Alan: Anyway,
Mario: Yeah, now we are, so,
Alan: Yeah.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah, I've been doing a little bit more marketing lately.
You might have noticed.
Yeah, not as much as I would like to, but I have been putting
a little more focus on that.
I haven't been back to the code base in a while.
Yeah.
I've been you know, working on the website and.
Alan: I mean, I, you know, so we talked about before I think this.
That you need to add right now.
Is there everything that you've got it's, it's workable as a product it's usable.
It's billable.
So, you know, I know that's always a difficult, it's easier for
somebody else to say that than yourself I'm at the same situation.
Right.
It's like I could build these beta users, but I still don't feel like I should,
but even though I probably could right?
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, especially when these kinds of issues pop up, it
makes me feel uneasy about that.
You know, I feel like it's not quite solid.
It's not really there because all these little things can pop up.
But I I'm getting ready to go back to the code base and
start working on the product.
And I think I mentioned last time that I'm trying to.
Get into a routine where I spend one week doing product development
and one week doing marketing.
And so for the past few weeks, this, you know, I just thought of
this recently, but for the past few weeks I've been focusing on other
things other than the product itself.
So, you know, marketing stuff mainly
. Last week, my goal was to wrap that up and this week start with, you
know, getting back to the code base.
But it didn't turn out that way because I still had some lingering
things tying up some loose ends.
I was writing a blog post that I just wanted to finish it and post it.
And so I did that yesterday and today is.
Alan: So, so the, I read the, I read it in the.
MegaMaker right.
So you post it for comments.
So that's really cool.
I think that's that's a really good start for the type of content
you're going to want to '[publish.
Right.
It's almost like.
I mean that that's, that's a good summary post of like, here's some great tips
for, you know, basically getting going.
In fact, some of them, it might be nice to all actually incorporate into your like
session startup process rate, almost like, you know, w whenever, when someone starts
a session, it might be worth, you know, just reminding, making sure that you've
done these things, you know, turn on, do not disturb, or, you know, maybe we're.
You know, closing other browser windows, if you got too many open,
that kind of thing, just to like give them a gentle nudge because I
mean, I forget to, you know, hit the, do not disturb thing all the time.
Mario: Yeah, I do that too sometimes.
Alan: So yeah, that potentially, especially for guests, because I
mean, if you're the one recording the podcast yet, you know, all about it.
Right.
You know, you in theory, if someone's not as used to doing it, then yeah.
Just kind of giving them a gentle nudge to let you know, maybe it's worth
rebooting before you start recording, just to make things go smoother or,
you know, close, close your other browser, windows, something like that.
Mario: Yeah.
And even for experienced podcasters sometimes you're just in a hurry, I've
gotten, I've had conversations with podcasters where they say, you know, yeah.
Sometimes I'm just in a hurry you know, running from one thing to another to
the next and I, you know, finally get to getting ready to record and I forget
to, you know, do something I forget to hit record or something like that.
Alan: I mean, this is one of the, the really nice things about Fusioncast
though using browser recording.
Anyway, is it minimizes the amount of stuff you have to remember to do?
Anyway?
I mean, having, you know, done recordings, even just a simple recordings is
just, there's a lot to remember unless you're doing it everyday.
Right.
It's so knowing that.
You've got a load of those things taken care of, just making sure that it's
recording there's backups there's you know, double ended recordings, it's
split it's that that's all taken care of.
So you can focus on your actual conversation.
Right.
So that, that's where I think was like, nudges, just as you start the
call, like, ah, just make sure, you know, remember these things even.
You know, just making sure that the microphone is in a good
position and that kind of thing.
It might be just a nice little reminder as part of the the call stop for.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good suggestion.
I'll look into that for sure.
Alan: I mean, I've been I think I mentioned last time, you know, I've
been looking at this effectively, the onboarding I know people
really don't like that word.
I'm kind of impartial to.
And there's always someone and she's like, I hate this word so much.
It's I can feel that a little bit.
But just that the process of winning someone overall convincing them,
you know, what to do or why they should be doing this is really hard.
So I've been experimenting with a few different ways that, that seem
okay to me and not too intrusive.
You know, like I've been playing with these, you know, the guided tour.
little pop-up windows.
And I'm, I'm not convinced.
I mean, I always that they are knowing me, but I know they helpful to some people.
So I'm like, eh, it's kinda just solve it with just, you know, a modal that kind of
welcomes you and gives you an explanation what to do and hope that you can figure
out the rest or do I, you know, put little pointy arrows to everything on the
screen and guide them through the process.
So I might end up trying a few different things, but I guess the.
Shock for this was that, that software to do this as in that
there's a million and one guided tour.
