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[00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:07.920] What up?
[00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:09.120] What's going on, man?
[00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:11.120] What do you do for Valentine's Day?
[00:00:11.760 --> 00:00:19.440] I got some rose petals from Whole Foods, and I kind of spread them out on the floor of my bathroom.
[00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:22.880] And then I got like a, you know, I moved apartments a couple months ago.
[00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:24.800] My new ones got like a big jacuzzi tub.
[00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:32.320] So I put them and filled up a tub with like, you know, some bubble bass and bath bombs, put some rose petals in there, and just watched the movie in the tub with Sarah.
[00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640] And we went out for a nice steak dinner before that.
[00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:35.600] So it was real chill.
[00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:37.760] He was boring.
[00:00:38.080 --> 00:00:39.120] Mark, what's going on?
[00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:40.880] Hey, what's up, Mark?
[00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:43.920] What did you do for Valentine's Day, Mark?
[00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:46.960] You just remind me there's a Valentine's Day.
[00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:49.120] Well, that's it.
[00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:50.160] That's the answer.
[00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:51.600] Is it like an American holiday?
[00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:52.000] That's great.
[00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:56.960] I know there's a lot of holidays that I just assume are worldwide because I'm American and it turns out like nobody else even knows what this is.
[00:00:56.960 --> 00:00:59.200] No, I think friends of mine do it.
[00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:04.400] It's just have been married for five years and every day is pretty much the same.
[00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:05.520] We work from home.
[00:01:05.520 --> 00:01:07.280] There's no Saturday, there's no Sunday.
[00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:10.240] So it feels like we're leaving the same day over and over.
[00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:14.080] Which it's a beautiful day, but we forget about things like Valentine's.
[00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:23.440] Well, listen, man, if being married for five years means that I get to not have to do these forced holidays, maybe I'll be proposing tonight.
[00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:26.160] Anyway, Mark, we should introduce you to the audience.
[00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:28.400] You are Mark Louvion.
[00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:30.000] Sounds like the name of someone I'd have on the show.
[00:01:30.080 --> 00:01:31.920] My mom would be like, oh, you're interviewing Mark Louvian.
[00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:34.080] I think it sounds fancier in English.
[00:01:34.080 --> 00:01:36.240] In French, he's just.
[00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:37.680] Oh, that was way fancier.
[00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:37.920] I know.
[00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:40.400] That was like, whoa, that blew my mind a little bit.
[00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:51.120] In February of last year, you tweeted that you had 200 followers, you were burning through your savings, and you had three startups, which is admittedly a lot of startups.
[00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:55.680] Today, a year later, you have 13 startups.
[00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.080] You have 14,000 followers on Twitter.
[00:01:58.080 --> 00:02:00.280] And I think you just got to Ramen Profitable.
[00:02:00.440 --> 00:02:11.000] So you have sort of reached the first big milestone as an indie hacker where you can completely survive and pay for all your bills and eat as much ramen as you possibly can dream of.
[00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:13.400] And you don't have to do that on anybody else's dime.
[00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:14.440] Like, it's all you.
[00:02:14.440 --> 00:02:15.160] You've made it.
[00:02:15.160 --> 00:02:19.320] Yeah, somehow, I mean, this is pretty new to cross-the ramen profitability.
[00:02:19.320 --> 00:02:22.840] So this is a, it's, it's a good, uh, it's a good achievement.
[00:02:22.840 --> 00:02:24.600] It feels less stress.
[00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:29.080] The whole story, I was building in the dark for a couple of years before.
[00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:31.800] So it's a bit less successful if you put it that way.
[00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.680] I think I've been in and out for about six years.
[00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:40.520] And I only started taking it seriously and doing it in public about a year ago, as you said.
[00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:44.440] Well, I think what I find impressive about it is like something changed, right?
[00:02:44.440 --> 00:02:51.560] Like, and I don't know if it was the building in public or not, but like going from three projects to 13 is like that's 10 stars in 12 months.
[00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:52.360] That's huge.
[00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:53.800] And it seems like you're having fun doing it.
[00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:54.760] Like I read your tweets.
[00:02:54.760 --> 00:02:57.560] Like you're basically a comedian in all your tweets.
[00:02:57.720 --> 00:02:58.600] I look at your products.
[00:02:58.600 --> 00:03:00.440] They're all really well designed.
[00:03:00.440 --> 00:03:02.040] Like these aren't like shabby products.
[00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:03.400] Like you're putting your heart and soul into them.
[00:03:03.480 --> 00:03:10.360] You're adding cool little graphics of like, you know, cool flowers and your photo of your head kind of spinning around as a logo on some of them.
[00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:13.080] Like half of your products just make me laugh out loud when I see them.
[00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:13.720] And they're working.
[00:03:13.720 --> 00:03:15.560] They're actually making money.
[00:03:15.560 --> 00:03:18.280] I guess the process you're going through, like most people are super stressed.
[00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:21.000] You know, they're like, oh shit, I'm going to be broken out of money tomorrow.
[00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:21.800] What am I going to do?
[00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:27.000] They have trouble launching, but you're just like cruising, making money and having fun on the way while you do it.
[00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:28.440] Yeah, that's exactly it.
[00:03:28.440 --> 00:03:29.080] Yeah.
[00:03:29.880 --> 00:03:33.240] I think I've taken things very seriously at the beginning.
[00:03:33.640 --> 00:03:37.160] I started building startup thinking I was the next Mark Zuckerberg.
[00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:40.360] And I've been doing this for years.
[00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:45.000] And the downsides, when you know the startup crash and things like that, it was really terrible.
[00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:56.240] And so earlier, like last year, and thanks to you guys, the indie hiking journey, the building employee community, I started taking things way more simply.
[00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:59.520] and just be like, okay, I'm just a guy in my bedroom doing what I like.
[00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:00.800] I build stuff.
[00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:06.160] And that really changed my mindset and how I handle downsides.
[00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:12.320] And I started building startups real quickly, like trying to imitate what Peter Lovells do.
[00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:13.520] And I loved it.
[00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:20.160] And I could see on my Twitter that it's working well when I do things without too much emotions, when I do it quickly.
[00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:23.440] It's inspiring for some people and it's working for me.
[00:04:23.440 --> 00:04:25.600] So it's a better journey now.
[00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:34.640] That's the thing specifically that I'm most impressed about is like, number one, it's just the quantity and the quality of your output.
[00:04:34.640 --> 00:04:38.160] Courtland mentioned the quality, but it's like, what is it?
[00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:42.400] I think you've got 11 products in the last, whatever, 13 or 14 months.
[00:04:42.400 --> 00:04:51.440] And the only way to do that is if you have like an immense amount of discipline to like keep projects small and then move on.
[00:04:51.440 --> 00:05:01.040] Like I can't tell you how many, I mean, probably, probably every single month we have a trending post on indie hackers that's like, you know, the next person who's going to do 12 products in 12 months.
[00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:03.440] And those things always fizzle out.
[00:05:03.440 --> 00:05:08.160] And it's either usually because people just don't ultimately get started.
[00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:12.480] They fail to start 12 times or they fail to like get to the finish line 12 times.
[00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:18.080] And very, very few people do both consistently over the period of time that you've done it.
[00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:20.240] And it's like, I think that that's the biggest challenge.
[00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:27.280] Like, people just have to spend a week doing design and they have to spend a week talking to people and they have to spend a week coding, right?
[00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:33.080] But you just like have been, you know, sort of zipping through that whole cycle consistently for a while.
[00:05:29.840 --> 00:05:35.240] I think that's why I don't set much goals.
[00:05:35.400 --> 00:05:39.000] And I didn't tell myself I'm going to build 12 startups in 12 months.
[00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:44.760] Because I feel like when you do that, you tell your mind that you're going to have all that.
[00:05:44.760 --> 00:05:50.760] So you get excited, you have the dopamine rush, and you're super into it and you're super protective for a week or two.
[00:05:50.760 --> 00:05:55.240] But after, it feels like it fades out because, you know, you cannot build 12 startups in 12 hours.
[00:05:55.240 --> 00:06:00.600] So you don't get the things you told your brain you're going to get into a short period of time.
[00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:01.880] And so I just don't set goals.
[00:06:01.880 --> 00:06:03.320] And like, I'm going to show up every day.
[00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:04.920] I'm going to be at my desk at 7 a.m.
[00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:06.440] every single day.
[00:06:06.440 --> 00:06:07.800] Yeah, I have a friend who does this.
