Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Interviewing indie founders about their journey and their products. itslaunchday.com
Dagobert Renouf (00:00.526)
Cool man, so... Hello Harold, know, nice to meet you.
Harold Bracy (00:05.297)
Yeah, nice to meet you too. Dago, I think it is, right? Yeah? Okay. Yeah, I was just telling, we were just talking earlier about how insane it is to actually see you, at least digitally, which I don't know if that counts for much, but...
Dagobert Renouf (00:08.119)
Dago, yeah, dago, yeah. And I...
Dagobert Renouf (00:19.274)
It does. Where are you located?
Harold Bracy (00:22.683)
I'm in Maine actually, but I just moved here with my family. I grew up here in Maine, but I actually just moved here with my family after we lived in Columbia for four years. So we had our kid in Columbia, we got married in Columbia, started businesses in Columbia. But now we're Americans, trying to get fully assimilated.
Dagobert Renouf (00:24.471)
Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (00:32.942)
Okay well.
Dagobert Renouf (00:43.618)
So where you come from if you're not Americans?
Harold Bracy (00:46.565)
Well, so I'm American, I grew up here, but my wife isn't. She's Colombian. And then my son was born in Colombia.
Dagobert Renouf (00:51.827)
when you said Colombia I thought like state or city in US.
Harold Bracy (00:55.421)
No, Colombian, like Colombia, Colombia, yeah. Colombia, right? That'll make it more clear. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so our son just turned four years old. but so he's more American now than he is Colombian, but, he was born there and we just had a new son, right? Who was fully born here. So it actually, something that really bothers me is my son, because in Colombia, the way they do it is this Spanish speakers.
Dagobert Renouf (00:59.374)
Okay, yeah, you should have said that. Okay, cool. Awesome.
Congratulations.
Harold Bracy (01:22.449)
have two last names. have the mother's, they have the father's last name and then they have the mother's last name, right? That's why Spanish speakers always have this really long name, you know, like Jorge, Menden, like all of these things, right? And so our new son actually only has one last name, my last name, Diomero, in normal way. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (01:25.697)
Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (01:34.904)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (01:41.198)
Yeah, you got it. Yeah, we still have something. They didn't take it from us. We still have something. Yeah. Okay, cool. Wow. And so just before this call, there's something that's in my mind because you I mean, just before we started recording, you congratulated me because I just announced on Twitter that I got engaged and you congratulated me and you said that you're all about love and that's the product you're going to show today. And I'm like,
That's interesting. That's an interesting thing to say. before showing your product, I'd be curious to know what do you mean by that and how did you become an indie maker? What's your story? Because that's intriguing to me.
Harold Bracy (02:26.673)
okay, so I grew up with deaf parents. Okay, so my parents are deaf. They can't hear. Not deaf, as in dead. Because people often think that. No, deaf, as in they can't hear. that had a great impact on me because I was always, I had a very quick childhood where I had to quickly learn how to interpret for my parents. So I had to interpret the doctors or the plumbers or all of these things. So I very quickly became an adult in that fashion. Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (02:32.96)
Okay. Yeah, okay.
Harold Bracy (02:56.283)
And then that was actually one of the ways that I was able to get into a good school, you know, an Ivy League school, whatever, when I graduated high school, I was able to get into a nice school. And then while in school, I went to a place that really enabled me to do two things and enabled me to learn computer science. And then it enabled me to learn languages. So I was able to learn a bunch of different languages. I learned Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese. I hitchhiked China.
I walked across Spain and all of those things. I learned Russian, but I can't speak Russian really. But at some point I was fluent in five different languages. And also during that time I was just making apps and stuff because I wanted to make money and I wanted to be like cool and everybody else is doing this thing. And also I like building all of those things like Legos and everything. And my dad was a builder. We actually just built a chicken coop.
Dagobert Renouf (03:43.863)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (03:52.753)
And it's really nice being able to build something with your hands. And it's sort of the same actual mentality when you're building a chicken coop or building a house or whatever it is, laying down concrete, whatever it is, it's actually very similar in at least the mental processing is very similar when you're building an app or something. It's like you're putting together pieces that other people have already built. Like I didn't make this nail, I didn't make this screw, I didn't make this drill, but I'm using these tools to put something together. the final product is...
Dagobert Renouf (04:10.136)
Yeah, I see.
Dagobert Renouf (04:19.274)
And I hope you didn't build your own authentication for your app.
Harold Bracy (04:22.907)
Yeah, build your own authentication.
Dagobert Renouf (04:28.952)
So, okay, so you have all these, quite interesting, so you have like, kind of like, like a generalist brain, not generalist, but like you're able to do a lot of things. learn, it seems you learn quite quickly because of your childhood. You have a way to adapt and identify things and learn. Okay, and so you went to study and everything, and so you just started building right away, like in the hacking right away, like how...
Harold Bracy (04:40.175)
Yeah, yeah, definitely generalist. I'm definitely a generalist.
Harold Bracy (04:46.723)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so...
