Episodes

  • Sean's building a SaaS!

    Sean's building a SaaS!
    Jan 30 2025
    In this episode Andrew talks about his recent struggles with ADHD and feeling like MetaMonster is moving too slowly. Meanwhile, Sean is planning to build a new SaaS product within Miscreants. The guys talk about the challenges of maintaining focus on a new product while running an agency, and how to set up the project for the best chance of success. Sean gets deeply uncomfortable, it's great!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/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.79SeanDo you play Starcraft? Have you played Starcraft?00:03.15AndrewNo, I've never played Starcraft. I'm not a big gamer.00:04.71Seanand00:06.24AndrewLike the most time I've ever spent on video games, like my top games are like Pokemon, like Crystal.00:13.03SeanThat's true. You're like an actual sports like healthy touch grass person. I forget that.00:17.74Andrewi I'm not an there I'm a watch sports and then touch grass in like nerdy hiking ways, not like Boy Scout touch grass.00:27.01SeanYeah, but I'm like, ah ah I'm like, a you know, watch eSports and touch Minecraft grass sometimes, every guy.00:34.57AndrewWhy do you ask about Starcraft?00:35.44SeanI've been I may have gotten really into stuff. It's been like two days, but I may have spent a lot of hours into Starcraft over the weekend. But it's because, well, first of all, it's really interesting because like,00:48.14SeanI see how it's like a groundwork for a lot of other games that have been really bad at and I see the difference between people who are good at like played Starcraft and then we're good at other games like League of Legends versus not. More importantly, it's because my brain has been on like like agents, agent systems, Starcraft is like RTS where you manage a bunch of little tiny things and that move around the map.01:06.11AndrewHuh.01:08.75Seanand And like, so for some reason, my brain has that connection.01:11.48AndrewYeah.01:11.58SeanOh, so it's because I've always been really bad at it. And like my best, one of my but best friends is like, was top 200 in the US. So, it's, it's not that impressive.01:19.07Andrewwhoa Whoa.01:21.89SeanI'm i'm pretty sure it, I think it's like, you know, top 200 snapshot in time, never went pro.01:22.08AndrewOh.01:26.65SeanOh, so it's in the US. So he's Korean, but.01:28.07AndrewI mean, I mean, it's so impressive. Like why you gotta, why you gotta hate on your friend? Like your friend sounds, that's cool.01:33.85Seanthat's what we do okay okay fine fine fine he's pretty good he's pretty good at it anyway he's been rolling me constantly it's but maybe I'm just salty that he's been fucking destroyed like cool01:42.52AndrewI played Civ three for a while. Is that like similar vibes where you like, you send all your little people to go do things and you have to constantly like be like, okay, do this.01:50.93Seanyeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly yeah01:52.07AndrewNow do this. Now do this. Now you, you guys build this and you guys build this and okay. Cool. Yeah. I could get hooked on some, some Civ three back in the day.02:02.67SeanNice, nice. Yeah, some Age of Empires, some Fred Alert.02:06.05AndrewYeah, I never got beyond Civ III.02:06.19Seanand um Okay.02:08.67AndrewAgain.02:08.70SeanAlright, alright. I mean, I need discovered football. That was my weekend. um um Amongst like some other random things, but how about you? How you doing?02:18.77AndrewI'm all right, man. i I am feeling a little stressed because I feel like the last couple of weeks, we just have not made much progress on MetaMonster at all.02:29.67SeanHmm.02:31.04AndrewSo there's a handful of of things at play here. Austin was trying to buy a house. Yeah, which just sort of consumes your life while you're doing it.02:36.98SeanOh, sick.02:41.38AndrewAnd it all happened like way faster than he was expecting.02:41.66SeanSure.02:44.48Seansure02:45.51AndrewIt ended up falling through, like they decided to pass on it.02:44.87SeanSure.02:47.47AndrewSo he's he's not buying the house, but he was going through the motions.02:48.03SeanOkay.02:53.13AndrewAnd I think it was just eating up all of his like attention as it would.02:58.84Seanright03:00.29AndrewSo that was going on. And then I've talked about robotic season. The build season of robotic season like takes up a lot of my free time. like you know, one to two weeknights and all day Saturday basically are spent at robotics and that eats up a lot of time. we've been having to fight with our landlord ah like getting our heater worked on. He keeps saying there's not a problem. We try to tell him there's a problem. We have been fighting with him on that. and then I just think for the past like two or three months, I've been in a season of like03:42.79Andrewhigher ADHD, like my ADHD feels like...
