Build Your SaaS

2021 and still no flying cars

Show Notes

Jon's back! He and Justin share their feelings/thoughts about the new year:

What should we talk about next?

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Creators & Guests

Host
Jon Buda
Co-founder of Transistor.fm
Host
Justin Jackson
Co-founder of Transistor.fm
Editor
Chris Enns
Owner of Lemon Productions

What is Build Your SaaS?

Interested in building your own SaaS company? Follow the journey of Transistor.fm as they bootstrap a podcast hosting startup.

Jon:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the behind the scenes story of building a web app in 2021. I'm John Buda, a software engineer.

Justin:

And I'm Justin Jackson. I do product and marketing. Follow along as we continue to build transistor dotfm.

Jon:

Alright. 2021. Still no flying cars.

Justin:

Still no flying cars.

Jon:

Not a lot's changed really since 2020.

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, things just kind of roll over. But how are you feeling? How are you feeling about the new year?

Jon:

Alright. Yeah. Okay.

Justin:

I mean, started off cautiously optimistic.

Jon:

Started off pretty rough. Yeah. We're not quite there.

Justin:

Not quite yet there yet.

Jon:

I think I'll celebrate a little more on January 20th. But

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. That's actually the

Jon:

Even even then, who knows?

Justin:

Somebody was laughing because I was showing them my calendar, and the only event you and I have on the calendar is inauguration day. John is off. Yeah. So that, you know, that could be a day for some some some to imbibe. You know?

Justin:

Some recreational imbibing. Yeah. I'm I'm feeling good. A lot of people get down on the New Year, and I find it helpful to be able to close the door on the past and say, okay. Well, we have to be able to put a a a marker in somewhere.

Justin:

And so to be able to put a marker in and say, okay. That was last year. There's the new year, and it it does just naturally help me to be hopeful. So, I'm I'm feeling pretty energized. I'm also pretty excited about the revenue milestone that we crossed at the year at the end of 2020.

Jon:

Yeah. That was huge. Just barely before the end of the year. Yeah. Huge milestone for us that we probably thought would take years years to get to.

Justin:

Yeah. Who yes. It yeah. Really. And and Yeah.

Justin:

That. Yeah. With so many you know, there there are a lot of businesses that that really suffered in 2020. So we just, I think we're both very grateful that, Transistor was able to continue to grow. I remember at the beginning, like, this time last year or a little bit later, but this time last year, you and I were having a call saying, well, we might lose 50% of our revenue.

Justin:

And are we prepared for that?

Jon:

Right. So Yeah. It's, it's yeah. There's a lot to be excited about in that respect. I think it gives us a lot of flexibility for what to do next Yeah.

Jon:

In this in this whole year and especially in light of all these announcements of podcasting apps and companies being sold or shutting down because they've loop been losing, like, 1,000,000 of dollars a year. Yeah. I just I it really makes me glad that we didn't take investment and that Mhmm. We're still a small company and don't have a huge overhead. Because, like, I just I like, was it Pocket Casts Yep.

Jon:

Is up for sale, but but, like, I was reading what and

Justin:

They lost almost 900

Jon:

grand. Well, that was just that was just for NPR's percentage.

Justin:

Oh, wow.

Jon:

So, like, what where is that money going? I don't I don't get it.

Justin:

That is wow. Yeah. So so NPR owns, like, 33%, and their

Jon:

Their loss was, like, 8 or some $1,000. No way. Just mind blowing. I don't get it.

Justin:

Well and then and then there was just an article, about Spotify. Analysts are writing down Spotify's investment in, in podcasting. Yeah.

Jon:

I mean, I I'm not surprised by that. They how many 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars have they spent? And

Justin:

About 500,000,000? Like, what?

Jon:

It's it's amazing to me that they were expecting to get that back in new subscriptions or something.

Justin:

Yeah. Here's here's the the headline from CNBC. Spotify's big bet on podcast is failing, Citibank says. So they're saying, like, the stock is up, but analysts are looking at the company going, well, what did we get for these investments? Because it has we have not seen a material positive inflection in app downloads or premium subscriptions.