Harold Bracy (04:54.821)
Yeah, exactly. So I think the first thing I built was something called Quick Talk, which was this stupid app where you could go onto a website and then just instantly talk to someone else. And the idea was you would both choose a language and then you would speak in that language. So that was one for learning languages. And then another app I made was called Lingo Amigo, where you would learn whatever language you wanted via WhatsApp.
Dagobert Renouf (05:07.683)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (05:24.241)
with an AI chatbot. So you would message this AI chatbot, and that actually took off. But the problem with that is that people don't really want to pay much for that type of stuff.
Dagobert Renouf (05:32.814)
I was going to say, yeah, it took off, it's consumer and maybe even not adults. So it's going to be a nightmare. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (05:36.316)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (05:40.301)
True, actually, yeah. did have like lots of young and I was like, don't talk to me. And then it just, I just like abandoned it, you know? And like there are other projects I've done. Another one is called VidWiz. That's probably been my most successful product, you know, that's like making AI shorts and stuff. But the problem with VidWiz is it's actually really something I'm not motivated to build. It's something that's actually made me some good money.
Dagobert Renouf (05:49.826)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (06:03.96)
Yeah, that's a big part.
Harold Bracy (06:06.087)
but I don't really believe in at least AI shorts, you know? And like, again, a lot of these people are kids that are watching these things, you know? And I don't believe in that. think screens are bad, and I think right now what we're going through is a collective addiction. Our entire society has become a group of addicts, and we need to go through like a 12-step program where we get off of screens. Our phones, and people talk about social media, but...
Dagobert Renouf (06:19.704)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (06:26.764)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (06:30.413)
Yeah, yeah.
Harold Bracy (06:33.341)
get off our phones, get off our screens, you know, it started with TV, all of these things, it's just destructive to our mentality. And that's actually literally the reason why I built what we're going to talk about today, which is Star Stories, which is, you know, a book for kids where they feature in the book. So you upload your kid's photo or you upload your family's photo. So a picture of you, your wife, your kids, and this AI generates literally a children's book.
Dagobert Renouf (06:45.868)
Yeah, go ahead, pitch it.
Harold Bracy (07:03.409)
featuring you guys, where you guys go out and save a planet or go out and into the jungle or whatever it is. And like, I have actually physical books here. So I think the, like these are real physical books. And so you can see here, this one actually doesn't look like me. And that's because I wrote a description. So you don't have to upload pictures of your kids if you don't want to, you can just write a description. And that's what I did for here. But for these two, I actually did upload pictures of my kid.
Dagobert Renouf (07:07.568)
wow.
Dagobert Renouf (07:13.592)
Holy shit. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (07:32.345)
and to my wife and our little newborn right there who's not in there anymore. But I actually did upload and it looks exactly like them. So that's the back cover. And like this is entirely, you can totally customize it, the whole thing.
Dagobert Renouf (07:35.48)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.
Dagobert Renouf (07:50.99)
So show us the, wow, really impressive, show us the app now. So how do you get to these results? Because I imagine it will be quite easy, but then you can customize, but I'm curious.
Harold Bracy (07:58.461)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (08:04.379)
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I'll share my screen. Am I sharing my screen or? No, okay.
Dagobert Renouf (08:08.87)
Not yet.
Harold Bracy (08:13.405)
you
Harold Bracy (08:17.245)
Okay, cool. So I'll just start with another example so you can see it up close. So this one here, you can see this looks a little bit more like me. I think maybe I took the picture when I had more of a beard or something, but... like this...
Dagobert Renouf (08:26.05)
Mm-hmm.
Dagobert Renouf (08:31.616)
No, it's fine. It looks good. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (08:34.767)
Yeah, so like, in the light of the morning sun, Dad steered the big blue moving truck down a cute quiet street. Okay, and you can see here. And, you know, it's a children's book. And the way it works is you're able to go through these pages, and then if you see something you don't like, like here, for example, sometimes AI will make mistakes and you have to account for that. You just go in there and then edit the page. So like here, you can see there's another woman there. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to, whoops.
Okay, there we go. Of course, these things always happen when you're demoing the product. But here you go. So you can see there, you can just remove the lady, okay, and then apply your changes, remove what's in the selected area. You can replace it with something else if you want, but I'm just gonna remove it.
Dagobert Renouf (09:11.232)
Yeah, yeah, you're very brave of doing it live, so respect to you.
Dagobert Renouf (09:27.175)
nice. hopefully I was thinking, hopefully it's not going to be replaced by a penguin or something. We'll see.
Harold Bracy (09:33.829)
Yeah, well you could do that if you want. That was a problem I had, but my buddy who actually bought one of these, he said like I should add this in here. And I guess it did add. It did add some in there. Okay. Yeah, but this, this should work. I mean, you can try it many, many times. You know, let me try it one more time. Apply your changes. Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (09:45.102)
He did, he did. Now there's just a creepy guy observing your family. But you know, yeah.
