Episode 99
· 01:07:25
Hello, everyone. Happy New Year. Welcome to 2019 and welcome to episode 99 with Ben Ornstein. Ben and I had this great chat. It's about an hour long.
Speaker 1:Him and I are in similar situations. He's building Tuple. App with two cofounders. I'm, of course, building Transistor with John Buddha, and I just like the way Ben thinks. He shares a bunch of valuable insights in this episode, including how to find a cofounder, the hard conversations you should have, how much you should have saved up, and the weekly retroactive questions they do every week as a part of their cofounder meeting.
Speaker 1:Really good stuff. Before we get into that, folks, I have been, opening up registration for Mega Maker Club. If you wanna join the waiting list, go to megamaker.co/club. And if you are thinking about podcasting in 2,019 or your employer is thinking about it, John Buddha and I are going to be running a program that you should check out podcast2019.com. Alright.
Speaker 1:Let's get into the episode. Woah. You are quick.
Speaker 2:Quick at what?
Speaker 1:Quick on the draw. I didn't even get to hear I like hearing the whole Skype song. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There you go. Got it for you.
Speaker 1:Alright. I'm just getting set up. I'm gonna get all the live streaming stuff set up here. Alright. Alright.
Speaker 1:Hello. Hello. Oh, I gotta bring up your volume. Perfect. Cool.
Speaker 1:I'm here with Ben Orenstein, and we're gonna have a chat in a bit that will eventually become a product people podcast episode. But we're also streaming live today. Feel free to ask us a question, dive right in. That's the one thing I was telling you on well, I said not telling you, but I said on Twitter that when I the mark of a good podcast is when you are like I I was listening to you guys on Bootstrap Web, and I'm literally like, that last fifteen minutes, the whole time I'm like, listen to me. Listen to me.
Speaker 1:Like, I I wanted to get in there so bad. It's kind of anyway, so people can participate, but this will also give me a chance to ask all the questions I want to ask. Hey, Josh Miller.
Speaker 2:Then your your listeners, our listeners can actually be listened to during the podcast.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. They've got the opportunity.
Speaker 2:I love the live streaming thing because, like, eventually this will be a podcast episode, but you're getting value out of it now. Like, going live out to a whole bunch of people. You're getting a YouTube video out of it, Twitch clips, all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It's it has been really good for me. Now some people don't like this stuff. I love this stuff.
Speaker 1:To me, this is like, it's kind of like being a stand up comedian and going to the local club and just being like, okay. I'm gonna practice a bunch of material.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It is not as refined as you might get in a good conference talk or a blog post or a book. But in these moments, like, that Bootstrap web episode that you guys had a good conversation, and then the last thirteen minutes was dynamite. That's where it's like that's the best stuff right there. All of the pretense is kind of gone. You're saying how you really feel.
Speaker 1:It's getting a little bit heated. That working out of material back and forth, you know, Jordan saying one thing, and then you're saying another thing, and Brian saying another thing. That's the material that becomes great blog posts and conference talks and everything else. So at least in my my experience.
Speaker 2:I find a lot of times on podcasts, it takes a little while for them to warm up.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like if if the people know each other well or like they're just like good at that, like some people are better at it than others or have more practice. But a lot of the times it's like, may as well just cut the first fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Have you found it? Because you've been doing interviews for a long time. Have you figured out tricks? One trick, like, I've got a good question to kick us off once we get going, that I think will get us right into the meat.
Speaker 1:But the the hard thing I've always found is like you always want background because you're like, ah, some people don't know this person. I gotta get their story.
Speaker 2:I don't think that matters that much.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Like a lot that's how most people start off podcast interviews. They go, so Ben, why don't you tell us about yourself? And that question is hard. It puts a lot of pressure on you and it immediately makes it feel like a one way interview.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so when I was doing interviews, I would never ask that. I would try to not ask that question. Or like I would maybe provide my own background, be like, Oh, so like I know you do a lot of things. You do X, Y, Z. That's really cool.
Speaker 2:Or just kind of skip it because it sort of doesn't matter. Like if the people listen to the podcast and they, like, listen for ten minutes, they're like, I like this guy. He seems to make sense. This is interesting. Maybe they will go learn more.
Speaker 2:But a bunch of it just comes out from context anyway.
Speaker 1:Yes. Okay. Well, now I wanna I wanna dig into this a little bit because here's a counterpoint. Terry Gross, who's some people say is the best interviewer ever, she says her advice is to ask, tell me about yourself.
Speaker 2:So, like, here's like, so if you have an interview with Terry Gross on NPR, you're appearing on like one of like the biggest talk shows in the world. Right? You're in a studio. There's probably multiple people in the studio with you. You're seated in an unfamiliar place.
Speaker 2:There's no way you're gonna fool yourself into thinking like you're not about to be interviewed in a serious interview way. Right? So like in that situation, like if you're gonna about to go appear on Terry Gross's show, you probably have a really good answer for, tell me about yourself. You're anticipating this, but on podcasts, it's like you can make it feel more personal. Like if I like, if I squint hard enough, I can just feel like you and I are just chatting and everyone else doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Wait a second. Dig dig into that a bit. What do you mean squint enough?
Speaker 2:I I I just like, I can kinda trick myself into like not thinking about anybody else listening.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Like when I especially on my podcast, like when I record Derek, like I I'm aware always of the audience. Like I never get to like, oh man, this is literally just us talking. But like the more I do it, the more I'm just like, Derek says something interesting and I ask him a question about it. And then like I say something, he asked me a question about that. And like, it's kind of just two friends having a conversation and I'm not thinking like we are making podcasts now.
Speaker 1:Weird. See, my problem is and I realize that sometimes performance Justin is not as good as vulnerable, real Justin.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:There's a tension there, though, which is part of this is entertainment.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And but part of the but a lot of the good stuff happens when we let down our guard, when we stop using our podcast voice, and we start talking like human beings. But do do you have a tension between those two things? Are you thinking, okay. I want to be entertaining, or are you just thinking, no. If the conversation is good and real, the entertainment just happens?
Speaker 2:Definitely the latter for me. Like, there are, like, there are lots of really amazing, highly produced podcasts that are carefully crafted entertainment vehicles. And people do that. Some people do that amazingly well. And so if you want that, that's totally a thing.
