Founder roasted MetaMonster for 2 hours

A two-hour feedback session with the SEO Gets founder changes MetaMonster's direction. Meanwhile, Andrew realizes he's burnt out on AI and capitalism and Sean defends Spider-Man Magic cards against gatekeepers. Also: surfing vs hiking debates, fractured ankles, the three C's of career satisfaction, and why JetLag's Magic episode was terrible.

Links:

• Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins
• Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/
• MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/
• Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun
• Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/
• Margins: http://margins.so/
• Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/

For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

Transcript:
00:00:01.15
Sean
What's up?

00:00:02.51
Andrew
I miss you It's been too long.

00:00:03.76
Sean
I miss you

00:00:05.97
Andrew
i did that Long time. Been a long time.

00:00:09.78
Sean
too. Long time. Yeah.

00:00:13.45z
Andrew
When did we last like actually talk other than a couple of quick Slack messages?

00:00:17.87
Sean
Like last year, pretty much.

00:00:19.81
Andrew
don't think it was that long.

00:00:20.14
Sean
This one. My brain's in 2026 already. It's it's cold. i i look outside at like four o'clock. It's already dark.

00:00:28.96
Andrew
My three of my best friends in Atlanta and I have a group chat that we started when I moved here. And it's it's titled See You in 2026, which like started as a joke because like my one friend quit his job and had a little bit of travel planned. And like I had a little bit of travel planned and they, the couple in the group chat had some travel planned. And so it was just kind of a joke. And now our friend who started the group chat, who quit his job,

00:00:56.88
Andrew
he is currently in seoul south korea he he is actually like we're actually not going to see him until 2026 pretty much he did

00:00:59.48
Sean
Whoa, cool.

00:01:05.52
Sean
Sorry, did you say he was in Seoul, South Korea or Seoul?

00:01:10.83
Andrew
seoul i said seoul south korea did did fuck that up okay did i say south k-kir-olina no i maybe i did that would be wild

00:01:13.50
Sean
Oh, I don't know why heard South Carolina. That's okay. We'll go back to the tape. We'll see if I was crazy or if you were crazy. No, i've definitely misheard you. I definitely.

00:01:24.85
Sean
We'll go back to the tape later.

00:01:25.18
Andrew
He's in South Korea right now in Seoul.

00:01:26.62
Sean
Cool.

00:01:27.26
Andrew
Apparently it's cold.

00:01:29.54
Sean
Yeah.

00:01:30.14
Andrew
I forget how far north it is, but he's...

00:01:32.06
Sean
you should You should ask him how crazy things were when Korea won the League Legends finals again. Yeah, kind of curious.

00:01:40.80
Andrew
Ooh, okay, will do. Yeah, he's been... But dude's been traveling all fucking over the place. I'm so happy for him.

00:01:48.26
Sean
Nice.

00:01:49.12
Andrew
Yeah, he seems like... lighter and happier which is good to see yeah yeah

00:01:52.72
Sean
Nice. That's good. That's good. Do you feel lighter and happier with less hair on your head?

00:02:01.66
Andrew
I am uh okay the I am no is the answer I feel like I'm a bit in a uh phase that I feel like I end up in every few years where I'm like questioning and trying to rediscover my personal style. And that often starts with trying to find a haircut that I like.

00:02:24.41
Andrew
my My typical haircut is just like the very standard white guy, like a little bit short on the sides, a little bit slicked over on top.

00:02:24.10
Sean
mean,

00:02:33.51
Andrew
And I just, know I always come back to it and then I go, this doesn't feel like me. And then I try something else and I'm like, well, this also doesn't feel like me.

00:02:43.31
Andrew
So... yeah i don't know i i'm trying i'm trying a messy fringe this time thanks

00:02:48.07
Sean
it looks good. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. I think it looks good. I think i like it looks good. You got you got like your oversized, boxy, drop shoulder t-shirt, the haircut.

00:03:00.87
Sean
Very trendy. Very trendy.

00:03:02.34
Andrew
i just watched a youtube video where like three people roasted a guy for wearing a uniqlo erism like boxy t-shirt and i was like fuck i thought that

00:03:08.64
Sean
Haters. Haters. Haters. They're so comfortable. Haters.

00:03:12.39
Andrew
they are so comfortable yeah

00:03:12.84
Sean
Get over themselves. Haters. oh Yeah. Don't take me back to skinny jeans, you know? was terrible time.

00:03:21.28
Andrew
i feel like they weren't they weren't advocating for skinny but they were also like they were basically saying if you're gonna go boxy you need to it needs to look intentional like you're intentionally trying to be boxy like if you have like one boxy thing and then one more skinny thing it can look weird And like fit still matters. And that like the most timeless look is something kind of in between. It's not like crazy baggy, but also not crazy skinny.

00:03:49.69
Andrew
But then that's also kind of boring. I don't know.

00:03:52.68
Sean
i think I think there's ways to make all of it work.

00:03:52.83
Andrew
don't know.

00:03:56.37
Sean
It just kind of depends on silhouette and whatnot. I like this look, by the way. I actually think this is this is a very nice like haircut on you, especially with the with the earrings.

00:04:06.02
Sean
Yeah.

00:04:07.38
Andrew
Thanks, dude. I appreciate that.

00:04:08.23
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:09.50
Andrew
I only got like two words of it because you're breaking up for me a little bit right now.

00:04:13.48
Sean
Oh, really? Okay.

00:04:15.39
Andrew
But

00:04:15.50
Sean
We'll try that again.

00:04:16.02
Sean
I actually think it it looks really good. I think it, yeah, especially with the earrings and whatnot.

00:04:21.82
Andrew
thanks. Appreciate it

00:04:23.75
Sean
You look like five years younger. That's cool.

00:04:26.49
Andrew
it. I don't know if I want to look five years younger as part of this. i'm like I want to own being in my 30s.

00:04:31.01
Sean
I see.

00:04:32.59
Andrew
And I'm OK.

00:04:34.21
Sean
You still look like you're in your 30s.

00:04:35.90
Andrew
okay

00:04:35.93
Sean
You still, just like,

00:04:37.38
Andrew
So you're saying before I looked like I was approaching 40. I

00:04:41.06
Sean
just like your late thirty s I guess that business means approaching for... I don't know. I haven't seen you in so long that I... My image of you is just your, like, 20-something-year-old profile picture in Slack at this point. So, I don't know.

00:04:55.90
Andrew
i i jumped on a call with a friend earlier today who I hadn't talked to in a long time. And we hadn't had like a video call in at least six months, if not longer. And he was like, whoa, because I just got in the haircut. He hadn't seen me with earrings. I last week talked, I had a fraction of the tattoos that I have now. He was like, you are taking this breakup seriously.

00:05:22.99
Sean
I see.

00:05:24.78
Andrew
But yeah, so. Here we are. we'll see We'll see where I land on this this latest personal style exploration.

00:05:36.17
Sean
Cool. What else is what else is new with you? What other bodily things have happened to you?

00:05:42.12
Andrew
Sorry, I didn't catch that.

00:05:43.48
Sean
Oh, what other bodily things have happened to you? is

00:05:47.74
Sean
Your ankle.

00:05:47.97
Andrew
i

00:05:48.10
Sean
I mean your ankle, by the way. Not not like anything else. i should Sorry, I'm looking at the list. i'm just It's a good segue. I promise.

00:05:55.97
Andrew
Yeah, i fractured my ankle like three weeks ago now, three and a half. I was...

00:06:01.63
Sean
Damn.

00:06:03.06
Andrew
you and I were both leaving for trips at like the same time. We were going be gone for two weeks. I was going to Mexico to do two weeks of immersion training and be there for Dia de los Muertos.

00:06:16.77
Andrew
And two days before I was supposed to leave, I went rock climbing with a friend and took an awkward fall and sprained the shit out of my ankle and got a minor fracture.

00:06:27.19
Andrew
So I spent the two weeks sitting at home in a boot instead, which was kind of a drag, but no, it was right before I left for Mexico.

00:06:34.36
Sean
this This was in Mexico that this happened? Oh. Okay.

00:06:39.35
Andrew
So I canceled the trip and stayed here.

00:06:41.14
Sean
Oh.

00:06:41.62
Andrew
Yeah. Which totally fine. You know, I was able to reschedule everything.

00:06:47.26
Sean
Okay.

00:06:47.100
Andrew
And so it didn't cost me anything. I just had to miss Dia de los Muertos and the Halloween party with my friend in Mexico City, which was a bummer.

00:06:56.94
Sean
Gotcha. Gotcha.

00:06:58.30
Andrew
But I'll just have to go next year. All good.

00:07:01.70
Sean
Yeah, it's not going anywhere.

00:07:01.82
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah.

00:07:06.59
Sean
I hope.

00:07:07.74
Andrew
yeah Yeah.

00:07:09.05
Sean
I don't know.

00:07:09.23
Andrew
Yeah. No, no. Yeah. You know. Are relations between the US and Mexico deteriorating a bit right now? for like Because US is fucking everything up? the yeah I don't want to talk about that.

00:07:26.13
Andrew
It's just going to make me mad.

00:07:26.91
Sean
Yeah, different type of podcast.

00:07:28.81
Sean
Yeah.

00:07:30.19
Andrew
I'm just going to get angry. I've been watching a lot of Hasan Piker lately. Which is...

00:07:33.83
Sean
Oh, yeah? i see I see.

00:07:35.40
Andrew
Yeah.

00:07:35.90
Sean
Did you see the the dog shocking thing?

00:07:38.98
Andrew
No. What?

00:07:39.88
Sean
oh that's what i was talking about last time.

00:07:40.03
Andrew
What?

