Alan: Hey,
Mario: Hey, how's it going?
Alan: it's been a little while,
Mario: It's been a minute.
Alan: Yeah.
A few things kind of got in the way life and all that stuff,
but it's good to see you.
Mario: Good.
See you too.
Have you been
Alan: Great.
Yeah.
It's it's just been
nonstop.
But I, I'm going to say good?
and bad, but no, most, mostly Good.
or neutral.
But
Mario: good
Alan: lots of things.
So first of all, I like the before there's anything else, I love the
little, a blue audio meter before you when you're in the waiting room, that's
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Nice, cool.
Alan: Nice.
So yeah, you got some new features
Mario: Yup.
Yup.
And
Alan: by that.
Mario: it also shows if I, turn off my camera, You'll see my
Alan: Ah, nice.
Oh, cool.
That's really cool.
Mario: so that way, cause some people prefer to not use video, so
they want to just hear each other.
So this allows them to turn off the camera, but still kind
of, have some kind of visual,
Alan: there.
The they're not completely offline.
It's that?
They're the conscious and, and also it helps, who speaking as well.
If, if there's more than one other person in the room.
right.
Mario: Exactly.
so that's the idea behind it.
So you know,
Alan: Nice.
Mario: it seems to be working fine
Alan: Very
Mario: Yeah, Got a pretty good reaction and comments about it.
So
Alan: Cool.
Mario: it's looking good, before we keep going happy new year.
Alan: Happy new year.
Happy.
Yeah.
Happy, everything.
All the stuff that's happened since last fall.
Mario: Christmas and
Alan: Merry Christmas.
happy new year,
I still can't get into the whole 20, 22 thing.
It just seems I never, I didn't get used to 2020, nevermind.
20, 21, 20 22.
Just seems like, no, that can't be right?
when I've written it.
It's like not, there's no way that can be
Mario: It feels strange.
Right?
Alan: super stranger.
Yeah.
Very weird.
I've only written it like by hand maybe twice and both times I'm like,
no, that really can't be right.
But
Mario: I know.
I I've stopped myself.
I I've questioned myself a couple of times.
Where, wait, is it 20, 22?
Is it 21 or 22?
Alan: Yep.
It's like, no, but I mean, I question myself most of the time,
but that, especially in a strong way,
Mario: Yeah.
So how were your holidays?
Alan: a good, yeah, it, it, it's kind of weird over here.
Right?
So Christmas is, I don't want to say it's a non-event, but it's not really a thing.
Christmas Eve couples go out for a meal.
Maybe if you do presents maybe Christmas day, but it, the big thing
here is KFC on Christmas lunch.
That's the event.
Yeah, seriously.
So for whatever reason, I guess X number of years ago, I think
it's about 15, 20 years ago or so.
I, before my time.
KFC.
So an opportunity to do the same thing that like Halloween and very,
an Easter have done and spread a, an American event what, what has
become an American commercial event to a place that doesn't have it.
And so they introduced this concept of having KFC Christmas lunch.
And now you basically have to reserve your box about a month or so in advance.
You get a time slot on Christmas morning when you go and pick up your KFC.
And there's, you know, for the, for almost two months leading up to
Christmas, KFC are like, are really strong advertising here like you on a
general day, you'll see on TV, there'll be like three or four KFC adverts.
And they, they just bombarding with this whole Christmas
thing special Christmas box.
And yeah, it's, it's funny, like Christmas is basically couples going out for a fancy
meal on Christmas Eve and KFC for lunch.
That's it
Mario: wow interesting.
So the Colonel is alive and well in Japan.
Alan: really is.
Yeah.
It's, it's kind of weird at first.
You're like what?
I didn't really think that was a big deal, but yeah, they've done
really, really well at marketing here.
So,
Mario: Cool.
Cool.
So did you have, did you have your KFC?
Alan: We didn't, I think we did it maybe the second, first or second
year here because both me and my son were like, we want to do this.
And my wife's like, oh gosh, you know, whatever.
But we were like, yeah, we want to be able to do that.
And then we're like, okay, we did it.
That's fine.
Mario: And done with that
Alan: So what we did do was between Christmas and new.
We went to a hot spring re resort, I guess is the word, but it's basically it's an
old, traditional Japanese like inn, in the mountains down south a bit from this
island and we just stayed overnight there.
So it's, you, you basically rent a they have six or seven of these private baths,
which are hot spring fed bats and they're outside or equivalent of outside as in
there's a roof, but there's no walls.
So yeah.
you basically rent that for an hour.
And
you can fancy meal, which is, I think it was like a expect 10 courses or so
if you look at my Twitter, you'll see, I posted every, each of the courses.
I mean, they're very traditional Japanese, local seasonal food.
So there'll be sashimi, there'll be various other bits and things
that you're like, don't know what this is, but it's tasty.
So, Yeah.
that was Nice.
That was, it was good to just go.
And the driving the mountains and, you know, say that there
was snow and it was cute.
No, you sat in a hot spring and it's literally freezing outside, but you're in
like the bath and you're like, I'm good.
And then you're like, you overheat in the bath and you're like, okay.
Step outside for a moment.
Okay.
Back in.
So you spent
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: minutes going there now just trying to regulate your
temperature, but it's very pleasant.
Yeah.
Mario: Nice.
Nice.
No, that's awesome.
That's that's the best when it's, when it's cold and you're in a hot spring.
Alan: I mean, you put your foot in like too hot and then you're like trying to
you know, like kind of coach yourself into it, stay in there, but it's lovely.
It was very nice that that was the highlight of our Christmas and new year.
Really?
Mario: Nice, nice.
Alan: What about yourself?
