Interested in building your own SaaS company? Follow the journey of Transistor.fm as they bootstrap a podcast hosting startup.
Jon:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to build your SaaS. This is the behind the scenes story of building a web app in 2020. I'm John Buddha, a software engineer.
Jason:
And I'm Justin Jackson. I do product and marketing follow along as we build transistor dot FM and just try to try to keep going.
Jon:
Yep. And try to stop from going crazy. Yeah. Just getting out of bed, and I put on jeans today before noon, so that's good.
Jason:
Nice. That that's a great show title. Jean's on before noon.
Jon:
Yep. That's like if that's all I do today, then I consider that a success.
Jason:
Yeah. It is weird, like, right now, I haven't showered. I didn't, like, do my hair. I'm I'm like, you know, I I still feel like I've got a little bit of that, you you know, it's it's kinda dumpy. Right?
Jason:
Right. And Yeah.
Jon:
I'll be wearing I'll be wearing a lot of hats. So you can't get a haircut anytime soon.
Jason:
Yeah. So The haircut thing is concerning.
Jon:
Although I'm gonna I'm gonna send my guy some money because I can still work, and he can't. Yeah.
Jason:
Yeah. We've feel really bad. Yeah. We've been we've been, we have a a gal that helps us with, cleaning, and we've been paying her. But, yeah, it would be I should send some money to, my barber.
Jason:
I wish that the tools for those folks were better. I know I've been kind of ragging on this for a while, but I just spent this morning probably 2 hours, trying to contact Square support and then actually getting on the phone with Square support
Jon:
Yep.
Jason:
To help my friend who owns a skateboard shop here get his store online. Wow. It's just like, they acquired Weebly, and so now they've got a a mash up of Square and Weebly. And the tools that people have to navigate.
Jon:
Yeah. Yeah. I, I pay my I pay for my haircuts with Venmo. My guy's like, yeah. Just just, like, say, like, thanks in the comments because he's like, I don't want I don't want it to refer to what I do
Jason:
Oh, yeah.
Jon:
Because then because I'm not really supposed to use
Jason:
Venmo. Mhmm. Got it.
Jon:
Because it's like there's no fees. Right? So he's just because he's an independent contractor, and he was, like, using this other platform that would take all his money away. Yeah. And, it's just weird.
Jason:
You know, we could play a little I have never here. I have never used Venmo.
Jon:
Oh, well, you're not missing much. It's pretty stupid.
Jason:
It's it's it's not available in Canada.
Jon:
Oh, alright. I mean, it's it so you know what it is, though.
Jason:
I from what I can tell, it's like a way to send money.
Jon:
It's a way to send money, but but also think of it's a way to send money, but then everyone you know can see what you're spending money on and who you're paying and how much. Oh. Unless you make everything private, which is what I did. It's stupid. It's like social money.
Jason:
What?
Jon:
It's like a social it's suit it's so dumb.
Jason:
Why why do people want it public?
Jon:
I don't know. I don't know.
Jason:
Okay. This is weird.
Jon:
I guess I mean, from what I see is just, like, people people making stupid comments. Like, here's $50 for a blowjob when really it's not that. Right? And those are the comments.
Jason:
Okay. Got Chris, remind me to put explicit on this episode.
Jon:
I mean, I could I could change the
Jason:
No. That made me laugh. We're keeping it. Folks, if you're listening to this podcast at home on your on your Alexa.
Jon:
I don't know. I It's it's
Jason:
owned by PayPal too.
Jon:
They had a PayPal bot. I I've had a few I mean, when it started, I think it was, like, probably started right in the time when, you know, just posting everything online was okay and not weird yet. Mhmm.
Jason:
Yeah. Yeah. Like, when when when people just wanted a feed of everything, including what you're spending your money on. Yeah. That is okay.
Jason:
I'm gonna see if I can apply for this right now. I don't think I can. For a long time, it was not available in Canada.
Jon:
I maybe now with the paper that was it. It is. I don't know.
Jason:
Oh, yeah. See, it says, to use Venmo, we need your mobile phone number, but it doesn't accept my number. So there there's some API out there that does not recognize Canadian numbers. Prob may maybe on purpose. But
Jon:
Yeah. Maybe it has more to do with the bank account information you would then enter.