Speaker 2:I'm not that interested in making that. I'm interested in being like, here is the good and the bad of what's going on with me and my actual real life story, pretty unfiltered and not dolled up
Speaker 1:that much. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think you're right. I just there's talking
Speaker 2:It's not right or wrong. This is just what
Speaker 1:I like. I guess part of me so here's I actually have this idea for a podcast, which is called something like uninvited guest. And the whole idea is inviting yourself to a podcast conversation that you were never a part of. So afterwards Oh, yeah. Like, record like, playing the clip and saying, okay.
Speaker 1:But what about this? You didn't ask this. And Mhmm. Malcolm Gladwell has a new podcast called oh, it there's a new episode with Rick Rubin. And Rick Rubin is talking about how he worked with Johnny Cash.
Speaker 1:Johnny Cash is playing just, like, old, small theaters, like hotel nightclubs. His label didn't care about him. Everyone had forgotten about him. And Rick Rubin was looking for a challenge. He wanted to find he'd only worked with new artists, and he wanted to find an old artist and kind of re breathe new life into them.
Speaker 1:And so he's thinking, who's like this? Who's kinda, like, not, you know, not doing so hot? And Johnny Cash came up. And his idea was to record a bunch of covers with Johnny. So there's that famous Nine Inch Nails cover.
Speaker 1:Do you know the one I'm talking about?
Speaker 2:Yep. Yep. And,
Speaker 1:I mean, if you listen to it, it's just haunting. I remember when that came out, and it I mean, I had heard of Johnny Cash before, but that was when I became a fan, was watching Rick Rubin's thing. K. Here's the part I wanna ask you about. Rick said that his whole objective was not to show people the real Johnny Cash, but was to show them the man in black.
Speaker 3:There's Johnny Cash, the human being, and then there's Johnny Cash, the mythical man in black. Mhmm. And my goal was to make music that always fit the mythical man in black. Now if it fit Johnny Cash, the human being, as well, that's fine, but it didn't have to. It was more important that it was this sort of looming cartoon figure Yeah.
Speaker 3:Of Yeah. Who he
Speaker 4:was. That's wait. But that's sort of interesting. I thought you were gonna say the exact opposite. I thought you were gonna say, my goal was to make music that fit the
Speaker 3:The human.
Speaker 4:The human.
Speaker 3:No. He had he had even done that along the way, not always so successfully. Yeah. And I think it really went back to, like, I think of the great Johnny Cash moments. I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, this sort of outlaw figure.
Speaker 3:Now Johnny Cash in real life never shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Mhmm. But the mythical man in black did, and we responded.
Speaker 1:No. I want this this old kinda knight rider wearing black. He's been to prison. He shot a man in Reno. That's the the figure I want.
Speaker 1:And one thing I've struggled with as someone who writes blog posts and does podcasts and does videos like you. Right? Mhmm. Is how much do people want a mythical figure, and how much do they want the real person? And I'm contrived about it because on one hand, I think I respond to vulnerability, and it's nice to hear people be themselves.
Speaker 1:But on the other hand, people sometimes like their preconceived notions of the people they read and the people they watch and the people they listen to. So do you care about any of that, or is that not even enter your mind?
Speaker 2:I can't pretend I don't have any concern about that. Like, am am human, and I care what other people think about me even the even as I try not to. I try to not let it dominate what I'm doing, but it's a real hard instinct to ignore. But I feel like as you're talking, I'm thinking like you had a couple posts you published recently where you're like, I'm feeling kind of apprehensive about publishing this. And then it blows up and it resonates because there's authenticity in it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I I think that's worth paying attention to.
Speaker 1:Are programmers rockstars? I'm not talking about like rockstar programmer, but as in the the heroes, as in the the people on stage, how much should we be playing into that? I think thirty seven signals had a little bit of this early on, whether it was on purpose or not, was people had this fantasy about the the life they lived or the the way they were, but it was disconnected from the real human stuff. I'm wrestling with this because no one ever talks about it. Like, are we public figures?
Speaker 1:Or should we be trying to do that? When we say we're building an audience and that's an asset, what does that mean? You know what? Do you get kinda get what I'm going on here?
Speaker 2:I think so. To to me, like, honestly, the answer feels like you can do what you want. Do you remember Zed Shaw? Yes. All right.
Speaker 2:So Zed Shaw did this in the programmer world where he had this cranky programmer persona and it resonated with a lot of people. And I sort of remember him writing a blog post later being like, I sort of crafted this persona, but then people have this weird view of me and in reality, I'm not quite such a cranky person. He started doing things that weren't like blog posts with people playing electric guitars and things like that. So like, I think you can just decide like that's who you wanna be. Like there's like this Twitch streamer, Doctor Disrespect.
Speaker 2:Do you know him? No. So this guy, so he plays games. He streams games and and he just has this alter ego. I don't even know his real name, but he's just like, he's this guy.
Speaker 2:He created a character to play games with who's like really ornery and thinks a lot of himself and is really braggy and he's really fun and really entertaining to watch. Cause the character is interesting and it's fun to see the character run into like situations live and react to it and get pissed at the game and all this. And then there are people that just like stream games that are just themselves or like you and me streaming this and like we're just us. And like people dig both. And so I really honestly think it's, you just gotta figure out what you want to do.
Speaker 2:Like I'm okay with my podcast audience being only the people that really like what I do. Like I don't think about how do we change our podcast so that more people will listen to it. I just think like, how do I put something out that I feel good about and hopefully get it exposed to the people that are into that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you is why are you doing this? I mean, not not this this right now, but why are you building you're building tuple.app, which is a a screen sharing application. You're doing artofproductpodcast.com, which is your podcast. You're doing habits for hackers.
Speaker 1:What's motivating you? Like, what why are you doing any of this? What and maybe talk a little bit about why you felt like you need you needed to leave paid employment to do all that.
Speaker 2:I've actually felt for a while that running my own software company would be my eventual destiny. And so a lot of the things that I have done over the years have been with that kind of in the back of my mind, like thinking like, how do I get ready for this? So that when I try it eventually, it's more likely to be a success. So like, I was a programmer for many years and then I like started a company, I guess, a division, a product inside Thoughtbot. And I was like, this is great because this is like training while getting paid a developer salary on how to start a small company.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, I just, I've, this is, I'm all about freedom and flexibility and newness, like variability, I guess. So I was like, I wanna, I wanna have my own thing because then I can set my own hours. I can do it how I want. I don't have a boss. And also it's just like, it'll be different and weird and hard.
Speaker 2:And I like that. Like every so often I have to kind of blow up what I've got and then like try a new kind of scary thing for me to stay like really engaged.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so is that the why? Is that you just feel like I gotta scare myself a bit? I gotta get uncomfortable?