I forgot what they call it, a digital adoption platform,
something there there's a term that I discovered that I didn't know.
It's really expensive or at least bootstrapper's point of view Like the,
the, the average normal price for them.
It's like, you know, $250 $300 a month.
And I'm like, wait, wait, what?
Mario: Wow.
Alan: Yeah.
I mean, I found one help here.
That is like 60 or 50 or 60.
And that it's it's obviously not as feature rich is obviously a smaller
company, but even that that's by far the cheapest one I can find Intercom has a
And new as it start up kind of thing.
And it's like, oh, it's only $75 a month for the first year.
And of course, then it goes up to $350 $400, $500 a month.
And so even though it's like, do I want to get dependent on that?
And then realize I've got to pay $500 a month.
I'm like, oh really?
So the going with just a simple, put a few modals up and tell you what to do
is it's nice from a cost perspective.
And not, I realize starting to rely on another external service
that Yeah, it's one, expensive.
And two, just another thing to, to rely on is probably what I'm
going to do at least at first
Mario: And another layer of complexity, because now it's some integration that
you have to, you know, take care of.
Alan: it's another JavaScript file to throw in the ever growing list of things.
Well, I've actually removed the feedback button thing I had.
So I was using a service called feedback fish.
Mario: Yeah, remember that
Alan: Yeah, and it's nice.
I like it.
There's no, I've got no issues with it, but people just aren't using it.
So, and I needed the space.
I saw I'd probably put it back as something else in
another dropdown or something.
But it, I th the only people who used it were people.
Could've just emailed me anyway that people I know, and there will people
I hoped would use it as in customers.
I don't know.
And, you know, have a it don't have a relationship with me anyway.
Just actually didn't use it.
They're the people who emailed me about it rather than the friends that
are using it, use the button, which is the opposite of what I expected.
So I'm like, oh, okay.
I'll probably put it back, but I removed it for the moment anyway.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: What other marketing efforts.
Have you been up to?
Mario: Well actually these past two weeks, haven't been, like I was saying haven't
been as productive as I wanted them to.
be.
Just because of other things going on, you know, with work and just
haven't been able to find enough time to work on Fusioncast related items.
So just managed to get those, you know to write that blog post and,
you know, post on Twitter here and there and interact with people
more, get out there a little more.
Also part of these past two weeks besides that in the back of my mind, I've been
thinking about this main issue that I need to resolve that recording issue
that, I've been having with Fusioncast.
So I've been, thinking about it and, you know, doing some research
here and there trying to brainstorm.
How I can go about it to, to fix that problem.
Alan: I mean, I guess that's, that's your, probably your biggest engineering
challenge right now is making sure that this is resolved for good.
Right?
So it might be worth just yes.
Spending the next engineering chunk of time, rather than the marketing
chunk of time of just like that.
That's the thing to fix.
Right?
I mean, everything else is pretty much, you know, there's this endless,
like everything can be improved.
Right.
But everything else is fine.
But if that isn't a hundred percent reliable, then that's a problem.
Right.
Mario: That's an issue.
Exactly.
And that's why it's been in the back of my mind, but it kind of
slowed me down in in trying to focus on the market and the marketing stuff.
During that time that I was supposed to be focused.
Oh, that was supposed to be dedicated to marketing.
You know, I've been thinking about this and then kind of like
gravitating towards that and how am I going to fix it and brainstorming.
And so it wasn't like the best situation, you know, that mental
model wasn't really the best.
So,
Alan: get this thing fixed and then you can focus all of your
attention next time on that.
Right.
Mario: Exactly.
yeah.
Alan: I do like the idea, like the video you put on your homepage.
So I like, like the redesign, the, the video that's cool.
Mario: oh, cool.
Thanks.
Alan: I, I do like video explainers and walkthroughs and much more
so than just, you know, an animation and advertising marketing
animation is like, no, it's again.
Puts that, the name, that person there just an obvious, this is what the
product is and this is how it works.
I like that.
And I'm, I'm going to record another one for my onboarding kind of thing.
So that's just because the product.
Changed enough that it's not entirely like that anymore.
It's not a hundred percent the same screen anymore.
And I just think I can do a better version of that now.
So I'm going to try and record that this well, I will record that this week.
There's no try.
Mario: There you go.
Yeah.
And it's, it takes, It takes a long, a long time to get, to
Alan: a surprisingly amount of time, right?
Just to do something simple, like, you know, a 30 second or a one minute
video is like, it's a lot of work.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
We had to do it over and over and over and tried different things.
And when we thought it was done and it was working, then we thought it was something
else wasn't working and did it again.
And then editing took forever too.
So, but It turned out good.
I'm I'm my worst critic.
