2026: Panic or Hope?
#29

2026: Panic or Hope?

Brian:

Is Transistor quiet this time of year? Like customers and stuff?

Justin:

Yeah. Like, every week every week we report on how many customer support tickets we're getting, And it definitely you start to see it, like, gradually slowing down. And then Mhmm. We're basically I think John and I have some things to clean up tomorrow. Like, we have some year end stuff.

Justin:

And then we're kind of just off. Whole team will be off in from twenty second sorry. Yeah. From the twenty second, basically, till the fifth. Yeah.

Justin:

We just check-in on customer support while we're at home. But

Brian:

Yeah. I mean, like, customer support on Clarity Flow sort of ebbs and flows. I and this is the first time I'm going through a holiday season on builder methods. It I would say it has slowed. I would say the December was great.

Brian:

And then the second week, here we are, like, second or third week, it's I I would say membership sign ups have slowed down. But but I am I'm doing a live workshop on Monday, and those tickets seem to be selling, like, even better than the November workshop. Yeah. And I think that might be the topic, but I'm not sure.

Justin:

Halfway through the holidays, you might find tickets sorry, sign ups increase.

Brian:

It's hard to say. Like

Justin:

I almost wonder if you wanna prompt that. Like, it's pretty classic. Product Hunt was kind of famously a Thanksgiving project. You know? Ryan who's the other fellow?

Brian:

The only guy I know there is I don't know him, but Ryan. I didn't I didn't know that there was another guy.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's the guy that then cofounded Every with Dan Shipper, but his name just escapes me right now.

Brian:

Oh, and I didn't know that Dan Shipper had a cofounder.

Justin:

Yeah. The fellow I'm thinking of is the one who built lex.page.

Brian:

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Justin:

So, anyway, famously, him yeah. Nate is his name, I think. Yeah. Famously, him and Ryan built Product Hunt over Thanksgiving. So you might find that, you know, there's some people that are, you know, they got a little energy, wanna build something.

Brian:

Well, this is okay. This is where my I don't I don't know. Like, I'm gonna just dive right into my, like, business in insecurity thing that I I just can't seem to shake. And that is, like, every time I go at at this point, like, twenty four hours without getting a new customer purchase for Builder Methods Mhmm. I I'm like I'm not just saying this.

Brian:

Like, I'm convinced that, like, it's all over. Like Yeah. Like, like, I I think I think for a while there that it's like, I've gotten my last customer. There's not there there's no more customers. I've gotten all the customers there are to get.

Brian:

That's it. And and then I I was thinking the other day, I was like, how how crazy would it be if I literally got no new customers ever again on Builder Methods?

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

You know? Because, like, part of me is, like, convinced that that is reality. And then I start to think about it objectively. I'm like, wait a minute. Like, 270 people or so have already bought this thing.

Brian:

Yeah. Why would why would this just stop overnight? You know? Yeah.

Justin:

Especially especially builder methods at this point in time because I think all of us can see the massive wave of demand that is just accelerating, if anything.

Brian:

And there and there's definitely things I need to fix and optimize and deliver more value and all that kind of stuff. But they but then I think about like the holidays and stuff, and I'm like, well, I see, I never trust I never like to go to the excuse that like, oh, it's the holidays. It's gonna slow down. Or, oh, it's a weekend. Like, you can't expect because I my mind is like, I buy stuff on Saturdays sometimes, you know, and I do get customers sometimes on a Saturday or even on a holiday.

Brian:

Like, I I don't like that excuse. I I wanna I wanna feel like my funnel is so strong, and I have enough volume that, like, yeah, I might low I might get a lower volume on these holidays, but, like Mhmm. I don't wanna go I don't wanna go two days without a customer. You know?

Justin:

I mean, it is helpful to think about the type of product you have and who it serves. And so if if you're in enterprise sales, yeah, it's gonna be slow over the holidays. You will probably not close any deals between now and the New Year. But if you're podcast hosting, people are at home. They've got free time.

Justin:

They've they just got a new microphone, and they're under the tree. People have a mental to do list. This is what I love about is it Rob Snyder? He he talks about how people have a mental to do list that's prioritized. And that is like, people are operating off that list.

Justin:

And it's not something that they might even have written down anywhere. But it's like, ah, as soon as I get a minute, I'm going to start a podcast. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna finally sit down and record an episode, and then I'm gonna figure out how to publish it. Or, you know what?

Justin:

I'm gonna figure out this AI thing. Like, enough's enough. Like, I I got time. All everyone else is drunk from eggnog. I'm just gonna take out the laptop and search how to build with AI.

Justin:

And then who do you find but Brian Castle and your, you know, now now you've got yourself another lead and maybe another sale.

Brian:

Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. But I don't know if you wanna touch touch on, like, what are we thinking for this podcast in 2026?

Justin:

Like Oh,

Brian:

yeah. We haven't really get back to panel people.

Justin:

We haven't really talked about that.

Brian:

You know, I was actually asking Jordan about this yesterday, like, after after the recording, you know, and because he's been doing his other podcast with guests. Mhmm. And I was like, how are you how do you I was like, because because me and Justin Yeah. We we just keep dropping the ball on, like, getting guests to come join us. You

Justin:

know? Yes.

Brian:

Yeah. And it's mostly like laziness and scheduling and, you know, and, you know, his thing, and and this has been true in my case whenever I've done interview shows, is like, it's just better to batch it. Like, if we can if if we wanna have guests, at least for some episodes, let's just, like, I don't know, some like, q one, find make a list of 10 friends.

Justin:

Yeah. Send out an invite.

Brian:

Like, grab a time sometime in the next three or four months, you know, so that, like, at least we have some of these Thursdays where it's like, oh, today, there's there's a guest joining us.

Justin:

Yeah. Look who's showing up. Yeah. I like that. That's a good idea.

Justin:

If we just send out, like, a we could do that right now. Just batch schedule and invite folks.

Brian:

Yeah. And maybe, like, I don't know, set up some sort of calendar system where it's like one or two of the Thursdays in a month are guest days, and we'll and we'll leave a few weeks open where it's just us. You know?

Justin:

I like it. Let's do it. Plan made for 2026.

Brian:

Podcast goals. I mean, that's kind

Justin:

of what we're thinking about doing today. And I'm actually because you you said, hey. Let's do, like, a 2025 kinda look back and 2026 look forward. And I just had a bunch of thoughts. I was writing them down.

Brian:

This is my favorite kind of episode. I love this stuff.

Justin:

I mean, mine are gonna start out more general, but I think it'll be nice because you'll be able to jump in. When I look back on 2025, absolutely, the biggest story was the shift that happened with AI and development.

Brian:

Oh, yeah.

Justin:

Those of us that were skeptical, those of us that were unbelievers, those of us that were, you know, maybe a little apprehensive, we many of us have become believers. So if at the beginning of 2025, I would have said, like, who do I know that's really kind of gung ho about building stuff with AI, AI coding, all that stuff? I would have said Brian Castle. And and then as the year has gone on, it's like Adam Wavin, formerly a skeptic. Now he's on board.

Justin:

Taylor Otwell, Aaron Francis, Ian Landsman, like, O'Nolan. There's just this list of people that I hang out with. And sometimes I imagine, like, we're all kinda hanging out in the same pool or something. And it's like, you can just see all of a sudden, we're all swimming in the same waters.

Brian:

Come on in. The water's warm.

Justin:

The water's warm. And, you know, the models got significantly better. The tools got significantly better, and the momentum just shifted. And it was amazing to see you, you know, go from the beginning of the year to now. Like, that really that became your story was just identifying this wave and starting to ride it.

Brian:

Yeah. I mean, it definitely had an impact for for me personally on my business and everything. But also, I I am just like you. I'm also fascinated with observing the industry as a in general and the trend. Yeah.

Brian:

I noticed absolutely the same thing. It's sort of like half and half of the year, right? The first half of the year like, going back to 2024. And I was I was talking about the same thing on Bootstrap Web yesterday. Mhmm.

Brian:

I did I did my biannual update with Jordan over there. But this I definitely noticed this where, like, 2024 into, like, the first quarter, '25, there were definitely people who were who were very excited about building with AI. And and just I'm I'm talking about, like, within the software realm.

Justin:

We're Yes.

Brian:

We're not we're not talking about, like, the normies in in in the in the world right now. This is software people. Right? So there there was still a lot of skeptics. And there was a and even if it's like there was just a lot of people back then, like, year ago where it was, like, professional developers, experienced developers were legitimately saying one of two things.

Brian:

Either like, I'm excited about starting to play with these tools or incorporate these tools into my workflows in in some maybe limited fashion. And then there are people who are just like, that's interesting. I'm gonna choose not to use it. I'm not interested. I don't have to use it.

Brian:

I don't wanna use it. It's not Yeah. It's it's not how I wanna build. I've I've always hand coded. I wanna keep doing that.

Brian:

And that's and that's fine.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

And and that that could be rooted in a lot of different things. Either they're just set in their ways, either or or maybe they literally just don't trust AI. They don't think it's good enough. Mhmm. So I think there was definitely that sentiment in 2024, early twenty twenty five.

Brian:

Fast forward to, like, 2025. It's not like overnight everyone just started using it. There's still everyone today feels like they're they're behind the the curve. But I do think that the skepticism just started to fall away. Like, it it in in broad terms, like, there's really not many professionals that I know anymore who are, like, making the argument anymore that, like, AI doesn't work or it works badly or you shouldn't use it or it's or it's not capable of of doing real work.

Brian:

Like, I don't think anyone really has that view anymore. And and if they do, they're in a really, really tight minority, almost like edge case section of the industry at this point. That doesn't necessarily mean, like, everyone has actually started adopting it. But but I think the the belief now is that it's like, this is inevitable. This is happening.