[00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:16.280] Every time he's going to start something new, he tells everybody, like, not only what he's going to do, but like exactly how much money it's going to make and how successful.
[00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:18.520] He creates this vision of the end goal.
[00:06:18.520 --> 00:06:23.800] And everyone's bought into this end result and how amazing it is and how successful he's going to be.
[00:06:23.800 --> 00:06:26.200] And then he probably goes home after that.
[00:06:26.200 --> 00:06:29.160] And it's like, well, now he doesn't have any of those actual achievements yet.
[00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:31.000] He just has all his hard work in front of him.
[00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.160] And everybody's kind of already celebrated the achievements.
[00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:34.920] So it's like there's no upside to that.
[00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:37.320] It's like now it's just, now he's just screwed.
[00:06:37.320 --> 00:06:43.960] Yeah, I feel like expectations are a kind of internal fight we have to manage in order to keep going.
[00:06:44.280 --> 00:06:45.080] Agreed.
[00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:47.160] There's something smart too in the approach you said.
[00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:50.920] Like you're basically not taking it seriously, which is the same thing that Peter Levels does.
[00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:57.400] Like he told me once that he intentionally on Twitter tries to look dumber and like less sophisticated than he actually is.
[00:06:57.400 --> 00:06:59.640] Like he tries to look like he doesn't know what he's doing.
[00:06:59.640 --> 00:07:01.320] Number one, because it's inspiring to other people.
[00:07:01.320 --> 00:07:03.000] It's like, oh, like this idiot can do it.
[00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:03.400] I can do it.
[00:07:03.400 --> 00:07:03.640] Right.
[00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:04.760] But like, he actually is not an idiot.
[00:07:04.760 --> 00:07:05.960] He's a super smart guy.
[00:07:05.960 --> 00:07:08.760] But also for himself, like for the same reason that you're doing it.
[00:07:08.760 --> 00:07:16.640] Like, if you don't put things on a pedestal, if you don't have these high expectations, then you can't feel crushed at the end when it doesn't work out.
[00:07:16.640 --> 00:07:17.440] Yeah, totally.
[00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:21.840] I feel like this journey is actually just an internal fight with yourself.
[00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:32.480] I was going to say, Courtney, I feel like we haven't put out the amount of products for indie hackers nearly that you have, Mark, in like, you know, your last year, probably last three years, we haven't put that many products out.
[00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:37.920] But we have created features and like been on the grind with a lot of the elements of indie hackers.
[00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:43.120] And a huge amount of that longevity is being much more input focused, right?
[00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:49.040] Like figuring out what we like to do so that we have like the energy to keep doing it over and over again.
[00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:54.960] And we don't have like, you know, some two-year goal where if we don't hit it in two years, we're going to feel hugely deflated.
[00:07:54.960 --> 00:08:00.720] To your point, Channing, like, I think if we did indie hackers the way that Peter Levels does his business, because Peter Levels has Nomad List.
[00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:02.400] It's this giant hub for digital nomads.
[00:08:02.400 --> 00:08:04.320] Indie Hackers is a hub for indie hackers.
[00:08:04.320 --> 00:08:09.600] But when he does like a feature, he doesn't say like, hey, this is the Nomad List job board.
[00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:11.840] He packages it up like it's completely different product.
[00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:13.920] He gives it its own domain name.
[00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:15.440] And he's like, oh, this is remote OK.
[00:08:15.440 --> 00:08:17.120] It's like a remote job board, right?
[00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:19.200] But we just have like the indie hackers job board.
[00:08:19.200 --> 00:08:29.840] So everything we have feels like it's a tiny feature that's part of this bigger project versus everything feeling like this like small new, you know, 12 startups in 12 months type thing.
[00:08:29.840 --> 00:08:32.240] And I think that other way is like much better.
[00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:47.760] Because Mark, like what you're doing, like when you actually launch everything as its own product from beginning to end, its own domain name, its own thing, like you can build in public and you can like get excited about every single thing that launches way more than you can about like an incremental improvement to a feature of a bigger product.
[00:08:47.760 --> 00:08:52.320] So, one of the things I want to do for indie hackers is we've got these profile pages.
[00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:54.760] Every indie hacker on the website has a user profile.
[00:08:54.760 --> 00:08:59.720] And if you go there, you can see, like, if I go to indiehackers.com/slash like MarkLew, I can see your profile.
[00:08:59.680 --> 00:09:02.920] And I can see that it's like essentially, here's all the posts you've made.
[00:09:02.920 --> 00:09:04.520] Here's all the comments you've made.
[00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:06.040] On the right, here's all the products you've made.
[00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:08.440] And it's kind of like a social media profile.
[00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:10.840] Like, I want indie hackers to have kind of a link tree thing.
[00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:12.920] And, Mark, you have this for yourself, and it's awesome.
[00:09:12.920 --> 00:09:14.120] I kind of want to just steal it.
[00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:24.600] So, if you go to like MarkLew, M-A-R-C-L-O-U.com, you've got like your indie hacker link tree page where it's a photo of your face making a hilarious expression.
[00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:30.600] It says you're an indie hacker, you're 29 years old, you're $1,500 a month in revenue, living in Bali.
[00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:35.160] And your tagline says, I was fired everywhere, so I've decided to always work for myself.
[00:09:35.160 --> 00:09:36.680] Even Ty Lopez fired me.
[00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:39.160] I love smiling, and people who smile, I pursue freedom.
[00:09:39.160 --> 00:09:42.680] And under that, you've got a section where you can see 11 of your startups.
[00:09:42.680 --> 00:09:47.640] You can see, you know, one was acquired, one is new, one of them you're building, three of them are making revenue.
[00:09:47.640 --> 00:09:48.280] I love this page.
[00:09:48.280 --> 00:09:51.880] It's like Mark as an indie hacker at a glance.
[00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:58.440] So I guess I just want to ask you, like, can I steal this concept from the indiehackers.com website and make other people's profiles look kind of like yours?
[00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:00.280] It's even got like the dark color theme.
[00:10:00.280 --> 00:10:02.120] Like, indie hackers has like that dark blue.
[00:10:02.120 --> 00:10:02.760] It's kind of distinct.
[00:10:03.640 --> 00:10:06.200] You don't see it a lot, but like, yeah, yours is like dark purple.
[00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:08.920] It's like, it'd be very easy for us to lift.
[00:10:09.560 --> 00:10:12.200] I think it's a Daisy UI theme.
[00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:13.880] It's a library for tailoring.
[00:10:13.880 --> 00:10:14.600] It's a pretty good one.
[00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:15.720] I use it for all my projects.
[00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:16.200] Nice.
[00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:18.360] The theme is Dracula, I think.
[00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:18.840] Nice.
[00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:19.800] Yeah, it looks really good.
[00:10:19.800 --> 00:10:21.080] And you've got 11 startups on here.
[00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:22.360] So I want to talk about some of these.
[00:10:22.760 --> 00:10:27.160] Because a lot of them are kind of related to some of the stuff I've got going on in real life.
[00:10:27.640 --> 00:10:28.920] Shannon, you want to talk about one?
[00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:31.000] Which one stands out to you the most?
[00:10:31.560 --> 00:10:37.080] I'm really into habits, so I'm just going to start at the top because it looks like one of your big ones.
[00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:40.040] Yeah, you've got two, but it seems like the one that's making the most money.
[00:10:40.040 --> 00:10:44.200] So you've got Habits Garden that's making $767 a month.
[00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:46.240] You've got some details about them being sold.
[00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:47.200] But then what's the other one?
[00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:48.400] Gamify list?
[00:10:48.400 --> 00:10:49.200] Visualize Habit.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.320] Visualize, oh, that's right.
[00:10:50.400 --> 00:10:53.760] So Habit Garden is making $767 a month.
[00:10:53.760 --> 00:10:57.520] It says beat procrastination with a gamified habit tracker.
[00:10:57.520 --> 00:11:00.160] And it says you've got 6,000 plus users on that one.
[00:11:00.160 --> 00:11:02.320] Tell me the story about Habits Garden.
[00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:03.840] How did you start this market?
[00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:06.560] It was about a year ago.
[00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:11.840] I wanted to make a habit tracker with the GitHub contribution board.
[00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:18.080] The one that you have like a square per contribution you make, and you see the whole year with a list of those squares.
[00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:18.720] Yeah.
[00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:23.920] So I just made this one and I added companies and I shared it on Twitter and I got good feedback.