I'm never satisfied with anything I do.
So, so,
Alan: know.
Mario: you know.
so to me it's like it's, it's good enough.
just put it out there and but I I've gotten pretty good feedback about it.
Alan: Cool.
excellent.
No, I mean, it's a, I say it's whole aisle feels like it's coming together.
It's I think at some point you're going to have to almost do.
I don't want to say a launch because it's, it's hard launch is not easy
or feasible to do on your own.
Not, not very manageable anyway, but yeah, you're, you almost need a kind of like a
deadline or some some moment in time when you can say, okay, it's, it's actually
live and you know, there's nothing.
There's no hesitation in giving people a signup URL.
Right.
I guess that's the thing, which for me is like, it feels like, it feels like
it's forever getting further away, even though in theory, it's getting closer.
It just feels like that the amount of stuff I need to do to, to
be comfortable doing that feels like it's it's ever increasing.
Right.
Even though realistically is not.
I think there's the, it's the confidence thing again, isn't it.
Right.
It's.
It's knowing that, okay, it's not mine anymore in terms of, you know, there's not
a wall that I let you in one at a time, it's like, no, just climb over the wall.
If you feel like
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: a, it's a scary moment.
And it does feel that I've got to hit that soon or else I'm
going to go a little bit crazy.
Right?
Mario: yeah,
Alan: feel the same.
Mario: Yeah.
And we risk hitting a burnout.
You know if, if we don't make significant progress and, and new
things are happening, it feels like you're just in the same spot and
you're spinning wheels and wasting all this energy and not getting anywhere.
So Yeah, I totally get it, but Yeah.
I don't really have much much of an update on my end.
I'm getting back to the code base, starting tomorrow.
My goal is to completely eliminate the need for this
recovery feature that I created.
You know, right.
Because if that's my target, then that means you know, Fusioncast
will handle every situation more reliably, you know, even if the page
is refreshed or whatever happens.
Alan: So right now, if I, obviously, if I go into, try to leave, it'll
say no, wait until it's finished.
Do you catch the tab or window close as well?
Will it stop me from closing the window?
Mario: It won't, do anything.
It'll, you'll be able to close the window or the tab or the browser,
you know, any time it won't stop you because I tried doing that and what
ends up happening for some reason.
And I may revisit this, but what ends up happening is the
camera.
Signal is interrupted for some
It's not, it's not a clean, way of handling it.
At least the way I tried it, I tried all different ways and I
couldn't get it to pop the message that you normally get without that.
Interrupting the communication or what's going on, the camera would
disappear or some weird thing would happen and I just couldn't get it.
So I might, revisit that, but
Alan: you might, you might,
Mario: the challenges.
Alan: You might.
So you might require the The recovery mode just for that case.
Right.
And if somebody does close the browser and there is a hanging a
bit of upload left, then you know that you might need it for that.
But hopefully that's the only case.
Right?
Or do you just kind of say, well, you lost that, that's it finish
the file and that's the problem.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
See, the thing is if only a few seconds are lost at the end,
I don't think it's a big deal.
I think.
Well, you know, it's, it could be handled that way and not be a major issue.
But Yeah.
it's it's, it's a, it's a tough problem to solve, at least with what I have
what I know the way, the way you know, engineering, this thing it's a tough
problem to solve and I don't know how other services have handled it.
Some claim that it's not an issue for them, but I don't really
know because I don't use them.
So.
I just need to figure it out my own way to do it.
Alan: Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah, that's a it, cause as you say, if it's only a case of oh, you lost
the last 10 seconds because everything else up until then was uploaded.
Cause you're constantly uploading.
Right.
Then, Hey, you know, well, that's your fault.
You closed the browser too too quick.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: but yeah, if it's, if it's significantly more like it's, if it's a
few minutes, then that's, that's not good.
Right.
Mario: Yeah,
Alan: And again, because you won't, as the recorder, you won't have
control over what the guest does.
Right.
But at the same time, removing that whole entire leg of the, of the process
and saying, well, there, that's just it.
Once they've closed the browser, the session ends and it's, you know, well,
you've got what you've got it removes complexity on your end and it removes
instructions and a whole, well, you know, you need to go and do this.
It's just like, it's all gone.
Right.
So.
Mario: Exactly.
Alan: There's a big yeah, that's a nice thing to do.
And just say, well, don't close the browser, really press leave
and let the session finish before you close your browser.
That's that's your problem.
So, Hmm that's I think this is one of the I, I think this also is something
I feel is It's more difficult as a solo small team is you, you want
to almost like, please everybody, you want to catch all of the cases
you want to make everybody happy.
Right.
Whereas I know if I was making that decision.
You know, we were a company and there was, you know, lots of us building a product.
