What's threatening our business?
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Jon:Hey, everyone. Welcome to build your SaaS. This is the behind the scenes story of building a web app in 2019. I'm John Buda, a software engineer.
Justin:And I'm Justin Jackson, and I do product and marketing. Follow along as we build Transistor dotfm.
Jon:No witty intro today?
Justin:Yeah. I decided well, I decided I I I wouldn't today. I was gonna say, I'm Justin Jackson, and happy Canadian Thanksgiving because that's this weekend.
Jon:Really? Already?
Justin:Yeah. By the time this episode has published, it will already be gone away. Interesting. Yeah. We should discuss the merits of doing Thanksgiving in October when you still have a healthy margin between you and Christmas as opposed to having 2 big turkey dinners back to back.
Jon:Yep.
Justin:Wait. Do you do you have turkey for Christmas as well?
Jon:Not usually. No.
Justin:But isn't that also the tradition, the Christmas bird?
Jon:It's one yeah. It's one of them. I think we we generally don't have, like, huge family Christmas dinners, so it's like
Justin:Oh, interesting.
Jon:Yeah. No. Not not usually.
Justin:Is that a Canadian thing that because we have, a lot of Canadian families will have turkey on Thanksgiving, And then, you know, Christmas day, they'll have a big Christmas day meal.
Jon:Yeah. Occasionally. Yeah. I think we I mean, my family has in the past when we've had bigger family gatherings, but
Justin:Gotcha.
Jon:It's not usually super big. Plus, we like to mix it up, and I'm pretty sure my dad just doesn't like cooking turkey that
Justin:much. That's I can't wait till I get to be retired.
Jon:And he can confirm that. Okay. Can't wait till I get to
Justin:be retired, and I can just decide what I will like. Wait. Is your dad retired yet?
Jon:Yeah. Yes.
Justin:Oh, he is. See, my my dad is in what they call semi retirement, which just means he's working as much as he used to. Well, probably not as much as he used to, but he he he really likes to work. Alright. So I've got a few ideas for this episode.
Justin:We just we we had a French exchange student come in yesterday. And so I'm a bit befuddled because I I was helping get the house ready for this student that's staying with us for 2 weeks. And, I didn't, you know, write out a bunch of show notes. But there was something that you said in Slack that kind of peaked my interest. You said, man, I'm not used to all this attention.
Justin:It's weird. Not bad. Just not used to it.
Jon:Yeah. And that was a reaction to, I think a lot of the replies that you had gotten on something you wrote about us reaching 30 k MMR.
Justin:Yeah.
Jon:But also also other, you know, other people like Jason Fried replying and and then me getting caught in replies in that. I'm just like I don't know. I'm not used to it. I don't Yeah. I don't I don't love attention.
Jon:Like, I'm not doing this for the attention. It's night it's nice. Mhmm. I mean, it feels good to get the, you know, congratulations and and the the support and all that, but, I generally don't know how to react to it.
Justin:Yeah. Well, I wanna dig into that a little bit because we do have so I've obviously, probably, purposefully, attracted a lot of attention.
Jon:Yeah. Right. And I think it's been great. And and that's where you're you're great at, and I you probably enjoy it.
Justin:I I do enjoy it. Yeah. If I'm being honest. Yeah. I
Jon:would I would hope so.
Justin:I mean, I can feel also so that feeling when you get a a barrage of, of replies like that and retweets and excitement. It's kinda like it's kinda like when you're putting the drug in your veins for the first 10 seconds. Seconds. This is the worst metaphor I've ever done.
Jon:Gone over that. I we haven't covered that history of of your life.
Justin:Meaning that I actually don't like when it gets really crazy like that, it's also crazy for me and overwhelming.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:But I think I'm so used to it that I'm able to get, oh, I know how this feels. Like, it's, like, exhilarating, and I get a a flood of good chemicals in my body or whatever. Yeah. And but and I I know it's almost like it's it kinda feels like when you're, like, top of hacker news, and you're just seeing, like, tons of traffic, and you're refreshing your stats all the time, and and you're getting tons of people messaging you going, hey, you're top of the hacker news. And you're getting all these folks replying and tweeting about it.
Justin:And it's super exhilarating, but it's not, like, healthy. Like, you wouldn't wanna do that all the time.
Jon:No. For yeah. I think for me, it's initially, like, immediately, it it feels good, and then it changes into this into this anxiety that there's all these eyeballs and attention on what we're doing. And Yeah. And you kinda have to work through, like, you know, what is this like, now there's all this tension.
Jon:Like, I don't wanna screw up.
Justin:Okay. Okay. Yeah. No.
Jon:That that's basically I mean, that's pretty much it, I think.
Justin:Keep going. So so you mean so part of the anxiety for you is now there's all these folks watching us. It's not necessarily about, like, competitors stealing our ideas or is that part of it too?
Jon:No. Not Okay. I think not at all. No.
Justin:It's mostly kind of like performance anxiety.
