Episode 3
· 01:00:10
Welcome to The Panel where smart founders discuss the realities of building a business and a better life. I'm one of your hosts, Justin Jackson. I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm.
Brian Casel:And I'm Brian Casel I am building products at Instrumental Products.
Justin Jackson:And in a moment, you're going to hear the voice of
Jay Clouse:Jay Clouse, the founder of Creator Science.
Justin Jackson:And...
Peldi:Peldi, the founder of Balsamiq.
Brian Casel:You know you're a big deal when you could just go by your first name. You don't even need to say your last name. That's that's Peldi in our in our circles.
Justin Jackson:That is Peldi. That's Peldi. Why don't why don't you tell give people a little background on Peldi. Who is he?
Brian Casel:Peldi is the founder of Balsamiq Mockups. It this is a first of all, it's a company and a and a bootstrap business that I've been a fan of and a follower for so many years. But the tool itself, Balsamiq, is one of my favorite design tools. I've been using it for so many years from the early desktop versions to the cloud version that they have today. It's I still go back to it.
Brian Casel:Even even with the Figmas and everything, it's still easier and faster to whip up a mock up, and it's awesome.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And he's just this incredible story. He's been doing this for a long time and has a lot of wisdom. But also on the show today, we have Jay Clouse, who is the founder of Creator Science, which is a membership community for full time creators. And Jay is just one of my favorite thinkers.
Justin Jackson:I don't know. He wields articulate thoughts like a sharp knife. Like he is just able to pierce through all the noise, and he has these perfectly formed thoughts. So you'll hear this in a minute. He's just, like, thinking, and then he'll he'll come in with, just, with a brilliantly formed nugget of wisdom.
Brian Casel:You know, Jay is is one of these one of these folks I've been, like, following and seeing around for years on Twitter and Blue Sky and all these things. But, I got to know him about a year ago, and, the what's interesting about what he does with at Creator Science is that it it's such a great brand name because it is the science of creator businesses.
Peldi:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And I started becoming more interested in a creator business for myself about a year ago, and I found that the content, even like the technical stuff that Jay shares on this business model, is really a a level above what you see on, like, the typical, like, info product or training or, you know, how to how to launch a membership program. He talks about those kinds of businesses from a higher level, and it's it it's just, like, wisdom all the way through.
Justin Jackson:Now let me explain how this conversation came about. Originally, we were gonna have Jay on with Marie Poulin to talk about YouTube, and, we're still gonna have Marie on in a future episode.
Brian Casel:We still gotta cover YouTube. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:We still gotta cover YouTube. We couldn't get a hold of Marie in time. And as we were kinda waiting to hear back from her, I cut this email from Poldy. And, he said, hey. I'm wondering if we could talk about Build in Public.
Justin Jackson:He's like, you know, you Justin, you're kind of a Build in Public guy, and I'm I've got all these questions. And I said, well, why don't you come on the panel? This is why I love the show, is that he emailed me. I'm like, why don't you come on the panel? And then I thought about Jay, and I was like, this is perfect.
Justin Jackson:Like, these are two people that have never met before. They're both, like, master class operators in their field. And I thought pairing these two is gonna be so interesting. And I think you're gonna see that in the conversation. Like, just getting these perspectives, we're gonna be able to do this, I think, over and over again, two entirely different perspectives on this one topic.
Brian Casel:I really enjoyed this. This was our third episode that we've recorded so far Mhmm.
Brian Casel:For the panel podcast. And I and I like you're saying, I I really like how this one took sort of a different still the the same format of four people on on a show, but it's sort of like three of us helping Peldi, like, think through this, this hot seat format, you know. It was a really, interesting like, I could see this type of episode coming back around again in the future, for sure.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And we we kick it off right with Peldi on the hot seat. Let's, let's listen in to the conversation. Peldi, it was your email that kind of instigated this whole get together. You emailed me out of the blue asking about build in public.
Justin Jackson:So I actually want to start with you. Why are you interested in build in public at this point, February 2025?
Peldi:I know. Wild. So, as you know, I was building in public in 02/2007, blog in when we still had blogs, and, the term didn't exist. And the the it wasn't really a thing that people did. I was mostly doing it as kind of a diary in public because I didn't have anybody to talk to.
Peldi:I'm a solo founder, and I needed to write things down kind of to clarify my thoughts. And then it became this incredible marketing, move that was completely accidental because people came to to their website, and they they started following along with the journey. And
Justin Jackson:Did it work for Balsamiq? Like, you would say that was a major channel for you back then?
Peldi:Absolutely. The product was pretty good from the beginning, but, people came for the story. They came to the website, and they went to the blog and and and followed, you know, all the steps. And I would publish revenue numbers, every other week or something like that. And, that's actually what got us in the New York Times.
Peldi:The title of the New York Times article was man builds software, blogs about it, and makes a hundred k in statistics.
Brian Casel:Wow.
Peldi:So it was all about it was the novelty of somebody sharing, so openly, at the time, and then it became the thing to do, for a while. But then it kinda went away. When when blogs went away, it kinda went away. And now, I was thinking about it again because, like everybody else, I switched to, Blue Sky. And, and that's where, it started popping up on my feed.
Peldi:I followed some of the, you know, starter packs that they have over there. And, I started seeing building public this, building public that. I was like, oh, I remember those days. And then, I had a thought, but I don't know if it's a good idea, but I'll tell you. I'll tell you
Justin Jackson:why here. Yeah.
Peldi:Why I wrote you. So I'm gonna
Justin Jackson:tell you what we think.
Peldi:Pick your gentleman's brains about this. But the idea is that, you know, now that I rediscovered, this, this, approach, I kind of wanna, give back. I had a little bit of nostalgia. Mhmm. And now I have something that maybe, perhaps, could be useful to people building in public, which is Balsamiq itself.
Peldi:Mhmm. Right? We we make a low fidelity wireframing tool, and I know firsthand how amazing it is when you share a wireframe of an idea of a feature with your audience. I used to do it all the time in the when when we had forums. I would be before starting coding, I would design a quick wireframe of what I was thinking of building, put it in the forums, and say, hey.