Jon:

Right. Yeah. Because podcasts are free. I mean, I yeah. I I mean, I think there's still a lot to be worried about with podcasting this year as far as where it's headed, but there's a lot to be excited about, I think Yeah.

Jon:

Probably for smaller smaller companies who have a good margin.

Justin:

Yeah. I let's talk a bit about this. Because I I still do have some anxiety about the podcast category. I were I do worry about Spotify coming in. And by by their very coming in and spending all this money, it just adds all sorts of cloud.

Justin:

For example, I don't know. You know, we we've had some great years. But is that because Spotify kind of juiced up the sector and, you know, everyone was interest like, more people were interested than would have normally been. And because the magnetic pull of all this Spotify attention and hype, like, how much of that are we benefiting from? You know, how much of their gravitational pull are we experiencing?

Jon:

It's tough to say. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we still have you know, we have a lot of customers too who sign up and submit Spotify, then they're like, well, like, nobody's finding my podcast.

Justin:

Mhmm.

Jon:

Or I mean, I think that's where the opportunity lies is helping helping these smaller podcasters get an audience or make money. Or

Justin:

Mhmm. It's,

Jon:

like, it's not really enough just to submit to Spotify. Like, you're not there's so many on there. I don't think your podcast is randomly gonna surface in a recommended list.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm glad you brought that up. I think those are the two focuses are how can we help podcasts develop an audience podcasters develop an audience, which is a really hard question. This is what every, you know, every blogging platform, every email newsletter platform, every video platform, you know, the the ability to help somebody build an audience is tough.

Justin:

Even my my 13 year old son is, has this YouTube channel where he makes these animations. And, he's really good at it. And he spends hours doing it. I mean, I'm saying this as a dad, you know. You know, this is this is dad talk.

Justin:

But, you know, even for him, like, he's his favorite, YouTube channels have millions of subscribers. And, you know, he has 18. And Yeah. But he's he's excited about it. But you can see, like, it it's none of that is easy.

Justin:

And, I mean, frankly, I know the easiest way for him to build an audience would be for me to tweet it out. And for sure, he would get a bunch of subscribers. Right? So it's a hard problem. But, yeah, I I I am a little bit I'm cautiously concerned, or cautiously optimistic, I think, about podcasting.

Justin:

Every time I Yeah.

Jon:

I mean Yeah. Yeah. Who knows what this year will bring? I mean, last year, we saw a big push and increase in, you know, private podcasts. A lot a lot of that was due to COVID and work from home, and who knows what who knows what the thing this year will be.

Jon:

I

Justin:

Yeah. Well, now there's rumors that Apple is starting a premium podcast subscription service.

Jon:

Yeah. I mean, I guess that kinda makes sense. You know, they're putting money in the TV, and they might as well put money into producing podcasts, I guess.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. And and maybe that'll end up being a a a good sign for the category because Apple will have a strong incentive to keep the free podcast directory going and invest more in it. But then they can they can feature and promote their premium offerings in there as well. So and they definitely wanna increase services revenue.

Justin:

So

Jon:

Yeah. But, again, there's, you know, there's only so much attention span that one person has to listen to podcasts all day. Like and if if Apple's pushing premium podcasts that they develop, like, that's less time that people are gonna listen to smaller podcasts. Yeah. So that there's I mean, there's some concern there too, but it's

Justin:

Yeah. Although, flip side is I there's still a huge group of people in worldwide who aren't listening to podcasts regular regularly. So Apple's poll, you know, if all of a sudden they're promoting podcasts, and people go, okay. I'm gonna go check out the new premium Conan show or whatever. That might make turn them into podcast listeners, and then by extension, the the indie podcasts will get more listeners, hopefully.

Jon:

Yeah. It's possible.

Justin:

Yeah. So you never know at the beginning of the year. This this is what why we do this show is because it's like a running journal of, where we were in a I

Jon:

mean point of time. I don't even remember what we were talking about the beginning of last year, but it it certainly didn't turn out to be what we expected.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. With the the, the year turned out a lot different than we thought it would be. Yeah. What were we talking about?

Justin:

We were talking about what's your sustainable competitive competitive advantage. Yeah. We were we were so naive. The challenges of being in the wrong business.