Speaker 2:I guess so. I mean, you gotta do something, right, with the day? And like, I don't know, like, just slacking off doesn't make me satisfied. Yeah. Working for somebody else doesn't like keeps me kinda satisfied, but not really.
Speaker 2:And so this kind of just felt like this is what I'm gonna do during the daytime.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And how much of it is because I definitely had that motivation. Like, can remember, and I I share this image a lot, but I think a lot of folks who are probably listening to this can identify. They're in their car right now. They're at a red light listening to our voices, and they feel so frustrated to be in that car, to be commuting to work, to be dealing with their boss, to be maybe they've got great work, great boss, but the but they they just don't have they they feel like they're missing something.
Speaker 1:And in terms of, you know, I I really like Rob Walling's three things, purpose, freedom, and relationships. You know, maybe they feel like in those three things, I don't have the purpose I want at work. I don't have the freedom. And then someone on Twitter said something similar to you. They said, you know, giving you a business owning your own business doesn't really give you freedom.
Speaker 1:It gives you flexibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I disagree with that a little bit. I think it definitely gives you freedom from some things. Like, I I am free from a one hour commute. I feel a lot of freedom. Now there's flexibility in there too, but so I identify with all that.
Speaker 1:And, yeah. But on the other hand, the other thing for me was always, like, there's this other motivation. And I I just don't know how other people if other people have this or what like, how it interacts with you. But there's just, like, this very real, like, I gotta provide for my family. I gotta put food on the table.
Speaker 1:I gotta do all this other stuff. And so do you like, do you feel like you're free from that stress? Like, do you worry about money?
Speaker 5:Do you worry
Speaker 1:about the Do you worry future? Do you, you know, right now you're, I think you're working off your savings. Right?
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Like, does that stress you out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit. So we started in May and back then we agreed that we, like the three of us, have two co founders and I was like, okay, we each have like a year of runway at least that we're comfortable spending on this. And so for the first handful of months, it's like, yeah, that's, that's like plenty of money. But then every month it goes down and like, you're like, this number is only going down. That's kind of a bummer.
Speaker 2:And like a pile of
Speaker 1:money. A second. Wait a you feel like it's just kind of a bummer or like, is that your honest feeling about it? Or are you kinda like, like I mean, I don't know how much money you have. You could have you could be sitting on a million bones for all I know.
Speaker 2:No. I'm I'm not. Definitely not. So, like, it was stressing me out a lot more like a month ago. Because like, I basically have There's like three buckets of money that I have right now.
Speaker 2:There's like checking account There's like short term savings that I put together for basically this. Okay. And then there was like a Roth
Speaker 1:Can you give us a rough idea? Was that three months worth of expenses or six or 12 or?
Speaker 2:So at one point it was probably like fourteen months or something. Fourteen to sixteen months in that range, depending on how crazy I was. And I actually spent more than I probably should have. So it was probably more like a year.
Speaker 1:Okay. And how did you calculate that? Was it, this is just what the bare minimum of what I need to feed myself and No. Pay
Speaker 2:It was more. I was like, okay, assuming I have roughly the same lifestyle minus 20% or something, figuring I cut back on the more extravagant things.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Roughly where that number came from.
Speaker 1:Okay. And you're you're in Boston. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Is it expensive there or is it pretty reasonable?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, it is.
Speaker 2:Like my my I live in it's like my rent is like $1,300 a month.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's pretty pricey.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Pretty pricey. Mhmm. Alright. So you have 14 oh, sorry.
Speaker 1:You you had three you have three buckets of money
Speaker 2:on your side. There's there's $3. There's the like, okay. I've been putting aside money for a number of years and it's this is like the bucket of like, go do something interesting.
Speaker 1:How many years did you save up?
Speaker 2:I've been a pretty decent saver for a while. I guess it's been like maybe five years or something.
Speaker 1:Okay. Can you I know. Sorry. I keep interrupting you, but can you go into like how like, what was your your habit? We're we're talk hacker habits for hackers.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:By the way, one habit I would love to learn I know it's probably not part of your program, but fight those kind of financial habits, I'm very interested in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so what financial habit did you get into over those five years that allowed you to save that much money?
Speaker 2:The thing that made the biggest difference for me is a thing I think I stole from Ramit Sethi that I will teach you to be a rich guy was to automate saving. I basically set up direct deposit so that some portion of my paycheck went into retirement fund, some portion went into like short term savings, and then the rest went into my actual checking account. And nothing made as big a difference as that one thing right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. My I went independent, I was just like, you know, money comes into your business account. And then when you need money, you just withdraw it. Right? There's no there's not an autumn an automated thing there.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. It should be like that. And is there there's no banking there's no banking tools that will automatically detect deposits and then automatically because that's what I would like.
Speaker 2:That'd be cool.
Speaker 1:But and the other thing, if anyone from Stripe is listening, I think that the one tell me if you've if this is even a problem for you too, but the one thing that feels like would be an amazing add on for Stripe is the ability to strip strip split payouts. So, like, if you're gonna do some of that automated stuff or profit first or any of those systems, man, it would be nice to write at the the Stripe level, just be able to go and then, like, put it in this account, this account, or even for partners. Like, you could I mean, for a long term project, it wouldn't work. But, you know, short term little projects, like, if you had a partner on Habits for Hackers and you're like, okay. All the money coming into this account should get split up between us automatically
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:At the payout stage, that'd be amazing. Anyway okay. So the the adding the the automation part was the the big part. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep. That was the biggest thing. So you're asking about stress. And like, I was stressed, like, I don't know, a month or two ago about it. Because like the number just kept going down basically.
Speaker 2:So I have that bucket of short term savings. And then it's like, okay, if I want to, I could take cash out of my Roth IRA because that's a post tax savings account, meaning like I can take out the money I put into it with no penalty at any time. So it's like, okay, I can start playing from that bucket if I run out of the first one. And then if that one gets empty, then I can like, if you want, you can do a loan from your four zero one ks to yourself and then without paying a penalty. And so it's like, okay.
Speaker 2:So I have these like three buckets, but everything past the first bucket feels crappy. It's like, I don't wanna spend retirement money or even like loan against retirement money. That's like, that's just like a little bit too sketchy for me. But if it was like, okay, this thing is gonna looks like it's working. And like, I just need a couple more months then maybe, but you know, it's like, it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:And so I was like looking at the short term thing, was like, okay, I'm like, been May now it's almost December. So it's been seven months or something. So it's like, that number is getting lower every month. And so I was feeling a little more stressed, but then like, I don't know, a couple of things happened. So like one is like I did a Black Friday sale for like one of my courses that I had made.
