Show Notes:
Links:
DitheringStratecheryPromised LandShape UpNational Treasure
Full Transcript:
Ben:
I was looking through our accounts this morning and just doing some database checking and looking at some accounts that had been in our database for like seven years. Like, "Oh yeah. I remember them." And they're like old friends basically. It's like, "Oh, the memories."
Josh:
Memories.
Starr:
Yeah. That's funny. Last week I remember, it just hit me in the middle of the week, I was making jokes about our customers and like squeezing blood from turnips. And I just feel like I should point out that those were jokes, specifically because it's kind of absurd that we would do that because we treat our customers maybe too well, I don't know. But I realized not everybody might know me personally and realize I'm joking.
Josh:
There are those who will too, yeah.
Starr:
Yeah, yeah. And they go on to run private equity firms.
Josh:
Right? My thoughts exactly.
Ben:
Oh dear.
Josh:
We won't say who.
Ben:
No names.
Starr:
Well, we'll name names for our Patreon supporters. They'll get the special feed where we just like dish on everybody.
Ben:
This is where we announce we're setting up our Patreon for a minimum contribution of $1000 a month.
Josh:
That's genius.
Starr:
Oh, my God. Can you imagine? That would be amazing, like all the secret insider backroom knowledge. We have enough to fill up about like 10 minutes of a show.
Ben:
Well, it could be the FounderQuest extended edition. Right? So in the normal edition we just cover the percentages, but in the extended edition you have real numbers, right?
Starr:
Oh, there you go.
Josh:
That's amazing, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
Ben:
Yeah. So I don't know if you know of Ben Thompson, he writes Stratechery. It's fantastic.
Starr:
Wait, say that again?
Ben:
Stratechery by Ben Thompson.
Josh:
I was just listening to the daily update today. Catching up on daily updates.
Ben:
So he started a paid newsletter back before paid newsletters were cool, fantastic writer, good stuff. Talks about tech and legal and all kinds of fun things that we care about. And he and Gruber of Daring Fireball fame recently started a paid podcast. Recently, I mean, it's been a few months, several months now, but it's still kind of new to me. So I subscribed to that as well, and I love their format. It's 15 minutes, no more, no less, three times a week. And they just talk about the stuff that's currently going on, the same kinds of things that you would find at Gruber's site or at Thompson's site. So tech and legal and society and stuff.
Josh:
Current events.
Ben:
Yeah. Paid podcasts, man, that's where it's at.
Josh:
Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. They basically like just set a timer and then at the end of when it starts to run out, they play this little time running out stopwatch thing and then it just cuts it off. They have to wrap it up or I think it cuts them off mid sentence.
Ben:
Yeah. They have some tight editing going on.
Josh:
They're pretty good.
Ben:
It's fun.
Starr:
How much does it cost? I'm curious.
Josh:
$5 a month, I think.
Ben:
Yeah. I pay annually, so I don't even remember.
Starr:
Okay, so it's not like a luxury exclusive type product.
Josh:
No.
Ben:
It's not super premium like FounderQuest extended edition.
Starr:
Exactly.
Josh:
I imagine with their audience, $5 a month adds up.
Ben:
Yeah, I imagine it does.
Starr:
Yeah. But ours is SOC 2 compliant.
Ben:
Right, right. We've got compliance on our side.
Josh:
The other thing I found interesting about their format or about how they sell it is that they also bundle, like Ben for instance with Stratechery, you can buy Dithering with your Stratechery subscription. And I think it gives you maybe a bundle discount or something slight. And I don't know if Gruber does the same thing or what, but I think...
Starr:
Dithering? Is that the name of the...
Josh:
Yeah, Dithering is the name of the podcast.
Starr:
Oh, okay. I thought you meant like image dithering. I was really confused there for a second.
Josh:
Yeah. I guess it would help if we told people what the name is. But I thought that was interesting. So you can buy it through their, I don't know what their website is. Just search Dithering. But yeah, you can subscribe there or you can subscribe to both.