And somebody came to me with that feature.
I'd be like, that's low that's.
We know that's not going to stop shipping.
Right.
That's not going to stop a shift when we put up a thing to say, that's it.
But when it's your own, you really do feel like a a much more responsibility then.
And I it's eats.
That's a really hard thing to to get through.
The thinking process is you really do feel like, I mean, I hit this all
the time with, with DotPlan, right?
There's features that I'm building that I'm like, if I was building this for a
company, I just would deprioritize and say, it's not a priority for this release.
I would literally put a line through it and say, you know what?
We're not tackling that yet.
Whereas I do feel right now, it's very difficult to say to in your mind,
I'm not going to think about that.
I'm just not a problem you want to.
You feel much more I'm not sure if the word responsibility,
but you feel like this I'm
Mario: Compelled to,
Alan: yeah.
Compelled.
There you got that's it, yes.
Mario: to make it a perfect or to make it you know, really solid.
Alan: yes.
And I think that's also difficult because I've never done.
Product management.
You know, I've done, you know, technical, leading, that's fine.
I can prioritize and organize a technical team to make sure we build
the things which need building.
But making those product calls is not something I've I've advised
from a technical point of view, but I've, that's never been my job.
And.
It's a really hard thing to learn.
I think so I actually joined a there's a product tank, Tokyo slack group that
and it's for product managers which I, I know it's that there, and I know
the role exists and I know a little bit about it, but I've never really.
Thought about it as like a community that discusses the challenges of their role.
Right.
So I'm like, okay.
So I joined this, introduce myself, they have meetups and all the rest, and they
were excited to, you know, welcome a, an engineer into their, into that group.
They say, well, you know, we'd love to hear your take on it as a, you know, as
a founder, as an engineer, trying to Come to terms with these, these challenges.
So, you know, they, they actually said, you know, would you be willing
to, you know, talk did we talk about this when things are back
in that talking kind of sense?
I'm like, well, okay.
I was just saying, oh, so it was interesting to see that, you know,
they obviously have a different set of challenges in getting engineering
to do, almost do what they want,
Mario: Yeah,
Alan: it does feel like there's a, you know, in the same way that, you
know, design and engineering has a.
Push pull relationship.
I think product engineer or product management and product engineering has
a a different set of dynamics, right?
That they both have different priorities and goals, and you need
somewhere to meet in the middle.
And
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
So I'm hoping to, you know, figure it out at some point.
I just need to spend more time and try different things and I have
some ideas of how to go about it.
I have to try it out and see how it goes.
Alan: That's all get that work in that's that's the challenge.
That's your task
Mario: yup.
Alan: No ifs or buts, just got to get it done
Mario: yeah.
Eventually
Alan: I mean, it must be frustrating.
I mean, it's obviously frustrating for you because there's, as I said,
that's the, from my perspective, that's the barrier now for you to launch
everything else is a is a technicality.
It's, you know, this there's nothing else, but at the same time, I can understand
you, you know, your hesitancy to, to want to bring on anyone else until
you know, this is solid and reliable.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
The way I see it, it's the core part of the product
Alan: This is what it
does.
Mario: it's, it's what it does.
So it needs to be more solid than it than it is now.
It is pretty good right now.
It works.
It, you know if it's used.
Properly right.
Quote, unquote properly.
If it's, if it's used within the you know, the, the normal use cases, it
works really well, but once, you know, if we get it out into those outliers,
Alan: That'd be me then I'm the outlier.
Basically.
There's only ever happens with me, right?
Mario: yeah,
Alan: Yeah.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: I'm not saying it's your fault Alan, but it's your fault, right?
Mario: no.
Alan: I take full responsibility.
Mario: Well, we'll see.
I think it'll, be fine.
I'll figure it out.
I have to tell myself that I'll figure it
Alan: Oh you will well, I, I mean, you you've solved so many of the challenges to
get this working as smoothly as it does.
This is a, it is an edge case.
And yeah, it's probably just something to do with the way we're faffing around
with setting up calls and, you know,
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: My browser issues and although I say, so I switched out of this machine, so
I I had a 16 inch I nine MacBook pro thing with you know, lots
of ramen and all the rest.
So I've switched it to an M1 MacBook air.
So our last recording that we did like two weeks ago because I was having
so much issues with it, overheating, I It was just like going crazy.
I couldn't run the, in the laptop monitor and the, an external mantra at the same
time, it would just like threatful to 800 megahertz and just like become unusable.
So I had to choose one or the other.
So I did our last call on battery because I didn't have a charger around.
I think I remember I had to end the call at the end because I'd run out of battery.
Right.
