Build in public
Welcome back, everybody. Another episode of Bootstrap Web. It's Friday. The sun is out. It's the last week of school.
Jordan Gal:Next week's, like, last week of school for for our kids. It's almost summer.
Brian Casel:Very nice. Yep. I think we I think we have about two like, week and a half left for my kids. So we're we're gearing up and then they'll be they'll be hanging around here for a week doing nothing and then they've got a couple weeks of of day camp for our trip.
Jordan Gal:Cool. Cool. Cool.
Brian Casel:Yeah. We're looking forward to it.
Jordan Gal:So short week this week. Felt very I didn't know what day it was the entire week.
Brian Casel:Oh, yeah.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. Was a week
Brian Casel:I forgot that Monday was So yeah. Like Tuesday on it was like everything was off by a day.
Jordan Gal:Yes. But let's talk about what we got done. What are we working on? What are we doing with ourselves here?
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:First, how's your back brother? Dude. What's going on?
Brian Casel:My You know, yeah. I've I've been having real Just tremendous pain in in the lower back for the last It's it's going on like six or seven weeks now. And so now, I'm like taking action and actually learning about this.
Jordan Gal:I saw your tweet too. About the chair like
Brian Casel:you Right. Oh yeah yeah yeah. Trying to change things. So I went to the doctor and everything and and so now I'm going to physical therapy a couple times a week. You know, Here's the thing that I wanna talk about.
Brian Casel:Okay. And some of this is probably gonna sound like super obvious like, yeah yeah, we we know all that. But I feel like it needs to be said because like, at least for me personally, I needed to be educated a little bit and and reminded of of why certain physical things are important. I'm I'm in I'm 41 years old. Right?
Brian Casel:And I've been in I've been in pretty Like just very good health like most of my adult life. Mhmm. And physical health, I've been totally fine. And even in the past, I'd say year and a half, two years, I I started to get really healthy. I lost a bunch of weight and got in shape and I was working out regularly for a year.
Brian Casel:And then still this year I started to get like physical issue after physical issue. Mhmm. Some sickness but then mostly like just body pains. And then I've Last seven weeks or so I've had this back pain. Usually these these back spasms happen and then they go away after two or three days.
Brian Casel:I pull a muscle here, I stretch, you know, it's like getting old like whatever like that. Starting to get used to that at this age. But this just set in and it and it did not leave and then it just kept getting worse and worse. And I'm like what the hell is going on? And look it's it's like stupid obvious but I feel like we need to talk about it.
Brian Casel:I sit in a chair so many hours every single day for my adult life. That takes a huge toll on our bodies. I know that most people listening do the same. Yeah. We have like standing desks and stuff and and even if we do you know exercise routines like like I've been doing and I've played sports and stuff like that.
Brian Casel:Still like you know five, six, seven hours a day sitting at a desk or even standing for multiple hours in the same spot, that takes a huge toll on our back and and body especially if you're transitioning from like your thirties into your forties. Like Mhmm. No matter no matter how fit you are that that kind of occupation, that this career takes a toll on your body, you know. And for me, it it sort of like set in very quickly. Like I My back was and then and then literally like one week it started hurting and then it just didn't stop hurting, you know.
Jordan Gal:So now you're learning about it and taking some action.
Brian Casel:So the thing that I learned is and and again, this is one of those things that that probably a lot of people are like, yeah, we know that. I I didn't really know this.
Jordan Gal:How can can ignore it until you can.
Brian Casel:Know I didn't actually didn't know the connection between like the hamstrings and your back. Okay. When I have when I have back pains, I'm not thinking about like my hamstrings and my legs. But it is actually lack of flexibility in the legs and the hamstrings and the glutes that that like impacts pain in your lower back. And that's a direct That is an absolute direct result from like sitting in a chair for hours a day for years on end.
Brian Casel:Know? Because like because when because it results in those in in in your hamstrings just becoming weak and inflexible and then your back overcompensates for that. When whenever you're like getting up or whenever you're doing things.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. So I'm unaware of anything that you're talking about at
Brian Casel:all. So so you know, I've I've always done like like light stretches. I've I've done a bit of yoga here and there more of a as like an exercise thing and and just to prevent injury when it comes to sports and when it comes to you know, working out. But I never thought about the importance of like doing like deep dedicated stretching on a regular basis as a as a back pain prevention thing. So so now like with the PT and I'm and I'm reading books about it and YouTubing and like like now like the the focus of my daily workouts is like stretching and especially hamstring stretching.
Brian Casel:And just in after a couple of days of this, like I'm already noticing an improvement in in the back pain. So it's it it's kind of amazing. It it it's kind of amazing to me like how even just a few days of this it's it's having an impact and like how how much like I I just wasn't educated on like the connection between the legs and the back and sitting all all the time.
Jordan Gal:Anyway. So there's hope.
Brian Casel:I feel like I I I needed to do like a public service announcement in this Yeah. Podcast because I know that so many of us are probably around our age and we're we're sitting so much like we we gotta be we we gotta be up on this. So I started googling and I and I stumbled into this Tim Ferriss video from years ago and then he referenced this guy. This like Polish weight lifting champion Gregorick. He has a book that I just ordered.
Brian Casel:Started reading called The Happy Body. And it's like this like textbook on like on stretching routines and flexibility and posture and strength training and So I'm I'm really getting into this and kinda taking it seriously and learning a lot and it's I mean I really I I recommend this thing called the happy body. You should check it out. And yeah. So there you go.
Jordan Gal:Very interesting. Makes me want a new chair, first of all. And yet to try to stay stay aware of the the sitting issue. I have a standing desk. When I worked in an office full of people, I would go at one point I went like a good twelve months without a chair at all.
Jordan Gal:I just stood the entire time and I loved it. Working from home, I found myself sitting almost all Yeah. Yeah. Once a week I'll remember, hey, let me stand up. Let me, you know, like put on some music or something, but not as much.
Jordan Gal:I do take a good thirty minute walk almost every day. So that's helpful. Same
Brian Casel:here.
Jordan Gal:I'd keep the workout but man, it's it's a good thing to keep in mind. I always keep in mind my my grandfather. Two things. First, he lived to 106. So Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Whatever he did worked. Yeah. When it comes to health. And when you would ask him
Brian Casel:Wow. 106.
Jordan Gal:Holy. I know. Truly pretty wild. Like nineteen o nine to 2015.
Brian Casel:Like Incredible.
Jordan Gal:No joke. Not my genes, unfortunately. He adopted my dad. Okay. My genes are like cancer and a heart attack.
Brian Casel:Right. Same here. Yep.
Jordan Gal:But number one, vegetarian his entire life. Oh, yeah. His entire life. The the whole thing. He did eat eggs.
