Do you worry about getting crushed by the competition?
#28

Do you worry about getting crushed by the competition?

Justin:

Trying to think about how I can be more vulnerable on on these and, like, talk more about business stuff.

Brian:

Yes, man. Let's get into it. The hard questions.

Justin:

It's always hard when you've got a real business that's going because there's just not everything you can talk about. But

Brian:

You know, actually, on that note, and we'll talk about your thing right now, but there is something I do wanna talk about that I have been hesitant to talk about on air. Mhmm. And and I'll I'll say it. Alright. Okay.

Brian:

So yeah.

Justin:

Is it something about me? Is this a confrontation?

Brian:

It's it's something I've been meaning to tell this is an intervention, Justin. And No. No. Alright. Yeah.

Brian:

Alright. What do

Justin:

got? Little tease. So one of the things we've been worried about and, you know, I went back to our notes from 2022 from our team retreat. And one of the comments I have in 2022 was, I think as a company, we need to be concerned about recording remote recording applications like SquadCast and Riverside and ZenCaster that are gonna add hosting. And we've had a few waves of this now.

Justin:

Zencastr added hosting back in 2022. And I thought for sure it's gonna happen with Riverside. And this was something that's been on my mind. I think this is the hard thing about being a founder is my sense from talking to people is that most people have this kind of they always want to be optimistic. Like, you know, everything is going to work out.

Justin:

It's fine. We're doing good. Don't worry about it. But I think a founder really needs to hold two things in tandem at the same time, which is there are threats and there are opportunities. We have strengths and we have weaknesses.

Justin:

And when a threat comes around, you have to take it seriously. And when Riverside I knew River I'd I'd gotten a tip back last year that Riverside was working on hosting.

Brian:

And also, like, you don't have to be like, you don't even have to have insider knowledge to to know that, like, it's sort of like an obvious

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Next thing that they would do. Right?

Justin:

And I mean, listen, from as a product person, I I started recording podcasts in 2012. We used Skype call recorder. Recorded three episodes with my buddy, Kyle. After we'd recorded three episodes, we're like, how are we going to distribute this? And if Skype Call Recorder had said, hey, we've got a way of getting these things you've recorded onto Apple Podcasts, I would have been like, sweet.

Justin:

I'm gonna try that out. Right? It makes sense in the funnel. The funnel is everybody in the world that thinks about recording a podcast. They go and try to figure that out.

Justin:

Riverside is getting a lot of the top of that funnel. And then the next part of that funnel is how am I going to edit it? And then the next part of that funnel is how am I gonna distribute it to so I've been worried about it.

Brian:

I I on the on the question of being worried about it, I just to poke at that a little bit. Yep. Are you worried about it theoretically from like a like what you just described? Like, if you if I think about the typical customer, that's how how they would probably think about it. Or are you actually noticing changes in the numbers and the number of trials or traffic or support questions?

Brian:

Like, any actual indicators that this is actually a thing?

Justin:

A few things. A few historical indicators. So I had friends that were in the remote recording business. I knew multiple companies that had a very big piece of that pie. And I saw Riverside come in and take a lot of their lunch.

Brian:

You mean because of their first product, like the recording product?

Justin:

The recording. Yeah. So in the remote recording space, I knew two of the biggest players. And I I saw I talked with those founders year after year, and they're just like, Riverside is kind of crushing. And they were just executing so well on the marketing front and on the product front.

Justin:

So I had seen them come into another category before and crush. And not just like, oh, there's room for everybody. Like, we're all doing great. No, like, take away huge amounts of of market share.

Brian:

And and, you know, I I'm sorry. I forgot his name. He hopped on Nadav hopped on our show impromptu, what, like, two, three weeks ago.

Justin:

He's listening right now probably. Probably.

Brian:

You know, founder of of Riverside, which was such a great conversation. And as I as I said on that one, I'll say it again here, I could I could see where you're coming from, Justin, like, in feeling like Riverside is a threat because they're the type of threat that, like, man, they're just so

Justin:

good. Yes.

Brian:

You know? It's like it's one thing to like, I I've got competitors in in all all the businesses I've ever done, and I'm you know, I always look at them like, yeah. Some are good. Some are I I feel like I have different strengths, and they have different strengths, and and this and that. And and so then I could sort of, like, justify, alright.

Brian:

Well, like, I could find our our lane, and we can both coexist here. Yep. But then when you're but when you see someone come along that's like, yeah, they they truly we're literally using Riverside right now. Yes. And it's a great product.

Brian:

You know?

Justin:

I tried tried using some of the alternatives in the past couple weeks for remote recording. Yeah. It is the best. And this is the second thing that I think concerned me was I go to podcast conferences. I'm hanging out with podcasters all the time.

Justin:

I myself am actively recording. You and I have the show. I have another show with Jeremy. Every once in a while, I record a show with Build Your Sass. I'm a guest on many, many podcasts.

Justin:

Consistently, Riverside is ubiquitous. It is one of those things that everybody uses. It's like being at a Ruby on Rails conference. In the old days, everyone was using a Mac. Now everyone's maybe using Linux on a PC.

Justin:

It's just like, what are people? People like us do things like this. What are people in this space doing consistently? And you just cannot deny that evidence. If you're in the space, you're like, everybody what's more surprising to me is how little Riverside's competitors come up in the remote recording.

Justin:

So if you see someone saying, hey, recommend me something online, a Facebook thread or a Reddit thread or a Slack thread, or just at a conference. Hey, like, what do you guys use in record? Oh, I use Riverside. Oh, I use Riverside. Oh, I use so six people said they use Riverside.

Justin:

Very few people are recommending anything else. And so it it just

Brian:

So okay. But, like, I I think all that's true and valid. But maybe playing devil's advocate, but also just thinking more optimistically here, historically, hopefully still true today, the the mindset of the bootstrapped SaaS or bootstrapped anything is, of course, there are both well funded competitors or just highly skilled competitors or just Mhmm. Executing really well. Those are always going to exist.

Brian:

That's just a reality. The the playbook of the Bootstrapper is, like, we don't have to own the market. We don't even have to dominate the market, but we can have a great, great business carving out our lane in a popular market. Why would that still not be the case for transistor?

Justin:

I mean, because there's evidence that that's that doesn't that narrative is there there's maybe some generalized truth to that narrative. But specifically, I mean, there was a I don't want to name names because but there was a an early entrant in this category in remote recording that was started by a bootstrapper. He did very, very well for years and years and years. He was one of the indicators for me that podcasting was worth getting into because I he was sharing his revenue numbers with me, and he was doing so well. He owned the market.

Justin:

He it was basically him and Skype call recorder. That's that And he had, like, 80%.

Brian:

I I'm trying to guess who we were talking about. Okay. I think I have an idea.

Justin:

And so But I but that's

Brian:

still I I hear you, but, like, that's still just the recording piece, and Transistor has never been recording. So, like, I guess on on continuing on my line of thought here is,

Justin:

like Yeah.

Brian:

You you've always been hosting. Why can't that still work? Because, like, if you think about it on the inverse, right, like, you you're not considering getting into the recording side of the stack.

Justin:

I mean, we're considering everything all the time. I think that's part of the I think this is what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about what I'm expressing right now is the stage where you are holding two things that feel opposite at the same time, without and just sitting with it in a way that is you don't even have to act on it right away. But it's just an acknowledgment that this is a legitimate threat. But at the same time, we have legitimate strengths and opportunities on our side as well.

Justin:

Could this crush us? Absolutely. Is there anything we can do about it? Maybe. Is it going to be an existential threat every single day from this day forth?

Justin:

Maybe it could be. So we gotta watch it. We gotta you know, the first thing we did is we started tracking how many people were redirecting how many existing customers were redirecting away from transistor.

Brian:

Oh, you could see that

Justin:

in To Riverside.

Brian:

I mean, that's interesting.

Justin:

Yeah. I

Brian:

forgot about that technical piece of it. Like, I like, I have people churn and and you know, because they're switching to some other alternative. And I always ask them, like, what's what's your alternative? What are you gonna do instead? And sometimes they tell me, sometimes they don't.

Brian:

But I don't know for sure. But you have you could actually see where they're gonna redirect their feed

Justin:

to.

Brian:

That is really interesting.

Justin:

Yeah. We have we have pieces of data coming in with new trials, and we have pieces of data with people coming out with cancellations. So I'm I'm emailing people when they cancel. I'm also emailing people when they sign up. And then we can also see where do they redirect to, and we can also see how many people redirect back to us.

Brian:

Back to you, meaning, like, they are switching from another host or like

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

That's awesome.

Justin:

So so a big one that happened one of the early existential threats we had was Anchor came out, and it was free podcast hosting.

Brian:

Mhmm.

Justin:

And so we watched it, And we saw a spike of people redirecting to Anchor. And I remember calling up Nathan Barry, and he said, listen, it's true. Anchor could destroy you. But here's how it's played out in the email market. Substack came along with a free product, Redirects spiked, like people switching to Substack spiked.

Justin:

But then what happened was we it ended up just being a bigger funnel for us. So people would start on the free thing, and then when they wanted to upgrade to something more pro, they would go to us. That could happen with you guys. And we've seen that. We can see people redirecting their anchor feeds to us when I ask them, hey.

Justin:

What brought you here? They say, well, we were just looking for the for more pro.

Brian:

Like a good example of the of the big spike that from a from a competitor or a threat that's, like, maybe really good on the marketing front or or freemium, so they're really attractive for pricing, but the product side wasn't wasn't there. Right?

Justin:

Yes. Yeah. I mean, yes. I I think it's just what think

Brian:

one, I could see how this is more of, like, their threat because they've they've been around for years. They're executing on both product and marketing. It's not like a just a spike. It's sort of just a gradual growth and domination. But also, like but my other pushback would be like, okay.

