Mario: And there we go
Alan: Hey, got the count in there.
although , I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a some feedback there.
One of the fonts was different.
Is that intentional?
Mario: No, no, it's not.
I haven't figured out how to fix that.
It seems to happen only the first time that you
Alan: is it,
is it using a web font or something?
Loading it in
Mario: Yeah.
I mean, it's supposed to be using the same font that everything is, you know,
that everything is using in the UI, but for some reason, the first number
it's like it's not cached or something.
And then after that it's cached
Alan: I mean, it's kind of quirky, right?
So you get the countdown into recording, but it's in a unusual
font for the first number.
Mario: yeah.
It's, it's kind of weird.
I haven't figured out how
Alan: well, the fix there is just not to use a web font for that.
Right.
Just use the browser font.
So they're all in serif.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe, maybe I'll just do that, like system UI or
something, something like that.
Yeah.
That's a good
Alan: That's nice though.
That's nice idea.
So yeah, for, for, for everybody else, basically, there's a, there's
a countdown when you start recording.
So everybody knows that you're about to go.
That's nice.
Mario: Yeah.
I, I noticed other recording tools like Loom or, you know,
recording tools kind of do that.
but actually it came out of necessity.
actually, because there's some pre-procesing stuff that needs to
happen when you click the record button.
And so I need a little bit of extra, couple of seconds to,
to just get some stuff going.
Right.
some stuff has to init there
Alan: Yeah.
It's it actually works both better for you and for the user as well.
It's a bit of a warning what's coming in.
Mario: exactly.
So at, at first I was like, okay, I need, that little delay, but
I don't wanna just delay it.
And so I figure, okay.
A countdown would be perfect.
So it works both ways.
So
Alan: nice.
it's nice.
Also, I notice the not recording is highlighted a bit more to make it clear
that you are not recording, right.
That was,
Mario: yeah, actually before there was nothing at all, if you weren't recording,
Alan: ah, so you didn't actually realize you weren't recording.
Mario: Yeah.
So, so one of the questions I got from someone was like, okay it wasn't so
much a question, but we were chatting and it became obvious to me that there
wasn't something there that was clear.
enough.
Like there's something there when you are recording, like right now that you can
see that it's recording, but there wasn't anything there when you're not recording.
So just to reassure you, right.
So it's equally important.
I think to know when it, it's not
Alan: Oh, definitely.
Because again, the, the expectation might be while I'm on screen,
so therefore it's recording.
Right.
I can imagine how people would assume that.
So make it clear.
Mario: Yeah.
So I figured it.
would be good to add a, a label there for the not recording state as well.
So there's a couple of minor changes that I had to put in.
I guess I might as well share
Alan: Go for it.
Yeah.
Well, you you're on a roll
Mario: since, since we're at it.
And I thank you for giving me your email address to share the notion notes.
Alan: yeah.
Why haven't we done this before?
I dunno.
Mario: I know, right.
So
Alan: we're really organized here.
Mario: I, know
Alan: I, on, on the same, on the same note I've, I've done notes
for that edited, but not published episode, like three times now.
And because I've been just doing it in transistors browser interface,
and then I've come back and my machine's been like, Hey, guess what?
I crashed overnight.
And you've just lost the thing you typed in.
So I'm like, okay.
I'm I'm like, okay, I need to not do it in the browser.
I just need so, cause it course listening to it.
I'm like, oh, I'll tell I put what we, you know, the URLs we
talk about and stuff like that.
And then yeah, just, yeah.
Thanks mate
Mario: yeah.
Or what you could do too is save it as a draft.
Alan: Right.
I sh that that's what I should have done.
So I, what I did is I I'll put like the show notes at the
bottom of each episode in Notion.
So just we can, I can edit it in there and then we've got a record of it anyway.
So yeah.
I don't know why I didn't do that before.
There's nothing worse than doing the same thing that you've already done
again, it comes like a real chore, right.
First time, it's like, okay, I can do this second time.
You're like, I've already done this.
Why am I having to do this again?
The third time?
Really not fun.
Mario: yeah.
Yeah.
I hate it when that happens.
I was using some other tool the other day and forget which one it was, but it
has like a Modal i nterface and And when you hit the, escape key, if you happen
to hit, hit the escape key, it takes you out of it and you lose that you typed
Alan: the, the stuff you entered with it, right?
Mario: Yeah.
And it, and it is weird though, cuz it's a, it's like a modal so
it should, it should stay there typically modals, if you don't
clear, it, it, you know, stays there,
Alan: Especially when there's a text century box.
Yeah.
Again, because this is that weird thing with, you know, replacing
stuff that the browser does for you with, you know, JavaScript and you
lose expectations in the process.
Right.
Cuz you know, if you navigate away from a webpage, I'll say, you sure you want,
you're gonna, is the data on this?
Are you sure?
Whereas yeah, when you do a new JavaScript, guess what you , if the, the
developer doesn't do that themselves, then
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: that functionality.
Mario: And, and I did it like twice.
Also, if you click outside, it just takes you out.
So it's one time I hit escape.
I lost what I was putting and then I, and then I clicked
outside and I lost it again.
I was like, oh,
Alan: Yeah, actually that's one of the things I did on DotPlan was if you, when
you're entering text for the plans and the achievements, cuz they're like, you
know, intentionally one liner, things like did this, did that they save when you
click save or hit return, but for the free form text section save every like two or
three seconds just so if you can navigate away, come back and it's just there.
Expectation is like, you know, it's, if you've typed it in, then
you probably don't wanna lose it.
