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Social to get 00:00:46.688 --> 00:00:49.838 20% off your first three months. 00:00:50.288 --> 00:00:55.508 Hey everyone, I am so excited to have a guest with us today, who is someone 00:00:55.788 --> 00:01:01.388 I have talked to on Twitter a lot, um, and shared a lot of dog pictures with, 00:01:01.838 --> 00:01:04.138 but have never actually spoken to. 00:01:04.558 --> 00:01:08.418 So it is Marie Ng, AKA three hour coffee. 00:01:09.195 --> 00:01:12.422 The force behind Lama life. 00:01:12.592 --> 00:01:14.422 Marie, welcome to Software Social. 00:01:14.881 --> 00:01:15.471 Marie: Thank you. 00:01:15.781 --> 00:01:16.751 That was a good intro. 00:01:19.181 --> 00:01:20.561 Michele: So excited to have you here. 00:01:21.031 --> 00:01:25.321 As I was thinking about this, I realized that we actually haven't 00:01:25.341 --> 00:01:27.641 talked about business very much. 00:01:27.711 --> 00:01:32.065 Like we mostly just trade pictures of your adorable dog, and then like 00:01:32.165 --> 00:01:37.375 my strawberries on my farm, and my dog and used to like fleet together 00:01:37.485 --> 00:01:39.135 when that was a thing on Twitter. 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:42.240 Marie: Yeah, I was gonna say it all started with fleet, right. 00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:46.605 Because um, I think we've sort of seen each other around and amongst the 00:01:46.605 --> 00:01:48.845 Twitter, like indie hacker audience. 00:01:48.895 --> 00:01:53.125 There were a handful of us that were really using fleets a lot. 00:01:53.535 --> 00:01:54.225 Michele: Yeah and Vic. 00:01:54.945 --> 00:01:55.765 Marie: And Vic as well. 00:01:55.985 --> 00:02:01.085 Um, Hey Vic, if you're listening and um, I, I think what I liked about your 00:02:01.185 --> 00:02:05.402 fleets is that you used it to show a glimpse into your personal life. 00:02:05.768 --> 00:02:09.228 And I tried to do the same as well, like just showing pictures of my 00:02:09.248 --> 00:02:12.560 dog and when we are walking and just not so much business stuff. 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:15.880 And I think some people were using it for more business and a bit 00:02:15.880 --> 00:02:17.320 more like promotions and marketing. 00:02:17.380 --> 00:02:21.160 And I tended not to not to follow those fleets as much. 00:02:21.340 --> 00:02:24.080 So I think we ended up just kind of looking at each other's 00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:25.320 fleets a lot and just commenting. 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:29.283 And um, I feel like I kind of got to know you a little bit through that, 00:02:29.543 --> 00:02:33.443 but yes, we haven't really talked about business or, you know, indie 00:02:33.443 --> 00:02:35.123 hacker journey or anything like that. 00:02:35.313 --> 00:02:37.363 It's just been more personal stuff. 00:02:37.665 --> 00:02:38.565 But that's great as well. 00:02:38.870 --> 00:02:41.513 Michele: Yeah, and I think it's like, I don't, so I don't know how you 00:02:41.513 --> 00:02:45.063 feel about Twitter, but like, I guess I have this like, reticence about 00:02:45.133 --> 00:02:51.862 sharing stuff that's too far, you know, sort of like off brand, so to speak. 00:02:51.862 --> 00:02:52.022 Right. 00:02:52.022 --> 00:02:54.972 Like I, I honestly like hate the concept of personal brand. 00:02:55.002 --> 00:02:56.652 Like I find it really stifling. 00:02:56.998 --> 00:02:59.878 I think that was actually a part of like what dealt with like the burnout 00:03:00.118 --> 00:03:03.885 I had last fall that I felt like really just, kind of pigeon holds 00:03:03.944 --> 00:03:06.058 of my own doing and my own pressure. 00:03:06.358 --> 00:03:09.168 What I loved about fleets is I felt like I could just share. 00:03:09.621 --> 00:03:09.911 Yeah. 00:03:09.941 --> 00:03:12.031 Like what was going on with my strawberries? 00:03:12.171 --> 00:03:15.951 Or like how the tomatoes like weren't doing well, or, like, you know, just 00:03:15.951 --> 00:03:17.391 like pictures of my dog playing. 00:03:17.491 --> 00:03:21.091 I guess I feel like if I shared that kind of thing, I guess I'm always afraid like, 00:03:21.111 --> 00:03:26.018 oh, people follow me because they want me to be this business person who's gonna 00:03:26.018 --> 00:03:28.168 help them grow their business or whatever. 00:03:28.361 --> 00:03:30.091 They don't care about my strawberries. 00:03:30.091 --> 00:03:30.411 Right. 00:03:30.655 --> 00:03:34.985 And I don't know if that's true, but like, that's how I felt about it. 00:03:35.205 --> 00:03:38.218 And so I felt like fleets kind of gave me that freedom. 00:03:38.801 --> 00:03:40.411 Marie: Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. 00:03:40.611 --> 00:03:44.013 I think when I started Twitter, I had the same kind of concern. 00:03:44.233 --> 00:03:48.908 So I remember early on, I was kind of writing down, like, here's kind of 00:03:48.908 --> 00:03:50.348 what I want my account to be about. 00:03:50.528 --> 00:03:52.148 And here's like the tone that I want. 00:03:52.248 --> 00:03:54.950 I had this list of, I don't know, like 10 different things. 00:03:55.130 --> 00:03:57.860 And I was trying really hard to fit within that. 00:03:58.150 --> 00:04:01.490 And in the end I just kind of threw that all out and I was like, all 00:04:01.490 --> 00:04:03.970 right, well, I think the easiest way to do it is just be myself. 00:04:04.424 --> 00:04:08.304 And, I actually have a rule for myself, which is like, when I 00:04:08.434 --> 00:04:12.424 tweet, I generally don't take more than two minutes to do the tweet. 00:04:12.724 --> 00:04:17.944 So it's a two minute rule and the reason for that, and it might not work for 00:04:18.144 --> 00:04:21.624 everyone, but I find this helps for me is that if I take more than two minutes, 00:04:21.854 --> 00:04:26.494 it's not, I feel like I'm not being off the, or I'm not, or I'm overthinking it. 00:04:26.914 --> 00:04:30.294 So for me, it's like, all right, well, if I can't write it in two 00:04:30.294 --> 00:04:33.802 minutes, I just delete it because probably wasn't really meant to be 00:04:33.802 --> 00:04:36.105 shared or the thought behind it. 00:04:36.105 --> 00:04:37.945 Wasn't clear enough to be shared. 00:04:38.353 --> 00:04:40.416 And yeah, that's just kind of how I do it. 00:04:40.646 --> 00:04:42.586 I'm just trying to be myself, I guess, on Twitter. 00:04:42.890 --> 00:04:46.910 And there's a lot of typos in my tweets too, just because, because I'm doing it 00:04:46.910 --> 00:04:50.536 quickly and I'm like, well, that's, I guess I, It's just part of my account. 00:04:50.836 --> 00:04:52.926 There's typos in there and I'll leave it. 00:04:53.106 --> 00:04:53.646 That's fine. 00:04:53.950 --> 00:04:54.640 Michele: It's your account. 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:56.040 And if people don't like it, they can go. 00:04:56.195 --> 00:04:56.485 Marie: Yeah. 00:04:56.555 --> 00:04:56.845 Yeah. 00:04:56.845 --> 00:04:57.245 That's the thing. 00:04:57.245 --> 00:04:59.688 It's not a book, you know, like, I think if you're writing a book, 00:04:59.718 --> 00:05:02.328 then obviously you wanna spell check it, make sure everything's 00:05:02.418 --> 00:05:03.928 Michele: Books still have typos. 00:05:06.088 --> 00:05:10.498 Talking about someone who may be me, who was finding typos in their book 00:05:10.778 --> 00:05:11.758 Marie: oh, is that when you have like 00:05:11.758 --> 00:05:12.118 the next 00:05:12.458 --> 00:05:14.058 Michele: recently as like six months ago. 00:05:14.058 --> 00:05:15.138 And I was like, oh my God. 00:05:15.258 --> 00:05:16.978 I thought I found all of them. 00:05:17.178 --> 00:05:18.458 I hired a copy editor. 00:05:18.728 --> 00:05:19.018 Like 00:05:19.018 --> 00:05:19.308 Marie: Yeah. 00:05:19.595 --> 00:05:21.175 Michele: Or proofreader, like I just, 00:05:21.755 --> 00:05:25.415 Marie: That's when you do like, you know, sec, second edition, third edition. 00:05:25.795 --> 00:05:26.895 you fixable in that? 00:05:27.445 --> 00:05:29.055 Michele: Introduce more errors in the process. 00:05:29.352 --> 00:05:29.642 Yeah. 00:05:29.822 --> 00:05:34.239 So, okay, so you built Lama life which speaking of branding, the 00:05:34.309 --> 00:05:36.595 Lama branding is fantastic. 00:05:37.235 --> 00:05:42.000 And it's like a, a to do list productivity thing. 00:05:42.710 --> 00:05:43.000 Like. 00:05:45.140 --> 00:05:45.850 Marie: Close enough. 00:05:45.850 --> 00:05:46.130 Yeah. 00:05:46.230 --> 00:05:46.450 Yep. 00:05:46.750 --> 00:05:51.572 It is a to do list at the core, but the main sort of focus for it, 00:05:51.632 --> 00:05:53.772 no pun intended is to help you focus. 00:05:54.169 --> 00:05:57.432 So, I still use a separate to-do list app. 00:05:57.872 --> 00:05:59.232 I put everything in notion. 00:05:59.452 --> 00:06:03.672 That's kind of like my master to-do list, but when I'm working for the 00:06:03.672 --> 00:06:05.552 day, I transfer stuff to Lama Life. 00:06:05.855 --> 00:06:09.425 And the thing that's different about Lama life is it lets you add a timer, 00:06:09.785 --> 00:06:13.945 a countdown timer, not a stopwatch, a countdown timer to every single task. 00:06:14.325 --> 00:06:17.505 And the concept behind that is kind of like a time boxing concept, 00:06:17.975 --> 00:06:21.105 kind of like a slightly different spin on the pomodoro technique. 00:06:21.124 --> 00:06:24.244 A slightly more flexible pomodoro technique, cause you can assign any 00:06:24.244 --> 00:06:25.924 amount of time that you want to a task. 00:06:26.254 --> 00:06:29.131 And I find that just helps me focus because I know I've 00:06:29.131 --> 00:06:30.051 got a set amount of time. 00:06:30.380 --> 00:06:32.950 Um, Maybe it's 10 minutes, maybe it is 15. 00:06:33.330 --> 00:06:35.710 And I try not to do anything else during that time. 00:06:35.730 --> 00:06:39.910 And I just focus on whatever task it is that is in Lama Life. 00:06:40.214 --> 00:06:43.554 And I guess on top of that, it's a little bit, the design is a little bit fun. 00:06:43.631 --> 00:06:45.851 So it's designed to feel kind of low pressure. 00:06:46.161 --> 00:06:50.088 There's a lot of emoji in there and it's designed to make you feel 00:06:50.088 --> 00:06:51.368 good when you complete a task. 00:06:51.508 --> 00:06:54.888 So you get things like confetti animations when you finish something 00:06:55.028 --> 00:06:59.867 and lots of little sound effects that, that are kind of cute in nature. 