00:07:41.92
Sean
He's the one who's shocking his dog.

00:07:44.04
Andrew
What? Really?

00:07:44.55
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:45.42
Andrew
Oh, that's sad. That's a bummer.

00:07:46.44
Sean
Yeah, that's a whole thing.

00:07:46.98
Andrew
Oh, I don't like that.

00:07:48.78
Sean
Alright. Yeah, yeah.

00:07:50.86
Sean
Sorry for telling you.

00:07:52.88
Andrew
Bummer.

00:07:52.88
Sean
Yeah.

00:07:54.86
Andrew
Anyway, how was your vacation, dude?

00:07:56.65
Sean
Yeah, yeah, and more positive news. I also fucked up my foot in Hawaii, but not like a lot, just because I went surfing. I went surfing a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:08:04.74
Andrew
Oh, shit. No way You surf?

00:08:06.90
Sean
Yeah, I mean, i guess I guess I surf now. I mean, I i have surfed. I wouldn't say surf, but I have surfed.

00:08:13.37
Andrew
Did you surf before or was this your first time?

00:08:15.72
Sean
No, this my first time took classes and stuff.

00:08:17.56
Andrew
Cool.

00:08:18.26
Sean
Yeah, when I get the pictures.

00:08:18.68
Andrew
How was it?

00:08:19.26
Sean
So it was really fun. I spent a lot of my youth longboarding, and those are not transferable skills at all.

00:08:29.07
Sean
It was really fun. It was really tiring.

00:08:30.70
Andrew
Oh, funny. I always thought longboarding kind of was the closest board sport to surfing.

00:08:36.12
Sean
To honest that's what everyone says. And everyone also tells me that like it'll transfer over for snowboarding and i just fall my ass all the time when I snowboard, so.

00:08:45.19
Andrew
Yeah, I think i am I'm 100% basing this off of a like early 2000s Disney Channel movie. But I think surfing and snowboarding are kind of opposites in the way you're supposed to lean and stuff.

00:08:54.23
Sean
I see.

00:09:00.88
Andrew
But I had heard longboarding was more similar.

00:09:03.96
Andrew
i don't know. I'm terrible at all board sports. I surfed a tiny bit as a kid, but I was never very good at it.

00:09:06.23
Sean
Gotcha. Gotcha. I mean, it was definitely, it was like the getting up onto my board and standing was more difficult than the standing on the board.

00:09:17.30
Sean
i think like balancing myself after I got up was really easy and maybe that's where they transferred over.

00:09:21.62
Andrew
That makes a lot of sense.

00:09:23.13
Sean
yeah.

00:09:23.64
Andrew
Yeah, I could see that transferring. But yeah, there's no parallel to getting up on your board when you're longboarding.

00:09:29.41
Sean
Yeah.

00:09:30.71
Andrew
And that is kind of the hardest part of surfing because the transfer is the...

00:09:31.48
Sean
You know what they,

00:09:34.62
Sean
No, that's not true. That's not true. I'll tell you what the hardest part of surfing is.

00:09:36.12
Andrew
No? You don't think so?

00:09:37.42
Sean
The hardest part of surfing is having to paddle the entire way.

00:09:40.59
Andrew
Oh, yeah. Well, sure. Yeah, getting enough momentum to catch the wave. But like the place where most people fall is that transfer.

00:09:49.82
Sean
That's fair. That's fair. I didn't even mean to get to catch the wave. I mean, paddling from the beach to to the place you go surfing was so brutal. Like, I would make it halfway.

00:10:00.46
Sean
like, oh, well, I'm not.

00:10:02.14
Andrew
My dad tell tells this great story. My dad grew up in Merle Beach and a bunch of his friends were surfers and stuff. And there was a kid who was a surfer in his class who you had the long hair and this was the 70s.

00:10:08.23
Sean
Nice. Nice. Yeah. Yeah.

00:10:14.06
Andrew
So, of course, that meant everyone made fun of him. And he was like kind of skinny, but he would go out every morning and just paddle, like paddle for like an hour because he was such so serious about getting better at surfing. And then like the presidential fitness day came around or whatever, and they had to do pull ups.

00:10:31.58
Sean
yeah

00:10:31.67
Andrew
And like the football team all got up these big beefy dudes and were like slapping themselves on the back for like doing five pull ups. And then the like surfer kid they made fun of jumped up and like starts doing pull ups and like the PE teacher like told him to stop after like 30.

00:10:48.02
Sean
Whoa. Damn.

00:10:49.24
Andrew
Because he was just like so lean and so strong from paddling every day that he just showed all these dumb jocks up, which i fucking love.

00:10:58.77
Sean
That's awesome. That's awesome.

00:10:59.83
Andrew
Such a like, speaking of Disney Channel, it sounds like a Disney Channel.

00:11:04.11
Sean
Yeah, it really does.

00:11:04.22
Andrew
Sick.

00:11:05.38
Sean
really does. It sounds like a Mr. Miyagi of surfing. It's like, what am I going to start surfing? It's like, no, you have to paddle on, paddle off. But Hawaii was really fun. Hawaii's really fun.

00:11:15.86
Andrew
Sick.

00:11:18.54
Sean
think growing up, like, friends of mine, like, if we went to get sushi together, would be like, oh, the sushi isn't fresh or whatever. always just thought they were pretentious assholes. And then now that I've had, like, fresh, like, fish in hawaii now the last time went to get sushi this week was like oh i get it now i'm the pretentious asshole but it was really fun uh uh what else did we do i mean don't know we just walked around we stood we just mostly were on honolulu checked out bunch of things had traditional hawaiian food as well that was interesting i don't know you have you been hawaii

00:11:28.100
Andrew
Yeah.

00:12:01.35
Andrew
No, no, I've never been.

00:12:01.93
Sean
Okay. Okay.

00:12:03.34
Andrew
For whatever reason, it's it like, it's obviously a beautiful place, but it's never been super high on my list.

00:12:09.41
Sean
Hmm.

00:12:10.80
Andrew
Like, there's so much about Hawaii that I, I'm just not a big beach person. Like, beach places are not my, like, where I crave to go.

00:12:15.25
Sean
Me neither.

00:12:18.59
Sean
Same. Same. I was forced to go. at Well, technically the dark map chose where we went, so.

00:12:24.60
Andrew
Oh, that's fun.

00:12:25.44
Sean
Yeah, yeah. I should have. I should have hit Portugal instead, but whatever. Yeah, yeah it was fun.

00:12:35.84
Sean
It was like... Actually, I'll tell you...

00:12:38.59
Andrew
Did you do any hiking?

00:12:40.75
Sean
Yes, unfortunately. it was I was taken hiking. I hated every minute of it. sucked. I don't look back on it and in yeah

00:12:52.37
Andrew
That would have been my favorite part.

00:12:54.72
Sean
Nope.

00:12:57.52
Sean
It wasn't even crowded or anything. It was just like this.

00:12:59.77
Andrew
I'm going to make you go backpacking with me one day. That would be so much fun.

00:13:01.83
Sean
That's.

00:13:02.84
Andrew
Make you sleep on the ground with me.

00:13:04.59
Sean
If Metamonster hits a certain amount of revenue. 8

00:13:07.66
Andrew
How much?

00:13:09.62
Sean
million ARR.

00:13:11.31
Andrew
let's Jesus Christ.

00:13:15.69
Sean
It buys me, I think, 10 years of runway to not go backpacking. Because I just saw on Rob's podcast, like, emissive hit 8 million after 10 years. So, yeah, make it happen.

00:13:27.100
Andrew
Okay. So this is you buying yourself 10 years. Got it.

00:13:30.28
Sean
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

00:13:32.71
Andrew
Cool. So you went surfing, which you liked. You went hiking, which you hated. you ate a bunch of fresh fish, which you liked.

00:13:41.47
Sean
Yes. Yes, but i think the the I think there were two really positive things out of that trip.

00:13:43.81
Andrew
Yeah.

00:13:48.42
Sean
One, I actually did a vacation.

00:13:51.51
Andrew
Yeah, proud of you.

00:13:52.68
Sean
Or at least most of the vacation. like

00:13:55.19
Andrew
Of course.

00:13:55.56
Sean
PTO is part-time off.

00:13:55.64
Andrew
Yeah, that's true. i did I did yell at you for responding to my Slack message while you were in Hawaii.

00:14:00.29
Sean
yeah yeah yeah but but i had like actual vacation days on like last year which was nice i came back was feeling a little bit more energized and the really cool thing is coming back to stand up was like watching everyone like like take ownership of certain clients and and calls like i was like on the call was like oh i don't i don't even have to be here you don't need me i'm just gonna leave now so that was really

00:14:14.48
Andrew
Yeah.

00:14:20.08
Andrew
Yeah. Dude, this is one of the best things about as a business center about like taking vacation. It's it's like, yes, it's important to it's important to like recharge. It's important to take care of yourself. But you'll also be shocked at like we build up this narrative that like things will break without us.

00:14:41.74
Andrew
And in reality, like the goal should be for them to run smoothly without us.

00:14:42.14
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. So.

00:14:46.30
Andrew
And great way to stress test that without, you risking everything is go take a fucking week off.

00:14:56.70
Sean
so

00:14:57.24
Andrew
Cool. I'm stoked to hear that. Yeah. That you came back and the lights were on and things were running.

00:15:02.71
Sean
yeah yeah i mean now i'm just playing a lot of catch up but it's mostly things that i put off so that anyone anyone else slipped so yeah that's cool that's i feel good about a lot of like feel very good about the the creative team that's at miscreants right now and and the project management and team like uh the two pms that we have have really like helped run yeah

00:15:22.58
Andrew
Did you just add a new PM by the way? I thought I saw someone like new pop into Slack.

00:15:27.06
Sean
yeah yeah Yeah, we have two PMs now.

00:15:29.65
Andrew
Crazy.

00:15:31.22
Sean
That's what we get for having like 40 something clients at the same time.

00:15:36.08
Andrew
yeah Yeah, we never got to the 2pm point. We were dreaming about, right when we sold Crit, we were actively trying to hire for our first account manager and trying to like figure out the balance of like having a PM and an account manager at the same time.

00:15:45.52
Sean
right.

00:15:51.56
Sean
Yeah, i haven't I haven't figured that out either.

00:15:52.10
Andrew
But we never actually did it.

00:15:56.45
Sean
we're still We're still trying to figure it out. I still don't know like how it's all going to work, but we'll see. 2026, I think, will look pretty interesting.

00:16:06.85
Sean
While I've been gone, what have you been? How's Metamonster? What are you up to?

00:16:11.85
Andrew
So Metamonster, you know, there's not like any big massive update at the moment. You know, are less our last customer was in like August, September. We haven't added anyone new since.

00:16:26.56
Andrew
We're still kind of in the spot that I think we talked about last time, which is like, you know, we're getting a couple of signups a day. We're seeing some usage, but struggling with activation and everything.

00:16:38.72
Andrew
But what's really cool, have you heard of SEO Gits?

00:16:43.52
Sean
Yeah. yeah Yeah, they're cool.

00:16:46.39
Andrew
Really cool tool. So the founder heard, i i asked Rob Walling a question on Startups for the Rest of Us, like submitted a question like months ago.

00:16:47.66
Sean
Yeah.

00:16:56.08
Andrew
And he just answered my question like a few weeks ago on an episode of the podcast.

00:16:56.48
Sean
Oh, no way.

00:16:59.36
Sean
Oh.

00:17:02.05
Andrew
And Matthew, the founder of SEO Gits, heard it and reached out to me and was like, hey, I heard you on microconf. Do you want to chat sometime? Like I'm in the SEO space, would be happy to like give you some feedback on what I think about your positioning and like have some thoughts for you.

00:17:12.20
Sean
Great.

00:17:18.52
Andrew
And I was like, that would be awesome. Please, let's do that. Sean, he spent two hours on the phone with me going over like our homepage in detail saying, like this is where I think you're misunderstood.

00:17:32.28
Andrew
This doesn't mean what you think it means. this doesn't like This doesn't make sense to me as an SEO. I don't understand why you're comparing yourself to this tool. I think this section is redundant. And then he was like, all right, cool.

00:17:44.03
Andrew
Like that was like the first hour and I was like asking him a bunch of questions. We were chatting, talking, and then he was like, okay, I i figured if you want, I can just sign up for Metamonster right now and like you can watch and we can talk about it.

00:17:48.35
Sean
Yeah. Wow.

00:17:57.89
Andrew
And I was like, yes, please. And, you know, the the outcome of that was like, yeah, Nothing shocking. It was like, you know, he got in and he was like, okay, this sucks. I'm sitting here waiting for a crawl. And if I can't do anything in 20 seconds, like, sorry, I'm going to dip. And it's like, yeah, we...

00:18:19.59
Sean
Yeah.

00:18:19.89
Andrew
Duh. And then like once he got into the table, he's like, OK, what do I do first? Like, OK, I'm going to come over here and like, oh man, this is overwhelming. all the It was like all stuff that we kind of knew, but just hearing it from somebody was like so clarifying. And Austin and I had been debating a lot of this stuff around, like, do we need, like, workflows and, like, summaries and recommendations? And some of the ideas he had for how to solve this were, like, way simpler than any of the stuff that we were talking about trying to build. He was basically like, okay,

00:18:54.83
Andrew
you need like to let the crawl happen in the background and get people into running a prompt faster.

00:18:58.57
Sean
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:19:01.64
Andrew
And then you need to just give people three prompts and be like, pick from one of these, just, just go. he's also been pushing us to like, not call them prompts. And I do want to come up with a better name. Like, uh,

00:19:13.07
Andrew
Like i think more and more, I'm like, think we can push the AI shit to the background and, and like, just talk more about like doing things for people and less about, less about prompting.

00:19:25.90
Andrew
You know, I think we'll still like, people are searching for prompts. And so I don't want to like completely remove all of that language. You know, our prompts library on our website is getting good organic traffic.

00:19:37.13
Andrew
Like our organic traffic doubled overnight when I started,

00:19:37.57
Sean
Nice.

00:19:40.43
Andrew
publish that prompt library. I mean, it's 200 clicks a month. It's nothing crazy, but it still is like more than it was. And so, you know, I got to figure out like the language and the naming and some of these pieces.

00:19:55.100
Andrew
But yeah, like, it like a bunch of things clicked into place for like, and it was like, Oh, we're not as far as I thought we were to away from making this simpler.

00:20:07.48
Andrew
just like clarifying some things.

00:20:07.05
Sean
Yeah.

00:20:10.63
Andrew
And so I think what the experience will start to look like is you'll come in, you'll, you'll, input a URL. Eventually, you'll sign in with Search Console, and we'll just like import data and like start the crawl in the background.

00:20:23.58
Andrew
But like while the crawl is happening, you'll be able to pick a prompt, and we'll give you like one to three prompts and be like, OK, do you want to do this, this, or this?

00:20:35.84
Andrew
And then you'll be able to click one of those. And then we'll say, OK, what do you want to do next? and then And let you kind of stack prompts. and so you can kind of like work towards something we're also going to try to make it easier for you to like test things on like a small a small amount of data so that you can just go okay let me test this okay cool now let me run it on on everything okay let me test this now let me run it on everything and and so i think like realistically

00:20:54.88
Sean
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:21:05.21
Andrew
it We don't need to add some big complex new feature. we just need to like smooth out the edges and create a clearer path for people to take.

00:21:17.64
Andrew
and And just hold people's hands just a little bit. And I think we can we can get pretty far. So I'm really curious, like we're actively doing that work now, we've scoped it out, and we're actively doing it, it'll probably, you know, it's still not insignificant, given that we're part time, it's still probably a month or two of work, we're a couple weeks in.

00:21:37.64
Andrew
So, you know, we'll see, as we start to make these changes, how how it impacts activation, do people start, does this start clicking for people? the other thing that's happened during this time, is I went through and I finally signed up for like ClearScope and Surfer.

00:21:59.76
Andrew
I'd like never actually used to them. I had always just sort of, you know, browse their websites and heard people talk about them. I thought they were going to be a lot better than they were.

00:22:10.15
Andrew
i was like, not super impressed.

00:22:13.76
Sean
Shots fired.

00:22:14.83
Andrew
Like not to be an asshole, like I don't ever want to be a hater.

00:22:14.100
Sean
That's getting close.

00:22:17.47
Andrew
I've been trying to figure out how to talk about this publicly because I don't want to be a hater who's like, hey, these tools that work well for people that are being making tons of money, i'm I have six customers and I know better than they do.

00:22:29.19
Sean
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:22:29.48
Andrew
So I got to figure out how to talk about it. But it's basically like just don't like the way they do things. and Like, I know Surfer now has a bunch of functionality and features and like ClearScope is adding all this like topic analysis stuff, Surfer too.

00:22:45.40
Andrew
But like, I feel like the core of the tools, my understanding of them at least is that the core of the tool is still like, you have a page and they help you optimize that page. And they give you like a score. ClearScope does it as a letter grade.

00:22:59.18
Andrew
Surfer does it as like a meter zero to a hundred. They give you a score.

00:23:01.78
Sean
Yeah, yeah, you tell them you tell them what keyword you want to rank for, and it tells you how well you're writing towards said keyword, right? Or keywords.

00:23:09.30
Andrew
But here's the thing, like I always thought that there was some sort of like magic dust in, it's fucking keyword stuffing.

00:23:16.18
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:23:17.59
Andrew
Like their their optimization algorithm, both of them, like ClearScope at least has like a readability score that they give you too for like how readable is this content. But like the actual like letter grade and for Surfer, like the number is just based on how many keywords you use and how often you mention them.

00:23:36.68
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

00:23:37.64
Andrew
That's it, that's fucking it. And it's like, that that you know if you follow their they're recommendations to a T, you write unreadable content.

00:23:50.26
Andrew
You write horrible content.

00:23:54.87
Sean
yes

00:23:54.90
Andrew
And like maybe it works, maybe it ranks, maybe, but like I don't know, like all the people I respect in SEO today don't seem to be advising you to just go do a bunch of keyword stuffing.

00:24:07.64
Sean
I think, I think they're, uh, they, they were built on a strategy that worked really well for a very long time and like, you know, help people win on Google. And and that's why we have so many affiliate sites and so many like how to sites and whatever, or, or recipe sites and and whatever. And like,

00:24:29.64
Sean
you know and it like I think it powered a content goblin industry for a very long time. But yeah, I mean, that's that's actually why like I love SEO gets. like they're They're super cool.

00:24:42.14
Sean
like like top there There are times where I am possibly on Claude and like dumping SEO gets into Claude. i want to build a start like a sass app like this what are other ideas that i could also do and and i think one of the things that's cool about is like like it does feel like a cool new a seo thing compared to what clear scope and i've only ever used clear scope in the past but yeah i agree i

00:24:57.88
Andrew
But

00:25:13.76
Sean
I think that's why I churned so quickly from ClearScope when I had used it a couple years ago. was mainly like like its just like It just felt like I was writing to...