Jon:

What a year. What a weird, weird year.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jon:

I don't feel like it can't get much worse than that. But,

Justin:

Well and, you know, I feel one thing I didn't I I think I've had a hard time understanding is, like, I'm here in this small little ski town. And, really, like, most of my life didn't change. Like, my kids are still going to school. I'm still going to my office. I have kids and a wife and, like, our house is full of people.

Justin:

And so for me, a lot of my life didn't change. But when I talk to my sister and her boyfriend, who are just kind of a closed unit, and people like you and anybody who doesn't have kids, this time was it was challenging. Like, the Yeah. Just the I think just the isolation alone was made it difficult. And then you add everything else on top, and it's it's tough that that stuff.

Jon:

Yeah. I mean, it yeah. It's it definitely makes definitely makes me grateful for what we have and the just the flexibility to take the time we need to do what we need to do or not work or work when we can work or just say, like, this week, I'm just not gonna do anything.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jon:

Yeah. It's that almost the whole year was just this low level layer of anxiety and stress Yeah. That, like, I think a lot of people expected to just disappear Mhmm. In the new year, but that's not really happening.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Which is which is why I think the dream of building your own software company is so attractive for, indies, like people who wanna build small companies. Like, I don't I don't really want to build anything that looks like Amazon or anything that looks like I just I I really don't maybe one day I'll I'll want that, but I keep looking at our lives and I'm I'm like, our life is so simple compared to what it would take for us to, like right. I I did some calculations, and we have if you exclude the free podcast hosting providers, we have 1.23% of the podcast hosting market.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin:

And so and the biggest, host has 13%. And so I could say, okay. What would it take us to get to, you know, to disrupt them? To be to be at 13%.

Jon:

Yeah. We'd have a team of marketers, team of developers. We'd have to take funding. Our lives are changed dramatically

Justin:

Oh, yeah. Like For the worst. All of a sudden, we have to have meetings. We have to, you know, be available at all times. We have to be managers.

Justin:

And so I I don't think we're alone in wanting this. This freedom, this space, this margin. And, you know, I've shared this in the past, but when I was really depressed and whatever that was, 2017, I had the other problem of I stopped working for 6 months and quickly liquidated all my savings and had you know, then I had financial stress on top of on top of emotional distress. And, that's why I think coronavirus and seeing how many people are not just being impacted emotionally and mentally, but, like, when you also have this fear of where's my next check going to come from, or am I going to get laid off tomorrow, Or am I gonna have to take a pay cut? That, that is yeah.

Justin:

That's hard. And the software is one of the few things I don't know if you caught my my chat with Jason Fried. But, like, software is one of the few things where there's incredible margins, and a 1 or 2 person company can carve out a really nice living. Mhmm. And, you know, for us, you and I, to go and compete in farming or in retail or in wholesaling.

Justin:

Like, we just it it would it's difficult for an independent or in the minded company to get a a foothold in those areas. But Yeah. Software, like, that's accessible, to the point where I really like, if if I was Apple and I was Spotify and I was Pocket Casts, I would be hire I would be going out and looking for, like, a couple bootstrappers that maybe haven't quite hit escape velocity, and I would hire them because Right. We're clearly more efficient. Like, it's like I'm I'm often looking at companies going, like, you have a 100 people working for you.

Justin:

And, like, what do you have to show for it? Like, you're moving so slow. You're making all these mistakes. Like, I just don't understand how you can have that many resources.

Jon:

Yeah. There's a certain amount of waste that comes with it. Yeah. It's Definitely.

Justin:

Let's talk a little bit about this Twitter ban, because I I think this affects us, because we are a content company.

Jon:

Yeah. There's a lot lot wrapped up in this. Twitter ban, the the parlor ban.

Justin:

Yeah.

Jon:

Parlor deplatforming. Well, it's more than just a Twitter ban. It's banning everywhere.

Justin:

Yes. Yeah. So so Trump is off Pinterest. He's off. He's like

Jon:

I know. I don't know where he's gonna do his mood boards now, but not not on Pinterest.