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    54 mins
  • When should you charge your first customers?

    When should you charge your first customers?
    Jan 16 2025
    In this episode, Sean's Shmoocon trip got spicy 🌶️ 🥵 and Andrew is riding the high of a great prospect call for MetaMonster. Sean gives feedback on the experience of using MetaMonster, and Andrew debates when (and how) to start charging early customers. 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:00:00.38SeanHow's your poop?00:01.58AndrewOh, fuck you. yeah00:05.86SeanI'm sorry, we can cut this out.00:06.93AndrewNo, no, no, it's all good. Everybody poops, man. I didn't actually poop this time, but I do poop.00:10.21Seanyeah oh I hope so.00:13.46AndrewPoops are great.00:17.43AndrewPoops are great. Well, I that was not expecting that. Okay.00:22.77SeanSorry, sorry, how's robotics?00:26.27AndrewRobotics is great. Yeah, we're I think two weeks into the season. And this is going to mean nothing to anybody who hasn't been involved with first robotics, but we're making a big switch from tank drive to swerve drive this year and from time based to command based robot programming.00:46.76AndrewSo.00:46.34SeanWhoa.00:47.88AndrewYeah, pretty cool. Pretty cool. Tank-based is kind of what it sounds like. you know If you imagine how a tank moves, it's like two tracks moving at the same time. um And so it's simple, but it's also like not very precise. Whereas swerve drive, you have four wheels that can all move independently, and so they can and they can rotate. So you can move forward, backwards, left, right.01:14.66SeanHmm.01:15.53Andrewdiagonal you know you become a queen instead of a ah ah rook and it's uh does that metaphor make sense it's nerdy as fuck but it makes sense01:27.02SeanYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it does, it does. It was just not, it was just not the metaphor. Like, it just took me a second. and I was like, I didn't, my brain did not go to chess. I was like, what is it?01:42.87AndrewAnd then, yeah, but the the flip side is it's just way more complicated. So Swerve Drive, you have because you have you go from like four motors that are basically doing the same thing you have to control and to eight motors that can all operate independently. And there's a lot of like tuning and.02:04.02AndrewPID controllers, which are this like math thing that you use to like set a location on within like robotics. So you have to tune like your PID controllers and set your like encoder offsets and just get everything be very precise about everything. And then it's also like strongly encouraged that you use command based code which is like a little things are a little more like obfuscated away from you versus like in timer based you're like there's a timer running throughout a match and you're just constantly getting02:41.44Andrewhitting the same function over and over again. And then in command-based, it's a little more abstracted. And so it can be like just a tiny bit trickier to debug things. So we've just like we have taken a big step up in complexity of our electronics and programming. And guess who's the electronics and programming mentor on the team?03:02.00SeanAustin.03:03.27Andrewyeah03:05.38SeanYou, you.03:05.70AndrewI wish. Dude, I wish Austin was on the team.03:06.88SeanThat'd be crazy.03:07.90AndrewThat would be a blast.03:09.98SeanThat'd be the coolest robot there. That'd be cheating for the kids.03:14.81AndrewYeah. But yeah, it's been super fun. And I you know finished up workday and then went and spent two and a half hours at the robotics center yesterday and spent that whole time trying to tune our surf drive. And it is still not doing what I want it to do. So I'll be going back tomorrow night.03:35.90SeanHow many kids do you have to work with? Like just on your team?03:38.99AndrewYeah, so our team, the first year I did it, we had three kids. The like most competitive teams often have 40 or 50 kids. so And they often have tens of thousands, if not six figures of funding.03:48.64SeanWhoa.03:53.94AndrewAnd we had our first year like two grand. So that gives you an idea of like scale. This year, we're up to, I think, 15 kids.04:00.80SeanYeah.04:06.77AndrewWe've got a handful of eighth graders who were having them build a separate robot so that they can get a as much hands-on experience as possible.04:15.39Andrewthen we have a couple of seniors and like a junior who were who are super involved. And so I've got one senior who is interested really interested in programming and electronics.04:28.12AndrewAnd so usually he and I are working together with a random eighth grader.04:33.22SeanNice.04:34.05AndrewYeah.04:34.64SeanNice.04:35.16AndrewYeah, it's fun.04:35.57SeanCool.04:36.45AndrewIt's cool. Also, our team's all like Hispanic, and like half of them don't speak English. Well, not half. yeah This ...