00:07:00.127 --> 00:07:03.711 And yeah, so it's a it's enough that helps you focus at the end of the day. 00:07:04.007 --> 00:07:06.801 Michele: It's sort of like a todo list, but that has all like these 00:07:06.801 --> 00:07:12.201 sort of built in dopamine boosters on top of actually completing a task. 00:07:12.371 --> 00:07:15.074 Because it sounds like it's really important that the person using, 00:07:15.074 --> 00:07:17.114 it feels a sense of accomplishment 00:07:17.409 --> 00:07:17.829 Marie: mm-hmm 00:07:18.131 --> 00:07:20.421 Michele: from it and that it pressures them into do it. 00:07:20.421 --> 00:07:24.674 Like a lot of these things sound like basically things I have had to somehow 00:07:25.041 --> 00:07:29.871 build into how I work, like manually with paper checklists and stuff like that as 00:07:30.031 --> 00:07:32.191 somebody with ADHD, because I have spent 00:07:32.496 --> 00:07:32.716 Marie: Mm. 00:07:33.271 --> 00:07:36.851 Michele: so much time over my life trying to figure out how to make 00:07:36.851 --> 00:07:40.531 myself focus, how to, you know, get tasks done and everything. 00:07:40.924 --> 00:07:43.168 I'm curious, why did you make it? 00:07:43.168 --> 00:07:47.108 Not just the reason of like, you didn't like existing to-do lists, but like, 00:07:47.273 --> 00:07:47.493 Marie: Mm. 00:07:47.944 --> 00:07:48.164 Michele: Why? 00:07:48.524 --> 00:07:52.004 Why were you so motivated to build this? 00:07:52.549 --> 00:07:56.834 Marie: Yeah, so I don't know if we've ever talked about this on fleets or DMS 00:07:56.834 --> 00:07:59.114 or whatever, but I've got ADHD as well. 00:07:59.466 --> 00:08:00.566 Michele: Can I just, okay. 00:08:01.206 --> 00:08:04.726 I feel, I was like, I feel this is like the kind of thing that would 00:08:04.726 --> 00:08:08.406 be built by an ADHDer tier, but like, I don't wanna ask that, like 00:08:08.406 --> 00:08:10.326 that's up to her to like, offer that. 00:08:10.326 --> 00:08:10.526 Okay. 00:08:10.546 --> 00:08:10.766 No. 00:08:10.786 --> 00:08:11.006 Yep. 00:08:11.086 --> 00:08:11.486 I get it. 00:08:11.829 --> 00:08:12.519 Marie: It's, it's funny. 00:08:13.189 --> 00:08:16.319 It's funny, cause like I had this challenge right of, you know, do I 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:18.759 put this on the landing page or not? 00:08:19.212 --> 00:08:22.512 When I was putting together the landing page, I wasn't sure if I should 00:08:22.662 --> 00:08:26.512 kind of mention that, but at the end of the day, I decided to just make 00:08:26.512 --> 00:08:30.952 it a bit more general because other people can benefit from this as well. 00:08:31.302 --> 00:08:36.402 So my thinking is that if I design it with neurodiversity in mind, like, 00:08:36.402 --> 00:08:40.509 and I I'm coming from that background, then, you know, everybody in my mind 00:08:40.529 --> 00:08:42.309 is kind of on a spectrum anyway. 00:08:42.689 --> 00:08:46.454 So even if you are further along the spectrum, if it's designed with 00:08:46.454 --> 00:08:50.194 neurodiversity in mind, then you probably still get some benefit from it. 00:08:50.507 --> 00:08:51.967 And that's kind of what I'm finding. 00:08:52.270 --> 00:08:55.390 I don't think all of Lama life's customers have ADHD. 00:08:55.510 --> 00:09:00.370 I'm pretty sure that's not the case, but I do know a large number of them do. 00:09:01.110 --> 00:09:05.230 And I know that because they actually email me and they, oh my god like 00:09:05.230 --> 00:09:09.232 this t is like you you've designed this tool that works for my brain. 00:09:09.262 --> 00:09:12.272 Like, This is exactly kind of the thing I'm looking for I've 00:09:12.272 --> 00:09:13.312 been looking for a long time. 00:09:13.492 --> 00:09:14.968 And yeah, it's kind of interesting. 00:09:14.968 --> 00:09:17.208 So when you say, you know, why did you build this? 00:09:17.474 --> 00:09:18.514 There's two reasons. 00:09:18.654 --> 00:09:24.314 One is, I couldn't find a tool that worked for me, and I was trying to do 00:09:24.484 --> 00:09:28.536 all these hacks with other tools that were out there, but they just felt like 00:09:28.596 --> 00:09:30.583 it just was too, it was just too much. 00:09:30.583 --> 00:09:33.023 Like I was trying to do too many things, and it was getting in the 00:09:33.023 --> 00:09:34.503 way of the actual productivity. 00:09:34.963 --> 00:09:38.973 So I started just trying to put in features that like I 00:09:38.973 --> 00:09:40.613 wanted and that worked for me. 00:09:40.803 --> 00:09:41.853 That was the first reason. 00:09:41.920 --> 00:09:45.205 The second reason is I was just learning how to code. 00:09:45.555 --> 00:09:50.729 I taught myself how to code about two years ago just by watching YouTube 00:09:50.789 --> 00:09:55.034 videos and, you know, when you're learning to code, one of the first 00:09:55.034 --> 00:09:57.794 things you you make is a to-do list. 00:09:58.074 --> 00:10:01.521 I think a lot of, you know, new developers are like, let me make 00:10:01.561 --> 00:10:06.121 a to-do list because it's a really good way to practice web development. 00:10:06.301 --> 00:10:09.989 Cuz you get to, you know, you work with a database, and you can create a task. 00:10:10.329 --> 00:10:14.459 You can edit a task, you can right to the database retrieve tasks. 00:10:14.543 --> 00:10:18.023 There's a lot of good things that you can learn by making a to-do list app. 00:10:18.318 --> 00:10:21.304 So it started off as like a really simple to-do list. 00:10:21.444 --> 00:10:25.254 And then I put it on Twitter and people were like, I really want this. 00:10:25.954 --> 00:10:29.574 So I just started building it out more and more, and then adding in features 00:10:29.574 --> 00:10:34.214 that like I just wanted, and it started getting a following from that. 00:10:34.444 --> 00:10:38.124 From just sharing the stuff that I was, is working on and just the fact 00:10:38.124 --> 00:10:40.729 that some of the features were a little bit different, a little bit kind of 00:10:40.829 --> 00:10:45.256 quirky, or just a little bit focused on the fact that I've got really bad 00:10:45.526 --> 00:10:49.336 time blindness, so I was putting in a lot of features to help with that. 00:10:49.436 --> 00:10:53.486 And people liked that, they were either surprised because they'd never seen that 00:10:53.486 --> 00:10:57.206 before, or they were just searching for that because they already had that need. 00:10:57.569 --> 00:10:58.209 Michele: I love that. 00:10:58.586 --> 00:11:01.833 I mean, there's so many things in there like that I, I'm exploding to talk about. 00:11:01.933 --> 00:11:07.693 So like the first thing is like building something as an ADHD, or basically for 00:11:08.023 --> 00:11:09.513 ADHD years without actually saying it. 00:11:09.513 --> 00:11:14.113 Like That reminds me a lot of what Marie Poulin does with notion mastery. 00:11:14.113 --> 00:11:17.160 Because she started using notion, sounds like you do as well, sort 00:11:17.160 --> 00:11:21.790 of as her like second brain, because we forget things a lot. 00:11:21.970 --> 00:11:26.232 We need a place to store things, and I think there's this thing, um, you 00:11:26.232 --> 00:11:30.232 know, I I believe that like all of the things we have that like, that are 00:11:30.272 --> 00:11:35.595 deficiencies or seen as deficiencies, if you can master those, you can then 00:11:35.865 --> 00:11:39.275 turn them into this thing that like massively helps other people, even 00:11:39.275 --> 00:11:41.257 if they don't have that struggle. 00:11:41.590 --> 00:11:46.410 And so I think because those of us with ADHD have to spend so much 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:51.250 time, like learning these very basic things about how do you focus, and 00:11:51.250 --> 00:11:54.290 what makes you feel accomplished, and what makes you go onto another task? 00:11:54.430 --> 00:11:57.450 And like, what are all of the things that can go wrong when you're trying 00:11:57.450 --> 00:12:02.560 to just get one stupidly simple thing done, and you've been at your desk 00:12:02.620 --> 00:12:04.280 for four hours and still not done it. 00:12:04.280 --> 00:12:05.960 And it would take you 10 seconds to do it. 00:12:06.010 --> 00:12:08.877 How do you prevent yourself from getting in that situation, like 00:12:08.877 --> 00:12:10.117 we've had to think about that 00:12:10.657 --> 00:12:10.877 Marie: yep. 00:12:11.417 --> 00:12:11.917 Michele: so much. 00:12:12.107 --> 00:12:17.637 Like more than somebody who maybe doesn't have ADHD that we end up being 00:12:17.657 --> 00:12:20.153 really good at, like communicate. 00:12:20.317 --> 00:12:24.185 Like, I feel like that's for me as like listening to people like between 00:12:24.185 --> 00:12:28.425 being ADHD and being from the Northeast where we interrupt people constantly, 00:12:28.725 --> 00:12:33.208 like, I really had to learn how to listen to people at a level that most 00:12:33.208 --> 00:12:34.768 people just never even think about. 00:12:35.228 --> 00:12:38.088 And then in turn, I was like, oh wait, I have all of this knowledge 00:12:38.088 --> 00:12:40.368 about like how to have a conversation and how to listen to people. 00:12:40.988 --> 00:12:42.928 And I guess other people haven't really thought about that. 00:12:42.998 --> 00:12:44.238 That could use that to like help them. 00:12:44.505 --> 00:12:49.293 it sounds like you are doing that with Lama Life, but then I also love, okay, 00:12:49.383 --> 00:12:54.047 sorry, so how you were like learning to code, got yourself watching like YouTube 00:12:54.147 --> 00:12:56.247 videos building the basic to-do list app. 00:12:56.387 --> 00:13:00.023 I remember like my God, like years ago going to like a rails girls 00:13:00.313 --> 00:13:03.583 thing and like, yeah, starting out building a very basic to-do list, 00:13:03.583 --> 00:13:05.373 but then like, you got into it. 00:13:05.643 --> 00:13:09.343 It sounds like you got that little hyperfocused bug, and then you went 00:13:09.343 --> 00:13:13.463 from like doing these YouTube videos and then you're just in very ADHD fashion, 00:13:13.713 --> 00:13:18.223 completely off somewhere else, like totally on the other side, like running 00:13:18.323 --> 00:13:22.183 off with something completely unrelated, but it is related, but like, you're 00:13:22.183 --> 00:13:23.823 just like, just way off on a tangent. 00:13:23.973 --> 00:13:26.413 And, and like now it's your business. 