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Michele talks with Adam Hill, creator of Django Unicorn, about the struggles of launching side projects and his own side project, Django Unicorn.
Show Notes
Check out Django Unicorn! https://www.django-unicorn.com/
Follow Adam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adamghill
Michele Hansen 0:00
Hey, welcome back to Software Social. This episode of Software Social is sponsored by Noko. https://nokotime.com/
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to software social. So as you heard last week, Colleen joined the Hammerstone team. And she also just started a job recently. And she just moved California. So Colleen has a lot going on this week. And so for the benefit of her mental health, we decided that she should just take the week off. And I'm super excited because that meant that I got to bring a friend on the show this week. So I have Adam hill with us, Adam and I actually used to work together. He was the CTO at a place I used to work at. And he also has some projects going. So welcome, Adam. Hey, it's been a long time since we've caught. Yeah, it's weird. I should do this more often. No, no, when we had I had Murray pulling on a couple of weeks ago, the notion expert. And we like had that exact same conversation at the beginning of it was like, This is so weird. I talked to you online all the time. But we haven't actually spoken in a very long time.
Adam Hill 2:04
Right. talking over Twitter is a little bit different than hearing someone's voice.
Michele Hansen 2:08
Yeah. Yeah, it is. So so actually speaking of one of those conversations we are having so we were talking the other day about podcasts, and you were kind of thinking about maybe you start your own show or whatnot. But you said something in particular that I wanted to talk about? Because I think it is I think it's will strike a chord with a lot of people. And you said, I'm tired of hearing podcasts from people who don't struggle.
Adam Hill 2:41
Yes. Oh, all right. So no offense to you. And thank Colleen, because I think you guys do a great job of talking through the things that you're, you know, having problems with. And maybe this is just the podcast that I tend to listen to. But there seem to be a couple of categories. There's like, advice, podcasts, there are interview podcasts. And then there are kind of like two co founders, like talking through their last week sort of podcasts. And the advice podcasts seem to be more like, I'm an expert, I know what I'm doing. Here's 10 ways to get more traffic to your landing page, or whatever. The interview podcasts are more like, I just made a million dollars in the last year, like, asked me how I did it. And then the two co founders on a journey. Maybe that's the closest to like, these are the things that we're working through. And I'm having trouble with this or that. But even like, even Colleen, she's making $1,000 a month, which to me is like, That's crazy. Like that's, that's, you know, she's like having so much success. And, you know, maybe some of this is sort of like, everything is relative. I'm, I've tried a bunch of little side projects and startups over the years, and I've never gotten to $1,000 a month, but like, maybe she's looking at you and being like, well, Michelle is like Michelle and Mathias are supporting their family, you know, on their startup. So like, maybe it's just everyone is able to look at someone who is above them, quote, unquote, and see someone who is like, doing more of what they want to be doing.
Michele Hansen 4:40
I think what you're saying is is something that a lot of people feel, and I think that there's kind of this undercurrent of loneliness to a certain extent behind the sort of indie hacker indie SAS kind of world where you know if it's just your one person And working on something or maybe you have a co founder, like me, like, don't really have a lot of people in your daily life to talk to you about these kinds of things. And we're already sort of a lonely pursuit to like, try to start your own SAS on the weekend to then like, hear other people who are doing it, but to hear that they're like having the success that that seems elusive to you. Like that could reinforce that kind of feeling of loneliness. And I could understand how that might make you want to, you know, scream at your phone that like $1,000 is actually amazing. What are you talking about?
Adam Hill 5:40
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, Can you talk a little bit about, you know, I assume that it was very helpful for you and Mateus to be working on things together throughout the years, like when you were starting geocodes Oh, so like, was that your sort of like support system? Because there was no mic or cough at that point. And there was, you know, indie hackers, I don't think was around. Yeah. Can you just elaborate on on how that worked for you?
Michele Hansen 6:08
You know, we actually, we didn't go to micro conference till 2019. And we didn't go for so long. Because we didn't feel like legit enough to be there. Like, and I guess I didn't know that. Like the micro con growth side was a thing. But still, like, we didn't feel like we were, like, legit enough to be there even after we had gone full time.
Adam Hill 6:35
So when did you go full time? Was it 2017? So you didn't think that you belong to that community?
Michele Hansen 6:44
No, it existed really like so I remember actually, when I was when we started it like the only people we I don't think we knew anyone with side projects, really. And like we had friends were developers. And like, they gave us feedback on it. But like we didn't really know any, like, we knew people who were like freelance developers, who were like, you know, contracting, but like we didn't, I didn't know anybody who had like, started their own SAS and then ran it as like a one two person show. But so when I went full time in 2017, I remember really wanting community. And I actually started a meetup for like, people to work together from Whole Foods, I think, in DC. Yeah. Well, like it. Yeah, it was, I think I did like three, two or three times, like the first time nobody showed up. The second time. This, like other woman, who was a marketing consultant showed up and like, that was cool. And then we like sat next to each other at a table at Whole Foods. Yeah, didn't really talk. And I guess it was fine. And then and then the last time this like, got older guy showed up on like, pitched me how he could like we needed to get our business into China and how. And it was like, I don't know. And after that, I was like, this may, I don't know, maybe this isn't gonna work. And I shut down. And then I actually joined a co working space for I remember half a year but actually only went for like, the first three months, because then I really wanted to, like meet people and like, make friends and find other people in a similar situation. And like going to a co working space in DC there just really wasn't anybody doing that. Like, it wasn't 1776, right? No, it was actually so Okay, so, so context for the people who are not from DC. So 1776 I don't even know if it still exists, but it was like this, like, incubators, slash like co working space in downtown dc 1776 is actually where we did our buco to prototype testing. So we had friends who had a start up at 1776. And one day Mateus, like, you know, went there with his laptop and had people play around with the API and like, try to break it and you know, doing all the stuff about authentication and whatnot, that was actually at 1776. But I think they take a percentage of the company if you want to go work there, or they used to, I don't I don't I haven't really followed it and the last couple of years. Um, but yeah, and then and actually wasn't really until I kind of found the whole community on Twitter and like the whole micro content kind of world that I felt like I had, like community of people, but even then, if you find that community like it can be hard to feel like you are, like fit in like because I feel like people are super welcoming, but like I didn't know that from the outside. And then yeah, and then we kind of like showed up and then and then like we You start talking to people and everything and we like we kind of are like, Whoa, like, you know, we're not legit. And then you talk to people I was laughing Yeah, yeah, you know, in no revenue, like, you know, over a million, you know, like, and they're like, what, where have you been like you just came out of nowhere? Like you're like, Okay, I guess we could, I guess I guess we didn't have to have this like imposter syndrome about it for like, five years
Adam Hill 10:26
isn't gonna say imposter syndrome. I mean, that's what it sounds like. And I, we have a mutual friend, person who we used to work with, who has their own other startup, I went to lunch with him the other day. And you know, he's doing really well. And I was like, you could be talking about, you know, how well you're doing more if you want it to as sort of like content marketing or sharing, you know, your journey. And he doesn't really want to. So, I mean, that's interesting, because you said that you hadn't heard about micro comm for a long time. So I listened to startups for the rest of us which podcast for probably like 10 years, and sort of followed that journey. And then that podcast turned into micro Comm. And then it turned into tiny seed. So it's been fun to watch. That community is sort of like morph and change over time.
Michele Hansen 11:35
But we just kind of turned this about, like how I didn't feel included for a long time. But I think what we were intending to talk about was how you feel sort of alienated hearing about other people's success. And I recognize this is somewhat uncomfortable to talk about. But I also think it's important to talk about because I so many people feel this way, and not just about trying to launch a SAS but in general, like when you are struggling with something and all you see are examples of success. It is profoundly alienating and discouraging. And I think people think they're being motivating be like, look at me, I made, you know, like $10 million, or whatever, like last year and like, here's how you can do it by my course. Like, like those people have good intentions. But I think as as you know, like if you're in that position of being like, yeah, like my revenue is zero, and it has been zero for five years now. And I've watched 10 things like and you're like, what am I doing wrong? Is it me, like all these other people having success? Like, you know, it's like watching all of your friends get a boyfriend or girlfriend in high school, and you're like, what am I doing wrong?
Adam Hill 12:44
I think that, especially with some of the interview podcasts, the people who come on to talk are people who are, you know, successful in somewhere or other? Do you remember, there used to be a website when the.com boom, and bust was happening called f company? Um, I kind of want like a, like, what were the biggest mistakes that I made in my company or startup, I think that would be instructive and sort of helpful to show like, maybe that vulnerability of like, you are struggling with this thing. And, or I messed up this thing. And here are sort of maybe some takeaways or lessons from it. I think that would be sort of interesting,
Michele Hansen 13:45
huh? Yeah, I think people talking more about the, I think in the way that I think I'm quoting someone here that, you know, success is always contextually specific, like the specific resources and constraints and incentives and whatnot, that lead someone to be successful or not always, you know, immediately applicable to someone else, especially if they're in a different situation. I think it's also the success, the same for failure. And now, of course, it may be very, very difficult for someone who has had a failure to do that kind of analysis, but also breaking down those other things. Because then if you read that and be like, oh, like, they didn't have this resource that I have, like, maybe I could make this work, and I could overcome that. Is that kind of what you're thinking?