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    41 mins
  • Sean's first impressions of MetaMonster

    Sean's first impressions of MetaMonster
    Jan 10 2025
    Andrew and Sean are back for Season 3!! Andrew's onboarding his first users to MetaMonster, and as alpha user #1 Sean has lots of thoughts. Meanwhile Sean actually took some time off??? And he used it to start writing. The guys talk MetaMonster, product design, and personal branding. 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:00:00.98SeanI'll lie down for a second. Happy New Year.00:02.47AndrewYep.00:03.08SeanHow you doing?00:03.53Andrewah Perfect. No, that's not the perfect metaphor.00:06.47Seanahhu00:07.40AndrewThis isn't going to be a year of lag. This is going to be a year of getting shit done and moving fast.00:09.32SeanHell yeah. Yeah.00:12.99AndrewYeah.00:13.56SeanWho's in three, baby?00:14.79AndrewSeason three. Oh, are we going to start a new season?00:18.12SeanI'm going to, I call it any season. Did you see me create the show, delete the show and recreate it and slack? Yeah.00:25.17AndrewNo, I miss that.00:25.14SeanYeah. It is not season two ah episode It is season three, episode one, 2025.00:30.50AndrewLove it.00:32.13SeanUm, how you doing?00:32.18AndrewFuck yeah. I'm good, man.00:33.85SeanHow's your. Yeah.00:35.55AndrewMy holiday was great. It was super, super chill. We stayed here in Detroit, um just... hung out with family and friends and relaxed through a kind of a quirk.00:48.82AndrewMaddie's little sister got COVID a few days before Christmas. So we had to delay Christmas and do like kind of a second Christmas.00:55.36SeanOkay.00:55.52AndrewAnd so on Christmas day, we were just home, just the two of us with the cats. And we were like, oh shit, we really like this.01:00.74SeanSweet.01:05.02AndrewLike don't get me wrong, love family, love friends, wanna see them as much as possible. But there's something really nice about just have just being you and your partner on Christmas morning, like drinking mimosas, being lazy, not getting out of bed right away, eating some some yummy pastries.01:13.30SeanHell yeah.01:25.46Andrewum We unwrapped some things for the cats and like a couple of things for each other and it's just super chill. It was really nice.01:32.65SeanNice. Sweet.01:33.39AndrewYeah. Yeah. Um, and then the other thing from this break was I just found myself like for the first time in recent memory, wanting to work.01:36.36SeanSweet.01:44.30AndrewLike I didn't want to take more than a week off because no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.01:44.50SeanHell yeah. You're becoming me. I like it. and like I'm rubbing off on you.01:51.84AndrewI just like, I'm feeling drawn to work right now and it's a season. It'll pass. Um, I'm, I know that I'm okay with that, but. But yeah, I'm feeling really hyped about Meta Monster. I really want to get going on it, do more with it.02:06.89Andrewum get it off the ground. So I'm feeling really excited. And um small update there, this week, as you well know, we started to bring on our first outside users.02:18.15SeanMhm.02:20.94AndrewSo not, we're calling, I'm thinking of this as like a friends and family round of alpha testing.02:27.01SeanHell yeah.02:27.54AndrewSo it's not a, these aren't, potential customers really. they're They're people who we just trust to get in and start finding bugs and edge cases and giving us good honest feedback on how the product feels. um While we wrap up a couple of last features that I think are really important for giving our first potential customers the real full experience. Like right now, bulk generation doesn't work. So you have to generate things one at a time. And so to me, we're not fulfilling the promise of MetaMonster until we have bulk generation done.03:02.96Andrewum But yeah, we've we've started to onboard our first couple of users, ah friends and family users. I think I created three accounts yesterday. I'll hopefully create two or three more today. um And