Jason:
Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. The the banking systems are pretty separated. By the way, listeners out there that are Canadian and get paid in US dollar funds, I just went through a whole rigor rigmarole.
Jason:
Is that a is that a American saying too? Yeah. Rigamarole? What where what is the etymology of that? What the heck?
Jason:
Rigamarole. What the heck? Anyway, I just went through a whole rigmarole. And I'm going to be publishing soon how to best, receive US dollar funds and then how to get the best exchange rate. Because Does it involve the Cayman Islands and laundering your money?
Jason:
Listen. You gotta do what you gotta do. You want you want the best exchange rate? Then,
Jon:
Right. So, yeah, you mentioned something about that, and you said you lost a bunch of money. It was it because the the the rate the exchange rate changed overnight drastically?
Jason:
Yeah. Yeah. So let's see here. Let's do a little
Jon:
Where the value of the one of the dollars changed?
Jason:
1 USD to CAD. So in the last month, we started at 1 US dollar was worth a dollar 34 on February 29th. And at its peak, 1 US dollar was worth a dollar 45 Canadian. Mhmm. And so, of course, that's the bank rate, but you don't actually get that rate when you convert US dollars to Canadian using PayPal or using even your own bank account.
Jon:
Right.
Jason:
And so the and these numbers, I mean, it can be a lot of money. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. When's the last time you made, you know, well, especially right now, made, you know, 5, 500, a $1,000 on your stocks in
Jon:
a month? Right.
Jason:
Well, it it you can eat like, the difference between a dollar 38 and a dollar 45 Canadian is that's huge. Right?
Jon:
Yeah. That's big.
Jason:
So figuring this stuff out, it's worth it to figure this stuff out almost more than, you know, trying to figure out what stocks to pick or where you should be investing your money right now. If you're Canadian, and you get paid in US dollars, then, and actually, I think every Canadian, if they can, should have some sort of, side hustle where they do get paid in US dollars, because there's, one of the advantages is it's kind of like getting a 45% raise or 38% raise depending on
Jon:
Yeah.
Jason:
What the exchange rate is.
Jon:
So so did you figure it out?
Jason:
So interestingly, PayPal is still the fastest and cheapest way for me to get US dollars. And part of this has to do with I can open up a US dollar bank account, but it's still located here in Canada. It's not a true US dollar account. And so yeah. Getting, the fastest, cheapest way to get US dollars from an American, you know, company that's paying you to you is still through PayPal.
Jason:
And what I figured out is that I can then transfer from PayPal into TransferWise. And so TransferWise, it doesn't give you the absolute best rate, but it's the best rate you can get in an online exchange where you don't have to call a guy.
Jon:
Okay.
Jason:
And so, eventually, I'm gonna try to move to the call a guy. And that's where you, like, get on the phone and you have to say, okay. I wanna I wanna sell, you know, a $1,000. I mean, you probably would do it only for bigger amounts, but I wanna sell $10,000 in US funds. What what will you pay me for it?
Jason:
And then they'll say, we'll pay you you know, it's a exchange is dollar 45 right now. We'll we'll pay you a dollar 44. And, yeah. That's the best, but transfer wise is pretty good. And so, and there's still some fees with that, like, especially on big amounts.
Jason:
But I'm so I'm still in the midst of trying to take this. But you could see the complexity. Right? Like, you've you you may have gotten paid in US dollars, but then you're you're trying to figure out how can I best get this money in the right spot so that I can convert it? And all of these things take time.
Jason:
It takes 2 or 3 days to transfer the money and all that stuff. So, yeah. So eventually, I'll I'll share when I figure out what is the actual best. Oh, you know what? I didn't hit record on this.
Jason:
Jesus. I hope you're recording I hope you're recording.
Jon:
Yeah. I am.
Jason:
Oh my I said, hey. Let's use this new thing here. And then Oh.
Jon:
You could see it. Whoops.
Jason:
You you could so you are recording in QuickTime. Right?
Jon:
Yeah. I I am. I am. Are you?
