"Happy little shovels"

Welcome to the panel where two bootstrapped founders talk about building a better business and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, the cofounder of transistor.fm.

I'm Brian Casel, and I just launched buildermethods.com.

Yes. Oh, you that's that's like a spoiler right there because that's what we're gonna be chatting about today.

Well, I I released the name and the domain last week. And today, I finally have an actual website on the domain. So

Alright. Alright. So let's get into that.

At least the the starting of a website.

We're trying to record these live whenever we can. So Yep. If you're not on our mailing list, go to panelpodcast.com, get on our mailing list, and I'll let you know.

Yeah. A little I guess a little programming note, so we'll we'll hang today. And then I'll be out next week. We're doing a little road trip summer vacation thing. And then and then I don't know. We'll we'll see how frequently we wanna do it in the summer.

Yeah. Maybe we should. I you know, I'll I'll be around, I think.

Nothing really changes for me, to be honest, except for, like, a trip here and there. But

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So let's get into last week, we talked about this new thing you wanted to launch called buildermethods.com. Why don't you just kind of give us the overview of what it is?

We did talk a lot about it last week. I don't wanna just repeat everything. But the more that I work on it, and especially now that I have an actual website. I always find that exercise of designing the website and writing v one of the copy and the offerings that you see on the website, like, that always helps me really dial in, like, what is it that I'm actually building here?

Yeah.

The what you currently see there is, at the very top, it's it's a newsletter. Like, I'm promoting it as like, this is the key, I think, to this business, is, grow the the email list. Yeah. Completely the hero section on this website is, get on what I'm calling the builder briefing. It's gonna be I am gonna do a weekly newsletter.

Yeah. Sweet. Well, as always, this looks great. One question I have for folks in chat is how many AI dev newsletters are you already subscribed to, if any? So are you subscribed to any AI dev?

The one that I I am subscribed to and I really enjoy is BenzBytes. I don't know if you've seen that one.

I haven't heard of it. Oh, is this

The guy who who did Makerpad?

Yes. Yeah.

So I think he sold that a few years ago, and now he's he's just been all in on the AI thing. Not not exactly this. Like, his is more just like all things AI tooling, and it it is really good. There's always like just a list of interesting news items that I wouldn't really catch elsewhere.

So So what made you wanna do this weekly instead of monthly?

I I think it does make more sense. I actually started to design and build a new app that's gonna help me assemble the weekly newsletter. It's like a newsletter builder app.

Sorry. You're building this yourself? Yeah. Okay.

Not not the not the sent like, I'm gonna use Kit for sending.

Okay.

But but the the the work of writing and and creating the weekly newsletter Mhmm. That needs to be it needs to have my voice and my ideas, but it also needs to be automated. Okay. And so What does that

look like? Like, what Okay.

So so my idea for this like, in theory, the goal is for me to it's actually gonna follow a lot the a similar format to to Ben's Bytes. And I think a lot of these weekly newsletters have a very similar format where it's like a personal message at the top, couple paragraphs, followed by maybe three different sections. And each section is like a headline and a couple of bullet points with like links of like, here's a news item and my my take on it. News item and my take on it. New tool you might wanna check out and my take on it.

Yeah.

The big challenge is like how do I have systems in place to execute this on a weekly week to week basis. Right? Yeah. So my my thought is to have like an AI powered app, which I'm I'll I'll be building it. Like, it'll start with a bunch of sources.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I've got two threads here because that sounds like a cool project. I've got thoughts on that.

So Yeah.

There's, like, always, like,

something Ben's Bites is the one that it's that's sort of like the model that I have in mind

Yeah.

For this. And and mine would be angled more for, like, people who are, like, you know, builders of software. You know?

Yeah. I have noticed that, like, what makes a good newsletter I think what makes a good newsletter is a good topic. And one that I've enjoyed that I've mentioned before is this Tangle newsletter, which is a a nonpartisan politics newsletter that always examines stuff from the left and the right and then their take. But I think what makes it a good newsletter is it has sections. So there's like quick hits.

I think that, like, my take is gonna be on every item.

Yeah.

And and it and, like, this is not a new format. Like, newsletters have been formatted like like the one that you just showed. They're having multiple sections with bullet points and, like, on each bullet point. Yeah. That is a that's been around for for years. And there have been, like, actual SaaS products that do this. I think one was called like curated, I wanna say. Yes. A few

Yeah. Heat and Shaw was using one for his.

Yes. His is another that I that I do read quite often.

Yeah.

Because I I just I'm sure he has a team helping him with that, but like, it it's good he picks a couple links, and it's like his take on it. Aaron Francis's newsletter. I actually just recently joined that. I don't know how I wasn't on it earlier.

It's very good.

