Software Social

Michele chats with indie developer Benedicte Raae about getting into public speaking through streaming.

Show Notes

Michele chats with indie developer Benedicte Raae about getting into public speaking through streaming. 

Follow Benedicte on Twitter! https://twitter.com/raae
Benedicte's website: https://queen.raae.codes/
StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/

A couple friends of this pod have launched their own shows for entrepreneurs lately! Check them out:
Ship SaaS Faster (Simon Bennett + Volkan Kaya): https://shipsaasfaster.com/
Marketing Retro (Adrienne Barnes + Josh Ho): https://marketingretro.substack.com/
The Weekly Build (Marie Ng + Jesse Anderson): https://www.theweeklybuild.com/
This Indie Life (James McKinven + Dagobert Renouf): https://indielife.fm/
The Non-Tech Founders Podcast (Laura Elizabeth and Nathan Powell): https://nontechfounders.transistor.fm/

Huge thanks to all of our listeners who’ve become Software Socialites and support our show! You can become a supporter for $100 a year at softwaresocial.dev/supporters
 
 
 

Creators & Guests

Host
Michele Hansen
Co-Founder of Geocodio & Author of Deploy Empathy
Editor
Cory Stine
Audio Editor
Writer
Meghan Coleman

What is Software Social?

Two indie SaaS founders—one just getting off the ground, and one with an established profitable business—invite you to join their weekly chats.

Michele Hansen 0:00
Hello,

Benedicte Raae 0:01
hi.

Michele Hansen 0:03
You're not Colleen,

Benedicte Raae 0:06
I'm not

Michele Hansen 0:07
your queen ray of house Gatsby coming to us all the way from Norway

Benedicte Raae 0:12
all the way from Norway. It's not that far, though, because Killian is usually further away from you.

Michele Hansen 0:18
This is me waving at you from across the category. Hello.

Benedicte Raae 0:23
And I mean another famous Norwegian guy, which I don't remember the name actually rode across at one point to get food for his family. So it's he

Michele Hansen 0:31
i L. You know, the story we tell about people crossing the the the little ocean connecting us here in the Scandinavia is that the Swedes once when the water was frozen, they walked across and attacked Denmark. So to this day, it is legal. If Swedes walk across the water when it's frozen to hit them with sticks.

Benedicte Raae 0:56
I mean, that's what you got to do in this weeds walk across the ocean, on the ice.

Michele Hansen 1:02
Well, I have already learned so much. But I am excited to talk to you today, because we're going to talk about something that I think sometimes people are kind of nervous about and interested in doing which is getting into speaking. Yeah. Which is something that both of us have kind of done over the past five, six years or so I think we started speaking around the same time. Well, I

Benedicte Raae 1:27
had around before that. Oh, did you? Oh, yeah. Speaking Oh, my Oh, my when was that when I was straight out of university, or I guess like a year after. So that must have been like 2012 2013. I'll see if I can find I think some of them are recorded. We could put that in the description if we can find some like, Baby Benedicta talking on the big stage.

Michele Hansen 1:48
Okay, I didn't know that. So. So anyway, and I guess some context on you. So you're a developer. These days, you are mostly focusing on Gatsby J. S, is that right? But you kind of you also have a portfolio of products, but also projects. So you kind of do a mix of having your own SAS and you also do client work. But then you also like build in public to the extent you can on that client work as well.