Jason:
This is why we have backups, people. We're trying this riverside.fm podcast recording thing, but I didn't click record it. Anyway, what else is going on?
Jon:
Well, we're let's see. We're in the middle of switching banks, which has been interesting. Yeah. I don't know if we need to get in into specifics, but there were some also some rigmarole of that.
Jason:
Who owns rigmarole.com?
Jon:
I don't
Jason:
know. That that's a good domain. Yeah. So we we switched to Mercury.
Jon:
Yep.
Jason:
And part of this
Jon:
Totally virtual online bank. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason:
And, why did we switch?
Jon:
We switched well, we were you we've been using Capital One Spark, and they have been in this weird limbo state where they don't allow you to sign up for a new account or add accounts to your account, like check new checking accounts. And I think I think they're just gonna sunset their entire bank business banking. Like, I don't it's weird. They don't really tell you what's going on, but they also, our accounting software had updated how they connect to banks, and Capital One does not work with that method. I'm pretty sure they use Plaid, which is an online, like, banking platform.
Jason:
Mhmm.
Jon:
Capital One doesn't work with that. So it's really just man very tedious and manual for us to import our books and all of our all of our transactions into Wave. Mhmm. Yeah. So that was the impetus for that.
Jon:
And then there was a sort of a fiasco where there was an autofill problem.
Jason:
Yeah. I autofilled when I signed up. I I accidentally autofilled something that made my password the name of the company.
Jon:
Yeah. Which was just, like, gibberish. And so our initial our initial transfer from Stripe to Mercury just kept failing over and over to the point where I was like, we shouldn't use Mercury because they suck. And it was really a combination of problems that eventually got fixed.
Jason:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, yeah, that was and I was one thing I was thinking about is, thank goodness we had some cash in the bank because if we were, you know, if if we were relying on those Stripe transfers to come in.
Jon:
Right. And
Jason:
because it failed, like, 3 or 4 weeks in a row Mhmm. Then, you know, that would have been, bad news.
Jon:
Right. And I'm just glad there's, like, a there is, for lack of a better word, a money a money trail. I don't know if that's the thing, but, like, I feel like I've heard horror stories of wire transfers, like, just, like, going into the wrong account or nowhere, and you can't get it back.
Jason:
And just disappearing. It's just, like, gone. But To be honest, I I wonder if anyone else listening has this anxiety, but every time I transfer money
Jon:
Yeah.
Jason:
I get nervous. Like, I get nervous when I when I do those PayPal transfers. I do nervous when I I get nervous when when I initiate our payroll. Every time there's money kind of in limbo, in the ether, I'm just like, oh, like until it's actually in my bank account, I don't feel good.
Jon:
It's because it's never instant either. So you're just like there's this, like, period where it's, I don't know, validating it or something, and it's just, like, hours or days, and you're like, it's just somewhere. There's some bits that are just sitting there.
Jason:
There there's different types of digital money. Like, I trust the digital money in my bank account more than I trust PayPal digital money or even a Stripe balance. But especially a transfer, like, when the digital money is just transferring, I do not trust it. Or if it's in, like, a third party, like, TransferWise or something like that,
Jon:
I'm like,
Jason:
get it out of here as quick as it can. So yeah. That's, yeah, that's what
Jon:
we're doing, and just sort of trying to survive this weird time.
Jason:
Mhmm.
Jon:
Yeah. It's I don't know. Since we last talked, it's gotten any better. I mean, maybe we're adapting to this isolation better, but Yeah. State of things has not necessarily gotten better.
Jason:
Yeah. Especially the states that Yeah. The news out of there is is distressing.
Jon:
Yeah. It's, it's grim. I mean, it's like I think no one knows what what to expect, obviously, because this is new for everyone, but also it was just handled so poorly early on. Yeah. And we have a leader who is just, like, making up excuses
Jason:
Mhmm.
Jon:
Instead of actually helping. Yeah. And yet his approval ratings are somehow going up. I don't understand what the hell is happening.
