35. Early Stage Startup Kitchen - positioning and software tools

psychological trick here. All of that stuff can be staged. And I start to think, should we be more professional? Hello and welcome to the Metacast podcast, the best podcast ever. The podcast where we discuss how things are going in our company and yeah, chat about various things. I'm your host Ilya Bistilov and with me is my cohost, Arna B. Decha. Today we are going to talk about software that we use in our company. I mean, we are a software company. We build

Not fully meta yet. So what are we going to talk about today?

Yeah, we're going to talk about software that we use. We already talked about subscriptions that we use and we pay for, which was, I think, a pretty interesting episode.

That was episode 31 or 32.

32 was Corey Quinn, it must have been 31. Over the last few weeks we've accumulated a lot of scars from using Google products.

Now that we are corporate Google workspace users, yes. And Ilya has started developing. You're doing more and more of the actual development work and you're seeing more and more of it, so yeah.

Yeah, we've been kind of punting this episode because we were like, we are going to experience more bugs from Google. So let's do it later. So now I think we're at this point where I don't think anything Google does can surprise us at this point. Well, sort of.

Yeah, depends. As we talk through the episode, we'll find out where we stand. But I think it's not all doom and gloom. We would not have been able to build and get it to the hands of our beta customers in this short duration without Google.

I mean, absolutely. I wouldn't be able to send the white listing email. Our infrastructure wouldn't run. And also our users wouldn't have Android phones without Google. Yeah, Google is a great company. It's just, there are some dark corners there.

Yeah, and it's gigantic so there are some like seams that don't work with each other. Anyway, we'll get into all that through this episode.

So first, let's start with the things that we are improving this episode. And I know you don't have any, because you didn't prepare. Oh, I just added one, remember?

for virtual presentations.

To prepare better for the episode. To make a decision in the app today.

We had a discussion about this between you and me like last week or something, yeah.

We have it on the recording too, I think it was in the last episode.

Oh we did? Okay. Yeah, everything is very meta in my head so...

The other thing I was thinking about is, one thing is just communicating the message very clearly. Like, we are the founders of Metacast at Delaware C Corp, building a startup whose product is a podcast app that people can use to listen to podcasts. Obviously, this is not the marketing pitch, but this is a factual statement of what we're working on. Podcast is our marketing channel.

This podcast is...

PollyS

By the way, when we say marketing channel, it sounds very salesy in a negative way. I want to rephrase this to this is more like our community channel, right? It's a one-way audio community channel where, I mean, right now the only people who listen to us are like our supporters, fans, people who really are interested in seeing what we're doing, how it's getting built and all that. And so it's our one-way audio channel to those people.

I actually like that because marketing implies that we drive awareness, but I feel like it's going to be the other way around this podcast. Our users will discover the podcast through the app and this will be a user radio. That's actually pretty cool positioning for this. But the positioning I was going to talk about today is I've been watching a lot of expert

This is perfect. Can I just tell you about an incident? I just read about it like yesterday. So this is almost exactly what you're talking about. I was on Reddit, and I think it was the startups or entrepreneur subreddit. And there was a post, very bold post, right, saying like, anybody can if they put their mind into it, anybody can get 200,000 users within a month. And so this person posted saying that anybody can do this, and I'm going to this is my day one.

Web Well, today on

I don't know about self-reinforcing. I think that might be the attempt, but Reddit users are not the right, like, it's not like Instagram, right? Most of the comments in that thread are like, I won't say dismissive, but they're very cynical. And they're seeing through it that you're not going to get to 100,000 users in a month by posting every day on Reddit. You're going to get to it some other way. But ultimately what I think, not me, the commenters, this is the sentiment of

Okay, that's very interesting. Okay, so the positioning I was thinking about is all of those experts that I'm looking at, they have those setups where they have lots of great lighting and have kind of a sure SM7B microphone in front of them. And they talk really well. Sometimes when they talk, averagely, still like the setup looks really, really good.

Green ones!

podcast host and there are other people in the background watching them. Like a TED Talk kind of setup. It automatically, at least in my head, it's like, okay, so this person has something to say. It's a psychological trick, yeah. All of that stuff can be staged. And I start to think, should we be more professional?

