like, is this was this handout really bad? They're like, oh, no.
Justin:That was great. So
Brian:What do we got here? We got, like, ideas for increasing your luxurious area at night.
Justin:Yeah. Move to a bigger city, go to meetups and events, start your own meetup, make stuff with your friends, tell people about what you made, email 10 people you admire, ask those people how does your business work, find a mentor in an industry you're interested in, start a small service business, lawn care, pressure washing, barbecue cleaning, dog walking, share your journey on YouTube, podcast, blog, or newsletter. And then I kinda had these three general ideas. Expand your world, meet new people, start making stuff, do stuff, experiment, and work in different experiences, get experience.
Brian:Man, I would be, like, so incredibly nervous to walk into a high school classroom and talk to kids like that. Like Yeah. Way way more nervous than doing, like, a workshop for other professionals or this or anything or going to a conference in our industry. Like, I feel like talking to kids, especially high school kids, would be like, oh my god. No way.
Justin:Yeah. I mean, I was pretty nervous about the talk. The thing is I was a youth worker for the first eight years of my career from '20 to '28. So I as soon as I was in the high school, I was like, oh, I I've been here. Like, that that was why I enjoyed, I think, hanging out afterwards and talking to the kids.
Justin:Was like, those two skateboard guys that were kind of like giving me the, you know, the tough vibe. I was like, I've I've been here. I know I know what this is like. You know? Yeah.
Justin:In some
Brian:ways I mean, I I really do have, like, so much respect for for teachers in general. You know? And like And like you're saying, like there must be it must be so rewarding for anyone really to be able to teach something and know that it's being heard. And especially if it's like, that's the first time they're hearing it, You know? And and you see and you start to see it click.
Brian:Like, that is super exciting.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it was it was just a great experience.
Justin:I'm gonna go back. They're gonna have a dragon's den, kind of like the shark tank kind of where they have to present their business. So I'm gonna be one of the sharks or one of the dragons, which will be fun. I I think at this stage of my life, it's nice. Now I'm feeling like I finally have breathing room to give back to the community, to invest in other things other than just, you know, spinning my wheels, trying to get the business going.
Justin:And so, yeah, it was fun.
Brian:Nice. Love it.
Justin:Yeah. Hey. What's what else is on your mind?
Brian:What which segment do we wanna pick off here?
Justin:You said projects that generate unwanted jobs. Okay. So Is
Brian:this gonna be
Justin:some marriage counseling here, or what are we what
Brian:are doing? You know, this will be the segment where I I might need some therapy. But alright.
Justin:Well Let's
Brian:do it. Sort of like historically how should I set this up? I think a habit of mine, if I if I if I'm gonna be, like, self critical or or a thing that I wanna improve in terms of, like, my game, my my entrepreneurial game, like
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:How how I how I do this well or not well. One of the things that one of the pitfalls that I find myself falling into quite often is I will build something, maybe a product or maybe take on a sub product within my business or or do a project that might it might be somewhat successful. And I might be happy with what I've built and offered and people might like it. Mhmm. But typically, the most projects that I wanna do are things that I get excited about building, and then I build them, and then I ship them, and then I wanna be done with them.
Brian:I wanna move on to the next project. Yep. And this is best. Like, the the ideal scenario is I have a project or or a new business or a product that I can spend a lot of effort and time and and sweat and put put my stamp on it and build it for a couple weeks or months. But then it then it continues to live on and and drive dividends and benefits for the business without needing to me to continuously run that hamster wheel.
Brian:Yeah. And can look like a number of things. Like in audience ops, I spent like two full years really dialing in processes and hiring an excellent team to carry them out. Yeah. But then it got to a point where I could really remove myself.
Brian:Mhmm. And I was literally only touching that business like just a few minutes a week because I had awesome people running the processes that I that I
Justin:And that's kind of what enabled you to learn how to code. That's what enabled you to like start building Ruby on Rails apps and all that?
Brian:Yeah. In 2018, I literally had full time hours at my disposal because I had audience ops to to Mhmm.
Justin:That was
Brian:just throwing off profit to to pay for my time. Yeah. And it didn't I might get pulled in to put out a fire here and there, but generally, the day to day operations didn't need me. Yeah. And then sometimes there can be like a software product or an info product that, you know, you work really hard on creating it and launching it, and then it continues to drive sales like as a passive income type of type of situation.
Brian:Yeah. Occasionally, with a very simple SaaS, you might be able to do that and have a support person sort of manning the inbox while you go focus on other things. Things like that, which are nice. Yeah. I guess the thing that triggered this topic for me is the project of Agent OS right now.
Brian:Okay. So I shipped version two point o. And then about two weeks after, I shipped version 2.1, which sort of corrects some of the some of the mistakes that I made in two point o, but I I think sets it on much more solid ground. Right? Mhmm.
Brian:The whole process of getting just to two point zero took like over a month and consumed all of my time and energy. And and this is like one point zero was already in the market and sort of doing its thing and generating a lot of positive results and growing an audience for me and everything. Yep. But there were definitely some fundamental problems with one point zero that I It definitely needed a two point zero. Then I had to go back into the lab, back into the cave and work on two point zero.
Brian:It took me like a month to do that. Then I shipped two point o, and I spent an entire day really killing myself to make a long video tutorial on it. And that and some other projects started to make me realize there's some fundamental issues with two point zero also. So that led me to 2.1. Yeah.
Brian:So that's like another two weeks. Really, I spent more like four or five hardcore days getting to 2.1 to get that out the door. And so now here I am. Okay. 2.1 is out.
