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The gang is all together. Daila, Caleb, and Jonathan discuss going free with OpenHouse.social and updates to property management software.
Show Notes
For the first time, we now have three co-hosts. We discuss what "free" even means and what features we might want to change for OpenHouse.social to make a free tier and we discuss some light upcoming plans for the property management app.
[03:01] What does free mean?
[05:47] Should we make OpenHouse.social free (as in beer)?
[08:53] We still want Caleb as a co-host
[10:48] Back to property management stuff
The Product: OpenHouse.social
[03:01] What does free mean?
[05:47] Should we make OpenHouse.social free (as in beer)?
[08:53] We still want Caleb as a co-host
[10:48] Back to property management stuff
The Product: OpenHouse.social
Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com
Twitter: @twostoryrobot
Instagram: @therobotfactorypod
The Product: OpenHouse.social
Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com
Twitter: @twostoryrobot
Instagram: @therobotfactorypod
Follow Jonathan: @thejonotron
Follow Caleb: @calebissharp
Creators & Guests
What is The Robot Factory?
Follow along as we attempt to build and sell a SaaS company. A build in public behind the scenes journey of a small software agency, Two Story Robot, trying something new.
Jonathan: Welcome back to the robot
factory podcast, uh, podcast, where
we record ourselves, trying to build
and launch and sell some software.
I'm one of your hosts, Jonathan
Bowers and my two co-hosts.
Finally
Caleb: time ever.
Jonathan: for the first time ever
is Daila Duford and Caleb Sharp are,
wait, introduce yourselves, right?
And then who who's
Caleb: goes
Daila: Oh, I'm Dayla.
Caleb: I'm Caleb.
Hi.
Yeah, we're gonna need an order for this,
Jonathan: I know.
Okay.
We'll we'll alternate.
welcome back, Caleb, who is unfortunately,
still a little under the weather.
Um, how many negative COVID tests?
Caleb: three.
So I probably have
Jonathan: tests.
So yeah, probably COVID is it the one
that you have to go all the way back
to the, I can't remember the name
of it, but the one that goes deep
versus the one that's just a little
Daila: tickle your brain.
Caleb: um, I think it's, it's both.
They have, you can do either
or in the instructions.
I could also just be really bad at doing
that to myself and not going far enough.
Jonathan: are you doing,
are you doing the deep one?
Are you doing the brain tickle?
Caleb: I can't, I can't
tick on my own brain.
It just, it, the, the, like
the like reflex to UNT tickle.
It is too.
It's too
Jonathan: I, I can, I can do it,
but I need Julie to hold my head.
Caleb: Yeah.
Jonathan: uh, Have you done a self, a
Daila: I've never had to
test yet knock on wood ever,
Jonathan: I thought the family had COVID
Daila: like, well, they
all tested positive.
So I was
Jonathan: Oh yeah.
You just like
Daila: I'm just gonna
make that assumption.
And I work from home, but I'd never
leave the house, but Sean's done.
50.
He's so good at tickling his brain now.
Jonathan: Oh my goodness.
Just pop it in there.
And like,
Daila: he's good at
Caleb: Who's this new cohost.
I don't what's
Jonathan: Uh, I have, yeah, I'm the
Caleb: Joe, Joe, Nathan, I
Jonathan: Joe.
Caleb: who is this guy?
Jonathan: I'm trying,
I'm trying something out.
Don't make fun of my mustache.
uh, Zach likes likes it.
He, he thinks it's the cool.
I don't think he thinks it's cool.
I think he thinks it's funny.
Um, so he insists, I keep growing it.
I ask him every time I
shave, if I should keep it.
And he says, keep the mustache dad.
So keep it a mustache
until I get sick of it.
Anyways, welcome back Caleb from,
um, not feeling well, uh, still
not feeling well, unfortunately.
Uh, any, any, what do you
have to say about, uh, having
Daila on as a co-host now?
Daila: Yeah, Caleb,
what do you have to say?
Caleb: my, oh, well, so I listened
to the last episode, um, sort
of paying attention to it.
I was doing other things,
but I thought it was good.
I think Daila, Daila's a good cohost.
Dayla
Jonathan: she's
Caleb: Daila good at good.