Benedicte Raae 2:18
Yes. So that's where it's now coming together. Because I realized, I guess a year ago, so that I needed to kind of niche niche down, which is the gaming side, like I need to niche on something because I need a little bit of direction. Other than just being a developer who just wants, you know, to test all the cool stuff like all the developers do. And I had been using Gatsby for most of my personal projects. So I decided to kind of focus on that, and started writing daily emails and doing weekly streamings. I'd done some streaming on my SAS before. And then we kind of repackage the whole thing into weekly stream that we call the unauthorized and rum fueled treasure hunts around the Gatsby islands. So we've been doing that for a year and a half. And so we have a pirate theme going. So I'm the queen. And then my partner is the captain, and our daughter is the pirate princess, which she loves, because she has to attend these streams, because we do them, you know, at bedtime, because that's when the states are awake. So we're trying to, you know, get both the European and the American audience with that time slot. So she's like in her pajamas, doing projects, and then she joins the beginning and the end of the stream. But anyway, so yes, I was focusing on Gatsby and trying to kind of build back Gatsby authority, and then really wanting to do maintenance, I guess. And creation of Gatsby plugins was the ID. And we do have a client on that. So we're doing maintenance on Cloud binaries, Gatsby plugins, but then kind of through this work I've seen because everybody comes to me for content, because they see me streaming, they see me talking, and they see me writing and they want content, but I had been very reluctant to become like a full time content creator. Because I see kind of the, I don't know, the thread mill they're on like writing new articles, writing new articles, and, and all of that, that kind of stuff. And also they don't go that deep, often because it's mostly like beginner articles. See, now I'm rambling, but I'm gonna wrap this up. So I love creating products and seeing if I can make them into real life, like if I can make them happen. And now I realized that that is a thing that most of these companies need to be able to create content. So kind of where it's all coming together is I can have my SAS and then I can also have a portfolio of products that I'm kind of sponsored to create. So they pay me to kind of use their product in my product, and then I build in public, and then they get code out of it. But then they can also get content out of it. And I can do some of that content, but it will be based on my work and not kind of like a surface level. How to. So I think it's all coming together. So that's me.

Michele Hansen 4:56
So interesting. So you are full time solving employed? Yes, as a developer, and you have kind of this almost unintentionally diversified approach to your income, basically, that is part your own SAS projects, and parts, this sponsored projects you're doing and then also part client work. And I think the interesting thing about the speaking here is you're basically using streaming as effectively your your lead generation for all of that work. Is that right?

Benedicte Raae 5:30
Yes. So I used to be like, up until a year ago, like most of our money came from doing just regular client work, contract contracting, where often I was a team of one where I did an application for the company I was consulting for contracting for, we call it consulting in Norway, but it's contracting in English, because I'm not like business consulting, I'm like doing the work, and kind of saved up money that way. And then I tried then over the last, I guess, year and a half to, to kind of pivot to becoming a more of a separate authority so that I can do non hourly projects. So that's kind of been the focus. And we're like, starting to see that work now.

Michele Hansen 6:11
So we've mentioned stuff about streaming. And you mentioned sort of, you know, trying to become an authority in Gatsby. Can you, like, dive into that a little bit? Like, how did you first start with what when, when, when when you decided that okay, it would be better to become an authority in Gatsby so I can get basically better work doing that. Like, how did that influence the streaming and kind of content that you were creating around that?

Benedicte Raae 6:41
It meant that instead of kind of being all over the board with my content, it has to have something to do with Gatsby, which kind of centers it. And I've always found that constraints can be very liberating in a way, because then you don't your options aren't limitless. But then I've ended up writing about things that are very, you know, that is close, but not really Gatsby, but it's kind of speaking to people who would be interested in Gatsby content. And that might shift a little bit forward now that I've realized I've kind of what my authority is in is just like building things, or like prototyping out products and like launching them and having fun with them. Maybe more than the Gatsby skill, but I tried to send straight around the technology, because then you can also kind of piggyback off of the technologies, notoriety and their marketing and all of that. And luckily for me, right now, Gatsby is kind of in the doghouse. And there are other frameworks that shall not be named, who are who are kind of writing the marketing wave. But it's also since I haven't jumped ship. I'm also one of the few people to kind of do consistently put out pretty good Gatsby content. So in that way, like people who still need help with that, and are still choosing that, like they can, they can look to me. But I also seem like they really enjoy the streams where we create something, often more than, than the ones where we kind of just teach a Gatsby concept. So when I look forward, if we can combine those two more and have like a portfolio of products, like you said, where I'll keep on using gas, because that's what I really know. And I'm not interested at this moment to like jump technologies ship for the North variety, but I want to make different products. I want to test out all the services that I can integrate. And Gatsby's a good integrator. So yeah, with processing. Yeah. So that's why I kind of just wanted to niche down on on something just to focus my efforts a little bit more and like, see what that kind of focus could could lead to because I've been independent since 2010. Yes. So it's been quite a few years, and kind of just being I don't know, if you have this expression in America, maybe in Danish, where you're the potato, like, I could do anything, Dev wise, like I'll make you an app and any technology, just tell me which one, and then you're very interchangeable. Right. So that's, at some point, I guess it's good to specialize if you want better projects.