Brian:This morning, I I did the final video for it. That'll come out next week. But still, Agent OS, like, it's a it's definitely a positive thing to have in my business. It's definitely still driving a lot of interest in builder methods and my live workshops. People buy tickets.
Justin:Right here in the chat. I'm not sure if it's oh, it's Michael. I started using AgentOS the other day, it was great. So, like, it's like people are talking about it. People are like Yeah.
Justin:It's driving.
Brian:I still love it. I use it. I love actually working on Agent OS itself. I'm excited to keep improving it and maintaining it and growing its audience and user base. At the same time, Agent OS is a free open source product.
Brian:And it is not directly monetized. It is monetized in that it drives people to my Builder Methods Pro membership, and it drives sales for the workshops. Yeah. It drives audience to YouTube. So it's an essential ingredient to my overall business model.
Brian:But it does generate quite a bit of customer support issues, like in my Discord and elsewhere, people email me and stuff like that. And like, I really do want to try to answer everyone that asks a question, especially the members. So that becomes a daily job that Mhmm. Has been generated now. And it's and until I and and until this business is profitable enough that I can really hire a team and and and really staff this thing up, like, now now that's a that it actually is a hamster wheel that I have to be running on.
Brian:You know? Yeah. In addition to the other hamster wheels that I have, like producing YouTube videos and and creating content for members and actually building projects. You know? So that's just I don't know.
Brian:I guess it's a little bit of a rant. I do sort of see a light at the end of the tunnel, especially now that 2.1 is out. But it's definitely a pattern that I've noticed with myself. One of my goals in this business is to design it to to design my ideal job
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:For myself. Like in like, yes, I want this business to be successful financially and profitable and sustainable and bootstrapped for a long period of time. Yeah. That's definitely a goal. But but another just as equally important to me is I need to come in here every day and be creative and build build tools.
Brian:I wanna create, you know, really quality video content. And that's what I wanna do as my daily job. I'm not trying to create a business where it requires me to do, like, customer support every single day. Yeah.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I mean, this is the it feels like people who are building a business that has some sort of open source component. So Adam Wathen and Tailwind, Taylor Otwell and Laravel, Caleb Porzio and LiveWire.
Justin:First of all, I mean, it it it does seem like an incredible you have to be get incredibly lucky to get a open source project that gets traction. Step one. You have to be incredibly lucky to be able to monetize in any way around that open source project. I mean, I remember Adam was, like, racking his brain, like, what? How can I monetize this Tailwind thing?
Justin:Because it's free, and it's just like, I love it, but it takes a lot of work. Almost everybody I know in open source says, it is just so much work dealing with the public, honestly. And it seems like the people that have been able to survive on this, like, bucking bronco horse that is open source and building a business on it, It's like ups and downs, and they're just able to hold on long enough for it to something to be making enough money. And then they hire somebody to, like, take care of the Yeah. The support that comes along with it.
Brian:Yep. For sure.
Justin:So it's it's a tricky it's definitely a tricky issue. You know?
Brian:Yeah. I mean, I do think I I've I've sort of gotten over the hump and this you know I think it's it's a little bit on more solid ground now. Like like, I will have more updates to make to it, but there especially the the launch of two point o and then 2.1, since these were big fundamental redesigns of the thing. Mhmm. Like, a lot of people came in with, like, update issues.
Brian:Like, the it failed to update. It failed to migrate my old version to the new version. And, like so there's a lot of, like, messiness that happened with that even though I tried to smooth it out with some docs and some tools. Mhmm. You know?
Brian:So it could just be like a right now stress point in in my in my life with this. But yeah.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, once one possible solution could be and this has worked for me in the past is, you know, I'm looking through your builder methods Discord. By the way, I I am super impressed with this community that's kind of assembling in Builder Methods Pro. I think if people are curious about building and coding with AI, they should join.
Justin:And already, there's lots of value. I think there's probably somebody in here that's already helping folks organically for you that you might be able to
Brian:there definitely is. I've actually had a couple of members already reach out to me and say that they would like to volunteer as moderators or whatever. I'm super appreciative of that. And I would love to take people up on that offer as soon as I can. Guess part of the reason why I am a little bit hesitant with doing that is Mhmm.
Brian:Frankly, I do think of it from a business standpoint where it's like, I don't really want to just have volunteers. If if I'm gonna hire someone, I wanna hire someone.
Justin:Pay them. I mean, if but if they're if they're happy to do it and they get some sort of tangible benefit from it, like, even some people, like, just being called a moderator or having a special badge on their Discord profile or it it is slightly heightened status. Like, you might say, I'll also give you, like, new builds of Agent OS before anyone else gets them. There might be something that they want that you could give them.
Brian:I think you're right about that. But I also think about it, like, if if this person is literally working with me, like, on my team, then then number one, like, I'm gonna wanna give them, like, real projects to work on that that actually add value that I would not wanna just have people do for free. I would wanna pay them for that. Yeah. And and number two is, like, any this this goes for literally any anyone you ever hire.
Brian:A lot of times, it creates a new job for myself to keep them busy or to think like, how can we make this role work for everyone and be productive? Like, that's just how I think about positions. I recently hired a video editor, and he's been fantastic. But it's been a process of training him and making sure that he understands my style and details that I want in my in my YouTube videos, and we have a lot of back and forth about that. But, like Mhmm.
Brian:I'm paying him, like, good money to do that. You know?
Justin:Yeah. There there is an on ramp here, though. So here's a practical example. Mega Maker, the Mega Maker community has always been a paid product. It's $2.99 for lifetime access.
Justin:And at some point, I asked Helen Riles and what's John's last name? Not John Buddha, but John. How come I can't think of John's last name? Oh, that because he just goes with John in our in our mega maker. But Helen and John, I I said, hey.
