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In this episode, Kevin interviews Mike Buckbee, a tech entrepreneur with an exciting journey from starting as a self-taught developer to creating successful SaaS businesses. Buckbee shares his approach to 'content engineering,' and discusses how he strategically stacked 'bricks' through various side projects, improving his skills and creating revenue. He offers advice for tech professionals interested in becoming entrepreneurs and details the unique marketing tactics that netted him great success at RailsWorld.
ForAGoodStrftime: https://foragoodstrftime.com/
Wafris: https://wafris.org
ForAGoodStrftime: https://foragoodstrftime.com/
Wafris: https://wafris.org
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Multithreaded Income Podcast?
In the "Multithreaded Income Podcast," host Kevin Griffin navigates the nuanced landscape of generating multiple income streams as a technologist. Aimed at professionals who wish to diversify their revenue while maintaining a focus on technology, this podcast dives deep into unconventional strategies, untapped opportunities, and actionable advice.
Kevin Griffin: Welcome back to the show.
Everyone.
I am joined by a man.
I think a lot of folks would
call the marketing ninja.
That's what he wants to be known as Mr.
Michael Buckby.
How are you doing today, Mike?
Michael Buckbee: Um, not
feeling very ninja y.
I don't, I don't think
I really like that term.
But, uh, you know.
Yeah, that's, I think the term
marketing ninja is too markety
for me to enjoy, but yes, so
Kevin Griffin: I think Mike
can be best described as.
Everyone's best friend giving them
great advice behind closed doors
because a number of friends that we
have in common, I'll listen to their
podcast and they'll say, well, we were
talking to our mutual friend and I
know that the mutual friend is usually.
Mike Buckbee, and they're getting
great advice on how to do some sort
of content marketing with, with
their, their different companies.
So I am glad to have you on the
podcast, Mike, and let's start for
everyone out there in podcast land,
who does not have the opportunity
to have lunch with you every week.
Michael Buckbee: Are we starting is this
where we announced the coastal barbecue
tour that we're going to be going on?
Kevin Griffin: That's, that's not public
yet where we're getting to that, but let's
start with a, just tell us your origin
story, Mike, where do you come from?
How'd you get into tech?
And, you know, what have you been
doing for the past several years?
Michael Buckbee: Um, well, I'm from
small town, Ohio I grew up in a
small town in fairly rural Ohio.
Um, and my dad made the tremendous
investment decision to buy an
Apple TV computer when I was a kid.
And I literally grew up with
my dad typing in programs to
the Apple TV out of magazines.
Um, and yeah, that was my, that
was my introduction to tech.
So incredibly, incredibly grateful to
my parents for being that far thinking.
Um, cause they really did.
They bought it as an investment thinking
that this would be helpful to kids.
Um, and it was to me, my
sister went into pharmacy.
So that was a bit of a failure,
but you know, good enough for at
least one out of two, isn't bad.
And you know, I got a
degree in corporate finance.
Uh, but I've always been very
entrepreneurial in terms of
like what I wanted to do.
I worked for an agency, um, doing
various consulting stuff in Ohio.
Eventually that went under, um, I got
a job at a software startup that was
doing handheld software for the military.
Uh, and then the military happened to be
here in Virginia beach, where we're at.
So I moved Virginia beach and I've
been here ever since, um, working
remotely really for different companies,
uh, at doing project management,
doing, uh, software development,
doing all sorts of different stuff.
Kevin Griffin: How do you even go
for a corporate finance degree?
Like how to, Is that pop up as a
thing to, to get an education in
Michael Buckbee: Um, I'm always,
I'm always fascinated by like
the real world intersection
of all these different things.
Like, um, so, you know, out of all the
business stuff, the corporate finance
is really centered around cashflow.
And really running a business in a way
that accounting, which is historical,
there's just some strategic aspects
to it, but it's mostly historical.
And, um, I thought marketing
honestly was way too fluffy of a job.
I didn't think I could get a job
with it and trying to be practical.
Um, Yeah, and so sort of the default
out of all of that was a sort of
generic business degree of corporate
finance, at least at the college
I went to, which was University of
Akron, which has a, a business school,
but it's not, it's not Wharton.
Um, yeah, so,
Kevin Griffin: how do you think
that's helped you kind of career wise?
Cause you, you didn't
really go down that path.
It seems it, but has any of
that decree helped you in what
you've been doing since then?
Michael Buckbee: I think
all of it's helpful.
I, and I don't know how
different it would really be.
Like we, we have friends who have
accounting degrees and have done good.
And, you know, certainly no marketing
people that have been in this stuff.
Um, I think the.
The bigger mix is, is the Venn
diagram strategy of, you know, I, I
was, I'm a self taught developer and
that's really how I paid for school
is I started, you know, working in
a computer lab and learn things and,
um, you know, eventually started
picking up small programming things
and then that got bigger and bigger.