Michele Hansen 9:14
Yeah, that makes sense, though. And it's not necessarily that it's that your calling in life is to proclaim Gatsby JS Right. Like, it's this is something that you are good at that there was kind of, you know, a wave going of attention towards it, and not a lot of other people making content. And for now, it's, it's working for you to finish down there. I'm curious, you mentioned earlier that you don't want to become a content creator and you don't like writing tutorials. Do you find it easier as a developer to do streaming or videos rather than writing content?

Benedicte Raae 9:52
I do. But I don't know if that is a developer thing or if it's a me thing because I'm quite good at talking. It's been, you know, I've heard all my life that I need to talk less. And listen more, I read your book I'm trying. And also, like, all of my essays came back, you know, with red marks all over the place. And now people tell me that the writing, you know, it's pretty good, but it's still so hard. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's hard. And I find it easier if I have a project that I've created and like you, like speak from the project. And also I'm quite reactive as a person. So I enjoy going on stream doing things saying things, and then be like, Oh, I can write an email about that next week, or like, take, take parts of what I've actually been doing, or do every day, I think I would have a hard time being a full time content creator without kind of coding projects to feed, to feed those kind of articles, or feed those kind of things. And also being I've been a developer for 22 years now. So it's getting old. So, you know, I am a senior. And I don't really kind of get a lot of challenge or I don't find it that interesting, personally, to write a lot of kind of the how tos that are just how to get started with this. Kind of, like how to get started with Technology X, like I like to dig down and be like, how can we do this thing I've imagined with x, and then let's see if we can figure it out. And a lot of people respond to the bug fixing on stream like they really enjoy watching me figuring out what went wrong, and like going through that thought process. And I think that is also interesting for beginners more than just like, This is how you do it when everything is perfect. For getting off topic like how there's no that makes it like stalking. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Michele Hansen 11:55
It's like, I think there's a there's an inherent vulnerability in streaming, right? Like, if you're live on video, it's not going to be as polished as a produced video. But if you're especially if you're building something live for, like, people can see mistakes that you've made, like if you make a typo. That, but now people people might be afraid, like, oh my god, what if I make a typo. But the thing is, is if you're building something, you know, everybody loves to follow along with somebody who's building something. And they're cheering for you. But also the audience gets to feel smart that they found it, but it does, it doesn't decrease your credibility in any way. In fact, it it increases it, which is, I think, somewhat surprising to people who are afraid of public speaking.

Benedicte Raae 12:45
Yes, it absolutely. And I was so afraid of streaming. It wasn't like, I don't know, I had this thing like I'd done speaking before. And as I said, I talked too much, but coding live was just I was so afraid. And then some internet friends of mine were like you should do streaming, because I was trying to do Polish published videos on YouTube. If you go back on on YouTube, like a year or two or something, you'll you'll find some videos that I've created and edited and done all of those things. And it's hard, like it takes a lot of time. And if you don't want to be an editor, like if you, you know, if you want to build have time to build, then streaming is easier in a way because you don't have to do all that post work. So they were like, do it and I even had like a prep conversation with them where they told me like do's and don'ts because they've been streaming their game development for every Saturday for like years. And I was like, I was sweating. I was just, I was so I don't know, I it was it was crazy how nervous I was. And I remember also thinking like, why am I so afraid and if I'm this afraid that's not going to be the reason I don't do it. Like if I don't like it, I'll stop. But I'm not going to let this fear stop me from doing it. And I did it and I loved it. And I've been doing it ever since. So yeah, push through your fears and other things you can put on a poster.

Michele Hansen 14:08
And the other thing about a streaming or video compared to content that I feel like it's something that isn't really acknowledged very much from those of us who are native English speakers is that it is really difficult to create content in a foreign language even if you are fluent in that foreign language like writing in English and speaking in English. You know, those are two different levels nevermind like writing at a technical level about something as well just for I've just noticed in the people I know that like there is a much there's like a much, much bigger hurdle to that right and maybe as you said it's because you know you're used to from when you were in school, getting your papers marked back with all of this red text all over it right so like there's not as much confidence or a feeling of it. Feeling a bit not being good enough, right, which you may not have speaking. But I feel like people don't acknowledge enough just how much native English speakers have an advantage when it comes to not just coding. And I mean, like coding in general, because it's all in English. But then second creating content as well. And so it makes sense that for you, it would be a lower hurdle to creating streaming or speaking content, because there isn't that kind, same kind of like, I don't know, getting edited by the teacher kind of old fear that might come up to the surface.

