Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Journey with me as we dive deep into Aaron Francis' transformation from a coder to a teacher. Discover the intricate dance of building in the open. Aaron lays bare his path, detailing how he crafted his screencasting masterclass and managed to balance his day job, side hustle, and family life, all while forging his unique brand.
In this episode, we unpack the looming shadow of criticism and how the mere thought of being ridiculed can paralyze many of us. The paradox? Embracing this very fear might open doors you never imagined. Aaron shares his first-hand experiences, launching courses, the strategies that amplified his voice, and the seismic shift in public sharing from the days before social media to now. And if you've been itching to share your know-how through video or sound, we've got a trove of tips to boost your confidence. Dive in.
Aaron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis
Aaron's Screencasting course: https://screencasting.com/ (non-affiliate) & https://screencasting.com?aff=PXErZ (affiliate)
00:00:01 Master Screen Casting and Build Publicly
00:05:03 Building in Public
00:12:57 Overcoming Fear of Criticism
00:19:02 Sharing Expertise Through Video and Audio
00:25:39 Video Content
00:30:26 Improving Screencasting Techniques
00:43:18 Balancing Sacrifices and Pursuing Passion
The blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/aaron-francis-the-power-of-sharing-expertise/
The podcast episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d97a24b9
You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com
Newsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletter
My book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/
My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/
My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.com
This episode is sponsored by Acquire.com
Creators & Guests
Host
What is The Bootstrapped Founder?
Arvid Kahl talks about starting and bootstrapping businesses, how to build an audience, and how to build in public.
Arvid Kahl
Sooner or later, you will have to share your screen with your co workers or an audience or your boss. Why not learn how to do it right? I'm talking to Aaron Francis today, the man who recently created a really, really great screencasting course and had a spectacular launch with it.
I'm Arvid and welcome to The Bootstrapped Founder. Today, Aaron will not only teach you why even the most technical of us should learn how to present their expertise. You'll also get a masterclass in building in public and a peek behind the curtains of someone who juggles a full time job, site project to family, and a successful creator life. This episode is sponsored by acquire.com. More on that later. Now, here is Aaron.
Welcome to the show. I've been a parasocial online friend of yours for quite a while. I've really enjoyed all your work around Laravel and databases and all these juicy yet sincere takes on software development. I really appreciated those, big fan. I was quite surprised when I saw you launched very recently, creator focus product, like an info product to great success, too. So how does the developer turn into an educator with this is kind of a spectacular course on Screencasting of all things?
Aaron Francis
Yeah. Interesting story arc. Well, first of all, big fan of yours. And we've been online internet friends for a long time. So it's exciting for me to finally be here. Yeah, so I just launched a course on how to record screencasts. And you know, make them high quality and do it efficiently and effectively. But like, my background is, I'm a developer. And so kind of the story of me getting there's I've always been, I've always felt like a teacher, like I love to teach things. I love to learn things and then teach them and years and years and years ago and like a prior life, I was actually an accountant. I was a CPA and I didn't love it, but I loved it in school. And so in school, you know, when I was getting my Masters in Accounting, I was like tutoring undergrads the whole time. Like starting I think junior year, I started tutoring this course in accounting. And I was like, this is the best course ever. It's so interesting. And so then many years after I graduated, I thought, what if I just took all of that tutoring knowledge and like, put it on video form? Like the course hasn't changed in 30 years, like there are no new advancements in financial accounting, you know. And so I did that. And that was my first introduction to like, oh, I can do this kind of like one to many thing, this one too many version of the thing that I love, which is, you know, teaching people something that I care about. And so from then, you know, I did that accounting course, so, so long ago and then I did a course on a Laravel thing. And now at my current job, which is I'm a developer educator, which is perfect for me. I did a course on databases. And after that course, people were like, hey, your course is really good. How'd you do it? Hey, I love database stuff. How'd you make the course though? How'd you do the screen recordings? And I was like, wait, maybe this is one of those you know how like you and Justin Jackson. And everybody's always like, you got to listen to the market. Like, yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, man. I thought, wait, maybe this is one of those times when the market is saying something. And so I listened. And that's how we got here.
Arvid Kahl
Oh, that is awesome. Yeah, and the market, I think has proven you right, right? I'm just looking at the numbers that I can see. Because I don't think at least with me, you haven't shared any of your sales figures just yet. But I see a half a million views on the launch tweet.
Aaron Francis
Yeah, it's really interesting to me the past, like, you know, the past several years of my, you know, my build in public journey have been kind of a wild ride until, like, I feel like I'm reaching the point now where this is the first time I've kind of asked for something back really. I've been like, hey, I'm selling this thing. Can you all please help me sell it/buy it? And everybody has just been like, yeah, for sure. I'll totally help you. And it's really, like, it's encouraging, you know, first of all, but it's just so interesting. Like, I've just been, you know, out there trying really hard for such a long time. And I feel like I'm like, this is like the counter of that, like, I put out so much stuff and people. Like I feel like I have a real connection with a lot of people online. And now I'm like, hey, can you guys please help me? And they totally came through. And it's been really encouraging to see.