Justin:You know, you guys are super you're just, like, great in the slack. Would you like to be volunteers? Here's what I'm kind of thinking. You know, here's kind of some of the benefits. But and they were just like, yeah, like they wanted that role.
Justin:And even though it's a paid product, even though I couldn't really pay them for it. But there's like an there's for me, there's always this on ramp. And then when I needed customer support help, who did I think of first? John and Helen. And so I reached out to both of them and Helen was like, yeah, I can help you.
Justin:And I'm like, well, just be on contract. We're just starting out. So then step two is just here's some just contract hours, like pretty minimal, no guarantees or anything. And then Helen had been with us part time contract for like a couple of years. And then I was like, man, it would be great to just have Helen locked in and have her just take over the responsibility.
Justin:By that point, we could pay her full time. And then we said, okay, now let's let's bring you on full time. But there's this nice on ramp. And that's happened with basically all of our employees. Almost everybody has started in some sort of like, I saw them in the community.
Justin:They were participating in a voluntary way, whether it was being helpful online or whatever. And then we got them on a short term contract, and then eventually, it became a a full time thing.
Brian:I I think These are definitely good good points for sure. And, like
Justin:I think you can on ramp people.
Brian:Think you're right. And and also people have just been naturally it's it's been really awesome to see when members in the Discord just answer other people's questions, like, about Agent OS and stuff. Yeah. And I've I've been really, really happy to see that happen.
Justin:And it could also become like, if these people are super helpful and knowledgeable about AgentOS on their own, you know, maybe them getting AgentOS expert badge or being able to communicate that to their clients or something like that. Like, I'm a verified
Brian:And that's even like a general Yeah. That like, I I I've always loved that as like a as a marketing initiative. A credential or an official AgentOS expert's directory to help promote yourself to clients. Yeah. No.
Brian:But actually, like, you're right, like about the on ramp piece, like definitely if and when it comes time to actually hire a real role, like if you're already in the community and you're already technical and you already know Agent OS, like you're definitely at the very top of the list of candidates for sure. Mhmm. But that actually brings up another another little tidbit of information that I discovered this week. It's like somebody reached out to me about needing help with like, they sort of need to hire a developer to help them build their app that they that they that they vibe coded. And they they have they've had some, like, early success with this vibe coded version of their app, and they've got a bunch customers, and now they wanna, like, kinda grow it into something else.
Brian:Mhmm. And they need, like, a they need, like, a legit, like, technical partner to to take to take over from the Vibe Coded thing and make it, like, a legit software product.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:It came to me about that and we sort of talked about it. And I was like, maybe, maybe not. But then that could be another potential thing inside of Builder Methods Pro is like if you're a consultant or if you're a freelancer or if you're an agency or you work with a team that could take on clients like that. Yeah. Maybe there could be some sort of job board or referral network within Builder Methods Pro for because there's a ton of AI developer experts in this community already.
Brian:If I don't know. That could be like another angle that I hadn't really even considered before. I've been thinking of Builder Methods Pro as just the place to learn and to talk to other developers and to learn how to build. But there's definitely a market out there of people who need help from folks like us.
Justin:Yeah. And that could be an opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet, dude.
Brian:Yeah. What what you got?
Justin:Alright. So let's I'll hold our tongues here. Apologize apologies in advance, but we have to talk about a DHH tweet.
Brian:Oh, yeah. Here we go.
Justin:And here's you know, this is one of the few times I actually, I don't know, agree or I'm interested in this. But the great relief of wealth is the freedom from having to dream of monetizing every successful idea or creation. I do there's something about this that resonates with me. You know? Like, real wealth is the freedom to not have to try to monetize every project and every idea that you come up with.
Justin:And
Brian:Yeah. And, like, he's he's going on to talk about his projects. You know, Armarqi, Rails, Kamal, Hotwire. You know, all of those are open source, very popular projects, especially Rails. You know?
Brian:And and, like, DHH personally, and I guess even Basecamp, like, they don't make money directly from those No. Projects. You know? They make their money from Basecamp.
Justin:Yeah. Exactly. And and, you know, well, base camp in Haiti, he mentions. But, yeah, Omar Chi is, like, huge. Right?
Justin:Like, that's, like, a big project that people are a lot of people are excited about.
Brian:And I mean, it's it's big and and but it's new. You know? But rails and I I saw in one of the replies that somebody asked him like yeah. Silly question. If you had to monetize one of those, which one would it be?
Brian:And and DHH said, like, rails would definitely be the easiest. There's the most money on the line, but no thanks. You know?
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:Which totally makes sense, really. You know?
Justin:Yeah. I mean and he specifically mentioned Laravel and Taylor Outwell. Yeah. I I think this is interesting. And, you know, this is the is the thing about, you know, the wrong project at the wrong time is the wrong project.
Justin:But I've been thinking a lot about, like, that mega maker stage of my life when I was building a 100 projects a year and, you know, following all of my interests and, you know, and and even just like writing my newsletter and all that stuff. It's been so nice to just be able to explore projects and for it to not have to be a moneymaker. Whereas when I was in the building phase, it was like, like, I gotta I gotta write to make money. I gotta produce stuff to make money. I gotta build some products to make money.
Justin:And to be able to explore without that stress is such a that is, I think, true wealth. It's just really, really nice when you can get to that stage.
Brian:Yeah. And, you know, and people always I guess I do know why that DHH is such a lightning rod. People either love them or hate them. Mhmm. And this is definitely the kind of tweet that that people will love to probably point to and and hate on.
