The Robot Factory

Jonathan and Caleb discuss how we can use actual robots (artificial intelligence)

Show Notes

Jonathan and Caleb discuss how AI might be helpful for content writing and how agencies might use OpenHouse.social. Also, this episode shouts out to the moms that are listening. Hi Moms!

Also, checkout our Instagram page, @therobotfactorypod for a collection of AI generated alternatives to our podcast cover art. If your interested in AI generated art, we mentioned DALL-E but we also recommend checking out Midjourney

[00:30] We can accept payments now
[06:02] What do real estate marketing agencies do
[16:36] What's left to do

The Product: OpenHouse.social

Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com

Twitter: @twostoryrobot

Instagram: @therobotfactorypod

The Product: OpenHouse.social

Newsletter: factory.twostoryrobot.com

Twitter: @twostoryrobot

Instagram: @therobotfactorypod

Follow Jonathan: @thejonotron

Follow Caleb: @calebissharp

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.

Caleb: I really want to start
with hello for some reason.

Jonathan: you can say, hello, you
do you do whatever you want to do.

Caleb: Okay.

Hello everybody.

And welcome back to The Robot Factory.

I am one of your hosts, Caleb Sharp.

Jonathan: And I'm the other
host, Jonathan Bowers.

Good intro Caleb.

Caleb: thank you.

This is episode 9, 8,

Jonathan: who knows some
of these other episodes?

I might, I might

Caleb: This might be episode three.

Who

knows?

We do have billing setup now.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Caleb: there's nothing stopping us
from just make it heaps of cash at this

Jonathan: heaps, oh, money

Caleb: Like Scrooge McDuck levels of cash

Jonathan: just a big
pool of coin that we dive

Caleb: coins specifically, I set it
up so we can only get paid in loonies

Jonathan: Nice.

So yeah, we've, we've got billing
set up, which, which ended up

being, not that hard, right.

It was maybe how much work,
how much effort that take?

Caleb: Well, I think we
actually, we talked about this.

I tried to guess how much

Jonathan: Oh yeah.

Caleb: Like I think, I think I said one
day, and then I said to just in case.

Jonathan: Two, just in case days.

Caleb: I think the guts of it ended
up being that amount of effort.

I think it was a lot more complex than
I thought it was going to be, but I

Jonathan: Yeah.

Cause there's some edge.

There's some funny edge cases, not
edge cases, but like stuff we've never.

Uh, done this before, like we've
worked on lots of products, but we tend

to just hand them off to people and

Caleb: Yeah.

Jonathan: either do invoicing
some other way or whatever.

Um, but it's kind of the first time we've,
we've really integrated with Stripe and

Caleb: We never really had like
revenue directly from consumers.

Uh, product

Jonathan: yeah, I mean, what, what were
some of the, some of the challenges

that you hadn't really anticipate?

Which if we were to like talk to
somebody about like, they would

say, yeah, this is kind of obvious.

Caleb: Yeah.

I mean, in hindsight it's like, well,
obviously, but it's a good thing to know.

It's there figured out, especially
specifically with Stripe, how to do it.

Um, but it's mostly with subscriptions
and how subscriptions work cause.

I don't know, I just assumed subscriptions
could either like exist or not exist,

but there's like a lot more states
that you can have for subscription.

You can have a subscription
that is active and recurring.

That can be a subscription that's active.

Um, but it's going to
expire and not recur.

You're gonna have a subscription
that's expired and you have the

ability to resubscribe can have
a subscription that's canceled.

There's just, yeah,
there's a lot of states.

some of them are harder to
deal with that than others.

for the most part Stripe makes it pretty,
pretty easy to deal with, which is nice.

And it still does all the heavy
lifting of actually like collecting

the money, which is really

Jonathan: Yeah.

Caleb: the hard part, because if something
goes weird with a subscription, I mean,

we can, we can just manually fix it.

So it's not the end of the world.

yeah, it's pretty sweet.

There's like an account page now.

It's.

Thankfully all the billing
management is handled through Stripe.

So I didn't have to implement all of that.

Cause that that's a lot.

Jonathan: There's a lot of
stuff you just don't have to do.

We thought we could get away
with using this feature in

Stripe called payment links.