Jason:
There's a little bit of a halo effect, which is in times of trouble when there's somebody on TV that is at least looking like they're leading. Because we have this to a certain extent in Canada, too. There's people who did not like Trudeau before. And now that he's like, showing himself to be a leader, they're like, You know what? I, I didn't like him before.
Jason:
But now, it's just, it's nice to see him leading, you know, and, and and even like our we have a national doctor that's kind of in control of things. And I think people want to trust these folks and don't want they want them to be above reproach when things are scary.
Jon:
Yeah. I would love to be able to trust him as well, but I do not. He's a person I trust the least in this situation.
Jason:
Yeah. Yet
Jon:
here we are.
Jason:
So And yet here we are. Yeah.
Jon:
Yeah. It's, it's weird. I have a friend who's an ER doctor, and it's gonna be crazy for him. And Yeah. I worry about, you know, friends and family who I can't see on a regular basis.
Jon:
And Yeah. It hasn't affected anyone I know closely yet, but it it will. Yeah. For sure it will.
Jason:
I mean, my son, my youngest son, this morning felt, nauseous. And, I mean, when you have kids, they get sick all the time. But the fact that he gets got sick now, we were immediately like, Oh, my God, like, he's nauseous. And he had a little bit of a fever. And we're like, okay, like, is this it?
Jason:
Like, are we in it now? And I wish so much that we could just get tests. I know there's not enough tests, but, because there's not enough tests in Canada either. They won't give them to you unless you're very sick.
Jon:
Right.
Jason:
And it would just be it would be so relieving to know, are we sick? Or are we not sick?
Jon:
Right.
Jason:
Because listen to me. I my voice is you know, I've got this voice right now, which I often get this time of year from allergies. But when you're when you don't know if it's allergies or COVID 19, it's like Yeah.
Jon:
I mean, any any headache or sneeze, you're like, I don't know.
Jason:
Yeah. Like,
Jon:
yeah. Exactly. It's I mean, yeah, that's the thing. They there's a bunch of places working on tests or have gotten approved for these really quick rapid tests, which are great, but it's gonna be months before those are out in any scale. And that's pretty much the thing they need to do is just, like, test everyone.
Jon:
Yeah. Yeah. And then isolate people who are positive Yep. Or anyone that was in contact with those people for a couple weeks and, like, that's what Korea did. That's what yeah.
Jon:
It's just and instead, there's, like, the president is fighting with state governors over, like, whether or not they say nice things about him. Like Yeah.
Jason:
Yeah. I mean, I know I know you and I talked about this last time, but I do hope, even though I know, especially in the states, that some folks became quite disenchanted, with the political process. Here in Canada, I think we've been largely complacent. We don't, you know, the political process doesn't affect most of us that much. And, and in some ways, especially in tech, I see a lot of people that say, you know, I don't read the news.
Jason:
And I don't really care about what's going on politically because I can't really affect anything. And I used to feel that way too. I still think that most of the time, we don't need to read the news all the time. But I do think we've abdicated some of our responsibility as citizens to just be more engaged in what's going on in our towns, in our state or provinces
Jon:
Yeah.
Jason:
And our country. And I and now we're seeing the repercussions of that. Right? Like the in Canada and the US and most of Europe, folks, countries were not prepared for this. The the pandemic response units in all of those countries were underfunded to a certain extent.
Jason:
You know, we had lots of warning with the last SARS outbreak. And I think for us as citizens to think because it's just as easy for us to forget forget about it. You know? Like, you know, stars came and went, and it's like, oh, didn't affect me. Back to playing Fortnite.
Jon:
Yeah. And we can, you know, make fun of people that had to wear masks all the time. And it's like Yeah. Yeah.
Jason:
Exactly. And I hope that after this, we realize, no, the average citizen doesn't need to be reading news 20 fourseven. We don't need to know that, you know, somebody in New Orleans stubbed their toe. It's okay for us to not have that kind of news in our face all the time. But I for us to be involved in the political process and acting as citizens and not just ignoring it because our bank accounts are full.
Jon:
Right. Yeah. I hope so. I hope there's a I hope there's a massive change. I like I said, I don't know.
Jon:
I it's too early to tell what's gonna happen.