Arvid Kahl
It's nice to see this kind of reciprocity happening.
Aaron Francis
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
Eventually, right? At some final point after many, many years. I'm glad you get to see it because that's something I've been trying to tell people that this was gonna happen if you just keep giving, right? It's nice to see it actually happening. And so you have this success. I wonder, like, what were your expectations as you were launching this?
Aaron Francis
Yeah. So I, you know, I put in a ton of effort and energy into recording this thing. And I kind of knew that the launch would be good. But I had a range of like, this would be okay. And this would be fantastic. And I beat the okay, so I made, you know, I made more than 100 sales, which I thought would be okay. And I did more than that. And I thought, oh, well, that's exciting. It is really easy, I think, to listen to other creators and people who launch courses, who are the outliers, like, you know, you listen to Adam Lavin talk about his old stuff and he'll do a launch and it gets like, $150,000 launch. And it's really easy for me to think, oh, I should have done $150,000. And I definitely didn't. And kind of feel bad about that. But then, you know, I've made a thing. And I launched it and the goal that I set ahead of time, I exceeded that, even if I didn't get into the range of like retirement money, which would have to be, you know, a huge amount. But I also have this like, with this course, there's this great comfort of the materials can basically last forever, right? So I don't feel too bad because I know the launch will be a big spike. But then over time, I'm hoping that I can turn this into like a constant evergreen source of you know, passive income if such a thing exists.
Arvid Kahl
Well, you still have to do some marketing, right? But you can at least encourage people to market it for you, which is nice because I love the way you just phrased this earlier, when you said you didn't just ask people to buy it, but also to sell it for you. I think that's the new paradigm of using social media or communities or just your audience really, to amplify the thing that you're making, not just to consume it, but to consume and kind of give it to others as well. Just really cool. And I guess you're building a sizable audience. What are you like, 25,000 followers on Twitter?
Aaron Francis
Yeah, pretty close. I think 23 and a half right now. So steaming towards 25.
Arvid Kahl
Well, in a couple of weeks when when this comes out after we recorded, we're probably going to be there, right?
Aaron Francis
Fingers crossed
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, that's always the thing too, with these kinds of points in time when you just tell people about something, you report numbers or you're going to report that the kind of feedback that you get from the community. And the moment you report it, you're already getting way more than that, right? You put a sales number out there and that increases your sales. So the next report could be like five minutes later. That's what I love so much, the immediacy of doing something in public in front of people. And that does ring a bell because I've been building my courses and my books in front of people as well. You are very actively building in public and you shared a lot of steps for this particular product as well. I remember tweets of yours while, you shared, like your editing strategies and you just showed how much work it was. Like how much effort did you put in not just the course but also the building in public part, the reporting about the process of that?
Aaron Francis
Yeah, it's interesting because I don't feel like that part is too effortful honestly, which I think is a clear distinction to what I would have said maybe three or four years ago. Now I just feel like it's a habit. So I'll be you know, I'll be working on something. And I'll think this is interesting or like, oh, there's a fun angle here. Or there's something clever here that I could show. And I just kind of like, do the thing and put it out there, whether that's to record a, you know, 30-second video being like, hey, look, I just got you know, I just moved into a new house. Look at my setup. What do you guys think? Boom, done or like I'm editing and something like I look at the timeline and it looks crazy. And so I take a screenshot of it and you know, send that out and it's done. And so for me, I've gotten to this point where I'm really good at recognizing, like the detritus or like the stuff that would normally be thrown away if the process. I'm good at recognizing that and seeing like, not everyone is doing this all day long. And maybe they would find this part interesting. And I know from being a consumer, like from being very online on Twitter, I love when people shared behind the scenes of a field that I'm not even in. It's like, why would I ever get to see that at any other point in history. But now I'm learning how your robots pick contact lenses off the shelf like, yeah, I want to see every single video that you do about that. I want to watch it because it's cool and that's not my world. And so I think I've trained myself to realize that people want to see behind the scenes and I have lowered the bar. I no longer am the judge of what people will find interesting. Like, I think I used to think I have to predetermine what is interesting and what will do well. And now I've realized that the game of like building in public or the game of sharing is so unknowable. But it's so cheap to play, that the only answer is to play more, right? So I no longer am like, oh, this is gonna be a winner. I just think I'm gonna put this out there.
Arvid Kahl
Yes
Aaron Francis
And we'll see what happens. And the ones that I thought were winners were losers. And the ones that I thought were nothing are the big winners. And it's like, that's why you're not in charge. That's why your job is to share things. And not to pre filter or pre judge because you'll miss your best stuff, if you're pre filtering.