Um, but that, that ended up being
not quite, quite what we wanted.

So we just sort of integrated a little bit
more tightly with Stripe, but that's fine.

Um, I was amazed at how fast it
was to set up a Stripe account.

Like you were ready to do it.

said, give me some, give me some time.

I'll go and focus on this this morning.

Um, it, it is like the third
time I've done this though.

Cause we've got another product
that we've set up a Stripe account,

but um, I'm still not like super
practiced at it and I'm not sure.

But this is what they do is just
create Stripe accounts all day.

So I don't know how much experience
you can get from it, but it was fast.

Like I, you know, it punch
in the banking details.

I don't know how they verify that
they must have already know it because

it's the same banking details as
our, we have other Stripe accounts.

And so it's the same banking details.

So I didn't have to go
and verify anything.

I'm pretty sure I had to do that

Caleb: wow.

Jonathan: once before.

Um, but yeah, you just punch in,
just punch in some legal information.

And it's just kind of ready to go.

It took maybe half an
hour and yeah, it's just

kind of done.

pretty slick.

I have no idea how complicated it is
to transfer these accounts around,

but it is a separate Stripe account.

That's not, that's not the same
account as, um, when we invoice

other customers for other things
that we have that are completely

unrelated to OpenHouse.social

so we've

got a separate, a
separate account for that.

So fingers crossed.

We get acquired It'll be really
easy to just transfer this thing.

but I was amazed just how fast
it is to start this stuff up.

It's super cool.

I was reading, I was doing my best to
understand if this is unintended use case.

And it seems to be that, like,
you create just separate Stripe

accounts for different product lines.

even if you don't intend on having them
be acquired, it can just simplify a lot

of things, because one, you just sort
of have You know, a little bit more

control to who has access, um, little
bit cleaner on the products we need to

finding products and pricing and stuff.

and it can all go back
to the same bank account.

You don't need like a separate bank
account for each, for each Stripe account.

So that was pretty sweet.

I'm excited to get some revenue in there
because at some point I want to also

plug in those charting libraries that
let you share revenue numbers publicly.

I've been listening to a few podcasts
of, uh, I can't remember the name of it.

They were just acquired and.

Eh, anyways, they said that like, you
can do this with Stripe by itself.

Like it has some metrics or analytics
or something that you can, you can,

I don't know if you can share them,
but you can definitely look at them.

And they said that they aren't very good.

Um, and there's a better, I mean, of
course they're going to say that I

suppose, but I believe it, and like,
like bare metrics is one example.

I don't think they have sold, but
anyways, like bare metrics is, uh, a

service you can plug your Stripe account
into, and then you get this, this

public dashboard that you can share.

I hope that we can also share
the, uh, website analytics too.

We've got that set up.

we're using Fathom, which is cool.

Cause it's pretty privacy focused.

So we don't have to have those silly
warnings asking you to accept things.

Cause we don't, we don't
really track anything.

So I was also talking with a friend who.

Uh, runs a small agency.

And so they do social media
management for a real estate agent.

he had some interesting things to say,
like, he, he said that ultimately like

making these images isn't that hard.

Cause they he's very
comfortable using Canva.

Um, it takes like five minutes,
five minutes of his time.

but the thing he said, oh.

He, I asked him if it was well,
what if, what if you could just

like, make this all go away?

Is that, would that be helpful to you?

He's like, oh yeah.

It's kind of like a pain in the butt.

Like it's just, it's distracting.

It doesn't take very long, but
it's like, Ugh, it's tedious

and I don't want to do it.

And it's only five minutes though, so I
don't know how much that's worth to him.

But the thing that he said was.

Was a real pain was actually getting the
information from the customer, like from

the real estate agent about what to post.

And so he gets the images and,
he said it's hard to like get

them to write, the writing.

Caleb: actual content

Jonathan: yeah, like the caption or not
the caption, but yeah, like when you, you

Caleb: I have a description.

Jonathan: Yeah,

the description or the like on
Facebook, I think it's just called the

post, like the body of the content.

it's hard to get that.

And, um, coincidentally, I also got

access to a DALL-E the, this

week and was playing with that
and like really having fun time

generating, generating art.