As I went on, but the ability to mix
that with, um, you know, just a general
business sense, uh, is something I think
is useful in, at least it's been useful to
me, I think that's useful to other people.
Um, I don't really have ambitions to start
a podcast, but if I did, I think it would
be just examining different business, uh,
models, like what makes these businesses
tick, like how do they fit together?
Cause I do think that is really
fascinating just innately, like.
Even businesses, I don't really want
to run, but, you know, restaurants or
car washes or any of these sorts of
things, like, I think it's fascinating
how they're put together and stuff.
Kevin Griffin: Always look at a
large business and we could, I
mean, let's pick a large business.
I always wonder how does
the person at the top.
The say the C suite.
what do those folks do in a given day?
And I still don't even know if I can
answer that question intelligently.
I know from a smaller business
perspective, if I was the owner,
a director level of a 10 person
company, I know those folks
are engaged making decisions.
But when you have a
say, like an Amazon, For example,
or McDonald's, for example, uh,
what does a C level at one of
those companies do day to day?
They seem busy.
They're making the money then, but
I still have absolutely no idea what
they do, um, in, in a, any given day
Michael Buckbee: I've had,
I've had some exposure to that.
I haven't, I haven't run that, but you
know, I, I've been in close working
conditions with CEOs at companies, you
know, in the range from like a couple of
hundred people to several thousand people.
And.
In the technology sector,
mostly what they do is sales.
Um, and now some of that is like the big
enterprise sales, because it really does
mean something that the CEO has flown
down to see this potential strategic
customer or that they are there at
the conference and they're talking,
meeting with customers and prospects.
There's a lot of that, but also they do
sales to their investors to the board to.
The, the marketing team and they're
just corralling everyone to do this.
But as far as like their individual
contribution, you know, they can
take certain swings at the bat
and mostly that is for sales.
Um, yeah,
Kevin Griffin: that brings in the
money and that keeps everyone fed.
And so it's, it's somewhat important job.
Michael Buckbee: yeah,
Kevin Griffin: Well, let's switch
tracks a little, cause you are for.
All the types of businesses
you have started on the side.
Can you kind of give us a glimpse
into your first side business and
maybe a little bit of history of
the side businesses you've started?
Michael Buckbee: yeah.
So this is mostly a litany of failures.
Um, and I think there.
They're failures from a, I would say
a direct monetary standpoint, but
in a lot of ways, they're, they're
strategic failures and by strategic,
I mean, either they're, there's
something I created that was public
that, you know, still I can use as a
tool for other things or it's something
that, uh, something that was created.
So I could learn something that if
I need to teach myself something,
I'm not just doing it's public.
And, you know, a lot of times
these are sort of assets.
Uh, a metaphor I really like from like
the 30 by 500 people, um, you know,
Alex Selman and Amy Hoy and that group
of people is stacking the bricks.
I think that's a wonderful metaphor
where, you know, you're, you're
making progress towards something.
You're trying to build, you
know, a career, uh, of something.
And, you know, I really
sort of lamented, I think.
All of these struggles with
these different things and
was worried about all of them.
And, uh, it was a, a friend who
said like, well, all of those have
been an issue, but you know, in the
larger Mike project of your life,
you've actually done pretty well.
And so the Mike project is going good.
Maybe these little
smaller pieces within it.
And I think that's.
That's both, uh, that helps with my
mental stability and anxiety, as well
as I think, you know, better positions
me to take more risks going forward.
Kevin Griffin: So can you
give us a little overview of?
Some of the things you've started
and eventually maybe given up
Michael Buckbee: At one point I was
very interested in making not really a
learning system because there's a lot
of LMSs, but I had created, uh, a system
of building questions and answers for
like studying for like the CISSP exam,
which was a security certification
that I had at one point and let lapse.
Cause again, weird career and, uh, and
so, you know, studying for the CISSP, I
made my own study bank and did all this
stuff and then was trying and failing
to really sell this as a product.
But, you know, I had done all
the work to make it a web app and
an iOS app and an Android app.
And honestly, looking back, I spent
way too much time in the technology and
not nearly enough time on the selling
and marketing and doing all of that.
And I've had a bunch of other smaller
SAS businesses, either that I was a co
founder for, or that I, um, you know,
started myself, uh, there was one that
was for, uh, conferences to build like
social network per conference, which, uh,
works somewhat, but people still mostly.
Got on Twitter or Instagram.
So it wasn't a huge hit.
There was another one that was linking,
uh, Salesforce data with LinkedIn
data through a Chrome extension.
Neither of those companies were
real keen on me doing that.
Uh, and so, yeah, there
were issues with that.
Um, not great.
Uh, other things I built like
an AB testing service that.
Was I think too technical
for the audience?
It was just a mismatch.
Like the people that really
wanted to do that, did that
through a very sophisticated
graphical means, but not through.
What I wanted to do, I wasn't enough to
have a slightly better algorithm under it.
It really needed a better UX.
Uh, I had a 3d printing
service called Fabjectory.