Brian:

This is here.

Justin:

Yeah. There's still some question marks. Like, will this consistently generate maintainable code? Is this going to be like, we're still it feels like at the front end, which is like, once these apps get to two and three years old and none of us have written any of the code, are we are we gonna be able to fix anything?

Brian:

I think you're right that those those are definitely real questions. But it's it's more about like, these are the questions that now now we have to figure them out. Yeah. Because it's not like AI is gonna go away. You know?

Brian:

Yes. And I I think a big part of it, maybe looking back on this time, I I really think that, like, the release of Gemini three and Opus 4.5, they didn't really feel like it overnight when those things dropped a couple weeks ago. Yeah. But I think looking back on it, like, they they really bring in a massive shift in quality and trust that we all have in these models. Like for like, the tooling is is always gonna keep getting better and moving crazy fast and everything.

Brian:

But the underlying models are really where you see the jumps in in, like, in quality, which leads to a jump in trust. Right?

Justin:

Yep. Okay. Now I wanna shift now to the future. So that's kind of a look back on this topic. Mhmm.

Justin:

And I want you to kind of react to each of these. So it's all of this has obviously made me wonder what is gonna be important for the future. What kind of people are going to do well in this new future? And you and I have talked about this, especially over the last kind of six weeks. But being a product person, being a good product person is going to become increasingly valuable.

Justin:

Being someone who understands how customer demand is created, how it grows, how you can capture it, how you can identify it, identifying features that customers think are important, someone knows how to translate that customer demand into an experience that satisfies that demand. This is it. And I was thinking it's like, I think we're gonna become more like film directors, Where a film director's like, alright, we're gonna set up the shot like this. Lights coming in from over here. Frank, you're gonna say these lines in this way.

Justin:

Julie, you're gonna respond like this. And then we're gonna have an overhead shot. Like, it's all direction and

Brian:

setting.

Justin:

So they are crafting, like, a conductor in an orchestra or a music producer. They like, you think about Rick Rubin sitting on a bench in a recording studio, and he's, like, listening. He's, okay. Let's bring in a little bit more of this over here and make this a little bit more like this. This is kind of the metaphor I'm thinking about in terms of how the kinds of people that I think will succeed in this environment.

Brian:

And You mean, like like, the the person who can, like, orchestrate all the moving parts and and also see the movements in the wave?

Justin:

There's just certain kinds of people that I think some employees have always been very good at receiving instruction. There's been a lot of train operators in my family history. And it's just like, you got to receive instruction. Here's how we do things. Here's your goal for the day.

Justin:

Here's your list of stops. Like and people are just good at ticking those off. I think that's gonna be harder to be that kind of person. Because now now you're just going to be giving that instruction increasingly to a machine to say, okay, hey, here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna do this.

Justin:

We're gonna go here. We're gonna build this this way. Yeah. People that could craft those experiences from a higher level. So whoever's, I don't know, planning out the train system and deciding where we're gonna go today and all those kinds of things, they kind of see things from a high level, and then they're basically employing people to do all those roles.

Justin:

Film director, the same thing. Like, hey. We're gonna set up the scene like this. This is what we're gonna look like. This is what it's gonna feel like.

Justin:

Here's all the pieces. Alright. And action. And then, you know, the the LLM starts generating.

Brian:

Yeah. It's like I guess I guess that does mean I think you're totally right. And if I think about, like, people or my current team or my future team yeah. So, like, I was just thinking about, like, a a guy that I've worked with for many years in audience ops. And I've kept in touch with him since exiting Audience Ops.

Brian:

He was one of the assistants on the team, turned into like a lead assistant, really, really great person, fantastic teammate, worked with him for like six years. He's been like emailing me maybe once or twice a year ever since then to find an opportunity for us to work together again. And I would love to find an opportunity for that. There have been a few times where we almost did, but he was sort of tied up in another role and couldn't make it happen. Yeah.

Brian:

So he just emailed me last week, and I'm thinking and like right now on Builder Methods, like, am solo. Right? Mhmm. And I do have a lot of work to be done. I feel like I'm constantly super busy.

Brian:

Last night, I pulled a late one trying to get this Design OS thing launched today.

Justin:

I saw that. I was surprised to see that. We'll have to talk about that in a bit.

Brian:

Yeah. So I'm hustling a lot, which makes me feel tired and makes me feel like I would love to delegate a lot more of mine. Yeah. Especially the the the busy work, the the setting up, the the Mhmm. Putting this over there, putting the things in the boxes.

Brian:

Right? But I still have I do have a hard time designing a new role for a for a human at this point. Or or really, I should and also the same thing happened when I had a video editor. I I was working with a video editor on my YouTube channel for probably about a month or two, and I and I did stop that, at least for now. Mhmm.

Brian:

I took it back I took the editing back over myself because I I just found that, like, yes, like, I know that I have, like, the perfectionism bug, but there's also the subject matter expertise that makes video editing really, really hard for my stuff. Like, he he can't pick b roll for when I'm talking about technical sub agents and stuff like that. You know? Yeah. So like, if I when I think about builder methods, and this this is probably a pattern that I would I would think would translate to most other companies right now, which is like, I think about a future role with with me or in this company, it's it's a higher level deep subject matter expert, someone who can who can create, who can think creatively, who knows the the the material, knows the space really well.

Brian:

I don't I don't know what the role is. I'm not necessarily hiring right now, but, like, it would be someone who can, I don't know, like, engage with members or help teach stuff or whatever it might be? You

Justin:

know? Yeah.

Brian:

Yes. Yeah. And so it's like for SaaS, I would I would assume it's like the senior product person is still super, super valuable, but the juniors, man, that's gonna be tough.

Justin:

Yeah. The I have some thoughts about juniors. I for anyone listening to this podcast, I think the hope for you is that we are these kinds of people. Indie hacker, bootstrapper. Like, every single person on the transistor team is a self starter manager of one, highly, you know, like self actualized.

Justin:

And those kinds of folks are going to be people that are gonna do well, whether you're working for an employer, or whether you're doing your own thing. Because one thing that hasn't changed is, yes, for we know that AI can do a bunch of stuff. Right? So in the same way that a train company could hire a bunch of train conductors and build a bunch of track and all those sorts of things. The train company is thinking, who's gonna be responsible for that?

Justin:

Yeah. We could open up a whole new leg of the country and do all that stuff. Who's gonna run it? And it's hard to find good people that can be responsible, that can take all of that ownership. Who's gonna be responsible for designing, conveying the vision, designing designing the system, working through things with the LLM and people, like, who's gonna be ultimately responsible for that?

Justin:

And that's where the the that's where there's gonna be a bandwidth problem. Right? It's like, we want to get more done. Well, the problem isn't that we don't have enough laborers, at least in the digital world. The problem is we don't have enough kind of directors.

Justin:

We don't have enough people that can, like, take the responsibility for that particular scene and make sure that everything that needs to happen for that happens. Yeah. And yeah.

Brian:

So actually, a good example is I I this is a little bit of an update on on Clarity Flow, but I think it I think it relates really well here. Sandia, she's a she started out as a very, very junior level developer in Clarity Flow. Started working on it, I think, over three years ago, three or four years ago. And she was like shadowing my current developer at the time. Like, really, like, at a university, like, just joining the team, super junior.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Based in India. And most people who join the team are are are pretty pretty good. She she learned really quickly. Eventually, that my main guy sort of moved on to something else, and and she stepped in to be, like, the only developer for she's been the sole developer with with me for the past three years.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Full full time, you know, building all the all the features that we're shipping. She's building them. I'm I'm directing them. I'm giving her direction, but she's really are, like, really building and shipping most of it. Fixes all the bugs and stuff.

Brian:

So the last, over the past year, she actually built a lot of new big features this past year in Clarity Flow. But now as we reach the end, our product roadmap is really slowing down. Like we've actually built all the feature requests. Like, all the big ones, we've shipped now. So the product is really in like a maintenance state.

Brian:

Yep. We're doing some quality of life improvements around stuff and improving stuff. And sometimes bugs come in, she fixes them quick. But it's generally like a customer support game and a maintenance and quality of life game in terms of the the operation. Right?

Brian:

So I'm as I talked about last time, I'm basically looking to remove myself from the day to day operation of Clarity Flow.

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

And so I just gave her the message yesterday. I think the traditional way to think about this would have been, what do I do with my full time developer, especially since our product roadmap is slowing down? And but but she's, like, really great and really capable and and and a and a go getter and a fantastic organizer, creator, director of of product. She's really grown into that. And and she and she knows the the product inside and out.

Brian:

Yeah. But the the traditional way would have been like, well, I I wanna remove myself from customer support. So I I would have hired a customer support person, like a separate person for that. Instead, I'm putting her into the support role because behind the scenes, she's been helping with support. Like she would like answer questions privately and would just relay them to the customer.

Brian:

It was pretty inefficient. So now her role going into 2026 is like, you know, staying full time, but we're gonna shift a lot of that new product feature work into she's gonna just handle the inbox and talk to customers.

Justin:

Love it.

Brian:

But a lot of it is also AI. So like we started playing around with the AI bot, the support bot, but that still requires some babysitting and optimization. Right? And so that's still time that I do review them, but like I don't really have a lot of time to really get deep and do all this like retraining of the AI support thing.

Justin:

The problem for you is who's gonna manage that project? Who's gonna be responsible

Brian:

for Who's gonna manage that project? Yeah. And so that's like a big part of her project right now is like, yes, she's gonna be directly answering customers, but her a big thing is like, she's gonna be reviewing and optimizing the training for our AI support and probably even like building some software stuff on on our back end to really make our training data really strong so that Mhmm. So that we have better and better customer self serve systems. Like, this is not this is not about her training AI to replace her own role.