Brian:And and I could I could say you know, the devil's advocate part part would be like, you look at that tweet and you say like, yeah, that's really easy for you to say. You're sitting there Yeah. You know, as as like the cofounder of of Basecamp and Hay and, you know, making millions a year and like Mhmm. Like, I guess if people look to that tweet as career advice, you're looking at it the wrong way
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:I think.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:Like, I don't think there's and people will look at it that way, and I and I don't think that that's the right way to look at it. Yeah. You know? Because I read it like he's sort of just proud of what he's been able to build and accomplish. And and he's also in a very unique, super, super lucky space, which is different from the Adam Wathens and Taylor Otwells and and other people who who do use a free like, what I mean is Rails and Hotwire and Omakji, like, those projects in themselves do not drive leads to Basecamp and Hay.
Brian:Yeah. Like, most Basecamp and Hay customers probably don't even know what Rails is,
Justin:frankly.
Brian:You know?
Justin:I'm still confused. I would love for somebody this is the marketing case study I wanna see, is a deep investigative story on how Basecamp and Mahay actually gets customers because they don't advertise. They don't like, have tried advertising.
Brian:They they talked about how it it hasn't worked.
Justin:Yeah. And and if you look at their advertisements, they were, like, so shitty. That billboard campaign that they did was not good. So I'm super curious, what actually drives most of their business? And my sense or my guess is that they just made such a big splash back when the web was small, that they were able to get so many customers from that initial splash that now they just it's just word-of-mouth.
Justin:Like, whatever that referral machine is,
Brian:it I has think you're exactly right about that. But I also think that it's it's like that plus the fact that they stayed out there and vocal and and and kept their public profiles high for the next twenty years after that. Because you could also point to many other super early SaaS products that started twenty years ago and sort of just withered away because nobody's ever heard of the founders and where that company went. Obviously this is not the recipe that everyone should follow. And if you don't want to be the building public guy or gal, you don't maybe that's not for you.
Brian:But it obviously has been for them.
Justin:I am so curious about that part because that's the other element that I'm always like, I wonder because I've always said that they're just very good at running a cult. Like, a lot of
Brian:that
Justin:I
Brian:think that's kind of true.
Justin:Like the Basecamp way, I think a lot of people, although I'm curious what percentage of customers, a lot of their customers are like, I wanna do things the Basecamp way. And you're getting sold on a methodology, a way of thinking, a way of believing.
Brian:I think that think there's always for any good product, especially a product that sells to businesses and organizations that have team members and clients, there's always going to be a natural flywheel of word-of-mouth. Right? So you're going to get your initial customer, and they work at a company which is exposed to a couple 100 people. And some of those people will migrate to other companies, and they'll and they'll introduce Basecamp to those other companies. Mhmm.
Brian:And maybe this company serves 2,000 different clients. So now those clients are exposed to Basecamp, and and they and they hear about it from that original customer. Right? So that's that's one customer case study sort of flowering into a whole little mini network of whatever, like like, I don't know, some, like, accounting firm that that that that some some person at an at an accounting firm started to use Basecamp, and now and now that so so that that cycle, like, repeats itself across a thousand customers. So you're always going to have the flywheel of word-of-mouth, but that alone can't keep you growing for twenty years.
Brian:You still need to also attract new first customers. Right? And I think that's where the podcasts and the tweets and the blog and and the And where
Justin:do you think they're actually like, what's you think that's like public appearances and stuff like that is where they're making their money?
Brian:I do. Like, literally, they I listen to their podcast a lot.
Justin:And Yeah.
Brian:They were just talking about this, I think, last week or the week before, like, how do they do marketing at Basecamp? Yeah. And and DHH said, he was like, you know, like the general theme is like, don't they really don't know. Like, they don't track it very closely. And Yeah.
Brian:And they and they do believe that it is a lot of word-of-mouth and and just a lot of just being out there. But occasionally like, D. Said this. He's like, when I went on Lex Friedman's podcast, which he did, like, three or four months ago Yeah. That was a massive, massive spike of splash of of new people.
Justin:Oh, interesting.
Brian:And then and then Jason said that, like, something like two or three years ago, or maybe this was around the launch of Hey, they were featured in the New York Times. And like that drove a massive spike in sign ups. Right? So you get these like massive spikes, you know, you get a little PR here and there, but then you get a lot of, a lot of small bumps of, of these tweets that go viral or these, you know, and, and again, like, I'm not saying that like those alone can be your entire growth strategy because you're, because the fact that they've been around for twenty years, they also have the the multiplier of the natural product word-of-mouth.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin:I'm so curious. Like, I I I mean, I wish they could I wish they could be I wish they knew where their their their customers are actually coming from. Like, that's that would be so interesting to know.
Brian:And I think they've talked about in the past that they've tried to invest a lot of dollars and people into figuring that out, like hiring a data person to try to figure that out. And they're like, even that turned out to be a wasted investment. It turned out even if we try to measure it, we can't.
Justin:I'm also a little bit surprised by that too. Wish I knew what those numbers were. Those are the case studies I wanna see. Obviously, no one wants to do that because it's like, who would wanna tell people where their customers are coming from?
Brian:I just think that the answer is never gonna be one thing. I think it's always gonna be Especially in SaaS and especially B2B, the answer to having a high level of growth into millions of revenues for decades it's never going to be You can't just say, We are a Google Ads driven business, and that's our funnel that we're just going to keep pumping dollars into. I really think that product and word-of-mouth from the product is the essential. Yeah. And then you're gonna have these other pieces, which can be any mix of things that that, like, add those, like, initial sparks.
