Hey, you have a new background.
Yeah, same area. It's just a different position of my camera.
I see. It makes you look like you're. Yeah. you've moved.
Yeah. Right. Different surroundings. No, it's same area. I just have a different setup. Cause I have now, a different work computer and then my computer. And so I had to move stuff around and, This is the best I was able to set it up. So I have my laptop in the center. So now it's just like a plain boring wall in the back.
No. It's yeah, you'd need to, it's like a was it John Oliver, like when the void there that, right. You just in void room.
Yeah, my plan is to put up some, some of those, sound absorbing, you know,
Yeah. foam things.
Yeah. I'm going to put some of that because I can still hear a little bit of echo
A little bit.
On my recordings. So.
I say, I, I really I, I mentioned before, but you know, when I listened to the audio and doing the edit and things, this I'm really impressed with this little microphone
Yeah, it's true.
considering this room. I say I've I've got a fan on all the time because it's like baking here. And the in front of me is the there's a road, there's a main road and this constant traffic noise. And it can just can't hear it on this. So whatever it's doing, it's doing a good job of it. So
Yeah. Is that, is that a Blue? A Blue microphone?
Yes, it's a blue snowball. Hmm.
Yeah. Nice.
Yeah, it's a
Yeah, this one is the Rode Podcaster. it's a pretty good microphone, but.
It's kind of like the recommended by everybody one, right? Yeah.
Yeah. It's like a beginner, podcasting mic, Mike
this,
it's pretty good. but I think the echo really comes from
yeah, I think it's your room
room that I'm in is not, it doesn't have too much stuff. and especially this back wall here is completely empty, so
Nice reflections.
it's. Yeah. I need to add some of those foams.
I don't know if it makes a difference, but so this room, Obviously we're in a Japanese apartment. I claimed the the tatami room. So virtually all Japanese apartments houses we'll have one room that has a tatami floor. And, since, you know, we were not a no. We, we weren't using it for anything else. I'm like, well, I'm just going to kind of take over that. Although it's become the Alan's work and piling up crap room.
But I don't know if having the floor is like a, you know, a tatami makes any difference, but it does seem to do a reasonable job of absorbing here reflections audio reflection. so
Nice. Yeah, that's good.
that.
So have you been what's new?
Ah, So yeah. I know it's a time just, I it's just terrifying how fast this year has gone.
Yeah.
absolutely. I just don't know what's going on at all. It's Yeah, it's been just disappeared. Yeah, It's been actually, I've got some interesting news. So I think I mentioned briefly to you a few, maybe a month or so ago that 500 startups are doing a thing with Kobe city. And for it's what is 500 Kobe founders academy it's called and it's designed for reasonably new founders with like either seed or pre-seed or kind of early stages of company founding.
And it's hoping to anybody all over the world in previous years it was, you go to Kobe for six weeks and you do kind of the program there. Obviously with the way things are right now, it's virtual. So they said it's, you can apply from anywhere. Obviously Japanese startups are preferred, but it's, I'm open to anybody all over the world. So I Made a one evening pitch deck of like cause literally the form is you know, who are you? What's your company attach a, a your deck. And I'm like,
Yeah.
okay. So I made a very quick one evening attempt to T a, a pitch deck which was kind of rushed, but And it seemed to get across the main points. And so I got a message last week that I've been accepted.
Oh, nice. Congrats.
Thank you so it's interesting cause it's a four week program and it's all done online virtually, so it's mostly like, you know, video lectures, but then they do two sessions one-to-one per week with like mentors and so it's, it's. Organized by Kobe city, but it's kind of run by 500 startups. And I say, I don't know too much about it yet. I just got the links this morning for like some of the stuff to, to sign up. So it starts next week and Yeah.
it's a four week lecture series plus say one-to-one and community stuff and ongoing stuff after that as well, apparently. Yeah. And it's designed for. Basically early stage founders. So she'll be interesting. So,
Nice, that's awesome
I mean, I don't know what to expect from it right now. Because I've never done a program like this before, and also, you know, this is it's not a you know, designed for like funding VC kind of growth. It's, it's definitely, you know early stage founders. Aimed at. So I'm like, yeah, just give me the info. I'm I'm ready to soak it all up. And I say hopefully the, the networking and community side of things should be interesting in as well.