Peldi:Is this what you guys are asking for? And this this conversation would start, and I would, you know, iterate. And and it was great because I was too busy making the product, to use the product. My customers use the product all day, every day, and so they knew exactly what they needed better than even myself. And just iterating on the wireframe was so quick and so fast that then when I went and built the thing, it was basically fully tested and immediately successful.
Peldi:Right? Because it was already validated.
Brian Casel:I I I just gotta say everything I'm hearing here, I I I love this. I love this direction because I feel like it goes back to in what what my view is, like, the original build in public. Like, you were saying, Beldi, around, like, 02/2007. What what I remember it might have been a little bit after that, like, 08/00/2009. I remember the beginning of Dribble.
Brian Casel:Dribbble, the website with three b's.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know, the very beginning of that of that site, you know, what Dan Cederholm was putting together was designers showing small screenshots of here's sort of like a work in progress concept of what I'm creating, what I'm building. Right? And that that's what always interested me. And same same with you, Peldi, just, like, kind of blogging and sharing the story. Like, that like, the the building part of building in public was always much more interesting to me than it it sort of became a lot more about, like, sharing revenue numbers and sharing financials.
Brian Casel:And and apparently, that's building in public, but that never really rang true to me. It was the, what am I actually creating? What am I designing? So when you talk about using Balsamiq as a as what it is, a creating tool, but it could also be like a sharing your creation tool, I I like that direction.
Justin Jackson:Feels like there's a few different levels to this. Jay, you just released a kind of, a software product built in Notion. Right? Did you use any of this build in public stuff? Were you sharing screenshots and mock ups and stuff like that in your community and in public?
Justin Jackson:What what was the plan there?
Jay Clouse:Not quite. I mean, basically, that product was the thing I had made and used myself. But when I would do so in in my membership, I do this monthly retro. And that's basically, like, a thirty minute of me walking through a list of my goals and projects for the month and also, like, screen sharing whatever else is relevant.
Peldi:Mhmm.
Jay Clouse:And I would often be screen sharing my Notion setup. And people would ask, like, can I have that? Mhmm. Yeah. There was validation in the form of I was using it, and people saw it, and they asked for it.
Jay Clouse:And so then I basically productized a useful version for other people too. But I didn't do a lot of the build in public because when you when you do that, it's such a it's such a vulnerable thing that, like, begs for conversation. And I find a lot of times the things that I'm building feel closer to art to me, and I'm actually not looking for input on a lot of things that I'm building. And when I put it out and people are like, this is great, but I hate this or I would do this, I'm kinda like, oh, that's fine, but I didn't actually handle I haven't asked him for that feedback. So some stuff feels more appropriate for Build in Public for me.
Jay Clouse:But, you know, today, I feel like Build in Public has kinda transformed into Brag in Public. It's this, like, marketing propaganda machine for what you're doing more than an earnest conversation.
Brian Casel:Right.
Peldi:So So that's my challenge, and that's why I don't think this this might be a good idea because I've been following the hashtags on, you know, blue sky and Reddit, etcetera, LinkedIn even. And there is no conversation. It is it's announcement, and it it still feels useful for, you know, accountability. Like, I I knew I have to share something every day, so, you know, I have to do something to share. But it's mostly, you know, progress updates or learnings or but there's no there's barely any responses to any of those messages.
Justin Jackson:I love this because even what you were doing, Jay, was you were like I'm guessing you were making videos, and then you were sharing your setup. And people were like, woah, woah, woah. Hold up. What what's that?
Jay Clouse:Yes.
Justin Jackson:And that instantly reminds me of Adam Wavin creating Tailwind. He was, like, building in public. He would just do these live streams where he was trying to build a SaaS. I think it was a competitor to Gumroad. And in his mind, he's building in public.
Justin Jackson:He's building the SaaS in public with the hopes of building up demand for, you know, the SaaS. But what ended up happening was people were like, woah. Woah. Hold on. Hold on.
Justin Jackson:Hold on. What's this way you're writing CSS? And he's like, oh, no. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about that.
Justin Jackson:We're let's just get back to the this part here. And that kind of building in public where you're like, hey. I'm running my business over here, And here's me either using the product or here's me just going about my day. Here's how I organize my my thoughts. Here's how I organize my, in your case, Jay, content creation schedule.
Justin Jackson:That's like the build in public that I think has been lost because that does invite a conversation. It's like, how are you doing that? Like, how do you how do you manage all of the content that you're producing, Jay? Like, how do you do that? And that feels more like, back and forth than what it's become.
Brian Casel:I I think the value of what you're describing there is is not so much, like, I already have this product that I'm trying to market, so I'm gonna use build in public as my marketing strategy. Like, in the case of Adam, and we've seen it time and time again. I'm sure all of us have experienced this. Actually, Jay, what you're just describing where the rhythm of building in public as, like, just a constant thing that we always do eventually leads to, oh, now I understand what it is that I'm doing that actually resonates versus what I'm doing that sort of falls flat. Right?
Brian Casel:Like, we we think you know, we love to think that everything that we do is gonna work, but most of it is not going to work. But there's gonna be a few bits that is like, oh, I maybe there is something here. Or or I didn't like, in the case of Adam, like, he was building something else. He didn't realize that he had a nugget of value in Tailwind CSS that, like, oh, that that's a thing.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:I mean, there was a, Jerry Seinfeld's book, like, is is this anything? You know, just, like, putting something out there. He's like, oh, is there something here? Oh, I guess there is. That that you that's the result of building in public.
Brian Casel:You find out what it is.
Peldi:So maybe what you're saying is that it's not, social media, but it's more like Twitch where building in public is more, is more appropriate or more effective.
Justin Jackson:Live streaming is the one thing I thought of right away was what I like about live streaming is there is just this, like, you know, hey hey, everybody. It's Justin. And then people come in to the comments. Right? They can leave comments or whatever.
Justin Jackson:And, often it's the same characters again, like they oh, hey, how's it going, man? And then they can leave comments as you're twiddling away doing stuff. And yeah, that part for me with Transistor, that was one of the things we were doing. I just found it very, motivating. It's like if I was, like, procrastinating on building our website or whatever, I'd be like, hit live stream and then it's just broadcast out to YouTube and I was doing YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch all at once.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:I struggle with live streaming because the the things that I wanna build in public, the things that I wanna share in public is like design work and things that I I code. And, like
Peldi:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:If I code for eight if I'm building for eight hours a day, probably, like, seven of of those hours are just, like, me staring blankly at the screen and then, like, maybe half an hour is actual coding. So I I I can't do that live. You know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I do think there is something about building public that can still be, like using your own product. Like, Jay, I think you could actually you maybe have done this, but I think, like, I'm just fascinated by your output still. And I'm I'd love to see, like, more live streams of you using your existing, sorry. What's the Notion product again?