Justin:

So he he got banned, and I I've been going back and forth about this. I think I know where you stand. What what what's kind of your take right now on on how you feel about it? I I think it was the right thing to do. Mhmm.

Jon:

It probably could have happened earlier. Yeah. I think I mean, looking at all the stuff he said in the past, he provokes people to do really stupid things Yeah. And dangerous things and violent things.

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, if if he was not the president, if he was just a regular guy, and he was on transistor, and he was doing and saying those things, you and I would have been, like, let's just get this guy off. He's, like, this is just not the the the the kind of action and language, and we don't want this on our platform. It just it's not it's not healthy.

Jon:

Yeah. I mean, it's it's sad that it took basically, terrorists storming the capital to kick him off, but that's where we are. Yeah. I mean, some of it might be, you know, Twitter and Facebook kinda trying to save face before a new administration comes in. But

Justin:

Yeah. So I'm going back and forth because in intuitively, I'm I'm with you. And I I also think when I look at it from our perspective, like, as a private company, I just feel like we should have the right to kick people off.

Jon:

Yeah. And we do.

Justin:

And we do. And and and so that the any any move to say, well, you know, if if you do have someone who is saying awful things on your platform in being, disrespectful or hateful or or racist or whatever, and not, and not having the ability to kick those people off. Like, here's a a practical example. We had a podcast where the the co hosts had a fight, and then one of the co hosts left or something. And then the other cohost just started started saying really hateful, angry things about that person.

Justin:

And I just reached out to the person. I said, hey. I don't want this on transistor. Like, it's it's it's not nice. Like, it's not nice to to to publicly despaired someone like this.

Justin:

This is not the forum for this. And, so I worry a little bit about us losing that ability. On the other hand, you know, we we got a a a we had someone else message us today about a podcast that they they felt was problematic. And so I, you know, I downloaded it, and I transcribed it. And, you know, there's a part of me going, I'm not really equipped to make these decisions.

Justin:

Like, it's difficult to parse out

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin:

What is acceptable and what is not acceptable. And we have a we have a terms of use agreement that lays stuff out, but a lot of it does come down to interpretation. And, and it's it's not easy making those calls. And so there's another part of me that's wondering without dismantling section 230, which is I think the this free speech, this amendment to the first this section of the first amendment or amendment to the first amendment

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin:

I don't I don't think that should be dismantled. I've been following, Evan Grier on Twitter, and they have quite a few good things to say about it. Just that, you know, we gotta be very careful about what policy decisions we make now.

Jon:

Right. But Yeah. I mean, it's it's a it's a way even in in the case of Trump, like, it he wants to get he wanted to get rid of it, but it also was the thing protecting him from basically staying on this platform. So

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The you're saying there's some irony there. Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah. And, I mean, folks thinking about starting a business, this is the downside to being a a content platform. Like Yeah. Like, eventually, you are going to have to make these decisions if you host content for other people, or you take payments on behalf of other people, or you provide a like, if you're Shopify and you provide a store for other people, you're going to have to make these calls. Whereas, if you're providing air tracking for, you know, Trump's website, you're probably not gonna get called out on it.

Justin:

But you I mean, if you host content, you're going to have to figure this stuff out. And it is it is not easy or clear.

Jon:

Yeah. It's, it's weird. But you also don't really wanna go the route of the government telling you what you can and can't say because then that's just censorship on a government level, and that's what dictatorships and fascist governments do. So, like

Justin:

Yeah.

Jon:

It's it kinda has to be up to the, I don't know, the small companies, I guess, or big companies in this case.

Justin:

Yeah. I mean, I think it's worth reading, date for an alternative view. I think it's worth reading. David Sacks has a a post. I'll put it in the show notes.

Justin:

Section 230, mend it, don't end it. And the the idea is to fix section 230, bringing it into conformity with first amendment principles. Of course, this is gonna be up to interpretation. But he's saying, it's silly for Twitter and Facebook to be improvising content moderation policies. Yeah.

Justin:

So he's saying that if if we could if the government could be very clear about how the first amendment should apply to social networks and, by extension, podcast hosting providers and, you know, all the way down, blogging platforms, etcetera.