Speaker 2:Just like the, honestly, the easiest, laziest, simplest version of it and made like $6 in a couple of days, which is pretty great. Black Friday is legit. Thank you all of those people who bought my course. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But by the way, some people get cranky about Black Friday. Like they don't like the emails and the, you know, commercialism or whatever. I totally get that. But for an independent creator to get, get some money at the end of the year, especially like December can be December and January can be like really bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It is so helpful. Like, the that that there's a difference between a Black Friday sale on Amazon and, you know, getting, Ben Ornstein's Black Friday sale. Like, it Yeah. Really helps those independents. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So so yeah, the the sales helped a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yep. The sales helped a little bit. I also like, scheduled a little bit of coaching. Like someone reached out to me for some coaching. I was just like, how about like high number per hour?
Speaker 2:And he was like, okay. And then also like habits for hackers is very much like part of this where it's like, I have time on the side. Like I actually like building Tuple is my main focus for sure. But like I still have plenty of evening and weekend time. And so like Habits for Hackers is basically my side hustle to like rebuild some of that runway.
Speaker 2:So between those things, was kinda like, okay, I think I'm actually feeling pretty okay about that. So it hasn't I haven't been stressed about money recently.
Speaker 1:What about, I know you probably can't talk too much, but what about your partners? Were they in a similar situation? They had a bunch of savings. That's pretty unusual to find three people with a bunch of runway like that.
Speaker 2:It totally is. Part of that was just luck. I didn't like screen for that ahead of time, but then we finally had the financial conversation. It was like, yeah, we can all do this. And it's kind of like, I think there's something maybe kind of important there, like an important lesson where it was like, suddenly it was like, okay, it's time to talk about who's gonna be a co founder of this thing.
Speaker 2:And fortunately we all had enough runway that it was like, okay, can just do this. But if one of us had been like, yeah, I can't stop working. It'd be like, well, I guess you probably can't be a co founder then. So like, I feel like if you are, I'm a lucky person and I'll admit that. But like, if you are also a lucky person and you're like a single person making a software developer salary and you don't accumulate significant savings, you're kind of missing out on an awesome opportunity.
Speaker 2:You got to get serious about putting aside money because someday, so that money that I put in the bank like that, that my short term savings, I didn't know what it was for. I was just kept doing it. And I was like, I don't know like when I'm going to need this money, but I'm never going to be sad I have it. And then one day it was like, Oh, it's for this. Great.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad I have this pile of cash. Like you have that opportunity. So do it. Don't just like, it's so easy to just like accidentally or just like automatically spend everything and then have like very little for this kind of thing. Like it's it's worth putting a little effort into to building that up.
Speaker 1:Totally. And I think the the challenge for me has always been, I'm kinda having a reckoning right now because the my attitude was, I got a big family, which is totally my fault. But I got a big family, and families are expensive and kids are expensive and, you know, I was always using that as an excuse. And all those things are true, but it doesn't change the realities of life, which are if you could have some money set aside, any money set aside, it is better than not having any. Yep.
Speaker 1:And, the the one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is, you know, when things were good, I went independent in 02/2016, selling mostly marketing for developers, mega maker, the membership site, all these things. And when revenue was great, man, it was it was great. It was like, I can every month, I have so much money left over. And surprisingly, that money got spent. Now some of it got spent.
Speaker 1:This is the one thing that's difficult is that and I've been pretty open about this. I got really depressed in 02/2017, and I had a bunch of money in the business bank account. But when you're not when you get taken out of commission as a solo person, it you know, you can wipe that stuff out really well, not quickly. It happened over months. And so, yeah, I think the the lesson is still cash rules the day, whether in personal life or your business.
Speaker 1:The more cash you have, the better. And if you don't have any cash, you're severely limited in all sorts of ways.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Okay. I think we've got a question from Sid here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:How do you folks feel about TinySeed? I feel like it could remove a lot of stress that you're talking about. And this is the the piece I wanted to talk about that you guys got into on the Bootstrap Web Podcast.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You were talking about TinySeed. There's also Earnest Capital. And you had a comment that, I didn't quite understand.
Speaker 2:So Okay.
Speaker 1:I want I want you to unpack it a little bit.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Actually, I'm gonna play that clip for everybody. I already played it for you before. But I'm gonna play that clip for everybody, and then that'll give us a break. And then we can we can come back in a minute here to discuss it. So here, I'll play that right now.
Speaker 5:You don't have anything to lose because if you wanna pay us back, if it's really successful, just give us back three x, and we don't even own any equity. They're trying to make the pitch to you where you don't really have that much to lose. If it's really successful, you just pay them back. If it's not successful, then you didn't burn your life savings. I don't know, my argument is if someone's gonna give you money under those terms, you take it baby and you run.
Speaker 2:I do think that's a pretty good argument. The one thing that I would push back on is either you or they are buying equity with dollars. So like, you could say like, it sucks that I'm spending my savings, but I'm sort of I don't think of it that way so much. Like, yes, that that money is going towards rent and food, but the the thing it's really actually doing is buying my time so that I can hang on to equity. If I sell equity to somebody for dollars, it's because they think those dollars are worth less than the equity.
Speaker 1:You're you're kinda saying, like, if if they wanna buy equity, something to the effect of they think their dollars are worth less than the equity. Is what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah. This isn't a position I agree with a 100%. This is just sort of one counterargument I was presenting to what Jordan was saying. So I'll make the argument and then I'll also talk about why it maybe is not totally true. So if someone wants to invest in your company, they're like, yo, we want to buy 10% of your company for a $100,000 in their mind.
Speaker 2:They're saying 10% of this company is going to be worth more than a $100,000. Yes. Right. Otherwise they would not do the deal. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when you sell them 10% of your company, you're thinking that a $100,000 is worth more than 10% of my company. Otherwise I wouldn't do the deal. Yes. Right. So like one of you is possibly wrong.
Speaker 1:Yes. And only one of us can be wrong.
Speaker 2:So this is why I think this argument is maybe not so good as I've thought about it more since then is that actually both of you can kind of can basically be right. So if this investor can help you make the company worth more, either just by this cash injection or by like mentoring you later, neither of you really has to lose here. Like they can end up with 10% of a bigger pie you can turn those $100,000 into more know, your 90% is worth more after the fact. Yeah. So it's not really like zero sum in reality.
