Episode 8
· 01:26:46
Welcome to the panel where smart founders discuss the realities of building better products and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, the co founder of Transistor.fm.
Brian:I'm Brian Casel and I'm about to launch Instrumentl Components.
Justin:Yes. Very soon. And this for this episode, we decided to just have a little catch up between Brian and I. And
Brian:Our panels have been going from four people down to three people. And now we're on two people.
Justin:And, you know, we'll do some more with three and four. But it just felt like a good opportunity for us to catch up on what we've been working on. Yeah. This was a long one, but I think it's great. If you really wanna get in deep with what we're struggling with
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:This is the episode to listen to.
Brian:I'll I'll just say, like, maybe some some headlines off the top to to know what you're getting into. I we we spent a a long time talking about Transistor and where you you personally are at with it seven years in, which is actually really interesting to me because I feel like you shared much more about your journey in the early years. Yeah. And this is a nice update because a lot of things have changed in your world on
Justin:that end. That's
Brian:right. And then on my end, I'm just two weeks away from launching this new product and trying to set expectations and figure out how to get first customers and and that whole storm of ideas and emotions and all that fun stuff.
Justin:Yeah. It's honestly a really good episode. Let's get into it.
Brian:Let's go.
Justin:Hey, Brian.
Brian:Justin. How's it going, buddy? I feel like it's been several weeks, but I guess it's only been, like, two weeks.
Justin:Yeah. I I'm in a weird stage of life. I I I just feel like I'm currently being pulled in, multiple directions at once, not all related to business.
Brian:Well, I mean, that's like the story of my life most of the time and something that I I've been feel like I've been spending my whole career trying to solve that problem, and I still haven't cracked it. So
Justin:Yeah. I mean, on my side, I'm just I went to that podcast conference. That when was that even? That feels like it was six weeks ago, but it was probably just a few weeks ago. Yeah.
Justin:That was, you know, I got back on the third. So we're at the end of the month now. So that's what? Like three or four weeks ago? And I just spent the week after that kind of digesting and thinking and contemplating all of these, like before I can think strategically, I really need to like soak in what's going on, talk to different people, just kind of evaluate what are the tectonic plates of the podcast industry kind of moving underneath us.
Justin:And I put a bunch of effort into writing this blog post that was meant to crystallize my thinking. And I really, I really wanted to get it out, and I never did.
Brian:And I know that feeling. I I mean, isn't it funny how, a trip is like you know, because, like, when you're when you're not traveling, you're just home doing the day to day work grind, and that can be, like, whatever the priority is for this week or this month. Yeah. And I I just got back from a vacation down in Mexico last week. Oh, nice.
Brian:So this is like this is like my first full week back in the office. Yeah. Same same deal. Like a lot of strategic thinking, little bit, you know, it was with the family and stuff, we're at the beach and stuff. But like a lot of a lot of a lot of plane rides with a lot of thinking and a lot of note taking and, all right, new strategy going forward.
Brian:I'm gonna do this this year. And then now I'm back to the grind. You know?
Justin:Yeah. I mean, I heard at some point someone said that a a most of a CEO's job is to think.
Brian:And
Justin:this is always hard to do when you're a small company or a solopreneur. But to have time to put on your thinking hat. And it sometimes it can feel like a waste of time because you're not doing You're
Brian:creating something.
Justin:Creating things. But I Yeah. I just feel like it's super important.
Brian:But that's, I think that's the wrong It's one of the most important things to do in a company, is to have the person to think strategically. I think that there is a lot of thought processes that only the CEO can possibly do. Yeah. Like decisions and new ideas that like, frankly, no one else in the company has the power to even be thinking at that level. Like Yeah.
Brian:You're talking about like, well, should we think about new, I don't know, like new products or something like that.
Justin:Like Yeah.
Brian:You know, someone who's not who's not at a c level should not even really be thinking about those questions.
Justin:Yeah. I mean, it's a bonus if you have someone who's really hungry on the team that is thinking at that level and they're kind of like shaking the tree. That's a bonus. But ultimately, the like, ultimately, I feel like my job is to understand this industry and have intuitions and instincts about this business that nobody else has. And the only way you really develop those is by spending lots of time with the customers, with the partners, with the vendors, with every kind of soaking in every element of what you're in.
Justin:And it's through that experience that you kind of develop those intuitions and instincts. They could be wrong. But it's really your job to develop the best instincts that you can. And so, yeah, so I came back from that podcast movement conference just with all these thoughts and feelings rattling around my brain. But then these past two weeks, I basically got really involved with the upcoming federal election in Canada.
Justin:There's a local candidate that I'm supporting. This is the first time I've actually really ever volunteered for politics or anything.
Brian:Oh, cool.
Justin:Freaking fascinating.
Brian:Like I bet. Yeah. Talk about talk about marketing. That's like the ultimate, like, on the ground marketing. Right?
Justin:I actually encourage people again, I'm not I'm I'm nonpartisan. I'm not like a vote for a party kind of guy. It's just that in this particular election, the there's someone I really want to be prime minister. I think he's the best person for the job. If you want if you're hiring for the CEO of the country, you want someone who has experience and instincts in the same way that I just talked about, you know, being the CEO of a company.
Brian:A little a little tangent here, and I'm not trying to go political at all. Yeah. Believe me. I'm I'm not. But when it and I and I actually am interested in, like, politics and and world news and everything.
Brian:I'm I'm gonna try to keep it off this this podcast. But I I will say that the thing that I'm usually most interested in when it comes to that
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Is the marketing side of and like the commute it's like some of the the highest level copywriting in the world is to hear these high level politicians speech writing and like how how are they messaging, How are they trying to frame an argument? How are they trying to frame Yeah. A benefit? Like, that that is pure copywriting marketing.
Justin:I mean, even if you do not like a candidate or a political leader to notice and observe which of their messages get through all of the noise and which resonate and which don't is fascinating.
Brian:It really is. Yeah.
Justin:And, yeah, so it's been but on the local level, it's it's surprising how I haven't had a I haven't had this happen in a while, where you get thrown into a group. It's almost like a group project at school. You get thrown into a group of people. And it's like, woah, like, didn't get to choose any of these people. I'm not in charge.
Justin:I'm actually very low on the totem pole. And, you know, there's definitely some people that I would absolutely work with again. And there's some people I would not work with again ever. You know? And
Brian:Yeah. It's like, you don't even know, like, where people are coming from, what kind of skill sets they bring to the table, like who's doing what.
Justin:And, you know, I think we've talked about this before in terms of getting out of our bubble, like Twitter and politics, especially like, you know, I'm we're trying to get this local candidate elected in a federal election. People of all age groups, all sorts of like, some people have never don't even know what Twitter is. Some people don't even know have never used AI before, maybe have heard about it. You know, I got everybody into a Slack group. And that was like,
Brian:what is Slack?
Justin:That was difficult. And even those decisions are so interesting, I think from a product perspective. It's like, you know, there's all these emails going back and forth. And I'm like, okay, we've got to get in a Slack group here. Like, this is completely disorganized.
Justin:But then I'm like, you know, maybe it should be WhatsApp. But then WhatsApp shares everybody's numbers with each other. We can't do that. Maybe it should be Discord. But Discord, like how are we going to get boomers to understand that?
Brian:No way.
Justin:Okay. It could be Facebook messaging groups. But these days, with it, you know, Facebook being so splintered, not everyone's on there. So it's like, what is the agnostic messaging platform that we could all get into and start trying to communicate.
Brian:It it's like sad to me, but I think that, like, for the the quote unquote normies, it's it's still Facebook, especially for the for the older crowd.
Justin:It
Brian:is. What was it? So my daughter just joined just got accepted into, like, the advanced students group in her elementary school, right? Yeah. Like, the LEAP program or whatever.
Brian:And the teacher who organizes that and it's like a small group of students who are in this program. And the communication platform between the teacher and the parents for that thing is she's like, just join this Facebook group so that I can stay in touch. And I'm like, really? You're using a Facebook group for this? That's, you know, that's what they're doing.
Justin:Yeah. It's it it just gives me a perspe it also gives me a perspective on we talk about market saturation and, like, every category is saturated. And, yes, it's hard to get through to quote unquote normies. But I just see so much opportunity whenever I'm thrown into a group of people not in my tech business bubble. I'm like, there is so much opportunity here.