Brian:

Like, I really just want a person, a super capable, somebody who knows our product inside and out, like like a do it all. And and this I'm I I I have absolute confidence in in her, and she's excited to take it on.

Justin:

This is awesome, dude.

Brian:

I I do so the lesson, the takeaway here that I wanna share with people is that, like, if you are at some sort of, like, junior level or or you're or you're trying to pitch companies on it's not just about having a great cover cover letter. Yes. Of course, you gotta do that.

Justin:

Yeah. You

Brian:

know? But it's also about how can you be useful and how can you wear multiple hats and suggest new ways for you to be useful beyond what your job title is. I really think that this person can do such a better job managing this support load and our self serve support systems than a random customer support hire person who doesn't have the technical background and doesn't know our product inside and out the way that she does. You know? So like Yes.

Brian:

That that's why, like like, there are different and new ways to make yourself valuable. Even if even if you were hired with the job title of junior developer, you could suggest ways to improve your marketing operation or improving your onboarding or improving this or that. Know?

Justin:

Yeah. I I had a bunch of thoughts about advice for junior developers given this context. And I think you actually identified something I hadn't even really thought about, which is if you of course, this is difficult. But the game is what's the hardest thing about handing over anything? So for me, like handing over video editing.

Justin:

Let's use that example. Well, for me, the problem is someone would need to, like, intuitively understand so much context about who I am, what I talk about, the kinds of examples I like to use, the the way that I do things, the way I think, all those kinds of things. It's very hard to hand that over. But if someone was sitting with me every day, if they showed up at my office every day, and it was just like, oh, it's video editing time. Sure.

Justin:

Come on in. You sit here. I'll work away. You ask me questions. Yeah.

Justin:

I'm doing it this way. Oh, I'm gonna go find this clip. Oh, I know I've got something in the archive about this. I gotta go find Then they watch you. Then you start to say, okay, you you take some of it.

Justin:

You take some of it. Chris Enns is a good example of this. He's been editing my podcast forever, and he just kinda intuitively understands kind of what I want. And he can he can deliver it effectively. So if he can figure out a way of getting in and I I also think about with Tuple.

Justin:

I'm gonna try to remember his name. It was Steven. Steven Dolan started working as Ben's executive assistant. And then gradually as that you know, he just learned the company, helped redesign systems, more and more responsibility. Then Ben was looking to get out of there.

Justin:

And it's like, well, who are gonna hand over the CEO role to? Well

Brian:

went from assistant to CEO?

Justin:

Steven was able to make this massive leap because he had worked alongside. It was transfer of Mhmm. Knowledge, intuition, taste, you know, all these kind of intangible things that make it so difficult to hand something over, that's gonna be massive.

Brian:

Yeah. I think if if there's, like, one takeaway or one blanket takeaway from this, it's like the it used to be like, I I I it's interesting to see how advice shifts given new realities. Right? I think the advice traditionally has always been like, don't try to hire a jack of all trades. That never works.

Brian:

You want to hire specialists. Well, I think now it's not necessarily that we all want to seek the jack of all trades, but it's more like the individuals should turn themselves into wearing multiple hats.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Make make yourself valuable beyond your one domain. You know?

Justin:

There's a lot of nuance here, and so I'm trying to explain it the best I can. But because there's also you know, you can have employees that are trying to take on too much or they're not quite they're taking on things in a way that isn't quite the way you would do them, and it's that there can be a lot of friction there. But I think there is something about if you can put yourself in a place where and this is why I honestly think for juniors and young people, you try to not get a remote job. Like, you can get in an office with somebody and you're just like, especially in an open office, my first startup jobs, the the CEO is right there. And I can just observe him all day.

Justin:

And

Brian:

I wonder I wonder about that one, though. I mean, I I I agree that, like, there's a detriment to the whole world being remote Mhmm. Now for for juniors. And and it kinda sucks that they won't have that in person experience that we grew up on in this industry. But at the same time, I wonder if, like, both like, it goes both ways.

Brian:

Right? Like, if like, I don't hire locally in my zip code because it just doesn't make sense for my business. Right? Yeah. There's probably some talented people who live around here.

Brian:

But like, between finding the space and limiting my hiring pool to just my zip code, that's just way too limiting to be viable, right? Yes. As an owner, as a manager. But then I wonder if-

Justin:

From your perspective-

Brian:

I wonder if it's also flipped, right? Like if you're a junior and and you're seeking out these in person experiences, if you're limiting yourself to only those companies that are only in person, that's a that's a limited pool of companies that you can that you can get in on. Right?

Justin:

That's right. But you're in in dramatically increasing your chances. So the rate the experience

Brian:

Oh, that's true.

Justin:

That people are having right now is they are in a pool of 10,000 people applying for the same job, and everybody's using AI to just, you know, shoot these these applications.

Brian:

That's actually a really good point. You can just literally drive over to the place and be like, hey, I live here, and I know this stuff.

Justin:

So Yes. Or just start showing up. I mean, you can do this remotely. We were talking about, you know, early in my career, I applied for a job at thirty seven signals. And the first so there's a bunch of things that I did that I think replicate some of this, which is I was consuming all of their blog posts, all of their podcasts.

Justin:

Every time somebody got hired, I went and read the story of how they got hired and what website they used to get hired. And I put all of that into my first application. Didn't get a response. But then I had Jason's email address. And so tastefully, every once in a while, I would drop him a note.

Justin:

They released this draft iPad app. I don't know if you remember that. And And I said, hey, I just wanna let you know. I know you're getting a lot of pushback on this online, but I just bought it, and I love it, and I think it's great. And I made a video.

Justin:

And I just was kind of staying in touch, applied again, And again, just incorporated all of this stuff. There's a lot more to it than that. But so you can replicate some of this. But I think if I was a young person, I would move to a big city, a big dynamic city, New York, Chicago, LA, Toronto. Just start going to meetups, start hanging out, start running into people.

Justin:

And instantly, like, you get so much more. Your profile gets raised so much more just by showing up at Yeah. Events and things like that.

Brian:

For sure. Let's get back to the 2025 or 2026. How are you thinking? Do you want to go forward or do want to go backwards?

Justin:

Well, what else do I want to say? Well, one another reflection I had about 2025 that's a little bit of a switch. So these start out really general, but I can get more specific if people want. But I had an old mentor that said, every business is a people business. Every problem is a people problem.

Justin:

And every solution is a people solution. And as I was reflecting on this here, I'm just like, man, this is just so true still to this day.

Brian:

How so?

Justin:

I can get more tangible and personal in a second. But like, if you aren't making sales, you have a people problem. You haven't been able to sufficiently motivate people to buy your product. Well, why? Well, because you have a people problem.

Justin:

You haven't been able to sufficiently, sorry. You haven't been able to identify what kinds of products people want to buy. Well, why is that? Well, you have a people problem. You haven't been able to identify what's motivating people right now, what tasks they have on their to do list.

Justin:

So that's an example from marketing.

Brian:

Yep.

Justin:

But it's a people problem. Like, if you and I reflect on this past year. I mean, even like we think about some of the health issues we you and I have discussed. That's a people problem. Right?

Justin:

We have to manage our own health. And if we can't do that, everything you know, we're severely limited in what we can do. I've had some kind of personal hardships in the family. And when that's going on, that's a people problem. That's a you know, I've got real stuff going on at home.

Justin:

It's gonna affect my ability to do stuff at the office. Right?

Brian:

Yeah.

Justin:

And I think it is true for motivating customers. It's true for motivating employees. It's true for the way that we relate to other people. Almost every difficulty. Like, if I get a DM from anybody, you, Adam, whoever, and he you know, someone says, hey, man, I gotta talk to you about something.

Justin:

It's always a people problem. Always.

Brian:

Yeah. And it's interesting how it's like the people problem is of course, there there's stuff with other people that are out that are either close to us or not close to us. And there there's always gonna be things that are outside of our control. But I I'd say maybe even more is the stuff where it's it's our own person that we need to that that is the problem or that needs a a new frame of reference to and if it's like a personal health thing, it's like, well, what kind of routines or discipline or changes do I need to make to fix that problem? And as we get older, obviously, that's a lot more relevant.

Brian:

Know?

Justin:

So what like for me personally, when I reflect on that for 2025, and then I think about 2026, I think one thing is especially as kind of like, we've had this remote culture, I'm definitely like, I've been a remote first person forever. Spiritually, I've been a remote first person my whole life. I just like love being in my own little place, being able to control things, being able to dictate how I work, all that stuff.

Brian:

You do seem like the kind the the type that would thrive with an in person office.

Justin:

But yes. So here's the other thing. So recognizing these dimensions. And one thing I've recognized, though, that as a one kind of deficiency I've had as a person is I'm not very good with conflict. I'm really bad about bringing up difficult topics.

Justin:

Same. And I've known intellectually, like what's that old saying? It's like, face hard problems now, easy future. Face easy problems now, hard future. Right?

Justin:

It's just like, if you just keep putting off the hard stuff, it just accumulates in the future. And one, I think, reflection for myself is that, especially in an AI world, for 2026, the game is to become more skillful at the human stuff. To become more skillful at, okay, how can I deal with conflict better? How can I force myself to, you know, develop some of these skills that are really difficult skills? And actually, I think increasingly, especially as you look at Gen Z, you're like, man, people have human skills are going downhill.

Justin:

Right? It's like, people don't know etiquette. People don't know like, my my kids, we're still teaching them that like, guys, when you finish a phone call, you say goodbye.

Brian:

Yeah.

Justin:

They're just like right. They're like, alright. And then they're just like, click, and they're like, hello? Did did you just hang up for me?

Brian:

Watching my kids try to try to u you know, like, they get on the on a phone call with my parent like, their grandparents. But it's not a FaceTime. It's a phone call.