Jay Clouse:Creator HQ.
Justin Jackson:I'd love to see you in Creator HQ more. Have you thought about that? Or you or are you already doing those live streams? Or
Jay Clouse:I think no. I think about it all the time. Like, the people who see it are the folks in the membership again because when I just screen share and talk about what I'm doing, that's where, like, it's the most just open, you know, because I know who's seeing it. The the thing that scares me about I mean, I come back to this thought constantly, which is I should teach people how to do something. And through teaching, I should show them my method of doing it, which is through this tool.
Jay Clouse:That would, of course, drive sales to the tool. Yeah. But my version of Creator HQ has been personalized even further to me because every system you use and build, like, becomes more and more. And I know if I start sharing my current system, people are gonna say again, what what's that? And they I want that into mine.
Jay Clouse:And Notion is not software that you can just, like, push updates to. Any type of update I make in it, I have to document, here's how to make this update yourself, basically. And it's a can of worms that I haven't opened yet because the deluge of support requests would just crush me.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. I've been playing around with that a little bit, like, through the YouTube videos I've been doing recently. And, you know, where what I'm showing is like a whole code project. Right?
Brian Casel:I can't explain everything that you're that you might catch somewhere on the screen. You know? But I'm trying to sort of paint with a with a broad brush. Like, alright, here at high level, here's what I'm building. Here are the big pieces.
Brian Casel:Like, don't worry about every line of code. Just here's what I'm building here. And either you could fill in the gaps yourself or just get the high level concept and sort of trust the audience to take what they will from this video and then go go run with it in your own way. And maybe not promising or not marketing this thing as, like, a step by step tutorial, but more like, look over my shoulder and watch me work and take take what you will from it.
Jay Clouse:I just wonder what the actual potential of that type of thing in 2025 is because we have TikTok ed tutorials. Like, my wife, when she wants to do anything, she'll find a twelve second tutorial that actually will teach her how to do it in twelve seconds. Yeah. 100%.
Justin Jackson:She's actually she's searching so the way I use YouTube, she's using TikTok. Like, she'll search, like, how to fix the dishwasher.
Jay Clouse:And it's better because it's shorter. It gets you right
Brian Casel:to the answer.
Jay Clouse:It's as powerful of a search engine, but it's much better. In fact, when the TikTok ban happened, she deleted the app. She can't get the app back. And I've been telling her, I'm like, just look on YouTube. And it's a worse experience because she has to look through the results and try to find a short because it's showing longs and shorts.
Jay Clouse:She wants the shortest possible version of how to do something, and YouTube isn't nearly as good at it as TikTok.
Justin Jackson:This is blowing my mind. You young kids. I can't believe it.
Peldi:I do the same, but I'm the oldest one here for sure.
Justin Jackson:You you're you're you're searching on TikTok for how to videos?
Peldi:No. Now that's the only re the only thing that I, use YouTube Shorts for whenever I wanna do a how to, now I go straight I look for the short instead of the regular one. Because the long videos are all about there's, like, thirty seconds of an animation intro. You know what I'm talking about.
Justin Jackson:Terrible animation. Okay.
Jay Clouse:So the the, like, the opportunity to kinda live stream, look over my shoulder, work with me, I think it's serving a different need. It's not, like, actually build with me. It's it's, like, it's the companionship itch that people have Mhmm. More than the learning ish.
Brian Casel:Ish. I wonder if that's more valuable though. Because if you think about the the YouTube videos that that I'll Google or I'll YouTube to try to fix something in my house, like, I am looking for that thirty second just give me the answer right now. I honestly don't care who you are. I'm not gonna sign up to your newsletter and follow your podcast.
Brian Casel:I just want you to tell me how to fix my refrigerator or whatever it is. Mhmm. Whereas, if I'm gonna subscribe to your podcast and tune in every single week and follow your story, or I just like the way that you work or your design style. I I wanna I wanna look over your shoulder. Like, now I'm actually developing a relationship with you and following your story and maybe buying your products or recommending your products.
Brian Casel:Like, that that long form, sort of boring to the rest of the world, but to your core group, it's super interesting. Like, that seems like the marketing value of building a product.
Peldi:It seems like Jay is doing it right. He does it for his members. Right? Or Patreon groups. Right?
Peldi:There's a lot of live streams. And and what you pay for the membership is also direct access to your, you know, the the person you're learning from.
Justin Jackson:That that is a form of building public, I think, is having a community. Like, in some ways, that is the best form. You got, like, this this smaller, more intimate group where it's like, well, okay. Now we can be real. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:I guess it depends. I think one way we could actually sharpen this conversation, Peldi, is to zoom in on you and hopefully not make you feel too uncomfortable. But I'm curious, like, what is really motivating this? Like, is this just nostalgia for old building public days? Are you trying to grow balsamic revenue?
Justin Jackson:Like, what's the underlying thing?
Peldi:It started a bit, like I said, because kind of it popped back up and and it got I got nostalgic, and and I'm always thinking, you know, how can I give back now that, you know, we're in a good place? And giving giving back free balsamic takes no time. It's, you know, something I can do myself. You know, we have these extended codes or I can make some some somebody's, account free. No problem.
Peldi:I'm feeling, okay. This is easy for me to give. Is there a market you know, is it is it needed? Or because I also don't wanna waste my time or their time. I don't wanna start a new initiative that's gonna flop.
Peldi:Right? So I'm doing research. I'm doing discovery now to figure out.
Justin Jackson:This is perfect. So let's brainstorm. Jay, Brian, and myself, let's brainstorm with that goal in mind, what do you think? What is the right approach if Peldi wanted to have the maximum kind of value or impact, in terms of giving back? And sorry.
Justin Jackson:Are you talking about giving back to just makers, builders, founders? Like, who's the intended audience?
Peldi:Yeah. I I would say, you know, people who build in public, which is, you know, future founders, really. People who are trying to become founders. So the goal is to give back. And then the other the theory was, you know, these are people who like to share.