Jordan Gal:I think that was like his hack around it. Just horrible things. And secondly, was outdoors. He was like, I was outdoors for almost my entire life. Working outdoors, physical work in the sun,
Brian Casel:just Yep.
Jordan Gal:Eating well, just healthy. Just a healthy active life. And we are so privileged to do what we do for a living but it is not an active life. No. God's not.
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:My brother owns a farm in Connecticut and he and he's like ripped because he because he's like out his whole life. Like he's he's working outside like hard labor, know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. For sure, man.
Jordan Gal:Well, look. We gotta we gotta get to work and we gotta retire and then we gotta go get outside.
Brian Casel:That's right. I think that's that's my plan. I you know, I I love tweeting about my my backyard office and
Jordan Gal:I I like your backyard office. That looks I
Brian Casel:love my backyard. It is We we've got a great spot back here and and so every year, this time of year like from spring through the summer, I spend most mornings out there work working out there. But I've had a You know, we have like these lounge chairs that I usually sit on. But that was just wreaking havoc on my back especially this year. So so I invested in some A new chair that I could use at the at the table outside.
Brian Casel:And then like I I lifted up the MacBook so it's like eye level and rigged up this whole like keyboard setup and yeah. Gotta make it work.
Jordan Gal:Cool. I like it. We we are about to get a table for our new deck. So I might I might follow your lead and see if I can get a little set up out there.
Brian Casel:Nice, man.
Jordan Gal:Alright. Well, busy week.
Brian Casel:Yes, sir. Mhmm. Yeah. I you know, I'm I'm still getting used to this. There's a lot of context switching between like consulting work and product work.
Brian Casel:But I I sort of like it in a way. I could talk a bit about like the I've been thinking this week about like consulting as a bootstrapping strategy and but that that's one thing on my mind and then I've got like this Clarity Flow Sprint that's starting to take shape. Some some things I'm working on there. What what what do you got going on over there?
Jordan Gal:So we are getting pretty close to publishing this website. Our our domain drama has ended. Hallelujah.escort.com. I hope I never interact with your service ever again. It was like it it did become comical at one point.
Jordan Gal:It was literally every touchpoint. Every touchpoint was like, no, that doesn't make any sense. How am I supposed to know what to do from here? Yep. And then the the last the last straw.
Jordan Gal:The last few straws was at some point I just get an email saying, your transaction's closed. Like, okay. Well do you mean? Yeah. What does closed mean?
Jordan Gal:You mean you sent our money over to the seller, but we don't have the domain. And they're like, oh, well now that we have the domain the the the you know transaction's closed. I'm like, guys, you are fundamentally misunderstanding why I used your service. I don't wanna give the money until I have the asset. So this is not how it works.
Jordan Gal:Once they have the asset, then they send the money. Okay. Fine. I'm I'm learning along the way. So then I say, okay, transfer the domain.
Jordan Gal:And like we can't. It's locked at GoDaddy.
Brian Casel:Oh my god.
Jordan Gal:Gmail accounts you know g Suite. Like you can't. There's already a g Suite attached to it. Like guys. But then we got it done and now we have we have new emails and we have the domain that we want and we're almost ready to publish the site.
Jordan Gal:So that's good. Yeah. This this week was was copywriting Mhmm. And trying to identify the benefits and the features that we wanna put out there. I had a bit of a tricky situation.
Jordan Gal:Maybe I should just talk about this. It it was an uncomfortable situation overall and maybe maybe sharing it is helpful.
Brian Casel:Let's hear it.
Jordan Gal:So we we have we have a design team that we work with that are awesome and the design that we were working on I thought was good. But it was missing this this added element of that that one of the designers who was on vacation, he he just brings that little extra touch of of style that that's his own that I personally really like. Mhmm. And I got into this very strange situation. That designer was on vacation.
Jordan Gal:And I didn't know I didn't know how to how to approach this. You know, it's They're both great. We've worked with them for literally years and years. And I didn't know how to say, can can can we get him to just like put an eye on this, you know, and just like bring it up that that
Brian Casel:extra Give it the give it the magic sauce.
Jordan Gal:Yes. And what I decided was that this is a professional setting and I need to be able to speak my mind regardless of the personal. And I just said, I'm sorry if this is offensive, but I I wanna go that next level to bring in his style that I personally really like and I hope I didn't do much damage to the relationship but I felt like I would regret not saying it.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:You're kinda tricky. Right? It's like these are these are like freelancers that you love to work with. I mean, they work with our team. They worked have We been
Brian Casel:dealt this a lot at audience ops. You know, we we had 20 writers on staff and and and we would know, it it got to be really tricky when So we would assign a writer to each client and that would be like their dedicated writer. Okay. But eventually that writer like moves on, leaves audience ops and then we have to like reassign another or the writer's taking vacation, have to assign someone else.
Jordan Gal:Right.
Brian Casel:And and then and then we would get into like issues where like the client would like want to handpick their writer from our team Or they don't like the the new one that was assigned. But like we we have to manage writer's availability and and all this different stuff. And like that was a really really tricky situation. And then and then yeah. We All the time we would deal with feedback like, I just don't like it.
Brian Casel:Like, yeah. It's correct but I don't like it. Make it better. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. Which is not, you know, that's difficult feedback to to to turn useful. Yep. But I think the combination of what the first designer did to get the site to where it is and then then the other one to come in and just get that little extra bit of of styling. I think I'm gonna be very happy about.
Jordan Gal:I'm already really happy. Yesterday was the first day that he worked on it and now I think it's kind of where it needs to be.
Brian Casel:You know, the only way to describe it is that like first like split second impression. Before you even read the words on the page, just looking at it. Because you you showed me the previous version.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And I looked at it and I was like, yeah, it's clean. It it does the job. It it Yep. It it it communicates what you need to communicate. It's not terrible.
Brian Casel:I was So that was okay. And then to This morning you you just sent me a Screenshot. Screenshot. Of the hero. And I was like, oh.
Brian Casel:Yep. That's like was like instant like, oh, this is so much better.
Jordan Gal:Yes. You know? And it's funny. It's a funny combination. Maybe maybe in some ways the process worked out in an ideal way because the first designer had to start with a blank page.
Jordan Gal:And that that's Mhmm. Really really hard. Yeah.
Brian Casel:And then
Jordan Gal:the other one came in and was like, oh, let me take all of this existing content with the structure, with the hero, and then the feature section, and this middle thing, and and then let me just basically focus entirely on how do I just like make this look cooler basically without having to think through. Does this make sense here? What do we need to do? If you wanna do a CTA at the bottom, what does that mean? So hopefully it just worked out the right way.
Jordan Gal:I'm happy I did it. It's I think
Brian Casel:it is always easier for anyone working on anything to edit an existing document than to start with a blank page.