Jon:

Mhmm. It's also a much more difficult thing for us to deal with unless we transcribed every podcast and had a, you know, a a bad list of words and phrases and things that we would catch, but that's a

Justin:

Yeah.

Jon:

Tremendous task and expensive. Yeah. But I I I imagine it's gonna be something we're gonna have to keep dealing with this year.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe it would be better if folks had to, instead of instead of complaints going through us, it would go through, like an ombudsman. You know, a a like, our broadcasting corporation has an ombudsman. I don't know if you

Jason:

Okay. I

Jon:

don't know. Just like a third party.

Justin:

Yeah. So Kinda. Is this, like, only Canadian word?

Jon:

Could be.

Justin:

It's a a public official, who investigates and address complaints or violation of rights usually appointed by the government with a significant degree of independence. So that might be better because then we don't have to incur all the cost and headache of, like it's just somebody who's trained in this that maybe went to school and got their ethics degree, and their law degree to, you know, to review those things. And then they can then just say to us, hey. You gotta remove this content. Like, right now, the Spotify on behalf of the r I a a or whatever issues takedown notices for us.

Justin:

And Mhmm. We just we just listen. Like, that's that's all there is to it. Like, we we just comply with it. So yeah.

Justin:

That'll be interesting. That's gonna be something we have to keep an eye on as the as the year progresses.

Jon:

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. I mean, I ultimately, I I don't exactly know where you stand, but, ultimately, like, I'm perfectly okay with us being having the power to take down content that we don't want on the platform that we built.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm okay with that too. Yeah.

Justin:

And and, of course, like, depending on where you live in the world, and, well, depending on a lot of factors, what what might not be okay for John and I, you know, might be okay in other places. But so there there's definitely some issues here, but the the yeah. I'm I'm mostly in agreement with you just, like, if if if we don't want somebody on the platform, we have to have some way of doing that. And currently, corporations in the US have the power to serve who they, you know, or not serve. Yeah.

Justin:

So yeah. I'm sure we will get some thoughts about that.

Jon:

Sure we will.

Justin:

I one thing I'm excited about for the new year is I think the the possibilities for helping podcasters earn revenue is interesting to me. I as I've been I've been spending a lot of time on Clubhouse, this new social audio app. Yep. Which I was initially pretty grumpy about. Like, oh, I don't wanna get on there.

Justin:

It's, you know, what it's just, you know, another social thing. And and there's definitely a lot of, Bitcoin make money online, chatter on there. But there's a lot of podcasters on there, and I've been doing a lot of listening. And, you know, anecdotally, there's definitely a lot of people who are getting into podcasting with the goal of somehow earning more money with that content. Whether it's, you know, getting a better job, like raising their profile in an industry, whether it's, marketing their company, whether it's, you know, getting money directly from patrons, Patreon Patreon supporters, or advertising, or a membership site, or paying for a private podcast.

Justin:

The, you know, the way Sam Harris has his setup. So I I think there's something here. There's a you know, if we're listening to the market, podcasting because they think it would, at the very least, it would be nice if they earned a little bit of revenue from their show.

Jon:

Yep.

Justin:

So, yeah, I I, you have any thoughts about that? Any

Jon:

I would love to make that a reality for people. I don't I don't think we've necessarily settled on the one great way. I mean, ads are tricky. They don't necessarily work for smaller podcasts. Mhmm.

Jon:

You could probably make a lot more money with, like, a private subscription

Justin:

Yep.

Jon:

Per listener.

Justin:

And, honestly, like, I I think our our experiment with Patreon has been interesting. People excited about our journey, people who want a call out in the show. I got another message from from Adam Duvander, who's been a long time Patreon supporter. And he said he was on a Zoom call, in a Zoom meeting with a potential client or something. And then he said, by the way, are you the one I are you the Adam DuVander that, that that is gets the shout out at the end of the Build Yours episode.

Jon:

That's great.

Justin:

Nice. So, you know, there's lots of lots of reasons people are willing to support your work. And, Yeah. I'm I I don't think we've settled on one thing. It'll probably be multiple things.

Justin:

There's some ideas that we have sketched out on napkins and Google Docs from the beginning around this topic of monetization. And I feel like now we've got enough foundation that we could start exploring some of those ideas.