[00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:25.040] People said they loved it.
[00:11:25.040 --> 00:11:31.120] And the fact that they were having fun taking their habits made them more consistent.
[00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:36.080] And I have no idea why, but I was like, oh, how about I turn it into a complete game?
[00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:45.600] Something where people don't need notifications, but instead they got inner motivation from doing a game instead of feeling that they have to do their workouts, things like that.
[00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:55.920] And so I added quest, I added achievements, and I added a whole thing called the garden where you can plant flowers with the gems you earn from the quest.
[00:11:55.920 --> 00:11:59.760] And then you unlock flowers as you go through your progress in your habits.
[00:11:59.760 --> 00:12:03.680] And normally after a month, if you're consistent, you would have unlocked most flowers.
[00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:06.080] You would have a beautiful garden and you can play with your friends.
[00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:10.000] You have a little board where you can see who's the most consistent person of the week.
[00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:11.120] And it's pretty much the story.
[00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:12.880] And I keep iterating on that product.
[00:12:12.880 --> 00:12:16.080] I think it's the one I focus, I spend most of my time on.
[00:12:16.400 --> 00:12:22.480] And I build side projects like Visualize Habits that are on purpose of, you know, like what Peter Levels does.
[00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:27.520] It's like it's a small version of Habits Garden that aims to promote it.
[00:12:27.520 --> 00:12:31.480] Oh, it's like a spin-off kind of like marketing version of the app.
[00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:32.680] Yep, yep.
[00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:34.280] Okay, so wait, hold on, that's fascinating to me.
[00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:35.160] How does that actually work?
[00:12:35.160 --> 00:12:39.400] You've got Habits Garden, that's the main app, it's a habit tracker.
[00:12:39.400 --> 00:12:45.560] You complete your habits, you get this cool little visual garden, and then you've got Visualize Habit, which is like the marketing paired down.
[00:12:45.560 --> 00:12:47.960] Like, how does that marketing version work?
[00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:51.080] So I think it was December last year.
[00:12:51.640 --> 00:12:53.960] New Year resolution is a big thing.
[00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:57.720] And I thought, how can I combine New Year resolutions and habits?
[00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:02.760] And same as we said before, that goal setting can be motivating to start.
[00:13:02.760 --> 00:13:09.160] So I was like, how does a mini habit that I do five minutes a day will translate if I do it over a year?
[00:13:09.160 --> 00:13:14.120] And so I thought about the main habits, which is like exercising, reading books, meditation.
[00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:15.720] How does that look like over a year?
[00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:25.880] And so if you go there and you set up your workout habits and you tell you're going to work out like 15 minutes a day, it will tell you how many hours of workout you're going to do in a year.
[00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:35.160] And it's going to show you fun data about things like, you know, you're going to burn like this amount of calories, which is the equivalent of like 120 big mechs.
[00:13:35.160 --> 00:13:38.280] It's like a calculator basically for all these different habits.
[00:13:38.280 --> 00:13:39.400] Yeah, totally.
[00:13:39.400 --> 00:13:46.760] And at the end, if you want to start those habits, I'm making a plug to Habits Garden and you can import them directly into the tracker.
[00:13:46.760 --> 00:13:47.240] Sweet.
[00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:48.280] So I'm on here right now.
[00:13:48.280 --> 00:13:49.560] Like I want to write.
[00:13:49.560 --> 00:13:51.880] I want to write for, let's say, like 45 minutes a day.
[00:13:51.880 --> 00:13:52.680] So I click write.
[00:13:52.680 --> 00:13:54.200] There's a whole like grid of different habits.
[00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:54.840] You choose which one.
[00:13:54.840 --> 00:14:00.040] It could be code, write, drink water, learn an instrument, read more.
[00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:01.400] So I say 45 minutes a day.
[00:14:01.400 --> 00:14:03.880] I'm going to do it four times a week, five times a week.
[00:14:03.880 --> 00:14:05.800] And then I click add habit.
[00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:11.880] And then it just sort of automatically calculates basically how much that's going to be if I reach my goal.
[00:14:11.880 --> 00:14:15.600] And then I can import that into habits Garden.
[00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:17.280] Okay, this is, man, this is genius.
[00:14:14.920 --> 00:14:22.400] So you can launch this as its own individual product and try to get a bunch of traffic to this.
[00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:26.000] And any traffic that goes to this automatically feeds into your main app.
[00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:32.800] And you can kind of clearly see that the flow, like the funnel of that, because Visualize Habit, you don't have to log in.
[00:14:32.800 --> 00:14:37.040] Like there's minimal friction to just getting in there, investing.
[00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:38.160] Here's my habits.
[00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:40.880] I'm just looking at the grid.
[00:14:40.880 --> 00:14:43.360] It's like code, meditate, cold shower.
[00:14:43.520 --> 00:14:45.200] These are all things that I personally like.
[00:14:45.200 --> 00:14:54.640] And then it's like, okay, well, if you want to really track these habits and kind of play a game with them, then you take the higher friction step of joining Habits Garden.
[00:14:54.640 --> 00:14:56.080] You're like, your big one.
[00:14:56.400 --> 00:15:01.360] Yeah, I think the covers rate for this one is the best I've had so far because it's pretty seamless.
[00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:10.160] And about 30% of people who visit the site will build their habits grade and go on habitsgarden.com.
[00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:10.800] Wow.
[00:15:10.800 --> 00:15:12.080] That's huge, man.
[00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:13.920] Does this gamification stuff work?
[00:15:13.920 --> 00:15:16.000] Like, I've used a bunch of to-do list apps.
[00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.840] I think I used Habitica once, which is kind of another one.
[00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:21.600] Like, years, I can barely even remember using it.
[00:15:21.680 --> 00:15:22.480] I think I tried it.
[00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:26.880] But with Habits Garden, the way it works is I'm actually playing Farmville or something.
[00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:31.120] When I'm doing my to-do list, I get this really cool-looking garden.
[00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:34.320] Does that actually motivate people to be more productive?
[00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:40.480] Yeah, it's really hard to get people to understand the game and understand that it's a gamified habit checker.
[00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:44.080] But when they do and they take it seriously, then they become crazy about it.
[00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:49.920] And I have a couple of users, like maybe 30 users, who have been showing up for about a year.
[00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:54.240] And every single day you see them in the little board, you see them completing their habits.
[00:15:54.560 --> 00:15:56.640] It's like a tale of two brothers.
[00:15:56.640 --> 00:16:04.280] Because Courtlin, we sometimes get this like history mix, but like I swear I introduced you to Habitica, and it probably was like five years ago, I don't know.
[00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:09.800] But like, Hibitica, Mark, if you're familiar with that, that's like this other habit tracking app.
[00:16:09.800 --> 00:16:15.400] It's like an RPG, you like have a character, and Cortland said he stopped using that game.
[00:16:15.400 --> 00:16:22.920] Like, I use Hibitica every single day, and I pretty much haven't missed, I don't know, a day in like four years.
[00:16:22.920 --> 00:16:29.000] And not only do I use Hibitica, but I also use there's another indie hacker who has this app called Everyday.
[00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:36.920] It's kind of similar, it's like yours, it has like a grid for your different habits, but it like doesn't have any real game element, it's just kind of simple.
[00:16:36.920 --> 00:16:52.920] Like, I'm a sucker for these things, and it's like what you said, you have like you know, a small number of users or a few users who are like super devoted, and it's like the way that my brain works compared to the way that, for example, Cortland's brain works, like I'm already sucked in.
[00:16:52.920 --> 00:17:01.640] I'm already like, I wonder if I can like do half of my habits on Hibitica and then like move the other half to like Habits Garden and like, you know, if that'll be too much overhead for me.
[00:17:01.640 --> 00:17:06.680] Yeah, Habitica is actually one of the reasons I created Habits Garden because I tried it and it's lovely.
[00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:08.680] Like, the concept is amazing.
[00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:11.560] I just feel like there's a bit of overhead when you get on the app.
[00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:12.760] There's a lot of things.
[00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:22.360] And that made me keep the concept of having the game, but just make it in a way that is a bit simpler where you don't have to think too much when you log in into the app.
[00:17:22.360 --> 00:17:28.600] But keeping the mechanics of having random loots and quests and unlocking achievements, I love those.
[00:17:28.600 --> 00:17:31.560] I try to incorporate some of them into a Hubbits Garden.
[00:17:31.560 --> 00:17:33.320] You know what would make me use something like this?