Benedicte Raae 15:37
But I remember that I also in junior high school, I guess I did have a fear of public speaking, which is also weird, like, because I am the person who was always told to be quiet. Or like, quiet down, why? Maybe like maybe, like, let's, let's leave that to the shrink. But I remember just being very, and I think it's something about being when you prepare, and I still have this for speaking, because it's not the same with streaming, it's more kind of just really live live, while the talk is still supposed to be prepared. So you're kind of prepared it and you give it to the world. And you're like, you know, I put thought and effort into this, and I'm giving this to you now, and you might hate it. While if you just kind of talk at a party, it's like, it's not like something I prepared, like I didn't, I could always hide behind just like, Well, that was my spur of the moment, thoughts or whatever. Um, so I really had a fare of that. And I had a teacher who pushed me through it. And it really helped. And then on the English, notice that I went to the States as an exchange student, when I was 15, to 16. And my English teacher, there was like, brilliant, and the American school system, which probably has flaws, like all school systems, but the way they thought language or English, I guess, in, in this school was totally different from what how I was taught in our region, like it was a lot more emphasis on content, we had to give the essays to a another student to get it kind of proof read so much closer to what you would do at work, right? You never like you get stuff proof read. And I also remember when we had presentation, there was this whole like scoring system is like, you know, content, kind of parents says confidence, like different things that was scored. And that made me realize like, this is a learnable skill. While I felt like a lot of my Norwegian teaching was like, Are you know, are you stupid, like this should just be inherited knowledge, like how you write and speak your native language. But I saw that the American kids were in taught English in the same way. So that kind of gave me kind of the next boost, I guess, in public speaking. And then I was pushed by the first company I worked for, to be more of a no, I also did some university speaking. So I guess I've been taught like a lot along the way. And I kind of forget that I actually learned a lot more and now it just feels more inherent, or like an inherent skill.

Michele Hansen 18:08
So it sounds like you had two really important teachers there in school who helped you overcome your fear of public speaking, which I feel like teachers never get enough love. So it's nice to see two shout outs to great teachers there and their role in that. And you had encouragement through college. I'm curious when it came to speaking on streaming, you said you initially had a big fear there. And I'm curious, was there anyone else in your life who helped you overcome that voice of fear within you, as you were thinking about doing streaming the first time

Benedicte Raae 18:45
not really, for other than the people who've told me to do it, which is snooty HQ on Twitter, they do Game Dev streaming. So they were really the ones that pushed me into streaming. And then later on, when we started with the rum fueled, shows, that's when and a whole Queen personality that comes from my partner Rula, who is a lot more playful than I am. And he kind of created the Queen personality, for me kind of based on that I'm, you know, not the best listener and all of those things. And also, because as queen, you can like you're allowed to be a little over the top and not humble. And just like, you know, I can put on that personality in a way and people can then expect more Queen like behavior, instead of trying to kind of fit more into the to like how, at least the discourse on internet like how we always have to be, you know, all of those things. I'm not that good. If that makes sense. I bet it gives me

Michele Hansen 19:52
space. I feel like what I'm hearing here for people who have thought like hey, it would be cool to get up on to age or I would I would love to be able to do a talk right is that if, first of all, it's normal to have a fear of that, even if you are someone who is chatty, but even if you're not, it's normal to have a fear of public speaking. And also that if you have that fear, tell a, you know, your most supportive friend or partner or whomever that is that you're thinking about it. And it sounds like getting to talk that through with them, or getting some encouragement from them could help you over that hurdle.

Benedicte Raae 20:37
Absolutely. And also, for me, coming back to speaking, which is when you said like we spoke around the same time I went to diversity CFP day, which is call for it's called call for proposals. CFP. Yes, it's what the conferences put out. And then you kind of answer that with a brief of the talk that you want to give. And then to encourage more diverse speakers, there is something called the Global Diversity CFP day, I think it's correct, we'll put correct links, I guess, in the description. And I went through that I hadn't been speaking for a really long time. And I went through that, and that's kind of kick started me on the speaking again, because because they gave some good advice on like, how to come up with speaking topics. And also they did one of the hardest things is that they'll help you write your bio, which is like, sounds ridiculous. But like that is the hardest part sometimes about making these CFPs. It's like, you have to write a part paragraph of nice things about yourself that explain why you should be speaking on the topic. So they help you with that. And it was just like a good encouraging group. So I really recommend if you have that in your, in your city that you attend one of these, I think it's in January, and go to that and like, see what they have to say and keep in touch with some of those people. Because the CFPs come out, I think like late, usually late spring, and that's when you want to send in, and you send it in to like 10 places. And then you see who says yes, and then you do what all new speakers do just that you get accepted to too many. You go to too many, you get exhausted, and you never want to speak again.