No, no, for sure, for sure, yeah, It's how AI works. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (10:08.411)
And so you don't just edit the... wow, this is happening. Okay, well I'll...
Dagobert Renouf (10:14.688)
It's okay, we get it. It looks like a reflection in the mirror. It's less, yeah, we'll say that. But we get, know, it's AI. You have to do a few times.
Harold Bracy (10:18.139)
Sure, okay. You can also edit the... Yeah, you can also edit the text here. And like the thing I like about this is you have total control over the book, you know? Because maybe you don't like a lot of the books out there. You know, we'll go to the library. I remember my wife brought back home a book one time and I was like, I'm not okay with this book, you know? And she was like, wow, yeah, I agree.
Dagobert Renouf (10:26.328)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (10:41.582)
Okay.
Harold Bracy (10:44.067)
And so, like, you have total control over this book. This is gonna be your book. This is not gonna be someone else's book. This is gonna be your family's book that you can put up on the bookshelf and show your friends, right? And just enjoy as a family. But yeah, to show you how to actually get here. So this is an account that already has a character. So here it already has Teddy. So... So I'll show you...
Dagobert Renouf (11:08.278)
And how did you create telly? Did you upload pictures, add some information?
Harold Bracy (11:12.121)
Yeah, actually here, create a new character. Here we go. So I'll add Paola. Paola. And then you just select a photo.
Let me find Paola's photo.
Harold Bracy (11:39.125)
this is not the right thing.
Harold Bracy (11:49.703)
This ends up being the most difficult part, is just finding images. Paola pregnant. Here you go. So this is a beautiful picture of her at our baby shower. And so you just wait a moment here. I should actually probably even get rid of this analyzing image step, because it doesn't really do much. You just continue. And then that's it. And then you can add another character. I already uploaded Teddy, so I'll add Teddy too. So now it's Paola and Teddy. And then add any more characters? OK, now let's continue to the next step.
Dagobert Renouf (11:52.206)
Yeah, yeah, wow, okay. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (12:11.041)
I see.
Harold Bracy (12:19.695)
And then, you know, we can choose whatever we want here out of themes, you know, so choose your child's adventure. These are just examples that I've generated for my family, you know. So.
Dagobert Renouf (12:24.619)
I see.
Dagobert Renouf (12:30.87)
So in that case, yeah, it's a bit confusing because you just picked two characters, but that's not related to what we see. everybody sees these images because it's just examples.
Harold Bracy (12:35.548)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (12:39.707)
Yeah, everybody sees these images. Yeah, I tried to make it say example. Maybe I should make it say more prominently example or something.
Dagobert Renouf (12:45.718)
No, it's clear, but it's because since it's you right now presenting it, it's like, you know, but okay, so it's fine.
Harold Bracy (12:49.88)
Okay, let's do maybe Teddy's Superpower Morning or something. And this does take a while to generate. So it takes maybe about 15 to 20 minutes. You'll get an email after you, like when it's generated anyway. So you can just leave the page, you can just do whatever you want, you know? But like we can go over here, you know, and this is one of the examples, or like Teddy's first day at school, you know? There are all sorts of...
Dagobert Renouf (12:57.411)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (13:04.845)
Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (13:10.54)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (13:21.194)
And I see we can, I guess, buy the book or download the book. So it seems quite open options.
Harold Bracy (13:24.637)
Yeah, so once you're done editing the book, once you're done doing all of these things, you can just click Send Me My Book or Export PDF. So send me my book. It's completely free, but shipping is only available within the USA. The shipping cost, the physical book is all included in the price of $39. So the $39 covers the generation of the book, all of the editing.
Dagobert Renouf (13:45.568)
I see.
Harold Bracy (13:49.853)
And then it covers the shipping and the actual physical book so it covers totally everything here And the idea is for you to get a physical book right the idea you can export a PDF and Like just show the PDF or something or maybe even print the PDF on your own if you want
Dagobert Renouf (14:03.286)
Or maybe you do that just to show your family to have validated or something before printing.
Harold Bracy (14:07.173)
Yeah, exactly, if you want. But really the idea is like to do a physical book because again, it's not good for kids to be in this digitalized world. You know, I see it in my own life where my kids will go to my parents' house or something and they'll watch TV and my son will come back angry, you know, because he's been deprived of something. If you give an addict a drug and then you take the drug away, what's he gonna do? He's gonna freak out, you know? It's just not healthy.
Dagobert Renouf (14:33.57)
Yeah, I see. I see, I see. Yeah. It's interesting because when AI started to go big a couple years ago, I was thinking it's going to open such a market if you go the opposite way. If you go physical, if you go local, if you go human made. What I think is interesting is you mix two, like you mix technology with old school, you know, non-tech, like, you know, book.
Harold Bracy (15:01.745)
Right. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (15:02.752)
with AI. So it's an interesting take.
