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Interviewing indie founders about their journey and their products. itslaunchday.com
Dagobert Renouf (00:01)
Hey Oli, welcome to lunch day!
Ollie Efesopoulos (00:04)
Hey, Dago. Thank you for having me, man. I really appreciate it.
Dagobert Renouf (00:09)
Yeah, we were just talking a little bit and I made a joke that I was having Alex or Mozzie on my podcast because of your nose thing. So to be honest, I have no idea. I mean, I know some people do it for kind of like oxygen or thing. And sometimes I have trouble breathing. So maybe I should have one. What's the story with this? Like, how is that helping you?
Ollie Efesopoulos (00:18)
Right.
To be honest with you, I was the same. ⁓ I thought it was bullshit when I started looking into it. I thought I've seen a few people wear it, know, Homozi and a few other people. And I've always had trouble breathing out of one of my nostrils. So I thought, know, what do I have to lose? So I bought the Nose Strip and really, immediately you can feel the difference in the amount of oxygen.
Dagobert Renouf (00:51)
Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (01:01)
that you get into your nose. Whether or not that has ⁓ positive long-term effects or not, I have no idea. ⁓ But even if it's like placebo, it's good enough for me at the moment, but I do feel like I am.
Dagobert Renouf (01:16)
Placebo is good,
know. Placebo, it's actually scientific, like, it's actually a scientific thing. Like, Placebo still works. Like, it works on your unconscious, but it actually impacts you. So, it's still something. So yeah, that's awesome.
Ollie Efesopoulos (01:24)
Show ya.
Yeah, yeah.
It's the
same with like if you say I'm sick for example you're more likely to actually be sick than if you don't say it so I can't remember how likely is exactly but it was a crazy stat you know like 20 or 30 percent more likely to actually be sick if you say it so next time you're sick just...
Dagobert Renouf (01:43)
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think,
yeah. I can be very good at being in denial. I'm not sick, I'm not sick, you know, but yeah, okay. ⁓ I hear like an accent. Are you from the UK? ⁓ Sounds like UK, yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (01:59)
Yeah.
Yes,
so I grew up in, well initially grew up in Cyprus, my father's from Cyprus and then moved to England. I lived in Birmingham for maybe 15, 16 years. ⁓ So that's where I get this lovely accent from.
Dagobert Renouf (02:26)
Yeah, no, I'm becoming
better with accent now. starting to... I didn't spot the Cyprus origin, but you know, maybe in a few months I'll be able to... Yeah, yeah, okay, a bit fancy for an English guy. Yeah. Cool man's... Yeah, yeah, I think my accent is obvious too, It's... Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (02:35)
Just a bit.
Yeah. You're from France, right?
Dagobert Renouf (02:51)
I'm from Lille, not far from England actually, know, because Lille is like north of France and we're like basically you have the Eurostar so I can actually walk to London basically. Like I walk, I go to the train station in 15 minutes and then I'm in London after an hour and a half. Which I never do, but I like saying that I can walk to London. Because it's funny, you know.
Ollie Efesopoulos (03:04)
yeah, shit.
Yeah, it's like a miracle.
Dagobert Renouf (03:16)
depending on the city, some people they live in cities and like it takes, in big cities it takes you two hours to go anywhere. ⁓ So it's, you cause, but like one hour and half to London is awesome. Yeah. So.
Ollie Efesopoulos (03:30)
What's Lil
like?
Dagobert Renouf (03:33)
what Lille is like, you know, it's like, it's the part of France that, because you know, France, we are kind of famous for being ⁓ assholes, you know, always kind of like arrogant and shit. No? wow. No, you know, and so arrogant and a bit like that, and which we are for sure. But in North of France, it's like the only place where we're like nice, you know, like we're like, we're famous in France for being super nice.
Ollie Efesopoulos (03:44)
Never heard that in my life.
Surely everybody says that about their own area though, right? Like, my area, we're nice.
Dagobert Renouf (04:06)
No, ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (04:18)
Right, right.
Mm.
We say the same in England, the North are nice, the South are... I'm not going to say dickheads because I'm getting in trouble.
Dagobert Renouf (04:36)
But it's funny because your South
is our North. So that's why that's what's funny. I was in it. I've been in UK many times and then I'm like, so when the English people go to the South on the coast, for us, it's the North Coast. And for us, that's what we consider the shitty coast. And for them, that's the good coast. But like, that's everywhere like this, I guess.
Ollie Efesopoulos (04:42)
True.
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (05:05)
But that's like funny.
Ollie Efesopoulos (05:07)
I was lucky because I got to escape the Cyprus. I didn't have to stay in the cold weather.
Dagobert Renouf (05:13)
Yeah, you can go to actual
⁓ cool ⁓ beaches and stuff like this. ⁓ Funny, there was a big talk about Cyprus yesterday on my Twitter because I talked about taxes in France and everybody said, you should go to Cyprus. Do you have any knowledge of that? ⁓ no, no.
Ollie Efesopoulos (05:32)
For sure
yeah. If you do ever go, if you need any help with anything you can just ping me but when it comes to taxes it is a pretty great place to be especially as I think if you set up a company there you can get your taxes down to 12.5 % and there's even ways to
Dagobert Renouf (05:53)
think it's 15. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (05:58)
reduce it down further but I'm not an accountant and you'll have to speak to someone yeah yeah or the same with I don't know if you invest in cryptocurrencies or anything like that stocks you can also get ⁓ low taxes by taking it out as dividends inside for us
Dagobert Renouf (06:01)
12 is fine, 12 is fine, don't worry about it.
Yeah.
And it's good that so cause my fiance is Russian and it's good for Russians too, I guess. They allow them to go there more easily now. So yeah, that's cool. Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (06:24)
man.
There's many Russians in Cyprus here. We even teach
it as one of the primary languages there now.
Dagobert Renouf (06:33)
yeah, okay, yeah, okay, I get it. Yeah. So, but I was wondering, like, since you have connections with Cyprus, did you think about it, like, moving there for, like, building your business and working remotely? Did you consider it, maybe?
Ollie Efesopoulos (06:48)
100 % I mean it's still something that I may do in the future. ⁓ I don't write it off 100 % currently I'm in Thailand so ⁓ it was a holiday that actually turned into something more full-time now so in Thailand the perks you get as a indie hacker are pretty substantial and you get to meet lots of other indie hackers here as well and
Dagobert Renouf (07:14)
Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (07:17)
I've met a bunch of cool people here that are just inspiring. They're building some crazy stuff. But when it comes to finances on a day-to-day level, talent is also pretty awesome, especially with the visas that they're bringing out now. ⁓
Dagobert Renouf (07:17)
Yeah.
So where are you
in? Bangkok or somewhere else?
Ollie Efesopoulos (07:38)
Chiang Mai.