Jordan Gal:Yes. You know? I
Brian Casel:I get into this a little bit in my consulting work. I find that upfront we talk about like the scope of of what we're gonna work on. It's typically a UI interface. I'm I'm building something out with Tailwind and HTML and everything. And you know, I'll list out like what what I'm gonna be working on and like the scope.
Brian Casel:More for like from the proposal standpoint. Like this is what I'm building and these things I'm not building. It's not included. Right? So as long as we're clear on that, I I don't wanna spend too much time like just talking about what I'm going to build theoretically and describing this and every this and that feature.
Brian Casel:It's just so much faster and easier for me to like, let me build out version one and get it in front of you and then we can pick it apart and and that's just a much more efficient efficient workflow. Mhmm. You know, the sooner you can get a version one on the page, the better it is for everyone I think.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I mean I I do the same thing. You know, one of my employees basically knows my style now and I'll say one of the most important parts of the week was coming up with our our CTA and our process for launch. Right? The the product isn't ready to take people on especially not in a self serve way, but we wanna launch the website.
Jordan Gal:You know, one should not wait up for the other. So we have to think through, well, okay, what are we doing? You know, we're gonna do a wait list. That's like ours. So it's like do you call it early access?
Jordan Gal:You call it a wait list? And then we wanna do the right thing which is to sell the benefits of the wait list or the early access. So what I said was, Sam, just get it let's just get a document together and just list out 10 benefits of early access programs. And then then we have a call and we have a conversation about that and that is infinitely easier than looking at a blank document together and saying, so what what what are the benefits of an early access? Right?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. If you have someone on your team go and spend an hour basically looking around. I mean we we found this great article with Heat and Shaw about early access program. You know, just kinda do the research basically and then come to the manager or the person to level up and say instead of what should we do about this? It's here's a document.
Jordan Gal:Here here's an hour's worth of work and ideas. Now, let's get some feedback and get the conversation going.
Brian Casel:Hi. I'm trying to think, you know, because I know you're you're thinking through what is what are you doing for early access. Mhmm. I'm trying to think about how I think about this today. I think there's a lot of things that we just see so many other startups do that like everyone just does like, alright.
Brian Casel:Well, I guess this is what all SaaS startups
Jordan Gal:do
Brian Casel:for this or that.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Zeitgeist best practices.
Brian Casel:You know, and I and I'm finding time and time again that like so much of that is like, this That doesn't apply to most SaaS. And for some reason, everyone seems to think that's the way to do And and I I think that this applies to so many different categories whether it's SEO or page design or product design or onboarding, whatever it might be. Mhmm. Yeah. Think free
Jordan Gal:trials. Yeah. All these all these different things.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:People just want the norm. Like, what am I supposed to do?
Brian Casel:Yeah. People What am I What does what does that company do? Let's just do that, you know. Yep. So, with early access,
Jordan Gal:I
Brian Casel:think I kinda think that like, it it works to call it early access and to and to promote the benefits of joining the wait list Mhmm. Only if only if the product is designed to be like, let's build up some hype and some viral and shareability of like this product existing. Like if you want this to like go do really well on product hunt and like, if if there's gonna be lots of us kinda scammering to be the first one to to get our hands on the beta so that we can use it and then talk about it and tweet about it. Mhmm. That's where like early access and and like
Jordan Gal:Wait lists.
Brian Casel:Be Like the the excitement over getting in on the early access, that's that's where there's value there. Sure.
Jordan Gal:I mean, that that's the ideal
Brian Casel:but But I think on the other hand, maybe maybe in most cases, like for me, if I'm launch If I'm putting myself in your shoes in this type of product that is being sold to small businesses who probably aren't tweeting about the product very much. Yep. Then then I don't really I I don't know that even labeling it early access or pre launch or beta or any of that is helpful. I I don't think it is. I think that the I think what I would wanna be learning is what is it like to be on a sales call for this product with the target customer?
Brian Casel:How does that conversation go? How can I get myself into real Like as real as possible sales Like make them think that the product is available now
Jordan Gal:Mhmm?
Brian Casel:Even though it's not. Just make them think that. Get on a sales call with them and start to hear what are the what are their requirements? What are what are the questions they're asking? What are what are their must have features?
Brian Casel:How what would it look like to close this sale if this product existed? Know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. That's I would want
Brian Casel:me learning.
Jordan Gal:Okay. So now now we're arguing and this make makes me very happy. Alright. Okay. So here I'll I'll I'll not push back but I'll clarify my thinking on it.
Jordan Gal:So Mhmm. There is something magical to companies and products that are able to build that hype around a wait list. Like I think that's magic. If you can do that, that is incredible. Or if you can get 10,000 people to join for your new credit card or something, I think that's amazing.
Jordan Gal:I don't know how to do that. And I don't Yeah.
Brian Casel:But I also think that that kind of thing it depends on what type of product it is.
Jordan Gal:That's right. If it's like a consumer product
Brian Casel:even like like tech people like us, like we talk about Right. Products but
Jordan Gal:like really well. Here's a debit card that you you know creates like gives you Bitcoin or whatever. Okay. Cool. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:So that's not what we're going for. Mhmm. So I I agree with you that the goal of launching the website before the product is fully ready is to get feedback. There are ancillary benefits like testimonials and whatever else more social proof, that sort of thing. But I agree with you, the goal is to have a conversation with the real prospect and hear from them.
Jordan Gal:So we had two choices and really it's centered around the CTA. The the CTA option one is sign up for a demo. Yeah. Get on a call. Talk to us.
Jordan Gal:Whatever you wanna whatever verbiage you're using Mhmm. The call to action is set up a time to talk. Yep. And I agree that is the goal. Now here's here's option two.
Jordan Gal:Option two is lower the hurdle to interaction. So setting up a demo with a Calendly link and a time to talk is a pretty high hurdle. You can lower that significantly with an email field. Basically get notified when it's ready, wait list, early access, however you want to phrase it, but that's that lower hurdle, action. Okay.
Jordan Gal:Now the the I think the thing that convinced me to go with option two is that you're not you're doing two things. You're getting two benefits. The the one benefit that you're getting is it's a much lower hurdle and more people are able to ostensibly a higher portion of traffic will convert because it's a lower hurdle. Just put your email address in because you're interested. The pool of people who are willing to put their email address in is larger than the pool of people who are willing to sign up for a demo.
Jordan Gal:Okay. The second benefit of that which isn't really a benefit, it's like the absence of a of a pain is you don't rule out the ability to sign up a demo. So all we're gonna do when we collect the email address, the first email that we sent to them saying you're on the waitlist will have a link if you wanna talk. Here's a way to schedule a demo. So I think we're getting the best of both worlds.
Brian Casel:I think the I hear you but I I think that the challenge of that of of just the wording of it of calling it early access like, yeah, may maybe an email is lower barrier than Like yes. It it Like just entering an email address instead of like scheduling a demo call is definitely lower barrier to entry. I I I agree with you there. But but I think if you're telling people that it's an early access or or a waiting list for a product that doesn't exist yet, you're gonna attract the wrong people. There that's business owner, the the actual buyer for this product, they they they might They're they're probably gonna look at that like, that's a that's a negative.
