¶ Intro
Welcome to the panel where founders talk about building a better business and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, cofounder of transistor.fm.
Brian CaselAnd I'm Brian Casel, founder of Builder Methods.
And I am Jordan Gal, co-founder at heyrosie.com. And I'm hosting today. Yeah. Which is gonna be a challenge for me because I'm I'm also hosting my house by myself with my wife out of town. And I'm getting a call from one of my kid's friend's mom. It's it's gonna be chaos but we're gonna get through it. Alright. We
That's got people what wanna see, by the way. That real life stuff
That sounds like good content. That's actually
one of my favorite Bootstrap Web episodes was I think it was you, Jordan. One of your kids came in and Brian just let the recording run and it was just you talking to your kid. I was like, yes. Breaking the fourth wall. Like, I wanna hear the real the real
life I'm trying to text back Lou's mom right now while you're talking to see if everything is okay because they're at their house. They wanna do a lemonade stand at my house, but I can't help them bring the lemonade stand out to the sidewalk. There's a lot going on. And I don't about you guys. I am fried from the last few weeks.
I'm fried. Mhmm. I'm I'm doing I'm taking a lot of experience, basically, from college graduation, aka from the moment of, like, adult responsibility. All of those lessons up until now to just keep my act together. Wow. And and and get through whatever storm is happening around me to just keep it rolling in the right direction. That's been my internal conversation for two weeks is relax. Relax. You've got it. You've done this before. One thing at a time.
Brian CaselIs this is there anything specific, like, that changed recently? Or is this just a general, like, this is how this business is going this year?
I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that there's this very strange effect that I get that the better the business does, the closer it feels like I'm getting to, like, this, like these, like, goals, the the more the pressure feels ramped up. Mhmm. So I think that's a big part of it. I think I pay way too much attention to, like, you know, international affairs and right. My family's in Israel.
It's just kinda never leaves my mind. And that side of the world is absolute chaos. Mhmm. You know? Chaos. So like that in the mix and then I got some family stuff going on over the last few weeks that's not easy. And I I think I mentioned also, I have been more willing to share my frustration with people and like Yeah.
To be
very, you know, blunt with people. And and I I can't avoid it. It keeps happening. I keep being put into these situations where I'm like, I can either, you know, take this and not react very emotionally or I can just let them have it.
Brian CaselMhmm.
And and I'm in the let them have it mode. So this week it just happened over and over again. I'm like, I get I get to the desk. I'm like, alright. Gonna have a nice chill day.
¶ Impact of AI and Market Dynamics
Look at my calendar. I'm like, I got one call. I'm just gonna be productive. Me and Claudine gonna be hanging out knocking things out. And then like that one call is like with our ad agency and I'm like, guys, why aren't we spending as much as I wanna spend? Like, the the the beginning of June, we didn't grow as much as as we normally grow. Mhmm. So I'm looking around, like, it a churn thing? Okay. Churn's a little bit higher, but but no.
Really, what it what it came down to after I did all this analysis was we're not spending our budget. Mhmm. Right? If if we grow based on ad spend, then you gotta spend a certain amount if you wanna expect a certain amount of growth. So you set that as the budget and then I look at the actuals ten days in and I'm like, we're on track to underspend by, like, 30%.
Mhmm. So in June, all of my frustration and angst and what's going on? Where's the growth? Basically came down to I wasn't spending enough money. And in business, not spending enough money is cannot be the problem. Yeah. That's the easiest part of business. Spending So so I, you know, screwed me up for a day or two and and and it's funny because it it has this like mirror image of it. Right? I get frustrated.
I put my foot down. I'm like, fix this immediately. I'm done. I don't care about how slowly you wanna ramp up budgets to be aware of the algorithm. I'm like, put the damn budgets up today when we hang up, period. Yeah. And then, like, the same day, sign ups go back to normal. And I'm like, god. Goddamn it. So this this is a topic I think I wanna talk about, Brian, that you brought up around taking control of your funnel.
You are in control. Yes. All this other stuff happening out there, these other people that you work with, these agencies, this thing, the SEO, like, no. I refuse that. I'm in control of the goddamn funnel. I decide what's on the page. I can make the changes to the pricing page. I can change the button. Just be decisive and take freaking control of the damn funnel.
Brian CaselMhmm. I like it. There's my I like it. There
is a lot there. I I keep thinking about how I think AI has fundamentally changed a lot of narratives, not just because of AI, but because AI forced all of these issues to the surface. You know? And, you know, in the past, I've talked about how John and I needed my business partner and I need to go on a founder retreat because it's just like all of a sudden, ostensibly because of AI, but really because it's it's just all came to the surface. And you have to answer these questions.
You have to confront these truths in this environment because it is changing. Things are happening. And I think I've also felt this impulse to confront more things. And I think part of it is just like, you just see everything so much more clearly. Both what's your responsibility and also just like, where are we where are we missing the boat?
¶ Taking Control of Your Funnel
Where are where are we not hitting the bar? And, yeah, it's it's it's an interesting time. And I think to be empathetic for everybody, including people on our teams and other folks in the industry, I think everybody's feeling a version of this, which is on the business owner side, we feel this like, here's the bar. Why are we not hitting this bar? We got to confront this.
Or here's a frustration. Why? I've got to deal with this. This has been two years in the making. We just need to confront this thing and speak it openly and plainly. But I think also, I'm just seeing so many folks who are employees and people looking for work and new students and people just graduating. I'm feeling I think everybody has a version of anxiety and overwhelm that and a lot of it has been the catalyst was AI. It's not directly attributed to AI, but the catalyst was AI.
Brian CaselIt does seem like as an observer of both of you and your businesses this year, it's like I'm noticing, I think it's coming out here today, the seems like you both have have gone have been going through this journey this year of, like, look, as the leader Mhmm. Like, I'm I'm just gonna put words in both of your mouths for
a second. Like, as as
Brian Caselthe leader, you know, I'm sort of frustrated with the state of things. I think we should be performing better or differently in some way. And it's on you to to bring about that change with everyone around you. And I and I could hear that frustration, you know, like going back months, Justin, to your, like, the the retreat and the fallout from that and and, you know, Jordan and and all the growth and everything. And like, I mean, I I I also experienced a a similar thing, but it but it's very different because I'm I'm solo in this.