Mario: Yeah, it was, it was nice.
We, we didn't do much.
We kept a very low key.
We just you know, I mean with COVID and all, you know, it's just
Alan: Yeah.
What do you do?
Mario: better just, you know, stay home and just keep it low key.
So we, for Christmas, we were we were home and for new years two
friends came over a couple of trends.
And it was just the four of us and we just, you know, received the new
year here and had some champagne and, you know, but I, we kept at a really
mellow had had dinner, play some board games and, you know, and yeah.
Alan: I got board games right with my I I've got my son, like a couple of
board games for Christmas and yeah.
so we spent pretty much new year him beating me and those
he's quite good at them.
So that was good.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that was the nice thing about this hotspring, right.
There's few other people you didn't actually see any other people.
There were the people staying in the, inn, but you didn't see them.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I'm assuming a lot of it is, you know, pretty much
outdoors most of the time.
Right.
You're like spending a lot of time outdoors and yeah, that's really cool.
My wife and myself too, we, we love that kind of stuff.
And we've gone to a couple of places around here that have a hot Springs
and yeah, it's very enjoyable.
Alan: Yeah.
Def definitely check out my, my tweets around new year ish and you'll see.
It's Very pretty.
Mario: I'll go back.
I'll go back to that time.
Alan: If, if I remember I'll put a link in the show notes.
Mario: Okay, right on.
Cool.
Alan: Cool.
Yeah.
So, well, I, I guess my other big worky news is I guess I
launched at some point in the past
Mario: Oh,
Alan: it's official, you can go and you can pay and you can sign
up and all that kind of good stuff.
So, yeah, that was yeah, that, that was, I think it's worth worth stating it's
Mario: Oh yeah, of course.
Of course.
Congratulations.
That's huge news.
Alan: it was like I can't remember.
Oh, I remember I remember what the event was.
So the other thing was I did a a pitch pitch, like a pitch competition,
actual people, five minute you know, pitch in-person event.
And so I kind of, I think before that had stated, let's say as I may be in
internal law, I think I definitely told other people which made meant
I had to do it was I was officially launching at the beginning of November.
And so it was, I, well, actually I guess I am officially launched, then I turned
on subscriptions and oh, you can pay.
And so I set all of my trial users.
To like extend the trial till around about now.
I think it's the beginning of February or something like that.
Cause I'm like, you, you, you have been good, you get some time.
But then all new accounts are like, I think it's two weeks at trial of which
has been the, been a few sign-ups the con, well, the other big news is I have
a paying customer which is very exciting.
So Yeah.
that's, it's I, again, I think we're celebrating a
little bit, but and the Nice.
thing was that also they they asked, they asked me if, if it was
okay, if they wrote a testimonial for me, I'm like, Yeah, please do.
So they seem really happy with the in talking to them.
They.
The communication, because there, they're not officially a remote
company, but it's not an IT company.
But they tend to work, not necessarily all in the office, they go out and
do things for clients and things.
And he said, they're just generally not very good at talking to
each other generally, as I said.
So I actually I guess there's this we talked about this now while it
it's, it's in line with the topic.
So one change, which.
I kind of made to the product.
And this was, I think I mentioned it before that I added time-tracking as
in a start and stop timer it partially I was partially against it at first
because I'm like, no, I don't want to turn it into a time tracker.
But it kind of kept coming back that, well, actually we need this and we're
now using two products and it would be just easier if we used one, so
we could do time tracking, but with a social interoffice aspect to it.
So it's like, Okay.
I get that.
I mean, again, it wasn't necessarily my intention.
I'm not a very time tracky kind of person.
I
Mario: I remember you.
I remember you were struggling with that idea kind of like,
you know, should I do this?
Should I not?
Yeah...
Alan: I think it's partially because of how I work.
And I think that's just, I guess I'm coming to terms my brain isn't
necessarily the same as everybody else's with regarding tracking time.
But it, it.
It's especially with when they're working for clients and when I've worked
for clients in the past, it's like, well, no, you have to be on and off.
And so this, I kind of, I chewed it around quite a lot.
I added just basic start and stop times, and you could export the
time into CSV and Excel and things.
But then they were like, oh, that's nice.
But then we start the timer and then we go and we do a check-in
like, can we just merge that?
And so I, again, rattled around my head for a while.
And I'm like, all right, Okay.
If I'm going to do this, let's kind of, I'll buy into this.
It's either, you know, half hearted or it's, it's all in, right.
I want to do it properly.
So after chewing around quite a lot, I came with this.
All right.
So you can see that the normal check-in stuff works fine if you want to.
So you can actually turn off as a, as a, an organization.
You can turn off time tracking.
It's it's just a flag.
But if you have a.
When you start the timer it does a modal pop-up with a mini version of, and you
can do everything that you can when you can't, you don't have the future thing,
but you can do everything on the, the normal check-in page within the model.
You can just close it if you don't, if you don't want to, or you can
actually just do a check-in from that that links it to the timer.
So I can display effectively like a package of your start and stop for
the day linked to your check-in.
And it's just completely in line with you anywhere on the app.
You can just say start styling timer.
I'll stop timer pops up the check-in now I don't want to.
Yeah, just, oh, did these things , save.
And it's great.
Even for me just having that, oh, I'm going to work on this.
It's kind of like a, I guess like a Pomodoro, but without the timer
Mario: Yeah, I was going to say, yeah.
Alan: You say, I'm going to work on this.
I'm going to do these things, check in go away, do your things.
Oh.
At the end of the day, I should stop the timer stop.
Oh yeah.
Take those off.
Check in.
And it's like, this is great.
Mario: It sounds like a perfect workflow right there.
Alan: Right?