But he does a really great job of just finding random tweets and talk and, like, his take on it, his response. But I I really think that the key to making this good is, like, not just, like, a random list of links that Mhmm. That I didn't even read or approve. Like, the system here has to be we have a like, my AI tool is gonna be monitoring this fire hose of, like, different sources where of potential candidates for the newsletter. Yeah.

Like Yeah.

There's just gonna be a lot of factors that are like built into it that like meet the criteria for what I wanna share. And then it's gonna be like every link has to have a sentence or two take from me. And the AI can learn and be trained on my voice. So it should it should it should, like, draft that for me. So every week, I just need to go in and, like, finalize it.

Yes. I so I think that software idea is really interesting. Now you're right. There's been a bunch of these over the years. Curated is the one that we were just talking about. But your take is interesting because to have something that was like, you know, consuming fire hoses of, you know, RSS feeds and things like Hacker News and whatever RSS feeds you subscribe to and Twitter and etcetera. But then to have a scoring mechanism where it's actually, like, surfacing stuff for you.

Yeah. And there and there will be a section that that it it it'll also feed my own YouTube channel. And and maybe my my Twitter feed too. So, like, it'll it'll promote, like, a random YouTube video, but also, like, the more issues that we we produce, that's more training material for the system.

I always felt like Mailbrew was a bit of a missed opportunity.

That's that's another one. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I think they kind of left this. Like, they They had some other software that took off. Maybe the pool potential customers is too small. But I just mentioned this on Blue Sky a month or so back. I really wish I had something like Mailbrew that could just send me like, here's all the things I posted on Blue Sky.

At the very least, export it out as markdown or HTML. I could pop it into Kit. But but, yeah, I do wanna integrate it into into Kit. I mean, I'm I've already started to to, like, architect this with with Claude code and, like, should I I should have it in a week.

You know. Are are you like sharing that live? Is that one of the live building projects?

That that'll be a thing. Like right now, I'm in the planning phase for for this. But but like that's the thing, like to do a weekly newsletter that that meets a quality standard that I would wanna do Mhmm. I can't do it manually. I've tried I've tried to do exactly what you talked about, like, in the past with my own newsletter.

So People in chat have already said, like, there's certain things they're looking for in a newsletter or certain things that stand out or certain formats that really work. We mentioned Aaron Francis's newsletter. That's his right there. You know, tweets, like interesting tweets or interesting sections from long form articles, already compelling. I I mean, it helps when, like, Aaron's somebody that people care about his taste, and so they wanna hear what he has to say.

So this is the latest Ben's Bites. This this one had a video. He doesn't always have a video at the top. So, like, that that's, like, his his personal message at the top. And then and then he's got, like, what's trending, you know, a couple bullet points. And these are, like, news items, but but it's, like, his take on the news. Right? Yeah. And then top tools. So this is just tools.

I'm curious what people think about video in email. Because part of me was thinking, man, that would be a good format for you to have, like, your weekly video tutorial or video video tip. But do people like that, or do they like it to be all text? I'm trying to think because I often include videos in newsletters, but I don't know if people like it. Like, maybe that's

I do I I put videos just like thumbnails that that link to the video. You know? Yeah. Like, I do that I do that quite a bit on, like, Clarity Flow emails to promote a new feature because we usually have a video for it. It it just depends on the use case. You know?

Because for me, part of the attraction of this builder methods newsletter is that there's just all of these kind of there's all of these things where the consumer, the reader, the developer or the builder is like trying to pull information to themselves. Like they're like, okay, I know I need to figure some stuff out. And if there was like a five minute tutorial on like, okay, here today, if you do nothing else, like, watch this video and you'll get up to date on this one piece of building with AI. And that feels approachable and, you know, bite sized. But maybe people would prefer to just if they're not in that mode, like maybe they're not reading it at their computer and they're like, no, just like give me an overview of things I can try when I get back to my computer.

Yeah. The the positioning that I have on the homepage with the help of some AI copywriting is it's it's the builder briefing. It's your five minute Friday email that cuts through the hype. And the idea is that it should be scannable. But I I also wanted to have like a personal message for me.

Does does this email thing work yet?

It does. I have it integrated with I I do have it integrated with with Kit. So I as you can see, don't have a thank you page yet.

Got it. Got it. So

but I do have a kit integration, which came through my instrumental component that this is a component. So every one of these forms, so that top one, and then if you scroll down to the courses Yeah. Go up. Yeah. So each of these little so, you know, those those all get you onto the list in kit, but I'm gonna tag you based on, like, which thing you subscribed for.

Yeah. Got it.

And little technical thing. That thing that you just ran into, something went wrong. Yeah. That is the Cloudflare turnstile failing.

Oh, okay.