Brian:

Yeah. Like, we acknowledge they're they're gonna be an elephant and continue to be for for the foreseeable future. When when you say this could crush us.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

What does that actually mean? How how would crushing you actually play out? Because in my mind, that would not happen overnight. Because it it not like, I could see how it could crush, like, new customer acquisition, and that could be bad. But it would also require, like, your existing customers to churn in droves, which is harder to see happen.

Brian:

Right?

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, when they announced it, the day they announced it, we saw a spike of people canceling and redirecting. The nice thing is that we've now since we've been tracking it, that spike went up and then it went down. So that at least the and and really, like, you know, I don't want to give exact numbers, but we have like 36,000 podcasts. We're talking low double digits of podcasts that switched.

Brian:

Mhmm. Okay.

Justin:

So it's nice to have things in context. The one thing that we got to watch still is it could eat up our new sign ups. And in our market, in the creator market, I think this is true for Kit. I think this is true for any sort of kind of creator prosumer tool. You're highly dependent on new sign ups.

Justin:

So our LTV is actually pretty good. It's probably, I don't know, $900, a thousand bucks LTV. So people are sticking around a long time, generally on average. But in order to outrun churn, you need 10 to 20 sign ups a day. And then we convert 70 to 75% of those trials to paid.

Brian:

And I do I do agree with you from the like, I even if, like, the quote, unquote, crushing your business happens gradually over several years, like, that's still not good for your business. So I I also agree that, like, it's not ideal to just it's not enough to just exist as as an option. Like, there has to be a reason why people should choose transistor.

Justin:

That's right. Yeah.

Brian:

Like like, from a product standpoint.

Justin:

That's right.

Brian:

Like, there there has to be some unique benefit or some lane that's like, if like like you said, like, people like us do what is it? Like, do things like this?

Justin:

Like People like us do things like this. Yeah. People like us go to Starbucks. People like us go

Brian:

What's the story there? It's like, why why would somebody not use Riverside and and choose Transistor instead? And, like, maybe that story still still is yet to be told in in the next twelve, twenty four months. You know?

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, and it's multilayered as well. For me personally, even in the chat here, I and this can be a personality thing. But I see people kind of like trying to reassure me or, you know, like pushing back on these feelings. And I'm what I'm trying to say is I'm completely fine with these feelings.

Justin:

I'm fine with these feelings coexisting at the same time.

Brian:

This is the job. Like

Justin:

This is the job.

Brian:

You're supposed to be dealing with these feelings. Yeah.

Justin:

And personally, I I might even be more adept at holding these things in tension and not being overly bothered by it. I because all I know, like, the forces that exert themselves on a market, some of them are outside of my control. And I also recognize every day that there are forces outside my market that could crush us. Right now, the steel industry in Canada is being crushed by tariffs. Those companies are going out of business.

Justin:

Those forces are outside of those companies control. They're laying off thousands of people. It sucks. That's that's possible for all of us.

Brian:

Of our governments people. Could I apologize. That wasn't my idea.

Justin:

Any of our governments could wake up tomorrow and said say, you know what? New tax, 300% tax on all SaaS revenue, or 300% sales tax on all SaaS purchases. There's all sorts of things outside of our control. And that could crush us. Just because you started a business and it works doesn't mean you get a license to print money for the rest of your life.

Justin:

That is just doesn't work. Adam Waddon has this great new podcast right now. Adam's Walk. Have you been listening to that?

Brian:

Love it. Yeah.

Justin:

It's great. Such a good show. Everyone should go listen to it. I'll I'll link to it in the show notes. But, you know, his business is getting crushed by by AI in the sense that his all of his market, all of the money was kind of flowing through SEO, people going to the docs, and then him being able to sell.

Justin:

There's things outside of his control that have happened. And so this is the job, which is recognizing these things. Yep. That's a threat. Not going overboard.

Justin:

Like, I'm not gonna run around like a chicken with my head cut off, but going, this is a legitimate threat. And let's start to think about our responses. So one And, you

Brian:

know, the other phrase that comes to mind is like, what got us here won't won't get us there.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

You know? Exactly. Like, what you're describing here is and what you're going through with this well, go like, you're not actually going through it. You're identifying it as a potential threat in the future. Right?

Brian:

Like, your your business is still doing fine today. But but you're totally right to be taking this seriously and thinking a lot about it. Right? Yes. And and so what I what I wanna say on that is is that, like, this is, to me, is way harder than starting a new business.

Brian:

Like, what you like, because you like, changing changing your path when you already have an established successful business is extremely, extremely difficult.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

You know? Because, like, it's not only the fact that, like, you guys are a public like, you know, like like, you you already have an audience and a customer base. So anything you do, you have to tread carefully, like, not to disrupt what you already have. But then also just mentally for you and your team to think through, like, how can we even think, like reframe our mind of like what our own business and our own product actually is if we've been living this reality for years. Like, it's it's so much harder than just starting something from nothing, you know?

Justin:

Yeah. And being able to because I talked to my team about it. And I said and they had the first thing is like, what do we do about this? And my first answer my first answer to that question is, I just want us to sit with this for a little bit. I just want us to feel it.

Justin:

And I'm not asking them to feel it as much as I'm feeling it. But let's just sit and and let this simmer for a while. Yeah. What's the what's the second thing we're gonna do? Well, the second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna keep doing the things that did get us here that work.

Justin:

We're gonna keep offering great customer service. We're gonna keep offering unlimited podcasts for one price. We're gonna continue to have the simplest, most reliable, easiest to navigate product. And we're gonna keep releasing features, you know, on a nice cadence. We're not gonna mess with any of that.

Justin:

Okay. What's the next thing we're gonna do? Well, the next thing we're gonna do is try to come up with a few hedges, a few insurance policies. So, you know, what are some other adjacent things we could do that might give us a little hedge? I mean, one little hedge that we have is we added this AI transcription add on.

Justin:

And that brings in thousands of dollars of new MRR every month that we wouldn't have normally had. Now all of a sudden, we've got this nice little it was just like this. Oh, nice little bump. Gives us even more cushion. Gives us even more breathing room.

Justin:

Perfect. That worked well.

Brian:

I'd be thinking about, and there's honestly very few, but there definitely are probably some examples of companies that established themselves and, like, did well in one in one version and then pivoted after they were large and Yeah. Became something new. And, I mean, I I I don't have any really good examples off the top of my head, but one that I just started using myself this week is Vimeo. When they started many years ago, right, like, what, fifteen, twenty years ago Yeah. They they were the alternative to YouTube.

Brian:

They they were trying to be YouTube.

Justin:

Kind of a artsy YouTube, like A little artsy. But, like If you had, like, your own, like, little indie film studio, you would put stuff on a

Brian:

bit more of that vibe. But, technically, they were the same product as you it was like a big it was essentially another video social network.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

You know, just like YouTube. But at some point, they figured out in the last couple of years that they're not YouTube. They're they're not gonna be YouTube. Right? And so this week, like, I so I needed a video solution to have my semi private videos hosted on, like the the ones that I share with Builder Methods Pro members.

Brian:

So, like, the ones that I don't publish to YouTube, I need a place to put videos that I'm sharing with just my private membership. Yep. And I I sort of bounced around using Loom and using Tele. And Loom, man, what a since they've been acquired,

Justin:

Did they get bought by awful PEEP? Oh, okay.

Brian:

Dude, their product-

Justin:

Downhill?

Brian:

Like, they they completely crashed and lost a bunch of my video a couple weeks ago. And and then and then Tella, thought was pretty promising, but then they too had had trouble, like, processing my four k videos. So just last week, I started putting my private videos on Vimeo. Mhmm. And it just works beautifully.

Brian:

And then I was in there. I was like, oh, they've got all this stuff that's, like, really catering to my actual use case, which is, like, sort of sharing, like, private videos in in an area, you know. And I don't know. They've got all sorts of tools in there that I haven't even dug into, because I didn't even know that they existed inside Vimeo. But like clearly, they're a very different product than they were back in the day.

Brian:

You know? Like, there's gotta be other examples of that. I wonder who if any other other ones come to mind of, like, they were one thing when they started, and now there's something totally different.

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, Adam is trying to make that transition right now. And I think the the thing you want to do is you want to take it's more of an iteration or a, you know, you're jumping off whatever place you are you're at already. It's it's not you're not trying to reinvent everything from scratch. That I think is difficult, like, to reinvent something completely new.

Justin:

But he's saying, like, let's take, you know, the existing business and let's use our audience. Let's use our skills. Let's use all these assets we have and try to move it a different way. And I think that's what we would be doing as well.

Brian:

Yeah. It's I don't wanna speak about, like, other people's businesses, but I think that that is what what you're talking about is probably a pretty common thread with other podcast related businesses. You know? But I I do think that you all you all in the podcasting space have like, in my mind, as somebody like, an outsider looking in, like, it's it's so it's always easier to to armchair armchair quarterback somebody else's business in a completely different industry. Yeah.

Brian:

But so but I do think that you you do to me, the obvious sidestep is that you are already plugged into the creator economy, and the creator economy is not just podcasting. It's obviously more YouTube and and just video in general, but then there then you think about all the people who are building businesses off of their podcast. Like, not people who are just selling sponsorships, but, like, just people who like, they are in the audience business. Like like so creators. You know?

Brian:

Other products slash services slash SaaS that like, it it doesn't even have to be even remotely tied to technically podcasting, but, like, podcasters also have communities or podcasters also sell services or podcasters also whatever.

Justin:

I mean, easiest one for us right now is podcasters also have a website, and we already There's offer no reason we couldn't make websites a paid service as well. So that's an opportunity. AI transcription is still a huge opportunity. Like we way more

Brian:

folks And that one, I don't I don't know if I told It you is

Justin:

because we have an existing customer base that could be using it.

Brian:

Yeah. But Riverside does it. That's the problem.