Harold Bracy (15:06.331)
Yeah, well you know, I have actually seen, the other day my wife brought back a cup, like a coffee cup, no, a water bottle from the local store. And she was like, look at the wrapping for the bottle. She said, it's AI generated. I was like, what? Cause it had like dinosaurs on it, it was for our son. And I looked at it, I was like, nah, this isn't AI generated, this seems legit, you know? And she was like, no, no, look at the leg. And I saw that the dinosaur had an extra leg. And I was like, this is AI generated.
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (15:37.368)
Yeah, it's everywhere now. I wonder what's going to happen with that.
Harold Bracy (15:44.669)
You wonder what's going to happen with what?
Dagobert Renouf (15:48.93)
You know, it's more like as an entrepreneur, I'm like...
Dagobert Renouf (15:55.882)
What's the direction? Like, what's the direction? Like, is it mix of AI and books, or is it fully manual, like an actual artist drawing it in the end? Or is it fully, like, digital? And in the end, you know, I'm just curious, you know, what the market...
Harold Bracy (16:15.303)
I think it's fully digital. I think the market, the way it's going is this stuff is so addictive. And you know, there are some AI videos, like Didwizz for example, there are some AI videos that are really good and are entertaining. And you go into that and we're always on our screens and I don't see that really reversing anytime soon.
Dagobert Renouf (16:35.075)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (16:35.365)
You know, even despite the physical books and stuff, although I do see people of my generation, parents about my age. I know I'm bald and stuff, but I'm only 28. parents of my age, they're definitely moving against the phones for their kids. You know, I see the older generation, maybe Gen X or something. They have their kids with iPads and iPhones at the table. it's so bad.
Dagobert Renouf (16:51.512)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (16:57.644)
Yeah, it scares me, yeah, it scares me. mean, that said, I'm 36, but I was raised with just, I was spending 14 hours a day playing video games for years. Nothing else.
Harold Bracy (17:09.243)
Yeah, me too. Me too. But was that good? Was that good for you?
Dagobert Renouf (17:15.04)
I'm not mad, I'm not complaining. You know if I'm being honest, I'm not complaining about it.
Harold Bracy (17:16.381)
Yeah, but what did you learn to be like a violinist or something? You know, like there are kids that actually did that,
Dagobert Renouf (17:23.214)
Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. But also it's interesting, it's not like we, I think we were like a specific generation because like I see kids from a friend of mine, he's like 13 this kid and...
Like 15 years ago, we all thought, they're going to be so good with technology because they are born with iPads. But he doesn't get shit. He doesn't know how to fucking print a piece of paper. He doesn't know to do shit because
Harold Bracy (17:43.897)
No. They're done with technology.
Harold Bracy (17:49.605)
It's just an entertainment device.
Dagobert Renouf (17:52.302)
Exactly, but what I was saying is like our generation, know, kind of like a 15 year period or 20 year period of people who are obsessed with computers and good at it. And I don't think the future kids will be even the kids now will be good at it. And the previous ones aren't good at it. And so that's kind of interesting. But like you nailed it. Like, you know, it's like an entertainment device for them.
Harold Bracy (17:56.593)
Mm.
Harold Bracy (18:12.421)
Maybe, I'm not sure.
Harold Bracy (18:16.635)
Yeah, yeah. Well, so the AI does add stuff because cursor and like nowadays you can just wish a product out of existence basically. But like at the end of the day, it is an entertainment device and I think we get confused in this argument. Like is it a tool or like what is it? Like it's useful, you know, like my kid knows all about dinosaurs now and you know, because he watches YouTube 18 hours a day. It's like, okay, your kid knows about dinosaurs because he's been watching YouTube videos for 18 hours a day. That's an addiction. Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (18:45.102)
Yeah, that's too much.
Harold Bracy (18:46.589)
about dinosaurs by reading a book, okay? Like, that's not an addiction.
Dagobert Renouf (18:48.686)
Yeah, I see, I I see your passion about it. And I feel like when we are like, if it's ourselves, we are less willing to stop. But I guess when it's for your children, you're like, my God, like the addiction becomes, you know, it's like.
Harold Bracy (19:02.787)
yeah, yeah. But like, yeah, I want to give parents credit in this because I have definitely fallen in the trap in my life with my kids where I'm like, my gosh, Teddy, just leave us alone. We're trying to do something. We're busy. And we actually don't have a TV in our house. But when we were with my parents, you know, for a little bit, we would be like, do you want to just put on some TV for Teddy and just have him watch TV? And like, yes, please.
Dagobert Renouf (19:29.504)
Just an hour of letting the TV be the nanny for one hour, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (19:33.597)
Yes, babysitting. Yeah, and it's so easy and it's just the best babysitter because you just put it on, the kid's locked in, not moving, you don't have to worry about him, you can go off and do whatever you want. It doesn't even blink, right? And like, now you have that for phones and so I understand why parents do it and it's because they want a babysitter.
Dagobert Renouf (19:47.106)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (19:55.133)
That's why they do it. Like that's why you go to a restaurant and they're like, just want to eat, we just need some rest, take the iPad, play your video games. And like, that's not good, you know? Like we don't have a TV in our house. We watch a movie max like once a week or something on my wife's computer. And like the long term is way better because Teddy will be like, let's play Legos. And he's able to put together Legos for like eight or 11 year olds and he's four.