Justin:

Like Yes.

Brian:

Old school phone call. They're completely lost. Like, they don't like, how does where where do I speak into?

Justin:

Yes. Yeah. They don't know how to hold the phone. So these skills are not easy. Human this is the hardest problem, And it's always been the hardest problem in humanity is dealing with yourself as a human, dealing with other people, figuring out how to navigate relationships, figuring out how to navigate just interactions, and it is challenging.

Justin:

If anything, in our current world, we've gotten worse at it. It's just all gotten worse. We're all online. We're polarized. We're used to saying the worst heinous shit to each other online, that you would never speak in person.

Justin:

We've we've developed this kind of performative emotionality and relationship where you sometimes you you hang out with people in person, and you're like, are are you filming an Instagram Reel right now? Like, what the realness isn't there.

Brian:

Yeah. It's so tough, man. It's like yeah. And, like, this past year, I haven't talked publicly about this. I'm not gonna share too much.

Brian:

But, yeah, like, people in my my life, my family, know, going going through some, like, really tough times. And Mhmm. It's like, like, I I for and then, like, for me, like, this is these are people issues. So it's like, how can I be the most supportive person possible here? And and then, like, there's there's always the the tension of, there's so much I wanna do to try to help, to try to move their situation from one reality to a better place.

Brian:

Mhmm. But then at the same time, so much of that is like, well, it's not me. It's it's not my life. I just wanna help. But

Justin:

I Yeah.

Brian:

But I can't I can't push. And I and I don't wanna I don't I don't wanna be too too like, what what's the word? Like, I don't

Justin:

wanna Prescriptive or

Brian:

Prescriptive or, like like, at at the end of the day, it's like, if if they want this to change, like, it's it's really up to them to make it happen. I can only offer my advice. But then it's also like, I want that to affect our relationship. So that's been a big one sort of behind the scenes this year.

Justin:

And I think our examples, especially in tech and the way a lot of us are naturally wired, makes it even more difficult. So if Steve Jobs is the prototypical genius founder, product person, visionary, like Steve Jobs would be great in this new era, he's a terrible emotional mentor or example. Right? Not having good kind of examples and even language to talk about it. And so here for example, here's something that I learned that I'm gonna try to put into practice is and I think the other difficult thing with this right now is that now our Internet feeds are filled with kinda like neo psychobabble whatever.

Justin:

Right? Mhmm. And so that everybody's got an opinion, whatever. But, like, here's an interesting way of thinking about things that I think relates to what you were saying is, as humans, we can basically make requests, and we can have boundaries. So a request is like to the kids, like, hey, can you quit putting keeping dishes in your room that get all moldy?

Justin:

And then, like like, it's just gross. Can you can you stop doing that? Right? And, I mean, parenting is a bit exact different because you could actually force people sometimes to do things. But generally, you can do a request, and then it's in their court.

Justin:

Right? I know here at co work, somebody could be really loud on the phone, and I can make a request. Hey, can you stop being so loud on the phone? It just disrupts everybody else here. That's the request.

Justin:

But now it's in their court. A boundary is something personal. It's a personal line that you create to say, you know, every time I come in the office, you've got your your, I don't know, your dirty jacket on my on my chair. I'm going to have I'm gonna do something personally that's going it doesn't affect you at all. Like, you can keep behaving the way you are, but I'm going to, for example, remove myself from the situation, or I am going to talk to whoever's above us and say, like, this has gotta stop, or I'm going to whatever.

Justin:

And this even that, like, the skillful like, learning the skills of requests versus boundaries. And then even in that, like, requests, as tech people, it's and it's gonna get worse with AI. We're used to I I build something in this way. I write the HTML this way. It's going to display this way.

Justin:

Yeah. I ask AI to do something, it's gonna do it this way. I make an API request, it's going to do it this way almost all of the time. And what's difficult for us in relationships sometimes in humans is like, humans don't work like that. And, you know, when it comes to people I care about, like my kids and stuff, it's like, man, I wish I could just force them to make these decisions.

Justin:

I wish I could and you can't. It's hard.

Brian:

Well, yeah. Like, one of the things like, you know, my business life, my work life always sort of blends into my personal life and mindset a lot of times. And I feel like if I look back on '25, one of the big themes for me was think I had, for a couple years there, I had lost my sense of just trusting my gut. And really just being in touch with like, what do I actually want here?

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Or what do I want to do? And just letting go of of any guilt that I felt like I was doing the wrong thing or I'm doing the the incorrect thing. Yeah. When I when I would really rather just be doing something a certain way that I think is right for me or for my business or for my whatever it is. Mhmm.

Brian:

And I think I I I frankly, as soon as I started getting in touch with that emotion, builder method started working. You know? Yeah. And and but then in my personal life, it's more like I think both I think really everyone in in my immediate family, we we share the same quality, which is like, like you said, like, we're very non confrontational, but we're also very accommodating. Mhmm.

Brian:

Oh, well, like, where do you wanna go for dinner? I'll go wherever you want. Like, whatever you want. Let's just go with that. Like, no.

Brian:

You choose. No. You choose. You know? There's a lot of that.

Brian:

Right? Yeah. And and so it's like, just trying to be more just like, well, what what do I want? Let's just Yeah. Be a little bit more assertive.

Brian:

Like, go go for the thing and, like and and, you know, be agreeable. But Yeah. Just go just just do it. Like, it's you know?

Justin:

That's a big thing. And I think that especially happens in your forties or maybe it's happened for me as my kids have gotten older because it creates this space for going like, when your kids are young, you're basically just accommodating your kids all the time. It's like they you gotta change some diapers. You gotta feed them. You gotta put them to bed.

Justin:

You gotta it's all accommodating. And once you get out of that phase and maybe once you get older, I don't know how it all works, but you do start to ask yourself that question, what do I want?

Brian:

And that's like my these days, that is my only advice that I ever wanna give to other business owners.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

It's like, what do you think is right? Do that. Yeah. Like like but really do that. Like, don't like, my advice is just don't listen to anyone else.

Brian:

Like, maybe maybe take it in. Maybe know that it's there. But at the end of the day, the deciding factor has has to be, like, whatever your whatever your first choice was, just go with that. You're probably you're probably better off.

Justin:

My advice would be first first to have develop incredible instincts and then do what you what you want. That's the hard part. But

Brian:

There there was this old I I remember back to high school when I was studying for for the SAT, you know, like the the big standardized test that all the high school kids I don't know if they still take it today, but that that was the thing. And the advice that I heard, you know, because it's all multiple choice. It's like, try to just try to just be aware of of which choice was your immediate snap. Like, oh, it's probably that one. But then once you start thinking about it, that's what that's what can trip you up.

Brian:

At the end of the day, like, if if it ever comes to like a like a coin toss, I don't know if it's b or c. Mhmm. If you've if if you if you notice yourself leaning to b first, like, just that's that's the one.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is a a factor. I think Adam Wathen was talking about this about, you know, there are certain things that he's built where it's just like he got the inspiration, and he built it in two hours, and it came out, and that it hit big.

Brian:

That is something I notice again and again throughout my life in both work and hobby and everything. The best things come fast. Yes. It just happens all it just keeps happening. I I I it's incredible to me.

Brian:

For me, you know, like, I write songs. I write music as my hobby. The the stuff that I'm most proud of Mhmm. Like, flowed right out in three minutes. Like, I wasn't even thinking about it.

Brian:

And my and the worst shit is is when I hammer on it for for weeks, you know? Like, products, agent OS, design OS, both of those came together in, four days initially. Yeah. You know? Just because it was like, alright, I got this idea.

Brian:

Let me just hack on it. It's just coming. Like, I it's it's writing itself. I'm not even strategically creating it. I just can't even keep up.

Brian:

It's just appearing before me. Because it's like the best solutions are obvious. You just it just takes you a while to, like, be aware of it. You know?

Justin:

They're obvious after, like, all of the stuff, like, kinda connects and then Mhmm. Starts to click. You know, I've had a couple of reflections and then whatever. I I do you have one for yourself in terms of the business, like, reflection on 2025, and then where you think it's gonna go in 2026?

Brian:

Well, okay. So I've got a couple different things we could talk about. I don't know what's where where you wanna go. There's one thing that's sort of on my mind right now from a marketing

Justin:

Okay.

Brian:

Perspective.

Justin:

Let's go into that.

Brian:

Okay. So, you know, like, YouTube has been my channel, has been my funnel. Everything. And builder methods, 100 like, 100%, it is successful because I because I have been successful to a certain extent on on YouTube. Yeah.

Brian:

I and it's like quite literal. Like, I would say 95% plus of the customers who have purchased this product this

Justin:

year. Wild.

Brian:

Just but they definitely discovered it through the YouTube channel. Mhmm. Which is great. I'm excited about that. It's the first time I've ever actually had a channel of any kind sort of really work in this way.

Brian:

So super exciting. I can't I'm absolutely gonna keep pushing on that in 2026. But I do feel and I don't know if this is just the December jitters getting to my head a little bit with, like, it having a little slightly slower week than usual. And but I'm I'm also publishing YouTube videos that are hit and miss. Right?

Brian:

Like, I I published one my like, two videos ago that was sort of a dud. Right? And and that happens now, like, one one every out of every four videos just doesn't do as well. And that impacts my funnel. That that results in a slowdown.

Brian:

That and and that slowdown from one bad video might, like, long tail effects because, like, those subscribers that that's like a lull in subscribers that might that might last like three or four weeks past that video. Right? Yeah. Yeah. My hunch or my notion now that I'm thinking about is like, I think I need to try to diversify the top of the funnel.

Brian:

Yeah. And there's there's a lot of low hanging fruit that I just haven't done. Right? Like, I should be able to take these long form videos and repurpose them. Like, one stupid easy one, it's been on my to do list forever.