Peldi:Maybe they would like to also share Balsamiq. Mhmm. And as a result, we get a few more, you know, brand awareness here and there. And, really, the goal for that is so that I can put it in the Slack channel, and the team gets pumped because we got, you know, another review or another mention or something. That's really my ultimate goal.
Peldi:It's interesting to motivate the team.
Justin Jackson:Listen to these jobs to be done here. There's, like, these these underlying jobs to be done. I like it.
Peldi:It's it's three different things. But
Justin Jackson:Jay, any thoughts? What do you think with those kind of jobs in mind, those goals, what are you really thinking while you were listening to that?
Jay Clouse:Well, I think it'd be easy to, like, tune into the conversations and then ping these people who are sharing and be like, this is awesome. Do you want a free account at Balsamiq to to share how you're doing this? But I think what I would do in your shoes is programize it. Like, make it a program where you have a build in public fellowship, and you market the fellowship to try like, you don't say, hey. Do you individual want this free account?
Jay Clouse:I'll give it to you. You say, hey. You seem like you're a great fit for our fellowship if you're interested. And you market the fellowship as a whole, try to drive applications, maybe even get some media attention around it. And then you disperse at one time to those people however many you think is the right amount and even, you know, kind of cohort eyes it.
Jay Clouse:So those people that are showing in public together, maybe you give them a space in your Slack channel to communicate also. I think that's actually gonna end up being more efficient and more effective and, like, ultimately, probably have more marketing value too.
Justin Jackson:So you're saying, like, get a group of people that want to build in public and say, let's do a cohort of a cohort group and then bring people through together, and we'll all be sharing together, but there'll be this nice, mutually beneficial, you know, energy? Kinda is that what you're thinking, Jay?
Jay Clouse:Yeah. No expectations. You get a Balsamiq account. We'll create a a space for you guys to share together. But as you're, observing Peldi, sometimes people are sharing their building in public and getting no feedback.
Jay Clouse:So if you are able to kind of put out the bat signal and collect 20 of those people, give them a place where they can actually connect with each other, this is solving multiple problems for them.
Brian Casel:This is so I mean, you're like, this is that this is a whole concept that I've been thinking about for the last month or two, talking to, like, Colleen Schnettler, who was on our first episode, where she did the same sort of thing for people doing marketing. I've been thinking about some sort of, like, building public building like semi public, kind of private, what are you building? You know, share some video updates. I hadn't been thinking about integrating Balsamiq into that, but that's a that's a really perfect concept.
Peldi:Right. So I I I love the idea, Jay, of of kind of batching it, making a cohort because I was already thinking that another thing that I could offer other than just a tool is that I could actually respond whenever somebody shares a wireframe. I could give them my professional opinion and or get my product designer to comment on them. And it's like, hey. Improve this, improve that.
Peldi:But with your idea, it's 20 people. It on top of me, it's each other giving each other feedback on designs.
Justin Jackson:You know, the other thing that this makes me think of PELDI is, like like, if you did a cohort, I would wanna join it. So, like, often the the audience for Build In Public is people just getting started. You know, they're they're going from zero to one. But there's also this other interesting group of people like me that I kinda like, what's the job to be done for me? It's like reignite some of that same energy I had when we were in the trenches building transistor.
Justin Jackson:Give me some of that, like feeling of collaborating with other people that are, you know, I love my team and coworkers, but now we're this kind of insulated unit and we don't have as much outside, you know, perspectives and other things. And, and also I think you have this benefit because you are multiple steps ahead of me where I'm at right now. Right. So there it'd be a lot different, but I think there's another opportunity of like, let's take a bunch of these old older folks and you could go any way with that. It could be, this is the the UX UI work in public.
Justin Jackson:We've all got these old apps and we're gonna, like, put each other in the hot seat. And live, we're all going to go, hey. Let's go through this transistor sign up flow. Why have you ever thought about doing this? Have you and I think that would be fascinating from both a, like, marketing perspective.
Justin Jackson:Like, I would tune in for that. But I as a participant Like
Brian Casel:a mastermind. Yeah. Oh,
Justin Jackson:yeah. I'd be like, I'd love to have Peldi's brain and a bunch of other smart people kinda doing that together.
Brian Casel:And and just to, like, go back to, like, the job to be done or the multiple jobs to be done here, I think I think where people start to misread or or try to, like, misuse build in public as a strategy, they think if I build in public, the people who watch me build in public are going to buy my product. And I I didn't hear that job to be done in anything that Peldi said. I I think I think you're right on, Peldi, to think about, you know yeah. It gets it gets mentioned and and exposed a little bit for, like, brand awareness. But more so, it's about, like, firing up your team and this kind of stuff or or forming a community here.
Brian Casel:And this this adds energy to the product itself. Like, ultimately, like, the the product is what is ultimately what's gonna win over customers. It's not because I saw these tweets about it, I'm gonna go buy that product. Right? Mhmm.
Brian Casel:So I I just think that's an that's an interesting thing to think about these, like, second and third order effects of just having it out there or bringing or using it as a tool to bring people together. That's like the dot dot dot that eventually leads to customers,
Jay Clouse:you know. Well, if you pushed forward with a cohort and it was folks like Justin as cohort one, not only does it have great, like, marketing and brand value for future cohorts, but you can almost approach it like, a rehabbing of the image of building public itself.
Peldi:Ah. You know
Jay Clouse:what I mean? Like, we're taking a dozen people who truly built in public, and they're doing it again in public for you to see through the Balsamiq, fellowship. You know? And then, you know, you have the the existing megaphones of people who have already built, some notoriety and a following doing this. And then when it comes around for cohort number two, you maybe bring in, some of the more earlier stage folks who found out about it through this first one.
Peldi:The first one is the marketing for the program and and education. Sets the standard.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I fucking love that, Jay. That's because the I love the point of view there. I think there's a lesson here in terms of, you know, a lot of what we end up just talking about on the show is, like, you know, people wanna know how to market their stuff and how to get stuff noticed and everything. And, that suggestion that Jay just made just sharpened it enough where it's, like, not we're not just doing build in public.