They got a lot of press, but it
was also a lot of manual work.
It wasn't, it was more productized
service, which was printing figures
from the second life, uh, game platform.
And, you know, me's and
things got a lot of press.
I was in like wired magazine and the
New York times, but, uh, only made.
Tens of thousands of dollars and a
lot of stress, you know, gave that up.
I think as I've done more of these and
matured, I, we had talked before about
having a little framework for like, and
this isn't to say like ideas are bad.
And I think this is a real trap because
a lot of times I'll talk to people
and they'll be like, Mike, I've got
this great idea and I know this will
work because I saw over there, those
people made something similar work.
So it's more a difficulty.
Uh, you know, the framework, then
it is like, no, this won't work.
And it's taking three
factors into account.
And what you're trying to do is push
your idea to be more to one side of all
three of these than it is the other.
So the more B2B the idea is, and
the less B2C, the more successful.
Or again, the easier it will be to
get off the ground because people
are reluctant to spend their own
money, but businesses happy to pay
money to kill problems all day.
The other is how painful it is.
If it's a more painful problem than
a less painful problem, certainly
people will pay more money for it.
And the last is DIY to DFY.
DIY, we know, but DFY is done for you.
So the more done for you, you
can make the service the better.
So where I started having success,
um, in terms of, you know, things
outside of my job was really in
the Heroku add ons marketplace.
I guess technically it's the elements
marketplace or now the Salesforce
elements marketplace for Heroku
platform cloud, something or other,
Kevin Griffin: ultimate edition.
Michael Buckbee: Ultimate
edition, platinum trademark.
Uh, yeah.
And so I was one of the first, um, add
ons in there to use the platform API
when it was still on beta for Heroku.
And what I had established was a means
of automatically installing SSL TLS
certificates on behalf of, um, You know,
sites, so we'd take care of that for them.
And as a consultant, I
had done that for clients.
And at the time it was so painful,
it would take like a couple hours.
Maybe you'd mess it up.
Maybe the site would go down.
It was just a hassle.
And so I made it, you know, bulletproof
repeatable and it ticked all those boxes.
So this is something businesses
cared about, especially at the time.
This is, you know, early
2014, something like that.
Um, it's a painful issue.
People are already paying to solve
and I automated it to like, you
just click through this wizard
and it just takes care of it.
So, um, and that's, that was
one of my first successes
outside of my, my job work.
And then I've done some more
Heroku add ons since then.
, Kevin Griffin: I think people
really need to realize when you
were doing expedite SSL, things
like let's encrypt didn't exist yet.
So you were primarily responsible for
buying your own certificate, installing
it on your server, configuring it.
Correctly.
Hopefully you bought the right one for
the right domain, and hopefully you
Michael Buckbee: intermediate certificates
and like the right format and you didn't
accidentally get a carriage return line
feed at the end of it that made it not.
Yeah.
So
Kevin Griffin: So there was
a list of things that could
potentially go wrong in the process.
And if you're using a platform like
Heroku, for example, you, to an
extent, are kind of expecting things
to be done for you you're renting the
space and you have the nice, let's
say, UI infrastructure on top of it.
And then that was a lacking feature
that you came in and filled the gap and
people kind of flocked to that because
it was solving a need that books on that.
Michael Buckbee: well, Heroku
is a platform as a service.
And I think this is, this is outside
the framework stuff, but it's something
that like makes a lot more sense
there than I think at, uh, you know.
Virtual, you're getting
a virtual private server.
You're trying to set it up manually.
Doesn't make as much sense.
I mean, there were, there
were other products for that.
Um, yeah,
Kevin Griffin: So I know you had other
success on the, on the marketplace.
Um, one of the things that you kind
of push and I've seen you do this
in a variety of different ways is
what you call content engineering.
Um, and I know we had a
discussion about this earlier.
We've talked about this over lunch and
coffee so many times, but traditionally
developers are very, what's the best
word there they hate being marketed to.
And if anyone comes at them
from a direction of marketing,
even glimpsing towards buy my
stuff, they, they tend to cower.
And say something nasty.
Um, you have done a good job of
figuring out ways to get around that.
And I would love for you to talk
about content engineering kind of
in general, and maybe some things
you've done to, to facilitate that.
Michael Buckbee: I think
before I want to talk about the
developers and marketing and the
relationship with marketing, you
know, I don't think developers hate
marketing as much as we think we do.
Um, I mean, certainly
there's a strain of that.
Um, I think what we all, all hate myself
included as, you know, inauthentic and
like really badly targeted, you know,
things and, and, and that, and there's.
A much broader thing here than
I think just ads, which is
sort of the marketing thing.
This is even stuff like the recruiters
who like send you the the emails
with the requirements that are
just like lunacy Um, like that's an
example of like it's inauthentic.
They obviously don't know what they're
talking about and Certainly, you know
It's it's off target, you know So the
content engineering stuff is really just
building tools that are helpful to people.