Brian Casel:That that that this product is so new. That that it's so new that that it that it's early access. It's not even ready yet. I'm gonna be a beta Like small business owners don't wanna be beta testers.
Jordan Gal:Yes. It's it's really like going after early adopter tech forward small
Brian Casel:the the other thing that I found in the past by using that verbiage of like early access is is that it does attract the the the earliest of early adopters.
Jordan Gal:The curious.
Brian Casel:The curious. So so it starts to attract, in your case, will attract competitors to just poke around For sure. Make you think that they're customers when they're not. Mhmm. But it also brings in these people who are like, they're maybe they're consultants to small businesses.
Brian Casel:Maybe they're white They they want to be white label partners. Yes. Yes. And they're And honestly, that's a bunch of noise. Like, yeah, you might get a good partner here and partnership here and there, but like for the most part, especially early on in my experience, people coming to coming into the list, participating in a survey, participating in a quote unquote sales call, but really they just wanna take your app and wrap it into their own thing and sell it to their own clients.
Brian Casel:That's a bunch of noise and they're gonna give you all these feature requests that your end customer doesn't really care about, you know. And they can send you down rabbit holes. That's the
Brennan Dunn:Fair enough.
Brian Casel:That's the thing that I would wanna put caution on. Like, it it To me, it's it Yeah. Put just just an email. Make it like, just sign up here, you know. Keep it vague and and then on the other side like, you know, alright.
Brian Casel:They're they're one step into the funnel. Maybe the next step is to have them get on a call and then
Jordan Gal:Right. It's like, thank you for your interest. Set up a time to talk type of thing. So we we have their email address but it's not an account. Okay.
Jordan Gal:No. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm doing. When we're done with this podcast, what we're what we're meeting on is to finalize the CTA approach.
Brian Casel:So because the most important thing is is is the conversations that you get into.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Think.
Brian Casel:And and who they're with and what you can learn about. To me, I I just wanna find out like what does it take to sell this product.
Jordan Gal:True. And what do they care about? And what questions are they asking? How much are they willing to pay? I had a good conversation with our product manager, and she came to me and basically said, is there anything that you need us to prioritize for your sales conversations?
Jordan Gal:And I was like, absolutely not. Do whatever you're gonna do where wherever we are on the product and engineering should have no bearing on those conversations. Those people Yeah. Who wanna see it that early, wherever we currently are, that's what we'll show them. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And we'll get the feedback. So maybe those
Brian Casel:those calls the same way I would like The difference between having the product ready versus not having it ready, I'm mostly gonna be approaching those calls the same way. I'm I'm gonna be asking them a lot of questions about like, what what's What do you need? Like, why do you need it? Mhmm. What are you looking for?
Brian Casel:What what other options have you considered, you know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I don't. I don't care if I don't have an admin to show them. I don't none none of that matters. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It'll just change along the way over the next few weeks and then and then we'll be better for every conversation that we have. Mhmm. Absolutely. Yeah, man. Alright.
Jordan Gal:Well The goal is to publish on like Tuesday, Wednesday. So I'll I'll definitely And read about I will I think you and I over the next few weeks, we're gonna have we're gonna have some more debates around build in public. Because building this in public, I see almost no benefit. Yeah. It's just to talk to potential competitors and friends on Twitter.
Jordan Gal:None of the none of the customers are gonna be like, oh, look at the hype that he's building around
Brian Casel:this another thing that that's sort of I I don't know where it originated but it came up this week. I guess there's some sort of like Twitter, stupid Twitter debate over build in public that that popped up. I saw a few people tweeting about it. What And I I think I I wrote one tweet that for me the the thing the thing that always bothered me about quote unquote build in public is how it became known as this like marketing strategy. Like to me it's never been a marketing strategy.
Brian Casel:Like to me building in public is Like us doing this podcast is building in public to me. Like Yeah. We're we're just sharing
Jordan Gal:If we're marketing, we would tweet about it more. Yeah.
Brian Casel:And to me it's like for the fun of it and and sharing the craft and sharing our approach to building our businesses and this is how I wanna Look, to me we are so incredibly lucky to be in an industry where so many of us are openly sharing the ins and outs of what we're working on, how we work on it, our craft, our decision process, our strategies, and just being incredibly incredibly open. Like 99% of other industries do not share the way that we do. And that to me is like building in public. That It's a it's a huge benefit that we have of just doing what we do for a living.
Jordan Gal:Sharing. That's right.
Brian Casel:You know. And then you know of course like it gets wrapped up in like sharing revenue graphs and then that attracts eyeballs and tweets and likes and emails and then that. Then I guess it does sort of turn into a marketing strategy but to me that's never that's never been the point. It's just like I I learn from watching how other people build and so I and I also just like to share stuff and get feedback on it. And so like that's why that to me is build in public, know.
Brian Casel:And it always bothered me that like people like us who do build in public and share just for the hell of it because we actually enjoy doing it. We get kinda wrapped into this wave of stupid VIP marketing strategy that like And and then there's like debates over whether or not you should you should be building in public. Like, to me like, yeah. Share. Like, it's helpful for for all of us.
Brian Casel:So just do it, you
Jordan Gal:know? Yes.
Brian Casel:I I'm you know, and then there's strategic considerations like, yeah. You don't wanna share stuff that you don't want your your competitor Your direct competitors to see. Fine. But like, don't don't not build in public because some folks on Twitter are saying like that's the uncool thing to do anymore, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yes. I think it was Adam Wathen that that wrote a tweet that
Brian Casel:I Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Felt compelled to respond to. Yeah. Me me too. I think
Brian Casel:he responded to some other debates that were going on too.
Jordan Gal:Right. He was just kinda talking out into the air because the conversation was just happening out there. What he wrote was that building public was never a thing to focus on. The thing that works is teaching because it establishes authority. Building public only works if your customers are the same people who are interested in things that you're learning to build their products.
Jordan Gal:Like, okay. If you're teaching directly to your potential customers, that's directly marketing, building in public authenticity and Yeah. Authority like that's very direct. What I think people got carried away with was how awesome it feels to, you know, to brag when things are going well. People give you great feedback and they love you at least, you know, that's what they publicly say and it feels really good and when you tell people that it keeps growing, it does give a sense of momentum and that people get intoxicated by and and build in public like the the most the base form of it is just bragging in public and it generates more envy than it does authority other than, hey, they're succeeding therefore they must be good, smart, you know, have the right idea, the product good, all this other stuff.
Jordan Gal:That's where that's where I have recoiled over the years on the building public.