Justin Jackson:We're doing build in public with a point of view. Build in public is broken. Like, it's it's tired. People are tired of these, like, you know, 20 year olds with the floofy hair talking about their revenue and how they hit Floofy hair. You know, like, the we this is not that.
Justin Jackson:We've got a new perspective. We're bringing the old school back or we're gonna do this differently. We're gonna do this the way it should be. And I can see that resonating.
Brian Casel:You know, something I think about a lot on that note is is like the imposter syndrome that comes with building in public, especially around coatings and and design. But, like, you know, this is something I still sort of struggle with today because I'm starting to do more YouTube content and sharing in public showing actual code stuff. And I I constantly think about, like, well, there are these more experienced developers who are gonna pick apart my code and say, you're doing it wrong. Right? But I think that especially, you know and we've talked a lot about, like, the younger generation of, these episodes are turning into
Peldi:a bunch of old old people talking about.
Brian Casel:But, you know, there is a there is a younger generation of professionals in our industry who are lacking I mean, what I had probably what all of us had was, like, I literally sat next to somebody in an office, and I learned CSS from from a person for two straight years in my early twenties, you know. Most people in this industry are are are lacking that early career mentorship or community or just literally being in the same office with someone. So we look to we look to YouTube. We look to social media. We we look to, like, because that's what I'm I'm still, to this day, still so interested in, like, watching how other people work.
Brian Casel:Like, how do you do it? Because everyone does it completely differently. You know? Mhmm. Yeah.
Brian Casel:There's tried and true frameworks or, you know, approaches to certain things, but we all use our tools. Probably even the way that I use Balsamiq is probably different from the next Balsamiq user, even though we're using the same tool. You know?
Peldi:Brian, it just gave me an idea that the first cohort is all old old people, you know, with already a following, Jay said. Yeah. The second cohort, we do half and half, and we we do a buddy system. Each new version gets paired with the with the, veteran, and that that also it's mentoring in public. Right?
Peldi:And then the third cohort is maybe more all young people helping each other.
Jay Clouse:Well, the third cohort could be mentored by people in the second cohort.
Peldi:Oh, yes. Yes, Jay. You're a genius. Are
Justin Jackson:you doing some of that, Jay, inside your community? Is that part of the program there? Or
Jay Clouse:No. Because it's not it's not like this linear, completable thing. It's a great model for, cohort based courses because there's a clear, like, time boundness and endpoint. Mhmm. But the lab is this perpetual membership where there's not, like, this single clear goal that everybody is doing, and so you finish.
Jay Clouse:And then now you can go back and help other people who are on the exact same path.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm. So it
Jay Clouse:doesn't quite work in that context. But if you did have everybody enter their cohort and say, like, okay. You're welcome. You're in the building public cohort for the next thirty days. You're gonna be doing this with a singular goal that at the end of thirty days, you something.
Jay Clouse:Maybe it's publish, you know, a blog post about the experience or whatever. Then it's it's a little bit more, formalized in that people who have already gone through that exact process will know where the holdups were, what was hard for them, and they can help people get past them.
Justin Jackson:Okay. This is a loosely related question. But, Jay, you've got something I've struggled with, and I think I love the idea of teaching people how to be bootstrapped founders. And so you're t you're trying to teach people how to be full time creators. Is that correct?
Jay Clouse:It's actually at this point, the people in the membership are full time creators. So it's not teaching them how to do that. It's basically keeping them at the edge of what's working for full time creators right now.
Justin Jackson:Oh, interesting. So you've you're not the zero to one. You're going, like, how do we so what's the the primary is there a primary objective most members have? Like, what's what's the goal?
Jay Clouse:No. The goal is, like, just to maintain edge, to, like, find and maintain edge because everything's changing all the time. And when things change, it sucks for our businesses. So, like, really, my goal is, you know, everybody in there, every full time creator in there is running experiments big and small constantly and learning from. But wouldn't it be great if we learn from each other's experiments in parallel constantly?
Jay Clouse:And, you know, it's, it's part that, like, experimenting and sharing. It's part, like, really high quality on demand support for whatever question ails you as a professional creator. But, yeah, my my goal is, like, if I can provide one to two key insights per person at the level of scale these people are, like, it's super high leverage. It's super valuable.
Justin Jackson:And is it primarily coming from you? Like, you're the one that's, like, giving or is the community giving each other stuff?
Jay Clouse:It used to be, but we we put in place an application and some, like, eligibility criteria to get in. And now most of the people that are in there are people like me. So, like, a lot of value does come from me because I'm the most active member of the community. But I'm actively trying to decenter myself because there are so many people here who know stuff better than I do. Like, we have people that are just killing it on Instagram, and I'm just getting started on Instagram.
Jay Clouse:I should not be teaching Instagram in that space.
Brian Casel:I I know that this conversation is sort of veering into, like, what it's like to run a community or, you know, you know, Peldi the ideas, like, to to form a community around this. It's something that that I've been thinking a lot about too. Actually, like a built in public sort of sort of concept as well. And and my but my big question that I keep coming back to like, Jay, you run this membership community. I'm wondering around this concept, like, building public or or, you know, learn from your peers and how much work or time or commitment does it take the community organizer, the leader, Jay, or or theoretically, like, Peldi for for this, like, how much time and energy and commitment does it take to especially in the early days of something like this to to get it going, to get other people to regularly contribute updates on what they're working on, especially people who aren't used to building in public naturally?
Brian Casel:What does that look like? You know?
Jay Clouse:This is the most common question I get related to memberships, and I think it's actually the wrong question. Or at least the answer I'm gonna give you is not directly related to that question. Because it's less, in my mind, about how many hours you're spending because you answer a post and it takes five minutes. It's more about are you willing to be tuned in so closely that you can provide very timely help? Because at a certain level, people are paying for speed.
Jay Clouse:Like, these things matter a lot, and they're gonna post in your community looking for help. They're gonna wait. If they don't get a response fast enough, they're gonna say, I'm gonna look elsewhere to find that help, and now they're never coming back to your community as a place to get support in that way. So the thing that took so much time and continues to take a lot of, like, mind space for me is that I have notifications on for every place in that community. I see everything that comes in the moment it comes in, And if I can add value, I do it as quickly as I can.
Brian Casel:And and you treat it as like a core it is like your core business. It's like participating and and running that community.