00:13:26.713 --> 00:13:30.296 Marie: Yeah, I think that's the thing like with, with, with no, that's pretty 00:13:30.296 --> 00:13:34.261 much what happened because so with hyper focus, I think so I've been 00:13:34.261 --> 00:13:38.356 thinking like the reason why we tend to hyper focus is because when we find 00:13:38.356 --> 00:13:42.196 something that really lights up our brain, like you just love that feeling 00:13:42.776 --> 00:13:44.196 and you don't, you don't wanna stop. 00:13:44.469 --> 00:13:46.673 And that's how I felt about coding. 00:13:47.133 --> 00:13:50.819 So it's interesting though, because I, this is actually my third attempt to 00:13:50.819 --> 00:13:56.613 learn how to code, the first two times I tried to read a book and it did not work. 00:13:56.613 --> 00:13:58.253 It didn't, it didn't click for me. 00:13:58.383 --> 00:14:01.933 I tried reading a couple of chapters and just couldn't get into it. 00:14:02.236 --> 00:14:06.633 And this third time, I tried to think about, you know, 00:14:06.633 --> 00:14:07.993 what is my learning style? 00:14:08.043 --> 00:14:09.003 What works for me? 00:14:09.403 --> 00:14:14.043 I am terrible at reading books, fiction, nonfiction, it doesn't matter. 00:14:14.303 --> 00:14:17.153 So I don't know why I thought reading a coding book was a good idea. 00:14:17.471 --> 00:14:20.931 But I just guess, I guess I saw people online doing that. 00:14:20.931 --> 00:14:22.731 So I was like, yeah, these books have good reviews. 00:14:22.731 --> 00:14:23.371 Let me try it. 00:14:23.751 --> 00:14:27.811 But in the end I thought, well, I really like watching videos. 00:14:28.231 --> 00:14:29.171 I'm really good with audio. 00:14:29.391 --> 00:14:32.371 And I'm really good with video from a learning perspective. 00:14:32.791 --> 00:14:36.851 So then I just started watching YouTube videos and I supplemented 00:14:36.851 --> 00:14:38.481 that with a Udemy course. 00:14:38.681 --> 00:14:40.201 I think I paid 20 bucks for it. 00:14:40.581 --> 00:14:43.401 And that became, you know, my whole, like how to learn 00:14:43.401 --> 00:14:45.462 JavaScript and I love it now. 00:14:45.692 --> 00:14:47.412 I just, I absolutely love it. 00:14:47.492 --> 00:14:51.252 I was spending, I don't know, four hours, five hours a day, just hyper 00:14:51.292 --> 00:14:54.852 focusing and just being obsessed, learning everything I could about coding. 00:14:55.152 --> 00:14:57.532 And it was just a very natural thing. 00:14:57.672 --> 00:14:59.342 It was first a to-do list. 00:14:59.638 --> 00:15:02.538 And then I was like, okay, well it's just a to-do list. 00:15:02.538 --> 00:15:06.808 Maybe I should connect a data base to it so I can actually save stuff for people. 00:15:07.268 --> 00:15:10.928 Let me add like a user profile and an account and authentication. 00:15:11.348 --> 00:15:13.237 And every time I Did An extra thing. 00:15:13.257 --> 00:15:14.757 It was, it was all about learning. 00:15:14.867 --> 00:15:17.797 Like, okay, well I wanna learn how to add Stripe payments next. 00:15:18.057 --> 00:15:22.940 And if I look back now, it's sort of, it looks kind of like a larger app now, but 00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:24.580 it didn't feel overwhelming at the time. 00:15:24.580 --> 00:15:28.140 Cause I was just doing it in little bits and it was all about me learning to code. 00:15:28.280 --> 00:15:32.537 So it was just kind of this very natural progression, weirdly so. 00:15:32.687 --> 00:15:33.937 Like just very weirdly. 00:15:33.937 --> 00:15:35.947 So, and I just love it. 00:15:36.087 --> 00:15:38.027 So it didn't feel like a chore to me. 00:15:38.527 --> 00:15:39.987 It was quite fun to do. 00:15:40.287 --> 00:15:41.097 And yeah. 00:15:41.097 --> 00:15:44.137 And it's just kind of become what it is today from that. 00:15:44.509 --> 00:15:49.039 Michele: Did you use Lama Life to build Lama Life like, like when you were 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:50.559 like, oh, like learn how to use Stripe. 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:54.735 Did you have a, to do list item that was like, you know, learn how 00:15:54.735 --> 00:15:56.855 to integrate Stripe and then like you check off the item and you're 00:15:56.855 --> 00:15:57.695 like, oh, that could be more fun. 00:15:57.695 --> 00:15:58.775 Like, let me add some confetti. 00:15:58.775 --> 00:15:58.975 Okay. 00:15:58.975 --> 00:16:02.055 Hold, let me add like a to-do list item to add confetti when I complete an item 00:16:02.475 --> 00:16:06.255 and then like 10 steps down, you're like, oh, I was gonna add Stripe checkout. 00:16:06.255 --> 00:16:08.169 That's why I started doing this in the first place. 00:16:09.242 --> 00:16:10.562 Marie: A little bit like that, yeah. 00:16:10.682 --> 00:16:12.842 I guess it's, it's kind of meta, meta in that way. 00:16:12.842 --> 00:16:13.242 Isn't it? 00:16:13.382 --> 00:16:17.912 But, um, yeah, it does keep me on track, and yeah, there's kind of all sorts of 00:16:17.912 --> 00:16:19.192 weird things that I've built into there. 00:16:19.192 --> 00:16:22.802 So it's not just When, when you finish a task or when the timer 00:16:22.802 --> 00:16:27.769 runs out, there's an alarm, but I also have kind of the reverse where 00:16:28.069 --> 00:16:32.089 if you're doing a task and you get distracted, you might need something 00:16:32.089 --> 00:16:33.889 to kind of bring you back to focus. 00:16:34.509 --> 00:16:38.369 So I I've created this thing called chimes, and you can just have it play 00:16:38.369 --> 00:16:42.839 like a chime, like a little sound every five minutes or every 10 minutes. 00:16:43.189 --> 00:16:45.729 And it's just something to kind of snap you back in case you're 00:16:45.729 --> 00:16:47.649 hyper focusing on the wrong thing. 00:16:47.949 --> 00:16:50.383 So it's kind of like a reverse, a reverse thing. 00:16:50.454 --> 00:16:52.174 A lot of people have liked that feature. 00:16:52.471 --> 00:16:54.951 I guess It's just having an, an alarm on an interval 00:16:55.346 --> 00:16:59.107 Michele: It sounds like, you know, an alarm is very like, an alarm 00:16:59.107 --> 00:17:00.840 says pay attention to this now. 00:17:00.994 --> 00:17:05.208 It's very, very startling, but it almost sounds like you're building 00:17:05.208 --> 00:17:09.728 this kind of like Pavlovian sort of like you snap your fingers and it's 00:17:09.728 --> 00:17:12.648 like, oh, and when I hear that snap, that means I'm supposed to figure out 00:17:12.998 --> 00:17:14.688 what I was doing in the first place. 00:17:14.708 --> 00:17:19.682 And so it's not as in intrusive, or like yeah, as intrusive as an alarm 00:17:19.782 --> 00:17:23.602 is, but more of the like, oh, I hear, you know, the whistle sound. 00:17:23.702 --> 00:17:28.241 And then I know that I need to, you know, get off of my Wikipedia rabbit hole. 00:17:28.818 --> 00:17:29.038 Marie: Yep. 00:17:29.148 --> 00:17:29.438 Yeah. 00:17:29.508 --> 00:17:32.678 It's really designed to be kind of a companion to you. 00:17:32.678 --> 00:17:36.438 Like while you're working kind of like a friend, and that's, I think that's where 00:17:36.438 --> 00:17:39.708 the branding comes in with the Lama, cause the Lama looks kind of friendly 00:17:39.968 --> 00:17:43.974 and quirky and fun, but it's really just meant to be with you while you work. 00:17:44.034 --> 00:17:46.734 And it almost like hold your hand and guide you. 00:17:47.074 --> 00:17:50.804 So you stay focused and not get distracted on, you know, down a 00:17:50.804 --> 00:17:51.884 rabbit hole for something else. 00:17:52.186 --> 00:17:56.166 Michele: So I'm curious, do you remember like was there any particular person's 00:17:56.166 --> 00:17:59.646 YouTube videos you were watching when you were learning to code or was it 00:17:59.646 --> 00:18:01.126 like a whole bunch of different things? 00:18:01.126 --> 00:18:02.566 Like, what did that look like? 00:18:02.626 --> 00:18:05.446 But also like, how did you find four to five hours a day 00:18:05.466 --> 00:18:07.126 to watch YouTube videos about 00:18:08.016 --> 00:18:08.236 Marie: Mm. 00:18:08.976 --> 00:18:11.156 So I I had actually quit my job. 00:18:11.459 --> 00:18:17.153 I was working in like the innovation team for a healthcare company, and that 00:18:17.173 --> 00:18:21.793 was good in a lot of different ways, but it wasn't really what I wanted. 00:18:22.096 --> 00:18:24.756 It wasn't really kind of what I wanted to do. 00:18:24.756 --> 00:18:26.956 Like I wanted to create like a lot of products. 00:18:27.029 --> 00:18:28.649 I'd actually done a few startups in the past. 00:18:29.679 --> 00:18:33.899 So with those previous startups, I was working with a friend and that 00:18:33.899 --> 00:18:36.979 friend was doing all the coding, and the dev work, and I was doing more the 00:18:36.979 --> 00:18:40.893 marketing and sort of the product and business side, but I've always just 00:18:40.893 --> 00:18:42.693 wanted to create like my own stuff. 00:18:43.193 --> 00:18:46.006 And I don't know, I kind of just hit this point in corporate life where 00:18:46.006 --> 00:18:49.476 I was like, okay, I think I just wanna, I just wanna do my own thing. 00:18:50.056 --> 00:18:55.396 And I think, I think this decision is a very personal one and it's different for 00:18:55.396 --> 00:19:00.558 everybody because some people say, you know, I'll, I'll do my, my corporate gig 00:19:00.738 --> 00:19:05.518 and I'll do my indie hacking stuff on the side until I reach a certain level 00:19:05.538 --> 00:19:08.558 of MRR and then I can afford to quit. 00:19:08.978 --> 00:19:13.191 With me, I think it was quite, I was quite lucky in the sense that I'd 00:19:13.241 --> 00:19:18.073 saved up a lot of money with previous work that I I'd kind of worked out, 00:19:18.073 --> 00:19:21.913 I had a certain amount of runway where I could quit and support myself 00:19:22.013 --> 00:19:23.993 for X amount of, you know, months. 00:19:24.340 --> 00:19:29.510 For a bit more context, I don't have kids either, and so in terms of supporting 00:19:29.510 --> 00:19:31.110 myself, it's really just supporting me. 00:19:31.110 --> 00:19:34.510 There's less responsibility in that sense, cause there's no one sort 00:19:34.510 --> 00:19:38.421 of under my care, except my dog, Homer, which we can talk about later. 00:19:39.041 --> 00:19:40.901 Um, So I'd kind of just. 00:19:41.204 --> 00:19:44.134 Yeah, I kind of just quit, and I knew I had a certain amount of 00:19:44.134 --> 00:19:45.974 time to make something happen. 00:19:46.351 --> 00:19:49.858 And because of that, I think this works for my brain as well. 00:19:49.928 --> 00:19:52.138 There's a sense of urgency for me. 00:19:52.448 --> 00:19:56.268 You know, there's a sense of like, if you don't do this, you're kind of screwed. 