Ben:
Yeah. I have the bundle and it's so worth it. If you're into tech and you're into modern antitrust and things like that, it's totally worth it.
Josh:
Yeah. Tech and society.
Ben:
Yep.
Josh:
We should get him on the pod.
Ben:
Yeah. That'd be cool. Actually, it was kind of...
Josh:
That's what the kids say these days.
Starr:
You know who we should get on this podcast? I've been saying we should get this person on forever. Barack Hussein Obama.
Ben:
Oh, speaking of, I've been reading his book, his latest book.
Starr:
Yeah?
Ben:
That is an excellent book. You should definitely check it out.
Starr:
What's it called again?
Ben:
I don't know. I just read it. I don't look at the cover. But it's great. The writing is just top-notch, the man is a genius. Not that I know him or he owes me any favors or anything, it's just, I mean obviously he's well-spoken, I mean he's got good evidence of that over his eight years of his presidency, but just the book is basically a reflection of his experiences leading up to becoming president and that's as far as I've gotten so far, I've gotten to election night, he just won. But the way that he writes, just the conversational style, and the context that he brings into his experiences running for president, it's just a great read.
Starr:
Well, cool, I'll have to check it out. We had the weirdest madness of crowds thing happen last night in our household. So I'm just going to tell this story, it's not related to FounderQuest. I mean, I guess you could make it a point...
Josh:
Everything is related.
Starr:
Yeah. Everything is related. I can tie it back to marketing, like look at this, look at me. So this friend group texted us last night and was like, "Hey, on the down low there's this clinic that has a bunch of COVID vaccine, it's about to expire and you can just go sign up for an appointment there, and because it's about to expire, they just want whoever." Right? And we heard stories about this happening at various places. And we're like, "Okay. I guess this is fine." So we go on and make an appointment and everything. And then about like an hour later, we're just sitting around being like, "This just seems a little weird, right? Like if it's about to expire, how can I make an appointment for next week? It just seems a little off."
Starr:
And so we started asking around and it turns out that like everybody, so many different people we knew had gotten a special on the lowdown tip from their friends that there was a batch of vaccine about to expire. And then in a parenting group, somebody in DC posted about like, "Hey, have you heard this thing that's going around? There's this batch of vaccine that's about to expire." And so we canceled our appointments and so did everybody else in that group. And so I was thinking about this and to me, this is just a case of just terrible technical communication. Because not only does each state have their own vaccine tiers and whatever, but Washington State's vaccines tiers are just incredibly complex. And they have a big page-long chart and I could barely follow it. And I'm used to looking at big charts. So no normal sane person's actually going to read this whole thing through.
Starr:
And so you end up with a situation where people just aren't really clear on the rules. It doesn't really seem like the authority in charge is trustworthy because there's apparently all this vaccine that's going to waste. I mean, I guess that's real, I've heard stories and read articles about it. And then the actual tiers are based on an honor system. So you get in this weird situation where you could, in acting in good faith, end up sort of skipping ahead in line and getting something that you really shouldn't be getting right then. And you haven't really necessarily done anything wrong except convince yourself to not really look too hard at the situation. So like I said, we canceled, so we're not line skippers. Although if I'm at Walgreens picking up my prescription one day and the nurse is just like, "Hey, you want to come back here..."
Josh:
And then some guy in a trench coat opens up his jacket and is like, "I've got vaccines. They're about to expire."
Starr:
Yeah, I'm just going to follow that man into his van and get my vaccine and then be safe.
Josh:
Right.
Starr:
Yeah.
Josh:
So for any of our listeners, if you're looking for vaccines, they're about to expire.
Starr:
But tying it back into marketing, I realized that this thing sort of combined a bunch of marketing type techniques, I guess. There's a time limit first, right? It's like, "Okay, this is expiring by Wednesday," or whenever. There's limited quantities, act now. There's like a big sort of discount situation, right? It's like, you don't have to wait, you don't have to go through all this hassle. You can instead just pay this one low, low price and get this delivered right to your door. And oh yeah, there's social stuff. Yeah, there's social stuff, because like, "Well, these people signed up for an appointment, I guess it's okay. Sure."