Right.
So, I mean, it's, that's one of the nice things that, you know, live
view is like, so trivial to do that.
It's kind of nice to, nice to have that.
Mario: Nice.
Yeah,
Alan: Sorry, interrupted you there.
Mario: Oh no, no, no worries.
It's all free flowing here.
free flowing conversation.
Yeah.
So you might notice, I have some sound foam back here behind me.
So I got a few panels the other day and I had 'em last time we
met, but I forgot to mention it.
And I didn't get enough apparently, cuz I don't like the square
that, you know, you can see there
Alan: window there, right?
Mario: yeah.
So I got more
Alan: yeah, you maybe spread them out.
Doesn't have to be all like, you know, continuous, right?
Mario: together.
Yeah.
I was thinking about that.
I did get more though.
So I might just, I don't know, add more
Alan: your, your room does sound a little bit more echoy than mine.
I don't know whether mine, because I'm not I have both curtains and
I'm sat not square to any wall.
So I don't know if it's just the angle I'm at, whereas you are,
you know, you have effectively a flat wall in front of you, right?
So.
Mario: yeah.
I do.
And I have some curtains here on the side for the window, but
they're they're open right now, so they're not, I Should I should.
That's a good idea.
I should probably just close 'em when, when we record so that it I absorbs
more sound cuz they're they're there.
I could, I should use them, but the other walls don't have much.
I mean, I have picture frames and, what have you, but not, not nothing soft
Alan: Mm
Mario: can absorb.
That's why I put those, these foams behind me.
So hopefully this helps, a little bit and I got more, so I'm gonna fill it up more.
Alan: Nice.
Mario: So it'll have a nice a bsorbing area there.
So hopefully that, makes for a
Alan: It's having seen my brother go through the, the fun of soundproofing
things for a studio is kind of like, I don't understand it.
, it's very complicated to get it, to get it sounding right.
Right.
But it's kind of magic when he does it.
Mario: yeah, no, I'm, this is all I'm doing.
I'm just, you know, just trying to improve it a little bit and that's it.
And yeah, I'll, I'll leave it a, a that cuz otherwise.
Yeah.
I can't spend too much time on but yeah, hopefully it sounds
better going forward with that.
I finally ran a really long ethernet, cable from my router
downstairs up to my office space here
Alan: So we're gonna get nice solid five bar signal now.
Right.
Mario: Yeah.
And it Seems to be to be working
Alan: I mean, it made such a massive difference to my quality of life here.
And the, the crazy thing is I can see the router is, is there,
it, it, I could throw this at it.
Right.
But it's, yeah, I got this ridiculously long flat ethernet cable and just
like went all the way around.
the apartment.
And it is ridiculous cuz as I, it is right there, but to get there to there
and not trip over it, it's like, it's
Mario: yeah.
Alan: and it's weird.
Right.
You measure it and it's never long, you know, you're like, it can't
possibly be like that many meters.
And you're like actually throw in an extra five because you'll want
to go around the corner there and
Mario: oh yeah,
Alan: it's crazy how yeah, the actual circumference is way
longer than you think it should
Mario: way longer.
If you're going around things and going, you know, up and down and,
and just to get it out of the way and that's exactly what I had to do.
And I, I did get the flat type and we have baseboards that are white,
so I got the white flat cable.
And so I ran it all along the baseboard as inconspicuous as possible.
and I went and I had to go around a doorframe downstairs and then back
down you know, it's just like a long route to get all the way up here.
And so I got a a hundred foot cable,
Alan: Yep.
Mario: To make sure that I had enough, I,
Alan: It's better, better too much than too level.
Right.
Mario: yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: But I say it it's crazy.
Just how much of a difference it makes again.
It's well worth it.
Mario: yeah.
Alan: congratulations.
Happy new ethernet.
Mario: Yeah.
thanks.
I released a, couple of bug fixes that were really necessary to
improve the recording reliability.
So including this, three second countdown and couple of other things that I
needed to fix and, make more robust.
Alan: does that mean
Mario: So.
Alan: to release?
Mario: Yes, definitely.
And, and, and this is it.
Hopefully nothing else comes up that gets reported by users and not planning
on, on touching any more features or doing any, any of that for now.
So after those bug fixes, I released yesterday actually.
I don't really have anything else that's pressing that I, that I,
Alan: Really?
No, no
blockers now.
So you're happy with all the reliability, the recording.
Yeah.
Mario: So far.
Yeah, so far it's so good.
I, yeah.
If, if nothing else comes up, you know, crossing fingers
Alan: So the, the remaining thing is the subscription partitioning rate.
The restrictions.
Yeah, that's the, that's the, that's the one remaining thing.
Yeah.
Mario: yes.
And I started working on that already, so I first, I filed for my business entity.
So I am waiting for that to, you know, go through the, the whole
Alan: Does that take long?
Yeah.
Mario: Yeah.
it can take a couple of weeks, but
Alan: not too bad.
Yeah.
It's I'm assuming it gets, yeah.
Reasonably, is it done online?
Reasonably straightforward.
Mario: I am using an online service to do it, but you know, they, they
file for you, you with the state.
So,
Alan: is that an L is it LLC there that you do?
Mario: LLC mm-hmm . Yeah.
Yeah.
So and actually an issue came up that I had to deal with.
They sent me an email that they needed some, some information
that wasn't correct or something.
And took care of that today.
So now hopefully the process will continue and move forward and within a week or
two, hopefully I'll have that taken care
Alan: official again.