Brian:Okay. Okay. This is this hits on something that I think we were chatting about a couple weeks ago about because that I think that that whole that's like the classic bootstrappers, like, Greenfield. Like, let's build an app for some offline industry that is so behind the times in tech. There's so much opportunity here.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Like Yeah. Okay. Yes. But I I feel like I've I've evolved on that quite a bit. And, like, I've seen how painful it is to try to sell to really low technical.
Brian:Yeah. And and this still happens with Clarity Flow. I have customers today on Clarity Flow who who still fall into this category, where I can, like, literally see how painful it is to try to sell such a straightforward, commonplace, like using all the standard patterns that we see every day in SaaS. Mhmm. Like, so many of these patterns are still so foreign to to people.
Brian:Like, understanding, like, what is a free trial? Like, so the annual plan that has a discount off of the monthly plan. So how does it work? If I switch from the monthly to the annual, am I gonna get that discount later? Like, yes, you are.
Brian:Like, that's how it works. You know, like, just like basic stuff. You know?
Justin:Dude, we deal with this podcast hosting, we deal with this all the time. We we have, you know, people who we are we are helping them from how do I record on my Windows 95 machine? Like, that level of, you know, well, do you have a microphone? Okay. Yeah.
Justin:Like, we're we're starting from Ground 0 sometimes.
Brian:Yeah. But but I do but about, like, the Bootstrapper thing, like, I think that there's there's still a lot of this, hey, just build an app for restaurants, which I did early in my career.
Justin:Yep.
Brian:And and, like, it's, like, okay. It it's so much harder than that. Like, of course, we we we know that we can build a great solution for Mhmm. And input any offline industry here. Right?
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:It's the marketing and selling that is so much harder when they are not easy to reach and and easy to just communicate on, a basic level. You know? I mean, it's harder on the other side too. Right? Like, we can't just build products for ourselves Mhmm.
Brian:Because that's, a limited market, I guess. But, like, you you gotta you gotta really have a strong inroad and personal interest. That's where I I think
Justin:Yes. Yeah. I I agree completely. But I I do think that my friend, Tim, Tim Renier, good buddy. And we both had worked for this nonprofit together in our early 20s.
Justin:And then we both switched. We've both always been entrepreneurs. And he started a string of businesses, including a DVD rental box company that competed with Red Box originally.
Brian:Just lost all the all the 30 crowd here.
Justin:Yeah. And it's been interesting to watch his trajectory. And his thing is now they do I'm gonna get this wrong, but it's basically like warehouse automation and managing everybody's security certificates and basically like helping with warehousing and logistics. I don't really even understand it. He did have some experience in that because he developed it while he was doing the DVD boxing.
Justin:He had to get into warehousing a little bit. He had to get and then it it just kind of grew from there. So it was organic. But he always says to me, like, he's like, Justin, I just take all of the stuff you talk about, and you've got your little audience of whatever, a couple thousand people or 5,000 people or whatever. And you know, all these solopreneurs, and you're serving podcast creators and everything.
Justin:I just take all of that advice. And then I bring it to the biggest retailers in the world in the C suite. They've never heard any of this stuff. This stuff is like incredible to them. The technological solutions we have, the language we use, even concepts like jobs to be done.
Justin:He just brings all that stuff from our world into a world that has never really heard about it. And, you know, he's raised a bunch of money. Kind of like Jordan, Jordan Gaul, you know, like raised a bunch of money going for a big home run. And, you know, they're just getting to profitability now. But you can have a business like that.
Brian:You absolutely can. I I think that it's I think what you said there, like, there were multiple steps. There's a there's a dot dot dot that Mhmm. That people seem to gloss past. Like, this this this person that you're talking about, like, clearly he developed some inroads and some insider knowledge Mhmm.
Brian:Along the way that led him to say, like, oh, not only is there an opportunity here, but I actually know people here that I could talk to and I can get some first sales, and then I can grow the network. So, it's like an active strategy. Like Yeah. You know, like, you can't just, like, throw a dart on the wall and say, like, I'm gonna build a thing for and start knocking on their doors. No.
Brian:Like, I mean, you you can. People do that. It's just a lot harder than it seems. You know?
Justin:Yes. And and I'm I'm still like I think the the key is to stay curious. Part of this will depend on what stage and age you are. But I'm sure you do this too. When I'm on the chairlift, and a stranger comes on, I talk to them.
Justin:And that even that crowd is kind of interesting.
Brian:You're the guy that does that.
Justin:But there's something interesting about that crowd because it's self selecting in a way. Like if you see a guy in his 50s or 60s get on the chairlift, he's got money. He's done something to get himself on the chairlift. And I love talking to those guys and go, hey, you know, are you local? Are you visiting?
Justin:Interesting. Invariably, you start talking about, you know, their job or their business. And to me, those insights, it just starts to unearth stuff like, okay, like, oh, so you're in, like, you're in the liens search business. Like, you know, there people get liens on their houses and their cars, and you you scrape websites and
Brian:There's a lot lot of lot of fantastic businesses in the world that nobody knows about, you know? And and they're super quiet. Like, they're not they're not like us here. I'm, like, podcasting about it every day. It's like, you know?
Justin:So I think that I I think the encouraging thing is everybody listening here has this unique tapestry of experiences that kind of define who they are, including what did your parents do for work? What industries were your family, friends in? What jobs have you done in the past? You know, there's this whole combination of things that I think could be fertile ground for like, you know, I wonder, maybe I should look at that again. Or what It's just like, every time I walk down Main Street, or I go to a I haven't done this in a while, but I want to start doing this again, like go to a rotary meeting.
Justin:And you just look around and it's like, okay, you know, some of these people are struggling. You know, some of these businesses and categories aren't great. Some of these businesses are pretty good. Yeah. Like
Brian:And I like I am always, like, fascinated by we had an electrician come to the house a couple weeks ago to fix something. And and I and I was just like, man, this guy's got a a nice little consultancy business here. Like like, people have a really bad pain. They're gonna pay this guy thousands of dollars on the spot just because they like, that seems like a really good business to be in. And, like, you know, my wife has to be like, dude, you're not gonna become an electrician.
Brian:Like, you know? How about some, like, some updates? Because what you were talking about, here we are in April of twenty twenty five. You've been in this transistor business for how many years now? Like, five, six?
Justin:We hired Helen just she's our head of customer success. She just celebrated four years of full time work with us.
Brian:Oh, okay. She started four years ago. So you started the company, what, '18. Going on seven here.
Justin:Yeah. So it it's it's pretty wild.
Brian:So so what is interesting to me, and, like, let's bring this into, like, the present day, like, on the ground, like, what what are you and I thinking about right now in in our evolution. Right? So, like, it sounds like to me you you've had a a fantastic established SaaS business in Transistor, but you are starting to have the mindset of what got us here is not going to get us there. And and what's the next phase?
Justin:Yeah. I mean, this is I think this this strategic thing that I'm struggling with, and maybe this is just the way it always will be, is on one side, we have this great business that's established, that's still growing. And in so many ways, it's great. But on the other side, I see threats. And those some of those concern me.
Justin:These are threats that might not materialize. But, again, it's kind of my job to worry about that stuff. And so it's like, okay, there are some threats. And we also, I think, hit the natural plateau, not just for our business, but for our category. So I think, you know, the last time we were talking to Jordan Gahl, I was talking about how when we entered the industry, there was all of this available market that we could kind of gobble up really fast.
Justin:But then we kind of hit the natural constraints of the market, along with all of our competitors. And now the category grows 15% a year. And so, you know, I think last year we grew it was between 1520%. But so that's good. We're I think we're we're doing better than our category.
Justin:But it is doubtful that we'll get to 50% year over year growth or 100% year over year growth if we stay in the category that we're in. And so yeah, I'm debating all that. Because on one hand, I mean, you talk to anybody. I was just listening to Ian Landsman on the Mostly Technical podcast. He's like, yeah, you know, every once in a while we go, okay, we got to start a new business.
Justin:And he goes off and he builds it. And then it's just the same business that keeps, you know, is still that's the one that's making the money.