Jon:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the one thing that I didn't quite get to before the end of the year and still haven't to haven't gotten to is our one of our bigger updates to to private podcasting that we're gonna do, and I think that'll lay up pretty good groundwork for some of that revenue building.

Justin:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So that's, yeah, that's

Jon:

I mean, that's something I've been thinking of, and we have that all laid out, and I'm just kinda trying to work out the mental space to start building that.

Justin:

Yeah. No. I think I think private podcasts are gonna be a part of this for sure. One thing I keep thinking about is the the simplicity of you know, a lot of people were trying to, like, earn a living online. Sometimes they try a bunch of things, like, okay, I'm gonna try to build a SaaS product, and I'm gonna have a paid newsletter.

Justin:

And I'm gonna have a downloadable ebook, and I'm gonna have a course, and I'm gonna have a membership platform, and I'm gonna and when I look at folks like Ben Thompson has done a great job of he's got his paid newsletter. Very simple, old technology, and he has his paid podcast. Very simple, old technology. And if you wanna support Ben, you have 2 great options. He's not trying to do everything.

Justin:

He's not trying to, you know, build all the things. He's not it's just hey. If you're listening to the podcast, you can upgrade and get this. And it's just so simple. Sam Harris, if you listen to his show, he he, fades out the episode halfway through.

Justin:

So if you wanna listen to the rest, it's a really simple path to upgrade. Just click here and upgrade. And I think the simplicity of the model is its strength. There are people who folks want to hear more from, and they'll pay for it. And, podcasting, especially, I think is unique because, like, with the email newsletter, my my inbox is is the recipient of all sorts of things.

Justin:

Right? It's like, I've got bills in there. I've got newsletters. I've got paid newsletters. I've got email reminders.

Justin:

I've got, message from my dad. A podcast player is unique because it's an inbox just for podcasts. And so it's unencumbered. It's it's completely clean in a way that really like, if you think about anything else, it's really sandboxed. Like, even if you're on YouTube, there's so many distractions that could take you away from a YouTube video.

Jon:

Mhmm.

Justin:

Like, when you're in your podcast player, there's really no other distraction. It's like you are there. The only thing you can do there is listen to a podcast. That's it.

Jon:

Yeah. It's like it's kinda like why I like reading on a Kindle Yeah. As opposed to an iPad or something. Well, I guess a paperback book would be good too, but Yeah. There's nothing else you can do.

Jon:

You just read a book.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. And I I my I'm I'm kind of betting that this is going to be a trend. I think, I like, I've been I've been trying to subscribe to substack newsletters, and there's some newsletters I was really excited about getting that I paid for. But I've just had such a hard time keeping up on it because when I'm in my inbox, I'm not in the mental space to be reading.

Justin:

And Yeah. Even with HEY, HEY has this feed section, and I just never check it. Because every time I open my inbox, I'm, like, I'm just here to check to see if I have any messages.

Jon:

Yeah. That's a that's a great thing about what RSS readers are all about. Right? You just have you have the the magazines and websites that you subscribe to, and that's it.

Justin:

Honestly, I'm thinking about going back. Do do you do you use a RSS reader right right now? No.

Jon:

I don't. I don't.

Justin:

I I think I think reader is still a thing. I I'm thinking about going back because I want to read more, but, like, almost all of my reading happens in this Nuzzle app. Mhmm. So it just like, it takes all of the top tweeted articles from my friends on Twitter and then puts it in a list. And, that's almost all of my reading, but I'd I'd love to, you know, subscribe to some blogs and just get those.

Justin:

And, yeah. The the podcast inbox is an interesting, framework to consider. And so private podcasts, it's like, I subscribe to a few that I pay for, a few paid private podcasts, and I just love it. It's like, okay. Here.

Justin:

There's the show I pay for. It's right there. And, almost always when those pop into my, my podcast inbox, I I listen to those first because it's, like, something I really wanna hear. So yeah. Lots lots of opportunity there.

Justin:

And, people can do this right now, by the way, with our private podcasting feature. They if you use Memberful or Podia or Gumroad, you can, you can connect those 2 using Zapier. Just just have people pay and then have a Zap that automatically adds their email address to your private podcast on Transistor, and you're in business.