Jason:
Yeah. At this
Jon:
point, like, I'm honestly worried about the election in November because Yeah. It's just everything is so weird.
Jason:
I mean, if if if all else fails, we just transfer transistor to Canada and you move here and
Jon:
Right.
Jason:
Then you just wait for the US invasion.
Jon:
Uh-huh.
Jason:
What I'm sure some people are wondering how we're doing. A lot of we're getting a lot of nice messages, asking, you know, how we're doing. And business wise, we're doing we're doing fine.
Jon:
Right.
Jason:
We we are still doing, good revenue. We're still growing. We've seen, more interest in private podcasts since this whole outbreak.
Jon:
Yeah. There have been a lot of a lot of companies and teams have been using it to keep remote employees up to date. Yeah. Interesting to see.
Jason:
And, you know, the the conversion rate on those conversations is we'll see, you know, how many people end up upgrading. There's always a a lag time. Right?
Jon:
Right.
Jason:
So we have at least 2 weeks and sometimes, especially for private podcasting, I'm finding we have to extend those trials a little bit more.
Jon:
Yep.
Jason:
One thing I will say is because I I know everyone feels these things, but, you know, this is so shameful. Even though transistor is doing well, I still get a little bit jealous of my friends who are doing better. And I just wanna bring that out just because I know a lot of people that's a normal human emotion, but there's just this feeling of like, you know, I have cert I have in the back channels of the Internet, I I have a handful of friends that they're just doing really good business right now. And what do you call that when you're when you don't realize how good you have it? Complacency is not wish you wish you had you know, grass is always greener.
Jason:
Yeah.
Jon:
I mean, it's jealousy. I don't know what it is. I mean, it is it is it a thing where you're looking at monetarily? They're doing better?
Jason:
I mean, on one hand, I'm cheering for cheering for friends, and I'm I'm genuinely happy for them. Like, genuinely. But there is a a a tinge of of, you know, a flicker in my mind of, oh, man. You know, like, what if what if transistor isn't the right thing? You know?
Jason:
Podcast listening's down a little bit right now and, you know, maybe we're not on the right train.
Jon:
And Yeah. We did we did talk a bit about that Yeah. Privately last week about if we need to, like, hedge our bets against podcasting not working out and if there's something else we can do within podcasting that would that would allow Transistor to live on longer. But Yeah. It's I think it's something to think about.
Jason:
I mean, honestly, I have nothing to complain about. Like, it is so I I I'm revealing the shameful thing because I think it's something a a lot of humans feel. But, honestly, like, I'm heartbroken for most of my friends right now are not doing great. They're out of work or they their business is has been, furloughed. Is that is that a word?
Jon:
Yeah. Well, if they're an employee, they may have been furloughed.
Jason:
Yeah. They they or, you know, they're they've had to close-up shop or they're losing tons of money. And it's dumb for me to be anything but thankful right now.
Jon:
Yeah. I mean, it yeah. That's the thing I I keep thinking about too is, like, I know there's people out of work, and, obviously, I mentioned my hair the hair my hair guy, and, like, he can't work. And I need some more. So the least I can do is just, like, help him out.
Jon:
Yeah. Because I wanna be able to work after this is over and not have to, like, close-up shop and go do something else. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are hurting or will be.
Jon:
Like, this is still the beginning of this epic economic, I don't know, downturn or whatever is gonna or economic decimation. I don't know. It's like
Jason:
Yeah. And, you know, maybe that's part of it is the anxiety when you know some people have 1,000,000 in their bank account. And and you're kind of going into this storm. And it's just so easy to go, like, even like I said, I think I've probably got about a year's worth of savings right now. You know, we'd have to be living pretty economically, but I think we could we could survive for a year on the on the cash I have right now.
Jason:
But still, like, there's something I think maybe it's just human nature to go, Wow. And taken to its biggest extreme, you know, you've got Jeff Bezos who, you know, he was able to sell before this whole coronavirus hit. He sold $3,500,000,000 worth of stock right before this hit and all the stocks tanked. And it's hard. I mean, I think it's probably easier for us to in that context for us to be like, fuck that guy.
