Less Codesy Stuff, More Salesy Stuff

Colleen has 5 months until Hammerstone runs out of client funding. What to do, what to do.

Show Notes

This episode of Software Social is brought to you by Flightcontrol. You can save up to 80% of your hosting costs by switching to Flightcontrol. Flightcontrol is a new deployment platform by the creator of Blitz.js that solves the age-old Heroku vs AWS tradeoff by bringing the Heroku-style developer experience natively to AWS. The beauty of Flightcontrol is that it doesn’t require any AWS skills, but since it deploys to your AWS account, you have the ability to inspect and tweak anything should the need arise. Flightcontrol works with any language or framework. It supports servers, static sites, and databases. Sign up at Flightcontrol.dev and use the code SoftwareSocial to get 20% off your first 3 months.

Creators & Guests

Host

Colleen Schnettler

Co-Founder of Refine, Founder of Simple File Upload

Host

Michele Hansen

Co-Founder of Geocodio & Author of Deploy Empathy

What is Software Social?

Two indie SaaS founders—one just getting off the ground, and one with an established profitable business—invite you to join their weekly chats.

Michele: You can save up to
80% of your hosting costs by

switching to Flight control.

Flight control is a new deployment
platform by the creator of blitz .JS

that solves the age old Heroku versus AWS
trade-off by bringing the Heroku style

developer experience natively to AWS.

The beauty of Flight control is that
it doesn't require any AWS skills, but

since it deploys to your AWS account,
you have the ability to inspect and

tweak anything should the need arise.

Flight control works with
any language or framework.

It supports servers,
static sites and database.

Sign up at Flightcontrol.dev and
use the code Software Social to get

20% off your first three months.

Hey, Colleen.

Colleen: Hey, Michelle.

Good to hear your voice.

Michele: Yours too.

I am so excited to hear about what's
going on with your projects today.

Colleen: Whew.

So much.

And it has been quite a
while since we have talked.

So I feel like there's so much going
on in my business life right now.

Michele: But first, I feel like I
have one thing I need to uh, say.

So, thank you so much to everybody
who gave us feedback on our

business of the podcast episode.

Um, I mean, we've been doing a lot
of thinking and talking about that.

We actually, like, you know, it's funny,
we talked last week and didn't record it.

It's possible.

Colleen: It is true.

We did

Michele: Started to feel like we weren't
allowed to talk without recording it.

And so what we decided to do for now,
you know, always work in progress,

selling individual ads for $250
each, there's now a form for it.

You can just buy them on Stripe to make
it more accessible for people to do it.

So you don't have to buy a
month or two months at a time.

And then also doing sponsored episodes
for basically when people pitch us guests.

And then if it's somebody we're interested
in having, we'll tell them about that.

We'll still do invited guests
occasionally, but basically just

what, like it was before, like when
one of us is traveling or something.

But on that episode, so we talked
a little bit about how seeing the

success the No More Mondays guys
were having with selling ads kind of

inspired this and made us think that
we were undervaluing the podcast.

And it turns out I got a
little bit of that story wrong.

So it turns out they didn't actually sell
any for, I believe it was 600 pounds.

That was just the highest price.

They, they did like a, like an auction
style thing where they kept raising the

price until people stopped buying them.

And apparently that's the point
where if people stopped buying some,

so nobody actually bought them for
$600, but they were selling them

for that price, if that makes sense.

And so that error is on me for not
getting all of those details up front.

And I feel bad about messing that up.

Yeah, so that's where we're
at on all of that stuff.

But, I feel like it's been forever since
we have heard about Colleen's projects.

Colleen: It has been a while

since we've talked about it.

Okay.

Let's see where to start.

So since we've last spoken, things
have really picked up for Hammer stone.

So for new listeners or for people
who have forgotten, cause it's

been a few months since I've talked
about my side projects, I have two.

I've Simple File upload,
which is a file uploader.

And with two other co-founders I have a
company called Hammer stone and we are

building development tools for developers.

And so things are really
picking up with Hammer stone,

which has been really exciting.

Aaron, one of my co-founders who's
the laravel guy gave a talk at Laracon

and it went really, really well.

Michele: It was so good.

Colleen: Right.

Everyone is like so
excited about his Laracon

Michele: We were watching it
while we were making dinner.

So like the whole family was watching it.

We had it up on the iPad.

