Episode 9
· 01:18:04
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 Casel:And I'm Brian Casel. I created Instrumental Components, which just launched.
Justin Jackson:And that's what we get into in this episode. Yeah. Brian launched it. And while he's he's it's a rolling launch. You'll hear about it.
Justin Jackson:As his first customers. And so we just talk through that whole experience.
Brian Casel:Yeah. This was this was a good one. I mean, hopefully, we touched on everything that that listeners might be curious about. I really enjoyed the first half where we were talking a little bit more high level about how we trust our gut and use outside advice. Got into that stuff.
Brian Casel:But then we actually got into like the nitty gritty of like settling on a price and how we think about competitors and getting those first customers in the door and and all of that.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. This was good. And what I really enjoyed about the last update episode is how much responses we got. We got a lot of emails. We got some comments on Blue Sky in different places.
Justin Jackson:So this episode here, whether you DM Brian or DM me or send us an email, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Pause the episode every time you want to say something and just shoot us a note. All the links for that are in the show notes. You can even record something via Clarity Flow and then leave us a message that way.
Brian Casel:Yeah, for sure.
Justin Jackson:As you listen to this, think about what, what kind of response you have and then send that to us.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Always always good to hear. That's that's one of the classic things with with podcasting. I mean, you know, I I did it with Jordan for years, and we would, like, never hear from our listeners, but we know that they're listening every single week. Yeah.
Brian Casel:It's huge to hear from listeners. It it gives us signals on what we should talk about more, what kind of topics we should cover. So always helpful.
Justin Jackson:Alright. Well, let's get into this. Alright. So, Brian, I wanted to jump on a call, just you and I, because I noticed you posted that you have the first customer for Instrumentl Components.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Customers, plural. Had a few come in yesterday and a few more came in today. So, yeah, Instrumentl components. That's at instrumental dot dev.
Brian Casel:It is now it's not open to the general public. It's still, I guess, technically in in this, like, early access phase where I'm personally inviting people off of the early access list. So as of today, I have about like somewhere around like 800 people on that list that have been it's been growing for like the last several months, I think since late late last year. I've been posting a lot of progress on this product on my YouTube channel, and that's where most of the subscribers are coming from, a few from Twitter and and elsewhere. But and then I have a survey, and and I I showed the survey in our in our last episode, so we can go back to that.
Brian Casel:But now it's at a point where finally finally got it to a point that is like quote unquote launchable. Yeah. And so so my plan right now is to personally invite small batches of people off of that list. So yesterday, I only sent like five invites to like the the five most eager people to buy. Like these these are the people who not only filled out the survey and everything, they sent me multiple emails like, is it ready yet?
Brian Casel:Is it ready yet? And so they came in first. And then today is day two, and I sent another batch of like 20 more invites. Okay. And these are the people who based on their survey responses, they're like the most interested.
Brian Casel:Right?
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:So what, like something like four out of the five yesterday bought and then like another, I don't know, three or four bought this morning.
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Brian Casel:Yeah. That's where it's at. The thing that's on my mind and and so, like, my plan is to, like, send more batches every couple days. And then just in in the next few weeks, I'll I'll open it up to the general public. But Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. These early batches get, a 40% discount on the pricing and everything.
Justin Jackson:And so yeah. What I wanna get into
Brian Casel:all of this.
Justin Jackson:Like, I wanna hear how you're feeling about it. What's on your mind?
Brian Casel:I I definitely feel good having some first paying customers. I always have the mentality. It seems kind of irrational at this point, but it's very real. I'm not just bullshitting here. Like, when I'm building a new product, I I firmly believe, like, this is gonna have zero customers.
Brian Casel:Like, peep nobody's actually gonna buy this. You know? That's just
Justin Jackson:to, like, trick yourself into feeling like, okay. It's okay no matter what happens or
Brian Casel:I don't know what that is. I I know it sounds like I'm b s ing here. But I, like, actually I'm actually surprised when someone like, when I see the the Stripe notification.
Justin Jackson:But,
Brian Casel:you know, I've I've literally felt that way before every single product that I've ever launched. And I think 99% of the time, I was proved wrong. Like, there there were at least some paying customers for it. So that's the case here. So that's good to see.
Brian Casel:But the the main thing that I'm most I'm just feeling relieved at this point is that I I reached some form of a of a finish line. Yeah. There's still I still have a lot more work to do, but the just getting it to a point where I felt comfortable enough to actually invite someone to come pay for this.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Maybe I hold a a pretty high standard, but I think a lot of people do. I mean, I was I I pulled really, really late nights, multiple nights a week for the last two or two weeks, which is not normal for me anymore. It used to be when I was younger, But I don't I don't pull the these kind of workdays and nights like I used to. But I I did. I I another thing that I did this time was about three weeks ago, like in late April, in one of my newsletters and and on Twitter, was like, May 7, that's the day.
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Brian Casel:I was I was like two weeks out from that at the time. And I was like, May 7 is the day that I will start to invite paying customers. And that and and I that was just a tactic to force myself to to like and I knew that, like, there like, I I really didn't believe that I could even make the the May 7 deadline. And it turns out, I actually didn't. I I actually didn't get those first pay those first invites out until, like, May 13 or something like that or twelfth because I I just couldn't get it there by that date.
Brian Casel:But just saying the date, like, really lit the fire. Like, I I said it publicly. I I announced it to thousands of people. I have to be a person who ships. And that's that's what happened.
Brian Casel:This is a really tough one too. Like, to get it technically ready. Different than a SaaS. Like if this were just purely a SaaS, SaaSes are not easy to launch either. But there's a lot of extra complexity with selling like a Rails components library product.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. Especially the fact that it's downloadable, that they like, it has to be buttoned up technically.
Justin Jackson:It's like shipping a CD ROM.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:You gotta make sure that it's you people are gonna be downloading that version.
Brian Casel:Exactly. There's versions. That's a really tricky thing that I'm dealing with right now. Already on day two, I have to push out some fixes to some stuff. And I have to figure out what's the process for people to receive updates?
Brian Casel:Another really big technical challenge, it turned out to be a lot more challenging than I expected to be, was like figuring out a licensing system. Mhmm. Like the technical, like issuing licenses and validating licenses when they download and install the Rails gem. Yeah. It's private gem.
Brian Casel:It's not a public gem. There's a private GitHub repo giving access, revoking access. Like, yeah, there's a Okay. You know, the like the bootstrapper mentality or or or is everyone everyone's like, oh, just do things manually. You can manually add people.
Brian Casel:You can manually hand it to them and they revoke it later. I don't I'm at a point now where like, no, I want to build it so that it's mostly finished.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:So that I can get this out. And I don't wanna just build a whole long to do list for myself to do after launch. Because I know I'm going to I'm gonna have other to dos like like delivering on the on the feedback that I get from paying customers or doing marketing stuff. Right? I don't wanna have I I don't wanna like add all these tasks for myself.
Brian Casel:They're like, oh, I've gotta I gotta button up that because it's a thing that I have to do manually. Right? I have to button up that because it's a thing I have to do manually. Like, no. I wanna make sure that people can buy it, get a license, and that's all taken care of so that I can actually work on, like, delivering features and marketing the thing.
Brian Casel:You know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Did you ever listen to Caleb Porzio go through all that licensing discussion about how he was gonna deliver it?
Brian Casel:I did. Yeah. I I didn't catch all the details. I I I listened to some of those when when he was launching Flux. And, yeah, a lot of those same questions ran through my mind.
Brian Casel:I I think that I have a little bit of more more of an Ian Landsman esque approach to to pricing and and and philosophy on that stuff. Like, I'm not I'm not doing like a free version. I'm I am charging per year, not not unlimited forever, you know. Mhmm. So I have a team license and a solo license.