And then it was poking

around with GPT-3, which is

this

other, so DALL-E is a, um,

AI generated art.

if you don't know what it is, just go look

it up.

D A L L dash E I

think, um, and then one of
their other products, this AI

company is GPT-3.

I don't

know what that stands for, but
it's a, it's a natural language.

Um, to also it can, it can create.

Writing for you, you can just give it
prompts and sort of tell it what to do.

And it generates this stuff.

And so I was playing around with
generating, um, descriptions of

listings by just sort of bullet points.

Like just, I just like type in some
bullet points of what was there like

three bedrooms where it was located,
what it was located near that's it.

And then told, told a
GPT three to generate a.

Uh, property listing description
for it, for Facebook and it

produced some really good results.

So I like, I really want to plug this
in to the app because he said, that's

like, one of the biggest problems is
trying to come up with this content.

And so, I don't know, it feels like
it wouldn't be hard to wire that stuff

Caleb: Yeah, I think it'd be super
cool because I don't think I've seen

like an actual, like kind of business
use case for GPT-3 that actually

like doesn't seem super gimmicky.

Jonathan: Well, I mean, I think I I've,
I've seen lots, like there's, there's

a lot of really cool tools out there
that I think, um, work really well.

Like,

Caleb: but it's like exactly
solving a specific thing

that people are annoyed with.

It's not like a weird way of
solving it or like a roundabout way.

So me it's like it it's literally
exactly what your friend asked.

People don't want to
do it cause it's hard.

They just it's frustrating.

Cause it's, it takes up time and it it's

Jonathan: Yeah.

So I kind of want to.

Explore adding some of those features.

We're not going to do them right away.

I think we need to get some, get some
people, like at least trying the thing

out and giving us some feedback and
then tease, tease out some of that,

some of that idea of adding AI to it.

Um, but it looks phenomenally easy.

Like it's, it's almost
offensively easy to add this.

Um, based on, based on, uh, just
a little bit of reading I was

doing around how the API works.

so I'm keen, I'm keen to
explore that a little bit.

I mean, one of the reasons I

was using DALL-E was to generate,

I was playing around with generating
different cover art for our podcasts.

So I'm going to, I'm going to share those,
um, cause they're, they're super fun.

They're very impressive.

Um, I'll share those in
the, in the show notes.

Um, but so since talking with, uh,
my buddy who runs the agency, he

sent me a few, um, uh, for real
estate agents that he, uh, manages.

And so one of the things
that I've noticed.

And then I've started poking around
in a few different, real estate

agents, social media presence is
it's not always pictures of listings.

Like sometimes it's pictures of listings.

Sometimes it's also like little
tips as like big sort of, I

don't know how to describe it.

Like, if I look at someone's
Instagram page, it's like

pictures of interesting things.

And then occasionally like a quote or a,
uh, a little bit of advice or something.

And so I thought, I thought
that was interesting.

I don't know if we want
to do anything about that.

But the other thing that I noticed is
they were rarely posting single images.

It's almost always.

Many many photos, right?

Like it does.

I agree with that.

It doesn't make sense to just post a
picture of the outside of the house.

Like they're posting a picture of the
outside of the house at the, you know, the

bedroom, the dining room, the bathrooms.

Um, maybe not all of the photos,
but at least at least more than one.

And I think, again, I don't think
we should act on this just yet.

Cause it's just a suspicion or a hunch.

I think that we'd want to be able to.

Cater to that.

So if a, if a real estate agent is
uploading, say 5, 6, 7 images, um, how

do we return those images to them, or
even just automate the posting directly?

So they just upload some images and
we like do the cropping, do the, um,

do the template to get that image
with their face and their logo and

their phone number and stuff on it.

Maybe on the first one, or
have you just on the last one.

Um, match it

up with GPT-3 and get the

nice description.

It just posts straight to Instagram.

To LinkedIn, to Facebook, whatever.

Um, but also catering to that idea of
having more than one image and making

it like, I dunno, like, as I'm looking
through, as I'm looking through somebody's

images as you scroll through, the
edge, the edge is strange sometimes.

Like sometimes it's like,
am I actually looking at.

A divider in the middle of the
room, or just because of the way

the pictures kind of line up.

I wonder if, if it's like, I wonder
what it is that I'm actually looking at.