And Sophie if he was like,
this guy's really good.

Colleen: Yeah, it went really well.

And, I also have a podcast with them
about that business and on it, I

asked Aaron how long he spent on that
talk, and he estimated like 80 hours.

So yeah, I believe that is correct.

Now I wanna go back and check, but
it was some absurd amount of time,

which just shows the amount of
work that goes into giving such an

amazing presentation, as he did.

And that's, that was really exciting.

So we have a list of hundreds of
people that are interested, and

we are working on finishing up the
front end for the laravel component.

So what this is is our first
component as a query builder.

So, it's a drop in component,
where you can configure the backend

to show your users, whatever you
want to allow them to query on.

And it builds up the sequel.

It allows you to, you know, plug in
play different portions of the query.

It's really powerful.

And, it's really mature because
Erin has been using a version

of this in production for years.

So we have a really long list
of people interested, but we

are launching this product.

As I said, it's gonna be very mature.

Like we're launching it with
three different front ends.

So there's no MVP version of this product.

There is like fully functional,
everything is taken care of

version of this product, which is
different than what most people do.

And so that has been interesting
because there's a lot that we're

still trying to finish before we can
launch and that's on the laravel side.

So I'm a rails developer.

So on the rail side, I have been
working, I work for a client on this

project, but we're keeping the IP.

So, it's just been like crazy busy
recently, but I have been deliberately

trying to do a little more marketing.

I shouldn't even say marketing
cause I'm not doing marketing, but

like deliberately trying to get the
word out there about this product.

So I'm speaking at Sin
City Ruby next week.

I'll be down in Vegas,
speaking at a conference there.

And so my talk is gonna be about a
arel, which is what our, it's like

it private API and rails, but
it's what our query builder on.

So stuff like that, I'm trying to
do to kind of like mentally shift

people to start thinking about like,
what could this product be like?

What's it gonna be like?

And that kinda stuff.

Michele: That's pretty exciting.

Colleen: It is.

It's, I think something we've talked
about before, it's gonna be interesting

to try to sell this product because the
rails ecosystem system is just more mature

than not, I don't know if that's fair.

But like, like I joked with
Aaron, but it wasn't a joke.

If you go on the Laracon website,
everyone just for funsies, go on the

Laracon website, then go the rails
website and like the differences in those

websites, Laracon is like cool and hip
and they have animations and graphics.

Rails conf looks like, you know,
someone didn't really, they, they

took a WordPress theme, and they
just like threw some stuff into it.

Not because, and, and I know it's so bad.

Michele: Bringing the heat today.

I was, I was nervous.

I was like, where is she going with this?

And is it going to be a Laravel insult?

Because if so, girl, I love
you, but we're not doing that.

Colleen: So, I just think
that rails, I love it.

I love everything about it, but we don't
have that like cool hip vibe anymore.

Right.

So rail's been around for quite

Michele: kind of got the like drama vibe.

I'm

Colleen: Oh gosh.

Do we have the drama vibe
ever right now, Michelle?

Geez.

So I think it'll be interesting, like
it just from our interactions with

developers, it seems like the Laravel L
developers are all like, really excited.

They're like rails 10 years ago.

And the rails developers are tech
tend to work on more mature products.

They have just like bigger teams and
this is not true across the board,

but it will just be interesting.

I feel like if the sales cycle's
gonna be a little bit longer, it's

gonna be a longer sales cycle.

Truly communicating to people what
this thing does and how powerful it

is, is gonna really be a challenge
and a really important one.

So that's something I've
started to think about.

Michele: It's really interesting because
from the interview you did with Nate a

couple of weeks ago, he was talking about
sort of like this almost like history

of rails, and how it has evolved into
being a more, I don't know the word I'm

looking for here is, but like, you know
a, a word that like people use at scale.

Right.

And, that now it's that like rails is
the language of sort of like stodgy

or older products and websites.

And like the Laravel
ones are the cool ones.

And it's like, but like, wait,
PHP is the cool kid on this block.

Like, that's just really interesting.

Just looking at like the
perspective of that dynamic.

I think if you told someone that 10
years ago, they would be very surprised.

Colleen: I totally agree.

And it's interesting too, because
PHP is way worse than Ruby.

Like Ruby is

Michele: Hey.

Hey.

Hey.

Hey.

Hey.

Hold on.

