How to find a cofounder (our story)
This could still blow up in my face. You could be a serial killer and I would not know it, or or I or I could be a serial killer. Hey. Welcome to build your SaaS. This is the behind the scenes story of what it takes to build really what it takes to build a web app in 2018.
Justin:You're following along as we build transistor.fm. Why don't we start, John, just by kind of introducing ourselves? So who are you? Where do you live? What are you doing?
Jon:My name is John Buda. I am living in Chicago, Illinois. I'm actually recording this out of the Cardigans Humanity office, which is where I work. So I work on Cardigans Humanity and Black Box, which is their one of their internal products. I'm a developer by trade, I suppose.
Jon:I have background a little bit of a background design as well. So I guess kind of a full stack web developer sort of leading up the the tech team at Cards Against Humanity here, as we build out some some shipping and fulfillment related projects.
Justin:Yeah. And, we're gonna talk about how we met in a bit. I'm Justin Jackson. I'm from Canada. I got started in software in 2008, as the product manager for a web app called Mailout, and then most recently, I was the product manager for Sprintly.
Justin:And, even more most recently, I went independent. So, now on the web, I'm kind of known as, indie entrepreneur or solopreneur guy, and, most of my revenue these days comes from a course I made called marketing for developers. So we met back in 2014. I'm trying to figure out because we met at XOXO
Jon:We did. Yeah.
Justin:Which was a festival there. Was that your first year that in 2014, or had you been the year before?
Jon:I think I went to the first one too. I think there was the one before that.
Justin:Okay. So my buddy, Chase Reeves, came back from this festival, and said, this is the most incredible thing. And he had already kinda built a group the year before, and I remember him inviting me. And I was just like, I'm not gonna know anybody else. And I think that first day of the festival, you and I met.
Justin:And, for me, even though I'm an extroverted guy, there's you're always nervous when you go to a any sort of event for the first time.
Jon:Uh-huh.
Justin:And I remember being so thankful that you wanted to talk to me. Yeah.
Jon:Which is which is sort of the opposite for me because I'm a fairly introverted guy. So for me to talk to random folks at at festivals is is like me pushing myself out of my comfort zone completely.
Justin:So you're saying it was painful for you?
Jon:A little bit for sure. Yeah. I think it smoothed out. It went alright. You were you were this you had big bearded Canadian man.
Justin:Yeah. I had a big beard. We've actually we've we've switched faces because now you've got a beard, and I'm clean shaven.
Jon:Right. Alright.
Justin:Yeah. That's funny. But and by the way, XOXO doesn't exist anymore, but it was just this unlike anything I'd ever been to before. It combined. What would you say, John?
Justin:It's like art?
Jon:I say it was art, culture, technology, future thinking, music. I it's just like culture. I don't know. Internet culture.
Justin:Just a weird amalgamation of all these really interesting things. And, I remember talking to you and, you know, you're saying, hey. What are you doing? And at the time, I was working for Sprintly, and I believe I was writing marketing for developers at that point. And, you were working for cards, but you were also building something on the side.
Justin:Right?
Jon:Yeah. I was. I was I don't know if I was working for cards yet, actually. I might have been freelancing, but, yeah, I was working on another, podcast related, application at the time with someone I had met through a through a different conference festival.
Justin:Oh oh, really? I didn't know that okay. So you'd met someone at a different conference, and you were working on this podcasting app. And I had a podcast called Product People, and, I remember you saying, hey. You should, you know, switch hosts to and host it with, with this thing I'm doing.
Justin:And, we did that. But we also had the sense, like, I think right before we left, we're like, you know, we kind of enjoyed each other's company, and we said we should maybe think about building something together someday. Yeah. That doesn't happen a lot with me, but there's enough of a connection that we're like, oh, this is kinda cool. Maybe we should build something someday.
Justin:And we kinda went away. I went back to XOXO the next year as well, and we hung out there. And then, maybe fast forward to 2016, we thought, hey. Let's build something together. And
Jon:Yep.
Justin:You and I and another fellow, one of your friends from school, I think
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:We had this idea for kind of like, community software, would you say? Right.