And so this is something that I've I've had problems with for years. If anybody listening like, I can't just have these forms exposed with no spam protection. Otherwise, otherwise, I I just get so many so many spam sign ups on these things. So I usually put Cloudflare turnstile, which, like, works, like, 80% of the time, but then, like, 20% of the time, people like, real humans, like, fail to be able to subscribe. So I don't know how people usually handle this, but every time I don't put a spam blocker on my forms, like, I get hammered with, like, my list gets polluted with spam sign up.

So that thing I just ran into was a, like, a spam blocker?

Yeah. Like, under the hood there. Yeah. It happened again.

Oh, interesting. Well, we got Ian Landsman in the chat here. He, I think, he owns a big chunk of Cloudflare. So maybe he's got Yeah.

Maybe he can, like, make a call or

something. Okay. So for the business

Okay. So, like, step one was, like, get get the website up. One of my next things is to is working on that newsletter building app so that I can start actually sending weekly newsletters. Mhmm. So I'm probably several weeks away from that.

Oh, yeah.

To to collect some information about who you are, what you're looking for, what you're trying to do. Yeah. And then it's it's thinking about what the first products are gonna be. And I think that they're gonna be this, the the just in time learning courses. Mhmm. I think that these will be the first of a of a long lineup of small courses. So I'm thinking, like, in, like, the low hundreds Yeah. Range for for pricing on each one. Something like $1.99. Mhmm.

Yes. Yes. Can I just can I just give a shout out for short courses? I I'm a fan of short courses. I you know, I've

Me too.

I'm a I'm a fan of short books. Me too. Yeah. It's just like the the reason I love buying a Derek Sivers book is it's like I know I can buy it and read it in a day and feel like it was worth it. You know?

Do do you remember I don't I don't think they still do it anymore. A List Apart used to have a book series.

Yeah. Those books were great.

They were great. Right? They're, like, small books and, like, by design, you can just consume them in, an hour. Yeah. And it's like yeah.

They're still for sale here.

Yeah. Those are classics.

Yeah. Shout out in the if in the chat if you've ever, read a list of part book. Those yeah. These are I'm I'm sure it's not quite the the business that used to be. But

Yeah. But I think that's the idea with these courses. Any anytime I ever buy a course, which is frankly not very often, but if I do, it's something that I I really wanna learn right now, and I'm not about to spend three months going through this course. Yeah. You

know? You know what I think would be an interesting experiment for you is short course, $99, but then you can buy an additional package, which is just like three follow ups with Brian via, Clarity Flow.

So Yeah. Well, that that's the neck like, if you scroll down, like, that's the coaching stuff. So that this is gonna be the higher ticket stuff down here.

Okay.

The first two items there are, like, I'm already offering now. Like, the the coaching. So Yeah. I'm thinking it'll it'll be, like, you can buy one off sessions, or you can buy a package of multiple sessions. Or if you're a team, like, I'm working with a team this week, like, you know, there there could be a structure for, like, consulting and coaching with with your whole team or with your product team.

Yeah. I think that's a good idea. And especially if, like, you have it here, but in this in this checkout, I think, like, add ons for courses is and sometimes it's just even like like my buddy does architectural drawings. And so he kind of has two prices. Basically, it's like you can just buy something off the shelf or you can get the plans plus three follow-up meetings.

Yeah. I mean, something like I I think the the courses there, like, are intended to be passive and, like, self serve and, like, priced in a way that, like, I'm not offering my time. And then the the ones down below are really gonna be pretty exclusive. I'm not I'm not trying to book myself solid with a lot of clients. Yeah.

Yeah.

It was like, if if you bought this course, then you might also want that course too because they go hand in hand, you know? Yeah. And then I think that so I all these plans will probably change as as we go, but my thought is like the courses are like passive, like low hanging fruit. Let's just get get those going in the short term. And then Yeah.

Yeah.

Live sessions. We're building together. We're learning together. We're doing hot seats, and we're doing we're doing like like, demo days and stuff like that. Mhmm. I think that can be an interesting thing too. And that that would be like a higher ticket, like, you know, do it three times a year. You know?

Do you feel like in terms of a lift and, you know, the risk with anything is doing too much all at once. How do you feel about this in terms of getting this going in addition to clarity flow and instrumental components?

It's overwhelming. There's a lot. I have to just pick it pick it off piece by piece. Like, I'm following the same playbook that I do on everything, which is I just put up this website today. This is sort of like my vision for what it could be in the future. But I'm just putting it on the page. Like, none of this actually exists yet. Yeah. You know? Like, that's my thing is, like, I just like to put up a page to say, like, what if this business has existed?

Yeah.

The the parallel here is like, I was trying to bite off a really hard problem.

Yes.

Like something that's like, nobody does this because it's like way too hard and complicated and and time consuming. And my thought was like, well, if I could figure out how to do this. Yeah. By hiring a team and having really good systems and processes and and positioning it in the right way, then that's a business. That's that's like defensible.