It's actually a much better workflow for planning than the normal DotPlan workflow.
Right.
So, yeah.
So I'm, I'm going to, I've done a few enhancements to it now.
It's actually, it's actually becoming a slightly better version of the
normal check-in page anyway, but kind of backporting the, those
improvements to the other one.
It also does it, so you can start a time a general time, or you
can start it for a given project.
So you can say I'm going to work on this project and it automatically tags.
The check-in with the project that you're working on as well.
So then that's filterable on all these things.
So again, it's kind of actually makes it a nicer flow than just going and
doing a check-in it's a bit more manual.
Right.
So yeah, I'm like, okay, this, this worked out.
I mean, again, I put it off for months and I it's, it's easy in hindsight to say,
oh, I should have just realized this, but it took a lot of sketching, doodling like
going back and forth, like internally, like, no, I don't want to do this.
And actually, maybe there's something in it.
And, and it took that time to realize how it should work.
And then the result, I, it actually works out really well.
And this, the client that's paying now my, my customer they're
like, this is how they use it.
They there's, no, they don't do any other check-ins.
They they use it primarily for this.
Because they were doing Time-based check-ins anyway,
now they have time check-ins
with social interaction.
People are responding to them.
People are leaving comments on it, and it's like, they've achieved
this, this flow, which was my goal for DotPlan, but they've done
it because they're doing a time
Mario: Time-based check-ins
Alan: So I'm like, all right, this is kind of a mini revelation.
Right?
So I'm, I'm just rolling with that and seeing where that goes.
But what I am doing is now trying to do a complete redesign of the
landing page just to to incorporate everything that I know the product
is now versus what I thought it was going to be when I started building it.
So that's where I am with that.
Mario: all right.
Wow.
Yeah, so much has happened since we met last time
Alan: And the, the pitch was that was great.
I really enjoyed that.
It's the first, I, that in, I did like the 99 second online pitch,
you know, I've talked to loads of people about it, but to do a five
minute timed was it five minutes?
Yeah, I think it was timed like stand up, go.
These are my slides.
Talk to people that, that was, that was really, really fun.
And it's, it's just gives you that good buzz.
Right.
Seeing some people respond, it was to a Japanese audience.
So my, I pitched in English, but I had Japanese Like my slides had
Japanese takes on them as well.
So I had English and Japanese.
So even if they couldn't understand me, they could follow along.
What I'm saying is pretty obvious.
And I could see.
as soon as I started speaking, I was kind of all right, those are
following me, those people aren't.
So I knew who to direct my attention to what I was pitching.
And yeah, I got some interesting questions and stuff.
So and again, some trial sign-ups a few people wanting to speak in the new year,
which we're going to try and arrange.
So yeah, it was that, that, that was fun.
I enjoyed that.
That was quite yeah, it was just, it was a good buzz during that,
Mario: Very cool.
Very cool.
So happy for you
Alan: Thank you!.
Mario: that you got to that, point and it's going well and yeah, that's awesome!
Alan: It, it definitely feels like there's a, I'm on a different phase now.
That everything up until the end of last year, December was kind
of, if not figuring it out, then kind of working out which, exactly
what exactly the product should be.
What really works for people.
And again, it's, you know, what, what people say they want versus
what they're actually using and how they use it are very different.
Right.
So, you know, saying, yeah, that's great.
We want to use that and then not using it.
And you're like, but I thought you said use it versus saying it would
be good if it did this to doing that.
And then seeing it just like, you know, the graphic goes right.
In terms of people using it.
And you're like, okay, that's not what you said, but fine roll with it.
So it's fun.
It's been, been a, an interesting few months that's for sure.
Mario: no, that's great.
That's not, it sounds like you've man, you've made a lot of progress.
You've gotten to this point and yeah.
From, yeah.
And I totally get it.
Now that you're, gotten to this stage is it's a different ball game now.
So now the, focus must be growth.
I'm assuming, right.
It's, growing your customer base basically, and then
try to, move the needle up
Alan: Right.
I mean, I it's, It's very clear now that the bit which is entirely
lacking is explaining to people what, this is the product.
Now I know I can see again, you know, it's a small sample size, but it's the
fact that most, all of these people within this company, Said they didn't want this.
Right.
They didn't want to use this.
They wouldn't use it and they're using it and they're happy with it.
And they've actually said, oh, actually, this is great.
So I'm like, okay, this is, this is good.
But the, so the, the, the problem I have now or at least the thing I want to try
to solve or improve is just explaining to people what a, what it is B, why
it's good for you and see what the end, the, the reward is for doing this.
And just, you know, right now it's terrible.
And I know that the landing pages is hopeless.
The onboarding is it's not non-existent, but it's not what it needs to be.
So the emphasis now for me is just really on on that.
Less so on fiddling around with the product, because I know it
does the things it needs to do.
And of course there'll be features, you know, there's, there's always features.
Mario: yeah, yeah, exactly.
So maybe now's a good time to spend a little more time.
Well, like you said, spending more time on, those areas.
So.
perhaps more marketing and more education kind of content.
And yeah.
Have you considered establishing some kind of cycle where you work,
you work on the product for a certain period of time, and then
you work only on marketing, because I've been thinking about that.
this is actually the first week that I'm trying that for reals.
Cause I've been talking about doing that for months and I haven't
really gotten into that cadence and, found that rhythm, I guess.
But this week is my first week that after I did that big update to Fusioncast,
then I'm like, okay, well, this is.
And an opportunity for me to now that I've, pushed that it's
working, it's good this week.
I'm just going to focus on marketing and just, communicating with people,
answering emails and you know, tweeting and, just focus on those things, the
marketing website So that kind of stuff.
you know, have you, thought about doing anything like that?