Brian Casel:Like, we can get into all those stuff. So, anyway, where where do you wanna go?
Justin Jackson:I mean, there's so many questions. I mean, you had mentioned briefly, and and you and you just kind of outlined it there. But how does it feel to be launching all of that as a solo person? Because that just seems like a lot.
Brian Casel:I've I've always struggled with the underestimating how how long things will take me to to ship. I've I've always had that problem. I still have that problem today. And this project, that problem really came to light in a big way. You know, it's just like just a a total I don't know what it is, but I have I just cannot predict the number of hours in a day for some reason.
Brian Casel:Like, you know, so, like, in those two so I announced in late April, like, hey, May 7 is gonna be the day. So I was, like, two weeks out from that from that due date. And and on my to do list between when I announced that and and when it would be shippable, I had to there's a lot of stuff in the product itself that I still needed to finish.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:It was like half broken. I needed to figure out that whole licensing situation, which I had no idea technically how to even build that. I I was just trusting that, like, between me and AI and Cursor, we're gonna figure it out pretty quickly.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:I I thought that would be like a one day or two day project. That was a two week project.
Justin Jackson:Yes.
Brian Casel:And and then like updating the marketing site, which again, that's one of those things like I had a good enough marketing site. But once I started tweaking around the edges, was like, oh, actually, I kinda wanna rewrite the whole homepage, you know. So so I did that. And and then, you know, like and then documentation, which is like really only half done. And that that is one of those things that's, like, very MVP.
Brian Casel:It's it's like a Notion doc at this point that that customers get. Eventually, I have, a legit docs site. Yeah. So I'm throwing, the bare minimum docs in place. And I spent a day or two like recording the new demo video, which is now on the homepage you can see on on instrumental.dev.
Justin Jackson:Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:I recorded that yesterday. I feel like those were like the essential pieces that I needed to have in order to ship. Yeah. And it to get those things finally all buttoned up, it took me like three weeks, and I and I thought I could do it in like under two weeks.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. You know? It's it's a lot.
Brian Casel:I have other projects going on too. Like, that and that what I just described is, like, my 80% plus of of my focus. Yeah. I'm managing one consulting project where it's very light. Have another developer who's running that.
Brian Casel:I just sort of check-in once a week. And then Clarity Flow, we're building and shipping a lot of new features there. My developer is doing that stuff and I check it once or twice a week. Yeah. And my customer support is no longer here on Clarity Flow, so I'm doing the support.
Brian Casel:Oh, damn. It's not a ton, but it's a few emails a day or two that I I'll let them sit there for twelve hours maybe, but I I still have to get to them, you know, and that and that's gonna take mental energy and and pull me away from the main project and, you know. So so and and what like what that results in is like, normally, I'm working, like, seven, eight hour days. Mhmm. In that three week period, I was doing ten, twelve, fourteen hour days.
Justin Jackson:Really pushing it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is a lot. One thing I always loved about you and Jordan Gahl talking on Bootstrap Web podcast was it was such an interesting comparison because Jordan would hire people and would you know, they'd be working on stuff.
Justin Jackson:And when you hire people, like, the truth is, is that hiring people often just takes longer, like if you're trying to get them to do stuff. And so it was always this interesting comparison because, like, Brian can build a whole homepage in a day Yeah. You know, and get it out. But a normal company, even a small company, like, a homepage redesign is
Brian Casel:Oh, it's a huge project.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. A huge project.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yeah. No, that's true. It's interesting you bring that up. I think this has also come up in our discussions in our community.
Brian Casel:Especially with AI and what is AI actually replacing? Is it replacing people? Is it not? So my And you've made the point somewhere about how like, yeah, you can do stuff with AI, but there still needs a human who's owning and managing that project, right? So it still requires a body and a seat.
Justin Jackson:Yep.
Brian Casel:That's totally true. I do hire people, but I hire them to run my other projects that I don't wanna manage
Justin Jackson:So,
Brian Casel:like Clarity Flow, I have a full time developer. So, I contribute to the code base still. I design and product manage there. Yep. But building and shipping the Like 90% of the code is written by her, not me.
Brian Casel:Yep. Same thing with my consulting projects right now. My MVP builds. And I'm only running one of them right now. I have one developer and he just take I direct him.
Brian Casel:I'm still managing him. The features and things that need to get built for that project are being built by him. I just check them. Yeah. Right?
Brian Casel:Because that's his project. My project is building instrumental components and I'm solo on this. But it's also true that AI I would not be able to build or ship this product without AI. There's no way. I firmly believe that building with AI, especially in cursor, vibe coding, I guess I'll have to call it vibe coding now.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I don't think it's vibe coding. Vibe coding is different because you have expertise.
Brian Casel:I do. But I find that I'm shifting more and more to prompting and working with the AI. So I'm still reading and revising individual lines of code. But most of the execution is based on me and the AI together.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. It's still to me, just as a quick sidebar on this, what I'm pushing up against is this idea that we're gonna delegate AI tasks and projects the same way that we would delegate projects to a human.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. No.
Justin Jackson:And my experience so far with that has been it is a total that is not happening.
Brian Casel:I think you're right. And I think I'm learning the same thing. I think that everyone thinks that, like, it's a direct like, it's going to replace that human over there. Like, now it's gonna be no. Like, I I actually think it's gonna be more like what we have in Cursor today Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Is going to be everywhere for everyone. You already see it like Figma just announced their Cursor like AI assistant inside Figma. Mhmm. D Descript just announced the same thing too. There's a there's now an AI thing that literally, I think their headline on Descript's homepage is like it's it's like the cursor for video editing.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Like, every application, every person is going to have an assistant that helps them be way more efficient in their personal work.
Justin Jackson:Yes.
Brian Casel:So like so I don't think that necessarily replaces jobs, but it makes everyone much faster and can do more in their job.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I mean, to me, this is nothing new in a sense. It's making it's democratizing something that a lot of bootstrappers have been doing forever, which is like, I've got to get a project done. And so and if I get stuck, I'm going go to Google first. But then if that doesn't make sense, I'm going to message Adam Wavin.
Justin Jackson:And, you know, like, we so that has always existed. And so democratizing this this kind of it's still a cheaper version of a expert human that can like knows me, knows my context, can contextualize things, and then can give me recommendations and teach me how to do something. These AI assistants to me are still It's like, okay, this is helpful. It's making me I heard Dax and Adam on their podcast. What about tomorrow?
Justin Jackson:They were saying, at best, if you are like just killing it with using cursor and everything, you're 25% more efficient than you would normally be. And that's kind of been my experience, like especially considering you have to consider the number of times where it doesn't work out and it just throws you into you're almost like supporting this machine.
Brian Casel:I feel like in when it comes to cursor and building software, I feel more than 25% faster and more efficient.
Justin Jackson:Okay. How would you quantify it? How much faster?
Brian Casel:I think in other areas, I'm still in that 25% or less efficiency. And I'm trying to get more efficient with AI in, like, marketing work and and other stuff. It's not there But in Cursor specifically, I'm just noticing, like, literally just in the last two or three months, like, the way that I use it is changing. Like I'm much more reliant on okay. So like if I wanna wire up a new feature in Rails and it's a it's a team member invitation feature, right, where you're you're on an account, you need to be able to invite team members.
Brian Casel:They need to receive it and have an invite flow and set their login and Yeah. And accept their invite, give them a role. Now we're talking like multiple controllers and mailers and
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:You know, jobs and code and and interface views. All that stuff needs to be coded up and wired up. Yeah. That is a prompt that the AI will write all multiple files all at once. And it knows my code base.
