001 - Our First Product

Jonathan and Caleb discuss what their first product will be.

Show Notes

Jonathan and Caleb discuss the first steps of their first product.  They answer who is it for and what does it do.

[01:07] What is the podcast about?
[03:36] What is our first product?
[07:13] What is our business model?
[09:55] What tech are we using?
[11:38] What do people currently do?
[14:05] What are we calling this tool?
[14:43] What's next?

Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com
Twitter: @twostoryrobot

Creators & Guests

Host

Caleb Sharp

Full-stack developer at Two Story Robot

Host

Jonathan Bowers (he/him)

Founder of Two Story Robot. Developer turned entrepreneur.

What is The Robot Factory?

Follow along as we attempt to build and sell a SaaS company. A build in public behind the scenes journey of a small software agency, Two Story Robot, trying something new.

Jonathan: Do you like the name?

The robot factory?

Caleb: I like the idea of it.

I think,

Jonathan: Yeah.

Okay.

Caleb: the word factory is
just a little bit clunky.

I don't know.

It's a lot of syllable.

But maybe that's, I don't actually
know if that's a good metric to

judge a name by probably not.

Jonathan: hey welcome to the podcast.

This is a new podcast.

Uh, I think we're going to
call it The Robot Factory.

We'll see, we'll decide,

my guest and maybe slash co-host
depending on how this goes is Caleb sharp.

Caleb: Yeah.

Hi.

Yeah, we'll see.

we'll see.

Jonathan: so my name is Jonathan Bowers.

I'm the CEO and founder
of Two Story Robot.

We're a small software company and
we do mostly agency work for other

companies, but we're trying to
launch some new products of our own.

Caleb Sharp, introduce yourself.

Caleb: Hi, I'm Caleb Sharp, a
developer at Two Story Robot.

I've

been working on some random stuff
right now that hopefully could

be made into a product and sold.

Jonathan: Yeah.

As an agency we're actually kind
of terrible at doing marketing.

We don't know how to
market ourselves very well.

Most of our work has come from
luck and networking and it

network stuff and referrals.

So one of the goals I have is to
become a better marketer and how I

want to do that is by making a thing
and trying to market it, to generate

some customers, and then see if we
can turn around and sell the thing.

That's kind of the goal and we're going
to try and do it all in the open as

much as we can, so in the past we have,
we have attempted to build products.

It always kind of fails when it comes
to the marketing side of things.

Cause we're just no good at it.

So hopefully that doesn't repeat
itself, but also it also felt like we

would need to get to a, a very specific
scale in order to make it worthwhile.

And I, you know I don't know that
that was possible or maybe we just

didn't understand what we were doing.

But now there's this super cool
marketplace, I guess, called Microacquire.

Where software companies can list
themselves to be acquired and

the acquisitions can be small.

I think some of them are, you know,
uh, some of the larger acquisitions

are up in the millions, but definitely
under a million dollar acquisitions.

And we were just really curious to
see if we could, if we could do that.

One, if we could build a product and do
that And two, if it creates some other

interesting benefits for us as an agency.

So we may not want to actually, continue
running some of the products that we

have intend on building, because we
don't have the specific domain expertise

to really take that up to scale, but
we have the expertise to, to build

and continue to build on the product.

So it might be an interesting way to align
with another company that has, you know

maybe a related product or related market.

And they would just love to acquire
some interesting, weird little

piece of software to add to their
portfolio or add to their, to

their existing product offering.

So that's kind of the goal.

So Caleb, what have we been doing so far?

Actually, what have you,
what have you started doing?

Describe to me what our first
product is in your mind.

Caleb: I mean, I can talk about like
the technical details of how it's

implemented or I can talk about,

Jonathan: no,

no, not the technical.

not yet.

Caleb: not yet.

Jonathan: do?

What does it

Caleb: What does it do?

Okay.

Okay.

So, so imagine a form that you put in
some details, you click a button and it

generates some images that you can use.

To upload to like various
social media sites and whatnot.

Also imagine you're a realtor and all
the fields realtor related things.