Yeah. I'm doing

a newsletter every week. Every month or so, I'm coming out with a new course product. And, like, three times a year, I'm doing this cohort thing. Like, how how can I how can I actually have the bandwidth to do that?

My sense is that, yeah, I think taking it, even just getting a newsletter page up, landing page up, getting it out there, starting to get some sign ups, and then figuring out how and if you can do that is probably the first step. Because if if you and I mean, honestly, to figure out if you've got a good a good channel for getting new subscribers. So if it's gonna be YouTube, then, okay, I'm gonna get the newsletter up, then I'm gonna mention it as the call to action in my video, and then we're gonna see what happens.

That's that's the funnel. It's like YouTube video is gonna talk about the newsletter, and and that and that's the business. Right?

And I wonder if you should get, like, three while you're waiting to get your system up, if you should get even just in the meantime, like, two or three emails up in a drip sequence that would just publish every week for the people who sign up.

Yeah. Like a evergreen thing.

Just an evergreen thing. So you have something you can turn it off later once you have a good cadence, but it'd be nice to get, like, email one is maybe a manifesto, like things are changing, etcetera, and maybe a little, like, example of how the structure is gonna look for the newsletter. Yeah. And then newsletter two could be, I've already got your survey, but I just want you to reply to two questions human to human. Like

Yeah.

What is actually going on? Tell me about your process. You know?

Yeah. That I mean, I I do need something like that. It's, like, on the never ending to do list right now.

Yes.

Because right it it's true. Like, right now, it's hard to do this. Like, I'm I I was hoping to have my YouTube video recorded by today, this week. I haven't gotten to it yet. I'm gonna have to record it tomorrow. But also, like, I have other things going on that hopefully will fade away as this new business replaces them. Right?

Like Like, dig into that a bit. What do you mean by that?

So, like, right now, have, like, two consulting clients, like, outside of this. Okay. There's also Clarity Flow stuff happening. Yeah. You know? So, like and also, like, just just the project of building built this this new website. Like, this took me all week. Yeah. I'm not gonna build this new website every single week. But, like, now now that it's built, it's like I'm on to the next project, which is, like, getting the newsletter up and running.

So right now, your world is I tried to, like, write it down. I think I got it. It's consulting is the the main the main moneymaker, And then you got Clarity Flow.

Yeah. It's interesting how these things they're different sizes in terms of revenue and different sizes in terms of my time. Yeah. Okay. So, like, let's see. I would say in if we start with revenue Mhmm. I guess consulting would have to be number one. I'd say consulting Instrumentl is close to that in its first month, but that's not gonna continue every month.

Okay.

Clarity flow is is is probably like a $3 sign there or two two or three. 2.5. And then and then builder methods is

Question mark.

It's I would say it's one because I have one coaching

client on it. Yeah. What about time?

It's like builder methods is, like, 90%.

What am I gonna use for this? That clock?

Maybe 8080%.

Okay. So builder methods is the is where you're investing most of your time.

Call it eighty. Yeah.

Okay. I'll just put four o'clocks.

Okay. Four. Four. Let's do consulting is like two clocks. Clarity flow is one. Oh, wow. And instrumental, now it's like one.

Okay. So you've shifted some of your time resources Yeah. From these two over to here. I think some people are gonna be wondering with instrumental components, it's got one clock and $3 signs. If you gave it two or three clocks, could you, keep it at $3 signs every month?

I think that's a good question to ask, and I think the answer is no.

Okay.

To be honest.

Why is that?

I just I I don't think that there is really a like, if what would that actually look like? Is that that's like me choosing to create YouTube videos about Ruby on Rails, me flying out to Ruby conferences Mhmm. Going on Ruby podcasts.

Yeah.

I don't know that all of that effort, which costs a lot upfront. Yeah. Is is gonna actually result in selling more $300 licenses for instrumental components. And and also like the the you have to think about the opportunity cost because the only way to actually do that type of work, go to the conferences, do the YouTube videos about Rails Yeah. Means I'm just not starting builder methods. There's no way.

Yeah. I think this is the challenging thing about is like I don't know what we could what would we use? A shovel or something? Like, much shoveling time? So right now, you're putting a lot of shoveling, like building foundational work into builder methods. So the question is, you know, if you only have so many shovels, you put it into here and that would look like probably what you're saying. Basically, what Caleb had that you didn't is he had

like Huge audience.

Huge audience, which he'd built kind of for years just doing the the shovel work, for free. And so the question is, do you wanna put in you know, to become personality in the Ruby on Rails space.

We're talking about years of full time investment. Yeah. And and like, the answer is no. Like, I'm I'm not trying to be I'm not, you know, I I I'm not trying to be the Caleb of the Ruby on Rails space. Like, I just I just don't see a path for that, to be honest.