Mario: Yeah, yeah.
Alan: it's I, I forget it's there you have to, it's not too
expensive to do in The US, I think.
Is it
Mario: It's not too expensive.
The, the fee actually, if you do it yourself, the, because You could
definitely file with the state yourself, do it all yourself, which is the
way I did it before, you know, a few years ago when I, I formed my first.
Alan: last time.
Yeah.
Mario: Yeah.
I did it.
I did it myself last time.
And it was also an LLC and it was only like, you know, less than a hundred
dollars for the filing fee and plus some other expenses related to that.
I think overall it was around maybe a couple hundred dollars,
Alan: That's cool.
Mario: but this time around I'm using a service, cuz I just don't wanna
be dealing cuz you know, it's not that complicated, but it just takes
Alan: yeah, exactly.
it's
Mario: and, and then if you do it with the state, you, they don't, I don't
think unless they have a way to do it online now with the state back when
I did it, it was all by mail because there was no, way to do it online.
I don't know if they have that now, but you know, I just
didn't wanna deal with that.
So I It's it's money well spent just to pay a service, to do it for you.
And you know, it's all, electronic because I'm just dealing with them and
they deal with the state, you know,
Alan: They just know what they're doing.
Right.
I mean, it's so stressful this stuff anyway, it's like, you
know, doing taxes and things.
It's like, I, I kind of know what I should be doing, but every
single thing you doubt yourself and you're like, am I doing this right?
Is there something I should know that I don't know.
it's one thing, anything that removes anxiety and stress, is
it well worth paying a little bit of money for if you can
Mario: yeah, yeah.
And at some point I considered using Stripe Atlas for that, but from what
I understand, they don't do LLCs
Like this, like I'm filing with the state of California forming
it with the state of California.
Alan: have to do a, is it, is it that you do a Delaware operation if
Mario: Del Delaware.
Alan: of yeah.
Where you are, right.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
They, they do it with Delaware and, and they do, I don't think it's an LLC.
They do like a C Corp or S
Alan: I, I think that there is some options, but yeah.
I mean, it didn't really fit for what I needed either.
So I think we talked about that before, but makes
Mario: And it, it it's a bit pricey too.
It's more than what I'm paying this other service to do the LLC
LLC
Alan: it's interesting.
It sounds like, you know it sounds like a really interesting product.
But I'm it who it's right for is not that wide.
Really.
I think there's, there's, there's definitely cases
where it really makes sense.
But my first understanding was that it would, would work for a lot
more people and it probably does.
So it's, I think that the idea behind it is really powerful and I think there's
just being able to democratize that.
Down to, you know, one entity that you deal with and it's a known, fixed quantity
in terms of price and just making it a very known process that you can just,
you know, follow the process through.
Whereas everything else feels a bit like you're kind of
figuring out yourself and yeah,
Mario: Yeah, Yeah.
definitely.
Yeah, So we'll see how, how that goes.
Hopefully it doesn't take too long.
And I also started working on the terms of use and privacy policy.
I'm using a, a service for that too.
I'm paying for, I don't know if you've heard of it.
It's called
iUbenda
it's pretty well known.
Alan: that's the one I looked at as well.
Mm-hmm yeah, I was gonna use them and I think I still am.
I'm using it as kind of a reference to some of the stuff, but again, because
I have to be Japan first, legally I basically had to use a Japanese one and
then have an English translation of that.
And I'm not comfortable with that.
I still there's there's questions that I don't understand the answers to where
I stand on certain things, but from everything I, you know, believe I'm doing.
Right.
But yeah, it's again, one of those things it's just better to go with something
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
At least, I mean, they're not you know, it's not, it's not like a lawyer
Alan: Right.
Mario: lawyer level kind of thing, but it it's at least a more guided way of,
establishing something to get started with, you know, at least and it's, and
it's not just, just, I'm not just doing it by myself without any sort of guidance.
And so it's worth, you know, paying for the service
Alan: It's not expensive.
I remember.
Mario: it's not that expensive.
And I really like it so far.
They they've really have distilled the whole, you know, terms of use and
privacy policies and cookie policy and
Alan: Especially, yeah.
The California cookie policies are and privacy policies are quite strong.
Oh.
The laws are quite strong there.
So yeah.
Making sure that you just covered for all of those, again, especially
since we're dealing with, you know, storing people's valuable information
and you're recording them as well.
So yeah.
It's better to cover your bases and make sure you're in the right.
Just cuz you don't wanna screw with this stuff, right?
Mario: Yeah.
exactly.
The, the nature of the product is such that, you know, we're
recording the likeness of people, their voices and their image.
And, and so it's you know, it's, I, yeah, like you said, I don't want to get,
get it wrong and, and as soon as I can, I'm gonna run it by a lawyer, but for
now I'm just using the iUbenda service and I think that'll be fine for now.
And it's, it's really easy to use.
Very helpful.
Just a lot of just point and click,
Alan: yeah, exactly.
It's just like knowledge based thing go through, is it, this is it.
This is it.
Yeah.
And then it's like, here's your policies.
Oh, nice.
and you can just link to them directly on their site.
Right.
So you don't even have to worry about hosting it and things.
Yeah.
And then if there's any changes legally, they let you know again, it's it.
It's fine.
If you know where you stand right now, but things change, then it's
better to be safe than sorry.
Right?
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I like that you can embed it on your site, but it's
still linked to their system.
So if you update anything, it just gets updated automatically on, your site.
So very
Alan: Nice.
One.