Jon:Yeah. It's like it was probably fairly irrational. I mean, it seems like everyone who's been replying and and and saying things to us is, like, very supportive and and
Justin:Mhmm.
Jon:Saying nice things and they're, you know, congratulating us and, you know, they're like, we've been watching you and you, you know, it's a great job and you deserve it. Mhmm. Well, at the same time, it almost puts the pressure on to to, like, I don't know, work even harder or just a bet, which isn't a bad thing. But it's like, oh man, now we gotta keep now we gotta keep this up.
Justin:Yeah. And I mean, there is a there is so my experience so far as someone who has not a huge following, but, you know, big enough, I guess, is that most of it is really positive. I I I have noticed that once you get bit to a certain stage, and really, if you're doing anything interesting on the Internet, eventually, you're going to attract some folks that don't like you. And, you know, I cert there's certainly people out there that do not like me. And I have I probably just one person who is a real I feel like a real troll to me and is, sometimes makes me wanna not be on the Internet.
Justin:Overall, the it's it's been quite positive. But I for sure, you know, once you're in the public sphere, there is that risk that there's gonna be someone out there. And and it usually comes in in the form of a a sarcastic or a sarcastic comment, you know, where they feel like you're you're higher so that they feel fine maybe bringing you down a bit or Right. Kicking you in the shins a little bit.
Jon:Yeah. Yeah. I don't it's I don't even really worry about the negative aspects of it. I mean, I know that's part of the Internet.
Justin:Mhmm.
Jon:I don't I don't know if that would really affect me as much as the positive attention. And like I said, it's not it's not a bad the the positive attention is not a bad thing. It's it's encouraging.
Justin:Mhmm.
Jon:Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if it partly part of it is this, like, almost like, imposter syndrome where it's like, oh, man. I don't know if we actually do we deserve this? Like Yeah.
Jon:Yeah. So, yeah, it it's just
Justin:Yeah. I felt that too.
Jon:Yeah. Yeah. It's just hard to I don't know. It's hard to know what to do with it, I guess. Mhmm.
Jon:You know, beyond just saying, like, hey, thanks. Like, thanks for following along and and kind of filing in a way for a day where things really suck, and you can look back on it and be like, oh, yeah. People are people people are encouraging.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. That's actually good. That is an advantage is when you yeah. When you're not feeling great, you can look back and go, you know what?
Justin:There there are a lot of folks that, have been encouraging in the past. And hopefully, we're being honest and real enough in public. And this is a decision we've purposefully made. I don't think every company needs to be this, open and vulnerable.
Jon:Right.
Justin:But Yeah. We just by starting the show, we kind of opened up our lives to the the public. Right?
Jon:Yeah. And it's a weird thing for me because I'm not used to that, and it it's sort of this strange balance now between sharing things here, but then also feeling anxiety about being encouraged for sharing it and and doing well.
Justin:Well, just wait till things get really bad, and then
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:And then, we can share that too. I wonder also something else I've I've wondered, but I I've never really asked you is, because I I have already been quite open. Like, I write a weekly new, newsletter that goes out to 10,000 people. I have a personal blog where I share a lot about our journey. And because I I'm always kinda in public sharing, I'm sometimes of the 2 of us, or often of the 2 of us, I get more attention.
Jon:Mhmm. And I
Justin:wondered if that ever bugged you.
Jon:No. No. It hasn't.
Justin:Okay.
Jon:I mean, it I you know, I've I think I've made the decision to not share that stuff. There's certainly lots of stuff I could write about. I just haven't done it yet, and maybe I'll get to that point. But, no, it doesn't I don't I'm not, like, jealous that you're getting more attention or being invited on more podcasts or what no. It's there's none of that.
Justin:Okay. Because I would
Jon:It doesn't it doesn't bother me.
Justin:Well and because, like, David David Hanamura Hansen when he tweeted said, Justin congrats to Justin and crew.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:And and you mentioned that. I I was just wondering if that bugged you.
Jon:Oh, no. I just thought it was funny that you said crew, and it's just 2 of us.
Justin:Okay. Because one thing I've tried to be really conscientious about is and maybe you don't like this. But I'm I'm trying to be very conscientious to say, like, I'm the cofounder of Transistor. This is something that John started. John is my partner.
Justin:It's this is this is John and I's thing.
Jon:Mhmm. Yeah. I've I've noticed that. I I appreciate it.
Justin:Okay.
Jon:Yeah. I mean, on the flip side of that, do you wish I would be more vocal on No. In public on the Internet? Like No. Tweet like, tweeting all day?
Jon:No. Not all day. Not at all.
Justin:No. Okay. I I just I wanna make sure that there's no there's no, this is good to kinda clear the air. It's I wanna make sure that there's no kind of, lingering resentment about any of that.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:Because I'm happy to be in public. And I know a lot of partnerships have this dynamic. You had Walt and Roy Disney. You had Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. You had, in some ways, in some ways, you had Bill Gates and, who is the fellow I'm thinking of?
Justin:The developers guy? No. Developers developers developers.