Brian:And also sometimes I think like these these well established products and brands, you do see them start to try to branch out into a second and third product that's from the same brand. But as a customer of these things, like I'm always gonna think of that as the original. You know, like, Transistor, I could see how, like whatever you guys sidestep into or or or layer on into your product line, I'm still gonna think of you as a podcasting product company.
Justin:I'm so curious about that. Like, mail if you go to Mailchimp's website, it's like turn emails and SMS into revenue. That's actually a little bit more focused than it has been in the past.
Brian:The email marketing tools is a great example of this. Right? Mailchimp, like, I use Customer.io. I also use Kit for two different things. And like but like like, you look at these things.
Brian:Like, Customer. Wants me to use it for email, SMS. Mhmm. I think Mailchimp does, like, paper postcard stuff.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Like, I'm only gonna use it for email. I these are email tools to me.
Justin:Yes. Sometimes the yeah, the homepage can be it's like, what what is the product here?
Brian:I mean, and but that that could be I know them from the early days, whereas they are still probably reaching new customers who are just discovering believe it or not, there's probably new people who are just discovering what is Mailchimp today. Yeah. So they they are getting they're getting their idea shaped in a different way of what it is than what we know it as.
Justin:I I'm so, like, curious if this technique is actually effective. I'm I'm just looking through different, headlines for different like Aweber.
Brian:Like, are they still in business?
Justin:Aweber is still around. But what was the the I I I got I got kicked into an AB test there. Like, let's look at Constant Contact quick. I just wanna see what what their headline is.
Brian:And you would think that these companies, they're still, you know, going back to like offline small businesses, like, just getting them to send a once a month email newsletter broadcast email. Like, there's gonna be a because that's all all the local bakery is gonna do. They're not gonna have these, like, complex.
Justin:Like how effective is this? Add to your bottom line, not your to do list. Okay. That's a headline. And then it's like email, social media, and more to help your business get the attention it deserves.
Justin:To me, this is so watered down. I'm like, is this working for them? Is it? Because in my mind, it's like
Brian:Who knows? To to people like us, it's like, what this is this is crazy. But you know what? I bet there's still a lot of people who are like small business owners who are just like, I need to do the Internet thing.
Justin:Yes.
Brian:I need I need Internet stuff for my business. I guess they do Internet stuff.
Justin:I don't know. This is wild to me. Anyway, to get back to I think so that's part of what I'm wrestling with is and then there's also the constant pull of do we want to stay a nice, sustainable, calm business? Or do we want to try to, you know, should we be more aggressive? Should we be pushing harder?
Brian:Would the alternative to expanding into new products be to would the alternative to that be, like, doubling or tripling down on some marketing efforts for your existing product? Yeah. And and like you said, like, you're still battling, like, the headwind of the the wave is the general wave of the category is slowing down.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:But I don't know. Maybe you can, like, experiment in new ways to acquire new customers for your existing product rather than offer a sec because I can see the argument both ways. Yeah. Because you could say like, well, okay, if the customer base is slowing down and the wave is slowing down, maybe we can offer an adjacent product that our existing customers will. Get like, it's generally, the the rule.
Brian:Right? It's like it's easier to sell things to existing customers than to new customers. Mhmm. Right? Like, what's an adjacent product that a podcaster on Transistor would wanna buy?
Justin:I mean, if you talk to people in the podcasting industry, they'll see they'll say that most of the value and most of the the main economic driver of podcasting is ads. And so the competitors that have decided to do bigger swings have all gone into ad tech. And so that that's an option for us. There's like this asymmetric what's difficult to know is the amount of investment that would require. Would we be is is the investment that that would require asymmetric with the most likely return that we would get?
Brian:I I really don't know much about the ad tech industry. I'm just guessing here that it's not only a huge technical lift to build whatever tooling in that space. It's also now you're dealing with ad agencies. And you're selling into enterprises that have big advertising budgets. And that's a different sales and marketing play than probably what you do now.
Brian:Right?
Justin:And that's I think that's part of what I'm trying to get at, which is I think it's easy for people outside of anybody's situation, your situation, or my situation, to look at our situation, and say, look at all these opportunities, like they're right there. But internally, one thing we wrestle with is right now, we are definitely operating within our zone of genius. Like what we've accomplished so far is fits our values, fits our experiences in the world, fits our skills, fits what we're good at. And we've been able to get this far that way. And every once in a while, you can hire somebody.
Justin:Like one thing we could do, for example, is just hire somebody to go hard on sales. And that might be we bring in this new bit of expertise, this new bit of zone of genius, and that could expand our pie. But a bet like ads is so far outside of our zone that culturally, and just in terms of the operating system we we run on, it would be so difficult to And we're going to try to experiment with it and see if we can like sidestep in in our own way.
Brian:Well, like So I'm a transistor user, and I don't know how close I am to the majority of your customer base in terms of what my my profile is. Because I I I don't run ads on my on my podcasts. Right? So I think about it, like, if you were to stay in in the zone of, like, marketing to people like me Mhmm. Who is so I don't know.
Brian:Like, maybe I don't know if you'd call it, like, hobbyist podcaster or podcaster who or, like, business owner who has a podcast.
Justin:Yeah. You know,
Brian:the adjacent products or services to me look like podcast editing. Mhmm. Maybe YouTube video related stuff. Yeah. And and like AI, honestly, AI stuff.
Brian:Like like right now, I'm I'm going heavy into YouTube and I'm literally shopping for tools that can help me edit my videos using AI. And I feel like that's a space. There's been like basic versions of that. But right now, I'm literally starting to see the next level of that. So like, what I'm really excited about, I didn't even realize this existed until this week.
Brian:Yeah. I've come back to trying Descript for like the third or fourth time.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Yeah. And I have some issues with their UX and tech and stuff. But what's really exciting is that they have the ability to edit out bad takes. Mhmm. Not not just removing ums, but when I when I record and I talk and I say a line five times, I wanted to delete the four bad takes and keep the one.
Brian:Yeah. And now it it actually does that. Mhmm. And that's huge. Right?
Brian:Like, that that is a massive time time saver right there.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. We I mean, the we've looked at a lot of those. Like, the there's the you know, we're using Riverside right now. Descript has a sim they acquired SquadCast, and they have a similar tool.
Justin:Man, it's just like that zone of genius thing is is is so
Brian:And all also, like, script based editing. The the way that Descript has it, Riverside has it now, and, like, anything that like, I really think that the future of video editing, and I and you could probably say the same for podcast editing, is going Like, there's always gonna be a place for, like, the Adobe Premieres and the Final Cut Pro's, like, professional level video editing software.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:But for the rest of us, it's script based video editing. Yeah. Right? Being able to, you know
Justin:But that's a great that whole category is a great example. Like, that would be an awesome adjacent category for us to go into. Mhmm. Like, it serves our existing customers. You know, we could take we we have 30,000 plus users on transistor.
Justin:Like, we have all of this available market. But when you start to investigate it and go, okay, who's in this category? How much funding do they have? What does the product require technically? And then you go through Reddit and you read what are your current users saying?
Justin:And it's just like this that category that that WebRTC is it WebRTC world of recording and browsers? And it's just plagued with problems. It is so difficult. And even the companies that have all the money, like Riverside's editing tool, and Descript is like the best of the batch, I think, in terms of editing.
Brian:They are, and they're still very frustrating to use.
Justin:Yes.
Brian:But, okay, let me take the other side of this, because I literally have a YouTube video recorded on this that I'm hoping to publish next week. I think now, in the age of AI, when it comes to product development, we can be much more ambitious than we were. Okay? Like, I Just speaking from my own experience, for like the four years or so, you know, I I went I I became sort of like a full stack developer around twenty seventeen, eighteen. So so '17 to '20, I'm like making a lot of strides and growing as a developer and building a lot of new stuff.
Brian:Mhmm. But then from like 2020 up until like twenty twenty three, twenty four, I really started to stagnate as a builder Mhmm. Myself. Right? Because I what happened was I would shy away from trying to build things that are new, like, cutting edge and in territory that I haven't built before.