yeah, so what do you think? You've been in the product now.03:20.06SeanYeah, I mean, you know, as alpha user number one, um just so everyone's aware, alpha user number one, ah president yeah president of MetaMonster fan club.03:23.71AndrewYeah. Got to give you your props. I'm sorry for not not mentioning that.03:33.07Seanah I like it. I mean, I like it. It's buggy. It's toss you a bug early on. those I mean, I don't think anything's like, like, I think core functionality, everything's working great. um It's like more very basic, like UX things.03:53.81SeanGood found value out of it pretty quickly. um I ran worth driving through it. I honestly ran some client sites through it as well um You know, I think like ah I mean worth driving is pretty large now too But even like some client sites like it's an easy way to spot like oh shit that meta tag is ...
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    42 mins
  • Prompt engineering and reflecting on 2024

    Prompt engineering and reflecting on 2024
    Dec 19 2024
    In this episode, Andrew talks about his recent deep dive on prompt engineering and the way the AI product landscape is shaking out. Sean talks about his recent trip to Philly for a cybersecurity marketing conference. Then the guys reflect on 2024 and their goals for 2025. 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:00:00:00.00Seantwo, one, happy birthday Austin, yay.00:00:02.11AndrewHappy birthday, Austin!00:00:05.29SeanHow was your recording last week? How'd it go?00:00:09.74AndrewI thought it went really well. um guess you tell me, have you had a chance to listen to it yet?00:00:13.54SeanYeah, my train from Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to Virginia last week got very delayed, so.00:00:20.11AndrewOh no, I'm sorry.00:00:21.26Seansaid in the terminal and listened to it. was good. It was, yeah, thought he was super insightful.00:00:28.35AndrewYeah, Alex was awesome.00:00:28.63SeanI feel like he's beginning, you were a little, what is it like? like like starstruck felt like i was like wow didn't see me like this so before it was good i thought he gave you like really good feedback i thought but i mean there were things i learned from it being someone who's never looked at the stack in the brick stuff and yeah i think it was it was helpful and then i saw the new meta monster update today or that you sent down i was like wow it is way better than before00:00:36.26AndrewOh, that's funny. Yeah.00:00:57.50Seanand00:00:59.34AndrewWell, that's good. At least I'm taking what I'm being taught and internalizing it and not it's not just going in one ear and out the other.00:01:05.30SeanYeah.00:01:07.62SeanRight, right.00:01:08.30SeanLike our podcasts usually do.00:01:09.72AndrewYeah, I tried to also do some of the pulling the slingshot back, as Alex says, some of the anticipation building with the actual release of the podcast episode. So tried to like hype that up. Austin said it worked on him. I'm not sure it made a big difference on our analytics, I think. Yeah.00:01:33.43AndrewYou know, I think we had. You know, it's performing better than our average podcast episode, but I think that's as much about like Alex retweeting it as it is anything else. So, you know.00:01:46.91SeanWell, the real magic is, let's see how many people isn't today is right. So hello, new listeners. Austin is Andrew's co-founder, or I'm going to last name.00:01:51.97AndrewHey, that'd be cool.00:01:57.22AndrewYep. Austin's my co-founder on MetaMonster. He's the one responsible for making the product look great and function. Well, I'm just the guy who talks about it and is trying to talk about it better, trying to talk about it more good.00:02:13.12SeanYeah, hell yeah.00:02:14.59AndrewYeah. How was Philly?00:02:16.99SeanIt was good. I went to, so I went to cybersecurity marketing, the cyber marketing conference or cybersecurity marketing conference held by the cybersecurity marketing society. was good. A lot of, mean, no, this is the third time