Because it just doesn't suit my personality. It's a hard no because I don't like it because I said so. No, no. I know that this is the game you have to play nowadays, especially if you want to grow engagement from like random users who are seeing you for like 30 seconds, right? And you need to get those 30 seconds, 15 seconds of not even fame, 15 seconds of Instagram and make it into a follower. These are the kind of gimmicks that you have to do. Maybe I'm very old school in this way.

So, Ardab, how would you feel if we did an experiment? This is hypothetically, right? I'm just trying to get you transferred to that mindset. So, say next week we are going to a studio. I mean, each of us goes to a studio and we have to wear a formal shirt and a tie. Just imagine yourself doing this. How does it make you feel?

So, before I get to the podcast, you already know this and I think you and I are very similar in this. Maybe that's why you brought it up. But my first job, I had to wear a tie every day.

It was a company that ends with sucks.

Yes, we were named a company. It was a huge company.

Separate with money, yeah!

Yeah, but I had to wear a tie every day. That was the first four years, three, no two and a half years of my professional work and I was like I'm never doing anything where I'm forced to wear a tie again. So for a podcast, no. I don't know, maybe it might be too naive but I don't believe

There is why I'm saying content is because it's not even information. It's content. It's like a special kind of information.

It's not just the information. Sometimes there is no information, right? But it's the presentation and the setup and all that. Yes, it's very engaging, I would say. But the moment you stop doing that, for whatever reason, you may decide, I've had enough, right? I don't want to keep doing this. You lose all those. They're not really connections. I think the word follower itself is like, they're not following you. Anyway, so that was my long, long-winded answer to not wearing a tie.

Yeah, I think I can bridge a couple of topics right now because a few minutes ago I said back home in Russia and it just felt weird. And I'll get to why in a moment. And also, I think a few episodes ago we were saying how I was about to record from a car. Actually, which didn't happen because we rescheduled and all, but I was ready to do that and we'll get to that in a second. And also, I think in episode six or eight when we talked to Annie and Angela from Hearts in Taiwan. Eight or ten.

This was your citizenship, US citizenship test, yes. I passed it, yes, A+. With flying blue, red, and white colors.

qualified to Chengdu Coast. I'm going to throw this all out. And because we're also moving internationally to the US, I threw all of my formal attire out because like you, I was working for another company that ends with Express. And also a big global brand BS. Very big global brand. Yeah. And I hate it wearing not just ties, but actually shorts. I don't mind as much. What I do hate is pants. I find pants uncomfortable and unbeautiful. Not that I'm very stylish.

and also big global brand I don't wear pants or formal shoes. I don't have any.

Yeah, well, luckily I had formal shoes that I bought in Germany. They were some kind of 200 euro shoes that supposed to last you all of your life. You can get like buried in those shoes if you don't lose them because they're just such good quality because they're just German made. And, you know, I didn't want to throw them away because they were so expensive. So luckily I didn't have to buy the shoes. Yeah. And yeah, I went for that interview in the

The picture of yourself that you showed me that day in the show notes.

Oh, maybe the certificate with the flag.

Yeah, like you were like clean-shaven, haircut and everything. You look like a different person altogether. Yeah, wearing a shirt and pants. I look like a normal person. Yeah.

But yeah, anyway, so wearing pants then made me feel like actually not as bad as I expected.

Mmm, but you still prefer pajamas. Yes, of course

When going out I prefer shorts. I have soft shorts, almost like pajama shorts. But yeah, I didn't feel as bad. I'm like, yeah, this is just part of the game. When in Rome, do as Romans do. So 10 years ago, I was a little bit more absolutist in my attire tastes. But I really liked the shorts, by the way. So the shorts actually really felt good. So yeah, I might buy a short just for some semi-casual occasions. So yeah, if you want to congratulate me

Yeah, or reply to the newsletter, yeah, all of that. Send Ilia a message. Yeah. Congrats! That's a huge step. Many, many, many years in coming.

You're one of us.

Usually that's how long it takes.