Brian Casel:I think I do too. I like Especially the ones like the posts that are just very braggy and just like you're you're literally just saying like what your MRR level is like how is that helping? Right. Yeah. That to me and But also to me, like that's not even To me, that's not build in public.
Brian Casel:People will call that build in public. But we we've been building in public way before all that shit started and like Yeah. That's just bragging, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay.
Brian Casel:You know. But like I'm good at that. But to me, there are plenty of folks who actually build things and share their work in public. You know, like Mhmm. Their their decision process just questioning things in public.
Brian Casel:Like what's the best way to do this? Or Mhmm. What if I what if I did this? Like throwing it out there. Yeah.
Brian Casel:We are we are a public industry. And like what I what I wrote in response to Adam was you know, it always bothered me that that building public became a marketing strategy. And to me, this is the thing like, we are lucky to work in this industry that openly shares. And like just think about how much harder this all would be if nobody shared their work. If we were all in one of the many other industries where like literally the Think about this.
Brian Casel:Like if if the only way to learn how to do what we do was to go to school for it.
Jordan Gal:Oh my goodness.
Brian Casel:Or to read a textbook.
Jordan Gal:Right. Go work at some big company where you hopefully, you know, some of the the experience of others.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Think about if there were no podcasts and there were no real time people tweeting or YouTubing and sharing how they are building stuff or going on interviews and sharing the story of how they built a startup. Like think about if we were in an industry where none of that was public. I mean, yeah of course there's textbooks and of course there's like courses and industry and university classes you could take but all that stuff is outdated and it's super dense and you're not gonna learn. You're not gonna learn how to really build stuff, you know?
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:I I I like it. I like it.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But I I I think what you're getting at with with your product here is So you're you're a little hesitant to like share the nitty gritty because you you do have a hyper competitive space that you're operating in.
Jordan Gal:It's hyper competitive. Yeah. But it will be hyper competitive. It is really counterproductive to talk too much about it publicly. Yesterday, a sixteen z has great content overall.
Jordan Gal:But they have been writing up these like thesis around individual AI categories. Mhmm. And yesterday they came out with their AI voice agent thesis. I was like, oh damn. Obviously, I I gotta read that.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. You know they make one of those what are those called like the matrix that shows the logos of of where companies live.
Brian Casel:Oh, okay.
Jordan Gal:You know, in in the in the market. And there's one for local services, local businesses. And it's it's not crowded and I know all the companies in it from all the research of the last few weeks and nothing there is like really impressive. Mhmm. So I look at that, I'm like that thing's gonna get filled up.
Jordan Gal:It's and and if you if you read their thesis and then you look at that graphic, effectively what their thesis says is that that specific segment is going to get crowded because it's unlikely that a very very horizontal product is going to satisfy everyone because there are just different needs.
Brian Casel:Right.
Jordan Gal:So Yeah. Because of that the this verticalization will proliferate for a while and you know the that that category in particular has a ton of verticals. If you just think of every type of local business, there are many Mhmm. Individual types.
Brian Casel:Yep.
Jordan Gal:So I look at that and I'm gonna I'm gonna shut my mouth and if things are if you don't hear much from me and I stopped doing this podcast, it means things are going really well.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually just looking at the graphic now. So, yeah. I see like the
Jordan Gal:I'll just interview you. You know, if things boom, I'll just It'll just be, you know, me asking prior questions.
Brian Casel:I like your I feel like your phase of of the product startup thing is like more exciting than than mine right now. But
Jordan Gal:Well, you know, I haven't hit reality yet. I'm still in in the planning phases.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But I think this also goes back to what we were just talking about with like the with the early access stuff. Right? Like like building public is not necessarily going to Again, if you if you're thinking about it like a marketing strategy, it's not the way to get in front of your end customers who are gonna be the ideal candidates for phone calls, you know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. That's right. And and I What I really like about that is it definitely takes out any like any need for like the founder being out there and like talking about it all the time. Like this just this just not relevant. Yes.
Jordan Gal:I can see events and in person events and other things and you know, maybe podcast and that type of thing but it's just not not a big element of it. It's like how effective is your funnel is really what it comes down to. How effective is your distribution, your partnerships, your visibility, your SEO, your you know, your Instagram like that's that's everything.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yeah. For sure.
Jordan Gal:What do you got going on? What's happening?
Brian Casel:I've got I've got You know, I'm spending a good at least half of my week now every week working with I I take on about two clients at a time where I'm doing you know, UI work on on their SaaS businesses. And I've been doing this for several months now and you know, so I'm like reintroducing the balance between consulting and working on my products business. I went many years there, like like a lot of years where I was not doing any consulting. And now I'm sort of like cycling back to it. I've I've talked about that.
Brian Casel:So you know, I I'm in this split split mindset or or split like logistically every week I'm literally splitting my time. A few days a week I'm focused on these client projects that are not my own business' projects. And then the other days of of the week I'm you know, turn like turning my focus back to Clarity Flow. Or I'm hacking on some some seeds of of other new product ideas. And I'm starting to really reflect on like You know, you were just talking about like the the landscape of of like, you know, AI products.
Brian Casel:And I'm I'm thinking about like the landscape of like startup approaches. Right? Okay. And I feel like there's been, at least in my view from from where I sit or in my feeds or whatever, we've sort of gotten away from what it means to be a true bootstrapper, self funded and consulting and actual like actively doing products businesses while doing consulting work with clients. I think that there are so so so many people who are in that boat, but there's But there are not a lot of people like talking about the the strategic approach to balancing the two.
Jordan Gal:Okay. Why? Why
Brian Casel:most people think of consulting as like, look, that's just a way to pay the bills.
Jordan Gal:That's all Right. Okay.
Brian Casel:That's all it is. That's all
Jordan Gal:it's Less good than and the goal is really this efficient product.
Brian Casel:Yeah. There's also but there's also like, I I did a I put out a tweet this week because I was thinking about it like, it's not like, yeah, of course consulting it it's it helps with cash flow. It helps with pay the bills, of course. But there are other benefits to it. Alright.
Brian Casel:Number one is you're putting in more reps. So in my in my case, I do UI product work on other SaaS products. And so that's literally putting in more and more reps. Like my craft of designing interfaces and user experience and working with Tailwind and Alpine JS and Stimulus and Rails. I'm I'm getting exposure to more and more projects.
Brian Casel:And in my case when I do consulting work, I'm still starting these projects fresh. Like I I'm giving them like a new fresh components library that they can then take back to their teams. So again and again now, I'm starting up fresh code bases and I'm building the same things over and over again. Like my my drop downs component, my modals component, my stimulus controller for this, my stimulus controller for that, my Alpine component for this, my the way that I you know style with with Tailwind like these inner So I'm using the same patterns over and over again. But every time I'm doing it a little bit better, I'm learning more you know better tricks, I'm improving my design chops.