00:19:57.088 --> 00:19:59.980 And that really helps me get into gear year. 00:19:59.996 --> 00:20:05.421 Personally, if I kept working, and I had a regular income, and I was trying to learn 00:20:05.421 --> 00:20:09.811 this on the side, personally, that doesn't work for me because it's not as urgent. 00:20:10.038 --> 00:20:12.658 And I think that's just something for me, like that's just how 00:20:12.658 --> 00:20:14.218 my life has been in general. 00:20:14.528 --> 00:20:18.738 When I'm thrown into like a really crazy situation, I tend to get 00:20:18.858 --> 00:20:23.015 a lot of focus, and I find it exciting, and stuff gets done. 00:20:23.115 --> 00:20:26.695 But if there's no urgency for me, then it could just drag on. 00:20:27.095 --> 00:20:31.075 I probably wouldn't have spent four hours a day, if there was no urgency behind it. 00:20:31.255 --> 00:20:33.715 But I, I think everyone's a little bit different, but that's kind of 00:20:33.715 --> 00:20:35.275 how that's kind of how I did It. 00:20:35.586 --> 00:20:39.516 Michele: But it me, it makes sense, like on a sort of macro level, like knowing 00:20:39.516 --> 00:20:45.516 that you had, you know, X months of living expenses, basically time boxed you 00:20:46.001 --> 00:20:46.221 Marie: Mm. 00:20:46.866 --> 00:20:48.110 Michele: into doing this. 00:20:48.130 --> 00:20:51.190 Now, some people also like they, if they did that, like they might also just 00:20:51.370 --> 00:20:56.025 get really stressed that like it wasn't going to happen in that amount of time, 00:20:56.450 --> 00:20:56.670 Marie: Yep. 00:20:57.075 --> 00:21:02.018 Michele: it sounds like you were, it was able to be a productive force for you. 00:21:02.496 --> 00:21:05.496 I mean, I'm one of those people who, you know, had the side project on the side, 00:21:05.596 --> 00:21:10.329 and the corporate jobs, and like, and just like kept putting it off, and putting 00:21:10.329 --> 00:21:16.069 it off, and putting it off because I was so scared of, you know, I, I think 00:21:16.069 --> 00:21:19.549 like there's a really this question of like, not only can I afford it. 00:21:19.852 --> 00:21:23.109 But also like, am I capable of this? 00:21:23.382 --> 00:21:26.296 Those are feel like two very different questions. 00:21:26.516 --> 00:21:30.459 And it sounds like you believed you were capable of running your 00:21:30.459 --> 00:21:34.662 own business for me, it took me a really long time to believe it. 00:21:35.011 --> 00:21:35.231 Marie: Mm. 00:21:35.531 --> 00:21:35.821 Yeah. 00:21:35.931 --> 00:21:36.741 It's Hmm. 00:21:36.741 --> 00:21:37.381 It's interesting. 00:21:37.401 --> 00:21:41.701 So, the other way I look at it is, so obviously if you quit your job, there's no 00:21:41.721 --> 00:21:45.781 income coming in and you are spending time kind of getting a business off the ground. 00:21:45.911 --> 00:21:46.261 Right. 00:21:46.641 --> 00:21:47.861 But I kind of think of it. 00:21:48.241 --> 00:21:52.341 You know, sometimes people take a gap year or, you know, they're working and they 00:21:52.341 --> 00:21:54.341 might stop and do an MBA or something. 00:21:54.851 --> 00:21:58.211 They might go back to university, and they're spending 00:21:58.481 --> 00:22:00.091 time and money doing that. 00:22:01.131 --> 00:22:04.791 For me, the way I justified it in my head was okay, well, I'm not gonna go 00:22:04.791 --> 00:22:10.437 back to university and pay for another degree, but what I will do is, you know, 00:22:10.587 --> 00:22:12.637 I'll just take time off work to do it. 00:22:12.657 --> 00:22:15.947 And in effect, I'm kind of paying for that experience because 00:22:15.947 --> 00:22:17.107 there's no money coming in. 00:22:17.407 --> 00:22:20.977 So I kind of justify it that way as like, I'm not paying for an degree, but I'm 00:22:20.977 --> 00:22:22.934 paying for experience, in a, in a way. 00:22:22.984 --> 00:22:23.464 In a fashion. 00:22:23.867 --> 00:22:27.767 And that kind of really helped me think about the value behind it. 00:22:28.427 --> 00:22:30.887 And obviously you're not, you're not going to a lecture and being 00:22:30.887 --> 00:22:32.247 taught, but you are teaching yourself. 00:22:32.387 --> 00:22:35.927 And for me, that actually worked out really well because I could 00:22:35.927 --> 00:22:39.244 never sit in a lecture and pay attention for the whole time. 00:22:39.254 --> 00:22:39.604 Right. 00:22:39.764 --> 00:22:44.994 I just, I struggled so badly to do that, but if I'm teaching myself and 00:22:44.994 --> 00:22:49.279 I'm watching a video, I could fast forward the video if I get it and I 00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:51.099 can rewind the video if I don't get it. 00:22:51.099 --> 00:22:54.919 If the video itself wasn't working for me, if that particular channel 00:22:55.059 --> 00:22:58.239 on YouTube wasn't working, I would just go and find someone else. 00:22:58.593 --> 00:23:01.809 And I think you have a lot more control over your learning when you're doing it 00:23:01.809 --> 00:23:05.732 that way, and you asked before, like, are there particular channels that I follow? 00:23:06.112 --> 00:23:08.612 And I think what I did was I had like two or three. 00:23:09.052 --> 00:23:12.014 So there's one called JavaScript 30 by Wes Boss. 00:23:12.298 --> 00:23:15.948 There's a guy called Dev Ed on YouTube, which I really like. 00:23:16.328 --> 00:23:20.399 And also Traversy media, they're kind of the three that I was looking at. 00:23:20.699 --> 00:23:23.559 Uh, We can put some, some links maybe in the show notes later. 00:23:23.876 --> 00:23:26.846 Um, They were kind of like three sort of staple ones. 00:23:26.946 --> 00:23:30.646 And then if there was a specific topic that I was struggling on, 00:23:30.646 --> 00:23:32.906 like a specific coding challenge. 00:23:33.066 --> 00:23:33.946 I was struggling on. 00:23:34.186 --> 00:23:39.386 I would just go Google like that specific thing and hunt for anybody who had 00:23:39.566 --> 00:23:41.546 solved that or who could explain it. 00:23:41.566 --> 00:23:44.943 So it was kind of like a mixture, but I think the main point I'm trying to 00:23:44.943 --> 00:23:48.609 make is that like, you have to really just go with what works for you. 00:23:48.719 --> 00:23:52.679 That was kind of like a big thing for me was I don't really fit into some 00:23:52.679 --> 00:23:57.229 of these more traditional learning models, university, reading books, 00:23:57.329 --> 00:24:00.676 et cetera, but I kind of know what works for me and because I'm doing 00:24:00.676 --> 00:24:03.676 my own thing, I have so much more freedom to go, well, that doesn't work. 00:24:03.836 --> 00:24:04.596 I don't wanna do that. 00:24:04.956 --> 00:24:08.503 I don't wanna sit, you know, for several hours doing that one thing, listening 00:24:08.503 --> 00:24:12.363 to this one teacher on YouTube, if they don't work for me, if they don't click 00:24:12.363 --> 00:24:13.923 with how I'm thinking about things. 00:24:14.423 --> 00:24:17.838 Well, I don't click with the way they're explaining it, but that's fine 00:24:17.838 --> 00:24:19.718 because I can control my own learning. 00:24:19.918 --> 00:24:21.118 I can go somewhere else. 00:24:21.414 --> 00:24:22.804 Maybe it's not YouTube. 00:24:22.804 --> 00:24:25.404 Maybe it was stack overflow or maybe it's Reddit. 00:24:25.694 --> 00:24:29.514 You have so much more freedom to figure out what works for you, and 00:24:29.514 --> 00:24:31.074 you can just go in that direction. 00:24:31.377 --> 00:24:33.427 Michele: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you basically built 00:24:33.777 --> 00:24:36.189 your own education, in this. 00:24:36.289 --> 00:24:40.991 And really got so much satisfaction out of building it, but also you 00:24:40.991 --> 00:24:44.511 were like, sounds like from the very early stages, you were also getting 00:24:45.161 --> 00:24:48.581 feedback from people who wanted to use it, who wanted to try using it. 00:24:48.581 --> 00:24:52.221 And I think this is something really like, there's something really magical 00:24:52.511 --> 00:24:56.931 about getting feedback from users that not only does it help you make sure 00:24:56.931 --> 00:25:00.371 you're kind of building the right thing or building in the right direction. 00:25:00.695 --> 00:25:05.801 But having people who are using it is so like motivating, right? 00:25:05.965 --> 00:25:10.045 I think people talk about like how do you keep motivation as an indie hacker 00:25:10.145 --> 00:25:11.485 or as an independent business owner? 00:25:11.889 --> 00:25:15.369 And for me like that, that motivation comes from just like 00:25:15.369 --> 00:25:16.529 knowing that I'm helping people. 00:25:17.002 --> 00:25:20.622 And it sounds like that like, like I almost like took you by surprise that 00:25:20.622 --> 00:25:24.462 people wanted to use it, but then that like kind of kept you going. 00:25:24.765 --> 00:25:25.875 Marie: Yeah, a hundred percent. 00:25:25.875 --> 00:25:29.868 You know, I think I tweeted about this a few weeks ago, but it was 00:25:29.868 --> 00:25:35.348 maybe nine o'clock at night, and I was ready to, you know, just relax, put 00:25:35.348 --> 00:25:37.388 my feet up, maybe watch some Netflix. 00:25:37.884 --> 00:25:41.304 And then somebody emailed me with some really positive feedback about 00:25:41.494 --> 00:25:44.864 Lama Life, and then I was like, oh, I'm like, I've got a second win. 00:25:45.194 --> 00:25:47.774 And then I was like, okay, let me get my laptop back out. 00:25:47.774 --> 00:25:52.038 And I started just coding, like a new feature because you're right, 00:25:52.038 --> 00:25:53.438 like, it's just so motivating. 00:25:53.438 --> 00:25:53.638 Right. 00:25:53.638 --> 00:25:58.838 It's just so empowering, and it just feels so good that someone else appreciates 00:25:58.858 --> 00:26:04.701 the work and yeah, it really just is like my energy for this, and um, yeah. 00:26:04.701 --> 00:26:08.781 So I always, whenever I look at other indie hacker products, I'm like, if I 00:26:08.971 --> 00:26:13.093 like it, even if it's just a small part of it, I will write to that person because 00:26:13.173 --> 00:26:16.773 I know how good it feels when someone writes to me and says, hey, you know, 00:26:16.937 --> 00:26:18.217 I really love what you've done here. 00:26:18.317 --> 00:26:20.137 And here's a feature suggestion. 00:26:20.713 --> 00:26:21.763 It's just it's, yeah. 00:26:21.763 --> 00:26:23.563 It's just so much, it's like fuel. 00:26:24.113 --> 00:26:25.563 It's fuel that keeps me going. 