Jason:Yeah. I think I believe it
Jon:was yeah. Start your own community, sort of keep keep in touch with your members.
Justin:Mhmm.
Jon:Yeah. Member communication, things like that.
Justin:And I think what's instructive about that is that it didn't work out. Like, we we we worked on it for a while, and, it didn't end up you know, either there wasn't, you know, enough passion or not enough time or a combination of things. But the important piece was we got a chance to actually work together. We got a chance to, you know, be in a Slack and assign things to each other and have meetings and, you know, get some things done. And, I just remember enjoying the experience going, you know, that didn't work out, but would I work with John again?
Justin:Oh, for sure. Maybe you could take over here because you you've been working for Cards Against Humanity at this point. And sometime somewhere along the line, they decide they wanna launch a podcast. So what what kinda happens then?
Jon:So I had always had in the back of my mind that I kinda wanted to get back into the podcasting space at some point.
Justin:Yeah. And we should say the other the other app didn't work. Or
Jon:Yeah. Things fell apart with that.
Justin:I think we could say it didn't work because of the cofounder. Right? Like, the partnership didn't work.
Jon:The partnership just didn't work. There was, yeah, there was a lot of reasons. The product itself worked.
Justin:Yes.
Jon:You know, I'm I'm proud of what it turned into, but it sort of left me wanting a little bit more. And at that point, I think I was a little bit, disheartened by the partnership idea. So cards can't seem they had this idea to to start a podcast for one of their holiday promotions. Right? So, if anyone's not familiar with cards, they do this holiday big holiday promotion, almost every year where they do, you know, x amount of days over the Christmas holiday, and you you get a bunch of gifts, and they do a lot of stunts and stuff like that.
Jon:So,
Justin:2017 stunts. Like, the stunt was one stunt one year was they were digging a big hole or something.
Jon:Yeah. They just dug a hole for money. This year was around America and saving America, so we bought some land on the border to stop Trump from building a border wall. And along with that was was funding a year of a podcast that's focused on good news. So we had a bunch of meetings about this to plan for everything.
Jon:And one of the talking points was, well, we need some, you know, the tech part of it was we need somewhere to host the podcast. They had recommended this this other app that that I was working on before, and I was like, well, you know, I've sort of had this idea in my mind to start something again where it would be a podcast host. So why don't we just sort of assume that I'll have that ready by the time this podcast launches, at the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018, actually. Yeah. I think I had I think I had already registered the domain name.
Jon:I think that was, like, almost a year ago to this day.
Justin:Okay. So you'd registered transistor dot FM.
Jon:Yeah. Back in March of 2017, which sort of, you know, once you registered domain, you sort of get the ideas started flowing. I hadn't really started on it in full force yet, but I did talk to a designer in the office. Got some branding done for it. Signed up for Stripe Atlas, which is a program through Stripe, the payment processing company that helps, small businesses incorporate in the US and kind of get, get all your documents in order, get you a bank account.
Jon:You get set up with a Stripe account, and, they help you file taxes and hook you up with a lawyer to figure out documents, as well as giving you a bunch of credit for AWS for hosting your, your new application. So that was like, that was really smooth. And I kind of wanted to, you know, start the company legally and sort of have it be its own corporation with the ability to bring people on later if I wanted to. That the original intention was to sort of start this thing on my own and see how far I can get it. The cartoon humanity podcast, the good news podcast is what it's called.
Jon:The good news podcast dot fm, that launched January 1st, went really well with a, you know, a base set of features and then just kept expanding it from there. And then Justin and I, you you and I had talked kind of about wanting to do something. You got excited about kind of throwing yourself full force something in 2018. My background being a developer, I can build a thing. I don't necessarily know how to get people to use it.
Jon:So we sort of decided to team up, and that's kind of where we're at now.
Justin:Yeah. And I think it's interesting how at different points, you know, in the past couple years, this would have never worked. So, for example, I remember right when I decided to go independent in 2016, for whatever reason, right then, I got a bunch of job offers at companies that have since gone on to do very well. And, at the time, I was like, I just can't take this job because I'm so excited about being indie. I'm so excited about being solo.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:And now I've had 2 years of that, and, I don't wanna get into this a lot, but 2017, emotionally for me, was really difficult. Had a lot of just mental health stuff. And one of the things I learned was it's really if you're all alone, it's all up to you, and that can be really hard. And so because in my business, I had no one to fall back on or no one to rely on, if I got sick, for example, it's just like everything just stops. You know?
Justin:Yeah. And so if just you reaching out to me and saying, hey. You know, I started this thing, and I was just like, oh my god. Like, I would really love to partner with John on this. It but that might not have worked at a different time.
Justin:You know? And
Jon:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Things, you know, things things happen at the time that they're supposed to happen, I think.
Justin:Because of John's previous experience, bad experience with, partnership, that was just a handshake agreement, we well, John, especially, but I was all on board with this too. We really wanted to do everything above board, And, I had there's so many stories from my friends and other folks that had handshake deals, and they think they like each other. But a lot of things can change in, you know, as you go along. And we just wanted to make sure that this, you know, this was a legal company that we, you know, each had shares legally, that we'd signed a a cofounder agreement legally, And that along with that, we had also kind of communicated, these are the things I value, and this is what I wanna get out of this. Yeah.
Justin:And, I think that's really important for anyone thinking about we're gonna get into some lessons learned in a bit, but anyone learn thinking about, you know, partnering up with someone, especially something that you think is going to be a big deal, you really need to do it properly. And for us, that meant going through Stripe Atlas. John had already done this, but registering a c corp and, you know, going through the process of hiring a lawyer and doing all these things. So since that's really where what we've been doing up till now. The product, the initial product is built.
Justin:Cards Against Humanity is using it, and I think in future episodes, we'll talk about, you know, what's gonna differentiate this podcasting app apart from all of the competitors because there's a lot of competitors. But in this episode, maybe let's go into, you know, some of the the lessons we learned in terms of finding a cofounder and what you should look for in a cofounder. What what would you say, John? In terms of finding a cofounder, what are some of the things that comes to mind for you?
Jon:I mean, generally, I'll have to say I'm not really out to look for 1 generally, but I think when you find someone that you can you could speak to honestly and sort of complements your skill set, Even if you're not looking for a cofounder necessarily, sometimes you'll just decide that, hey, this person would actually be great to work with. I haven't really considered it, but now now I am, and now I would.
Justin:I think that's actually a good point. One thing I've been thinking about a lot in terms of, like, product ideas is sometimes when you're out, like, hunting for something, it it's too forced. And, my buddy Adam Wavin has this whole idea about the cut the context of your life is what kind of brings you to a point where you could launch a product or partner up with someone or whatever. And it's almost if you're just pushing this one thing. Like, I'm out hunting for a cofounder, and you go go to a bunch of meetups, and you're that guy that's just like, you're gonna go find someone to marry when you go to the bar or something.
Justin:Right.
Jon:It's yeah. I mean, I I it's probably a lot like dating, right? If you're out there trying to meet someone as hard as possible, you're probably not. It's probably not going to work. Yeah.
Jon:You kinda have to just be open to letting things happen.
Justin:Yeah. But I think there is some things you can do that lead to this, and, one of them is you you have to get out. Like, you can't just be in your apartment in Chicago all the time. You have to go to events.
Jon:Right.
Justin:And, there was a big part of again, I I explained this before, but even for me, I love being around people, But I had this hesitation to going to that XOXO because I thought, ah, well, Chase has already got his group, and, you know, I'm not gonna be a part of it. And, you know, Chase is like me times a 1,000, so whenever extroverts don't like hanging out with other extroverts, because only one person can take the spotlight, and it's just Right. There's no competing with Chase. No. But being a going there and being a part of it, I ended up having a great time and meeting all these people.
Justin:And if I'd stayed home, that would have never happened. Likewise, you know, starting, the Product People podcast allowed me to build relationships with all these people, and it seems like that's the key. If you're open to building relationships with people and that's your whole aim, and you are pursuing that in some way, whether it's, you know, going to events, starting a podcast, or whatever, I think that's the piece. You know? That that's the piece of just being open to meeting interesting people, staying in touch with them.