Speaker 2:It felt zero sum when I was sort of on the podcast thinking about it at first, but I think I agree with it less and less the more I think about it.
Speaker 1:It's it's funny how perspective all depends on the situation you're in.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:When I was, you know, in 2016 and 02/2017, when I was hot flying high and I felt like I had lots of money, I was really anti investment. Like, no way. Who needs money? Like, money is easy to get. Right?
Speaker 1:And, you know, even in that conversation, you know, you've got you, and then you've got Brian, and then you've got Jordan. And Jordan is saying, if someone wants to give you money and increase the runway that you have and increase your chances of survival, then take it. Take the money. That that's helpful. But, you know, Brian has this productized service going that I think is, you know, paying them enough money to work on other things.
Speaker 1:You've got savings right now. And so you two are like, I don't I don't really get it. Right? Like
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say I guess
Speaker 1:worth it.
Speaker 2:But it's just
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's slightly less attractive for me than it would might be for other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And the interesting thing so Sid is asking about TinySeed, and TinySeed does, from what I understand, take an equity position. They buy some of your your company. The interesting thing about Earnest is they don't take an equity position. They give let's say they give you a $100.
Speaker 1:They want a three to five x payout at the end, and that to me is interesting. Initially, I was thinking, ah, man. But that still, like, would that just be weighing on you? Like, you finally make money, and then every time you make another grand, you're like, oh, I gotta pay Ernest out. You know?
Speaker 1:But this is, and you alluded to this in your conversation earlier, and this might become more, is it prescient? Prescient? How do you say that?
Speaker 2:Prescient, I think.
Speaker 1:Prescient? It might become more prescient as your money goes down. The the runway is so important. And sometimes I feel like right now, because my runway has gotten shorter and shorter. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Feel like, you know, that cartoon where they're on the train and and they're just putting tracks in front of the train as it goes. Mhmm. Like that position is such a crappy position to be in where you're always like, like, gotta get the tracks in front of the train. Mhmm. And so now, you know, if people could probably go back into my, you know, old blog post and Twitter tweets and see all the negative things I said about investment.
Speaker 1:But now I'm like, well, maybe maybe getting some money would be good. You know? Again, I'm kinda dumb with this stuff. So even, like, as you're talking about, like, value of money now and value of money in the future, my brain gets a little bit, like Mhmm. Shuts off a little bit.
Speaker 1:And so it's it's hard for me to make those decisions. Like, what am I giving up now that I might regret later?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think it's a complicated question. I don't think there's a right answer, but some of the things that I think about are like, do you need the money? So if it's like tiny seeds pitch on their landing page seems to be, can quit your job and focus full time on this new business. And that is a good value proposition for a lot of people because they're like, don't have enough savings to just quit now or that feels too risky for them.
Speaker 2:Have too many dependents or something. And so that's like, okay, I can get enough funding to work for a year on my thing. That's great. For me, that's like slightly less compelling because of my situation. And then like also like, what would you so if you're slightly more in my position, it's like, okay, what would I use the funding for?
Speaker 2:It's like, do we want to hire somebody? Could Like, we take that money and turn it into customers quickly or progress, like faster progress or a superior product or something? And so that's like another thing to consider. And these are all like, I don't know, they're all hard questions, I think. So it's kinda like, and then like, then like those are the benefits.
Speaker 2:Like what are the drawbacks? Like how does it change the business when you have an investor? I don't actually know. I haven't dealt with that before, but I've heard from other people who have that it can be tricky. Like it can be tough.
Speaker 2:Like if I wanna build a small company and then go on to the next thing and just let it pay my bills for a while, like that's fine if I own all of it and my co founders are down with it. But if we have an investor suddenly that it's like, there's someone else at the table and it's like, I don't wanna feel like I'm screwing somebody and like not acting in their best interest. And so now I feel guilt around running my business the way I want to. And so there's just like a lot of different competing ideas here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think it's helpful for people to be honest. And maybe this goes back to our previous conversation about, you know, how should people represent themselves online. I think it's helpful for people to just be honest about their situation.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And sometimes and may I shouldn't speak for everyone, but I do see this tendency for everyone to kinda wanna fit into the same mold, and that's a very human thing, to to all have the same kind of bravado around a certain topic or all have the same kind of tone around a certain topic. Where the real answer is it real it all depends on your situation. Like, that's that's it. And I think what I'm trying to be more honest about now is, okay, Justin, or okay, Ben. What's your situation right now?
Speaker 1:What do you want? Like, where are you trying to go? And then instead of saying, oh, what I want was really similar to what Jason Fried wanted back in 02/2004, So I should I better go check out what he did and what worked for him and what blog post he wrote then. And then I'm gonna try to not just do what he did, but capture some of that spirit or capture some of that bravado or capture some of that saying, no. No.
Speaker 1:No. What is your situation? That's the truth that everybody who's doing this thing is gonna have to figure out their own journey. And, you know, this the hard thing about this, especially when you have cofounders like you and I do, is it's not just you on this journey, it's them. And they have things they want.
Speaker 1:They have things they are struggling with that you don't know about. They have so how have you how have you dealt with that by the way?
Speaker 2:So we do a retro, just about every week. And literally one of the questions in our retro is, is anyone struggling with anything? And it's intentionally worded that way, like sort of general, so that people have an opportunity to bring stuff up like that.
Speaker 1:Was it hard being that honest or did you have enough rapport before that you could get that vulnerable?
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 1:And how do you look for that? Was that just
Speaker 2:So I have two co founders, Joel and Spencer. And Joel, I've known for like six years now. So we sang together in the same chorus and became friends and have been on camping trips and all this. We're close. And so I had that pretty much right away with Joel.
Speaker 2:And Spencer is pretty open book. He's willing to share. And so I think I'm fortunate that we have a pretty You never know. I feel like people like you think you have the open line of communication and then suddenly you find out there was this thing that's been festering for six months. So who knows?
Speaker 2:Maybe that that will happen to to us. I don't know. But I think we have that that sort of open open lines.
Speaker 1:Are there habits or weekly questions or, you know, ways of drawing that out when you're in a cofounder situation like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, mean, I'll I'll pull up my retro
Speaker 1:template
Speaker 2:and I'll just tell you the questions we ask because one of them is about finances. We start with since our last retro, what's gone well. And I like starting with that because it puts us off on kind of a positive note and it kind of forces us all to like say like, these are the good things that are happening. Then we review my KPI dashboard, just like the numbers I'm focused on right now, which is right now revenue in the last week and number of Twitter followers that I have and net or like new subscribers to the mailing list. You can tell I'm focused on sales and marketing because that's what that is.