Yeah, maybe, yeah, you mean even the country of origin, right? So yeah, but he was like singing the anthem and he was dancing. It was incredible. He was so happy. When I was going in, I was a bit cynical about this whole thing. I'm like, yeah, just give me the paper. But in there, I got really, really, well, I wouldn't say I got really emotional. I got a bit emotional, much more than I expected.

It's a big step, so that's totally normal to feel overwhelmed and a bit emotional in that. Well, now you feel very American. Between episode 8 or 10 and episode 35, you've now become American.

I think when we did episode 8 is probably when I just applied for it. It actually took just six months, not that long. Yeah, cool. Let's move on next to our entry.

You were talking about positioning, we never finished that thread. So briefly, I guess, do your takeaway from that.

Ah, no, I was just wondering how much it might have helped, or might help, if we do some unnatural things to ourselves.

Again, I think it might help, but I don't know, it's the kind of thing that I could honestly do it. How about you?

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.

with Metacast Inc.

It makes other people perceive me as more humble. I know this is a fact. I should say, it makes other people perceive you as a more humble person and you should do it.

Yeah, no, I think but those things are very organic, right? Maybe we will someday get to that kind of place making these small changes little by little. But what I don't want to do is completely do something for the sake of getting Instagram views and follows. Like you said, like sitting in a studio, making it look like there are people who are listening to us like in a TED talk. That's a lie. That's not a small

You feel warmed up yet? I don't know what temperature is right now in my room, but it is incredibly hot without AC.

Talking about temperatures, what was the temperature that day when you were going to sit in a car and record one hour long podcast episode?

It was not too bad because A. it was pretty early. Actually no, it was around noon. But they had a shaded parking lot.

Underground, yeah. But you didn't know that when you said, okay, I'm going to record from the car. You didn't know that. I didn't know that, no. That would have been quite an experience, I think.

I would have had to keep the engine running, otherwise I wouldn't be able to use the AC.

Right, yeah. Well, anyway, glad we didn't have to do that. Thanks for Corey for rescheduling to the next day, yeah. Alright, let's get on to the entree.

So I'm just looking at our notes and we wrote them up like six weeks ago, I think, and I'm trying to see how we segue into this. So in our episode 26, we had Jason Fried and his co-founder, DHH, David Hanymar Hansen, created Ruby on Rails. And the thing we have written here in those is culture of putting things on rails upfront. So that's that's a segue. I don't know if it worked. I don't know if it worked.

Oh okay yeah that's like a junction in a railway track

Where the train comes from the side and hits you and derails you. Now we are on a different train. Václavo M Yeah, anyway, yeah, I think it's a train wreck. So very early on, we had nothing. We just had a document where we wrote up what we want to work on, like in broad strokes. Something's kind of more detailed, but it was just nothing, just a bunch of characters typed in a document, right?

We didn't have a mock-up. This is very vague. We want to do something where the podcast is not just the audio.

At that level, yeah. I think we made the decision to invest pragmatically into tools upfront.

And I was going to add that word pragmatic there because we did do a lot of the things you said there but we also didn't do a lot of things, yes.

Yeah, I mean compared to let's say what Amazon does or Google does for their systems. We are like at maybe nowhere Yeah, they're probably at 30 30 percent. I mean, I wouldn't say we're nowhere actually tell us what we have

Do you want to talk about this from the Rails perspective? Or, and I'm not saying Ruby on Rails, like the guard Rails perspective? Or from like what do we use, what do we have?

Yeah, I feel like more like what are the processes that we've instituted to help us be more effective, even though it costs us time upfront? It also some money on an ongoing basis, but it really helps us be more effective, I guess, what are the tools and processes and yeah, and what are the tools that we are using to achieve those? Yeah.

I think the only meaty one in terms of automation and all that that we have set up is the CI CD for the app. Everything else, like you said, we're almost doing what college kids would do. We are, like you said, we are coding it up. I mean, sometimes we do a little bit of back and forth between you and me. Is this the right way to do about it? And especially if it's like a complex feature, I do brainstorm with you, you brainstorm with me. But other than that, we do it, we merge

What tools do we use? Because there are plenty of tools for, let's say, cloud deployments. But for mobile, I would hazard to guess it's a black box for many people. What tools do we have for that?