More to go to cover business apps, aspects, or business side of
it's actually, let me pull up the page so I can give, I can give you the spiel.
Is it virtual or in person?
it's a virtual,
Okay.
oh, say in previous years,
of things in, in Japan with COVID. Yeah,
I say it's, it's all virtual this year. So it's a virtual four week program aimed at helping startups accelerate their business. It's custom designed to support startups in an independent manner while explore scaling in, Culebra and beyond gain access to weekly AMA sessions to clarify lessons on growth, fundamentals, sales, capital growth, and more. Yeah. so it's basically like grow.
Yeah.
So Yeah. Designed for early stage global startups with global solutions,
Oh, nice. So even though you're not in Kobe, you can participate. Obviously they accepted you.
Yes.
Yeah.
So yeah, it should be quite an interesting as I just, the, these sessions that I've had with for local, I mentioned that I've done these, these mentoring sessions that our startup thing, and they were You know, Japanese either investors or exited founders that are now doing advising and investing. But just the whole process of. you, know, as, as much as I know, you know, the same, we've all read the books. We've kind of, we, we know all of the theory right behind doing this.
As, you know, putting it into practice is not as straightforward as just, oh, well you just do this, right. Especially you've got this internal fight with, you know, what you should be doing. Part of you is like, nah, I don't want to do that. And it's, you know, there's loads of things which I'm doing and have done, which. I know better. But you. still do it. Right.
But just talking through it with somebody or explaining yourself to somebody and having them point out the stuff that's directly in front of your face has been really helpful. So I'm kind of, I'm hoping for, for more of that, it's just. As we've mentioned before doing this on your own is just, is hard. Right? You don't have that constant dynamic of somebody questioning or I'm just talking through this stuff. Right.
I think it's one of the reasons these sessions are helpful as well, just to by, by bringing that stuff into the open makes you realize some of the stupid things you're doing or not doing as the case may be. So.
And just, and just talking about things helps, sometimes, even if it's just, just talking right, and just saying things out loud and in the process of doing that, thoughts come up, you know,
but that's the one of the strangest. Yeah. That is one of the strange things about these mentoring sessions is that, you know, I'm talking about it and trying to do it in Japanese as well, which is challenging. And as I'm saying things, I'm like, huh, I should be doing that. And he's really good. He's like, why didn't I think of that before?
And I, you know, I've been doing a bit of reading about, you know, this, this kind of thing of just you know, I've talked before about how we did a business plan. You know, early, when we set up the company just to get, to be able to get a bank account here, we needed to have a business plan and having. Effectively like a written map, stated goal plan of what you're going to do and why you're doing and how you're going to try and achieve it.
It, it it's when things are internally in your head, you just miss the obvious things sometimes. And really helps just to get out into the open.
Yeah. Well, that's awesome. that's really cool. So when is that? When is that again?
Starts on Monday starts next week. So I been said, I can't announce it publicly, but since this goes out in a few weeks, we'll be okay.
yeah,
I can announce it publicly after it started, but they want to do some PR thing or something. So which again? you know, it's just that the 500 startups network is just so big and so powerful that you know, the, hopefully there's some, some good people in that I can learn from too. So, I mean, even just joining, you know MegaMaker has been. Really interesting. And I've learned a lot just through, you know, reading and you know, discussions on there and topics that come up there.
So, I think it should just be really interesting. Hopefully. I hope, I think.
Just by being there, you can absorb information and learn things that, even if it's not something that you necessarily. Need sometimes you don't need something right now. You don't need to know something, but other people are discussing something that you recognize that you might need in the future. So you make a mental note or, you know, anything like, take some notes down and yeah, I can become useful in the.
Yeah. I know part of this is they there's lectures and sections on like raising capital and stuff like, that. And, you know, we've said before, it's like, that's not really in my immediate plans, but it's helpful to know about until when, when it's discussed to know some of the, the pros and cons and to know what's involved a bit more rather than. Just dismissing out of hand. It's like, well, no, I know it's, it's a more educated decision. Right.