Dagobert Renouf (07:40)
Ok yeah. Is it ok the pollution? Especially with your perfect nostrils, you must really smell it. How is the pollution?
Ollie Efesopoulos (07:49)
This is like a typical Greek nose so I can get more pollution than most people but ⁓ it's okay, really really it's okay like the only time that I wouldn't recommend being in Chiang Mai specifically is during burning season so there's like a few months of the year I don't know what months they are but
Dagobert Renouf (07:56)
Amazing.
It's like January,
February, like it's like early, I think first half of the year. Yeah, yeah. Because I was... And what about the noise? Because I was actually considering moving there and I saw like all the good places. They are near the airport. And so you have all the noise from the... That was that? That we were... ⁓ my God. Okay. I heard it.
Ollie Efesopoulos (08:14)
Something like that, Yeah, yeah, first couple of months of the year.
I don't know if you heard that just now.
Dagobert Renouf (08:35)
Maybe people will not hear it because then I use AI to clean up the sound after but I just heard it. Yes. my god. That was perfect. So there is noise from the airport. Okay.
Ollie Efesopoulos (08:39)
Right. So yeah.
There is but we're literally underneath the flight path So if you're a bit further out you won't hear it at all But because we're the plane literally flies directly over this flat
Dagobert Renouf (08:55)
Yeah but like the cool area in Chiang
Mai are on this area, right? So that's kind of like... Okay.
Ollie Efesopoulos (08:59)
Yeah,
Nimman is like the indie hacker hotspot, that's, it's under the flight path. But you get used to it after a day or two.
Dagobert Renouf (09:05)
Yeah.
But it's.
Yeah, I bet. When I was a kid, we lived very close to the train station and you could see the, like, you know, like in Jurassic Park, the water is moving in the glass. We had that, you know, a hundred times a day where you just see like, so, you know, you get used to this shit, sadly. ⁓ So wait, I was curious about, because, you know, one of the reason I'm doing launch day and I'm doing this as a podcast now and interviewing everyone is because at least for me,
Ollie Efesopoulos (09:23)
Mm-hmm.
Dagobert Renouf (09:41)
I'm basically alone in Lille, like the indie maker. There's nobody else almost that I... I mean, there's a few people, it's not like there's a big community of active people building cool shit. It's not really like that. And a lot of people I interview is the same. Everybody lives kind of somewhere in their hometown or around the world. But what you said... And so that's why I'm trying to do this, to make kind of a community that's helping. But I really like what you said. So you're in Chiang Mai now.
and you are surrounded by other indie makers, I guess. That's what you said. So that must be a huge difference to be surrounded. Because I went to Lisbon a few years ago and I spent a few weeks there. There was like five or six indie makers I was hanging out with. That's just like completely different, man. When you are finally connecting to people and you're just not alone working and you know.
Ollie Efesopoulos (10:14)
Yeah, there's many here.
Dagobert Renouf (10:33)
So how is it for you? Like, I guess in UK you maybe didn't have it and now that you're in Thailand you had it. How is this thing?
Ollie Efesopoulos (10:41)
It's
the first time I've experienced it. in Cyprus It's starting to build up a little bit now in the UK. We didn't really I didn't really have it for I was living But yeah, it's pretty crazy man like Even within the surrounding You know ten five to ten kilometers. There's a bunch of Coworking areas a few people have gone like
semi viral on X the last few weeks or months just posting from them working from these areas. I forgot the guy's name. There was one recently, but regardless like, there's big communities here of people just working on their own products. And even if they're not like indie hackers, they're remote freelancers. So they'll be working for like big tech companies and they just like to work from.
Dagobert Renouf (11:21)
I saw it, think,
Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (11:39)
coworking spaces and some of them are more communal than others. I won't name which ones, but some of them are, they have like events and they do, they do different, what's the word, like different networking events, marketing events, things like that. And it's just a great place to be able to work in the day and then chat a little bit, go out for coffee or go out for food in the evening with.
with people and discuss.
Dagobert Renouf (12:10)
And I guess, you know, get ideas and get it. Because that's the main thing, I guess, for
me would be like...
Because for example, I do all these launch day calls in the same day. So I have eight calls today, you and I found that I can handle it. So I'm fine with it. your ⁓ number three. But I did one week where I already did eight a couple of weeks ago and I was still fresh at the end. So I think it's definitely for me then. know, yeah, actually, no joking. ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (12:22)
Damn. Damn.
Yeah.
New profession.
Dagobert Renouf (12:43)
I might start doing some sales from another Indie maker because I realized I could just, I'm not bad at sales actually. Plus I can, I mean never did this in my life and as an actual job, but he said, you you just have to get on the call, do a couple calls a day and close people. I'm like, that sounds so fucking easy. Let's do that. You know, I can do that on the side of lunch day because it's good money and it sounds easy. So yeah, I'm going to try that. You know, so.
Ollie Efesopoulos (13:04)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (13:12)
But yeah, every time I speak with people for this launch day, I get so many ideas and not just ideas, it's like, I don't know, I feel that it's more real. Like, it's like if you're alone, it's like abstract, you're building something, but is it gonna work? Is it good? Like you don't know, but when you're actually talking and you're like, shit, this guy is doing this. Like it's not just somebody on Twitter, it's somebody you're talking with and it's making it more real that you can have some success.
I don't know if it makes sense.
Ollie Efesopoulos (13:43)
Right. Yeah.
I mean, like on Twitter, all you see is like the shit posts from people and the, you know, the controversy and whatnot and marketing stunts. And so like just to be able to, you know, chat face to face. I think I saw a clip of you talking about, it was on, it was on your, it's a launch day platform talking to someone. I watched a couple of the clips and one of the, one of the things you said was how lonely
a lot of the indie hacking communities. ⁓ And I think what you're doing, is it's great, not just for the exposure that you're giving to people, but also building that community. I don't know what else you do alongside its launch day. Like if you have other...
Dagobert Renouf (14:14)
Yeah.
Well, after
this call, I'm sending you a link to join the Slack where everybody is. And that's awesome because I did that randomly because someone from launch day number two asked it and I did it. And I always start making a community super difficult and I didn't want to do that and it seems too much. But the fact that everybody's launching together and they're gathering, now there's people sending messages every day and I'm doing nothing.
Ollie Efesopoulos (14:39)
good.
Dagobert Renouf (15:00)
And like this community is alive and it's also only people who launch. Because like a lot of community you can pay and like 90 % of people they don't do anything. They just pay and they're in this community. So it's like very boring. But here it's only people who launched on launch day. They were ready, they were active and it creates awesome vibes. So yeah, I would invite you, right? I basically do the call because it's when you do the interview with me.