And it's and then I to me, like, all the same types of frustrations come back internally, you know. And then I put the same that pressure that you're that you're expressing comes, I put it back onto myself. And I take a look at the systems, right? So like the things that I get, because I, you know, talking about funnels. I was saying before we started recording that like, I'm turning my focus now to the funnels and the mechanics of not only whom, like I talked earlier about who the target customer is.
Now I I really because like certain things are not performing the way that they were performing just a few weeks or months ago. And they'll and I'm doing some of the very same things. And some parts of the funnels are are are actually performing the way that they've always performed. But then the next step, there's there's some sort of breakdown. So it's like diagnosing that, and then and then seeing how that then turning that into like, what what does that mean for my to do list?
What which part of the funnel, which assets, which processes, which tooling, which agents, which whatever which strategy do I need to focus on today or tomorrow? And then what comes after that, and then after that. And some and then and then, like, some of that involves, like, things that I need to deliver. Like, whether it's recording a video or choosing the right idea to to talk about, or choosing the right way to build a system that makes me deliver something faster. Like, I can get I don't I don't have a team member to get frustrated at.
It's like, to me, it's like, I I need to ship this thing by Friday so that my funnel can get fixed, you know? Yeah.
I mean I mean, I I think that's ultimately any frustration that I have as a business owner is ultimately a frustration with myself. Yes. It's hello. It's me. I'm the problem. It's me. It that's that's the thing. But but I think where it maybe differs for Jordan and I is that, yeah, when you have people you're working with, then you have to then communicate that. And I think it can be it can sometimes even be like it's like if you've been holding off on confronting this. Like, it's me.
I gotta I've gotta make a decision here. It's ultimately it's up to me. No one's coming to save me. Nobody the ghost of Steve Jobs is not gonna come and, like, tell me what to do. I've just got to make the decisions, and I've got to get crystal clear. I think this is what AI really catalyzed for a lot of people. It's like, fuck all this other stuff. We've been wasting time. We've been we've been concerning ourselves with these things. We've been pursuing these things.
It just makes it crystal clear. What do we need to build? What do people want? Where is the customer demand? And how are we gonna address that demand? And not just, like, the second or third or fourth thing on their list, but the number one thing on their list. Crystallizes everything.
Yeah. And and quickly. Yeah. Yeah. We have a we, you know, we we we think of features as pebbles, rocks, and boulders. Right? Pretty classic, you know, small, medium, large type thing. And we have trouble because we are constantly focused on the boulders. So we'll go through like a boulder wave because this big thing feels like it moves the business forward. And people even if people don't want it because they don't even know that we're working on it, we want it.
And it's difficult to get to the pebbles and the rocks in between. So we we go a little like seesaw. Like, So Yeah. You know, rocks working on a boulder. Let's let's make sure Andrew is not also working on a boulder so that we're not releasing anything for two weeks. Like, we need some bounce in in that to to keep the momentum going forward.
Brian CaselYeah. That seesaw analogy always hits for me because it's like, I'm always going between, like, marketing and product. Mhmm. And but, like, for me, really, most of my work is marketing. All the content, all the YouTube, all, like that's, I'd say really 80 plus percent of what I do is marketing.
And and then having something of value to to give on on Builder Methods Pro. But there that that always feels a few steps behind. Like I have demand for certain courses or, you know, certain benefits, but I need to keep the the funnel going, you know. Yeah. It Like something like tangible this week.
I've been talking about this with the video editing. This past week, I like I I feel like I'm starting to turn a corner, but it it's still a slow ship to to to bring this all online. But my last two videos, I published on, I think Tuesday and Thursday of this week, which is the first in a while. I've I've only been publishing once every one or two weeks. Now, I got two videos out this week.
Both of them, I recorded less than twenty four hours from the time that they published. Both of them were 100% edited with Claude code. And I I feel like it's it's a breakthrough, especially with this most recent one. It still takes a few hours to process it with Claude code. And I'm and I'm still tinkering in, like, under the hood, you know, the skills and stuff that I'm using to edit videos.
But it does absolutely actually mean that, like, literally, I spent, like, on the on the video that I published on Claude Fable on Thursday, I recorded that on Wednesday and I spent about two hours. Mhmm. Yeah. Like I spent I spent about two hours, like like, using AI to help me finish the script. And then and then, like, another, like so, like, probably three hours total from, like, script to recorded.
Recorded. And then and then and then, like, a few hours in the afternoon for Claude to do its thing while I'm working on other projects to to get it into a finished state and scheduled to publish in the morning. And that that to me is a is a pretty huge breakthrough because, again, it's like, now I have this I mean, I literally just just cut that that time to publish down from like four to seven days often, down to like a twenty four hour period. So now it's a matter of like, okay, I I have my production process figured out again. It it it took three weeks to retool it.
Now the rest of the funnel. I I need to I need to turn my focus to email conversion, you know, paid conversion and the funnel, and and like the mechanics that take a take a person in, you know.
It makes sense that you're not focused on funnel as soon as you get the top of the funnel process a little more efficient. Okay. I wanna say something about Fable and then ask you two to react to it. My take on Fable right now outside of tech, you're not gonna get a good take from me on on the tech Mhmm. Is that it's the first time we've encountered an unaffordable AI.
Mhmm. And what that does is it changes the way we think of how to use it. Yes. And it's the first departure from this extremely egalitarian environment of Microsoft and Rosie have the same tools and the same intelligence and the same capability. And isn't that awesome?
Cool story. Fable comes along and I think it is the first time we depart from that extremely even playing ground. And now we're gonna go back to the very classic dynamic of if you have more money, you have an advantage. And what I'm worried about is that an advantage in we can hire a 100 people. We all know can be an advantage, but it's not a straightforward advantage because there's so much complication that goes with But if this intelligence just continues to get better and better and better, the ability to to create advantage based off of just resources, just more money being able to spend more on intelligence, I think it's really scary for small companies.
¶ The impact of Fable on AI Costs
Because it hasn't been that way. Yeah. So that when I look at Fable, that's my sense. So
Brian CaselJustin, do you wanna
Well, I'm I'm just wondering. I know it's it's expensive. And right now, we don't really have this. I haven't actually played with it and that it's only
Brian CaselJune June 22, it becomes API only.
Got it.
Brian CaselIs my understanding. Right now, like, have at it.