Jay Clouse:It's I mean, it's recurring revenue. You get recurring revenue in a membership by providing recurring value. And so if I let off the gas, a lot of that value is no longer there. And it's it's a fickle thing because on an individual basis, if I made an effort to extract value from the membership and that effort failed, I'm probably not gonna try again. And if I don't try again, that's a whole person who could also add value to other people who's probably not gonna participate.
Jay Clouse:So it's never, like, done. It gets a little bit better where people are more and more tapped in over time, but there are negative network effects in community where if you let off the gas, it starts to slip. It starts to slip. It slips faster and faster, and it can just kinda go to zero pretty quickly.
Peldi:And have you noticed, adverse, if the community gets too large, people share less?
Jay Clouse:Depending on depending on the expectations and the the design of the space. Because in some communities, like, we don't expect the value to be derived from peer to peer conversation. We come in and we want the content. We want to learn this and we're happy to be anonymous in that space, but if you're marketing and positioning the value as peer to peer connectivity, there is magic of this feeling of what I call closeness. And if you start to feel more anonymous in the space or, like, you don't feel close to the other people there, then you have a problem if that's what the expectation is or was.
Jay Clouse:And so I think the the magic and the very challenging thing about scaling a community that has closeness is to continue to create ways and mechanisms where people can still experience closeness even in an ever growing group of people.
Peldi:I have a good example of this. I joined, the running remote, community, which is a paid community for people who run remote companies. And it's pretty large, but what they do is that they create these little Slack channels for groups of six people, and they they pair them up and with different criteria. And so these are your buddies inside the community. And once a month, there's an hour phone call with just these six people where there's a hot seat rotation, etcetera, etcetera.
Brian Casel:So that's like a smaller one within the larger Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think that's
Jay Clouse:I think that's the way to do it. It's hard to do because it's it's just logistically onerous to do
Peldi:that. The the administrator is in every little group and in every meeting. And, like, you know, she does a great job, but it's fully full time.
Jay Clouse:I think of it as concentric circles that the larger the total group is, the more circles need to get smaller and smaller for people who want different sized experiences, even down to one to one, like Right. Accountability partners or having a coach in there. But most of the time, it kinda breaks down to one of these small groups.
Peldi:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And and this comes back to to to bring it back to building in public, I I really think that the the most value the most valuable form of building in public is in private. Right? And and when and it's like social media is what sort of, like, corrupted the whole build in public thing over the years because it's it's the revenue graphs that get the most retweets and likes. Right? But but the real good stuff happens in these small mastermind groups.
Brian Casel:I've been a part of, I I just got back last week
Jay Clouse:from
Brian Casel:snowboarding with a group of 12 founder friends. We do it every year for the last ten years, you know. Also, like, small private podcast groups where only a small group of us can tune into what what each other are talking about. That kind of stuff is where, like, the real stuff gets shared. And then to bring it back to the imposter syndrome, that's where you can be more vulnerable because you you know it's not published out on the Internet.
Brian Casel:It's just for these peep you literally know all the people who could tune into this.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. There there is a form of build in public that I think is a lower lift, And that's, and Jay, you're doing this as well. You you do these little micro episodes of your podcast. I think you just have your your AirPods in and you're, like, out for a walk or something.
Jay Clouse:Literally, I just talk into my voice note recorder on my phone.
Justin Jackson:Okay. And I really enjoy those episodes. I I specifically just tune in for those episodes because they have this feeling of, like, Jay's just walking around and he's vulnerably sharing, what's really going on and maybe some of your fears, some of the things you're thinking about. And I think that's still underutilized. Like the the the thing I always liked about Build In Public was, you know, people blogging and recording on podcasts and then them articulating a real fear or a real, like, thing I'd felt inside that I hadn't heard anybody else articulate.
Justin Jackson:And then you hear them say it and it's like, oh, my God, I'm not alone. Like, this is thank you. You know? And that can be very that can be more broadcasty. Just like, hey, this is just me.
Justin Jackson:This is just Peldi. This is whoever. And I'm just sharing I'm turning off my professional marketer broadcast hat, and I'm just talking from the heart. And I think that can be effective. I think it's still underutilized, and it's a lower lift, I think.
Jay Clouse:I agree. That's why I do it. Because it like, the time from inspiration to publishing is the time it takes to record. That's, like, kinda my goal with it is I don't wanna think about it too much. It's like once I have the insight in a rough outline in my mind, I just sit down, I talk into it, I airdrop it to my computer, and I upload it to my host just right there.
Peldi:That's what I love about TikTok. It's one take, and that's good enough.
Brian Casel:I've been doing the same thing since last year. Just private I have a private podcast feed. I published it through the Ripple thing that I started last year, and, I do the same thing. Just driving around or or or out on a walk with the with terrible audio, like, through the through the headphones, what like, whatever. It's just something that I can express what is on my mind right now and and put it out.
Brian Casel:And it it's the kind of thing that that like you were saying, Justin, it it lends itself to being more vulnerable because when I'm when I'm out walking or driving, that's when I'm thinking strategically and stuff.
Jay Clouse:But
Brian Casel:there have been multiple times where I'll I'll record one, and I'm like, I can't even share that. That's that's too raw.
Justin Jackson:To be a lot too.
Jay Clouse:What's what's the mechanism for you said it's you do it on a private feed. What's the mechanism for getting people access to the private feed? How do people become aware that it exists? But, But, I mean, like, how do people know that it exists?
Brian Casel:I I initially shared it with with my newsletter and social, but then I set it up through through Ripple, Ripple.fm. Because what I what I wanted to do originally, the idea was just to do a a private podcast. But then I realized that, like, anyone can just listen to this thing. And I wanted to have a way for people to, like, enter their email address and actually register as a subscriber and then get their own private feed that I can grant and revoke access to. So that's that's what what happens through Ripple.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:And how
Jay Clouse:do you continuously make people aware that this exists to opt them into that?
Brian Casel:I don't really market it too much. It's on my website. I I mention it every now and again. If maybe if I publish a new one, I'll I'll I'll tweet out or blue sky out, like, hey. I've got a new private podcast coming out.
Brian Casel:Here's what it's about. And if you want in, you you still have to enter your email address, and that gets you onto my list and get gets you a feed.