Brian:But in order for those initial sparks to turn into flames and to turn into whatever forest fires, if we're going keep going with that metaphor, it has to be word-of-mouth from the product. But at the same time, just a brilliant product that that's beautiful on every level, if you never get that initial spark, no one's ever gonna see it.
Justin:I mean, know? Me, that's the crazy thing is that their their products don't look like anybody else's products, and some people do not like it. It it it's it's definitely their stuff is rougher than a lot of web apps. Like, they because they're anti JavaScript, and so a lot of the interactions don't feel awesome. A lot of it feels clunky to me still.
Brian:But I agree with that.
Justin:People people use and seek out their products. Like and the only people I know that use them are people that are, like, believers. They're like, we are in the 37 signals, you know, fan fan base.
Brian:From product design standpoint, I think there there definitely been parts of their products where they've gone overboard, in my opinion, in terms of, like, opinionated style. You especially see this in Hay. And I used Hay for maybe seven or eight months. And there were things that were just like, all right, calling it the inbox, I m b o x, like, yeah, that's cute, but I don't want to see that misspelled word every day. Know?
Brian:Yeah. Yeah. You know, things like that. But then at the same time, it's like, I think the real value, especially in Basecamp, is the simplicity. Yeah.
Brian:And there's a lot of just everyday business users who just they just want a super simple project management that and and I and also, like, I really, really respect their approach to, like, microcopy in the app. What they call buttons, how they explain how features work. It's so everyday human. Honestly, I use Notion a lot, and and I've, like, continuously looked for, like, excuses to leave Notion. Like, it's too bloated, too many buttons, too many this and that.
Brian:But at the same time, like, I also kind of appreciate the power and the and and, like, what you can do with it.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:And that's why, like, I I end up, like, not really using Basecamp is because I want a little bit more power than what they provide. So so I think that their niche, really, if you're gonna call it that, is, like, people who just want something, like, simple, basic, don't need the bells and whistles. You know?
Justin:I mean, this is like one of the crazy things about jobs to be done is that so much of the job that people are doing when they hire a product is emotional. It's like there's just and people like to be in tribes. They like to be in the I'm in the tailwind tribe. I'm in the bootstrap tribe. I'm in the react tribe.
Justin:I'm in the view tribe. Like people like to have teams. They like to be able to identify with a group.
Brian:I do tend to really, really respect, and I tend to resonate with companies and people and founders and designers who really lean into the opinionated thing. So it's something and and, like, I might not agree with their design.
Justin:Except when people are cosplaying as 37 signals. I I like that. It feels like some of that is like people are, like, you know, strutting around and not being authentic. But yeah.
Brian:I think that's probably true. But I I I think from them, like Jason and DHH, like, whatever. Like, they might they might rub people the wrong way, but I I think that they truly believe the things that they say.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:You know? And they sort of don't care about the people who don't agree with them. And I I kinda have a respect for that. Like, I often I often agree with them, but I also often disagree with little things here and there.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:But I'm much more interested, and and I have a higher level of respect for that.
Justin:Yeah. I did a I just posted an informal poll in the in the chat. So far, tweets, blog posts, public personal audience, that's one option that's been chosen twice, and word-of-mouth has been chosen once. So, yeah, you know, it's the I think most folks are gonna be like, you know, that it's it's it is one it's gotta be those things. They're they're not
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:They're not SEO people or
Brian:ad I think that they acknowledge that too. They they say they've and even from the very earliest days, like, they they also had one of the earliest blogs out there.
Justin:I mean, people talk about we're talking about them right now. So, yeah, obviously obviously, it works. Yeah. You got anything else you wanna chat about?
Brian:I you know, I I didn't really have this on our list, but I just the other night, I was watching I guess it was a YouTube clip from OpenAI's Dev Day with Sam Altman interviewing Johnny Ive. You know? And and they have this, like, collaboration, this deal now where OpenAI acquired Johnny Ives' thing, and apparently they're they're working on some big new product or products. Nobody knows what it is yet, but every twice a year, they they sort of surface with one of these these interviews and shows the two of them talking. Right?
Brian:Yeah. And and so I thought and I I caught there there was like one section of it where Johnny Ive was talking about or I guess Sam Altman was asking Johnny about his his design approach, his product design approach and process. Like, what do we see behind the scenes? And I thought it was a fascinating Oh, I also want to talk about that other All right. I'm like thinking of new segments on the fly here.
Brian:Anyway, Johnny was saying, he he he was asked about what happens in the middle from okay. So you go from idea or maybe you see, like, a customer job to be done, and I sort of understand the idea of, like, identifying a job to be done and and a customer need Yeah. And doing customer research. I understand that part. And then I understand the end part where it's like we have, like, an almost finished product and we need to refine it and just dial it in and polish it.
Brian:But what happens in the in that middle where it's like we fig like, trying to figure out what nobody sees behind the scenes? Like, how do you actually design the product? How do you figure out it should be this type of interface versus that type of interface? And he didn't go into a lot of detail on it, but he said one thing about, like, craft. And I think it goes against what a lot of us talk talk about is that, like, especially, like, bootstrappers and the whole, like, minimum minimal viable product idea.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Where it's, like, designed just enough to solve the problem or or just enough to get the product into customers' hands so that you can stay alive. And I get the notion behind that. Yeah. But the way that Johnny Ive was talking about it, it was like, well, we really, really care about every single aspect a product. And I think he was hinting at the old story about Steve Jobs, where it was like, he really cares about what the back of the computer looks like.
Brian:The part that's always gonna see the wall, right? Or that nobody's ever gonna see. So, like, why does that have to look pretty or look or look sleek or whatever? It's like well, it's because, like, every detail, even the inside of the computer needs to needs to be well designed and well thought out and and take pride in your craft. Yeah.