00:25:25.52
Sean
like he didn't feel he was It didn't feel useful. right it like It didn't feel better than Ctrl F-ing a number of keywords I had on the page.

00:25:29.100
Andrew
Yeah.

00:25:34.84
Sean
Yeah.

00:25:36.02
Andrew
Yeah. And so this is where, so this is like, step one, I think is like, make it easier to use Metamonster. But then there's this question of, okay, use Metamonster to do what?

00:25:47.94
Andrew
What is the core problem we're trying to solve? And this is the thing we still struggle to answer. And we sort of talk around it. We're like, to generate structured schema and like all this shit. And i I think the like vision that's slowly forming in my head, and it's not fully formed, and I don't know if the market wants it fully, but the vision that's forming in my head is like kind of taking on ClearScope and Surfer more directly and getting more into like content optimization, like kind of page by page, and focusing a little less on scale and like do this stuff at scale, do it in some massive batch, and more on what if we just...

00:26:24.02
Sean
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:26:27.05
Andrew
What if we do it bit by bit, but we try to help you do it better? Like one of the things that I think AI is pretty good at, not perfect, but pretty good at is qualitative analysis.

00:26:38.92
Andrew
So being able, you know you can do ask questions now of like content of language that you were pretty hard to ask before. Like, hey, is this hook compelling?

00:26:52.49
Andrew
Is this, you know, like, are there original ideas sort of in this content? Is there something new and interesting here?

00:27:03.29
Andrew
And so i'm I'm much more interested, I'm getting much more excited and interested, like, and I think this is part of what I've struggled with with Metamonster is like, we were kind of building for this scale thing. And like, I still i still think automation will be a piece of what we do because like,

00:27:20.16
Andrew
you're not going to want to write structured schema a page by page. By the way, ClearScope and Surfer don't help you with like metadata. They don't help you with structured schema. They don't help you with image alt text. So it feels like there's just a chunk of on-page optimization work that is missing.

00:27:35.12
Andrew
I get that it's not the most important chunk, but it's still a chunk.

00:27:37.86
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:27:41.15
Sean
Church team is a super important job for what it's worth. Yeah. Yeah.

00:27:45.42
Andrew
And so it's like, okay, we still give you automation to do the, like, the grunt work, but then we also give you qualitative analysis to help your you just, like, write better, more interesting content.

00:27:59.72
Andrew
And, like, yes, have the keywords. Like, mention the topics, mention the, the you know, queer use query fanout kind of ideas to be like all right let's make sure this is comprehensive and we've thought about all the different angles we can approach this from and then and that we're like referent using the the sort of language that people are going to be using in searches in our post like yes that's a piece of it but the piece that felt like it was missing it's like where's the thing that tells me like if this is a

00:28:09.39
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:28:33.100
Andrew
good piece of content. Like, i don't want Like maybe I'm leaving something on the table, but I don't want my content to be stuffed with keywords. I would rather it like show me that I've got like my bases covered, that I've got like, you know, I'm using my primary topic in the h one I'm using it throughout the page a handful of times. I'm referencing other topics and covering the, you know, the contents thorough and like, you know, I'm covering the topic well.

00:29:06.83
Andrew
And then like help me understand, like right does this read well? like does this is someone going to Is this engaging?

00:29:14.41
Sean
Right. Right.

00:29:17.30
Andrew
And so I think that I kind of want to take the approach of like,

00:29:23.38
Andrew
help people get more out of their content through a little bit of automation and some like qualitative analysis. And I got to figure out better language than that. Qualitative analysis I don't think is going to resonate with people.

00:29:37.60
Andrew
But like, help people get more out of their content, help people create SEO optimized content that doesn't feel SEO optimized, that doesn't read as SEO optimized, and like try to build it in a way that feels more like 2025 recommendations recommendations.

00:29:57.86
Sean
yeah yeah i i mean honestly i think because of 2018 recommendations it's why a lot of those affiliate sites got clapped in the great google reckoning year back so

00:29:59.10
Andrew
twenty eighteen recommendations

00:30:11.20
Andrew
Yeah.

00:30:12.42
Sean
I mean, I like i like the vision. I like at the direction. It's super cool that you got like two and a half hours with with Matt. Yeah, shout out to SIA Gets.

00:30:22.23
Andrew
Yeah. Dude, he he was so fucking nice to me. like it's Like, that's just an incredible amount of time to spend with someone for nothing in return like there was no ulterior motive it was just like hey i see a bunch of things that i think could be better do you is it helpful for me to share them uh yeah i was kind of blown away and again like you know i get advice from people all the time but most of the time it's vague and not that helpful

00:30:36.52
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:30:42.42
Sean
Yeah.

00:30:58.88
Andrew
And this was like specific, here's the language you're using that isn't resonating with the...

00:31:05.50
Sean
Yeah. From someone who's done it before as well, which is cool. Yeah.

00:31:08.42
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00:31:09.56
Sean
Cool.

00:31:10.82
Andrew
So, yeah, that's kind of the vision is like, make this easier, make it a little bit more opinionated, and then...

00:31:21.20
Andrew
figure out how to communicate that like Metamonster helps you get more out of your content with a combination of like automation and like editing.

00:31:35.16
Andrew
I don't know. What do you call that? I don't know. How would you communicate this? How would you message this? this This vision.

00:31:44.57
Sean
Not shitty SEO content.

00:31:44.73
Andrew
Put you on the spot. Make you do my work for me.

00:31:46.94
Sean
Not shitty SEO content.

00:31:49.73
Sean
I don't know. Like, if I feel like there's something, maybe there's something there. Okay. Like shooting from the hip one angle is like the readable, like just defining what is better content, right? Like the readability and SEO optimized side.

00:32:05.90
Sean
So maybe there's something there. Like, like, Maybe there's something with like going into like this idea of like iteratively or improving. There's maybe something about like continuous improvement, which is which is like one one thing that like I'm sure some SEOs go back and revisit content.

00:32:29.97
Sean
But for the most part, my experience of having like SEO writers and whatever, it's like it's one and done and you move on to the next thing and you don't really revisit the old content to like make it better. You just like, like, like the, the, uh, what I hear often as like the general principle is that 20% of your content makes up for 80% of the traffic. But like,

00:32:55.15
Sean
it just sounds like there's 80% of potential content that can be improved to generate more content. You know, it doesn't have to, yeah. So maybe there's something there.

00:33:08.29
Sean
I don't know. I think it's 2.5 hours with, with like an SEO king.

00:33:18.27
Andrew
Yeah, there's something like get more out of your existing content, like optimize the content you already have.

00:33:18.53
Sean
yeah.

00:33:22.55
Sean
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

00:33:24.83
Andrew
Create SEO optimized content that doesn't feel optimized.

00:33:30.36
Andrew
And like content optimization for today's search landscape. Like that last one sounds like what everyone's fucking saying right now, which is like, like optimize for Google AI and beyond. Like i literally, I pulled headlines from a bunch of, a bunch of SEO tools the other day.

00:33:48.92
Andrew
It's fucking hilarious to scroll through these. It's like, they're not loading right now, but they are all the fucking same.

00:33:54.20
Sean
I think it's because they all use the word optimize and it means nothing.

00:33:56.16
Andrew
Yeah.

00:34:01.06
Sean
like It's just so vague, but it's also like part of the SEO game of like, oh yeah, we do SEO optimization and it feels like it's an impressive thing, but often it's not or what they're doing isn't.

00:34:15.69
Sean
So I wonder if there's a way for you to just shed that that and be, you know, laddered down from that level of vagueness and abstraction and just get into, like, SEO content that... Like, what doesn't work is, like, SEO content that is readable because I feel like that... Or, like, reads, like, it like SEO content for humans or something. Because I feel like that's just this, like, we write we have a better AI content writer. Yeah.

00:34:43.35
Sean
I don't know.

00:34:45.26
Andrew
Yeah, something like...

00:34:47.07
Sean
I like the idea of like getting more out of your existing content. I feel like there's like, I feel like there's like something there, right? Because otherwise,

00:34:55.46
Andrew
Create the most readable SEO content. Like, create...

00:34:59.86
Sean
i just feel like that still tells makes me feel like it's an AI content writer instead of like a reviser of sorts.

00:35:05.06
Andrew
Yeah.

00:35:09.81
Sean
Yeah.

00:35:10.81
Andrew
Edit your SEO content to be more readable.

00:35:16.39
Sean
edit your SEO content like it's 2025.

00:35:20.52
Sean
That's more of like an ad and copy than it is anything else.

00:35:22.46
Andrew
Yeah.

00:35:25.79
Sean
Hmm.

00:35:27.07
Sean
Don't know.

00:35:27.42
Andrew
Optimize your SEO content for more than just keywords.

00:35:32.45
Sean
I mean, I feel like there's something there you could do with all the, uh,

00:35:34.58
Andrew
optimize your Optimize SEO content for quality and keywords. Keywords and quality.

00:35:42.94
Andrew
By the way, one other like little signal here that I'm possibly reading too much into, but that I think is interesting. Our most clicked on so one of the fascinating things about publishing this prompt library on the website is I now have analytics data on like which prompts people are clicking on.

00:35:58.93
Sean
Oh, cool. Nice.

00:36:00.27
Andrew
The most clicked on prompt like top is content quality analysis.

00:36:07.38
Sean
Oh.

00:36:08.55
Andrew
It's like, tell me how good my this content is, which I think is like part of this, which is really fascinating.

00:36:08.74
Sean
Oh.

00:36:13.04
Sean
OK.

00:36:16.15
Sean
i think I think that's and think that's like a worthwhile direction to kind of go down. right like i agree that like saying qualitative analysis is going to make someone's eyes glaze over, but and improve.