Jon:Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that. Yeah. I I think that the relationship building is is definitely key.
Jon:I think if you're trying to force it too much, it makes you look a little desperate.
Justin:Is that how you found your job at cards? How did you get a job there?
Jon:Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, like I said before, I'm I'm sort of, I guess, I'm definitely an introvert, but I can certainly get around that at times. So in let's see, in 2,008, I was moving to Chicago and lived here. Got laid off from a job due to the recession.
Jon:And then I was sort of doing freelance for a while, but forced myself to get out and join a coworking space and try to meet people and just, like, meet as many people in the design and development community within Chicago, which is actually pretty small when you get down to it. I got a job through the coworking space at company that ran it, which was a web design company, worked there for about 3 years. Ended up kinda going back to freelance on my own, but had met I think I met Max, one of the cofounders of cards through some other people I knew. It might have been Charles, one of the guys that started Kickstarter. Cause he was actually working out of the co working space as well.
Jon:Mhmm. And then we just sort of kept in touch and said, yeah, it was similar to you and I. Right? Well, hey, we should work on something together if we can. Yeah.
Jon:And then it sort of turned out that cards wanted to start their own web store alongside selling on Amazon. Max had gotten ahold of this other guy, Scott Robin, who was a Chicagoan. And Scott and I also met at some point at some other event. We knew each other pretty well. He's been at XOXO, and I'm looking at this picture of us at XO.
Jon:It's Scott's in the picture.
Justin:Oh, no way.
Jon:So yeah. So so Scott and I Scott reached out to me and said, hey, Max talked to me about starting the card store. Do you wanna help me out with it? I know we've always talked about working together. Let's do it.
Jon:And I'm like, yeah, that sounds great. So we started on as contractors and then both eventually got hired on full time. So again, yeah, it's all, it's all relationships. I mean, you can, if you can get out of your bubble and if you're an introvert and just, I'm not necessarily saying go to parties and like, try to talk to people at parties or whatever, whatever makes you uncomfortable. Yeah.
Jon:But you gotta get out and meet people. And like, I think most of my success has been attributed to that. Yeah. And most of the, the most of the opportunities I've found are through creating these relationships and keeping them open and sort of, you know, keeping in touch with people. Yeah.
Jon:There's just a lot to say about that.
Justin:Yeah, totally. I've been trying to articulate exactly what you just said forever, which is almost all of the opportunities in my life, but also all of these people I've interviewed, all of the opportunities come from the relationships that they've built. It's not from, like, they were born with the right skills. It's not even, they were born, you know, with rich parents. All that stuff helps, but it's all almost all of the major movements in their life happened as a result of meeting people.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:And there's there's really no other way you can do it. I think the other thing that helps you find a co founder is to build your own stuff and tell people about it.
Jon:Yeah, absolutely.
Justin:What makes someone interesting is if if they've if they're creating things, and it's almost like when you meet someone for the first time, you'll be like, okay. Well, what do you, you know, what do you do? What are you into? And if they say, well, I have a YouTube channel where I have autonomous drones fight each other, Better believe it. I'm gonna go check that out.
Justin:You know?
Jon:Oh, yeah.
Justin:Like, that's interesting.
Jon:Yeah. You know, you said you had podcasts. I think I went to listen to a few of those, and, you know, I was probably talking about the podcast thing I was working on, but I've, you know, I've launched and ed failed at launching a, a number of other things in the past. And like, you know, there's still things you could point to and show people, and someone might get excited about it.
Justin:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And you want people to be able to check something out when if, you know, if later they're like, oh, man. That person is really interesting.
Justin:I'm gonna look him up on Twitter. What does your bio say? You know? Does it just say that, you know, you're INFP or whatever?
Jon:Right. You have
Justin:to you have to be able to show something. And, so if you're not publishing your own stuff or creating your own stuff consistently, I think it's going to be hard to find, to find a co founder. There has to be something that people can grab on to and go, oh, wow. I really like what this person has made.