Mario: So, yeah, so that's what I've been working on and going forward
for the you know, I don't know, a couple of weeks or so I'm just gonna
be focusing on that sort of thing.
I'm also updating the marketing website to reflect the changes in the product and
all of this stuff, the terms of use and,
Alan: Cool.
Mario: and privacy policy and all that just gearing up to a launch soon.
Also working on figuring out pricing,
Alan: yeah.
So what, what what's, what's your latest thinking on that?
Are you, do you got any further
Mario: Well, a little bit, not.
Alan: is the question as well.
Mario: Oh, I created an account with Paddle also.
But since I don't have my business entity formed
Alan: yeah, yeah,
Mario: it's kind of like pending right now.
It's but I, I, I was so eager to get started that I didn't wanna wait.
So I created an account with them and right now it's like, you know,
it's, it's halfway there cuz I don't have all the information
Alan: Yeah.
Yeah.
They have the sandbox sandbox as well.
So if you, if you really wanted to play around with the, the billing
stuff, the sandbox is, is good.
Mario: Hmm, nice.
Alan: Have you figured out what numbers you're going to actually charge?
Mario: so the numbers I don't have yet but I, have figured out that
I'm not gonna have any free plans credit card up front and possibly.
Well, not possibly, I will have a, at least like a seven day trial period.
Alan: makes sense.
Yep.
Mario: might not be based on number of days like that.
It might be based on a, a number of minutes that you can use the product with,
you know, number of it so you can record
Alan: true.
I mean, you could always have like a, yeah, like a 30
minute session or something,
Mario: something like that.
Yeah.
Alan: That makes sense.
Mario: So, but the only, the only problem with that is that that can extend things
because if they don't use it up, they, you know, they could, it could go on for
who knows how long until they use that up.
Alan: I mean,
Mario: but instead, if I say like, you know, seven day trial,
Alan: Hmm.
Mario: Then that, you know,
Alan: They could record a lot of audio in seven days.
So, so you kind of don't wanna, you, you wanna actually, I mean, I
guess what you could do is create an additional subscription plan.
That is like a limited one that is hidden from your normal subscription list.
But when you join the trial drops you into that, unless they
choose a higher plan, right.
Something like that.
Mario: So it would be like
Alan: You can have trial plan effectively that is cuz Paddle.
So cuz you you've got this strange thing cuz you want to, so what I'm doing is
not taking credit card up front which means that my trial is out of Paddle.
So it's basically just creating account and using the site just after it says,
oh, so 14 days it says you can't use it anymore unless you select a plan.
But you have the option on Paddle of saying what's your trial period.
And you can say seven days.
I'm just wondering if there's because you don't wanna switch plans either.
Do you cuz that you, that would require their permission?
Mario: Right, Right.
So maybe what I could do is seven, seven, you know, like, like they
do with cars, with a car warranty.
Alan: right.
okay.
Refund.
Mario: days or 30 minutes recording, whatever comes, whichever
Alan: Oh, right.
Whichever comes first.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's true.
Yeah.
Basically that, that would, that would do it.
Wouldn't it.
So you'd have to manage that, obviously internal yourself, but unless they yeah,
because I'm trying to think the data you get back from Paddles tells you
if they're in a trial period or not.
But it obviously, if they subscribe to a higher yeah, because you're
not gonna put the subscription plan straight away, are you right?
They'll just put in a credit card, get into the trial plan.
So, so actually you could do have an additional trial plan that's hidden.
So when they join, they join the trial plan, which is, you know, you
can track and say, okay, this is a, and then when they exceed that,
you say, okay, you need to upgrade your plan to one of these other two.
Mario: mm-hmm
Alan: but obviously that's still a bit complicated because you they,
they could abuse the system within seven days quite heavily, right.
Mario: Yeah, exactly.
That's the problem
Alan: the, the, the easy way is don't have a trial to start off with just
give you by yourself a little bit of time, rather than trying to solve this.
Like before you launch launch with just same, you know, full money back, if you're
not happy, you know, complete refund.
And that would put that off to another day, because I think that's gonna be
complicated to manage, or at least more complicated than you should be
dealing with to get this thing launched.
Mario: Yeah,
Alan: And plus it, it, you're not even sure exactly what it should be.
Right.
You might say, ah, you know, maybe I can afford to give them, you know,
more than 30 minutes or maybe it should be a two week period because
people aren't using it straight away.
They've got, you know, something planned within the future.
So just forget that and just say, you know, you've gotta full money
back with a, in the first month we, you know, you can just complain
and we'll just full money back.
You can delete their recordings, you save your space.
They get their money back.
No one problem.
So make that clear and I think you'd save yourself a whole lot of problems.
Mario: yeah, that's a good suggestion.
Yeah.
that's really good.
Thanks for that.
Alan: it's complicated.
I mean, having been through this process of just writing subscription sales stuff,
myself, it, it seems like, well, if people pay, then I bump their subscription and
it's fine, but there's so many edge cases in terms of, you know, like you, you
bill them on the same date every month.
Right.
You know, if they join on the eighth, then you bill them the next eighth.
And just being able to knowing that this is when you bill them, this is
what they're allowed to do, but then they've canceled on the 10th, which
means you build them still they're within their paid period, but you have
to cancel, you know, the next seventh and how much do they use of that?
There's so many little things that you, you, oh God, I've gotta deal with that.
and adding this complication feels like something you don't
wanna deal with right now.
Mario: and, and that's yeah, yeah, for sure.
And that's something that you have to deal on your end, right?