And it makes me wonder if, if
there's some interesting thing where

we could like, sort of tile them.

Across and have like a little bit of
overlap between images to one, like

a, it's a technique that we often
use in when we're building apps to

signal that you can, you can swipe
through something is, will sort of

tease out the fat or hint at the fact
that there's something else over here.

And so like show you a little piece
of it, like the left edge of it on the

right side of your screen or something
so that, you know, like, oh, there's

something over there I'm gonna slide over.

Could we do something like
that on Instagram posts.

And so you could have the picture of
like the main listing, but just slightly

to the right of that is the hint that
there's something else to swipe through.

And I know there's like indications in
the Instagram UI that shows you that like,

yeah, there's like more pictures here.

You can see the little dots down there,
so you can, you can roll through,

but could we make that even better?

Yeah.

Caleb: Interesting idea.

Yeah.

I know what you're talking about though.

There's no gap between pictures on
Instagram and you swipe through.

I think sometimes people use that
the post, the thing, like a Panorama

or something and then cut it up
and then it looks kind of cool.

Cause

Jonathan: I like that.

I think that's

Caleb: scrolling through one image.

Jonathan: I think that's kind of
cool, but I think you could, I

think you could do that in a way.

That's a little bit, more deliberate
about the fact that these are actually

separate images, not, not a single
image that is cut up into smaller

pieces that you're scrolling through

Caleb: Maybe, I don't think Instagram
users have trouble knowing when

there are multiple images or not.

Because like you said, there is UI and

Jonathan: no, I suppose not.

but even still like, like I found myself
as I'm scrolling through that, that post

sort of wondering, am I looking at the
edge of a photo or am I looking at a weird

wall divider in the middle of the room?

Because they were sh they were,
they were pictures of rooms.

And often it was like on the right
side of the one picture was a wall.

And in the left

right next to it was a wall.

Caleb: It was like some non-Euclidean

geometry of a house.

Jonathan: Yeah, my shooting, like
directly at the wall, the corner

of a room, like, what is this?

And it was it just like, it just
jarred me momentarily at that.

Oh, I wonder, I wonder what this would
look like if it was a little bit more

deliberate and like clearly defined.

And then I think it also gives us some
opportunity to add, add some more.

Um, I don't know if some more, some more
words or some more decorative content

or decorative imagery or something.

To just give it a little bit of pizzaz.

Caleb: yeah, I think

multiple

images would be, yes.

Jonathan: yeah, and, and giving,
giving the user some choice about how

those will look when the generation,
cause I don't think it makes sense

to generate them all using the, using
the template that we have currently.

They shouldn't all have the real
estate agents face and logo and price

and that kind of stuff like that.

That be on one of the.

Caleb: I think having different,
like maybe pages would be a good one.

But different

Jonathan: Yeah.

Pages.

Caleb: of pages, I guess.

So that, like, I don't know, it adds
a little bit of kind of authorship and

creativity for like a real estate agent
or, or whoever's doing the social media to

like pick and choose what they want to do.

So it doesn't feel so robotic.

Jonathan: And I also think like the other,
a couple of other things that I noticed,

what, well, one thing that he shared with
me was, um, his client shared with him

that they get compliments all the time
from their real estate agent friends about

how great social media page looks like.

And so he, like, he's trying to
turn that into referrals, but,

but people really compliment this,
this, uh, this real estate agent on

the way their social media looks.

And so I think that's
like, I think that's an.

I don't know, that's an
interesting point of pride, right?

Like to be like, have people
say, Hey, this looks really good.

Right.

I think that's, I think that's a nice
feeling to try and create for people.

So the other thing that I noticed
is, maybe this is just the

example that he showed me because

he's using a Canva template.

It's not

actually changing that much
between posts and you really start

to notice the lack of variety.

and so one of my fears is that the
template that we have right now is

going to be tiresome very quickly.

Like after three or four posts, it's
going to be like, okay, look, I don't,

I'm, I'm sort of sick of seeing this.

like we've never actually taken
the images that we've, created and

mock them up as what it would look
like on someone's Instagram page.

If you go and look at it, I
bet it doesn't look very good.

Even if they're, even if they're
sort of breaking it up with

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What is The Robot Factory?