Ollie Efesopoulos (15:01)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (15:26)
that you are in launch day officially, because some people they never do it or like, you know, they cancel. So, but after this, you are officially part of launch day and then you get to Slack. so, so yeah. But yeah, that's it. That's the community. That's like, I think that's the big thing actually. ⁓ And also it's cool because, you know, doing this video, like you are doing an interview and most people, don't have a lot of interviews. They didn't show their face all the time. And that's one way for every, for you, but for everybody to also...
Ollie Efesopoulos (15:35)
Right.
Dagobert Renouf (15:56)
connect with people on another level. Like it's not just your tweets or not just like you will have this video that you can send people and like people know about you. And that's an awesome way also because it makes it more tangible, you know, who you are and you know, because you never know somebody from their tweets or anything.
Ollie Efesopoulos (16:13)
100 % yeah. mean, that's why I think it's really cool what you're doing. I don't know what your intention was behind when you started it, of course there might have been some monetary reasons, but just for the fact that you're building multiple communities of people that sell to each other, that embrace, I should pause every time. It's like every 10 minutes, but.
Dagobert Renouf (16:31)
Yeah, yeah. ⁓ I can hear the plane. I can hear the new plane. It's funny. No, no, it's fine. It's fine. Just joking.
Ollie Efesopoulos (16:41)
I've been here so long now, I just ignore it. I don't even register it. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (16:44)
No, for sure. Yeah, you cannot. Yeah. It's like a,
I guess it's like a baby crying when you're a parent, I guess. yeah. It's just fine. I'm kidding. I don't have kids, obviously. So I say stupid things. ⁓ Okay. So now how did you get started into this? How well, since how long have you been, you know, building your own things?
Ollie Efesopoulos (16:51)
Yeah.
Yeah, so originally I started in 2016.
Just to put it out there, I'm not a developer, I'm not an engineer. ⁓ don't write code. I solely rely on AI right now, but I'll get into that in a second. ⁓ So yeah, like 2016, I was working and also trying to build my very first startup.
Dagobert Renouf (17:17)
None of us are engineers, you we say we are, but we're not engineers, know, that's a big world.
Okay.
Wow.
Ollie Efesopoulos (17:44)
Long story short, I poured lots of money into it, probably around $20,000 to try and build, to pay for development in order to try and build the product.
Dagobert Renouf (17:55)
It's very
expensive when you do it this way. Yeah. How was it? Yeah. Did you get what you paid for? Because usually you don't at this price.
Ollie Efesopoulos (17:58)
Very, and I was super naive, terrible. It was, no,
terrible, honestly. Like the development was bad. My, my organizational skills were nonexistent. I didn't know how to build, how to market, how to sell, how to do nothing. So.
Four years later, I was a lot poorer, but probably a lot wiser. And I ended up ⁓ scrapping the idea and just going back to a nine to five. I thought like indie hacking is not for me, or not indie hacking, building a startup wasn't for me. Went back to a nine to five, worked for a few more years. ⁓ And as a designer, so I've been working as a designer for over 10 years. And ⁓ then I launched
Dagobert Renouf (18:36)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nice.
Ollie Efesopoulos (18:54)
Well, then I got the idea because of how feedback is given in the design world to build something called roasted.io, which is, ⁓ it was just a way to give brutally honest feedback without like all the pretentiousness around, ⁓ how design feedback's normally given. I built that, launched it on product hunt, but sorry, I just put up a landing page, put it on product hunt and ended up doing really well.
made some money and I was happy with the outcome of it and then I like caught this bug I was like okay this is pretty cool ⁓ maybe there's something more for me here
Dagobert Renouf (19:30)
And now you had the experience
of before, you had finally some success, and then it was... OK.
Ollie Efesopoulos (19:39)
Well, then it was chat GPT. ⁓ I was like, sorry, cursor came up or cursor. I found out about cursor.
Dagobert Renouf (19:47)
Yeah, AI
coding or anything, yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (19:51)
And it just completely blew my mind, man. Like for the first time I was able to put something out there that I didn't even have to build myself. Like I had no idea how to build any of this stuff. I knew what I wanted to build. I didn't have to pay 20K and hire people from Fiverr and Upwork and all these different places. So yeah, I knew I had the work ethic to build something and now I had the...
Dagobert Renouf (20:03)
and you didn't have to pay 20k for a developer.
Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (20:20)
tools to do it as well. So I started building on Carcer.
Dagobert Renouf (20:24)
So did you leave your job or you just
or you're doing it on the side?
Ollie Efesopoulos (20:28)
I left my job over a year ago now and then about nine, 10 months ago, I started to build my own products with Cursor. And since then I've built maybe six different products. ⁓
Dagobert Renouf (20:42)
Okay, so you were
kind of like trying different things until something worked or ⁓ what about this hosting thing? You didn't continue doing that?
Ollie Efesopoulos (20:55)
Yeah, the Roasted is still online. I still have, yeah, people could still get a roast from me if they want to, or there's an AI option, a free one. But I'm not really pushing it so much. It's growing organically, I guess. And now I'm trying to focus on more, I've got two SaaS products as well, so I'm trying to focus on those, growing those. ⁓ The one I'm launching here is LinkJolt.
Dagobert Renouf (21:25)
And so how did you, okay, so you tried a bunch of stuff and you found two that are really, how did you decide to focus on these ones?
Ollie Efesopoulos (21:25)
But yeah, I've tried a bunch of stuff.
Yeah, so the first one that I built was, it was called Instagrit. I'm not building it anymore. But it was just like a group discipline app where you pay someone if you don't commit to a goal. Like me and you have to go to the gym five times a week. If you don't do it, ⁓ you pay me $10 or whatever. ⁓
Dagobert Renouf (21:50)
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know,
I thought of doing that and then I thought something even more hardcore. But I'm sorry, it just reminded me of an idea. So I want to share. But I realize if you do this, like I don't actually mind giving money to someone who I like, so it wouldn't be the perfect thing. So then I thought maybe it goes to charity, but it's the same. So then I thought, no, we should burn the money.
Ollie Efesopoulos (22:09)
Please,
Dagobert Renouf (22:29)
And then I was like, and this would make amazing distribution because you put the videos on Twitter and people will go nuts over this. And then you say it's the ultimate commitment because like you commit, but then, yeah, if I lose, I give it to a good cause. Well, you you don't really mind losing. It's kind of cool to lose. Or I thought even worse, like you.
Ollie Efesopoulos (22:36)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (22:50)
Like it goes to a Nazi party or something. Like the money is donated to something horrible. Like the money is donated to do something terrible if you fail, you know. It's even worse than burning. That would be like, okay, if I fail, my 500 euros will go to this thing, you know. And it will. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Let's do it, yeah. Now I'm committed, you know. I thought that was, you know. So, yeah. I could.
Ollie Efesopoulos (22:59)
you
Yeah.
He's going to the Nazis.
Yeah
What?
