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
Arvid Kahl: It's nice to see this kind of reciprocity
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
Arvid Kahl: Eventually, right? At some final point after many,
happening.
Aaron Francis: Yeah
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,
many years. I'm glad you get to see it because that's something
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
I've been trying to tell people that this was gonna happen if
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.
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: 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
Arvid Kahl: Yeah
Aaron Francis: What skill level? Are they solo? Are they indie?
throughout this course, basically, my goal is to get
people to the point where they can create a high quality, like
Are they at a startup? Or are they at a mega corp? Like, you
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?
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
Arvid Kahl: I can feel that. It must be so nice. I mean, in
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.
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.
Aaron Francis: In late November, early December. So even on the
Arvid Kahl: Yep
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
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, wow! Thanks for sharing this. And honestly,
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
I think you are the hit, really. Like the fact that you so
get a hit. And like, that's what I'm thinking. This is my time to
try because I'm not getting any younger.
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.