Brian:And I would stick to just keeping on building features that I know how to build. Yeah. I can push out with rails, like just simple crud stuff. Because that's what that's what I'm able to ship quickly. Mhmm.
Brian:Keep the shipping speed up. And I can ship predictably. I'm like, okay, that's a feature. I know exactly how to build that. Okay.
Brian:We could ship that in a month. Good. Yeah. But this idea for a product that's a lot of question marks and unknowns and cutting edge and who knows what's possible, that's scary. I can't touch that.
Brian:Because it's because it could be way too expensive, way too time consuming. Now in the in the AI world, we as product people can be more ambitious to to to go into those high unknown territories. And the reason is, you know, like using tools like Cursor and stuff, if if your development team, and I'm just speaking about myself here, but like when you're working with a team who really embraces this stuff, I'm not talking about like vibe coding where it's like, oh, here's a prompt. Now build me a whole product. I'm talking about really embedding it in your process because this allows me to compress the unknowns and and get get through those question marks much faster.
Brian:Right? So I could use prompts to, like, lead the way. Like like, give me, like, a version one of this interface or or wiring this up and show me, the default path on how something like this might be built. Mhmm. And then I can go in and fix it and shape it and and like, get there in three weeks rather than, like, three months.
Brian:Yeah. You know, again, like, because before I would have had to spend so many so much time like learning on tutorials and Stack Overflow and do a simple version and then a more advanced version. And now I can just have the AI like build the first version and and get halfway there and then build the rest. And it's like, oh, look at this. We're here.
Brian:Now we have an ad platform. Like, you know, like Yes.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like this idea, and I I think it's something that we should think about. The pragmatist in me is still saying like, I'm guessing Descript and Riverside both have at least 50 people. That's my guess.
Brian:Yeah. But you could also look at that like, well, that's going to slow them down Because
Justin:they have so
Brian:many people.
Justin:But then the pragmatist in me is going, yes, I think AI could give us a superpower as an independent. And I mean, this is what I'm telling my kids right now. Like my kids are into filmmaking. And I'm like, this might be a great time to get into filmmaking and animation and game development. Because what it used to take a whole studio to do, you can actually AI might actually be able to augment your skill and your taste.
Justin:And as an indie, you might be able to I've been
Brian:playing a lot with those video tools
Justin:this week Yeah. So that's great.
Brian:Think But it's early days.
Justin:It's still early. And so the pragmatist in me is still going, yes, maybe AI could give us superpowers. But realistically, my guess is that would still mean probably doubling our team in order to accomplish what Descript and Riverside can do. And again, maybe that's what we want to do. I think this is what's hard about strategy is that you can feel out all the contours.
Justin:And then you can have outsiders like you push a little bit, which is great. But then you got to decide, are we actually what actually is is costly is committing resources and time to anything.
Brian:Say like this is this is the direction.
Justin:If we're turning the ship, it's like it, even a small company like us, to turn the ship and point in a different direction is a commitment. And maybe we could say, you know what, like six months for us isn't a huge bet. Like, maybe we'll just go that way for six months, and we might decide to do that.
Brian:I mean, that's where I've been for the last two years. And I like, what what's difficult for me with that is is that I am I've got Clarity Flow and a consulting project or two, and I've got a team member who's sort of doing most of the work there and I direct them. Then where I'm spending 80% plus of my week is like new product development, right? Yep. Trying to figure out what my next thing is.
Brian:And I've been in this mode for the last two years of like, okay, like I like two years ago, I decided, like, it's time for me to explore and start building my next business, whatever that's gonna be. Yeah. And it's frustrating to me now that I've actually spent the last two years trying to figure out that question. Like, I should have been shipping new products by now. Like, I'm finally, like, two weeks away from shipping, like, my next actual product with instrumental components.
Brian:But Mhmm. The the difficult thing that I have with that is that I'm constantly having putting on the CEO hat, like strategic direction. What type of business should I be in? Who should who should my customer be? What am I what what's playing to my strengths?
Brian:What what can I build and how long is gonna am I gonna build it? But then once I commit to any any of these directions Yeah. Then I'm also the product person building it. Yeah. So so then I'm spending the weeks and months building it.
Brian:So while I'm literally looking at those at the screen building something, I'm also questioning like, am I spending too much time on this? Is this gonna work? Is this the wrong path? Am I missing out on another path over there? Like, okay, so like this instrumental components product, which is finally like 90%, like a week or two away from getting into the hands of first customers.
Brian:Finally. I've been working on this for six, eight months, you know? But like two or three of those months in there, I took my eye off the ball to work on this like editor product and YouTube and doing a consulting project. And like, it's so difficult. And even right now, I'm on this product that I'm two weeks away from launching, and I'm already thinking about, like, what's what's the product that comes after it?
Brian:Because I don't I don't know what this one is gonna do. Mhmm. Like, it's just gonna be the first customers. Like, I don't know. There's it's like, being pulled in so many directions is a real, real thing.
Brian:And Yeah. The the most difficult thing is that we have to commit to a direction Mhmm. Without complete information. Like, people will talk about like, oh, you gotta validate this. You talk to customers.
Brian:Maybe you get prepayments or whatever you wanna do. You're still not gonna know. Like and, like, I know that I'm I'm probably gonna get some first customers for instrumental Right? Yeah. I still have this feeling like I'm going to launch this thing and it's going be crickets and there's going be no customers.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:But the reality is I have emails in my inbox where people are telling me, like, when are you going to release that? I want to buy it. Yeah. So I know I'm going get some. But I don't know I don't know if that if that's gonna be $500 a month or 5,000 or 15 k a month.
Brian:Or how long is it gonna take to get to that sort of level with this one product? Like, it or or is it destined to just be a $500 a month product? And it's just a little side thing, and I'm gonna need to move on to to more products. Like, I don't know. I have no idea.
Brian:But, like, all all I know is, like, I need to, like, get it out.
Justin:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that's the first step for sure. And yeah, there's so many hard questions there.
Justin:Like, you could release it and it could do $500. But the correct answer, if you could look through your time machine, is actually to get it up to $20 a month. What you need to do is go to every Rails event. And so it's hard to know what path to take too. It's like, what do I Like, if I've released something and it didn't do I was hoping for this, but it did this.
Justin:What do I what do I do with that information? Do I and and and there's so many directions you could go.
Brian:Yeah. And it's also like, what what am I looking for in a business that I decide to do?
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Right? I've I've I've also made the decision that, like, I'm not all in on anything. My assumption is, like, nothing is gonna be a rocket ship out of the gate. Right? And I'm not willing to go into debt for any business.
Brian:I'm not looking to to get investment, outside investment for any business. I'm self funding. Yeah. So, like, even this product, Instrumental Components, yeah, I might go to some some conferences here and there, but, like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be, like, going, like, all in on, like, this thing must be the be all end all. I'm not like, I don't expect to hear like, to create, like, the tailwind of the of the rail space or the or whatever, you know, like, the LiveWire of the tails of the rail space.
Brian:Like Yeah. It's just a thing that, like, people on my list might like it, and and hopefully, they'll they'll talk about it, and it'll spread. And and I'm gonna demonstrate it through my through my product work and YouTube.
Justin:Yeah. I think I think that is the right answer. Like, there's so much nuance to all of this. Because part of the right answer is to do as much pre work as you can to go. Is this a category or an opportunity that is worth a further look?
Justin:Right? Like there's some things that you can just do a bit of research. You can call up some people that you know in the industry. You know, Jordan just went through this. He was considering a bunch of different opportunities.
Justin:And he did the legwork beforehand. He called a bunch of people up. He investigated. He tried things out in a little very limited way. And then he's like, nope.
Justin:Nope. Nope. This one, like, Rosie seems like the best of the options?
Brian:I think that there's a difference in my mindset at this stage of my career. Whereas I a few years ago, I I was more like the way that Jordan is thinking
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:Where this is what a a really great entrepreneur does. Someone like Jordan, where where it's like just kind of looking at the open landscape, like, is the best opportunity to maximize the return on the investment of this company? Right? And and I think he made a brilliant decision to pivot into Rosie and following this wave of AI with voice and everything.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:I'm more at this stage where I'm I'm more assessing my own personal assets and strengths Mhmm. And what best aligns with what I have to offer, and which is which can be really tough. So, like, the way that I think about it is, like, I've been building with Rails. I'm I, you know, I I I spin up product all the time with Rails. Instrumental components is my system to make that extremely fast and efficient and high quality and all that.