Maybe that was the wrong order, but

Jonathan: Yeah.

Caleb: it's, I'm trying to build an image.

It's both literally and figuratively now.

But it's it's for real estate agents to
have a tool to quickly generate social

media images of like properties and stuff
that they're selling that they can share.

Right now, it's a very manual process.

They like we'll go into Canva or whatever
tool and manually create these images

for every property, which you like,
it's not necessarily that it takes a

long time to do that, but it could be a
lot shorter for, I think 99% of cases,

which is what we would try to cover it.

But yeah, that's basically all it does.

Jonathan: Yeah, it does one thing.

It, it produces pictures of
properties with a bunch of extra

like texts and stuff on top of it.

Details of what that property
that the realtor could post

to their social media yeah.

We think that people
would pay money for it.

We don't know for sure.

But we've got, we've got a few folks
that have expressed some interest.

We have to do some more market validation
for sure, but I'm excited because

it feels small enough that we can,
we can build it relatively quickly.

You gave me an estimate.

How long did you think
it would take to build.

Caleb: I think I said a week at most.

A week at most, a week of
like full-time effort at

most.

And I, I think, I don't know, I
have a prototype now and it's pretty

much all of the features and I
think that was less than a week.

I might, I might go in and actually
add up the time, but I'm pretty

sure it was less than a week.

Jonathan: You've been doing it on
a sort of Friday afternoons and the

like to fill in, fill in some time.

Caleb: Yeah.

Just, just when there's some downtime.

Jonathan: I think it's a neat activity
because this, this project is so

it's so small in scope and there is,
there is sometimes those like weird

downtimes in either in between projects
or even within, within a project.

There's some there's just some
natural downtime and not always

totally sure, but what we should do.

And so I have something that's
like completely unrelated to the

other things that we're working on.

And in all new tech is
kind of interesting.

Caleb: Yeah.

Yeah, it's kinda, it's fun to have
something that you can switch to where

it's taking a break, but it's not like
you're being a completely unproductive

Jonathan: So our, our original approach
was to try and build this using a

bit of no-code because our, one of
our business units, little robot

does lots of no-code work and they
can build interfaces very quickly.

And we thought, oh, this would be cool.

We could, we could build the
interface with no code and then

build the image generation piece.

The thing that's actually generating
the, the image that gets posted to

social media, build that in, in code
code, actual code software code.

But they're super busy.

They've got lots of projects
going on and can't, can't really

spend the time doing this.

So I think we're just going to, well,
we, I say we, when I say we, I mean you,

Caleb: yeah,

you say we and gonna, but, but

it's, I mean, it's done and it was me.

Jonathan: Oh, well, it's not done done.

Like it's prototyping.

It's like pretty rough.

Isn't it?

Caleb: I think all the features are there.

It's just, I yeah.

There's like no styling or

anything, but that, that, I
mean, is that even important?

I thought we were going back to
the good old days and we didn't

have to add styling to stuff.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Maybe, maybe we should
just try it like that.

Do you think it would, do you think
someone would, pay money for that?

Caleb: Yeah.

I mean, we can market it as like a, like a
blank slate, like whatever brand you have,

you just it's it's, it's a blank canvas.

You can you want with it.

Jonathan: Uh, yeah, I don't

know about

Caleb: selling the, the, like chassis
of a car to various car manufacturers

and they put their own body on it.

Jonathan: Yeah, but that's not the,
that's not the, the, the product

is not to, to re-skin the app.

The product is to just punch in your

Caleb: What

Jonathan: out an

Caleb: can we sell the same thing
multiple times to different people?

Jonathan: No.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, who knows?

Maybe that's maybe that's the
market here is we're not selling

to someone to acquire the tech.

We're actually selling it as like a, a
tool that other people resell to realtors.

That's interesting.

I don't think we're going to do

that,

Caleb: Hmm, that feels shady in some way.

Jonathan: No, that would be,
it would be like white label.

Right?

Caleb: It feels shady for someone at it.

We're like creating middlemen.

Jonathan: Yes.

Well, no, no, no.

I mean, there could, there could
already exist middlemen middle people.