00:26:25.882 --> 00:26:29.970 Michele: I think the world would be a much nicer place if like, every 00:26:29.970 --> 00:26:34.410 day, like each one of us had a goal to just compliment somebody's work. 00:26:34.430 --> 00:26:38.493 And as you said, it can just be like a small thing about it. 00:26:38.523 --> 00:26:41.720 It doesn't have to be like, you know, I love the business model you've 00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:43.240 created here and like, this is amazing. 00:26:43.270 --> 00:26:46.030 It should be like, I love how there's confetti when I check something 00:26:46.030 --> 00:26:47.390 off, like, it just makes me happy. 00:26:47.750 --> 00:26:53.197 Just like something small, but taking the time to appreciate someone else, 00:26:53.647 --> 00:26:55.907 can feel awkward, but it's so powerful. 00:26:56.247 --> 00:27:02.027 And once you get in the habit of doing it and receiving appreciation, right? 00:27:02.027 --> 00:27:04.340 Like It's just, it's amazing. 00:27:04.643 --> 00:27:08.403 Like I, for me, it is the best dopamine fuel. 00:27:08.953 --> 00:27:09.673 Marie: Mm-hmm . Yep. 00:27:09.933 --> 00:27:10.153 Yep. 00:27:10.473 --> 00:27:12.633 I think it's also a good way to make friends, as well. 00:27:12.713 --> 00:27:16.543 You know, obviously the feedback that you're giving needs to be genuine, but 00:27:16.839 --> 00:27:19.899 if someone reaches out to me and they have something nice to say about the 00:27:19.899 --> 00:27:25.279 website that is truly genuine, then I'm probably gonna write back, and say hi, 00:27:25.379 --> 00:27:27.159 or, you know, thanks for, thanks for that. 00:27:27.524 --> 00:27:30.826 I don't know about you, but I'm starting to get a lot more like random 00:27:31.446 --> 00:27:35.910 DMS on Twitter, and I used to have this thing where like every time I 00:27:35.910 --> 00:27:40.990 looked at my DMS, especially the ones that are message requests, so these 00:27:40.990 --> 00:27:42.860 are people that you don't follow. 00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:43.510 Right. 00:27:43.510 --> 00:27:45.390 And they just, they just message you. 00:27:45.686 --> 00:27:48.886 I used to have kind of this anxiety moment where I was like, I don't 00:27:48.886 --> 00:27:53.180 really know what this person's gonna say, and is it just gonna be something 00:27:53.210 --> 00:27:56.450 like, they want something from me. 00:27:56.770 --> 00:27:59.090 I get a lot of requests saying, can you review this? 00:27:59.110 --> 00:28:01.600 Or can you, vote me on product hunt. 00:28:01.700 --> 00:28:05.776 And I just sometimes like, if I don't know someone, I probably won't do it. 00:28:06.080 --> 00:28:09.880 I probably won't accept the message request unless it's constructive, 00:28:09.980 --> 00:28:13.473 unless it's something like it's a compliment or they're giving feedback. 00:28:13.873 --> 00:28:17.160 But I think there's this, this trend where a lot of people ex 00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:18.750 just ex expect you to reply. 00:28:18.890 --> 00:28:21.706 And that was actually really getting to me for some time. 00:28:22.011 --> 00:28:24.471 But now when, now when I go into my message request, I 00:28:24.471 --> 00:28:25.311 kind of take a deep breath. 00:28:25.371 --> 00:28:28.591 I'm like, okay, let me see what there is, but I don't know if you've 00:28:28.591 --> 00:28:30.101 ever had that with your account. 00:28:30.221 --> 00:28:33.661 I think as you get more followers, it gets, it kind of gets exponentially worse. 00:28:33.963 --> 00:28:36.453 Michele: This is, well, that's something weird about Twitter, right? 00:28:36.453 --> 00:28:40.733 Is like the more you use the product, the worse, the experience gets like, 00:28:41.323 --> 00:28:43.493 like if you have a viral tweet, like, I don't know if you've ever 00:28:43.493 --> 00:28:48.285 had a viral tweet, but like your mentions just become a dumpster fire. 00:28:48.565 --> 00:28:52.855 Like, like leaving your little safe little community, like is dangerous on Twitter. 00:28:53.221 --> 00:28:56.901 I was thinking about this the other day, like I'm really struggling with how to 00:28:57.298 --> 00:29:00.708 like, manage like the whole thing of DMS. 00:29:00.708 --> 00:29:02.868 Because like, if it's like somebody that I know and I follow and like we're 00:29:02.908 --> 00:29:03.908 chatting about something, like, it's fine. 00:29:03.928 --> 00:29:07.235 But there's, there's the whole thing about, like, I, I used to be able 00:29:07.235 --> 00:29:09.875 to just, you know, someone reach out to me, like I used to be able 00:29:09.875 --> 00:29:12.555 to just hop on a phone call with them and chat and like, whatever. 00:29:12.641 --> 00:29:13.121 I just don't. 00:29:13.161 --> 00:29:15.041 I have so many people asking me for that now. 00:29:15.141 --> 00:29:18.681 And I just don't have time for it, in which people say, oh, well 00:29:18.681 --> 00:29:19.561 then you should do consulting. 00:29:19.561 --> 00:29:22.291 And I'm like, these are like other, people who are just trying to get 00:29:22.291 --> 00:29:24.211 their business started, they're trying to figure something out. 00:29:24.351 --> 00:29:26.911 I can't just like charge 'em $500 for a phone call. 00:29:27.128 --> 00:29:28.088 I would feel bad. 00:29:28.298 --> 00:29:30.818 Even if they could pay it, I would feel bad taking their money. 00:29:31.718 --> 00:29:35.378 And so sometimes like, I have, I feel like I'm kind of rude and I'm 00:29:35.378 --> 00:29:37.128 like, and like, they're like, oh, how did you start your business? 00:29:37.128 --> 00:29:40.988 And I'm like, I have done so many podcasts where I talked about that. 00:29:40.988 --> 00:29:46.373 And I'm really bored of talking about that like, uh, I have to like start 00:29:46.670 --> 00:29:51.686 either ignoring people or not like not, you know, they say they want a phone 00:29:51.686 --> 00:29:53.206 call and I just like, I can't do it. 00:29:53.396 --> 00:29:56.416 And I feel so bad, cause that's why I, like, I love talking to people. 00:29:56.576 --> 00:29:58.256 I just like love making friends and everything. 00:29:58.316 --> 00:30:01.276 And I just feel like I can't do that anymore. 00:30:01.568 --> 00:30:04.378 Like, you know, if it's someone I've been like tweeting with and they like 00:30:04.378 --> 00:30:05.958 ask me up vote them on product hunt. 00:30:05.958 --> 00:30:06.598 And like, that's it. 00:30:06.658 --> 00:30:07.318 I'm like, okay, fine. 00:30:07.318 --> 00:30:07.798 I'll do that. 00:30:07.898 --> 00:30:08.668 Marie: Yeah, yeah, totally. 00:30:08.793 --> 00:30:11.613 Michele: Though, then again, if I say this now, and I end up getting like 50 of 00:30:11.613 --> 00:30:13.293 those a day, like, I can't do it anymore. 00:30:13.619 --> 00:30:15.319 You know, like as the problem, right? 00:30:15.319 --> 00:30:18.159 Like I'm actually really struggling with this, but then there also are 00:30:18.159 --> 00:30:21.519 like conversation I do have with people like where there actually needs to 00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:23.559 be something I need to do out of it. 00:30:23.859 --> 00:30:29.116 And then, because the Twitter DMS experience itself is just not organized, 00:30:29.116 --> 00:30:32.236 like I end up forgetting about it and like, I needed to email someone and like 00:30:32.539 --> 00:30:34.299 Marie: I'm quite behind on my DMS. 00:30:34.409 --> 00:30:36.259 Like I feel like, they build up and um, 00:30:36.634 --> 00:30:37.354 Michele: I lose them. 00:30:38.204 --> 00:30:38.324 Marie: I. 00:30:38.374 --> 00:30:40.874 Michele: And then so like if somebody DMS me something, then I actually 00:30:40.874 --> 00:30:44.872 need to like, do an action out of, I feel so bad, but I end up being like, 00:30:44.872 --> 00:30:46.512 Hey, like, can you email this to me? 00:30:46.512 --> 00:30:49.309 Because otherwise I'm going to forget about it. 00:30:49.419 --> 00:30:53.189 And I feel like I'm like imposing my process on people. 00:30:53.482 --> 00:30:56.775 But yeah, I I am struggling with dMS, but it, it's 00:30:56.820 --> 00:30:58.914 Marie: somebody create a product to to manage 00:30:59.749 --> 00:31:02.199 Michele: But also, I don't even like, like the experience most of the time. 00:31:02.199 --> 00:31:03.559 I don't think I would pay for it. 00:31:03.679 --> 00:31:07.409 I feel like this is Twitter's responsibility to have a better 00:31:07.479 --> 00:31:12.179 product experience here that like, but, but it's like, where is that? 00:31:12.483 --> 00:31:15.313 Where is that like, line and like protecting your own time 00:31:15.453 --> 00:31:19.033 and like it's, I have, have not, I have not figured that out. 00:31:19.336 --> 00:31:19.556 Um, 00:31:19.761 --> 00:31:23.899 Marie: Of the things I do is if I get a lot of DMS about a particular 00:31:24.129 --> 00:31:28.832 like topic, then I'll say to that person, let me tweet about it. 00:31:28.832 --> 00:31:34.600 So then everyone can sort of hear, hear the answer or just, you can kind, you can 00:31:34.600 --> 00:31:38.440 kind of use it as feedback in a way, like, this is what everyone's asking about. 00:31:39.100 --> 00:31:42.520 So for your case, if it's, you know, how did you start your business then 00:31:42.850 --> 00:31:44.080 maybe you could just do a tweet. 00:31:44.340 --> 00:31:47.120 You probably already done this a billion times, but you could do 00:31:47.120 --> 00:31:50.384 another tweet on it and just say, well, I'll tweet about it again. 00:31:50.564 --> 00:31:51.984 So then everybody can learn. 00:31:52.335 --> 00:31:54.675 Michele: So I don't think I actually have, like, I don't think I've 00:31:54.675 --> 00:31:57.385 ever made a threat of like, this is how we started our business. 00:31:57.485 --> 00:32:02.115 Or like, here's like, you know, five of the , you know, dozens and dozens I've 00:32:02.115 --> 00:32:05.675 done where we talk about how we, or like, here's a talk I did or whatever, I don't 00:32:05.675 --> 00:32:11.630 have those references for myself that I can basically use as a safe reply. 00:32:11.927 --> 00:32:12.387 That's a 00:32:12.442 --> 00:32:12.722 Marie: time. 00:32:13.337 --> 00:32:13.627 Michele: Yeah. 00:32:13.847 --> 00:32:14.307 That's a 00:32:14.322 --> 00:32:15.962 Marie: I hate threads normally though, but um, 00:32:16.447 --> 00:32:16.727 Michele: I know. 00:32:16.727 --> 00:32:16.967 Yeah. 00:32:17.020 --> 00:32:20.495 It's like how much time do I actually wanna spend thinking about twitter. 