So then they want to use them to
do things instead of writing more
blog posts or doing other stuff.
Um, so one of the things I made was,
this was for a Ruby and Rails meetup
here that was local, was forgoodstrftime.
com, uh, if you've ever If you're
a developer, you do STRF time
formatting for dates, it makes it
real simple to do that and copy and
paste and build your own and stuff.
And I built that like 10 plus
years ago and still have it up.
It's one of my bricks for things.
And, you know, occasionally I refresh
it or, you know, put a different, like,
Hey, if you like this, check out one of
my other projects on And that's the sort
of thing where is that marketing exactly?
I don't know.
It's a helpful thing.
It says, follow me on Twitter, or if you
like this, go look at one of my other
projects, but it's not, um, you know, it's
self selecting it's not in people's faces.
Uh, and I, I've built other
things like that for other
groups and different things.
Kevin Griffin: Well, And there's
other businesses you've had where
you've done that to an extent.
Uh, let's, if we go back to Expedia
SSL, didn't you have a SSL checker that
would essentially check your site, make
sure you weren't vulnerable to heart
bleed or any of the bad SSL things.
Michael Buckbee: Yeah.
So I had done that.
I had done, um, some of those very
specific checks for those kinds of things.
Um, as well as like a
general scanner for stuff.
Um, those were somewhat successful.
I think the, I think there's
limits to some of this.
Like I've certainly done
traditional advertising as well.
I, the other piece of this that I think
falls under marketing and sales is I am
much less, um, afraid of talking to people
than maybe other, maybe other developers.
Um, running like, you know, development
SaaS is like, I really get a lot of
satisfaction out of it because especially
with my projects now, which are much more
security focused, um, it's so much more
helpful to people and they're so, they're
so happy to actually talk to someone who,
you know, has a little bit of expertise
in this and that, you know, is really
trying to solve their problems and isn't
trying to just like, yeah, this magic
thing will just fix all of your issues.
Kevin Griffin: So I'm running
your Heroku add on Empire.
You were working a full
time job at the time.
And.
From an outsider perspective,
you're kicking butt in both places.
Eventually you left that job to
go full time on your own projects.
Talk to us a little bit about the,
the lead up to quitting the W2.
It, I feel like that's.
Every time we talk to someone who's
quit a W 2 to go off and do their own
thing, it's sometimes very anti climatic.
It's just, oh, one day I have a full time
job, one day I don't have a full time job.
Um, let's talk about for you, how do
you give up that security of the W 2?
To go all in on your own projects,
Michael Buckbee: Um, so there's a couple
of things I think getting into this,
like before I started, one of the things
I did, um, was I got an IP exclusion
agreement as part of my hire there,
which said like, I have these Heroku
things, they are security related.
Um, it was, um, enterprise
security company I was working
at as a marketing manager.
Um, and so it wasn't.
It wasn't competitive.
It wasn't something they were doing,
but, uh, I had previously worked for, uh,
3m, uh, 3m has the world's most onerous,
uh, IP assignment rules in the world.
Like literally we joke,
like, Oh, I made it.
If you like made a coffee table, they
would own that coffee table because like
how restrictive their IP covenants were.
So it was something I was really
sensitive to and, you know, wanted to be.
I always want to just be honest
and straightforward with people.
Um, and so that, that was one of the
things and the other is, you know,
working remote, I think there's a
lot of like people being overemployed
and stuff, and I'm sensitive to like,
it was never that really for me.
Mostly because, uh, again,
everything's automated, so
there's very little interaction.
And eventually with that stuff, I ended
up hiring a friend as a contractor
to just deal with stuff, uh, for me.
So I never really had to do much
actual like day to day work on it.
It was much more about like, you know,
trying to strategize about the business
and like how to do things and yeah.
Stuff like that.
So, um, and so I, I'm sorry,
you asked the question and I
took it a whole different way.
You asked how I was leaving.
Um, I was really upset to leave the job.
Like, I don't think I do well with
change and I think I am very risk averse.
Um, so, uh, it took, you know, multiple
other add ons and having, you know,
significantly more than I was actually
making at the, the full time job to quit.
And it was.
It was emotional.
It felt like a breakup and in part, you
know, I'd worked there like nine years.
Um, and so, you know,
just the routine of it.
I feel like maybe I'm still coming
out of six months later, but, um.
Yeah.
So I chose a date basically a week
after I had a large vesting event.
Um, people have vesting events and,
uh, seemed like that was a good time.
And so after that vesting event, you
know, looking at my actual realized income
from that job was significantly less.
I had spreadsheets to model all this out.
Um, so I put in my notice and it was
fine, even though I had worked there
a long time and was a senior person
on the team and, you know, all this
stuff, they were fine without me.
I think it was, I think it was time to go.
Um, yeah.
Kevin Griffin: you, you touched on
what most people probably hear is
a throwaway comment is that you had
spreadsheets, but you collected a
massive amount of data on how your
businesses were doing week after week
after week for what I assume is years.