If you if
Brian Caselyou have a max plan, have at it right now.
I have multiple conversations with people saying, I'm going to go super hard on some really big features refactors and that sort of thing Mhmm. So that I can get it under the wire before before it costs me
Yeah.
A different How expensive will
it be compared though compared to other things? A 100 x.
Like a 100 x.
Yeah. But how expensive will it be compared to hiring the an engineer to do that kind of work?
But I think that's fair to say, hey, if you could build this feature for $2,000, would you do it? Yes. But what I'm saying is we have not had to make that calculation up until now.
Brian CaselSee, this is where I I I think I half agree with you. Yeah. I think you might be totally right in the in the long run-in terms of, like, the the the the split. Mhmm. One part that I think is definitely gonna become clear after June 22 is, like, one actual difference in my workflow, and I think many people's workflow, is now I'm gonna be much more conscious of or or, you know, selective of which model am I using for which tasks.
Up until now, I have been look, I've got a Cloudmax plan. Throw everything on Opus. I don't care.
Right? Yeah.
Brian CaselAnd wherever I can use Opus, just like, I don't touch Sonnet anymore. I don't, you know and I've got a couple Hermes things that are using ChatGPT 5.5, whatever. But like the the the main workhorse for me day to day, Opus everything. Right? But now with her with with Fable, it will definitely be a it's it's not gonna be just use Fable on everything because because I have this Max Plan and I can't use the Max Plan on Fable.
Right? Mhmm. So it it is gonna be a selection. I I I'm guessing maybe once or twice, maybe three times a month. I'm gonna have a day where I've got something big that I want to build.
And I'll be willing to spend whatever for for the day on some API for Fable to to crack open this, like, big v one of a big project or something like that or or a big refactor. Right? But the day the day to day stuff, I'm still gonna stick to Opus as my daily driver. Right? And so and so I'm that's gonna become a muscle in my workflow to choose, be to to toggle between the two.
Like, is it worth paying a little bit extra to to have the nice meal once in a while? Or is it or is my daily driver just fine for most things? That I think that's gonna be a thing.
Can I ask a question about these harnesses? Like, have the harnesses will the harnesses aren't telling you, like, hey, that prompt should really go to this model yet. Right? No. That does seem funny to me that they they don't do that.
Like, I the joke I saw online somewhere was, like, someone's, like, me using me using all my Fable credits to change the color of a button. You know? Right. And and I think it's weird to me on the orchestration level that Claude wouldn't be saying, Justin, that that prompt would really be better served by Haiku or whatever than the way you're using it. Like, you can having more intelligence in terms of, like, what prompts I should assign to what model
Brian CaselSee, I I don't I I think thinking on, like, prompt by prompt, that's way too granular in in my in my opinion.
Is it, like, task or project?
Brian CaselYeah. Pro it's more project based. Like, is this huge? Then today, we're gonna we're gonna spend on some on some fable.
If
Brian Caselyou
were gonna build a brand new
Brian Caselapp Just keep it on Opus. That's my thinking
on it.
Brian CaselSo if
you're gonna build a brand new web app today, you would use Fable?
Brian CaselProbably. Yeah. But, like, what I mean is, like, the v one of that. So so now when I when I do a v one of a of a big prog of a big app, I I have this is the other point I wanna I wanna make about this, and this is where I think we can still consolidate and and level the playing field even, like, yes, the Microsofts can spend on Fable all day long, but but we still have what what I think the big breakthrough not the big breakthrough, but, like, okay, Fable is very, very good. Right?
I I did build a big extension of one of my apps with it the other day. It's very, very good. But it's it's really to me, at least my first impression of it during week one, it it I I wouldn't call it like game changing because Opus 4.8 is still freaking good. Yeah. You know?
So so what I mean by that is, yes, it probably makes a lot fewer errors. But Opus 4.8 rarely makes errors either. So any time it is you you get a a unsatisfactory result out of Fable or Opus, it's we're we're past the the phase where it's like, oh, the the model made a mistake, or the model hallucinated. I think we're we're beyond that now in in the coding world, in my opinion. It's more about we didn't spec it out right.
We didn't we didn't do the initial planning. The the inputs that we as engineers, architects, designers, product people, we we did not do the extra leg work to put to to to get to a fully thought out and fully specked out PRD. And if we and if you don't do that work upfront, you're gonna, it's gonna build the wrong thing because you told it to build or or you left out gaps. And and if you, and if you start to learn the workflows to get it to ask you and grill you on getting those specifics right upfront, then now we, now I can trust that like this thing is gonna knock it out near perfectly. It's not gonna just make mistakes as long as it has the right input.
So that that's something that we can still control as any any level of business. Right? And and so, so then again, it's like, that that was totally the case with Opus, just as it is with Fable. Just Fable is a little bit more. I I, with Fable, I can be a little bit more ambitious.
I can, if if a, if a typical v one app, I would normally break it out into like three or four buildable milestones, and that'll take me a day to knock through them with Opus. I can maybe build out in like one big milestone with Fable. Okay. You know? And so it saves me a couple hours.
Mhmm. You know? Yeah. I could see a world where there's just a separation of work, and the harder work gets done by the more expensive models, and and the more straightforward stuff gets done by cheaper models. And yeah.
But it as someone running a funded company, I really have not thought about AI costs very much because it's so, you know, straightforwardly worth it. Yeah. And and reasonable that you're you're, like, don't don't, you know, limit yourself because of budget. Like, we're we're paying you a salary many times more than your cloud subscription. If you need an extra this plan or an extra $300, like, whatever, go for it.
But this is the first time where Rock was like, just so you know, this thing I did over the last three days would have cost, like, $4,000 in Fable. Like, we we officially now need to, you know, add it into our calculation.
Brian CaselIt has to be, like, a thing that you look at.
Yes. Yeah.
Brian CaselAnd I and I think your fear about, like, the the the overall cost and the comparison will become very real if and when these subsidized subscriptions go away. And and I I you have to think that at some point, they are gonna go away or or they're gonna be adjusted. Like
Yeah.
Brian CaselLike, this party is already slowing down. Like I'm I'm off
two minds now.
I don't know about that. Don't know about that. Can you give
Brian Caselme test?