Jon:Yeah. Ballmer.
Justin:Steve Ballmer. Yeah. Steve Balmer. And, so I'm clearly Steve Balmer in that in that metaphor. Yeah.
Justin:So I I know that this is a common dynamic, but I just wanted to hear how you felt about it.
Jon:Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. I mean, you know, where we are now with this product and, I guess, attention we've gotten, if you wanna call it that, like
Justin:Mhmm.
Jon:You know, back when Twitter started, when I first got on it, when it was it blew up at South by Southwest, I think. Mhmm. Right? But it was, like, not anywhere near what it was now. It's just, like, looking back on that and then looking at where we're at now and where where I'm at and the ability to connect with people on the Internet, like, I I probably would have loved it back then.
Justin:Yeah. When it was a smaller group.
Jon:Yeah. And it was more about like, Twitter is such a different place now. Mhmm. Although you can sort of tailor it to what you want it to be to some extent, I think. But
Justin:Yeah.
Jon:Yeah. I don't know. I I guess all throughout the years, like, certain things have turned me off about it.
Justin:Yeah.
Jon:And I probably would have been using it a lot differently had I been in that spot, like, when it started.
Justin:Yeah. Way back when. When you're,
Jon:like, all these people on there that you look up to and you wanna communicate with, but you're like, I don't really have any reason to. Or
Justin:Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, one thing that has been crazy for me is I remember it being 2,008 and me having to drive an hour into Edmonton. And my boss introduced me to 37 signals in their book. And then shortly after they started their first podcast, and I used to listen to Jason and David talk about building Basecamp.
Justin:And there's no way that that 20 8, 29 year old person would have ever thought that he would ever have any sort of connection to them. They just seemed so far away. And the same with Rob Walling. I used to listen to his podcast every morning. I used to listen to Dig Nation
Jon:Oh, yeah.
Justin:Every morning. And, Ryan Carson had a a podcast, for Carsonified, I used to listen to. And, yeah, the idea that the Internet does allow you over time to connect with all these folks. And these relationships are almost always kind of built out of, what you're making and what you're putting out into the world.
Jon:Yeah. To some extent. Yeah. Yeah. I think so.
Jon:It's yeah. I mean, having kind of building on what you said about, like, being introduced to those people and then never really thinking you'd be in the place to, I don't know, communicate with those people directly. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, you kinda put some people on a pedestal and you're like, man, they really know what they're doing and
Justin:Mhmm.
Jon:Never I'll never get to that point. And I was I was listening to a podcast this morning that I think I sent your way. It's Chase Chase Jarvis on the, Rich Roll podcast. He always has really good guests, but he he was kinda talking about his path to getting where he's at. And he's he's like, you know, we look at these we look at some people, and we think that they're just, like, born with this ability Mhmm.
Jon:To be creative or be successful or whatever. And really, you kinda look back on your career or anyone's career, and it never started out never really started out with them wanting to necessarily be at a certain spot. It's just that they adapted really well and, like, ended up they, like, steered their life in a certain direction, but not never never really had a destination. Mhmm. Or, like, they didn't have a map.
Jon:They had a compass. Right? So
Justin:Yeah.
Jon:And I think you can kinda look at all these people that you look up to, and they probably have the same story. They they probably looked up to other people and Mhmm. Felt the same way at one point.
Justin:Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I like that idea of not a map, but a compass.
Jon:Right.
Justin:Where we're at now, you can see the way we kinda turned our lives this direction years ago. So, like, when you were building that first podcast product before we and you and I even met, that was you turning yourself a certain way. And in some ways, that's a big reason you and I even hung out at all that first xoxo is that I had a podcast. And so there's this slight overlap over our lives where it was like, oh, you make software for podcasters, and I'm a podcaster. And this gives us something to talk about.
Justin:And then, you introduced me to Mike, and Mike was into electronica. And I had, you know, back in high school, I was really in the rave scene. And so the the 3 of us all of a sudden had this overlap, and we could have this discussion. Right?
Jon:Right. Yep.
Justin:And even all of that, you think about all of these little nudges. And it is about us kind of going, okay. Well, I'm going to face this way. And I mean, if I think back to, like, my ideas back then or even before that for, like, what I was gonna do on the Internet, They're so silly in retrospect. Like, when I think about the stuff I wanted to build and the, you know but the I was orienting myself that direction.
Justin:And so even though those first ideas that I was convinced were gonna be amazing.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:You know, those didn't work out. And I would, like, I would honestly be totally ashamed if anyone found my notes folder from from back then. You know, just orienting your life in that direction kinda determines, you know, if you keep pursuing it.
Jon:Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's yeah. I think it's more about orienting yourself in a direction than being so determined on one particular destination.
Jon:Mhmm.
Justin:Totally. Totally. This actually reminds me of the talking about Twitter and early Twitter. There's this new trend, of folks do it's not a new trend. Well, it's a new trend in that there's a lot of people doing it.
Justin:There's a lot of bootstrapping podcasts right now.