00:32:20.755 --> 00:32:23.875 I think of, you know, cause we had Arvid on a couple of weeks ago, like 00:32:23.875 --> 00:32:26.669 talking about Twitter strategy and I was like, oh, I should like really, I 00:32:26.669 --> 00:32:27.989 should really think more about this. 00:32:28.009 --> 00:32:33.105 I should go through his course, like, and you were saying how, because you 00:32:33.105 --> 00:32:36.939 have like ADHD, you find it really hard to sit in traditional classes and read 00:32:36.939 --> 00:32:42.009 books and you prefer watching videos and said, I hate watching videos. 00:32:42.254 --> 00:32:47.204 Like, I like, if you send me a video to watch, I will probably not watch it 00:32:47.344 --> 00:32:52.504 because I can read so much faster that like, someone asked me the other day, 00:32:52.504 --> 00:32:56.224 if I'd listened to their podcast and I was like uh, no, there's no transcript. 00:32:56.380 --> 00:32:59.490 I only listen to podcasts when I'm driving a long distance. 00:32:59.890 --> 00:33:02.124 And so, and I don't do that very often. 00:33:02.530 --> 00:33:07.470 That's really the only time I can sit down long enough to listen to audio and 00:33:07.540 --> 00:33:11.830 deal with the fact that I could absorb the information so much faster and text, 00:33:11.970 --> 00:33:13.310 and also be able to reference it later. 00:33:13.310 --> 00:33:16.464 Cause I feel like in a video, I can't reference it later. 00:33:16.564 --> 00:33:19.784 And like I love like checking off things in a, like, like a 00:33:19.944 --> 00:33:23.094 syllabus with all of the homework assignments, list it in chapters. 00:33:23.094 --> 00:33:24.254 Like that's a to do list to me. 00:33:24.410 --> 00:33:24.970 I love that. 00:33:25.217 --> 00:33:25.937 I have an MBA. 00:33:26.037 --> 00:33:30.440 I am all in on structure like, cause I don't have any myself. 00:33:30.705 --> 00:33:34.785 Marie: I think, I think, but I think, you know, that's, this is the, so I 00:33:34.785 --> 00:33:36.185 think everybody's different, right? 00:33:36.185 --> 00:33:39.665 So it's just about, it's just about figuring out what works for 00:33:39.765 --> 00:33:44.529 you, and you having a system to go through that and to check things off. 00:33:45.012 --> 00:33:50.192 And that's why I like notion so much because it's so flexible as a tool, right. 00:33:50.192 --> 00:33:53.112 It can be as simple as you want or as complicated as you want. 00:33:53.472 --> 00:33:57.999 And you can have multiple databases in notion and you can also link to those 00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:02.079 databases, kind of create, you know, relational databases, but that's, what's 00:34:02.079 --> 00:34:05.902 so cool about it is that it kind of gives you all the building blocks and 00:34:06.362 --> 00:34:10.192 you can design something that works for you based on what they give you. 00:34:10.797 --> 00:34:13.657 And that's kind of what I I'm trying to do with Lama Life, as well. 00:34:13.757 --> 00:34:17.137 I'm trying to make it flexible enough that you can tweak stuff. 00:34:17.137 --> 00:34:18.417 There's a lot of settings. 00:34:18.837 --> 00:34:21.497 So when you look at it, initially, it looks really simple. 00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:25.900 And I don't know if that's worked against me in some ways that people come and they 00:34:25.900 --> 00:34:27.220 look at it and they think it's so simple. 00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:29.700 And they're like, well, no, I don't need that, but that's 00:34:29.700 --> 00:34:30.970 kind know how I've designed it. 00:34:31.030 --> 00:34:34.584 So it looks simple on the surface, but if you go into settings, 00:34:34.764 --> 00:34:36.184 you can actually customize it. 00:34:36.864 --> 00:34:37.184 A lot. 00:34:37.564 --> 00:34:41.584 And that's just because like, I feel like everybody's slightly different. 00:34:41.644 --> 00:34:44.584 So what works for me might not necessarily work for you. 00:34:44.834 --> 00:34:47.914 Conceptually obviously there's like a core of it and it's always around 00:34:48.014 --> 00:34:51.958 timers and time boxing, but in terms of how you wanna set it up and tweak, 00:34:51.978 --> 00:34:57.108 it turns, sounds off, turns sounds on, um, have different types of alarms. 00:34:57.108 --> 00:35:00.388 So there's like a, there's a visual alarm, that's just silent. 00:35:01.018 --> 00:35:04.788 Some people don't want to have a sound that startles them. 00:35:05.128 --> 00:35:09.628 So you can just have it flush at you like in red or whatever color you choose just 00:35:09.628 --> 00:35:11.828 to kind of catch at the side of your eye. 00:35:12.178 --> 00:35:15.038 But that's kind of one of the design, like the core things of it. 00:35:15.038 --> 00:35:18.328 When I think about the design, it's I wanna make sure it's really flexible. 00:35:18.678 --> 00:35:22.462 Um, so what we'll see if that hurts it in the long run, but now it's just 00:35:22.462 --> 00:35:26.222 something I, I constantly think about like, well, if someone, someone might 00:35:26.222 --> 00:35:29.782 not like that, so let me put in like a toggle switch and you can choose to turn 00:35:29.782 --> 00:35:32.342 it on or off depending what works for you. 00:35:32.625 --> 00:35:35.465 Michele: I love that because like, your neurodiversity is not, mine 00:35:35.645 --> 00:35:39.665 is not somebody else's is not like, you know, like, like your 00:35:39.665 --> 00:35:43.288 expression of that, or like, even for, people who don't know what the 00:35:43.288 --> 00:35:47.248 word neurodiverse is, which probably means they're neurotypical in word, 00:35:47.373 --> 00:35:49.613 Marie: you said, I thought you said nerd as in like 00:35:49.658 --> 00:35:51.478 Michele: Oh, nerd diversity. 00:35:51.803 --> 00:35:52.093 Marie: nerd. 00:35:52.243 --> 00:35:52.533 Yeah. 00:35:53.373 --> 00:35:56.373 I like, I like, I've never heard that before. 00:35:56.373 --> 00:35:59.893 And I was like, that's actually kind of a cool little phrase neurodiversity. 00:35:59.893 --> 00:36:00.253 Gotcha. 00:36:00.283 --> 00:36:00.733 Yeah, yeah. 00:36:00.806 --> 00:36:01.156 Michele: Right. 00:36:01.186 --> 00:36:04.426 You know, like accepting like, your way of viewing something and getting something 00:36:04.426 --> 00:36:09.089 done is not everybody else's and like, there's a certain hum in that, that I 00:36:09.089 --> 00:36:13.431 think, you know, people talk about whether products should be opinionated, right? 00:36:13.554 --> 00:36:15.594 Whether they should have a specific flow for things. 00:36:15.814 --> 00:36:20.164 And there, it sounds like you, there are some certain things that your product is 00:36:20.274 --> 00:36:25.137 opinionated about, like the concept of time boxing, but then a lot of things 00:36:25.377 --> 00:36:27.863 actually extremely flexible on it. 00:36:28.139 --> 00:36:31.765 I think what I'm I'm pulling from this is that you can build 00:36:31.765 --> 00:36:35.494 something that other people have already quote unquote built, right? 00:36:35.494 --> 00:36:37.450 Like you built a to-do list app. 00:36:37.634 --> 00:36:41.107 That has been built literally millions of times because so many people 00:36:41.127 --> 00:36:42.907 do it as their first code project. 00:36:43.087 --> 00:36:46.450 But what made that different was that you really applied 00:36:46.450 --> 00:36:48.490 your own perspective on this. 00:36:48.870 --> 00:36:54.894 And it reminds me of a famous um, Goethe to quote, which is 00:36:54.894 --> 00:36:58.214 that, you know, all truly wise thoughts have already been thought. 00:36:58.314 --> 00:37:01.530 And what is simply need to be done is to, you know, rethink 00:37:01.530 --> 00:37:03.324 them in our own experience. 00:37:03.535 --> 00:37:07.995 I'm probably butchering that, sorry, my apologies to the great German philosopher, 00:37:08.295 --> 00:37:09.745 but like, you know, it doesn't matter. 00:37:09.745 --> 00:37:12.265 Like people ask this question all the time of indie hacking businesses. 00:37:12.265 --> 00:37:15.025 It's like, well, like somebody already built, you know, a to-do 00:37:15.025 --> 00:37:17.105 list, somebody already built a Twitter scheduler, somebody already 00:37:17.105 --> 00:37:20.995 built like whatever, you know, a calendar app, like whatever that is. 00:37:21.205 --> 00:37:21.555 Right. 00:37:21.625 --> 00:37:24.495 Like, but have they really. 00:37:24.848 --> 00:37:28.008 Like you have this unique lens to it. 00:37:28.108 --> 00:37:31.688 And if you can find like there's something there that you feel like 00:37:31.688 --> 00:37:36.108 hasn't been done yet, you can make something really magical about it. 00:37:36.138 --> 00:37:39.818 I, I spent so much time thinking about, am I writing a book that already exists? 00:37:39.818 --> 00:37:42.338 It was really important to me that I didn't write a book that already existed. 00:37:42.632 --> 00:37:46.162 And so I read a million book books on it and, and the more I read about them, 00:37:46.465 --> 00:37:49.517 the more other books I read, I was like, you know what, my perspective, and 00:37:49.517 --> 00:37:52.877 the thing that I notice resonates with people, cause it's not just about your 00:37:52.877 --> 00:37:57.113 own experiences, how do people react when you share your perspective on it? 00:37:57.158 --> 00:37:58.258 Marie: mm-hmm yep. 00:37:58.638 --> 00:37:58.858 yep. 00:37:59.203 --> 00:38:00.143 Michele: that's not here. 00:38:00.443 --> 00:38:04.387 And so, you saw that, and you ran with that and really made 00:38:04.387 --> 00:38:06.404 it into this flexible tool. 00:38:06.824 --> 00:38:11.529 This thing that people kind of take for granted and and made it kind of exciting. 00:38:11.898 --> 00:38:15.658 Marie: I think it's a good example of, you know, nicheing, nicheing, nicheing 00:38:16.008 --> 00:38:18.178 depends how you say it nicheing down. 00:38:18.504 --> 00:38:23.803 So it is kind of this to do list app, but it's got timers and then it 00:38:23.803 --> 00:38:27.764 is really kind of, not everybody, it's not gonna work for everybody. 00:38:28.064 --> 00:38:31.954 So it is, it's really obvious to me cause I can see when someone signs 00:38:31.954 --> 00:38:35.996 up, and when they convert to a paid user, and typically what happens is 00:38:36.306 --> 00:38:40.296 they convert like really quickly or they just leave really quickly. 00:38:40.406 --> 00:38:44.136 Like, I can see all the activity on their account has just stopped. 