Brian Casel:It knows my style. And I am going to give it very, very specific directions because I know exactly how to build it myself. I just don't want to spend the time, like, with my fingers.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. And and because I because I have the experience as a full stack, I I know exactly how to prompt for that. Yeah. And I know exactly what it should be giving back. And I can review it.
Brian Casel:And I can fix it. And and the so that's that's way more efficient. And then the other the other thing huge one is bug fixing. Every single error, every single bug. Rather than me sifting through logs, I'm gonna I'm gonna copy the logs to cursor and have you find the error and tell me what you're seeing.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. And then together, we can troubleshoot it. And that's where the real speed happens. And and that's where I can actually build more. Building something like this licensing system is something that I have never built before on anything.
Brian Casel:So it's a huge learning process. In the pre AI days, I would have spent multiple weeks and months not only searching on Stack Overflow, but probably having to read up on best practices and approaches and how even certain technologies work before I'm even able to build even a simple version of this. Yeah. But now I can have the AI build me version one and then let's iterate it and work on it. And while we're doing that, I'm learning what the best approach is.
Brian Casel:You know? So it it makes me more ambitious as a builder.
Justin Jackson:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Just on that just on that that one there, do you think you would have got there in the same amount of time if you'd like, for example, bugged if you'd had Jack McDade or Caleb Porzio sitting next to you, and they could explain the architecture that they came to that worked for them. Do you think you would have come to it as fast?
Justin Jackson:Or do you think it's just different? And as a follow-up to that question, on one hand, I don't think Jack McDade wants me bugging him too much. But on the other hand, we kind of lose something.
Brian Casel:When I was learning Rails, this was around 2017. And I was a front end guy. Like, was pretty proficient in front end HTML CSS, but I was learning Ruby on Rails.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And there was a year or two there, and this was before AI, I was extremely reliant on my couple of friends who were so generous with their These are Ruby on Rails developers.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Also Adam was very helpful with some Tailwind stuff. But like Brian Marble, I don't know if you know him. No. Was huge for me. Ryan Hanis is another one.
Brian Casel:Actually actually Some of these guys I actually had coaching payment paid like engagements to help me learn Rails. Yeah. Yeah. Extremely helpful. I went to them with with dumb questions.
Brian Casel:Why isn't this working? How do I write this Ruby syntax? It's new to me, you know. I I think I did learn through troubleshooting various issues with them. But today so then even even still before AI, but like fast forward another couple years after that, I just got much better with Ruby on Rails and troubleshooting and bug fixing myself.
Brian Casel:I know how to do that now even without AI. So I got better at that. And now but now with AI, like, it's just so much more efficient. Like, just on my eyes. Yes.
Brian Casel:And, you know, like, I literally just don't wanna read through logs.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just wonder if we're going to lose something. I kind of love it when any of these people message me in Telegram and say, hey.
Justin Jackson:I got this little thing I'm working through. I need your opinion or whatever.
Brian Casel:See, we are different, man. I I feel so incredibly bad when I message some like like, if I message Adam or someone, like, I came to it was probably like a week of me banging my head against the desk. Like, I really don't wanna bother Adam with this. I I don't wanna bother whoever it is with Like, it's because it would be I feel like it's gonna be so disruptive for them to dive into my bug fixing scenario. Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know? I just don't wanna do that.
Justin Jackson:That's for sure. Like, I'm I know for for sure I have I have bugged people too much.
Brian Casel:I also think it's a problem with me. Like, I I have a hard time, like, asking for help, you know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think that's that you know, I I I know other folks that that are like that too. But there is something about the sharing of problems amongst humans and the investment of, you know, if a friend is working through something. Yeah, they could go to plot or whatever.
Justin Jackson:And even and this is has to do with coding stuff too. Like, it would be way more efficient for me if I have a coding question to go to cursor or whatever. But there's something about reaching out out to another human, and then they get a little bit invested in your thing. And they're thinking about the human side of all those questions.
Brian Casel:Well, maybe if we can bring it to, like, more of a business level, like, away from code for a second. Yeah. Just yesterday, I was listening to Jason Fried on their podcast, on the Rework podcast. Yep. And he's been making this point a few times lately.
Brian Casel:Think he's on the you know, he gets on these these kicks of,
Justin Jackson:like Yeah.
Brian Casel:Giving giving advice that people either love or they hate.
Justin Jackson:But Yeah.
Brian Casel:I think one of his latest ones is, like, hey, like, one of the one of the characteristics of a of a strong founder is to just trust your gut and Mhmm. And maybe don't listen to advice so much and don't rely on on outside advice so much.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm. Yeah. That's a very Jason Fried take. Yeah.
Brian Casel:But you know what? I'm I'm learning for me personally that this year that that's that's been actually very helpful. I could it's a huge pendulum. Yeah. Because, like, early in my career, I I had the the issue where I wouldn't ask for help and I didn't know many people.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. And then I went into a phase for many years there where I feel like I became really, really reliant. Not reliant, but like I I I thought it was the the correct approach to constantly bring every business question or problem to my mastermind group, or to my advisors, or to my And we would have these retreats where we would all talk strategy. And that is good. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:But it it also got to a point where I feel like I I was I was getting a little bit overly influenced by what other people our natural inclination is like someone's asking a a strategic question, I'm gonna answer it from my experience and from where I sit, from my perspective and my worldview and my set of strengths and weaknesses. So that's how I'm going to assess it. But that's gonna be completely different for you, Justin, or for Jordan, or Mhmm. For that person or for that person. Like, everyone comes at it differently.
Brian Casel:I think it's helpful to hear other perspectives. But at the end of the day, chances are your gut is gonna have a different answer. And that's and, like, getting to a point where it's like, that's okay. Like, I I gotta do my thing. You know?
Brian Casel:Like Yeah. That's that's usually gonna be the better path, I think.
Justin Jackson:I mean, there's there's probably a lot more nuance to that. The on one hand, I feel that, like, as the CEO of Transistor, I should know this market better than anybody else outside of podcasting that could give me advice. I should know it better than most people in podcasting, which sometimes can make having people giving you ideas from outside the industry can be
Brian Casel:I've
Justin Jackson:thought about this so much. You guys are not even level one on thinking on some of these issues. But on the other hand, there's a a certain sorry. Does that make sense, does that sound too dignity?
Brian Casel:It does. Yeah. Of course. Like, I I would expect you you should know a lot more about podcasting than I do. I'm just a hack with a microphone.
Brian Casel:What am I doing?
Justin Jackson:But Just let me get to the second part. But I I just thought of, like, how that sounds. This is, like, that kind of drive by advice. Of course, anybody sitting on the sidelines is going to have a take. People love to have a take.
Justin Jackson:And, of course, they're gonna have a take. Like, Jason Fried knows a lot more about the Basecamp business than I do. And people kind of mock Basecamp's decisions all the time. Like, why did you decide design it this way? Why are you marketing it this way?
Justin Jackson:And the truth is they know their customer and everything better than most people. So that's one side of this. But the other side is that there is a type of trusted friend slash adviser. The quality of their thinking is just it can kind of rise above even specifics about your industry. And I still find that very helpful.
Justin Jackson:And then I also still find it helpful if they're in an adjacent category. Like, you know, I'll take advice from Jason Cohen all day long. One, because the quality of his thinking is just so high tier that and he can he can kind of think above, you know, categories and expertise. But also, he's in the hosting business, and I'm in the hosting business. And so for him to give me advice about the hosting business makes complete sense because he's been doing it forever.