Jon:Mhmm.
Justin:Like, I could probably list off 10 off the top of my head. Let me try. Art of product, bootstrapping sass, Slow and Steady, Bright and Early, Build Your SaaS, Bootstrapping Web, Startups for the Rest of Us, which has been going forever. Oh, Getting to Ramen. That's 8.
Justin:What am I missing here? Bootstrapping digest with Ashley Baxter. What is there any other ones I'm missing? Oh, Product Journey. So I've just listed off 10.
Justin:I'm sure they're I'm and I apologize if I if I've missed your show. I I I actually do listen to them all. What's interesting is it feels like a a big party line right now.
Jon:Do you
Justin:remember party lines? Did you ever have party lines growing up?
Jon:Was it just like a group phone call?
Justin:Yeah. I mean, so if you grew up in the country in Canada, and probably in the States, there was only one phone number for an entire area. And so our phone like, we had a special ring. It was, like, you know, ding ding ding, and then we would know that was for us. But if there was, like, 2 long rings, we knew that was for the house down the road.
Jon:Oh, wow. No. I did not know about that.
Justin:Okay. And I might be getting into strong. Maybe we all had different numbers, but there's only infrastructure to cert like, it would ring our special number. But, anyway, it was shared. So you could pick up the phone and there would be a teenager, you know, 3 acreages down talking to their girlfriend and start swearing at you.
Justin:But the cool thing about, I I so the metaphor kinda breaks down here, but the idea is that, you know, there's all of these conversations happening, and it's kind of being done in the comments. Like, folks will go, you know, Jordan Gal will hear something on our podcast, and then he'll talk about it on, Bootstrapping Web. Or Brian Ray will hear something on our show, and he'll talk about it on bright and early. And there's just this weird kind of, it feels very early Twitter to me. Mhmm.
Justin:And it it's an interesting use of podcasting that I haven't really thought about before, which is you can start these shows. They don't need to have a ton of listeners. But when the community is listening, it becomes really fascinating, you know, because you're getting these weekly updates from all these different people at different stages who are bootstrapping stuff.
Jon:Right.
Justin:And even, like, Adam Wadden has a show called Full Stack Radio. He just did an interview with Rob Walling. Taylor Otwell has a a podcast called The Laravel Snippet, where he usually talks about tech topics. But he's just started this new series where he's talking about how he's sold $10,000,000 worth of software on, since he started Laravel.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:And so all of these discussions and people sharing their experience and, vulnerably, sharing kind of the ups and downs, That's really interesting to me that this is happening and kinda does feel like early Twitter to me.
Jon:Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. I never really thought about it that way.
Justin:Yeah. And I I think to think of I guess the party line part is instead of just thinking of a podcast as, hey. We're the broadcasters, and we're bringing you bootstrapping radio every day. It's more like, you know, a a big a big telephone call. You know, a big, or a chain letter or something.
Justin:We gotta get the metaphor right. But it's more of us each talking to each other asynchronously and picking up on, oh, you you guys tried that? Oh, we're gonna talk about that on our show. And, oh, that's interesting. I never thought about that, until they brought it up.
Justin:You know, you might challenge somebody on you know, we've sometimes brought in other folks' ideas on this show, and then they respond on their show. Really kinda interesting. And, it feels like we're in a unique time in this little community.
Jon:And, yeah, just
Justin:wanted to bring it up.
Jon:That's cool. I wonder if there's, more opportunity for cross cross show guests in in the future or for the New Year or something. Some something like that.
Justin:Yeah. We should think about that. How we can, yeah, more of us being on each other's shows, more of us promoting each other's shows whenever we can. Talking about good bootstrapping podcasts, Founder Quest. Folks, if you're not listening to Founder Quest, you have to this is honestly one of my favorite shows.
Justin:Honey Badger is sponsoring this episode, but I would have I'd be talking about FinalerQuest regardless. It's 3 guys who bootstrapped a software business, in a really competitive space in the air monitoring space. They've got really big venture backed competitors. They work about 30 hours a week, and I just love them describing, you know, some episodes they'll describe how they got there. You know?
Justin:What what happened in the past that enabled them to get where they are now? And sometimes they'll talk about things they're doing right now. And it's very, I just like getting a a sense of how other founders are with each other. You know? Like, the relationship.
Justin:So, yeah, thanks to Honey Badger for sponsoring this episode. Go check them out. Honeybadger.io. Start a free trial and, zip open your, zip open zip open your podcast player and, search for Founder Quest. It's a really, really great show, and they are gearing up for their new season right now.
Jon:Awesome.
Justin:So the other thing, I wanted to kind of talk about quickly. 1, because here's another, like, moment from our Slack. This is another moment from our Slack. I was interviewed for Basecamp's podcast rework, and I just felt like I flubbed it. And I I went and told you.