Jason:
You know, like Right. We're heading into this crazy economic uncertainty, and Amazon's doing better than ever. Bezos just sold $3,500,000,000 worth of stock. Now he's got $110,000,000,000 in in Yeah.
Jon:
Net worth. More money than he will literally ever spend.
Jason:
Yes.
Jon:
And Andy opened up basically a donation page for his workers, for regular people to donate money to Amazon workers. Like, what, dude? Fuck you.
Jason:
Yeah. Yeah. And, I'm sure we'll get some backlash from this, by the way, because there's always the the corporate defenders. And, I just don't buy it.
Jon:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's his money. He can do what he wants with it.
Jon:
But, like, come on.
Jason:
Or or that any generosity is good generosity. Because, was it him or or or Zuck that gave 25,000,000 and people were saying, well, that's like somebody who earns 100,000 giving $100 or something.
Jon:
Yeah. It's nothing.
Jason:
And and people say, well, why can't we just be thankful that someone gave 25,000,000? And the whole point is, folks, like, this crisis is revealing that there's massive inequality in our countries. Yeah. In Canada and US, especially, but all over the world. And, it just feels like if we can't just call it a spade a spade when the spade is clearly revealed, you know?
Jason:
Like, the spade is out like the we can all see it. Let's just call it what it is. This system sucks. And I'm not advocating for, you know, socialism or anything. I'm just saying whatever form of capitalism we have right now, if if you're a person, just a regular person who doesn't have 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 net worth.
Jason:
And you don't feel like there's something broken in here. It's broken.
Jon:
Yeah. It is broken. I think it's the cracks are totally being revealed. Yeah. I read something about how how the price of health insurance in the US might go up drastically because so many people got sick.
Jon:
It's like, okay. Let's think about that for a minute. What?
Jason:
Yeah. And and if if it is if it's ignorance that causes a bad response to the pandemic, like, if we had time to prepare, if we could have invested whatever it was, what what did we need to invest in pandemic response for this to go differently?
Jon:
It was surely less than we're gonna lose in this.
Jason:
Yeah. I
Jon:
mean, it's I think it I don't know if it's ignorance. It might just be greed.
Jason:
Yeah. I mean, greed or I mean, I'm sure when you're a head of state, you've got to figure out how to shuffle the money around. Simply the fact that Amazon can pay very little corporate tax because they can just keep reinvesting profits into the company. There's got to be a limit to that.
Jon:
Yeah.
Jason:
If you as a personal as an individual taxpayer, if you decide to, reinvest, you know, the money you've got left over in your personal development, you still pay tax, you pay tax, as soon as that paycheck goes out. Right. And, again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't we shouldn't encourage r and d. I'm not saying we shouldn't encourage companies to invest money in, you know, making companies better and all that. But there needs to be a limit to it.
Jason:
And if if if the if the if the tool that you're using isn't producing the outcome you want. So if if the outcome you want is a more equitable, prosperous society, And the tool you're using is, while we'll give companies a tax credit on everything they reinvest, but it's not producing a more equitable society will change the tool. Right. And I I think it's okay for us to be angry.
Jon:
Yeah. I think so. I mean, yeah, it's, yeah, it's it's frustrating. The amount of money that some of those people have is just ridiculous compared to what other people have, and and I think what people realize that amount of money is.
Jason:
Mhmm.
Jon:
So But on your on your on your note of, like, sort of feeling jealous or whatever it is about friends that are doing better or companies that that you know that are doing better. I mean, it I feel some of that, but it's it's also like I know some of these companies are are doing more to help Mhmm. Than we're than we're able to.
Jason:
Mhmm.
Jon:
And that would also be kind of a nice place to be. Right? Like
Jason:
Yeah. Like, we're
Jon:
doing well, and, obviously, our our the growth hasn't slowed yet or shrunk or whatever. But Mhmm. It may happen, but it would also be nice to, you know, have a bunch of money sitting around to where we could invest that in in people or or just, like, give money, like, grants to people that keep businesses we like alive or whatever. But Mhmm. I mean, we're not in that.
Jon:
Like, we don't have 1,000,000 in the bank or 1,000,000,000 or whatever.