00:36:27.06
Andrew
Analyze content quality at scale or something? I don't know.

00:36:31.32
Sean
Improve content quality. Refine content quality. Refine your content for quality.

00:36:38.95
Andrew
To be more quality? Quality plus plus.

00:36:43.49
Sean
That's a good name. You should change your name to Quality++.

00:36:47.19
Andrew
Big quality readable more.

00:36:53.87
Andrew
Why are words hard?

00:36:55.38
Sean
be kind of a cool headline big quality readable more yeah

00:37:04.74
Andrew
Uh, core message. Okay. This is, this is like what, when I fed this stuff into Claude, this is what it came up with as like kind of the core message searches evolved beyond keyword stuffing. Modern SEO requires qualitative analysis, topical research, strategic automation, automation, and yes, keywords used thoughtfully.

00:37:24.76
Andrew
your positioning is the tool that balances SEO science with content quality where competitors optimize for algorithms at the expense of readers.

00:37:34.40
Andrew
Stop optimizing for algorithms at the expense of readers.

00:37:40.62
Sean
I think my only question is like, does that speak to like SEOs?

00:37:45.65
Andrew
So another question I have is like, maybe SEOs are in our audience. Like, what if this, what if, what if I should be looking for more people like me who are like dangerous,

00:37:49.80
Sean
Mm hmm.

00:37:58.38
Andrew
know enough about SEO to be dangerous, but like, aren't don't want to over optimize.

00:38:04.30
Sean
Mm hmm.

00:38:05.85
Sean
Yeah, I mean, I think it's,

00:38:07.77
Sean
I think the question is like, which role is that that has the budget to pay for the tool? You know, I guess like the question is like, are you are you then optimizing?

00:38:19.29
Sean
So like the persona that comes to mind is like the Seth Godins of the world, right? Like bloggers, when you say people like you.

00:38:27.64
Andrew
yeah Yeah, I thought like head of content marketing or something like that, head of content.

00:38:31.11
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:38:33.42
Sean
Yeah.

00:38:35.08
Andrew
I don't know. I don't know if this is like viable. Yeah.

00:38:40.69
Sean
Journal.

00:38:42.13
Sean
We'll find out next week. Are we podcasting next week? You got Thanksgiving plans?

00:38:48.68
Andrew
probably can't. Yeah. My my sister's going to be in town, so I'll be hanging out with her.

00:38:51.81
Sean
Nice. Cool, cool.

00:38:53.55
Andrew
Yeah. Two weeks.

00:38:54.59
Sean
My little brother would be in town.

00:38:57.22
Andrew
Hell yeah.

00:38:57.75
Sean
Yeah.

00:38:59.03
Andrew
How's he doing?

00:39:00.69
Sean
Good. don't know. He's looking for his full-time software engineering job. markets The market's the market.

00:39:08.05
Andrew
Yeah. It's a weird, weird time right now.

00:39:10.38
Sean
Yeah.

00:39:11.63
Andrew
known

00:39:11.76
Sean
Yeah.

00:39:12.50
Andrew
Market-wise.

00:39:12.94
Sean
Yeah.

00:39:15.02
Andrew
cool well if you if you happen to think of like a better way to say this then

00:39:20.62
Sean
sure it seeps into my brain, like guess, as a shower thought, I'll you

00:39:22.95
Andrew
yeah i think i think what we'll do is like i don't think i'm going to like drastically update the messaging i might find a few ways to try to insert content quality into the message the existing messaging just like try to start figuring out how to sprinkle it in, like some of this content quality stuff, and then make sure content quality is like a part of the prompts that we offer to people when they, you know the the sort of featured prompts that we encourage people to run, and then see if people use them and get feedback on if they like them and and all that.

00:39:45.22
Sean
know. Mm-hmm.

00:39:59.26
Andrew
Okay.

00:40:00.16
Sean
I have a rabbit hole to send you down that might be helpful. So you know how HubSpot created inbound market, effectively created inbound marketing. And then like later on B2B, there was like revenue marketing and account based marketing and all these like everyone started making up their own type of thing.

00:40:14.67
Sean
The new hot thing that HubSpot is trying to push is loop marketing.

00:40:18.58
Andrew
Is what?

00:40:19.31
Sean
Is loop marketing.

00:40:21.30
Andrew
Oh, yeah, I have seen people talk about this.

00:40:23.31
Sean
yeah especially the the podcast that we listen to that sometimes have sponsors where hubspot is sponsor but but like i wonder if there's something here with like traditional seo is dying you can't get by with like the keyword stuffing uh strategies you have to have quality like cut like content quality was always the hard thing which is why everyone did everything else but like if we go back to the the old like ethos of like content is king or content quality content quality is king this actually makes it possible for you to have quality content like maybe there's something there like create quality content that actually ranks is

00:41:07.76
Sean
like like content quality and SEO don't have doesn't have to be a trade-off. I feel like there's like something there with the messaging.

00:41:13.99
Andrew
Mm-hmm.

00:41:14.70
Sean
Because I do think, i like thinking to like heads of content or content marketers, when they read an SEO filled blog post, like their complaint is always like, this is bullshit.

00:41:25.00
Sean
This is all SEO fluff. Don't put this on my website. not Not that we've done it, but like in in conversations that I've seen. Yeah, so and then then then it takes like a very special writer who can sort of straddle a line between both.

00:41:40.26
Sean
And even then, like it's tough. Yeah, so I wonder if there's... I wonder if there's something there. Yeah,

00:41:51.25
Andrew
Yeah. Loop marketing reminds me of the growth loop stuff that, that, um,

00:41:55.76
Sean
Hmm.

00:41:58.17
Andrew
that what was that company called the like product manager training company i forget but they had this big thing on growth loops was like one of the one of the things they like hammered in yeah

00:42:12.73
Sean
Gotcha. The reason I'm thinking about the content, the loop marketing thing is like one part of loop marketing is having like the right voice and tone brand, like putting quality above a lot of other things, right? Like to build trust.

00:42:27.69
Sean
Yeah.

00:42:29.11
Andrew
Yeah, I'm seeing like make your content personal, ensure human quality checks, craft your style guide, create your ICP,

00:42:42.11
Sean
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:42:42.39
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:42:44.48
Andrew
use AI to scale content creation, interesting.

00:42:50.38
Andrew
Build your content strategy, evolve your strategy. And there is with this idea of, like yeah, like create it, tailor it, repurpose it, improve it.

00:43:04.66
Andrew
Interesting. I'll dig into this a little bit. Cool. Yeah, I mean, step one is like let's just make the thing easier to use and then see what if people start using it and if they do what they use it for.

00:43:17.69
Sean
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it decreases some of your bounce rate.

00:43:20.79
Andrew
Yeah, but I think we will try to make like a content analysis part of this, and we may start building in more of a like, building the document view.

00:43:34.61
Andrew
in

00:43:34.72
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:43:35.60
Andrew
and you know Instead of going workflows and scale and automation, we might go a little bit more document, page by page,

00:43:44.95
Sean
Nice. Cool.

00:43:47.25
Andrew
possibly.

00:43:47.38
Sean
You can build some editing in there and then have it published in the Webflow.

00:43:53.18
Andrew
accidentally builds margins.

00:43:54.47
Sean
That's okay. You can do it. Go do it. I'm clearly making zero partners on it.

00:43:59.62
Sean
So if you want to if you want to be on the hook for the bugs, that's totally fine for me.

00:44:06.77
Andrew
Yeah.

00:44:08.08
Sean
No.

00:44:09.07
Andrew
What else did we have on our list? Oh, you do you want it do you want to talk about the the darker side of all this, getting burnt out on AI? Do you want to talk about trendy design stuff?

00:44:21.38
Andrew
Do you want to talk about, yeah, RSA submissions?

00:44:27.13
Sean
i'll start we'll go backwards uh let's just see how much we cover in the time we have but mean rsa submissions is quick i've spent all my last week doing rsa submissions and like helping people write their pitches and stuff and like editing videos uh

00:44:33.55
Andrew
Yeah.

00:44:41.12
Andrew
Nice. Any, any, I guess you probably can't talk about it, but a in specifics, but any like particularly interesting pitches or like trends or angles, like, is it all just how to use AI to do security?

00:45:00.90
Andrew
Dude, fucking every talk at Brighton was just like, ai

00:45:04.62
Sean
and so So we actually were working with a client. I can't talk about what what their solution is, but it's like the first client in a long time who's coming to us without like an AI tool. And the breath of fresh air.

00:45:17.54
Sean
Like, yeah, they they're like hardcore math geeks. Like, there are clients with AI tools that I believe in, and I see them work, and it's good.

00:45:28.56
Andrew
Oh, for sure.

00:45:28.60
Sean
But I'm...

00:45:29.32
Andrew
Like the tech. Yeah. This is turning into us talking about being burnt out on AI, isn't it?

00:45:34.54
Sean
Yeah, yeah, Well, that's what was saying. We're going to go backwards. We're transitioning into that. I'm just sick of it. Yeah. yeah Yeah, I don't know.

00:45:45.15
Andrew
Go off. Tell me.

00:45:46.46
Sean
I'm just.

00:45:46.58
Andrew
Tell me. Let's just get into it.

00:45:48.92
Sean
I'm just, I don't know, man. I think, well, i think I think what's trending across a lot of our client base is is actually exactly what you said, is they're they're starting, like, so so it made sense, right?