Jon:Yeah. And I was I was curious as to why I know you were gonna you were this podcast, they were gonna be on it with another owner of a podcast hosting company, but I
Justin:Yeah. Lex Friedman from Art 19, I think. But I
Jon:guess he was gonna be on separately. So I was I was curious as to, like, why you thought you were if the questions were hard or if
Justin:I think I just wasn't in my zone. And so, Waylon was interviewing me, and she was asking great questions. She's a professional journalist. But I think I just, like, if I'd taken 3 deep breaths before I started, I would have probably been better. Maybe?
Justin:I don't know. Sometimes to talk well, your brain just has to be in that flow, and I'd it just felt like, you know, when you're riding a bike and your chains not catching on every
Jon:Uh-huh.
Justin:Tooth of the gear. Like, it just felt like a bunch of moments like that where, my chain just wasn't catching. And, yeah. I don't know how it'll turn out.
Jon:What was the the topic? The topic was kinda, like, why they switched to us. Right?
Justin:Yeah. So why Basecamp switched to us. And also, I'm glad really glad we had our conversation the week previous about our values and what we value, you know, what do we think about dynamic ad insertion, and ad targeting, and Facebook, and all these other things. And so I I had some practice in talking about those things out loud, and that's a lot of the questions. Like, okay, well, tell us about your company and your ethos, you know.
Justin:And, one thing that was interesting, I think, is that I just listened to this first episode of Startup season 3, the current season. And it is fascinating, folks. If you have not started listening to it yet so it's it's
Jon:This is all this is all about sort of, like, the end of Gimlet. Right? As they got as they were being sold to Spotify? Mhmm.
Justin:Yeah. And way more meaty than I thought it would be. It kind of opens with this this, I wanna say tableau. Is that what it opens with this tableau of of them in an ad meeting, and they're they're not selling enough ads. They've got, like, 10% sell through on one of their shows.
Justin:And Alex, the CEO, is, like, that's really bad. And so they're in a financial trouble.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:It's it's interesting because it reveals something that I think we just didn't know before. Like, previously, when I thought of Gimlet, I thought of, like, they are the HBO of podcasting.
Jon:Right. Like, they wouldn't have problems selling advertising.
Justin:No. They're making these incredible shows. Everyone wants to be them, you know, in the content world. The idea that they were they were really struggling. Like, they didn't know if they were going to survive.
Justin:Their money is running out. And, Alex and his cofounder, Matt, are fighting a lot. So they talk a lot about the fights they were having.
Jon:Probably because the money was not coming in.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Which actually gave me some interesting insight into, like, right now, you and I are getting along pretty well because we're growing every month. But I can see if there was ever a there's 2 things that I could see us getting stressed out about and then wanting to take it out on each other. Right.
Justin:One is financial struggles. 2 actually would be philosophical struggles. And 3 would be infrastructure struggles. Mhmm. Like, the app goes down or whatever.
Justin:And, you know, I I sign a new deal for 3,000 new customers, and you're pissed at me because
Jon:And you're yelling at me, like, why is why are the servers down?
Justin:Yeah. Exactly. That was good, John. I think you should play yourself in our TV remake. In Catching Fire, the the new season of Catching Fire that explores the Oh, yeah.
Justin:A burgeoning podcast startup.
Jon:Halt and Catch Fire?
Justin:That's what I meant.
Jon:Oh, man. I keep listening to that soundtrack. It's so good. That that
Justin:There's a soundtrack?
Jon:There's 2. There's, yeah, there's 2, 2 albums worth of music that they made for the show, and it's all very good, and it's all instrumental. It's a good work music. It's great work music. And that show is so good.
Jon:I
Justin:I got I gotta try it again.
Jon:Be, like, one of my favorite shows of the past decade. It
Justin:was just a little bit too weird for me. Like, the that weird creepy dude that's always doing creepy things with creepy people, and I just, like, I k. Can we just take a quick sidebar? I have a question. That main character that's kind of the the the the person that comes from IBM Yeah.
Jon:He's like this Steve Jobs person, sort of.
Justin:He's the Steve Jobs person, but very weird. We you never really know about him. Yeah. Like, he's he's got these mysterious scars.
Jon:Yeah. You end up learning
Justin:more. Okay. He he's, like, making out with everybody? Yeah.
Jon:He's he's a bit of a wreck, but I think you've sort of discovered his past over the 3 seasons.
Justin:Okay. So I just so here's some when I encounter a character like that. So initially, I really wanted to like him because I'm like, oh, this is kinda like me. You know, I see myself in this, like, oh, this guy's gonna come and he's gonna, you know, he wants to you know, how you always wanna be the hero of the story? Right.
Justin:And then he starts doing all that messed up shit, and I'm, like, oh, man. I'd. This is weird. Like, this is this is just weird. And all that drama and weirdness really affects me personally for some reason.
Jon:Yeah. There's a lot of it. Yeah. Because you wanna like the guy, but then you're, like, this guy is an asshole. I mean, it's kinda like it's kinda like Steve Jobs.
Jon:Dude is an asshole.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. But, see, I always really wanna like Steve. I only watch Steve's good videos. Oh, man.