Josh:
Wait, so we're describing a scam, right?
Starr:
I don't know if it's a scam. I think it's just a chain letter situation.
Ben:
And there was a clear call to action, right?
Starr:
Yeah. There's a clear call to action.
Ben:
Like, "Go, sign up here."
Starr:
And this isn't really a marketing thing, unless you're... Maybe it's like a multi-level marketing thing. I don't know. Because it seems like you have this source of firsthand, or I guess second hand knowledge. It's like, "Okay, our friend who we trust has a good friend who works in a clinic and has this inside information," and that's not how it was, right? That was our sort of assumptions and perception of the situation based on the limited information we had from some text messages.
Starr:
I mean, that's kind of what it seemed like they were saying, but in fact, nobody really knows exactly where the original thing came from. And the friend who works in the clinic was actually just like; I don't know. It's possible, like they didn't really know. So yeah. It's just so weird. It's so weird to me how we're seeing, it's almost like a run on the bank situation or just this emergent behavior where a bunch of people acting in good faith reasonably create this the stampede, I guess. But fortunately it's easy to cancel, so I guess hopefully no harm done.
Ben:
Well, the good news is that that many people want the vaccine that that's effective. So that's a good sign.
Josh:
In Seattle, at least.
Starr:
Oh yeah. Totally, totally. Yeah. And I mean, the website was not really being super responsive. It was like it was under heavy load, which it took a minute for that to sink in and be like, "Wait a second, why are all these slots booking up so quickly if this is a special, one-time only situation."
Ben:
And then on the confirmation page, they ask you for your bank login and you're like, "Wait a minute, why do you need my bank login?"
Starr:
Oh, no. It was a legit, this was from Swedish. It's a legit clinic. Yeah, it's totally a legit clinic. I think it was just, I don't know. I don't know. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I missed my only chance at survival. We'll never know.
Ben:
I don't know. I'm thinking there must've been something related to Bitcoin in this whole scenario. I had someone the other day like, "Have you seen the price of Bitcoin?" I'm like, "No." They're like, "It's like $30,000." I'm like, "Wow." They said, "You should totally buy some." I was like, "Why?" "Because it's going to go up." I'm like, "You realize you just described a Ponzi scheme." They're like, "But, but..." I'm like, "No, not going to happen."
Starr:
Yeah. Bitcoin's so shady. Not going to lie, I wish I had mined some Bitcoins back in the day.
Ben:
Seriously. Seriously. Yeah.
Starr:
But it's like, if I ever bought Bitcoin, it would be basically like buying a lottery ticket. It's just like, this is just gambling.
Ben:
Although I do really feel bad for those individuals that had that problem with the Bitcoin wallet where they have lost their password and now they can't get their million dollars.
Starr:
Oh my God. That would be so devastating.
Ben:
I know. That would kill me. So maybe it's good that I didn't do that mining, because I probably would've forgotten the password.
Josh:
You would've lost it.
Starr:
Totally, yeah. For me because I used same password for like decades until I realized that was incredibly stupid. Yeah. I mean, those people's grandchildren are going to be really sick of hearing about how their... This wallet's going to be passed down for generations, like some treasure chest in Granddad's attic.
Josh:
Yeah. Like I just imagine like the movies made about; have you ever seen National Treasure?
Ben:
I was thinking the same thing. National Treasure Three.
Josh:
It's like the search, digging through the family records to try to figure out what the password might've been.
Ben:
Totally. Yeah.
Ben:
It's like, "Oh, where was Grandpa living at this time?" And they go back and they reconstruct, "Oh, it was the barber shop across the street. And his name was such and such."
Josh:
Yeah.