Alan: It would make sense.
If my time was a little bit more Predictable.
So I think the, the thing which, you know, I've got, you know, I'm working
on too many things, especially with like, you know, client work, which,
you know, always takes priority.
It's, it's just not quite as predictable, as predictable as I'd like it to be
in terms of allocating, you know, I can definitely do this and then next
week I don't get time to do that.
So it's like, well, do I just push that back?
But at the same time, there's definitely a I think a phased cadence that I want to
get into, which is okay, the next thing is, you know, improving the, just how
it's presented, how I speak about it.
So it's landing page, you know, the priorities are landing
page, you know, welcome emails.
I don't even have a PR you get like a, an email that says, here's your account.
Thanks for signing up.
And there's, you know, I want to get into.
It can education thing of like actually, you know, talking them
through the product, just the onboarding experience as a whole.
So I've got a list of like 10 areas which desperately need looking at, and
just the landing page is number one, just because it's the most visible
and it's the one which will either convince people to try it or not.
Right.
So Yeah.
it's, there's definitely a phased approach.
I'm not sure if saying like for the next two weeks I do this just
works because I might not even get a chance to touch it for two weeks
Mario: Yeah, yeah,
that makes sense.
Alan: But the definitely a, you know, in and out of, of what
actually I'm doing, that's for
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
It also sounds like you could use this this customer that 's adopting
the product and didn't want to do it before now they're doing it and
they're being successful with it.
What are those called where you present kind of like what
you did and how it impacted
Alan: Oh, like a case study kind of thing.
Mario: case study.
Yeah.
Alan: yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
I think that's, that's a, that's a good idea as well.
Just because, okay.
Okay.
They're not a necessarily a typical life.
Is there such a thing as a typical customer, right.
But they're definitely the, the resistance and the realization and the reward
is definitely something that could be present it as a, As a case study.
yeah, definitely.
I think that's, that's worth considering,
Mario: yeah, you should think about that and see if that that would work for you.
Alan: Definitely worth thinking about, but yeah, I'd say it's been it's been fun.
It's, it's, it's, it's all going in a slightly different direction now.
Just, you know, what I need to do, but yeah, it's all good progress.
Mario: nice, nice.
That's awesome.
Congrats again,
Alan: Thank you
Mario: happy for you.
And looking forward to seeing the product I haven't logged on in a
while, so I need to log in and kind of
Alan: with the other thing, that's come up as a and again, I think it's
I did mention it maybe in the past, but it's, it's starting to think about
it a little bit more, which is at the moment, you know, there's I've always
focused on it being a team-based thing.
Right.
It's, it works best with, you know, 10 people are, you know, th
there's companies, like, I think there's seven or eight of them.
But even for myself so even for myself it's useful as a solo thing.
Right.
And I know the, the interface is really not in any way designed
for that, but there is a, there's definitely a a benefit from.
Again, this, this kind of like the, a productivity app angle, which is, you
know, very much almost like Pomodoro based or very like prescriptive task
management that is like, this is my to-do list and you check them off and
in other things, but it can having just a things I did or how I was feeling.
it's.
kind of like this quantative self of not just how I was feeling, but what I
got done, I guess, like journaling or lifelogging or anything like that, but
in a work context and there's definitely a benefit from an individuals doing it.
I don't know how that fits into the product right now, but I also don't want
to ignore it because it's a completely, maybe not focused on it right now,
but I think there's an opportunity that just to make it work well as
for an individual to in the future.
Just because again, I'm using it as an individual and it's beneficial to me.
So I'm sure others would benefit just in a slightly less formalized process.
Because again, I even Pomodoro doesn't work for me.
It's kind of I'll start it.
And then there's like, it'll just like, I just can't
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: I'm not very good with that.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't, I don't think I've ever tried to really use that a system,
you know, like Pomodoro or, or anything like that, but yeah, I
Alan: I've
Mario: to log on and
Alan: and, and things.
and
I just, I work really well with lists which is, I guess this is
reflective on what DotPlan is, right.
It's a reflection of how I organize my work which is just, yeah,
like, let me, let me list things and let me get them done, but not necessarily
yeah, strict a much more flexible way.
So
Mario: yeah, yeah.
yeah,
Alan: I guess your product is always going to be reflection of yourself right there
when it, when it's a solo based project.
Right.
You know I guess with teams that, that gets watered down somewhat, I'll still
be, you know, somebody is a reflection of an amalgamation of a few, but yeah,
Mario: yeah, yeah.
Alan: So what about fusioncast?
I see big changes here as well.
So lots of improvements.
Mario: yeah, yeah.
Lots of improvements in the latest version.
been busy working on trying to make it better, you know, and trying to get to
the point where I feel really comfortable with letting it go and, opening it up.
I know we talked about that before and I shared with you before I wanted
to freeze all feature development and then move on and, and do this and that.
Alan: I seem to remember that
Mario: Yeah.
Right.
you're wondering, well, what happened?
No.
So just things kept coming up, you know, and
Alan: you mentioned on your change log that you like by the way that,
that that's great, that changelog.
Like I really need to do the same thing.
The, I say I was also, I got a subscription to what's the app as the
thing, which makes it, lets me do like like notification based like widget in
the thing just for like change log stuff.
Mario: Oh yeah.
Alan: I can do that, but Yeah.
you mentioned you like improve the, just the stability of the
recording system and stuff like that.
So again, I think, I guess that's the key now is that you want
it to be Bulletproof, right?
Mario: Yeah.