Dagobert Renouf (19:56.108)
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Dagobert Renouf (20:05.089)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (20:25.097)
just turned four yesterday. Okay? And he's able to look at the instructions because he did it with me and I read to him every night to bed and it's so easy. I just read him one book. I tell him, Teddy, just one book. I read him the book. I'm like, it's done. I shut off the lights and then that's it, you know?
Dagobert Renouf (20:26.368)
Yeah, I see. I see. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (20:42.134)
And so now it makes me curious, like how do you balance family, indie hiking, how are you making money, like how is this all working out?
Harold Bracy (20:51.249)
Well, so I have a full-time job, so that's the main thing. That's why I spend most of my time. I work at home, I close the door, and I lock in on my full-time job, and then Teddy comes in, bothers me, and I'm like, Teddy, I'm busy. He's like, Dada, play with me, play with me. I'm like, Teddy, go play outside, you know, like, you can do it. And he does. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (20:54.392)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (21:01.646)
I see.
Dagobert Renouf (21:11.096)
But I guess it's harder because it used to be easier if you're just not here. But now with remote work, it must be a bit harder for them to understand.
Harold Bracy (21:19.439)
Yeah, I gotta install a lock on my door or something.
Dagobert Renouf (21:22.964)
Yeah, yeah, no, I get it, but that must be a bit hard to understand. Wow, I didn't think of it.
Harold Bracy (21:25.501)
Well, my wife is also a stay at home mom, you know, so she's able to just take control, but we have a newborn. You know, being a parent isn't easy, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. And being a parent is definitely the best thing, highest reward thing you can do. And I'll just, you you're an entrepreneur, your audience is probably an entrepreneur and all of that. I'll just say that...
Dagobert Renouf (21:30.262)
Yeah, and he got to learn that. Yeah, for sure. Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (21:35.693)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (21:39.534)
good point.
Harold Bracy (21:51.777)
None of the businesses you make are gonna last 80 to 100 years. Like even the best... Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, of course you are. Everybody is. Everybody is. But most businesses, even like the very top businesses, you know, they only last like, even the best, like best kids, they last like 50 years and that's like, whoa, you know? That's like a generational company there. It's like 50 years, you know? But a kid...
Dagobert Renouf (21:57.154)
Maybe, maybe, I'm gonna be the counter argument, it's possible.
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (22:10.978)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Harold Bracy (22:18.573)
you know, let's pray to God, everything goes well, you know, but a kid's going to last 80 to 100 years. And not only that, you're going to get grandchildren out of them. And that's going to go off into centuries. And like you and me, we're products of an evolutionary process of what is it? 4 billion years. You know, that's our heritage, you know, and that comes from, parenting essentially, you know, that comes from reproduction and that's our heritage. And that's the heritage that you're going to pass down by being a parent, you know, that's like a remarkable thing. And so.
Dagobert Renouf (22:38.21)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (22:48.447)
So, yeah, parenting is hard, but it's probably the most high leverage, most rewarding thing you can do as a human being. And that's not to say everybody needs to be a parent, it's not to say, like, okay, if you're not a parent, but it's very important, it's a fundamental part of being a human.
Dagobert Renouf (23:05.4)
Yeah, yeah, I've always wanted that and I think, you I will get on it soon. If I can say that. Yeah, but yeah, it's interesting to me. There was a fear I had for a long time that I still have a little bit. I guess now I really found the right person, so I feel safe with it. But it's like.
Harold Bracy (23:11.933)
You've got to get to work.
Dagobert Renouf (23:30.606)
I'm afraid sometimes some people use it as an excuse to not do things. Like you do kids because it's, I mean it's beautiful, but it's also like, if you have kids, then you don't have to do something else with your life, kind of. It is a part of it that scares me. Like once you have kids, then okay, you don't have to...
you know, make something amazing with your life. I mean, outside of family, which I would agree is amazing. But like, I don't know, there's something about... And you see some people do it, they do both. They do like amazing in business and they have kids and it doesn't make them shit. mean, often they're also shitty parents, but I guess you can, there's probably a way to figure it out. But you know, there's something like that where it used to scare me a lot of like, yeah, but like...
What about my goals and everything, you know, so.
Harold Bracy (24:26.321)
Well, it's because it's true. Your goals don't matter in the face of your children, because the children are just way more important. So your fears are well-placed, but you have to look at it from just...
Dagobert Renouf (24:30.71)
I guess yeah. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (24:38.073)
even a higher level than that is like, how important are my personal goals compared to the goals of my family and my wellbeing and my happiness? And like when you look into your son's eyes, it's like, when you're playing with your son in the grass or all of these things, these are way more rewarding, I think, than pretty much anything else you could do. So you're right that like it is actually an excuse.
Dagobert Renouf (24:46.349)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (25:01.772)
Yeah. How much how much MRR how much MRR is it worth?