Peldi:But this is really for the super, super fans. Right? The goal is not to have too many people in there.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and even that, I'm starting to think, like, it's a little bit too open. Like, I'm more hesitant to share on it because there there's a bunch of people who came on the list who I don't really know personally. So
Peldi:It needs a name. It's not a podcast. It's it's a different thing.
Justin Jackson:But you can't do it. Like, Jay just puts you put those voice notes in your big podcast feed. Has there been any hesitation to sharing some of those more personal thoughts? Or
Jay Clouse:if there's hesitation to share it, I just don't share it. I mean, like, as Brian was saying, sometimes I'll record something. I probably have, like, another 10 of those episodes that I haven't published that just live. Like, I I do it. I record it in either
Justin Jackson:I'll pay $500 right now if you listen to those.
Jay Clouse:Sometimes, though, it's like, ah, that was it's it's kinda like the book that should have been a blog post. Sometimes even, like, a five minute recording should have been a two minute recording, and I'm like, I'm not gonna upload that. But then sometimes it's like, maybe maybe not. I don't know. I feel like I've kind of edited myself to the point where I know I think of transparency as a spectrum.
Justin Jackson:It's not
Jay Clouse:like a binary. So I kind of know where on the transparent spectrum I'm willing to be publicly, and I just kind of operate that way now.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I think that's the hard part about any sort of build in public stuff is what I find most resonant is the the really personal stuff and people honestly sharing when they have challenges like, hey, I'm going through this right now. It sucks, you know? And it's hard to share that stuff. You know, Transistor, when we were building it, we were sharing our revenue numbers and it was awesome up until $30,000 a month.
Justin Jackson:And then it started to get not awesome. It was just like the it just invited a a type of attention that wasn't very fun. And so even though there was a big benefit to it, like, I loved those revenue posts where people transparently shared, like, here's what we're doing and here's how we got here. Like, I love that stuff, but it had its limit and and then there's just also some stuff that it would be valuable to share but you just it yeah you can't. You gotta watch yourself.
Jay Clouse:I mean, I participated in this because when you when you share numbers, it performs, quote, unquote, well. And so you think this is what people want. But what I came to realize was it creates this very pernicious emotion, which is envy. So even if people engage with it, you're creating envy, and that's like a toxic it's a toxic emotion that over the long term, it actually flips and people stop rooting for you. And they start actually kind of rooting for you to fail.
Jay Clouse:I've heard I think it was Hormozi said he's like, everyone wants you to be successful, just not more successful than them. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:So you
Jay Clouse:get to the point where, like, it's unrelatable when you're creating envy and people don't actually want to root for you anymore because it's a confronting bad feeling thing. So I share numbers much less frequently now and mostly in private circles as Brian was talking about. I I talked instead about, like, percentages because percentages are relative. You know, like, if you increase this 21%, here's how. You don't have to be gross about and I'm making all kinds of money.
Jay Clouse:Scrooge McDuck money. It's, like, let's talk about increasing this percentage, and that can lead into the lesson.
Justin Jackson:How have you walked that line, Peldi? Because you still share your numbers. I'm looking at your 2023 revenue and projections.
Peldi:We just sent out the newsletter this week with the revenue numbers for 2024.
Justin Jackson:So so what's the what's the thinking there? How is it why do you do that?
Peldi:We do that now because it's a tradition, because of inertia, because people we think people expected or we we liked we like to continue. But I tell you, it's it gets harder and harder. I feel like it's less and less relevant. Oh, yeah. That's our that's our latest newsletter.
Peldi:So, you know, as you can see, we had revenue declining for the last four years, and it's fine for us because we're still super profitable. But, it might send a message that we're dying, which we're not, or it's just you know? And so it gets a little so for instance, you see in the second chart, you can see that the products we care about, if you only count those, we're actually flat. We're not declining. We're declining because desktop is declining because who installs the desktop apps anymore.
Peldi:Right? And so that that's the reason why we're declining. But
Justin Jackson:This is my perspective is it seems like you have cultivated this community around your company that are, like, big cheerleaders of what you're doing. Is is that the case? Like, is that what you have right now?
Peldi:I feel like it's a little it's shifted a little bit. It it was bigger, but in the past. Now it's more people care a lot less about Balsamiq as a company than they did in the past. And that's that's a sign of maturity. I'm I've actively, stopped doing talks and podcast interviews for a long time because I'm trying to not be the face of the company.
Peldi:I'm thinking legacy. You know, we're gonna be 17 years old this this year. So I'm trying to let the product stand on its own legs, and so we just removed a ton of, content from the website that was about the company, because it's more about the product. It's more you know, we're we're we wanna become a more boring company that, it's, it's well known because of its value, to customers rather than, oh, it's Peldi's story. It's, it's appealing, and then, you know, I'll use Balsamiq.
Brian Casel:It does seem like the the build in public strategy, if you will, tends to lend itself more to new companies. Like, follow the story of this new thing that goes from nothing to something.
Peldi:We sell we sell now to mostly you know you know that only 14% of our customers are designers now?
Justin Jackson:Oh, interesting. So who who's the customer?
Peldi:They are, software teams. Technical lead at a big company that has to also act as a designer because they don't have designers, or founders, or yeah. It's mostly, product managers that have to talk to designers and, you know, test with customers. So it's really anyone who has to act as a designer, but, maybe the designer is too busy or, you know, they don't have one.
Brian Casel:I mean, that comes back to your original, like, question or request here. It's like what what to do with Balsamiq in the space of building public. And hearing you talk about, well, most of the users are not actually designers. They're either technical people or marketers or someone. Maybe there's something around, like, technical people can use Balsamiq to mock up what they need, and then it gets reviewed by, like, a quote unquote real designer.
Brian Casel:What would they where would they take? If, you know, if if the if if the lead technical says, like, here's where I took it, then then another designer can can give feedback or take it, you know, give, like, a Volley back where it's like, how about this? You know? That could be an interesting form of content.
Peldi:I have another question actually, because hearing Jay talk about how much work it is and how much you kind of become a slave to you know, you have to answer quickly. I'm thinking of an evolution of the idea, which is that we don't run the program ourselves, but we instead partner with programs that already exist. Mhmm. And and so the customer is not the cohort. The customer is the organizer of the community customer, so to speak.