00:38:44.236 --> 00:38:45.756 They're not returning like the next day. 00:38:46.026 --> 00:38:48.996 It's just, they've looked at it and they've decided no, 00:38:48.996 --> 00:38:49.916 that doesn't work for me. 00:38:50.218 --> 00:38:54.129 Or, or they go, yeah, I'm just gonna pay for like an annual plan straight away, 00:38:54.129 --> 00:38:56.849 because it just clicked so, so strongly. 00:38:57.069 --> 00:39:00.519 So, I think it's a maybe a good example of, you know, your product 00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:02.119 doesn't need to be for everyone. 00:39:02.149 --> 00:39:04.709 It can be for a specific kind of audience. 00:39:05.083 --> 00:39:08.856 And because it's polarizing, like I can see that I can see that in the data. 00:39:08.856 --> 00:39:12.686 Like it's completely polarizing, and it's not a bad thing because 00:39:12.686 --> 00:39:16.126 that means I can, when I design it, I'm designing for my audience. 00:39:16.766 --> 00:39:18.596 I don't have, have to design for everyone. 00:39:18.899 --> 00:39:21.759 That's when it kind of gets to be like a nothing product, 00:39:22.269 --> 00:39:23.759 because it becomes so general. 00:39:23.899 --> 00:39:27.153 And then it becomes like any other like you said any other to-do list. 00:39:27.244 --> 00:39:30.864 That's kind of not where I want it to go, but because it's slightly 00:39:30.864 --> 00:39:32.584 opinionated in, in the way it's going. 00:39:32.684 --> 00:39:34.621 And the design is a little bit different. 00:39:34.911 --> 00:39:36.995 It just makes it, and the audience is different. 00:39:36.995 --> 00:39:39.035 It just makes it a lot easier for me when I'm thinking, 00:39:39.035 --> 00:39:40.315 like, what features can I add? 00:39:40.615 --> 00:39:44.688 I don't need to satisfy everyone and I can just go, well, if I satisfy myself, that's 00:39:44.688 --> 00:39:48.903 the first step, because I know that I'm definitely someone who really needs it. 00:39:49.043 --> 00:39:50.863 The pain point for me is so strong. 00:39:50.923 --> 00:39:54.063 And like you said, I've been kind of thinking about this so much. 00:39:54.290 --> 00:39:55.210 What works for me? 00:39:55.210 --> 00:39:59.610 What can I, you know, conceptually what works for me and if it works 00:39:59.610 --> 00:40:03.103 for me, that's kind of the first step and I might build it in, or at least 00:40:03.213 --> 00:40:07.693 talk to some customers like I've got some super fans for Llama Life life. 00:40:07.753 --> 00:40:10.773 So I sometimes will just say, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. 00:40:11.353 --> 00:40:12.223 Would you want that? 00:40:12.243 --> 00:40:15.023 And then they're like, yeah, yeah, we would like, we would really want that. 00:40:15.023 --> 00:40:16.043 And then, I'll just build it. 00:40:16.343 --> 00:40:19.450 But I think it helps to kind of, yeah, get laser focused 00:40:19.450 --> 00:40:20.703 on it and, sort of niche down. 00:40:21.010 --> 00:40:23.660 Michele: Well, like crucially important, there is that your audience 00:40:23.660 --> 00:40:25.380 is willing to pay for it, right? 00:40:25.483 --> 00:40:30.963 If you niche down on an audience, and a way of doing things or a problem 00:40:31.233 --> 00:40:35.400 that nobody else experiences or only 10 other people experience, and they're not 00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:39.736 willing to pay for it, then, you know that that's sign to move away from it, right? 00:40:39.766 --> 00:40:44.826 Like there's, there's dangers in following a niche, but for you, you, you have 00:40:44.826 --> 00:40:49.306 struck on something that other people experience, other people under, like other 00:40:49.306 --> 00:40:51.546 people understand your perspective on it. 00:40:51.546 --> 00:40:54.480 And you also understand other people's perspective on it and 00:40:54.480 --> 00:40:55.880 they are willing to pay for. 00:40:56.183 --> 00:40:58.833 Marie: Yeah, that's the key thing, you know, cuz at the 00:40:58.833 --> 00:41:00.313 beginning it was just free. 00:41:00.610 --> 00:41:03.700 Like when I started partly cuz I didn't know how to add payments. 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:05.300 So it was just this free app. 00:41:05.603 --> 00:41:09.583 It kind of went through stages, so originally it was free and then it 00:41:09.583 --> 00:41:13.786 became buy me a coffee, so I added the, the buy me a coffee link. 00:41:13.855 --> 00:41:18.186 Then it became a one time payment for like a crazy, like, it was like $4 00:41:18.286 --> 00:41:20.673 or something crazy, like super small. 00:41:20.961 --> 00:41:24.041 And then it went to $6, I think, $9. 00:41:24.351 --> 00:41:28.274 It's like the typical thing where everybody tells you to raise your price, 00:41:28.374 --> 00:41:32.274 but you are kind of super nervous to do it cuz you always underestimate 00:41:32.334 --> 00:41:34.554 how much your own product Is worth. 00:41:34.854 --> 00:41:37.674 So I think it went for $4 to $6 to $9. 00:41:37.974 --> 00:41:40.424 Then it went to $19.99. 00:41:40.724 --> 00:41:42.814 Then it went to subscription. 00:41:42.954 --> 00:41:46.254 So it started off just that one time payment, then it went to subscription 00:41:46.557 --> 00:41:50.944 and now it's, now it's 49 99 per year for an annual subscription. 00:41:51.284 --> 00:41:55.401 And that seems to be kind of the price point where, you know, obviously you 00:41:55.401 --> 00:42:00.111 wanna look at your overall revenue that that's not go down, but for now, And 00:42:00.111 --> 00:42:03.511 this might change in future, but for now, like I'm happy to have slightly 00:42:03.681 --> 00:42:07.571 fewer customers at a higher price point and really make sure that those 00:42:07.771 --> 00:42:09.128 customers are getting value from it. 00:42:09.384 --> 00:42:12.564 And then I guess we'll see from there, but that's kind of where, where it's 00:42:12.564 --> 00:42:16.484 at at the moment, rather than having like a crazy number of users at a 00:42:16.484 --> 00:42:19.938 super cheap price point, I'd rather have it a a slightly less number 00:42:19.938 --> 00:42:21.218 of users for a high price point. 00:42:21.521 --> 00:42:23.961 Because that means I can have a relationship with those users. 00:42:24.261 --> 00:42:28.561 We can email more if they have requests or any support requests as well. 00:42:28.864 --> 00:42:29.984 I can attend to them. 00:42:30.281 --> 00:42:32.061 You know, there's kind of always this balance, right? 00:42:32.061 --> 00:42:35.791 In terms of how much time you have when you're a really small team, and I wanna 00:42:35.791 --> 00:42:38.941 make sure that everyone that's using it is like super happy people with it. 00:42:39.208 --> 00:42:42.268 And that can't happen if there's too many users, you know, at a low price point, 00:42:42.566 --> 00:42:47.146 Michele: Is that 49 99 a year price point sustainable for you? 00:42:47.263 --> 00:42:51.343 I guess what I'm wondering, like does the business as it is right now, like, does 00:42:51.343 --> 00:42:55.823 it cover your, not only like business expenses, but like living expenses? 00:42:56.124 --> 00:42:59.348 Marie: Not at the moment, not at the moment, but I I've shared 00:42:59.348 --> 00:43:03.508 this on Twitter before, Um, I did get into an accelerator program. 00:43:04.343 --> 00:43:04.563 Michele: Ooh, 00:43:05.108 --> 00:43:07.318 Marie: Yeah, so this was a, this was a while back now. 00:43:07.318 --> 00:43:11.691 This was in May in 2021, actually it's almost coming up to a year. 00:43:11.691 --> 00:43:12.211 That's crazy. 00:43:12.671 --> 00:43:17.561 Um, But in May, 2021, it's funny, cuz I was just doing my usual thing 00:43:17.561 --> 00:43:22.058 on Twitter, kind of just building in public sharing stuff and Ja you know, 00:43:22.058 --> 00:43:24.783 Jason K Calacanis um, angel investor. 00:43:25.293 --> 00:43:25.583 Yeah. 00:43:25.683 --> 00:43:26.463 So yeah. 00:43:26.483 --> 00:43:29.903 So someone on his team saw Lama Life on Twitter. 00:43:30.495 --> 00:43:32.625 They bought it and they liked it. 00:43:32.885 --> 00:43:37.505 And then they reached out to me over Twitter DMS and said, hey, like, I really 00:43:37.505 --> 00:43:38.785 like what you're doing with Lama Life. 00:43:38.865 --> 00:43:40.265 I can see that you're bootstrapping it. 00:43:40.355 --> 00:43:44.025 Would you ever consider, you know, raising a little bit of money and 00:43:44.025 --> 00:43:45.865 joining an accelerator program? 00:43:46.168 --> 00:43:50.658 And I was like, well, I hadn't thought of it, but now that you see it and 00:43:50.958 --> 00:43:53.528 because you are in my DMS, yeah. 00:43:53.528 --> 00:43:54.328 Let's have a chat. 00:43:54.642 --> 00:43:55.682 So we had a chat. 00:43:55.753 --> 00:43:57.653 He said, why don't you apply? 00:43:57.753 --> 00:44:01.053 So I applied, went through all the interview process and 00:44:01.102 --> 00:44:02.425 as part of that accelerator. 00:44:02.525 --> 00:44:06.538 So this is, the launch accelerator that's run by Jason Calcanis. 00:44:06.842 --> 00:44:10.062 And as part of that, they give you a hundred K and you go 00:44:10.062 --> 00:44:12.982 through the accelerator program in exchange for equity, which 00:44:12.982 --> 00:44:15.012 is a, are 6% of the business. 00:44:15.332 --> 00:44:18.915 And that has really helped kind of, you know, sustain it, take a 00:44:18.915 --> 00:44:20.915 little bit of pressure off as well. 00:44:21.435 --> 00:44:25.295 And um, yeah, I think that's a tricky thing when you are you're bootstrapping 00:44:25.295 --> 00:44:29.858 and indie hacking is that you kind of, you want a price point that is acceptable 00:44:29.858 --> 00:44:33.738 to your, your consumers, but based on the volume you get at the time, it 00:44:33.738 --> 00:44:38.208 might not be sustainable for you from a living perspective is, and in which 00:44:38.208 --> 00:44:40.362 case, a lot of businesses just fail. 00:44:40.658 --> 00:44:43.908 Just because you, you just, it's just hard to keep going when you got no money. 00:44:44.208 --> 00:44:46.748 But I think with this, it kind of just gave me a little bit of a buffer, 00:44:47.288 --> 00:44:51.688 so I could focus a bit less on the price and just try to figure out what 00:44:51.928 --> 00:44:55.922 customers are, are wanting, make sure the initial customers are very happy. 00:44:56.322 --> 00:45:01.762 Um, and I think that's one Llama life because the user base isn't massive, but 00:45:01.762 --> 00:45:05.522 the user base it has, they're, they're pretty like happy with the product. 