Justin:I yeah. Maybe I just need to really work on confronting human darkness more.
Jon:Maybe. I I just I just love the show because of its portrayal of the industry that I'm in or that we're in. Right? Like Yeah. The beginnings of it until when it ends, which is, like, early 2000.
Justin:Okay. But here's, I guess, here's the existential question I have. Is real life that dramatic? And we just have this kind of auspice of public politeness that keeps it under wraps?
Jon:I'd no. I doubt it. I think well, it's it's a TV show. It would be boring if it wasn't if there was no trauma.
Justin:Those are just the shows I like. I like the Yeah. I'm like, no. Just keep this, like okay. Interesting.
Justin:Apparently, I've got some things to work on. But, anyway, good soundtracks. You get the picture of what's really going on in the podcast industry. And one of the things Waylon and I talked about is that the podcast industry is actually, maybe, not as big as we thought it was. That was the thought I had while I was listening to the first episode.
Justin:It's like, if Gimlet is struggling
Jon:Right.
Justin:And they, you know, they're the biggest and the best, and they've got all this attention, and they're kind of a darling. If they were struggling that much, maybe podcasting isn't as big as folks have made it out to be. Yeah.
Jon:It's a good it's it's a good question of, like or were they trying to be bigger than they should have been? Like, there are other networks like, Mike Hurley's,
Justin:Rework. I mean, not Rework, Relay.
Jon:Relay. And they seem to be doing well.
Justin:Yeah.
Jon:I think they're they make money on ads, I would assume.
Justin:Yep. I think we I think Mike needs a new show called, called Mike Whispering Into His iPhone About His Work Stress. Because that that's kinda what you don't get, you know, when you're looking on the outside.
Jon:Right.
Justin:We're making assumptions about their business. Like, is it amazing? Or does he cry to himself to sleep every night?
Jon:Yeah. I don't know. Right. I mean, that's yeah. And that's the thing you would you thought about Gimlet was that they were doing really well.
Justin:Mhmm. Exactly. And I think the the the kind of nice thought about it is podcasting from its inception has always just grown really slow and steady. You know, 10%, 15% year over year. And to hear that there was someone trying to make a big jump, and it was there was a big gap there that they couldn't quite fill.
Justin:Mhmm. I think part of that is reassuring to me in that, okay, I just want this thing to grow gradually. That's actually better for the industry. Yeah.
Jon:I wonder I'll I'll listen to it because it does sound interesting. Have they gotten into, like so they obviously took on funding. Mhmm. Did they just, like, hire a bunch of people too fast? Like, thing that we want to avoid, which was, like, you get money and then you just spend it, and then now you gotta figure out how to make it.
Justin:Yeah. I mean, the their their hypothesis was that they were going to make really high quality shows the same way NPR or Planet Money would. And that that's what podcasting needed. Podcasting needed this kind of broadcast sensibility, in the same way that HBO made really high quality shows for cable. And what they were finding is that they were making these really high quality shows that cost a lot of money to make, but they're competing against, Rick Roll.
Justin:Rick Rich Roll?
Jon:Yeah. Like Joe Rogan and then
Justin:Dax Shepard. Yep. And these folks can make shows really cheaply. It's it all kind of around a a compelling personality, And they can sell ads, and they have these, you know, these big, rabbit audiences. And so they they were encountering the competition of the market, where you can make a really thought provoking documentary.
Justin:Like, they had one about, NASA or Mars or the moon or I'm sorry. I'm getting that wrong. But and it just cost a lot of money to make, and it didn't and it got all sorts of, critical attention and actually had really good download numbers, but they couldn't sell ads for the show. Interesting. And yeah.
Justin:So so they were in the struggle of, you know, do we make cheaper shows? And I mean, it is it's a I I think whenever you're kinda going from 0 to 60 so fast, you know, they're they're really trying to, you know, Alex quits his job at This American Life or Planet Money or whatever. And now he's basically trying to build a studio really fast and create all these shows really fast. Yeah. So it was it was a I we'll see how the interview turned out, but that there was just that thought in there of, oh, maybe maybe podcasting is not as big as we thought.
Justin:And that could have actually repercussions for for Transistor. If, I think I've got a good handle on this, but you never know is if there's a lot of people signing up for Transistor aspirationally in the sense that they're like, oh, I I can't wait to be the next Gimlet. Knowing how hard it is to do that, I hope most of our customers don't wanna be the next Gimlet. You know what I'm saying?
Jon:Right.
Justin:Or maybe that is fine. I don't know. You know, on the on the prosumer side, I think, for example, all these bootstrapping podcasts are really great. Because those are people that are saying, yeah, I'll spend, you know, $20 a month to have this channel where I can participate in the conversation and participate in this kinda on this this dialogue that's happening happening in public. And, you know, some of those shows, like, Val Sope has bootstrapping sass.
Justin:He has enough download numbers that he can sell little sponsorships and basically pay for the show. Right? So I think that that group that makes sense. Because I don't think they wanna be super famous or anything. And then there's another group of customers that are signing up for their workplace.