So that used an entire charge of that 16 inch MacBook pro from hundred percent
to zero in one hour and 10 minutes.
So now I'm on this M1 with like basically no fan and everything, and it's just
smooth as can be it's.
Mario: and it's 99%.
Alan: Pretty much.
Yeah.
It's nothing.
No, no issues whatsoever.
So yeah,
Mario: yeah,
I've heard great things about the M1
Alan: I mean, the crazy thing is it's, you know, it was half
the price literally as well, so
Mario: Nice.
Alan: so yeah, I, I, I'm still trying to get used to the small
screen, but you know, I can do that.
Mario: But you, you can connect it
Alan: Yeah.
Yeah.
I've got it
Mario: right?
Large
Alan: screen.
as well as
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: every time I look at it, I'm like, Ooh, this screen is
That's literally the only thing.
So
everything else has.
Mario: Yeah.
it's just you're you you're used to the other one
Alan: Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So that, that actually slowed me down development wise a little bit
as well, because just switching to a new machine takes time.
Right.
Mario: I hate doing that.
It takes forever to get it back to where you want it to be.
Alan: Better than it used to be with iCloud.
And, you know, obviously everything is in GitHub now.
You know, it's, it's either an iCloud or it's in get hub and, but, you
know, obviously things don't always go quite as smoothly as you hope.
Mario: yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: So that, that actually slow me down a little bit, but at the same time, say.
I've been trying to solve this not solve, but improve this onboarding thing.
And so the, the solution I've come up with, I, I played around
with a bunch of these tools.
I tried Intercom.
I tried Helppier.
I tried I think three or four of them.
They all Appcues was the one, Appcues is nice.
But again, it goes from zero to $250.
Literally overnight, you know, you go from What is it?
I can't remember.
They they have a limited number of displays of the help the modals
or the guided tour you can do?
Depending on how many of those you've view per month, and it's not a high
number it goes from free plan to 250 plan.
Literally if you go one over and I'm like, I I don't want to commit to that.
right now.
Especially when I'm not sure that, you know, it's, it's a lot of work to get
that set up as well, you know, just because I'd have to go through and,
you know, all of these tools pretty much work the same in terms of the like
usually a Chrome extension that you, you browse to your site to you enable it.
And then you, you know, you set up a flow.
So you say this element.
It brings up this box and you write the text for the box.
And then when you click this, it goes to another one.
So you basically set up this whole flow of of onboarding somebody
through your product and then they take them to this page.
And so there's, it's a lot of work to to actually get this set up.
And it's a non-zero cost to change either because each one you'd have
to, you know, if you decided to change from, you know, Appcues to Intercom,
it'd have to go through the whole process again, it's not just an import
you know, you input your app cues.
Onboarding to Intercom.
You'd have to go through the whole process and there's subtle differences
in terms of, you know, some of them can't do this type of button layout.
So I spent a few hours trying those out and came to the conclusion that this
isn't what I should be doing right now.
So I've just gone for what I'm doing is putting up.
So when you create an account, you get a that there's two different paths.
If you create an account and create a workspace, you get one modal, which
is basically explaining what to do.
With the, the demonstration video embedded in that modal.
You can just close that and it's gone.
Have it, I'm going to put like a help button somewhere, which will re show that.
And then when you go to the.
Like the, the, the new check-in paste of traits and new check-in, I've got, I'm
coming up with a different model for that.
So I'm writing that at the moment, which is the previous one is telling
you what the service does for you and how you should use this.
And then the check-in page modal basically tells you what to do on that page.
So this is where a guided tour with the buttons would go if I committed
to that, but I'm like, okay.
In the meantime, in the short term, I'm just going to put up a
modal and tell you what to do and hope that you can figure that out.
It's not rocket science, right?
So that's my free solution
Mario: Right
Alan: rather than committing to $250.
And I'm hoping that just gets past the barrier of people, you
know, hitting that page and going well, I don't know what to do.
If it's a reasonably concise, clear explanation then that that
will hopefully let them at least have the confidence to try it out.
and then the other one, which I haven't done yet is if you've been invited to
the service from someone on your team the person who created it or somebody
else Pulling up a different introduction modal I'll keep the same one for the
check-in page, how to use the check-in.
But for the welcome, I'm writing a different modal, which is, you
know, you've been invited to this team and this is what you should do.
So similar content, but different contexts.
Just because again at the moment that th this is actually the.
Path through the application right now is if you're invited
by somebody, because it literally drops you in, go as there you go.
And that's, it's, it's I wouldn't say it's keeping me up at night, but it's
really annoying me that this is so bad.
So this is the, the one thing that those three modals effectively I've
got one and a half of them done.
I need to write the third one and improve the, the second one.
And then that's my.