Speaker 2:And then it's like, how do we feel about the following things? Number one, the projects we're focused on. Number two, our productivity and work life balance. And number three, our financial health. So we hit finances every week.
Speaker 2:It's like, how is everyone feeling about like literally how much money we have, how much money the company has, how much money we're spending, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So just to review, I wrote these down for the folks in the chat. What's gone well?
Speaker 2:Yep. Since our last retro. Yep.
Speaker 1:KPI dashboard. And you're only reviewing your KPIs?
Speaker 2:For now, yeah. We don't have development KPIs at the moment, but we've talked about doing them and I think we eventually will add them like for us Tuple's whole thing or like one of our core value things is that we want to pull to be crazy fast and have really low latency. So I'd like to have a KPI dashboard that's like, is the current latency numbers? Does that look like? So guess he's adding that pretty soon.
Speaker 1:And then how do you feel about the projects you're working on? Work life balance and finances. So I'm assuming everyone's being honest. Do you feel like people are being honest enough? Like in so work life balance, someone might say, ah, you know what?
Speaker 1:I just got I was working on this thing yesterday, and it burnt me out. Yeah. This is a good example. We had a big support queue for Transistor Mhmm. Like, 20 or 30 from it's basically we were so busy.
Speaker 1:He's busy on Black Friday with Cards Against Humanity's crazy Black Friday sale, and I'm busy on my own Black Friday sale. So I finally get to this queue, and it's exhausting. I went through all of these support queues, and at the end of the day, I just felt burnt out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's say today we're having a retro, what would the response of the other co founders be? Do you do you have, like, how do you react?
Speaker 2:I think we would react and say like, well, do you feel like you wanna take some time? Like, what's what sounds good for you right now? Like, do you need to take the day off, the week off? Do you wanna go, climbing instead of working today? Like what what sounds good?
Speaker 2:We're in this for the long haul. I'm interested in the long game. I'm not interested in a startup sprint. I wanna make good software over time and grow slowly. And so it's like, if you over the short term like sprinted too hard and you need a break, like that is doesn't seem like a problem at all to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And are those the kinds of things you're you're keeping an eye on? Like how how Totally. How how put together are you guys, really? Like, are you guys think thinking about this stuff all the time?
Speaker 1:Or, like, how much intention did you bring into this? Were these things you talked about from the beginning going Yeah. Listen. Like that thing you just said, I'm interested. I'm not interested in the sprint.
Speaker 1:That's something you had a conversation you had early.
Speaker 2:Totally. Yeah. That was one of the things. So yeah. That was one of our very earliest conversation was kinda like, what's our philosophy?
Speaker 2:Like, what kind of company do we wanna build together? It's like, do we want to grow fast? Do we want to raise a bunch of money? Do we want to like what are our aspirations for like how big it gets and how much money it makes and all that stuff? And we were on the same page for that for sure.
Speaker 2:And that was partly why we did it. It was just like we agreed. Like our answers were similar enough on this.
Speaker 1:How long did that take by the way for you to have all those conversations? Like from the beginning of, hey, do you wanna build a replacement for Screen Hero to you signing the corporate documents. How long was that?
Speaker 2:So I knew Joel really well. And so I was already pretty on board with We'd had enough conversations over months that it was like, okay, we're pretty compatible here. And so I don't, it's hard to track like how much time was totally total spent on that. But then like Spencer was kind of a later ad. It was like, okay, Joel and I were like, all right, we're gonna start this company.
Speaker 2:We're gonna quit our job to do And at that moment, Spencer like reached out to Joel and was like, Hey, I just quit my job. Like, what are you up to? And so Joel was like, yo, I have this guy that worked at my last startup who's great. And he's suddenly free and has a bunch of savings and we should chat with him. And so that was more intentional.
Speaker 2:And we talked to Spencer and we like had, there's basically like, there was one big conversation I feel like where it's like, okay, let's talk about like what you think you wanna do. And if you did build a company, what you would want it to look like and what motivates you. And it was just kinda like we had a couple drinks and chatted for a few hours and just sort of saw if we were on the same page or not.
Speaker 1:So you felt like it was just over drinks? Like, okay. What do are are you all in oh, you're all in Boston?
Speaker 2:We're all in Boston.
Speaker 1:That's not gonna work for a remote pair programming app, man.
Speaker 2:Well, hey, we don't all live together. So like right now, Joel and Spencer are using it. They're both working from home.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I think one of you needs to move to the Bay Area for this to work. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I do have I have a good friend in Hong Kong, and so I was like, okay. We're gonna we're we'll use Tuple between you and me and and see how that goes. Because if it works between here and Hong Kong, we're we're good.
Speaker 1:I I was reminded of Tuple yesterday because in a Slack that I'm in, they posted some of those funny pair programming videos, you know, like the the funny ones. What do you feel like does pair programming have a little bit of a a bad rep?
Speaker 2:Probably, yes. Think it's like what is it like? I think there are certain things in life that are easy to have bad experiences with if you do them with people that aren't very good at them.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's actually a really good way of putting Some
Speaker 2:examples are popping to mind, but they're they're not safe for podcasts.
Speaker 1:Well, one one thing that popped to mind instantly was, you know, I was really for a while, a part of my career, was really bitter about working for companies.
Speaker 2:And,
Speaker 1:my friend, Jason, took me up for lunch one time. He's like, why are you bagging on working for companies? You've just had you've just had a bad experience. There are some good companies that are worth working for. You can't just paint this whole thing with this brush because you had a bad experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think pair programming is susceptible to that because you do it like with one or two people and you're like, Oh, that was terrible. I didn't like that. I hate pair programming. And lots of people are not that good at pair programming.
Speaker 2:So it's easy to accidentally unknowingly pair with someone that's not good at it and have a bad experience. And that's just very natural as humans. It's a common bias to sort of over extrapolate from a limited experience, particularly if that experience is like embarrassing, which like someone who's a bad pair can make you feel stupid. And that is such a bad feeling. It like feels terrible.
Speaker 2:And so you're like, oh, pairing is the worst. Like I feel stupid when I pair program and I'm never doing that again.
Speaker 1:So is it a tone thing? Like, so I sit next to somebody and they see me using tabs instead of spaces and then they criticize me. Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. Or like, oh, we should use this sort of database, whatever. And you're like, what is that? You don't know about how transactions work?