Arvid Kahl
I love the parallel here between what you said earlier about the content you've been putting out and the products and now the course taking off like this, it's the exact same thing with anything, right? That you share, you're not the arbiter of choice or of taste with people, people are and their attention or their capacity to take their attention and apply it to whatever you may. That is the arbiter and you never known. With a growing audience, that's also the thing. There are just many more variations and diverse ranges of people. You never know what resonates. And sometimes you just need one person to pick it up and amplify it to reach a massive amount of more people. That's great. I use speaking from my heart. I'm really, really happy you're expressing it like this because I feel many people, particularly logic minded people like us developers, right? We look at stuff and we judge. That's all we do. We are so good at judging because we have this very binary true false mindset. We are Boolean. We're technically Boolean machines, right? We think this is correct code. This is incorrect code. There's barely anything in between, right? There is no fuzzy code or at least not in the mainstream approach to coding. It's the same with, we take this. It's not the same. It's the opposite in social media. It's a broad variety of anything, of choices, of tastes, of perceptions, of things that people like things that people don't like. We don't know this, there is no truth there. There is no Boolean true or no Boolean false. It's somewhere in between. And to think that we could apply our logic reason minded framework that we have for thinking about truth and non truth. That's a mistake. So I love that you are the one that is coming from the developer world and taking this back into the developer world, right? Because it's a creator mindset and taking that into the developer world. And I love also that you're sharing with people how to create more. And it's kind of what I meant when I initially asked like, how come developers built a creater based product, but it's really not just for creators, right? Do you want to actively encourage developers to be more creative in the way that they share? What they know or even educate people?
Aaron Francis
Yeah, I think there is like this. There's a very defensive stance in like, developer communities because they've been trained that other people are going to nitpick or criticize or like, well, actually beat them to death, right? And so it's almost as if, like, the dark side of developer interactions is proving who can be the smartest. And the way that you do that is prove that the thing that somebody said is not entirely true 100% of the time or the thing that somebody said, you did that three years ago when you were working at this company. And it's like, yeah, okay, well, you know, I'm talking about it now. And so there's this, I feel like there's this learned behavior of, I have to be really careful of what I share because there are going to be a bunch of well, actually people out there that like, kind of beat me down with the criticism. And therefore, I'm not going to share and I'm not going to put myself out there. I feel I don't know how common that is outside of the developer community. But I am in the developer community. And so I know how common it is for us and that's very common. And so I think my like, journey has been realizing that I was beholden to that and like, allowing myself to, you know, succumb to that pressure and not putting myself out there for that reason because I didn't want people to pick it apart and prove that I was wrong or embarrassed me or something. And I think at some point, I just realized, like, man, the upsides and the downsides are not balanced here. Like the downside is potentially someone online, like tells me that I'm wrong or like, makes fun of me. Like, okay
Arvid Kahl
Sure
Aaron Francis
Okay. So and that's the downside of sharing. The downside of staying quiet is like, man, do I reach the end of my career wishing that I had lived my life differently and like, expose myself to more opportunities? Like oof, that's like that's a heavy and totally imbalanced equation. One time you tweeted many, many months or maybe years ago, like a stand up comedian's worst fear is to not be laughed at. What is a build in public person's entrepreneurs worst fear? And my response was to be laughed at, like, to being laughed out was for sure, my greatest fear because I didn't want people to think I was dumb. And I finally just like, let go of that and realized, oh, man, this is your life. Like, the things you want are on the other side of your fear of embarrassment. And if you don't let go of that, you're going to reach the end of your career and realize how little it mattered if people thought you were dumb and how much you wish you could have just like taken a risk. And that's what I'm trying to do. That's what I'm trying to encourage other people to do now that I'm on the other side to tell them like, listen, I've been there. I've been totally paralyzed. And it's just for me, it wasn't worth it. You got to figure out if it's worth it for you. And so that's kind of been like the, I feel like I'm in the community. And I've made the crossover from paralyzed by fear to just like, I'm doing this no matter what. And that's what I'm trying to like come on, come with me. Follow me.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, I'm glad you're doing this. And I'm glad you're doing it so publicly too, right? You had this great talk at Laracon just this year, I guess, right? When you talked about building in public, sharing the things you do to get attention, but not for attention's sake, but for the sake of the betterment of everybody's work, too. Right? That's something that and I think you're absolutely right. This fear is something really very deeply human I feel. Like I feel the same way. Whenever I put myself in front of people, which is funny because this podcast literally is putting myself in front of 1000s of people, but doesn't feel like that mostly because of just the asynchronous nature of podcasting, right? You're not doing it in front of people, but you've given talks in front of people and I've done the same. It's a different kind of world, right? To stand and get the immediate judgment from people. That's the thing because when you post on social media, that's kind of what happens, right? You're standing on a stage. You kind of by your own volition, maybe but you go and elevate yourself because you have something to say. And then you fear all those people that could potentially say something negative about you. I think, in the pre social media world, humans just didn't have to deal with us most of the time.
Aaron Francis
Yeah
Arvid Kahl
Like, when did you ever physically go on the stage and talk about the thing that you knew a lot about you? Right? This never really happened other than at conferences or whatever. So you never get used to just being confident in your own abilities in front of strangers. Pretty much. But you're doing it pretty well. Did it take some getting used to like to other than dealing with negativity, but even dealing with should I? Or am I even capable? The imposter syndrome, that's pretty much what I'm asking for. Do you still feel it sometimes?