So even if it's not in my immediate plans, it's helpful to know. Right.
Right.
So she'd be interesting
Yeah. Yeah. Well, looking forward to see you, your report on how that went.
at the. interest and the helpful thing for me as well as it's all in English with a Japanese subtitles. So that's good because obviously most of the mentors are from Non Japanese. Right. So that's helpful
Cool. How about your product?
product world. So I've been working on the subscription, the paddle integration which is going reasonably easily. So I think I mentioned before, you know, I chose Paddle. So I don't have to think about it. Don't have to worry about everything else, especially with, you know, from day one, I'll be taking international payments. Well, hopefully. Right.
So one of the differences, we know pedal has all of this, it deals with a lot more stuff in, terms of the tax filing and reporting and paying payments and stuff. But one of the things they don't really provide is your actual. Interface stuff. It's his, there's a, an API there's, there's some JavaScript stuff to pop in, in our payment thing. But as far as, especially with doing a subscription service, we still need to manage that subscription. Right. That is all API based.
So the API is is pretty straightforward. You know, it's not, not really drastically more difficult than Stripe's or anything. One of the reasons, of course, there isn't an SDK for Elixir, right. Because why would there be, this is one of the downsides of using Elixir is you're in this like a lot of the time, you're like, no, it's telling you you're on your own. There's not quite the ecosystem of like Laravel or Rails or something. So but it's easy.
I mean, it's just literally you've got to verify signatures and bounce that back with it and things like that. So it's a straightforward API is not difficult at all. But you've got this missing API that you need to build, which is okay. I want to downgrade or upgrade my subscription. I want to change my payment things, stuff like that. So I started. Working on that. But I found this rather neat little service called Kanuu, K A N U U dot IO.
Which is interesting because it provides all of that subscription management stuff for Paddle for a, very low monthly cost. So it's it was such a price it's like $15 a month for unlimited. So zero for up to 10 subscribes. So once you got 10 subscribers, it's up to them, zero, then it's $15 a month unlimited. You get custom domain and, and it basically manages.
So I still have to, you know, I know which customers are on which a subscription plan, but when they choose to upgrade downgrade, cancel whatever. I basically bounced them up to their, they send web hooks, but well Paddle sends web books back to me for any changes. So as long as I'm dealing with them, I can bounce them out to a canoe for all of the, you know, changing their credit card information, and then just, you know, if they change their plan, I get to know about it. And I act on that.
So it just, it's one less thing to develop. Right. So I scrapped my code. I was writing there and I'm just going to use this instead. So that's quite nice. That's one less thing to write, right?
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's awesome. What was the name again? K a.
K A N U U dot IO.
Got it. Cool so it works with Paddle oh, it is specifically built to work with
for Paddle. Yes, exactly. So obviously the, again, the Paddle ecosystem is, is not quite as massive as the Stripe ecosystem. But the fact that this exists was I say, oh, thank you. I don't need to write this. I mean, just silly stuff, like, you know, changing the credit card information. It's like, well, yeah, Either use the JavaScript like form that's embedded on for paddle and then, oh, I could just bounce them out to this and they take care of It all. So it's nice.
I don't have to worry about any of that. Now. I just literally have to deal with the web hooks coming in from puddle which is just event changes. They, they just send a series of, so there's two, you can either or you can both. Request a history of the events that they've sent you. And then you just receive events for pretty much anything that happens, you know, changing the name, credit card upgrading downgrading, canceling, and all of the requests that happen.
You just get Webhooks through that. And they're very good about retrying and all the rest of the problem. So Yeah. that's, that's Nice, and easy to deal with. So.
Nice,
So that's what I'm looking at at the moment. So is, I think I mentioned before that I'm trying to I was about to enter, to add a bunch of people and then I'm like, you know, I should, if billing is there, then I could still introduce them and they have the option of paying.
Right,
really want to get this in there. Just so it's done. I can, then I feel you know, I don't mind, I, I, I don't mind, you know, giving out beta accounts until the cows go home, but it'd be nice having the option for people to talk grade. Right.
yeah. Yeah, for sure.