Minds about this because I think on one hand, it seems inevitable that we are being subsidized right now. Like the $200 Claude Max subscription, that's been the general consensus is that people are actually getting about $6,000 worth of value out of that for $200. And and, know, clearly, that might not exist forever. But this is it's very difficult to know where this is gonna go. There's a Wall Street Journal article where it says OpenAI is considering drastic price cuts in suspending war for users with Anthropics.
So it could go anywhere. Right? It could be we could be in a you know, it might be sure. It might get more expensive. It might also get less expensive in the Yeah.
¶ SpaceX IPO and Betting on Space
I wonder
Brian Caselabout that. I and I haven't Capitalism maybe. Specifics of of but if if we are gonna be getting into price wars and what they're talking about is, like, not adjusting the price of subscriptions. They're talking about lowering the price of the tokens. Mhmm. Unit price. Right? Which is really interesting. But I wonder if that is, again, a sign that these companies are trying to wean us off of the subsidized subscriptions and get into the habit of, like, we're all we're all just paying a meter now.
And Yeah. I You
Brian Caselknow, mean that is where it's gonna get real between if if if if you can meter Fable all day long or you're a smaller company and you can't, that that then the discrepancy is real.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna continue to disrupt each other. The the other thing like, there's so many other things that could disrupt this. Like, for example, all of the new Macs might eventually have a bunch of onboard AI stuff that makes it all cheaper. And they just say, we automatically figure out, you know, what you need to do, and we'll send it off.
You know, they just who did they do a deal with? They did a deal with Google or something? You know, they'll send it off if they need to, but they'll do a lot of things on device if they if they can. And so there's other things that could make it cheaper. Right? Like, more more on device stuff, more cheaper Chinese models.
Brian CaselYes. So
it's it's it's hard
to know. You guys are setting me up for a really nice transition into the SpaceX IPO here. Mhmm. Mhmm. Well, let's let's move that because it it is related.
I I think everything we're talking about is, like, capitalism one zero one. Competition, innovation, price dynamics, open source, all this stuff is happening. What wherever we currently sit, we should absolutely assume it's going to change rapidly from here. It's not just, well, like, product's the best and we have no choice but to do this and it's all in the cloud and we can, you know, it's, like, the underlying yes. Right. Everything's moving very, very quickly.
Mhmm.
Brian CaselAll the
way up and down the stack. And on one end of the stack, we have a very interesting development where it's economic, financial, it is political, social. SpaceX IPO just throws all of this all the way out front for everyone to comment on, think about, talk about.
Brian CaselMhmm.
Like, we used to be jealous of millionaires. Then we used to be jealous of billionaires. Now we got a trillionaire to be envious of. Okay?
Mhmm.
What do we think is going on? Right. The way this relates directly to AI costs is at least one part of the big story around SpaceX is compute in space to make compute much much cheaper and abundant. Like, you know, some of the things we've talked about on the pricing just now is starts to sound like a commodity. Like, well, we just drill oil, and this is how much it costs per barrel, and everyone uses it.
And there's a whole ecosystem around turning oil into energy, and that's how our economy's run. Cool. The knowledge economy might end up running on intelligence that uses compute in a very similar way.
Brian CaselMhmm.
So what do you guys think about SpaceX? First of all, think it's so fun. I mean, you know, a big exciting IPO for everyone to kind of yell about and and comment on is awesome.
Brian CaselSaw the headlines, but I'm I'm less read up on it as as you guys are. But I I have heard them talk about, like, the idea of, like, compute in space. Is that the is that the big bet here with with this? Like
are several big bets. But Justin, you you wanna talk about this one? Because one of them is is data centers in space.
Brian CaselMhmm.
Yeah. There's actually a great piece on this I recommend folks read too. I I think Evan Armstrong is a interesting commentator, and he's he he does a really good job of saying, here's why SpaceX is ridiculous. Here's why you shouldn't give them your money. And then at the end, he said, but I'm gonna give them my money anyway and here's why. And it's because so much of what's in the the prospectus for this IPO is ridiculous. The s the s one documents are the most ridiculous
Yeah. This slide here. It's come on.
Chip manufacturing, large language models, global cell phone carrier, data centers in space, AI software company emulator, a base on the moon, an electromagnetic rail gun on the moon, and colonizing Mars.
Brian CaselJust, by the way, colonizing Mars.
Yeah. It's just just one of our business lines.
So this is all ridiculous. It's it there's so much silly in it. And yet, even if, you know
Brian CaselLike if one or two of these things hits.
If one or two of these things hits, then and and, you know, I'm you guys certainly know. I'm I'm not a fan of Elon Musk. I've been a big critic of his, but I I will give him credit. One thing he's very good at is figuring out the underlying fundamentals of a category that actually matter. He did this with rockets.
Yeah. He did this with electric cars. And now a big part of this play is he's doing this with energy and data center costs, saying that the biggest limiter of, you know, our our usage of AI and everything else is the energy it takes to develop new models. But you could do that in space with unlimited solar energy and somehow bring things back down. I think the other thing Elon is good at, and again, I'm a big critic, but the other thing he's good at is he can inspire and attract some of the best people ever.
And their ability to execute at a high level is quite incredible. Like, what SpaceX accomplished in terms of rockets is
Brian CaselEspecially in the heart like, anything physical, they've been exceptional. Software, questionable. But the the Right. Anything physical that he does is like Absolutely. Most difficult
difficult thing. Reusable rocketry.
Yeah. The place to be wary if you were gonna invest, I think, and again, this show is not for investment purposes. It's entertainment only. The asterisk is that Elon likes to play high stakes poker, and he's been close to being out many times. There's nothing precluding him from getting out. He likes to play high stakes poker. He will bet at all. That's paid off for him so far. No guarantee he will continue, but a lot of people in the market are saying, well, we're gonna bet with him.
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people like what's his name? Is it Rod? Rob Baron? Right? People who've kind of bet their entire funds and
Brian Caselcareers
and investments in general have it's really worked out for them.
Brian CaselMhmm.
I I am an Elon fan. We're we're just gonna tiptoe around that, Justin. You and I.
We don't have to tiptoe around it. Think it's fine.
Brian CaselNo. I'm
kidding. Yeah. But but I I think this might be very relevant to us in the next few years if data center costs go down and and hopefully some of the politics around them just kinda chills out and we get to a place where this is more abundant. Very interesting to see Anthropic doing a deal with x AI for compute. So hopefully this stuff just moves around.