I think at some point we should actually bring on the founders of the thing that we're using. But let's do a brief intro. Yeah. So we use Flutter to build the app. Flutter is a cross platform app development framework. That is by Google. Thank you, Google. Don't kill this, please. Right now it's run by Google, right? It's almost like a part of Google Cloud platform and it's very well integrated with Google Cloud. So we use Firebase and some parts of Google Cloud. Please don't kill this again.

For more information on Metacast, visit www.metacastinc.com

Yeah, but we love these things and then once we build the app, typically what you would have to do to get an app into the end user's device is you have to build it with like Xcode or something like that, sign it, then probably the Apple has some ways of like uploading the build artifacts into App Store and then you monitor App Store, post through like these are the steps and here you go build, deploy

You have to upload a file to the developer console. If you do it like a college kid in the basement, right? So you build it in your computer and then you upload the file and then you have to babysit in the Google Play and Apple developer console.

Yes, and you move it step by step. Like for example, right now we have two sets of users for our app. You can think about this if you're familiar with software systems, then rollout-wise it's like...

Stages Super Poppa Users and Just Users

Yeah, it's the pooper users are internal users, which is just you and me right now. Because I think we get the creepiest versions. Yeah, as soon as the build is done, we get it on our devices. Actually, I don't, but that's a different story. You do. I get it on Android. I don't get it on Apple, thanks to some weirdness in Apple. But anyway, It's a rotten apple.

which are cheap monitoring systems. temple.net

And I think this is where it's a really good point about pragmatic, right?

It goes beyond time here because the frustration you experience during wait times and just like sitting idle or getting blocked, I think it also drains energy. And then let's say if you were like 100% energy and then you actually spend very little time doing something, but it was annoying. Now you're like 70% energy. If you think about energy, energy is probably more of an exponential scale, you get a lot less done when you're at 70% compared to when you're at 100%.

Yeah, and it's distraction, which is kind of like the other side of energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So we use a thing called tramline. That's a few of my, it's also a startup, a few of my friends set it up maybe a year ago or something. They're doing pretty well. Now they have started getting paying customers and all that. Including us. Yeah.

We pay them a... We shouldn't disclose this. We should not disclose...

Metacast Inc.

We are paying in advantages early access rate.

Yes, and Tramline is basically you write your code, you merge it into your GitHub, whatever branch, we have it on the main branch. Then it picks it up from there, builds it, so we use something called Bitrise to actually build the app, because you can only build an iOS app on Apple hardware, you can build it on Linux or something like that. So Bitrise has some almost on-demand kind of

So once you merge a pull request, the next night Tremeline just picks it up and makes a release. In the morning we see a new version on our phone because Test Flight automatically updates it.

Yeah, because we are internal users group, right? So as soon as the build is done, it deploys it to the internal users group, yours and my phone's right now. My Android, your iOS. Yeah, and then that is the only approval step we have is to test it for a little bit. And then we say, okay, this is ready to go. Send it to the beta testers.

Yeah, and then you get it pretty much right away. Well, not right away, maybe within an hour or so.

So Google Play, the first review of the app, the very first review, it took about eight days. Eight days. But since then, it feels very automated, because as soon as we send it for approval, within about 30 minutes, it gets approved and then gets deployed. Apple, there's more of a human thing. Like there's a mix of automation and human in the loop, because some bills, I don't know what they do, but on some bills they determine that this needs more time,

Yeah, and we have sign-in with Google. So basically, we don't allow any unauthenticated usage of the app at this point. If you use the app as a beta tester, you have to be signed in and we use Google sign-in is the only option available right now. So what happens?

So this was surprising. Every time we send the app for review, there's like four or five new users who sign in and they seem to just sign in. They don't do much in the app, right?

I thought it was like 4 or 500 users, no?