Brian:But then I'm also thinking about like like next products. Like, I I think I'm Right now, I'm thinking like I'm gonna get more back into like teaching how to build, how to code, how to how to expand into be a full stack product designer developer. Yeah. In the like, Rails is my tool of choice for that. So so that and and building with AI is is another discipline that I'm developing for myself that I think I should be teaching people how to grow.
Brian:Mhmm. And like so these are assets that I and strengths that I have because I I can build, I can design and develop, and I can teach, and I can do video content. And like how do I merge these things into a com creator led type of business, you know? And and I and also like thinking about like waves, like I really do think that the combination of AI and building with AI is is a direction. But then also the idea that, like, anyone, not anyone, but, like, more people than just programmers are are becoming and are and will be becoming full stack product people.
Brian:So, like, I'm thinking specifically, like, I should be making content that teaches designers how to become full stack and teaches marketers how to become full stack. Mhmm. And, you know, because because I'm I'm I feel like I'm qualified to do that, and I have the tools and resources to do that. And I think that there is a wave of like, you're already seeing it with the with the quote unquote vibe coders. Mhmm.
Brian:And before that, we saw it with, like, the no coders. Right? Like, these are these are non full stack people who want to become some level of full stack. And Yeah. And I think that wave is just gonna increase.
Brian:So I'm I'm try I'm thinking about, like, I feel like I could help people in in this way, and and it can fit what I'm going for in my business. So Yeah. I don't know.
Justin:I I had a bunch of thoughts while you're talking. The first is I I do think the approach like, you know, I had this podcast called Mega Maker where I made a hundred things in a year. And I think that was too much. And I I kind of wrote postmortems on, you know, that was probably a mistake. But the other thing is I grew a ton during that time.
Justin:And it actually did lead to where I am today. I think the idea of sequentially trying things out like one project at a time, not a hundred, but maybe a good creator and product person who's still exploring could do five to 10 a year. And it's like so you got instrumental components. So it makes sense to scope that out, get that done as as quickly as possible, not get too distracted, and get it out. Right?
Justin:That makes sense. And, you know, even like me, I'm thinking about like, maybe do I want to get back into making content? And it does seem like the best way to get back into making content is just to be publishing more often.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:But along with that, there is and I think growing older and hopefully getting wiser. I think at the beginning, when you're evaluating opportunities, there are some opportunities that just have the smell or the look of a smaller opportunity. Like a good example is this like SwagFan app that I built with this college graduate. To me, it was something I wanted. But it it just from the beginning, I just kind of knew it has this feeling
Brian:Like it like there's not a huge market.
Justin:There's not a huge market here.
Brian:Yeah. I mean, that's kinda how I think about these components. Like, I don't know a, how how large is Rails really? I I think it's somewhat large, but it's not it's not like Laravel. It's not like it's it's certainly not like like Next.
Brian:Js and all that Or React. Yeah. React. Yeah. And also, like, how how willing are are people in this space to pay?
Brian:And and I'm constantly asking people on my list for early access about that. Like, what is this price? How does that land with you? And and some some are great and some are like, no. I don't like so I don't I don't know.
Brian:Like and and I'm like, I'm going into this thinking like, there probably isn't a huge market here. So I think that this is a smallish revenue product on its own. But I I also see it as it is a tool that's like leveraging my byproducts. Right? So like, this came out of building a lot of Rails apps.
Brian:I'm gonna continue to to build Rails apps using it. And and going forward, I I have, like, a list of app ideas, and these are actual product ideas. But I'm thinking of them less like business opportunities and more like teaching material. Mhmm. Right?
Brian:Like like there's four or five things on my list that I wanna build which would be really great apps for me to build using instrumental components and show that work on YouTube or use it as case studies for teaching people how to build stuff. Mhmm. And, yeah, release it as like a as like a tiny app in in a portfolio. But, like, I I'm also at my stage and my age and my degree of burnout from the SaaS game for the last twenty years, I'm also, like, I I don't think I'm going to alright. I can't expect to find a traditional SaaS application that's just gonna dominate and grow like a weed, you know?
Brian:Like like, I'm open to non SaaS ideas at this point. Like, we talked about this in the in the early episodes of this show where it's like, I I think that the SaaS opportunity, it's it's still there. But like, I that's that's why I'm much more open to ideas of like a components product and an educational product and investing in YouTube as like putting those things together as like cobbling together the the next business for the next couple years for me. You know? Yeah.
Brian:I I think out of those, something else could grow that I that I can't really predict right Yeah. But, like, in terms of, like, the you know, this is another thing that I've been thinking a lot about is, like, the only the only things I ever really want at this point in my career are, you know, good, comfortable, like, financial freedom and like time freedom. And what that what that essentially means is a product or a couple of products that are detached from my time. So I already have at least like half of that with with Clarity Flow and trying to add on with components and some new products. And fit and I'm trying like, I'm doing some consulting, some MVP consulting projects, but I'm hoping to phase that stuff out.
Brian:And then the other thing is just to be building and creating good stuff. Right? So if those if if if that's the North Star, all I just need to focus on is, like, doing things this month that contribute that that put me in motion toward that.
Justin:Yes.
Brian:I I I don't know if the things that I'm building this month are gonna be the be all end all. But Yeah. Just shipping the components product and making the next YouTube video, these are things that, like, point me in that direction.
Justin:Yes. Yeah. I I think that's that that could be a good approach. Like like, if I had to find if I sold transistor or transistor crashed for some reason and I had to go do something else, I think, you know, part of what I would be doing is just wanting to get in motion, doing something, releasing something. Because when we look at all of our friends, that's what happened.
Justin:You know, Adam was doing live streams, and he's trying to build his own SaaS. But then people see how he's writing CSS. And then he's like, oh, you know, I'm gonna I gotta focus on this thing. This is what is resonating. So by putting things out there, you can get a sense for what might resonate.
Justin:I also like to think about what evidence is there out there that this is an actual opportunity where people are already in motion. And so, like when I was considering Transistor, I talked to Ruben Gammes, and he said, you know, this market, we kind of looked at the market together. And he's like, this market really feels like the website hosting market, which is this nice, mature, established category. And you're this nice little niche subset of that. And so we can kind of look at the trajectory of that.
Justin:You can kind of look at other entrepreneurs who have done it, like Jason Cohen with WP Engine. And they can kind of be your muse in terms of what's the opportunity here? What techniques could we you know, a big reason we went into affiliates early was because I'd seen how it had worked in the web hosting space. So being able to see an example of, you know, where it's working, and then really delving into like, what does that really look like? Like, is Jason Cohen's life super shitty?
Justin:Because that category is just hell. Is, you know, I could look into competitors. I could listen to all their podcasts. I could really try on that opportunity as much as I could before we jumped in. And to think about it like, okay, I have a pretty good sense of what I'm getting into.
Justin:And I have a pretty good sense on like, other people have done this and have had success. And I think I could apply some of that and follow some of that here in this space.
Brian:You know, it's it's interesting that you say that because, like, this is another one of those things that late this is this is starting to get a little bit, like, personal mindset for me where, like, I feel like I spent so many years observing and personally knowing being friends with, like, successful SaaS founders. Right?
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And and having an up close, like, front row seat to literally seeing people go from, like, pre idea to launching to hugely successful SaaS business to exit. I've seen that cycle multiple times with with people up Right? And, you know, embedding myself in in this community and and circles of of friends and founders. So I think that's had a huge influence. Like, exactly what you're saying.
Brian:Like like, just looking to friends and mentors and examples as like, this is a model. This is a path Mhmm. That I'm sure mine won't be exactly like that, but that's a picture of what could happen if I invest my time in this type of direction.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And I feel like this year, I'm again, like this is like an age thing. This is like a mental development thing. And, you know, we've been talking about like business is so personal. At a certain point, like, I'm I'm trying to be in touch with like, what what makes me different? What what makes my what I have to contribute different from most people?