actually.00:02:27.82AndrewIs this their first time doing an in-person conference? Oh, wow. I thought they were all virtual before.00:02:34.02SeanThe society, sorry, this is their, this is their third conference. They've done a bunch of like in-person events. Yeah. The society's grown. There's like 500 people at this conference.00:02:42.76AndrewCool.00:02:43.91Seanyeah, I get to hang hang out with people that I don't usually get to see. And it's weird. It's, it's like the only conference I've ever been to. That's, I think that's i've ever, ever really been to that's not a security conference.00:02:54.04AndrewHmm.00:02:54.63SeanSo it's a whole other sort of vibe.00:02:56.73AndrewWait, but isn't it, I mean, it's still a security adjacent conference, right?00:03:01.68SeanFor sure.00:03:01.98AndrewBut it's not hackers talking about like the new vulnerabilities they discovered and like how they reverse engineered some crazy low level protocol or something.00:03:02.04SeanFor sure. For sure. But it's not like, you know, it's not like RSA. It's not like i can not be solid. It's yeah. Yeah.00:03:10.97SeanRight.00:03:14.32Seanright right exactly exactly and and it's not like it's also it's also not cyber security vendors trying to sell you on their product00:03:24.38AndrewRight.00:03:24.67Seanlike RSA and Black Hat.00:03:26.34AndrewOkay.00:03:27.48SeanAnd it's also, it's a society it's like a society conference, so it's not, I guess it's almost like the DEFCON, like in that case, like the DEFCON of cybersecurity marketing, like you don't really go to sell anything there, you're not, your customers, I mean, I guess my client customers are there, but I also try not to do any of that.00:03:32.18AndrewWhat does...
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Alex Hillman: How your identity impacts your marketing

    Alex Hillman: How your identity impacts your marketing
    Dec 12 2024
    In this week's special guest podcast, Alex Hillman (of Stacking the Bricks and 30x500) joins Andrew to coach him on early stage marketing at MetaMonster. They talk through Andrew's recent failed launch (and why not to worry about it too much), what he's doing differently now, and how your identity as a founder can impact your marketing. Plus, what pro wrestlers get right about identity and storytelling and how to create great content when you aren't an expert in your niche.There's so much great info packed into this discussion, enjoy! By the way, check out Alex's description of 30x500 at the 12:11 mark for a masterclass in positioning. Links:Follow Andrew on BlueSky: @andrewaskins.comAndrew's writing: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/Follow Sean on BlueSky: @seanqsun.comSean's writing: https://seanqsun.com/Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/Follow Alex on BlueSky: @alexhillman.comJumpstart your product empire in 12 weeks with LaunchFTWFor more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00:01.42AndrewAll right, so we've got a little bit of a different type of podcast episode. Usually it is me and Sean riffing on the things that we are building, but I'm super excited today because Alex Hillman is here to join us. So Sean is at a conference, so unfortunately couldn't be here today. But as I mentioned on the last episode, Alex very kindly took time out of his day to roast the shit out of my half-assed launch attempt. And then was even more generous and said, hey, I'll take an hour out of my day to come talk to you some more. Let's talk about this in public so that people can learn from this as we work through it together, is super cool. And for anyone who doesn't know Alex's background, Alex has been partnered with Amy Hoy on stacking the bricks and 30 by 500. They've been working on that for, you said 15 years?00:00:58.53Alex Hillman15 years, yeah.00:01:00.15Andrew15 years. I've been reading Stacking the Bricks for ages and really, really love all the content that you all have put out, have looked up to you and Amy for a long