That's my big push for this week.
Really.
I'm hoping to, my plan is I want to send out some more invitations this weekend.
And I feel that this is the thing that I, I don't want to send out the
invitations without this in there, just because I'll hit the same.
I don't think I'll learn anything new by people going through the same process.
I think I will learn something new by having a better onboarding and then
finding out how people respond to that.
So that's my push for this week.
That's my, I will get it done.
Mario: Nice.
Nice.
You will
Alan: how well I have I have a clear, well, I mean the same as
this, I have a million, my things on my list that I really desperately
a high number one priority.
But again, I'm trying to apply a little bit of.
Product manager think and I'm like, okay, what are these
stopping me, Nana, none of that.
None of these are this one.
It's purely that the learning process.
Again, I could send out the invitations.
There's nothing.
There's not nothing stopping me, but I don't think I'd learn anything new.
Sorry.
Something just fell into my desk.
Eh, so yeah, the so I could send these out, but by getting this
onboarding done, I definitely feel I would learn something new from it.
So that's my goal for this weekend, well this week, this weekend.
Mario: Nice.
Nice.
Sounds good.
Wanting to ask back to those modals that you're creating.
Have you thought about using video instead of text.
Alan: Yes.
Well,
Mario: do like little screencasts there
Alan: So actually that's what I'm doing for the for the main welcome page.
I was, so I was going to put like the demo welcome video on that page.
I'm thinking I'm going to not do that and just say welcome to
the service to give a little bit more space for explanation there.
And then when you go to the create a check-in page which I'm
renaming , it's currently called.
My plans or Your plans.
I'm changing that to create a check-in
Mario: Okay.
Alan: the word plan is it's just, it's not working out in terms
of people get confused by it.
So I'm actually changing that to just create a new check-in.
I use, you know, check-in is the.
The core thing that the whole product is based around.
So that should be the button, right.
That's what you're creating.
So when you go to the, create a new check-in page, then I'm
going to put a video explaining how to use that page on there.
That's that's my plan for that.
So I have a little bit of text and then a video doing that, the.
One, actually, I guess this isn't a problem.
Because obviously I've got the Japanese English pages to do, but all the
people I intend to invite will be in English for this, the next batch.
So, and the I'm not going to pop this up.
If you're already in an already a member, this is only for new
signups, so that won't actually affect any of the existing users.
So.
So, so,
yeah, cause I think the, the, that that creates a new check-in pages.
It's not complicated, but again, it's, it seems to be the one that I've
had the most response that I don't know what I should do on this page.
And so I actually got a redesign in the works, but again,
I don't want to rush that.
It's good enough.
It's it's usable right now.
The one I'm working on is much better, but I also don't want to rush that
out before I feel it's it's ready.
And also that would confuse existing users.
If I suddenly throw in a redesign of a page without at least
letting them know what's going
Mario: Yeah, exactly.
Yup.
That's always a challenge keeping in mind those existing users and
Alan: this is
Mario: you know, not undermine what, what, what they're used to and what they yeah.
What they like.
Alan: I mean, this is it's also one of the reasons I'm not, I mean, I think
you're similarly and I don't want to throw in too many uses right now or
open the flood gates flood gates, right?
Yeah.
That's going to happen.
The theoretical flood gates all, okay.
It's anybody going to sign up please?
Mario: Never know.
Alan: you never know, right?
Once, yeah, people do start signing up, then it becomes ever
harder to make radical changes.
Right.
So I would like to get this new check-in page design done
before I, before too long.
That's kind of like my next big priority.
I've got, there's some, you know, a bunch of other smaller features that I
need to finish off or add or improve.
But the, the next big thing is the redesign check-in page.
And.
After that again, I'm, I'm reaching that point where I'm
like, I've got no excuse anymore.
I could come up with a million excuses, but I'm desperate to try to, not to.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: I try.
I try and apply a little bit of this to say this product manager thinking
just because it's otherwise it could go on forever and we don't want that.
Mario: As you should, you should.
Alan: It's hard though.
It really is.
It really is hard to make that like, like cutoff in your mind.
Right.
It's I mean, the, in the same way that it's difficult to go from marketing to
engineering and, you know, I think it's again, it's a similar kind of going
from front-end to backend is no longer.
Doesn't bug me anymore.
I mean, that used to be like more difficult to switch between.
Right.
I don't really feel that anymore.
Now.
That's the same thing.
That's kind of.
Engineering the product.
Right.
Whereas now the, I guess, as the scope of what you're doing, your,
your job role grows, there's only so many divisions you can make.
Right.
So I guess those are just merged into just engineering.
That's just writing code now.
And yeah, it's definitely a challenging step.
Mario: Yeah, yeah.