Well, you know, of course nothing is a hundred percent Bulletproof, but
as close as I can get to, that is my goal because of the nature of the
product, you know, recording, I see it as a mission critical kind of thing,
even though, you know, lives are not depending on it, but just the nature
of, of recording and want it to be as Bulletproof as I can possibly make it
Alan: Yeah.
I mean, th the last thing you want is someone to like, hold on.
I just did this interview and it didn't give me anything.
You lost it all, right.
Mario: yeah, exactly.
That wouldn't be good at all.
So that's the, the one thing that kept me from moving forward and feeling confident,
you know, Releasing it to more people and making it available to more people.
So I really spent a lot of time trying to think about how I could
engineer this thing in a way that, could be more reliable.
And I finally came up with something and it seems to be working, but it,
required me to rewrite pretty large portions of the recording engine.
That's so much changing what was already there, but it was more
about expanding what I already had and kind of fitting what I
already had with this, new approach.
And so I was able to get it to work and seems to be working really well.
I still need to see how it's gonna perform if it's going to scale
properly, you know, right now, it seems to be working just fine.
and it achieved the goal of making recordings more reliable.
So now even if the user closes the browser in the middle of recording or
refreshes the page, it'll still finish, properly end and nothing will be lost.
Alan: mean, I think that's, that's the bit, which.
I think, you know, from everything, the product, everything else
about it is just like fantastic.
You know, and I, again, I think you've got a fantastic prototype.
That was the, the bit, which is like, ah, hold on.
I can't use this browser now because, because it crashed last time.
It's like, well, just might as well throw away the browser.
So,
Yeah.
making sure that, that, that is just, as you say, it's just super solid.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: it's is, is everything.
And if you've got that solved, then, you know, I think you're in a very
good position, just cause again, it's I mean something, that's, again,
have a, a major advantage to me in terms of what your product is, is
that people get it so quickly, right?
It's like in repo record podcasts, you get double ended audio, you good?
And I was like, okay, I know what that is.
You know, I've got to effectively go through this like education
process, like explaining what on earth this thing is which I, I.
Yes.
Sorry.
I released this little digital business card app
Mario: Oh yeah.
I was going to ask about that
Alan: How about, we'll talk about that later, but
Mario: speed, right?
Links.
Alan: Yeah.
So link, Speed.
dial.
And I can, I I've wrote it ages ago and I spent literally a week
just like in the evenings going, I should just release this.
Right.
Because it's there and it's done and I'm using it and people that
I've shown it to actually liked it.
So I should just release it.
So I spent a bit, it was like five days, just tidying it up and launching it.
And the fact that that requires literally zero.
I mean, you can show them a picture and everybody goes, oh, I know what that is.
And it's like, it's such a different thing.
Right.
Because you literally don't have to explain anything at all.
And
Mario: They totally get it right away.
Alan: Yeah and that's kind of like, yeah what was I thinking?
Mario: How's that going?
By the way?
How have you gotten subscribers?
Alan: Well, yeah, there's like 50, 60 people using it.
And I literally tweeted about it once.
And I see hits coming in quite regularly of new signups and things.
I'm like, all right, well, I didn't do anything yet.
So I, I want to revisit it.
Yeah.
I it's, especially since you know, I can, it is bare bones, completely
bare bones right now, in terms of you, you can add links and social links.
I just, you know, pre pre added what 10 defaults or something
like Facebook and stuff.
And so if I definitely there's, there's something there, just
the fact that it was so Yeah.
People seem to like it and I've got some really good responses from it.
And also it's it's an interesting experiment for me in terms of LiveView
because it's it again, it's it's another Phoenix LiveView app and it's, So it's
been interesting seeing its performance and its characteristics when it's the
most heavily, I don't say heavily, but the most trafficked app LiveView app,
I've got running at the moment, you know, like DotPlan has a very right
now predictable usage pattern just because of the people that are using it.
Whereas this is, you know, both the visits coming in from wherever and the
people that are randomly signing up.
It's, it's like give me an insight into just, you know, what kind of things to
expect from it and what slows it down and what doesn't, because you know, life view
is a, it's a very different way of making an app work from something like rails.
So just seeing how to improve or how to optimize that is, is a good lesson
for oh DotPlan and everything else.
So I'm kind of, I'm tempted to experiment with it a bit more and
plus because it's not my intent or at least it hasn't been my intention to
make it into a a product for money.
I love how you, if, if it can get traffic, then maybe there's an opportunity there.
Mario: So you're not charging for that service right now.
Alan: Yeah.
Well, that's the other thing as well.
It's running on a a free, or it's running on live as I flight out iOS
minimum viable server platform as an it's, it's using the Postgres service
which means I have to pay for storage.
Because normally the, the, you, you lose it on reboot.
Right.
Whereas their Postgres service has a, I want to allocate 10 gig to this.
So it's, you actually have to pay something for, for the storage.
So I've got the literally minimum of that.
And then everything else is just on the minimum free things, which is a
256 megabyte memory shared instance and free everything else and so it's costing
me $2, 15 cents a month or something.
So, and, but seeing that people like, oh my God, it's really fast.
And I'm like, like literally on the dime.
So again, it's just really interesting getting some just some performance
data and getting some experience of how LiveView performes in the field,
Mario: Yeah.
Well, no, it's, perfect though.
It's a, great match because it doesn't require a lot of what the app is about.
Doesn't require a whole lot of stuff.
Right.
It's just mainly some fields some text fields and maybe an image here
and there and links and that's it.
And so it's so that's perfect.
Alan: Exactly.
It's it's minimum a minimum maintenance and a minimum.
It doesn't require external services, you know, it's not, the API is to rely on it.
Doesn't store a lot of data as, as you said, it stores some images that
are recompressed and re-skilled.