I mean, yeah, doesn't have to... It's a shared idea now. No, no, I'm joking. ⁓
Dagobert Renouf (23:19)
I can make money with this, let me write it down.
Because you know, it was an idea
I had one year ago, but I thought it was too crazy. But now after putting my suit for sale for my wedding and shit, know, I'm like, you know, I'm like, I'm nothing is too crazy anymore.
Ollie Efesopoulos (23:36)
Nice. Yeah,
I mean, the intention was that, I mean, it doesn't have to be money. could be, it just has to be something that you don't want to do, right? Like, let's say you don't want to go for a 5k run. you have to commit to something that you don't want to do. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (23:55)
Yeah, I really don't. Yeah, so that's cool. Yeah, that would work. Yeah. Okay,
I'm sorry. I just completely hijacked. ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (24:04)
It's okay, I'm glad. Hopefully you've turned this into a business.
Dagobert Renouf (24:10)
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Okay, so I'm sorry. So I was where I was going is like, okay, how did you decide to focus on these two products?
Ollie Efesopoulos (24:19)
Yeah, so I try to understand what things I don't like to do and what things other indie hackers don't like to do or not just indie hackers, business owners don't like to do. For me personally, it's marketing. So you're an expert with this stuff. Like some of the stuff I've seen you do is, you know, you're the best of the best. This wedding suit thing that you've got going on is...
super unique. I haven't been following it too closely, I've just seen a couple of posts here and there but essentially everybody hates to do marketing. I don't know how naturally it comes to you, sorry not everybody, a lot of people hate to do marketing.
Dagobert Renouf (24:49)
Thank you.
Well, no,
no, that's funny. That's how I became big on Twitter four years ago because I hated marketing and I made one meme per day talking about it for like six months and I became big initially because I hated marketing. So now I became kind of natural at it. I mean, good at it. But yeah, it totally resonate. I was completely terrible at marketing. I didn't market my first startup and it was always
Ollie Efesopoulos (25:19)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (25:33)
For two and a half years, we were making 300 a month of this thing because we didn't do any marketing. I like creating. Creating content can be cool. But then once I understood that, I started focusing on... Eventually, I found Twitter. I initially was IndieHackers.com when I was writing some articles. And then I started tweeting. And then I realized I was kind of good at this, telling stories and shit.
But still marketing is not something I really want to do. I like telling stories. like, and now I like doing crazy shit. you know, I make kind of like expanding, like, yeah, marketing, like if you tell me, you have 10,000 euros. We need to spend it to grow this startup. Like you need to, I don't know, do an influencer campaign with people. Like I'm like, it seems sounds scary to me. I have no idea where to start. Like it's not, you know, doesn't come easy. Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (26:22)
I'm completely the same. Even to do a call like this, was like, technically this is marketing, I know it's informal and whatnot, but I don't think it comes naturally. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (26:34)
That's why I'm doing everything informal, because
it makes it easier. That's why all my tweets are like this, just informal, because I'm very scared of doing it formally. So yeah, I hear you.
Ollie Efesopoulos (26:45)
Yeah and formally
normally sucks right like when you do marketing formally like people don't want to see it it looks corporate it looks like an ad ⁓ it's boring and so the two products that I'm focusing on now the one of them is on here strictly relate to marketing so one of them LinkJolt is an affiliate marketing platform ⁓ lots of the products that I've tried to use in the past
Dagobert Renouf (26:50)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's boring.
Ollie Efesopoulos (27:15)
When I built, when I launched a start up, I would try to use an affiliate management platform. Normally it would really suck. It'd be really expensive. ⁓ and you know,
Dagobert Renouf (27:25)
Yeah, I had this problem.
Yeah. That's why I wanted you in because I saw that and I think that's very needed in the indie sphere. Very little. There was one that was good for a few months, but then he sold it very quickly. So then it became not indie. It was even open source. I forgot the name. ⁓ But like three years ago. But yeah, there's not like a simple, affordable platform. And also what I liked.
Ollie Efesopoulos (27:35)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (27:55)
is that a lot of time, payment is a pain in the ass. Like I was using rewardful and you have to get people's PayPal and my God, it's a nightmare. But I saw with your tool, just like, it's like stripe. It's just like easy. And that's, yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (28:01)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Instant payouts, you know.
because I also, wasn't going to name any names, but since you brought it up, like I was using, I was using reward for, and man, was very difficult to use to put it, to put it politely, like difficult to use, like clunky. And I'm not saying it was just, yeah. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (28:18)
we can shit on competitors, let's go.
And it was the best.
It's very clunky, but the rest is even worse.
Ollie Efesopoulos (28:39)
Yeah, exactly. ⁓ Like you can put lipstick on a pig, but you know. So yeah, that's why I did this. Now I use it and a a couple of other startups use it. And it's something that maintains itself. It's something that you don't need to focus on. You don't need to like use daily. ⁓ It just runs in the background and helps.
Dagobert Renouf (28:45)
Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (29:08)
other people sell your product for you.
Dagobert Renouf (29:12)
And what's the other product? I'm just curious to know what else you're working on.
Ollie Efesopoulos (29:15)
Post Lazy,
so it's a social media scheduling platform, but essentially you create the content with AI. you can generate videos, images, or text posts for all your different social media platforms and schedule it at the same time.
Dagobert Renouf (29:31)
So is it kind of like for...
Okay, I don't really like that shit usually. I'm sorry, I'm just telling you.
Ollie Efesopoulos (29:37)
Me too! No, me too!
Dagobert Renouf (29:42)
But so what's the vision for it? Because I guess you probably have like a different idea about it.
Ollie Efesopoulos (29:47)
I mean, I'm not going to lie to you and say like there's a grand vision for everything that I do. I try out different ideas and when one of them gets a little bit of traction, I try to understand why and how to like drill down on that. That's what I'm doing with these two. So post-lazy is just to make it easier for people to do their marketing. Link-Doll is just to make it easier for people to do their marketing.
Dagobert Renouf (29:53)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
⁓ So can you show us around link jolt? Because I was kind of impressed how polished it is. I guess that's because you're a designer now it makes sense. I thought, yeah but like still you know just a vibe coder with not even design skills that sounds ugly but vibe coder with design skills sounds you know that looks way better. You still need some kind of vision for shit to look good.
Ollie Efesopoulos (30:25)
Well, I design it with AI.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's what I wanted to have. I'll just share my...
Dagobert Renouf (30:49)
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Ollie Efesopoulos (30:59)
Can you see this?
Dagobert Renouf (31:02)
Yep, I can see it.
Ollie Efesopoulos (31:04)
Okay, cool. This is just a ⁓ admin account. So, yeah, I wanted to make it super easy to be able to see all of your affiliate data in one place ⁓ with charts, with the conversions, and I see the onboarding as well. So you can have it set up simply. And yeah, like as you go through, you can see all of your affiliates. ⁓
the revenue that they've generated, commission for each one. You can invite them if they're not part of the platform as well. All of the, if I'm rushing too quickly through this, by the way, let me know, please. all of the campaigns that you've set up, the tracking. So for those, I should just say that for those who don't know how affiliate marketing works, you just simply create a campaign.