At good at podcasting.
Daila: But good answer,
Caleb.
Caleb: We can have, get, have
more like varied discussion.
Jonathan: yes.
Yeah, we can, we can ask for
all the different opinions, I
do want to get to actual topics.
I wanna talk about free for
Caleb: Free as in freedom
or free as in beer.
Jonathan: Free as in beer.
Yeah.
Daila: What.
I miss something
Jonathan: yeah.
So free, free, like free
to speech or free beer.
Caleb: one there's one.
Yeah.
Free is in like it's maybe open
source, but there's also free is you
don't have to pay for it, but sort of
like the difference between, I don't
have any examples, but you get it.
I'm sure.
Daila: I don't.
You just said the exact
same thing twice and
Jonathan: the difference is
so O open source is free.
Um, but it also comes with.
Like a, a guarantee that you can, you
can do certain things with it for free,
Caleb: It's based on licensing.
Like you can have something
that you can access for free.
Like you don't pay money, but
you aren't free to do with it.
What you want.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Caleb: Whereas free is in free speech.
You can do, you can take something
and you can, you can use it for every,
for whatever you want to use it for.
I think like if you had a.
maybe like you had a, a piece of, I
don't know, a picture that you could use
and it was free for you to use, but you
couldn't use it for commercial purposes.
That might be free as in free beer.
But if you could use it and you
were allowed to resell it or
modify it or do whatever you
wanted with it, that might be free
Jonathan: Let me try, let me try
this, uh, analogy, uh, on, for size.
So free as in beer, meaning
here's some free beer.
You don't have to pay for it.
You can drink it.
Um, but you can't like take
the recipe, create your own
version of that beer and sell it.
Cuz we're gonna sue
Daila: you.
Yes.
Okay.
Jonathan: free as in, free speech would
be, we have made this recipe part of the
public domain and we legally can't sue you
for it because you're protected by that.
That
Daila: that does make sense.
And I like how you said it in like
small little clips there It was good.
I get it.
I get it.
I didn't understand the whole
beer thing and Caleb's too young
to me to be talking about beer.
So
Jonathan: He's of legal age.
Caleb: Me.
I
Daila: he is,
Caleb: I have been for
like almost two years
Daila: Oh, you never
will be to
Jonathan: our throwback, to our
interview with Brennan he's he's old
enough to be a real estate agent.
Caleb: Finally.
Daila: oh,
Jonathan: so on the topic of free.
Daila: mm.
Jonathan: Um, so one of the things I've
been thinking about is particularly Caleb,
you have some new projects coming up that
you're gonna be spending more time on.
I don't wanna lose you completely
from OpenHouse.social stuff, but
you're not gonna have nearly as
much time to mess around with it.
one of the things that I don't wanna
lose any momentum on is trying to
build some more audience and potential
customers with OpenHouse.social.
can we make it free?
can we make a free tier?
Caleb: Well, there is a free tier isn't
Jonathan: I know, but it's
not, I we've talked about this.
I don't think it's useful.
Like it's a free tier.
You can go and use the thing as
much as you want, but it only
produces one kind of image and I
don't think anyone would use it.
So what I want is people to be able
to log in, upload their, picture.
We won't let them put
their logo in for free.
and we will make sure that it's got
the OpenHouse.social logo on it and
allow them to change a color that,
that, um, the color of that line.
Caleb: That does exist.
They just can't change
the color of the line.
Cuz you can make an account and you can
upload a picture of your face and stuff.
maybe you can't do the
Jonathan: No.
Caleb: but you can have a
profile and save your details and
Jonathan: Yeah.
So what I want, what I want is to
have two, two accounts, two classes
of accounts, one is free and all you
can do is upload your photo, generate
an image from the set template that
we have, but you can change the
color of the line and it, uh, you
can't, you can't include your logo.
So you can do your face,
change the color of the line.
we stamp it with our
OpenHouse.Social logo.
So that's what I want for free.
And then the paid, we can have a paid
version whenever somebody decides
they wanna upgrade to paid, they can
get in touch and then we'll do that.
But that'll probably be a custom template.
Caleb: Are we allowed to do that
Jonathan: guess Yes we can do that.