So that's pretty cool. That's a Nice. discovery.
Nice. Yeah, that's really cool you're making me rethink and reevaluate my decision to go with Outseta.
It's the reason I didn't go without setter was the complications around my account stuff. Are the, the user account stuff. Cause you said you're not using that either. Right? I mean, I was set to seems really nice and it just, it's a great one-stop shop for everything. Right. You know, billing, user accounts help system just everything right. But the, it seems best from my understanding when you start, when you use The whole system.
The whole thing. Yeah,
I mean, that's kind of what it's designed for. It's like, yeah, you've got a CRM built that relies upon you having your user accounts within that system, So they have to sign up via that. Otherwise you've, you've then got an additional API to manage of, well, someone's created an account here. I've got to create a countdown outset or with them. Right. So,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. it's not the best if you are not using the whole system, you have to kind of what's the word I'm looking for? fill in the gaps, right? Because you're not using everything. anything that's missing there, you have to fill it in. And so it ends up being quite a bit of work to. Make it work with just this one section of Outseta, right?
I mean that, that was the recent cause I started looking into it and then know I've got an account there and I'm like, hold on. I want to use that. But to get to that, I have to do all this other stuff. I've got to create a user account. I've got to create this for them. And then they have to, I have to authenticate them on outset or when they log into my thing as well. right? And it's like,
yeah.
this actually, this is more work than I wanted to do.
Yeah.
Again, if you, if you're building something that is either membership-based using another service or it's no code based, I think it's perfect. But for something that you already have a user account system, it's seems a little plus they, that didn't work well for me for multiple, currencies. I could have multiple currencies, but it meant I had to have different subscription plans. I don't know if that's changed now, but when.
I raised it with support And were like, it just have a Japanese subscription plan and a dollar subscription plan. And if you want to. you know, a pound sterling a payment plan as well. And then they subscribe to that and it's like, can I not just have one plan? And it's different currencies depending on where they are no, you have different. So I'm like, I, I don't that it didn't really fit my, I needed.
Yeah. I mean, with a SaaS business and the global nature of it, you really need all this, flexibility and, all these options. So I don't know. I'm yeah, I think I'm going to have to rethink, because I still haven't integrated anything with them. other than just a little widget for, contact us kind of thing, but I could get that from somewhere else. And then they have a nice sort of, help kind of, system, you know, that
based type thing. Yeah. Mm Hmm.
Yeah. Where you can, write articles and, help. articles and so on. So, I kind of use that because it doesn't really require a deep integration is
right. It's I need to set up one of those two.
it's just a link that you send the user to. and yeah, that's all I've done. I haven't really done anything with the billing, or anything else. So,
I don't want to dismiss. I said, cause I think it's a really good solution, but for what you're doing, I, it might be just not the best fit.
Yeah. it is. Yeah. I agree. And that's why in part, that's why I've been kind of. Postponing working in on that, in that area. Cause I still, I'm still not fully convinced and fully committed to it. So
Yeah.
will look into Paddle again.
One of the things that, did have to do with paddle was you have to there's, there's multiple like approval stages you have to go through, they have to review a product that it's, it's not a, Like a service based product. It's just a subscription or or a sold product. They then also, if you create subscription plans you have to then get approved for it, say SaaS subscription plans.
So that has different tax implications than if it was a delivery thing or, so there's, so there's different levels of approval. Each one is like, you know, it's a few days or it's a week or more. So there is there's definitely a process, but the, they seem very responsive to support queries and they've been helpful, you know, for any things I've asked for. And I say is just, seems, you know, very comprehensive from a dealing with global sales and not having to worry about.
The implications of tax and things like that. And obviously with this, something like Kanuu makes it, Just one little bit easier as well. So
Well, I might have to copy that.
you're okay. Cause everything's got Laravel APIs for both the Paddle and for Kanuu had that. So yeah, you got it easy.
Nice. Oh even, better. So what was I gonna ask you? Oh, there was one thing that I remember you mentioned about Paddle when you were going through the approval process where you answered something that you thought was the right answer. And they were like, oh, then you're not approved. And then you're like, no, no,
Yeah. They said something about it's the human interaction required. And I'm like, well, yeah, because the people use the product and they're like, oh, you can't use it the time. What, What, did you mean by that? And they're like, does it require a human in order to deliver the service? No.