Harold Bracy (25:06.981)
Yeah, how much MRR and all of these things. And you know, actually it's funny because our movie of the week last night was watching The Hobbit, the last movie of The Hobbit. And at the end of the movie, Thor and Oakenshield dies. Okay, spoiler alert.
Dagobert Renouf (25:16.302)
Cool.
Dagobert Renouf (25:19.766)
but you're quite nice with your kids, because one movie is like 4 hours, so you're quite generous in terms of movie.
Harold Bracy (25:24.285)
Yeah, right. Well, yeah, it was like two and half hours. But so Thorin Oakenshield, Thorin Oakenshield dies at the end, but before he dies, he tells Bilbo Baggins something along the lines of, your love of home should be stronger than your love of gold.
You know, and so this is something we already have embedded in our society. This is in our children's stories. This is in our mother goose books that, know, it's in our children's books. Right. So we already have the morals there. It's in our religions and everything that like money. It's important. You need it. It's useful. All of these things. But at the end of the day, you have to think about, okay, what about my family? What about God? What about my country? All of these other things that are very important as well that go beyond just the economy or go beyond just
Dagobert Renouf (25:48.472)
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (26:10.126)
And I guess what's interesting when you have kids, seems from hearing you is that, because like when you live without kids in the adult business world, you disconnect from that. And so you start focusing way more on the material side of things. But with kids, it reconnects you to these basic fundamental things. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (26:10.681)
material.
Harold Bracy (26:23.215)
yeah.
Harold Bracy (26:26.461)
you
Harold Bracy (26:31.835)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I guess it's really cliche and like, don't really, but I'll just say it. Like when I look into my son's eyes or my children's eyes, what you see is like, it's just overwhelming love, right? And it's almost like you're looking into the eyes of God, you know? You're looking into the eyes of something greater, you know? And you don't get that if you're just like,
you know, a twenty-something in New York City, whatever, and that's fine, you know, I'm not saying don't do that, that's an important step in your life, is you need to go be a yuppie and go be single and go do all these things, that's good, but we don't want to forget that later on at some point there doesn't need to be a time when you go to a different stage of your life. And it's funny because there's this famous quote which is from Winston Churchill, he says something along the lines, if when you're young you should be liberal, and if you're not liberal, sorry,
If you're not liberal when you're young, you have no heart. And if you're not conservative when you're old, you have no brain. And so he says that there's a progression there. And the progression, think a vital step in that progression is having kids. Because the moment you have kids, that's when you're like, like this totally changes.
Dagobert Renouf (27:33.303)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (27:38.798)
Yeah, I see. Safety, protection, stability instead of... Yeah.
Harold Bracy (27:43.951)
Yes, exactly. And it's like we go against that for good reason many times, know, definitely. But that's actually for the kids to do. You know, that's for the kids to go and take the risks. And we're supposed to be the stable parents there. And then the old farts, you know, eventually become old farts and all of these things.
Dagobert Renouf (27:52.877)
Yeah, yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (27:58.388)
I see, I see.
Harold Bracy (28:03.901)
That's the that's the purpose. That's the balance there between the parent and the child and Another thing there is like authority right like the moment you have kids you're like, okay. I'm the boss You're not the boss You know, yeah, I tell Teddy all the time. I'm like, I'm the boss. You're not the boss and he's like I'm like, are you the boss? He's like, no, I'm not the boss. Like there you go. You see I'm the boss and like as maybe you reach like you're a teenager or something you say no, they're like bosses are stupid
Dagobert Renouf (28:04.12)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (28:15.639)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (28:27.19)
Yes, yes, yes.
Harold Bracy (28:33.855)
You know, fuck bosses, like authorities are- authority is stupid and all of these things. But you're not gonna say that when you're a dad or a mom, right? You're not gonna say bosses are stupid because now you're the boss.
Dagobert Renouf (28:45.294)
I will see what happens to me, but I think it's very hard for me to not say that. I'm gonna say, yeah. That bosses are bad, you know, like, you know, yeah.
Harold Bracy (28:50.045)
What to not say the I like Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's that's another thing is like bosses in the company sense like business sense is totally divorced from actual authority right like true authority like having power and having authority or two different things right like
Dagobert Renouf (29:10.392)
Yep.
Harold Bracy (29:11.237)
Like the state has way more power than me, let's say. The government has way more power than me. But as far as my family goes, I'm the one that has authority, because it's my family, it's my blood, right? These are two different things. And so maybe in the business world and stuff, yeah, he's my boss, and he has power over me because he can fire me and stuff. But like...
Dagobert Renouf (29:21.932)
Yeah, I see, I see.
Harold Bracy (29:34.331)
does he actually, like where does his authority come from? And it comes from, you know, money, comes from shareholders, it comes from all of these, and then once you go up the chain, you're like, actually, he's just another human being. His authority really isn't, you know, vested in anything true. Yeah, exactly.