Brian:Because ultimately, that's the thing that people who do follow me and do read every email and do listen to every podcast, like, that's what they're they're connecting with. Mhmm. Right? Especially if you're going hard on YouTube. Like the thing that work there people can talk all day about thumbnail images and and like, you know, you gotta have a a title that that hits and you gotta follow these analytics tools.
Brian:But at the end of the day, the channels that win are the ones that are unique and people connect with them because they're different in some way.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:You know? You know, so like, me personally, like that's sort of where I'm at in this whole career game. It's like
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And how do I how do I operate with that? Right? Like like, yeah, I'm trying I'm trying to stay in touch with, like, what do I have have to offer? But but also, like, who can I connect with? Like, who who trying to get back to, like, who is the target customer and what what can I sell them that aligns with what I'm doing?
Brian:It's like a it's such a mental pretzel that you gotta put yourself in. Yeah.
Justin:I I I still think that some of that so for example, as you were talking, the the brand that came to mind around instrumental components was Telerik. Are you familiar with Or Telerik, t e l e r I k dot com, who've just made a an entire they've been around forever. And I became familiar with them when I was working for a startup that used .net. And so we would use Telerik or Telerik
Brian:Yep.
Justin:And I think for you to look at someone like them is helpful because you go, okay, like we could we could put Telerik into Ahrefs right now and just see where are they getting their traffic from? What keywords are they targeting? And it's also just an example of a product like the one you're building, who's been around forever, that and you can just see like, okay, well, in some ways, this is encouraging because I can see, like, this is what they're charging. They're charging, you know, $1,300 a year. Yeah.
Justin:And The the thing
Brian:that I'm seeing in the rail space, there's a few things. Is that, like, first of all, like, rails gets if, like, there's one big, like, objection to why people don't choose Rails, if they're choosing a a stack to get into, it's because of the lack of UI components libraries Mhmm. And and, like, app starter kits compared to other stacks. Like, you see them all over with with Laravel and React. There's a ton of them.
Brian:Right? And then, you know, a Tailwind UI is like, Adam's product is a is a huge Mhmm. There's so many users. And I have I have survey after survey for early access list people for instrumental products who say they bought Tailwind UI. Mhmm.
Brian:They have a hard time porting it into Rails. Yeah. Everyone because I I did the same thing. Right? Like like they have you can get or or like Shad CN or whatever.
Brian:Like, they're they're these really popular just front end UI, just the HTML and CSS or Tailwind stuff. But to but to wire it up into Rails controllers and stimulus controllers and and building out actual components that work with rails and turbo and stuff. Like there isn't much of that. And then in the rail space, you've got like Jumpstart with Chris Oliver. You've got Bullet Train, which has been around for a long time.
Justin:But
Brian:beyond that, there's not a whole lot. Right? And then Rails itself is not like Like, it's similar to Laravel in overall MVC structure. Yeah. But it's so much more stripped down compared to Laravel.
Brian:Whereas like Rails alone, like just the core Rails, Rails new, you're not getting much in terms of like UI. Like you really gotta you're on your own to make this thing ready for prime time. Yeah. You know? And that's that's like the hit on the rail space.
Brian:And I feel like that's what is resonating in the surveys and the emails that I talk to people about. Mhmm. There's still the open question of like, I don't know how big this market is. I don't know how I would really reach them unless I I get more involved in the Ruby conferences and the Rails conferences and the podcasts and stuff. Because like, I also think that like I'm personally not very well known.
Brian:Like, know a few builders in those spaces, and and I know Chris Oliver and, like, some some people. But, like Mhmm. I'm much more known in the microconf space than the Ruby and Rails space.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:These things overlap a little bit, but like
Justin:What what I'm would be curious about with Telerik for example, I would go on Twitter, and I would ask, hey. Any dot net shops out there currently using Telerik. Could you just let me know which components you're using? Because that's what's interesting is in the dot net world and I also kinda like .wet.net because it's old and crusty. But like PHP, and honestly, like Rails now, it's like old and crusty.
Justin:You know, it's been built into dozens of products. And there's all of these, you know, little software companies, little internal software tools where the developers are like, okay. We their go to is Telerik. Like, we we need some components. They've been using them forever.
Justin:Yeah. You know? And it's like
Brian:This might be interesting for our audience. I if I could share my can I share my screen for the video that we'll publish here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:Because I I have let me show the website and then the survey. Because I like, the what you're saying, like, these questions, like, asking people what they use, that's what I put on the survey. Alright. So, like, this is the homepage right now. Or this is, like, sort of like the the landing page for instrumental components.
Brian:You hit any link, any button on here. It's gonna give you this coming soon. So this is where I'm, like, sending people. I'm getting a lot of leads mostly from YouTube at this point. So they put their email address in and then they get to my survey.
Brian:And I have, like, a so a few hundred, like, responses on this. I'm asking, what do you do? What type of what's your business? What's your role? Have you purchased one of these libraries before?
Brian:Which ones? So this is where I'm seeing people type in Tailwind UI, like ChadCN. Mhmm. Sometimes like Jumpstart, sometimes Bullet Train, stuff like that. What are what do the best component products get right?
Brian:What do you find frustrating or missing from most of these? Any specific examples would be helpful. What I'm learning with those, which is obvious, like documentation is a big one. Mhmm. You you gotta have, like, really good docs.
Brian:You've gotta have really good examples of how to port it in. So, like, I'm asking a little bit about how I should be structuring it as a starter kit or individual components. Yeah. Like, I'm trying to get, like, at at their why. Like, what's driving you to use components instead of just building stuff yourself.
Brian:Yep. And I'm hearing a lot about, like, the speed benefit is is one, like just getting from zero to one a lot faster. The other one is I'm hearing a lot of people are like, well, I'm I'm really strong with back end, but I'm terrible with front end design. And and I look to these components to fill that gap. And then here, I'm sort of just, like, validating that you actually are in in this space and, like, this is your stack.
Brian:This one is, like, how did you hear about it? And I'm hearing a lot of people, like, type in YouTube. Any questions or requests? I get some. And then here so I'm not I'm not sharing what the pricing is yet, but I'm asking people like, I'm 90% certain that I will be a customer or I'm fifty fifty or I don't think so I'm I'm seeing like fifty fifty between 99% and I'm fifty fifty.
Justin:Okay.
Brian:Right? And so then when they say that, then it's like, can you say more about this?
Justin:That's a great question, by the way.
Brian:Like, without they're again, they don't see the price point yet.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:So I don't even if they say 99%, like, I don't know if they're actually because they don't know how much it is yet. Some of them are like, I can clearly see, like, they're from a business and they're like, well, I don't care. I'm just gonna use my business credit card on this. It'll be great.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Some of them are like, I hope it'll be free. Some of them are like, you know and, like, everything in between.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And then and then they enter their info, and then I get into, an email back and forth with with most of them. You know? So I don't know. Marketer marketer Justin, what do you think?
Justin:I mean, I think that's great. Do you have a question in there about what okay. Yeah. What what's their role in the business?
Brian:Yeah. Yeah. And that's been interesting too. I'm trying to get a sense of And I still need to learn more. It's like, are you a solo builder?
Brian:So I am I'm definitely seeing some people who are like, Yeah, I've got a side project for this. And I'm getting emails now like, when are you launching that? Because I wanna spin up a new side project next month. Is it gonna be ready? Yeah.
Brian:And then I have others who are like, I work in a company, and we're going to use this in our company. I'm seeing sort of a mix of both.
Justin:Here's what I'm interested in as a marketer that I'm always curious about. And maybe you could add this as a follow-up question to your waiting list. And I don't know how you structure it exactly, but it's like, can you tell me about a moment in Slack or in a meeting where your dev team made a decision to buy and use a web component? And that is fascinating to me.
Brian:That moment.
Justin:Yeah. Is what is going on. And I again, the reason I thought of Telerik is there was just so many examples. And I quickly looked at their backlinks and their organic their top keywords. And Telerik reporting is one of their top keywords.
Justin:And React date picker is another one. There's there's some common ones here that I think is interesting. And I just remember being in those meetings as a product manager. And it's like, okay, we got to build this feature for in this dot net. It's a MVC application, web application.