Brian:And I guess the way that he was describing it, he was like, if you don't care about those things, well, what does that say about you? Yeah. But like, it's like it's almost like you have a lack of empathy or respect for your end users. And maybe that's a harsh way of putting it. Not but like, that really sort of resonated with me is that like, I think, I I again, like, it's one of these things that I have a high level of respect for for just true designers who really care about delivering something that, like, makes their users' lives actually better and not just something that's, like, sellable.
Brian:You know?
Justin:Yeah. I mean, this this really comes out in that Apple in China book because they talk about how obsessed Apple was with sending their engineers over to these factories in China. And they would just live there for weeks and months and just dial in these processes. And the the kind of the arc or argument or push of the book is that a lot of China's ability and their bar for quality actually was ingrained in them by Apple. It was Apple coming over and kind of introducing this culture of we care so much.
Justin:And it really you can see how it squeezed people. This is the the dark side of that approach, think, is that, like Yeah. These executives and people who work for Apple are on record saying, your marriage would end, you'd never see your kids, you were just there thinking all the time. To get to this bar, there was a significant cost. And then the factory owners themselves would also say, like, they were really reducing their margins.
Justin:And in order to get this business, just on a hope that they'd be able to make it up in volume. But everybody's getting squeezed in this system.
Brian:But Yeah. No. It's true. You know, that's that's a real thing.
Justin:And on the other hand, I
Brian:At at the same time, it's like we see we see, like, the new versions of iOS with a ton of bugs, and, like, you can't help but think, like, that would not have shipped under jobs.
Justin:Yeah. I mean, I do try I kinda try to sit in the middle, which is I want us to be shipping things. And eventually, this has gotta be good enough to ship. But I'm also in that mode of, like, this has got to be good. Like, this is we have to be thinking through this.
Justin:We have to test this out. Let's test this on mobile. Let's like we wrote that copy quick, and we haven't looked at it since. What does that copy actually say? Okay.
Justin:We should we should fix that. And I think John Buddha is also just really good on the technical side of being like, let's make sure this is solid. This is well formed. This is ready to ship. We don't want to be sloppy.
Brian:And Yeah. It's so it's this is such so hard to to do well. You know? It's so incredibly hard because it's like it's like number one, I think a lot of it just starts with, like, really solid fundamentals, like really knowing what is the actual problem that we're solving with this. Mhmm.
Brian:And who is it for? And why do they care about about it? Because there's gonna be three or four other versions of that problem that we have to say, like, no. It's we're not quite solving those. We're solving this.
Brian:That's the really hard part. But then the other hard part is the schedule. We are all so impatient. Customers are impatient. Our business' bottom line is impatient.
Brian:We are impatient. We want to ship as quickly as possible. But a lot of times, it just requires a couple more cycles to get it right. You know?
Justin:Interestingly, I think AI actually is gonna play a huge role in this because I think in the way that it can assist us like, we were talking about UIs. Like, because it can It has all of the patterns, all of the UI patterns that have ever been made. Its first like one shot UI is probably going to be pretty good. And so already you've been brought up to like 70%. And then it's going to be your job as a product creator to refine it, to refine it, to refine it so that it's good.
Justin:But at least you're not looking at a blank page. And I also think Totally. Like some of these things like some features, like we're thinking about, like, you know, how would we even try out in Transistor? Like, we've always wanted to build this feature where people could advertise on each other's podcasts. So, you know, we've got the panel.
Justin:Ian and Aaron have mostly technical. There's no reason why we shouldn't have dynamically inserted ads promoting each other's podcasts to each other's audiences. And but to do that that feature, which is really a product within a product, to do that well, it's overwhelming. It's just like to get every interaction right.
Brian:And That would be awesome, by the way.
Justin:It would be so awesome. And it always felt too big before. But now with AI, I'm like, well, the prototyping stage, we could really do a lot faster. And then just working through like these things that might normally overwhelm us. Now there's more options for like, okay, well, let's use AI, let's use AgentOS, let's use Cloud Code.
Justin:Let's try to work through some of this stuff, even if it doesn't generate obviously, it's not gonna generate everything the way we want it. And at least gets us unstuck. Like, oh, wow. Yeah. It it tried to do it this way.
Justin:I would never do it that way, but that now has given me an idea of how we might build it over here. Totally. So, yeah, I think that's gonna be maybe the advantage of being an indie bootstrapped software company is that hopefully we can all get better. Like hopefully, these iteration loops can get a lot smaller. And the other thing, going to create a lot of apps that are at 70% that kind of suck.
Justin:And so who's willing to put in the extra work to actually make it good, those are the people who are going to win.
Brian:I want to I want to go to that Stripe podcast that you that you talked about last time. Actually, yeah, let's just get get into that now.
Justin:So Cheeky Pint?
Brian:Yeah. Cheeky Pint. What a like, I just started watching it, and I and I watched the whole episode of the one with RJ Skarinj from from Rivian.
Justin:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:That's I think it's his second to last one.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see here.
Brian:At at the top there. This was a fantastic episode. I I love this show now. I'm gonna go back and listen to
Justin:Is it great? It's so great.
Brian:And it's really well done on YouTube too. Like, they're they're literally, like, in this, like, pub and drinking beers and stuff. But what's his name from Stripe?
Justin:John Collison.
Brian:Yeah. Collison. Like, he is a really great, he's not a natural interviewer, but we were talking about this last time, two high level founders and product people, product leaders having this level of credibility with one another makes for such a great interview. This interview with the founder of Rivian, the the electric car company, and I'm a big fan of Rivian. I don't have a Rivian, but I I mean, I'm hoping to to get an r two next year when it comes out.