Justin:

They do it. But we're the we're the ones that do diarization better. If if you get to the point where you're you're uploading it to us, maybe not from Riverside, but if you're uploading it to us and you wanna transcribe your show, there's still thousands of potential customers for that that haven't upgraded yet.

Brian:

If I'm yeah. If if I'm you, I would be thinking more outside the box. You know? Like, transcripts just feels like, yeah, it's it's another feature that's obviously tied to podcasting. Like, of of course, you already offer it.

Brian:

Like Yeah. It makes sense. But, like, I would be thinking about, like, what what does the the transistor video platform Mhmm.

Justin:

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Justin:

We're we're we're considering all that stuff. Here's an here's another interesting thing that I think again, it's helpful to keep things in mind. I'm only gonna show this for a second because I do I share too much stuff on here. But this is our trial sign ups. And trials are killing it right now.

Brian:

So What's the time frame on this?

Justin:

Oh, it's 12/31/2022 to we just had November. Right?

Brian:

So for those listening and not watching, mostly flattish with some with some spikes between 2022 and and 2024. Yeah. And then 2025, it's clearly going up.

Justin:

Yes. Yeah. We're if if this is the baseline here, this one line, almost every month in 2025 so far has been above this this line that we've never hit before. So trials are up this year quite a bit. And that is encouraging that, you know, it's something I'm gonna keep watching.

Justin:

Like, it could because those things those indicators, they're lagging. So you don't see things sometimes for a while.

Brian:

But Trials are up. So what else is up? Is is traffic up?

Justin:

Traffic is still doing great. And especially referrals from things that we had invested in for a long time. Reddit, SEO, content, videos, customer support. It's all feeding in a lot of that stuff's feeding into LLMs. We're doing we're getting really nice referrals from LLMs.

Justin:

Great referrals from word-of-mouth. Great referrals. Like, it's a lot of these engines that we've been working on for a while are working well. I think the reason you see trials increasing this year is there was this we had what's the what's the I don't know what the metaphor is, but I don't know. It's like we've been pumping up a balloon underwater and just now naturally because of I think AI and LLMs, we're getting lift.

Justin:

We're just getting all sorts of lift this year that is benefiting us in terms of trials.

Brian:

Yeah. And also like the the obviously the obvious other question there is like, how are those trials converting?

Justin:

So 70 to 75% of trials will convert to paid.

Brian:

Nice. That's that's fantastic. So I mean

Justin:

Our our funnel is great. I love our funnel. This is another reason I think I made a video about this. But if you can, having credit card upfront when you're starting a new business, it just simplifies your funnel so much. So people have to it adds a lot of friction.

Justin:

Like you can imagine, we could have way more sign ups if we didn't require credit card upfront. You know, I understand it even as a customer. Like, oh, god. I gotta take my credit card out. But I've always liked that.

Justin:

And I haven't changed it since we started the business because it shows that customer motivation Jordan just talked about this on his podcast on Off-site. It shows that the customer is so motivated, they will jump over that hurdle. And you want that. That's what you want.

Brian:

A year ago, I even stopped doing trials. They they pay upfront for Clarity Flow.

Justin:

It's it's Same same

Brian:

with builder methods.

Justin:

There's something nice about it. Now it's not I'm not saying it's the panacea or the right answer for everything. But it really simplifies your funnel. You sign up with a credit card, fourteen day free trial. People either cancel or they go through or they convert to paid.

Justin:

And it helps you diagnose all sorts of problems. It just it's easier and cleaner. I recommend it at the beginning, at least for your first two years, I think, because you will learn so much having a simple funnel. It's just way easier to

Brian:

100%.

Justin:

Understand things how they work.

Brian:

Yeah. And it also just sort of like it it just removes the second buying decision.

Justin:

Yes. Yes.

Brian:

You know? Like, they don't have to, like, decide to to sign up and then two weeks later decide to take out their credit card.

Justin:

You know? You're you're upfronting all of that all all of that pain.

Brian:

The I mean, like, maybe one more hypothesis on why the general numbers just just kind of float upward in 2025 would be I have no data on this, but I I would I would think that, like, yes, you're probably right about, like, all the all the years of content and being everywhere and being on Reddit and and SEO, and now that's filtered into ChatGPT, that, of course, makes sense. And I I think a lot of the best practices of SEO and content marketing also translate really nicely into ChatTubt and Cloud optimization. Right? I I see the same thing with my businesses. But the Yeah.

Brian:

But I also think that the general and this could be also this could actually end up being your hedge against the Riverside's is that the we we could be entering I think we are entering another another new maybe a second wave of podcasting and media and video. But but that would include that would also sweep up podcasting. Like, peep more and more people, more regular people, more normies are starting podcasts than they did five, six years ago. Yes. And, like, every single celebrity ever now has a podcast, which they didn't used to have that didn't used to be the case.

Brian:

Yeah. You know? And so, obviously, like, more celebrities do it, then the more normies do it, and now you see more trials. Right? Like Mhmm.

Brian:

Mhmm. I I could see that being the case. And also just like if you think about AI with, like, people who do care about audience, They used to be able to grow an audience just just with written content. But, like, now with AI and all the noise and social media, like, the the way to break through and have audience loyalty is to be speaking into microphone or talking on a camera. You

Justin:

know? Yes. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Justin:

And this is like I mean, this is also that Cheeky Pint podcast is so good. They I I'm listening to the one whom oh, it's funny because I don't actually don't like Marc Andreessen. But the episode with Marc Andreessen is very good. And one of the things they talk about is just that the reason SaaS in general is still doing well is there's still just so much more people coming online, so many more businesses coming online. The market for SaaS is still actually bigger than ever and just getting bigger.

Justin:

And so there's, you know, every there there's more businesses being started, more people graduating from college, like, it just increases and that increases the whole market. So yeah. For sure. Yeah. So that's a little picture of

Brian:

That's what your existential crisis.

Justin:

Yeah. Mean, it's not honestly, this is less existential for me than the worry that consumers will end up not listening to audio podcasts or sorry, that consumers will switch to YouTube as their primary entertainment client for everything. Whether it's watching, listening, or whatever. I think that's still an existential threat.

Brian:

That one doesn't seem as immediate to me.

Justin:

No. This one is so far, this one here's okay. What do you got on your end? What what I no. We're gonna chat about?

Justin:

Oh, you got lots. You got lots.

Brian:

I'll try to get my well, I'll just get my business update in in here because I feel like it's builder methods is working really, really well.

Justin:

Nice.

Brian:

I I kinda can't believe it. It's I'm I'm like, I'm I'm in the fourth straight month of sort of just crushing whatever revenue goals I had for it.

Justin:

Oh, dude.

Brian:

And and it's and it's one of those things where it's like the first two months of that, I was like, oh, great. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Got another sales.

Brian:

Sweet. And then and then it's like the third month. Now fourth month, it's like, wait. Why what's happening? Why did why did they keep buying this thing?

Brian:

It's working.

Justin:

Like, you're seeing it work. Like

Brian:

yeah. And, like, I keep I I like, I'm obsessively checking, like, Stripe and and notifications and stuff. Like, it's just and and but, like

Justin:

That's awesome, dude.

Brian:

That has triggered that that's like okay. So now now it's, like, on to the next step, the next phase of this. But I have to step back and acknowledge that, like, I like now that I'm in the fourth month of this, I'm starting to gain a little bit of comfort and security that, like, funnel is working better than anything I've ever had before. There's clearly that that that wave of demand was not a fluke for the first month or two. It's repeating, and it's growing.

Brian:

The YouTube channel keeps working. The newsletter, the sales daily, hourly. Like, it's and but so so now I'm starting to gain the security and the confidence and the comfort that, like, this is the thing that I'm building.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

I I have a lot more work to do the delivery of value, feel. But clearly to me, this is my business now for the foreseeable future, that's what I've been after for What a good feeling. It's such a good feeling, dude. Like, I'm I'm finally starting to, like, accept that, like, okay, this is this thing is good. Yeah.

Brian:

And and what that also means logistically is I have stopped consulting. Like, it's done. Wow. I I had my How does that feel? Fucking great, dude.

Justin:

Because because that's been, like, every week. It's like you're running Clarity Flow. You're doing work for clients, and then you're working on the new stuff.

Brian:

Yeah. That and to be to be more clear about it, like, yes, I was taking for a while there, was taking consulting projects, and I would still delegate most of the work. So it it still wasn't super time consuming from an hour standpoint, but it's still dealing with clients. It's still managing my my developer's work and delivering it and and all that kind of stuff.

Justin:

It's on your it's on your brain.

Brian:

It's like On my brain.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian:

And and like when a when a client emails in with questions about their project that they paid a lot of money for, like, I have to prioritize that. Like, you know? And so so that's done. Like, that that's been done for over a month. And I and also so then I randomly get, like, new I I had my I used to have a website called instrumentalproducts.com, which was, like, sort of like my consulting page where people would put in a a that that's where the leads would come from.

Brian:

And then randomly, they would they would still come in and, like, book a sales call for to hire me as a dev consultant. Somebody randomly did that the other day, and it's not gonna turn into a real project. And and then after that, was like, alright. I gotta shut this off and just redirect it to my personal site. And that's that's what I did.

Justin:

So so no more

Brian:

So that's out. Oh,

Justin:

like coaching and training now goes to builder methods.

Brian:

Yes.

Justin:

Got it. Yeah. Nice, man.

Brian:

So that's that piece, which was has been a huge goal of mine for the last two, three years. Because I I I was I only brought consulting back into my mix just to kinda hold me over until I figure out what my next business is. Yeah. And I I think I've I've figured that out now.

Justin:

There's there's something that's so refreshing. Like, when you're in those phases of the entrepreneurial journey, there's these cycles. And I remember right before Transistor, I was in a cycle of like, I had a bunch of things going. You know, I had I was doing some consulting, product and marketing consulting with all sorts of teams. I had the mega maker community.