Aaron Francis
Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, so I work at a company called PlanetScale. And I'm the developer. I'm one of the developer educators there. So that means I'm like, making videos, giving talks, you know, being on Twitter. I'm doing a lot of like, forward outward facing stuff. The trick is, I'm like lower 10th, 5th percentile of developer experts at the company, right. And so there's this weird mismatch of like, we have truly some of the smartest MySQL brains that have ever existed in the industry. Like I was looking at, I think I was looking at some of the bug reports from like, the early 2000s. And I saw my coworkers names listed on there. And I was like, what? How am I the one speaking on our behalf? And so yeah, I feel that all the time. I constantly feel that. I feel that at work, obviously. And I feel that when I'm out on my own and there is no like, there is no structure or hierarchy or like reporting oversight or anything. I'm just out there, like with screencasting.com, I'm just out there, giving you my opinions and telling you how I do a thing all the while knowing that there are people who make better, higher quality, more effortful screencasts than I do. And so there's this weird tension between like, I think the thing that I'm doing or teaching or saying is valuable. And because I am an expert in some areas, I know that there are people that do it better or are more expert than I am. And I think one of the things I've had to come to terms with is like, I am not here to teach the people who are beyond me, which sounds so obvious, right? But in your mind when you're thinking of the critics and you're thinking of the rebuttals, you're thinking of all the people you look up to. Right? So like when I'm, you know, when I'm doing an info product launch, I'm thinking, oh man, Adam Lavin would have done it better. But like, why am I like
Arvid Kahl
That's that three people
Aaron Francis
Yes, exactly! And when I'm like recording a course on how to do screencasts, I'm thinking, oh, Jeffrey Way at Laracasts probably does this better. And it's like, yeah, he's literally top point 1% of screencasters alive. And so but those are the people that I look up to, right? And so I constantly have to remind myself, I still have something valuable to say even if I can't teach the top 10 people in the world how to do it. There are a lot of other people that I can teach. And regardless of like, even if we take the vertical, good, better, best, worst like scale out of it, there's a difference scale, right? So maybe, let's say for example, Jeffrey, this is not true. But let's say I'm as good as Jeffrey Way. Right? So laracasts.com and Aaron Francis totally equals, that's fine. I still have a different point of view. Right? So I still have something different to say. And if Jeffrey were to teach a course on screencasting, he would have extremely good and valuable opinions. And mine would maybe be different. And that's okay. And so those are things that I've had to come to terms with of like, there are going to be people who are better than you in the audience and they may disagree with you. And you know what? That's just fine. And there are going to be people who are as good or worse than you who have differing opinions. And that's just fine. As long as I feel like the thing that I am offering is valuable and I've done as much work and research to make sure that it's true, I feel pretty confident. And that's another like another point on the I will put it out there. And I don't judge the response. The moment that I hand it off to the market, the community, the universe, like my job is done. And we'll see like, hopefully it goes well because that would be awesome for my emotions. But I've done my responsibility. And I feel confident in that part.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, and there's an artifact out there have your skill level at that point, that's also a thing, right? Because you can still improve. Like, if you redo the course in five years from now, right? You will have exceeded the skill level that you have right now. And from all the feedback you've gotten, you're going to make it better. Like there's just some kind of iteration there as well. And honestly, I love the kind of multi perspective thing you just mentioned. Even Jeffrey would probably benefit from your perspective and
Aaron Francis
He might pick up some point. Yes, exactly!
Arvid Kahl
People out there still want to learn from other people. They are not all of a sudden resistant to more expertise from somebody else. Because they themselves know that they don't know everything, which is kind of the curse of knowledge situation, right? You know that you don't know and you want to learn, maybe you want to find some kind of validation in other people's thoughts or you want to see just alternative ways of doing it yourself so you can explore a more creative approach, like even Jeffrey could benefit from that. But you're right. Absolutely, there's millions of people that are not Jeffrey that are behind you on your own journey that would love to be where you are right now. And I think you can kind of generalize this for every single person that does a job professionally. There is always somebody behind you on the same journey that you're on. Right? It doesn't matter if you started coding two weeks ago. There are people that are one week behind you. And they would love to know today, what you learned yesterday. That is still five days in their future, right? It's the math, right? You know what I'm saying, right? It's just a little bit, but that is already valid enough reason to share with people. And I love that you do it in video. I think one of the strongest ways to build an actual, like human relationship with somebody else is to allow them to see your face and to allow them to hear your voice best in their mind, which is why headphones are to me, the most magical kind of technology. Like your voice literally gets put into, at this point, hundreds of people's brain, just the middle of their mind is you keep telling them the truth, which is bizarre. But you do a lot of video and you do a lot of audio, obviously also with the podcast that you have and all that. How important is it for and I'm saying this as a developer, somebody who, I guess I would call myself an introvert. Maybe not right now because I'm excited about this, but most of the time very introverted. How important is it for me as a dev to use video and audio in the way that I communicate with people?