Speaker 2:It's just like that kind of thing that like feign surprise is just like, you should know that thing. Like, how do you not know that? Just like, it's very unfortunately common among programmers. And so it like could happen pretty easily, I think.
Speaker 1:Is that something you've written about? I'm just showing on screen here this guide you wrote to pair programming. Is that something you talk about? Like tone
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. For sure.
Speaker 1:And is that pair programming anti patterns? Is That's that what
Speaker 2:definitely one of them. But there's a, I wrote an article called, what is it? How to pair with a junior dev.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, here it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's, this actually secretly applies to most pair programming sessions, but it's particularly important when you're pairing with someone who's new to it. So you don't give them this crappy experience the first time, like an early time. But yeah, like sort of having empathy for the person you're pairing with. And like, I feel like anyone who's been at this for a while realizes that there's so much to learn in programming that everyone has blind spots.
Speaker 2:And some of those blind spots sound surprising because like, how have you not bumped into needing transactions and databases or like learned about that yet? But once you've been at it for a while, realize you have those two. Everyone does. There's just too much to learn all of it. And so you should like, I feel like confident, secure, experienced people never respond negatively when you tell them you don't know something.
Speaker 2:Like that is such a sign of an insecure, inexperienced jerk that you can just just it's instant. You know you know what that person's all about if they do that and it's not good. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Does it I'm gonna say I'm gonna say something that might be bad, but the the the stereotype is that programmers as a group maybe suffer a lack of empathy or suffer from some of this tone Is it a cultural thing? Is this a real problem or is this just a perception that's not real?
Speaker 2:I bet it's more common in programmers than in other groups partly because, so I think in programming, much of your worth, it's easy to get your self worth wrapped up in like how smart you are and how much you know. And so when you see other people that like don't know a thing, it's easy to kind of score points. This is the metric that we use programming. It's just like how smart is your brain? And so like, that's the becomes the way to score points.
Speaker 2:But also I think programming to some extent attracts kind of nerdy kind of socially outcasty sometimes sort of socially inept people, not always for sure, but I think it has a higher proportion than most, most fields. And so if you're insecure and the way you make yourself feel better is by showing how smart you are, then a great way to make yourself feel a little better is to show someone else how you're smarter than they are. And so I think it's just I bet this shows up a lot of the times. I think this is like a common human thing, but I think in programming, it's it's probably more common than average.
Speaker 1:Is there a way of like, what do you because this I hadn't seen this one yet. This guide's great, by the way. You can get to it from the Tuple homepage. You scroll to the bottom and there's a question that says, have you written any amazing guides about pair programming?
Speaker 2:I got I have a better a better way of getting there. Learntopair.com.
Speaker 1:Oh, learntopair.com. Okay. I'll put that on screen here. My question is about so programming has always had this, like, mystical thing in my head, which is like, it's this black box. I don't understand it.
Speaker 1:It seems like it's all magic. It's all unknowable. And part of it what I'm uncovering more and more is that part of it is exactly what you've talked about. Like, there's this this almost status from knowing things and knowing things the way they've always been known. So it's like, you know, communicating things in a certain way, in a certain mindset, in a certain using certain metaphors.
Speaker 1:And if you don't click with that or if you don't get that right away or if that is really kind of mystical in the beginning, doesn't matter. You just gotta become part of the club. You gotta know the lingo. You've gotta know all that stuff. And I'm realizing, wait a second.
Speaker 1:Some of the stuff I thought was black magic is just the way that they're communicating it. It's just a it's it's it's actually not that hard, and maybe they've even been keeping it to themselves because they they want the status. Is there a way for someone new like me or a junior person to get over some of those humps? And or and is programming actually a magical thing that you do just need to, you know, put in tons and tons and tons of hours and eventually figure it out yourself.
Speaker 2:One of the most important things for learning in general and definitely programming in particular is getting comfortable with realizing that it's going to take a little while and it's going to be kind of painful. It's kind of sucks to dive into a new field where you don't feel oriented. You're like, I don't even know what the signs are. I don't know what a road looks like. I'm just super lost everything.
Speaker 2:Every time I look into a new thing, I realized that that new thing is infinitely deep in itself. And so it's just like, oh like what's a database? You're like, oh well go ahead and read these 20 books on databases. You're like what? There's 20 books on databases?
Speaker 2:It's like, there's 20 books just on like a tiny part of what a database does. It's like, Oh my God, no. And so like, and that's true for everything in programming. And so like, I think an important traits to develop is just a little bit of grit and comfort with being like, You know what? It kind of sucks to learn a brand new thing, particularly when it's hard.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to just have to live with that suckiness, but also some confidence that like, if I keep pushing on it, eventually I'm going to figure it out because it's not a magical thing. It's not special. It's not different than other things you've learned. You've just probably are a little bit out of practice with being comfortable with not understanding how it works. Like when you watch little kids try to do a new thing, they fail constantly at it and they don't care.
Speaker 2:They just like keep trying different variants on it and eventually they figure it out. But adults get less comfortable with that. It's embarrassing. We get afraid to fail at these things and afraid to live with that discomfort.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a little bit like skateboarding. When you see someone do a kickflip, it just seems like that is black magic. Like, that is that is unknowable. And I think a lot of it is about the people who, around you, like the community, who are willing to demystify things for you. Because so much of the barrier is is the is just the mystical nature of that.
Speaker 1:Now I'm not a great skateboarder, but dropping in on a ramp, when you are at the top of the ramp, it seems unknowable because everything about it is counterintuitive. You have to push all of your weight on the front of the board in order to get it to to not wipe out. But every part of your brain is going, no, keep your weight on your back of your leg. And just having somebody there saying, like, this is what your brain is gonna do. What you have to do is you just have to force yourself to put all your weight on your front foot.
Speaker 1:Keep your knees bent, you know. And but if you're looking at it from the side or you're just like looking you're up there shaking going, oh my god, like, I'm I'm gonna die. Having someone coach you it's kinda like pair programming, I guess. Having someone coach you and go, Okay. These are the things you need to know.
Speaker 1:First of all, this is completely doable. Second of all, you just need to put your all your weight on your front foot, keep your knees bent, that's it. Like, that's all you have to have in your head. And maybe we'll start on this little mini ramp instead of this big half pipe. Right?