So it wasn't a.
I have this benefit of having known
you for, for most of this time, so
it wasn't a just see if your pants,
hey, this best thing's coming up.
I'm going to go all in on my things.
You already knew from your spreadsheets in
the data that you've collected that it was
pretty likely going to work out just fine.
And
Michael Buckbee: you know, I, I think
it's, I think that makes it seem a lot
more clinical than it actually was.
It was much more of an emotional thing,
like, cause on paper and the spreadsheets,
I could have quit much sooner.
Um, It was just, you know,
my conservatism and paranoia
Kevin Griffin: yeah,
Michael Buckbee: about,
about these things.
Um, yeah.
And I have had, I've
had some ups and downs.
Like we mentioned expedited SSL,
which was my CERT automation business.
That is not a viable business anymore.
Uh, for good reason, like let's encrypt
came in and just crushed that as a market.
Um, And I think to the benefit of the
internet, like to the detriment of me,
but the internet is better off with it.
So, so that's good.
So then I started expedited, uh,
web application, firewalls, WAF,
um, in the Heroku marketplace,
which has done very well.
Uh, and I had in there also a half
dozen other add ons, um, You know,
putting various APIs in there for
different things, mostly around security.
And so have really, that's sort of
been my niche has been developer and
developer sort of operational security.
So again, stacking the bricks.
So these all sort of led into one
another, all these different projects.
So,
Kevin Griffin: so you're stacking the
bricks is what we call wafer is the,
the wall that you've built over time.
Is that, or is that just another brick?
We're leading into what
you're doing now, obviously,
Michael Buckbee: yeah.
So in terms of income now, um, I have,
uh, the Heroku add ons, which are
still going and even expedited SSL
still makes a small amount of money.
Like, I don't know, a couple
thousand dollars MRR or something.
Kevin Griffin: which is another
throwaway comment, Mike, like to a lot
of folks having, having a couple extra
thousand dollars a month is substantial.
Michael Buckbee: yeah, well, and I
don't, I don't mean to minimize that.
Like, I feel very lucky to be
where I'm at with all this stuff.
And I think maybe that also
makes me more conservative.
Cause I feel like it's not like
I sat down and like sat on my
wizard tower and came up with this
amazing idea that then conquered the
world, you know, this is much more.
Grinding away at stuff and kind of
getting to a place and kind of being
at the right place, the right time
and like getting into the stuff.
Uh, yeah, then, then I think it is
like some, some brilliance on my part.
Um, which, so it's hard to, and on
that basis, it's hard to go like,
yeah, I can do this all the time.
This is going to be my full time
job, being lucky and finding
these niches and doing this stuff.
Like,
Kevin Griffin: If anyone can do it.
Michael Buckbee: yeah, so.
Um, yeah, so the, so I still
have some income from that.
The other thing is I had another,
uh, failed SAS startup, which was
called send check it, um, send check.
It was originally meant to be a SAS
that you could send, like, you know,
you can go into MailChimp and it's
like, send yourself a test email to
make sure this is okay, you would
put in like Kevin at send check it.
com.
And then it would check that email,
like automated quality assurance.
Like, are all the links correct?
Are they not broken?
Is all this stuff set?
And it turns out nobody
really wanted that.
Like on my framework scale, that was
not a big enough pain for people.
It was business.
It was mostly done for you, but
it just wasn't painful enough.
Um, so that went away, but I had
built as a content engineering
tool, a subject line checker.
And so you, and so what
I had done was, um.
I don't know if you know what I did
for this, but I hired, I subscribed
to, I don't even know, like 50, 000
different newsletters, uh, and sent
them all to one email address that
then put them all into a database.
And then I did this
whole analysis on them.
So I basically went out and reverse
engineered what all the best
newsletters in the world were doing.
Cause I do like all the really
expensive ones like Clavio and.
HubSpot and stuff, the people
paying, because my assumption was,
if you're paying 20, 000 for email
marketing software, you're probably
putting a lot of thought and effort
into what the subject line is.
And so reverse engineered all that.
And so if you go to send, check it and
put your subject line in, it really
compares it to be what's effective.
And, um, turns out that it was a
good idea because a bunch of people
have done studies since then.
I'm like, is this actually true?
What's the best subject
line checker and send check.
It comes out on the top
almost all the time.
Um, so that was cool.
That was supposed to be a constant
engineering tool that led into the SAS.
And I'd never really had anything to sell.
Um, so I've tried like
a whole bunch of stuff.
I tried to write like an ebook and
get some people to buy it and stuff.
None of that's been terribly effective.
The two things that, um, and
this is really just in the last
year that I've done with it.
Um, There's an API.
I started gating the API.
Originally, it was free.
Um, but I started gating it.
And then, uh, anyone who wanted access,
I just said, well, it's 500 for the year.
And so I've had 10.
Something people, um, like ask for
that and pay it and they're like, okay.
Um, so that's an annual, you know,
a couple thousand dollars from that.