Michele Hansen 22:18
It reminds me of getting rejected from tons of conferences. Like this might surprise people. Right, but like I have had so many talk proposals rejected. And I think quite frankly, most of those were actually before I wrote my book, which I guess that's something that kind of is also, you know, between between our experiences with speaking is that you do a lot of speaking, but your streaming seems to really feed that right. Like you're you're kind of build in public or like doing things in public, in a very tangible way, really helps your speaking resume, even if it's just going to speak at a meet up, which is also a great thing to have on your speaking resume and a great place to start. But also, like my talk proposals didn't start getting accepted, nevermind actually really getting invites, like, it was really until after I wrote my book, like, you know, I spoke at at Lera con in 2017, which like, Thank you, Taylor Otwell for taking a risk on us for doing that. But then it was it was pretty dry for a while after that until I wrote my book. And I think I think kind of doing stuff like that on on Twitter, you know, you start to feel that like, hey, like if I do this, and I share it with people as I'm doing it, whether that's streaming or writing or whatnot, like people are going to be encouraging and they want to hear about it. And then that's when you know, invitations start coming.

Benedicte Raae 23:53
So I haven't been invited yet, or I think maybe they were going to invite me to JAMstack calm, but I sent in my CFP or my my proposal before they they got the chance. So I think it works a little bit differently in dev conferences, usually dev conferences are community organized, some of them are for for profit, but most of them are not. And they often want to hear from new voices. And they often want a wide variety of kinds of topics. But still it's very niche down to two, you know, two technologies like there's JavaScript conferences, and you talk about JavaScript and they've they've branched out and you have more of kind of the the other types of skills, talking about communication and talking about selling and marketing. And there's there's some branching out on topics. But if you want to get into one of these, and I think those are more invited in a way or you need to have like a name, but if you talk about technology or a specific concept that has to do with the web development, then it's more how you kind of phrase your title and your little blurb about what your talk is going to be about and And as a beginner, you can make those a little spicy. And I guess why I got invited to a lot of them was like privacy first period tracker. Is it even possible question mark, question mark. And you know, it's on a, you know, female health on a dev conference. I'm a female speaker. And it's also about encryption and privacy. So you're hitting like, the trifecta of like, cool technology, and diversity. And that's probably why I got accepted to a lot of coffee. I got so many rejections is I got exception, except acceptance. But yeah, yeah, acceptances, but it ended up being like four talks for talks, I guess, are five, that fall. And that if you're not a dev girl getting paid to do that, that's a little bit hard, you get a little tired. But what I also learned from this, and that I learned at the globe, or I guess, learned by looking at the conferences, because I thought for a long while you needed to have a new talk for every conference. But you don't, you can do the same talk over and over and over again. Because talks are hard to make. And you need to do you know, deliver it more than once or twice to make it worth it.

Michele Hansen 26:11
And then you get better at it to each time that you give it. But yeah, that's helpful that you can, you can have one talk that you give, if you make it a little bit spicy, as you said, with, you know, between the technology and a topic. I mean, even as a non diverse speaker, right like that, that is something that people love. Also, I mean, coding live, like I was speaking at full stack Europe a couple of weeks ago. And there were two live coding. Talks, one from Aaron Francis Collins, co founder and like, people love that, like, people absolutely love a lot of coding talk, though, that that takes that takes serious Kohonen. To do that.

Benedicte Raae 27:01
I then do that back in 2019 when I did my first kind of speaker chore because that was pre streaming. And I think that's a little bit what started this streaming to because I've seen people live code, and I was like, I can never do that. And that's the thing that I've started to do. It's like starting to question like, why could I never do that. Or often, like getting personal here. Often it's like, stupid people always have to live code. Like, if I hear that thought in my head, then it's like you're jealous. Like, you don't mean that you're just jealous that you're not doing it, or you can't do it, or you want to do it or you fear that you're doing it, you're not doing it, for to do it. So that's when I'm like, But why and then push myself to do that thing. And then see if I enjoy it. Because some things you push yourself to do and you don't enjoy it. And other times you push yourself to do it, and you enjoy it. And you can keep doing it. And live coding. Obviously all the weird petty thoughts I had around live coding was just because I really wanted to do it.