Justin:

I had some courses and programs, tiny marketing wins, and marketing for developers and some other things. And I was trying I was building some SaaS projects as well. And so I just remember, like, you're just like, okay. I'm gonna try this. Gonna try this.

Justin:

Just try this. This is gonna keep the lights on. And there's something once we were I can't remember how many months into Transistor. Maybe it was six, eight. I can't remember.

Justin:

But at some point, eight months in, I was like, this is working. I'm gonna start getting rid of this stuff. I'm gonna start letting stuff go. Fuck. It felt good.

Justin:

It just felt so good to, like, feel like you had all these things in the air. And you're just working, and you're exploring, and you're trying to find something. And then it's like, you know what? I can drop this. You know what?

Justin:

I'm gonna drop this.

Brian:

I could drop that. And it's like it's it's also not just it's not just about dropping the hours or the commitment to that thing. It's the it's the feeling of, like, I've I've got something that's already so much better. Mhmm. So so I feel secure

Justin:

in Yes.

Brian:

In letting that go. I think in in my case, it it it the last two, three years was a little bit more painful. And and obviously, folks who've been listening to to my stuff for a long time, they they know this story. But, like, I had already phased out consulting once before Mhmm. Like, years ago when I had audience ops.

Brian:

Yeah. Right? Like, I started out as like a freelance, you know, web designer and then did a did sort of that mini agency thing for a while. Then I built and sold restaurant engine and then and then built Audience Ops and then completely just phased out all all the consulting. And then I was just doing Audience Ops for a while.

Brian:

Right? And then and then Audience Ops was automated, and then I can just hack on on on learning how to code and stuff. Mhmm. So, like, I had already gained that freedom back in 2017, 2018. Yeah.

Brian:

And then then sold Audience Ops and then tried to start and started ZipMessage and Clarity Flow and Mhmm. And all that. And and then, you know, five years later into Clarity Flow, it sort of chugged along, but back to a point where I did have to like, it was it was painful for me to, like, have to resort back to consulting when it was, like, something that I felt like I had already exited. Mhmm. And so now, finally, with builder methods, I'm feeling pretty pretty good about the fact that, like, I I think I can get back out of it now.

Brian:

Yeah. But then but then the the next thing, and this is this is the thing I was I was on the fence I've been on the fence about sharing publicly about Clarity Flow. I don't have any anything any real news. I'm not gonna get any into any details, but, like, that's the other thing now that I'm starting to actively try to figure out what the plan is from there. And that's that can be a number of different things.

Brian:

Mhmm. I have nothing to report here, but, like, I'll I'll I I will say publicly, like, I'm I'm open to just selling it and and exiting

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

To the right person or right company and and if for the right outcome for everyone involved. But the but the but a very real alternative to that is to just continue to hold it and maintain it long term. And there are there are good realities to both of those things. But the again, like, right now compared to six, eight, ten months ago Mhmm. Like, I was still in the mindset of a year ago, ten months ago, I was still in the mindset of, I am moving on.

Brian:

I'm looking for something new to to get into, But I didn't have that thing yet.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

So Clarity Flow has been a significant chunk of my income for these years, like coupled with the consulting. But Clarity Flow was the only like steady recurring thing that I had. Yeah. Now fast forward to now, I I do have that replaced with with builder methods, and and I'm feeling more secure that that's gonna continue to grow. So I'm feeling more comfortable with the idea of of letting that one go as well.

Brian:

So so that's that's, like, the the open question. It'll be interest I'm not gonna I'm not gonna, like, report publicly on the evolution of that. I I did wanna just sort of say, like

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

I think

Justin:

I think people should also know, like, Clarity Flow, in terms of revenue and some other metrics, by most independent Bootstrapper metrics, it is an incredible success. Like, it's it's like it hit some milestones that are substantial.

Brian:

It's interesting. It's interesting. And I'm not gonna talk real numbers here, but it it is interesting. It's it it behind the scenes, it is a very I think it's a fascinating case study in SaaS as a business because it has hit some milestones that that most bootstrapped, you know, early founders kind of dream of. Yep.

Brian:

But but there are also some harder realities that a lot of bootstrappers are not aware of, especially if you have a family and and have requirements and

Justin:

Oh, yeah.

Brian:

Their the the costs involved. And also, like, the the the volatility of of SaaS in general. And yeah. That whole that

Justin:

whole game. But for the right person, like, Clarity Flow would be an incredible business to buy. Like, for the right person, it's like

Brian:

Especially if there's like a strategic fit. Yeah. It's like it's it it it it I think it actually can be a multiplier. And and that that's also like, take my interest and my and whatever whatever you wanna think about the financials out of it. Like, another thing that is important to me is is, like, the future of it for the customer base.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

I have one person working on it, and she would probably go with it. But, like, the like, one of the things that I honestly just don't feel so great about is holding something and not giving it the resources and attention and and energy that I think that this I think it's a great product. I still use it myself every day. Like, I it it deserves more. It deserves more resources and push behind it than I'm able to actually give it.

Brian:

And that that's a feeling that I've had in the past. Like same thing with Audience Ops. It got to a point where I was like, there's a lot of potential here, but I just can't give it what it needs anymore. And that's sort of where I'm at with it.

Justin:

I just did some back I think because I use Clarity Flow a lot. I think I've uploaded over 400 videos to Clarity Flow. I've got a lot of videos in here.

Brian:

It's also like one of those weird things to even think about, like, letting it go because I do use it so much. Like, it's it's the way I communicate with so many different people. You know

Justin:

what the thing I still love about it is because I I use it for basically uploading private videos that I don't want other people to see. For a while, I was doing this with unlisted videos on YouTube, but it just felt like not secure enough. The one thing I love about because I I use it for demo videos all the time, is I'll send it to the demo video, and then I get notified when they watch it.

Brian:

Yep.

Justin:

That that alone, I'm just like, oh, it's so good. It's like

Brian:

worth it. Was always that that was a very early feature that we had from the Zip Message days, and and I think that was a a little product. I didn't intend it to be this. I just felt like they should be notified. But that has the effect of adding stickiness.

Brian:

Because when you're a new customer

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

And you get that first notification that, like, oh, my client just watched it.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Like, keeps you that that's the difference between signing up for a new trial on day one and then forgetting about it on day three. And then by day three, you get a little notification. It's like, oh, yeah. Alright. I'm using this thing now.

Justin:

Well, here's the other joke is that I'll use it to give, like, product feedback to people at Spotify and Apple Podcasts and all these things. And often you send an email and you're like, I don't know if anyone even watched that. But I'll send an email and to multiple people, and and I'll just watch those notifications go, oh, someone just watched it. Oh, oh, there's a big influx of watches. Like, somebody just shared it in Slack or something.

Justin:

Yeah. It's it's an awesome feature.

Brian:

The thing the thing that I love about it as a product is the long super long running async conversations that I have with people. Mhmm. So, I mean, sometimes it's just a friend or or an adviser, and we would literally have there are some people that I have had, like, year long years long Wow. Single conversation with in Clarity Flow. Yeah.

Brian:

And you can just go through the the sidebar in a conversation and sort of pull back these old threads, and it just scrolls right back to it. And same thing with, like, client like, all of my all that consulting client stuff, I had zero, I mean, zero calls. Mhmm. Maybe one sales call up front at the beginning, but then I would work with a client for multiple months, and we would just go back and forth in Clarity Flow the whole time. That's it.

Brian:

It's awesome.

Justin:

You know? I'm also gonna use it. We'll see if this works. But because transistors in The US and I'm in Canada, I have to pay a pretty expensive accounting firm to do all my taxes. And so typical like, this is one of those big firms like KPMG and PwC.

Justin:

They're they're all over the place. But every engagement I have with them, a Zoom call means that four people from their office join, and it costs thousands of dollars. And so this year, I was like, they're like, hey. It's time for this year's engagement. I'm like, you know what?

Justin:

This year, I'm gonna send you guys a video, and I'm gonna just walk through this year's stuff. If you have questions, you can reply to the video. You can reply to the email. But instead of us stacking all these people on a Zoom call that's just costing me money, let's just try this approach. So I'll report back.

Justin:

Might save me thousands of dollars this year.

Brian:

I wish more people in the world would just embrace asynchronous.

Justin:

For certain things, it's so much better. Yeah.

Brian:

I've had really serious deep conversations in an asynchronous format. And I I often think that it's I really honestly think that it's, like, better than a live

Justin:

call Interesting.

Brian:

In many in many ways. Like, it's because it because on when you're on a Zoom call, you're on the spot. Mhmm. If they ask you a question, I have to respond to you with the first thing that comes to my mind. But if I'm in a serious conversation with someone, like, if you me a question, like, I want to be able to gather my thoughts and prepare, maybe even, like, record and then rerecord, especially if it's like high stakes.

Brian:

Like, I've had like negotiations and stuff where it's like, I gotta be really careful with my my response here. You

Justin:

know? Yeah. Yeah. I always thought a pod like, dear John is it dear John that the the Hank and you guys know who I'm talking about on YouTube? Dear John, Hank, Williams.

Justin:

No. No. No. No. Hank.

Justin:

You too. Hey, guys. Just let me just who are those guys? The Vlogbrothers. Vlogbrothers.

Justin:

That's who I'm talking about.

Brian:

Justin's Justin's live goob

Justin:

in That's that's basically their they they they have a show that's based on that where one brother's like, hey, buddy. Here's what's going on. And then the other brother makes a video to to respond. I thought that would be cool for like, you could use Clarity Flow for that too. Like, you could have one person talk and then another person it would be a much different show.

Brian:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah. But there would be something about that would be interesting.

Brian:

But the other thing that I'm so this isn't actually live. I don't even have a a page up for it yet. I I hope that I will well, next week, I'm going away on vacation, going to Costa Rica.