Justin Jackson:And he can know some of the dynamics. So though that group, know, there's just some people that just have kind of the ability to have magical, high level thinking. Derek Sivers is like this. They can think outside of boxes and challenge your thinking.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I think there there absolutely are. Those are people I I love to follow and and listen to and and be influenced by as well. I I also consider Jason Fried to be like, whether whether you like it or not, like, and and they are generous enough to share their their worldview publicly.
Brian Casel:But, yes, also, like but I'm also talking about, like, close friends and advisers in private situations, like mastermind groups, people that you've known for, like, years, and we and you go deep, they literally know everything about your business. Mhmm. Even then, like, you okay. A couple weeks ago, I went to you and, like, five or six other close friends Yeah. And advisers with a very big strategic business career decision that I was facing.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And and, you know, I got your take, which was super helpful. And I got this the similar and some varying takes from five or six other friends. Yeah. And and that was one of those situations where I was like, you know, I really could use like a gut check or like a I I more like a sanity check. I that's how I I approach those situations.
Brian Casel:Right? Where it's like I think when I first went to you, I was like, I literally didn't know what to do. And then and then a couple days later, was like, okay. Now I think I know where my gut is pointing me to. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And then it was like, is that insane? Mhmm. Yeah. You know? And that's really what I'm what I'm going when I seek advice from other people, especially people close to me, like business friends and and advisers, then I'm usually looking for a sanity check.
Brian Casel:Like, hey, here's where I'm leaning. These are the factors that got me to to this. Where where are my blind spots on this? Like, you know. And there were a few aspects that I was blind to and helped in that situation.
Brian Casel:But I I think I've learned it took me a long time to get to learn this, but I've learned that it's not really helpful for me to go to someone like you or or any other friend and say, what should I do? Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:Like,
Brian Casel:make this decision for me. Like, you you can't make that. Like, I can't ask you to like, there are so many factors at play. You know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. But the the process of going and saying just having to articulate your struggle is is beneficial in of itself. Yeah. And I mean, it's one thing to do that on your own. And maybe a level up from that, like just journal, maybe a level up from that is a like a custom GPT or a Claude.
Brian Casel:I've been doing that too.
Justin Jackson:I've done that too.
Brian Casel:Believe it or not, that's been pretty helpful. Surprisingly helpful.
Justin Jackson:But I think the ultimate version of that and benefit is even if you don't want the advice, just you having to clarify your thinking out loud to somebody and explain, here's the factors that are important to me. Here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I'm struggling with. It's almost without fail, all of the successful people I know, like Adam Wavin does this a lot. He just like will call people up and say, Hey, I'm struggling with this thing, and he'll walk through it.
Justin Jackson:And again, I think it has this benefit of one I've tried to emulate that from Adam more.
Brian Casel:Yeah. It's like putting yourself out there. It's like you can you can put all the nonsense that you want into your journal, and I do. But if you're not actually sharing it with another human, like it's not going through a level of like, what, like, like rigor.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And blind spots, especially, I think are difficult. So I think it has like doing that work. Doing that process has three benefits. One, you have to articulate it yourself, which helps kind of sanitize and clarify and crystallize your own thinking about something.
Justin Jackson:Number two, I think it gets someone else invested in your situation, which is just a good thing. Like because sometimes people will be thinking about it and go, oh, yeah. Like, I wonder how, you know, I wonder how Brian's doing with that. Is is kind of nice.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I did find I have found throughout my career that podcasting, like the Bootstrapped Web Podcast has been huge for that. Like and that that has had a huge benefit of people are invested in our stories. Mhmm. And that and then those turn into, in some cases, like personal friend relationships.
Brian Casel:So that's that's been huge. You know, like as I was leading up to the launch of this instrumental components thing, like I always have this voice in my head of like, what do what what would the insert any of those names that we talked about earlier? What would the the Jason Cohen's say about this decision or that decision? What would the Jason Fried say of that? What would the whoever it is, like, or or other other And so like, a lot of them are like, I know what the conventional advice on this approach to to launching a product like this
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Would normally be. Yeah. And I'm doing something different from that advice. Mhmm. And I know that I'm doing that.
Brian Casel:I'm I know that I'm going off the conventional path.
Justin Jackson:Can you give me an example of that with this particular launch?
Brian Casel:I probably just the level of, like, perfectionism and building a lot before launch. Whereas a probably a lot more people would build less and and come to the decision that like, you know what? That thing can be built later. That that component or that licensing system or or you could do this manually or you can get prepayments now instead of later. Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:You
Brian Casel:can so a lot of that kind of stuff, I'm I'm just more okay with like, no. I just I just wanna get it to a finished state Mhmm. And feel good about and and, like, have, like, have, like, integrity in my crap. Like, I I had people in my inbox for the past week. They would they would send me emails like, hey.
Brian Casel:I know I know it's not really ready for the public. I'm okay with getting a dirty version. Can you just can I buy, like, an early version for me even before everyone else? Like, I don't need documentation. I don't care if it's broken.
Brian Casel:I just want an early a super early version.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:And I was like, no. Like, I don't wanna take your money yet. I don't wanna give you a dirty version. Mhmm. You know?
Brian Casel:I I just don't want to even because that makes a mess. Mhmm. You know? Like, it makes a mess for them. It's gonna make a mess for me when they come to me for support.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You know? And when I have to give them the fixed version because because I gave you a too early version. Like, I don't I don't wanna do that, you know? I I want the billing system and the licensing licensing system pretty much buttoned up at the by the time I launched.
Brian Casel:Because now that I've launched, I don't wanna deal with billing system bugs. I wanna deal with making the product really good. What what customers want, you know? Yeah. So, like, that's that's my thinking on it.
Brian Casel:And would would we give a a new bootstrapper that same advice? Like, I probably wouldn't. I'd I'd probably be like, do something simpler and
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:And prove it first.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Know? Let's let's get back to some of that launch stuff because I I think people are like, well, so how's it going? So so you you've got this list of 800 people. You sent out a batch of invites, and you got your first customer yesterday.
Justin Jackson:And now you're you sent out another batch of 20. Why are you doing the batches, by the way? Why not just, like, launch it?
Brian Casel:I'm gonna make them lot bigger and bigger as I go. So yesterday, I think I sent five invites. Today, I sent 20. Mhmm. Because it's only two days in.
Brian Casel:So all already today, like, there were some bugs that that had to be kinda like hot fixed. Also in the in the checkout flow, like, one guy was using Amazon Pay instead of like a regular credit card. I had to make sure that was working.
Justin Jackson:And like Yeah.
Brian Casel:So I wanna make sure, like, a a like, it's a very technical product. So, a, I have to, like, make sure that my selling and licensing system actually works. Mhmm. And also, the system for them to, get the the version of the gem and get that installed.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:That's a very technical flow that I've made it very easy, but it has to work. Mhmm. And then the gem itself, when they install it in their Rails app, like, that has to work.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And so so there were there were some bugs. Like, I didn't wanna send it to 800 people and have, like, a couple hundred of them report the same bug, you know. Yeah. So that's been helpful. It's been encouraging that, like, for the most part, it's it's been pretty smooth.
Brian Casel:Just a couple small things. And then also, like, I I have very minimal documentation right now. Just the just the absolute essentials. I still I still have a lot of, like, blank doc docs pages that I have to write out. Yeah.
Brian Casel:So but I I am eager to get it out. So like next week, I'll I'll probably send another thirty, forty invites. Mhmm. I'll make it bigger after that. And I I would say like within maybe about a month, I'll get through this list, and then I'll just, open it up to the public.