Look, we're not in control of what these huge companies and pools of capital, but we are benefiting we're benefiting significantly. So it's like a cheerleader type of a thing. I don't really know. Right? No criticism of ours is gonna change any of it. Mhmm. It's like what what comes down our way in terms of models, capability, and costs, and how do we use that to our advantage as much as possible. Mhmm. That that feels like the game from our point of view. Like, alright.
Given this reality right now with capability and cost, and what I see in the market on the other side, what can I do here? How much money do I need? How many resources do I need? How ambitious should I be? Which market should I go after? I think that starts to get into your, I don't know if it was before we started recording or not, Brian. Mhmm. Where did you come across someone that asked you for advice recently or maybe it came out
Brian Caselof the A few people. Work that
you were doing. Yeah. Around video editing.
Brian CaselWell, I I actually, Justin, you you mentioned that somebody wrote in.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We should shout out because he's a longtime fan. Kevin Markham of dataschool.io, who's great. He just said, yeah, my my jaw dropped fully open when Brian described his automated video editing workflow. I think that'd be an amazing SaaS product. And he said, would pay for it.
Brian CaselSo my jaw dropped. I mean, I've been working on this. Right? But but I but I have been to me, it has been a breakthrough because I've been looking into this for well over a year and trying every single tool, every single skill, every single how can I get Claude code to to actually do this, and never came close to being like, this actually removes the human touch points in the editing process? Yeah.
And and I only got there in the last two or three weeks. And I think part of it is probably the the power of most most of it was Opus, but actually my my latest video, I did use Fable to as the underlying model. That being said, I think I would have gotten the same results had I been using Opus. Because because I think it follows the the process of the skill, and it's using FFmpeg essentially. But but I have very specific instructions built into the skill in Claude code to get it to cut and edit every segment of my video.
So you can look at my most recent video, like the one where I talk about Claude Fable. That video, 100% of it was processed and edited using like, dropped my raw footage into it. I made a few, like, like, I answered a few questions till I confirmed, like, yeah, that looks good. That looks good. Stitch it together and go.
But it does everything from, like, there there it has multiple processes baked into it. Like, it analyzes my my transcript and takes out the bad takes. Removes all my ums. Sets up the picture in picture with my screen segments. And then it does a repass where where it catches its own mistakes.
And and it says like, oh, oh, actually, we we left a a phrase fragment in there. Let's cut that out. Like, all before I even need to go in and approve anything. So it's it's pretty pretty freaking great. And and I and when I talk about it to other video friends, people who are doing YouTube or whatever, yeah, I I've had the question, like like, are you are you gonna show this?
Are you gonna share it? Are you gonna are you gonna make this product? And I know Kevin is a good guy, I know he has a very successful YouTube channel. I know he does some training, some like dev training and stuff. And so I'm sure I'll try to share stuff at some point.
I don't know how relevant it is for my builder methods audience. So that makes me a little little hesitant on like how much resources I'm gonna put behind. Mhmm. Like I'm not gonna make a course around this, because like most of my audience are not YouTubers. Right? So so there's that hesitation. In terms of like making it a SaaS, I mean, my my initial gut reaction is just no. You know? Like, I like that and but that's not this. That's I'm just I'm just out of the SaaS game.
Like, I've I've been of this mindset for well over a year now. I I mean, I'm I'm running Clarity Flow, of course. But I'm not I'm not looking to start a new SaaS. And and I've a couple other friends have asked me for for feedback on their SaaS idea that they're currently kicking around. Right? Mhmm. You know, different things.
Mhmm.
Brian CaselAnd and I try to be helpful. And I and I try to give my my honest take on how how do you go from this idea to some form of product market fit here in 2026. And it's not completely bleak, for other people, I I I think a SaaS if you wanna do SaaS, I'm not saying don't do it. But if you're asking me, where I from where I sit, I I just have a hard time committing the time and energy and investment into making that business model work as a bootstrap from the ground up starting today. That's my It's kinda take on it,
you know. It it is a bit bleak. Justin, you run Assess. You make a living running Assess. You've been running a SaaS. And yet, if someone asked you today Uh-huh. Where you know, what what's your response? Yeah. Have an idea. I wanna do this thing. I wanna charge, you know, traditional SaaS. What do think?
Yeah. I mean, it it depends on the idea. I've been thinking a lot about the hardest thing. Meaning, you've no matter what you pursue, it has to be the highest leverage idea for you. And I keep using this this example of in 2003, I started a snowboard shop.
And three years later, I was $80.00 in debt. In 2003, the same number of people, two founders and four staff, started Skype. And three years later, each of the founders had $350,000,000 in their bank account. Now, that's a cherry picked idea. Sure.
But SaaS is just a delivery mechanism. Broadly, if I had to give an answer, there's so much money in staff still. But I think what Brian's experience is experiencing and experiencing is the new challenge of our era, which is at the end of the day, to do something incredibly well and to have a chance of killing it in a category and being the best at that thing, you've got to dedicate yourself as much energy to that thing as you can. And that might allow somebody, like in my case, it might allow me to maybe go and try another idea alongside transistor once something's running. But to get here, we're almost at ten years of investment into transistor now.
You have to you don't you only have so much headspace. You only have so much time, energy. And I'm I'm fully back on this idea of, like, all these indie hackers that are spreading themselves thin, launching a new thing every month, which I also did, doesn't work. It's like the only way I think really to to kill it in the category, except for a few outliers like Levels and Mark Liu, I I think the the challenge these days is you could have multiple good ideas. Like this video editing idea could be a great idea.
But my guess is if Brian was gonna pursue it, he need to it would be three years of
Brian Caselbecome my my thing.
Yeah.
Brian CaselYep. But the I I wanna give two optimistic takes on that.
Love it. Alright?
Yes. I wanna turn that. Alright. This sounds like this is in Brian's other thing was in defense of slop. Remember that
one?
Brian CaselDefense of slop. Okay. So opt optimistic take number one is, like, if if someone were to do this video I this video as a SaaS idea. Yeah. To to me, the the way to do it would and I'm I'm speaking mostly to the bootstrapper.