Jon:

Yeah. It's a good way to do it.

Justin:

Anything else we should talk about?

Jon:

I don't know. Kinda what we've been working on, like, last the last Yeah. Month or weeks or whatever.

Justin:

Talk a little bit about what you've been working on lately.

Jon:

I don't have a ton of headspace for a lot of big projects at the moment. Hopefully, that can ramp up soon, but I've just been kind of picking off little stories in our in our, I guess, backlog, if you wanna call it that.

Justin:

Yeah. But Jason Fried says we should No.

Jon:

We stopped calling that. Our I what what should we call that?

Justin:

What do you call the thing that Jason Fried made you

Jon:

feel guilty about? Ideas. I don't know. It's just I've just been doing, like, little little improvements here and there, little a few infrastructure updates and just kinda, like, quality of life updates for people Yeah. And for us.

Jon:

So

Justin:

Yeah. Some onboarding things.

Jon:

That's that's it, really. Onboarding. Yeah. Coupon codes? Coupon codes on sign up that I think you're gonna try to make use of, for kind of marketing purposes and

Justin:

Yep. Importing a show. Like, we've got some importing, some onboarding for people who import a show.

Jon:

Yep. Some of that stuff. So, yeah, I really I just kinda poked around and found, like, little stories that I could complete in a day or maybe a couple of hours and just knock those out and make myself feel good that I'm actually doing something.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean and in terms of quality of life for our customers, often those little tweaks can have it it's just it's kind of like, you know, if you come home and everything's been cleaned, and you're just like, oh, wow. Like, not a lot has changed.

Justin:

Like, it wasn't like everything the furniture got rearranged, but it's just really nice to to be in a, you know, nice clean space where there's been some upkeep.

Jon:

The other thing that was a Christmas miracle that we haven't talked about is YouTube letting us use their API again.

Justin:

Oh, yes.

Jon:

It was, like, 8 months. Oh. And I honestly I just started emailing everyone I could possibly harass about this thing and found some old email from, like, 8 months ago replied to that and just said, hey. What's going on? And then within, like, an hour, they were like, you've been approved.

Justin:

My gosh.

Jon:

I I I just got ahold of the right person. It was bizarre. I

Justin:

Because everybody in our industry has been trying to do this. Like, we weren't the only ones having trouble.

Jon:

It's a really convoluted process. Although, throughout the last few months, they definitely upgraded. They up updated the UI for configuring. The problem was your you had to get your your OAuth screen approved so that people connect their account to us. Mhmm.

Jon:

Because we use a couple of, API scopes that are what they call sensitive because you can get some information. So they have to review a few things, but you have to go through this process and, like, it was unclear what state you were in

Justin:

Yeah.

Jon:

Where you were at in that process. There was literally nobody to email. There's no support. There's nothing. I would, like, post on some message boards and be like, what's going on with this?

Jon:

And they're like, that's not our department. Go to the contact page, and it's like, there's no you don't Yeah. It go it's just a dead end of nothingness.

Justin:

And then we finally found some people at Google Podcasts who are really helpful, and then they helped us out with something else. And then we said, hey. Can you help us with this? Like, it's been forever.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin:

And And it's like yeah.

Jon:

It's not we're not we don't need to talk to Google Podcast people. We don't need to talk to YouTube people. We needed to talk to Google Cloud Platform people who are in charge of, like, security.

Justin:

Yeah. I don't know. It was It was a mess.

Jon:

But we're good. It's approved. You can now, upload your podcast.

Justin:

Yes. And people do like that feature. I know you and I haven't always been a fan of it, but you can only push back against the market so much. You know what I mean? Like Yeah.

Justin:

If the market wants it, you've gotta

Jon:

And we were I think we were, like, this close to just pulling it entirely because it's like people kept asking about it, just kept sitting there and saying we're waiting to hear back from Google, and it was, like, I think Christmas Eve or something.

Justin:

Yeah. It was a Christmas miracle. Psyche. That was amazing.

Jon:

Ugh. God. Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. So some good stuff working on some good stuff there.