[00:17:33.320 --> 00:17:36.440] Because I use exactly Zero productivity apps.
[00:17:36.760 --> 00:17:38.600] I'm big on social accountability.
[00:17:38.600 --> 00:17:44.280] Like, if I get a little garden or a little character or whatever, and nobody sees it, I just don't, I don't care.
[00:17:44.280 --> 00:17:46.560] I'm like, gosh, this is just pixels on a screen.
[00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:52.240] But if I had like, like, if my Twitter background, for example, was my habit garden garden.
[00:17:52.560 --> 00:17:58.880] And so like when I'm doing tasks, like everybody who follows me on Twitter can see like my Twitter background is like full of all these lush plants.
[00:17:59.280 --> 00:18:03.120] You know, or if I'm like being lazy, it's just like this dead, barren wheat field.
[00:18:03.120 --> 00:18:04.640] Like, I think I would do it.
[00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:07.040] Like, that would, like, I would show that off to people and I would care a lot.
[00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:08.640] You know, kind of like the same way on GitHub.
[00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:12.800] Like, you see those, like, that graph and everybody likes to like share like how many dots they have in a row.
[00:18:12.800 --> 00:18:15.920] Like, something about the social accountability for me is big.
[00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:21.920] Or if I had it, like, in my apartment, like, right now, the walls of my apartment are mostly kind of empty.
[00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.440] And I want to put like art or something on the wall that's kind of like a conversation piece.
[00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.680] And if I had like a little screen, it wouldn't have to be that big.
[00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.240] It's like a small screen that like showed my habit garden.
[00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:31.920] And people came over, like, oh, what is that?
[00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:34.320] And I'd be like, oh, that's how productive I was last week.
[00:18:34.320 --> 00:18:37.840] Like, that would get me actually caring about the gamification elements.
[00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:40.560] Channing, I don't think you need that kind of stuff, but I need other people to see it.
[00:18:40.560 --> 00:18:48.160] Well, Hibitica does have, like, I'm in a party this morning, like, it's like, whatever, seven random other people who have Hibitica.
[00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:51.040] And, you know, we have our characters with little health bars.
[00:18:51.040 --> 00:18:57.840] And if you mess up and you don't do your habits, then every single person on the team, like their little health bar gets knocked down.
[00:18:57.840 --> 00:19:08.800] So not only do you feel, you're fucking like, hey, I want to keep this streak up, but like, I don't know, a week ago, I didn't meditate, and this woman, Sarah, was like, yo, Channing, what the fuck?
[00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:12.320] Like, I feel, I mean, you know, I've never met her before.
[00:19:12.320 --> 00:19:14.480] She doesn't keep up with her stuff either.
[00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:20.880] But like, kind of know, I mean, that's literally the reason why I still have wait who the two who is she and why is she in your group?
[00:19:21.280 --> 00:19:22.400] It's just a random person, right?
[00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:27.840] There are just thousands of people that use Habitica, and you can just say, you can if they have their own little form.
[00:19:27.840 --> 00:19:36.600] Hey, Mark, not trying to shit on your app and saying that something else is better, but like if you have a social app, you get people like me where I completely agree.
[00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:39.640] I don't like Habitica because it's too complicated.
[00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:43.880] So that's the reason why I got a second app that's like simple and it's just checking things off.
[00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:50.840] But like something about the fact that there are people who are like, yo, why didn't you work on indie hackers and like knock out that objective?
[00:19:50.840 --> 00:19:54.280] Yeah, there's enough to keep me there just for that element of it.
[00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:55.400] Yeah, that's right.
[00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:58.520] Yeah, I think the social accountability part is missing in Habitat's Garden.
[00:19:58.520 --> 00:20:03.320] But I heard you, Courtney, and I'm going to build a product and I'm going to reach out.
[00:20:03.320 --> 00:20:03.720] Okay.
[00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:10.520] If you make a picture frame by Habit Garden or you make a Twitter background, right now in the air, I promise I will set my background to that.
[00:20:10.520 --> 00:20:12.520] Or I will buy your picture frame.
[00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:14.200] How do you charge for this?
[00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:15.080] Like, what's the business model?
[00:20:15.080 --> 00:20:16.440] You're making almost 800 bucks a month.
[00:20:16.440 --> 00:20:19.720] Are these people just paying a subscription fee?
[00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:20.040] Yep.
[00:20:20.040 --> 00:20:25.480] It's a paid app, seven days of free trial, and then it's, I think, nine a month or 90 a year.
[00:20:25.800 --> 00:20:28.440] And how did you get the initial set of users for it?
[00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:30.200] Did you just launch it on Product Hunt?
[00:20:30.360 --> 00:20:32.360] I know you also build on public on Twitter.
[00:20:32.360 --> 00:20:33.800] Is that helping out at all?
[00:20:33.800 --> 00:20:34.600] 100%.
[00:20:34.600 --> 00:20:37.240] But at the time I built the app, I had no following on Twitter.
[00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:38.440] It was about a year ago.
[00:20:38.440 --> 00:20:41.800] And I got so lucky I shared on, I think, Hacker News.
[00:20:41.800 --> 00:20:44.760] And it went viral for some reason.
[00:20:44.760 --> 00:20:48.360] And I got about 10,000 visitors on the site in a day.
[00:20:48.360 --> 00:20:50.520] And that's how I got the first paid users.
[00:20:50.520 --> 00:20:55.800] And I think if these didn't happen, I would probably have moved on to another app.
[00:20:56.120 --> 00:21:05.240] Every time somebody tells me they launched on Hacker News, the first thing I do is pull up Hacker News and look at the comments because those comments are always so sweet.
[00:21:05.240 --> 00:21:06.120] Let's see.
[00:21:06.120 --> 00:21:07.400] Seems like you got some nice comments.
[00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:12.280] The first one said, be honest, OP, you're making this actually just to procrastinate on whatever it is.
[00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:14.240] You actually ought to be doing it the time, didn't you?
[00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:15.200] No, just kidding.
[00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:16.640] It's like a wonderful site.
[00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:19.680] Your second one that says, The good.
[00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:22.320] I really appreciate that the free trial doesn't require a credit card.
[00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:23.920] It just freezes the features.
[00:21:23.920 --> 00:21:25.280] That's a very hacker news comment.
[00:21:25.280 --> 00:21:26.880] They would hate you if you required a credit card.
[00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:30.080] The bad, it said, I think there's a bit of a bootstrapping problem here.
[00:21:30.080 --> 00:21:32.720] You want me to set up a system to make me do more stuff?
[00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:34.560] I'll get started on that later.
[00:21:34.560 --> 00:21:36.800] Which I think is actually a real problem, right?
[00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:42.080] Like, for a lot of productivity apps, like to get to that aha moment, you have to do a lot of work.
[00:21:42.080 --> 00:21:44.720] You got to start thinking about, okay, what are my tasks?
[00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:45.520] What are my habits?
[00:21:45.520 --> 00:21:50.000] Like, the very first thing you ask people to do when they log in is work.
[00:21:50.320 --> 00:21:54.320] Yeah, it's actually my struggle of the day.
[00:21:54.320 --> 00:21:57.200] It's like it's spending most of my time on this.
[00:21:57.520 --> 00:22:02.960] 90% of people who sign up will never show up after 24 hours.
[00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:10.400] And so that's pretty bad because that means in order to get to Ramen profitability, I would need just so much users.
[00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:18.560] And I'm reworking on that part because on the end funnel, when people use the game for seven days for free, then I think 80% of them become paid customers.
[00:22:18.560 --> 00:22:23.680] So I have a funnel is pretty good at the end, but at the beginning is pretty terrible.
[00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:27.280] And getting to that aha moment is, as you said, is really hard.
[00:22:27.280 --> 00:22:28.080] What was that percentage?
[00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:30.240] You said 80% become paid customers?
[00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:30.880] Yeah.
[00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:31.520] Wow.
[00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:35.200] If they play the game consistently for like five or six days.
[00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:35.760] Wow.
[00:22:35.760 --> 00:22:39.280] So you get people to like a week of playing and they're like, they're in the back.
[00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:39.840] You're set.
[00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:41.440] They're going to start paying you.
[00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:42.240] Yep.
[00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:44.720] I saw you tweeting about some of this stuff on Twitter.
[00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:47.440] You did like a usability test call thing.
[00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:49.680] So, I have a friend who's working on a mobile app.
[00:22:49.840 --> 00:22:52.880] He's in a similar situation where his app is pretty good.