Brian:Yeah. But I I do own a Tesla, and this was a really fascinating interview with with Skaringe because Skaringe? Don't know how to say his name. Because I usually only see him interviewed on places like CNBC Mhmm. And stuff.
Brian:And and he's usually just talking about, like, the the Rivian stock price and, like, is Rivian gonna survive? And can Rivian, you know, like, ramp up their their their their scaling and and factories and stuff like that. Yeah. This interview got into the his this guy as a product leader, product owner. And it it brought my level of respect for him as a technical product guy to a whole other level.
Brian:Like this guy like, love seeing when the CEO is so in tune with how the product is designed and engineered. He started getting into literally how their combustion engine is designed and how they're tweaking it for the R2 and the little product trade offs costs and user experience and UI and the decision to not go with CarPlay and to develop their own software platform.
Justin:Oh, sweet.
Brian:He got so into the weeds that it was so fascinating. And it's like, oh, man. It's like a whole hour of of of taking apart a Rivian and and understanding how it works. And, like, you it's so like, do you think, like, CEO of Ford or GM or or Toyota really knows, like, how their cars are made? Like, not nearly the level of of of how this guy knows how his how his own products are are designed.
Justin:I know. This one looks I haven't listened to this one yet, but this part here, John pitches some car features. I love those segments. Like
Brian:That was a great segment. He was like, yeah. Like, me and my wife have a Rivian, and we have all these, like, feature requests. Like like so he was talking about how like, why is it? And it's it's an interesting question.
Brian:Like, you know the middle the the rearview mirror in the in the center? Mhmm. How come that is not mechanical? Like, we can we can have the mechanical left and right mirrors.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:But I can't remember my like, you know? And he was like,
Justin:it's a because in Tesla, it's like that too. You have to move it. And I've always wondered, why
Brian:You don't have to move it.
Justin:Like, you've got all this eye tracking software. Like, why can't you just have it always track my eyes where I'm looking at and adjusting that way? Know?
Brian:And he talked about how like, well, that is a product trade off. Like, we could build it, but we would have to sacrifice costs somewhere else in the car. Know? And then there was a just just also thinking about, like, Rivian's business model is really fascinating because he talked about how Rivian and Tesla are the only two car companies right now or major ones where the entire car is on its own software platform, you know, where you can literally do it like a software update to have it update the mechanics of how the trunk opens up. You know?
Brian:But every other car on the market, the the the GMs, the Fords, the Toyotas, like, all of them, they are outsourcing every little component.
Justin:Oh, interesting.
Brian:And every every every seat, every rearview mirror, every, like, window, they're each on their own individual computers. So all the all the current Fords out there, all those all the current, you know, whatevers, Mercedes, like, a lot of these, like, they have, like, 200 different computer components on 200 different platforms that they outsource from 200 different suppliers, and they just put it under under, like, a Mercedes brand.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:But Rivian and Tesla control their own software platforms. Yeah. Which is huge. It's huge. But then also, like, I guess they're gonna be he was like, look.
Brian:Over the next five years, AI is gonna make its way into cars in a big, big way. Like intelligence into like how you're driving is gonna impact how this and that works in your car. And like, he was like, every car company is gonna need a centralized software platform. And so, like, Rivian is trying to actually, like, sell that as a platform to other car companies.
Justin:Yeah. Well, I noticed somebody was it Mercedes just announced that they're not using CarPlay anymore? I this is like is the reason I really love this podcast is so here's that moment we were talking about in the transcript. By the way, on transistor, when you link you can actually link to a particular part of the transcript, and then we could play it right here. But So this is John speaking.
Justin:He's saying, last time I saw you, I was asking you about CarPlay and saying how you guys needed to implement it. But then I realized afterwards that I think when people say, so you know this is gonna be gold, He's realizing things oh, sorry. I'm not sharing the tab. He's he's realizing things about what he said before. Like, he's thinking about it.
Justin:So you know this can be good. When people say they want CarPlay or when I said I wanted CarPlay, what I actually want is navigational and traffic data from a source that I trust. This is the kind of stuff that makes me obsessed about this show. If you are a diehard product person, if you are a diehard jobs to be done person, if you are like thinking on this level all the time, this show is like it is it is the best. It's the best show ever for this kind of stuff because it's it's totally unfiltered.
Justin:It's Yeah. It is there's no bullshit. There's no like somebody interviewing the person and they don't know what they're talking about. Like, this is a high level product person talking to another high level product person. We're just gonna get right to why do customers behave this way?
Justin:Why do people buy this way? Why do users use things this way? What motivates people?
Brian:By the way, I loved his answer to that question. So probably in the next paragraph, he said was exactly that. He was like, okay, so we looked at it at the fundamentals, really what is the main benefit or what is the main pain point if we don't go with Apple CarPlay? It's like the lack of quality maps. So we did a Google Maps integration.
Brian:And it's like we solved that fundamental problem with the Google Maps integration. And it's like, that allowed us to move forward with our own, Because that's like a hard requirement. It's like they don't wanna have these fragmented And frankly, it made it clear to me, Apple CarPlay is probably gonna fade away in the next couple of years because every car is gonna need to have its own software platform.
Justin:Yeah. I I just love the the fact that it's called out. Like, there's so many of these things just sitting underneath the surface. And it's like, why yeah. Why do like, for myself, if I'm using CarPlay, I always use Google Maps.
Justin:Well, why? Well, it's just at some point, I didn't like Apple Maps, and I was like, it doesn't consistently give me the results I want. So now I just consistently choose Google. Haven't tried Apple again in years. Well, why is that?