Jon:Mhmm. Yeah. And you get sort of get to learn something about that person without talking directly to them, I think, A little bit about how they think, how they think, and how they work.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Why don't we move on to what should folks look for in a cofounder? What do you think?
Justin:What are some of the things that you you were looking for and you think are important?
Jon:Usually, it's, you know, something around some some skill that I can't necessarily do on my own or or don't really have much expertise in. Like I said, I'm for the most part of my developer. I do do a lot of design work that I've just sort of learned on my own through the years. Mhmm. So as far as, you know, a cofounder would be most likely someone who's, like, a much better designer than I am, or let's say in your case, sort of like marketing, I guess, for lack of a better term, marketing and just like getting people excited about our product.
Jon:I can't, I, I don't have a great network to do that. Like, I, I have ideas about it, but it's not necessarily my, my skills. So, definitely complementary skills Mhmm. With well, I think with some some overlap is good. Complementary skills with, like, similar values for those skills?
Justin:Values is really important, I think. One of the things we did early on when we were talking about this was, we just talked about, like, what do you value? Like, what are what are some of the things that you think are important? And we had some discussions around, you know, there's been this this recent trend where folks that were born in the eighties and kind of grew up expecting that the Internet was gonna be this, like, utopia.
Jon:Mhmm.
Justin:We've we've become disenfranchised by, you know, how tech has become so yucky and addictive and, taking advantage of people and, really almost unhealthy in the way it grabs people's attention. And we were able to have this really cool conversation around what do we value? Well, we kind of value mindful technology, like technology that's good for the mind, good for the soul. And there was something about podcasts in particular where I was just like, you know, it doesn't demand your your eyes be focused on the, you know, screen. You can do it, like, while you're walking.
Justin:It's easy to, like, turn it off and just enjoy a moment.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:And that discussion about common values, I think, is for sure, we're gonna have disagreements along the way. But to have some overlap and say, you know what? We both value this thing. But if, you know, if I had said, you know, I just really wanna, like, take advantage of people psychologically.
Jon:Right. Right. I wanna make the stickiest podcast app with the most notifications to really draw you back in.
Justin:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that part's super important.
Justin:You know? And this is gonna come down to, like, what, like, you know, what you look for in a cofounder. But if you're kind of a negative person or you're kind of always, you know, you don't get really fired up about things, there is something to be said about some passion.
Jon:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Passion's huge.
Justin:And, I mean, passion isn't like everything. I think this whole follow your passion thing is a bit BS. But, you know, if you're someone who's just kind of I've had people approach me for partnerships. And when I when I talk to them, I'm like, I just do not wanna hang out with you every day. Like, you're you're you're a drag on me emotionally.
Justin:You want someone with some positivity maybe is what I'm saying. And, you maybe you need to look at what you're putting out on Twitter and on, you know, other things. If if there's a lot of negativity there, that would turn me off personally. You're you're all just like dating, like, you're trying to put off some genuineness, but you also you gotta sometimes catch yourself. Like, if you're always being negative, it's not gonna play well.
Jon:Yeah. Speaking yeah. Speaking of that, I I haven't done. I don't think I've tweeted in a long time because I felt like my mindset was very negative and I was putting out negative stuff. Part of that is, you know, the part of that was the, the last election.
Jon:But, yeah. So I don't know. Maybe I'll get back into it at some point. I'm not quite in the same mindset. But
Justin:The other thing, trustworthy is 1. So I just spending time with you, John, I I felt like there was enough time where we had face to face kinda interaction that and this is this is completely subjective. Yeah. Like, this this could've this could still blow up in my face. You could be a serial killer, and I would not know it, or or I or I could be a serial killer.
Justin:Screw. Spending time with people face to face at least gives you a sense of what's this person's life like, you know, how trustworthy do they seem.
Jon:Right.
Justin:And then you almost need kind of years of, you know, chats here and there, years of touch points before you can kind of go, is there enough evidence here that makes me think I could probably trust this person?