You know how when someone has a YouTube video and in the comments it says use this link and you can get you know 10 % discount or 20 % discount This is the platform where you can create those links essentially and
Dagobert Renouf (32:09)
Yeah.
And
so how easy it is? Is it working only with type? How do you confirm that, you know, the sale?
Ollie Efesopoulos (32:26)
So currently it's with Stripe and Paddle, ⁓ but the payouts are solely through Stripe. ⁓ Paddle doesn't have this feature like Stripe Connect, for example. As far as I know, I haven't been able to find it.
Dagobert Renouf (32:29)
Yeah.
Okay.
No,
Stripe Connect is quite unique, it's quite incredible feature where they allow you to basically bypass the middleman and kind of like just let people pay between each other and you take a commission without having all the money go through you, which would give you way more taxes and way more problems. That's kind of insane what they did. It's for marketplaces, yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (32:57)
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah, I don't take any commission at all. It's handled through Stripe. The only payment that you make for LinkedIn is just the subscription fee. ⁓ So again, a lot of the other platforms.
Dagobert Renouf (33:17)
so you don't take any commission.
It's just, you just pay your monthly sub. So that's going to be a very good deal for most people. That's awesome. Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (33:21)
That's it.
Most
of the platforms they take like two or five or whatever percentage commission per sale so I don't do any of that. And yeah so you can either create tracking links or you can create like coupon codes ⁓ so people don't even need to have the link they can just use the coupon code.
Dagobert Renouf (33:36)
Yeah.
that's awesome. Because I couldn't do that, I think, with reward for and like it's so much better. Use this code? Fuck, I need to do that for launch day. So then everybody, somebody pays with launch day, I get a commission from it. Because I didn't know how to set it up, you know, because I'm like, how do you track that the sales come from launch day? my God, so annoying.
Ollie Efesopoulos (33:50)
and
you
You don't need to know. You can literally just use a coupon code.
Dagobert Renouf (34:14)
Wow, coupon code
tracking is so much better than the other type of tracking, I think. Because you always give a coupon code usually to motivate people. And that's much more accurate because the cookie setting, maybe it's not going to track, but the coupon code, you cannot fail. It always works. That's awesome.
Ollie Efesopoulos (34:24)
I completely agree.
I agree. It was the number one requested feature. I was like, okay, let's do it. It's the vibe code, yeah. But I think it's good to, I guess, be honest about it. I think people are ashamed of saying they're just a vibe code or whatever. But the fact that you can do this without...
Dagobert Renouf (34:41)
Amazing, wow. And you're just a vibe coder, I'm absolutely in shock. Very cool.
Ollie Efesopoulos (35:04)
⁓ knowing how to develop it, ⁓ you're essentially like a project manager for your product and with the ability that the AI has now and it will only get better from here, I really think the barrier to entry is so low. There's no excuse not to build what you want to build anymore. Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (35:29)
No, I'm impressed
what you did. How did you manage all the design stuff? Because I owe, mean the front end. Because to be honest, I'm a front end developer, mostly I was. And it's hard to make the AI do something that actually look good. So I always have to do it manually this part, but it seems like you did it like that. So I'm kind of impressed. How did you do that?
Ollie Efesopoulos (35:54)
I
if you start off with a framework and don't just say like, you know, build it all custom and then you're, I spent a lot of money basically on cursor credits, ⁓ if you're meticulous about, I want it this way, this specific way, eventually the air is gonna get it right. Or if you say, here's a screenshot, like use this as a reference. ⁓
It's normally pretty good with taking references from.
Dagobert Renouf (36:24)
Yeah, because I did it
from scratch without using a framework. So that's probably why it was a bit messy. Yeah. But I guess once you have your component, if you have like a components library that you start building or you have or you start with, I guess it's much easier for the AI. Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (36:30)
The framework kind of
much
much easier. From what I've experienced so far it's yeah super easy.
Dagobert Renouf (36:48)
I see, see. Cool. Yeah, it's because I'm also designer and I used to have a branding design startup. So I always want to do something crazy and custom, like ⁓ visually interesting. But then AI, then it becomes way harder to do anything. Launch day is kind of like, there's not that many things, but yeah, all the front end. I haven't done any proper component library or anything, so AI is always kind of like trying to figure it out.
Ollie Efesopoulos (37:17)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (37:17)
So yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (37:19)
Would you say that you've incorporated it? How much would you say of your code is written by AI now, just out of curiosity?
Dagobert Renouf (37:28)
⁓ everything. Like, I was an engineer for like so long, but to be honest, the past few years I was bored of it. I was not interested in it. Now I'm more happy with like the vision, the storytelling. I really found myself in that, you know, through four years ago when I started marketing my previous startup, I realized I prefer telling stories. I prefer like selling and having a vision and a direction.
Ollie Efesopoulos (37:31)
Okay.
Dagobert Renouf (37:57)
And also maybe design a little bit, even design, I mean, I I like design, design I still like, but to be honest, like coding is so much work and it feels like too much work, you know? And I wanna do something that feels less like that. I wanna just like, you know, have more velocity. And so I think I wouldn't have built another startup without AI.
think it's really AI that made me. I was super excited. I started using AI in December when there was ChatGPT 01 and I saw some guys say what you could do with it. And I started trying that, you know, having all these prompts and all these super long prompts and everything. And I started getting results and I was, and then I was kind of addicted to it. Then I kind of like kept learning, you know, refining my workflow. And now, yeah, now I'm just, yeah, I wouldn't do anything without AI.
Ollie Efesopoulos (38:31)
Right,
Dagobert Renouf (38:53)
I'm at this stage where I'm so lazy, I don't even give a shit that my codebase is shit. Like I see that, yeah, okay, it's not great, but I'm like, it's secure, so it's fine, and then, you Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (38:58)
Yeah.
It works.
Exactly
like I wouldn't know if my code base was shit anyway, but it's Like for me if it works customers are happy. It's secure I'm good with that and Yeah
Dagobert Renouf (39:21)
yeah, that's all you need. ⁓
I wasted so much time, you know, with my previous startup, just making sure the code was perfect. Like really an insane amount of time, like, and the code is great, but you know, we spent so many years and not making much money. I think now, now I'm just, you know, and over time I let go of perfectionist so much. Like for example, this recordings I do with you or with other people. I had a podcast last year. I was interviewing people, but like,
Ollie Efesopoulos (39:29)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (39:51)
I was spending one day editing to make sure it was perfect. ⁓ it's not really interesting. I'm going to cut this part. Nightmare. And then one day I was like so fucking tired. I'm like, I'm just going to post it one day. And I realized people didn't give a shit. They like it the same. And so like this thing, for example, I am not going to do any edit. Like it's going out like this and it's fine. And so it's the same with everything.