No, no. Right now we're up to about, I think, 70 or so. But every time you do a release, there's like five to ten-ish new users who pop in. And we were really puzzled, like, who are these people? Why? How are they finding it? Because it's not listed anywhere on App Store or Google Play, on the public one. The only way to get it is if we invite you in. Even though...

Then we add people to the group, so if people are not in the group, they should not be able to install the app.

Right. So the only thing we were kind of hypothesizing is this must be Google testing it or something. And we couldn't find any documentation. And I was freaking out a little bit about it. So I posted on Reddit and all that. And people said the same thing, like, yeah, it's most likely Google testing it.

Snipping on our apps so they can improve YouTube music. Yeah.

YouTube Music for Podcasts

Because... But man, our daily actives were growing.

We just have to keep making releases.

Steve Zehngut. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. I'm Steve Zehngut, and I'm going to be talking about the developer's behavior to game the metric that makes no sense. The other thing that we've set up early on, which made us feel very professional, is we've set up a project in GitHub. Very early on, we started using Notion to track our stuff and track some of the tasks, but I never liked Notion for one simple reason of how it manages text editing. Blocky text editor. It's in blocks.

The app and the back-end As you know, we love the word...

M kicks off map for 1,000 thousand followers from Metacast Syria, which will give you at getting 5 403•• 200 buying per page. And if you can't take a look at this this before you could still see what it is you talking, I don't know offstay. And if you think about it, it's it right here, yeah. Thank you.

We are never blocked because it's...

You and me. Right. As you can get blocked by third parties, let's start with the G. Yeah. And basically we create a bunch of issues in that project, which get created in the meta repo. And that has been working surprisingly well for us. The experience looks very much like what I'm used to at Amazon, but a lot simpler. And I think same for you. It's lightweight.

We're also keeping a balance on adding enough details into these tasks, but not too much details at the same time.

Yeah, we basically just use check checklists to add like, these are the few things that we need to do to make sure that this feature is done, right? And as we create those features, we would paste screenshots, we would paste some links to things that helped us troubleshoot issues, you will sometimes post a lot more when you have to like debug stuff. But it will help us later on if you have to deal with the same problem again. But also, for me, especially screenshots, is part of the memorabilia, because our app

We actually had a version of the app with our internal name and we were using an ORCA for like the spinners and error pages and all that and I kept a gif of the app experience for posterity. Maybe we'll someday release that way. It'll be fun. We'll see. But yeah, that was killer. Anyway, so I think I have seen these task management systems go two ways. One is you don't have any

of Metacast Inc.

Yeah, and then like you go after a month and you have no idea what's involved in that, what it is about and all that. That's one spectrum. The other side of the spectrum I've seen is adding too much in there. And this starts actually really nicely in the beginning, when you add like a lot of details in these stories. But what starts to happen is you start believing in that framework quite a lot, where you start

I think we're pasting code there.

Like this is the code I wrote. Well, no, no, I'm not talking about the details of the task, but so let's say we come across a bug today. Well, if it's a bug, it's a different story, but you have an idea for an improvement. If you keep adding all those things into your task management system, pretty soon the task management system will start to overwhelm you with the amount of things you have there. Because every time you need to go through, you need to triage, like what do we

Right. So like even you're working on 10 things, but you have like 700 tasks, but you have to manage those.

Yes, exactly. And I think this is where the balance between them is critical. So far it's only been what like six months or so I guess for us so we'll see how it goes after a year but so far it's a good balance. Like I have a grasp of the task board like pretty quickly.

And with this I am getting a pull request! My son requests me to pull out of this conversation and go read him a book so he can go to bed, so he can wake up tomorrow morning and go to school nice and refreshed. So, dear listeners, we will finish our discussion about the Google side of the world. And you can see him banging on the door. I can hear him. Yeah. It's like a pull request where they also ping you on chat, right?

It's like, hey, can you look at this pull request? Yeah. I said it just now two minutes ago. Yeah

and then they come to you and tap you on the shoulder like, like, how about my pull request? Right, so I guess we'll just have to say goodbye at this point. I have forces far beyond my capacity to manage right now.

Yeah, yeah, we'll catch up next time. Alright, good, bye.