So you're talking about a few k here and there on S3.
So it's yeah, it's, it's very low maintenance and no fuss.
So it's, it's an interesting thing that I can use as an experiment,
which is, was my primary.
Thought process for making it public.
Right.
You know, it, I did toy with the idea of just open source in the whole thing,
which is still a potential just because there isn't one of the great things
about, you know, one rails really started to take off, you know, I started using
Rails before there was anything on Rails.
So I kind of went through the pain of trying to figure out
everything was always at the edge.
Right.
Because no one had done this before and there's no shared code anywhere.
And That's how I ended up writing the book.
Right.
Because, you know, I was one of the first to go for the first few hundred thousands,
whatever to go down these paths.
So actually just going through the process of making the book and I found
that really I just really enjoyed it and just, it's just really interesting.
So I've been toying with the idea of, okay, do I do something
similar with Phoenix and LiveView?
Not necessarily that I have more knowledge of it than anybody else, but there isn't
enough shed, you know, everybody gains the more public code there is right.
So I'm tempted to just either release it.
I'll do do mini snippets of like, how did I do this?
You know, how did I do this in LiveView you know, how, and the thing is, you
know, that there are things which have not found in any life you up and it's
surprising just how many things you go.
Well, no, one's, I can't find any references to how to do
this, so I better figure it out.
I mean, even just simple stuff like this you know, linked to QR code to
share you think, or to download and stick on a card or something, and
it's like, okay, can find QR code.
And I've got a web, how do I, how do I do that?
How do I get that to appear in the app generated and included in the page?
So it's something simple, but you know, it could be a simple blog
post or a video or something.
So I've been toying with, you know, what, what's the best way I can
give people value from the stuff I've, I've figured out for this.
So I'm still
Mario: Totally.
If you're not going to turn it into a paid product, that would be a great
way to repurpose that, project and turn it into a book or, how I built this
just like you said, walk through the
Alan: I've been trying to talk myself into making some videos on it, just because it,
it's probably the quickest way to do it.
As in, if I talk through you know, how did I do this?
It's probably a 10 minute video.
And it could potentially be not too much.
Work famous last words for me to talk through it for 10 minutes.
But I, I know a lot of people don't like video based development content,
but I know a lot of people do so it could be a good starting point anyway.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Alan: would you say that about if you're not going to monetize it, but one of the
most interesting Resources for figuring out how people have done stuff in Phoenix.
They're not using LiveView, but just in Phoenix.
And Elixir anyway is a plausible.io which is a Google analytics
alternative, which is a privacy focused, Google analytics alternative.
That is a paid product.
They're doing really well from is like two founders based in the UK.
And that is completely open source.
And they're doing very well financially.
And the reason for that is people found out about it because they open-sourced it.
So I think there's a potential path there that is like his, you know, by talking
about the code and sharing the code, most people really don't want to set up
a server to run that analytics server.
Really you want to do that
Mario: Yeah,
Alan: a, you don't want to do that.
So, but at the same time, knowing how they're doing it and referencing
that is, is interesting, right?
Yeah,
So, and it's useful to people learning Phoenix.
So I think there's something similar there isn't like, Yeah.
sure.
I mean, again, what the app does, isn't rocket science, it's just
putting from some fault fields on a page it's just convenient.
Right.
So there's, there's a similar argument to be made where, so if it,
if someone wanted to make link speed it's it's on the weekend at most.
Right.
For what it does right now and the analytics are interesting in as well.
Cause it records like the page views and page clicks and stuff as well.
But it's do you really want to, most people don't want to host it, so
Mario: Yeah,
Alan: is a potential path there, so I dunno.
Mario: yeah.
Yeah.
So I have a, an idea for a little product that came about as I've been
working on Fusioncast, but I'm not ready to share it publicly saw I'll
talk to you about it after we hang up
Alan: So what, what's your next, what's the next plan with Fusioncast?
Mario: So my goal is to go to market as soon as I can , now
I feel more confident about it.
There's one more.
Thing that I need to do though, before that, and it
has to do with infrastructure.
So I need to strengthen part of the infrastructure right now.
I only have one server running I'm sitting
Alan: not quite the free 256 megabyte instance.
So is it right?
Mario: Yeah, no, it's, it's a little, it's a little better than
Alan: I should beef that up, I guess.
Mario: but, it it's only one server, so I need to have at least
another one behind a load balancer to have some kind of redundancy.
I mean, I, I, yeah, I know.
I, I don't really, but again, given the nature of the product with the
recording, I don't want that to be, that's a point of failure right there.
There was no redundancy.
So I want to add another server just to have some redundancy there and
I'll be working on that pretty soon.
meanwhile
Alan: so what, what are you using for data by season two solutions
hosted database stuff or, okay,
Mario: Hosted and managed database.
Alan: seriously manage databases, never
Mario: way to, yeah,
Alan: Oh, I, it does war stories.
I could tell you about Postgres.
I love Postgres, but there was a thing near trauma traumatized.
Mario: we, can we enter that into another episode at some point
Alan: yeah.
I pay other people to look after my database.
Mario: Right.
Yeah.
That's, that's the way to do it.
And and they, they do a replication too.
So, you know,
Alan: Yeah.
Mario: backups and stuff, so it's yeah, it's taken care of, and I
don't have to worry about that,
Alan: Cool.
So basically the server would literally, and plus you're, you're saving the
chunks of the recording to S3 right.
So the servers in theory can just be identical and who, but, whoever's
processing the data just takes over that.
And the other one doesn't right.
So
Mario: right, right.
Yeah.
So yeah, so I need to do that, but I mean that, I don't expect that to be a,
a major hurdle famous last words again.