Brian:

I just haven't gotten to it, Is create a blog. Just put up articles on the Builder Method site and turn my long form videos because they are written articles. I wrote the scripts. Like, I could literally just publish the scripts, maybe tweak them to make them article form and Yep. Publish those, get some SEO juice.

Brian:

Right? Or same thing with LinkedIn.

Justin:

Would be a great project even for builder methods as a sample project. Here's how I've automated my whole thing and it's all working and

Brian:

yeah. I mean, and even just like the creation of the blog, like, that's been on my list of projects and videos that I should create. I mean, that's one. But I'm also thinking about, like, doing maybe getting into some ads. Like, I don't I don't know if I would hire someone for that or or play around with, like, some sort of ads funnel into, a free course into Builder Methods Pro or something.

Brian:

Because, you know, there's also the logic. If you think about it logically, my YouTube based funnel is working with people who watch YouTube. But people who watch YouTube are not the only people in the world who care about building with AI. You know? There's probably a lot of people out there who just aren't YouTubers.

Brian:

And, you know, they're probably on LinkedIn or they're probably Googling or they're whatever. You know? So I I do need to start to be in more places so so that so that, like, I can go, like, week to week and be like, even if I have a hit and miss video, I still have customers discovering it other ways. You know?

Justin:

Yeah. I have a few thoughts. One is that I I can totally identify with that feeling. There was a time where I had some products that just felt very dependent on whether or not I was gonna have another viral article appear on Hacker News. And that feeling of like, this has to work every time.

Justin:

And when it didn't work, the the resulting like, oh, there every like leads literally just dried up. It's like, oh, that flywheel is just was a little bit too dependent on kind of these once in a year kind of events happening. Right? Yep. And, you know, it's quite common for people who have content businesses to feel that pressure of like, man, my last five videos haven't hit.

Justin:

And even more so for people who depend on ads. Like, I know I have YouTube creator friends who are very dependent on the ads from YouTube. And they're just like, damn. Like Yeah. My last three months, I haven't had a hit.

Justin:

Like, I went from a 100,000 video views of video down to 3,000. Like, I'm everything's drying up.

Brian:

It's tricky. It's like part of it is, like, operationally. Like, again, there there are, like, I feel like low hanging fruit. Like, theoretically, it's so simple. Right?

Brian:

Like, just take the long forms and repurpose them, recut them into all these other posts. Right? Yeah. That should be so easy. And, yeah, I guess I could hire an assistant to help me wire all that stuff together.

Brian:

Or I could spend a week Part of my thought, like, next week is like Christmas week, but it's really just like a quiet week around here. I'm not planning on publishing any new YouTube videos next week. So Yeah. My thought was like, next week is gonna be, like, my optimization week. Like, maybe get that blog fired up, start to do some SEO work, you know.

Brian:

But I really need to think through the process of, like, I have the process for creating and editing and publishing a YouTube video. There has to be a post promotion game process. But ideally, it would be something as as automated as possible where I could just be, like, get the last published YouTube video and

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Zap it out to LinkedIn. Zap it out to I don't mean Zapier, but I mean just like automations that get this thing reconfigured into articles, get it get it cut into shorts, get it distributed.

Justin:

So here here's for me, my marketing was write a blog post that I think will go viral, submit it to Hacker News, get a few friends to upvote it, to get it kind of above the noise high watermark, and then just hope that it picked up traction. And that worked a bunch of times. And then I think I was hanging out at a conference. I was speaking at a conference and at the speakers dinner, the guy next to me was like, so like, where do you get most of your traffic? And I was like, oh, it's like mostly at the time Hacker News, Reddit, and Lifehacker.

Justin:

And he's like, oh, that's weird. He's like, like, what about search? Like search engines? I said, like, literally zero of my business comes from search engines. And the more we talked and the more I was thinking about it, I was like, man, this is it's nice when the viral things happen.

Justin:

Like, that just feels like a byproduct of doing the work. But then I just got I got really committed to just doing things every day that just kind of move the needle when it comes to search engines, when it comes to word-of-mouth, when it come like, I just started to focus on the basics. And I think I can show this chart here. This is just a chart of new customers for Transistor this past year.

Brian:

Yeah. I remember, like, a few years back, you you you just started, like, publishing, like, how to podcast or something like that.

Justin:

Yeah. Like Wait. And so this is interesting. This is compared to the previous year. So these are these are our new customers last year.

Justin:

K? So some of this is the market. Some of this is the economy. Some of this is whatever.

Brian:

For those listening, it's like it it looks like the high the high watermark was, like, March, April. Mhmm. And then Yes. Sort of bumpy.

Justin:

But what's what's what's substantial about this is compared to the dotted line, which you see down here

Brian:

Yeah. Is like a year lower.

Justin:

Is just significantly higher. And

Brian:

It's like new new customers up 37% over

Justin:

That's right.

Brian:

Over the previous year.

Justin:

And so what makes the difference? What causes this? And even last year I mean, last year is showing as lower. Right? We're we're 38% higher this year than last year.

Justin:

But last year was a good year too. It was actually it's way more consistent year over year than you would think. And but we had a nice big boost this year. So what causes the consistency and what causes the boost of growth? And for me, and part of this is just how I naturally work, is just consistently showing up every day, and moving, tending to the garden, moving, planting a few more trees, and just doing it consistently all the time, and then evaluating the results.

Justin:

So where do customers come from with Transistor? It's search engines. It's affiliates and partners. It's increasingly ChatGPT and other LLMs. It's increasingly people posting about us on YouTube.

Justin:

So you just start to notice where did people come from. And then you just keep going, like, where what what can we do to continue to build on that?

Brian:

So would you say that, like, in 2025, all of your like, clearly from this graph, what if if you were to, like, zoom out and look at, like, the last three years Yeah. You you would just see that slow ramp up.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

30% or so every year of growth, which means, like, probably every part of your funnel. So traffic, 30% higher. Trials, 30% higher, which which turns into 30% more new customers Mhmm. Every year. Right?

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

So would you say that in the past year, in 2025, it was just more it was just like your existing channels just incrementally grew, or did you do anything that you feel like introduced a new element to your marketing?

Justin:

For this past year, a lot of it was this accumulation of just doing things consistently. It's just consistently, like,

Brian:

it I'm curious how what do you do consistently now? Like, are you guys do do you have some sort of, like, rhythm with, like, new articles that you develop? Or, like, what do you what's what's like the cadence now?

Justin:

I mean, I don't want to share too much. But it Generally, I mean, it's stuff that's kind of shitty to do. It doesn't it's not the funnest stuff. It's like, hey, I gotta go into Reddit and just see what's being posted today, if there's anything I can reply to, if there's anything I can contribute to, if there's any sort of conversations about transistor that I need to, you know, pay some attention to.

Brian:

And that's and that's all you. You're doing that.

Justin:

It's me. It's other people on the team too. But it's a lot of it's me. A lot of it's just like, yeah, I gotta keep posting videos on YouTube. I gotta keep publishing blog posts.

Justin:

Now we're not posting a blog post every week. Maybe it ends up being every month. Hey, I gotta think about this partnership. Hey, I gotta email that person. I haven't talked to that partner in a long time.

Justin:

I'm just gonna email them and get an update.

Brian:

So it's like general motion of just doing things

Justin:

that It's just

Brian:

that could help.

Justin:

It literally feels like every day I just get up and I just push the rock a bit further down the path, or I'm pushing that rock, pushing that rock, pushing that rock. You know? That that's the feel. There's still big swings that we're taking that we're trying. We're like, alright.

Justin:

Let's try to put a bunch of money in this and try this and, you know, see if we can orchestrate something big. Like, that would be fun.

Brian:

I I I like the sound of what you have going on there because it's like you you do have you do have a diversified set of Mhmm. You've got the SEO. You've got you've got a lot of word-of-mouth. You've got some YouTube action. You've got some communities, Reddit, and and so on.

Brian:

You've got ChatGPT. Yeah. You know? So it's like And you got these partnerships and stuff like that. So it's like And affiliates.

Brian:

So yes, it might sound like you're sort of just like randomly jumping between different channels and doing different activities. But at the end of the day, that actually adds a diversification of your top of the funnel, like something that I don't have, right? Like for me, I feel like I'm actually on a treadmill where I have to do a YouTube video at least once a week. And and also just historically, I've always thought of I I I don't think about it even though now I feel like I have a job of doing these YouTube videos, I've always thought about it like, what what system can I put in place and then either hire somebody or automate it so that I I could work hard on it on a for a month, and then let that blog system keep going all year and Mhmm? Have it produce this.

Brian:

So that's how I I try to think about things theoretically, but it, like, almost never works that way. You know? What from a marketing standpoint, I mean.

Justin:

Yeah. Like I I I think the the important piece well, first of all, I've chosen a set of activities. It is multiple activities, but I've chosen a set of activities that is kind of in my wheelhouse. So even though we've tried ads every once in a while, it's not really my wheelhouse. It's I'm not going to I I mean, maybe that could change.

Justin:

But so far, I kind of stay in my sweet spot.

Brian:

Mhmm.

Justin:

But that's multiple things. And the nice thing about it is I can almost guarantee you if I did nothing next year, the results would still be pretty good. Now, if I let it if I let it kind of degrade for two or three years, I think, you know, we'd start to see, you know, things would start to fall apart. But it has a it's not like it's a it's a literal flywheel. Like, once you get it going, it is you go to sleep, you wake up the next day, it worked.

Justin:

You go to sleep, you wake up the next day, it worked. Oh, today's the day I'm gonna push this a little bit. Maybe that plant will grow, maybe not, but I'll water it and whatever and water these plants. Okay, go to sleep, wake up. It still works every day once it's moving.