Dagobert Renouf (29:49.26)
Yeah, happens a lot. Yeah, yeah. That's why we hate our bosses, because they have fake authority and it's not, you know, yeah.
Harold Bracy (29:54.877)
Yes, yes, exactly. But the bosses we love are the ones that have true authority and their authority tends to come from below. Their authority tends to come from like their employees love them and they're in the trenches. I have a great boss.
Dagobert Renouf (29:59.522)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (30:07.778)
Yeah, they earn trust. they're legit and everything. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (30:11.715)
Yeah, like I have a great boss at my full-time job and he's like that. He's like, we're in the trenches together. So he has true authority, you know, and that's a good boss. You know, so I think the balance between knowing the difference between authority and power really makes a good leader, you know, because then you understand, okay, just because I'm powerful doesn't mean I can abuse it or anything because I will lose that power over time because, you know, like you said, I won't have people that want to work for me.
Dagobert Renouf (30:18.284)
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Dagobert Renouf (30:40.684)
Yeah, no, and I see the relationship of like, you know, raising kids and everything. So yeah, man, we have to wrap it up. We have to, you know, so I want to wish you good luck with this launch day. I really hope, you know, it's going to bring you some sales for your product.
Harold Bracy (30:45.167)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (30:58.787)
Yeah, you know, we'll see. I I haven't marketed it at all. Like, I have given it to a couple friends. So I gave it to my buddy and he bought it. I gave it to a bunch of friends and one person bought it. And then I put it on my Twitter bio and then I had some traffic, but that's it. I haven't done any marketing. I was gonna do some marketing today, I think, like on Reddit and stuff or like whatever.
Dagobert Renouf (31:04.374)
And it's not, is it launched or did you have sales already?
Dagobert Renouf (31:18.7)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (31:25.991)
You know, just like, cause I don't wanna do the whole ads just because this is more of a labor of love, you know? And if it doesn't really make a lot of money, that's fine because I'm gonna have this thing to show people and like, hey, did you see this? And like, you can make this for your kids.
Dagobert Renouf (31:39.458)
That could be cool maybe to put on Reddit also, like the pictures of the book or you, like with the book, because like the physical thing, it's everything. I think you should lead with that all the time, like this physical thing. It completely changes the conversation. No, I'm not kidding, because otherwise it's just like AI generator and it's not clear what it is, but if it's a book, physical in your hands, it changes everything, I think, yeah.
Harold Bracy (31:44.241)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (31:48.784)
Really.
Okay.
Really?
Harold Bracy (32:07.163)
You know, that's a good point. I had never actually thought about it that way. I think you're totally right. Because for me personally, it's like, okay, at the end of the day, I want to give a book to my kid.
Dagobert Renouf (32:16.726)
Yeah, focus on the book, like your landing page should be pictures of the book, multiple books, it's just like book, book, book. That's what I would do, yeah.
Harold Bracy (32:23.421)
Okay, do you want, wait, hold on. Here's my landing page.
Dagobert Renouf (32:27.257)
Yeah, let's work on the landing page.
Harold Bracy (32:29.597)
So like, I don't know what you think about this, Sparklelight. So that's me. Maybe? you don't see this? hold on.
Dagobert Renouf (32:34.018)
I'm not seeing your screen yet.
Harold Bracy (32:41.243)
You still have time, Okay. So like...
Dagobert Renouf (32:42.838)
Yeah, a few minutes here.
Yeah, I like the picture of the kid.
Harold Bracy (32:49.883)
Yeah, so Teddy, he's super cute there, right? And then, but I guess...
Dagobert Renouf (32:53.848)
But he should just be holding the book. Yeah, okay.
Harold Bracy (32:57.071)
Yeah, that's what I have here. That's what I have here, but it should be like, this should be bigger, right? This should be more prominent.
Dagobert Renouf (33:03.284)
And maybe it should be the first thing we see, I think. I'm not sure, I'm just saying, lead with what's different, you know, because if you lead with Ghibli-style images, it doesn't seem that different.
Harold Bracy (33:06.512)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (33:15.333)
Right, right. I think you're right. That's a good point. So like, yeah, I mean, he could be holding this book and it's sort of obvious that that's him, right? Yeah, and then it could say like, that's me right there.
Dagobert Renouf (33:20.365)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (33:25.336)
Yeah, exactly,
And if we're in a roasting phase, maybe less ambiguous header, because Spark a lifelong love of reading, it doesn't tell me anything basically, if I'm just like completely roasting you. But yeah.
Harold Bracy (33:45.541)
Right. Yeah, OK. I see. Sparkle. OK. I mean, I have the example book here, I suppose. Do you think that example book should go first or the demo should go first?
Dagobert Renouf (33:57.42)
No, demo doesn't matter. Demo is just how you get to the goal. You should lead with the goal, like what we're gonna get at the end. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (34:02.885)
Yeah, you're totally right, Thank you.
Dagobert Renouf (34:09.164)
That's giving me an idea for these interviews, maybe it should be some roast in it, that would be fun. Okay, anyway.