We can do whatever we want.
Caleb: well, in BC, at least if you have,
if you have a, like an advertisement,
you have to include the name of your,
Jonathan: Yep.
We'll still let them, we still,
yeah, they still have to put the
name of the brokerage, but we're
not gonna let them put their logo.
Caleb: Hmm.
Jonathan: Or maybe if we do, if maybe
if we have to let them, if it's a
legal requirement that they include
their logo, we'll, we'll put that
logo on, but we'll also put the,
uh, OpenHouse.Social logo on it.
Caleb: Yeah.
I'm just thinking that where the,
the, cuz we have the watermark where
the logo would normally show up.
But is anybody going to use it?
If they can't put a logo there?
Daila: Oh, yeah,
Jonathan: I think, I think potentially,
but, um, nobody's using it now.
Caleb: well, yeah,
Jonathan: Right.
So do you think we can do that?
Caleb: probably
Jonathan: Okay.
Caleb: change.
Change the color of a line.
Doesn't sound too, too difficult.
Jonathan: I've got some content ideas
again, I've talked about this forever.
but I'm gonna try and
try and make that happen.
And it also lines up with.
Trying to recruit more potential real
estate agents, because I don't know
how many real estate agents are also
property managers, but there must be
more than just one, the one that we know.
Um, so hopefully that'll
build up some audience there.
So now I wanna like, so, okay.
So I wanna do that.
I wanna do that because you're gonna be,
you're gonna be gone doing other things.
Um, we'll still have you
on the podcast for sure.
Caleb: Well, except except have to
talk about me being replaced and
not being on the podcast anymore.
Cause it won't be relevant,
Jonathan: You still be relevant
because, so like, there's still
lots of stuff to talk about with,
with the property management stuff.
Caleb: but I might not
be involved in that.
So I'll just be sitting on the sidelines.
Jonathan: yeah, but you, do, you have
done some of the Stripe and some of
the, um, some of the other integrations,
because this is, this is something
that I think isn't unique to BC.
Or unique to Canada, but the,
in the states payments are
very different than in Canada.
Like us doesn't have
e-transfer, uh, interact us.
Doesn't have the, the concept
of preauthorized deposits.
They have this other thing, this
Daila: They have like
Venmo or whatever too.
Jonathan: Oh yeah.
Daila: everybody Venmos.
Caleb: Venmo cash app,
Jonathan: yeah, I don't have that.
I don't know what that is.
Cause it's
Daila: Is that isn't
that only in the states,
Caleb: Yeah.
It's in the states cuz they don't
have e-transfers the only way that
you can send money to other people.
Jonathan: e-transfer is so cumbersome.
Ugh.
Caleb: Yeah, but it, it works.
And I think almost all
the banks support it,
Jonathan: There's some like
jurisdictional things that are different.
We're not even close to actually
being, being needing to do that.
But I think there's some opportunity
to lend some, uh, insight and
also we don't necessarily want
you on for your coding skills.
We want you on for your podcast,
hosting skills and your wit.
Daila: your personality
Caleb: Well,
I think, I don't know.
Did we decide that it's
not a technical audience?
Daila: Now that I'm on.
I think so.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
I think it's definitely not a technical
Caleb: I don't, I don't think
we really talked about super
technical things in a while.
So I think,
Jonathan: no, we haven't.
And, and that's good.
I wanna keep it that way.
Like, I, I don't mind talking
about no code stuff because
that's a lot more approachable.
Let's, let's keep it a little bit
untechnical so let's, let's talk a
little bit about the property management
Daila you guys haven't done any or
Daila: No, that's what, uh, right
before this I'm like, oh, dang it.
I have nothing to talk about
Jonathan: oh yeah.
Daila: just so busy with other
other projects, which is a
good, good problem to have.
But, but, uh, Friday, so next week
I'm gonna come with so many nuggets of
Jonathan: Oh you, is it planned?
You guys have
a plan for Friday.
Daila: two of us are available.
Two of the little robot team.
Jonathan: You and Steve.
Daila: No, me and Amber,
we're gonna, we're gonna
have some, no coding fun.
Jonathan: that's the, that's
the critical part, really?
Daila: it is.
Jonathan: Steve, Steve is great, but
we don't need the design right now.
Daila: exactly Steve.
No, love Steve very much.
If he listens to this.
Jonathan: he does listen.
He told me,
Daila: Good.
We love you, Steve.
Jonathan: yeah.
So you, so you and Amber are meeting
on Friday and what's the plan?
What are you, what are
you gonna try and do?
Daila: Oh man.
You're, that's a further
than I'd thought right now.
we're uh,
Jonathan: so far as to
say we're meeting on
Daila: which is a huge step
Jonathan: It is.
Daila: us.
Um,
Jonathan: time.
Daila: Yes, especially, yeah.
With the craziness of back to school.
So we're meeting and then I
don't know when we get together,
it's like all synergistic and,
and ideas just start to flow.
I, I don't even think she's seen
the notes yet that, uh, Brennan had
sent, so we're gonna start with that.
And then we're just
gonna let magic happen.
Jonathan: Okay.
I was hoping to have had a conversation,
uh, with a potential customer by now.
Um, but also.
First week of school is rough.
Daila: It's yeah,
Jonathan: Wow.
Daila: very rough.
Jonathan: I can't, I didn't, I didn't know
Daila: Oh yeah.
This is your first.
Jonathan: Well, this is preschool,
so it's only two hours, but
still it's quite disruptive and
I'm not even the one taking him.
I'm , Julie's taking him.
I'm just waiting around for
him to come home and gimme
the, gimme the, the low down.
one of the things I was hoping to do.
So I was talking with, I was talking
with Steve yesterday, about how,
how we wanna approach building
this, building this product.
I wanna be very, I'm say minimalistic.
Caleb: Lean
Jonathan: Yeah, lean, I guess.
Yeah, we wanna be
lean.
We.
Fat free skim.
We want there'd be the skim
milk version of a product.
Um, I don't drink skim milk.
I drink,
Caleb: No ski milk sucks.
It's like watered down
milk.
Jonathan: 3%.
Daila: me too.
Jonathan: Oh yeah.
Nice and
Daila: cream.
Jonathan: I was talking with
Steve, Because we were talking
about like how to get, how to get
designs in from Figma into bubble.
And he showed, he walked
me through that process.
it's not as smooth as I
thought it was going to be.
It's still a little bit clunky
but it's still, it's still,
it looks like it's great.
Cuz it saves, it saves you a bunch
of time when you're building that.
Daila: still miles ahead.
Jonathan: yeah, I wanna create some
content around that, but so one, one
of the things that we were talking.
was, I think we should use this as an
opportunity to do, uh, more than one thing
at a, at, with a single piece of effort.
So if you're building this product
one, we're building this product,
we're gonna try and like test it out.
See if there's see if
there's some value there.
The other thing is, can we start
to define our design system?
So one, one of the things that
we've been talking about on the
little robot team is, um, Not doing
custom design for every single app,
especially some of these smaller ones.
Some of the larger clients have have
specific branding guidelines and specific,
um, specific style that they're going for.
But for some smaller projects, we would
really like to be able to use, like
an off the shelf component library.
That is, that is nice and, clean and.
Easy to use on, on other apps,
but not necessarily somebody
else's component library.
And so I, I think, and maybe
this is a gigantic waste of
time, but doesn't think so.
um, I think we could start designing
our, our design system with
this property management thing.
Daila: Ooh, I like that.
Jonathan: Yeah.
And starting to build like a really like
a really, like I said, like a clean set
of UI that we can reuse for other apps.
And we've got a few other, we've got a
few other apps, in the works and some
potential, potential upcoming projects
that we could use those designs on,
Daila: yeah.
I mean, we've been talking about that
at little robot, uh, for a while.
Amber and I were just talking
about talking about it the other
day, when I bombarded her at her
house, I showed up out of nowhere.
Jonathan: You showed up at her house.
Daila: yeah, well, I had to drop
something off and this whole
remote work thing, I mean, it's
great, but I'm not awesome at it.
So I had to go and see somebody.
And, uh, anyways, we started talking
about, uh, exactly that like having
ready, made templates and ready, made
components and just bam, bam, bam,
bam, bam, knocking stuff out quickly.