Aaron Francis
Yeah. Yeah, so I also am very much an introvert. I would so much rather be at home on a Friday night just hanging out either with my family or alone and you know doing whatever, like coding or making something. So I feel that, you know, in my bones I think it depends on what you're going for. Right? So you can get by and frankly, I'll take it back. You can do very well, never being a public or public ish developer, right? You can go into a company, work very hard, make your boss very happy and get promoted and make a lot of money and go home and garden or whatever, that's totally viable. I think a lot of people listening to this show are like, yeah, but I don't want to do that. So knowing that that's totally viable, let's talk about the other side. I think in terms of like content and publicity, I think it is kind of a pyramid. And at the very bottom of the pyramid is people who do nothing, who just who don't do anything and that's fine. Above that is some sort of like short form, publishing. So like Twitter, like, you're just putting thoughts out there. And you can kind of grow a following based on that. Some people have grown a following hugely based on that. But then above that is like long form blog posts, which take more effort. And then above that, I think you start getting into video not because it's inherently more valuable. I do think it is, but not because it's inherently more valuable. But because it is more difficult, right? And so you're thinking about, like, how am I going to stand out as a developer? Well, just tweeting, it's gonna be pretty hard. The barrier to entry on tweeting is like, is very, very low. It's still free. You know, at some point, it may be $8, but it's still free. And like, anybody can sign up and tweet 100 times a day. So you move up to blogs and it's like, yeah, you got to sit down and write. What a pain! You move up to video and you're like, oh, I gotta record video, that is a huge pain. And so with those different, like, moving up, that pyramid of what is available, I think also expands who is going to consume it, right? Because tweets will scrolll by, they'll be gone. But if you see a video, like you just don't see as many developers or you know, whatever, you know, whatever industry you're in, you don't see as many people on video. And so you attribute outsized weight and outsized authority to people who are on video because you just you don't see it's not a recency. It's an availability thing. It's an availability thing. So you think like, oh, there are seven people in the Laravel community that I regularly see videos for. And there are 50,000 that I see tweets from. But oh, yeah, those seven guys and girls, those are the video people. And you just somehow give them more credit than maybe they deserve. But they did, like they put in the effort. And so I think one step beyond that is showing your face on video, truly. I think you can get outsized rewards by just doing a screencast and just showing like, hey, I did this thing and then this thing and then look at made this. And I think you can get pretty good benefits from that. I think if you are willing to put your face on screen, you have further separated yourself from even people that are making video. You are the one that's like, I'm going to take the risk to like to basically expose myself, my human form to criticism and I think there's like a connection that you can form and like a almost like people are rooting for you because everybody wants to do it. Like everybody wants to be out there being the person teaching but like, most people don't because it's really hard. And so if you do, I have found from personal experience, that people are like, yeah, I'm on your team. Go, guy! Go! Good job! And it's just, it is a cheat code if you can become comfortable enough putting your face on camera. You get this human connection that I think is unbeatable.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, that is the core, right? The core is allowing people to form this connection with you. And it's kind of easy on Twitter because you have these little interactions but it's a very shallow connection if it's just on Twitter, if it's just like between your little avatar picture and their avatar picture. It becomes a very shallow conversation. But the moment people see your like, vibrantly talk about something that you really enjoy. Like it's hard not to be just very actively trying to convince somebody of the truth or the importance of the thing you have to say. And when you feel this in somebody you think, okay, they're doing this from the heart. They're not just doing this from the wallet, right? Or any other part that is just very selfish. They're doing this because they really think that other people need to know. That's absolutely true. I like the hierarchy you just put up. That is a very, very easy way to understand why a screencast where you share so many things. A screencast with your face, shares your expertise, obviously on the topic, right? It shares you as a person, the full human being making yourself available for connection. And it also shares your layout of how you code. It shows like how good you are at what you actually want to do or want to have people know that you're good at. There are so many layers of just really putting out there in a very vulnerable way, the work that you have for criticism or for support, which is probably the more important part. That is really, really cool. Talking about screencasts, let's stay there with that. I think I've done one, I guess. My Twitter course might be a screencast. But it's just really a presentation with a couple of things. So, you know, it's not necessarily technically a screencast. What are the things that I could immediately improve my screencastfy? I did a couple of coding things back in the day when I was still actively coding. Now I'm more or less just writing all the time, which is also coding. But you know, can you just tell me a couple things other than putting your face in there that make it better?
Aaron Francis
Yeah. So in, you know, in my experience and throughout this course, basically, my goal is to get people to the point where they can create a high quality, like polished screencast but do it quickly. Like the whole angle for this course. And I think it's important to have an angle, the whole angle is like, you're an expert at something and you want to teach but you don't want to become a video editor. Like you want to teach the thing and get back to work. And so I think there are a few things that can like that can level up a screencast pretty quickly. Starting even before you hit record is like figuring out who you're going to teach. And I like, that's really easy to say like, I'm going to teach developers like, okay, what kind?