This is not, this is not a debate
we're having on this podcast.

Look, we are, whatever you wanna use
is fine, but thou shall not insult

Laravel on this podcast or PHP.

Colleen: It is really interesting.

How, and, and I feel like I've
been talking about this a lot

recently with the drama with DHH.

A lot of people have been coming
to me and talking to me about

like, what's the future of rails.

And Aaron said something once he said, do
you know any rails developers under 35?

And I was like,

Michele: Oh, wow.

Colleen: But, but I don't.

Like, I don't.

Do you know any rails developers under
30, please send me a Twitter message

if you're a rails developer under 30.

Okay.

Michele: I can't, I can't
think of anyone either.

Colleen: Not that age matters.

I don't like to use the term

Michele: Right.

But it's like, what what are
the people who are coming up?

What are they learning?

What are they using?

What are they I mean, it's also like
something JavaScript too, quite frankly.

Colleen: Well, that's what I, so I
don't do these mentorship calls anymore,

but I used to do a lot of mentorship
calls, and I still believe, like

if you wanna get a job quickly, like
JavaScript is your path these days.

Michele: Yeah, I would I
would say I've seen that too.

Okay.

Wait on before we got into like

Colleen: We're so off topic.

We're so off topic.

We're wait, wait, wait.

Let's back up.

Michele: Wait, we were talking
about Hammer stone and the three

different front ends it has.

And, oh, you were talking about
how you were doing marketing, but

you didn't wanna call it marketing.

But you were doing marketing.

Colleen: Right.

So here's something that has been
an interesting challenge for me.

I have two projects and I love
them both, but for a long time,

it, but it's hard, like a public
persona, it's hard to be both.

So, people think of me as like
Colleen of Simple File Upload, which

is how I want them to think of me.

But I would also like to think of me
as like Colleen of Hammer stone, and I

don't know how to be both of those things.

So just this as it is a little
like side experiment just last

month I did all Hammer stone stuff.

I only tweeted about Hammer stone.

I wrote this talk, which is
super Hammer stone specific.

I submitted talks to rails conf that
are all super Hammer stone specific.

So I went like all in Hammer
stone this last month to

just see what that felt like.

And I think that was good.

But I want to be able to do both.

And, I don't know if
I I'm a little worried.

I'm just worried that splitting
my focus is going to cause nothing,

nothing will be successful if
I don't go all in on something.

But then, I know people who have lots of
side projects that are successful too,

so maybe I'm overthinking it, but I've
been kind of like consi, like trying

to be very deliberate in like tweeting.

I haven't tweeted a lot, but like
very deliberate in my public persona.

So I've been tweeting about it.

I've been having calls with rails
developers, to, you know, customer

interviews essentially to find out
where they stand, and what their pain

points are and all that kind of stuff.

Michele: Well, I mean, it basically
sounds like Hammer stone is now your

full-time job, and you have Simple
File Upload as your side project.

And the difference there is that usually
when people have a full-time job and a

side project, it's usually like they're
an employee of something, like not

something that they're a founder of.

And, like, oftentimes I feel like side
projects, like emotionally come out of a

place of like, feeling under challenged
in your day job, but still liking your day

job, but like wanting to have a place to
explore and like a playground and learn

things and like, I don't see that as you
know, I see that as a coherent identity.

I think for you, the difference
is that you're excited, really

excited about both of those things.

And it's like, where do
you split your enthusiasm?

But also like both of them are so early
stage that for you to, to try to decide,

okay, which one of these is the thing
I wanna be doing two years from now, or

five years from now, which, you know,
most people who have a side project

and work fulltime, that's a pretty
common thing is like, okay, like, do I

wanna go full time on my side project?

How do I go full time on it sooner?

Or like, no, do I really just,
you know, be patient and you know,

this, the, the full-time job and the
health insurance, like, I need that.

And this is just my playpen on
the side, but like, you're really

excited about both of them.

And you're also the like
leader of both of them.

And like, I could see how that creates
this, you feel like you're supposed

to have conflict between them.

And I think you are not Colleen of Simple
File Upload or Colleen of Hammer stone.

You are Colleen of Hammer
stone and Simple File Upload.

Right.

We're talking about you as if you're
some like British uh, Pier or something

that is Colleen of Susic and Whims, or
I'm sorry, the British listeners that's

Whims bury is pro probably not a real
place, but you know, it's like, you are

of both places, strongly and proudly.

Colleen: Yeah, and I
really want to do both.

So a couple things I learned on that
month I spent this was last month.

What this February-ish I spent just doing
Hammer stone, one really cool thing.

I mean, I did customer support for
SImple File Upload, but I don't

get a lot of request because the
product is so awesome by the way.

If anyone needs file up uploader.

The cool thing about SAS is you can not
work on it for a month and it still works.

That's fun.

Michele: You can't like not work
on it for like six months and then

Colleen: no, no, but I'm

Michele: there's a limit to yeah.

Colleen: Here's what I noticed about this.

So this was like an experiment.

And the reason I did this experiment
was cuz I felt like my, my heart wasn't

super into the Hammer stone product
and I couldn't quite figure out why.

And.

I think the reason my heart wasn't
really into it was cuz I hadn't

really fully immersed myself in it.

And so that month I spent last month I
spent just like fully immersed in it.

My whole self is now in, oh
my gosh, I sound so cheesy.

But like my whole self is like now
in Hammer stone, like I am all in.

I am super pumped, and think I wasn't
before cuz we were, I was such in

that grind stage because it's a ton
of work, and when I wasn't talking

to people like developers who might
buy it, I couldn't see the end goal.

And so spending a month doing the
grind work still, but also talking

to people and interacting with people
really got me excited about it.

But what I noticed about this is I
missed working on Simple File Upload.

I love working on SImple File Upload.

I love it.

It's got a tight feedback loop.

I am an expert in that.

Like I'm really not yet,
I'm not a sequel expert yet.

Okay.

Hammer stone is a sequel.

We write sequel for you is basically
what it does, whereas file uploading,

I'm a freaking expert at that.

So I can move really, really quickly.

I can get into a flow state on that
project really, really quickly.

So I love working on it.

But it was nice to know that like if I
spend a month not improving the product

and just letting it ride, answering
emails, everything is still good.

Michele: So a couple months ago, we
had talked about like your work life

balance, work, work, life balance.

However we wanna call this.

Right.

And like you were saying that you were
ready to push again, like for a long

time, like you had not like, or I don't
know for a long time you had really

healthy boundaries, and you were ready
to not have healthy boundaries again.

Colleen: That's.

So.

Michele: But like, you, you
know, you didn't work at night,

you didn't work on weekends.

I've always respected how like healthy
your work boundaries are and how

you prioritize your personal health
and your family life above work,

which I think is really commendable.

And it's something I don't
do or used to not do.

And now I'm trying to
do it better, whatever.

Okay.

Whole nother topic.

but like

Colleen: hours.

Michele: which is actually better, by
the way people have asked me about the

burnout stuff I'm actually doing better.

We'll do an episode on it.

I just,

Colleen: Good.

Michele: We haven't been
talking so much lately.

We've had so many guests on it.

Like haven't talked to you.

I, okay, so you were saying you
were ready to push again, and I'm

wondering, it can be really valuable
to have that time during the day when

you've said, okay, like my daytime
is devoted to Hammer stone, and I

don't have anything to do right now.

Let me go, like figure
out some marketing thing.

Let me go interview somebody like
having that space where you don't

necessarily have a task in front of you.

And instead of switching over to
Simplify Upload, because you're

like, oh, I could just do this thing.

And like, it's really easy.

Instead finding something else to work
on Hammer stone, like I wonder if at

a point now where you could do Hammer
stone, you know, six, eight hours a day.

And then Simple File Upload
is just an evening project.

Colleen: I think it
depends on what I want.

I feel like Simplify Upload
has so much potential.

And so for me, I'm not ready to do that
yet, but I think what you say is very

valid in that when you're focused is
aligned, you know, six to eight hours

a day with one task, one project.

That's good because it helps move it
forward, but I, I'm not ready to reg

relegate Simplify Upload to like just
two hours a night, three times a week.

There's still so many
things I wanna do on it.

And I just feel like it
is so much potential.

So what I'm trying to do, the way it's
worked with Hammer stone is because we're

doing client work, so basically like I
have my client, which is my full-time job.

Then I have, but it's also kind
of Hammer stoney stuff, and

then I have Simplify Upload.

Michele: So with Hammer stone, I remember
you saying you guys are funded for, is

it a year by this client until August?

Colleen: Yes.