The question might be is with Builder Methods, is it going to require the same kind of investment?

I the way I see it is I'm taking a much bigger swing with Builder Methods.

Mhmm.

And instrumental components, it started as a side project. It didn't I always intended it to be a side hustle. I never intended it for that to be a big swing. Yeah. And I don't expect it to to be a big swing.

It's also just interesting visualizing this here. It feels like if there was a legend, might have like, I only have this many clocks and this many So, clocks is time investment. And I guess the shovels we said kind of represents that foundational work you have to do before a business starts earning revenue.

And also, like, I should I should mention, like, the one of the other goals of builder methods is to eliminate the consulting block. Yes. If if things go if if I can make builder methods work as a business, then that then that creates more clocks. You know?

And and it really is when you've got kind of multiple bets going. It's like you're moving time energy between these. You gotta you've gotta invest your time in different these different blocks. I really like that we pulled out this idea of foundational shovel work you have to do before something. And there are just certain businesses that for example, there would be certain businesses it would be easier for me to launch now because I've done two decades of foundational shovel work as opposed to like if I was going to become an AI influencer person, I would have to do a lot right now as kind of foundational, like, to get my name out, to get people thinking, like, Justin equals AI guy in this niche or whatever.

The other thing is, like, clarity like, the clock icon there on ClarityFlow can also go away in in a matter of months if I like, I have one full time developer on it. Yeah. And I I had a customer support person on it. As as soon as I grow revenue from these from builder methods, then I'll probably hire a customer support person again. And, like, then then answering answering emails every week to ClarityFlow customers goes gets off my plate. You know?

Yeah. I I think that's the other thing is, like, if Clarity Flow does feel like a good fit for builder methods, it feels like you could use it. I I don't think a lot of people have seen it in practice, but, like, I used it for, in this case, to have people record their first run experience of signing up for Transistor. So I sent out a a link and said, hey, you know, here's here's the first the first run of like, you record your experience, you record your screen, you narrate it. Found it really good for, like, UX.

Yeah. So you used it for one of the worst use cases in in the in that I learned in the early days of Zip Message. Right? That like, you you used it for what I hoped Zip Message would be. And and I learned that there was no there was just no product market fit in that direction, and I ended up going to Coaches.

And then you also have this great, like, intake, thing where you can have people send us a message, like, in this case for the panel. And we've had people send us audio and video messages through this as well.

Yeah. We actually don't so that again, like, this gets into again, like, pulling into the story of Clarity Flow. But, like, in the early years, it was like, I thought that what you're showing there was gonna be the use case for this product. Mhmm. And most people canceled because they're like, well, nobody submits my intake nest my intake form.

Yeah. But I do like this I do like this kind of idea of resources. I can't remember that who had this idea of you only have so many points to it. Like in RPGs and stuff, you can only assign your character so many points for different things. I can't remember who said this, but they were saying like, you you can assign some resources to the family bucket and your exercise bucket. And then Yeah. And it's like this idea that we only have finite resources.

Very true. I also find that I also find that same pattern with create creative energy. Mhmm. And that's another that's another big challenge of this whole Venn diagram is

is Yeah.

Managing my energy. Yeah. And even if I have the hours to spare, like, even if I can put in x number of hours to do things, like, what quality are those hours? Right? Like

Yeah. How would you quantify that right now? Like, in terms of if you're gonna have it in terms of, like, passion. Like, how would you quantify passion for each of these? Like, how excited are you about each?

I wouldn't, like, use an use an emoji, but if I just had to, like, rank them. You know, builder method's number one. I guess instrumental components two, clarity flow three, consulting four.

Okay.

And on a day when when I'm recording a YouTube video, like, that's the day.

That's that's your best day?

No. That's like it just like wipes me out in terms of energy.

Got it. Got it.

Like, I'm I'm I use so much energy to to write the script, to do do the on camera recording Mhmm. And then do the edit. That, like, I'm I might do a few emails in that day, but, like, I'm not gonna get any other, like, big rocks done that day. You know?

I think that that is a question, though, of does that stuff give you energy? And so you've said you're wiped out, but does it give you energy in the sense that you're, like, pumped up and like, for me, a day that I write a blog post or record a video or record a podcast, I'm pumped that day. That's like a good day. That gets like, I don't know what I would give it, like a battery score or something like high battery. I come home like, I might be like I might be drained in the sense that, oh, I took some effort, but it's like it's high battery day in the same way that I get pumped up when I'm in a social situation and like at a party or something.

It's funny how like my my batteries are like the opposite of yours. You know, I I've I've thought about this too. So I think that for me, it would it would be builder days. So the days where where I am building software, designing and building software. So even like this project, like working on this website builder methods, like, I I I spent a ridiculous amount of time, like, picking colors and fonts and and, like, getting the responsive breakpoints just right and, like Mhmm.