Jordan Gal:So like. This is like sharpening the tools here.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm sharpening but I'm I'm also literally building things or taking things that I've built in the past and sharpening those like the components and these are literally things that I can take right back into my own products. You know, not only my skills but like literally coded components that I can I can use to speed up and improve my product workflow? I mean, the other thing about it is that like it it freshens my approach. So like, if I'm working with a client and in most cases, I'm I'm new to like, the project is new to me. So so it has that new project energy.
Brian Casel:It has like like, yeah. I wanna really dig in and do a good job here because I I I creative Like, I really care about the craft of of designing a really great user experience and and interface. And and it's even super refreshing for me to do that on somebody else's prod product rather than the one that I've been grinding on for years. Like I start to lose that that new project energy in in my own project. So getting to do that on a on a new project kind of It's you know, the sports analogy.
Brian Casel:Like like in it in like the NBA playoffs, like you you step up your game a little bit because it it matters more. Mhmm. It's that same sort of feeling. Right? Like like it's gotta be perfect.
Brian Casel:It's gotta be like I don't know. So so it's like a chance to sharpen all the things. Sharpen the components because I have that new energy and then I can take what I've sharpened and bring it back into my own products. So like literally one one of the things that I spend about like about one day a week right now. I talked about how I'm starting to explore new product ideas.
Brian Casel:I did sort of pause the actual starting of new products but I'm still laying the groundwork for starting new products in the near future. And I'm talking about like small seeds of ideas. Mhmm. But part of the reason why starting up a new product is such a huge lift is because there's so much other shit that you gotta do besides actually designing the product. It's like, for me it's like the rails new.
Brian Casel:Right? It's you're you're starting up a new app and you're laying out all the groundwork and all the all the scaffolding of of everything that you need. The the layouts, the authentication, the all of it. Like the admin
Jordan Gal:Mostly figured out at least, you know, where
Brian Casel:So there are
Jordan Gal:Now it's a few days. Is is that not
Brian Casel:It's the not exactly that. Of course, there are all these like popular starter app frameworks that you can just buy off the shelf and I've used a bunch of them in the past. And what I found is that they end up, even even as nice as many of them are, they they end up adding a lot more bloat to your to your app than you want and you end up having to rip a lot of stuff out and recode things and it becomes slower and and it's actually not ideal. To me, in my experience, it's actually better to build everything from scratch. Put together my preferred components for each thing and and I know exactly what I put in there.
Brian Casel:I know exactly what I chose not to put in there And I know how everything works. I can customize everything the way that I want. But every time I start a new app, I'm still doing all that again. So so now I've I've started to build out my own starter app framework.
Jordan Gal:Okay. I was gonna say, at some point you you kinda get to a place where you're better off using your stuff.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And in the past few years, when I was focused only on a single app, you know, Clarity Flow, it it did not make sense for me to build out my own starter framework because I was only working on one app. I wasn't doing lots of client projects. I wasn't trying lots of seeds of new ideas. But now that I've I've done several new Rails apps just in the last few months for for clients.
Brian Casel:And I'm building a lot of these same components again. So so now I'm like, look I can I should be building and maintaining my own starter framework? Pulling the best pieces from all these different projects. And this And then it's like, you know, taking taking that and and so now any future client projects I do, I'm I literally like cut my time in half. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:That's that's optimal and I can still give incredible value to clients because it's like the best of the best is is there. And I'm building out my own framework that like, I've got several product ideas. Little tiny tools that that I even started building here and there because I I just need them for my own use. But now I can go right to building the tool, the feature with my framework already figured out. Know?
Brian Casel:Yeah. That's kind of exciting but it's you know, just like the last point on this. The Like this is about like strategically using consulting as a bootstrapper is it gives me the freedom to take my time. Like, I I'm not on a timeline. I can I can take these weeks and I could spend just a day or two?
Brian Casel:Like, I am actively spending like, you know, two At least two weekdays a week like working on my own stuff whether it's Clarity Flow or or a new product. So so I'm not getting completely booked up with with client work like, you know, by design. Yeah. But I have the freedom and flexibility now financially to sustain this as long as I wanna go. As slow as I wanna go, you know.
Brian Casel:And and I'm not like rushing to find like a a product or a growth strategy that's gonna that's gonna nail the the runway target by some date. Know, that's that's the big benefit of bootstrapping and and being purely self funded. Know, and and you know, it's just something that like I I don't think that a lot of people talk about. A lot of people don't. A lot of people like to hide the fact that they're consulting and they only talk about their startup.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. Or people focus so heavily on like getting funded and going all in on a single product idea and not being profitable for however long that takes. And I think that's a that's a great approach for so many companies. But for a lot of us out here, it's You gotta you gotta make it work but I think it's important to think strategically about like, use your consulting for more than just cash. Use it to actually power your products business.
Brian Casel:There You can do both. It's it's okay and you should. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I like your point on on being able to be patient because being rushed and jumping into the wrong product idea feels like a small a disaster.
Brian Casel:It can be
Jordan Gal:you spent six months on the wrong thing that is a disaster compared to making a smaller mistake?
Brian Casel:You said it I mean, I've I've seen it myself. The these little product decisions that and there are so many fundamental ones early on when in terms of like choosing a market, choosing the product. To me at this From where I sit for for me personally now, it's it's it's not even about trying to find the next quote unquote startup. Like I'm not looking to start up another company. But I am interested in a continuing to hack on Clarity Flow.
Brian Casel:We I've got a very active growth sprint going on there. But I'm also not convinced that that's going to accelerate growth. I think it will incrementally but it's But I also think I need to be open to trying little seeds of other ideas just to just to either just build them and see where they go. But just to grow that Grow the portfolio because So But again, I could just take my time and wait around until something really really important I think hits. And then go for it.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Well, you're you're convinced enough to actually commit. Oh, yes. You know, I have if we talk about that for a sec. If you think back a few months, I definitely approached this and talked about you know, we've got runway.
Jordan Gal:We can run with a few ideas and even if we I think I remember talking about a four month window. Right? Start on day one, two months in you have some form of an MVP, be out in the market for two months and then evaluate should we continue or not. I have to say now that we're in it, I'm I I ignore that reality. It I might revisit it, but I'm that's not how I'm thinking now.
Jordan Gal:I'm committed. I wanna make this work, you know, and and and feel optimistic about it and and thinking longer term. I'm definitely not in the seat right now thinking, well, let's see how this goes for the next, you know, twelve weeks or something. Yeah. Every once in a while when I jump out of my seat and I view it more objectively, I realize, oh, we're five weeks in.
Jordan Gal:We're we're kind of directly on track for exactly that to have a product out in the market roughly eight weeks after we started. So maybe that's like the the owner operator. Mhmm. Two, you know, seats Yep. Or two points of view.
Jordan Gal:But on the day to day, my like emotional state is that of the operator. And I wanna make it work. I don't I don't care about like
Brian Casel:this Yeah.
Jordan Gal:Very objective view and unemotional like ever I hop into that from time to time. Usually around the time I do my boring tasks of let's look at the accounting, let's look at this thing, let's make sure the you know the transactions are categorized properly, let's make sure payroll is good. It's almost like when I'm in that mindset I step out and I'm not the emotional operator. But we're five weeks in and I'm like I can't wait to get to market. I wanna do it.
Jordan Gal:Wanna partner with this company and I'm gonna do this thing and this is my advertising plan and we're gonna do self serve and so it it is a bit of two minds but it's 95% the emotional operator. We're gonna have this is gonna be amazing and huge and let's go go go.
Brian Casel:That's You know, I I definitely fall into the same thing. I I caught myself doing it last week. I think in your case it makes sense. We're in we're in two very different realities I think. But but in my case, like I started down this Down the path of like like I thought What I thought was like, oh, I'm just kinda hacking on a on a small idea.
Brian Casel:I'm gonna I'm gonna pass it around. Then I found myself like spending all these hours designing a landing page and getting really excited about it. And like, this this is gonna be so much better than I thought it was gonna be. And then then I was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Brian Casel:I I caught myself trying to picture that like like I'm starting a whole new company. When really all all it is is an idea that could go nowhere. It could go Yeah. It could be a something super small. I don't know.
Jordan Gal:The hard part is you need both.
Brian Casel:You need be like this is just Yes. A thing that you're gonna throw out there.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And then be delusionally optimistic about about it working. Yeah. It's funny. You you can't build in a cold manner saying, well, is week two and I'm just gonna do these tasks and then reevaluate.
Jordan Gal:It doesn't doesn't work. You kinda have to do both.
Brian Casel:I am finding that again like I think, you know, if if I think about it like again, have just having the consulting work is giving me a little bit of a like a forcing function to slow myself down. Because I I I because naturally, I'm exactly like you. Like, if I'm working on something, I'm gonna go
Jordan Gal:excited.
Brian Casel:You know?
Jordan Gal:Like you like you do in a few days and then you're doing something else? Literally.
Brian Casel:Or is it
Jordan Gal:like evaluating like as if you were a client, how would you think about it?
Brian Casel:I have obligations to the clients that have hired me to do work and I'm always gonna ship on time. I never miss
Jordan Gal:forces some some space, some distance from the project.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like I know literally every week. I Again, I work with two clients at a time and I know where I'm at in these engagements. Like one one is like a three week engagement. Another one is like an eight week.
Brian Casel:And like I know what I need to be shipping in these time frames and so And then you boil that down to week by week. So so every week. So typically right now like Monday usually looks like a clarity flow day. I'm I'm catching up and setting up my team for what they're working on for the week. And then like Tuesday, Wednesday into Thursday, I'm mostly focused on the client projects.
Brian Casel:And then by midday Thursday, I'm like, that's when like my freedom opens up. Like like Thursday lunchtime into like today, Friday and maybe bleeds into the weekend a little bit. Is like my free time to This week I happen to be working mostly on Clarity Flow but like this this could be anything. This could be my my product framework. It could be exploring new product ideas.
Brian Casel:It's doing this podcast. Know. And so like, now I know that I have these like time boxes. And I can only get x y z done in these time frames, you know.
Jordan Gal:You you get to think about it in in advance of actually jumping in.
Brian Casel:Yeah. With Clarity Flow also like the benefit is like I've got Kat and my developer working every day of the week. Mhmm. You know. So, most of my thing is like giving them directions and making sure that they have a queue of things to do while while I'm doing other stuff.
Brian Casel:So like productivity wise, we're still we're still shipping a lot of stuff. Nothing has really changed there. It's just Yeah. But but right now, like my my personal project happens to be some some some reworking of You know, on the marketing side with with Clarity Flow. I'm not gonna get into the details and and some of the product stuff that we have coming up there but like the theme of of what I'm doing is like simplifying and just removing the bullshit.
Brian Casel:Like, we we do have a great product. We have a lot of customers who really love it. We're just gonna present that. Like focus on the product and why customers like it and how you can use it and that that was the idea in investing in cat and customer success. Now we need to make the website really reflect that and and the whole experience.
Brian Casel:And so got a little bit of energy working in that direction.
Jordan Gal:Cool. I'm I'm curious how you do that. You when I look at the site that we're building now as pretty as it is whatever. The glaring glaring omission is proof of people. You know, we don't we don't have a product yet.
Jordan Gal:So that Mhmm. Is on the top of my list around changes to make as soon as possible. I I hope that early access period few weeks because realistically, you know, realistically, we don't we're not able to take on self serve accounts for four weeks. So really, the goal should be between now and then to add decent social proof to the site and to our our ourselves, our experience, all of that.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I know we're sort of I know we've been recording a while here but I I did wanna ask you about like where you're at actually like on the product. Like Yeah. What's do you have like a prototype that you guys are playing with internally like?
Jordan Gal:We have a prototype that we call and talk to all the time. We have been working on a demo video that shows the core functionality and that is I mean, it's it's in video format, but it's an audio file. Right? It's got some things on the screen to show, but it's an audio conversation of someone calling and talking to the AI agent.
Brian Casel:So And Again, I know I don't know how much you wanna share, but like in terms of like use cases, is there like a specific like is it like scheduling an appointment or is it like
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's the core. Yeah. The the core is reading. So conversation, reading calendar availability, and writing calendar appointments.
Brian Casel:Okay.
Jordan Gal:Right? So if right. If someone calls and says, can someone come out this week? The AI agent has to understand. Okay.
Jordan Gal:Who is this person? What are they talking about? What business are they calling? What parameters are necessary to keep in mind for this business hours of operation, all these other things. And then the core functionality is great.
Jordan Gal:Let's set up an appointment Thursday at 11AM. No. 11AM doesn't work. How's 1PM? Okay.
Jordan Gal:1PM is good. Is this the right phone number to send a confirmation text? Yes. Great. You're on the calendar.
Jordan Gal:Do have any more questions? Great. Thank you very much. Hang up. But that is the core, core use case.
Jordan Gal:So that is if you think about this as b to b to c, that's the b to c part.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:That is the most important thing to show the b to b audience that, yes, this is good enough for you to be comfortable enough to send phone calls to it. Yep. So that's part one on the product front. And the part two is, well, then you need someone to create an account, get set up, get onboarded, set this thing
Brian Casel:up. Answer their questions.