00:46:02.88
Sean
there They put AI agents as best part of their website H1 because, like, the willingness to try ai things made a lot of sense. So, like, like we would give them, like like, website headlines that, like, actually talked about what they did, and then they would scrap all of them, with like, AI agents that do these things that, like,

00:46:09.54
Andrew
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:46:18.42
Sean
like like find vulnerabilities for example it's like well like how does that sound any different than any different than what anyone else is saying so now it's gone full circle where they're like where they're like i feel like you were right in the beginning we should have been more specific about you know actually the clients that we serve and the act like actual like types of infrastructure and whatever but and that we're we're starting to see that across the board a lot of times like folks folks are saying like oh like There's like two sides to it.

00:46:48.86
Sean
and On the product side, we definitely have people want like saying, like oh, like it should feel more AI native. you know We're in 2025.

00:46:58.98
Sean
I don't want this to feel like a traditional SaaS app. I want it to feel cool. and and and yeah I just want it to feel very cool. I see you laughing there. They just want to...

00:47:08.92
Andrew
I mean, there there is like truth to AI native products. you I think a lot of that comes down to how much of the AI are you exposing, how how much customization and how

00:47:21.56
Sean
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

00:47:23.23
Andrew
How much are you giving people access to tweak the dials and knobs with prompting and models and yada yada versus just like sort of hiding stuff away?

00:47:34.76
Andrew
but I don't know. I'm kind of coming back around on like, maybe maybe AI shouldn't be as front and center as we've been trying to make it for the last like, maybe people just want you to do shit for them and like AI is not the most important bit.

00:47:46.31
Sean
Yeah, I mean, ai is AI is a feature, right? It's not the value that you actually get out of.

00:47:50.40
Andrew
But it's not even a feature. It's it's a technology. It's a how. It's a like, it is a, how are you getting this done?

00:47:57.60
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah Yeah, if anything, it belongs in your platform, how it works section. Not the actual business outcome that you get out of it. Yeah, so we're I mean, we're starting to see more and more of like people kind of coming back to that. There is every once in a while we get an ask from from like a prospect, it's like, oh, like I want my homepage to just be like perplexity, or like I want people to like have a chat bar where they can just like ask the question of what we do. and like That's really cool and all, but like there's not a single user that hits your page and wants to go, wants to type, what do you do?

00:48:33.48
Sean
Who do you serve? like No one is creative enough to come up with those questions.

00:48:37.92
Andrew
Dear God, no.

00:48:38.46
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:48:39.92
Andrew
I'm on your website. Like, I've i've already been in perplexity asking those questions. I'm on your website. Tell me what the fuck you do.

00:48:46.28
Sean
Yeah.

00:48:48.11
Andrew
Yeah.

00:48:48.27
Sean
How about you? what's what's What's your situation?

00:48:51.20
Andrew
I am just feeling... So so i was I was chatting with the Scout CEO about this yesterday. I was telling him, like, my motivation's just been kind of low lately. Yeah.

00:49:03.98
Andrew
And I think part of this is like a personal journey that's been happening since the crit days. And,

00:49:09.65
Sean
Sure.

00:49:12.16
Andrew
you know, I would say really only in the last year have I changed my mind on whether capitalism is net good for society or not.

00:49:22.52
Sean
OK, this is OK.

00:49:25.08
Andrew
Yeah, I would consider myself a pretty pretty firm socialist at and a minimum, like, like a democratic socialist these days, getting deeper and deeper, you if if not evidenced by the fact that I've been watching Hasan Piker videos lately.

00:49:40.98
Sean
Right, right, right.

00:49:42.42
Sean
Right.

00:49:44.06
Andrew
I'm just like less and less convinced that capitalism is good for the world. For a long time, I like sort of bought in on like, okay, it's imperfect, but like if capitalism with a strong social safety net could really work and like we need incentives for creation and like innovation, but it's like you start looking at it and a lot of times the the innovation happens in spite of capitalism, not because of it.

00:50:04.98
Andrew
like markets I still kind of think markets can be effective tools

00:50:04.48
Sean
Yeah. Sure. Sure.

00:50:09.58
Andrew
for certain things to like sort of distribute resources in a way that like give people the ability to kind of pick what they care about and what they don't and like let them choose for themselves you know kind of how things should be distributed i think they can be effective tools but like should everything be a market no should everything be uh dictated by profit hell no and you know when i first started getting excited about ai it was largely like there was a lot of intellectual curiosity of like oh this is like this crazy cool new technology it's more capable than i thought it was like learning how to work with it was like a new interesting challenge and now that some of that is wearing off i'm left with this feeling of like

00:50:36.24
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:50:57.78
Andrew
her Everyone's just trying to like automate shit and just like take humans out of things. And it just feels kind of gross. And i mean, some of the like desire to push MetaMonster away from like scale and content creation to quality and analysis is...

00:51:06.65
Sean
Yeah.

00:51:20.94
Andrew
And this is the part that's dangerous is like, I do live in a capitalist society. I do there. I do need to listen to the market if I want met a monster to be successful and to survive.

00:51:31.80
Andrew
And I don't know if the market wants the market might want automation and scale and bullshit. But like, you know my hope is that there are some people who might resonate with like what I want to create, which is more quality analysis.

00:51:48.34
Sean
yeah I mean, I don't think the market doesn't want qualitative analysis.

00:51:49.06
Andrew
Yeah.

00:51:51.98
Sean
I think the the general consensus is that AI doesn't have good enough taste to do that, to do that well.

00:51:58.92
Andrew
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's fair. And I still think it will,

00:52:04.95
Andrew
like, the qualitative, the kind of qualitative analysis I'm talking about is largely like, but like I've been working on like creating a rubric, like how do you define good writing?

00:52:09.80
Sean
Yeah, it's different. It's...

00:52:16.91
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:52:25.80
Andrew
And that's obviously imperfect, but it's, you know, a starting point to give people ideas. But yeah, I've just been feeling like, like I don't, I i cringe when I tell people what I do.

00:52:39.43
Andrew
Like, like I'm building ai stuff to help people, to help people optimize their website.

00:52:44.81
Sean
And have a podcast. Yeah.

00:52:49.99
Andrew
And I just like, I can't help shaking the feeling that like, man, am I going to look back in like 20 years and be like kind of bummed out that this is what I like spent the like peak of my career? Like the 30, your 30s and 40s are kind of like, you know often when you have the most impact career-wise you you have enough social capital and real capital to like get shit done and it's like am i gonna look back at 50 on this period of time and go really dog like you spent this like slinging ai like you couldn't you didn't want to i don't know do something that like like

00:53:30.25
Sean
so was I'm just glad it wasn't blockchain, you know?

00:53:34.22
Andrew
Oh my fucking God.

00:53:34.29
Sean
Yeah.

00:53:35.26
Andrew
Yeah. And it doesn't help that like all the blockchain bros are now like the hardcore AI bros. And I'm like, fucking God, like you guys, I can't with y'all.

00:53:40.69
Sean
Yeah.

00:53:44.88
Andrew
And so I'm just like, I'm, yeah. I was talking to the scout CEO yesterday and he, he has this framework or saying that he refers to for like motivation and career satisfaction.

00:53:56.78
Sean
Yep. Right.

00:53:59.15
Andrew
He talks about, The three elements you need are compensation. Do you make enough money to not have to stress about money? Contribution.

00:54:11.00
Andrew
Do you feel like your work is having an impact, that it's positive, that you know you're not yeah doing something soul-sucking? And then control. like Do you have autonomy and you know control over your life and the ability to like explore and try things? and

00:54:29.12
Sean
What's a new spin on like Ikigai?

00:54:33.88
Andrew
Yeah.

00:54:34.04
Sean
is it Just like, you know?

00:54:34.20
Andrew
Yeah. As he was talking, i was like, oh, this is Ikigai. yeah.

00:54:36.96
Sean
Yeah.

00:54:38.90
Andrew
Uh, and so I just, yeah, the contribution piece.

00:54:43.48
Sean
So this is where you tell me you're going to switch to doing the ATS that you've always wanted to do. Huh?

00:54:48.84
Andrew
Uh, I've been thinking less about the ATS and more about the, uh, therapy project.

00:54:49.38
Sean
Huh?

00:54:52.14
Sean
Huh?

00:54:58.16
Sean
Oh, okay, fine.

00:54:59.09
Sean
Fair enough. That or that or that. Either one.

00:55:03.90
Andrew
Yeah. And I, you know, I'm not switching anything right away. I'm not going to make any rash decisions. You know, it took us a fucking long time to get to where we are with Metamonster, like throwing all that away and like just trying to do something else because I'm bored is not something I want to do. But yeah, I...

00:55:24.29
Andrew
yeah i you know, more and more like the careers I admire most are people like Hank and John Green who have made enough money and then said, all right, we're cool with like nice house, the ability to travel, but we live, you know, pretty modest lifestyles and we're going to devote the rest of our, the rest of our like earning towards projects that we think make the world better.

00:55:55.10
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. mean, they are also millionaires. Just saying. like They are also...

00:55:58.62
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. they They're both like... But but they're, you know... Yeah, that's that's totally fair.

00:56:05.63
Sean
True. Yeah.

00:56:05.83
Andrew
Like, they're they're they're upper class for sure.

00:56:05.85
Sean
Yeah.

00:56:10.12
Andrew
But, you know, one lives in fucking Bozeman, Montana and one lives in Indianapolis and they're not living in like mega mansions. They're just... And, you know, they make their money from their books and then they're like personal money from their books and then like everything else goes towards...

00:56:26.47
Sean
yeah

00:56:27.98
Andrew
like these you partners in health or complexity.

00:56:33.03
Sean
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

00:56:36.32
Sean
Wow, midlife crisis. I like it.

00:56:38.71
Andrew
Yeah.