Jon:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Trustworthiness, it's it's following through with what they say they're gonna do, I think, is a big part of it.
Justin:Yeah. And, also, I think some vulnerability. Again, like dating, you wouldn't wanna be too vulnerable right away, but Yeah. You and I have been really vulnerable, you know, just talking about our personal lives
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:But also just vulnerable in terms of, you know, here's some things I tried before, and they didn't work out. Being willing to share some deeper things, that's how you build trust. You you're kinda putting your little soul, your little delicate soul out and going, okay, I'm, you know, I'm putting this out here. Don't hurt me too bad.
Jon:Right.
Justin:And if if the other person takes that with care, I think, there's something to be said about that too.
Jon:Yeah. Absolutely.
Justin:Now let's go into the final kind of stage, which is action steps for the listener. So we've we've described our story. We've talked about some of the lessons we learned. What are some things that, you know, you did when you're putting together Transistor that you think other people should follow?
Jon:You know, obviously, make sure you're excited about the idea. Let it let it stew in your head for a bit. And if if it doesn't go away and you keep wanting to do it, then, like, push forward and do it. Try to do things legally, from the get go. You know, once you have enough of of a product built, find a lawyer, find something like Stripe Atlas to sort of get things set up, legally.
Justin:I didn't even think about this, but we haven't talked we'll maybe talk about product validation in a a future episode. But one reason I got excited about this is I think I feel like the timing is right for a podcast hosting app. And in particular, you already had this huge win, which was Cards Against Humanity was on the platform. And that's a product of your network and your experience and all those things. And, you know, if you having a customer already is that's that's like it's not, I was I just was talking about this the other day.
Justin:Getting someone to pay you once isn't validation. Like, you need them to pay you over and over again. But Yeah. It when you're starting out, having, you know, one customer and being able to then go to new customers, which is what I'm going to be doing a lot and saying, listen. We already have this company using us, and they love it.
Justin:And here's their
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:Their, their site. I'll list it in the show notes. John's already mentioned it, but the good news podcast dot f m, if you wanna check it out. But that was huge. You know?
Justin:It's not just an idea you were passionate about, but you were able to build enough of a thing that someone was able to use it and say, yeah, this is good.
Jon:Yeah. Exactly. And it was it was pretty bare bones. But, yeah, that that customer in particular was a huge win because it was a popular brand. It was, came instantly day 1 with a lot of listeners.
Jon:It's popular. It validated the, like, technology behind the service that it works for that amount of listeners. Everyone around the office who is also a podcaster. So if there's a lot of podcasts being recorded in in the Cartoon Community office, we have 2 private, recording studios. 1 is like a professional radio style studio.
Jon:So there's all kinds of podcasts being recorded here and everyone who saw the software, even in some sort of unfinished state was like, wow, this is great. Like, I can't wait till I can use it. Like, when can I sign up? Can you send me an invite? So that was, that was also a great validation.
Jon:You know, the, the people using it, even though it's not finished, love it and find it easy to use. And, so yeah, if you can get, if you can get early customers who are okay with something that's not necessarily a 100% complete, but, like, the core of it is done, then that's that's absolutely, worthwhile to do.
Justin:Definitely make sure that you have a good product and a good market.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:Do it do things legally. Sign up for, Stripe Atlas. There's another thing called, 500 Startups has a keep it simple legal docs for startups. I'll link to that in the show notes. But definitely definitely make sure that you do things right.
Justin:Even if you really, really, really like the person, get a lawyer involved. Spend it's not huge amounts of money. I think we've spent, you know, a couple $100 on Yeah. On contracts and stuff. And just do it the right way.
Justin:It sets the expectations. Okay. I'm protected. You're protected. Now and that helps with trust as well.
Justin:We can move forward with this thing Mhmm. That we want to succeed. We don't know if it's gonna succeed. We wanna keep keep liking each other. We don't know what's gonna happen.
Justin:Like, all these things, it just helps so much.
Jon:Yeah. I think it'll it'll probably save for the amount of money and time it took to do it upfront, I think it'll probably save 10 times that amount of time and money down the road if something were to go wrong.