The fun of building software.
Alan: It's yeah, it's, it's exhausting at times, but
Mario: Yeah, but
it's super rewarding too.
I love it.
Alan: oh, wait.
Mario: could complain, but I love it.
I
Alan: I mean, this
Mario: end of the day,
Alan: this is, the, I was kind of you know, doing the well, you know, what if
Kind of extrapolation in your mind or, you know, what, what did you do if you
did suddenly have an influx of users and or money, what would, what would you do?
Or even if you had some kind of an exit, you know, that was potentially possible.
And what would you do?
And I'm like, I'd probably do the same thing again, right.
Probably just to keep on doing this are very boring.
And it's like, I, I can't actually think of anything that I'd rather, okay.
I'd rather just be, you know, playing video games or something in, in theory.
But I know I wouldn't want to, I know that I'd get incredibly bored very
quickly and building products that solve and make things better and make people
Mario: people's lives easier.
Alan: easier.
Yeah.
I really enjoy doing that.
And and I think this is why also I'm not a there was a Twitter
thing this week, last week.
Somebody saying, you know, that the definition or the, the Division
between like front-end and back-end is kind of the wrong division.
Right.
You know, it's, it's more division between a more realistic division
separation is between product engineering and infrastructure engineering.
And I kind of feel that it I'm a hundred percent.
Product engineer, right?
That what I, the, how I use my tools, the tools I use, the,
the, the deployment services.
I use that how everything is built.
Like the CIU is all this.
I really don't care so much about that, as long as it works
well, and I know how to use it.
But making those product decisions and trying to think through the whole.
Works and how it can work in someone's life is, is really
the enjoyable bit for me.
Writing the code is the making that happen.
And it's really nice to be able to do both.
But I don't feel so, so really that excited about the, the
infrastructure side of things.
Mario: Yeah, I think I feel the same way.
Yeah.
It's yeah, I couldn't have said it better.
Alan: I just enjoy building products.
And again, this is probably why I would find it very difficult to fit
within a, you know, one of the FANG companies is you almost can't do this.
Extended roll.
Right.
Or at least not easily.
You know, you, you would be an engineer and, and your, the scope
of your role would be very tight.
And I could just get really fidgety and antsy when that happens.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: I mean, this is why, you know, it's, I guess I've tended towards
startups for the last, I don't know what 12, 14 years probably longer.
It's just because it is feasible and it's possible to do, to be
involved in, in all, on all things.
Right.
You're not just a an engineer that happens to be in this very niche kind of area.
And it's I dunno, I don't think I'd do very well.
You know, you see the, the, well, you see the salaries and you see the, you know,
the nice offices and the, you know, and, and it would be super interesting to work
on some of these massive scale projects.
But I know I probably wouldn't fit me very well.
Mario: Yeah.
same here.
I mean, it would be interesting.
But I don't know.
I just think it's way more I don't know if it's way more interesting.
How to put this.
I, I think those, that would be pretty interesting to work in some,
you know, a huge project that affects you know millions of people and,
and, and your work is, is you know, it, your work touches so many lives,
Alan: mean, yeah.
Can you imagine working on like, you know, Facebook or Instagram or something,
knowing that there's, you know, a billion people using these things,
it's kind of crazy to think, right?
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah, but at the same, it is cool, But at the same time, if you're in
that environment, in that context, then your work is there's more going
on you know, behind the scenes and there's there's some, there are
other agendas happening, right.
but.
That these huge companies are.
Following.
And so your work is engulfed in that, and, and, and it, it has
another, a secondary effect that you probably don't even intend to have.
So, you know, I had a, wouldn't want to be.
in that situation that I'd rather, you know, work in a small, you know, calm,
a slow growth company of my own, Right.
That that has ma you know, for sure a lot less of an impact, but Hey, as
long as you can make a positive impact in someone's life it does, it doesn't
have to be millions around the world.
Alan: Right.
I mean yeah, I mean, it it's, it's th the, the scale and the scope is less
important to me than the quality.
Right.
Mario: Yup.
Alan: for me and for my customers,
Mario: Yup.
Yup.
Alan: is important.
Mario: That's it.
That's it right there.
Alan: it's but it's sometimes it's I think also the, I mean, this, the
whole startup culture is I sometimes feel that even though I've been with
it since the beginning, you know, at the end, even before, before it, right.
You know, my first web product I sold in what, 2002 and I guess,
no, it's not value web two dot.
Oh, right.
You know, And it, but it feels so alien to me to kind of read about
what startups are considered.
And it's like, are these, even though you talking about the
same thing is kind of weird.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah,
Alan: But so just, you know, forge your own path, work out what works for you.