Justin:How are we gonna get reports in here? And it's like, okay, well, our options are this and this. And at the time, Telerik and it was just like, we'd already used Telerik before. We had their components already. And it's like, okay, how much is it gonna cost?
Justin:That yes. Let's do that because we have a problem to solve. We're trying to make progress.
Brian:I think this is also like the type of what I'm seeing with some of these responses is like you like what you're saying, like, is the moment, like, like, you're in a meeting and, like and the and a manager says we need to buy this. We need to find a solution for that. I think this type of product is a little bit more bottom up where it's the developer, it's the lower level developer or or maybe like a CTO type person, but, like, they're the ones who would be more on the ground and be aware of this. And and then they'll use their company credit card to pay for it or something like that. Like
Justin:I I think both parts of the conversation are interesting, though, because in this case so I'm product manager for this company called Mailout Interactive, and we're building a new feature. It's an email newsletter application. And I'm as a product manager. I'm saying, okay, the next feature we're building is this. Let's start to shape this and figure out how we're going to deliver it.
Justin:And it's the developer that's going, oh, well, we'll probably use we'll probably have to look at some Telerik components for this. So they have the Telerik components top of mind. Although the next time as a product manager, the next time I'm in those conversations, I'm already looking in Telerik's library and going, okay. What are there
Brian:They have it so you can just build it.
Justin:Yeah. Are are there things we can we can use here? And I'm demoing them. And so I think both part both parts of that conversation are interesting. Yeah.
Justin:But all what really matters is, I think especially who this is for is is fascinating. It it feels like there's just so like, if we could see Adam Waddon's customer list or Caleb Porzio's Yo, Adam.
Brian:Well, let me see your customer list.
Justin:Caleb Porzio's customer list. And I mean, sometimes I'll I'll I've asked them that. I I I have this feeling that yeah, the the the the top of the funnel is just awareness amongst web developers. Like
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:Oh, I got a new project. The boss is asking me to do this. It's like, of course, I'm gonna go to Tailwind UI first. That's part of it.
Brian:This is like a marketing exposure question that I think that I still struggle with today. And I feel like it's even harder today than it was a couple years back, right? Is that, like, I hate being that guy who wants to do the podcast tour to promote my new product. Mhmm. Same thing with Twitter.
Brian:Like, hey, everyone, like, I'm launching this thing, and you're so much better at this than than I am. But I also think that there's like a this is not as effective as it used to be. People don't want you to be a guest on their podcast just to promote your new product. Like, there has to be there has to be a unique story or something notable, something noteworthy
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:That's worth talking about. Like like, it has to be more like, look, the way to build stuff today is to build with components. Here's what it means to build with components. Yes. And here or you like, another interesting thing to me now is, like, building with AI and the fact that instrumental components are designed in a very Rails native way, it makes your code base very readable by AI.
Brian:So you can you you can plug in instrumental components, and the AI already knows how instrumental components works because it's designed in the Rails way of doing things. It's not inventing new conventions that only our docs know about. Right? Like, it's
Justin:That's a compelling narrative. The the thing that I think I would be doing is I would be looking at the people who have achieved success in this world. How have they done it? And there are different paths. Like, I think one of the reasons Caleb succeeded is that he was just this passionate demo person.
Justin:He would Yeah. He would close himself in his closet and go, people, I'm just so excited about this. I gotta show you. And that that excitement was contagious, and that helped him to get above the high watermark.
Brian:And See, I think this is what I struggle with with that. Right? Like, Caleb and and Adam, even to, like, a a larger extent.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:Right? Like, have huge audiences. Mhmm. And and they and they won those audiences through just doing awesome shit. Right?
Brian:Yeah. Like, they deserve all all of that attention for the work that they do. Yeah. I feel like me and most other people just don't have that advantage built in. And I I do build in public.
Brian:I share videos of what I'm building. They just don't hit the same way and they don't have the same reach that someone like Adam or or Caleb does. And I'm I'm I'm I've accepted that a long time ago, you know? So that so it's like like, I'll still do my thing, but how does the how how do the rest of us get out there without, like, nagging at the arms of the podcasters or the community owners to say, hey, can I plug my product here?
Justin:Yeah. I mean, that's what I think is interesting about I mean, to a certain extent, Taylor Otwell, I think a lot of his traction did come through documentation.
Brian:Just
Justin:kind of community level engagement, mostly, you know, for the first, I'm guessing five years of his career, he wasn't on video that much. He wasn't in podcasts that much. And he wasn't doing that many talks. Right? It was just like him developing the docs, engaging in community forums, you know, submitting stuff to Hacker News.
Justin:So I think there's there are other ways of doing that. Although he eventually developed a a great kind of Steve Jobs showmanship for the things he was releasing. But that, I think, came organically.
Brian:And and also, I think Taylor is a great example. Same thing with Adam and and Caleb. Like, all three of them, yes, they were out there showing the work that they were doing Mhmm. And doing these, like, marketing, social media tactics. Mhmm.
Brian:But underneath all that, they followed their personal intuition into a space
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And said, like, there is a problem here, and there is no good solution. When when Taylor built Laravel, Laravel didn't exist. Yes. There there was no framework in the PHP space to build something like what you can do with Laravel. And and CSS
Justin:I mean, that's not exactly true. There was Symfony. There was
Brian:Yeah. Of course. But, like, I don't know. Like, the like, same thing with with Rails. And same thing and and, like, it's just, he saw a new and better way of doing it.
Brian:Yeah. Right? And and Adam completely flipped the whole concept of of, like, CSS on its head, you know, with with Tailwind. Right?
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And that didn't happen overnight. Like, was just like, yeah, it's a tool for myself to make it easier. And like, because why is dealing with all these style sheets so damn hard? Right?
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:And Pete and it's like this product. It took like, yes, they did marketing things. Yes, they do social media and video and and but they also just followed their gut to say, like, there is a need here. It's and I'm scratching my own itch here because
Justin:I Yeah.
Brian:Like, I'm seeing it. I'm building it. Like, I don't care if anyone else buys it. I want this damn thing. Mhmm.
Brian:I'm gonna build it. And I think that authenticity is is actually what leads to the audience. Right? It's like it's like that authenticity and you're and you're nailing a a problem that is actually really painful with other people too. Mhmm.
Brian:In this really authentic way. Like, you can't you can't even predict that kind of stuff.
Justin:Yeah. My guess is it's probably both and. It's like it's like if you nail it like, nailing it, I think, means you are There are people out there actively looking for a solution or that could actively use a solution. And once they hear about your solution, they're like, yes, that's it. That's kind of nailing product market fit.
Justin:But you still have to have a way of reaching them. Like you have to have some sort of strategy. And you can I think what's instructive I realize it can also be like debilitating sometimes to look at other people's success? But for me, what's always been instructive about it is to go, okay, well, how did they get that distribution? And you can just see like, Adam and Caleb, to a certain extent, kind of rode on the distribution channel that Taylor created.
Justin:And and Taylor created that distribution channel by being very early, by investing a ton in documentation, by investing a ton in being in GitHub and answering all the poll requests and just being a grinder. And that ended up having this huge SEO benefit. And this it just reverberated through the community. So I and I mean, it would also be interesting to know, like dig into the Telerik story and go, okay, how did they accomplish it? And I think they're from India.
Justin:And my guess is that they just, you know, there was a lot of dot net shops that were had developers in India, and they just Telerik got the word out amongst all those developers in India. And then it just became their go to. And then, you know, the companies started buying it. So I think you have to think about both and. It's like, you can have something that nails product market fit.
Justin:But the the challenging part, as you know, can be like, okay, how am I going to get distribution for this? Yeah. And The way that
Brian:I think about that today, like like because this is where I try to think about, like, what what plays to my strengths. Mhmm. Where have I because I've I've tried to do the more strategic thing in the past where where it's like, alright. Let me just throw some dollars at this and that channel and because because this has worked for that company and that has worked for this company. And and yeah.
Brian:Like, there's always, like, SEO motions that I'll that I'll always do. And but, like, like to for me now, that's why that's why I'm going like kind of all in on on YouTube because that's a place where I can just create and show and be opinionated and be like, I'm building things in this way, and I'm using these components in this way, and here's why I'm building this, and here's here's me teaching you my way of building stuff. And that's why and I feel like today in 2025, YouTube is one of the only platforms left that, like, truly connects using their algorithm. Mhmm. That's why, like, places like Twitter and I don't know.