Michele: So you kind of have a, I think
there's the existential question of like

what you want to work on in the future,
and what's important to you and all of

that, but there's also this sort of like
very real financial deadline coming up

of like what happens in August when this
client project for Hammer stone ends.

What are you gonna do that?

Like, there's also like a pressure
to like start selling this thing too.

Colleen: Yes.

And I think, you know, it's tricky.

I mean, it's tricky because yes.

So I, I, we have until August
and what I want to do, let's

say I was independently wealthy.

I'm not, but if I was what I'd
want to do was in August, just

work on Hammer stone and Simplify
Upload and not to any client work.

Cause the client work, it's building
the Hammer stone component, but

it's also like tightly grading
with the client, it's consulting.

So a lot of the work I do for them
or a decent amount isn't Hammer

stone specific, it's client specific.

So what I'd like to do is have just
be able to do my own side projects.

Can I afford to do that?

That's the problem we don't know
because we're not selling that

many licenses yet cuz we aren't
done with all of our front ends.

So that's the conflict I think.

And then, you know, I have three
co-founders and we're all very close

and we have a good relationship,
but they both have full-time jobs.

Both of my co-founders.

And so they're, and when I've talked
to them about this, so this isn't the

first time anyone's hearing this, but
it's important for the three of us to

be on the same page in terms of like
the speed at which we wanna move.

Michele: And I guess you are uniquely
exposed if you are the only one who is

Colleen: am.

Michele: working on this full time.

But like, if I was in this situation,
first of all, I would be freaking out.

Second of all, like

,
Colleen: Thanks.

Michele: just,

Colleen: Babe

Michele: you're than I am.

You are like, you are so
much calmer than I am.

Dude.

I went to Ikea today, and I tried
to pick out three cabinets for our

new shed quarter, and I was like
completely overwhelmed, like, okay.

So yeah.

I just like, okay.

We're in March right now.

The middle of March.

Colleen: Yeah.

Michele: The funding for Hammer
stone for you for this client runs

out, is it August 1st or August

Colleen: Mid August I it's, I don't

Michele: August 15th.

Okay.

So, and we are in the middle of March.

So then you basically
have five months left.

Colleen: Yeah.

Michele: To get this thing to a
point where to prevent you from

having to go back to other client
work or whatever that may be to

get this to the point where it could
sustain you working on it full time.

That's not a lot of time
to get to that point.

And so if this was me, I would be putting
all of my eggs in that basket right now.

And just saying like, you know what,
Simplify Up is awesome, thousand dollars

a month coming in that you can basically
rely on at this point, like the people

who are using it are happy with it.

That's personally what I would do,
because I feel like the goal here is

not like, figure out which product you
wanna do, the decision here is not, which

product do you work on or which one is
your heart, the most in the goal here

is really not have to go back to more
client work or get another whole time job.

I feel like.

Colleen: I agree with that.

That is interesting.

And, I, I hear what you're saying.

I do.

Hmm.

I mean, but

Michele: Interesting.

It's not like you're
very surprised by that.

Colleen: I am surprised.

I think I'm surprised for two reasons.

One, so simple file upload,
like already makes money.

So what if I put two days, I
don't have two days a week,

Michele: Well, how much does it make?

Colleen: 14 right now?

It's at 1400.

So I guess Heroku takes some,
so I don't know, $1,200 a month.

Michele: That's pretty stable from.

Colleen: Yeah.

From last time we talked, it is not

Michele: From even, but like six months
ago, that's pretty like, like, so

it's nothing to sneeze at, but it's
also, it's not appreciably growing.

It's not on the trajectory.

Meanwhile, I know you guys have started
selling some licenses for Hammer stone.

You've got a little bit of
stranger money going on, right.

Colleen: Yes.

We've sold a few licenses.

Michele: So, and people
are super pumped about it.

It has wind in its sail.

Colleen: It does.

It really does.

The problem is our 300 ish people
who have signed up have not

signed up for the rails product.

Most of them have signed
up for the Laravel product.

That is not something I can move forward.

And so we, as a team, Aaron, Sean
and I are doing everything we can

to move that forward, But they are
constrained by their full-time jobs.

So we're gonna hire someone
to help us, but now we have to

onboard, you know, a new guy.

So he's gonna take a month or whatever.

I guess what I'm saying is
I feel like that side of it

is kind of out of my hands.