Michele Hansen 27:56
So I guess to kind of wrap this up here.

Benedicte Raae 28:02
Hit me up on Twitter, if you want to know more.

Michele Hansen 28:06
If you were to give advice to somebody who is thinking about getting into public speaking, what advice would you give them?

Benedicte Raae 28:14
I think you had a really good advice about maybe starting at a local meetup, because it's often not recorded, or publicized. It's kind of live streamed online. So you know, if you do have some fears, it might be kind of easier to do that in front of people you might know and also that you know that it's not going to be recorded for ever and ever on on the internet. So if you bomb, which you probably won't, but like that's usually what I tell myself, like, if you bomb What's the worst thing that can happen, then I'm like, Okay, I'll do it. Because that's not that bad. So a meetup is a good way to start. And also maybe start with like a 10 minute talk, we used to call the lightning talk, because it's just shorter and easier to practice, you can practice it several times, if you are a person who would like to practice, I'm not that good at the practicing part. That's why I do live streaming, mostly, now these days. And then the second one is to go to global CFPA if you are in the development space developer space, because that is a really good way to get started and find people to workshop ideas and again, your bio, and then it's just descendants to all of these conferences. And here's the tip though you don't complete your talk before sending them off because you might get rejected like maybe nobody enjoyed your id like I sent two different IDs to all of the conferences in 2019 and only one was picked up. So you don't want to like make the whole presentation and all that work and then not have anywhere to give it Yeah, so I

Michele Hansen 29:49
guess people could also test out a topic on Twitter by streaming it right. I'm actually where do you stream yours like what what platform do you use and whatnot?

Benedicte Raae 30:01
I streamed to YouTube just because I am old. And I could not wrap my head around another platform. So I stream to YouTube. Same reason I don't do tiktoks Like I am not signing up for anymore.

Michele Hansen 30:17
So you don't have to use anything fancy, it doesn't have to be twitch or tick tock or whatever, just good old YouTube.

Benedicte Raae 30:25
good all the time, I use something called stream yard, which is really easy to get started with, because that's another thing. I don't do the fancy LED lights. And the thing is, and the commands and the like, there's there are different styles of streaming. And it's easy to kind of, I get discouraged when you see some of the kind of hotshot streamers who have been doing it for a really long time and are really into hardware. Because they do all of this like crazy setup, I tried to you know, our our thing is much more approachable, approachable and playful. And I would just go to stream yard, we start streaming, I think you can even now with stream yard, you don't even have to stream anywhere, you can give people a stream yard link, and they can just see it kind of on their platform. So it's not kind of public public, you can just invite some people, if you want to test it out. I'll be your first stream viewer, it's really good to have a year. So if you want to get into streaming, let me know when and I'll be in the comments and cheering you on?

Michele Hansen 31:22
Well, there you have it, I guess you're streaming doesn't have to be perfect, don't have to have all the lights, all the equipment, you don't even have to have a viewer because Benedict will be your first viewer,

Benedicte Raae 31:34
I will be your first viewer and you will probably have no viewers for quite some time. Other than the two people you invite.

Michele Hansen 31:42
You know, when when Pauline and I started this podcast, we were like, it's gonna be like our husbands and then like two of our friends listening to it. Like, are we sure we want to do this? And we're like, yeah, we'll give it a try. Right? You know, there was nobody, nobody really listening in the beginning. And now look at us, right?

Benedicte Raae 32:01
Look, I think but I think if it gives you energy, so that's what I've tried. And I guess that's also for indie hacking, like, there's so many advice, like you have to do marketing this way. Or you have to do things, you know, a specific way. But if you find some kind of marketing tactic that works and gives you energy, do more of that and just like not do the marketing things that are draining you if you don't have to. And it's the same thing with streaming like what you know, if the LED lights give you energy, you know, spend time setting them up, but they that hardware is not my thing. And streaming gives me energy. So even if I need one audience member though, because I need like that connector, like I need somebody and I've had streaming with nobody in it. And it's I know it's different. But I always go away feeling energized. And it's the same thing with my podcast was Benedick. I don't even know how many people I'm not even logged in. I don't know what our analytics look like. But going out of the podcasting, like I feel better, I feel energized. And I think we can make those kinds of choices where we can say no to things that are smart to do. But like, are not our thing. But you can't say no to everything, like you need to do your accounting, you know, but