Starr:
So I've got a business idea for somebody, it might be a terrible idea. Okay. So we've got all these people with wallets who can't get into them because they don't know the password. I assume it's really expensive at the moment to crack those passwords, right? I imagine it's one of those situations where it would take a lot of computing power working for hundreds of years or whatever to crack it. Maybe in 50 years though, and we'll have quantum computers and it'll be easy. So you just buy people's locked wallets at a steep discount, like for a hundred bucks I'll buy your... Actually, I'll do this. Yeah. 10 bucks I'll buy your unused Bitcoin wallet. I have to figure out how to verify that it's actually a Bitcoin wallet.
Josh:
I'll sell you mine.
Starr:
And honor system that's got to have stuff in it, you can't give me an empty one. And then we'll just hold on to these for 50 years until the quantum computing happens and then we'll just open them and Bitcoin will be worth like a million dollars a coin by then because it's only going up.
Josh:
This is after you freeze your head, right?
Starr:
Yes.
Josh:
Okay. I just want to be clear. It might be a while, but we'll get there.
Starr:
There you go. Totally. I'll memorize the data for all the wallets. Or I don't know, they can stick a zip disc in with my frozen head.
Ben:
Yeah. Speaking of obsolescence, that'd be my concern, like 50 years from now we've probably moved on to bytecoin.
Starr:
Oh. We're going to be at 16 coin.
Josh:
What a nerd.
Ben:
Coin 64.
Starr:
Coin 64.
Ben:
Well, I did something new this week, in my goal of doing new stuff and getting out of my comfort zone a bit to try and grow the business. I put together the beginnings of a roadmap. And it's kind of new for Honeybadger.
Josh:
Love it.
Starr:
I like that. This is intriguing.
Ben:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We haven't done roadmaps before ever.
Josh:
Wait, you mean we're going to have a plan?
Ben:
We're going to have a plan. Well, maybe. So I sat down and put down some notes on things that I thought I'd like to deliver in 2021. And yeah, I think this is actually the farthest out I've ever in detail, thought about plans, and I'm liking this idea, coming up with things I want to get done and actually putting them on the calendar. That was the novel part for me, it's like, "Oh, and when will I schedule this chunk of work? Oh, I can put it there." So we'll see how that goes. It's early days, we're just getting started, but I'm going to give this a good college try this year.
Josh:
Yeah. Yeah. I want to get back to setting deadlines better and meeting them.
Starr:
Y'all are on your own. I work like an artist. There's no rush.
Ben:
I'm going to do something doubly crazy. We never publicize future plans.
Starr:
Oh yeah?
Ben:
I'm going to right now reveal one of the items from our roadmap.
Starr:
Okay, what's one of the items?
Ben:
We're going to be deploying support for React Native.
Starr:
What?
Ben:
In Q1. Yes.
Starr:
Awesome.
Ben:
I'm planting my flag in the sand.
Starr:
There we go.
Ben:
Yeah. So Kevin's working on something else right now. But scheduled for like February, I think is when I scheduled it, starting February, Josh and I in particular are going to be working on updates to our pipeline that will allow us to process React Native payloads so we can launch that sometime in March, hopefully, but maybe April.
Starr:
Well, that will be awesome. I look forward to learning more about that.
Ben:
Yeah. We're excited. Like this has been something that our customers have been asking for for years. So looking forward to having that.
Josh:
It's our first foray into anything native, I would say. Right?
Ben:
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So I wouldn't be too surprised if following on pretty soon after that there are things like native iOS, SDK support and things like that. So stay tuned, see how that goes.
Starr:
Oh, that sounds awesome. It's like, I think it was good of us to wait until we're sure that mobile is actually here to stay.
Josh:
For real. We played that one right.
Starr:
If we would have jumped on this bandwagon back in 2007, that would've just been too soon. Yes. I did something too that was a little bit outside my comfort area this week. So as I'm sure our listeners are tired of hearing, I've been working on blog stuff and having third-party authors do work for us and everything. And it's been about a year since we started this and when I first started out, I didn't know what I was doing, so we were just sort of building things as we went along, figuring out how this all worked. I wasn't really too concerned about what particular types of articles I wanted. I mean, I had an idea and everything, but if somebody proposed an article and it was a little bit different from what I thought, would be fine. I was like, "Okay, sure." Because I wanted to throw some spaghetti at the wall, see what stuck.
Starr:
And if I had been very particular about those things, it would have just been my guesses. Right? It would have just been my personal opinion. So I didn't really see why I should. I just wanted to keep things open and see what worked. Well, fast forward, record scratch, a year later we have an idea of sort of what has worked and what has worked less well and everything in terms of article topics and everything, but then also in terms of the back end, like what payment methods we can use for people conveniently, where are our real pain points on the administration side of things. And so I had to essentially write a big letter to our authors and be like, "Hey, here's some changes. We are no longer going to be able to pay by certain payment methods. We are limiting our topics to these languages, and stuff like this."
Starr:
And I was really worried that I was going to get a lot of angry replies, but I haven't gotten any. So I don't know, the thing that made me a little bit nervous about it was that all of our authors that they're still writing for us have done ranging from a good job to an excellent job. And so I don't know, it feels weird to be like, "Okay, we're doing things different through no fault of yours." I don't want to pull the rug out from anybody. I feel a lot of like compassion for people who are maybe, I don't know, expecting their writing for us to continue going in a certain direction, and then maybe it changes. So I don't know, that made me a little bit nervous, but it's worked out so far and I think going forward, I think it's going to be a lot better for the business. It's going to run a lot more smoothly. And hopefully everybody will just be happy and continue writing great content for us.
Ben:
Nice.
Starr:
Oh wait, I should mention, another uncomfortable thing that we're going to be doing is we're really hoping to publish some PHP content soon. So if you're a PHP developer and you want to write for us, go to our blog and look for the Write For Us page and get in touch. I'd love to talk to you. Thanks.
Josh:
Cool.
Ben:
Yet another bit of uncomfortableness, it's kind of funny. So I had my one-on-one with Kevin this past week and that's not uncomfortable. That's actually kind of fun. I like chatting with Kevin. But the uncomfortable bit is that this year for Kevin is going to be this first annual review, because we started doing annual reviews late last year with Ben, that was our first one ever for Honeybadger. And now our second one and our first one with Kevin.
Starr:
Oh, I did our first annual review? I didn't know that.
Ben:
You totally did. Yeah.
Starr:
I thought you had been doing them.
Ben:
No, I'm just a good actor.
Starr:
You just inherently look like you know what you're doing.
Ben:
I told Kevin, "So next month we're going to have an annual review, not just a normal one-on-one." And I was like, "But don't worry, it's not going to be all that different. We're not going to be doing like virtual trust falls or anything." So yeah, we're growing up as a company. Honeybadger is getting on up there in years.
Starr:
Annual reviews, roadmaps.
Ben:
What's next?
Josh:
I don't like where this is going.
Starr:
I know, right? Yeah. I got a little room divider from Ikea to put in front of my desk to just create less visual distraction behind me. And I realized it kind of looks like a cubicle. I mean, it's a very nice cubicle, but it's kind of a cube.
Ben:
Yeah. It's like you give the ferret its freedom and it comes running back to you because it wants the nice warm, cozy... Not that I've ever given a ferret its freedom before.
Starr:
Yeah, that's strangely specific.
Josh:
It's okay if you have, Ben.
Starr:
It's all right.
Ben:
I've actually never had ferrets, but I had a cousin that had ferrets and they were fun to play with.
Josh:
I had a roommate who had one once and yeah, they're pretty mischievous little critters.
Starr:
We're all about rodents. Are badgers rodents? I don't know.
Ben:
I don't know.
Josh:
We really should know that.
Starr:
We should know that. So what have you done that's uncomfortable, Josh?
Ben:
This podcast episode.