Brian:

It is interesting. Like with Clarity Flow, I am not that it's any kind of like raging success, but it's no secret that I have backed off my activity, especially on marketing this past year. I've I've done and we've published almost no new, like, educational articles or anything on on Clarity Flow. We did invest in that in that over years, and it did and we do still get a lot of SEO and a lot of ChatGPT. And and and we do have some affiliates, but we but it's like we did not decline in 2025.

Brian:

It it still grew, not a huge rate, but, like, with pretty minimal activity and no spending on marketing. The word-of-mouth and the years of investment in And a lot of the biggest SEO wins were the simplest that I implemented about a year ago, a year and a half ago, which was like, it was not continuously published new articles about long tail keywords. Like that game, I've tried that so many times and it just never really worked for us. It was more like moving the KB docs to the main site.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian:

Yeah. Like stuff like that and maybe like optimizing the homepage a bit and Yeah. And and starting to rank for a few important keywords, you know.

Justin:

I I think the the hopeful piece for you in 2026 is just that you've got one thing that's working. And there is a consistency play there too. Like, if you just keep publishing videos, even if you publish 10 bad videos in a in a row, there's just a good chance that if you keep publishing, the eleventh or twelfth or thirteenth will get you back on track, and you're you're going again. But there's also just things you can put into place that might be a bit of a bigger lift at the beginning. You know, you get a blog going, and then you've got one blog post, and then that's not much.

Justin:

But then you get five blog posts, and then you get 10, and then you get 20, and then you get 40, and then you get And eventually, it just starts working. And

Brian:

I do start to wonder yeah. You're right. I I I gotta just get some, basic systems processes up and running for that. But the another thought I'm curious to get your your your feedback on this is like, from a product standpoint, I do wonder about okay. So, like, I just released Design OS today, and I'm pretty excited about this as a product.

Brian:

Like, just as a tool. I I really, really think it's fantastic. During the flights to Costa Rica last week, like, I literally built another new tool. It doesn't it doesn't have a marketing site, but it's it's a tool that I'll be using called inbox summaries, which I I've got a couple thousand survey responses that I can't physically read. And this thing reads them and summarizes them and gives gives me reports, gives me pulls out the gems and things like that.

Justin:

Nice.

Brian:

Pretty pretty great tool. I I designed the whole thing using Design OS. It literally just cook took a couple of hours. You know? So Design OS as a again, I I released it as a free open source product.

Brian:

Right? Agent OS is also still a free open source product. It always will be. It's true that these tools have driven people to Builder Methods Pro membership.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

It's probably true that it they've they've sent some people to buy my workshops. But I also think that there are a lot of people who just use the tools, and they don't need the membership.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

Part of me is thinking in 2026, I still I still believe that Builder Methods Pro, the membership, the community, the educational content library, the support from me and from other members is the big value that I want to be selling and growing in the revenue. But I do have a thought to introduce like a cloud service, like a SaaSified version of probably both Agent OS and Design OS. Maybe like separate. Like, each each would have its own separate cloud service thing. This is not a play to let me see how I can just milk these for some money or monetize them in some way that's not actually valuable.

Brian:

I think each of them actually have some very specific pain points that I hear from people using them, especially Agent OS. Design OS is brand new. But Agent OS, there's a lot of teams who need to have their specs synced up with the rest of their team and sort of sent into linear issues or sent into Notion or something for their product managers and their marketing team to be able to access. So, do think that there's like an opportunity to offer like it's not like a premium version of AgentOS. It's not like free and premium.

Brian:

It's like the core product will always remain free and open source. Same thing with DesignOS. Yeah. And not every user will need this cloud service, but especially if you're a team. And I think the same would be true for Design OS, if the idea would be like, use the cloud service if you wanna share your designs with a team or with clients or with a stakeholder.

Justin:

Yeah. Dude, this feels like you're this is gonna be fizzy fizzy dot do.

Brian:

That's why I really like their model with that. Because that's how I'm thinking about it. Well, there I mean, that that's a little bit different though. That's like like, I'm not necessarily thinking about offering a hosted version of AgentOS or a hosted version of DesignOS. Like, if you're gonna use it, you will always use it as it currently exists.

Brian:

It's more like I'm trying to think of a okay. So, like like, an example would be like Obsidian, the the note taking tool. I that's my main note taker that I use. I think that I pay for whatever their premium thing is. It's, I don't know, like, $50 a year or something like that.

Brian:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For, like, for, like, syncing capability. You know?

Brian:

It's like a little, like, nice benefit that I'm willing to pay for. And and there's a couple of other, like, pretty much free tools where I'm where I'm, like, willing to pay for the for the thing. And I don't know what what the pricing model and and everything would be for what I'm talking about here. But, like, that's the idea where it's like a it's like an add on separate service that might solve some problems for you. But you but not every user would have them.

Brian:

You know? Yes. And so, like, I guess my thought there is, like, I would like to keep growing the membership for those who are interested in membership, but it would be also also be well, on on one hand, it's also like, maybe this is something else that, like, members can also buy. It's not something I would just give to members. It's like, you know, the the the biggest fans, like, let's let's find something else that's valuable that they would be willing to buy as well.

Brian:

And then and then it's like there's the whole segment of people who just aren't interested in the membership, but they're very interested in agent OS.

Justin:

Yeah. I really like this idea. Here's I'm not sure if you're gonna address this pain, but here's the pain I kind of see in teams. And like I said, I'm talking to lots of teams here at Cowork Vernon and seen lots of teams that are struggling with this, which is if you are a product manager at there's a fellow here. Product manager at an established software company that's more enterprise.

Justin:

He's excited about AI. He's he's bought in. He's like, we need to do this. What tools does he have at his disposal to convince the rest of the team? He can send them articles.

Justin:

He can send them YouTube videos. But what you know what they really need is like a a wizard, an onboarding wizard app that would say, hey, welcome to the AI team. Let's just start by you entering your role. Okay. Well, I'm the senior CTO.

Justin:

Okay. What's your oh, I'm in I'm the product manager. Okay. And you get everyone to enter the role. Then it says, okay.

Justin:

What are your apprehensions about this? And then they enter all their apprehensions. And then, okay, what what are you kind of want to do? Like, do you want to move faster? What get all that.

Justin:

And help giving people the tools to onboard their team. To me, Design OS kind of feels like that in a way. Like, when I look at the structure, I go, man, that would be like, it feels like people would pay for some form of online version of that. That's just like or even like I would pay for

Brian:

It sounds like what you're describing is like a like a like an automated online self serve coaching or self serve like Yeah.

Justin:

Like like

Brian:

get comfortable with using AI.

Justin:

Even like like AgentOS, the questions I have are like, can somebody just help me to kinda onboard into this way of doing things? So the the whole idea of Agent OS is it gave you a structure and a process for saying, here, identify, you know, how you build code here, identify what is important to you, this is where you put it, all that kind of stuff. And it it feels like a lot of people need that onboarding step. There's people that are professional developers who are in your target market, who are like, I just need to either onboard myself and my project into this, like, figure out how I'm gonna do this, and I need to figure out how I'm gonna onboard my team. And you're you're you're, like, tracing the edges of this.

Brian:

I feel like you're hitting more on and this is also something that that's on my mind lately is like it's more about this is more on, the membership side and the training side and the and and the workshops side. Right? Where it's like, I have to keep reminding myself that, like, there are so many people, professionals in our industry who are still so rudimentary when it comes to using AI. Yeah. I'm a big fan of of that company, every Dan Shippers thing.

Brian:

And, you know, in in some ways, like, I guess you can you might consider them a competitor to what I'm doing in builder methods. But they're they're much further ahead, much larger, and I and I really respect what they're doing. I think they're I think I think they do really great work. Yeah. But I think that they they published something.

Brian:

They they do a lot of, like, team consulting with with AI adoption. And and and what they wrote, like, really matched a lot of what I've heard in my conversations with individuals, but also especially team leads, where where it's like it's almost like pretty surprising how there's like a lot of like people at these companies who just don't even know that that you could even choose between multiple models in these tools or like what you know, knowing what what is the difference between using something like Opus versus Gemini or like, even just like the basics of using, like, Cloud Code. Like, if you're in it every day, these things feel like they're so simple and rudimentary. But, like, if you're an if you're an everyday engineer working on a big product, you're probably too busy to even care about this stuff. So you you just don't have exposure to it.

Brian:

Mhmm. Which which then translates to a lack of organization across your company and and a lack of initiative to to make this a thing. Like, so there's just a lot of inertia around, like

Justin:

Yeah.

Brian:

Is that the word? Like, a lot of, like, let's just keep doing what we've always been doing. Why do we have to change everything? You know?

Justin:

Yeah. Oh, and and also just inertia in terms of how would we ever get started?

Brian:

Yeah.

Justin:

How how how do I get started? Like, how there's so many questions, and there's a lot of questions you've identified. By the way, Pascal in chat says, quote, can someone onboard me into this AI process? He goes, yes. Like, he's feeling that same pain.

Brian:

Yeah. Like it like it has me thinking about, like, what the next few videos I might do on on the on the channel are just like like, I should just do some more, like, basic stuff. You know? A lot of my best performing stuff has been, like, basics of using Cloud Code. You know?

Justin:

Yeah. And I I think there's just an interesting like, when you think about what people will pay for and even thinking about like, let's go back to the the once model. What one time software products would you pay for or have I paid for in the past? You know, in the old days, would pay for audits. Like, Audit my whole site for you know, it could be an automated audit even, but I'm just paying you to get a one time report on give me the report.

Justin:

Or SEM is it SEM Rush? Used to have this, like, if you didn't wanna pay for the whole subscription, you could just pay for one automated downloadable report. Somebody in chat Steve Steve says process kit. That's what people want. Yeah.