And then I started doing, I've never
done this before, uh, uh, affiliate
sales for a hoppy copy there on
AI, uh, email newsletter service.
Like you can use them to
write your stuff for you.
Um, so I'm making like, maybe
like a thousand MRR from that.
Now, because it's recurring, they
have a really nice affiliate program.
So if, you know, someone signs up
for their 50 a month plan, I get 25
a month from it for like, I think
the first year or so of their plan.
So, um, it's pretty small in
the scheme of things, but that's
the other source of income.
So, and.
Again, it's sort of, it's sort of
strategic because it's smaller and
I can do whatever I want with it.
If that makes sense, like I can try just
stuff and if it works, that's great.
And if it doesn't, it's not a big deal.
And it's also, it's also
strategically useful to me for my
other businesses like expedited WAF.
SendCheckit is the major site that I
use, um, to demo because of course,
very worried about data security.
Don't want to show like
a real customer stuff.
But it does have an API, so it
gets all sorts of weird abuse.
It is email, so people do just
stupid things with it constantly.
So, it's a great site to show, like,
attacks and how to stop them and things.
So,
Kevin Griffin: So that leads you
into your new venture, Wafers.
Michael Buckbee: Wafers.
Yeah.
Not a controversy on how to say
the name, but it's WAF, like, Web
Application Firewall plus Redis.
Um, and so, the existing service I have,
Expediter WAF, is very much a traditional
enterprise web application firewall.
Um, it's pretty expensive.
Probably not something you would
use for hobby sites and things.
Um, and that's a real frustration
because I do, I have lots of these
calls with people that are like, I
am being destroyed by this, you know,
attack and like literally people like
other developers, like us and their
sites are just, you know, attack.
They've been up forever.
They're just, you know,
it's just horrible.
Um, and so, you know, Wafers
is an attempt to counter.
Uh, all of the bots, all of the script
kitties, all the malware that's out there
on the internet where all these things are
attacking everyone's sites constantly and
there isn't a really good default response
in the web frameworks, a default tool that
you just put on, you don't think about too
much and it just deals with all of these.
Uh, and that's what Wafers is meant to be.
It's sort of a bottom up web
application firewall that lives
in your app framework and protects
your site from all these, you know.
Dark traffic, bad things
that can happen to it.
So,
Kevin Griffin: And having seen a
couple demos myself, I'll say for
any developer out there who's ever
had to deal with that, Wafers is
definitely a very well done solution.
And it's cross platform, so
it doesn't matter if you're on
Rails or if you're running PHP,
Laravel, or hopefully soon NET.
I heard if the guy would write a, the,
the add on for the NET, um, package.
Michael Buckbee: well, we may, I don't
know if this, but, um, before any of the.
net frameworks, we're probably going
to have traffic, um, the load balancing
reverse proxy and caddy, uh, I don't
know if you're using either of those
for your stuff or, all right, well,
Kevin Griffin: Oh, I'm boring.
Michael Buckbee: I could hope so, but
yeah, yeah, those are in progress, so
Kevin Griffin: Well, that's
a, that's a lot, Mike.
And I, I feel like as a person who's known
you for a long time, I'm just kind of in
awe and all the cool things you have done.
And I enjoy having conversations
like this with you.
Michael Buckbee: It sounds like
a lot, like, I'm not even sure
that's like one project a year.
This is the stack in the bricks.
This is the beauty of it is, you
know, we're, we're in the industry
as software developers, where it is
uncredentialed that, you know, there's
not, there there's not really, uh, it.
I joked about my sister
being a pharmacist.
She had to go through like actual boards
and you know, can lose her license.
And there's things in that because
she deals with very, you know, um,
she, she doesn't even do pharmacy.
She does like kids experimental research
pharmacy stuff, like things you don't
want to mess up, things that can really
positively impact people's lives.
That is a credentialed career.
We don't have that.
And, you know, as part of what
she does, she does a lot of like
reading and research papers.
I've worked with a lot of doctors,
doctors have, you know, they have
sessions where not, they do nothing,
but just go through research papers.
They have to take continuing education.
They have to do all this stuff.
A lot of these side projects are
my continuing education, where this
is how I'm learning new skills.
This is how I'm trying to keep
up to date on things and this.
And if you think about it in that.
Respect.
Like it's kind of a deal that,
Kevin Griffin: Yeah.
Michael Buckbee: you know, if I get paid
anything from the side projects, maybe
it takes off, maybe it doesn't, but
it's still so worthwhile to me because
it feeds back into everything else.
Kevin Griffin: You're taking
a step further than I think
a normal developer would.
And you're thinking about
how do I monetize this?
How could I make money on this?
And that's that's paid
off in a couple instances.
Whereas a traditional developer who
is trying to do something, they're not
thinking about how to make money on it.
They're just thinking, Oh,
I get to use this cool tech.
And here I'm doing the tech demo, and
it's always very secondary or third
in mind of, oh, this could make money.