Starr:
Discomfort.
Josh:
I'm doing it now.
Starr:
Yeah. You're existing in this world today.
Josh:
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't really have an answer for that.
Starr:
That's fine. I don't want you to be uncomfortable.
Josh:
I worked on JavaScript this week.
Starr:
Oh, that counts.
Josh:
I guess that counts. But the good news actually is that I think I'm ready to ship that project finally and get it off my plate.
Starr:
Oh, awesome.
Josh:
Excited about that.
Starr:
So that's our unified front end and back end together node package.
Josh:
Yeah. Universal NPM package for browser and node server side JavaScript. So no more splitting the package like two packages, which is handy. I mean, it's also nice, in the process of combining these libraries, I was able to combine the documentation for them as well. Because JavaScript, before we had two sections, one for node and one for browser JavaScript and everything had its own, it was all split up. But since it's both JavaScript, it was really nice to be able to share a lot more. Basically the packages and the documentation, everything can now share a single core or single base.
Starr:
I'm curious. Could you tell me under the hood how much of the code is shared?
Josh:
Most of the code is shared actually. So it's like split up, it's a single package. Some people when they do this, they use a monorepo type design, which basically combines a lot of different packages into a single one. So you might have like a core package and then you have an NPM and a browser package that are all separate. But I opted to just build a single package. NPM actually has a feature where you can deliver different entry points based on the environment that is installing the package into your app. So it knows if you're a client side like a browser application, or if you're a server side application, and it gives you the right, basically entry point into the library.
Josh:
So basically I just have I guess three namespaces, there's core, server and browser. And most of the stuff is in core and then anything that is environment specific; so like in browsers, anything that depends on window, for instance, which will blow up in a node environment, that has to be in the browser package. So all of the window on error integration and other things we instrument, basically it just loads those and then installs them into the core client package and then the server does the same thing.
Starr:
Awesome. Yeah. I could see it going either way, but it's really interesting that you didn't really split it into multiple packages and then just combine them.
Ben:
Speaking of shipping stuff, I had this random thought as I was looking at the roadmap and scheduling things and thinking about time cycles and stuff like that. And the random thought I had was, maybe after every thing we ship, after every; I don't want to call it a sprint because we're not doing like capital A agile, but okay. Lowercase sprint. After every cycle that we do, maybe we should just take a vacation. Like three to five days off after every launch.
Josh:
Yeah. That's not a bad idea. That kind of lines up with the vacation cycle that I had come up with last year, which was basically based on observing my burnout cycle. So I mean it's good, because I usually have the tendency to put off. Like I always start saying, "Really it's about time to take some time off." And then three months later I'm taking time off out of necessity. So yeah, if we had some sort of cycle that actually prevented that and kept us fresh all the time, that would be great.
Starr:
Yeah. That's an interesting idea. How long are these cycles do you think?
Ben:
Well, I don't know yet, but I read the Shape Up book from Base Camp and they have six weeks cycles. They try to; well, maybe not, maybe try is the wrong word. I think they're pretty strict about setting their work so that they will not spend more than six weeks on a particular project. That's their appetite. And so I was thinking, "Well, we could shoot for six weeks and see how that goes." And so I've been thinking of these projects in terms of six week timeframes, but I don't know if I want to be particularly strict about that, but that's just kind of where I'm thinking right now.
Starr:
Yeah, that could be good. I like the idea of that sort of cadence.
Ben:
Yeah. If you haven't had a chance to read Shape Up, then you should definitely check it out. It's a quick read and it's good stuff in there. Even if you don't follow their; it might be a bit much to call it a methodology, but I think it's a good approach. I like what they've done. Now, we don't have the 50 or 70 people that they have where we split up multiple teams and doing all this kind of stuff. So it may not apply as well to our scenario, our situation, but I like the idea.
Josh:
We'd be more like a one or a two team company, right?
Ben:
Right, right.
Josh:
Yeah. And I guess what we do, we're all designers here. So they pair designers and developers together, right, on each team.