But
Alan: myself every time I say I don't think.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's the goal to get that going.
But like I mentioned before, I'm doing, I'm trying to do cycles.
So this week I'm not even doing anything about that.
I'm just focusing on, things that have to do with marketing
and promoting the product.
So I got a few more people signed up for private beta.
I'm not doing onboarding anymore
Alan: Okay.
Oh, cool.
All right.
Mario: know, one-on-one onboarding, but, I have brought on a few more people and
now there is a very simple, but I think useful onboarding thing that I added
to fusion because for the very first.
Login users see kind of like a guided thing where, you know, each
screen tells them what they can do
Alan: you using any library service for that or are you just doing it yourself?
Mario: Nope.
Nope.
it's just, it's very bare bones, very simple.
Just a little alert at the top of the page of each screen and based on
what screen it is, it kind of guides them and tells them, what's going on.
So hopefully that'll help to get people up and running quickly.
So yeah, that's, the goal really just do a little bit of marketing and
do a little bit of infrastructure.
And then in between that I'm going to be working on the billing system.
Alan: Yeah.
I mean, I'm, I'm glad that I went with Paddle, which I kind of overcomplicated
it a little bit just by having
having multiple plans is, is fine, but it's also just things get more
complicated, especially when you have like annual price and then a monthly
price, which means you have two different subscriptions, then you got, I've got
three subscription levels and each one's got monthly or annual billings,
I've got six subscription levels.
And, and it's just like, Ugh, I gotta keep track of this.
Mario: yeah,
Alan: And then you've got trials which are done internal to the product and it's
surprising just how much piddly it is.
Right.
It's it's like, oh, I'll just bill for it.
And then it's like, oh, can I just note
Mario: yeah, yeah.
Alan: a pain.
Mario: Yeah.
So that's, part of the plan for now figure out pricing, the billing integration and
Alan: I mean you're close.
yeah.
You're, you're so close to it.
Just because again, it's if you've got the stability aspects sorted, then.
It's ready to go, right.
Just to say, apart from these little things.
Cause it is really good product.
I mean, it's, it's so clean.
It's so intuitive and it looks great And.
Yeah.
And it just works really well.
So
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I got some good feedback from one of the recent people that I brought on board and
they you know, they said it was really nice looking app, and also got some
feedback of some little things that I need to change here and there, nothing major.
not
Alan: You said about price plans.
What's your, what's your current thinking regarding pricing strategy?
Mario: So I'm thinking, and this is what I've been thinking all along.
based on the nature of the product something like usage based pricing
would be good, but I don't want to get into the business of nickel and diming
people and, having to, count everything.
So what I, I, it makes It makes the problem more complicated, right.
Cause I mean to keep track of all this stuff, cause I
don't want to get into that.
So basically what I'm thinking is coming up with like three different tiers
that, give users the ability to use the product at the level that they need.
So kind of like X number of minutes per month of recording time per month with
all features, you get all the features.
It's just really the price difference is based on the amount of time
Alan: like, you know, an hour of storage per month or like, you know, five
hours or 10 hours kind of thing, right?
Mario: yeah.
Yeah.
So something like that.
I don't really have the numbers yet, but that's what I'm thinking.
Three tiers, you know, low, medium, and,
Alan: I mean, I did this and so I had a, I do something similar exactly with DotPlan.
Right.
I took the eight again, having been in teams where you say,
can we just add so-and-so?
and, they're like, ah, it's another $7 a month.
And you're like, So, but people get re well, is, are
they, is that person using it?
Can we take them off it?
And at that person, and it really surprised me just how fussy people
get over, you know, $9 a month, extra for a team member, which
again, as, as an employer, as a team member, you're like, oh, come on.
You know, for, for the, all of the other costs, there's nothing.
and it, but people do get really fussy about it, especially if it's suddenly
takes them over, like something they can put on a, you know, an expense
credit card versus getting HR involved and getting something signed off.
So I took the stance of like, okay, I'll just do three tiers, effectively, 10 up
to 10 people up to 20 people or unlimited.
Thinking w most right now everyone's just going to go for the 10 because
that's the people I'm speaking to.
And that's the customers I expect right now.
But funnily enough, even this I mean, it's, it's cheap 50
something dollars a month.
I can't remember.
Mario: Okay.
Alan: And so this first client is like, but there's only seven of us are using
it, but we're paying for 10 and I'm like, no, that's not how it works...
So even when you go for the, like, I'll just charge one, so
you don't have to worry about it.
It's like, Yeah.
we don't need 10.
We're only getting old.
It needs seven.
Yeah.
But, Okay.
fine.
So you can't win is
Mario: Yeah.
yeah.
Alan: Yeah.
Mario: Interesting.
the other thing that I want to that be thinking about introducing or making
part of the, pricing structure is this idea of file retention, which I wanted
to see what your thoughts are on that.
So because storage, If it just everything stays there and continues to pile up.
Cost continues to go up.
So I'm trying to think ways of managing that in a better way.
And this, file retention period.
That would be part of each tier.
you know, the lowest tier, maybe like 90 day file retention or something like that.
And, a year and then two years, or, you know, something like that,
where there's some kind of limit that the files need to come down
Alan: Yeah.
Just because I, I mean, th the, the, the storage is okay.
It's, it's not massive, but it's not zero either.
And as you said, it will add up, especially when most
people aren't going to need it.
Right.
You know, you, they're going to be recording it.
They're going to download it pretty much immediately
afterwards, a few weeks at most.
Right.
Mario: Exactly.
So they're gonna
Alan: fair.
Yeah.
Mario: Right?
They, cause they're gonna publish the audio.