Brian:Like like, trying to get myself invited on stage at random conferences to speak or whatever. Like, I could hope for those kind of opportunities. Mhmm. But it's not a predictable thing that I can just go do. But a but a thing that I can control is creating and publishing videos every week.
Brian:And the better and better I can get at that, the better YouTube's algorithm is going to deliver that to the right people.
Justin:Yeah. You know? I think YouTube's one. I I think the other opportunity is, which should be right up your alley, is ChatGPT, like SEO for ChatGPT. I'm seeing a lot more of that.
Justin:It's probably still like 20%, thirty % of new signups at most, but it's there.
Brian:I'm starting to see some of that come through with Clarity Flow. You know? Like, we we've been on Google, and now we're getting some ChatGPT leads.
Justin:The nice thing with the new web search in ChatGPT so I just asked it. If I wanted web components, UI, etcetera for Rails, similar to Flex for Laravel, which option should I look at? And I use the web search, so it actually gives me the sources. And so Rails designer UI components, RailsUI.com, Rails elements Com. I'm shoelace.
Justin:Style Tailwind UI. The nice thing is I can see where what sources they're referencing here. So Rails Designer is one. RailsElements dot com is another. Dev.two, like the dev community.
Brian:And And a little plug for for Noah Toa, the the new app from from Ryan Castillo and Yeah. Buckby. I I was I was I helped them build the MVP for that. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:My MVP service. It's it's some it's it's it's like an hrefs for AI tools. It's like you could see where your standing is in in all the AI tools. Yes.
Justin:But this is something you could be doing right now is I'm and I'm looking at the list of sources here on the right. And here, I'll share my screen quick just so folks on YouTube can see it. But so I just asked the question up here. And then on the right, you have all the citations. So if I was you, I'd be looking I'd be getting really involved in the dev community.
Justin:I'd be getting really involved in Reddit, GitHub.
Brian:I hate that advice. I I hate this advice. You do. And, like, you're so right about it. Yeah.
Brian:But I hate the the thing of, like, just go into communities and Mhmm. And answer a lot of questions all the time and plug your product and be a Redditor and like Yeah.
Justin:So I
Brian:hate that I hate that answer. And it's true.
Justin:But the option for you is like, either you do it or you find someone that likes to do it. Yeah. And that's possible too. Like, Ahrefs has Tim Sulu or Sulu or whatever. Like, he's like the face of Ahrefs, but he's not Is
Brian:he the founder?
Justin:He's I don't think he's the founder.
Brian:No. I thought he is.
Justin:I I don't know. Let's just just check real
Brian:Ahrefs.
Justin:Let's just check real time here.
Brian:Oh, no. It's some other guy. I didn't I didn't I didn't even know that. I always thought it was the Tim guy.
Justin:Yes. So this is my point is that you can you might be able to find a a partner or a hire that can do that for you. You might be able to find an amazing affiliate, like reach out to Chris Oliver and say, listen, like, I want this thing to do well.
Brian:A little tricky since he has a competing product.
Justin:Yeah. Okay. Don't reach out to him. I I just like there's these opportunities that are in some people's zone of genius. I think I told this story, like, Michael, who's on our customer success team, came into my office and said, hey, I just feel like I need to be doing more.
Justin:And he said, I have this crazy idea. It's probably dumb. But what if we put a Zoom link on every welcome email we ever sent to people and got people to book calls with me? And I just onboarded anybody who wanted to do a Zoom call. I said, that sounds incredible.
Justin:Like, let's do that. I don't want to do that. But if you're fired up about doing it so
Brian:That sounds like a great idea for you to do.
Justin:That sounds like a great idea for you to do. But there might be someone out there that's like a real Reddit a real Reddit gremlin.
Brian:I have heard of some I have heard of some companies doing this, like hiring someone to be like the community engager person, you know? Yeah. It does exist.
Justin:And some of us like, I just love trolling Reddit and like, not trolling, but trolling like sorry, trolling. Like, I'm fishing, you know, trolling Reddit and Hacker News. And, you know, I just searched Hacker News for Rails web components just to see what's coming up, what are the discussion? You know, that to me is I think where you'd have to play if you want to get both the what are we calling LLM SEO, whatever that is. And the nice thing is that all of those investments actually just give you good SEO as well.
Brian:Yep. The SEO thing, I mean, this is like another whole podcast, but like, don't even know how to really optimize for LLMs. But in the the one thing that has started to work for us in Clarity Flow when it comes to SEO was like totally simplifying down. Like, forget, like, articles every week and like long tailed, all that nonsense. Like, we just focused on, like, the homepage and time on-site and and, like, our traffic grew.
Brian:We got onto page one. Yeah. Like and and I think that's a that is a pointer that in general, Google and I and you could probably say the same thing about LLMs. And I think you can probably say the same thing about just people and markets in general. It's like simplifying.
Brian:It's like good products that are worth talking about and worth recommending Yeah. And align with people's buying intent. They're gonna get you to the homepage. The idea of, like, gaming the system anymore with, like, long tail keywords that maybe dot dot dot eventually they'll become a customer. Like, I feel like that game is behind us.
Brian:And now it's just like, it's competitive. But if you if you have a good product in a good space that solves a problem and you can reach those people, like
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:That's that's how you play.
Justin:Yeah. I think that they we're still writing articles, but we're trying to make them useful. Like Right. We're gonna have a how to start a podcast article because we wanna have our version of that that is the most useful thing that we can have.
Brian:Yep. I just remember, like, hiring SEO consultant after SEO consultant who told us to write fluff articles that list, like, our top 10 competitors and put us at number one or, you know, us versus two other popular competitors or, you know, this and, like, none of that worked. It never worked. You know?
Justin:The nice thing about the ChatGPT optimization is it's showing you its sources now. Like, we can look at all the citations, and that's where it's grabbing this stuff from. So if you want to rank in ChatGPT, that's what you gotta go after.
Brian:Alright. I wanna I wanna come back to you, Justin. Like, maybe to just start to wrap this up.
Justin:Like Yeah.
Brian:You you said you might get into some new products. You said you might do like, thinking big picture about transistor. But what is, like, on the ground for the month of May and June? Like, what are you doing next? How are you gonna move this decision forward?
Brian:Or
Justin:Yeah. There's there's some stuff in motion. Like, we're we are experimenting building a kind of substantial new version of dynamic ad insertion that would
Brian:You are going after ads.
Justin:It could be attractive. Mean, we're going to try it. So most of our customers are hobbyists that don't use ads. That's one way to look at the market. But then we have a few customers that are have big lots of downloads.
Justin:And that those downloads are monetizable. And so there's two ways of looking at inventory or available
Brian:the really cool thing about the dynamic ad insertion things. You can monetize your early episodes.
Justin:But we're not going to go full tilt into it. We're going to test out the water and see if that's what we want to do. The the big thing we're releasing right now is sales tax compliance UI.
Brian:Exciting.
Justin:So once that's done, there's like some bigger things that we're like investigating. And then we have some smaller features that are more customer facing that we want to get out that we just know are nice line drives, like a new podcast website theme.
Brian:How many how many developers now besides John?
Justin:John and Jason are kind of the primary, like, product engineers. And then Josh is splits his time between the marketing kind of engineering side and working on the marketing side and the product side. So right now, Josh has built the last three of the website templates for podcast websites. But basically three people.
Brian:I love it. You guys have such a lean team for, for the size and and, maturity of your company. It's awesome.
Justin:Yeah. So yeah, I think yeah. This was an interesting one. I we should definitely wind it down. Yeah.
Brian:Yeah. It's gone long.
Justin:We've gone long. But, yeah, if if, folks like this, let us know, through all the channels.
Brian:We'll have to rope in another friend for the next, episode.
Justin:Yeah. If you're a friend listening to this and you want to get on the next episode, let us know.
Brian:Yeah. And maybe do it like in the morning of a Thursday, and maybe you'll get on that day.
Justin:That's right. We record on Thursdays. So if you if you want to get on, let us know.
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