Arvid Kahl
Yeah
Aaron Francis
What skill level? Are they solo? Are they indie? Are they at a startup? Or are they at a mega corp? Like, you don't have to niche the content down too far. But saying something like, alright, I'm going to teach artificial intelligence for Ruby developers, like that gives you a point of view that you can then communicate from. I think it also helps to like segment, people who are looking at your course because they'll be like, oh, I'm a Ruby developer. This is definitely for me or I'm a JavaScript developer. This is not for me. And so it cuts both ways. But the market is so huge, that you kind of want to cut it and be like, hey, this one is for you, I promise. So even before you hit record, figuring out who you're gonna teach and then figuring out what you're going to teach, I think, is very important, like figuring out what your curriculum is going to be. And I think a lot of courses could benefit or a lot of even individual videos, not even courses, but individual videos could benefit from taking the viewer on a like a linear journey or like a path. You know, we both know Rob Walling. He's always talking about stair stepping your bootstrapping journey. I think the same thing applies to educational material. You should stair step the viewer into knowledge. So you start with like, either a base level of understanding that you know because you've defined your audience. But you start with some base level and then you say, okay, I'm going to teach you one thing. I'm going to teach you one single thing. And then after that, either in another video or continuation, whatever you say, hey, remember that thing we learned? Let's like, let's optimize that. Or let's look at where that doesn't apply. Or let's look at how we can make this you know, better, faster, more adaptable, more flexible, more abstract. But if you go from like, okay, we're gonna start at the base of knowledge. And while I'm teaching you the one thing I'm going to teach you when it doesn't work and how to optimize it and how to make it more flexible. You're like, dude, just like, teach me one thing. And then let's move on. And I think that's a big thing that a lot of like educators miss is they take four steps at a time. And I'm left thinking, wait, what was the thing we're doing? I don't even remember what we're doing. And then once you hit record, I think there are some really easy things you can do. And that is hide every single thing on your screen, hide everything. I don't want to know what time of day it is. I don't want to know what day of the year it is. I don't want to see what applications you have open. I don't want to see your family photos on your desktop. I don't want to see icons. I don't want to see anything. My attention, the viewers' attention, they're barely hanging on. That's kind of what you have to remember is like, okay, they're trying to learn here. You must give them every advantage possible. So if you're teaching Excel, hide everything except the sheet you're working on. If you're teaching them coding, hide everything, not only on your desktop, but in your editor. I don't want to see the file tree. I don't want to see what git branch you're on. I don't want to see the mini map. I barely even want to see line numbers, honestly. But I just want to see the one thing that you're trying to show me and then guide me along that journey together like bring me along. And so those are some other things that I think about from like, all the way back at the beginning, how do you figure out what you're gonna say to how do we keep these people who want to learn? How do we help them? How do we keep them on track?
Arvid Kahl
I love this, like three kinds of focus: focus on the right people, focus on a narrative that is actually relatable and people can just stay in touch with without losing themselves in the details, and then focus on the minimalism of showing exactly what they need to see. And nothing more. Very cool. I love that most of these things have nothing to do with yeah, the exception of the third part, with the actual recording.
Aaron Francis
Yeah, yeah
Arvid Kahl
The preparation is so much more important than the act of recording something on your screen. How much time did you spend preparing for this course? And then, you know, doing the script writing and all that kind of stuff? I know that the outcome is four and a half hours, of course, which is significant. I would love to know how many hours of actual recording went in there. But even before that, like can you give me like a little timetable of how much you spent?