How do I make money on this?
And then by then things have failed
Michael Buckbee: I still
struggle with that.
Like there's like, I love the figuring
out, you know, and a lot of these, I
have stalled out after the figuring out
like for extra added SSL, I figured it
out how to make like everything work
at like the command line and then just
got busy and didn't do anything with it
for, I think like five or six months.
Like just didn't do anything with it.
And it was only through like a call
with like a Heroku sales person, like,
I think an account exec there who called
really to like, kind of sell me on it.
And I was like, well, I'm
actually working on this thing.
And he was.
So positive on it.
He encouraged me to like pursue it.
He's like, you should do this.
Cause I talked to Heroku customers
all day and they would love this.
I'm like, well, heck yeah, I should.
So, you know, like that similar
with expedited WAF, like it took
too long to get up and going.
Um, and you know, maybe with WAFers
too, uh, we're, we're trying,
we're pushing real hard at it,
.
I'm getting better is, but I think it's
a, it's a real temptation and maybe
that's even a good thing to tell yourself
when you're starting the project.
Like, is this something you're
actually trying to build to make money
to at least like take that swing?
Or is it something you're trying to
make as a show project for sort of your
portfolio to say like, yeah, I made this.
And I think if you mix those
two, that's kind of a bad idea.
But, you know, going in with clear
eyes is never, never a bad option.
So,
Kevin Griffin: before we wrap up.
I really want you to talk about
your recent visit to rails world
in Amsterdam because you did your.
Like I've said it before, you're, you're
the marketing ninja and you think about
this stuff, I think way differently
than a traditional marketer would.
So let's talk about you
took Wafers to rails world.
And you did some unique things
that I don't think any other
vendor at rails world did.
Can you tell us about that?
Michael Buckbee: Um, yeah, so, so I think
maybe the starting place is, I think
talking to other developers is great.
I think that is legitimately a
good time and something I enjoy.
And if that's not the case for you, this
is not what you should be doing in terms
of, in terms of what I'm about to say.
There's lots of other marketing
stuff that, you know, you can write
articles, you can do other things.
Um, I was, I was delighted to fly to
Amsterdam and spend the time as you
do in Amsterdam, talking to several
hundred software developers, you
know, the highlight of the trip.
So, um, uh, so.
I wrote up a whole piece about
this and sort of like how
we decided to go in things.
But, um, strategically, I
think this put us a year ahead.
Like this accelerated Wafres's growth
a year, at least, um, by going to this.
And so there's sort of a calculation
of like, is this worthwhile?
Is it not?
Um, so Wafres is this
web application firewall.
It works based off Redis.
Our first production client
is for Rails because my co
founder and I, Ryan Castillo.
Uh, both of us are traditional
rails developers that we
both know other languages.
So went to rails world and, uh, the,
I think the big thing we decided was,
well, we can't just go, if we just go
and have like a rinky dink, um, booth,
this is going to be a failure because
people are going to wander up and
kind of go like, why, what is this?
These just two random people.
So, um, the starting point was
how do we get people to the booth?
And so we reached out to the conference
organizers and we talked to them and,
uh, what we lack in funds and what we
lack in like a huge marketing team,
uh, we made up with arts and crafts.
And so what we did was we got
these, uh, I'll put them up here,
but these are stickers that went on
little envelopes for an icebreaker.
And so, so I'm going to see them for
the video, but, uh, it was instructions
to open up this little envelope that
had these different cards in it.
We call it code for insanity.
And so these are sort of
like cards against humanity
cards, but for developers.
So there was one black card
and two white cards in it.
And the instructions were basically go and
make, you know, new friends with people,
ask them what cards they had and mix
and match, uh, it's kind of a fun thing.
And then the last.
Uh, item on the sticker was instructions
that, Hey, stop by the Wafers booth and
you can get a full pack of the cards.
So we had, I think maybe 20
percent of the conference of like
600 people stopped by the booth.
Um, and so that was step one is
how to get people to the booth.
Then step two was how can
we get emails from people?
Um, so, you know, show them a demo,
get their email address, follow up
with them, do those kind of things.
Um, so.
We never want to just
asking for it is weird.
So what we did was a DHH, who's
the founder of rails, the framework
has a Pagani Zonda HH sports car.
Uh, the HH stands for Hannah
Meyer Hanson, his last name.
It is his model car that he bought,
um, from all of his work at base
camp and all the money he's made.
And he races cars and things.
Uh, so we hired a Lego artist in
Amsterdam who makes high end Lego
cars custom for these things.
So he made his very
specific car out of Legos.
And this thing is big.
It was like over a foot long,
maybe eight inches wide.
And modeled the front and
back of it open and stuff.
We had it in like a little display
case cause it was delicate.
It's a Lego sculpture.
It's not really a toy.
Um, and so we had two of those made one
to give to him and one to give away.
And so, um, yeah.
And so that was our thing.