Oh, why didn't you ask that?
So when they rephrase it, I'm I don't definitely know that. And they'll okay. Then that case it's fine. So yeah, it's a slightly confusing wording that. So just be wary of that. I was just, just make sure you understand what it is. They're asking again, it's from a tax and because they act as a was it seller of record? I forget the legal term, but basically that they're selling your product. So and, and, you know, your credit card receipt comes as sold by Paddle.
So they're effectively have to And again, because of the tax implications, if they're selling a physical service. Oh, so say it's a service based thing and I'm doing, you know, effectively freelance or something like that. The tax implications are very different and they're, like, we don't do that if you're doing that, we're not for you. So if you, if it's just a pure digital delivery, then it's it's best. That's basically, it's got to be a digital delivery.
did they give you a chance to add something to that where it shows on the
it shows Paddle. And then I've got one here.
dash something or something like that? Yeah. Cause otherwise people can
Yeah,
and I'm like, oh, I don't have anything with paddles,
right. So they both the invoices that they get have like the Paddle logo at the bottom, but it has your name and logo stuff as well. And on the receipts, it says Paddle parentheses your. Product. So it's and most things, I mean like tailwind UI is sold via Paddle. So if you look at your receipt for that, if you have that then you'll, you'll see. I have a surprising number of services I pay for use it just because I think it's very convenient.
So yeah, maybe, maybe with that, but yeah, people seem to understand now that it's a lot of them say, you know, it'll be billed by Paddle. Something because I've got the issue that my, Company's XenoCode, my application is DotPlan and it's been sold by Paddle. So people will be like, what the hell am I paying for that? Yeah, exactly. It's a bit confusing, but that?
Yeah. Well, I kind of have a similar situation. Fusioncast is not the company name. It's just the product name. Yeah,
And you might be able to, I see. I think you can set what gets displayed on that. So I think it would say Paddle bracket DotPlan. I think, can't remember
Nice. All right. Anything else?
think. What about you? new job, right. So I assume quite intensive.
Yeah. It is. Just, you know, getting on board and, learning new things. There's lots of unknowns and getting to know what I'm working with and the people I'm working with, which has been great. yeah. It's been going great. I'm really loving it. Just, you know, working with my team and, Very smooth onboarding process.
I think you did tell me less last week, but how, how big is.
It's, Like a mid size company is not too small, not too large. but they do have, lots of, Business going on nationwide. So there's, lots of things going on, very complex system to handle all of that. So yeah, it's a fun. Project, that I'm working with. And it involves, rewriting of an old system, basically, you know? And so there's lots of opportunities to improve and to make it better. There's also the challenge of.
Digging into an, an old code base written by, multiple different people who write code in a different style than your own. And so you have to. Dive in there and do a lot of detective work to figure things out. So, that's challenging, but it it's a fun project in that. it's very promising in terms of, the potential, you know, to rewrite it and make it better
Was it written in a different language and framework as well? Or is it, oh, it was all PHP right now. Okay. So well, oh, okay. That's fun. I remember doing that.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Nice.
yeah, so it's a, it's an interesting project, but I liked that kind of challenge, you know, I kind of like
It is kind of therapeutic. I did something very similar for a client in the last few weeks was, was basically taking an older Ruby code base and rails defying it. It wasn't using rails before. And it's against kind of grown over time and it's yeah, thankfully it wasn't too much to change, but obviously there's the opportunity for like, ah, we can do this better using things. So it is quite therapeutic for sure.
Yeah. Yeah,
And you have the power to effectively yet. Like I said, rewrite things, I'll leave things out. I'll just, Yeah. it's nice. Cool.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's been going great, but you know, it's it's been taking up most of my time and mental bandwidth and, haven't really been putting too much time into a fusion cast just a little bit here and there on the weekend. I did manage to make some changes to the UI based on some really good feedback that I got.