Aaron Francis
Yeah, for sure. So I released the MySQL for developers course at work for PlanetScale. I released that in like, early March of this year. And that's when I started getting like the feedback I would love to learn. And so at that point, I started like, right then when I realized, oh, shoot, I should teach something about this. I sat down and I wrote down every single thing that I thought I did well and every single thing I thought I did poorly. And every single thing I like, learned or trick I thought I had or way that I did screencasting that I thought made me effective. And so that's my first, when it comes to planning your content, that's my first piece of guidance is just either in your research phase or if like me, your research is like from practice, then sit down and write down everything. It doesn't even have, don't worry about structure, don't worry about form, modules, videos, break down, just write down. That one editing thing that I do, I think that makes us really fast. Good. This one trick on you know, flipping the video, I should teach them that at some point, boom, boom, boom. And you know, at the end, you end up with 100 line document of random little, like, half thoughts of, ah! That was a good idea. I should put that somewhere. And then so like that was in March. And then you know, I've got you know, two kids and a job. And so like over the next several months, it just kind of percolated in my mind. And that was really helpful for me like that background information processing. Because all that time, I'm continuing to make screencasts like I'm doing YouTube videos for personal stuff. I'm doing YouTube videos for work. And every time I think, oh, this is a good new like little workflow thing I just learned. Let's throw that in the notes document. And that is like an unbeatable, that's an unbeatable technique. It's hard because it takes like, you have to put it on the shelf and let it cook for a while. And if you're on a short timeline, that's tough. But letting it cook for a little while really helps your background mind solidify everything. And so then when it came time to record, so that was like months and months and months. And then when it came time to record, I pulled those notes off the shelf and was like, alright, we got a lot of raw material to work with here. And that's when you just start kind of like, oh, these two ideas, those kind of go together. Oh, this thing down here necessarily comes before these other. So I'm gonna move that line up. And you start to see like this linear structure kind of like rise out of this soup. You're like, oh, wait, it kind of just shaped like this. Imagine that. And that's where you get like the content structure of oh, dub, before we record, we got to plan our content. Let's do that module first. And then when you know, when I turned on the camera to record, it probably took me two or three weeks to record most of it. And then so I did that in like two or three weeks. And that took a huge break because our family went somewhere for a couple of weeks during the summer because I live in Texas and it's a billion degrees. And then when I came home, I kind of had a realization that like, I think I didn't define the audience wrong. Like I defined the audience very strictly as developers who wanted to learn how to teach something. And I realized when I came home that I had been maybe selling myself short. And I could just with a few, like different examples and a few different words here and there, I could broaden that audience to content creators. And I realized, wait, why am I like, I am a developer. But I don't have to constantly be saying, you know, get checkout. Like, I don't have to say that kind of stuff. I can use examples that are coding examples but also talk about the person who's really good at Excel and wants to teach attorneys how to use Excel and then it immediately becomes more accessible. And so I re recorded everything. I re recorded every single video when I was about 80% done. And it took me five days and I was up till 2:30. You know, after work, I would start and I'd stay up till 2:30 each night and I just plowed through it. So I wouldn't recommend doing it that way. That's why defining your audience is so important. But I also felt like, yeah, I was thinking kind of small, like, I wonder what it would look like to think bigger. And that was the answer. And so I just re did out of like, excitement. I was so pumped. And so it was quick the second time.
Arvid Kahl
I can feel that. It must be so nice. I mean, in retrospect, it makes sense, right? To have a trial run, to record the whole thing and see it. It probably felt weird to do it again. But at the same time, you knew you'd already done it. You know it's possible. You know, you can make it happen. You can make it even better. That is so cool. And I was about to ask you, how you handle all of you know, your job and the projects that you have, the family and all that. But I guess you just answered. You just like didn't sleep, right?
Aaron Francis
Yep. Yeah. So I'm always careful of being descriptive and not prescriptive. I will describe what I am doing. What you do with your own life is, of course, up to you. But I feel like at this point in my life, so I have a full time job. My wife and I have two year old twins. And surprisingly, we are expecting twins.
Arvid Kahl
Yep
Aaron Francis
In late November, early December. So even on the family front, there's a whole lot going on there. And I think I've decided and I made this decision maybe, you know, two years ago or something that this is not my kick back and chill phase of my life. I look at a lot of people online, like let's look at Daniel Vassallo. I look at him. And I'm like, he's working a little bit. And he's making a lot of money. And he's building a house and he's going down to the beach and like, I'm really happy for him. And it's hard for me not to look at that and say, I need to emulate the outcome of what he's doing. And not think like, how did he get there? Like, these people that are like, yeah, you should really go snowboarding at noon on a Tuesday. It's like, I would love to. I truly would. And I think I finally released myself from the guilt of feeling like, oh, I can't work hard because these people who have, you know, made it in my own made up terms, they're telling me that I shouldn't work hard. It's like, well, yeah, they've made it. And so I've decided that for me, this is my, I don't want to say hustle because it's so laden. And so what I've called it is like my maximum effort era and like, I'm going to do the most that I can. And this is not a very restful era for me. And one, knowing that it is an era and eras end, that's really helpful. And knowing that this is my maximum effort era with hopes of there being a semi retired leisurely builder era, following it. Like, that's really helpful for me. And I think I've decided that there are lots of things that I'm willing to sacrifice and a few that I'm not like, I can't tell you besides foundation, which I think I'm like six episodes behind on. I can't tell you what the newest TV shows are. I don't watch professional or collegiate sports. Fortunately, I don't care that much about them. But I also just don't watch them. People are talking about Baldur's Gate. Some that like there are video games, that I truly, I don't even know what they are. And so a lot of those things, I'm fine saying, I just don't care. On the other hand, I am out of this office at 5:45 or 6 o'clock because you know what happens then? Dinnertime, kids, bath time, bedtime. And like, sorry, I don't miss that. I don't miss that. But you know what happens at 7:30 or 8? Back to work and that's how I've chosen to live my life because like a musician who's trying to make it, like an author who wants the big break like a painter who's trying to get discovered like, I'm trying to make it and it's weird because it's like, the thing I do all day for W2 money is shaped almost exactly like the thing I do in pursuit of like my noble ambitions and so it feels like oh man, you're just a hustle, bro. And I'm like, but what if I was a sculptor? Like would you say the same thing? Like I feel like this thing that I'm doing in my like effort full hours, I feel like this thing that I'm doing is the thing I want to be doing. It is the art. It is the thing that I'm trying to like birth into the world. And maybe I play, you know, to be a musician. Maybe I play in crappy bars forever. But maybe I enjoy it the whole time. And maybe I get a hit. And like, that's what I'm thinking. This is my time to try because I'm not getting any younger.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, wow! Thanks for sharing this. And honestly, I think you are the hit, really. Like the fact that you so publicly share all these things and the success you just had and are still having with this launch. I think that's one of the many, many signs that you're on the right path there, right? The feedback that I've seen there. Obviously, I follow you on Twitter quite a bit. And the people who love your work and who love both your work and watching foundation as I do as well, right? It's just so nice to see people just interacting with you in such an empowering and motivating and supportive way. And how could you not want to keep doing this knowing that at this stage, if this is the early stage of this, there's already so much love and support from the people that you have so much impact on with the things that you share. Right? How could you not?