Speaker 1:And, yeah, it feels like the community piece is the part that is important, and maybe that's why apps like tuple need to exist, is that we need ways of doing this. Because I feel like, I'm increasingly feeling like programming is knowable for And I've been a geek since forever, since 1985. And I'm finally starting to feel like, oh, well, I'm never gonna be, like, an incredible programmer, but I can figure these concepts out. There's no reason I can't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. Like, people have been learning from other people since the beginning. Like, that's how apprenticeship that's how everyone learned skills before the Internet, Basically it was you apprenticed with someone for years. And in the beginning you knew nothing and slowly you learned the entirety of your field and then you took on your own apprentices and the cycle continued. And pair programming is just kind of a fancy word for that, which has already been happening for a long time.
Speaker 2:It's just kind of dressed up a little bit. And so it's like, yeah, it turns out like if you want to get good at a thing, doing it with someone that knows how to do it better or is similar to you, but it knows different things is really useful because humans are good at communicating with each other and telling each other new information.
Speaker 1:Can you tell people a little bit about Habits for Hackers? What's the idea there? Why are you doing that?
Speaker 2:So this is a big time for me. I'm trying to make this company work. 2019 is gonna be an interesting year. Like we're gonna launch our alpha for Tuple January 7 and like some private betas later on. So it's like, I want to really like do well next year and like have good days and be productive and all that.
Speaker 2:And the thing I've found for me over time is like focusing on some sort of smallish feeling habits can have big results. And so I want to have my habits dialed in next year. And so I was like, all right, I should find like, I should get like something that's worked for me in the past is like getting accountability buddy and like checking in on my habits and like just saying what they're going to be and all that. And as I'm do like prepping to do all this, it's like, you know, this would make a pretty good course. I bet I'm not the only person that wants to focus on this.
Speaker 2:And also, Hey, like runway matters. And so if I can have a course and make some money off it, that would be great too. So I can keep on working on Tuple and not feel stressed and all that. So kind of all those things came together and I was like, okay, habits for hackers. And so basically we're gonna spend a month focused on four habits and try to get, ingrain them, which is, getting deep work done each day, like getting in the zone, protecting our bodies, like from the ravages of programming.
Speaker 2:Like don't become a stiff, painful, broken mess by coding all day. Like what do you do to help, you know, not feel like crap? Optimize workflows. Like how do you use your tools better? And also building an audience because building an audience is one of the best I've ever done for my career.
Speaker 2:And so I don't wanna stop that habit, like keep that going. And so I figure out that people should probably be doing it too.
Speaker 1:One thing I wanna say about this. For years, I was telling myself a story about myself, which was I'm this old, gritty, haggard person who a little bit of an old man on the porch. And the reason I felt like this is because I did a massive career change when I was 28, got into the software world, and instantly felt like an old person because all of the other people I was working with were in their early twenties and had been doing
Speaker 2:it forever.
Speaker 1:And so I've I've I've constantly had this feeling of, these earnest, you know, these young, earnest people and their habits and their, you know, their good daily practices. And I had this kind of grumpy attitude about it. And the old Justin would have looked at Habits for Hackers and would have been like, well, good for you, Ben. Like, that sounds super great. You know?
Speaker 1:And I think that I don't think I'm the only one that feels that. I think some people look at something like this and go, there's an earnestness it that, mostly because of ego, can turn people off. And the biggest change that's happened for me in the last twelve months has been changing that programming in my head so that when I hear about something like this or, you know, James Clear's book, which you've talked about and you're gonna base some of the course on, Atomic Habits, you know, the old me would have been like, good for you, James. Like, you know, yeah, you're I can see you're super disciplined. Whatever.
Speaker 1:That's not for me. And I I really want to encourage people that have that programming, that kind of grumpy, like, I'm not gonna do that. It's not worth it for me. Or that's, you know, that's only for these kind of people. The the if you can change your attitude about these things, like habits in particular is the best way to change your life.
Speaker 1:And I think some of my attitude was just like, I was just grumpy about my state of life. Right? When you're feeling down and you see someone else succeeding, it's like you you don't wanna have anything to do with that, but that is the very thing you need. You do need the these daily practices, these habits, these these things of, like, you're programming, and you've been sitting at your desk for three hours, and you have a choice. Are you gonna go to Little Caesar's and get a deep dish pizza, which would be maybe a bad choice for your body?
Speaker 1:Or are you gonna make yourself a salad, which would be a good choice? Those little decisions do matter. And the thing that also helped unlock my thinking is I just kept seeing all the bad choices I made and going, Well, what's the point? But what James Clear in his book kind of communicated to me is that, yeah, you make a bad choice. Everyone makes a bad choice.
Speaker 1:But at that stage, you can make a good choice and turn your day around. And then you can make another good choice and turn your day around. Just because you've made a bad choice doesn't mean you need to, beat yourself up. Just like, okay, you had pizza for lunch. Just go for a run.
Speaker 1:Like, you can make a good choice now. And I think people who have maybe been frustrated in the past about habits, this course, like something like this might be what you need. Even if you feel grumpy about it, even if you feel like, I don't know, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. There is a way to feel better. And the only thing that's worked for me is like these little habits, these little daily actions that go, okay, what am I gonna do next?
Speaker 2:Agree. Cosign.
Speaker 1:That's good. Cool. Well, thanks again. Anything else you want people to know about?
Speaker 2:I do wanna, like, just take one second and thank the people that are making comments in the chat. Like Corey Gwyn has been saying some good stuff. He he suggested that I publish the retro stuff, which I'm gonna do. I threw it in a gist at one point, but I'm gonna I might put it somewhere a little bit prettier and and share it out with people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Thanks to everyone in the chat. Thanks again for being on the show, Ben.
Speaker 2:My pleasure.
Speaker 1:Everyone go everyone go check out tuple.app. Check out learntopair.com.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Check out Habits for Hackers. And we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Thanks for the plugs.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Know. This is this is great.
Speaker 2:Cool. Alrighty.
Speaker 1:Okay. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye. So that's it, folks.
Speaker 1:That is my chat with Ben. He did if you liked the episode with Jason Cohen, my two parter with Jason Cohen from WP Engine, Derek Rimer and Ben had Jason on the art of product podcast. Go and check that out. That's in their feed. And, yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker 1:We're we are one episode away from a 100 episodes on product people. The the next episode will be the hundredth episode. So I gotta figure out what I wanna do with that. I I have a few episodes in the can I could publish, but we'll see? We'll see what I do.
Speaker 1:Again, if you're bootstrapping this year and you don't wanna do it alone, you want a water cooler, you want some forums, you want a community of people you can reach out to, megamaker.co/club. And if you're starting a podcast this year, podcast2019.com.
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