Jason:
Yeah. We're we're not quite in that zone yet.
Jon:
No. Not at all. Yeah. I mean, we're not. Yeah.
Jason:
I mean, we've been, individually and as a company, we've been supporting some folks, And I think we could still do more there, but, you know, our our we we do have a limit in terms of what we can do. But actually, that is one I think that's one way to cert to fight jealousy. It's just to go, okay, you knucklehead. Like, quit quit that. Get that thought out of your head and go out and help somebody.
Jason:
Jeez. Jesus Christ, Justin. Like, just
Jon:
Yeah. I mean, that's that's Quit being such
Jason:
a a selfish dummy. And and and we also know, like, we've talked about our philosophy of wait and see. And how many times have you been jealous of somebody? And then 10 years later, you look at that person and go, oh, man. Like, I'm I'm sure glad that I didn't have their life.
Jason:
You know?
Jon:
Right.
Jason:
And, I mean, that happens to all of us. We all go in and out of good times and bad times and whatever. But it's foolish clearly to be jealous of anybody. That doesn't help. It doesn't it doesn't move you forward.
Jason:
It doesn't produce any any positives at all.
Jon:
Yeah. I mean, it's it's just it's tough because there's, I think, individually, little or nothing either of us can really do to solve the the problem the bigger problem we're in, which is
Jason:
Mhmm.
Jon:
How do you, you know, fix this whole virus situation? Like Yeah. Neither of us can do anything about that. Yeah. So it's like and we can't really leave our house, so you're just, like, stuck being like, I can't do anything.
Jason:
I mean, we can do some things. I think they're small. And that's the hard part in with when faced with big problems. There's this idea of, okay, what do we do? You and I and all of our listeners here, you know, we have the ability to say, for example, when this is over, there's growing consensus that wearing masks in public is probably a good way to to to stop the spread of this disease and many diseases.
Jason:
And you and I could on this podcast say, you know what? We're the type of people now that wear masks when we feel sick or during a outbreak. That's what we do now. When we go out in public, when we're riding the subway, we wear masks. And that kind of, signaling and kind of people like us do things like this, I think can be helpful.
Jason:
Even though it's tiny, those kind of tiny steps of, you know, for people to know, like, you're not alone. Like, it's okay. You can wear a mask and it actually does make a difference.
Jon:
Yeah. It's I mean, it's been acceptable in Asian countries for a long time. Yeah. Whereas here you see someone, you're like, oh, what's that's weird.
Jason:
Yeah. Yes. I I mean, totally. Like, I would prior to this, just being honest here, I would have been I would have been nervous about sitting next to someone on a plane with a mask on.
Jon:
Right?
Jason:
And now it's just like, that's you should just thank that person. But you you shouldn't. But you know what I mean? Like, you should guilt them in mind.
Jon:
There was a report out, I think, this morning that I saw that that compared overall deaths in the US first like, for this past 3 weeks, like, it if you because everyone is inside, isolated, the death rate is actually lower if if you don't account for coronavirus related stuff. Like like, less people are dying because less people are going outside. Oh, yeah. Just for, like, normal reasons.
Jason:
Yeah. Less people driving and
Jon:
Crazy to think about. Or it's like or or not passing on other illnesses or whatever. Mhmm.
Jason:
Yeah. Not shaking hands. So so
Jon:
the whole I mean, the whole point of the thing was, like, this you know, after this is over, right, we hopefully can rethink what it means to, like, I don't know, just be in public and be around other people, and, like, some things may have to change.
Jason:
Totally. Let's wind this thing down. I I'll just share a a little bit of what I'm working on right now because it might be interesting. And there's a a moral issue that John and I are are wrestling with here, which is, right now, ads are cheap. And I feel like we should try some advertising.
Jason:
And that may include some that may include doing some YouTube ads, which before, John and I hadn't been excited to do because of I I don't really wanna support Google's ad business.
Jon:
Feeding the Google monster.
Jason:
Feeding the Google monster. But I think, yeah, I think it's worth trying right now. And, I just put up an ad today that's gonna I think the budget's $25 a day for a week, and CPM seem pretty low. So I'll report back.