Brian Casel:Yeah. You
Justin Jackson:know? I mean, the other benefit there too is if you if you know, there's days and for certain things, I might need to send the same email hundreds of times. And these are emails I'm sending manually, but I'll have a script that I use. But by the fifth email, I've already changed it. It's like, oh, wait, actually, this would be better.
Justin Jackson:I'm getting better responses from this approach. So it also helps you shift your marketing too. You can see what kind of pitch is really resonating, what doesn't seem to be resonating as well. It gives you a chance to step things out and try multiple things. Whereas if you do a big launch, you'd just you're kind of doing it all at once and hoping that that works.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And another interesting thing to to bring it into marketing a little bit and the AI stuff is okay. So I started working on this product in late last year, 2024. Yeah. Took a little detour of some other projects that I probably shouldn't have done.
Brian Casel:Got got back to it this spring. Got it launched. In that eight month span, AI accelerated a lot.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:The the term vibe coding has accelerated. The use of Cursor has exploded.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Like, I I don't know any developer who's not using either Cursor or Windsurf at this point.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Like, that that shift just happened in the last two, three months.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know? Like in terms of like it's almost like Cursor is basically mainstream for developers at this point. Yeah. So one of the changes, if you I I I don't know if I can get like an older version of the of the instrumental. Dev homepage.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But what because I I wrote the original version of it back last year when I started working on the project. Mhmm. Right? Here's my version one, early access.
Brian Casel:Here's what I'm going to build. I wrote the page as like, here's my vision for it. I think I was calling it just I think the headline was something like Rails UI components, something or other. And that's it. Right?
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Brian Casel:Two shifts happened between eight months ago and today. Number one is the AI thing and more people are building with AI and vibe coding and cursoring and whatever. The other thing is that it turned out the product that I built, yes, you do get UI components. But it is really more like a Rails starter kit that gives you app components. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Like, yes, you're getting the buttons and the drop downs and the forms and the styling and stuff, but I'm giving you authentication. I'm giving you a commerce system. I'm giving you a Teams invite system. Like, these are wired up back end and front end Rails features out of the box. Right?
Brian Casel:So it is much more than what you get with like Tailwind UI. Right? It's that but made for Rails. Yeah. I'm giving you stimulus controllers.
Brian Casel:I'm giving you all this different stuff. Right? So, like, I rewrote the homepage yes like two days ago to focus on like, I changed the headline to say, now it's a Rails UI components and starter kit. You literally get both. They're sort of one and the same.
Brian Casel:But And then the other thing is I'm using the term vibe coding in the marketing, which I wasn't before. And I think this is not just like trend riding here. I firmly believe this. The way that I designed instrumental components is that it's a very core Rails conventional design. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:The components that that I'm installing into your Rails project are just Rails stuff. Like, it's not using this view component thing. It's not using this other weird dependency thing over here. It's not my own, like, custom built system for delivering components. It's like I'm putting ERB partials into your Rails app.
Brian Casel:I'm giving you straight ahead Tailwind CSS code and stimulus code and Rails code. Yeah. And so the the benefit that I'm communicating on the marketing side is like whether you're vibe coding or hand coding Mhmm. It's familiar. Yeah.
Brian Casel:It's it it looks to like, you already know this code well and so do the LLMs. It's just Rails. Right? So so you can plug it right into your cursor project and your cursor is gonna know like like, yes, you're using instrumental components, but that doesn't matter. Because it I'm just putting rail more rails code into your project, and it's not something special that LLMs don't know about.
Brian Casel:You know? Yeah. So so, like, now that's, like, part of the main headline now. So, like, in the demo video, I say it in the first ten seconds. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And near the homepage and the hero, it's it's mentioned, like, I I think it's an important benefit, you know, because and that's a new shift. Like, that wasn't a reality eight months ago.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I found an old version of your yeah. So this is the this is the old version right here.
Brian Casel:Yes. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:And there's no mention of AI, I don't think, in this one.
Brian Casel:I might have mentioned that I'm doing a component for AI, but not like
Justin Jackson:And this one here, the new one. Yeah. Whether I'm vibe coding or hand coding, that's a great line. And and then you you notice where oh, yeah. AI.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I think if you go up a little bit, up to the benefits.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm. And LLMs. Yeah. You mentioned it there. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. So a big a big change. And, you know, I'm not sure if you figured out who the market is for this, but the whole indie hacking community is definitely this is all, know you know, Windserver versus Cursor was their their issue today, and then Vibe coding tools to try. And so this is like that it's definitely in
Brian Casel:the And you're right. Like, I don't I don't know that I I'm I don't know that this is technically what people think of as vibe coding. I think probably vibe coding is more like using, like, Lovable and Riplit and, like, really, you don't know anything about code, so let let the machines do it. Yeah. But I do I don't know what to call using Cursor because it doesn't feel like I'm actually writing as much code myself as I used to.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And I am heavily using the the chat in Cursor. So, like, what is it? Like, is it coding with AI? Is it is it vibe coding?
Brian Casel:Like, I don't I don't know.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I mean, I think it's good to, like, use the keyword because Yeah.
Brian Casel:Like, that's that's why I'm using it on the home page. You know?
Justin Jackson:And you can see depending on if you're a real vibe coder, one of the disadvantages is you might not have a good components library for cursor or whatever to use. So the the quality of the output might could be better with something that's pre built like this. You start with all of these components, and then Cursor's using that to generate
Brian Casel:different
Justin Jackson:screens. But you can also see this would that somebody that's just an actual developer who uses one of these tools as a assistant, it would also be beneficial for them as an expert.
Brian Casel:Can we talk about pricing for a second?
Justin Jackson:Absolutely. Alright.
Brian Casel:So I wanna get your take on this because this is one of those just like gut decisions, like sort of just picking a number. Right? Like, that's what your version one of your pricing is. You're you're just picking a number, basically. This is actually not public, but the people that I invite see it.
Brian Casel:But you you could actually just go see it if you go to instrumental.dev/pricing.
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Brian Casel:This is the public or this is like the full price, if you will.
Justin Jackson:Okay. Right? Yep. Is it okay if we share this? Are we gonna talk about it?
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, if you're if you're watching this a long time from now, maybe the pricing has changed.
Justin Jackson:But So $4.99 per year for a solo license. Team license, 3,500 per year.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Now today for early again, like, this is not gonna be valid probably after a month from now. But the the earliest access people, they're getting 40% off. So they're they're getting the solo license for February.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And the team is is like about 2,000. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about the about the pricing. I I I don't wanna go lower than this. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:But the competitor there are a few competitors and they are lower than this.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:I feel like I'm giving you more. I feel like there's some unique value here that competitors don't have right now, especially in the rails space specifically. There's one popular one that's like slightly less. But there so the other thing that I the other decision on around pricing is and this is a little bit different. I'm giving you unlimited projects.
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Brian Casel:So you so you buy a solo license, you can use it. My thought is, like, I want you to just get Instrumentl and just use it on everything you do. Mhmm. Use it on your side project. Use it on your main thing.
Brian Casel:Use it on this or that. Like, don't think twice about having to buy a second or third license. Right? But I did build a lot of logic into the licensing check so that if you have team members, like, they each need to buy a license or you just get on the team plan. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:You know? So that's that's the thing. Whereas I think most of the competitors charge per project.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. So you'll you'll buy a license, but if you have a second app that you wanna do, you're you're paying twice. And with this, you're just paying once. But but, like, especially if you pay if you're not getting a discount code from me, 500 a year is more than what the competitors charge. But again, you can use it on unlimited projects, whereas they're charging per project.
Brian Casel:So
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And then it's also in a in a space where there are a lot of free alternatives. Mhmm. You know? There's there's always free stuff.