Justin:

So Yeah, dude. That's awesome.

Brian:

So, yeah, I'm pretty psyched about that. Just, you know, no kids. Me and Amy just going down there for a week.

Justin:

Gosh.

Brian:

But I will have a five hour flight to get down there, so I'm sure I'll I'll work on something. I might get this. So so this thing called Design OS is

Justin:

Oh, yeah. We gotta talk about this.

Brian:

Something new that I'm really I'm really, really excited about this. I I think it's gonna require a little bit of explaining and showing before people really get it. Yes. It is a new it's not super new, but it's a it's a the thing that I've ever since I've been working on how do we build with AI Mhmm. The the question in my mind is is how do we deal with the front end design part of the of the development process?

Brian:

I I really do think that we have to fundamentally rethink our process now that we're in an AI first era. It it's not we are not recreating the traditional process anymore, and we can't we can't and we shouldn't because it just doesn't work in this new paradigm.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

That's my belief. And and and what I mean by that is, like, the the old way was we if we need to design a website or design an app, like, I'm more focused on on designing apps and UI. Mhmm. So the old way would have been, okay, concept for an app. Now let's wireframe it in something like Balsamiq or Figma.

Brian:

You know, let let's let's design it in in high fidelity in in a Figma. Like, let's basically draw a picture of a high fidelity user interface. Mhmm. Then let's hand it off to a front end developer to convert our Figma to HTML and Tailwind, and then and then we'll hand that off to back end developers to wire it up and make it work. That was the traditional way.

Brian:

Yes. Then even before even before AI comes into the picture, that started to get blended. Because we started to get we started to get Tailwind and then and then JavaScript stuff and React components. And now it's like, oh, well, front end is now sort of componentized. So but then for components to make sense, you sort of need to wire up the back end on how these things work.

Brian:

So so then all of a sudden, like, everyone is becoming a full stack designer developer. Right? Yes. So that all happened even before AI. But now now that we have AI and it's and it's interesting how even as I was developing Design OS, my first approach was a little bit wrong.

Brian:

Because my fur my first approach was, okay. If I'm gonna have Claude or Gemini or or GPT five generate a high quality front end design, which they are all capable of doing now, how how do I basically hire AI to be the designer instead of instead of me, you know, drawing rectangles in Figma? And and I thought that the way to do it would be to have AI, like, generate a mock up and then take a screenshot of it. And and that would be, like, my mock up. And then I bring that into my code base and have, like, my actual coding agent rebuild that mockup.

Brian:

But that's wrong. That's that because that's ridiculous because the the initial mockup was coded already. Why are we recoding it? Yeah. Yeah.

Brian:

Know?

Justin:

That's right. Yeah.

Brian:

And also, we lose fidelity. Like like, what happened in my in my early cycles of this was, like, I would have Claude develop a perfect mock up. And and again, like, I have a design process there that that involves, like, okay, we're gonna I'm gonna shape it up with a spec, and then I'm gonna have JSON sample data. And so now we're getting really accurate. And now off of that, I'm gonna have the AI generate a perfect user interface that matches my sample data, matches the data model that I just shaped up with the AI.

Brian:

That's the new AI design process. Right? Yeah. So if I have that and it just created these React components off of that, and it's a perfectly usable, mobile friendly, looks great front end component asset, it doesn't make sense to just screenshot that because I'm not in my real app yet. Right?

Brian:

So it it wouldn't make sense to just screenshot that and then go to my actual Cloud Code app and say, like, recreate that in my in my Rails application.

Justin:

Yes. Because it's already yeah. It's already been done.

Brian:

What I actually need is a way to, like, export that coded design component and drop it into my actual code base. And and now the only task left is to wire up the back end on this already existing front end. Yes. And so Design OS, that's what it became. And it this all this came together in, one week of of me hacking on this.

Brian:

But, like

Justin:

I I can't believe, like, when you because you dropped this video. You shared this video. And I was just like, holy shit. Like, Brian in a week, Brian can come up with a whole new concept and a whole new site and a whole new thing. Like, it's crazy.

Brian:

It's just scratching my own itch, honestly. Like, it's it's really just like, look, like, do I want to design a product? And so Design OS, what it is, like, you you it'll be free open source. Right? You'll you'll you'll clone the repo, and what that repo is is it's a React and and Vite app.

Brian:

So it's just a front end app.

Justin:

Let me see if I could find that video here.

Brian:

And and that's not public, what I shared to you. But the

Justin:

Can I can I show this screenshot at least?

Brian:

Yeah. Yeah. Like but by the another episode two weeks from now, I'll have the actual Design OS site up. It'll it'll be at buildermethods.com/designos, which is not public

Justin:

yet. I'm just gonna show just people just just a freeze frame from this video. Hopefully,

Brian:

this I is share screenshots on Twitter. Here. Let me give you this. Because I I did a walk through on on Twitter in Blue Sky.

Justin:

Okay. Okay. Maybe I'll I'll find that. Hold

Brian:

on. So the so what it turned into was the so, like, Design OS is like this interface that you would you would clone this this React app, and there's a process where you start with, like, okay, the product concept. You design the the data model at a high level, then you create, like, the application shell. So you actually design, like, the the color scheme and the and the application shell, like, the navigation and stuff. Yeah.

Brian:

And then you then you move into each section of of your application. Like like, in this in this example, like, I'm I'm creating, like, a client invoicing application. So, you know, you you would then, like, have the have the AI build out the actual dashboard for an invoicing app. And and and, again, like, there's there's, like, a step by step process to generate sample data, have it build that. You could even iterate.

Brian:

It all happens in Cloud Code or whatever tool you're using. You know, you can just run the commands no matter which tool. So then you sort of just go back and forth, get it perfect. And then on the final thing is the export, which is you download a zip file with with all of your coded components

Justin:

Okay.

Brian:

Along with screenshots just for reference, but you have the actual coded React components, Tailwind, all perfectly designed, along with it it also exports prewritten prompts.

Justin:

Okay.

Brian:

So so you can then go into your application, which might be Laravel, might be Rails, might be Python, might be whatever, Next. The only requirement in your final application is that you have to have React and you have to be using Tailwind. So, like, in my case, I'm probably gonna be using, like, Rails plus Inertia plus React, you know, for Lara like, so so you would go into your application and and say, like, here is a package of front end coded designs, and here is a prewritten prompt with everything that I'm giving you, an overview of the product, the data model, instructions on how to and and the like, you know, it's it's designed with like it's it's actually developed with types and to make the data model under underlying it be very portable. Yeah. So you can just plug it right into your app and have and then have the AI sort of wire up the back end, and now you have a functional app.

Brian:

And like and so, like, this to me is is the is the new process. This is the way that you can literally go from idea to polished perfect designs in a couple of days, and then from there into your actual application and wire up the back end again in just a couple of days. And this is how this is how, like, actually professional designs and professional apps can be built in about a week.

Justin:

Dude, did did I I just wanna I just wanna interject here. I've been thinking about this a lot because and this is, like, so perfectly in your wheelhouse, which is one thing I've been thinking about is just how the one thing that hasn't been innovated on a lot is the UI interface way of organizing the way we interact with LLMs. Right now, it's really this blunt text blob that we can like

Brian:

I heard you talking about this.

Justin:

Put stuff into. And what what's difficult is and anyone who's done a bunch of, you know, chat GPT stuff or vibe coded something, they you you realize that the order of things that you do things in actually does matter in terms of the outcome you get. And so if you start with the wrong initial prompt and then you follow-up with another prompt, we've all been in those threads where it's like you're just spinning your wheels and the LLM is spinning its wheels and you're not making progress. And then you jump over to a new thread, you're like, okay, I'm gonna structure it this way. And then bang, everything starts falling in place.

Brian:

That's you're exactly right about the process and and taking a very step by step approach. And that is like the core of not only Design OS, but, like, what I'm what I'm teaching at Builder Methods. The one when I when I create the core curriculum, it's this idea of, like, everything we do, there's an input, and then there's an output. Yeah. And you can't move from one step to the next until you have the output from the previous one.

Brian:

So, like, for example, InDesign OS, the way like, it starts with product. Right? Overview. Right? From there, like like and that's just like a couple sentences about what you're building, what are the core problems and the solutions that that you're solving with your new product, and what are the key features for this product.

Brian:

That's all that is. Right?

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

So the so so then, like, the output of that is, like, is, like, that written up. And then it's like, okay. So if if

Justin:

that's Just so I understand. This is the output. Like, in this case, Design OS is saying, okay. Hey. Give me a product overview.

Justin:

And so then you're writing out the product overview. It says, okay. That's good. What are the problems and solutions you're trying to tackle? And then you write that out as well?

Brian:

Yeah. Or or you could even just say, like it'll just say, like like, the the first command is called, like, product vision. And and it just says, like, give me your product vision, whatever it is. Could be short, could be long, and it maybe you've maybe you've you've you've been writing this for days, maybe you just have two sentences. Either way, just give it to the to the LLM, and then it will spit back what you're looking at there, which is like two sentence overview, like an elevator pitch

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Followed by problems and solutions, which is like three bullet points, problem and how it solves it.

Justin:

Okay.

Brian:

And then and then a a couple bullet points of, like, key features. Like, a a product like this at a high level probably does this, this, and this. That's it.

Justin:

I I think the reason it this is resonating with me, I think it's gonna resonate with a lot of other people, is this in the same way that Ruby on the Ruby on Rails was like, here's Ruby on the Rails. Let's give you a track to go on. Yep. I feel like LLMs are the the the input is just like, give us anything and we'll give you a response.

Brian:

And Yeah.