00:56:39.07
Sean
okay

00:56:39.43
Andrew
but My therapist said the same thing. He's like, all right, going through a midlife crisis at 32. Am I 32? I think I'm 32. and And I was like, dude, I think I go through one of these every three years, three to five years.

00:56:48.50
Sean
Who's counting? Yeah.

00:56:55.61
Andrew
And he was like, yeah, fair.

00:56:58.80
Sean
He's like, I know. I've been there for the last one.

00:57:00.07
Andrew
Yeah, I've been here for all of them in the last however many years.

00:57:04.38
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:57:05.86
Andrew
Seven years? Yeah.

00:57:07.60
Sean
Well, you've been here with a therapist for seven years.

00:57:10.74
Andrew
Since 2018 yeah yeah he's technically not my therapist if anyone's listening to this he's my business coach because yeah yeah

00:57:12.15
Sean
That's crazy. Congrats.

00:57:17.03
Sean
Right, right, right, right. Right, right. Your business coach. You've been here with your coach. Nice. actually have a coach.

00:57:24.63
Andrew
yeah.

00:57:27.11
Andrew
Highly recommend it. But yeah, so I.

00:57:31.57
Andrew
I'm struggling with that contribution piece. And you know you don't necessarily, plenty of people choose not to get that from their work. They say, all right, I'm gonna separate compensation and contribution.

00:57:40.55
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:57:44.55
Andrew
and I'm gonna do my work. earn my compensation, and then I'm gonna focus on contribution elsewhere. And so it's possible, like, you know, in Detroit, I had the the robotics team, which was like kind of my personal contribution.

00:57:53.95
Sean
yeah that

00:58:02.92
Andrew
And so it's possible that some of this is just like, now that that is missing, then I feel like I'm spending my extra time on Metamonster, which is yeah more compensation than contribution.

00:58:13.06
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:58:17.91
Andrew
And when I was at crit, I got the contribution from you know, hiring people and supporting them in their careers and trying to see them grow.

00:58:27.89
Andrew
Like that was where my, my feeling of contribution came from. And I'm not a manager. I don't have a team right now. And so, you know,

00:58:37.20
Sean
You could. do You want to back work at Miss Grains? You want full-time job?

00:58:39.94
Andrew
Maybe.

00:58:40.67
Sean
Alright.

00:58:41.47
Andrew
Maybe. I'm not really anything out. But yeah, I think the next month or two, I think, are going to be a lot of contemplation for me in trying to puzzle through this.

00:58:52.06
Sean
Yeah. Good luck.

00:58:55.32
Andrew
Thanks.

00:58:56.05
Sean
Yeah.

00:58:58.01
Andrew
Yeah. By the way, i i wrote a blog post for the first time in like six months, six, seven months, as again, a little piece of like exploration and trying to get at that.

00:59:02.89
Sean
Nice. nice. Nice. Hold

00:59:09.58
Andrew
Like whenever when have I felt like i that feeling of contribution and like sometimes times it has come from writing. So I finally wrote my how to get fired blog post.

00:59:23.05
Sean
so nice

00:59:24.14
Andrew
Yeah, and i I think it is

00:59:24.75
Sean
hold done

00:59:27.83
Andrew
I'm really proud of it. I think it is the the piece that I wanted to write when I got fired two or three years ago, but couldn't write at the time because I had too much resentment and was like too angry.

00:59:42.07
Andrew
And now that there's been some time that's passed, I think I was able to write, like, say what I wanted to say more. Which is, like, it's I don't make it about the company that fired me at all.

00:59:52.57
Andrew
It's not about gray noise.

00:59:52.82
Sean
Yeah, yeah

00:59:54.33
Andrew
it's It's about, like, the feelings and trying to tell people, like,

00:59:57.95
Sean
yeah. Yeah, it was never going to be when you were telling me about the post anyway, so.

01:00:02.04
Andrew
Yeah. Well, I had a rough draft that was pretty specific about about like

01:00:08.36
Sean
I see.

01:00:08.85
Andrew
what went wrong. and like Because I was trying to sort of put in two things. One was like... reflecting on the experience and trying to figure out like what lessons, personal lessons to take away. And that like was a lot about like what happened.

01:00:23.00
Andrew
and I realized like that doesn't need to be a blog post that can be a personal, a journal entry.

01:00:28.20
Sean
Diregy, yeah.

01:00:29.42
Andrew
Yeah.

01:00:29.77
Sean
and

01:00:30.06
Andrew
And then the blog post I wanted to write was like the feelings and the, the overarching message of like, Hey, this is normal.

01:00:39.96
Sean
yeah i

01:00:40.08
Andrew
You know, failure is normal. It's okay.

01:00:43.48
Sean
don't believe that but yeah sorry i'm kidding okay i agree i agree 100 yeah i think i think i mean i think i think there is a part of it that might be the like not having the robotics team to kind of support and i also feel like as someone who like is starting a new business and like doing that is so core to who you are and you're in this position where you have the ability to choose not like and then not choosing something that

01:01:14.63
Sean
like provides you that is kind of might feel a little bit like like I can understand how that might feel a little bit lame or like annoying.

01:01:24.80
Andrew
Yeah.

01:01:25.91
Sean
But, but I also, I like maybe also a reminder is like, like it's not like you're saying like is this really like what i spent my prime slinging but going back to the original plan of like where might have monster came from like where chargers came from was like you were on this like stair step path of like this was like this isn't the what is it the the the like

01:01:53.56
Andrew
the Ikigai, this isn't the like the in state, the permanent business.

01:01:56.45
Sean
Yeah, yeah, this is an endgame. Right, right.

01:01:59.87
Andrew
Yeah, this is a a means to an end.

01:02:00.13
Sean
This was you.

01:02:02.74
Andrew
it's And that's how I justify it to myself is I'm like, it's like, okay, this is this is me trying to build capital.

01:02:05.35
Sean
Mm-hmm.

01:02:11.09
Sean
Mm-hmm.

01:02:11.78
Andrew
so that I can affect change in a capitalist society, uh, and like both create like financial freedom for myself and my like future family. And also, like,

01:02:25.12
Andrew
also like build the resources necessary to build the type of business organization, whatever that i want to eventually build without having to go and like fundraise to do that.

01:02:37.28
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:44.78
Andrew
And that's valid, but also feels a little like a cop out.

01:02:50.29
Sean
Yeah, I actually didn't mean that way.

01:02:51.18
Andrew
It feels a little like justifying

01:02:53.55
Sean
For what it's worth, that's not what I meant when I said but when i said that. What I meant with the statics approach was was more like Metamonster didn't seem like...

01:02:58.61
Andrew
Oh, OK. What did you mean?

01:03:04.18
Sean
For what it's worth, Metamonster didn't seem like... it's entirely possible that it is the thing that builds you wealth and capital for you to do the next thing. But to me, my read was never that like, this was the final, this was the thing to do that. This was, to me, this was like the thing you were going to like sink your teeth into and train on and also learn what everyone was talking about, which is ai And then like figure out the next thing. Like, you know, like,

01:03:33.79
Sean
uh like if it worked it worked but then if it didn't you would just do the next thing with all the sort of learnings and failings that you had just like with chart juice was like step one of that and you had a bunch of learnings from that because i you know obviously you have learned a lot from from from metamonster but yeah i mean it was never

01:03:51.20
Andrew
Yeah.

01:03:57.20
Sean
like SEO, AI SEO tool wasn't on the list the last last year when we talked about the things that you wanted to do, so, or the idea list of like things you were excited about.

01:04:13.00
Sean
Yeah.

01:04:14.44
Sean
don't know if that's helpful or that makes it worse, so.

01:04:20.23
Andrew
No, it's all just data points. Yeah, all just data points.

01:04:28.83
Sean
Yeah.

01:04:29.00
Andrew
I got to do some reflecting, thinking.

01:04:34.98
Sean
Listen, I've realized I have only one passion in life, and it's Magic the Gathering. And unfortunately, Magic the Gathering is so fucking expensive I just need to have a job that pays you. know You know, like, there's a format where the decks are like $5,000 and more.

01:04:51.47
Andrew
my God.

01:04:51.94
Sean
Yeah, i don't that's not I don't play that.

01:04:52.05
Andrew
Yeah.

01:04:54.06
Sean
I play the popper format, which is decks are $10 or less. Super fun. Don't need to spend $5,000, but still, what the fuck? Yeah.

01:05:02.86
Andrew
Did you watch the the episode that Jetlag did? The Magic the Gathering likes sponsored episode?

01:05:08.94
Sean
I did see that. I was going to ask you. Did it make you want to play Magic the Gathering?

01:05:12.36
Andrew
Yeah. No, i was actually... i was actually

01:05:16.25
Sean
Uh-huh.

01:05:17.86
Andrew
I thought it was an interesting attempt and I didn't, oh, it wasn't good.

01:05:20.07
Sean
Okay, kind of hated it, by the way. Yeah.

01:05:23.85
Andrew
it wasn't good at all. Like it just, it was totally missing all the drama and like tension that, cause it was just like, let's run to get these resources.

01:05:25.41
Sean
Yeah.

01:05:28.19
Sean
Yeah.

01:05:33.99
Andrew
And like, then we come back and there's a little bit of tension when they play like a round of the game and then they like disappear and,

01:05:39.83
Sean
Yeah.

01:05:42.34
Andrew
But like there wasn't enough like to force them to go after the same resources. And so there was no like there was none of the usual like trying to catch each other trying until the very end. And then it just like kind of didn't work.

01:05:54.06
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure Wizards paid them a lot of money.

01:05:56.65
Andrew
Ben and Sam just got stuck on a ferry.

01:05:59.80
Sean
Yeah.