Peldi:You know, the the the person we interact with is, okay. You have a community for founders where you teach them everything about, you know, starting. Do you want Balsamiq to offer to to your founders and you know?
Justin Jackson:Have you done any of that, Jay? Have you seen that work? Like, a company co a company comes in and says they'll be the, like, official sponsor or enabler or resource giver?
Jay Clouse:It could work. I think that I think that could work depending on the model of the community and what your expectations are. You know, not every community needs to be designed for timeliness being, being the job to be done. Right? I think that's what I've come to find my customer wanted, especially for the price point that they're paying, but I think it all comes down to the expectations of the experience that you set, and it doesn't have to be that way.
Jay Clouse:You know, Cortland isn't replying to every post on Indie Hackers within moments that it comes up. The expectations there are different. I think you could go, to the, like, community as distribution model if you want, but, it might, depending on the community, it might not be enough just to offer free product. You might actually have to compensate that community leader to do the effort and put their brand out there to promote your brand.
Peldi:It's a sponsorship.
Jay Clouse:Yeah. More of a sponsorship than, like depending on how how much in line this is or how big that space is. It's it's a frequent it's a fairly frequent request when people are like, you have a captive audience of exactly my customers. Mhmm. Let me give you a free thing so that that you can give to them.
Jay Clouse:It's like, but I I also know the motive here. And if these people are paying to be here, I need this to not feel like they're being they're paying to be marketed to. So there's, like, an alignment question, and there's it's just gonna be a case by case basis. But I think it could
Justin Jackson:Would you would you do it, Jay, if it was like let's say, a a company like Notion came to you and said, we just wanna enable what you're doing. We wanna be involved in some way in a mutually beneficial way, and we'll make it worth what your while. Like, there's a number. Would you do it? Like, would you consider it?
Jay Clouse:It's less about the number and more about the experience and the expectation. Like, I there's experience and the expectation. Like, I there's not really a number for can you give us the email addresses of your paying customers so we can email them about this product?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jay Clouse:Be a number for, like, we want to have a physical presence at the in person event you're doing this year. Mhmm. Okay. Maybe we talk about that. We're also gonna paint very explicit expectations around where where you are having that experience and for how long.
Jay Clouse:So, again, it's kinda it's kinda case by case, but at the end of the day, it's like there are a lot of levers here. What what experience did I promise to my paying customers? And is this additive and in line with that, or is it at odds with that?
Brian Casel:You know, something I would be really interested in, I've I've used Balsamiq for many years, and, and I'm a designer and a builder. From like a like a content idea is show me the original Balsamiq mockup of an idea, and then cut to the finished product that happened months later. Right? I I I love like, what I love most about Build in Public and or the type of Build in Public content is when someone sort of slips out, like, you know that big thing that we all know and love? Here's a here here's the original napkin mock up of of how that started.
Brian Casel:Like, but, you know, think about, like, any sort of, like, documentary that that shares, like, the behind the scenes story of how this thing started. Like, some sort of series like that. Right? Where, you know, you're sort of following along in the evolution of a of a new product or a big new feature from a popular company, and it'll take months to produce each one of these. But but as that comes out, it would be really cool to see how, like, how the rough concept is initially created in Balsamiq, and then to see how many iterations and changes it goes through by the time it hits production.
Jay Clouse:You know?
Peldi:Yeah. That's always very interesting. Well, running our own cohorts could could be a a a generation of that, to gen you know, about each project. We could document that and and and makes for a piece of content about it.
Justin Jackson:In our, final moments here, Peldi, it might be interesting. You know, you've got three founders here. We each have teams. We're, like, we're behind where you are. We're we're you, I don't know, five, ten years ago.
Justin Jackson:Is there anything you're seeing, like, in founders that you're like, oh, I wish they would know this. I wish they would do this. I wish they would understand that like, I can't I'm I'm trying to picture myself in your at your stage where it's like everything's mature. You seem relaxed. Like, you seem fine with even, like, revenues flat, like you said.
Justin Jackson:And you're like, it's good. We we got a good thing going. Is there anything you think founders like us are missing at this stage?
Peldi:Well, the thing that has been hard for me is what I was talking about before, which is that as you get bigger and more established, you start thinking about legacy, thinking about transition. Right? So I've never thought about selling as one of the options. I've always wanted to have a a a a forever, business. But after a while, you start thinking, I'm gonna exit the business one way or another, you know, in a stretcher at some point.
Peldi:And so you have to start you know, if things are going well, you have to start thinking long term and have to start thinking about who's gonna run the company after you and how. And so, I wish that I had done started thinking about that earlier and in a more structured way. There's books you can buy about it and but, you know, we are now growing a strong leadership team where I'm fully delegating most things these days. And that was very hard for me because I'm a maker. Uh-huh.
Peldi:I just wanna make stuff. Right? So start getting into that mindset where, first of all, the company doesn't have to be about you anymore. Mhmm. You should not be involved in the day to day.
Peldi:You should be more setting business goals for the year. Right?
Justin Jackson:That's gonna be impossible.
Peldi:Right? It's it's
Brian Casel:it's crazy.
Justin Jackson:Out on a stretcher.
Peldi:Right. Exactly. Some people I mean, that's that's fine. That's, that's fine. If that's, if that's what you want, that's fine.
Peldi:I was talking positioning guru. Mhmm. And she says, no. I'm not hiring anybody, and the business dies with me. I just know it.
Peldi:I that's what I want, and that's, you know, that's why I'm never gonna hire anybody. I only work with contractors. Right? Fine. If that if you have that clarity.
Peldi:I have 29 employees. Somebody's gonna have to take care of them when I'm gone. You know? So I can't afford to just say, okay. We're closing because I'm, you know, hurt or bored.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. That's great. This was good, guys. I'm I'm liking this. I I really love, Brian.
Justin Jackson:I love, like, putting together people that might have never met before.
Brian Casel:Totally. Different types of business, like, business models and everything.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And even, like, I love I had, like, 10 questions for Jay about, like, all of the stuff he's seeing in the creator community that, like, software founders should be taken advantage of.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Justin Jackson:So I, I think we'll have to have you both back. We'll we'll pair you up with somebody new, in the future, but this was awesome. Thanks for joining us today.
Jay Clouse:Sounds good. Thanks for having me.
Peldi:Thank you. And thanks for all the advice.
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