Justin:So we just had Databox sign up, and they have a show called Ground Up that apparently that this show has a lot of listeners because, we we got a someone signed up today for Transistor because they heard the show. But, yeah, that's a that's a a podcast that's being done under a company's banner. And there's lots of podcasts like that. And then there's all these folks signing up for private podcasting because they wanna do employee onboarding and training, and all of those seem great. My worry I think one of the the risks or threats to our business is if we are in a perception bubble where podcasting has gotten all of this media attention.
Justin:And now people are going, oh, this is a good way to get rich quick.
Jon:Right.
Justin:I I I really hope we don't have, too many get rich quick customers.
Jon:Yeah. I mean, it yeah. It could end with a bunch of people just canceling Mhmm. At the same time.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. And I think we've got some good competitive hedges in there. For example, we allow people to start multiple podcasts on one account. We don't charge you for additional podcasts.
Justin:So Brian Ray has started 2 podcasts that I know of. He might have even started more than that. You know, once you have more than one show, it becomes okay. Well, you know, I'll keep I'll keep this going. This is worth it.
Justin:But, yeah, there is that risk out there. And you never know, you know, what what stage are we at right now? Because, certainly, in the media, New York Times, there's a lot of kind of, bubbly articles about podcasting.
Jon:But it all it all focuses on 1 or 2 big popular shows. That's it. So Yeah. Yeah. It seems a bit unrepresentative of what's actually going on.
Jon:Sure. Smaller shows are really just not. It may be just as valuable. Maybe not popular, but
Justin:I mean, we believe that, but I wonder how many of those people are starting podcasts because they want to be those popular shows.
Jon:Yeah. It's a good question.
Justin:And, will they be disappointed when they realize, wow, it actually takes 5 years to build up an audience. Or you have to team up with someone who's already been building an audience for
Jon:5 years.
Justin:Like Conan O'Brien has one of the most popular podcasts on Apple Podcast right now. But he spent a lifetime building up an audience. Right?
Jon:Right. Yeah.
Justin:In some ways, you and I benefited for for this show, from our existing network, our existing audience, our existing connections.
Jon:Mhmm.
Justin:And, you know, we were able to get to I mean, even this show is not huge. We get our hold on. Sorry, Chris. There's a lot of hoofs in here. You know, last month, we had almost 23,000 downloads.
Justin:And our biggest month was 28,000 downloads. So, I mean, well, if that's in the bootstrapping space, that's a pretty big podcast, I I'm guessing. I think Art of Product is probably has more listeners. I think, definitely, startups for the rest of us has more listeners. But, you know, for our that that's quite a bit for this community.
Justin:But even that, getting to that space required us to have built an audience before. When Ben and Derek started Art of Product, they were really pulling from the giant robots smashing into giant robots podcast that they've done previously. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. And if folks continue to find value in podcasting, and I'm I'm talking about this one group here that might be more aspirational or more in the prosumer category. Yeah.
Justin:It'll be interesting to see what happens with that category and really having an understanding of how much of our revenue comes from those folks.
Jon:Right. It is. I think, a substantial amount.
Justin:Mhmm.
Jon:Yeah. We'll see.
Justin:So yeah. So that's, yeah. That'll be that'll be curious. It'd be curious to see how that ends up. Let's to close things off, let's give folks, an update on how we're shaping up our we're at the end of our 6 week cycle.
Jon:Mhmm. Yeah. Next, next Tuesday, I believe, we're scheduled to end it.
Justin:Mhmm. And I'm wondering, will we have, this this is what I want. And so you can tell me this is what we're we'll be at. I would like to have public on Tuesday a the the the feature is shipped into production, and I can turn it on certain accounts if I want to. Do you think that's gonna be possible?
Jon:I think so. Yeah. Yes. I think so. Yeah.
Jon:I mean, I so where we're at now is I think we've finished up all these all these things we wanted to do functionally. Mhmm.
Justin:It it's really to to me, every time I use it on staging, I'm like, this is so cool. Like, I was looking I I know this is not a big deal to you, but I
Jon:was looking at that little subscriber counter. Yeah. As
Justin:you add private subscribers, it says,
Jon:Sometimes like, it's it's weird looking back on something you built in 6 weeks and either thinking, I'm surprised we got that done in 6 weeks or that's all we got done in 6 weeks. It's not an incredibly complicated feature, but I it does take time to sort of simplify it in a way that makes it easy to use. So I don't know. I I go back and forth. I struggle between, like, did we do enough, or did we waste time or something?
Jon:I but we did we did you know, we cut a few things. We but we got we got everything we done done. I think we that we needed to get done for a certain subset of people to use it.
Justin:Yeah. By the way, I just refreshed staging, and this new column appears where you can edit a, change in email address.