Mhmm. You're you're probably not going out and raising VC to try to take on Descript or try to take on or try to unseat, like like Adobe Premiere or whatever. Mhmm. If you are trying to build a a solid self funded business, the way that I would go about it, and I'm not doing this, but if but if I were to do that, I would treat it more like a tech enabled service. And I and I do think that there is a ton of opportunity across a ton of different categories to do this.
Like, literally, the way that that I would offer this, if if I were to do it, would be to take what I've built for myself and and build processes to go to every other YouTuber and say, let me let me help you rethink how you edit your videos. I'm gonna gonna install and I'm gonna custom tailor the the skills, the AI, the Cloud Code skills for your particular YouTube channel. Because that's the only way it works, honestly. Like like, my thing is not plug and play. Like, if I just hand it over to you, Justin, it's not gonna work for your channel.
¶ Opportunities for SaaS Businesses in 2026 with Domain Expertise
Mhmm. Like, because you you you have different formatted content. You you deliver content differently than I do. Yeah. So every YouTuber, even if you do talking ahead and screen screen cast just like I do, you still do it differently. Everyone does it differently.
So you would
Brian Caselyou would need to custom tailor it. You would need to make it a service powered by AI. Like, that that can be a fantastic business, by the way. And it doesn't even have to be solo. You could just train a couple of human people to to onboard customers. You can easily create a multiple 6 figure, 7 figure business out of that. No. Mhmm. No question in my mind. And you can do that across hundreds of different categories.
Yeah.
Brian CaselAnd then the other optimistic take, and I and this is where I get into the the the the mem like, I'm seeing a lot of members come into Builder Methods Pro. And this is where I'm I'm actually very optimistic about SaaS specifically. If you're going to start a SaaS, I am or if, let's say, I were like investing in SaaS founders right now, I would probably not I'm I'm not as bullish on just the developer who's gonna start to look around for random verticals that I can make a SaaS for.
Mhmm.
Brian CaselWhat I am bullish on is the guy or gal who has been deep embedded in this particular niche industry, knows it really well, has a super strong network, maybe even an audience, and they are just learning technical skills on how to build. They can build themselves a killer SaaS, and they already have the distribution and know how in place. And they know the problem space better than any SaaS founder roaming around microconf is gonna ever ever know it. So that those guys and gals are dangerous, in my opinion. And and they they I I feel like our tech our techy SaaS founder friends are not giving those people enough credit because now that they have fables and Opus at their disposal, they are dangerous.
They it's like, if they have a network they can build, you know.
Here's here's my it it it's skepticism, but I don't really disagree. So, yes, SaaS as a business model, I think, has lost some of its attractiveness. And then at at the same time, the the the second thing you said around builders building, people in the industry. Running a software company is a weird, unique, niche thing. So I it maybe it's the combination.
Just like I can't jump into an industry and have the deep expertise of someone in, I don't know, commercial real estate and the approval process on whatever. Someone in that industry needs to go through five years of pain to have a clue of of where I am on running a software company. Mhmm. Because I I I went through those five years, and it's not free, that experience. It requires pain and mistakes and and and money and loss and, you know, the roller coaster.
Brian CaselMhmm.
So it's it's not as straightforward as just the ability to build the right product. So maybe it's the combination of the two things. Right? Maybe it's
Brian CaselI think there's no question you would get a huge advantage over, you know, given given your experience. So so, yes, new people coming into it who are just touching Cloud Code for the first time now, they're gonna be slower. They're gonna stumble more.
Yeah.
Brian CaselBut they have the one ingredient that 99% of new SaaS founders don't have, which is distribution and Yeah. Yeah. The distribution part
is is I I think is is more difficult than just being in the industry.
Mhmm. Right?
I I think that that itself is getting into into software
Brian Caselexperience. Like But I also feel
How do you run an affiliate program? How do you run an ambassador program? How do you run ads? What does a funnel look like? How does a page convert? Like, this stuff, nobody knows. That has been thinking about it.
Brian CaselI I just did a live session with Builder Methods Pro members yesterday. They're probably, like, fifteen fifteen, 17 people on on the call, and it was so fast. I'm I'm having such a great time on these calls because it's they are from all walks of life, different age groups, different varying levels of technical experience, completely different industries. A guy has a and some of them, like, have YouTube channels. And some of them have really strong networks in their industry.
And some of them really know and what's what's interesting to me about these people is technical than even they give themselves credit for. Okay. Yes. They've never coded anything. But they are extremely smart, competent, and actually quite technical. Like, they're more systems minded. They've they've built
I mean
Brian Casellike, you know, like like they they they've built really complex businesses and operations and and and some of them operate in pretty complex technical spaces.
Yeah. You know,
like And they were attracted to your content and to become a member. Like, you know, that that is a self selected group of people who have those attributes and they're entrepreneurial and they're ambitious.
Brian CaselWell, like, the other thing that I noticed about these people is that they are very successful already. Like, they're coming into this, like like, one guy, he he he runs a personal injury law firm with 40 attorneys working under him. I'm like, why are you building? Don't you have to run this firm? He's like, yeah, but I'm kinda having a good time playing around with Claude Code all day and I'm building all these products for lawyers right now.
Okay. Okay. I like it.
Brian CaselYou know? And and I'm like and I'm like and it's it's pretty amazing because because literally, he he has all this insight into, like, that nobody would really know about the law space. And I and I and I was talking to him about, like, what's your distribution plan? He's like, oh, I'm just gonna start start funding some, LinkedIn ads on on this thing. This thing's gonna rock.
You know, like like these guys are unafraid Yeah. To go to go spend a bunch of money. And they don't need funding. They don't need to hire a big firm for development, you know, but they they're ready to go. Like, they they know the insight that most people don't know.
Mhmm. Yeah.
Brian CaselThat that's pretty exciting to me, to
be honest. That's awesome. You know?
In the chat, I'm seeing different so I while Brian was talking, Zach was saying, I'm biased, but I a 100% agree with this take. I think he was referring to Brian's take about Domain expertise. These domain expertise being a more important feature moving forward. But then Tony followed up and said, Jordan is perfectly describing my relationship with my co founder. And they have three co founders.
Two of us are dev product. One is domain expert. Yeah. Feels like there's parts of what you guys are saying are resonating with different folks in the chat. The in some ways, none of this is new.
Like, I remember going to the Laravel conference for the first time, and there was just like I'd just walk around and go, yo, what's your story? And it'd be just like some guy from South Carolina. Is that a place? South Carolina. And he's like, Well, I was working in the insurance industry forever, and we have this product we had to use, and it sucked.