And also the fact that, some of the APIs that I'm working with, there were some changes, some updates that have made it possible to not record the backup recording automatically from the beginning, from the moment that you join a session. because that was really a technical limitation that I had because of the API that I'm using for that. And I turned it into a feature where, you know, it's a backup, right. So it's great that it's automatic, but I did get some feedback.
They were saying, it's great. But at the same time, I wish I had the option to, just start recording whenever I want to not just have it automatically. because even, even if I don't start recording locally, it's recording that, you know, backups still automatically from the get-go. So it just seemed very. Forceful, if you will, the user not having that
So now they can, you can initiate a session. And separately say, start recording it. Right. Nice.
Yes. So basically now I have the ability to start recording both locally and backup of the same time on demand. When I click the button, then both, both recordings start.
I mean, th that's probably more in line with expectations, right?
Exactly. Exactly. I was super excited when I found out that they've updated that. So, I worked on, on that. And so now that's one of the changes that are coming. It's still not
Oh, I have a book request or at least feature quirk.
oh yeah, for sure. Let me, let me, let me write it down.
So if I'm logged in, I think I may have mentioned this before. If I'm logged in, I can't join our session.
If you are logged in on your own account
I can't. So I was logged in because I was recording intro. And I was getting 403 for joining this session. And it's really confusing cause it takes like, it takes a few brain cycles before I go, I have got to log out and then we've got to go to Fusioncast, sign in, sign out, and then go. So if. It doesn't work for a technical thing. Just pop up a thing there saying like, you need to sign out to join as a guest or something if, if that's easiest work around.
But yeah, four three is really unlike, oh, it's broken. Hold on. This rings a bell.
Yeah, that's a good one. Well, I guess because of you are logged in, you have a session going on. and It thinks that the session that you're trying to
It's belongs to
belongs to you, but it
that's what I said, I think is easiest thing was just, just pop up message and say to join somebody else's session, you need to log out first and put a log out button and do It that it was logged you out and then redirect you back to it or something. Something like that. Just, just not just a 4 0 3.
yeah. that's that yeah, that's true. It's it's really bare bones right now. It's just, you know, 403 and needs to be polished.
And and also I'm going to bug you about the password rules again.
Oh yeah, no, that was on my list. Yeah, it's on my list. I need to work on that. password rules. Yeah. I'm going to get to that one pretty soon. Cool. Yeah, want to have it on my notes here so that I don't forget about it out of sight, out of
Tell me about it I mean, especially one of the things I, Especially with like a personal project, like this, using something, like get to a bud grr as I've been using linear for client work we use a linear book trucker. That's really Nice. That's probably one of the most impressive client side. You know, browser apps. I mean, there's an application, but it's just react. So it just runs electron or whatever. It's probably one of the most impressive apps.
You know, client side had apps, web apps that I've ever used. It's really responsive. It's super fast. It feels like it's incredibly fast. It's. I don't know what they're doing. I want to kind of look into their sinking magic sometimes just because it's really well done. If anything could convince me that client setups are worth it, Figma and linear, probably the two, which are like, wow, that's really good. So worth looking at book for personal or you're the only one working on it.
It feels like a commodity is like overkill. Right? I mean, I know I should. So I'm actually just using dot plans future features or future plans list for that, which means it's got very big, but it also means that it's there on the page. Every time I like go to it and say, oh Yeah. I need to do that stuff. So that's actually my my to do list.
So someone mentioned, I don't think I've mentioned this, but someone of my testers as mentioned this idea of doing an auto check-in, have I mentioned that?, so it's been, you mentioned it and at first I'm like, huh, I don't get it. And it's one of those that sits in your head long enough that you're like, it's actually quite good idea. So his comment was during the date, he'll go through you know, in the morning. You know, look at today's plans are what's left over from yesterday's plans.
Add his plans to do going through the day, check them off and then forget about it. And the next morning he's like, ah, I didn't check in. And he's like, I've if I've changed my plans or the, if I've checked stuff off during the day set like an auto check in time, say 6:00 PM. Then if it hits 6:00 PM, just, just publish my check-in and I'm like, That's quite, that's quite a good idea. Cause he was like, well, you've done stuff. So therefore publish it.