And it's it, as I said, I'd probably just be doing the same thing, even
if you know, that plan was bringing in lots and lots of money, which is
it's, it's kind of I don't wanna say refreshing it's it's like a release to
know that, oh, well the whole, and this is what I should be doing anything.
Right.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
Alan: in some ways.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
Alan: Cool.
Mario: right.
So,
Alan: the, how's your editing going by the way, next episode.
Mario: Oh, yes.
When it's talk about that I, I edit I'm editing the next
episode and I had a weird.
issue with garage band where one day I was editing and everything was fine.
And then I stopped for the day and the following day I came back to it.
I left it open, so, you know, it was in the background and I came back to it.
And now there's no audio.
Everything is.
And every, Yeah, And the waves are there of all the audio from all the tracks.
But when I try to play it and preview it, I can't hear anything.
There's nothing.
And I don't know what it's doing, so I need to figure that out.
I don't know if it's my computer or yeah.
I've played with all.
Yeah.
I played with settings and you know, all the settings within garage, banner.
I mean, I didn't to change
Alan: Yeah, just like it's gone.
There's no audio.
water.
Mario: Yeah.
I just, you know, I left my computer, came back the next day
and weird, you know, no, no audio.
So I don't know.
I'll have to figure that out.
But other than that, yeah, just hopefully I'll get it to,
Alan: Like expo, you can download like a trial of logic pro which imports
GarageBand may be worth late doing that.
The, I think it's a 14 or 30 day trial of logic.
Just seeing if that yeah.
Cause that's, Apple's basically pro GarageBand.
Right?
So it might be worth seeing if it loads in that all send it to
me and see if it loads on mine.
It may just be some weird thing crank.
Mario: yeah.
Alan: I've never heard of that,
Mario: yeah, yeah,
Alan: especially if you can see the wave forms, there's like the
there, but I can't hear them.
Mario: Yeah.
Yeah.
I got to try it again after I restarted my computer.
I didn't, I mean, I've restarted my computer since then and
I haven't tried it again.
So maybe, maybe it'll clear up on its own.
Yeah.
Alan: How was the editing going for?
That was, it was getting there.
It was going
Mario: yeah, it, yeah, it's going okay.
It's still.
Alan: than you expected.
Mario: No, I still quite a, quite a bit of editing that needs to be done,
but I think as we progress and keep recording, it's getting a little better.
So hopefully it'll take less time as we move forward,
Alan: So
his, so here's
something I was kind of thinking about.
So I attended a, a online webinar of A few days ago for it was organized
by the Sheba startup center, which is Tokyo, same way that Fukuoka the city
has like a startup advisory thing.
Sheba has only Tokyo.
So they had a this thing about accelerator.
Systems that are in active in Japan for English speaking founders.
Mario: Oh, cool.
Alan: and so one of them is actually organized by 500 startups.
And the other two are more locally based smaller, well, one of them,
small diesel ones, not small at all, but it's, it's local to Asia.
It's I think it's started around here somewhere.
Mario: Okay.
Alan: So they're all, you know, free to apply that the, the program is free.
But obviously their goal and the like the third phase of all of their
program, so that they all have like a three or four month program, you
know, Th that are all virtual at the moment, which is kind of nice.
But they all have you know, there's a few hours a week that are basically,
you know, lessons, courses, ment, and then there's mentors and all the rest.
And so they're all like super interesting just because the topics
they cover are super relevant to this.
Right.
You know what we're doing?
And they're all like, you know, early stage, you know, just, you
know, around this half an MVP or have a product and all the rest.
And I'm like, okay, I don't.
All of them have this goal, which at the end of it is, and then you
can, we'll help you get funding.
And I'm like, well, I don't want to do, but I'm very interested
in all the previous stuff.
So I'm like, is it unethical to actually apply and do these things, but then be
like, I don't really so interested in it because I mean, that's their goal.
That's how they make money.
Right.
As an accelerator is that their goal is to get you to.
Participate in a funding round and they can, you know, obviously
that that's their, their goal and probably how they operate.
But I'm like, it sounds super useful, but that's not my goal.
Mario: Yeah.
Alan: I'm like, Hmm.
Mario: you're interested in the in, in the interaction,
the networking, the connections
Alan: the community, the connections, the mentorship, the,
the whole network is invaluable.
Right.
But obviously the, the third phase or the last phase is always like,
and then we help you hone your pitch which is, that's not bad.
That's helpful.
And then, you know, we'll set up a demo day and I'm like, yeah, For investors.
And I'm like, man, that really
is just supposed to, by that.
Mario: Yeah, for sure.
All right, Alan.
Again, as always.
I'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Alan: Nice.
Okay.
I'll catch you in two weeks.