time. Still apparently didn't learn anything from from all of that reading, but i'm I'm trying to learn it now.00:01:15.29AndrewSo yeah, we're gonna get into it. But Alex, thanks so much for for being here. Just so appreciate you, man.00:01:22.85Alex HillmanYeah, i'm I'm happy to. This is going to be a good time. And, you know, I think the the common theme through all of this is and there's a lot of folks that read our stuff like our stuff and then willfully do the opposite or think that they did. what We told them and I go, I don't know where you got that from because those words never came out of my mouth. So I say all of that with, you know, with love and, you know, the the roast.00:01:47.38Alex Hillmancame from, from that point of view as well. You know, I think that there's, there's cool people doing cool things on the internet. And I know you're, you're a fan of the build in public, trying to eat those and mindset.00:01:59.19Alex HillmanI'm a fan of the help in public. And so that's my thought here is if I can help you, whether it's through a roast on blue sky or a podcast, and there's other folks that that benefit from that perspective, then that's a,00:02:08.00Andrewyeah00:02:13.34Alex Hillmanand at least three-way win. I win, you win, and and whoever listens wins. So really, really stoked to get into this.00:02:18.10AndrewAwesome.00:02:19.52Alex HillmanI think you're working on stuff that is common and and easy to get wrong.00:02:25.03AndrewYeah, appreciate that. Yeah, so to give folks some context, because I imagine there might be people who will listen to this episode who who don't typically listen to small efforts. So a few weeks ago, I sort of kind of launched a alpha-y type thing. Like I'm having trouble even describing it because it was so like half formed. But I basically like got in my head,00:02:53.09Andrewwe're okay I'm building this mailing list, I'm getting people on this list, I need to convert these people to you know potential paying users and we don't have a product yet so I need to like kind of pre-sell them but I don't want to actually ask them for money yet so I'm gonna pitch them on being a founding user and I sent out this this one email and basically said like Hey, I want you to be a founding user. You'll get a couple of things. And in return, I want a lot of your time. Click here to sign up. And I'm sort of being facetious, partially to protect my ego, because I candidly was like, once I realized like, kind of how bad I messed up, I was a little embarrassed. Like I had this feeling of like,00:03:44.44AndrewI have run a business before. I thought I knew how to do content marketing and knew how to do some of this stuff. I've been reading your content for years and so um so um realizing that I was making a lot of rookie mistakes was a little embarrassing and so even now as I'm ...
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Andrew got roasted and Sean built a new website

    Andrew got roasted and Sean built a new website
    Dec 6 2024
    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...
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    48 mins
  • Early stage validation and the PMF spectrum

    Early stage validation and the PMF spectrum
    Nov 22 2024
    In this episode, Andrew talks about the rapid audience growth he's seeing on Bluesky and the challenges he's running into finding Founding Users for MetaMonster. The guys talk about the idea of product market fit as a spectrum and validation as a way to uncover where you might be on that spectrum, but without ever getting to 100% certainty. Then Sean talks through trying to find his next side project idea. Links:Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/CopyWork: https://copy.work/Wordpress to Webflow-ready CSV: https://contentgobl.in/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.01SeanThis is a full Andrew podcast with Sean does a support character today Mainly because I was late before this call00:08.75AndrewUh, I was also kind