Adam Hill 14:36
Yeah, I think so. So sometimes, there'll be like a post mortem, when a startup goes away. They're always really interesting for me to read through. And I just wonder if, you know, basically, those are sort of like, there's one of them because then everything goes away after that. And, you know, it might be useful to sort of had a catalogue of those things. I don't know, I'm sort of just thinking off the top of my head,
Michele Hansen 15:14
it's almost like the inverse of, you know, say like, you know, indie hackers, for example, they do a lot of highlighting of people who have been successful and can inspire others. And there's, there's a place for that, and I almost was, what you're saying is like an inverse of that, that's like, here's my failure, or, like, here's my side project that I launched two years ago, and doesn't have any revenue, or, you know, it's been stuck at 300 MRR for a year, like, and here's what I think I'm doing wrong. And I'm gonna requires this like level of vulnerability that I think would take a lot for people to be willing to do that. And maybe they would want to do it anonymously. But then again, if they're on the show, and people are listening, then it's like, maybe marketing for their things. So I you know, but I think there really is something there because we all have more failures than successes. Like I think that's normal. It's also normal to like, hide the failures under the rug and be like, Oh, no, look at my successes look great. This was amazing, isn't it? Um, you know, like, I've watched stuff that failed. Like, I've like we've botched launches, like, like we've had, you know, customers wanting to, like, burn us down at points, like, maybe not for Juho do but like for other things like, absolutely. Like, it's, it's totally normal. In some ways, it's one of the reasons why I think I, you know, I'm, I want to hold on to God as long as I can, because like, starting a business is really hard. And like having to do it all over again. You know, the, the chance of failure is, is much higher. So I'm sorry, if you listen to this show for inspiration, because you're not getting it. You know, so I think is maybe enough on failure. I do want to talk about what you have launched, though, because you have done some really cool stuff. And I don't think you give yourself enough credit for it. So was it last year or the year before you launched Django unicorn, which is basically like Laravel Livewire for Django.
Adam Hill 17:37
Yeah, I think it was last year. And actually, I think it was a tweet that you responded to. I was like, I think I said something about, I wish you know, Laravel Livewire was for Django. And I think you said, Why don't you or something like that, so terrible. So thank you, I guess. Um, but yeah, so it is, um, it's a, it's basically a full stack framework for Django. So if listeners have ever used any, like front end framework, like view or react, they know that you basically, you have like your front end part of your website, and then you have the back end, and they sort of have to talk to each other. What, there's a couple of these out there, there's Phoenix Live View, and there's Laravel Livewire, and there's Django unicorn. And they basically let you build the interactive front end website easier, without having to basically build both pieces separately, and then connect them. It enables the nice user experience, quicker than having to build both pieces at the at the same time. So it's been a fun project. One thing that might be interesting about it is that it's all open source. But I have GitHub sponsors enabled on it. And so I do have a bunch of sponsors on it. Well, 10 ish, which for me is like more than a handful. That's awesome. So I don't know how you how you, you know, rank open source projects, but there's around 700 stars on GitHub, and nine to 10 sponsors. So for me, that's like, crazy successful. People are using it in production. So now it's, you know, responding to issues and bugs and trying to add features when I have time. But yeah, it's been It's been really fun to build it sort of, if you've heard of like the I didn't think about this at the time. But if you think about like the stair step approach where you like, you have like a small, little product, usually it's like a WordPress theme or a plugin for Shopify or something. Sometimes it's good to like, get your feet wet with that little thing before you like try to do like a SaaS product. It's been fun to sort of like, I have a whole marketing site for which we can sort of talking about marketing to developers, maybe if that's interesting, because I've sort of thought about that a bunch. But um, yeah, it's different than, you know, making a b2c startup for, you know, latitude and longitude, coordinates or, or whatever. Yeah, it's a, it's a whole different beast, I guess.
Michele Hansen 20:59
Yeah, I find the business model of open source really, really interesting. Because it's so different than, like, what we do, like we just sell to businesses who need what we need. And then that's kind of like it, like, we just have to be there when they're searching for it. And so you have I mean, sponsors on the project. I mean, it sounds like it is it is, like pretty successful. So to all of our talk about failure early on, and imposter syndrome, I feel like there's maybe a little bit that going on here, but I think it's like, so what do you want to like? Like, do with it? Like you mentioned that you're doing support? And like you're trying to add features when you have time? Like? Where do you want it to go?
Adam Hill 21:48
Yeah, that's a good question. Because I, I don't have a great answer for you. I think, you know, I'm maybe being naive, or like, super altruistic, but I really like the Django ecosystem, and Python. And sort of, I wanted to put something out there that people used and let them move faster and build things quicker, without a lot of pain and struggle. That was my initial goal. I enabled sponsors, sort of on a lark, because, well, it was the pandemic, and I had a lot of time. So I put a lot of time and effort into building out this framework, and then also all the documentation and marketing site. And so, you know, my initial goal was basically if I could pay my hosting fees, on Heroku, then it was a, you know, that was gonna be a win. And so I got that, which is great. It is interesting. So it's sort of like what I was talking about before where there's like, always someone sort of ahead of you that you kind of like look up to, um, I don't know if you know, the developer who does Livewire in Laravel. It's Caleb porzio. He is making a living off of Livewire and another JavaScript framework called Alpine. And so I kind of look to him as like, Oh, that's sort of That's crazy. He has enough sponsors where he can basically, you know, work on that full time. I don't know, that's not really my goal. But it's interesting to look at sort of the tactics that he is using to get that many sponsors and sort of do the things that make sense for unicorn as well.
Michele Hansen 23:53
Yeah, it seems like there's a couple different paths, you can go on with a product that is that is open source. You know, so I guess there's there's this sponsors approach. There's like people who sell courses and books on top of it like thing like tailwind, for example. I think the more like, classical example is like consulting services using it. And then there's kind of also like, what, what Hammerstone is doing, which Colleen is working on now, where I believe it's something like the back end is open, but the front end is not. And it's also there's also like, you can have sort of, like productized services on top of it. To where there's, there's like a, you know, like, I mean, a lot of Laravel stuff is like, there's there's a product that's, you know, that makes it easy to do all of those things. And so it's kind of interesting, I think about the different options like you could go down.
Adam Hill 24:49
It sounds like for Hammerstone. They also have a client who is sort of paying them to develop the thing and then to develop refine And then they'll be able to keep that IP. That's Yeah. From the last podcast.
Michele Hansen 25:07
Yeah.
Adam Hill 25:07
So yeah, so that's really interesting as well. So I know for, for Livewire, Caleb wrote a long article, which basically detailed all the things all of his sort of like, ways that he got more sponsors. So one of them was he gated screencasts for like how to use the product. So there was some of the like, elementary ways to use Livewire are free, and then for more advanced things they were yet to sponsor. And then he also did sort of a sponsor where model sort of like shareware where if you were a sponsor, you got access to a certain, you know, library or some code. And then once it hit a set number of sponsors, he then just open source that. So yeah, the sort of making money off of open source has all these different sort of approaches, which I think is really interesting. And sort of, you know, one of the things that I've kind of liked about this product or project is, I sort of, because I've been a developer for so long, I feel like I know how they think. And I'm scratching my own itch. So like, both of those things, make it a little bit easier to, you know, market.
Michele Hansen 26:42
I wonder, like, do you intend to waste like, like, I feel like this plays into incentives a lot. And it's where we started do Cody from place off, but like, from our conversations about it, it seems like you basically want to keep this as a, a side project. Like, it's, you know, it's sort of as much for you know, like, having extra money on the side is always great, like, you know, when we started to akoto, it actually came out of like, to be able to afford daycare, which, you know, context for the non Americans listening. daycare is like $25,000 a year and costs more than public college tuition in the majority of states. And yeah, so we're like, like, we can't just like magically start making $25,000 more from our jobs, we've got to get something going. And so it was, like, always intended to be a side project. And I, and I feel like I hear that from you. And I think one of the, the other benefits of that, aside from the extra money is kind of like giving yourself like a playground or like a sandbox to like play in outside of work that's like, just for your own enjoyment. And just as you said, like, doing something to help other people to make things easier for them.
Adam Hill 28:02
Yeah, so. So for some context, I guess, like, I really like my day job, like, I don't ever want to leave, I know a lot of sort of bootstrappers, or whatever you call these people. You know, they want to, you know, escape the nine to five, and they, they don't want a boss and whatever the other, you know, sort of reasons for for pursuing this path. But it is mostly a hobby for me, it's something for me to do, like you said outside of work, work on different things that I wouldn't get to do in my day job. So that has been most of my side projects have sort of scratched that itch. So my incentives are pretty minimal. And I do think about that a lot. I think one thing that is interesting for startups, or for side projects, is that once you charge people, you get feedback from the marketplace. It sounds like a level of
Michele Hansen 29:17
responsibility or obligation comes into that, like, you know, I've heard like Taylor, Hartwell and Adam wathan, like, talking about how mean people can be in GitHub issues and like really demanding and like, you know, if somebody sponsors you them feeling entitled to you building every feature they asked for, and replying to things right away and like paying customers has its own stresses, but also like having not paying customers or even like spot like that, that creates its own set of stresses as well. And you know, to You're saying about incentives? Like, I wouldn't say that you have no incentives you actually have, if you have a day job, you have incentives for an extremely low support volume, because you can't reply to anything between nine and five. And you probably don't want to spend all day Saturday and Sunday going through support tickets, because like, you've got a family, you want to do other things in your life. And as I mean, it's, it's a lot to think about.
Adam Hill 30:26
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing I think about is like, Why do I keep trying to do this? Because like, um, you know, it's, so when we started working, I was the CTO for a little while, at the same time, I had co founded a startup on the side. So that was sort of crazy, crazy time. And I a small child at the time, the two other co founders wanted to go full time. And, and I didn't, so we sort of split at some point. But even that, which was sort of like, more of a real startup, like, over the years, I have done side projects. And, and I just, I do wonder about sort of the psychology of like people who just keep trying over and over and over again, even if it doesn't really work out, like, I'm not trying to make a ton of money off of this. So that's not my incentive, it's more like, I just want to see how far I can go and how much I can do. And I do think that charging people sort of gives you a really like, clear answer of this is something that someone finds useful or not.
Michele Hansen 31:58
And then how you kind of work that in with the sort of multiple options available for an open source project. I mean, it's kind of in a way, like SAS is like, so much more straightforward. It's like you have pay as you go, you have a subscription, like maybe you have a, you know, you pay for onboarding services, or integration fees, and then you play as a tutor on top of that, like, there's not really as many things have, like, you know, like pay for this ebook about how to use this project, or, as you mentioned, with live wire, having screencasts about how to use it, or gatekeeping, you know, specific features like for so there's some of that in SAS, but like, it's very different dynamics. And do you feel excited by those options? Or do you feel decision fatigue, and kind of not sure where to go with all of that,
Adam Hill 32:50
I think I have a few things in my head of these are things I could I could do. There's a little bit of decision fatigue, I have done some screencasts. But I find it takes a really long time for me to do them. I know you've done a conference talk before. But like, I also did a conference talk per Django unicorn. And I spent so much time preparing for it and doing the slides and running through it over and over again. And a screencast isn't that much time, but it's similar, where I sort of like, need to figure out a script and write all the code and plan everything out. So getting motivated to do that is a little tricky. So other than that, though, there are a couple other ways that I could monetize Django unicorn. But I do feel like, I want to try more of a SaaS product, just to sort of not diversify my income because there's very little income, but like, sort of try something new. I do wonder if the side projects are a way to just try a lot of different things and see, you know, see what I can learn along the way.
Michele Hansen 34:19
I guess it kind of comes back to what you were saying about you were sort of like why am I doing this in the first place?
Adam Hill 34:26
Yeah, I you know, I don't have a good answer for that because I I asked them myself a lot. I look at it as a hobby. And you know, I I'm curious how you how you looked at geocode do at the beginning like you said it was to pay your their daycare bills, but at some point it pay the daycare bills and then sort of how did you think about it from that point on?
Michele Hansen 34:56
Well, then it went on to paying off my student loans. There's just more and more things that are paid off. More American, like financial debt obligations. Yes, that's basically the story. Um, no, I mean, you know, I'm personally very motivated by like financial security. But no, it was always like, it was a hobby, until it got to the point where it was like, No, this is actually serious. And like, this is actually you know, this is this is this is a business, I can trust that the revenue isn't going to disappear overnight, like like this, this other part that people don't really talk about is like, there's this first stage of like, nothing is working. Everyone is having success, but me. Okay, cool. We're having our hosting costs, awesome. And then like, kind of growing it a little bit like this is working, having fun throwing pasta at the wall, you know, unlike it work, like you can try something and if it doesn't work, like there's very little consequences for it at that stage. And you can, you have a lot more freedom to explore and for decision making, which is something that I really valued from it. But then there's kind of the stage when you have legit revenue, feeling like this could go away overnight, like a big competitor could come in, release something, and everybody's gonna switch and my revenue was gone. And like, basically, like I like I like, where I didn't trust the revenue, if that makes sense like that. I mean, the revenue is, I'm totally like anthropomorphizing it here. But trusting that it would be there, that you could rely on it. Like that took me a very, very long time, I probably I waited a lot longer to go full time, I think then other people might, especially people who are super eager to not have a boss anymore, and whatnot, because I was so afraid of that. And also, because, you know, in the US, when you fall, you fall hard, there is no floor, basically, to how far or how far you fall. And, you know, just based on my life experience and whatnot, that was something I was terrified of. And, but it took me a long time to really trust the revenue. And so it was like part, I think it was like it was a hobby, and it was my fun place to explore, where I got to make all the decisions. And I was the one doing the roadmap and is doing all these different things. And you know, I'm ADHD, so I love that I have to switch between, like all of these different things all the time. And we're all these different hats, because then I don't get bored. But I think saying I was a side project for so long, because it was a hobby, I think that would be lying to myself, because there's that other reason that I just didn't trust that it wasn't going away.
Adam Hill 37:56
So you've talked about not having, you know, other employees or anything, but can you talk about sort of, you could have had sort of a contractor who would help out with parts of geocode do. And that would have been a less final decision, I guess, then not getting a full time job again.
Michele Hansen 38:27
Oh, you mean like before I went full time, like hiring a contractor to work? Yeah, I never even considered that. I mean, it was just earlier this year that I even got a VA, like I had never occurred to me. I mean, even now, like the I don't, we don't plan to hire anyone full time. And for some reasons, it would be nice. But in other ways, like I like I don't feel capable of like fully managing and like taking on the hopes and dreams of another person. Like, I feel like I'm treading water at doing that as a parent. And so I questioned my ability to do that with an employee and give them the amount of attention that they deserve. And then also provide a career path of advancement for them. Like I take it very seriously that it's not just a year of employment for someone, it's, you know, if things work out 510 20 years, and we're I can't be certain that this company would never grow to be more than, you know, three people or whatever, like and then there's the co founders running it, like there's always a ceiling for those people and, like I would almost feel bad like bringing someone on to a company that I knew that they couldn't advance that or run like I feel guilty about that. Like it feels like wrong to me, even though I know there are people who like don't want to run a company would be very happy with that. Like, like to me like I can't like I just can't get over that. So, um, but yeah, I'm taking baby steps with VA, to talk to me again in five years, when maybe we have hired a part time support person or something.
Adam Hill 40:14
Yeah, I mean, I hear you on on the full time employee. I that sounds daunting. And, you know, there's payroll, and there's taxes, and there's, you know, all of that, at least in the States. There's, you know, human
Michele Hansen 40:28
side, though, that's the part that, you know, I don't know, I guess I don't believe in myself as a manager. So I know we can execute, need to
Adam Hill 40:41
get over your imposter syndrome syndrome. Michelle, and you can do anything. I don't know where I was going with that. Well, that's why I brought up, you know, contractor or, you know, a va or a part time, you know, support person. But that all makes sense, because you are less invested in in helping that person grow. Because, you know, they're not actually a full time employee.
Michele Hansen 41:08
Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I think I have to dive deeper. And figured that I think this might be one of the rawest interviews we have ever done on my side, and probably on the interviewee side. So maybe this is a good time to end it for today. Sounds good. Thank you so much for listening. Adam, thank you so much for being on today and talking about struggle, which, again, as you said, I think is a really common feeling. And people just don't talk about it. So maybe we're changing that a little bit. If anyone listening would be interested in a podcast where people talk about stuff they did that failed, maybe let Adam know. And who knows? Oh, gosh, I was on it, right? Because there's a difference between like, wanting to listen to a show like that, and getting to a fly on the wall of other people's feathers. But actually then offering your own up, like, there's a difference there. And if you would be the ladder, maybe let Adam know, because this could be interesting. I'm Adam, if people want to keep in touch with you. And learn more about Django unicorn, where should they go?
Adam Hill 42:29
Sure. So um, I'm on Twitter, and I tweet occasionally, every couple of days, probably So, but they can reach out to me there I am. Adam g Hill, on Twitter, and on GitHub.
Michele Hansen 42:44
And what about Django unicorn? Where can they find that?
Adam Hill 42:45
That's on Twitter as well, Django unicorn. All one word. And if you go there, you can find it on GitHub.
Michele Hansen 42:55
Awesome. We'll also put those links in the description for today's show. Adam, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks. And Colleen, we'll be back next week. So we'll talk to you soon.
Follow Adam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adamghill
Michele Hansen 0:00
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to software social. So as you heard last week, Colleen joined the Hammerstone team. And she also just started a job recently. And she just moved California. So Colleen has a lot going on this week. And so for the benefit of her mental health, we decided that she should just take the week off. And I'm super excited because that meant that I got to bring a friend on the show this week. So I have Adam hill with us, Adam and I actually used to work together. He was the CTO at a place I used to work at. And he also has some projects going. So welcome, Adam. Hey, it's been a long time since we've caught. Yeah, it's weird. I should do this more often. No, no, when we had I had Murray pulling on a couple of weeks ago, the notion expert. And we like had that exact same conversation at the beginning of it was like, This is so weird. I talked to you online all the time. But we haven't actually spoken in a very long time.
Adam Hill 2:04
Right. talking over Twitter is a little bit different than hearing someone's voice.
Michele Hansen 2:08
Yeah. Yeah, it is. So so actually speaking of one of those conversations we are having so we were talking the other day about podcasts, and you were kind of thinking about maybe you start your own show or whatnot. But you said something in particular that I wanted to talk about? Because I think it is I think it's will strike a chord with a lot of people. And you said, I'm tired of hearing podcasts from people who don't struggle.
Adam Hill 2:41
Yes. Oh, all right. So no offense to you. And thank Colleen, because I think you guys do a great job of talking through the things that you're, you know, having problems with. And maybe this is just the podcast that I tend to listen to. But there seem to be a couple of categories. There's like, advice, podcasts, there are interview podcasts. And then there are kind of like two co founders, like talking through their last week sort of podcasts. And the advice podcasts seem to be more like, I'm an expert, I know what I'm doing. Here's 10 ways to get more traffic to your landing page, or whatever. The interview podcasts are more like, I just made a million dollars in the last year, like, asked me how I did it. And then the two co founders on a journey. Maybe that's the closest to like, these are the things that we're working through. And I'm having trouble with this or that. But even like, even Colleen, she's making $1,000 a month, which to me is like, That's crazy. Like that's, that's, you know, she's like having so much success. And, you know, maybe some of this is sort of like, everything is relative. I'm, I've tried a bunch of little side projects and startups over the years, and I've never gotten to $1,000 a month, but like, maybe she's looking at you and being like, well, Michelle is like Michelle and Mathias are supporting their family, you know, on their startup. So like, maybe it's just everyone is able to look at someone who is above them, quote, unquote, and see someone who is like, doing more of what they want to be doing.
Michele Hansen 4:40
I think what you're saying is is something that a lot of people feel, and I think that there's kind of this undercurrent of loneliness to a certain extent behind the sort of indie hacker indie SAS kind of world where you know if it's just your one person And working on something or maybe you have a co founder, like me, like, don't really have a lot of people in your daily life to talk to you about these kinds of things. And we're already sort of a lonely pursuit to like, try to start your own SAS on the weekend to then like, hear other people who are doing it, but to hear that they're like having the success that that seems elusive to you. Like that could reinforce that kind of feeling of loneliness. And I could understand how that might make you want to, you know, scream at your phone that like $1,000 is actually amazing. What are you talking about?
Adam Hill 5:40
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, Can you talk a little bit about, you know, I assume that it was very helpful for you and Mateus to be working on things together throughout the years, like when you were starting geocodes Oh, so like, was that your sort of like support system? Because there was no mic or cough at that point. And there was, you know, indie hackers, I don't think was around. Yeah. Can you just elaborate on on how that worked for you?
Michele Hansen 6:08
You know, we actually, we didn't go to micro conference till 2019. And we didn't go for so long. Because we didn't feel like legit enough to be there. Like, and I guess I didn't know that. Like the micro con growth side was a thing. But still, like, we didn't feel like we were, like, legit enough to be there even after we had gone full time.
Adam Hill 6:35
So when did you go full time? Was it 2017? So you didn't think that you belong to that community?
Michele Hansen 6:44
No, it existed really like so I remember actually, when I was when we started it like the only people we I don't think we knew anyone with side projects, really. And like we had friends were developers. And like, they gave us feedback on it. But like we didn't really know any, like, we knew people who were like freelance developers, who were like, you know, contracting, but like we didn't, I didn't know anybody who had like, started their own SAS and then ran it as like a one two person show. But so when I went full time in 2017, I remember really wanting community. And I actually started a meetup for like, people to work together from Whole Foods, I think, in DC. Yeah. Well, like it. Yeah, it was, I think I did like three, two or three times, like the first time nobody showed up. The second time. This, like other woman, who was a marketing consultant showed up and like, that was cool. And then we like sat next to each other at a table at Whole Foods. Yeah, didn't really talk. And I guess it was fine. And then and then the last time this like, got older guy showed up on like, pitched me how he could like we needed to get our business into China and how. And it was like, I don't know. And after that, I was like, this may, I don't know, maybe this isn't gonna work. And I shut down. And then I actually joined a co working space for I remember half a year but actually only went for like, the first three months, because then I really wanted to, like meet people and like, make friends and find other people in a similar situation. And like going to a co working space in DC there just really wasn't anybody doing that. Like, it wasn't 1776, right? No, it was actually so Okay, so, so context for the people who are not from DC. So 1776 I don't even know if it still exists, but it was like this, like, incubators, slash like co working space in downtown dc 1776 is actually where we did our buco to prototype testing. So we had friends who had a start up at 1776. And one day Mateus, like, you know, went there with his laptop and had people play around with the API and like, try to break it and you know, doing all the stuff about authentication and whatnot, that was actually at 1776. But I think they take a percentage of the company if you want to go work there, or they used to, I don't I don't I haven't really followed it and the last couple of years. Um, but yeah, and then and actually wasn't really until I kind of found the whole community on Twitter and like the whole micro content kind of world that I felt like I had, like community of people, but even then, if you find that community like it can be hard to feel like you are, like fit in like because I feel like people are super welcoming, but like I didn't know that from the outside. And then yeah, and then we kind of like showed up and then and then like we You start talking to people and everything and we like we kind of are like, Whoa, like, you know, we're not legit. And then you talk to people I was laughing Yeah, yeah, you know, in no revenue, like, you know, over a million, you know, like, and they're like, what, where have you been like you just came out of nowhere? Like you're like, Okay, I guess we could, I guess I guess we didn't have to have this like imposter syndrome about it for like, five years
Adam Hill 10:26
isn't gonna say imposter syndrome. I mean, that's what it sounds like. And I, we have a mutual friend, person who we used to work with, who has their own other startup, I went to lunch with him the other day. And you know, he's doing really well. And I was like, you could be talking about, you know, how well you're doing more if you want it to as sort of like content marketing or sharing, you know, your journey. And he doesn't really want to. So, I mean, that's interesting, because you said that you hadn't heard about micro comm for a long time. So I listened to startups for the rest of us which podcast for probably like 10 years, and sort of followed that journey. And then that podcast turned into micro Comm. And then it turned into tiny seed. So it's been fun to watch. That community is sort of like morph and change over time.
Michele Hansen 11:35
But we just kind of turned this about, like how I didn't feel included for a long time. But I think what we were intending to talk about was how you feel sort of alienated hearing about other people's success. And I recognize this is somewhat uncomfortable to talk about. But I also think it's important to talk about because I so many people feel this way, and not just about trying to launch a SAS but in general, like when you are struggling with something and all you see are examples of success. It is profoundly alienating and discouraging. And I think people think they're being motivating be like, look at me, I made, you know, like $10 million, or whatever, like last year and like, here's how you can do it by my course. Like, like those people have good intentions. But I think as as you know, like if you're in that position of being like, yeah, like my revenue is zero, and it has been zero for five years now. And I've watched 10 things like and you're like, what am I doing wrong? Is it me, like all these other people having success? Like, you know, it's like watching all of your friends get a boyfriend or girlfriend in high school, and you're like, what am I doing wrong?
Adam Hill 12:44
I think that, especially with some of the interview podcasts, the people who come on to talk are people who are, you know, successful in somewhere or other? Do you remember, there used to be a website when the.com boom, and bust was happening called f company? Um, I kind of want like a, like, what were the biggest mistakes that I made in my company or startup, I think that would be instructive and sort of helpful to show like, maybe that vulnerability of like, you are struggling with this thing. And, or I messed up this thing. And here are sort of maybe some takeaways or lessons from it. I think that would be sort of interesting,
Michele Hansen 13:45
huh? Yeah, I think people talking more about the, I think in the way that I think I'm quoting someone here that, you know, success is always contextually specific, like the specific resources and constraints and incentives and whatnot, that lead someone to be successful or not always, you know, immediately applicable to someone else, especially if they're in a different situation. I think it's also the success, the same for failure. And now, of course, it may be very, very difficult for someone who has had a failure to do that kind of analysis, but also breaking down those other things. Because then if you read that and be like, oh, like, they didn't have this resource that I have, like, maybe I could make this work, and I could overcome that. Is that kind of what you're thinking?
Adam Hill 14:36
Yeah, I think so. So sometimes, there'll be like a post mortem, when a startup goes away. They're always really interesting for me to read through. And I just wonder if, you know, basically, those are sort of like, there's one of them because then everything goes away after that. And, you know, it might be useful to sort of had a catalogue of those things. I don't know, I'm sort of just thinking off the top of my head,
Michele Hansen 15:14
it's almost like the inverse of, you know, say like, you know, indie hackers, for example, they do a lot of highlighting of people who have been successful and can inspire others. And there's, there's a place for that, and I almost was, what you're saying is like an inverse of that, that's like, here's my failure, or, like, here's my side project that I launched two years ago, and doesn't have any revenue, or, you know, it's been stuck at 300 MRR for a year, like, and here's what I think I'm doing wrong. And I'm gonna requires this like level of vulnerability that I think would take a lot for people to be willing to do that. And maybe they would want to do it anonymously. But then again, if they're on the show, and people are listening, then it's like, maybe marketing for their things. So I you know, but I think there really is something there because we all have more failures than successes. Like I think that's normal. It's also normal to like, hide the failures under the rug and be like, Oh, no, look at my successes look great. This was amazing, isn't it? Um, you know, like, I've watched stuff that failed. Like, I've like we've botched launches, like, like we've had, you know, customers wanting to, like, burn us down at points, like, maybe not for Juho do but like for other things like, absolutely. Like, it's, it's totally normal. In some ways, it's one of the reasons why I think I, you know, I'm, I want to hold on to God as long as I can, because like, starting a business is really hard. And like having to do it all over again. You know, the, the chance of failure is, is much higher. So I'm sorry, if you listen to this show for inspiration, because you're not getting it. You know, so I think is maybe enough on failure. I do want to talk about what you have launched, though, because you have done some really cool stuff. And I don't think you give yourself enough credit for it. So was it last year or the year before you launched Django unicorn, which is basically like Laravel Livewire for Django.
Adam Hill 17:37
Yeah, I think it was last year. And actually, I think it was a tweet that you responded to. I was like, I think I said something about, I wish you know, Laravel Livewire was for Django. And I think you said, Why don't you or something like that, so terrible. So thank you, I guess. Um, but yeah, so it is, um, it's a, it's basically a full stack framework for Django. So if listeners have ever used any, like front end framework, like view or react, they know that you basically, you have like your front end part of your website, and then you have the back end, and they sort of have to talk to each other. What, there's a couple of these out there, there's Phoenix Live View, and there's Laravel Livewire, and there's Django unicorn. And they basically let you build the interactive front end website easier, without having to basically build both pieces separately, and then connect them. It enables the nice user experience, quicker than having to build both pieces at the at the same time. So it's been a fun project. One thing that might be interesting about it is that it's all open source. But I have GitHub sponsors enabled on it. And so I do have a bunch of sponsors on it. Well, 10 ish, which for me is like more than a handful. That's awesome. So I don't know how you how you, you know, rank open source projects, but there's around 700 stars on GitHub, and nine to 10 sponsors. So for me, that's like, crazy successful. People are using it in production. So now it's, you know, responding to issues and bugs and trying to add features when I have time. But yeah, it's been It's been really fun to build it sort of, if you've heard of like the I didn't think about this at the time. But if you think about like the stair step approach where you like, you have like a small, little product, usually it's like a WordPress theme or a plugin for Shopify or something. Sometimes it's good to like, get your feet wet with that little thing before you like try to do like a SaaS product. It's been fun to sort of like, I have a whole marketing site for which we can sort of talking about marketing to developers, maybe if that's interesting, because I've sort of thought about that a bunch. But um, yeah, it's different than, you know, making a b2c startup for, you know, latitude and longitude, coordinates or, or whatever. Yeah, it's a, it's a whole different beast, I guess.
Michele Hansen 20:59
Yeah, I find the business model of open source really, really interesting. Because it's so different than, like, what we do, like we just sell to businesses who need what we need. And then that's kind of like it, like, we just have to be there when they're searching for it. And so you have I mean, sponsors on the project. I mean, it sounds like it is it is, like pretty successful. So to all of our talk about failure early on, and imposter syndrome, I feel like there's maybe a little bit that going on here, but I think it's like, so what do you want to like? Like, do with it? Like you mentioned that you're doing support? And like you're trying to add features when you have time? Like? Where do you want it to go?
Adam Hill 21:48
Yeah, that's a good question. Because I, I don't have a great answer for you. I think, you know, I'm maybe being naive, or like, super altruistic, but I really like the Django ecosystem, and Python. And sort of, I wanted to put something out there that people used and let them move faster and build things quicker, without a lot of pain and struggle. That was my initial goal. I enabled sponsors, sort of on a lark, because, well, it was the pandemic, and I had a lot of time. So I put a lot of time and effort into building out this framework, and then also all the documentation and marketing site. And so, you know, my initial goal was basically if I could pay my hosting fees, on Heroku, then it was a, you know, that was gonna be a win. And so I got that, which is great. It is interesting. So it's sort of like what I was talking about before where there's like, always someone sort of ahead of you that you kind of like look up to, um, I don't know if you know, the developer who does Livewire in Laravel. It's Caleb porzio. He is making a living off of Livewire and another JavaScript framework called Alpine. And so I kind of look to him as like, Oh, that's sort of That's crazy. He has enough sponsors where he can basically, you know, work on that full time. I don't know, that's not really my goal. But it's interesting to look at sort of the tactics that he is using to get that many sponsors and sort of do the things that make sense for unicorn as well.
Michele Hansen 23:53
Yeah, it seems like there's a couple different paths, you can go on with a product that is that is open source. You know, so I guess there's there's this sponsors approach. There's like people who sell courses and books on top of it like thing like tailwind, for example. I think the more like, classical example is like consulting services using it. And then there's kind of also like, what, what Hammerstone is doing, which Colleen is working on now, where I believe it's something like the back end is open, but the front end is not. And it's also there's also like, you can have sort of, like productized services on top of it. To where there's, there's like a, you know, like, I mean, a lot of Laravel stuff is like, there's there's a product that's, you know, that makes it easy to do all of those things. And so it's kind of interesting, I think about the different options like you could go down.
Adam Hill 24:49
It sounds like for Hammerstone. They also have a client who is sort of paying them to develop the thing and then to develop refine And then they'll be able to keep that IP. That's Yeah. From the last podcast.
Michele Hansen 25:07
Yeah.
Adam Hill 25:07
So yeah, so that's really interesting as well. So I know for, for Livewire, Caleb wrote a long article, which basically detailed all the things all of his sort of like, ways that he got more sponsors. So one of them was he gated screencasts for like how to use the product. So there was some of the like, elementary ways to use Livewire are free, and then for more advanced things they were yet to sponsor. And then he also did sort of a sponsor where model sort of like shareware where if you were a sponsor, you got access to a certain, you know, library or some code. And then once it hit a set number of sponsors, he then just open source that. So yeah, the sort of making money off of open source has all these different sort of approaches, which I think is really interesting. And sort of, you know, one of the things that I've kind of liked about this product or project is, I sort of, because I've been a developer for so long, I feel like I know how they think. And I'm scratching my own itch. So like, both of those things, make it a little bit easier to, you know, market.
Michele Hansen 26:42
I wonder, like, do you intend to waste like, like, I feel like this plays into incentives a lot. And it's where we started do Cody from place off, but like, from our conversations about it, it seems like you basically want to keep this as a, a side project. Like, it's, you know, it's sort of as much for you know, like, having extra money on the side is always great, like, you know, when we started to akoto, it actually came out of like, to be able to afford daycare, which, you know, context for the non Americans listening. daycare is like $25,000 a year and costs more than public college tuition in the majority of states. And yeah, so we're like, like, we can't just like magically start making $25,000 more from our jobs, we've got to get something going. And so it was, like, always intended to be a side project. And I, and I feel like I hear that from you. And I think one of the, the other benefits of that, aside from the extra money is kind of like giving yourself like a playground or like a sandbox to like play in outside of work that's like, just for your own enjoyment. And just as you said, like, doing something to help other people to make things easier for them.
Adam Hill 28:02
Yeah, so. So for some context, I guess, like, I really like my day job, like, I don't ever want to leave, I know a lot of sort of bootstrappers, or whatever you call these people. You know, they want to, you know, escape the nine to five, and they, they don't want a boss and whatever the other, you know, sort of reasons for for pursuing this path. But it is mostly a hobby for me, it's something for me to do, like you said outside of work, work on different things that I wouldn't get to do in my day job. So that has been most of my side projects have sort of scratched that itch. So my incentives are pretty minimal. And I do think about that a lot. I think one thing that is interesting for startups, or for side projects, is that once you charge people, you get feedback from the marketplace. It sounds like a level of
Michele Hansen 29:17
responsibility or obligation comes into that, like, you know, I've heard like Taylor, Hartwell and Adam wathan, like, talking about how mean people can be in GitHub issues and like really demanding and like, you know, if somebody sponsors you them feeling entitled to you building every feature they asked for, and replying to things right away and like paying customers has its own stresses, but also like having not paying customers or even like spot like that, that creates its own set of stresses as well. And you know, to You're saying about incentives? Like, I wouldn't say that you have no incentives you actually have, if you have a day job, you have incentives for an extremely low support volume, because you can't reply to anything between nine and five. And you probably don't want to spend all day Saturday and Sunday going through support tickets, because like, you've got a family, you want to do other things in your life. And as I mean, it's, it's a lot to think about.
Adam Hill 30:26
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing I think about is like, Why do I keep trying to do this? Because like, um, you know, it's, so when we started working, I was the CTO for a little while, at the same time, I had co founded a startup on the side. So that was sort of crazy, crazy time. And I a small child at the time, the two other co founders wanted to go full time. And, and I didn't, so we sort of split at some point. But even that, which was sort of like, more of a real startup, like, over the years, I have done side projects. And, and I just, I do wonder about sort of the psychology of like people who just keep trying over and over and over again, even if it doesn't really work out, like, I'm not trying to make a ton of money off of this. So that's not my incentive, it's more like, I just want to see how far I can go and how much I can do. And I do think that charging people sort of gives you a really like, clear answer of this is something that someone finds useful or not.
Michele Hansen 31:58
And then how you kind of work that in with the sort of multiple options available for an open source project. I mean, it's kind of in a way, like SAS is like, so much more straightforward. It's like you have pay as you go, you have a subscription, like maybe you have a, you know, you pay for onboarding services, or integration fees, and then you play as a tutor on top of that, like, there's not really as many things have, like, you know, like pay for this ebook about how to use this project, or, as you mentioned, with live wire, having screencasts about how to use it, or gatekeeping, you know, specific features like for so there's some of that in SAS, but like, it's very different dynamics. And do you feel excited by those options? Or do you feel decision fatigue, and kind of not sure where to go with all of that,
Adam Hill 32:50
I think I have a few things in my head of these are things I could I could do. There's a little bit of decision fatigue, I have done some screencasts. But I find it takes a really long time for me to do them. I know you've done a conference talk before. But like, I also did a conference talk per Django unicorn. And I spent so much time preparing for it and doing the slides and running through it over and over again. And a screencast isn't that much time, but it's similar, where I sort of like, need to figure out a script and write all the code and plan everything out. So getting motivated to do that is a little tricky. So other than that, though, there are a couple other ways that I could monetize Django unicorn. But I do feel like, I want to try more of a SaaS product, just to sort of not diversify my income because there's very little income, but like, sort of try something new. I do wonder if the side projects are a way to just try a lot of different things and see, you know, see what I can learn along the way.
Michele Hansen 34:19
I guess it kind of comes back to what you were saying about you were sort of like why am I doing this in the first place?
Adam Hill 34:26
Yeah, I you know, I don't have a good answer for that because I I asked them myself a lot. I look at it as a hobby. And you know, I I'm curious how you how you looked at geocode do at the beginning like you said it was to pay your their daycare bills, but at some point it pay the daycare bills and then sort of how did you think about it from that point on?
Michele Hansen 34:56
Well, then it went on to paying off my student loans. There's just more and more things that are paid off. More American, like financial debt obligations. Yes, that's basically the story. Um, no, I mean, you know, I'm personally very motivated by like financial security. But no, it was always like, it was a hobby, until it got to the point where it was like, No, this is actually serious. And like, this is actually you know, this is this is this is a business, I can trust that the revenue isn't going to disappear overnight, like like this, this other part that people don't really talk about is like, there's this first stage of like, nothing is working. Everyone is having success, but me. Okay, cool. We're having our hosting costs, awesome. And then like, kind of growing it a little bit like this is working, having fun throwing pasta at the wall, you know, unlike it work, like you can try something and if it doesn't work, like there's very little consequences for it at that stage. And you can, you have a lot more freedom to explore and for decision making, which is something that I really valued from it. But then there's kind of the stage when you have legit revenue, feeling like this could go away overnight, like a big competitor could come in, release something, and everybody's gonna switch and my revenue was gone. And like, basically, like I like I like, where I didn't trust the revenue, if that makes sense like that. I mean, the revenue is, I'm totally like anthropomorphizing it here. But trusting that it would be there, that you could rely on it. Like that took me a very, very long time, I probably I waited a lot longer to go full time, I think then other people might, especially people who are super eager to not have a boss anymore, and whatnot, because I was so afraid of that. And also, because, you know, in the US, when you fall, you fall hard, there is no floor, basically, to how far or how far you fall. And, you know, just based on my life experience and whatnot, that was something I was terrified of. And, but it took me a long time to really trust the revenue. And so it was like part, I think it was like it was a hobby, and it was my fun place to explore, where I got to make all the decisions. And I was the one doing the roadmap and is doing all these different things. And you know, I'm ADHD, so I love that I have to switch between, like all of these different things all the time. And we're all these different hats, because then I don't get bored. But I think saying I was a side project for so long, because it was a hobby, I think that would be lying to myself, because there's that other reason that I just didn't trust that it wasn't going away.
Adam Hill 37:56
So you've talked about not having, you know, other employees or anything, but can you talk about sort of, you could have had sort of a contractor who would help out with parts of geocode do. And that would have been a less final decision, I guess, then not getting a full time job again.
Michele Hansen 38:27
Oh, you mean like before I went full time, like hiring a contractor to work? Yeah, I never even considered that. I mean, it was just earlier this year that I even got a VA, like I had never occurred to me. I mean, even now, like the I don't, we don't plan to hire anyone full time. And for some reasons, it would be nice. But in other ways, like I like I don't feel capable of like fully managing and like taking on the hopes and dreams of another person. Like, I feel like I'm treading water at doing that as a parent. And so I questioned my ability to do that with an employee and give them the amount of attention that they deserve. And then also provide a career path of advancement for them. Like I take it very seriously that it's not just a year of employment for someone, it's, you know, if things work out 510 20 years, and we're I can't be certain that this company would never grow to be more than, you know, three people or whatever, like and then there's the co founders running it, like there's always a ceiling for those people and, like I would almost feel bad like bringing someone on to a company that I knew that they couldn't advance that or run like I feel guilty about that. Like it feels like wrong to me, even though I know there are people who like don't want to run a company would be very happy with that. Like, like to me like I can't like I just can't get over that. So, um, but yeah, I'm taking baby steps with VA, to talk to me again in five years, when maybe we have hired a part time support person or something.
Adam Hill 40:14
Yeah, I mean, I hear you on on the full time employee. I that sounds daunting. And, you know, there's payroll, and there's taxes, and there's, you know, all of that, at least in the States. There's, you know, human
Michele Hansen 40:28
side, though, that's the part that, you know, I don't know, I guess I don't believe in myself as a manager. So I know we can execute, need to
Adam Hill 40:41
get over your imposter syndrome syndrome. Michelle, and you can do anything. I don't know where I was going with that. Well, that's why I brought up, you know, contractor or, you know, a va or a part time, you know, support person. But that all makes sense, because you are less invested in in helping that person grow. Because, you know, they're not actually a full time employee.
Michele Hansen 41:08
Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I think I have to dive deeper. And figured that I think this might be one of the rawest interviews we have ever done on my side, and probably on the interviewee side. So maybe this is a good time to end it for today. Sounds good. Thank you so much for listening. Adam, thank you so much for being on today and talking about struggle, which, again, as you said, I think is a really common feeling. And people just don't talk about it. So maybe we're changing that a little bit. If anyone listening would be interested in a podcast where people talk about stuff they did that failed, maybe let Adam know. And who knows? Oh, gosh, I was on it, right? Because there's a difference between like, wanting to listen to a show like that, and getting to a fly on the wall of other people's feathers. But actually then offering your own up, like, there's a difference there. And if you would be the ladder, maybe let Adam know, because this could be interesting. I'm Adam, if people want to keep in touch with you. And learn more about Django unicorn, where should they go?
Adam Hill 42:29
Sure. So um, I'm on Twitter, and I tweet occasionally, every couple of days, probably So, but they can reach out to me there I am. Adam g Hill, on Twitter, and on GitHub.
Michele Hansen 42:44
And what about Django unicorn? Where can they find that?
Adam Hill 42:45
That's on Twitter as well, Django unicorn. All one word. And if you go there, you can find it on GitHub.
Michele Hansen 42:55
Awesome. We'll also put those links in the description for today's show. Adam, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks. And Colleen, we'll be back next week. So we'll talk to you soon.
Creators & Guests
What is Software Social?
Two indie SaaS founders—one just getting off the ground, and one with an established profitable business—invite you to join their weekly chats.
Michele Hansen 0:00
Hey, welcome back to Software Social. This episode of Software Social is sponsored by Noko. https://nokotime.com/
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to software social. So as you heard last week, Colleen joined the Hammerstone team. And she also just started a job recently. And she just moved California. So Colleen has a lot going on this week. And so for the benefit of her mental health, we decided that she should just take the week off. And I'm super excited because that meant that I got to bring a friend on the show this week. So I have Adam hill with us, Adam and I actually used to work together. He was the CTO at a place I used to work at. And he also has some projects going. So welcome, Adam. Hey, it's been a long time since we've caught. Yeah, it's weird. I should do this more often. No, no, when we had I had Murray pulling on a couple of weeks ago, the notion expert. And we like had that exact same conversation at the beginning of it was like, This is so weird. I talked to you online all the time. But we haven't actually spoken in a very long time.
Adam Hill 2:04
Right. talking over Twitter is a little bit different than hearing someone's voice.
Michele Hansen 2:08
Yeah. Yeah, it is. So so actually speaking of one of those conversations we are having so we were talking the other day about podcasts, and you were kind of thinking about maybe you start your own show or whatnot. But you said something in particular that I wanted to talk about? Because I think it is I think it's will strike a chord with a lot of people. And you said, I'm tired of hearing podcasts from people who don't struggle.
Adam Hill 2:41
Yes. Oh, all right. So no offense to you. And thank Colleen, because I think you guys do a great job of talking through the things that you're, you know, having problems with. And maybe this is just the podcast that I tend to listen to. But there seem to be a couple of categories. There's like, advice, podcasts, there are interview podcasts. And then there are kind of like two co founders, like talking through their last week sort of podcasts. And the advice podcasts seem to be more like, I'm an expert, I know what I'm doing. Here's 10 ways to get more traffic to your landing page, or whatever. The interview podcasts are more like, I just made a million dollars in the last year, like, asked me how I did it. And then the two co founders on a journey. Maybe that's the closest to like, these are the things that we're working through. And I'm having trouble with this or that. But even like, even Colleen, she's making $1,000 a month, which to me is like, That's crazy. Like that's, that's, you know, she's like having so much success. And, you know, maybe some of this is sort of like, everything is relative. I'm, I've tried a bunch of little side projects and startups over the years, and I've never gotten to $1,000 a month, but like, maybe she's looking at you and being like, well, Michelle is like Michelle and Mathias are supporting their family, you know, on their startup. So like, maybe it's just everyone is able to look at someone who is above them, quote, unquote, and see someone who is like, doing more of what they want to be doing.
Michele Hansen 4:40
I think what you're saying is is something that a lot of people feel, and I think that there's kind of this undercurrent of loneliness to a certain extent behind the sort of indie hacker indie SAS kind of world where you know if it's just your one person And working on something or maybe you have a co founder, like me, like, don't really have a lot of people in your daily life to talk to you about these kinds of things. And we're already sort of a lonely pursuit to like, try to start your own SAS on the weekend to then like, hear other people who are doing it, but to hear that they're like having the success that that seems elusive to you. Like that could reinforce that kind of feeling of loneliness. And I could understand how that might make you want to, you know, scream at your phone that like $1,000 is actually amazing. What are you talking about?
Adam Hill 5:40
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, Can you talk a little bit about, you know, I assume that it was very helpful for you and Mateus to be working on things together throughout the years, like when you were starting geocodes Oh, so like, was that your sort of like support system? Because there was no mic or cough at that point. And there was, you know, indie hackers, I don't think was around. Yeah. Can you just elaborate on on how that worked for you?
Michele Hansen 6:08
You know, we actually, we didn't go to micro conference till 2019. And we didn't go for so long. Because we didn't feel like legit enough to be there. Like, and I guess I didn't know that. Like the micro con growth side was a thing. But still, like, we didn't feel like we were, like, legit enough to be there even after we had gone full time.
Adam Hill 6:35
So when did you go full time? Was it 2017? So you didn't think that you belong to that community?
Michele Hansen 6:44
No, it existed really like so I remember actually, when I was when we started it like the only people we I don't think we knew anyone with side projects, really. And like we had friends were developers. And like, they gave us feedback on it. But like we didn't really know any, like, we knew people who were like freelance developers, who were like, you know, contracting, but like we didn't, I didn't know anybody who had like, started their own SAS and then ran it as like a one two person show. But so when I went full time in 2017, I remember really wanting community. And I actually started a meetup for like, people to work together from Whole Foods, I think, in DC. Yeah. Well, like it. Yeah, it was, I think I did like three, two or three times, like the first time nobody showed up. The second time. This, like other woman, who was a marketing consultant showed up and like, that was cool. And then we like sat next to each other at a table at Whole Foods. Yeah, didn't really talk. And I guess it was fine. And then and then the last time this like, got older guy showed up on like, pitched me how he could like we needed to get our business into China and how. And it was like, I don't know. And after that, I was like, this may, I don't know, maybe this isn't gonna work. And I shut down. And then I actually joined a co working space for I remember half a year but actually only went for like, the first three months, because then I really wanted to, like meet people and like, make friends and find other people in a similar situation. And like going to a co working space in DC there just really wasn't anybody doing that. Like, it wasn't 1776, right? No, it was actually so Okay, so, so context for the people who are not from DC. So 1776 I don't even know if it still exists, but it was like this, like, incubators, slash like co working space in downtown dc 1776 is actually where we did our buco to prototype testing. So we had friends who had a start up at 1776. And one day Mateus, like, you know, went there with his laptop and had people play around with the API and like, try to break it and you know, doing all the stuff about authentication and whatnot, that was actually at 1776. But I think they take a percentage of the company if you want to go work there, or they used to, I don't I don't I haven't really followed it and the last couple of years. Um, but yeah, and then and actually wasn't really until I kind of found the whole community on Twitter and like the whole micro content kind of world that I felt like I had, like community of people, but even then, if you find that community like it can be hard to feel like you are, like fit in like because I feel like people are super welcoming, but like I didn't know that from the outside. And then yeah, and then we kind of like showed up and then and then like we You start talking to people and everything and we like we kind of are like, Whoa, like, you know, we're not legit. And then you talk to people I was laughing Yeah, yeah, you know, in no revenue, like, you know, over a million, you know, like, and they're like, what, where have you been like you just came out of nowhere? Like you're like, Okay, I guess we could, I guess I guess we didn't have to have this like imposter syndrome about it for like, five years
Adam Hill 10:26
isn't gonna say imposter syndrome. I mean, that's what it sounds like. And I, we have a mutual friend, person who we used to work with, who has their own other startup, I went to lunch with him the other day. And you know, he's doing really well. And I was like, you could be talking about, you know, how well you're doing more if you want it to as sort of like content marketing or sharing, you know, your journey. And he doesn't really want to. So, I mean, that's interesting, because you said that you hadn't heard about micro comm for a long time. So I listened to startups for the rest of us which podcast for probably like 10 years, and sort of followed that journey. And then that podcast turned into micro Comm. And then it turned into tiny seed. So it's been fun to watch. That community is sort of like morph and change over time.
Michele Hansen 11:35
But we just kind of turned this about, like how I didn't feel included for a long time. But I think what we were intending to talk about was how you feel sort of alienated hearing about other people's success. And I recognize this is somewhat uncomfortable to talk about. But I also think it's important to talk about because I so many people feel this way, and not just about trying to launch a SAS but in general, like when you are struggling with something and all you see are examples of success. It is profoundly alienating and discouraging. And I think people think they're being motivating be like, look at me, I made, you know, like $10 million, or whatever, like last year and like, here's how you can do it by my course. Like, like those people have good intentions. But I think as as you know, like if you're in that position of being like, yeah, like my revenue is zero, and it has been zero for five years now. And I've watched 10 things like and you're like, what am I doing wrong? Is it me, like all these other people having success? Like, you know, it's like watching all of your friends get a boyfriend or girlfriend in high school, and you're like, what am I doing wrong?
Adam Hill 12:44
I think that, especially with some of the interview podcasts, the people who come on to talk are people who are, you know, successful in somewhere or other? Do you remember, there used to be a website when the.com boom, and bust was happening called f company? Um, I kind of want like a, like, what were the biggest mistakes that I made in my company or startup, I think that would be instructive and sort of helpful to show like, maybe that vulnerability of like, you are struggling with this thing. And, or I messed up this thing. And here are sort of maybe some takeaways or lessons from it. I think that would be sort of interesting,
Michele Hansen 13:45
huh? Yeah, I think people talking more about the, I think in the way that I think I'm quoting someone here that, you know, success is always contextually specific, like the specific resources and constraints and incentives and whatnot, that lead someone to be successful or not always, you know, immediately applicable to someone else, especially if they're in a different situation. I think it's also the success, the same for failure. And now, of course, it may be very, very difficult for someone who has had a failure to do that kind of analysis, but also breaking down those other things. Because then if you read that and be like, oh, like, they didn't have this resource that I have, like, maybe I could make this work, and I could overcome that. Is that kind of what you're thinking?
Adam Hill 14:36
Yeah, I think so. So sometimes, there'll be like a post mortem, when a startup goes away. They're always really interesting for me to read through. And I just wonder if, you know, basically, those are sort of like, there's one of them because then everything goes away after that. And, you know, it might be useful to sort of had a catalogue of those things. I don't know, I'm sort of just thinking off the top of my head,
Michele Hansen 15:14
it's almost like the inverse of, you know, say like, you know, indie hackers, for example, they do a lot of highlighting of people who have been successful and can inspire others. And there's, there's a place for that, and I almost was, what you're saying is like an inverse of that, that's like, here's my failure, or, like, here's my side project that I launched two years ago, and doesn't have any revenue, or, you know, it's been stuck at 300 MRR for a year, like, and here's what I think I'm doing wrong. And I'm gonna requires this like level of vulnerability that I think would take a lot for people to be willing to do that. And maybe they would want to do it anonymously. But then again, if they're on the show, and people are listening, then it's like, maybe marketing for their things. So I you know, but I think there really is something there because we all have more failures than successes. Like I think that's normal. It's also normal to like, hide the failures under the rug and be like, Oh, no, look at my successes look great. This was amazing, isn't it? Um, you know, like, I've watched stuff that failed. Like, I've like we've botched launches, like, like we've had, you know, customers wanting to, like, burn us down at points, like, maybe not for Juho do but like for other things like, absolutely. Like, it's, it's totally normal. In some ways, it's one of the reasons why I think I, you know, I'm, I want to hold on to God as long as I can, because like, starting a business is really hard. And like having to do it all over again. You know, the, the chance of failure is, is much higher. So I'm sorry, if you listen to this show for inspiration, because you're not getting it. You know, so I think is maybe enough on failure. I do want to talk about what you have launched, though, because you have done some really cool stuff. And I don't think you give yourself enough credit for it. So was it last year or the year before you launched Django unicorn, which is basically like Laravel Livewire for Django.
Adam Hill 17:37
Yeah, I think it was last year. And actually, I think it was a tweet that you responded to. I was like, I think I said something about, I wish you know, Laravel Livewire was for Django. And I think you said, Why don't you or something like that, so terrible. So thank you, I guess. Um, but yeah, so it is, um, it's a, it's basically a full stack framework for Django. So if listeners have ever used any, like front end framework, like view or react, they know that you basically, you have like your front end part of your website, and then you have the back end, and they sort of have to talk to each other. What, there's a couple of these out there, there's Phoenix Live View, and there's Laravel Livewire, and there's Django unicorn. And they basically let you build the interactive front end website easier, without having to basically build both pieces separately, and then connect them. It enables the nice user experience, quicker than having to build both pieces at the at the same time. So it's been a fun project. One thing that might be interesting about it is that it's all open source. But I have GitHub sponsors enabled on it. And so I do have a bunch of sponsors on it. Well, 10 ish, which for me is like more than a handful. That's awesome. So I don't know how you how you, you know, rank open source projects, but there's around 700 stars on GitHub, and nine to 10 sponsors. So for me, that's like, crazy successful. People are using it in production. So now it's, you know, responding to issues and bugs and trying to add features when I have time. But yeah, it's been It's been really fun to build it sort of, if you've heard of like the I didn't think about this at the time. But if you think about like the stair step approach where you like, you have like a small, little product, usually it's like a WordPress theme or a plugin for Shopify or something. Sometimes it's good to like, get your feet wet with that little thing before you like try to do like a SaaS product. It's been fun to sort of like, I have a whole marketing site for which we can sort of talking about marketing to developers, maybe if that's interesting, because I've sort of thought about that a bunch. But um, yeah, it's different than, you know, making a b2c startup for, you know, latitude and longitude, coordinates or, or whatever. Yeah, it's a, it's a whole different beast, I guess.
Michele Hansen 20:59
Yeah, I find the business model of open source really, really interesting. Because it's so different than, like, what we do, like we just sell to businesses who need what we need. And then that's kind of like it, like, we just have to be there when they're searching for it. And so you have I mean, sponsors on the project. I mean, it sounds like it is it is, like pretty successful. So to all of our talk about failure early on, and imposter syndrome, I feel like there's maybe a little bit that going on here, but I think it's like, so what do you want to like? Like, do with it? Like you mentioned that you're doing support? And like you're trying to add features when you have time? Like? Where do you want it to go?
Adam Hill 21:48
Yeah, that's a good question. Because I, I don't have a great answer for you. I think, you know, I'm maybe being naive, or like, super altruistic, but I really like the Django ecosystem, and Python. And sort of, I wanted to put something out there that people used and let them move faster and build things quicker, without a lot of pain and struggle. That was my initial goal. I enabled sponsors, sort of on a lark, because, well, it was the pandemic, and I had a lot of time. So I put a lot of time and effort into building out this framework, and then also all the documentation and marketing site. And so, you know, my initial goal was basically if I could pay my hosting fees, on Heroku, then it was a, you know, that was gonna be a win. And so I got that, which is great. It is interesting. So it's sort of like what I was talking about before where there's like, always someone sort of ahead of you that you kind of like look up to, um, I don't know if you know, the developer who does Livewire in Laravel. It's Caleb porzio. He is making a living off of Livewire and another JavaScript framework called Alpine. And so I kind of look to him as like, Oh, that's sort of That's crazy. He has enough sponsors where he can basically, you know, work on that full time. I don't know, that's not really my goal. But it's interesting to look at sort of the tactics that he is using to get that many sponsors and sort of do the things that make sense for unicorn as well.
Michele Hansen 23:53
Yeah, it seems like there's a couple different paths, you can go on with a product that is that is open source. You know, so I guess there's there's this sponsors approach. There's like people who sell courses and books on top of it like thing like tailwind, for example. I think the more like, classical example is like consulting services using it. And then there's kind of also like, what, what Hammerstone is doing, which Colleen is working on now, where I believe it's something like the back end is open, but the front end is not. And it's also there's also like, you can have sort of, like productized services on top of it. To where there's, there's like a, you know, like, I mean, a lot of Laravel stuff is like, there's there's a product that's, you know, that makes it easy to do all of those things. And so it's kind of interesting, I think about the different options like you could go down.
Adam Hill 24:49
It sounds like for Hammerstone. They also have a client who is sort of paying them to develop the thing and then to develop refine And then they'll be able to keep that IP. That's Yeah. From the last podcast.
Michele Hansen 25:07
Yeah.
Adam Hill 25:07
So yeah, so that's really interesting as well. So I know for, for Livewire, Caleb wrote a long article, which basically detailed all the things all of his sort of like, ways that he got more sponsors. So one of them was he gated screencasts for like how to use the product. So there was some of the like, elementary ways to use Livewire are free, and then for more advanced things they were yet to sponsor. And then he also did sort of a sponsor where model sort of like shareware where if you were a sponsor, you got access to a certain, you know, library or some code. And then once it hit a set number of sponsors, he then just open source that. So yeah, the sort of making money off of open source has all these different sort of approaches, which I think is really interesting. And sort of, you know, one of the things that I've kind of liked about this product or project is, I sort of, because I've been a developer for so long, I feel like I know how they think. And I'm scratching my own itch. So like, both of those things, make it a little bit easier to, you know, market.
Michele Hansen 26:42
I wonder, like, do you intend to waste like, like, I feel like this plays into incentives a lot. And it's where we started do Cody from place off, but like, from our conversations about it, it seems like you basically want to keep this as a, a side project. Like, it's, you know, it's sort of as much for you know, like, having extra money on the side is always great, like, you know, when we started to akoto, it actually came out of like, to be able to afford daycare, which, you know, context for the non Americans listening. daycare is like $25,000 a year and costs more than public college tuition in the majority of states. And yeah, so we're like, like, we can't just like magically start making $25,000 more from our jobs, we've got to get something going. And so it was, like, always intended to be a side project. And I, and I feel like I hear that from you. And I think one of the, the other benefits of that, aside from the extra money is kind of like giving yourself like a playground or like a sandbox to like play in outside of work that's like, just for your own enjoyment. And just as you said, like, doing something to help other people to make things easier for them.
Adam Hill 28:02
Yeah, so. So for some context, I guess, like, I really like my day job, like, I don't ever want to leave, I know a lot of sort of bootstrappers, or whatever you call these people. You know, they want to, you know, escape the nine to five, and they, they don't want a boss and whatever the other, you know, sort of reasons for for pursuing this path. But it is mostly a hobby for me, it's something for me to do, like you said outside of work, work on different things that I wouldn't get to do in my day job. So that has been most of my side projects have sort of scratched that itch. So my incentives are pretty minimal. And I do think about that a lot. I think one thing that is interesting for startups, or for side projects, is that once you charge people, you get feedback from the marketplace. It sounds like a level of
Michele Hansen 29:17
responsibility or obligation comes into that, like, you know, I've heard like Taylor, Hartwell and Adam wathan, like, talking about how mean people can be in GitHub issues and like really demanding and like, you know, if somebody sponsors you them feeling entitled to you building every feature they asked for, and replying to things right away and like paying customers has its own stresses, but also like having not paying customers or even like spot like that, that creates its own set of stresses as well. And you know, to You're saying about incentives? Like, I wouldn't say that you have no incentives you actually have, if you have a day job, you have incentives for an extremely low support volume, because you can't reply to anything between nine and five. And you probably don't want to spend all day Saturday and Sunday going through support tickets, because like, you've got a family, you want to do other things in your life. And as I mean, it's, it's a lot to think about.
Adam Hill 30:26
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing I think about is like, Why do I keep trying to do this? Because like, um, you know, it's, so when we started working, I was the CTO for a little while, at the same time, I had co founded a startup on the side. So that was sort of crazy, crazy time. And I a small child at the time, the two other co founders wanted to go full time. And, and I didn't, so we sort of split at some point. But even that, which was sort of like, more of a real startup, like, over the years, I have done side projects. And, and I just, I do wonder about sort of the psychology of like people who just keep trying over and over and over again, even if it doesn't really work out, like, I'm not trying to make a ton of money off of this. So that's not my incentive, it's more like, I just want to see how far I can go and how much I can do. And I do think that charging people sort of gives you a really like, clear answer of this is something that someone finds useful or not.
Michele Hansen 31:58
And then how you kind of work that in with the sort of multiple options available for an open source project. I mean, it's kind of in a way, like SAS is like, so much more straightforward. It's like you have pay as you go, you have a subscription, like maybe you have a, you know, you pay for onboarding services, or integration fees, and then you play as a tutor on top of that, like, there's not really as many things have, like, you know, like pay for this ebook about how to use this project, or, as you mentioned, with live wire, having screencasts about how to use it, or gatekeeping, you know, specific features like for so there's some of that in SAS, but like, it's very different dynamics. And do you feel excited by those options? Or do you feel decision fatigue, and kind of not sure where to go with all of that,
Adam Hill 32:50
I think I have a few things in my head of these are things I could I could do. There's a little bit of decision fatigue, I have done some screencasts. But I find it takes a really long time for me to do them. I know you've done a conference talk before. But like, I also did a conference talk per Django unicorn. And I spent so much time preparing for it and doing the slides and running through it over and over again. And a screencast isn't that much time, but it's similar, where I sort of like, need to figure out a script and write all the code and plan everything out. So getting motivated to do that is a little tricky. So other than that, though, there are a couple other ways that I could monetize Django unicorn. But I do feel like, I want to try more of a SaaS product, just to sort of not diversify my income because there's very little income, but like, sort of try something new. I do wonder if the side projects are a way to just try a lot of different things and see, you know, see what I can learn along the way.
Michele Hansen 34:19
I guess it kind of comes back to what you were saying about you were sort of like why am I doing this in the first place?
Adam Hill 34:26
Yeah, I you know, I don't have a good answer for that because I I asked them myself a lot. I look at it as a hobby. And you know, I I'm curious how you how you looked at geocode do at the beginning like you said it was to pay your their daycare bills, but at some point it pay the daycare bills and then sort of how did you think about it from that point on?
Michele Hansen 34:56
Well, then it went on to paying off my student loans. There's just more and more things that are paid off. More American, like financial debt obligations. Yes, that's basically the story. Um, no, I mean, you know, I'm personally very motivated by like financial security. But no, it was always like, it was a hobby, until it got to the point where it was like, No, this is actually serious. And like, this is actually you know, this is this is this is a business, I can trust that the revenue isn't going to disappear overnight, like like this, this other part that people don't really talk about is like, there's this first stage of like, nothing is working. Everyone is having success, but me. Okay, cool. We're having our hosting costs, awesome. And then like, kind of growing it a little bit like this is working, having fun throwing pasta at the wall, you know, unlike it work, like you can try something and if it doesn't work, like there's very little consequences for it at that stage. And you can, you have a lot more freedom to explore and for decision making, which is something that I really valued from it. But then there's kind of the stage when you have legit revenue, feeling like this could go away overnight, like a big competitor could come in, release something, and everybody's gonna switch and my revenue was gone. And like, basically, like I like I like, where I didn't trust the revenue, if that makes sense like that. I mean, the revenue is, I'm totally like anthropomorphizing it here. But trusting that it would be there, that you could rely on it. Like that took me a very, very long time, I probably I waited a lot longer to go full time, I think then other people might, especially people who are super eager to not have a boss anymore, and whatnot, because I was so afraid of that. And also, because, you know, in the US, when you fall, you fall hard, there is no floor, basically, to how far or how far you fall. And, you know, just based on my life experience and whatnot, that was something I was terrified of. And, but it took me a long time to really trust the revenue. And so it was like part, I think it was like it was a hobby, and it was my fun place to explore, where I got to make all the decisions. And I was the one doing the roadmap and is doing all these different things. And you know, I'm ADHD, so I love that I have to switch between, like all of these different things all the time. And we're all these different hats, because then I don't get bored. But I think saying I was a side project for so long, because it was a hobby, I think that would be lying to myself, because there's that other reason that I just didn't trust that it wasn't going away.
Adam Hill 37:56
So you've talked about not having, you know, other employees or anything, but can you talk about sort of, you could have had sort of a contractor who would help out with parts of geocode do. And that would have been a less final decision, I guess, then not getting a full time job again.
Michele Hansen 38:27
Oh, you mean like before I went full time, like hiring a contractor to work? Yeah, I never even considered that. I mean, it was just earlier this year that I even got a VA, like I had never occurred to me. I mean, even now, like the I don't, we don't plan to hire anyone full time. And for some reasons, it would be nice. But in other ways, like I like I don't feel capable of like fully managing and like taking on the hopes and dreams of another person. Like, I feel like I'm treading water at doing that as a parent. And so I questioned my ability to do that with an employee and give them the amount of attention that they deserve. And then also provide a career path of advancement for them. Like I take it very seriously that it's not just a year of employment for someone, it's, you know, if things work out 510 20 years, and we're I can't be certain that this company would never grow to be more than, you know, three people or whatever, like and then there's the co founders running it, like there's always a ceiling for those people and, like I would almost feel bad like bringing someone on to a company that I knew that they couldn't advance that or run like I feel guilty about that. Like it feels like wrong to me, even though I know there are people who like don't want to run a company would be very happy with that. Like, like to me like I can't like I just can't get over that. So, um, but yeah, I'm taking baby steps with VA, to talk to me again in five years, when maybe we have hired a part time support person or something.
Adam Hill 40:14
Yeah, I mean, I hear you on on the full time employee. I that sounds daunting. And, you know, there's payroll, and there's taxes, and there's, you know, all of that, at least in the States. There's, you know, human
Michele Hansen 40:28
side, though, that's the part that, you know, I don't know, I guess I don't believe in myself as a manager. So I know we can execute, need to
Adam Hill 40:41
get over your imposter syndrome syndrome. Michelle, and you can do anything. I don't know where I was going with that. Well, that's why I brought up, you know, contractor or, you know, a va or a part time, you know, support person. But that all makes sense, because you are less invested in in helping that person grow. Because, you know, they're not actually a full time employee.
Michele Hansen 41:08
Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I think I have to dive deeper. And figured that I think this might be one of the rawest interviews we have ever done on my side, and probably on the interviewee side. So maybe this is a good time to end it for today. Sounds good. Thank you so much for listening. Adam, thank you so much for being on today and talking about struggle, which, again, as you said, I think is a really common feeling. And people just don't talk about it. So maybe we're changing that a little bit. If anyone listening would be interested in a podcast where people talk about stuff they did that failed, maybe let Adam know. And who knows? Oh, gosh, I was on it, right? Because there's a difference between like, wanting to listen to a show like that, and getting to a fly on the wall of other people's feathers. But actually then offering your own up, like, there's a difference there. And if you would be the ladder, maybe let Adam know, because this could be interesting. I'm Adam, if people want to keep in touch with you. And learn more about Django unicorn, where should they go?
Adam Hill 42:29
Sure. So um, I'm on Twitter, and I tweet occasionally, every couple of days, probably So, but they can reach out to me there I am. Adam g Hill, on Twitter, and on GitHub.
Michele Hansen 42:44
And what about Django unicorn? Where can they find that?
Adam Hill 42:45
That's on Twitter as well, Django unicorn. All one word. And if you go there, you can find it on GitHub.
Michele Hansen 42:55
Awesome. We'll also put those links in the description for today's show. Adam, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks. And Colleen, we'll be back next week. So we'll talk to you soon.