You have to add that logic to, to your app,
Alan: I mean, yeah, because I mean, either they can use your system
or they can't right in theory, but what, when can they use it too?
You know, if somebody cancels it's up to you, whether they get a refund or whether
they go through to the next billing period, if they're on an annual billing
cycle, maybe you do, you, you, you want to cancel now and give them their money back.
But again, that's, you've gotta deal with that somehow.
And each one of these things is an additional bit logic
that you have to keep track of.
And yeah, it's, it's way more complicated than what you first think
Mario: Yeah, yeah, no, I, I can
Alan: This is also influencing like how I think about billing going forward in
general, just because, you know, thinking, oh yeah, I'll have three price plans.
That's no problem.
Or I'll do metered billing and you know, you it's, every
single option has complications.
Mario: Mm-hmm
Alan: so anything you can do to chop off an option is, is good.
So that's my recommendation of the day.
Mario: Yeah, no, that's, golden right there.
I, I yeah, appreciate that.
Alan: I mean, giving a refund is no, no big deal.
Right.
You just click, cancel and refund and you know, that's it, you might, even,
if you take a, you know, a fee hit on the credit card you know, whatever, it's
only gonna be, you know, small amount.
And you know, you've already paid for the hosting, so yeah, you lose on
it, but it's way easier than spending a few days or weeks coding this.
Mario: yeah.
And trying to figure that out and what if it's, you know, not right.
And then it gets all complicated and yeah, I can get it's that's a big headache, so
Alan: And again, I think you'll find most people will be like, I just,
I, I mean, I, I've never asked for a refund for anything, you know, like
software wise, if it's not right for me, I'll cancel and take it as a hit.
Oh, I paid for it for a month.
It's not right.
I cancel it.
You know, it's kind of just an acknowledgement that it's not working
out and you know what, you, it's not like your monthly fee is gonna to be, you
know, hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Right.
So, you know, it's, it's just the cost of doing what you do.
You know, people pay for stuff,
Mario: No, that sounds good.
That sounds great.
So it'll be no free plan credit card upfront?
no real trial period.
just the three I'm thinking about three plans, three tiers.
I thought just two, but I think three would be good to
have like that middle one.
That's like the most popular right?
So
Alan: The unrealistic huge one, which nobody's gonna buy or if they do yay.
Mario: yeah.
Alan: the small one, which a bunch of people probably get, cuz they're
really don't want to pay for it, but I guess I have to, and then this
middle one, which hopefully like, well that sounds like a good value.
Mario: Yeah.
yeah.
Like right down the middle, you know?
I anticipate that some people that record very occasionally as well, you know,
might just want something that's small, like a small tear, you know, small plan
Alan: It's interesting.
We related to that, and we are one of the projects I'm involved with we're
starting a podcast of the other people are starting a podcast, but they're using a
podcast production person I guess agency but it's a person who will effectively
manage the the, the, I don't wanna say technical, but the we're, our people
are recording, doing the interviews.
The other person is effectively doing the editing the show notes, the publishing,
the and, and also set up the the, the technical stuff for the recording.
So it,
Mario: So they're doing all the production stuff
Alan: Okay.
Basically, yeah.
Production, I guess that's it.
But pre-production, and postproduction in terms of getting the, the recording right.
And then editing it and dealing with what transistor does you know, for, in
terms of publishing, you know, editing the show notes, things like that.
So it's interesting that, you know, that, that, that kind of person it
could be very nice plan for you, right?
That's almost like that top, top tier, you know, agency plan that, you know, that
they're producing multiple, but they're producing podcasts for multiple clients.
And some way of effectively managing that.
And, you know, they just say, here's your URL for you?
Here's your URL for you?
You know, hit record when you're ready to start.
And I, they get the, you know, they get the stuff ready sync.
Mario: Exactly.
Yeah.
Alan: so that could be a nice, nice kind of client for you.
Right.
Because
Mario: That, that, that would be, but it would require more
features than what I have now.
Cuz I actually had a someone contact me about, they were interested in
Fusioncast, but they wanted to have a feature that some other services
have it services that are out there similar to Fusioncast and they have
this I think they call it producer mode where you join as a, as a producer.
And so you technically, you are part of, of the session, but You're not
there, but you, you can, you can interact with people if you need to.
And, and then you have options.
That no one else
Alan: Mm
Mario: as the producer,
Alan: you could do the, start, the
recording and things like that.
You could mute people, I guess, potentially, and
Mario: yeah.
There's like all these little, you know, different features that the
producer mode would, would have to have.
I'm not sure exactly how, you know, like what, what it entails.
Cause I haven't really looked into it cuz that's something for this future.
I, I, you know, I, I'm not, I'm trying not to
Alan: No, I know
Mario: that stuff now, so, so yeah.
So I've, I've I agree with you.
That would be a really good channel right there.
That kind of
Alan: cause the, I mean, just, you know, from everything that I'm, you
know, hearing in the feedback we're getting from just talking to people
about out this, it's, it's really kicking off just in terms of the
number of people that are wanting.
I mean, you know, I, you, you think, oh my God, there's too many
podcasts it's already over saturated.
And then you realize the amount of people that are wanting to get into it.
And, and interestingly, you know, pay for them to be made, you know, the, the actual
podcast production service, this industry seems to be really growing rapidly.
So, you know, that's definitely a good.
Potential future think.
Right.
Mario: yeah,
Alan: and I, I don't think, you know what you've got.
I don't think there's, there's crazy amount, you know, even the,
for a first version, you wouldn't have to add all of that at first.