of late. I was chatting with a friend and it took me a while. Yeah. what's up, man? How are you?00:17.09SeanI'm good. um I'm busy. um Yeah, I'm busy. A lot of things happening with miscreants, Q4, trying to get a lot of things wrapped up before the holidays and and just so much inbound.00:31.44SeanSo much inbound.00:31.83AndrewThat's great.00:32.67SeanYeah, it is. It's amazing. You know, partially00:34.65Andrewyou see You sound exhausted by it. but00:36.91SeanI'm so tired. Yeah. Well, partially thanks to you for for doing some really good work as well. So I appreciate it.00:43.48AndrewCool. I'm glad it's been helping.00:45.98SeanYeah, absolutely. What's up with you? What's going on?00:49.78AndrewSo two things I want to talk about today, a small one and then a bigger one that I want to work out some thoughts with, with you and our, our 12 listeners.01:01.03SeanYeah.01:02.70Andrewso the small one real quick blue sky is popping off right now. It is wild. I've been, I've had an account for like two weeks now and I'm up to 1200 followers.01:16.59Andrewstarter kits are this like magical growth hack, uh, where01:16.28Seanhe yeah01:20.44SeanAre starter kits just lists but people can auto follow everyone in the list?01:25.31AndrewBasically, yeah, yeah, a starter kit is basically like a Twitter list.01:26.99Seanokay01:30.65AndrewBut so in Blue Sky, you have three concepts that that fulfill part of the responsibility of lists um in Twitter. So you have starter kits, which are a way to curate a list of people that you think others should follow most often around the topic. So like, I'm in a couple of like indie hacker, indie founder, bootstrap founder, starter kits. and you can, when you open a starter kit, you can follow individual people or you can just click follow all.02:01.31Andrewand And so that's how I found people to follow. I'm following like 360 people. It's almost all from like a handful of starter kits. And then and it's a really great mechanism for people to very quickly build a little network.02:18.09AndrewAnd it's if you get added to a couple of these, it's an awesome growth mechanism.02:22.54SeanHell02:22.64AndrewSo I'm up to 1,200 followers. very, very quickly, which is cool.02:28.21Seanyeah.02:29.29AndrewAnd we'll see how that correlates to engagement. wasn't seeing much engagement for the first like maybe 400 or 500 followers, but now I feel like I'm starting to see some pretty solid engagement.02:41.50AndrewI think engagement is naturally going to lag behind followers on the platform while people are still building a habit of checking and using Blue Sky, because it's still like A lot of people are switching over right now or like signing up and trying it for the first time, and so they're not going to have that usage habit right away. But I'm now seeing more engagement there than I am on tweets, and I have like 2700 Twitter followers.03:09.80AndrewSo there's there's starter kits, then there's lists. they do have lists that work exactly like Twitter lists, which are like a non-algorithmic way to curate a list of people whose content you want to view without following them. And then they have feeds, which are custom algorithms that developers can write and publish.03:31.61Andrewso there's like 50,000 feeds. So there's essentially 50,000 different algorithms you can choose to subscribe to and follow. So there's a default discover algorithm. There's a default like following algorithm, where it's just everyone you follow.03:46.88Andrewthen you can subscribe to lots of different feeds and customize your algorithm work the way you want to, which is a really cool idea.03:59.56AndrewYeah.03:57.79Seanthat is a really cool idea i wonder i wonder if there's like a secret like if your feed is used a lot you know how like you know plug-in like places that like have that you do upload plugins and stuff will pay out a certain amount if you have like a cool04:13.36AndrewMaybe. Yeah. I don't think they've started doing revenue sharing on blue sky yet. and they ...