Ollie Efesopoulos (39:58)
Right.
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (40:16)
And even the design, know, the design of launch day, I had bigger markups of like more beautiful visions. And then I was like, you know what, I'm just launching it. And the problem is when you launch something that's not perfect and people actually like it, then you have zero motivation to finish it. You're like, well, it's fine. You know, I don't need to. So that's actually good. Yeah. But like it's such a change for me. You can't imagine. I'm just going to wait. I'm actually.
Ollie Efesopoulos (40:33)
Yeah, but that's good,
Dagobert Renouf (40:47)
When I talk with a designer, I like to show my previous life as a designer. Let me see.
Ollie Efesopoulos (40:52)
Please,
yeah, that'll be cool.
Dagobert Renouf (40:56)
I'm going to share this quickly. Let me just see. Because I still have my old resume on my GitHub somewhere. Where is that?
Yeah, let me see where I can find that.
Yeah, okay, I'm gonna share my screen. ⁓
Okay, I hope nobody can hack me based on this screen. And I had, so that's a very old website, 10 years ago. Portfolio.
Like I used to do shit like this, that is like probably long time ago.
Ollie Efesopoulos (42:00)
this is for you or? well.
Dagobert Renouf (42:04)
It was for a World of Warcraft partner that was basically making merch based on your character. So they were plugged into World of Warcraft and they were creating all these things. So I did this whole design thing, pretty advanced shit. Like the whole navigation. Yeah, thanks. I agree, it's cool. was like my peak as a designer. ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (42:22)
This is cool, isn't it?
Yeah
Dagobert Renouf (42:33)
which one I like, you know, more basic shit, you know, from like, I guess, you know, some time ago that was like an e-commerce template, you know, this kind of shit, you know, basic. ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (42:47)
You know, it's harder to do the first thing that you showed, like the stuff that looks more like gamified is, it takes much more time and a lot more attention to detail than like the modern web, know, it's grids and white boxes and then.
Dagobert Renouf (43:00)
Yeah.
Yes, now everything
looks very simple now, but it used to be a different time. This one I liked also. ⁓ E-commerce website. That's all like 15 years ago, know, that's like a different time. yeah. And ⁓ my favorite one is this one, but it's kind of like artistic nude website. There was a guy doing a social media for like models and artists in this space.
Ollie Efesopoulos (43:17)
Nice.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (43:34)
But
I did everything, I was super proud of it, it was quite cool. I almost worked with him again... What?
Ollie Efesopoulos (43:39)
You've got tons of experience, man.
You've got tons of experience, you've got loads of stuff.
Dagobert Renouf (43:47)
Yeah, yeah.
And so now for me, you know, to do like, let's say it's launch day like this, which is very basic. Like this is absolutely not exciting. You know, I have another version somewhere, but you know, I launch it and people like it. And I'm like, I focus on, you know, the simplicity. This shit is designed by Claude. Like I didn't do this thing. And, you know, and, but I, you know, it's fine, I guess. So.
Ollie Efesopoulos (43:57)
you
Yeah.
But honestly, when I first saw this, I thought it's unique. The design didn't blow me away or anything, but I thought you don't go to many websites that are simple and unique. If you go to any product hunt kind of alternative, which I think would kind of be a similar direction, they all look the exact same. ⁓ This one.
Dagobert Renouf (44:17)
Yeah.
I think yeh. Yeh.
Ollie Efesopoulos (44:47)
has a unique branding, like the bold lettering that you know exactly what you're getting as soon as the countdown, as soon as you land on the website, like, ⁓ it's countdown until I launch. I wanna be part of that,
So yeah, I it was cool.
Dagobert Renouf (45:04)
And I think, yeah, now
I focus on like, make it clean, make it easy to use and make it stand out. You know, cause I think all these ⁓ tailwind UI style designs, it actually hurts you when you do that because, I mean, for the app it's fine, but for like the landing page.
So many people do that. The problem is I think people don't don't gonna pause like they're gonna look and in like, you know, you I think if you stand out, they're gonna spend a bit more time like not a lot. But you know, on social media, it's super important. Like if they spend 10 seconds instead of three seconds, you have more time to convince them. It's kind of like the first impression. So I think it's still important. I'm still working on thinking of doing a product like that. Maybe we're like, I keep thinking
of the landing page and the value proposition is like, stop looking like Tailwind and you click a button and it transforms your Tailwind website into something that stands out, like with the branding. But yeah, haven't done it.
Ollie Efesopoulos (46:03)
Nice. That sort of like
initial ⁓ thing to grab their attention. You know, they say like you've got three seconds when someone lands on your hero area and if it's like above the fold, if you don't capture them immediately, you've lost a potential customer, ⁓ even if the product is great.
Dagobert Renouf (46:14)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And the most important is the. Yeah,
the most important is probably the copywriting, like having some crazy copywriting and then the design. Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (46:37)
You might, I don't know if I can share one more thing with you quickly, but you might like, just because you mentioned about the copyrighting. The thing that brought me success on the previous project, which was Roasted, was the coffee, without a doubt. It wasn't the product, it wasn't the idea, anything like that. was, I don't know if it might give you some ideas or not, but I'll just share the window quickly.
Dagobert Renouf (46:38)
So.
Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (47:09)
So the design has been updated now. Thank you. The design's been updated now, but things like this, know, doing what your friends don't have the balls to do, ⁓ like being super ⁓ to the point, like, yeah, wall of tears, and then give examples of all the different ⁓ types of comments that I would give on.
Dagobert Renouf (47:10)
Yeah. wow. Amazing. Amazing headline, man. Amazing headline.
mate, yeah. Perfect.
It's funny, know, because there's
such a close relationship between design and storytelling. And, you know, I noticed it with myself ⁓ when I do a landing page is the same. There's like a huge storytelling aspect. ⁓ Like the big one I did was for my Twitter course, which I called How to Dominate Twitter, you know, and that was already shocking. And then the whole landing page is about that. It's like...
or you're like trying everything but you still completely fail, like you're a complete failure, you're a complete loser, but it's not your fault, it's because of the algorithm, you need to understand the algorithm and blah blah, you know. And that's the same process as when I was designing websites. And so that makes sense that you, a designer, because you know, it's like you need to, basically I think, I don't know what you think about it, but like, it's like you need to solve a similar type of problem. It's like with UI or UX, you need to,
Ollie Efesopoulos (48:11)
Yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (48:34)
make people understand something. Like they need to get the idea, but they need to get it kind of implicitly. And with storytelling, it's the same. It's like you need to tell a story that takes them through stages. So it's similar to UI in a way. Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (48:52)
100 % like it's about the journey and there's multiple steps along the way like you have to hook them in the beginning and then once you've hooked them like how do you take them along that journey that that story and the the copy is such an underrated asset like toolkit in a tool in your toolkit because I think people focus so much on the design like how can I make it look like the linear website or the
you know, this like purple gradients and shit. And in reality, like you've got things like your, how to dominate on Twitter, is it? The caption, the headline, how to dominate Twitter. Perfect, it's straight to the point. It's, you know, maybe thought provoking and hooks them in.