01:06:00.04
Sean
100%.

01:06:00.84
Andrew
So you know i I have nothing against them trying it. It was an interesting experiment. But it did not work.

01:06:08.86
Sean
just so just so you're aware spider-man is that spider-man said is like one of the worst performing sets of magic it's so bad it's like like uh all the like the booster boxes and whatever aren't selling out so now like the suppliers are all marking them down msr like below msrp like it it generated so much hate throughout the entire community

01:06:16.04
Andrew
oh

01:06:32.01
Andrew
Yeah, I also just don't love, like, I want, when i hear Magic the Gathering, I want it to be more magic and fantasy and not corporate superheroes.

01:06:41.42
Sean
Oh, I have strong words about this. I have strong words about this. I think everyone who's a hater about oh about the specific thing is is... I find that hate really annoying, actually.

01:06:52.43
Sean
i have a whole spiel on this. i like oh Yeah, the hate comes

01:06:55.02
Andrew
You're cool with it being Marvel?

01:06:57.68
Sean
hundred percent i think i think like i think it's a lot of i think the hate comes from a lot of gatekeeping and it's really annoying to to see that like if you want to keep the game alive you need younger you need fresh blood in the game and there's like like i think it is a fair thing to say that the spider-man set was not well designed and rushed because it absolutely was

01:07:06.27
Andrew
Okay, fair.

01:07:19.31
Andrew
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:07:21.96
Sean
but also it was not in my opinion not as poorly designed as like it was an underpowered set it was like some mechanics were rushed they didn't synergize really well i'm sorry we're gonna wrap up on on half a rant about magic the gathering

01:07:37.56
Andrew
Let's do it.

01:07:37.76
Sean
But also so at the same time, everyone's complaining about how the standard sets that are coming out are too powerful and there's so much power creep. So it's a weaker set to have less power creep. and And the thing is, like, also, like, because there's so much hate, like, little by little, people are really actually some of these cards are pretty good and work pretty well.

01:07:56.67
Sean
Like, you start seeing more and more of them in, in like, the meta.

01:07:57.39
Andrew
Hmm.

01:08:00.88
Sean
And you start start seeing them work in the meta. but again i get it not like the most perfectly designed set there's also like there's also another thing about this of like the most popular format in magic is commander and in my opinion spider-man was built very much for a commander-based and not the standard format it so have a lot standard people hating So that you know, like standard is a format that rotates every two years of like the most recent sets commanders and internal format has everything. You know, 2016 was like the peak of standard everyone's playing that since then commanders taken over commander feels is much more like a four person board game where everyone brings their own cards. And people who play standard will also call commander player, like commander stuff like slop.

01:08:51.24
Sean
so there's a lot of hate to from standard to commander, which is really gatekeepy in its own way and pretentious in its own way.

01:08:55.27
Andrew
yeah yeah, I don't like that.

01:08:57.30
Sean
But now a commander and and standard people also say that like the Spider-Man stuff is slop, but also like it feels like it was very much designed for you to play commander with.

01:09:10.42
Sean
Anyway, i think there's a lot of hate that overshadows it. i think I think you, like, the thing is, like, yes, I understand that magic has its own lore.

01:09:19.89
Sean
But also, since the beginning, in my opinion, magic has never been a pure, like, medieval fantasy dragons thing. It has always, like, reached out to other pieces of culture, like...

01:09:28.57
Andrew
Mm hmm. Yet.

01:09:33.81
Sean
before spider-man and final fantasy and all this stuff like they borrowed from like they had a thing called portal which borrowed from other sort of stories and stuff and brought them into magic and like people like those cards and like anyway i think i think there's hate for for something that doesn't deserve that hate i think you can't hate a company for trying new things to be cool the kids and

01:09:49.90
Andrew
Cool.

01:09:59.75
Sean
But I think there's also a lot of anger around like scalping. and there's a lot of worry about Magic becoming like Pokemon because Pokemon has become purely a collector's sort of thing.

01:10:09.16
Andrew
yeah yeah yeah yeah

01:10:10.37
Sean
And Magic is, honestly, Magic has gotten him more less and less favorable.

01:10:13.59
Andrew
pokemon's kind of become gambling because it's like people people just like they open the packs and just like look for like money you're they're just looking for yeah it's roulette in a children disguised as a children's game

01:10:15.80
Sean
Yeah.

01:10:20.58
Sean
re present 100%.

01:10:20.62
Sean
Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

01:10:25.48
Sean
It is. it is

01:10:30.31
Sean
It is. It is. I was at GameStop and I watched like a mom buy like her, her kid, like a hundred dollar card. It's like, what the hell is that kid going to do with a hundred dollar like fucking card? Like you've taken all the fun out of this and made it purely financial.

01:10:47.53
Sean
Anyway. Oh,

01:10:52.26
Sean
like i think it's fine because you know what avatar just came out as like the next collab they did and everybody loves avatar even though avatars is like also not very in my opinion not very well it's like they're like oh it's so like flavorful and it's so much synergy and stuff it's like the most broken set that's released it's like i've never seen so many like infinite broken combos released in a set before but nobody's complaining about that for some reason and nobody's really complaining about final fantasy i think that just like the venn diagram of people that played magic and i really like marvel is like pretty is like pretty low compared to like the final fantasy crowd or whatever

01:11:29.80
Andrew
Yeah. So it sounds like more it was just a miss in terms of like, what is our or audience going to like? And yeah.

01:11:37.38
Sean
uh

01:11:40.67
Sean
Yeah.

01:11:41.38
Andrew
Fascinating. Cool. I just learned a lot. Go off.

01:11:45.29
Sean
Yeah.

01:11:45.35
Andrew
Love it. Fuck gatekeeping.

01:11:47.50
Sean
Yeah. Fuck gatekeeping. Like, let more people play the game. lovemar lo like I'm sure it brought a bunch of kids into the game.

01:11:51.40
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah.

01:11:53.85
Sean
It brought me back into the game.

01:11:54.50
Andrew
I really, i found I really appreciate people who manage to be like earnest and even like sometimes pretentious without gatekeeping. I've been obsessed with this coffee YouTuber lately, James Hoffman.

01:12:04.33
Sean
Mm-hmm.

01:12:08.71
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh.

01:12:11.27
Andrew
And he's the perfect example of this.

01:12:12.20
Sean
He's

01:12:13.11
Andrew
He's like, he is pretentious, undoubtedly. Like he is obsessive about coffee and like loves high-end coffee and stuff, but he is not gatekeeping, gatekeepy at all.

01:12:15.54
Sean
a snub. He's a snub. Yeah.

01:12:20.61
Sean
Brilliant.

01:12:23.80
Andrew
He's like, like what you like. If you like something different than me, that's great. If you like, here's like how to get into this cheaply. And like, that's totally fine. If you can't afford this, you don't need this.

01:12:34.98
Andrew
You can enjoy good coffee without this. And yeah, I feel, I really appreciate people who manage because it's so easy when you become obsessive about something to slip into gatekeeping.

01:12:37.20
Sean
Yes.

01:12:46.90
Andrew
So it's really cool when people manage to like have that passion and, and everything without, without gatekeeping.

01:12:51.12
Sean
Yeah.

01:12:53.86
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Anyway. Yeah. Anyway. i think I think they hate stupid.

01:13:03.97
Sean
I think.

01:13:04.06
Andrew
Love it.

01:13:04.92
Sean
Don't.

01:13:05.15
Andrew
Cool. You've changed my mind. All right.

01:13:06.96
Sean
Cool.

01:13:07.06
Andrew
I'm pro Spider-Man cards. I'm still anti that jet lag episode.

01:13:09.80
Sean
You don't have.

01:13:11.24
Andrew
It was bad, but I

01:13:12.09
Sean
Oh, me too. I think that je i i was terrible. i think it was awful. It was, like... Yeah.

01:13:16.70
Andrew
i don't blame them for trying, but it was it just didn't work, which is a bummer.

01:13:18.67
Sean
Yeah, me too. too

01:13:21.98
Andrew
Yeah.

01:13:23.20
Andrew
Hey, they're not all going to be hits.

01:13:25.79
Sean
Yeah. and Most of them are.

01:13:27.30
Andrew
Yeah.

01:13:28.48
Sean
A good amount of them are. It's really just one.

01:13:30.30
Andrew
Yeah.

01:13:32.05
Sean
Really just that single one.

01:13:32.48
Andrew
Yeah. It's the first time. its yeah it was kind of shocking. I still watched it.

01:13:36.88
Sean
Yeah. Yeah, me too. I'll still give them a chance. I'll still watch the next Hide and hide and Seek.

01:13:42.15
Andrew
Oh, sure. the the The All-Stars, the Europe All-Stars was was super fun. And I was like, huh?

01:13:49.08
Sean
Was that the most recent one? Was that the most recent one?

01:13:52.58
Andrew
Yeah, have you watched it yet?

01:13:52.70
Sean
i would No, not yet.

01:13:54.66
Andrew
Okay, okay, I won't spoil.

01:13:55.49
Sean
my my My YouTube feed might be all Magic the Gathering at the moment.

01:13:55.78
Andrew
I was about to spoil

01:13:58.89
Sean
Good

01:13:59.07
Andrew
I was about to majorly spoil it for you, so I'm glad you i'm glad you stopped me.

01:14:03.59
Sean
to see you.

01:14:04.51
Andrew
Cool, man. It was so good to catch up. I gotta a bounce.

01:14:07.57
Sean
I'll see you later. Bye.

01:14:09.17
Andrew
Bye, dude.

What is Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins?

Two agency owners and friends talk about cybersecurity, design, and the continuous small efforts it takes to build a business.