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    55 mins
  • How to replace yourself in your agency

    How to replace yourself in your agency
    Nov 14 2024
    In this episode, Sean talks about getting himself out of day-to-day client work at Miscreants, and Andrew provides an update on his slow progress with customer acquisition for MetaMonster. Andrew shares an idea for a side project and they talk about Dharmesh buying the chat.com domain and "flipping" it to OpenAI.Links:Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskinsAndrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ChartJuice: https://www.chartjuice.com/Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsunMiscreants: http://miscreants.com/CopyWork: https://copy.work/Wordpress to Webflow-ready CSV: https://contentgobl.in/For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.Transcript:00:00.98SeanAll right, what is this thing, Andrew? What are you gonna tell me? even It's been 30 minutes since you told me we we're changing what we're talking about today. Now you've been, okay, go.00:12.23Andrewlet me Let me just play this for you and I think it'll all make sense.00:15.25SeanOkay.00:21.25Andrewand00:24.28Andrewhoping you can so into me baby00:28.45AndrewDo you know what this is yet?00:33.18SeanYes. I know what this is. I know what this is. This is the... I feel bad for all Asian guys in SF. I'll never outdo you, you tech bros. It's fucking over.00:51.69AndrewWait, wait! graves keepki godam oh01:02.88AndrewI never thought I would hear Mark Zuckerberg with T paid singing sweat, drip down my balls.01:04.84Seanz pain that's what what what do you want to do you want to dissect the lyrics you want to01:11.18AndrewOh, ski, ski motherfucker. Oh, ski, ski. God damn.01:17.79AndrewOh my God. I found this and I was like, holy shit. Clear everything. This is all I want to talk about.01:32.86Seanhoney01:32.98AndrewI think it's just fucking hilarious. And like, I can't decide if I like love it or hate it. Like I can't decide if it's the best thing ever or the most cringe thing ever. And I think I love it. And I think I love it in part because it is kind of cringe and he just doesn't give a fuck.01:52.89Seanfor what it's worth though maybe this was the light at the this was the this was the one piece of uplifting news in recent times my executor the one who keeps us going02:01.14AndrewRight. Oh my God.02:08.17AndrewYeah. So that, that is the, uh, Mark Zuckerberg collaboration with T-Pain. Uh, their group is unofficially or officially, I guess, Z-Pain. Um, they have one single, which is an acoustic version of Gitlo, which Mark recorded for his wife Priscilla because apparently it's the song they listened to every anniversary.02:28.74SeanYep, and then you played it for her, and...02:32.21AndrewIs there a video of him playing it for her?02:33.61SeanYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.02:34.49AndrewOh my God, I gotta go watch that. i I mean, he's found something that works. Being a wife guy is working for his brand right now and he is leaning all all the way in.02:47.07Andrewand02:47.21SeanHey, you know what they say about wife guys, though?02:50.47AndrewYeah.02:50.85Seanon the internet. okay I just hope he doesn't.02:53.35AndrewYep, it's gonna blow up at some point.02:57.23SeanI don't think he was on the ditty list, so we'll be okay.02:57.61AndrewBut...03:00.01Seanwe might or Or the FC list, so we might be okay.03:04.72AndrewFor what it's worth, I love T-Pain so much.03:08.46SeanYeah, he's great. He's great.03:09.83AndrewT-Pain's Tiny Desk Concert is one of my all-time favorites. It's so good.03:13.97Seani I just love that he is just doing side quests at the moment. Like, the guy's a genius.03:21.04AndrewZuck or T-Pain?03:22.12SeanNo, no, T-Pain. Zuck, I guess, is also doing a side quests at the moment, but like...03:23.46AndrewYeah.03:26.12SeanI'll just like I'll watch random youtubers and like sometimes T-Pain will just show up like like that are not related to things related to him you know I'm watching like a car guy youtuber boom T-Pain's winning a drift competition yeah I'm on twitch all of a sudden or I'm not on I'm browsing twitch and all of a sudden T-Pain's a streamer I don't know yeah03:28.43AndrewMm-hmm.03:36.42AndrewMm hmm. Holy shit, that's cool.03:47.23AndrewBy the way, on the Zuck side, I just listened to the acquired episode about Metta, and it made me realize that like. I feel like public perception of Metta is changing a little bit like I feel like Elon Musk buying Twitter.04:01.86SeanYeah.04:04.11Andrewhas kind of has taken a lot of the heat off of meta.04:06.90SeanYeah.04:07.45AndrewAnd so now everyone's like, Elon's elon's the evil one.04:09.12SeanHe's almost like, it could be so much worse.04:13.00AndrewAnd yeah, Elon's like, you guys think 2016 Facebook was bad?04:13.84SeanYeah.04:19.71AndrewBro, hold my drink.04:21.08SeanListen, when you gotta be the best at everything, you know?04:26.64AndrewIncluding being a massive fucking troll.04:28.86SeanYeah.04:30.46AndrewYeah, but it made me realize that like I don't hate meta as much as I used to. And I i don't know if that's like.04:35.61...
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    58 mins