Dagobert Renouf (49:23)
Yeah.
How to dominate Twitter.
Yeah,
that was the goal because you know, it's funny, I put it on Twitter before creating the name and I said, I hesitate between three names. And there was one of these. The other ones were more funny, know, more like how to be viral on the feed, like basic. And people mostly voted for other ones. But everybody talked about the dominate one because they were like, it's so shocking. no, that's don't do that. And then I'm like, ⁓ well, that's the winner because that's the one that gets people talking.
Ollie Efesopoulos (50:05)
Yeah
Dagobert Renouf (50:12)
because the goal is to get people on the page. Then once they're on the, and the name of the, it's not the headline, it's the course is called How to Dominate Twitter, it's the name of the product. And so then they get on the page because they're like, what the fuck is this shit? And then I convince them with the copy, yeah. So yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (50:22)
Mm-hmm.
See,
I mean, this is why I think people look to you as an expert in this area, in marketing, because I think you understand the principles of how to hook people in and then provide value. Whereas I think a lot of people are really, they might build amazing stuff, great products, but then nobody's ever gonna see it because they...
Dagobert Renouf (50:45)
Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (50:56)
suck at marketing or they don't know how to hook people in or... ⁓
Dagobert Renouf (51:00)
Yeah. But you need to
hook people, need to not be scared. Like, it's not baiting, but it's a little bit baiting, but it's not toxic baiting. But like, you know, how to dominate Twitter seems so aggressive. It makes people curious. But the course is actually super genuine. The course is about how do you make friends? How do you, you know, it's not about, you know, it's not something nasty. ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (51:10)
Sure,
Dagobert Renouf (51:30)
It's also about the algorithm, but like... And it's kind of like the same with the suit. Even today, I see some other guy who is making a whole tweet about how he would never do this. wow, you must be such a loser for doing that. Your wife will never respect you. It's not masculine. Like some crazy shit, you know. But like, it's fine, you know, it's fine because it's just like... It's triggering emotions in people. Like it's triggering something because like they're somehow triggered by this wedding suit or something.
Ollie Efesopoulos (51:47)
Hello.
Mm-hmm.
Dagobert Renouf (51:58)
It makes them imagine things, but that's them, that's not me. Because me, I'm doing it with a super beautiful intention. My wife is completely on board, actually planning to do a startup wedding cake and she's super happy about it. The idea is to bring my community with me, is to have them with me on my jacket. It's really focused on love and community, it really is. That's really the vision. Of course...
Ollie Efesopoulos (52:25)
Yeah, yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (52:26)
The initial was like a joke, how can I pay for my wedding because I'm broke? But then it became something else. I'm doing, you know, I'm hiring a stylist. This shit is going to cost me between three and five K just to make the most beautiful jacket. Like I'm doing it seriously, you know, it's going to be cool. ⁓ But like the and so that's the thing. Like, but I know that when I just tweet this thing, people are going to be like, what? Like people are shocked, you know, but it's OK. It's OK.
Ollie Efesopoulos (52:42)
Yeah, it sounds epic man.
Like, motherfuck yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (52:56)
You know, it's like with the course, like you shock people and then they get into it and they're like, no, it's nice. You know, ⁓ so that's, but you need, what I want to say, you need to not be afraid. need, yeah, I'm sorry. You need to not be afraid of like hiding the emotions. Like you need to not be afraid of people's emotions. Like people are gonna get emotional for some reason and you need to be able to handle it, you know.
Ollie Efesopoulos (53:06)
It reminds me of... Chop please.
Dagobert Renouf (53:24)
and still be like, yeah, we're doing it this way. And then eventually, the emotion is the energy that makes them interested. And then you can convert that into actual, you know, a good thing. But if you don't have the emotion, you're not gonna have the people coming in.
Ollie Efesopoulos (53:40)
Yeah, I mean, it's because you're doing something that, at least with this idea, like I've never seen that before. The closest thing that I can think to something like this is what Levels did with his game, where, like, as soon as this vibe coding trend kicked off, like, he said, you can buy a slot in my game where you can advertise your own startup and populate the world with it. That was the first thing that came to mind when I...
Dagobert Renouf (53:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Ollie Efesopoulos (54:10)
saw your suit idea.
Dagobert Renouf (54:12)
Yeah, no, I agree.
It's very similar in a way.
Ollie Efesopoulos (54:15)
you've gone from the digital world to the physical world and I think it's super unique. ⁓ And yeah, think, first of all, I hope you have an amazing wedding, but also I think that it's genius. It's something that think many people would be too afraid to do because they're afraid of the reaction.
Dagobert Renouf (54:32)
Thank you.
Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (54:45)
Yeah, ⁓ I congratulate you on it.
Dagobert Renouf (54:49)
Thank you, man. Yeah, but I think it's very important to not be afraid of the reaction. I had a big, big burnout two years ago after Somme, after years of Twitter and my previous startup. And I used to be way more stressed about it, about what people thought. And now that I'm back after recovering, and I took a job for a while and then I'm back now.
I realized if I don't do what I really... If I'm not being myself, I will burn out again. What's making you burn out is like, you you are playing a role, you aren't being a bit fake, and you're afraid of showing who you are. now, you know, a few months ago, I was ready to lose all my followers. I really stopped giving a shit. I'm like, you know, I don't want to burn out anymore. if I'm gonna... I'm either doing it completely my way or I'm not doing it.
And then I started tweeting some crazy shit, you know, just like everything I had in mind, even if it was getting me canceled and everything. But that kind of like freed me. And then I was like free to do anything I want. And now I'm just like, you know, it's so cool, man, because then it doesn't cost me energy to tweet. It used to take so much energy for me to be on social media. And now I'm just like, yeah, I thought about this and I'm just and you know.
Ollie Efesopoulos (56:11)
It's out there.