Justin:Well, it's because I want to trust the maps. I'm not going to make that decision every time I get in the car. Apple Maps or Google Maps? No, I'm going to choose the one that works best for me.
Brian:It's true. When I look at maps on the iPhone, pull up Google Maps and not Apple
Justin:And it's the same for why did I want CarPlay in my Tesla? Well, it's because I was using Apple Music and I couldn't use Apple Music. Well, then they added the app. And at first, it sucked, but now it's gotten better. So it's like you can deal with some of these things.
Brian:I I I still think it suck maybe I should try it again, but I I still stream music from Apple Music on the iPhone through the Tesla.
Justin:I know.
Brian:It's so
Justin:frustrating. The but this is, when you actually talk to users or when you actually evaluate, why am I doing this? Why am I behaving in this way? Why do users say they want this and not this? And sometimes it's maddening.
Justin:Like, we'll ask people, why did you switch to transistor? And what will come out was, it just felt right, or I was getting tired of my old the old competitor. And it's like, there's no practical meaty reason that you can just say that you can take and then, you know, create a whole marketing campaign around it. Some people just switch because they're just like, I'm just tired of the old thing. You know?
Justin:Just gotta gotta get something new.
Brian:And, you know, like and and you know and as we've been talking on this show, it's like we we know what it's like to make all these product trade offs and all the many conversations and debates that you have to figure out in order to to make a feature shippable. Like, it's so incredibly difficult for somebody on the outside, like a customer or a user of a thing to know why was making that so simple to use? Why, like, Why was that so complicated to build? Or why can't you make this simpler? Because they don't know about the thousand other use cases that we know about.
Brian:Right? That, again, that's why I have such a high level of respect for founder level people who are in the weeds like that.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:You know? Like like this guy, RJ, like, frankly, like Elon Musk. Like, there's a lot I hate about Elon Musk lately.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:But but, like, that's a big reason why, you know, I I chose to go a Tesla a couple of years ago. It's because I heard him on these deep dive interviews with Lex Friedman or someone else where it's like, this guy knows how the technicalities work in this thing. And he really cares about the experience. There's not many founders at And you could say the same about Steve Jobs back in the day too. These huge, huge well known companies.
Brian:In our industry, it's sort of expected that we're somewhat in the weeds at least. Yeah. But yeah, at at the at the highest level, worldwide level, like, it's it's kind of rare to see.
Justin:I mean, you do notice this already. You if again, you you if you if you drive a Tesla and then you go drive basically any other EV, except for maybe Rivian, I haven't I haven't driven one of those, the the user experience is and the Tesla is better. It's just they've thought through things better. The software is better. Hyundai makes great cars.
Justin:They make great electric cars. But I've been in Hyundai, and the software user experience is not very good. And I think what Tesla figured out was that a lot of what you're doing in the car or what gets you back to the car is the user experience. It's actually Mhmm. All the UI.
Justin:It's all the interacting with UIs. And, yeah, that's that that's why they keep selling cars.
Brian:Yeah. I'm also fascinated with cars as a I'm not even like a car junkie like like a lot of people are, but, like, as a prop like, that's why like, I like I like to splurge a little bit on on the family car because we spend so much time in it. We we go on so many trips, even just day to day. We'll go on day trips all the time. I spend so much time in it that, like, it's it's a product that I use that I somewhat live in sometimes that it's like I really want it to be comfortable.
Brian:I want it to be interesting and fun to drive. You know? And yeah.
Justin:I again, I can't recommend this podcast. I'm gonna listen to this episode too. You've you've definitely convinced me. But there's just so many incredible moments here. Like, he's saying, here, listen.
Justin:The reason that more other EVs aren't selling is they're not that compelling. And the existence proof is that you have a highly compelling product. The existence proof that if you have a compelling product, there will be a lot of demand is Tesla. Like, the product's compelling, and the reason they're selling a lot of Model Ys is there's just not a lot of other choices. Like, when people try them out, they're like, this is still the more compelling choice of my options.
Brian:And there's I don't know. There's something there's also something about this guy, because he he asked about it in the in the early questions in the interview. Because it's sort of fascinating. Like, where the hell did Rivian even come from? You know, where did where did this guy RJ Skringe come from?
Brian:It's like, where do you get off just starting a car company? Who does that? You know? He sort of didn't really have a good answer for that. He was just like, yeah, I just sort of like did it.
Brian:And I I I managed to get to to raise a lot of funding and and managed to have a really good first version, which convinced investors to get on board with a second version. And and so because, like, Elon Musk, like, had the money from PayPal and stuff to start or to get into to Tesla. But, like, yeah, it it it's just a whole it's like a fascinating company in general and, like, trajectory of a of a startup. Mhmm. It's like, who who who's gonna start a competitor to GM, you know, in America?
Brian:Like, it's insane.
Justin:No one's gonna do that. Yeah. I think I gotta wind it down here.
Brian:Yeah, man.
Justin:Good episode, dude. I'm glad we got on the mics again. Nice to see you again, in the chat. Pascal, Dave Junt. We got Beau back again.
Justin:See, some of these names. Helen, I see you in there. Old chatter from the old days. Nice to see you. Ryan Hefner, maybe.
Brian:Nice to everyone.
Justin:Yeah, this is great. And yeah, we'll see you I think next week. We should be back Thursday.
Brian:I should be back.
Justin:Yeah. I'll I'll be here too. So we'll see you next Thursday if you wanna catch us live, or Friday if you're listening after the fact. See you, everyone.
Brian:Thanks, sir. Later.