Brian Casel:It it requires more work. There's no support and all that.
Justin Jackson:But The nice thing about the beginning is that your customers can tell you and your potential customers can tell you and you can change it. So it's a lot harder for, you know, for transistor, for example, to change our pricing now because we've had it forever. The industry has kind of settled on something. And so for us to do something dramatically different is tricky. The I think you never know, like, how people are gonna think about this.
Justin Jackson:The Yeah. I've I've definitely had things where I've you know, what was a good example? Like, Gravity Forms back in the day with WordPress. It's like, I'm gonna pay for that
Brian Casel:for years.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I'm gonna pay for that every year because I'm gonna need it. I'm gonna I want every all of the sites I have it installed on to be, you know, up and going. I make money from it because every WordPress site I build, I'm making money. And so it makes sense to have the unlimited.
Justin Jackson:And then I can, you know, put it in all these different projects. So that makes sense. A lot of those will have like, sometimes you'll have a bigger upfront cost. Like StaticMic is, I think, two ninety nine once. And then to get the annual updates, it's
Brian Casel:I pay for StaticMic for the Clarity Flow site. I think I have two see, that's another one that they charge per project. I think I'm paying for two licenses for like two of my sites.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Two seventy five per site.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And that that sort of makes more sense in their case because they are like a website CMS. Yeah. Instrumentl is like you could say it's a form of a CMS, but it's not really. It's like it just helps you build Rails apps.
Brian Casel:And yeah. And like I and also like just like technically the way that it's set up, like, don't even have to have our gem you shouldn't even have our gem installed on production. Like, we shouldn't even know, like, what your domain is. It's it's just just put it just use it in development while while you're designing and building your site, and it just makes that much faster. You know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And I think that's where, like, positioning can come into play. So is what what do you want people comparing this to in their minds? Like, do you want them comparing it to Tailwind UI? Do you want them comparing it to
Brian Casel:It's interesting with Tailwind UI. So in the survey, they're basically like two big competitors. And I don't really consider Tailwind UI a competitor.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Because I think a lot of the best target customers for Instrumentl, like almost everyone on the survey has purchased Tailwind UI. And it just requires so much work to adapt those UI components into a Rails project. You know, that And that's what Instrumentl does.
Justin Jackson:It Yeah.
Brian Casel:You do use Tailwind code and and and like I mean, I designed the UI components, but it's all Tailwind based. And but it's wired up for Rails, you know? So, like, there there actually aren't that many components libraries that that do that. The the one other competitor, which is more of a direct competitor in the Rails space, is priced per project. And so I I do wanna sort of, like, position against that and say, like
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And and there's other positioning too, which is this isn't the right word. But, like, if this is an operating system for your development team or or if this is like an accelerant and amplifier for agencies that are building Rails apps, like the the mindset that people get into when they're thinking about it. So if it's if it's more than just like tailwind UI components, if this is like, no, this is going to dramatically change how you folks build your projects. That that's positioning as well.
Justin Jackson:Right? You're just you're saying Yeah. Like, even these words we use, you know, it's like, here's a component's library. So it's like, oh, this is like something I keep around like, a library is something you keep around in your room. And then when you need that book as, you know, to reference for your new project, you take it off the shelf.
Brian Casel:That's a big one. It's like starting up new projects because these emails that I get from people, especially the the most eager ones to buy, they're they're they they are in the minds of like, hey, I'm about to start a new project. I would really love to use Instrumentl. Can I can I get my hands on it?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And so starter kit is another
Brian Casel:It's just a good time to do it now. You know? Like it's been this is something I don't have a good grasp on right now is like, who is the actual avatar, if you will, or or or ICP.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. You know?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. Because it I think the Rails space, or at least the people coming through my survey response, but I think my sense in the Rails space specifically, it's very fragmented in terms of different types of people. So I think that there are some who are sort of like agency, but more like solo consultant who do a lot of Rails work for clients. And they would and probably plan on using Instrumentl to make their client work faster.
Brian Casel:They could churn out more projects faster. Like you could certainly use it for that. And that's a I think that's a compelling business case to make. Yeah. But I I also see there are, like, indie hacker type, like, founders who who wanna start building a SaaS product.
Brian Casel:There's definitely a bunch of those in the list. Rails is weird because it's been around so long. So it skews a little bit older people. People who are just more comfortable with it instead of the trendier, more newer frameworks. Yeah.
Brian Casel:And and these might be older folks who've just been running a a Rails app for a long time. And and and they just want something to to help them, like, update and improve their their one Rails app that they manage and maintain.
Justin Jackson:Or
Brian Casel:I've seen a surprising number of people who are like, I've either been I used to be in development ten years ago, and I got out of it for whatever career decision. Now I'm coming back in, and I would love to just get back into Rails. And this seems like an easy way to get back into Rails.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:I've been seeing more and more of that kind of vibe.
Justin Jackson:One question I have is from the customer's perspective, why should this be a subscription?
Brian Casel:Good question. Because I want money every year. No. I mean, it makes
Justin Jackson:sense from your side.
Brian Casel:I think that with a with an active license, you get direct customer support Mhmm. From from me. I haven't set it up yet, there is gonna be a a private community chat, like a Slack or something like that. You you would get access to that. You would get revoked from that if you're not active anymore.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Obviously, any, like, updates to the components, I'll be adding lots more components. You you know, traditional licensing model. If you if you have an active WordPress plugin, you're gonna get the latest versions of it. If you don't have the active, then you're not gonna get the latest updates. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Those are the main benefits, I think. The like, part of it is, like, you you can I I I think I say it in the FAQ a little bit? Like, you can purchase a license once, install it on your one project, cancel your license. And then, of course, everything that you've installed into your project is yours.
Justin Jackson:Like Mhmm.
Brian Casel:You don't need to keep an active license. You don't even need to keep Instrumentl Gem installed on your project in order for your components and your app and your site to continue to work. It's yours for life, you know? But if you're if you are building new products or building new features across several years and you plan to use Instrumentl for that, like, you should you you could use an older version that you bought a few years ago, but you should probably get the updated one.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And it might be worth just seeing how again, you'll see how things progress. It might be worth seeing how people think like, one common mental model, I think, is do I need a subscription for this? Like like and and so it's interesting to think like, oh, if I added if it was four ninety nine per year, thirty five hundred per year, and then there was another option, which is you can pay once and use it on one project. How many people would choose that option?
Justin Jackson:There is a world where that's better for business because that does so much volume.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:And actually leads to people upgrading. Because it's like, okay, I'm just gonna download for for now. I'll just get started on this. And then if it's good, if it works out and those are the key statements. Like, if it's good and it works out, then I'll commit to a subscription.
Brian Casel:I don't know that I would wanna go the per project route. But I one thing that I probably will consider at some point, if if and when it makes sense, is to I think Static does this, is to have a reduced renewal payment. Right? Like
Justin Jackson:Yes.
Brian Casel:So so you you you pay maybe, I don't know, like 500 the first year, and then it's like, I don't know, like 50% off the subsequent year or
Justin Jackson:something like one year of updates, and then it's $65 per year for updates after that.
Brian Casel:Okay. That's even lower than I thought.
Justin Jackson:And if you want to be able to contact their support, you need to have but then every major version because they they're doing versions. So every major version, they're they're asking you to pay again for an upgraded license.
Brian Casel:I just really like the unlimited projects benefit. Mhmm. Also, just as a user, personally, like, there there have been times with Static. Like and I hate this because I I really like Jack. I really like the company and the product.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. But, like, I was, like, spinning up a third site a couple months ago. Yeah. And I wanted to use Static on it. I was like, oh, do I do I have to, like, buy another one?
