In this episode, Andrew discusses feedback he received from Alex Hillman on his marketing efforts for MetaMonster, and how he plans to adjust his approach going forward. He's now focusing more on creating content and building anticipation rather than rushing to convert customers. Sean shares his thoughts on personal branding and how he's reworking his online presence. They also touch on the pros and cons of starter packs for growing following on BlueSky and the value of being an authentic, relationship-based creator versus optimizing for algorithms.Links:Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/Worth Driving: https://worthdriving.com/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.01SeanHappy Thanksgiving, or Happy Post Thanksgiving.00:03.75AndrewHey, happy post Thanksgiving.00:04.77SeanHey. Yeah. Did you pick anything up for a Black Friday?00:09.25AndrewOh my God. I spent too much money. I, I got sucked into a die work where, Twitter thread on, uh, links to black Friday deals.00:16.04SeanOh, sweet.00:22.53Andrewa couple of the links I was like, Oh, this looks really cool. That's $1,200 for a jacket. I cannot do that. I'm sorry. so I just can't bring myself to do that.00:30.68SeanWe gotta invest in yourself, man.00:36.16AndrewI'm trying.00:36.68SeanOkay,00:36.92AndrewI'm trying to like push myself to slowly start buying some nicer pieces. I've got my eye on like a leather jacket. That's more in like the 300 360 range that I might00:46.87Seannot bad.00:48.08AndrewPull the trigger on at some point in the next year in the next sorry in the next few months but yeah, but entirely too much clothing tend to like just buy nothing and then buy Everything in like one or two goes and then not buy anything for a long period of time And then I bought a bunch of gifts for people so it was actually like normally I don't do shit on Black Friday, but this time I was actually pretty01:03.52SeanYeah.01:09.18SeanNice. Sweet.01:14.74AndrewPretty active on the interwebs, on the, the e-commerce sites.01:17.08Seanthree01:19.45Seanwell i bought a humidifier so it has an app i haven't downloaded the app yet i know on weekends on weekends when i go to my computer when i'm in front of my computer i always feel like my eyes are really dry and i think it's because of a week of staring at the screen and then i turn on humidifier and it tells you how like dry your room is and it's like i think the like it was it was saying that the healthy range is 30 to 50 and when i turned on it was like01:22.51AndrewWhoa.01:25.08AndrewWelcome to your seventies.01:36.73AndrewHigh strain.01:47.95Sean15 uh like 1828 something like that it's like cool put that sucker on eyes not dry anymore life hack yeah01:51.12AndrewDamn interesting.01:55.44AndrewI get pretty dry in the winter around here. And then we have radiators. And so if we don't have the windows open, it gets so dry. But usually we have the windows open because our heating system is horribly inefficient.02:09.12AndrewAnd so you're either like cold as shit or you are sweating. So we have to open the windows to like let excess heat out because we can't just like turn it down. It's old houses.02:20.83SeanGot it. Yeah, sounds fun.02:22.24AndrewIt's pain. yeah02:23.47SeanI also bought into, uh, detailed, which is Glenn Alsup's, uh, uh, SEO private group.02:29.54AndrewOh, Oh, interesting.02:32.86SeanAnd, yeah, there was no sale. It was just like, here's the option to purchase it, which is kind of badass of him to do on a Black Friday, but.02:39.65AndrewYeah. It's like, cards against humanity always does the hilarious black Friday stuff. Like one, didn't they ah ah raise prices one year for black Friday? They were like, you can buy cards against humanity for double what it normally costs.02:48.81Seanthere02:52.63SeanIt's kind of sick.02:53.77Andrewthis year they sold a potato with diamonds stuck in it.02:56.76Seanoh cards The original mischief, just saying.02:56.93AndrewLike fucking weird.03:01.39Andrewthey They totally are the original mischief. That's very true. Is mischief still kicking? Are they still doing shit?03:08.22SeanYeah. Yeah. Yeah. They also have Black Friday sale. They're making shoes. I mean, whatever. I feel like they kind of fell off after the big but look big red boot moment.03:19.61AndrewIt's hard to like, when your business model is go viral, it's just hard to do that consistently, I think.03:27.45SeanNo. I disagree. I disagree. I disagree. I think it's hard to do that consistently and be ethical around how you do it. oh but I don't think ah they had a whole thing where that like, you know, every two weeks they would release a project and like, I'm pretty sure 70% of the projects were all sweepstakes.03:40.89AndrewThat might be true.03:48.93SeanThey were all...