I don't know if I can actually
help a lot since it's not.

I don't know,

Michele: But you can do
more than just coding rails.

Colleen: talk to me.

Yeah.

Theoretically, I just,

yes.

Michele: You, like like you were just
saying, well, I was doing some marketing,

but it wasn't actually marketing.

And I was like, where is this?

Where like, this is interesting.

Where is this going?

And like, even if you aren't a Laravel
developer, like there's no reason why

you can't be talking this up to people.

Colleen: Yes.

Michele: You could be doing stuff like
I mean, just taking like a, an example,

you could be going on podcast, talking
about Hammer stone, and what it does.

Like, I feel like I know all of
you guys, and I still feel like

I don't even know what it does.

It's something about SQL and
queries and like extremely unclear.

And I talk to you guys all the time and
like, have known about this from the very,

Colleen: yeah.

Michele: um, you could be out promoting
it or figuring out like all this stuff

you've learned about marketing and
documentation and the power of, like,

you know, like developer, like videos and
stuff on YouTube, like demos of stuff.

You could be doing marketing work
to sell it and like dealing with

figuring out payment flows and like.

you said there's licenses.

I'm sure you've got a contract.

What does that look like.

Like all of the like biz ops type stuff,
plus the marketing side, there is so

much you can do to sell this thing that
people already have shown that they want

to buy, even though it barely exists.

Colleen: It's true.

Yeah, no, you're right now that you say
that, I mean, there's tons of things I

can think of that I could do to get us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To get us Businessy stuff.

There's a lot of business

business.

Michele: Like the, the lot of Cody
stuff, you know, is basically, it

sounds like it's, you're basically done.

like There's some more front end stuff
that needs to be done, and you'll have

some work to do related to wiring that
up or, or whatnot, but like, the business

E stuff, the sale, like the, I said
the sailing stuff, the selling stuff,

,
Colleen: Yeah.

Michele: we're all talking about.

You have wind in the sales, right?

There's a lot of that to be done and
you have five months, like just speaking

as me as somebody who does really well
with like drop dead deadlines like that.

That is where I would
be spending my energy.

Now, it may not be your
favorite place to spend energy.

And you love going all in on,
you know, file uploading and

getting in the zone on that.

But like, girl, if you wanna be a founder,
you've gotta learn the BI op stuff.

You've gotta learn marketing.

You've gotta do sales.

You've gotta do all of that.

If you wanna be, you are a founder.

So those are responsibilities.

Now it is your job to figure
out what needs to be done

and figure out how to do it.

Even if it's not your
favorite thing in the world.

Sorry.

That was

Colleen: that.

Michele: there.

Colleen: No, no, I okay.

First of all, I love tough love.

This is my favorite kind of yes.

Feedback is to be like, okay, Colleen,
get up and just stop whining and do the

Michele: Well, you're not whining.

It's just, you're limiting yourself.

Right?

You're looking at this project
and you're like, okay, well, I

can't write laravel code for this.

So I guess I can't do anything.

And it's like, no, you are a
found of this company and the

responsibilities of a founder is to
figure out what needs to be done in

order to move this business forward.

I spend such a small percentage of my
time doing my core competence, like

I spend on an entire year, I probably
spend less than 50, 15% of my time

doing like product development work.

That is my functional expertise.

I spend so much more time like dealing
with accountants and contracts and

like, you know, content and all of this
other stuff that is not my functional

expertise and learning new things
that I didn't know how to do that.

You know, and if they're not the most
exciting thing, or I don't know how to

do it, like figuring out who I need to,
like what kind of freelancer or whatever

I need to hire to get that done.

Right.

But like, as a founder, nobody's
gonna give you a list of, of what

to do, and they're not gonna tailor
that list for what you're good at.

It's up for you to figure it out.

And, but the key to that is believing
that you are capable of figuring out

whatever that is, that are capable of
figuring out what needs to be figured out.

Colleen: Yeah.

Michele: And you can.

Colleen: great.

That's great feedback.

I mean, that absolutely is great.

And it's almost like I have been okay.

I haven't been sitting around,
I've been working my butt off,

Michele: I I know you

Colleen: it's, but, but this just
occurred to me as you are speaking this.

So we have this awesome team of people who
are really, really good at what they do.

And Sean is really,
really good at marketing.