Ben:
Yeah. That would be pretty awesome to have a full-time designer dedicated person, that would rock.
Josh:
Our design would get a lot better.
Ben:
It definitely would.
Starr:
Yeah. When you say we're all designers, that means that nobody's really a designer.
Josh:
Yeah. That's what that means.
Ben:
So we'll see. If this first quarter goes well, then we'll keep doing it.
Starr:
Well, cool. We can circle back on the podcast and see how it worked out.
Ben:
Yeah, yeah. But one of the things that's been rolling around in my brain is just what Josh said, it's been coming back to me a lot, is we did a lot of stuff in 2020, but not a lot of things we can really point to, to tell a customer, "Hey, look at this cool new thing." And so I'm now thinking, "Okay, what are some bigger projects that would have a little more visibility that we can get a little more excited about?" And so trying to reign myself in, but I got a bunch of ideas for things I think would be really cool to work on. And so if we can find a cadence that works, then I have I think at least four or five, maybe six projects that we could throw ourselves up.
Josh:
Nice. I will say, Kevin did some stuff in 2020.
Starr:
Yeah, he did.
Josh:
Did we do Actions? Was Actions 2020?
Ben:
Yeah, yeah.
Starr:
Yeah.
Josh:
So he did some cool stuff, he focused on some user facing stuff.
Starr:
Was dark mode 2020 too? Or was that...
Ben:
Oh, it might've been.
Starr:
Oh my God. I'm so old.
Ben:
We should really do a recap.
Starr:
I'm like, "Was that this year or was that five years ago? I don't know."
Josh:
Anyway, I know we did do some things, but yeah. Personally I felt like I was more just filling in everywhere else and that was all.
Starr:
Yeah, I think Kevin's been maybe working on the most front end feature, or the most customer visible features. Yeah. Personally, I find that with the work I'm doing lately, I feel like at the end of the day, I'll just be like, "Oh, I've got to finish this thing. I've got to stop slacking off and get some real work done." And then it's just like, "Wait a second. I have been working every minute of today." It's just been all like sending emails and doing stuff like that, which doesn't feel like real work somehow. I don't know. I just have to remind myself that like, "Okay, management stuff is actual work. It takes actual time and it's not me slacking off." Like why does my brain do the thing where it's like, "Okay, Starr, you have been being lazy and slacking off all day because you've only been writing emails to people about the work that they're doing." And yeah, it's just such a weird thing.
Ben:
I guess it's probably some of that developer background mindset. Like if I'm not seeing code getting ready, then work's not getting done.
Starr:
Yeah. I think so. And because you don't really see any of your... Like with development, you have a very quick feedback cycle. It's like you type some code, you run it, you see it at work. It's like, "Okay, that bit of code has been typed." But with this, it's just like, "Okay, I've just got to nudge this thing over here and we'll see if that works out in a month." And it's so much more vague.
Ben:
Yep. Well, I think it's going to be a good year.
Starr:
Yeah, I think so too.
Starr:
So this has been another wonderful episode of FounderQuest. Yay. If you want to review us, that's awesome. If you're interested in writing for us, especially if you're a PHP developer, just go to our blog at honeybadger.io/blog and look for the Write For Us link. And yeah, until then, stay alive, don't go near the Capitol and that's all I got to say.
Josh:
I'll try not to.
Starr:
Okay. Yeah, I'm talking to you Josh, especially.
Josh:
Yeah. I may have bought ballistic armor this week.
Starr:
Holy... I think we need to stop and clarify something. This is for your hobby of going and being a photo journalist at different protests. You're not actually the person, like...
Josh:
I'm not engaged in battle.
Starr:
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Josh:
Against the government.
Starr:
We can't just say that and then end the podcast. Because that is just...
Ben:
Mic drop.
Starr:
Yes. Yes. We are fans of living in the United States of America, this show. We don't want that to change. So all right. Well, see you guys later and see you next week.