Justin:

It kind of is that. Like, honestly, like, today, if there was a thing I could go and pay, I don't know what it is, one time, $25, $50, whatever. And it just says, okay, just tell me about your world. And I go

Brian:

I think what you're describing would be hard to automate, I would say. Maybe. Yeah. Think what you're describing really is more of pain point that the private team consulting thing would. Like, I I just sold one of these for January working with a team, doing a private workshop for them.

Brian:

But that's I I think the way that that works is to make it more personalized. So, like, the structure of that engagement is a discovery call, talking to to the leadership team. Tell me about your top questions. Tell me about your current workflows. What are you guys working on?

Brian:

And then I'm gonna I'm gonna take what I learned on that and put together a custom tailored private workshop just for your team to watch. And then we'll have, like, a week of, like, open q and a. You know? But like that and that's, like, tailored to them. And that's something that I I I think I'll hope to repeat in 2026 for other teams that that come through.

Brian:

Yeah. But then, like, the lower the the lighter version of that, the less spendy version of that would be like pay for seats in Builder Methods Pro, join us here. And frankly, in Builder Methods Pro, I do need to develop more. I have a pretty large library now, but I need to develop more structure. There's a couple of tracks.

Brian:

Like, hey, we're new or we're a team or we're in new product mode or we are in established code And based there's got to be a learning path or an onboarding path of content and maybe exercises that I can give you.

Justin:

Not just content. See, here's the thing. I think this these kind of onboarding wizard y type things are almost better in an AI world than they were before, which was like there there have been these kinds of tools where you answer a bunch of questions, and then it gives For you, we recommend this or whatever.

Brian:

But wouldn't that recommend recommendation lead to, for you, we recommend Claude Code. Now go watch my training on Claude Code.

Justin:

It could. But I think it could go deeper. Like, there are some things you've realized that I think a person may or may not even think to answer. So if let's go back to your example of I'm a Ruby on Rails developer. I've always done things the Ruby on Rails way.

Justin:

I'm getting into AI, and you're onboarding me with your automated AI wizard. And then, you know, you so you ask a question. What have you built with? Here's my stack. There could be an interstitial there where it goes, just stop and consider right now.

Justin:

I know you've always built things this way. But in this new AI world, one thing you may want to consider that was apocryphal before is maybe consider a React front end. I know. I know. I know.

Justin:

And, like, you just have some content that's an interstitial that I think somebody getting into it might just be like, okay, well, I'm just gonna like, okay, I'm gonna fire up Claude and just do things the way I always have. And to have some some smart, guided, shaped, you know

Brian:

Are you talking like automated or like

Justin:

Automated.

Brian:

One to one to one?

Justin:

So using I I think like a using AI, but directing the AI in a way that's saying, like, listen, like, I just know these are some things that are gonna come up. So here let's let's just identify the there's a few gotchas. There's a few things that people miss.

Brian:

I have seen that, you know, there's a thing now where like people who run these big membership sites or course educational companies, they add like a chatbot that's like trained on all of their content and their wisdom. Right? Like I was I was looking at Jay Claus' stuff. Mhmm. I think he like, one of the benefits is is you get access to his custom tailored maybe there's some value in that.

Brian:

I I haven't really tried it, but I tend to think that, like, okay. It's just it's just a smarter way to read the docs. Right?

Justin:

I do think that I I think there's something here that is still like getting personalized recommendations and just having maybe I'm wrong about how you deliver it. But

Brian:

Well, I just think that, like

Justin:

I have personally still found the cold start problem is a big thing with AI.

Brian:

No. I I think what you're definitely describing is is very valid. But to me, the the more obvious and urgent thing that I need to develop on that front is better and more and better organized content in Builder Methods Pro. Mhmm. And I I mean, I I get requests for it from members.

Brian:

And and, like, up until now, for the first four months of it, I've just been in sheer, like, grow the volume. Just put stuff in there so that there is stuff to be had when you become a member. Right? But I think one of my next phases is to, like, start to introduce categories of, like like, I I do like, I did one pretty educational video last week called The Builder Method, and I wanna build on that as, a concept and maybe make that more of, a learning path. I do wanna do more, like, full app builds, like design and build, and really just document every step of the way.

Brian:

I consider these ride alongs. But then I do wanna have a whole library of shorter videos that are just basics of Cloud Code, basics of cursor, basics of how to do this or that. You know? Like, quick hits, like, quick answers, but, like, from my take on it, like, here's what you need to know. Filtering out the noise, here's what matters.

Brian:

And then maybe using what you're talking about, a little bit more smart routing navigational stuff. And that could use AI. That could just be simple UI stuff as you as you're a new member, you're onboarding, click a few boxes. Let me recommend a learning path for you. You know?

Justin:

See, the the other value with AI seems to be custom kind of models that are kind of shaped and trained on either So in your case, have this community knowledge. I don't know what you build that can suck up all the community knowledge. And

Brian:

some I mean, I even just wanna do, like, more like, very I I feel like I don't need to really reinvent the wheel here. It's more like there's a lot of, like, low hanging fruit that I just still need to do. So, like, one is just I really want to start to do office hours. Just a couple times a month, assemble groups, and definitely have one just for teams, one just for startups, one just for technical people, one just for nontechnical people. Right?

Brian:

And these can be groups that anyone can attend and we'll record them, make the recordings available to the rest of the people. And that can produce more knowledge and that can produce more training content for a smart chatbot. But the the essence of that is just talk to the members more and, like, and and learn what the needs are. Yeah. And I mean, getting back to the thing, like, there's a channel inside of the Discord for Builder Methods Pro called Teams.

Brian:

Right? And this week, there have been a few team leaders in there chatting about their pain points and their needs and their wants for getting Agent OS, you know, used across their entire team. And like, this is this is fuel that I wanna I wanna dig in with them. But like that it's it's that kind of thing. I've heard it again and again from other people, especially from team leaders where I'm like, I think that there could be like a cloud service component that could tie into agent OS to to solve that specific problem.

Brian:

And then like the other thing is like, I do have all of these survey responses in my inbox, like thousands.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

I just built this tool. I'm still finishing it up right now, but it's called inbox summaries. And my idea with that is it will automatically ingest all the survey responses and also all the replies to my newsletter. And it'll answer a few key questions. Like, if it's a survey let's say it's a survey that asks like what what's your biggest pain point with adopting AI?

Brian:

And it probably has a couple different questions. I'm gonna get a single email like once a week that just that just gives me the summary like, okay,

Justin:

the last batch of

Brian:

a 100 survey responses, these are the top pain points that they're reporting. And and then this is how those are trending from previous weeks. Yeah. You know? And so like and and then then it's like, I can actually start to use these insights from all this feedback that I'm getting.

Justin:

Yeah. That's actually good kind of product idea inspiration is what are some things that I might do with AI manually that if they were automated, would become way more useful. So like I do these welcome emails to all our new customers and people reply to them. And every once in a while, I'll go in manually and summarize, you know, what where are most people coming from, what's motivating most people. But if that was an automated process that was just like every week I get a summary email, and it tells me what's trending this week versus last week, what's trending overall, that just becomes so much more useful.

Justin:

And Yeah. You know, I've experienced the utility by manually typing it into a AI chatbot, but now I need that automated.

Brian:

Yeah. I mean, I'm at the I'm at the volume now where it's just like I and I'm sure you the same is true for you where it's like, you could spot check. You could just pick out individual emails and get a feel, get a sense for what one or two people might have said. But really, we should be able to so this tool will ingest and read and give me the summary. The other thing that it will do is I I called it I called this feature gems.

Brian:

It will pull out the gems. So and this happens actually a lot, and it and it's a problem where I like, I have it categorized in my inbox, right, where, like, where all the surveys land, and I just see that number going up and up and up. And that just makes me, frankly, like, less and less likely to go in there and actually read them because there's just so many. But what what does happen from time to time is somebody will use that usually, the the reply to the email the reply to the newsletter, they will use that opportunity to send me a very important question or a very important inquiry. Like, hey, my team of 400 people wants to hire you for a thing.

Brian:

Or like, hey, I'm thinking about buying a membership. Like, does but but can I do this? Like or hey. I I need an invoice for this, or I need or or I want a refund for this purchase. There have been multiple times now where people follow-up on a different subject line and say, like, I tried emailing you and you didn't read my response.

Brian:

Yeah. Because it was one because it was in the big pile of survey responses.

Justin:

Yeah. So this will pull those out.

Brian:

So this will so you give it criteria for if someone ever asks for a refund or if someone ever is inquiring about a client engagement, flag that gem. You know?

Justin:

Yes. Okay. This concept that you've applied in this direction, brilliant. I think I think lots of people would have things that regularly land in their emails that they need summarized in this way. It feels like you could also take this exact concept and point it in a different direction.

Justin:

Like, if this became a Discord bot that goes through all the discussions and it highlights kind of the key discussions and the gems, And then that becomes your weekly newsletter to members.

Brian:

Yeah. I actually did design the app to work not just for emails. So you you can have it just forward emails into this app, and it'll summarize them. But it also works with webhooks, and you can also upload CSVs. So if you're getting, like, a lot of data like, it it's a way to it's a way to to summarize and analyze large amounts of data.

Brian:

And and if you if you can fire data into it using a webhook, then that works too. You know?

Justin:

I like it. We should probably wind down here. One thing I will say I'm considering for 2025, it it it points to what Pascal was saying. I had this as a note. So Pascal is like, I'd rather them spend more time understanding buyer psychology, building a marketing practice.

Justin:

That there's a fever. So I think he's just talking about different pain points that people have with building AI. And this has been you know, I've thought about rewriting and relaunching marketing for developers multiple times. This is the first time I felt like I've got a new angle that I think is going to become relevant, which is your Discord is filled with developers that are building products. And the the next step after that is, okay.