Caleb: We're enabling middle people.

Jonathan: There could be middle folk that
yeah, I'd be, but, but that that's, uh,

that's, that's just channel partnership
I don't think that's that's so out

of the question, because a potential
acquirer who, who I would potentially

see acquiring, this is somebody who's
already in the real estate game.

Like they're, they're not, they're not,
you know, a software company that builds a

company that services software developers
and builds our task management tools.

So like, oh, we really want to also
get into real estate image generation.

It's probably somebody that's
already in the real estate game.

So they, you know, they want it to add
to their portfolio, but if there was

smaller versions of those say somebody
that has a bunch of real estate

agents as customers and they think,
oh, this would be perfect to add in.

I don't want to buy the company
or buy and own this tech, but I

would happily rebrand it as my own
so that my customers can use it.

Um, I don't know, I just, I don't want
to make it super complicated and turn it

into some weird enterprise SaaS thing.

I would much rather just focus on, let's
find some real estate agents who want

to use this and see if they will, if
they will pay to use this tool because

it saves, you know, it saves them time.

Every time they want to post
something on social media.

That's the goal.

But like you said, well, we'll see.

Maybe we end up creating some white
label solution and it turns into this

like really weird monolithic app.

Caleb: Yeah.

I mean, whatever, whatever means I
don't have to write any CSS, I guess.

Jonathan: You're just going to continue.

Yeah, you can

just,

Caleb: the right?

Jonathan: What is the tech?

So we're not going to use no code.

So what have you done so far,
but like describe, I mean,

not into too much detail.

We don't want to give
away all the secrets.

But what, what have you built so far?

In the possibly less than one
week effort you've spent at it?

Caleb: Well at a high level, there's
I think two main components to it.

There's basically just one API end
point that takes all this data that

will get entered into the form,
like the address and the price.

And then also an image
upload and it takes all that.

Renders it all out into an image using
a headless instance of Chrome because

Jonathan: Now we're getting detailed.

Now we're getting into the weeds.

We haven't even decided who
the audience of this podcast

is yet.

Like, is it people who's going to
understand some of the technical

details of this or that it's going
to be more people who are interested

in, what are these folks doing
over here at Two Story Robot?

Let's try that.

I don't know.

Caleb: Hmm.

Jonathan: What is headless Chrome.

Caleb: Well, it's, it's like Chrome,
but without the face, like if you

peeled the face up, it's like, it's like
Chrome, but it doesn't actually show

up on your screen, I think is probably

the best way to describe it.

It kind of runs in the background.

But yeah.

Anyway, so using Chrome to generate
the image But yeah, that's all in the

backend and then it sends the image back.

And then the other main part is
the front end, which shows the

form, which looks really ugly
right now and has all the fields.

And then it, it takes that
data sends it to the API.

And then with the image that it gets
back, it just displays it which lets

the user save the image and then
post it to whatever social media.

Jonathan: What is, as far as
we know, what's the current

state of the art for this?

How do people, how do people do this?

You mentioned Canva.

Like, what does that I've I've
only used Canva a couple of times.

If you use Canva.

Caleb: I actually have

not used Canva.

Track 1: I've just heard the
stigma around using Canva from

Jonathan: What's the stigma.

Caleb: Well, it's like, oh, well,
yeah, everyone's looks the same.

You're just using.

Jonathan: Well, yeah, that's the point?

Caleb: Yeah, I

some, some people are in a bit
of a high horse, maybe about

Jonathan: Yeah.

Okay.

I think that for certain cases,
Posting a picture of a piece

of property that you're selling
probably doesn't need to be designed.

Caleb: no, it, especially not one
off, I think, because I don't know,

there's only so many ways that you
could really lay that out anywhere.

Like it's always going to
have the same type of content.

Jonathan: I wonder, I mean, we should
go and look and see how Canva works.

Uh, I know Paige on our team, she uses
Canva for like generating images for

events and things it's really fast.

I don't know how it works.

Like how did, like, I imagine that if a
realtor is using that they go into Canva

find whatever template that they want
to use and make some tweaks, add the

text, and then they save the image to
their desktop and then go and post it.