Brian Casel:Or or will this one I'm not really using so much, so now maybe I need to transfer that license to this domain. And like Yeah. It was a whole decision process. And I would I would for Instrumentl, I I I still think that prod per site makes more sense for Static. But for Instrumentl, I just want it to be like, once you bought it, you're in the family.
Brian Casel:Just use it as for everything. You know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I think that what you wanna figure out is get into people's heads when they're making the decision. And what you know, if you have let's say you end up getting you launch it and then three people a week are paying for it, which would be pretty awesome. But like, you're like, What you're not seeing is, are there a bunch of people considering it that just need a different entry point? And the and and this is stuff you can figure out later too.
Justin Jackson:It's not
Brian Casel:You know, like I was saying earlier how, like, like, I thought I was gonna get zero buyers for this. Mhmm. The other thing that always crosses my mind, and this happens with, like, churn with with my SaaS and everything, Like, I can't believe someone decided, like, they don't wanna pay for this anymore. Like, it that like or, like, I can't believe, like, every single person I sent an invite to, why don't why don't they find enough value that they wanna buy it? Right?
Brian Casel:Yeah. But I know for sure, right, that people haven't verbalized it, at least not yet, but I expect they will, that the price point is gonna be higher than what they expected. Mhmm. And there's always gonna be people especially in other countries. I know that there are some people on the list in, The Philippines and India and stuff where it's like, maybe at some point, gotta think about, you know, location based pricing.
Brian Casel:I know some some products do that. I think another thing that I'm going to be missing out on is, like, a list building mechanism. Right? Right now, I have an early access list. But once it's public, there is no free trial.
Brian Casel:So with Clarity Flow, actually, we don't even have a free trial there anymore. But when we did, that was a big list builder. Right? Like if I And I'm not really considering doing a free version. I don't wanna do a free version of Instrumentl.
Brian Casel:Like maybe I could do like a little video course or something, but like I don't have a way to say, like, here's a taste. Now I have your email address, and now I can market to you with some content and and nurture you until you're ready to buy. Yeah. That's what I need to figure out too. You know?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that in that sense, it is similar to Gravity Forms. Gravity Forms is $2.59 per year for unlimited sites
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:Priority support. And then when you ask, is there a free version? They say, we don't have a trial version, but we do have the following resources. The the thing with Gravity Forms that I think works, though, is that it's it's kind of built for people building lots of WordPress sites. And and so that that model works because it's like, if I'm trying to build two or three WordPress sites a month or one big project a month, then I need this thing just saves me a lot of time.
Justin Jackson:It adds all this functionality. I know it. It's like the engine that I put in every WordPress site. So in that case, for you, the customer there in my mind would be somebody who's an agency or somebody who's like, I can make money off this and it's a no brainer. Mean, they would probably be using the Team license in that case.
Brian Casel:If they're a team. I mean, you're a solo
Justin Jackson:Oh, yeah. Maybe a solo
Brian Casel:Or even if you're a team but but there's only one developer, you really only need the solo license.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:But even like the full price feels high. Like, right now, the early access people are getting getting it for February. Yeah. Which is more in line with, like, I think what the market is for these types of products. But the the other thought that I have with with this particular product is, like, I'm gonna do a Black Friday sale.
Brian Casel:I know it's not a good idea to just, like, announce that this is gonna be a a coupon heavy product. But it I think it is. Like, I I think it's gonna have, like, a high public price tag. But I I would like to have an easier way to have like a list that I can just promote coupons to.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm. You know? Yeah.
Brian Casel:So that's that's a thought too. I also, like and and like we've talked about this before, like, I this is not a business that I'm all in. Like, I'm not abandoning it. It's it's gonna it's it's a significant focus for me, but it's like it's one product in my portfolio. I'm I'm building on this.
Brian Casel:I'm gonna continue to build stuff for builders. I have ideas for other business ventures in that direction, which I think What I would like to do from here, now that I've launched and spend the rest of this year into next year, keep making this product better, but release more products that more of the same customer would wanna buy multiple things from me. Whether it's training or course stuff for builders or other resources for builders or my YouTube channel. And, like, if you're in my ecosystem, then you probably wanna get get your hands on Instrumentl as well. Like, that's sort of what I wanna start to build towards.
Brian Casel:Like, this is one one brick and to to stack, I think. You know?
Justin Jackson:I mean, the other thing that comes to mind right now is the the thing that this is gonna be that's gonna be difficult is I think people are gonna wanna see it. And so they can watch a demo, and that's going be part of it. But if you're going to use this approach, I would try to find builders that have YouTube presence or a Twitch presence or something and seeing if you can get it in their hands for free and say, listen, like, build your next project with this and just tell people about it. Because you're gonna need people telling people about it. And when you're getting people to share their stories, those case studies become something that people can put their hooks into in terms of whether or not they'd be interested.
Justin Jackson:So if I see a case study about like, hey, we're an established Rail SaaS app, and we have our main thing transistor, but we wanted to launch something new. And we're trying to figure out how to do it in a way like and then we found instrumental components, and we just used that, and it helped us launch this new product on the side. Mhmm. Well, that's a story that now kind of spreads because it's like if you're a Rails SaaS app that's considering launching something else on the side and you're looking for a great way to get started, this is a great way. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:Or I'm an indie hacker, and I'm gonna build five apps this year. And I'm just looking for the best kind of system to do that on and its instrumental components. And so that becomes a story.
Brian Casel:This is like day two. So I have like no testimonials on the site yet. Like Yeah. But yeah. Totally.
Brian Casel:I I you're totally right. I I I do wanna get it into the hands of some people who can really help spread it. And and just from the early customers, I I wanna see what they're building. I'm gonna launch this community just for customers in the next couple days. So, like, the one of my to dos, it was gonna be today.
Brian Casel:I didn't get to it. I have the one demo video on the home page now. But I'm gonna have like a dedicated page, maybe a couple pages that does another five, ten minute video on each of the like a a big one on the instrumental commerce component, big one on our authentication component, a video on our teams component.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And and each of those is gonna have its own sales page on on this site. So if if you like link to those app under app components.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:If you go down yeah. Like those are like blank links right now. Mhmm. But those are each gonna link to like SEO optimized pages that just sell our commerce component or sell our team's component. Right?
Brian Casel:Yeah. But you just get it as part of instrumental components. One of so overall in Clarity Flow, we've moved to having no trials. And and the and the way to do that I've learned over the last year of doing this is to have super detailed video demos. Like show everything in detail.
Brian Casel:Because if you're asking someone to pay on day one, without a free trial, if you click on like see a demo, like you could see everything. Like there's a big demo on the top and then if you scroll down there.
Justin Jackson:Oh yeah.
Brian Casel:Like you could dive into each individual feature and see everything about it.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know? And so like that has really helped as like like, essentially, that's like the salesperson for for that page right there is is where people are gonna spend a lot of time before they make the decision to to buy. You know? And and, like, I I need to do something similar on on Instrumentl, I think. You know?
Justin Jackson:And really, you just need one or two narratives that really hits. Like, it's like, hey, everybody. I'm Justin, and I'm a products guy, but I'm not great at, you know, programming. But I'm launching a bunch of apps this year. I needed a solid foundation to start.
Justin Jackson:And I just plug instrumental components in. And now I'm making a million dollars a month. You know, like those you just need a few of those narratives to hit and spread. And yeah. That's the goal is to just kind of set things up so that maybe some of that can happen and then latch on to the ones that really seem to be like the fact that you have sales right now, that's the kind of the golden ticket.