Aaron Francis
How could I not? Yep. And I think that is the thing that like, that's the thing that keeps me going is I feel like one, I just, I'm having a lot of fun. Like I'm enjoying the actual producing of the vessel, like the thing. I enjoy making it. And then like this one in particular, like a lot of my talks and stuff has resonated, but I feel like this, you know, most recent artifact is kind of a culmination of like, a lot of what I believe about, like putting yourself out there combined with some like, technical, really nitty gritty do this, don't do that. And I put it together in this package. And I'm like, this is kind of a microcosm of the things that I care about and believe and people like it and it's really encouraging. And so yeah, it's like, this is good. I get energy from this. So I'm going to keep going for, you know, for as long as I can.
Arvid Kahl
Yeah, I can tell. You are full of energy. And it's really nice to see. And I love that you're doing all of this in public too, right? You could do this, just hiding somewhere building a product. Obviously, you couldn't because it's all part of like a presence. But I'm glad you're doing it. So if people would like to find you and follow this amazing journey that you're on and see the things that you're building as you're building them public, where would you like them to go?
Aaron Francis
Absolutely, Twitter, twitter.com/aarondfrancis, D as in Daniel.
Arvid Kahl
Nice. Well, I certainly follow you there. And I would highly recommend following you there as well. And I'm so glad you made this course because you could learn a lot about presenting yourself and building a studio, right? We didn't even get to talk about all the fancy tech. But I think that's for people to find out actually in your course or a future conversation in a couple of months or years from now. Man, I'm so so glad you shared all of this with me today. And I can really feel like from this conversation and from all the things you've been doing in public how much you care and that you cannot stop yourself from helping people through your work. And I appreciate this a lot. I bet there's 1000s, if not 10s or hundreds of 1000s of people out there that are appreciating this, which is a scary thought. But it's also an amazing thought. And I just want to thank you for your work and for everything you do and for being here on the show. So thank you so much, man. You're awesome.
Aaron Francis
Well, you're extremely kind to say so and I've been a huge fan and follower for a long time. So it's an honor for me to be here. So thanks for having me.
Arvid Kahl
I appreciate it. Thanks so much.
And that's it for today. I want to briefly thank my sponsor, acquire.com. Imagine this, you're a founder who's built this really amazing SaaS product, you acquired customers, and all of this is generating really consistent monthly recurring revenue. The dream, right? The problem is, you're not growing for whatever reason, maybe it's lack of focus or skill or lack of interest. You just don't know. You feel stuck in your business. That's what you know. You start with your business, what should you do? Well, the story that I and many other people in our community probably would like to hear is that you buckled down, reignited your fire, you got going, you worked on the business not just in the business and all these things like audience building, marketing, sales, outreach, and whatever, you did it and six months down the road, you've made all that money. You've tripled your revenue and you have the super successful business and everybody loves you for it. Reality, unfortunately, is not as simple as this. And the situation that you might be in right now is different for every founder who's facing this crossroad. Too many times though, the story here ends up being one of inaction and stagnation or worse until the business becomes less and less valuable over time or completely worthless in the end. So if you find yourself here already or you think your story is likely headed down a similar road in the future, I would consider a third option: that's selling your business on acquire.com It's always a good idea to think about the exit, right? Because capitalizing on the value of your time today, that's a pretty smart move. And acquire.com, free to list, they've helped hundreds of founders already. Why not check it out? Go to try.acquire.com/arvid and see for yourself if this is the right option for you, might be, might not be, just look into it. It's always a good idea.
Thank you so much for listening to The Bootstrapped Founder today. You can find me on Twitter @arvidkahl. You'll find my books and my Twitter course there too. Hey, if you want to support me and the show, which I would really appreciate, subscribe to my YouTube channel. That would be great. And get the podcast in your player of choice and leave a five star rating and a review by going to (http://ratethispodcast.com/founder) or wherever you find my podcast and your app. It makes a massive difference if you show up there because then the podcast will show up in other people's feeds. That's kind of where we want them, right? We want to help our friends to learn a little bit. So any of this really helps the show. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye bye.