So we had stickers, uh, and then you
wrote your email address on the back
of the sticker, uh, to be entered in
the contest to win this cool Lego car.
And then on it, you wrote demo,
if you wanted us to follow
up and ask for a demo and.
We had a drawing, we
gave it to a nice guy.
It turned out, uh, he was a big
F1 fan and really into racing,
which I thought was nice.
And so we were able to get, you know, a
lot of contacts from that and, you know,
really move that forward now into the
last like week has been nothing but like
trying to follow up with people, trying
to get people in and use the software.
Uh, and things and so we had,
you know, literally my voice is
still kind of messed up from it.
I spoke so much, but literally hundreds
of demos of the application to people
and so much feedback and so much,
you know, goodwill and encouragement.
It was, it was great.
So,
Kevin Griffin: Yeah, that's awesome.
And you talked to us at our
regular lunches about about this.
And I thought it was a good idea then.
And I'm glad to hear that you
guys had success from it because
I've been on the other side of the
spectrum as the cheesy marketer
Developer relations guy at a table.
Just trying to people trying to get
people to drop a business card in for
a chance to win some random Lego that
we picked up in whatever city we're in.
It's I feel like it's more.
It's more personal though.
What you guys did.
You were probably able to youtube.
com.
They didn't come in with the guard on.
And we, as we talked about before,
a lot of developers are just
kind of, they want to shield
themselves from the marketing spiel.
And I think your approach
made it more approachable.
Michael Buckbee: well, again,
it's, you know, I'm, I'm an
actual software developer.
Kevin Griffin: Yeah.
I'm one of you, not in disguise.
Michael Buckbee: Wafers is a business
founded out of the pains of all of this,
like really the, the, the literal pains
that I have seen other developers have,
and it's really, it's really angered me.
I joke about this, like a lot of people
make open source out of like hope and
like working together and positivity.
I'm like, no, this is
anger and revenge for me.
Like, I hate these people that
are like destroying these sites
and making our lives miserable.
Um, so yeah, it's hateware.
So that's, that's our
tagline Wafers is hateware.
So, yeah,
Kevin Griffin: the podcast title.
Michael Buckbee: but you know, it's all,
it's all like the code for insanity.
Like the, the deck of cards, like I
wrote these, like they're all, they're
all developer inside jokes about, you
know, commit messages and stuff and
things, and, you know, all of our, of our
work is, is kind of fits in with that.
Um, so yeah.
Kevin Griffin: Well, Mike.
If there's someone out there listening
that says, I want to be just like
Mike Buckbee, what is a piece of
advice you might have for that person
Michael Buckbee: Um, I certainly think
people should try more stuff and I, and I
think they should try it in a public way.
Um, you know, smaller, more frequent
bets, more stuff you can publish, more
stuff you can point to stack more bricks.
I think it's a great philosophy.
I think also, um, you know, uh,
again, with the, the developers hate
marketing, I think is overblown.
I think they hate the bad stuff.
I think you should have real
conversations with people.
Uh, I think those are invaluable.
Um, I don't know if you
had Adam McCray on yet,
Kevin Griffin: now?
Not yet.
, Michael Buckbee: I'll
spoil a story for Adam.
So Adam is, Adam does not
share my optimism about the
developers and marketing, but
so he sent an email address.
Uh, he runs.
Judo scale, which is an auto scaling
service that works in like render
and Heroku and AWS now, and he is
so reluctant to do marketing stuff,
but he sent an email to his group
and like all of his users, just like
asking for some real basic feedback
and the whole thing was couched.
Like, I know you don't
want to hear from me.
I know this is a huge
imposition on your time.
If you want to unsubscribe, just click
this unsubscribe button right at the top.
But if you could just spend a few minutes,
you know, maybe give me some feedback.
And I think like he got several hundred
responses, like he got enough responses.
I think he had to like shut his phone
off that it was beeping so much.
He got so many.
Email responses from this in return.
And it's because he is
an awesome developer.
He is incredibly authentic with his work.
He makes a useful tool that people
like, and that helps them in life.
Of course.
People would respond, like,
thank you for making this.
I would like to see this other thing.
Like, so yeah, talk to more
people, make more stuff public.
And, uh, I love talking about this stuff.
So if people want to reach out to
me on Twitter, I'm at mbuckbee.
Uh, want to see Wafris?
I'll talk to you about Wafris.
We can talk about this.
Um, yeah, you know, would, would
love to see more developers do more
marketing stuff and have more success.
Kevin Griffin: Well, Mike, thank
you for being on the podcast.
It's been a pleasure to chat with you.
I wish we had more time, but well, now
we have to have you back in a year or so.
And we'll see where Afris is.
And
I'll talk about all the
Michael Buckbee: self employed.
I can keep talking.
I can go as long as you want.
Kevin Griffin: Well, we'll do part two.
We'll put it on the calendar.
All right, Mike.
Thank you so much.
And we'll see everyone next time.
Michael Buckbee: All right.
Thank you, Kevin.
Bye.