Jordan Gal:Yes. So right now where we are is we focused a lot on the b to c part like which parameters, which voice provider, which transcriber, which LLM model is really interesting effectively living out our thesis
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Which is the LLMs are good, they're not perfect.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:And there are trade offs. So 3.5 turbo is awesome in some ways, not so awesome in other ways. Then you go to four o and it's great in some ways but it's bad in the ways that you know turbo was good. So all these trade offs and the the good thing that I'm taking away from it is that we are in the position that we hoped to be in which is cheering on the LLM providers to come out with the next model and for it to be better. Remember how I talked about if you're if you're in a position where you're worried about the next model being better because it might kill your business, that is a bad spot to be in.
Jordan Gal:We are not. We're in the right spot which is cheering them on saying, yes, make this faster, make this better, make this more connected, make this more end to end. Right. So now the flip side of that is we're just gonna have to sit and wait for them for it to get better. Only so much we can do for it to get better.
Jordan Gal:So you do a lot of work to make it better and then they release it and make it better and all the work that you did to make it better just goes away and
Brian Casel:you don't It does seem like the basics should be good. More than good enough now like with four point o. Right? Like
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. They're not good enough.
Brian Casel:Like the ability to to take an appointment. I mean, I I I could see where like in my mind it would be like, it could do the basic task of like, discussing with you your availability and choosing a time on the calendar and and setting the appointment and then Mhmm. You know, firing that event into Google Calendar or whatever. Then like Yeah. But then it's like, oh, but but what about this weird question about my house or my business or whatever.
Brian Casel:And then then I feel like it it should be able to like like fall back to like, oh, that's a good question. I'm gonna note it down and we'll we'll get back to you later about that and like and just pass that on to the business. Okay.
Jordan Gal:So what what I wanna point out is that you just did the same thing that I did also. And you glossed over. Oh, well you can talk to and create appointment calendar. Appointment. A calendar appointment.
Jordan Gal:Good. Move on. That lot
Brennan Dunn:easier said than done. Right?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That thing that you just jumped over is a function call or call function.
Brian Casel:Uh-huh.
Jordan Gal:And if you're working with a regular software, you can make that almost 100% reliable. You know, I mean when I click this button, send this API call and it gets there. Right? Like that's almost 100% reliable. And these things it's 80% reliable.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. 80% is not good enough. Mhmm. And so if you're gonna move forward acknowledging that it's gonna only be 80% reliable, you need to think about your own database and keeping things there and then having a a worker run and check to see if it matches. Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:Did the function call work? Is it matching what we have in our database versus what they have in their appointment schedule? And if not, then you gotta run it again. So all these things that will eventually be near a 100 and that's let's say 4.5 comes out or five point o comes out, all the work that we're doing now to get the 80% figuring that out will just be washed away and irrelevant and that's just the cost to do business and
Brian Casel:This is still the thing that I am looking for from AI in in my use of it. Like I use I use Copilot and stuff and and coding and stuff like that and I and I'll go to ChatGPT to to work out some creative work with it. But there's still like the chaining together of tasks. Mhmm. Like, okay, like there there's a project that we need to do in Clarity Flow where we need to take a bunch of these docs, there's like 75 docs in in one system.
Brian Casel:We need to like copy and paste them into a different system.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:And I thought about hiring a VA for that. I I think I'm gonna have Kat do it. And there's a little bit of like thought work that goes Like there's a lot of copy and pasting and then like 10% of it is like analytical thought work.
Jordan Gal:It's equal what you do.
Brian Casel:Figure about work. You know? And yeah, it seems like like it's it's a dead simple task for someone like me to do. It's easy enough to instruct a VA to do it. Why it Do do we not have the tools yet to instruct an AI to do this?
Brian Casel:Like, I feel like we should, but it doesn't seem like we quite have that yet.
Jordan Gal:In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. Then the reliability is an issue. So there there's there is a lot more to do. Right?
Jordan Gal:There's no question that there's full on magic in the ability for this thing to take in very very large amounts of information and then be basically queried in this very like thoughtful way. Right? I
Brennan Dunn:mean Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:The the use case that you just talked about is ridiculously good. To go in there and be like, here's my headline. Give me five more suggestions.
Brian Casel:Yeah. If it's a it's a very focused like single task orient like, yeah. Like help me write content for this one page and Yes. And you and me, like, you the AI and me, we are just focused on this one page of content, we can do that.
Jordan Gal:Oh, you
Brian Casel:even with coding, like just yesterday I was I was stuck on a problem and I and I use I I go back and forth between Versus Code and now now I'm using RubyMine, which both of these are supposed to have the AI have access to your entire code base, theoretically. So it should theoretically be like, if I'm working in this one controller, it should be able to go find the relevant model and the definition over in these other files. Like most of the time it does not It's it's not that good. Even though they advertise it to be like And so yesterday, I had to feed it like four or five different code documents to give it the full context of the problem that I'm trying to figure out. And even then, it only I gave it five documents.
Brian Casel:It only read two of them. Like, you know, it's it's not it it it's not perfect yet when when it comes to like multi not multitasking, but like taking multiple pieces and and putting them together, you know.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. I mean, production apps, the stuff that we are used to paying for and the level of expectation that goes with that, there is work to be done. Absolutely. And so being early is a great benefit and also I expect a decent amount of pain on the way.
Brian Casel:The other thing that I'm hoping for in in like future models is like if I like what I wanna do with AI is like I wanna talk to it like I'm a creative director and then it's gonna go And then it's And and the AI is essentially like the junior designer or the junior developer.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And go through and make all And so if I'm looking at a design document and and I just I just wanna tell it like tighten it up in these areas and we wanna make it a little bit cleaner and brighter and find ways to do that in like 20 different places throughout this document. Like go do that. Instead like it it can't Or like on a on a a web page, you know, yeah you could do like a find and replace for this string and replace it with that string. But you know, find all the all the places and tweak them in this or that way and do that in in 20 different spots across this project. Go.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like it it's it can't go do that.
Jordan Gal:And it's not it's it's a sync in a way. It doesn't require immediate response to be perfect which in a lot of, you know, a lot of other apps that we're used to, that's what's required. What's required is immediate response right now, give me the correct answer, action function, API call response, whatever. That's just I mean, that software right in the modern Internet. Yep.
Jordan Gal:And this is this new thing that's being worked out.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. It is exciting though. Just like seeing seeing the next especially how fast the the next models are coming out.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's fun. So hopefully by the time we talk next week, I have an admin that you can create an account for and we're starting to put that the basically the front end of the admin connected to the back end and the API calls and all this other stuff along with, you know, the actual b to c component of it working reliably when you call it.
Brian Casel:Love it.
Jordan Gal:Yes. That'll be a big deal when I get when I'm comfortable enough publishing a phone number that you can just call it and the amount of money we're gonna spend on that. Yes. That's that that'll be a good sign. I think that's a few weeks.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. For sure,
Jordan Gal:man. Cool. Alright. Enjoy the Friday. Thanks everyone for listening.
Jordan Gal:Have weekend.
Brian Casel:Later, folks.