And it's like, well, Yeah. I mean, I always want to publish it. It's just, sometimes I literally were like finished the day and be like, oh, I'll get them done and forget to go and check in. So he's like, I want it to publish my check-ins every day. I just sometimes forget. So rather than I've got like an email reminder right now, which I mean, who reads their email these days? Seriously?
Yeah.
So he's like, I just want it to check in for me. So it's, it's been bouncing around my head for a good few weeks now. And I'm coming around to the idea that I might add it as an option, because to be honest, I do the same. I'll go through and, you know, mock stuff is done, but then I'll completely forget to actually check in and I'm like, you might be onto something. So.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a, like a neat feature.
And also as
There'll be cool.
so mentioned here, I've got a Japanese beta tested that's I added time-tracking to dot plan for as like a an experimental feature. So it's really basic. You can start and stop a timeout, or you can start a timer attached to a project. So you can say I'm looking on this project and then stop it. I'm working on another project. Stop it. And that that works really well.
It says super simple feature, but it, I, I was on the fence about adding it, but I kind of was convinced by him and by a few of the people actually, you know, in my business, we need to do that anyway. So if it was kind of part of the same product, then it could be useful. So I've added that as a. An optional feature, you can turn it on or off within the admin. So the owner of the account can turn it on or off as a, as a workspace level. But this company has requested now.
It's like, that's great. But people are now stopped checking in because they're like, I recorded my time. Whereas before they were checking in as like the stop working now, it's like, now they're just clicking stop. So his suggestion was when you stop, pop up your. Your, your plans, right? That you have open it's like, do you want to check in, so I kind of have that as a two-step stop, as opposed to just stopping it where you stop and it says, do you want to check in what you've done?
Okay. Tap, tap, click. Those has done like check-in. So I'm adding that as well as a see, how it works for them because they're quite actively using it. So that they're actually it's an interesting test case because they seem keen on the idea. They're sticky points are parts of the implementation, not technically, but just how it fits their Workday. And so it's kind of a good. test case because they. They They want to use it, but they wanted to be as little work as possible for it to work.
Right. So it's like, okay, now this is, it's an interesting evolution of that feature that is like well, if I'm going to have timecards you know, timing check clock-in and clock-out might as well integrate with the plan system itself and make it based around that, which was, was the part, which I was not keen on adding timing. Too far. That's the reason I didn't really want to add that in first place was just like, well, that's a separate thing from the check-ins. Right.
But this actually would make it part of the check-in. So I'm kind of playing around with that as a, as an idea at the moment. I don't know if I'll make it into it, but.
sounds good. sounds like it would make the product more useful, I guess, more
Integrate. Yes. It's, it's, it's part of the same thing then. right.
different
And that, that's why I made it an optional feature is because as I said, quite a few of the beta users. Because they do client work and client work is more, often, you know, they do like agency type stuff. More often than not is timed as well. You know, so having an idea of how much time has been spent on a product that they have to do timekeeping anyway.
So I say, well, if that's kind of built in and it merges this idea of doing a check-in with recording time as well, then it kind of makes that a bit more coherent.
Nice. Cool. well Yeah, play with
Yeah, it's a little bit, I said the whole timing thing is kind of an experimental branch at the moment. I mean, it's, there and it's, it's in the product, but I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent convinced.
Yeah, well, I know how it goes. Sometimes it takes a while to really either confirm
I mean, this is one of the the pros and cons of, of bootstrapping slash not having a, A separate process of defining the product from end to end. Right. You know, kind of iterating on the product is it is very much a learning process. Right. You know, it's and again, this is one of the kind of regrets of not just making a simpler. more known product. If I was making a calendaring app or. a calendar meeting scheduling out, then that's fine. I kind of know what it needs to do.
and it's kind of a defined space. Right. But because it's one of the downsides of making something that I am not, I don't know the answers to all the questions yet.
Right, right. So there's a lot of exploration and trial and error for sure.
You know, it's a live alone. Right.
Yup, yup.
So what's your next plan on the scale? Try and get these is there any more new users lined up? Oh, did you get Laurie signed up? Did he contact you?