I would suspect that Canva also has like
all the presets for the different formats.

Like if you're posting to Instagram
and you wanted square or you're

posting to Facebook or Twitter,
they've got there slightly different,

slightly different resolutions.

I would expect that they do that.

So at worst ours wouldn't be

worse than that.

Yeah.

Like you would still have to download
the image and then post it yourself.

But without having to.

Do any of the, like, do
any of that Canva work?

I dunno.

Caleb: yeah.

I, I still feel like even if canvas
supports all of that and it's

pretty quick, I still think w I
always would be a little bit faster.

I don't know.

I think maybe it depends.

How many of these images
people are generating per day?

How much of a time save?

It actually means like, if they're
doing it like once a week, maybe

it's not the most valuable thing
to shave off a few seconds, but if

it's like many times a day, then

Jonathan: Yeah.

Especially if we can, if we can
make it a little bit more automatic.

So that are like a high volume real estate
agency, you know, with, you know, lots

of staff potentially start automate this.

What are we going to call this thing?

Caleb: Uh,

Jonathan: for it yet.

Caleb: yeah, well, right now it's
called, um, Realtor Image Thing, which

doesn't really roll off the tongue, but

Jonathan: now, but it's not terrible.

Caleb: descriptive

Jonathan: It's almost descriptive.

It's like, it doesn't really

it

doesn't,

it's not

Caleb: probably

redundant but

Jonathan: thing is, is a silly,

Caleb: realtor image, real images.

Jonathan: oh, that feels, Ugh.

That feels like weird
back in the two thousands.

Caleb: Yeah.

But that feels like something that
would be related to real estate.

Jonathan: Yeah, I guess, yup.

We have to come up with a name.

What's the next steps?

What do we, would it be aiming to do now?

Caleb: Making it not look so ugly.

It's probably the next step.

Jonathan: Why do you mean?

So I actually kind of agree
with you that we can probably

leave it relatively unstyled,

but the image it generates is
also kind of kind of wonky.

Caleb: Yeah.

The image could be designed a bit.

Jonathan: Okay.

is that something you want to do?

Caleb: Yeah, I mean, I
don't think it's that.

Much effort

Jonathan: So you want to yeah.

Style, add some style.

We probably want to have at least
initially a free tier, because

I don't think anybody's going to
pay for it right out of the gate.

They probably want to give
it a little test drive first.

So can we add our logo as
a little watermark or not?

So watermark, like just pretty overt.

This was generated with
Caleb's realtor image thing.

Caleb: yeah.

And named me

specifically, by name.

Jonathan: That feels like
something we could do.

And maybe because it is being shared
right, there would be some, some

avenue to, to get some additional
exposure and growth from that.

Caleb: Yeah.

I, I definitely think we could do that.

I wonder if that would make people
completely against the tool instead of

paying to get rid of the watermark, they
just wouldn't use it because it's there.

Jonathan: Hmm.

Yeah, we'd have to test that out.

So probably one of the next after you've
done some, a little bit of cleanup is the

next thing is to go show it to some of
our real estate agent friends and say how

much, how much you want to buy this for.

Caleb: Yeah.

Jonathan: Okay.

I've got a few folks lined up.

I won't share their names just yet
because they haven't said I could.

Like on the podcast.

I'll tell

you.

Caleb: yeah.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Wow.

Very people.

Jonathan: Okay.

Between now and the next time we record.

Cause we're trying to
record this every week.

You're going to have what, maybe
two hours to work on it because

you're doing it in between stuff.

Caleb: yeah, maybe this
afternoon, right after we finish.

Jonathan: Oh, cool.

Okay.

Caleb: Yeah, well, yeah, that's an hour.

Jonathan: All right.

So we'll see, we'll see where that goes.

And then, I mean, well,
we'll figure it out.

All right.

Well, I have been Jonathan Bowers.

Caleb: I have been and will continue to

be Caleb Sharp,

Jonathan: Ah, We will
talk to you next week.

I think

Caleb: hopefully.

Yeah.