Justin:Yeah. Exactly. And we talked about this before, but I really urge you to be upfront about your values. What do you value? Are does that align with the other person?
Justin:Mhmm. Your aspirations. What are you trying to get out of this? So, you know, we were both really clear. Like, this is what this is what we wanna get out of this.
Justin:I I'd also say how we wanna organize it. That was the first thing the lawyer asked us is, okay. Are you guys raising money? And Yeah. We we hadn't really talked about it, but, thankfully, we were aligned.
Justin:We were like, we wanna bootstrap this initially. And so there needs to be alignment there too. If one person really wants to go out and raise a bunch of money, but the other one wants to stay independent and bootstrapped, that's gonna be different. Right?
Jon:Yep.
Justin:So, be upfront about all of those things, and I think if you can hit those marks, there you're you'll probably be okay. Any anything else you think we should urge people to do in terms of finding a cofounder?
Jon:I mean, I would say kind of how how we found each other again, reiterating that building your own, building the relationships and and building a network of people and sort of going back to that quote of of, I forget how it goes exactly. It's like you make your own luck. Right? So like, you know, don't assume people who seem lucky are lucky. They're actually out there, like, you know, working hard and meeting people and keeping our open and building new relationships.
Justin:I think that is the thing. Like, the the luck that people see is almost always relational.
Jon:Yeah.
Justin:And sometimes it's circumstantial, you know, like your parents were rich. Okay. Well, that's circum that's a relationship, but and that's circumstantial. And, you know, Bill Gates was like he was like right by, was it Harvard? I don't know.
Justin:He he was right by a big school, and he was able to build relationships there, but he took advantage of the opportunities. Yeah. I was listening to the Michael Dell interview on, how I built this, and he was in Houston, and there was a big computer fair that came. So that's okay. That's lucky that it came to Houston, but he took advantage of that.
Justin:And what did he do? Did he just go out go around and just observe? No. He built relationships. It was the relationships he built at that trade show that enabled him to start Dell.
Justin:And so you really do make your own luck over time as you're, you know, meeting people, hanging out with people in real life, and building relationships, and it might take years.
Jon:Yeah. Yeah. And it might seem like luck as as sort of opportunities just pop out of nowhere, but I think it comes from from something in your history that you've been working hard at.
Justin:Exactly. Cool. Well, this was our first our first recorded episode. Hope you enjoyed it.
Jon:Yeah. I I have a I have a secret to tell. This was actually the first podcast I've ever recorded, so hope I didn't screw it up too much.
Justin:Wow.
Jon:But I'm look I'm looking forward to do more.
Justin:This is a big deal. Yeah. This is this is great. So if you wanna find out more about Transistor, transistor.fm. As we record this, it's March 2018.
Justin:You can sign up on our waiting list there. We're also on Twitter, transistor FM. We're on Instagram, transistor.fm, I believe. Yeah. And, this show, you can subscribe to it.
Justin:I might I might have to change this because I was realizing how hard it is to actually say this URL, but it's sas.transistor.fmsaas.transistor.fm. If you wanna get all the show notes for this and even just check out what a podcast website looks like on Transistor. John Buda, how can people find you online even though you're not tweeting?
Jon:I'm Twitter at John Buda. It's j0nbuda. Website, jonbuda.com. Instagram, John Buddha. The usual places with
Justin:See, people wanna check that out just to, like, see what you look like. Actually, this is what people need to do. Folks, if you're listening to this right now, if you can hear us talking and you've listened all the way to the end, I want you to tweet at John Buddha and say, hey. I'm listening to your show. Congrats on your first recorded podcast episode.
Justin:And that might give John enough, motivation to start tweeting again. So at John Buddha
Jon:It might it might do it.
Justin:Listening to the show. And we wanna experiment lots with podcast interactivity. So don't fail me, listeners. If you're listening to this, get John on Twitter. I'm, on Twitter, I'm m I Justin.
Justin:That's letter m, the letter I Justin. And my personal website's justinjacksondot ca. And, yeah, thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next episode. Beauty.