Justin:

I think people are feeling this struggle of like, what if I'm organizing this wrong? What if I'm prompting this in the wrong way? What if there's a better way to structure this so I get the outputs I want? How do I organize this step by step so I'm not giving it too much all in one step, but that I can, like, sequentially get to the answer? And as soon as I saw this, like you have goes from product to data model to design to sections to export.

Justin:

I was just like, this is I think this is what so many people are looking for. They want to build with AI. But it's like, what's AI It's on the

Brian:

literally a process. Like like, have that product overview. Okay. Like, from there, like, if if we're gonna plan this out, we sorta need to break it out into sections. Right?

Brian:

Like and what I mean by sections is like, that could be a road map, but that could also be your main navigation.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

Like, if if you were designing a product from scratch, from nothing, you would have to figure out, like, alright, the three or four main sections of this app, we're gonna need to have a a screen for this, a screen or a user flow for that, a screen or user flow for that. And, like so now that we have the product overview, the problem solutions, like, then then the AI like, the next command is, product road map. And then, like, the AI can suggest, like, okay. I'm probably thinking you're gonna need a dashboard and clients. And then but, like, it'll suggest that.

Brian:

But you could just say, say, like, actually, we're also gonna need this one. You're you know, like, you can you can it's a conversation, but it's you know, so so you do that. And then and then from there, you go into, data model. Right? And so this is where I think that who is the target customer for this?

Brian:

I think it's first and foremost, I think about myself like somebody who who who is technical and and wants to put my imprint on the architecture and the data model and the interface, but I don't wanna do the legwork of drawing, rectangles in Figma.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

But at the same time, I think a nontechnical person who wants something like a level up from just purely vibe coding.

Justin:

Yep.

Brian:

So, like, so you're a product person. Maybe you're not tech like, you you wouldn't consider yourself a coder, but you do have a really strong product sense, and you and you do have a good sense for, like, how your product should work and the and the underlying system. So maybe you don't know much about databases, but you still I think in order to get to a good design, you still need to have a data model. Right? So, like, so once you've already established product overview, a series of sections, now the AI can suggest like, okay.

Brian:

We're looking at an invoicing app. You're gonna need a concept for clients, a concept for invoices, a concept for line items. Let's build out a simple data model that outlines those things. Does does this look good to you? And, like and so, like, even even a nontechnical person can look at this and say, like, I could read that.

Brian:

Like, I I know what that I know what I'm looking at here. And also a technical person can think, like, I'm seeing a data model come together.

Justin:

Yes. And and the anybody that's worked with these tools has felt the like, even if you're using v zero for something, you'll get down a certain road, and then you'll realize, oh, you know what? There's something foundational that I missed that I need to add. Adding something retroactively on like when the AI has built from an initial set of assumptions, and then you're adding a whole new dynamic later on, very difficult to do that retroactively. But if you have a plan, if you have it organized, if you have a checklist, a lot of this is a checklist like, hey, now we're going talk about the data model.

Justin:

Like, who like, what are you gonna need here? We're gonna need users, clients, invoices, line items. What are the relationships between these different entities gonna be? Let's Yeah. And like,

Brian:

inputs and outputs. Right? Like, we can't move on yet to the design until we think through this data model first. Yeah. You know?

Brian:

And so, like, that's that's part of it. And then, like, you know, you asked about, like, how this sort of came together in a week. Like, the next section on on design, like, didn't exist at first. But then I realized, like, this is a common downfall of what we've been doing with trying to design with AI. Right?

Brian:

Like, because I my my initial thought was, like, we have the list of sections, like the dashboard and the clients list and the invoices list, so let's just start designing those one one by one. Right? But then what happened was, okay. If we're gonna design the dashboard, great. We generate a design for the dashboard.

Brian:

It looks good. We're happy with it. Now let's move on to the clients list. If we just start from scratch there. Yeah.

Brian:

Like, now now you have, like, two separate designs. They're not even connected to one another, and they have, like, different outer shells. You know, maybe they have different details that are that are different. Yeah. And and now now we're sort of we're talking about, like, piecemeal, like like, you know, duct taping different isolated designs together.

Justin:

And we've all seen this. It can be as simple as, like, the container div on one screen is different than the container div on the next screen. And you're like, what is going on here?

Brian:

So then I was like, alright. So, like, really, before I even get into designing each individual screen, I sort of need to design the shell of the application first, like the global elements

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

The the color scheme, the the fonts that I'm gonna use, the navigation where that is it a top navigation or a side navigation? You know? Yep. And and then when I get up to the the section designs, the individual pages, like, those all need to use the outer shell that we've already designed. And the and also when when we make buttons and stuff on this, we have to make sure that they use the primary, secondary color that I've already established.

Brian:

Like, they can't just redefine that every time.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

So so, like, that that's why I added in that that that middle phase, which is like, let's design the outer shell, the the global elements, and then we move on. Again, it's like inputs and outputs. Like, we've established the shell. Now we can move on into the into the pages. Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah. This is so so great.

Brian:

Honestly, like, I'm I'm just really excited about it as a tool. Because, like, it's like I have a long list of ShinyObject products that I wanna build. And and, like, I've still even when I did, like, Agent OS, like, that was one step forward. But I but I still felt, like, even with AI, even taking a fully AI approach, I was still slow. Like, why am I still slow to build things and get and get them to a shippable state?

Brian:

It's because it's because all the different parts of our process are they just don't work in the in in the new paradigm. That's right.

Justin:

And and it it's to me, it's always been a UI problem. It's been a user experience problem that you've got this big open ended chat input that can do whatever. It's like, no, I need a process. I need step by step. We need to corral all of this potential and actually efficiently target all of that power in one direction, you know?

Brian:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's like it's it's it's really does require like a a rethink from the ground up of of our process. You know?

Brian:

It it's been crazy. This like, just from a coding standpoint, obviously, like, you know, we can code now with with Claude code, and that's been very different. But, like, I think we're at a point now where it's like, how does the design come together is is even more important. You know?

Justin:

So how can people get access to this? How is that gonna work?

Brian:

So it's an interesting this actually blends into the into the JSONFRIDA once model SaaS model because because so does my thought right now I'm curious to hear your feedback on this actually. So my thought is Design OS is going to be the next free open source thing I release just like I did with Agent OS.

Justin:

Okay. Yep.

Brian:

So it's gonna it's it hopefully, by the by next week, I'll have a page up on buildermethods.com/designos.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Or or I'll be on a beach in Costa Rica.

Justin:

We'll see.

Brian:

So it's gonna be free open source to download and and use, like, this React app locally and and generate what what you're just showing on the screen.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

But I think that there could be an opportunity to have a SaaS cloud component to design OS. Mhmm. An optional thing. Yeah. Because I do think that there's gonna be a need by some to take like, the the screens that we're looking at, like, to share that with your team or share with stakeholders or share with a client.

Brian:

Yeah. Or comment on the designs and get feedback on them. But and this is this is all happening before we get into our actual apps code base. We're just in the design phase here. So

Justin:

I could

Brian:

see some optional cloud service where you could push this design OS interface up to a shareable URL that you can share with your team. And

Justin:

Okay. This is interesting. This is why man, we're going a little bit late, but let's let's talk about this because I'm I'm this is the Fizzy thing. Fizzy is 37 signals of product. You it's it's a Trello competitor.

Justin:

So if you remember, Trello was free. There's a free version of Trello. You can track a thousand things free. And after that, it's only $20 a month. But it's also if you scroll down, one more thing, Fizzy is open source and a 100% free to run yourself.

Justin:

So if you don't want to pay for it, you can download it and host it yourself. And that's an option now. So this is an evolution of their their once.com idea. So they're basically saying, yeah, that didn't quite work. But now we're evolving on top of that.

Justin:

And now the the the new model we're trying, I think we should also emphasize, like, when that once.com thing came out, everyone was so excited. Like, it's a whole new business thing. We're all excited. Everyone's everyone's launching once apps with the once business model. I do think we should wait and see how this plays out.

Justin:

But this idea that you can have a SaaS version and an open source version, that to me feels a little bit more aligned. Ghost has done that for a long time. Lots of folks have done that.

Brian:

Yeah. And like Jason and people are gonna hate on this, of course. But but I I kinda love it. And and it does have like, I think the thing to to say about the way that Jason Fried wrote about this is that, like, he he did point out, like, look. They're extremely successful examples of this already.

Brian:

This is not something new. We're not reinventing the wheel here. There's WordPress. There's Ghost. There's a bunch of other ones.

Justin:

I mean, Ghost is doing $9,000,000 in annual recurring revenue from the hosting business. It's free to host yourself. Turns out a lot of people don't want to do that. A lot of

Brian:

people just want a hosted version. Yeah. The thing that I love about it and and this is like, I had already been thinking about that idea of, Design OS is self hosted, and then you and then there might be a cloud component. I was thinking about that, like, two weeks ago. But what I love about the idea that thirty seven signals is leaning into this from a SaaS perspective is that, like, the and and honestly, I I think that this could be the new evolution for how the SaaS business model evolves.

Brian:

Obviously not for every product, not for every SaaS, but I think for a lot of them. Maybe a lot more going forward will embrace this. And the reason I think that is because the biggest objection that most people like, there's always paper cuts, and there's always things like, there's things that people just don't like about Clarity Flow. They love 80% of it, and there's 20%. They're just like, oh, I wish it would do this or that.

Brian:

And they would write in, and I would say like, yeah. You know what? You're right. That's probably a good idea for you, but probably a bad idea for 80% of our customers. So we're not gonna do it.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

You know? So like so and there's a lot of that stuff, and it and it happens with every single SaaS.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

But when you offer a self hosted version, it's like if if you re if you really care a lot about that 20% that you just really want to work a different way, then just self host it and customize it to exactly how you need it to be. Yes. And that's that used to be a nonstarter, but now we have Cloud Code. So you you could even just do that.

Justin:

Okay. But here's a question. Here's a question. What are you hoping to get out of the open sourcing design OS? Like, what's the benefit of open sourcing it?