Yes.

If I can come in here every day and just work on that, that would be fantastic.

Yeah.

But from a business standpoint, I don't have a SaaS product that can justify me spending full days, forty hours a week just building software. Mhmm. That doesn't exist right now.

Yeah.

And so that's another reason why I if I can make the builder methods business work, it's a way to have call it, like, roughly half my week doing these, like, days where I'm just tinkering and building and designing Mhmm. And taking my learnings and the byproducts of those days and spending another two days turning that into YouTube content, newsletter content, you know, and then and then actual paid courses. That's the ideal mix, I think. Because I I do like the content creation. I do like the YouTube stuff.

Like, if you could I mean, we could add another square here for for that that little newsletter thing that you're gonna build.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that will be sort of like, my thought is, like, I'm definitely building it for my own use first. This will probably be the first of many small apps that spin out of builder methods, Like actual products that other people could use. Yeah.

I think the other thing that's challenging about this stage is like the way I'm thinking about it in my head is

This is like the most fun podcast I've ever been on. Like talking about stuff and like Justin illustrating it in real time.

I love this this TL draw tool. It's awesome. It feels like Bootstrappers, you always have to have this foundation of money. Something's making you money. For Adam Wavin and Steve Shoger, it was the refactoring UI course. That's just spitting out money. And then off of that, they're trying things. They're taking swings. So it's like, okay, here we're gonna take a swing on, I don't know, our SaaS app. And then we're going to take another swing.

Yep.

And I think the challenge for Bootstrapters is always like, you need to keep this money foundation going. And then that gives you the freedom to, you know, whenever you get a moment to invest some of your time and energy in some swings. But until something really kinda takes off, it can feel like you're just, like, swinging.

It's a grind. Yeah. Look. I I think that I mean, look. The thing with, like, Adam Watt, like like, Talend or any of the like, these are exceptions.

Mhmm.

And and the reality is for most people who are trying to bootstrap something, the way that the way that where those dollar signs are gonna come from are either a job or freelancing consulting for a while.

Mhmm.

Until you until you can like squeeze that out in favor of Yeah. A product. And I the other thing the other pattern I've seen in my own life, but also from so many other people who've made that transition from job or freelancing to products, is at some point you need to just make the decision like, I'm gonna earn less this year. I'm gonna take a pay cut because I'm going to invest in something new. That means I'm gonna do a whole lot of work for free for a while.

Do you feel like Builder Methods could be that? So one thing that, Matt Medeiros said here is, honestly, the only product I want from Brian is a course on hiring VAs and outsourcing work. So, like, is

there It was called the productized course.

And did you sell that too?

I did.

So now you're out of that.

Yeah. In 2025, the game is not hiring VAs anymore. The game is hiring agents.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, maybe that's the next that's the next

And if only there was a website that taught you how to build stuff with AI.

Buildermethods.com. Yeah. I I think, like, there's some folks like Ian Landsman, for example, who I think they're like, ah, you're leaving this one too quick. Instrumental components. Is there more

Just because I talk about it on a podcast does not mean I'm all in on it.

So because you've you've made over $20,000 on it. Right?

No. A little bit less.

A little bit less than 20?

Above 10. It was like or like right now, it's up to like something like 13. I don't know.

Okay. You feel like in order to get this to, like, really be sustainable, it would just take a lot more shovels. A lot more

Yeah. But it's also not just about the trajectory of the revenue graph. Mhmm. It's also just looking at the world in front of me and saying, I don't think there's gonna be more developers choosing to learn how to write code in Ruby by hand. Yeah. It like, I just don't see that as a growing space.

Like, if you had re if you had to rebuild this, you might have you might have had you might have like, maybe you wouldn't have built it at all because you just feel like the landscape has shifted so much.

Yeah. If if it if today was if we're in June 2025 and I have not built instrumental components Yeah. And I'm looking around for what is my next business gonna be, I'm not choosing to build a components library for Ruby on Rails today. Mhmm. I like, look. I I gotta be clear about this. Because people really hear things come through podcast speak like speakers, and they sound different than the reality. Yeah. The reality is I'm happy with instrumental components. Yeah.

should also mention that you did change the pricing. So now it's a single purchase pricing. Yeah. So if you're if you're

Which which also removes my obligation to to you know? Yeah. You're not you're not subscribing with the expectation that I'm gonna be delivering new components every single month. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I think that's about right. Like, it is an aspirational product. Like, people are like, oh, I'm I'm like, oh, I'm gonna build a project in Rails. I'm gonna use that. I need a UI library. I I think we got is did I see Dave Junta is back in here? You know, I think he's trying out different ideas right now. And maybe this is exactly the kind of he's a Rails guy. Might he might want to pull something like this in and and build something.