Yeah. I, yes, yes, I did I haven't heard from him. Since that, but I, wrote an email to him with some information. I gave him the option to do an onboarding call or just for him to try it out on his own. So I gave him some information just quick, facts about, you know, what Fusioncast is and how it works. And I gave him a private code invite so that he could, create his own account and give it a try.
So I told him, let me know if you have any questions, or we could do a call, and so I haven't heard from him yet, so I don't know if he's had a. Yeah, I know. Right. I don't think he's created an account yet or maybe he did, but he hasn't done anything with it. Yeah. So we'll see. I'll reach out to him again. I just wanted to give him some time, some space.
I don't, you know, I don't like to bug people with, you know, so just give it some time and but I'll reach out to him to see if he has any questions and, we'll go from. so I think that's it, really just, on my end, just a, those little changes that I've been able to work on. And most of it has to do with functionality within the studio. mainly just cleaning stuff up. So now that I have better control of recording, It simplifies a lot of things.
Cause now I don't have to say, okay, backup recording is in progress,
Yeah. Yeah. right,
not, or, you know, any of that.
it's either it is recording or isn't, right?
Exactly. And there isn't really a need to emphasize any differences in that. and so I came to the realization also that, Indicating when Fusioncast is uploading is kind of not really necessary, right? If it's, recording, it is a uploading at the same
Recording kind of
the system needs to know internally.
If it's recording, it's been uploaded, right?
Exactly. So there's no need to be indicating both processes for the user. The user doesn't really care about that. the system needs to know internally what's going on and I need to manage that under the hood, but I don't need to display that it's uploading it's enough to say that it's recording and that's it. So I'm cleaning a lot of stuff up, like that for example, the microphone and camera, when it's on, it's on, you can tell it doesn't need to have a green icon indicating that it's on.
if it's muted, then it'll display a little red microphone, but if it's not muted, it's just nothing. And then the camera is even easier because if the camera is on, you can see it. And if it's, you know, if it's disabled, then. You can see it as well. It's a black, you know, frame. So, so there's really no need for that. So I'm, I'm just removing redundant stuff and simplifying and that's based on feedback
I like that because yeah, the, the, I'm just saying recording, like evenly, a backup and local recovery in progress. you just you're recording. That's it. Right. Same with the upload cloud upload. It's just recording.
yeah, exactly. So, you know, uploading is. by
is, it's an implementation detail though, that you need to know, but your user just needs to know it's recording, right?
exactly. Yeah. Again, I don't know what I was thinking when
funny because it makes sense when You say it, but I've never really questioned it. Just knowing that those, this is one of the really difficult things about being too close to your prototype because you expose things which a lot of the time your users don't care on need to know about. Right. But you're like, well, it does this. I need to tell you it's doing this
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah let's see, what else? Oh yeah. I wouldn't even have, at the top, in the center where it says backup recording, it's not gonna, there won't be anything there at all. And just every video frame we'll have recording, you know, on the top
You could move the timer middle maybe.
Yeah, I could move that. I thought about that. maybe Yeah. Put it in the
That's a useful, maybe it's a useful thing to, to know. and it always, I always look for it and it's always over there
Yeah. So if it's in the center, it will be easier to find.
I like that. That's
Okay, cool
That's a nice idea.
I've been working on a bug that I found if you switch cameras in the middle of a session, for example, it'll change the camera. To the rest of the participants in the session. It'll, reflect that change to everyone, but not on your, on your own, it'll still show the video input from the previous camera. A little complicated to fix that and I haven't had much time for that.
So it's going a little slow, but as I ease into my new job, I think I'll have more mental, bandwidth to, work, late in the night or,
No the first, first few weeks were always just exhausting, just because there's so much new stuff to, take in. And, you know, if you want to make a good impression and it's just getting to know like the, the boundaries of you know, just expectations and things like that. So, yeah, it's, it's always hard for the first few weeks, so I'm not gonna, I'm not going to give you any grief about that. No problem. I'll let you off.
All right.
Cool. I'm glad. It's going well,
Cool. Well, yeah, that's all we have, I guess. Maybe it's a good time to wrap it up. All right. Have a good
Talk to you later. Cheers man