Brian:

Oh, I mean, in my case, you know, my my goals are obviously different than, like, thirty seven seconds.

Justin:

So

Brian:

for me, with Design OS, right now, I just think of it as, like, another asset and offering under builder methods. Like, my business is builder methods. You know? So so, like, even if this cloud service idea with Design OS doesn't turn into a significant business, like, I'm I'm actually more interested in the free open source thing as as a as a as a thing to offer our industry. Mhmm.

Brian:

And people come into Builder Methods Pro to get support for it, to talk about it, to share it. Yeah. You know?

Justin:

Okay. Here here's just a few thoughts, and I I could be wrong. But here's when I look at this, and I'm a paying paid method paid member of Builder Methods, I'm like, I would pay to get access to this right now. Like, this looks like software that's well designed. It looks like a process.

Justin:

Brian has got some sort and I don't even completely understand it. But I'm just seeing the outputs of whatever the inputs are. And I'm like, I would pay for this right now. And I'm part of me is wondering, if you put this up for sale at $1.99, or you can if you're in builder methods, you get it for $50. I wonder if a lot of people would just pay for it.

Justin:

And I wonder if the benefit you'd get from open sourcing it might not be worth it.

Brian:

It's an interesting question. I think like it's I'm honestly on the fence about it, but I I'm leaning right now, my assumption is it's gonna be free open source just like Agent OS was because I kind of feel like AgentOS worked really well for my business. Yeah. And so I I kinda wanna run it back and do it again. Yeah.

Brian:

And and that's not why I created Design OS. I I honestly created it to scratch my itch from wanting a better way to design apps. Yeah. But as it started to come together, I was like, oh, this could be the next AgentOS. I don't I don't think it's a replacement for AgentOS, by the way.

Brian:

I think it can it can work hand in hand. AgentOS is more like once you're in your code base. And I honestly, even today, like, I don't think that, like, AgentOS should always be used. It's just an available tool out there. Just like this.

Brian:

I think DesignOS, I'm gonna be using it a hell of a lot, but I don't think that every product needs to use it or every person needs to use it. So that's why I think that these tools work really well. So the like, the the other thinking for me on that question is, like, should this be a paid product or not? The reason why I like free open source for these things is because of how fast our AI tooling is changing every single week. And that it's just like talk about platform risk.

Justin:

Just to support it you think would be difficult.

Brian:

No. I just think that, like, think I can't predict how

Justin:

Oh, I see.

Brian:

The tools are gonna work three months from now. Yeah. You know? Like, I don't know what Anthropic is gonna come out next come out with next. You know?

Brian:

Like, it could completely obliterate this whole business. I don't know. You know? So that's why I I think it's hard to try to be in the business of selling tools to help you build with AI because I think that ClaudeCode, Cursor, you know, these these tools are the are the tools. Yeah.

Brian:

And I and I and I think that also, I think that, like, the frameworks like this should help you use those tools better. Yeah. You know? The the one

Justin:

thing that's different about this, though because AgentOS, I was like, okay. Like, you could see that someone could add plan mode. You know? Like, that just seems like a natural thing. With this here, this is feels like opinionated software.

Justin:

And so I I'm just

Brian:

I I sort of agree with you there. Like, this does feel like something that, like like, to me, Design OS seems to be more of an a replacement for like, it for me, it actually will be a replacement for, like, something like Figma.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

You know? Like like, I just won't create mock ups anymore. You know?

Justin:

As you were talking, I was like writing up this little diagram because I I don't know how it connects. But in favor of just open sourcing it, I think there is this like and maybe builder methods could be like this. Like, maybe builder methods is the equivalent of this. Like, I'll just use design OS on my own. But over here, it's like, nah.

Justin:

I'll hire builder methods. And hire is meaning, like, I'll pay for builder methods to help me with this. So, like, there's all sorts of things like this. Like, you can host WordPress on your own, but it's like, nah. You know what?

Justin:

I'm just gonna hire WP Engine to handle all the security updates and all the upgrades and everything like that. I could update Laravel on my own. Like, there's a new version. I could figure that out on my own. Or I could just pay this third party app, Laravel Shift, to just handle all the updates for me.

Justin:

So, yes, I could do it free. I could manage it on my own. I could do it free.

Brian:

There's some technical aspects to it too, though. Like, I I actually did think about when I started thinking creatively about, like, what would a SaaS version of this look like, like a cloud version, my initial thought was like, what if all of Design OS was a SaaS? Mhmm. You know, so you would like log in to whatever like, I actually got the domain design -os.ai,

Justin:

which

Brian:

is a freaking it's a terrible I hate putting dashes in a domain, but I couldn't find anything better.

Justin:

So the

Brian:

I was like, maybe what we're looking at there could be, like, you log into it and you define your product. You'd Yeah. You do it all in there. The problem with that is, like, then I would have to, a, like, recreate a Cloud Code like interface. Mhmm.

Brian:

Of course, you could do that with the API and stuff, but, like Yeah. I think what what professional designers and developers want is they wanna use Cloud Code in their editor. You know? So and it's much more powerful and to and and, like, you have the full power of commute of converse having a conversation with AI to to dial in your design. Like, it it works beautifully when you do this in your in cursor or in Cloud Code.

Brian:

Right?

Justin:

Yeah. And I I think also it doesn't match up with the at least the way it's laid out right now, the it it really is something you would use on a new product. Yeah. So sort of for SaaS, it's not it still feels like maybe like like I said, like, when you showed that to me, I'm like, I wanna do that right now. I wanna pay for that.

Justin:

Like, I'll I'll

Brian:

Well, like, I I do think that, like, where where my mind pivoted to on the cloud thing is like, okay. Yeah. I think me and other professionals will still wanna, like, download and create the design and and run Design OS locally. Mhmm. But if I'm on a team

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Or if I have clients, if I'm designing for clients Yeah. Then I am gonna wanna share this stuff and have conversations about it before we get into the code base. Yes. And like so so that's where I think the cloud services is. It's like I could I could create these designs locally, but I could push them up to a cloud service.

Brian:

Yeah. And and like and, yeah, technically, like, if you if you really wanna avoid paying for it, you could just, like, throw Design OS up on a Netlify, whatever, like, host it yourself and then share it with your team. But I I think that there could be other benefits to, like, one click, sync it up with your GitHub account, automatically push your Design OS designs up to this service. Yeah. Share a link with a with a stakeholder, maybe have some commenting and feedback on it.

Brian:

Also, like versions. Like, could have, like, here's version one of our product design, and then, okay. Let's let's log that, And now we'll do a second version and then a third version, have cloud service to cycle

Justin:

back You through think an agency like Titan I mean, what you would be offering here is just this built in process for them to use to work with their clients. Like, okay, we've got 10 clients or Thunk is another another agency. So, you know, they're working through this with so many clients. Even if you weren't using AI, this process that you've outlined here feels like it would be so useful if you had an agency and you're building apps for other people. It's like, hey, okay, everybody, we're going to define each of these things together.

Justin:

And Yeah. It's like, hey, you know, what's the the Johnson and Johnson file? How's that doing? Oh, we're at the design stage. We're coming up with the design system and all that.

Justin:

And then eventually, we're gonna run this playbook and we're gonna get to the point where we then build the application. But it gives them such a nice framework for building these projects. Like if you're if you're an agency, this is what you're doing. Right? This is the playbook right here.

Brian:

Yeah. I I just want don't know if you have to go or anything. I just wanted to like one more point on

Justin:

I've got no sauna today.

Brian:

Okay. No sauna today. You know, just to, like, step back high level for for me personally, and this sort of answers your question of, like, I am now of the just for me personally, like, I'm of the mindset that, like, I'm not in the SaaS business anymore. Mhmm. You know?

Brian:

So, like, the idea of making Design OS a SaaS business. Like, yes, I've got this idea for a cloud service. Cool. But that's that's not the for me, the the play and the business I'm building is Builder Methods and selling Builder Methods Pro. And I and I'm starting to really, really like that a lot.

Brian:

It's it's obviously working. It's it's it's one of the most successful startup launches that I've had. I wanted to keep working, and I see so much more long term potential for me by leaning into that and sticking with that mindset. And what I mean by specifically, because, like, I think that there's a lot of people in our industry, in our especially our circles, who just feel like you there's a lot of people who say, like, SaaS is the be all end all. Everybody wants a SaaS.

Brian:

Everyone wants a successful SaaS. I'm here to tell you that for for at least me in the year 2025, I've decided that, like, you can just do things, and those things don't have to be SaaS. And you can be you can it it can be great. And and and and I'm and the and so, like, that's the thing is that, like, I'm starting to really appreciate the the value of not having to compete with alternate SaaS tools. I was talking about I was talking to my brother about this earlier today.

Brian:

I was like, one of the one of the indicators that that I see to myself when when I get frustrated or tired of a business model is when is when people would purchase my product and it makes me angry that they're purchasing it. You know? Like, that that has happened to me in the past, like, when I've when I would sign a big consulting client. It's like, great. They just paid me a lot of money.

Brian:

Mhmm. Shit. Now I gotta do all this work. Or customers would sign up for a SaaS tool like Clarity Flow. Mhmm.

Brian:

They're paying $79 $99. Like, great. But now they're gonna send me all these support emails and and complain about this or that only to then churn and go to a competitor three weeks down the road. You know? So, like, that is frustrating.

Justin:

And Especially when you're in this phase of your life where you're trying to contract, like you're trying to get rid you're enjoying offloading things.

Brian:

But then I get but then I have people buying, like, almost every hour, Builder Methods Pro. Yeah. And it's like, they're just here to learn. They're just here to connect with like minded people who trying to transform and grow professionally and personally. Yeah.

Brian:

That's a positive thing. And and in all likelihood, people are buying my thing and they're buying three other things. And that's totally fine. Yep. You know?