It's just a case of like, somebody sets it up and gets the recordings back.
Right.
A lot of the time they, they're not gonna be present because,
you know, they're, they just get the files back when they're done.
But definitely that's, that'd be nice because you've got the feature to
have multiple podcasts for yourself.
Right.
So you can create multiple.
So you already got a lot of those features already.
So
Mario: And the, the team's feature is, is there underneath,
Alan: remember we talked about that.
Mario: Yeah.
With, with that.
in mind, it's just, I need to surface it at some point and, and tie all the
loose ends and make it all, you know just wire it up the bones are there,
you know, under, under the hood.
So yeah, I can't wait to get to that, point cuz that's something that nobody
Alan: know what you have to do.
You have to launch version one first.
Mario: I know
Alan: this is, this is my, my segment for harassing you about launching, right.
Mario: I'm trying to get there.
Alan: I know
Mario: no, but I, I am feeling pretty confident now and, and I'm pretty
happy with how it's working and, I I think it's mature enough that
I can feel confident launching and
Alan: should.
It's it's really good.
You know, it's It's ready.
It's just, you gotta get that past, that final, you know, finishing line now.
and then that's a rather the starting line
Mario: yeah, right.
hopefully it's it scales that's, that's the next thing that I need to,
Alan: well,
Mario: that I need to get a, a proof of that, the product performing at scale.
And, I can't do that unless I launch
Alan: users.
Yeah, exactly.
Mario: a lot of users using it.
Right.
So it's like a catch 22 there, but also I well I think that's it.
I'm gonna leave the rest for the next time.
So that to give you a chance to share and
Alan: the big thing here was I mentioned last time that I was
building a, an iOS slash Android app.
That's just, you know, a wrapper around the application.
So I published the Android version and the client has
downloaded it and playing with it.
So it, up until now, it was on the Android internal test system which
was a bit confusing to get set up just because I've never touched the.
I don't know, Android at all, and I know the place to process even less.
But it was very straightforward.
Once I kind of figured it out the, and a whole lot less
complicated than the iOS system.
That's for sure.
In terms of just being able to, you know, for, for getting the approval process for
Google took like two days I forgot to give them a completely forgot to give 'em a
login for this so that they could test it.
But when it was like, oh yeah, I completely forgot to enter that.
Filled it in.
And it was like three hours later.
It got approved.
So yeah, compared to our iOS, which I've waited weeks for in the past
It was very easy and just, you know, publishing updates just, you
know, editing the notes, being able to add translations for the notes.
The interface is, is very googlely, but it's very understandable.
And yeah, it's, it's seems fine.
So I'm kind of cheating on using expo for, because it's react native.
An expo gives you a bunch of like, Build tools and freebies out the box.
And it just because I'm not really pushing the app, it's nothing complicated.
It's, you know, it's literally a wraper around a web view that just checks.
If you've got network, you know, does a splash screen intercepts URLs,
if it needs to open into a browser or open within the application.
So the there's a few, you know, things that it just checks for,
but it's, it's really simple.
But the key for the client is that it gives them an application icon
and a thing to tell a staff to say, go and download DotPlan from the
app store or play store, sorry.
And use your mobile login and that's it.
So they can do their timecard stuff.
Everything like, like that, it.
That that was their key thing.
It's like, you know, we can't spend time explaining to people
how to do this on their phone.
They just need to, you know, go and download it.
They know how to install apps.
They don't know how to deal with, you know, PWAs or anything like that.
That's just confusing for them.
So I can understand that, you know, in theory this should just be a PWA, right.
It should just be an, a webpage that they can install on their phone, but the,
you know, we know that you can do that and we know the process and most people
don't, and it's still confusing for them.
So just being able to tell their staff to go and download it from the app store.
No problem, they can do that.
So that required a few interesting things like, you know, making a, I made
a different sign up a sign in screen set of signing screens for the mobile app.
Just so it, it formatted better.
It gives like an intro page, you know, you click through and the, it it's,
it's less web and more app looking.
So I did that, but yeah, that, that kind of went reasonably smoothly so far.
There's, there's a few things I want to improve with the app, but it's
rechecking for when your network comes back, it doesn't do very well.
Mario: Mm.
Okay.
Alan: I need to, you know, relook at it things like
Mario: And do you mean like when the, device goes to
sleep or something like that.
Alan: Yeah.
Basically, if you lose your network and then network comes back, the
app goes, oh, there's no network.
And then when the app network comes back, it's like, Still no network.
And you're like, no, you've gotta, you've got network.
Now do something.
Right.
So I think my code checking the network availability it needs.
I need to debug that, but I mean, it works 99% of the time.
It's just a few cases where things got a bit weird.
So just edge cases I need to fix.
But the fact that's it's working and, you know, they could, you
know, do this for that client.
It it's good start.
So that was an interesting process.
And I added a it was also kind of a request from them, but
something I intended to do anyway.
So it was like just meant it got bumped up the the priority list a little bit which
is when you log ti, this, this is related to the time tracking feature of it.
It gives you, you know, your.
Timecards a list of all of the times you've checked in and checked out.
But also now gives an overview of how many hours per project you
were checked in on which, because of the way they're using it.
And just in general, it's, it's interesting.
It's, it's both interesting.
And to some clients essential to know those numbers straight off, right?
So whenever you see timecards or however you filter them, if you filter them by
project or by user or by, you know, date range, however it'll show the total hours
per project and the total hours total for all of those, both on the, on the web.