Jon:

Yeah.

Justin:

I maybe I'll end by saying I'm we have a couple new customers. I'm always excited about new customers, people signing up for Transistor. If you're thinking about starting a show, 2021 is a great time to start a show. If you're thinking about, you know, you've had a podcast on, like, you know, an old competitor forever and you just want something better, we'd love to have you. Talking about people who just switched, the Las Vegas Golden Knights just switched to Transistor.

Justin:

So I'm pretty excited about that. I got on a call with them, like, 5 or 6 people from their broadcast team.

Jon:

For for people that don't know sports, Justin.

Justin:

Oh, that's doesn't doesn't doesn't everyone know the NHL and follow it? This is this is NHL. This is this is hockey. This is this is all we care about. This is, you know, I I've I've even searched to see if we have a NFL or NBA team.

Justin:

No big deal. But the Yeah.

Jon:

It doesn't matter.

Justin:

Vegas Golden Knights. And they were I mean, they've had a good team, the last, few years. So, yeah, pretty cool to have them. And you know who else switched to us from Simplecast, one of my all time favorite podcasts. It's a podcast for programmers, but really has nothing to do with programming.

Justin:

No plans to merge. Just, just switch to us. Which I'm I mean, those I those guys are friends of mine, but it was it was just awesome that they finally switched and and

Jon:

Cool. Nice.

Justin:

Decided to to throw the business our way. So thanks to the golden knights and no plans to merge.

Jon:

Yeah. Thanks, guys.

Justin:

And I think, you know, now that we're back on the mic, I I think, we're gonna try to do this more regularly.

Jon:

Yeah. I think so. It's, nice to be away, but good to be back. I will say I hope at some point this year, we can give each other a big hug.

Justin:

In person. Like, be good to hang out. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

Justin:

It's it's this is I'm I'm I'm almost feeling like you should because you can still fly here. I I'm the sucky part is you'd have to have, I don't know if they just reduced it. Is it a 10 day quarantine? But

Jon:

I don't know.

Justin:

It feels Can you fly there? Can. You can

Jon:

I've heard different stories. I've heard of I've heard of people who actually have family there and can't get in.

Justin:

We should look this up because yeah. I think, fuck. Yeah. I mean, it's hard because there's also, like, people are being advised to stay home. It you're not supposed to do any unnecessary travel.

Jon:

Yeah. I mean, yeah. It's getting worse here. There's a new variant in US and us. It's just like it's just gonna be bad until it finally gets better.

Justin:

Yeah. And I'd I I just don't like this in between. Like, it's, like, even just now, I was like, oh, John, you should just fly here. And then instantly, I felt this guilt of, like, ah, but maybe that's not the right thing to do. You know, maybe, you know, maybe it's it's so unclear sometimes, as to how we should be living our lives in, you know, in the midst of all this.

Justin:

So

Jon:

Yeah. That's that the hardest part is the inability to plan for the future and even any sense of what it's gonna be like in even a couple

Justin:

of weeks. Yeah. Fingers crossed. I hope, I hope that it doesn't take a decade for the US to roll out their vaccines.

Jon:

Really hope not. Yeah.

Justin:

Let's thank the good people who support us on Patreon. John, you wanna you wanna you wanna give this a try?

Jon:

Yeah. Thanks as always. I'll try to see if I remember how to do this. We have the Take It EV podcast. Ethan Gunderson, Diogo, Chris Willow, Mason Hensley, Borja Solaire, Ward Sandler, Eric Lima, James Sours, Travis Fisher, Matt Buckley, Russell Brown, Evander Sassy, Prady Umesh Shembekar, Noah Praill, Robert Simplicio, Colin Gray, Josh Smith, Ivan Kerkovic, Shane Smith, Austin Loveless, Simon Bennett, Michael Sidfer, Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis, my brother Dan Buddha, Darby Frey, Samori Augusto, Dave Young, Brad from Canada, Sammy Shufert, Mike Walker, Adam Devander, Dave Junta, and Kyle Fox from get rewardful.com.

Justin:

Thanks, everybody. We will see you next week. Next week? Thanks, everybody.

Jon:

We will see. Next time.