They're gonna you know, do whatever they need to do with it after it's recorded.
So it doesn't really need to be sitting there on Fusioncast systems forever.
Right?
It,
Alan: get in Dropbox if you want to, you know, keep it shared with
other people or things like that.
So, Yeah.
I mean, it's, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think twice about that.
And I, I think if 90 days is for, for most people is going
to be more than plenty, right.
Just because as you said, it's, if you've just recorded it, then
you're going to want to download it.
If not immediately then very soon.
I can see the, you know, sharing, you know, a few, if you have an editor, they
need to go in and download it and edit it.
And that might take, you know, even a few weeks, but I think 90 days is, is plenty.
I wouldn't
Mario: Right.
So I'm thinking maybe it would be 90 days and then six months
and then a year, you know?
Alan: That sounds very fair.
Mario: So hopefully I don't get pushback about that or, you know,
Alan: And I mean, people know it's storage, isn't free, right.
Mario: right,
Alan: You're charging for the recording.
You're not becoming in our file storage system.
That's your feature, that's your, what it's about?
Yeah, I mean, you, you, I don't know if you have a, I
can't remember the interface.
Do you have recordings effectively get archived?
I mean, you could just show it in the history.
It's like you know, this is effectively been archived, right?
It's the recording is grayed out and it's like, just as long as
there's notifications, you know, send them an email in a week before
it's going to go or two weeks before it's going to get removed and
Mario: Yeah, exactly.
They would need to be notified ahead of time and you know, that way they
can do whatever they need to do.
And in case they need to download them.
But.
So yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Alan: Yeah, Because again, you don't want to, it just because
it's an incremental cost, right.
Every recording they do just adds to that baseline cost.
And you don't need that.
Mario: yeah, exactly.
all right, cool.
that makes me feel good about you know,
Alan: Let's put it this way.
I wouldn't expect you to re if I was using it, I wouldn't expect you to
make, you know, keep it indefinitely.
Just, it's just like, why, why would you
Mario: Yeah.
We're not a file storage service.
We're recording service,
Alan: Exactly.
Mario: yeah,
Alan: I think as long as the limits are sensible and not, you know, like, do you
have like four days to re-download it,
Mario: yeah,
Alan: it's absolutely fine.
And I wouldn't expect any pushback from that at all.
Mario: yeah.
Okay.
Alan: Famous last words as well.
Mario: I know, right.
Alan: I'm not great at predicting what people will say.
I can't see an issue in that case.
Mario: So yeah, I think that's it on my end, we'll see how it goes.
Alan: So are we going to get back into publishing these?
I
Mario: oh yes.
Alan: We need to release them.
Well, actually in one way, this is interesting.
Cause we, how many have we got, like in the buffer queue?
Because we can
Mario: there was one more,
Alan: oh, really?
Okay.
Is there any more.
to edit?
I can't remember.
Mario: Yes, there's more to edit which I need to get back on.
Alan: I mean, I think the it's interesting also because we, I, I think
the potential for what we're discussing is I think changing as well, because
we're both in a position where I may not effectively a post-launch and what
the hell do I do now position you're hopefully about to do the same thing.
So definitely I think there's a chance to kind of target what were discussing
slightly different on a weekly basis too.
Right.
Because the, the thing isn't like, oh, what should I do with this feature?
Or where should this button go?
It's a bit more like, okay.
What kind of challenges am I having Right.
now?
And it's less about what I got done.
And what about, more about, you know, like I guess strategizing or something
Mario: Right.
Yep.
Yeah.
The, the challenges will, slowly morph into something else.
A little bit of the usual, but a little more of new,
different kinds of, challenges.
So, yeah,
Alan: No, I I'd be all over that.
Yeah.
I'm happy to, would be nice to get into both catch up with it because I also feel
a bit weird that like we're publishing something we'd spoke about six months ago.
It'd been there.
I mean, I guess that's one way we can kind of catch up somehow don't know.
how
Mario: Yeah.
I'm going to spend more time this week editing, so we'll see how far I can get.
Alan: you're using
Mario: on the, on the weekend as well,
Alan: Or you're using, you're using description now.
Right.
Mario: Yes.
Yes, I am
Alan: If there's anything I can do again just let me know if you want me to have a
got one or if you just again, once you've done it just I'll look into Transistor.
I, I think I said, I think that's on me.
That's the last one.
Didn't get published.
Yeah,
Mario: no no worries.
No worries
Alan: We were bad.
I think we're both by
Mario: yeah, we, yeah, we both, we both dropped the ball on on getting
this going, but no, no worries.
We'll we'll get back to it and yeah.
Alan: yeah, because I mean, again, I think it's it's really, it's beneficial
for me and I hope it is for you.
And I hope somebody somewhere gets something from it, just because I think
it's it, again, this I'm just saying these things out loud makes a difference.
And I don't know if other people find that true too, but a lot of the time,
you know, you're going through this stuff internally and you think you've
got it sussed out and then you explain it and then you're like I didn't.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: So it's definitely helpful.
And as I hope it is for you too.
Mario: For sure.
Yeah.
It's super helpful for me too.
I enjoy having our conversations and it's super helpful.
Otherwise, you know, I don't really, you know, other than the communities
that we belong to, that where we, you know interact with and ask questions or
whatever, or learn from others as well.
But it, it's something about actually saying things out loud and talking
and bouncing ideas or you know, even just experiences, of what we've
been working on is super useful.
Alan: Nice one,
Mario: Cool.
All right.
So should we wrap it up here?
Alan: I I guess
so.
Yeah.
Sounds good.
Mario: All right, Alan we'll meet again in a couple of weeks.
Alan: Cheers, man.