And so I just thought, Well, I'm gonna try to learn how to code. And so I found Laravel, made it easy, so I built this thing, and now I've got a business that's doing 500 ks a year. I was like, holy crap. Wow. Good for you, man. That's great. So these you know, and there's, I think, another in the microconf space. Wasn't there a software for countertop installers Oh, yeah. Or
Brian CaselThat's right. Ted and Harry. Short.
Yeah. So I think a lot of this is already existed.
Brian CaselOr where?
Yeah. Yeah. Pre AI. So it would make sense. You know, I I agree with Brian that I think that the the one thing that I found is when you like in podcasting, I am a domain expert because I've been doing it forever. And intuitively, being able to describe to Claude Code the UI and the UX that I want and that I can see in my head, it's like collaborating with the perfect implementer. It's like, hey, can you do this? Okay. Oh, no. That's not quite right.
What I want is it to feel like this and to look like this. Oh, you mean more like this? You're getting closer. Let's try one more round, but you've got to reorder it this way. And that, I think, is a big unlock now.
That is that the product people that always had to go through an intermediary can now get there themselves a lot faster. That is a thing. To Jordan's point, like, there's so much you need. And I think the one thing folks forget is success in business has always been about stacking every advantage possible. And so if that means domain expertise, yeah.
But if you've also built a software company before, that's all also really going to help. And if you've got this and this and this. Yeah. And ultimately, none of it works unless you've highlighted. And this is where I think I'm going more and more now is that the the low hanging fruit kind of ideas really have gone away.
Like now you have to choose something that is considerably more difficult to achieve than in the past because the competition at stages zero and one and two and three has increased tenfold. What very few people are willing to do is put in the effort over time to build something that's, you know, level three, four, five, six, seven all the way up. I think those businesses, there's going to be more and more the economy has always rewarded things that are difficult. Let's cross reference the SpaceX IPO. Like, is in part the economy rewarding something that's extremely difficult to do.
So this is a difficult thing that has demand. We are gonna say, yes. That is they will get more economic rewards.
Brian CaselI want to kind of agree with Jordan a little bit on this aspect of it, which is like because another thing that I'm observing with, especially from these folks who are nontechnical, they've learned just enough to Claude code themselves an MVP or a V1, and they have it in the hands of customers, and they have the domain expertise and the network or the distribution to start getting this thing going off the ground, and it's going. But they do express frustration. I see this across the board with, okay, I've gone from zero to one. Going from one to two is gonna require real technical expertise to to make this thing
Mhmm.
Brian CaselReal, you know, or that person just wants to focus more on like the sales side. So now they need a real technical co founder or lead tech person. This is still a gap, I would say. And, but like, then it's a question of who, right? Because if if you are an independent, like, freelancer consultant tech, like, developer, looking for a job or a gig, these people are there to to get hired from.
Mhmm. But if you're but if you're a founder, if you're if you're a developer who wants to be a founder, that's where I think it's a little and you don't have, like, other industry expertise and knowledge or act or direct access to it. That's where I would say they're probably at a disadvantage over the law firm leader, or the dental practice leader who knows that so deeply. But like there is gonna need to be a connection made between these non technical founders. There has always been this.
But what I mean by the frustration that I'm hearing from those folks is that, like, when they do go out and hire a freelancer or try to partner up with someone, all of a sudden, that new hire, yes, they are more technical, but they're like, this this this guy is just slowing me down. I was moving so much faster when I was when it was just me.
I think that's the that's the alchemy of of a company though.
Brian CaselMhmm. Like Yeah.
You need you need multiple things in order to succeed between domain expertise, execution, marketing, all that. Sometimes one person has all that. Sometimes it's two people together. Sometimes it's a group of people. What I what I like to think about objectively, when I look at my experience with Rosie, it doesn't really make any sense to me.
Because the previous companies in ecommerce, I brought domain expertise. And I was like, okay, I'm the I'm the I'm the non technical founder that has the domain expertise on what ecommerce merchants want because I used to be an ecommerce merchant myself wasn't for that long of a period of time.
But
you know, an intense two years is still a lot of expertise. And I'm gonna put together a team that can build a product, develop the product, market the product, and I'm gonna bring the domain expertise. Right? Very similar to what we're talking right
Brian Caselnow. Mhmm.
And I look over Rosie and there's no domain expertise.
Yeah.
It's absent from from the equation.
Except that you had built software companies before and had developed all these leadership skills, operator skills, distribution, all that stuff. Yeah.
Right. So so the only thing that was removed was domain expertise. Mhmm. Right? The product people and the talent and product and design and development and support, all that, like, was, like, ready. Mhmm. And it's almost like it didn't require domain expertise. Like, you know, I'm I'm kinda puzzled by that. Maybe because it's so general. The the whole approach was general.
And maybe, to be honest, maybe that's why I shied away from committing to an individual vertical because I didn't have expertise in an individual vertical. Mhmm. And so my gut said, actually, don't put all your eggs in a vertical basket. Yeah. Just go horizontal. Do this thing for business owners because that that that I do have. Domain expertise I
mean, I I would say that more important than domain expertise is the ability to recognize the shape of good, strong demand. And so I think you had probably developed that skill. And this is why I think experienced folks often people do start with products that are more domain expertise driven. But as they get into their Shark Tank years and their Dragon's Den years, they get to be more of the people on the side going, this opportunity just has the shape and the feel of a good opportunity. And I've got enough expertise in just seeing what customer demand looks like, that I think I could probably figure out the fundamentals of this pretty quick and invest in it, and I could bring that energy to the category.
Again, similar to what Elon did with Rockets. Elon walks into Rockets. He doesn't really have any domain expertise. He's just looking at all the costs going, well, what about this? Why can't we go get this from the Russians? And it's like, well, no one's ever done that before. Well, what if I did that? That would cut, like, you know, a million Yep. Dollars off everything. So Mhmm.
That that was how he entered. But he had the, I think, maybe the foresight to go, this is the shape of a good opportunity, maybe.
Let's finish up on on a cool topic. A cool product. So over the last twenty four hours, a product has gone viral on Twitter. Haven't heard about this. Okay. So, Brian, help me. I I don't even know. Does it have a name?