And then if you export to Excel, it includes on, on there as well.
So, so that was it.
It's one of those things that, yeah, it's obvious and it should be there,
but, you know, I haven't done it but it's also one of those things that
it's, so I'm using Elixir for this.
Right.
And you know, I, I'm not super experienced at Elixir it's I, I
started Elixir or even function functional programming in general,
you know, I've done Ruby for so long.
Using Elixir was like, oh, this looks similar.
It's just a little bit different and then, you know,
for normal stuff, it is right.
Normal, just, you know, putting stuff from the database and putting on the
web page, you know, just general stuff
Mario: It's just basic CRUD stuff
Alan: Yeah, exactly.
That that's, you know, it kinda looks very Ruby.
Then certain things like just being able to and how I deal with this, you
know, I've got all of these things.
I pull 'em in all, in, all in, from the database anyway in order to put them on
the screen how do I kind of calculate totals and, you know, reduce these and,
you know, map, reduce stuff and things just for creating values out of this data.
Again, in Ruby, I, I know how to do it, but just thinking slightly differently,
functionally it, it was, you know, it's always a good learning experience, so
it's kind of like, ah, you know, I have to learn something new, which is always fun.
So I, I kind of feel my Elixir-ism getting are just being able to do idiomatic,
Elixir getting better all the time, just cuz it's I'm, I'm kind of outside of
the putting stuff on a page there's, you know, especially when creating these Excel
sheets for, you know, for the, the export.
It's like, just like here's load of data, you know, trying to transform it
and kind of map it to different things.
It's it's straightforward enough, but it's stuff I hadn't done before in Elixir.
So it was it is interesting and a good, good experience to learn that.
So yeah, that's, that's been keeping me busy I really is really nice.
I it it's cuz I said before my, my normal, the paying day job is Ruby.
And feels so lightweight.
When, after doing a day of Ruby, you know, spending a few hours
doing both LiveView and Elixir, it just feels so easy to do things.
And I mean, the, the ridiculous thing is Ruby's, you know, especially Rails
has this reputation for just being able to do things really quickly.
Right.
You know, it's got so much functionality baked in.
But I now find myself being able to do it in Elixir quicker and with less fuss.
Even though there's much less of it, you know, there's less framework,
there's less language features.
It still feels like it's just lighter.
So I'm really, really enjoying it.
And I'm glad I chose to, to use Elixir and Phoenix for this
it's it's the right choice.
Mario: that's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
One of my criteria is when I decide to work on, any project is whether
I'm gonna be learning something new, you know, and, and you know, how they,
the advice, the general advice is that you should stick to what you know, and
the stack that, you know, because that that's gonna help you, get there faster
and, and so on, which is totally valid.
And I, agree a hundred percent, but at the same time it's good to learn new things.
So if there's any possibility to learn something new, right?
It's it's even better.
Alan: I mean, yeah, totally.
I mean, you know, in, by every single, you know, bit of advice be
that I should not have done this in Elixir and LiveView, right.
Just because, you know, I know Rails so well.
And I, especially, you know, Rails recently has, you know, had some
pretty interesting improvements with their what do they call it?
Hot wire stuff.
So, you know, enable to be doing more interactive pages and things,
but I just find the, the model of live view to be better for what I,
you know, how I expect it to work.
And just the end result feels better to me.
And it's it.
I, I still, you know, rails pays my rent
Mario: Yeah,
Alan: and has done for a very, very long time.
So I'm not dinging it at all.
Mario: Yeah, yeah.
No.
Alan: for, and again, my, my choice for the client, it was, it was up to me.
But for the client, there's, there's no way I would push Elixir on them
just because I it's still, you know, there's not many people know it.
Right.
And knowing that we would essentially have to employ others for short periods
of time, you know, get freelancers on it, get contracts on it, knowing that that
was a prerequisite, there's no way I'd.
And especially since I didn't know it well either , it'd be like, Hey,
let's do this thing that none of us know that's probably not a good idea.
So absolutely in theory, I should have just stuck with
rails, but I'm glad I didn't and
Mario: yeah.
But then you wouldn't know of that, that you now know,
Alan: I mean, yeah, this is how I learn.
Right.
And this is how I maintain some form of sanity working in this business, right.
Is by, by learning and doing new stuff.
If I was just doing the same thing every day, I'd go crazy
Mario: It just gets boring and unmotivating, Right.
Alan: And, you know, I enjoy the, the, the constant of being outta my depth.
Right.
You know, which feels like every day, I'm like, what I'm doing.
Mario: Yeah.
Tell me about it.
building this thing.
It's it's been like, oh man.
Sometimes I, if I had known how challenging it was gonna be, I
probably would've never started, but it started as a, as a little experiment.
Oh, let me see if I can get video camera on the browser.
And it was like, oh cool.
I get the, the camera video on the browser looks great.
Alan: I remember when you
Mario: all the million
Alan: I was like, oh, add all projects, which, you know, you
could have chose, you picked a real problem, difficult one yeah.
I mean, it's again, in hindsight, you know, I, I think we've said before, you
know, my project, I, I it's aimed too big.
It's, it's difficult to compete with, you know, that type of product in that
scale of a, you know, that position is kind of difficult to aim for when you're,
you know, it we're a single person.
Right.
You know, as opposed to selling to a a more niche or smaller
crowd it's, it's much easier to be much more easier to be targeted.
But Hey, you know, you live and learn and it's, it's all learning experience.
I, I, I find it difficult to just accept somebody else's.
Tellings teachings, you know, just, oh yeah.