Justin:

It's like, how do I Market. Market it? How do I get distribution?

Brian:

Oh, interesting. Justin's got a book in him for 2026. I like it.

Justin:

Maybe rewriting marketing for developers would be an interesting project. And

Brian:

Yeah. Especially especially now.

Justin:

Yeah. In an AI world. So rewriting it for AI in an AI world, making that the lens.

Brian:

By and for AI.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. By cue. By Justin and Claude. Co

Brian:

authored by Claude.

Justin:

But, yeah, I think there's something there that's interesting to me. And and, I mean, I could even take some of my own medicine here, which is like, is there is there a more interactive way of delivering that that would be interesting? And it could just be that the answer is always like in an AI world, some form of human connection is what's gonna win. So it might mean I need to re you know, I started off with marketing for developers doing workshops like you've been doing. Maybe I'd do just a couple of workshops where it's just like, hey, here we are.

Justin:

We're gonna work through all the issues. So let's get cracking here.

Brian:

I'm curious. I I know like, 05:00 always rolls around when we're recording this, and then we end up going for, like, another thirty, forty five minutes.

Justin:

That's okay.

Brian:

Alright. So I wanna ask you about this. Yeah. It does sound like you have a book in you. It does sound like you you obviously, it's something you're passionate about with with marketing for developers, marketing for SaaS, and and thinking about the the world and where we're going in with AI and everything.

Brian:

My question for you is, what's your motivation to do a big project like that? Like, you you have Transistor, which is a podcasting company. Are you in the mindset going into 2026 that, like, you do wanna diversify or get back to your roots of, like, Justin's personal brand audience offerings. Like, it's one thing for us to hop on this podcast and talk about business. It's sort of just for fun.

Brian:

And, yeah, it has some business effects, some benefits for us, sure. But, like, it's like it's easy. We could just hop on it. Right? Writing a whole book, that is hard.

Brian:

And not just the writing of it, but marketing it and grow and and making it a thing. Right?

Justin:

If I did it, it would be a rewrite of the existing book. So it'd be a

Brian:

It's still that's still a big project.

Justin:

For sure.

Brian:

Even with Claude, it's still a big project to ship anything like that. Absolutely. But, like, so what is your thinking in terms of, like, how important is that in your whole portfolio and all

Justin:

that? Yeah. That's what stopped me from doing it for sure. It's just I even reached out to a few people. Like at one point, Arvid Kall and I were talking about rewriting it together when he was really focused on writing books.

Justin:

Was like, oh, that'd be nice. If I had a co author, we could write it together. That would be that would help. In terms of motivation, I think I've just ever even since when Transistor started, I got rid of a lot of my side projects when Transistor started, but I kept some things. I also kept starting new things every year.

Justin:

Part of it is just to keep myself sharp, to have other things in play, to and and that especially when you have a main thing. Any side thing you do often just becomes additive to the main thing. So, you know, if I if I wrote a if I rewrote marketing for developers, certainly, there'd be a lot of discussion about Transistor, and that becomes its own kind of virtuous cycle.

Brian:

I would be interested in your work on that because you also do a really good job of turning other people's stories into case studies. I've always like, even just in your blog posts, you've always done this, and I've always been really impressed

Justin:

with Like,

Brian:

almost every blog post you do, you have like two or three specific examples of other people. And that kind of thing is really I know how much, like, extra time that takes. Like, anyone can just, like, write up their thought on something. That's what I do. I don't take the time to find examples.

Brian:

You know? So if you were to turn that into a book form, it would be I think it would be interesting to me if you would if if you spend some months in 2026, yeah, maybe doing workshops, but also like doing either private or public interviews with other SaaS founders and and marketer and and seeing what's working in marketing.

Justin:

Yeah. Like, get Lars Lofgren.

Brian:

Yeah. And and, like Yeah. That'd be sweet. Just, like, like, interesting case studies of, like, how the marketing game is is changing in 2026.

Justin:

I mean, and people I mean, Lars, especially, if folks aren't following Lars, you gotta follow Lars. He's he's posting a

Brian:

lot more newsletter. What he sends like once every, like, two months, but when he sends something, it's like, oh, shit. That's so good.

Justin:

Yeah. I'm finding he's really good on LinkedIn. His his stuff on LinkedIn is just and he's always been very raw and no bullshit. Yeah. I like that.

Justin:

I mean, I'm not committing to it. I'm just saying every year I look at marketing for developers. Like, the site's still up, and it still makes sales.

Brian:

I mean, the other angle to it is that now People who would be interested in marketing for developers are developers who are starting up new products, like MVPs. They're trying to hustle on a startup. Right? So you're probably not selling to companies. Maybe some marketing strategy for companies, but I would think that your audience Buying the book Marketing for Developers, I'm a developer who's trying to sell a new product that I'm hacking maybe on the weekends.

Justin:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian:

So the new angle that's probably very different in 2026 from when you first wrote it is that you could build that product in a week now. It didn't used to be. So like, it's like marketing is even more It's always been important, but like building the product is so the easy part Well,

Justin:

and some of this stuff has gotten reversed. Like if you even If you look at the existing marketing page for it, it takes you through this whole process. Right? Start, build it, marketing stack, pre launch, launch and grow. But part of the the book was to say, by the time you build something, like, you should already know that people want it.

Justin:

But AI kind of flips things a little bit, which is is that now, instead of like Yeah. You can actually build something that clearly like, at least that works, that you can demo, that you can show people. And to see it's fun. Even in chat, people are like, people want me to do this. So they're they're saying take my money.

Justin:

But to get a response, like, okay. I've now I've and I think even about, like Yeah.

Brian:

The days of, like, the fake product or or the just the landing page thing, like, why do that when you can just have a actual And

Justin:

you can fail faster, which is such a so you think about, like, some of the other SaaS things I've tried. And some of those were just things like me scratching my own itch, things I wanted to build. You can get those out of your system so much faster now. You can get it out, and then you will immediately feel either the pull from the market, like people want this and they're showing up, or, like, it just seems like this is not you know? And I mean, that was so clear with Filterhawk.

Justin:

I was looking at Filterhawk, and it reminded me of SwagFan, this this app I built for myself to to solve my own pain, but we launched it as a SaaS app because I hired a student to give him a summer job and all this stuff. I'm just thinking like, man, SwagFanNow, that would be, like, not a four month project that costs me you know, I paid him pretty good. I just give him a job. So I don't know. Let's may say it costs $1,520,000 dollars.

Justin:

Now you can build that, launch it, try it out, and then, you know and so in terms of placing bets, it's interesting.

Brian:

And then even like even like someone like that, like like that he was he was like a young guy that that that was working on on that with you. Right? So like, if you think about the world today, this is this circles back to what the junior level people have to deal with. I think that was probably a case of, hey. Like, you're trying to get a foot in the door as a early developer, a builder of stuff.

Brian:

Like, now what what a younger person really actually does need is is marketing chops. Like, they they probably can and are building doing the vibe coding stuff or, you know, just buildings building stuff. Like, that's the easy part, especially for a young person.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Brian:

But if you can market it and even if even if marketing just means being able to create, a legit marketing site and a and a marketing funnel, it doesn't even have to really be done. It doesn't have to sell a lot, but that could be enough to be a noteworthy project that gets you noticed by a company. It's

Justin:

like Yes.

Brian:

You didn't just build a thing, you also marketed it.

Justin:

Yes. Right? Yeah.

Brian:

And that just shows that, again, like you were wearing multiple hats, you're not just a product person, you know how to follow through and actually ship, like capital S, ship something. Yeah. Shipping, most of that is not even the product. It's like the marketing site, the funnel, like, what like, how do we communicate this?

Justin:

Yeah. Do we get this out? Yeah. Alright. Well, I'll think about it.

Justin:

With 2026, if you want me to rewrite marketing for developers, let me know. Go check out Brian's this new Design OS. It it's launched. I didn't think this would be available for a while. I've been wanting to get this going.

Justin:

So I'm gonna check this out maybe even today.

Brian:

Yeah. I did a so there's like a long YouTube video on it, but this morning, I also did like a thirty it's literally a thirty second video

Justin:

Yes.

Brian:

That I put up on Twitter.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. This I I watched that today. I think you did a good job because that was part of the problem is it was like a long video, but to quickly and succinctly say

Brian:

Yeah. I was able to take the b roll that I used for the long one, and I and I turned that into the short one. So

Justin:

Sweet. Well, Brian, have a good holiday, man. Merry Christmas.

Brian:

You too, buddy.

Justin:

Happy 2026.

Brian:

Yes. I guess we'll probably do this again in 2026.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. I I think we should keep going. I this has been fun. I I realized that because I just read read my 2024 review that it was at the end of the year last year that we decided to do this.

Justin:

So this is.

Brian:

That's right.

Justin:

This was a whole year project, 2025.

Brian:

Yeah. Wow.

Justin:

We've published this is episode, what, 20 oh, I can't tell now. 29 or something like that. But-

Brian:

Yeah. I wonder how let's let's make a prediction of, like, how many episodes in 2026 will actually have guests on the panel.

Justin:

Yeah. Chat, what's your guess? How many how many guests will I I'm guessing we'll we'll realistically, we'll get five or six. That's my guess.

Brian:

Yeah. Probably.

Justin:

But but maybe the marketing for developers thing will light a fire under my butt. And I'll be like, well, I could just invite Lars to be on the panel, and then we've got Lars Lofgren chatting with us for a bit. So maybe we could do it that way too.

Brian:

For sure.

Justin:

Alright.

Brian:

Alright, folks.

Justin:

Thanks, everybody.

Brian:

Later.

Justin:

Bye.