Jonathan: One of the, I think one
of the things that I think there's
a, a big opportunity is in, in the
bubble ecosystem, I think there's an
opportunity for, some of these pieces
of work that we do that are not the
core product that we're building.
Like, not that obviously we're not
gonna sell a client's project on bubble.
but if we've built some components
or some plugins or some libraries
or some templates, we could start to
sell those on the bubble marketplace.
Cuz there is a, there's a
great marketplace there to,
to sell some of that stuff.
Daila: Yes.
And it's growing like crazy right now.
So we've gotta, that's what Friday is
gonna be some prioritizing of how we
can jump on the wave before it passes
Jonathan: yeah.
I think it's, I, I definitely
think there's, there's a
bit of a timing to this.
Daila: a hundred.
Jonathan: I don't wanna be so beholden to
a schedule that's not within our control.
Like, I don't think we need to be
so reactive that we gotta like,
oh, here's here comes a wave.
Let's let's get in front of
it and start, start surfing.
But we, we do see this wave coming and,
um, I don't think it's gonna take a ton
of effort for us to get in front of it.
So I think we, we can.
And so I think, I think one,
one of the ways that we.
Double up on some of the outcomes of
the effort that we're doing is on this
property management project is use that as
an opportunity to start spinning off some
of these, other related things that we can
potentially sell on the bubble ecosystem.
Um, do you have some thoughts as
to what, what those might be like?
I know, I know for sure.
Like if we can, if we can get,
uh, a nice clean design system, we
could probably sell that it, I don't
know if we would, but we definitely
would use it ourselves because.
It's just so helpful to when we're
starting new projects, if you and I
are speculating on something for a
client, they come in and say, Hey,
what do you think about building this?
We can, you know, we can crank
something out in an hour and a half.
Um, if you had some design library
to use, it just looks a lot better
than, um, the sort of basic stuff.
Daila: Yeah, no, I think that that's
fantastic cuz that's my, my biggest
struggle is my lack of design
ability, or desire to design things.
So yeah, if, if it's ready, made
for me, boom, I'm all over it.
If I have to make it myself,
it's not gonna be as quick.
So
Jonathan: Is there some other, some other
components or pieces or plugins that
you've you and Ember have identified
as something that we might wanna.
Daila: uh, I know Amber's
looking at the plugins right now
and she she's got some ideas.
I can't think of any off the top of
my head, but her technical skill is
so awesome that she's identifying
them a lot easier than, than I could.
Templates.
I think every time we're working
on any new project, we are
recognizing how much easier it
would be if we had a template built.
So, I mean, uh, the one that jumped
out at me this morning was at, for
one client, I had built a really
long like form that was all dependent
on how you answered the questions.
And, and, uh, if I had had a
component library and wasn't trying
to figure it out on my own, it
would've been way easier for me.
Because it would've been ready me, just
drop it in, figure out the logic and
go where I spent a lot of time trying
to figure out how it should look.
We've had several clients now who
needed that exact same form flow
Jonathan: Okay.
So Friday you're gonna
have, have a little, are you
calling it a sprint on Friday?
Daila: Sure.
Jonathan: I don't know what, what
are you
Daila: Yeah.
we were gonna call them.
Yeah.
Sprints
Jonathan: okay.
Your little Friday sprint
Friday afternoon, sprint.
Daila: Friday sprint.
Yeah.
If you're in town, you guys should
Jonathan: I won't be in town.
No, we
Daila: Oh, Caleb, come to town.
Come on.
Caleb: Um, I don't really have any
other reason to be in Salmon Arm on a
Daila: Oh,
Caleb: unfortunately September
for a long weekend,
You've been listening
to the robot factory.
I've been your host, Caleb sharp,
along with my two co-hosts.
Daila: Daila.
Jonathan: Say your full name?
Daila: oh, Dayla Deford Duford
Jonathan: daily two
And I've been Jonathan Bowers.
talk to you next week.
Caleb: by.
Daila: Bye
Jonathan: the mic is picking up the
sound from your, from your headphones
Daila: didly do it's cuz of
my small, strange little ears.