00:45:05.828 --> 00:45:10.088 And I have a, I have a good relationship with a lot of them as well, because if 00:45:10.088 --> 00:45:14.078 they email me, I'm gonna email back and we have a dialogue going and it's kind 00:45:14.078 --> 00:45:16.638 of one of those things where you've got a small group of people who love it, 00:45:16.898 --> 00:45:21.272 and they're all really kind of loyal and they generate word of mouth and you can 00:45:21.272 --> 00:45:24.512 kind of grow it out from their, whereas I think if you take the opposite approach 00:45:24.512 --> 00:45:28.762 where you just going for like volume, you can kind of spread yourself too thin. 00:45:29.067 --> 00:45:32.277 Both from a, you know, a customer support perspective, but also just 00:45:32.317 --> 00:45:33.677 a community building perspective. 00:45:34.080 --> 00:45:37.260 And when you're too thin, like it can fall apart really quickly. 00:45:37.330 --> 00:45:40.340 It's kind of just held if you kind of imagine it's kind of just 00:45:40.340 --> 00:45:43.420 held together just by like thin whistles of thread or something. 00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:46.884 And I think that's kind of where things can break apart where Llama Life's a 00:45:46.884 --> 00:45:50.799 bit different, it's of it's quite solid, like the community around it and it 00:45:50.799 --> 00:45:54.399 might not be growing like exponentially at the moment, but it's growing quite 00:45:54.599 --> 00:45:56.319 steadily with a really strong community. 00:45:56.619 --> 00:46:00.562 And at some point, you know, at some point you can start adding fuel to 00:46:00.562 --> 00:46:02.402 that to make it grow exponentially. 00:46:02.662 --> 00:46:06.482 But for now, I'm just trying to make sure that everyone who uses it really likes it. 00:46:06.702 --> 00:46:07.522 And they're really happy. 00:46:08.152 --> 00:46:09.002 They felt heard. 00:46:09.262 --> 00:46:13.606 So, you know, I play to every single email might take me a little bit 00:46:13.606 --> 00:46:16.916 longer, but Yeah, everyone who emails me, they get an email back. 00:46:17.204 --> 00:46:20.334 And yeah, that's, that's kind of the approach we're taking right now. 00:46:20.637 --> 00:46:23.337 And I actually hired my friend, as well so now there's two people. 00:46:23.607 --> 00:46:24.457 It's me and my friend. 00:46:24.754 --> 00:46:29.287 So it started off just myself, but getting that sort of injection of cash has 00:46:29.287 --> 00:46:31.361 allowed me to hire, hire somebody as well. 00:46:31.391 --> 00:46:32.921 That took a little bit of pressure off. 00:46:33.219 --> 00:46:34.469 Michele: Yeah, it sounds like it. 00:46:34.649 --> 00:46:39.279 I'm curious, do you have a sense for, you said somebody on Jason's 00:46:39.349 --> 00:46:44.402 team bought it and started using it, do you have a sense for for whether like 00:46:44.707 --> 00:46:49.399 because it sounds like this product is both B to C and potentially B to B. 00:46:49.399 --> 00:46:54.599 Like, Do you have a sense for what percentage of your customers consider 00:46:54.629 --> 00:46:58.835 this to be a business expense that they charge to their business or 00:46:58.995 --> 00:47:03.372 a business versus what percentage are paying for it personally? 00:47:03.722 --> 00:47:04.882 Marie: I don't know that for sure. 00:47:04.882 --> 00:47:08.762 Cause I don't ask them, but there is a little note on Lama life's 00:47:08.762 --> 00:47:13.105 website that says, you know, a hot tip is that you could ex you could 00:47:13.105 --> 00:47:16.785 possibly expense this as a work expense, but check with your boss. 00:47:17.182 --> 00:47:20.262 I think it's kind of the right time for a product like this because a lot of us 00:47:20.262 --> 00:47:24.974 are working from home and that kind of expense is a lot more acceptable nowadays. 00:47:25.271 --> 00:47:26.411 But I don't know for sure. 00:47:26.532 --> 00:47:31.765 In my mind it's still very much a B2C product and if it, that there are plans 00:47:31.785 --> 00:47:35.788 to take it to enterprise, but I think that has to be managed like very, very 00:47:35.788 --> 00:47:41.770 carefully because I would never want it to be a product where somebody in a corporate 00:47:41.770 --> 00:47:47.803 environment is sort of mandating that you use Lama Life because they wanna make sure 00:47:47.803 --> 00:47:49.443 everybody on their team is productive. 00:47:49.463 --> 00:47:51.983 That's definitely not where I want to take it. 00:47:52.273 --> 00:47:55.563 When it goes into enterprise, I want it to be a lot more bottom up. 00:47:55.823 --> 00:48:02.433 So it would be a tool that the employees and selves use or want to use. 00:48:02.573 --> 00:48:06.283 And they go to their manager and say, can we have this for the team? 00:48:06.333 --> 00:48:07.273 Can we expense it? 00:48:07.653 --> 00:48:11.077 That's definitely the way I want to go in versus the micromanagement 00:48:11.307 --> 00:48:12.637 sort of top down approach. 00:48:13.020 --> 00:48:17.870 And, you know, I think it's, it's a hard transition to make and it's 00:48:17.870 --> 00:48:19.550 not anywhere near that at the moment. 00:48:19.897 --> 00:48:23.947 I'm still focusing very much just on B2C, but at eventually I think in 00:48:23.947 --> 00:48:28.839 order for it to become very profitable, Selling the enterprise or selling it, 00:48:28.899 --> 00:48:31.749 you know, a, a bulk deal for licenses. 00:48:32.054 --> 00:48:35.034 You know, maybe a company says our employees really want this. 00:48:35.517 --> 00:48:38.977 Um, or maybe they wanna offer it as part of a wellness package. 00:48:39.217 --> 00:48:42.737 I see a lot of big companies doing that nowadays, you know, as part 00:48:42.737 --> 00:48:46.530 of a wellness package, a working from home package, we will give 00:48:46.550 --> 00:48:51.347 you access to a meditation app like calm.com and maybe a productivity app. 00:48:51.651 --> 00:48:54.991 Here's like a hamper of like chocolates or something to help make your 00:48:54.991 --> 00:48:56.471 work from home experience better. 00:48:56.778 --> 00:48:59.978 I can kind of see it going that direction where a company says, 00:49:00.038 --> 00:49:04.974 hey, we'll buy a hundred licenses for Lama Life, a hundred accounts. 00:49:05.394 --> 00:49:08.894 And we'll distribute that to our employees as part of a, a package 00:49:09.294 --> 00:49:11.214 I've like to try that kind of route. 00:49:11.528 --> 00:49:13.268 Um, But it's pretty early days. 00:49:13.288 --> 00:49:14.308 So we'll see how that goes. 00:49:14.739 --> 00:49:17.359 We haven't, we've had one customer do that. 00:49:17.539 --> 00:49:24.559 So one customer shout out to Preshan, he bought 10 licenses uh, or 10 annual plans 00:49:25.059 --> 00:49:27.546 for Lama Life, so that was, that was good. 00:49:27.926 --> 00:49:32.026 I'm not sure how exactly he's using it, but I think he plans to give it 00:49:32.026 --> 00:49:35.552 out to his, his team or at least, you know, people in his family. 00:49:35.856 --> 00:49:39.502 So that was a really good, that was kind of a really good moment for me because 00:49:39.542 --> 00:49:41.136 I was like, well, This could happen. 00:49:41.166 --> 00:49:45.696 Like somebody else has wanted to buy it in bulk and give it out to people 00:49:46.036 --> 00:49:49.376 on their team or to their family to, to help them with productivity. 00:49:49.839 --> 00:49:53.809 Michele: Yeah, I love how you're thinking of that as like, you don't want, you 00:49:53.809 --> 00:49:57.619 don't want it to become this like forced pro activity tool that's, you know, 00:49:57.719 --> 00:50:02.259 the, the factory manager, like walking around and, you know, getting the data 00:50:02.259 --> 00:50:05.819 back on whether the employees are being productive and using it, cuz like that 00:50:05.819 --> 00:50:07.819 could get really, that could get toxic. 00:50:07.999 --> 00:50:09.939 So I love that you're being conscious about that. 00:50:10.010 --> 00:50:13.630 But perhaps this is a good place to stop, but also to mention that 00:50:13.740 --> 00:50:18.380 when you get to that point of thing, thinking about company wide plans and 00:50:18.380 --> 00:50:23.465 enterprise and whatnot, maybe we should have you back on because that sales 00:50:23.465 --> 00:50:27.025 process that you described where the employees want to use it themselves. 00:50:27.125 --> 00:50:29.545 And then they ask their boss if they can use it. 00:50:29.545 --> 00:50:32.702 And then the boss reaches out to you and says, hey, my employees wanna use this. 00:50:32.702 --> 00:50:33.422 How do we make it work? 00:50:33.892 --> 00:50:35.742 That is our sales process. 00:50:35.932 --> 00:50:40.262 Like we don't do any outbound sales at all. 00:50:40.412 --> 00:50:44.787 Like we just have people calling us up and then willing to pay us tens of 00:50:44.907 --> 00:50:46.900 thousands of dollars a year for something. 00:50:47.173 --> 00:50:49.233 So that can definitely work. 00:50:49.260 --> 00:50:52.486 It does take a lot of care and sort of how you, how you structure that. 00:50:52.551 --> 00:50:56.411 But yeah, I I feel like this, you know, that's gonna be one of 00:50:56.411 --> 00:51:00.901 the next stages for you and that, that could be a fun conversation. 00:51:01.194 --> 00:51:03.854 Marie: It is definitely the next stage, I think the next 12 months 00:51:03.914 --> 00:51:06.054 or so are gonna be very interesting. 00:51:06.344 --> 00:51:06.764 Michele: Indeed. 00:51:07.584 --> 00:51:14.964 So if people want to follow all of the interesting things that are going to 00:51:14.964 --> 00:51:18.378 happen, where should they check you out and where should they check out Lama Life? 00:51:18.809 --> 00:51:21.149 Marie: So you can follow me on Twitter. 00:51:21.529 --> 00:51:28.069 I'm at three hour coffee that pelts out the word three hour coffee and Lama Life 00:51:28.169 --> 00:51:32.709 is@lamalife.co that's dot co Lama Life.co. 00:51:33.216 --> 00:51:37.466 Michele: Well, Marie Ng, thank you so much for joining us. 00:51:37.496 --> 00:51:39.556 This has been really lovely. 00:51:39.936 --> 00:51:46.093 And uh, speaking for myself personally, I cannot wait to see more pictures of your 00:51:46.093 --> 00:51:51.413 adorable dog, Homer on Twitter, cause it only makes me wanna follow you even more. 00:51:51.481 --> 00:51:54.261 So thank you so much for coming on software social. 00:51:54.261 --> 00:51:55.101 This has been really fun. 00:51:55.546 --> 00:51:55.836 Marie: Yeah. 00:51:55.846 --> 00:51:57.356 Thank you so much for having me. 00:51:57.466 --> 00:51:58.276 I'll see you on Twitter. 00:51:58.581 --> 00:51:59.001 Michele: See ya.