Justin Jackson:Because once you've got 10 sales, you can go back to those people and say, I really want to know what you're using this for. What's the job to be done here? And then encouraging people to share what they're building and how they're using it on social. But then seeing which of those kind of narratives on social media and on YouTube resonates with people.
Brian Casel:Like That's always been really tough for me. I so I have a canned response that I use for my invite that I send. And and it says in there, like, like, at the top, like, hey, here here's your invite. Here's your link to go to go purchase it. It has the coupon built into the link.
Brian Casel:That's a that's a feature of Instrumentl Components. You can build in coupons. Here is what I'm sending. You know, first thing is, like, here's the link.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And then these are my asks. Number one is feedback or first impressions. Anything confusing or unclear, you can reply here. Number two is, I'd love to get some testimonials up up on the site. So, you know, I think I'd appreciate one or two sentences about what you find unique or valuable.
Brian Casel:Number three is, could you share Instrumentl.dev with your people? Tag me on x or blue sky. Any any help on social really helps a solo bootstrapper like me get traction with a young product.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Okay. So, like, those are the three asks, and I've done a version of that for most product launches that I've ever done. I have gotten a few replies on the first one with some, like, bug reports and and that. Most of the first buyers haven't even started using it yet. They plan to do it, like, this weekend or something.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I don't know. A few people, like, have have liked and engaged with my tweets on on X and and Twitter, but, like, I don't know what it is about stuff that, like, other people with, like, large audiences do, but they just, like, get a lot of people to have, like, these, like this, like, social buzz going that, like, I've never been able to generate that no matter how much I ask people to do that.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. You know? I I mean, in this case, I would recommend two things. I would I would look through that list of people who bought, and I would just kind of handpick three to five people to email personally and say, hey, I'm just so thankful you bought this. I'm really curious to see what you're building with Instrumentl.
Justin Jackson:Could you just, like, kind of describe your project or shoot me some screenshots? And I would just send those emails manually. The other thing I would try is for the automated sequence. You can have three asks. That's probably too many for that period because they're just trying to get into it, build it, whatever.
Justin Jackson:I would just drip out one of those asks later on. I find often giving them an asset to kind of so for example, here's hey, I hope you're enjoying instrumental components.
Brian Casel:It's like too many asks. Like, the first ask is like, could you please buy this?
Justin Jackson:Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But once they've purchased, I think you can send them a link to like a tweet and say, this tweet I'm trying to get, like, more people to see this tweet.
Justin Jackson:If you could, could you give it a like or a retweet or whatever?
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:And so it's just a simple like, all they have to do is go there and like or retweet or comment, and it gives them something simple to do where they don't have to compose something. They don't have to, you know, whatever.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I do yeah. You're right. Like, I I have no automated drip sequences yet. One one thing I wanna lean into, especially with instrumental components, is more of, like, me.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm the solo builder creator behind this. Mhmm. Like, with Clarity Flow, it's like, we are Clarity Flow. We're a company and
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:You you've probably never heard of Brian, you know? Even though I I show up on certain things, but it's not like so like with this, it's like when you buy Instrumentl, like, you're getting like my style of designing and building a Rails app. Like, that's the product, really. Same thing with, like, Tailwind. Like, you're buying Adam Wathen's opinions on stuff.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know? And I wanna get that through, and I don't intend to grow a huge team here. So, like, I wanna sort of, like, lean into, like, I am an indie solo bootstrapped creator builder on this thing. Mhmm. So probably so are you.
Brian Casel:This is a product just like the small product that you're trying to build with, you know so whatever you can do to help help us out here, like, share it with your people, you know. I don't know.
Justin Jackson:And I think, I mean, everyone who's listening right now should go and subscribe to Brian on YouTube. But that'll that'll be the thing is like I I I've said this before. What what pumped me up about what Caleb Porzio is doing is just him demoing him building stuff. And I think, you know, if you're gonna do this, then it's like, hey, it's me. And today, using instrumental components, I'm gonna build something cool.
Justin Jackson:And then just take them through the process. Because watching people build stuff gets people pumped up. It makes them want to I bought Flux, and I'm never going to use it, honestly. Because I mean, I should. I want to.
Justin Jackson:But I bought it because I was just so hyped on like, oh, yeah, I want to build some stuff. And I just don't have time for
Brian Casel:that. I bought Jack's course that he did last year. Yeah. What was it like? The creative
Justin Jackson:Radical Design?
Brian Casel:Radical Design. Yeah. Like, I I've always been such a fan of his whole approach. I was like, I gotta I gotta get his course. I'm gonna like, I went through, like, the first two lessons.
Justin Jackson:I was
Brian Casel:like, I I still got all my money's worth just with that. You know? Yeah. But, like, just wanna support it, and it's just a project that but that's not what I'm asking for. I I want people to use it.
Brian Casel:Use the project. But I
Justin Jackson:think people get fired up to build stuff is how you get them to buy. And so you demoing that is, like, that's the the key.
Brian Casel:And that that's another thing. Like, so on the YouTube channel, like, so that that last one there, ship fast, is is the demo for Instrumentl. It's the same video that's on the home page.
Justin Jackson:Nice.
Brian Casel:The rest of the year, I I have some ideas on, like, other, like, new content to put up on the YouTube channel.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:I don't think it's like, up until now, for the past half year, it's been all about my work on instrumental components for the most part. Like, me watch me build instrumental components or a little bit about how I'm using cursor, but, like, mostly I'm building instrumental components. Check it out. Mhmm. I think going forward, I wanna be more helpful and more like, more educational and teaching, especially of of building with AI and building in Rails with AI, building with Rails and AI and Cursor.
Brian Casel:Like, I think instrumental components will come into that and be and be shown on that. But, like, yeah, it's like I don't know. I'm I'm I'm a little bit up in the air on like I don't wanna be like all instrumental components all the time. Mhmm. Anyway, that's a that's a longer rabbit hole some some other day.
Brian Casel:But like like, the thought would be, like, some videos would be like, hey. Watch me build a a CRM app in twenty minutes using Instrumentl Components. Could a
Justin Jackson:sidebar just to say, hey. Today, I'm building a CRM, and I'm using Instrumentl components. You can go check it out at instrumental.dev. Yeah. That would be fine.
Justin Jackson:But it's the demoing it. And I also think, like, live streaming is particularly good for this where
Brian Casel:But YouTube has been great. Like, a large portion of that 800 subscriber list are strangers who have never listened to our podcast, never followed me on Twitter. They found it on YouTube. And I don't even have a large audience on YouTube.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:It's the algorithm. Like, it's it's a good platform to invest in.
Justin Jackson:You gotta keep doing that. You gotta keep doing as much of that as you can. Well, it's good. I think we got the I think we got the update, which is great. Congrats on launching that and and getting paid customers.
Justin Jackson:I mean, I hope I hope that I hope you could just keep the momentum just keeps building. That's the that's the dream.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm hoping to get back to some seven hour days instead of twelve hour days. You know? I wanna get into your stuff, man.
Justin Jackson:Wow. We got time for that. I'm I'm gonna be going on this trip, this podcast conference in in London. So when I get back, I'm sure I'll have
Brian Casel:Yeah. I I know you're on this kick with YouTube taking over podcasts. Yeah. I don't I I I just don't see it. I'm I still listen to podcasts, and I and I watch YouTube.
Justin Jackson:Well, that's different things. That's a highly generational Yeah. The next episode, we will try to have some guests again. Yes.
Brian Casel:Back to guest.
Justin Jackson:Get back to the panel format. But yeah. This has been fun to do a couple update episodes. And We'll see you next time we publish.
Brian Casel:Yep. Later, folks.
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