Jon:That was the last that was the last piece, that I wanted to finish. I think there's still probably today and Monday and part of Tuesday. Like, we're still gonna be running through it and rewriting some copy and sort
Justin:of kind
Jon:of finessing some of the, like, the onboarding and the just the flow of, like, creating a private podcast and adding subscribers and adding episodes and getting getting those subscribers, their emails, and getting them to be able to easily subscribe to this podcast.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. No. I I think I mean, I guess we'll know on Tuesday. And then once we have this, we're gonna do a 2 week cool down where we're gonna kinda putter around and, you know, it might be improving some things with this.
Justin:It might be we have a list of other things we wanna look at. I know you really wanna look at analytics. I really wanna get the marketing side out. And the the goal on Tuesday starting Tuesday will be for me to reach out to select customers and ask if they want to add this feature to their account.
Jon:Mhmm.
Justin:And I'll be testing it myself with an actual group of people. I think I'm gonna I have this this online Slack community called Mega Maker. I think I'm going to do a private podcast just for them and and try this whole thing. So yeah. The the the flow seems great.
Justin:It feels like shaping things before and actually understanding flows and what would this look like. It did help like, we always had the sense of we knew which going back to what you had mentioned at the beginning, we always knew what direction we were facing.
Jon:Right. Right?
Justin:Yeah. Yeah.
Jon:I, and I you know, I think we did sort of cut like, I think we're gonna be able to launch this on Tuesday, but it's not it's not gonna be a publicly accessible feature yet. That was the goal, but I think, you know, we made the decision this week to to cut that from well, it's not it's not on our current marketing site. It will be on the new marketing site. But there's also, like, all this other stuff that we realized that needed to be finished in order to do certain things like these custom enterprise plans for bigger customers and stuff like that. So, like, Yeah.
Jon:We made a decision to cut that.
Justin:Yeah. Because when those unknowns come up, and it's almost, like, as you're going along, like, you're pushing this rock up the hill, and more and more is becoming known. And then you get to the top, and then you're, like, oh, wait. There's there's a few more we could go this direction, but it would mean we have to hike uphill a little bit more.
Jon:Mhmm.
Justin:And it's hard to like, enterprise billing. That just opens up this whole,
Jon:Right.
Justin:Box of unknowns. And so it was like, okay. Instead of turning left and going up that hill, we'll just turn right and go down the hill.
Jon:Yeah. So yeah. I I don't think there's anything I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's either that or you just, like, scrap the whole feature, and you're like, oh, we're not gonna launch. I mean, that's that cutoff point or the
Justin:Yeah. Well and and having the cut off point of going, okay. Well, we're gonna ship this into production. But what feels more calm in terms of our next step? And to me, as we were talking on the phone this week, I was, like, what feels more calm is us opening this up to a few users at a time and seeing what they think.
Justin:Like, do they upgrade so that they can use it?
Jon:Right.
Justin:Do they hate it? Do is it completely, you know, not usable or something? Like, we won't know. And I'd rather do that in a sustainable way than, like, I mean, creating this big, perfectly crafted, like, the marketing site's ready to go and enterprise billing, and we're gonna do a big splashy, you know, launch. I I would rather kind of drip this out and get a calm feel for how people are gonna use it.
Justin:And, you know, then shape work depend, kind of based on what feedback we get.
Jon:Exactly.
Justin:Alright. I gotta I have another interview right now, so I gotta I gotta run. Why don't you thank our Patreons?
Jon:Thanks as always to our Patreon supporters. James Sours from user input dot I o, Travis Fisher, Matt Buckley from nice things dot I o, Russell Brown, Avendra Sassy, Pratayyumna Schimbecker, Noah Praill, David Colgan, Robert Simplicio, Robert Gray or Colin Gray, sorry, from alitu.com, Josh Smith, Ivan Kerkovic, Brian Ray, Miguel Pedraffita, Shane Smith, Austin Loveless, Simon Bennett, Corey Hanes, Michael Sitfer, Paul Jarvis, and Jack Ellis. My brother, Dan Buddha.
Justin:Dan Buddha. I I saw he had a real nice tweet for us.
Jon:Did he? Nice. Yeah.
Justin:He said yeah. He said something nice.
Jon:He he just launched his first commercial project for a Texas senator, I wanna say.
Justin:No way.
Jon:I was running for office, so, congratulations. He should be really proud of that.
Justin:Yeah. Good work, Dan.
Jon:Looks awesome. Darby Frey, Samori Augusto, Dave Young, Brad from Canada, Sammy Schuichert, Mike Walker, Adam Devander, Dave Junta.
Justin:Junta? Junta really needs to understand that his name has now just become the, it it's like it's like what listeners of this show say to each other to to to to to to establish, like, oh, we both listen to this show. It's like it's like what football fans, you know, you Yeah. Chant at a at a game. Junta just needs to imagine there's thousands of people, going, Junta.
Justin:Junta. Junta. It's escaped him. It's it's become something he could've never possibly imagined. Yeah.
Jon:He'll he'll appreciate that. Kyle Fox from get rewardful.com and our sponsors this week, ActiveCampaign and Honey
Justin:Badger. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We will see you next week.