Look. I I still think it's a great product. I I used it to build the builder methods app Yeah. Site, you know, which is a Rails app. Like, I'm using it. I still use it. It's it's great. Like but but like, where where the world is going and the and what I the market is going and what I really wanna build and what I see as a much bigger swing

Mhmm.

Is something like this.

Yeah. And there is something to with response of, like because you're putting out these videos and like this vibe coding goes pro video has 43,000 views. And there is something about that feeling of like, okay, this thing here is really kind of this feels like momentum and maybe, like, how to build Rails apps fast has 915 views. So it could feel like

And the interesting thing is that, like, yeah, those are much lower views, but a lot of the buyers for instrumental components came from those.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it it's nice it's nice to have, like, something like it's just a trickle. It's just like the the few people in the world who are still on YouTube watching Rails videos, a lot of them are gonna find my stuff, and that leads them to instrumental components. And that's and that's a portion of that pie of of the product revenue. You know?

I think I just saw a somebody was looking at a Google Trends graph of, like, Rails. And it's always hard to figure out how to interpret those, like, how many active Rails developers are there in the world right now? And, you know, is it growing?

Or Yeah. I've looked at those surveys. I don't I really don't know what where the data comes from. But, like, both Rails and Laravel are pretty far down on the list. Yeah. I think Rails is something like like yeah. I forgot the survey that I saw, but I usually see them, like, fortieth is, like, the the fortieth most, like, popular framework. And then, of course, React is is at the top, and Next. Js is near the top. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, if you compare anything to React right now, I think most people will admit that React is one. Like, they are the big the big dog, I think, is what Yeah. What Ian said.

I mean, I'm sure PHP Laravel is is higher up on the on the ladder than, like, Rails and and more momentum and growth probably than than Rails. But, like, compared to JavaScript world, it's like

Yeah. That is kind of the question though, is is Rails dying or is it just less popular when compared to a juggernaut like React.

I wouldn't say it's dying, but I I do think that there are some trends in the Rails world that I find a little troubling in terms of, like, what really is the future of this.

Yeah.

If if you if you play things out just a few years down the line, like, what I'm seeing are it seems like Rails developers are probably a little bit less likely to be excited about building with AI. They're they're a little bit more set in their ways. They just love writing Ruby, and I get it. I I write it. I love it too.

Yeah. Especially like the the JavaScript React story and not embracing it.

Yes.

Yeah. I'm curious. I we're we're gonna wind things down here, but, yeah, in chat, if folks have any thoughts about that. I I do think the I really like this. And for folks that are listening to the audio version, I'll drop a link to this illustration I made here while we were talking.

How do remove most of these emojis?

That's the

that's the question.

Oh, yeah. As a designer, you're probably like, whatever.

But More more dollar sign emojis, less

troubles. Yeah. Yeah. So how can we remove the the time and and then, yeah, trying to quantify the

actual batteries. We like the batteries.

Yeah. The batteries are good. And then what was the other one I was like I was thinking about as we were talking? I think there's also, you know, as you're looking at bets, if you're thinking about all of these as bets, there is also a

I want to turn this question on you, by the way. I don't want this to be all about me.

Well, maybe we're going a little bit long, but maybe next week we'll turn it back on me Because now we've got a framework. How could you quantify opportunities and threats for each of these, like moving forward? And so part of you is like, well, instrumental components, like if we're still making bets, but you're still always looking at your cards going, what are the chances that this hand can beat, you know, the other hands? And if if you don't feel like it's a good hand, you gotta fold.

That's that's another thing that I like, people like, if if you're not all in on it, you have to kill it. Like Mhmm. I don't agree. No. Like, it's fine to have a small side project that is passive. Like, that's what look. People are buying instrumental components, and I'm not doing any work to make that sale today. It's passive. Yeah. And that's a beautiful thing, but I just don't see a growth opportunity for it. Oh,

And I I mean, I can completely identify with this because if you go to dev marketing oh, no. Not dev marketing. What is it? Marketing for developer? I don't even know the the What's

going on there?

I don't even know the devmarketing.xyz. Is that the domain? You know, this course, which I released in 02/2015, marketing for developers, it's still like, you can still buy it. It's still for sale. It still makes a sale every once in a while.

Nice. Isn't isn't that great? Like, especially when it's like an old product that you really haven't touched in a while and people are still finding it Yeah. And and getting value from it. Like, I've I had products like that for years.

Yeah.

And I like, I'm gonna be active on it for a long time, I think. It might take a different form, might go in different directions, but that's this is where I think the opportunity is.

Well, I think I can also just identify with that feeling of why did I move on from this? Well, clearly, some point, I felt like this is just not like I gave it

a good

go. And but this is not going to be the thing that carries me forward. And then, you know, I wrote a blog post about it in 2018. But, you know, like when I stopped working on this, it was my booking course revenue was was that was this Nathan's or oh, yeah. This is Nathan's.