Brian:

Like, I'm not competing for alternatives too.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

Yeah. That's why I'm I'm really excited about, like, long term. Like, if I can release tools like this Mhmm. Which making it free also adds to the funnel and makes it'll have YouTube videos associated with it. It'll have audience, people sharing it, talking about it.

Brian:

Just today, people are making YouTube videos about Agent OS. Yes. I don't know who these people are. They're making these 45 reviews of Agent OS, something I made. That's never happened to me before.

Brian:

You know? But, like, that kind of funnel, that kind of attention, if if I can turn that into a business model, which I think I have, like, that is a better fit for me. Like, I I'm starting to finally real it took me way too many years to to come around to this idea that, maybe I'm not a SaaS guy. I'm more of a creator and a a toolmaker. Yes.

Brian:

Like, I like to make tools, but I don't wanna have to have that be my business. Because if I if I were leaning and if I were going all in on the idea of making Design OS a SaaS that I'm only selling and I have to make my money from that, then then I have to say, like, you I want my customers to use Design OS and not use x, y, and z, and a, b, and c.

Justin:

Because if

Brian:

they do, then they're gonna stop using mine. And and I just don't like to be in that scenario anymore. You know?

Justin:

Okay. I I agree. I'll say here's what I'll say on the other side of this. By the way, I think you should still consider this idea is so compelling. It feels like there's a lot of people that would jump to build to builder methods to get early access.

Justin:

That would be an interesting experiment, like, before open sourcing it or maybe in conjunction with it to say

Brian:

One thing I already did was, like, that video I gave to you, I I shared with Builder Methods Pro members already.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

They they saw the video walk through. I

Justin:

I think it's it would be an interesting pitch to say, and maybe it wouldn't generate the kind of movement I'm thinking about. But in my mind, it's like, that would be an interesting thing to test at this stage is, do people want this bad enough that there's a bunch of people that are willing to jump into builder methods just to get early access to it. Anyway, something to think about. But here's the

Brian:

I did I see, I did I did that, like, that that tweet that tweet I gave you today that you showed. Like, that didn't actually do very well on Twitter or Blue Sky. And and but, like, I I also think that, like, that's because it's like, what am I looking at here? What is this?

Justin:

You hard to explain, but I wonder if

Brian:

Like, at some point, I'm gonna have a dedicated YouTube video that Yeah. That's, like, scripted and really shows it. But

Justin:

And maybe there's still a piece of this that you could hold back and just see if people will jump through a hoop to get it in builder methods. Like, maybe I don't know. I don't know. Maybe the export stage or something. I don't know.

Brian:

I think it'll be the kind of thing that just clicks with some people and doesn't with a lot of other people, and that's totally fine.

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, back in terms of, like, you feeling like, you know, this, you like this model, it made it made me think of Tailwind Insiders, which is, you know, you get access to a private I mean

Brian:

to to just buy that. I feel like I owe

Justin:

Adam You get access to a Discord. You get, you know, their cursor clod rules. You get early documentation for prerelease builds. You get the Raycast extension. And, you know, increasingly, this kind of these supporter tiers are becoming a source of revenue for Tailwind.

Justin:

And even at the end of his last podcast, he was like, hey. If you wanna, like, actually get into more detail on this, like, insiders is where that's happening. And there's a nice simplicity to that. It also made me think of this great blog post by Nathan Barry, where he talks about the consumer surplus and basically leaving some value on the table. So, you know, he talks about like Basecamp, $100 a month.

Justin:

We get way more value from Basecamp than what we pay. But segment, and I've experienced this too, it provides a ton of value, but it also charges kind of the same amount. So what you're paying is you're kind of getting one for one value. And just the feeling of signing up for something like Builder Methods, where it's like, holy shit. Like, I'm paying a little, but I'm getting way more value than I'm paying for.

Justin:

And if, you know, if if part of that package is like, I get Design OS, but I also get like, you know, I'm there's some sort of inside track for Design OS that's gonna help me out. I'm just getting way more value, or I'm just supporting Brian because he's given us so much value. Like, there is something to that for sure.

Brian:

And that that's essentially been the model with AgentOS. Like, I get a lot of questions about it, but the only ones I actually answer are in the Discord for Builder Methods Pro. Yeah. You know? And that's that'll be the same sort of idea with DesignOS, I think.

Brian:

But the you know, on the pricing stuff, I was listening to today, I was listening to the Rework podcast, and their topic was pricing. And they were talking about they talked about all their different products over the years and their thinking on on the pricing. And and they Jason was talking about Basecamp and how and their decision to cap it at $2.02 50 or $2.99 a a month. Right? Yeah.

Brian:

And not and not go per user pricing. Yeah. He was like, it's an obvious play. Like, we know why companies who have large teams or selling to companies with large teams, like, you would charge per user, of course. Like, he would he was like, of of course, we could we could make a lot more money Mhmm.

Brian:

That way. He was like, but that would that would change our incentives. Or the way I don't I don't know exactly how he said it, but he he was saying what he was saying was like, then we would have to optimize for selling to larger and larger companies. You know? And and we don't identify as large company.

Brian:

We identify with the smaller businesses. So so that in turn is going to make us prioritize, like, what makes a good product for the types of companies, the types of people that we actually care about and that we actually identify with personally. That's like, we just because it's gonna make more dollars and it's gonna optimize your revenue does not mean that it's it's right for you as the founder. Yeah. Or or the team.

Justin:

Yeah. Totally agree. And I think for me, I've always been like, you know, if I was at a big enterprise company and I was used to buying software on huge enterprise contracts for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, I and I I enjoyed that process, or I thought it was a fine way of running a business. I'd be like, yeah, let's do that. For me personally, I'm like, I have to charge what I would be willing to charge.

Justin:

Like, if if I'm the in Transistor's case, I am the ideal customer. Like, I love to podcast. I have multiple shows. You know, most of my shows don't make any money. I'm doing it for fun.

Justin:

But I've got some money to spend. This is like a fun thing for me. What would I pay? And it's like, yeah. I would pay $19 a month.

Justin:

That's that's a no brainer.

Brian:

Yeah. Feels right.

Justin:

It feels right. And I think that pricing philosophy there's actually something to that pricing philosophy. Like, this feels good to me.

Brian:

Yeah. You know? And especially when it's like even with Builder Methods Pro, like, it's still I still feel like it's priced way too low. I think it obviously is. Mhmm.

Brian:

And and I plan to raise it, like, in 2026. Yeah. But but also at the same time, I'm like, man, this is just working so well, and I'm free. I'm free to just make stuff.

Justin:

And like,

Brian:

let's just keep it going. You know? Like, that's all I really kinda care about. Yeah.

Justin:

Alright, man. Well, I think I still think there might be something here. There might you might be able to get a bunch more Builder Methods sign ups if you tease out Design OS on YouTube and say, at the end, your CTA tag could just be, hey, folks. And I'm offering, like, early access to this. If you're in Builder Methods, go sign up for Builder Methods, and then you get access.

Brian:

Yeah. I don't know. Oh, I I guess I'm just gonna, like, bury this at the very end of our podcast. I am doing a my December workshop is Oh, yeah.

Justin:

On the

Brian:

topic of, I think I called it, like, AI first design process. Saw that was gonna be done.

Justin:

So I was excited

Brian:

about twenty second. So that's out there as well. And that'll be, you know, about the the underlying process behind Design OS and yeah. That should be good.

Justin:

Just another reason to sign up for Builder Methods Pro is Yes, sir. You get

Brian:

I mean, dude, like, from a business model standpoint, that is what I really like about the mechanics of Builder Methods

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Pro right now is that, like so every month or so, I'm doing these live workshops. I sell the tickets for $50 each.

Justin:

Yep.

Brian:

A lot more people buy the membership instead of buy the $50 workshop Yeah. You know, ticket. So, like and and the way that I've set up my site is if you go through my funnel, you'll see you can you can purchase a ticket for $50, or you can or you can join Builder Methods Pro and you get in for free and you get all the workshops for free. Right? Yeah.

Brian:

And so right there, that's a good value proposition. But then also what I do is you can pay the if you just choose to to spend the $50, then on the next page, it says like, hey, if if you wanna just upgrade to Builder Methods Pro, you can do that. And just your your $50 purchase will go toward that.

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

So like so the normal price is like $2.99 for Builder Methods Pro. You can now that you've paid 50, you can just get Builder Methods Pro for $2.49 if you want.

Justin:

Well, mean, you think about it. It's like there's already been four workshops. So that's $200. So if you if you plan on going to those workshops, just sign up and then you get everything. And then you also get access to the Discord and all that.

Brian:

Yeah. And the video library and all that. And I and I even see people come in and and purchase. You can you can still purchase tickets to the past work workshops. Like, you you can just purchase access to those recordings.

Brian:

You know?

Justin:

And people are still doing that too.

Brian:

Yeah. Yeah.

Justin:

Wow. Yeah. Go to buildourmethods.com/workshops. Join Brian and me, December 22.

Brian:

Yep.

Justin:

Alright, everybody. This was fun. Glad we got to do this today. Thanks to everyone in the chat as well.

Brian:

Yep. We'll be off next week with them back in two weeks.

Justin:

We got Dave Jones. We got Pascal. Pascal's got the inside jokes. Folks, if you're not in the inside track, you're missing out.

Brian:

That's right. This is this is where the cool kids are hanging out on Thursdays. Keith,

Justin:

we're all here. And, yeah, we'll not see you next week because Brian's on vacation. But we might see you this might be the last one till the New Year. We'll see. Maybe we'll get one more in before 2021

Brian:

when's Christmas, then after that? I don't know. Alright, everybody. Not doing anything anyway. So

Justin:

Whether it's 2025 or 2026, we'll see you next time.

Brian:

That's right. Alright. Later, folks.