This the Andrew McCallop guy? Kickbacks.ai. Okay.
So it's I I really like this as an example of you think all day there's nothing new under the sun. Yeah. Everything's been done. You're not gonna come up with anything original. Let's be serious. Okay. But then every once in a while, an idea itself, just the little idea is so good that it can just Yeah. Cut through the entire market at once. So Brian, you wanna explain what what does this thing do?
Brian CaselFrom what and I'm I'm only getting up to speed on it today. I think it only caught fire between today.
Right? Yeah. Well, this morning.
Brian CaselAnd and part of me is like, I can't believe Anthropic doesn't just do this. I wonder if they will do this. Right? But the okay. So the from what I understand, the idea is it is a advertising marketplace embedded in code. And it's built around when you're waiting for Claude to do its thing.
Mhmm. Yep.
Brian CaselAnd you see the little orange noodling or the orange simmering, you know, like like the the they're, you know, whatever verb they wanna use there. Instead of seeing that or maybe right next to it, you're gonna see a one sentence advertisement with a with like a little like fave icon, like logo
That's right.
Brian CaselNext to it.
That's right. Oh man, this is brilliant.
Brian CaselMarket My understanding of it, is that every developer can just install the the extension, and they get to earn 50%?
They get 50% of the ad revenue themselves.
Brian CaselLike just you using Cloud Code, watching and waiting Cloud Code to do its thing, you can be earning money because you're seeing a a one sentence ad under your Cloud Code. Yep. That's So it's like, right.
What's the hard part about an ad network? It's the ad inventory. How do you bootstrap that network? Right? Ridiculous. And so what this does is it just says, well, there's an existing ad network of people right now. It's a bunch of developers with desktop software just sitting there and there's one line in that piece of software UI that if you inject an ad right there, it's a never ending refreshing inventory of ad placements.
Genius. This is the Google search equivalent in AI. So Google figured out one of the best business models ever, which is to show sponsored results when people are searching. It made all of Google's products free or very low cost. This is going to be this is absolutely going to be at least part of the model that makes AI cheap for people.
Brian CaselYeah. Yeah. Now, okay. Just while we've been talking for, like, the last two minutes Okay. There is a ticker on the homepage. Yes. That says install the Versus Code extension, and then there's a dollar amount per month.
Yes, that you can earn.
Brian CaselWhen we started talking, that was at $51 in change. It's at $58 in change just in the last two minutes, and it is going up.
Except mine says mine says $53. So I don't know if this thing is actual real. Well,
one of the interesting things is that this is
It just starts over again. Yeah.
This is a developer and clearly a very experienced developer and he's sharing all of the technical challenges. And right now, he's in a battle with spammers. Right? So you can see how people can go and create instances and download Claude, you know, many many times over and install this and try to basically steal money from the ad network.
Brian CaselYeah. I I was I was mistaken. Obviously, that that's a faked number. I just refreshed the page. It's it's lower. Yeah. Because it But I thought that was
in real time.
Brian CaselThat that would be kinda cool if it was like a real time, like, this is what you you can earn per month based on the number of users we have in the system.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Very very interesting. I it's like, maybe Anthropocopies them. Maybe they sue him. Maybe they acquire it.
Brian CaselYeah.
Maybe x AI buys all the inventory in the entire network for the next year to to compete. Who knows? But so fun to see Yeah. Creativity with an idea. Execution goes out the door and within a few hours, it's just super viral. Unbelievable. Have you shared with
my kids? Yeah. Jordan, like, you tried buying any of this ad inventory?
No. Because our audience doesn't use Clog code. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, an an SND This might be actually good
for Transistor. I should try this. See? It could be good for Better
than Pro. I love it. I love it. I think he's on a 30,000,000 ARR run rate after one day. Wow. Paid like, you know, whatever 80 or $100 the first day, multiplied by $3.65. So he's like joking about it. But very cool. So, yeah. What what's the what's the handle? Andrew
McAllip. Yeah.
Andrew, m c c a l I p. Yeah. If you haven't seen it, go check it out and follow him. It's it's really fun just to watch.
Brian CaselFascinating. So great.
Alright. So I don't know. That sounds better than our businesses.
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's pretty good. I like that idea. I mean, those they're that's, like, kind of the classic flash in the pan Yeah. Indie Cool. Indie business. But yeah. That's Yeah. Sounds good.
Alright. Well, it's Friday afternoon. It is 78 degrees and sunny in the North Shore Of Chicago. I took my kid up to an appointment a few towns over. The whole North Shore is just rocking right now. Beautiful. Hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm gonna go send my kids allowances on Apple Pay because we started that this summer. Wow. That's weird. You you guys do allowances? Not
anymore. They're too
old now. Too old. They got their own their own problems.
Brian CaselYep. Yep. Yep.
Yeah. It's been very cool transition. All of the parents of our friends got together. So all of their friends are all getting the same allowance all at once.
Brian CaselBrilliant. Oh, wow.
I mean, this is communism, but it's brilliant.
No. Look. Here's what it did. It's such a trip. It went through like this. Very interesting psychological cascade. Mhmm. First it was, oh damn. I got a $100 for the week. That's awesome. And then it went into, $100 divided by seven. I'm like, oh, I can't even I can't even go to Starbucks every day. I don't have any money. Oh my god. This isn't enough money.
And then it hops over to, wait. So if I don't spend all of it, do you do I get another $100 next week and then and then I could save and buy a shirt that I want? Mhmm. Right? So it's just like and then it cascades into mom, dad, can all of us come over for dinner because we wanna save money?
And then, of course, right next to that is now you realize that every time we feed you and your friends, it costs money. So, like, within within one week, just instead of saying text me when you need money and being online at Starbucks and saying send me $10 to just moving over here's your money for the week. Now figure
Brian Caselout how to budget I love it.
All these effects within like one week. Amazing, actually.
Brian CaselYeah. My daughter just graduated today. She's entering middle school next year. So I think that's that's on the docket as she gets into that age, you know.
Think I think Price Fixing for the Win needs to be the episode title. Nailed it.
I got one. I got one. SpaceX Socialists. There we go.
Brian CaselSpaceX Socialists.
Great stuff. Thanks, everyone, for listening.
Yep. Pleasure hosting.
Cheers, Brian.
Brian CaselCheers, Bye.