Michele Hansen 33:17
yeah, but I will, I will double underscore highlight bolt that when it comes to marketing, find the things that give you energy and do those, you know, it's worth trying everything once right, but people have tons of advice. Most people are just giving advice based on things that have worked in their own experience. And if something does not give you energy, when it comes to marketing, or product development, you don't have to do it. You do have to comply with tax law, unfortunately, but thankfully we can we can hire people to do that for us. Luckily, but you know, find the things that give you energy, right? I think that's that's the big message for not just for public speaking or for marketing, but it's really for I mean, being being indie in the first place is we get the choice of doing what gives us energy and going in those directions. And you don't have to force fit yourself into, you know, writing intro tutorials. If that's really not your jam, right? You can you can find other things and just try it once. It might fail, fine, move on to something else.

Benedicte Raae 34:32
And then question yourself, are you Is it fair? Or do you or do you think you're actually not gonna like it? If you haven't tried it? You can't really say that you're not gonna like it because there are introverts who loves streaming. There are introverts who love speaking, but they might have you know, sat down and told themselves like I will never like that for me. It's been different people have told me you you would like that and it turned out there were right. But, but like there, you might not know like there's other things instead I thought oh no, I don't have an example. But there are other things I've thought I would like and like, made a whole project around it and then went did it and did not like it. So, test test it out once at least before you put it on the shelf.

Michele Hansen 35:16
Absolutely test and learn and follow your energy. And so with that, and talking about how nobody listened to this podcast except for our dear, beloved husbands like sound like they're dead are wonderful husbands. I want to give a huge thanks to all of our listeners who become software socialites and support our show. You can become a supporter for $100 a year at software social dot dev slash supporters. Chris from chipper CI the daringly handsome Kevin Griffin and Mike from gently used domains who has a nice personality Dave from rica max of online or not, Stephen from talk to Stephen. Brendan Andre of bright bits team tuple Alex Hillman from the tiny MBA Remi from hover code and rocket gems Jane and Benedict from user list. Handle Morgan Yeah, that's your Benedict. RUBIN gammas. Of sign Well, Corey Haynes of swipe Well Mike Wade of crowd sentry Nate Ritter of room steals and a mass of subscribe sense. Jeff Roberts from outstanding good person. Jackson from Mega maker, which by that you were saying you guys, you guys. Read sorry. You guys, actually your podcasting platform is somebody from Mega maker, right?

Benedicte Raae 36:30
Yes. And Jeff from outset, will be a guest on our show next week. And he's also a former client. Oh, there we go.

Michele Hansen 36:39
Jack Ellis and Paul Jarvis from Fathom analytics Matthew from appointment reminder. Andrew colver at bullet train. John Koster, Alex Of course. Oh systems. Richard from stunning Josh the annoyingly pragmatic founder, Ben from consent kit John from credo and editor ninja cam Sloane Michael Kapur of new see proposals. Chris from URL box Kaley of testlet. Greg apart from trait lab, Adam from Rails auto scale, Lena and Alex from recap, see Joe VAs allottee of rails devs.com proud mama of Apple net LLC. Anna from cradle Moncef from Ruby on Mac Steve of be inclusive Simon Bennett of SNAP shooter backups. Josh Smith of key hero.io Yes progression of form back end, Matthew of Work Cited Chris of jet boost.io Darrell Shannon of dogmatic Laravel is the community for women non binary and trans Laravel developers Arvid call. James sours from castaway.fm Jessica Melnik Damian, more of audio audit podcast checker Eldon from nodal studios and Mitchell Davis from recruit kit. Thank you so much, everyone. And thank you Benedicta. So Benedict, if people want to watch your streams, if they want to find out about your projects, if they want to see some of your speaking, where should they go?

Benedicte Raae 37:59
So you can head on over to Queen dot array dot codes, which is my website. There's links to everything or just search for Queen Ray on YouTube. And I just want to say I knew a lot more of those people that wanted to say like, Yay, but I felt like disrupting the ad read more.

Michele Hansen 38:18
All right, well, with that, thank you so much for coming on today. It has been a delight.

Benedicte Raae 38:22
It was fun. Thank you so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai