WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:04.971 --> 00:00:06.171 Colin: Welcome to Build and Learn. 00:00:06.171 --> 00:00:07.161 My name is Colin. 00:00:07.821 --> 00:00:11.631 CJ: I'm cj and hey, we've officially survived past that 00:00:11.631 --> 00:00:13.611 one year point for a podcast. 00:00:14.001 --> 00:00:14.691 We made it. 00:00:14.761 --> 00:00:20.431 Most podcasts don't make it one year, and that's because of the podcast fade. 00:00:20.431 --> 00:00:21.361 The pod fade. 00:00:22.319 --> 00:00:25.109 Colin: I think, that this is one of those like consistency things. 00:00:25.109 --> 00:00:27.859 This is the going to the gym, any habit. 00:00:28.529 --> 00:00:30.209 I have a newsletter, I have a blog. 00:00:30.749 --> 00:00:35.579 I don't keep them up to date as much, but I like that we put this 00:00:35.579 --> 00:00:37.619 on the calendar and we get to chat. 00:00:37.619 --> 00:00:40.539 So especially now that we're not in the same place anymore and it's 00:00:40.544 --> 00:00:42.309 still still something I wanna do. 00:00:42.309 --> 00:00:44.709 So I'm excited to hit that. 00:00:44.714 --> 00:00:48.839 And, and Transistor has this little fun badge system that I think it's nice to 00:00:48.839 --> 00:00:50.849 just, when you log in to edit an episode. 00:00:51.629 --> 00:00:54.569 I just saw it was a year, I don't think I would've noticed otherwise. 00:00:54.569 --> 00:00:57.329 So kudos to the team over there. 00:00:57.329 --> 00:01:01.499 Just a little fun, fun, surprise and delight in the transistor product. 00:01:01.549 --> 00:01:05.009 CJ: Yeah, They've got like quite a few little gamification things built in 00:01:05.459 --> 00:01:07.659 that are pretty neat for podcasters. 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:12.039 So there's like lots of little badges and things you can earn throughout. 00:01:12.099 --> 00:01:12.939 So it's pretty neat. 00:01:13.719 --> 00:01:14.979 What are you working on this week, Colin? 00:01:16.209 --> 00:01:18.699 Colin: I am still a little bit in calendar. 00:01:18.699 --> 00:01:20.299 Hell it's been fun. 00:01:20.539 --> 00:01:24.229 If you listen to the last, I think actually two episodes I've been 00:01:24.229 --> 00:01:29.039 talking about Google Calendar, APIs and CloudFlare Workers and things like that. 00:01:29.039 --> 00:01:31.559 So still working on my Google Calendar bot. 00:01:32.369 --> 00:01:32.939 It's been fun. 00:01:32.939 --> 00:01:35.969 I've learned a lot about CloudFlare. 00:01:35.969 --> 00:01:40.799 Like I, I had to like, kind of like when you're working with Lambdas You make like 00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:42.389 different functions for different things. 00:01:42.449 --> 00:01:44.399 And I thought I had to do that in CloudFlare. 00:01:44.909 --> 00:01:48.239 And so I had like six CloudFlare workers and turns out you can just 00:01:48.239 --> 00:01:50.489 put them all in one CloudFlare worker. 00:01:50.519 --> 00:01:53.729 So that was the, the big takeaway for this week. 00:01:53.779 --> 00:01:57.434 A lot easier to deploy and manage like the same resources and stuff, so they 00:01:57.434 --> 00:02:02.744 all have access to the same database and key value store and all that stuff to do. 00:02:03.049 --> 00:02:05.329 All the different crons that I have to do. 00:02:05.689 --> 00:02:08.899 If you've never worked with the API before, like you can subscribe to a 00:02:08.899 --> 00:02:13.039 calendar's notifications, like new event, edit event, delete event, 00:02:13.069 --> 00:02:19.099 canceled events, but it expires after 30 days, and so you have to renew the 00:02:19.104 --> 00:02:23.839 subscription on top of also catching the events and dealing with those. 00:02:23.839 --> 00:02:28.399 So I, I had set it up as like a subscription renewal worker and 00:02:28.404 --> 00:02:31.169 then a subscription like events. 00:02:31.359 --> 00:02:34.089 Like kind of route to catch those web hooks and things. 00:02:34.089 --> 00:02:37.479 So yeah, just been playing around with that, getting that going. 00:02:37.639 --> 00:02:41.209 It's quite satisfying to get my first, like you have an upcoming event 00:02:41.329 --> 00:02:44.959 message where it wasn't just telling me what I had for the day, but it 00:02:44.964 --> 00:02:48.709 was telling me like right before the event that I had a meeting to get to. 00:02:48.709 --> 00:02:49.879 So that was kind of cool. 00:02:50.449 --> 00:02:51.259 CJ: That's awesome. 00:02:51.829 --> 00:02:56.119 So for the subscription renewal bit can you, is it like you get 00:02:56.124 --> 00:02:58.969 a refresh token and then you just use the refresh token to get like 00:02:58.969 --> 00:03:01.159 a new access key or something, or? 00:03:01.219 --> 00:03:02.059 Okay, got it. 00:03:02.734 --> 00:03:06.394 Colin: Yeah, and, and Google Auth doesn't last very long anyway, so I had to 00:03:06.394 --> 00:03:08.084 build, refresh into the whole system. 00:03:08.284 --> 00:03:13.804 So I kind of made like a function that gets their access token and 00:03:13.804 --> 00:03:17.749 if it's expired, Renews it so you always have a fresh token. 00:03:18.239 --> 00:03:21.239 But I also don't wanna refresh all the time just because you 00:03:21.239 --> 00:03:22.709 might be making multiple calls. 00:03:23.009 --> 00:03:29.649 So I usually, I, I do a try catch and if it fails, For token, like in like 00:03:29.649 --> 00:03:32.139 Grant invalid, then I do a refresh. 00:03:32.569 --> 00:03:35.149 And this is one of those things that I feel like I have to write over and over 00:03:35.149 --> 00:03:39.709 and over again and like, I think like Stripe and others u like have that built 00:03:39.709 --> 00:03:41.539 into the SDKs and stuff these days. 00:03:41.539 --> 00:03:49.139 But I usually don't use SDKs and do a lot of bear rest client stuff, so, or fetch. 00:03:49.864 --> 00:03:51.224 CJ: Yeah, I like that pattern. 00:03:51.224 --> 00:03:56.834 I know like a, I mean, for a lot of OAuth APIs, They'll give you a refresh token. 00:03:56.894 --> 00:03:58.934 I mean, some of 'em don't do the refresh thing. 00:03:58.934 --> 00:04:01.064 They're just like, here's an access token that's available forever. 00:04:01.454 --> 00:04:04.634 Or like, if it gets revoked, then you just like have to go through the flow again. 00:04:05.084 --> 00:04:08.774 And yeah, I think when you're, when I was starting out, I definitely 00:04:08.834 --> 00:04:11.264 took the route of like, oh, I'm just gonna refresh these every night. 00:04:11.444 --> 00:04:13.814 Like, I'm just gonna run cron that goes through and re gives 00:04:13.814 --> 00:04:14.954 me new tokens every night. 00:04:14.954 --> 00:04:18.914 But yeah, I definitely find that it can be, A little bit smoother to sort 00:04:18.914 --> 00:04:20.864 of like lazily refresh, like you said. 00:04:21.224 --> 00:04:23.024 Just like wait till you actually need to use it. 00:04:23.024 --> 00:04:23.684 Try to use it. 00:04:23.684 --> 00:04:25.994 If it doesn't work, try to refresh it. 00:04:25.999 --> 00:04:26.954 Use the refreshed one. 00:04:26.954 --> 00:04:30.794 If that doesn't work, then you like handle your errors gracefully. 00:04:30.854 --> 00:04:31.154 But 00:04:31.694 --> 00:04:34.664 Colin: It actually, I think it, it helps clean up the code a little bit too. 00:04:34.669 --> 00:04:37.604 It makes it more reusable 'cause you're gonna be calling it again 00:04:37.844 --> 00:04:41.234 after you refresh, you're gonna make the same call you made before. 00:04:41.784 --> 00:04:44.484 So like when I'm prototyping, I don't necessarily design it that way, and 00:04:44.484 --> 00:04:48.294 then it makes me like modularize the code a little bit and try 00:04:48.294 --> 00:04:49.944 catch, and then call itself again. 00:04:50.764 --> 00:04:54.394 And I think Google's, they only last a few hours, so you would want, you wouldn't 00:04:54.394 --> 00:04:57.904 wanna like, refresh every few hours if you're not doing anything with that data. 00:04:58.474 --> 00:05:02.854 But yeah, that's, that's kind of been in OAuth land and lots and lots 00:05:02.859 --> 00:05:04.294 and lots of practice makes perfect. 00:05:04.294 --> 00:05:04.864 I guess. 00:05:04.914 --> 00:05:06.054 CJ: Yep, totally. 00:05:06.559 --> 00:05:07.279 Colin: What are you working on? 00:05:07.899 --> 00:05:11.289 CJ: Well, a bunch of stuff, but let's see. 00:05:11.319 --> 00:05:14.079 So similar sort of AAU thing. 00:05:14.079 --> 00:05:19.029 We were, we're building a tool to ingest a bunch of messages from this like 00:05:19.034 --> 00:05:20.739 chat client that we use called Podium. 00:05:21.069 --> 00:05:24.969 So we have like a web chat interface where people can come to the website 00:05:24.969 --> 00:05:29.859 and text us and say, Hey, I want certain rooms painted or walls painted. 00:05:29.864 --> 00:05:33.279 And this company podium has an a p I. 00:05:34.804 --> 00:05:37.324 For pulling out conversations. 00:05:37.564 --> 00:05:41.584 They do not have an a p i for listing messages related to a conversation. 00:05:41.589 --> 00:05:44.134 So you like have to know the idea of the specific message. 00:05:44.704 --> 00:05:47.764 So it was kind of a, it's been a little bit of a research project 00:05:47.769 --> 00:05:49.714 this week to set up OAuth. 00:05:50.569 --> 00:05:53.839 And then, you know, try hitting the a p i to see what we can get. 00:05:53.839 --> 00:05:58.279 And then ultimately we had to like submit a support request to ask for the messages 00:05:58.279 --> 00:06:02.899 to be exported, which is fine for our use case 'cause we want to, right now 00:06:02.899 --> 00:06:07.609 we're like working on building out some data science-y things for a little bot. 00:06:07.999 --> 00:06:11.189 But yeah, in the future it would be awesome to be able to just 00:06:11.189 --> 00:06:12.419 like list those messages out. 00:06:13.574 --> 00:06:19.894 Also working on building out and improving like the UX for a bunch of pages in our. 00:06:20.709 --> 00:06:22.779 Our like operations tool. 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:29.179 And this week I was adding some tab views for like the project view. 00:06:29.179 --> 00:06:33.289 So if you're like in the sales team, you look at the sales tab and it gives 00:06:33.294 --> 00:06:36.319 you everything you need to know about the status, the sales status, and 00:06:36.769 --> 00:06:39.679 where the person is in the pipeline and what the opportunity size is. 00:06:39.679 --> 00:06:41.359 And the partners are working with their communication 00:06:41.359 --> 00:06:42.649 preferences and things like that. 00:06:43.009 --> 00:06:45.649 And then if you're on the operations side or if you're on the paint 00:06:45.649 --> 00:06:47.329 crew, you see different views. 00:06:47.779 --> 00:06:53.269 And I was, I was like remembering back to the bootstrap days where you 00:06:53.269 --> 00:06:57.619 could just sort of like drop in some bootstrap tabs, add some, a little bit 00:06:57.619 --> 00:06:59.209 of JavaScript and you were good to go. 00:06:59.599 --> 00:07:03.324 And yeah, I mean there's, when you're working in the front end with something 00:07:03.324 --> 00:07:06.444 like React, there's often like, you know, some library you can just drop in. 00:07:06.954 --> 00:07:13.504 And when you're using Tailwind, it can be really nice to just use the Tailwind ui. 00:07:14.309 --> 00:07:16.529 Things that come with React or view. 00:07:16.889 --> 00:07:21.059 And so that's what I was sort of reaching for, but it doesn't fit 00:07:21.269 --> 00:07:24.299 nicely in the Rails ecosystem by default, if you're using sort of 00:07:24.299 --> 00:07:27.089 just like the vanilla H T M L E R B. 00:07:27.209 --> 00:07:33.539 And so I found Chris Oliver built a tailwind stimulus wrapper that 00:07:33.539 --> 00:07:35.099 has like a bunch of the components. 00:07:35.099 --> 00:07:40.269 So tabs was in there and was able to drop that in and use it. 00:07:40.389 --> 00:07:42.699 Effectively, and so that, that like worked out really, really well. 00:07:43.689 --> 00:07:44.049 yeah, 00:07:45.589 --> 00:07:48.619 Colin: I would not have thought that would've been an issue, but 00:07:48.619 --> 00:07:50.899 I can see how that would come up. 00:07:52.149 --> 00:07:52.539 CJ: right. 00:07:52.544 --> 00:07:52.749 Yeah. 00:07:52.749 --> 00:07:54.014 It's like I don't know. 00:07:54.164 --> 00:07:58.074 I mean, tabs, you could pretty simply build your own stimulus 00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:00.384 controller to just say like, I. 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:04.839 Listen for clicks on these allies and when that happens, remove the 00:08:04.839 --> 00:08:08.919 hidden class from the panel that you want to display or whatever. 00:08:09.099 --> 00:08:13.989 So I think implementing tabs is a pretty fun little like entry 00:08:14.079 --> 00:08:15.729 front end JavaScript problem to do. 00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:19.839 But when you're moving, I don't know when, when I'm trying to be as 00:08:19.839 --> 00:08:22.149 productive as possible, I'm like, I don't wanna reinvent this like 00:08:22.299 --> 00:08:24.759 Colin: No, especially with Tailwind, like gives it to you and then 00:08:24.759 --> 00:08:26.109 you're like, I'm using Rails. 00:08:26.109 --> 00:08:27.639 I shouldn't be punished for this. 00:08:27.969 --> 00:08:28.539 CJ: Yeah. 00:08:28.599 --> 00:08:28.959 Yeah. 00:08:29.019 --> 00:08:29.829 So I 00:08:29.979 --> 00:08:31.269 Colin: another shout out for Chris. 00:08:31.599 --> 00:08:32.589 CJ: Yes, exactly. 00:08:32.589 --> 00:08:34.569 I, like, I am using so much of his stuff. 00:08:34.569 --> 00:08:35.289 It's crazy. 00:08:35.294 --> 00:08:37.989 Like the, our, our stack is like, at least half of it is 00:08:37.989 --> 00:08:39.529 written by Chris, which I yeah. 00:08:39.534 --> 00:08:41.179 Hugely, hugely appreciate. 00:08:41.209 --> 00:08:43.914 If you if you haven't already and you're a rails dev, go subscribe to 00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:45.744 Go Rails, just to like help Chris out. 00:08:46.509 --> 00:08:46.989 Colin: Totally. 00:08:47.349 --> 00:08:47.739 CJ: Yeah. 00:08:48.629 --> 00:08:49.139 But it's fun. 00:08:49.139 --> 00:08:49.499 I don't know. 00:08:49.499 --> 00:08:51.499 It's like using stimulus. 00:08:51.529 --> 00:08:54.499 I, I've really started to like, enjoy using stimulus for 00:08:54.499 --> 00:08:55.669 a bunch of different things. 00:08:56.269 --> 00:09:00.469 Just even if it's as simple as just showing and hiding forms or 00:09:00.969 --> 00:09:03.399 you know, little tiny interactions that you need on a page. 00:09:03.404 --> 00:09:08.019 So popping modals or whatever, stimulus is just so nice to just sprinkle in 00:09:08.559 --> 00:09:12.684 a tiny bit of JavaScript where you need it, and then the rest is, You 00:09:12.684 --> 00:09:17.024 know, basically just server rendered H T M L, which is is very nice, so. 00:09:17.234 --> 00:09:17.624 Colin: Yeah. 00:09:18.254 --> 00:09:18.434 Yeah. 00:09:18.434 --> 00:09:23.084 I actually haven't been touching Rails front ends since Stimulus really was 00:09:23.089 --> 00:09:24.554 a thing like I've mostly been doing. 00:09:24.584 --> 00:09:26.594 When I was doing Rails, it was mostly backend stuff. 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:30.579 More APIs and a more OAuth fund and stuff like that. 00:09:30.579 --> 00:09:33.639 So I, that's an area that's like a blind spot for me. 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:38.589 So I, I have seen a stimulus controller and I was like, what is this thing? 00:09:39.049 --> 00:09:43.399 If you're coming from like a JavaScript or like, it's, it's very interesting. 00:09:43.404 --> 00:09:49.899 But I could see how you need to like have that glue between tailwind components 00:09:49.899 --> 00:09:51.519 and what Rails is doing under the hood. 00:09:53.379 --> 00:09:56.794 CJ: When you were at at orbit, what was the front end for the Orbit app? 00:09:58.064 --> 00:10:01.214 Colin: We definitely had, it was a, it was a lot of stimulus, 00:10:01.214 --> 00:10:04.444 like in our our filter view, like that was all stimulus, I believe. 00:10:04.684 --> 00:10:07.984 So you could like add your filters for like which member you're looking for. 00:10:08.414 --> 00:10:12.284 We had React components, but I don't know when and where the, 00:10:12.524 --> 00:10:14.054 that's where like it gets fuzzy. 00:10:14.059 --> 00:10:17.414 Like we have React components, but how, how you interact with them from 00:10:17.414 --> 00:10:21.494 the app I think was using stimulus as, as the glue between this, if that 00:10:21.644 --> 00:10:22.124 CJ: Okay. 00:10:22.454 --> 00:10:23.084 That's cool. 00:10:23.444 --> 00:10:23.954 Interesting. 00:10:24.674 --> 00:10:30.254 Yeah, we, we do like our marketing site is all built in next jss and we've been sort 00:10:30.259 --> 00:10:33.854 of exploring how do we bring some stuff. 00:10:34.259 --> 00:10:37.049 Like some React stuff and then just sprinkle that around the app the 00:10:37.049 --> 00:10:38.489 same way that we are with Stimulus. 00:10:38.489 --> 00:10:41.669 But I, I haven't gotten like too deep into that yet. 00:10:41.879 --> 00:10:42.809 So that'll 00:10:42.929 --> 00:10:46.349 Colin: Well, I, I bet tabs are easier on the next JSS website, right? 00:10:46.769 --> 00:10:47.429 CJ: probably. 00:10:47.489 --> 00:10:47.759 Yeah. 00:10:47.759 --> 00:10:48.629 You just like drop in 00:10:48.659 --> 00:10:49.319 Colin: just JavaScript. 00:10:49.979 --> 00:10:54.119 CJ: Yeah, some actually, you could probably just copy and paste the examples 00:10:54.119 --> 00:10:57.689 directly from Tailwind UI or Headless UI or whatever, and it should just work. 00:10:57.749 --> 00:10:59.289 But Things like combo boxes. 00:10:59.289 --> 00:11:04.419 We have like a dropdown list where you can add a specific paint color to a project. 00:11:04.809 --> 00:11:08.829 And in the combo box I wanted to show like a little palette that has the 00:11:08.889 --> 00:11:12.609 hex, like a little circle that is the hex color for the paint color. 00:11:12.849 --> 00:11:16.839 Then the name of the color, the brand, and like its little code, so 00:11:16.839 --> 00:11:19.659 like the Sherwin Williams code or the Benjamin Moore code or whatever, 00:11:19.659 --> 00:11:22.359 and building a like really rich. 00:11:22.884 --> 00:11:26.364 Each of the options really rich into just like a select or dropdown box 00:11:26.784 --> 00:11:30.104 was made so much easier with with these little tailwind components. 00:11:30.104 --> 00:11:33.494 I'd say, I dunno if you're using rail stuff, go check out Chris's 00:11:33.674 --> 00:11:35.594 tailwind stimulus wrapper. 00:11:36.554 --> 00:11:38.864 We've also got sort of a research project going on. 00:11:38.864 --> 00:11:43.124 We have I know I mentioned this like podium tool that is where we 00:11:43.129 --> 00:11:47.354 have our chat widget, but eventually we'd love to sort of centralize all 00:11:47.354 --> 00:11:48.644 of our communication, so we have. 00:11:49.319 --> 00:11:54.449 Phone calls, web chat, text message, and then even other like social 00:11:54.449 --> 00:11:58.919 channels, all of that coming into one source where we can like view 00:11:58.924 --> 00:12:00.659 all the past conversation history. 00:12:01.049 --> 00:12:06.369 And so I've been digging into Twilio Flex, which is kind of like, It's 00:12:06.369 --> 00:12:11.229 almost like the support agent interface that lets you say like as an agent. 00:12:11.229 --> 00:12:11.529 Yes. 00:12:11.529 --> 00:12:15.849 Right now I'm available and I'm online and I can handle conversations or whatever, 00:12:16.179 --> 00:12:21.189 and then it will ring your phone or it will, you'll get the web chat or 00:12:21.194 --> 00:12:23.919 you'll get the text message and you can kind of like handle each conversation. 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:30.539 And right now, The whole entire UI is basically just dropped in as an an 00:12:30.539 --> 00:12:33.269 iframe and like into our application. 00:12:33.269 --> 00:12:37.629 And so over the next couple weeks something that I want to play with a lot 00:12:37.634 --> 00:12:43.359 is like using the Twilio APIs to create contacts and create conversations and 00:12:43.359 --> 00:12:46.959 start to like build mappings between like what's in Twilio and what's in our system. 00:12:47.529 --> 00:12:49.329 Just to see if Twilio's the right answer. 00:12:49.329 --> 00:12:53.189 I don't actually know if that's the way we're gonna go, but yeah, like 00:12:53.249 --> 00:12:58.259 Twilio, Intercom, any other sort of like multi-channel communication platform? 00:12:58.749 --> 00:13:01.449 Curious if you've had, do you have opinions or thoughts 00:13:01.449 --> 00:13:03.139 about things we should avoid? 00:13:03.829 --> 00:13:05.029 Things we should try? 00:13:05.119 --> 00:13:08.349 Is this anything you've touched before in the past? 00:13:08.709 --> 00:13:09.069 Colin: Oh yeah. 00:13:09.069 --> 00:13:10.869 I've done a bunch of call center stuff. 00:13:10.869 --> 00:13:12.579 I would say avoid Salesforce. 00:13:12.819 --> 00:13:13.269 Yeah, 00:13:13.464 --> 00:13:13.914 CJ: That's right. 00:13:13.914 --> 00:13:14.034 I. 00:13:14.529 --> 00:13:15.159 Colin: Sorry. 00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:15.849 Salesforce. 00:13:15.849 --> 00:13:20.109 But you know, they have a lot of this stuff built in, but like Twilio feels 00:13:20.109 --> 00:13:24.879 like a strong direction because you get Ss M Ss, you get phone calls, you get 00:13:24.884 --> 00:13:29.619 the ability to do reminders and voice reminders that are automated and all 00:13:29.619 --> 00:13:31.119 that stuff, which is really powerful. 00:13:31.169 --> 00:13:35.129 If you have multiple agents around the world eventually, right, like people 00:13:35.129 --> 00:13:39.539 answering calls or texting or whatever, then it's whatever one is enabled. 00:13:39.599 --> 00:13:45.059 Like a lot of the tools out there promise that stuff, but it's like it's promised 00:13:45.059 --> 00:13:50.219 that you can go get a consultant to then implement it, not out of the box, right? 00:13:50.219 --> 00:13:55.499 And whereas you guys are already using the bare metal Twilio stuff, so like you 00:13:55.499 --> 00:13:57.149 might as well just extend off of that. 00:13:57.149 --> 00:13:59.909 I don't, does Intercom do text and voice stuff these 00:14:00.014 --> 00:14:04.244 CJ: I am not sure I, so I've only looked, yeah, the, I've only really looked into 00:14:04.274 --> 00:14:08.904 Twilio so far and we're kind of still early in, in the research phase, but I. 00:14:09.474 --> 00:14:13.284 It's my understanding that Intercom has fewer channels. 00:14:14.104 --> 00:14:18.244 But yeah, like I, I kind of also expected that Twilio Flex would have a bit more. 00:14:19.489 --> 00:14:23.989 In terms of helping you connect to your own c R m or like your own 00:14:23.989 --> 00:14:25.639 sort of like customer database. 00:14:26.119 --> 00:14:29.059 It really just has support for a couple outta the box. 00:14:29.064 --> 00:14:33.799 I think it's Zendesk and maybe Salesforce, where like those partners of Twilio have 00:14:33.804 --> 00:14:35.899 built integrations into Twilio Flex. 00:14:36.289 --> 00:14:41.149 And it seems like if you want your C R M built into this, then you kinda 00:14:41.149 --> 00:14:45.799 like have to invent, reinvent all of the a p I connections, which. 00:14:46.204 --> 00:14:49.444 At the end of the day, they're giving you an interface which 00:14:49.444 --> 00:14:52.744 is much better than nothing, and just having the raw APIs, but, 00:14:53.044 --> 00:14:56.314 Colin: Yeah, I mean, this is the tricky classic build versus buy thing, right? 00:14:56.314 --> 00:15:00.154 It's like how close to the bare metal do you go when what? 00:15:00.184 --> 00:15:01.804 What's your competitive advantage? 00:15:01.834 --> 00:15:02.194 Right? 00:15:02.194 --> 00:15:07.204 And we talked about this in last few episodes in the past, but the tricky 00:15:07.204 --> 00:15:10.534 thing with that is like if you were to, let's just say you, you, it sounds like 00:15:10.534 --> 00:15:12.784 you guys are building a C R M in a way. 00:15:14.044 --> 00:15:19.654 have infinite flexibility there versus if you go use a Salesforce, you will 00:15:19.654 --> 00:15:22.954 constantly be running up against what you're not allowed to do what you can do. 00:15:23.374 --> 00:15:25.534 Oh, we have to pay more to have access to that. 00:15:25.564 --> 00:15:27.304 Oh, that seat doesn't come with this thing. 00:15:27.304 --> 00:15:30.154 It's just, and like, Salesforce is not the new thing. 00:15:30.204 --> 00:15:35.074 The whole what's old is new again around designing like new startups around 00:15:35.074 --> 00:15:40.274 old concepts like Paul Jarvis has his analytics tool, which is very similar 00:15:40.274 --> 00:15:42.434 to the analytics tool called Mint. 00:15:42.434 --> 00:15:46.644 That was like, 2005, 2006 or something like that. 00:15:47.004 --> 00:15:50.514 And it was just better, simpler analytics than Google Analytics. 00:15:50.544 --> 00:15:55.254 And Salesforce was the simpler c r m against all these huge, 00:15:55.284 --> 00:15:56.954 you know kind of incumbents. 00:15:57.764 --> 00:16:02.624 Salesforce needs to be disrupted, like most of the CRMs that I see today. 00:16:03.204 --> 00:16:06.294 Either live long enough to become the villain and they become the 00:16:06.444 --> 00:16:08.214 big sales force that they are. 00:16:08.554 --> 00:16:09.604 Same for Intercom. 00:16:09.604 --> 00:16:12.634 Like I think Intercom will probably get, you know, there'll be a new 00:16:12.634 --> 00:16:17.974 startup-y version of Intercom that is simpler, cheaper, and they all end up 00:16:17.974 --> 00:16:21.304 going upstream to enterprise because they took so much funding and that 00:16:21.304 --> 00:16:25.334 they have to Which is why I'm kind of excited to see like the calm fund 00:16:25.334 --> 00:16:26.984 and tiny seed and stuff like that. 00:16:27.554 --> 00:16:29.894 Is that Salesforce would be a pain. 00:16:29.894 --> 00:16:31.574 So I would avoid that road. 00:16:31.634 --> 00:16:34.574 That's the long way of saying that, I guess, but, you know, there's 00:16:34.579 --> 00:16:35.774 things you could learn from that. 00:16:35.774 --> 00:16:39.044 I, I think you guys are on the right path with Twilio and I'd be interesting 00:16:39.044 --> 00:16:39.944 to see what you guys do with it. 00:16:40.589 --> 00:16:41.009 CJ: Cool. 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:41.999 Yeah, it is. 00:16:42.089 --> 00:16:44.639 We are building some C R M features. 00:16:45.299 --> 00:16:49.919 But at the end of the day, we're kind of just, the goal for this project is 00:16:49.919 --> 00:16:54.989 to centralize communication so that we have a full and complete history 00:16:55.439 --> 00:16:59.619 and I mean, there's a bunch of gaps and issues with our current setup. 00:16:59.619 --> 00:17:03.009 Like we're using Google Voice for some. 00:17:03.249 --> 00:17:07.329 Text message flows and like if anyone reads the text message, 00:17:07.329 --> 00:17:10.299 then it shows as red and no one else will know that it was red. 00:17:10.299 --> 00:17:13.629 Unless we're all being like super vocal about like, Hey, I 00:17:13.629 --> 00:17:16.569 read the text from so and so, it meant it said this, or whatever. 00:17:16.659 --> 00:17:19.549 So there's yeah, there's definitely gaps. 00:17:19.649 --> 00:17:21.864 But lots of opportunity for us to centralize. 00:17:21.954 --> 00:17:22.404 Colin: I like that. 00:17:22.404 --> 00:17:26.454 So it's more a shared inbox, multimodal instead of c r m, right? 00:17:26.454 --> 00:17:30.234 Like, yes, there's the who, but you're not, I mean, you mentioned things 00:17:30.234 --> 00:17:34.044 like opportunities and deal flow and like where they're at and stages 00:17:34.044 --> 00:17:38.904 and stuff and, but it's so specific, like you would spend more time and 00:17:38.934 --> 00:17:43.644 money customizing like a real c r m to do that than just using code. 00:17:44.179 --> 00:17:44.569 CJ: Right. 00:17:44.574 --> 00:17:44.779 Yeah. 00:17:44.779 --> 00:17:50.419 We're, we have like the coach built process for sales already built 00:17:50.849 --> 00:17:55.079 for this small set of states that we are, that we need and expect. 00:17:55.779 --> 00:17:58.989 And what's cool is that now we can build whatever automations 00:17:58.989 --> 00:18:00.249 we want to on top of it. 00:18:00.279 --> 00:18:03.519 And whether we're using an a p I to do some third party thing or we're 00:18:03.524 --> 00:18:05.049 building it ourselves, we can do that. 00:18:05.559 --> 00:18:09.819 So yeah, it kind of, it gives us the flexibility to integrate or like 00:18:09.819 --> 00:18:11.649 solve problems however we want to. 00:18:12.339 --> 00:18:16.959 For instance, we don't have integrations with a third party paint. 00:18:17.609 --> 00:18:22.749 Like manufacturer because apparently it doesn't exist or like yeah. 00:18:22.749 --> 00:18:26.289 So there's not like an a p I to like order paint from like 00:18:26.289 --> 00:18:28.539 Sherwin Williams or whatever, or as far, as far as I understand. 00:18:28.539 --> 00:18:31.659 And so instead we communicate directly to an account manager at 00:18:31.659 --> 00:18:33.279 a certain place, be a text message. 00:18:33.609 --> 00:18:37.299 And so like early versions of like order management, just gonna be like 00:18:37.569 --> 00:18:40.509 build the text message that's gonna be sent as like the order for the 00:18:40.509 --> 00:18:42.679 thing which is all stuff that we can. 00:18:43.129 --> 00:18:47.599 We can do because we have the flexibility and we're in a position like that, 00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:49.069 we can build everything that we need. 00:18:49.549 --> 00:18:50.659 So yeah, I dunno. 00:18:50.779 --> 00:18:51.739 It's fun, it's exciting, 00:18:52.419 --> 00:18:54.939 Colin: yeah, like pulling back from the specific use case. 00:18:54.939 --> 00:19:00.519 Do you, the thing that I wonder, do you think a startup could build a C R M. 00:19:00.969 --> 00:19:03.099 I don't think the goal is to become as big as Salesforce, like 00:19:03.099 --> 00:19:07.419 Salesforce is just insanely large, but like to unseat Salesforce. 00:19:07.419 --> 00:19:09.519 Do you think that that is possible? 00:19:09.559 --> 00:19:11.659 CJ: I think, I definitely think so. 00:19:11.959 --> 00:19:16.489 And I think the way to do it is to niche, like niche down and be like, okay, 00:19:16.489 --> 00:19:22.399 we're building a C R M for hairstylists and it's gonna be like super, super 00:19:22.399 --> 00:19:27.139 specific to hair and then you end up with squire or something like that, right? 00:19:27.139 --> 00:19:29.519 Like so yeah, I think it's 00:19:29.559 --> 00:19:31.299 Colin: The MINDBODY online type 00:19:31.369 --> 00:19:33.229 CJ: yes, yes, exactly. 00:19:33.249 --> 00:19:35.049 Colin: CrossFit Gym, c r m. 00:19:35.109 --> 00:19:35.349 Yeah. 00:19:35.479 --> 00:19:35.839 CJ: Yep. 00:19:36.439 --> 00:19:41.449 Yeah, I think the c r m, like c r m features are just, those are kind of just 00:19:41.449 --> 00:19:46.649 features of a system that's purpose built for a specific niche, and there's totally 00:19:46.649 --> 00:19:48.389 opportunity to go out and crush that. 00:19:48.389 --> 00:19:51.119 And I think a lot of people are kind of expecting, they have like more 00:19:51.124 --> 00:19:54.719 expectations about software that they're gonna buy to run their business, that 00:19:54.719 --> 00:19:58.529 it is already integrated with a bunch of stuff like, They're gonna want stripe 00:19:58.529 --> 00:20:01.979 out the box and they're gonna want customer messaging out the box and they're 00:20:01.979 --> 00:20:06.659 gonna want whatever, some, some sort of reminders in the Slack integration, 00:20:06.689 --> 00:20:08.434 discord integration and whatever, 00:20:09.034 --> 00:20:12.184 Colin: So like the, the Salesforce a p i costs money, right? 00:20:12.184 --> 00:20:16.054 You have to be on a certain plan to have access to it, and then if you 00:20:16.059 --> 00:20:19.504 want to customize it, you have to use their like lightning and visual force 00:20:19.509 --> 00:20:24.514 and like a subset of Java and like there's just all these headaches there. 00:20:24.514 --> 00:20:27.664 So it would be under, if anyone has not used Salesforce, like the 00:20:28.024 --> 00:20:30.819 admin screen is, Millions of pages. 00:20:30.819 --> 00:20:34.749 Like it's, you open these toggles, probably not millions, it's hyperbole, 00:20:34.754 --> 00:20:38.349 but you know, you open a toggle and then there's like 10 more toggles. 00:20:38.349 --> 00:20:42.529 Then you open those toggles and there's like, you like hunt around for these 00:20:42.534 --> 00:20:46.459 things and they, they've added so many features for every use case that you 00:20:46.459 --> 00:20:50.179 have to hire consultants, which is what one of the jobs I used to have. 00:20:50.619 --> 00:20:53.679 Just to implement it and then you're not necessarily happy that you're 00:20:53.679 --> 00:20:57.009 paying a fortune for Salesforce and then a fortune to someone to 00:20:57.009 --> 00:20:58.599 make it do what you want it to do. 00:20:58.629 --> 00:21:02.169 So it's the c r m one is one that has rolled around my head for a really 00:21:02.174 --> 00:21:05.829 long time, but it just feels, you know, it's similar to the past where like 00:21:05.829 --> 00:21:08.709 if you don't have a lot of funding, a lot of companies won't trust it. 00:21:09.154 --> 00:21:13.324 Because the funding is a signal that you're gonna be around in some, some 00:21:13.324 --> 00:21:15.964 people's eyes once the funding dries up. 00:21:15.964 --> 00:21:19.954 You may not be around if you aren't a sustainable business, but I think like 00:21:19.954 --> 00:21:21.964 37 signals used to have high rise. 00:21:21.964 --> 00:21:25.114 But that was like kind of like a Fisher-Price version 00:21:25.114 --> 00:21:26.404 of a C R M in my mind. 00:21:26.404 --> 00:21:30.484 Like it worked, but it was like a glorified calendar book. 00:21:30.484 --> 00:21:32.374 It wasn't really like a A C R M. 00:21:33.204 --> 00:21:37.824 CJ: I think in terms of like customer support and sales, like really basic 00:21:37.824 --> 00:21:42.939 stuff for startups, there's definitely an opportunity to do something like, Maybe 00:21:42.939 --> 00:21:47.739 not as intense as Salesforce, but maybe closer to something like Zendesk where 00:21:47.739 --> 00:21:52.329 you could build a Zendesk competitor with some Twilio APIs and Jumpstart 00:21:52.329 --> 00:21:59.319 Pro and like a few smart things and a really nice design and a low, low price. 00:21:59.324 --> 00:22:01.689 And I think, you know, early startups would be like, hell yeah. 00:22:01.719 --> 00:22:02.169 Like, 00:22:02.264 --> 00:22:04.094 Colin: Yeah, the linear of Zendesk 00:22:04.359 --> 00:22:06.339 CJ: Yes, yes, yes, exactly. 00:22:06.429 --> 00:22:07.299 That's just like, 00:22:07.574 --> 00:22:09.344 Colin: these are free startup ideas for everybody 00:22:09.459 --> 00:22:10.149 CJ: Yeah, exactly. 00:22:11.439 --> 00:22:11.589 Yeah. 00:22:11.589 --> 00:22:14.109 If you're following along at home, I, you know, so like as I was going 00:22:14.109 --> 00:22:18.489 through the the thought process of Twilio and how I might integrate it and 00:22:18.489 --> 00:22:20.109 everything, I was like, oh, you know what? 00:22:20.114 --> 00:22:23.889 I think I might record this as a video because there's enough, like 00:22:23.889 --> 00:22:27.129 off the beaten path stuff that I need to, like, try and experiment 00:22:27.129 --> 00:22:28.269 with to see if it'll work. 00:22:28.709 --> 00:22:30.359 So if folks are interested in. 00:22:30.734 --> 00:22:34.544 Watching a probably a series because it'll take a while to figure that stuff out. 00:22:34.964 --> 00:22:36.164 Like let us know. 00:22:36.434 --> 00:22:40.994 Also, going back to the pod fade concept that we were talking 00:22:40.994 --> 00:22:42.254 about earlier, man, it is. 00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:45.329 Really, really hard to put out content consistently. 00:22:45.719 --> 00:22:47.459 I know you and I, we took a break. 00:22:47.819 --> 00:22:51.479 I haven't put out any videos on my own channel for like six months. 00:22:51.869 --> 00:22:56.619 I know that my former team at Stripe is like slowly sort of 00:22:57.069 --> 00:23:00.699 they don't foresee a ton more content coming out on that channel. 00:23:00.699 --> 00:23:03.609 So there is just, it is, it is really hard. 00:23:03.609 --> 00:23:05.709 I was talking to Aaron Koble from. 00:23:06.109 --> 00:23:07.639 Webflow earlier today. 00:23:07.639 --> 00:23:10.549 He's also like slowed down on content for his own channel. 00:23:10.549 --> 00:23:14.889 I think a lot of people are just finding it really, really hard and The point 00:23:14.894 --> 00:23:19.839 that you made about falling to the level of your systems, I thought was kind of 00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:25.449 interesting, especially because when, when I think about my blog and my like 00:23:25.449 --> 00:23:29.019 YouTube channel and your newsletter and your blog and things like that, right? 00:23:29.019 --> 00:23:32.799 Like those were only held accountable to ourselves, right? 00:23:33.504 --> 00:23:37.284 At least with this podcast, you and I are both sort of accountable to each other 00:23:37.284 --> 00:23:40.524 that like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna show up today even if I don't want to do it 00:23:40.524 --> 00:23:43.614 because I wanna hang out with Colin and I want this to be successful and whatever. 00:23:44.034 --> 00:23:45.654 And so there's a little bit more pressure. 00:23:45.659 --> 00:23:49.074 And I think this is probably also it's part of the system, 00:23:49.074 --> 00:23:50.424 it's part of accountability. 00:23:50.429 --> 00:23:55.344 It's part of part of the reason too that I think YC invests in companies that have 00:23:55.554 --> 00:24:01.039 two or more founders because it really gives you like other people to lean on 00:24:01.039 --> 00:24:05.269 and other people to kind of like hold you accountable for just showing up. 00:24:05.419 --> 00:24:05.839 So, 00:24:06.834 --> 00:24:09.984 Colin: It's funny you say that because I don't, did, did you see 00:24:09.984 --> 00:24:12.954 the conversation going around about whether or not you should have 00:24:12.954 --> 00:24:14.874 co-founders or not on Twitter this week? 00:24:15.594 --> 00:24:18.654 On Yeah, it was of all people. 00:24:18.699 --> 00:24:23.039 It was the product person from Twitter Esther Crawford, who was 00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:25.709 saying that of her Angel investments. 00:24:25.709 --> 00:24:29.249 The ones that have gone to Zero the fastest have been ones with co-founders 00:24:29.249 --> 00:24:30.869 where they have a co-founder dispute. 00:24:31.379 --> 00:24:34.259 And I will say like, yes, those are real. 00:24:34.264 --> 00:24:37.979 Like you, when you're starting a company with someone, like you should not take 00:24:37.979 --> 00:24:39.479 that lightly, especially if you take. 00:24:40.084 --> 00:24:41.124 Investment, right? 00:24:41.124 --> 00:24:48.084 Because you are now not just accountable to your co-founder who is in weird way, 00:24:48.084 --> 00:24:51.714 you're gonna spend more time with them than your actual partner in some cases. 00:24:52.584 --> 00:24:56.184 You also are now beholden to your stakeholders and then eventually, 00:24:56.184 --> 00:24:57.474 hopefully your customers. 00:24:57.474 --> 00:24:59.364 There's just so much involved there. 00:24:59.364 --> 00:25:03.104 And so I know YC really likes to have founders who are like first 00:25:03.104 --> 00:25:07.184 time outta school, three people who went to the same school together, but 00:25:07.184 --> 00:25:09.944 like they really haven't seen life. 00:25:10.319 --> 00:25:14.879 You know, enough of life experience to to do it well and you know, usually 00:25:14.879 --> 00:25:17.789 you see, I think like even with Uber and Travis Kanick and some of these 00:25:17.789 --> 00:25:21.959 others, like it, it was not, Uber was not his first rodeo by any means. 00:25:21.959 --> 00:25:25.619 There were a lot of missteps along the way and I think they had their share 00:25:25.624 --> 00:25:28.019 of founder, you know, drama as well. 00:25:28.019 --> 00:25:30.209 So it's always interesting to see that. 00:25:30.749 --> 00:25:32.939 Thing of like doing a startup by yourself. 00:25:32.939 --> 00:25:34.019 There's just a lot to do. 00:25:34.019 --> 00:25:38.219 So like I don't necessarily recommend that, and there's, I think YC and 00:25:38.219 --> 00:25:41.369 Techstars both are like, well, if you can't convince someone else to come 00:25:41.369 --> 00:25:46.319 along with you as a co-founder, then why do you think we should invest that? 00:25:46.319 --> 00:25:48.359 That kind of argument is also interesting. 00:25:48.909 --> 00:25:51.539 But there's something to be said about just being able to build slow and 00:25:51.539 --> 00:25:53.849 calm and by yourself and work on it. 00:25:53.854 --> 00:25:55.859 But then, like what you just mentioned, like you're now 00:25:55.859 --> 00:25:57.179 only accountable to yourself. 00:25:57.569 --> 00:26:02.249 No one knows if you are showing up today to work on it or not versus having 00:26:02.249 --> 00:26:03.899 that, that partner to do that with. 00:26:04.079 --> 00:26:04.499 CJ: Mm-hmm. 00:26:06.199 --> 00:26:09.929 Are you, so do you, do you have any updates about your Door app? 00:26:11.094 --> 00:26:13.369 We had talked about like you're gonna take a couple days off 00:26:13.369 --> 00:26:15.379 to work on the Reno Collective 00:26:15.889 --> 00:26:19.339 Colin: yeah, so I guess this episode's going to another place that we 00:26:19.339 --> 00:26:21.049 didn't expect, but it, it works. 00:26:21.109 --> 00:26:21.559 It's good. 00:26:21.559 --> 00:26:24.709 'cause this is like the build versus buy thing, but it's also, I. 00:26:25.339 --> 00:26:28.639 An issue with a startup that raised money and has to go upstream. 00:26:28.639 --> 00:26:33.109 So we've been using this tool called Robin to run our conference rooms at 00:26:33.109 --> 00:26:36.559 the collective so that the coworking space for, for those of you who are new 00:26:36.564 --> 00:26:40.399 to this and it worked really great, but it was getting more and more expensive 00:26:40.404 --> 00:26:45.529 and they have to go upstream because conference room booking as a business 00:26:45.619 --> 00:26:48.379 onto itself, when you've taken a bunch of money and you've gotten really 00:26:48.379 --> 00:26:52.294 big and you have a lot of employees, Is not a full business, right? 00:26:52.294 --> 00:26:53.584 People wanna rent desks. 00:26:53.584 --> 00:27:00.444 And so the app now touts some really cool customers that are huge compared to this 00:27:00.444 --> 00:27:02.184 measly little coworking space that we are. 00:27:02.184 --> 00:27:04.434 And so I don't fault them for going upstream. 00:27:04.434 --> 00:27:08.034 They have to, they're seeing a lot that they can do. 00:27:08.469 --> 00:27:11.199 Around like health, wellness check-ins. 00:27:11.229 --> 00:27:15.069 Like when you wanna book a desk and come into your company, like a Google 00:27:15.069 --> 00:27:18.789 or whoever, they want to say like, okay, you know, everything from your 00:27:18.794 --> 00:27:24.569 badging system at Stripe and Discord or wherever to physical digital security. 00:27:24.599 --> 00:27:26.459 Are you gonna have a desk and a coworking space? 00:27:26.519 --> 00:27:30.899 Like a lot of companies have reinvented their HQs as like glorified 00:27:30.899 --> 00:27:35.339 co-working spaces, and so they built all their tooling around that. 00:27:35.339 --> 00:27:37.439 And so like the app for us just doesn't. 00:27:37.734 --> 00:27:38.514 It's expensive. 00:27:38.514 --> 00:27:39.894 It doesn't make sense for us anymore. 00:27:39.894 --> 00:27:43.104 Our members are finding it confusing 'cause they're like, oh, I log in 00:27:43.104 --> 00:27:44.454 and it's asking me to book a desk. 00:27:44.459 --> 00:27:45.864 I'm like, yeah, don't use that tab. 00:27:45.864 --> 00:27:46.854 Go to the other tab. 00:27:47.424 --> 00:27:50.334 And we just don't have any control over the app and the experience. 00:27:50.349 --> 00:27:53.289 I've been holding off on just building my own for a really long time. 00:27:54.039 --> 00:27:56.289 But I've also been playing around with calendar APIs. 00:27:57.209 --> 00:27:59.369 So I am, I'm playing around with it. 00:27:59.699 --> 00:28:04.469 My first prototype is a React app that just checks whether or not each 00:28:04.469 --> 00:28:06.209 calendar is free or busy right now. 00:28:06.479 --> 00:28:10.469 So it'll basically be red or green depending on if the room is booked. 00:28:10.469 --> 00:28:14.039 So that part, surprisingly, will be like, the easier part, the 00:28:14.039 --> 00:28:16.319 harder part is letting people book, 00:28:16.909 --> 00:28:20.109 Having the UI to do the booking and, and all of that stuff. 00:28:20.159 --> 00:28:23.909 I think we'll start with just building it for ourselves with no expectation, 00:28:23.909 --> 00:28:29.609 but maybe it'll become a conference room booking app that's just run by one person. 00:28:29.669 --> 00:28:30.089 We'll see. 00:28:30.969 --> 00:28:33.549 CJ: Is the Google calendar, a p i? 00:28:33.609 --> 00:28:36.279 You can, I assume you can create events through it. 00:28:37.139 --> 00:28:41.277 And even if you're not authenticated as the, could probably auth like auth 00:28:41.307 --> 00:28:44.367 as like, we are the coworking space. 00:28:44.877 --> 00:28:48.567 And then just use that auth token to create the room or 00:28:48.567 --> 00:28:49.647 like book the room or whatever. 00:28:49.757 --> 00:28:52.247 Colin: Yeah, and you can do things like with service accounts and 00:28:52.247 --> 00:28:54.047 stuff you can actually impersonate. 00:28:54.127 --> 00:28:56.937 So there's like all sorts of OAuth magic you can do with Google. 00:28:56.937 --> 00:29:00.597 But the other way to think of it is that like an M V P would be 00:29:00.837 --> 00:29:03.717 having a Calendly to book the rooms. 00:29:04.107 --> 00:29:07.527 It requires us to like create each room as a person. 00:29:07.962 --> 00:29:08.592 CJ: Very cool. 00:29:08.622 --> 00:29:11.382 Thanks for the update, and it sounds like a fun project. 00:29:11.412 --> 00:29:17.212 I know, like the further I get into my career, I'm getting a little bit better 00:29:17.212 --> 00:29:20.842 at not just like building stuff that I'm like, oh yeah, that'll be easy to do. 00:29:20.847 --> 00:29:24.292 Let me just build some little web scraper that goes and gets 00:29:24.292 --> 00:29:25.582 the data I need for this thing. 00:29:25.582 --> 00:29:29.722 It's like, okay, yeah, that that'll work for a minute, and then like it'll explode. 00:29:30.112 --> 00:29:34.232 So yeah, it's, it's, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely struggling finding a 00:29:34.232 --> 00:29:40.112 balance between saying like, no, you shouldn't build the thing because. 00:29:40.847 --> 00:29:44.807 There's existing solutions out there and the tam isn't big enough and whatever. 00:29:45.167 --> 00:29:47.927 And then also just, you should just build it. 00:29:47.957 --> 00:29:49.877 'cause it'd be fun and it'd be like interesting. 00:29:49.882 --> 00:29:52.047 And if it happens to work, great. 00:29:52.047 --> 00:29:53.637 If it doesn't work, then whatever. 00:29:53.697 --> 00:29:55.077 Like try some other solution. 00:29:55.197 --> 00:29:56.727 But yeah, I don't know. 00:29:57.507 --> 00:30:02.567 Maybe that's what this like Twilio Flex plus Jumpstart thing will end up being. 00:30:02.647 --> 00:30:04.507 Colin: I think we've talked about this in the past with build versus 00:30:04.512 --> 00:30:06.547 Buy, but like in a way, rails. 00:30:07.342 --> 00:30:08.692 Is like a hybrid of the two. 00:30:08.692 --> 00:30:10.612 Like you're not building everything from scratch. 00:30:10.612 --> 00:30:14.302 Like Jumpstart gives you so much out of the box rails is giving you so 00:30:14.302 --> 00:30:18.532 much power, and then flex, you know, literally flexing over here on Twilio. 00:30:18.562 --> 00:30:22.822 So like, it's it's good you got, I think it's a happy medium. 00:30:23.002 --> 00:30:25.912 You may go down that path a little bit and find that it, 00:30:25.972 --> 00:30:27.862 it's too deep of a rabbit hole. 00:30:27.867 --> 00:30:31.802 And I think like, keeping in mind like, is this you know, 00:30:31.802 --> 00:30:34.472 a unique value prop for us or. 00:30:35.267 --> 00:30:35.987 Is it not? 00:30:35.987 --> 00:30:38.957 Because I've been at a company where we were gonna spend like six weeks 00:30:38.957 --> 00:30:44.027 on a billing system and it's like, is us billing our customer unique to us? 00:30:44.147 --> 00:30:44.507 No. 00:30:44.597 --> 00:30:47.297 Why should we be spending six weeks doing that? 00:30:48.012 --> 00:30:48.462 CJ: right. 00:30:49.067 --> 00:30:53.327 Colin: billing is broken in the industry of getting your house painted, then sure, 00:30:53.687 --> 00:30:55.542 but I suspect that's not the problem. 00:30:55.542 --> 00:30:55.752 Right. 00:30:55.757 --> 00:30:58.572 It's probably getting your house painted is the bigger problem. 00:30:59.542 --> 00:31:01.312 CJ: Yeah, that is great. 00:31:01.317 --> 00:31:06.082 I, you know what, when, when I'm in it too, it's so hard to, to. 00:31:07.147 --> 00:31:12.307 Keep that high level view of like, what is the most important thing for the business? 00:31:12.787 --> 00:31:16.507 And I'm sure everyone who's working on a startup does this and they're just 00:31:16.507 --> 00:31:18.937 like, gosh, I want these tabs to work. 00:31:18.967 --> 00:31:23.257 It's like, okay, if these tabs aren't working, if instead you just 00:31:23.257 --> 00:31:27.217 throw everything on the page, is that gonna be good enough for now? 00:31:27.217 --> 00:31:30.487 And then, you know, try to prioritize and focus on the problems that are gonna 00:31:30.487 --> 00:31:31.987 really move the needle for the business. 00:31:32.377 --> 00:31:33.187 That's tough. 00:31:33.287 --> 00:31:35.507 Colin: This gets into like product management a little bit, which we can 00:31:35.507 --> 00:31:36.887 definitely talk about in the future. 00:31:37.487 --> 00:31:40.187 But you know, having an appetite, like, yeah, we want those 00:31:40.187 --> 00:31:42.407 tabs, but do we want the tabs? 00:31:42.407 --> 00:31:44.177 If it's gonna take us a week to build them, probably not. 00:31:44.637 --> 00:31:46.227 CJ: Right, right, right. 00:31:46.232 --> 00:31:47.217 Totally, totally. 00:31:48.447 --> 00:31:49.637 I think that's a good spot to leave it. 00:31:50.097 --> 00:31:52.407 Thanks for listening to Build and Learn. 00:31:52.657 --> 00:31:56.407 As always, you can head over to build and learn.dev to check out the show notes. 00:31:56.407 --> 00:31:59.702 We'll drop links to things we talked about and yeah. 00:31:59.762 --> 00:32:00.482 Thanks for listening. 00:32:01.015 --> 00:32:01.505 Colin: Bye friends.