So he was gonna do that, but he's swamped
because he has all this development

work and he has a full time job.

And.

I could be doing that.

I mean, what, what you are saying,
what I am thinking, as you're

saying this, I'm almost using this
as a, as an excuse to not do that.

Cause I'm like, well, he'll be
better at it when he has time for

it, but he doesn't have time for it.

Michele: And Sean can
teach you how to do it.

Sean came on this very podcast
and taught me how to market a book

like.

I did not have Sean market.

The book for me.

I had Sean tell me how to market the book.

And then I did it.

Colleen: Right.

There's no reason if I can't contribute,
obviously I'm building the rail side

up, but if I can't contribute to the
laravel development work, that is what

is the reason we haven't shipped yet.

Or I guess it's view development,
work, whatever, there's a lot to

your point, like this is a business
I need to do businessy things.

And if I don't know how
to do them, I'll learn.

I've just kind of been waiting
for someone else to do them.

I think, which just occurred to me.

So that's silly.

So I should definitely do them.

That's a good, that's great feedback.

Michele: And I mean, the thing
about the businessy stuff and

like you're an engineer, right?

You might be used to like getting a spec
from somebody of how something should

work and like what you're supposed to do.

And like, It's so different
than being an employee.

Nobody's gonna hand you the list of,
of how things gonna work, but like

you basically, your spec right now
is Hammer stone needs to be able to

support your salary in five months.

Go, go.

That's that?

That's the

Colleen: right.

Michele: like and figure out
however that needs to be done.

Colleen: This is so good, Michelle,
because this is funny, cuz I brought

this up with the guys just last week.

Cuz I, the same thing we were
talking about, I was like,

I'm gonna be down in August.

Are we gonna be able to pay me?

And it was, we didn't
think like this though.

They, we were thinking, oh,
well the product's not done.

So.

Michele: It's not about the product.

It is about selling the.

Colleen: It's not about the product.

Geez.

So weird.

Yes.

I love this.

This is so good.

Okay.

I like my spec, my spec.

I have to be able to pay
myself in five months.

It's a good spec.

Michele: Go sell the thing,
stop coding the thing.

Colleen: Stop coding the thing.

Go sell the thing.

Michele: I mean, So I mean, my vote
is for, you know, keep the lights

on with simple file upload, like
keep it running, but focus that

the time and energy and whatever
you wanna call that, I don't know.

I don't know, like you, you
experience Like you're sitting at

your desk and you're like, okay.

I actually don't really know
what I have to work on right now.

And you could go off and
do some something else.

You could go off on
another project, right?

You could like, or, you
know, Further time away.

Right.

But like using that, when you have
that time, be like, okay, how can I

use this time to promote hammer stone?

Whether that's writing content,
writing documentation, figuring out

BI ops, pitching yourself to be on a
podcast, pitching yourself to be on

a panel, doing something that gets
you toward that MRR that helps you.

I guess it's not really like an, it's
not a subscription product, right?

It's like a license,

right.

It's like a,

Colleen: a annual annual

Michele: okay.

Okay.

That a Arrr then that lets you
work on this full time and not

have to go back to client work.

Colleen: I'm gonna write that on a
sticky and put it on my computer.

just

Michele: Maybe we should record this.

So then you can come back to it.

Colleen: maybe we should do that.

Michele: we should like do it
every week and then you can

like update us on your progress

Colleen: what an idea.

Michele: all, all of this,
not coding you're doing

Colleen: what an idea.

Michele: I feel like we got a plan.

Colleen: Yeah, I love it.

I'm this is exciting.

I'm I'm excited.

Michele: Next week or whenever actually.

So we're not gonna, it's not
gonna be the two of us because

hypothetically I will see you soon.

Colleen: You better.

better.

Michele: yeah.

In a couple weeks you will
have an update for me, keep a

journal, a log of all of the.

BI ops marketing stuff.

And then the thing is, is like, if
you feel like you hit a snag on the,

the non Cody stuff, we'll call it like
talk to me, I do all of this stuff.

I have an MBA.

Like I am here to help you.

Like, I, you like just, you know, point
you in the right direction when you don't

know where to go on something, right?

We'll figure it out together.

Colleen: Okay.

I love it.

Cool.

Michele: It's a plan.

All right.

I guess that's, I guess that's it for

today,

Colleen: end, the end.

Michele: the end.