Okay.
They said this, I should do that.
I, that doesn't work for me.
I'd rather, you know, suffer through it and learn how just
the pains by doing it myself.
And it's, I mean, same with coding.
Right.
You know, I could read a a million, you know, textbooks or examples, and
then the first line of code you write,
you're like, I don't, you know, I don't feel comfortable with this, but by
suffering and basically figuring it all out yourself by building a project.
I, you know, you, you're constantly pushing yourself and learning, and I
say, that's what keeps me somewhat sane.
Mario: Yeah,
exactly.
And, and the other thing is these projects if they're not the main thing that you
are hoping to make a living out of at least for now, if it it's a side project,
so there can be an opportunity to learn something new because you don't yeah,
you want to get there as soon as you can, or, you know, use the stack that, you
know, so that you can get there faster.
But you have your own, your main job.
And then this is just a side project.
And you wanna be learning your stuff at the same time then?
Why not?
You
Alan: I mean, if it was a case, if I didn't have any other source of income
and I needed to start earning money next week, desperately, then I might
have thought differently about it.
Right.
Mario: Yeah, exactly.
Alan: But at the same time, you know, that's again, I probably wouldn't be
building a SaaS, if that was my problem.
Right.
Just because the, the ramp up speed is much, you know, it be have
to be something I can sell now.
Right.
Rather than, yeah.
I've gotta build it.
Mario: yeah.
Yeah.
More like a, an info product or something like that.
Yeah.
Alan: But again, so it's but you know, it's a learning process and , I'm glad I
did it the way I did some kind of . Oh, so the one thing I've gotta do this week
is I mentioned the, the co-working space rather the startup hub that I've I'm a
member of they want to record a me doing a pitch for my product, like a 10 minute
pitch that they can send to companies that we can work through together.
So that they've obviously have affiliated our have contacts within huge number of
companies in the city so they're like, okay, if you can record a pitch you know,
we can put some titles on for Japanese.
I've got Japanese slides as well.
They want to send it to, we can pick like 10 companies that
we can start to approach with.
And so they, they want me to record that this week.
So I have to have to put my pitch head on again,
, Mario: Nice.
Alan: only to a video, but it's still, it's kind of just getting
in that frame of mind of like
Mario: oh, yeah,
Alan: it's have to
Mario: yeah, yeah.
Alan: that mindset again.
Mario: Yep.
Yeah.
And how long, how long is this supposed to be
Alan: 10 minutes.
Mario: 10 minutes.
Okay.
Alan: So not too bad, but especially since I know the kind of customers,
I mean, you know, that they want to, to go through with me, for us
to pick who we want to send it to.
You know, I can kind of tailor the picture a little bit towards those.
Again, you know, they'll be Japanese companies, so I know which
aspects of my product work better for them than internationally.
So I'm gonna try and you know, shape it into something that, that works for them.
So that's my, my task this week as well.
Mario: Nice.
Nice.
And would you, I guess you could qualify that as kind of
Alan: It's marketing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
It's sales marketing.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
There you go.
That's
Alan: You go do something
Mario: Yeah.
Well, I was gonna ask you if you've had a chance to do more in that
Alan: sadly.
No.
Yeah, that, that was just getting this, this Android app out to
is, was kind of priority there.
And these other changes just cuz they're, they're switching over
from their existing systems to this for the time tracking stuff.
Like.
Very soon.
So it was like, okay, I wanna make sure that they that
they don't have any problems.
So that was the immediate priority for them.
but that's done.
So now I can switch to marketing mode for a little bit.
Maybe
Mario: Yeah.
Nice.
Alan: to
Mario: Yeah.
Cool.
That's awesome.
Well, good luck with your presentation and yeah, I'm sure you'll, you'll be good.
You'll
Alan: I'll
Mario: it out of the park.
Yeah.
Alan: I dunno, I it's I enjoy doing it, but it it's still I, I dunno.
It's like anything, you know, you whenever you do something yourself and
you try and compare it to other people, it's like, oh God, I'm so bad at this.
You know, especially public speaking, I enjoy it, but I, I don't know how
it's really difficult to measure yourself against how other people do it.
But I'll do my best and it's, it's, it's kind of fun to
do, so we'll see how it goes
Mario: yeah, yeah.
You'll be fine.
Alan: oh yeah.
Mario: saw the other one you.
did the other day and I mean a while
Alan: Yeah.
Mario: and it was good.
It was good.
Yeah.
Alan: So let's see, has that need just arrange your time this week
for that, but that's about it.
Mario: Cool.
All right.
So should we wrap it up here?
Do you have anything else?
Alan: Yep.
Think that's me.
Mario: All right, cool.
we'll see you in a couple of weeks
Alan: Yes.
And yeah.
I want to hear all about how your launch went.
Mario: yeah, I, I know, right.
I hope
Alan: you're gonna surprise me one day and say actually, yeah.
Mario: Yeah.
hopefully I have the, the business entity formed by then.
Alan: Yes, exactly.
Mario: Sorry, trying to keep my dog from making too much noise here.
he's like getting restless
Alan: Yeah, I was gonna say he is like, stop talking, play with me.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: well, I think that's, that's a good good reason to, to finish that.
Mario: All right.
Yeah.
True.
And your day is just, just getting started, right?
So you probably get, need to get some work done and, and stuff.
I'm wrapping up my day here.
And so Yeah.
See you.
In a couple of
Alan: couple of weeks, cheer
Mario: All right, Alan.
It was great as always, take care