Dagobert Renouf (56:11)
And ⁓
for a while I was trying to trigger people because I was a bit feeling bad and like feeling maybe a bit angry. But now it's not even that. It's just and I don't want to just post something just to post something. But it's like sometimes when you really think something, it's cool to try it and not be scared, know, basically be open. And for me, I really thought this thing was a beautiful thing. And the fact that it triggers people well, you know, it's not my responsibility. And so, yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (56:39)
I
completely agree and like I can really resonate with what you said as well because same thing happened to me multiple times about with the burnout ⁓ and what I learned from a few people was like the comfort that you get from doing things safe is like debt you know and the more comfortable you are the more debt built and
You you play it safe, it's comfortable, that's more debt. You, for example, build features and don't do marketing, it's debt. Only when you start to do those things that you don't want to do, can you start repaying that debt. I think, yeah, like getting out of that comfort zone and repaying that debt is what makes people, at least it's what helped me get out of that burnout. ⁓ And now I try to do...
you know, at least one thing that sucks every day. ⁓ I learned that from David Goggins. I don't know if you're a fan of him, but... ⁓
Dagobert Renouf (57:47)
Yeah,
not especially fun, but yeah, I know. He seems too crazy. I'm crazy enough without reading this stuff. So how did you burn out? How did that happen, this burn out?
Ollie Efesopoulos (57:56)
Yeah, sure.
Well, ⁓ various life reasons, you know, losing, not losing, spending the $20,000 didn't help. Not knowing how to like really...
deal with
with life, guess, deal with, I didn't know comfort was a bad thing, you know, and sitting in a nine to five every day for a company that I didn't necessarily wanna work for, for people who I didn't necessarily like working with.
Dagobert Renouf (58:25)
Mm-hmm.
So you burn down from comfort,
that's interesting.
Ollie Efesopoulos (58:36)
100 % only when I did things that I didn't want to do, did I then realize like, ⁓ shit, you ⁓ it's ironic, but that makes life suck less by doing things that suck. ⁓
Dagobert Renouf (58:51)
So how did this burnout happen? I'm still not understanding. You were doing this job, not doing what you wanted, in this comfortable but not what you wanted, basically.
Ollie Efesopoulos (58:56)
Yeah, so.
Yeah, I mean when you wake up every day and you like sit at desk and you know you're going to get paid every month, you know the type of work that you have to do, you know what time you're going to go to sleep, what time you're going to eat, blah blah blah. You're not going to work out, you're not going to go to the gym because it's comfortable. All these things, they add up and that debt begins to pile up, at least it did for me.
Dagobert Renouf (59:18)
yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (59:33)
And it was only once I started to like repay those debts and say, okay, I'm going to have comfort here. 100%. 100%. And yeah, ⁓ one of the biggest things for me was also just spending a lot more time in the gym. No, it's maybe not a topic you want to focus on here, but just working out regularly really helps me to.
Dagobert Renouf (59:33)
Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
And then you were kind of like depressed and losing motivation and tired and shit. Yeah, I see. Well.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:00:02)
recharge to keep building and stay focused.
Dagobert Renouf (1:00:05)
Yeah, it helps.
helps. For years I was lifting weights, but to be honest, it makes me very tired. And I'm just saying that because I know most people advise lifting weights and I did that. And it's cool. It feels good to see you have muscle and shit. But at least recently what works for me is just cardio because, you know, I just doing very intense cardio like zone four.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:00:27)
Nuts.
Dagobert Renouf (1:00:31)
Zone 3, zone 4, I try to do like 3 minutes zone 5 every time. Basically at the end I almost vomit. And then that's basically my thing. Happened yesterday. I was almost like, shit I don't want to vomit in front of everyone, that's not cool.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:00:35)
Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah.
What sort of distances are you like marathon or just?
Dagobert Renouf (1:00:51)
it's nothing crazy, you know, I'm kind
of out of shape, but I'm just going to the gym and my knees are fucked, so I basically, I feel ashamed of it because it's like the most girly thing, but I do the elliptical, I just do that. you know, elliptical bike, I just do that. And yeah, and after like 30 minutes of doing it intensely, yeah, I'm fucking beat. And then I feel super tired.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:01:01)
Don't be mad.
Nothing wrong with it. Yeah, yeah.
Dagobert Renouf (1:01:18)
Then I eat, but then I have energy the whole day and not just energy. Weightlifting never got me in a state where I would get this dopamine feeling, where I feel more positive. It never gave me that. But this does, this completely does. And that's awesome because then I have way more ideas. I'm like hopeful about everything. That's awesome. So, ⁓ you know, I have lots of sleeping depth because I was so stressed lately. I wasn't sleeping well. So I think that's why I cannot do too much.
I think once my sleep is better, ⁓ can do cardio and some weightlifting, which I want to do ideally, cardio was good for my energy and not weightlifting.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:01:58)
For sure, I I think something that a lot of people do when they get into the gym at first is like, they don't know necessarily how to incorporate cardio into the weightlifting. if you're doing, this is maybe, again, not the type of direction you wanna go, but, so stop me if I'm going too far afield, but if you're doing supersets of one exercise with another.
Dagobert Renouf (1:02:21)
No, go ahead.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:02:28)
⁓ You know 8 to 12 reps of each 4 sets of each one like that's gonna that's gonna get you fucking your heart pumping you're gonna get sweat on and especially like different compound movements and things like that, so
Dagobert Renouf (1:02:38)
⁓ yeah.
Yeah, I was doing slower. I was doing just like five by five. So trying to get as heavy as I could. And I was doing the basic one, know, squats, overhead press, bench, know, the basics. That was cool. But yeah, that was always, I don't know, I was always so, but I was always trying to get my max. I think that's why I was so tired. But you know, that's not funny. You can guess the pattern with me is intensity. I need, you know, ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:02:47)
Right, right.
French press.
Dagobert Renouf (1:03:10)
But yeah, I was like completely beat after that. I felt good confidence and it was cool to have more, you know, when you start to have quite a bit more muscle, it's way better when you walk, when you climb the stairs, like you feel better. But it's nothing like cardio when after 30 minutes of this elliptical thing, I'm like, fuck, I feel awesome. And I smile and I feel happy the whole day. Yeah.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:03:22)
for sure.
That man,
that's exactly, I think what a lot of people are missing. Like that feeling is just irreplaceable. It's like you put your armor back on for the next week kind of thing.
Dagobert Renouf (1:03:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's cool, man. I need to.
This is more and more like a Jorgen podcast, I love it. This is what we're gonna talk about, lifting weights. I guess next guest, I will talk about MMA or some shit, know, whatever. ⁓ Yeah, conspiracy, yeah, that's gonna be fun. ⁓
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:04:04)
mushrooms
Man,
if you want conspiracies, I'm all in.
Dagobert Renouf (1:04:14)
cool, yeah me too, I love it. Okay, well, for another time. ⁓ Okay, cool man, that was awesome, so great meeting you and I'm wishing you a very good launch day.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:04:26)
Thank you man, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me and really good luck with the wedding and I think what you're doing is awesome. It's really, really cool man.
Dagobert Renouf (1:04:35)
Thanks man.
Really appreciate it. Cheers.
Ollie Efesopoulos (1:04:39)
Cool, thanks, Thago.