Jon:
And so your your your hypothesis is that there's so many more people at home watching YouTube
Jason:
Mhmm.
Jon:
That they might see our ad. Should we so I I haven't seen the ad. Should we make, like, a a dark, like, political ad, political style ad?
Jason:
Oh, yeah. That's true. We could just buy ads that all we need.
Jon:
Does your podcast host track listener data?
Jason:
Oh, I was I was thinking even I was thinking you were gonna go Cards Against Humanity style, which, like, the ad has nothing to do with podcast host.
Jon:
Oh, yeah.
Jason:
Over just Yeah.
Jon:
That too.
Jason:
We're just spreading our own propaganda.
Jon:
I mean, Probably probably shouldn't do that. But you know,
Jason:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we, we we could talk about tracking for sure. I haven't right now, I'm just promoting private podcasts.
Jon:
Yeah.
Jason:
There has been no ads yet, so I don't know what CPMs I'm getting. But I'll report back and see let folks know if that was worthwhile.
Jon:
That would be good experiment.
Jason:
And, yeah. We're I keep tweaking things. I every day, John and I were talking about this before, but every day, I feel like I get a little bit more productive. You know? Like, at first, I was getting nothing done, and then it was, like, 15 minutes productive work and then 30 minutes and
Jon:
Yeah.
Jason:
How are you feeling on that front?
Jon:
Last week was pretty much a disaster Yeah. For work. I just couldn't get much done. My lower back has been really hurting because I can't exercise certain like, I can't go swimming. I can't really I've been sitting in chairs that I shouldn't be sitting in for longer than I should be sitting in them or, like, sitting on a couch too long.
Jon:
Mhmm. So I just I, yeah, I've been trying to figure out, like, better exercises to do for my lower back and just just trying to, I don't know, stand more or whatever. But, yeah, last week, not was not great. So, yeah, that's why, you know, this Monday, I started off and put on, like I said, put on before noon. Try try to kick it off right.
Jason:
This is this is the pants methodology. Yeah. The right pants methodology.
Jon:
What is it? Pants driven development? Pants driven development.
Jason:
Yeah. Oh, that's a good I gotta I'm gonna write that down. Pants Driven Development. Yeah. Let's, let's close this thing off.
Jason:
Why don't you thank the folks, the fine folks who support us on Patreon?
Jon:
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks to everyone on Patreon. We have Sofia Quintero, Diogo.
Jason:
One word is Diogo.
Jon:
Diogo, Chris Willow, Mason Hensley, Borja Solaire, Ward Sandler, Eric Lima, James Sauers, Travis Fisher, Matt Buckley, Russell Brown, Avendra Sasse, Prady Yumnes Schinbecker, Noah Praill, Robert Simplicio, Colin Gray, Josh Smith, Ivan Kerkovic, Brian Ray,
Jason:
Shane Smith. Just one thing about Brian Ray. I'm not sure if he's if I'm not sure if he's found a job yet, but he is incredible. If you are looking for an incredible product manager type person or product lead, he would be an incredible hire, Brian Ray. Search him up.
Jason:
R h e
Jon:
a. Yeah. Shane Smith, Austin Loveless, Simon Bennett, Michael Sidfer, Paul Jarvis, and Jack Ellis, my brother Dan Bruta, Darby Frey, Samori Augusto, Dave Young, Brad from Canada, Samu Schuichert, Mike Walker, Adam Devander, Dave Junta.
Jason:
Junta. Guess what I'm sending in the mail? What? I'm sending Junta some stickers.
Jon:
Oh, nice. And
Jason:
guess how I wrote Junta? G I u u u u u u u n t a.
Jon:
Nice. Nice. Yeah. I talked to, I was chatting with Dave last week, and might be it might be interesting to have him on the show because of because of the work he does and where he works.
Jason:
Oh, man. Dave can come on the show anytime. He's got a he's he's got a permanent seat here.
Jon:
So maybe I don't know. Maybe we'll do that soon.
Jason:
Oh, man. Could you imagine? Just that would be a one word episode title. Yeah. Junta.