Harold Bracy (34:15.211)
yeah, well, you know, I saw one person make a lot of money roasting landing pages. I mean, I'm sure that happens a lot. Who? No, it was like, yeah, maybe it was, yeah, maybe something like that. Ollie? Yeah. There was a couple people that...
Dagobert Renouf (34:20.448)
Yeah, Oli, Oli I think this guy is, yeah, yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (34:26.218)
Oli? Yeah.
But yeah, there's a couple of people who made money with that. No, I mean, just as part of the launch day, because I don't feel good roasting people before I'm very successful myself. So I don't want to lead into that too much. I don't think that's fair. You know, to be like, yeah, this is how you should do it. And I want to be like more successful before I do that. I had some success.
Harold Bracy (34:32.689)
Yeah.
Harold Bracy (34:51.099)
Well, hold on. First of all, you have how many followers on Twitter?
Dagobert Renouf (34:54.7)
No but followers is not success, followers is just...
Harold Bracy (34:56.637)
You're right, okay? You're totally right, because... Yes.
Dagobert Renouf (34:59.886)
Followers says I'm good at Twitter, which I am. So I have a course about Twitter. This is legit. And I think I'm very good at writing copy, copywriting and everything. But, I want at least 10K MMR with a product before I start telling people this is how you should build your product. I think that's more ethical.
Harold Bracy (35:05.24)
okay, okay.
Harold Bracy (35:17.509)
Interesting.
Yeah, I mean, I agree, you know, as entrepreneurs, we're definitely more walk the walk than talk the talk, you know? You don't want the dog to just be barking all the time, you actually want it to bite. But at the same time, I think you actually did just give me really good advice.
Dagobert Renouf (35:31.619)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (35:36.206)
I hope, I really hope, you I would like you to try and see if it works on people.
Harold Bracy (35:42.077)
Yeah, well, and then another aspect on how, like, if we're getting into launch day and everything, I don't know how much time you have till. Do you have till nine? Oh, five minutes. Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (35:46.232)
Yeah. Just like, let's say five minutes here, because it's basically with, I still have, yeah.
Harold Bracy (35:53.221)
Okay, getting into Launch Day and all of that. I mean, maybe try podcasts and stuff. I know these videos don't get many views, like I looked on the thing, but maybe at some point they will.
Dagobert Renouf (36:03.222)
Yeah yeah, people started subscribing, like first launch day, 15 subs on YouTube, you know, if I get that every time and it keeps growing, it can add up, we'll see. I'm not sure yet.
Harold Bracy (36:12.699)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, well, and if you look at like the top YouTubers or really upcoming YouTubers, I don't know if you're familiar with Julian Dory. He's another podcaster that's on the up and up. He started out, and he started out like with, you know, one view. like, yeah, I mean everybody starts out like that. So, but like maybe podcasts and stuff, like maybe turn this more into like a podcast type thing. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (36:29.153)
no, for sure, yeah, you know it's not a problem, yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (36:37.568)
I'm thinking about it. I was wondering. I was wondering about it. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (36:40.923)
That's something I would listen to. I mean, it would have to be entertaining, because the key part about a podcast are the guests, right? Like the guest has to be entertaining and engaged, like locked in, you know?
Dagobert Renouf (36:51.318)
I noticed because you know first launch day the people who had the most sales are the people who were the most engaging in video but also I think maybe the reason why they had sales because since they're engaging they already have an audience more than some other people so it's hard to yeah yep
Harold Bracy (37:06.564)
Yeah, so it's hard to know which is which and stuff. But like, anyways, the point there being like, make sure like, you know, make sure you find good guests and stuff. Like, I don't know how many people apply to be on launch day and like pay the 99 dollars.
Dagobert Renouf (37:21.388)
Right now I keep it small because I'm so overwhelmed by the process of managing applications that I kept it small. eventually, yeah, it will be quite a bit. When I had first announced it, I had hundreds, I 250. And so this time I'm making it way less. So it's like kind of hidden on the homepage. I'm not talking about it. So I have way less. also, you know, so I guess the only people who applied are like motivated, which is better.
Harold Bracy (37:27.525)
Yeah. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (37:41.551)
Yeah.
How interesting.
Harold Bracy (37:49.809)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and I'd be curious to see if this round is as engaging as the last round or less or more or something. But that would be the key thing for me, I think, is like focus on the entrepreneur and them and like just hearing their story and just talking about shit, talking about Iran and Israel, know, all of these things. You know, like just be, have an interesting conversation. I think maybe that would help.
Dagobert Renouf (37:50.776)
So yeah. Bye.
Dagobert Renouf (38:09.346)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (38:15.01)
Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, we give each other good advice, I think. So that's a good way to end this. So. Yeah.
Harold Bracy (38:19.933)
I don't know if my advice was any good, but you know take it for what you will.
Dagobert Renouf (38:25.582)
Yeah, that was good to have you,
Harold Bracy (38:27.621)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. Alright, bye bye.