Yeah. Because I I think, again, is that's one of those things where it's like, okay. You can look at the graph and that could tell you one thing, but, like, you also have to just look at the world. Yeah. And you I I I loved your writing on this.

Yeah. It and it is hard. Like, sometimes you could make a mistake. You could be you know, if we were going to quantify like waves, you could say like with marketing for developers, I definitely felt like it was like it was a I could see the wave went up and then it was going down and then I got it to go up again. And then I was like, I just can't like to maintain that, I could just tell this wave's going down.

We can cover it next time. But, like, for someone like you who has a well established SaaS business, of course, like, you're not in the mode in your career of, like, sort of taking bets and, like, and, like, exploring new opportunities. Like, maybe within Transistor you are. Yeah. But, like, you're you're not looking for a new business to start and and to to shift your emojis around the canvas.

Although I'm still thinking in some ways, there's still always that thought of, like, you gotta keep some irons hot. And so, you know, within transistor, we've got other bets that we're making. Is there still opportunities and threats that we gotta most SaaS businesses, the wave goes like this, you know, and maybe then gradually goes down. Some like, the Buffer story is interesting. They had this big peak. And then

You gotta be like a podcast illustrator.

Went down, and then they got it to go back up again. So usually, when you're on the way down, that's the end. Like, you're just like, okay. I'm I'm I'm gone. But Buffer, the social media app, they peaked, and then they were going down. They they were somehow able to reverse it, and now they're, like, they've exceeded their previous peak. Yeah. And that's very interesting.

Stack Overflow, that's a that's a different story.

Yes. That that was one thing we we had that we didn't get a chance to talk about is yeah. They talk about, like, Chegg and their decline in an AI world and Stack Overflow, their decline.

Mhmm.

Placing bets, you've got and this is where we need Ian at some point. What maybe I'll have him back is I'm not a very good poker player, but there is something about placing bets that's interesting to me. Like, you've you're dealt every project, you know, you try is you get a deck of you get dealt some cards, and you're basically like, does this you know, does my pair here is this enough to beat produce a good business? And those are hard decisions to make.

Really hard. And, like, you gotta you gotta learn to trust your gut. It's something that I've I've struggled with a lot in recent years. You know, like, when I talked about how, like, I was I I had a good thing going there during the audience ops years, and and then I don't in in the years that followed. Mhmm. Things just took different turns and like, that that fucked with my confidence on, like, making those bets.

Yeah.

And it makes it really makes you second guess every single bet, like, to, you know, to a fault where it's like he like, that that's why it took me five years to even launch a new product with instrumental components. It's because I I couldn't actually pull the trigger on anything because I couldn't, like, give myself permission to say, like, I I think there's something there. I'm gonna go build it and sell it. Everything was like, I need I need a 110% proof that this is gonna be a good idea. Otherwise, I'm not gonna start building.

Yeah.

At a certain point, you just gotta be like, look. I'm looking at the world. This is where I'm going. This is where I'm going personally. This is where the market is going.

Yep.

There let's let's just go.

Yeah. You gotta follow your gut. I think that is that is definitely true. The great thing about podcasting is we get to talk about things out loud and then get get the feedback.

I found your next business, by the way. What's that? It's Podcast Illustrator as a Service. So people like running a podcast or video podcast that you just have Justin on, he he doesn't even have to be a guest. Just just illustrating what you're talking

I'm the I'm the Bob Ross of Podcast Illustration.

Yeah.

Alright. Well, we're gonna we're gonna wind it down. Thanks, Brian. It was good to and congrats, buildermethods.com. You can sign up. I just did. Go there

right now, everybody. And next episode will be all about Justin.

Next episode, we're get we'll we're gonna use that same I I really like this little framework we built here. I think I think we could we could translate this into my world and and move move resources around and make it fun.

Yeah, man.

Also want to give a shout out to everybody here in the chat. We got happy little shovels, Anthony McCloskey McCloskey. Got Matt Durer, Dave Junta.

You're so much better at tracking. Every time I look over at the chat, I'm like, there's way too much going on. I just can't right now.

Francis Boyle. I must have some form of high functioning ADHD. We've got Emmett here. We've got Eric Barnes. There's a Laravel superstar. Ryan Hefner, Zach Gilbert. Who else did we say? Corey Griffin is back. Matt Maderos. Good to see him here. Yeah. Chris Kottam, Ian Landsman. Hello. Hello. Thanks for

Do people have work to do? What's going on?

No. This is great. This is exactly where you folks should be. We're taking a break next week. I think we could be back July 3. You got anything going July 3?

I'm just away next week, and then I'm back.

Alright. Thursday, July 3, same time, same place. See y'all then.

Alright. Later, bro. Bye.