[00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:54.480] People are coming in the top of the funnel.
[00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:55.200] They're running ads.
[00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:57.280] People are like downloading the app and using it.
[00:22:57.280 --> 00:22:59.200] And then they're also not coming back.
[00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:05.480] And he's been trying to talk to them to find out why they're not coming back, but none of them want to hop on a call.
[00:22:59.760 --> 00:23:06.920] No one's responding to emails.
[00:23:07.080 --> 00:23:09.400] No one's like, it's just radio silence.
[00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:10.280] You did the opposite.
[00:23:10.520 --> 00:23:17.320] You asked people to basically hop on a call with you, and at least 30 people said yes.
[00:23:17.320 --> 00:23:19.320] How did you get those people to say yes?
[00:23:19.320 --> 00:23:21.240] And what happened during those calls?
[00:23:22.600 --> 00:23:24.680] So I did that on Twitter.
[00:23:26.040 --> 00:23:31.160] I shared the link and I asked known users to hopefully jump on a call with me.
[00:23:31.160 --> 00:23:41.400] And basically, for 10 minutes, they would go over the app and share their screen and just go over the basic signup process and the onboarding on the app and see what's happening.
[00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:53.560] And then I realized that the data I used to see in the database, which is that 90% of people never show up after 24 hours, it started to make sense because 90% of the calls I had did not understand the app.
[00:23:53.560 --> 00:23:59.000] Like they would have fun when they sign up because it doesn't require any email.
[00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:03.560] And then the app becomes cluttered with features and stuff.
[00:24:03.560 --> 00:24:05.080] And they just don't get it.
[00:24:05.080 --> 00:24:07.960] And then they're like, are we done with the call?
[00:24:08.280 --> 00:24:12.040] And that was a pretty big realization for me to see that.
[00:24:12.040 --> 00:24:12.680] Yeah.
[00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.320] The classic way to solve this problem is a startup.
[00:24:15.320 --> 00:24:19.400] There's the coffee shop test where you literally walk into a random coffee shop with your laptop.
[00:24:19.400 --> 00:24:23.960] You go up to somebody who's in line or something and say, hey, I'll buy you a coffee if you use my app for like, you know, a minute or two.
[00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:25.480] I'll just peek over your shoulder.
[00:24:25.480 --> 00:24:31.400] And then you just like watch somebody try to figure out your app and like see what that onboarding experience is like.
[00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:38.200] And even if you like spend months designing your app, it's usually so painful the first few times you watch somebody try to do it.
[00:24:38.360 --> 00:24:47.760] With you, Kirkland, it's like you spend those days building the app, and then you see someone who is training it to click on the wrong buttons and all it's very painful.
[00:24:48.400 --> 00:25:10.480] A huge question that I have about that is like there are so many different potential customers that you could have, and of those potential customers, I don't know, if you have people like me, I carry with me all of the like background knowledge of exactly how to use your app that you need to where I don't really need like much of an onboarding.
[00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:15.840] Whereas if you get some, and like really, I mean, in this case, it's like I'm someone who already tracks habits, right?
[00:25:15.840 --> 00:25:20.320] I think of my habits as like my luggage, and it's like all I need is a new suitcase to put it in.
[00:25:20.320 --> 00:25:25.600] And if you have like a new cool suitcase, and I just like am an easy customer to onboard or whatever, right?
[00:25:25.600 --> 00:25:46.480] Whereas if you're taking anyone else, like say Cortland, I don't know if Cortland tracks any habits, like even if he gets your app, the investment that he'll have to make to like, I don't know, like figure out the features of your app and then like come to a decision about what kinds of habits he wants to start tracking, like start tracking the first one, the next one, like is it night and day.
[00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:56.800] And I just like, I don't know about in your situation, but I'm like, man, if there's some way where you can find like nothing but potential customers who have read James Clear's Atomic Habits, right?
[00:25:56.800 --> 00:26:04.640] Anyone who finished, it gets to the end of that book, for example, like they probably end that book with like seven different habits that they want to start on tomorrow, right?
[00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:14.640] I feel like you should just be stealing users from other habit trackers as opposed to trying to like find net new ones, even though obviously it's like kind of hard to get someone to stop using what they're already familiar with.
[00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:16.160] I think, yeah, this is a smart move, yeah.
[00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:24.720] Bravi, I think I should double down on targeting people who are using Abitika, but are not satisfied because it's too complicated, as you said.
[00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:28.240] Yeah, yeah, there's something to be said for getting the right people on the top of the funnel.
[00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:30.040] But Shanning, you're just one of the 10%, man.
[00:26:30.040 --> 00:26:31.400] Like, you're just one of the people.
[00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:33.240] If you hopped on a call with Mark, you would just know everything.
[00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:35.160] But, like, did you fix this, Mark?
[00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:42.680] Was it like, obviously, you talk to these people, you see that, like, 90% of them, you know, they're just filling up the user interface with all sorts of stuff that they don't understand.
[00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:47.560] I'm curious to see how that turns out because that's like your highest grossing app on your page.
[00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:52.120] You've got, what, Virally Bot, which is something based on escape rooms.
[00:26:52.120 --> 00:26:54.200] And then I think Game Widget is your other one.
[00:26:54.200 --> 00:26:55.240] Is that right?
[00:26:55.560 --> 00:26:56.360] Yep.
[00:26:56.360 --> 00:26:58.680] So I've got an escape room.
[00:26:58.680 --> 00:26:59.960] I actually own an escape room.
[00:27:00.360 --> 00:27:01.080] Kind of sort of.
[00:27:01.080 --> 00:27:01.800] I'm trying to.
[00:27:01.800 --> 00:27:03.320] It's like a really janky escape room.
[00:27:03.320 --> 00:27:06.760] So I opened an Airbnb with my girlfriend last October.
[00:27:06.760 --> 00:27:18.600] And one of the cool creative things that we're doing inside of it, besides the aesthetic design, is we put a scavenger hunt inside of it, which we have since rebranded into escape room, which has instantly increased interest in it.
[00:27:18.600 --> 00:27:24.360] Because I don't know, you just put those two words together and people just want to do an escape room way more than they want to do a scavenger hunt.
[00:27:24.360 --> 00:27:27.320] But essentially, that's kind of one of the selling points for our Airbnb.
[00:27:27.480 --> 00:27:31.560] You get there, there's instructions in the welcome guide, and we've got all these clues hidden all over.
[00:27:31.640 --> 00:27:38.120] You solve all these different puzzles, and then people at the end of it are giving us these awesome reviews because they go through our escape room.
[00:27:38.120 --> 00:27:41.960] But the problem is, we haven't figured out how to market this yet.
[00:27:42.520 --> 00:27:45.640] Generally, our guests are discovering it once they book.
[00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:59.480] And maybe they're telling their friends, but really, the word is not getting out about it as an independent escape room business, which would be dope because then people who wanted to do escape rooms in Seattle, who are like escape room enthusiasts, would find our Airbnb and maybe even book a night just to do the escape room.
[00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:05.480] So both of your apps, like Game Widget and Virally Bot, are two products that you've built that basically try to help with this problem.
[00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:12.280] Like, I need, arguably, both of these things, because both of them have the same sort of value proposition on their websites.
[00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:16.800] Virally bot, for example, says, grow your escape room with gamification marketing.
[00:28:14.840 --> 00:28:19.440] And GameWidget says, turn traffic into customers.
[00:28:19.760 --> 00:28:24.080] GameWidget engages your visitors with the fun grain to grow your escape room business automatically.
[00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:25.520] So give me the rundown on these.
[00:28:26.080 --> 00:28:27.760] How do I use these things?
[00:28:28.080 --> 00:28:32.320] So VirallyBot is one of my first startups started in 2018.
[00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:38.320] I built it when I moved to Bali and I saw the product before I even had it.
[00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:46.640] And the idea is to help escape room businesses to get more conversions by offering a free online mini game.
[00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:55.280] So it connects with their Facebook page and it allows anyone to play a mini escape game on Facebook Messenger with a chatbot.
[00:28:55.440 --> 00:29:03.200] So you would have these automated answers that challenge you to do riddles, to solve puzzles.
[00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:04.800] You will get points for this.
[00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:09.840] And when you reach a certain number of points, you will get a discount coupon for the escape room business.
[00:29:09.840 --> 00:29:16.000] And so escape room businesses that use it and share it with their audience have a fun tool to engage with them.
[00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:21.360] And then the bot, the chatbot, will do the work to convert them into paying customers.
[00:29:21.600 --> 00:29:25.840] The issue with that product is that it requires the business to work with.
[00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:34.640] So if you just put it on your Facebook Messenger page and you don't do anything, then nothing will actually happen because you need to share it with your audience.
[00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:40.480] And so based on that friction, I created GameWidget, which is a similar concept.
[00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:44.640] It's using a game to get people to book something with you.
[00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:48.800] But instead of you having to share it to your audience, it sits on your website.
[00:29:48.800 --> 00:29:52.080] It's a little script that adds onto your website.
[00:29:52.080 --> 00:29:54.880] And then it embeds a game on your website.
[00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:57.440] So as a visitor, you can just play the game right away.
[00:29:57.440 --> 00:30:05.720] And at the end, if you escape the game, you say, get a discount coupon for the business, and you can use it and redeem it right away on the website.
[00:30:05.720 --> 00:30:12.280] And I stopped working on Virally Bots a couple of years ago, but it's still bringing some money because I had customers.
[00:30:12.280 --> 00:30:14.840] And GameWidget was acquired last month.
[00:30:14.840 --> 00:30:15.320] Nice.
[00:30:15.320 --> 00:30:15.800] Amazing.
[00:30:15.800 --> 00:30:16.680] Congratulations.
[00:30:16.680 --> 00:31:09.880] It was again kind of the same pattern of like you got the main business and then in order to like make the main business like easier to find or more accessible you made like kind of a spin-off side project of it but in this situation like the spin-off side project was like more successful and you sold that I think I spent more time on Virallybot and I got almost $100,000 of revenue for it over the last four years Wow and I made GameWidget real quickly back in France for a few months and I did not try to grow the startup because it didn't feel right for me like I started to lose interest for the B2B I felt like disconnected from the buyers and I just I sold a few and it was making about a hundred dollars a month and quit really quickly after that and I sold it but uh I'm pretty sure Game Widget would have been would have been able to go farther than Virally Bot.
[00:31:10.600 --> 00:31:11.560] Who did you sell it to?
[00:31:11.560 --> 00:31:14.040] Who bought it for $4,300?
[00:31:14.680 --> 00:31:19.080] Micro, a buyer and microacquire, which I think are acquired now.
[00:31:19.080 --> 00:31:19.800] What was that like?
[00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:20.840] Was it easy?
[00:31:20.840 --> 00:31:23.800] I've never actually sold a startup on MicroAcquire.
[00:31:23.800 --> 00:31:24.680] Yeah, it was easy.
[00:31:24.680 --> 00:31:32.440] It was a bit daunting at first because you have, especially me, I'm French and I have all the legal stuff to read and I barely understand half of the words.
[00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:33.720] But no, it was seamless.
[00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:39.800] The transaction was made through escrow, so I was pretty sure I would get the money somehow.
[00:31:41.800 --> 00:31:49.680] I want to use Game Widget, actually, because I've never, I feel like I'm the only person at this point who's never done an escape room.
[00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:53.920] So like, maybe, maybe having this, like, digital version will help.
[00:31:53.920 --> 00:31:55.600] And I'm also a little bit traumatized.
[00:31:55.600 --> 00:32:02.160] So, I don't know, maybe five years ago, I had this girlfriend, and we were thinking about what to do for a date.
[00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:04.080] And I mentioned escape rooms.
[00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:07.040] I was like, oh, I'm looking on Yelp.com or something.
[00:32:07.040 --> 00:32:09.360] And I was like, oh, what about an escape room?
[00:32:09.360 --> 00:32:10.640] And her eyes lit up.
[00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:17.280] And she's like, Channing, the best first date that I've ever been on in my entire life was an escape room.
[00:32:17.280 --> 00:32:18.720] Like, I went out, she named the guy.
[00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:20.880] I went out with this guy, Mike.
[00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:25.520] Like, we didn't personally have any chemistry, but like the escape room itself was so amazing.
[00:32:25.520 --> 00:32:28.720] It was like, hands down, my best first date.
[00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:29.760] And I was like, excited.
[00:32:29.760 --> 00:32:31.040] And I'm like, oh, awesome.
[00:32:31.040 --> 00:32:34.800] Like, okay, well, we're going to hit up this escape room this weekend.
[00:32:34.800 --> 00:32:38.400] And she was like, well, I don't want to do it with you.
[00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:39.360] I was like, what do you mean?
[00:32:39.360 --> 00:32:44.000] She's like, well, especially now that I just told you my best first date was an escape room.
[00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.080] Like there's no way that it's going to live up to that.
[00:32:46.080 --> 00:32:47.680] And then it's just going to be kind of awkward.
[00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:50.800] Like you're going to ask me how it compares.
[00:32:50.800 --> 00:32:52.080] And she literally rejected.
[00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:54.960] She rejected my request.
[00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:57.680] And this is like, you know, two years into us being together.
[00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:00.400] This isn't like a new girlfriend at the time.
[00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:03.760] And honestly, like, since then, I'm like, screw escape rooms.
[00:33:03.760 --> 00:33:07.120] Like, I don't want to, like, it doesn't even, I'm kind of PTSD about it.
[00:33:07.120 --> 00:33:12.000] So maybe I'll dip my toe into like a digital version with Game Widget.
[00:33:12.320 --> 00:33:13.280] This guy messed up, though.
[00:33:13.280 --> 00:33:15.360] You don't, you don't go on an activity first date.
[00:33:15.360 --> 00:33:22.160] Like, I don't, I don't think your first date should be something that's so stimulating that the girl has a great time, even if she doesn't like you.
[00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:22.880] Like, he messed up.
[00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.280] So, I think you, I think you still got the better end of that deal.
[00:33:25.280 --> 00:33:31.240] But I would argue that escape rooms are a good way to see things you normally don't see with a typical date.
[00:33:29.520 --> 00:33:32.760] Oh, that is true.
[00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:36.920] You can kind of assess, like, how does this person, you know, work in a group?
[00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:38.840] How are they with communication?
[00:33:38.840 --> 00:33:40.840] So, it's like a almost like an interview date.
[00:33:40.840 --> 00:33:45.400] It's like, I want to like to filter, I want to filter you out based on whether or not we pass the time.
[00:33:45.560 --> 00:33:52.520] Natalie and I had this conversation like a couple of days ago where my girlfriend and I just booked a ticket, a flight to Switzerland.
[00:33:52.520 --> 00:33:53.640] She's Swiss.
[00:33:53.640 --> 00:33:57.480] And we always talk about us being sort of good travel partners.
[00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:16.600] And specifically, the thing if you're dating someone, especially if you're dating someone sort of like and it's new, is when you have good times, everyone is really capable of putting on a good face and like kind of being like their best self, but you never know who the person is that you're dating or that, even like a friend.
[00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:25.320] You never know like someone's true colors until you have adversity together, until you have like something like, you know, you're barely on time for a flight.
[00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:27.000] Like, how does the other person react, right?
[00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:30.600] Like, you have to choose whether it's going to be an Airbnb or a hotel.
[00:34:30.600 --> 00:34:32.680] And you like Airbnbs and they like hotels.
[00:34:32.680 --> 00:34:33.960] Like, what do they do, right?
[00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:35.000] You never know.
[00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:36.920] Like, you need to know everything.
[00:34:36.920 --> 00:34:41.480] Like, my friends, we had a kind of like a group sleepover a couple nights ago.
[00:34:41.480 --> 00:34:46.760] And a couple of my friends made me watch this reality show that they're super into called Love is Blind.
[00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:50.120] They're like season three, episode like 15 or something.
[00:34:50.120 --> 00:34:51.320] So I had never seen it.
[00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:55.560] But the whole concept of the show is like these people date each other without ever even seeing each other.
[00:34:55.560 --> 00:34:56.760] All they do is talk.
[00:34:56.760 --> 00:35:01.240] And then they have to like propose marriage to the person sight unseene that they like.
[00:35:01.240 --> 00:35:02.680] And then they get to see the person.
[00:35:02.680 --> 00:35:04.360] And it's like, oh, you know, it's cool.
[00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:06.440] It's really about what's going on in your heart.
[00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:07.240] You know, on one hand.
[00:35:07.240 --> 00:35:10.680] But on the other hand, like half of these couples now aren't physically attracted to each other.
[00:35:10.680 --> 00:35:11.640] They don't like each other.
[00:35:11.640 --> 00:35:12.760] Like, they haven't lived together.
[00:35:12.760 --> 00:35:14.800] So they don't know like what it's like to live together.
[00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:17.840] They haven't gone through, as you like to your point, any adversity together.
[00:35:14.520 --> 00:35:19.840] So they have no idea how they deal with stress.
[00:35:14.600 --> 00:35:22.320] They have no idea how they communicate with the group.
[00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:23.840] They have no idea how they fit in with their friends.
[00:35:24.160 --> 00:35:30.080] There's like a whole giant checklist of things that you should probably experience with a person before you decide to get married.
[00:35:30.080 --> 00:35:31.840] And these people did none of them.
[00:35:31.840 --> 00:35:34.960] So, Mark, I guess that's a point in your favor.
[00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.440] Maybe we should be doing escape rooms on the first date.
[00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:38.240] Yeah, that's it.
[00:35:38.240 --> 00:35:42.000] You're basically testing your product on the market from day zero.
[00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:50.400] So what should I do to try to grow my escape room, which is like embedded within this Airbnb, so you can't even do it unless you book the Airbnb?
[00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:57.680] Like, how do people, you know, one of the sort of lines on your website that I'm interested in that says, go viral in your local community.
[00:35:57.680 --> 00:36:01.040] How do I go viral in my local community with my escape room?
[00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:07.280] I try to solve that by having people play on the Facebook Messenger chatbot with friends.
[00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:11.040] So you could invite a friend and both of that you will solve those puzzles.
[00:36:11.040 --> 00:36:15.760] And I try to find game mechanics in order to incentivize people to do it.
[00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:24.080] That's the idea behind the headline of go viral in your local community because I hoped people would share with their friends, which some did.
[00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:29.040] Have you seen any other escape rooms like doing a good job with their own marketing and like other creative ways?
[00:36:29.040 --> 00:36:31.760] Because I'm just like trying to figure out how I could do this shit.
[00:36:33.120 --> 00:36:37.200] No, I think they do the typical at the end.
[00:36:37.200 --> 00:36:45.120] You can take a picture with your friends and they offer a discount if you share those pictures on social media.
[00:36:45.120 --> 00:36:46.240] Kind of like we did it.
[00:36:46.240 --> 00:36:49.120] We escaped in XYZ minutes.
[00:36:49.120 --> 00:36:49.840] Right.
[00:36:50.800 --> 00:36:51.840] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:53.360] It's like one of the only ways to go viral.
[00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:55.440] It's thinking about putting us on like Google Maps.
[00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:58.880] Like if you have a physical business, you can just be in the Google Maps search results.
[00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:03.080] So if somebody searches for escape room, hopefully we would pop up.
[00:37:03.080 --> 00:37:06.280] Whereas most Airbnbs don't have something like that.
[00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:07.240] I don't even know.
[00:37:07.240 --> 00:37:08.520] I have to just bust in.
[00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:12.600] I don't even know how escape rooms work, but I've always had one question.
[00:37:12.600 --> 00:37:15.560] Obviously, some people are better at puzzles than others.
[00:37:15.560 --> 00:37:20.920] So what happens if you have a group and just nobody is smart enough to get out of a particular group?
[00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:21.640] Dude, you don't escape?
[00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:28.760] Dude, I've done escape rooms with French from MIT where everybody is smart and we didn't escape.
[00:37:28.760 --> 00:37:36.600] Like it's not just about being like, hey, I'm doing this podcast from the escape room right now.
[00:37:37.240 --> 00:37:38.840] They let you out of the escape room.
[00:37:39.160 --> 00:37:42.040] You just don't get to take that picture that says like we escaped.
[00:37:42.040 --> 00:37:46.600] In fact, they'll give you props and they'll give you a little picture frame that says like we failed.
[00:37:46.600 --> 00:37:51.560] And you take like this picture of shame that they put on their Instagram page showing the names and faces.
[00:37:51.560 --> 00:37:51.960] Yeah.
[00:37:52.440 --> 00:37:53.160] That's amazing.
[00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:55.560] They publicly shame you in some places.
[00:37:55.560 --> 00:37:56.360] That's sick.
[00:37:56.360 --> 00:38:02.520] Some of them have walkie-talkies and you can ask the game master to give you a clue and you have like a limited set of clues you can ask.
[00:38:02.520 --> 00:38:04.360] But yeah, you don't have to pass every single one of them.
[00:38:04.360 --> 00:38:05.320] You might just fail.
[00:38:05.320 --> 00:38:06.360] But I like that idea.
[00:38:06.360 --> 00:38:08.120] I like both of these business ideas.
[00:38:08.120 --> 00:38:11.320] I like the fact that you sold GameWidget.
[00:38:11.320 --> 00:38:13.480] Why weren't you interested in working on it anymore?
[00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:15.880] I mean, it seems like a pretty simple business.
[00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:18.040] Like you build this widget, it kind of works.
[00:38:18.040 --> 00:38:20.520] Kind of doing sales to get up to these businesses.
[00:38:20.600 --> 00:38:22.200] You already have a lot of experience there.
[00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:25.880] Why did you lose the passion of selling to businesses?
[00:38:26.360 --> 00:38:27.240] That's a good question.
[00:38:27.240 --> 00:38:28.280] I'm still thinking about it.
[00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:29.320] I think it goes to...
[00:38:29.320 --> 00:38:31.720] It's because of the fact it's B2B.
[00:38:31.720 --> 00:38:34.120] I didn't feel close to businesses.
[00:38:35.160 --> 00:38:37.320] I didn't care if they make more money or less.
[00:38:37.560 --> 00:38:39.400] I didn't have any passion for this.
[00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:44.760] And I was not really aware of it, but I think it translated in me being lazy and not wanting to work on it.
[00:38:45.440 --> 00:38:59.520] And it's a big shift because when I close those two products, I studied to build in public, I studied to indie hack, and most of the startups you'll see that I'm shipping today are related to the people, the B2C startups.
[00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:04.800] And I don't know, it just feels more real, more pleasurable.
[00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:08.640] I feel excited to work on because I can share the app to my friends.
[00:39:08.640 --> 00:39:12.080] It just spins up the motivation.
[00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:15.440] Dude, what's your like, how are you so prolific?
[00:39:15.600 --> 00:39:16.640] I mentioned it before.
[00:39:16.640 --> 00:39:19.040] A lot of people talk about 12 startups in 12 months.
[00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:24.800] This is kind of one of the characteristic features of being an indie hacker is kind of building these small things.
[00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:31.280] But like, I don't know, when push comes to shove, most people don't actually still have it in them to just like keep going.
[00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:35.360] But like, what would you say is the secret of this for you?
[00:39:36.240 --> 00:39:38.240] So I have no expectations at all.
[00:39:38.240 --> 00:39:41.600] Like, I ship something and I'm very pessimistic.
[00:39:41.600 --> 00:39:43.440] I'm thinking it's not going to work.
[00:39:43.440 --> 00:39:47.040] So I don't have the rush, the ups and downs.
[00:39:47.040 --> 00:39:49.360] Also, I make it very short.
[00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:53.360] I try to never spend more than a week or two on a startup.
[00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:58.240] So if it fails, which is the case 90% of the time, I don't feel emotional.
[00:39:58.240 --> 00:39:59.760] I don't have any downside.
[00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:02.880] I don't have to wait until I build another product.
[00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:06.000] And I see all those startups as a collection.
[00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:09.360] You know, when you play Pokemon cards, maybe as a kid, you play that.
[00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:12.720] You collection, then you have the rare card, you have this card.
[00:40:12.720 --> 00:40:16.560] I see all my startups as a collection of things that I've built.
[00:40:16.560 --> 00:40:20.240] And I feel like every new startups I build is adding to that collection.
[00:40:20.240 --> 00:40:24.400] And it tells a story about my life at this point.
[00:40:24.720 --> 00:40:30.760] And so, I feel like if it's a failure, it doesn't matter because it's still, I'm growing a little collection of memories.
[00:40:31.080 --> 00:40:32.200] I love that framing.
[00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:35.320] Actually, you tweeted something about like about your habit tracker.
[00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:40.360] You're like, oh, I own a habit tracking app that has 6,000 users.
[00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:43.640] And it's like, I don't see very many people talk about their indie hacking projects that way.
[00:40:43.640 --> 00:40:47.640] Like, people with like old school brick and mortar businesses will talk about it like that.
[00:40:47.640 --> 00:40:51.320] They'll say, Oh, I own a farm and I own a restaurant and I own a hotel.
[00:40:51.320 --> 00:40:58.920] But, like, as an indie hacker, if you've got like six products, like you can say, yeah, I own, I own this thing, you know, that's got this many users, and I own this other thing that's got whatever.
[00:40:58.920 --> 00:41:05.720] And it's like a, you're right, it's like a deck of Pokemon cards, or it's like a portfolio of businesses that are yours.
[00:41:05.720 --> 00:41:09.080] And I think viewing it like that is kind of inspirational and a lot more fun.
[00:41:09.080 --> 00:41:14.440] I think one of the cool things, too, that you do, besides just being prolific, is like you tweet about it, right?
[00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:21.640] Like, half the stuff I know about you comes from your Twitter account, which you've grown to 14,000 followers in just a year.
[00:41:21.640 --> 00:41:23.560] And this is another thing I think a lot of people struggle with.
[00:41:23.560 --> 00:41:24.440] Like, I struggle with it.
[00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:25.240] I don't even like tweeting.
[00:41:25.240 --> 00:41:28.920] I stopped tweeting months ago, and I like, hopefully, I'll pick it back up again this year.
[00:41:28.920 --> 00:41:30.600] But what's your Twitter strategy?
[00:41:30.600 --> 00:41:32.440] How are you growing so much?
[00:41:32.440 --> 00:41:34.120] How are you building in public?
[00:41:34.120 --> 00:41:35.800] You said you're emulating Peter Levels.
[00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:40.360] Like, what parts of how he's tweeting and how he's building in public are you emulating that are actually working for you?
[00:41:40.360 --> 00:41:47.080] Because the fact that you've grown your account, like, I don't know, like some crazy percentage in a year means that whatever you're doing is working.
[00:41:47.400 --> 00:41:50.840] Yes, it took me a long time to cross 1,000 followers.
[00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:53.160] At the time, I had strategies, I had plans.
[00:41:53.160 --> 00:41:56.520] I was rethinking about my BO on Twitter.
[00:41:56.520 --> 00:42:04.040] And then something kind of happened about six, seven months ago, and I was like, fuck, it doesn't feel right.
[00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:05.880] And then I stopped thinking.
[00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:09.640] I started to share really transparently what I was doing.
[00:42:09.640 --> 00:42:16.400] I started to see myself as just a guy who, instead of building Legos, I build startups and I have a collection of startups.
[00:42:17.840 --> 00:42:23.920] And I stopped tweaking my view, I stopped testing my tweets, I stopped thinking about when to tweet or things like that.
[00:42:23.920 --> 00:42:25.840] And I just go with the flow.
[00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:32.160] And basically, it sounds a bit weird, but I started to think less and just be more me.
[00:42:32.160 --> 00:42:39.120] When I look at your stuff, yeah, sure, on Twitter, but also, you know, you have a lot of posts on indie hackers.
[00:42:39.120 --> 00:42:43.680] Like almost any of your posts that I see, A, you're hilarious.
[00:42:43.680 --> 00:42:44.880] Like, you're really funny.
[00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:52.960] You had a post that went sort of viral on indie hackers where it's just a video of you superimposed in Joe Rogan's studio.
[00:42:52.960 --> 00:42:59.760] And like, you made a video where it's like you cut together things that he had said on his podcast, and it sort of seemed like you were getting interviewed by Joe Rogan.
[00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:00.480] It was hilarious.
[00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:02.240] It went viral on our site.
[00:43:02.240 --> 00:43:08.240] And you're funny, but it also looks like the things that you're doing, like you're having a blast about it as well.
[00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:16.400] And whenever I see that, whenever I see someone who looks like they're having a really good time, I go, are you just like a really good actor?
[00:43:16.400 --> 00:43:21.280] Or are you genuinely like enjoying, you know, being on the treadmill on Twitter, et cetera?
[00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:25.040] Because if you found a way to actually have fun, like, that's the fucking hack.
[00:43:25.040 --> 00:43:28.560] Like, that's exactly, like, then everything else is on autopilot, just like what you said.
[00:43:28.560 --> 00:43:33.040] Like, you don't have to do so much thinking because like you're doing the thing you already want to do.
[00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:35.680] Yeah, that's a really good point.
[00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:39.440] That video, that day, man, I had such a good day.
[00:43:39.760 --> 00:43:41.680] I woke up and I had no idea what I'm going to do.
[00:43:41.680 --> 00:43:46.720] And I'm like, oh, I got to make a video for the product I'd launched for that product for Visualized habit.
[00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:49.520] And then, and then I don't know, something is going on in my head.
[00:43:49.520 --> 00:43:51.680] I'm like, oh, I'm going to make a video with Joe Rogan.
[00:43:51.680 --> 00:43:53.680] And then the whole day was just publishing.
[00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:55.120] Like, you could ask my wife.
[00:43:55.120 --> 00:43:57.600] She was next to me, and she could hear me laughing in the room.
[00:43:57.600 --> 00:44:01.800] She could see me, like, walking to get the microphone here, running back to the room.
[00:44:03.640 --> 00:44:08.040] It's hard to get those moments, but when they come, oh man, it's just so good.
[00:44:08.040 --> 00:44:10.360] My buddy Sean talks about having like the perfect Tuesday.
[00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:14.360] For him, it's like the ultimate goal of like being an entrepreneur, being a founder.
[00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:26.120] It's just like figuring out how to structure your life, you know, get the money you need, the business you need, the lifestyle you need, to just have like the perfect Tuesday every Tuesday and every Wednesday and every Thursday, just like the mundane days of your life.
[00:44:26.120 --> 00:44:28.200] But I think that exists for your work life too.
[00:44:28.200 --> 00:44:33.560] Like a lot of us talk about like, oh, I want to work so I can have the perfect like, you know, home life or personal life.
[00:44:33.560 --> 00:44:36.040] But like, I want my work life to be like perfect.
[00:44:36.040 --> 00:44:44.280] And for me, a big part of it, I think, is kind of what you said of like waking up in the morning and not knowing what I'm going to do today and then just doing whatever sounds fun.
[00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:46.440] In your case, maybe that's making like a video with Joe Rogan.
[00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:49.400] But for me, it's like, I don't like having a bunch of shit scheduled out.
[00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:55.080] I don't like having a huge plan for the next nine months of everything I'm going to code and build and I have to do this before I can do that.
[00:44:55.080 --> 00:44:57.400] Like I kind of like just playing around.
[00:44:57.400 --> 00:44:59.560] Because Shannon, I think we should run Eddie Hackers more like that.
[00:44:59.560 --> 00:45:07.160] Like I know I would enjoy it more if every single day we just wake up and figure out like what are we doing today or at the very least like what are we doing like, you know, this week.
[00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:08.120] It's funny.
[00:45:08.120 --> 00:45:10.440] I think we come at it from two different sides.
[00:45:10.440 --> 00:45:13.400] I love the idea of crafting.
[00:45:13.400 --> 00:45:14.920] There's this guy, Andrew Huberman.
[00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:16.760] He calls it the unit of the day.
[00:45:16.760 --> 00:45:20.600] So it's like you just think about what your perfect day is like and then you build up from there.
[00:45:20.600 --> 00:45:24.280] And for me, there is some planning involved in that.
[00:45:24.280 --> 00:45:26.040] Like I think you can do it either way.
[00:45:26.040 --> 00:45:31.320] You can do it where you're like, the perfect day for me is I wake up and like there's no Google calendar.
[00:45:31.320 --> 00:45:33.640] Like there's no, there's no like habit tracker, right?
[00:45:33.640 --> 00:45:35.400] There's none of that stuff.
[00:45:35.400 --> 00:45:39.160] For me, like I just have a bunch of projects that I love.
[00:45:39.160 --> 00:45:42.760] I love hanging out with my girlfriend and like I love doing this podcast.
[00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:45.280] Like this to me doesn't necessarily feel like work.
[00:45:45.600 --> 00:45:51.760] But I guess if you see it that way, maybe there's like a clash of whether you do planning or you don't do planning.
[00:45:44.680 --> 00:45:52.000] I don't know.
[00:45:52.080 --> 00:45:56.320] I think a lot of the planning comes from having a multi-step process.
[00:45:56.320 --> 00:45:59.280] If you're like, hey, I've got to launch my product.
[00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:02.960] And then once I launch, I can like get the conversion data.
[00:46:02.960 --> 00:46:06.320] And then once I do that, I can improve the onboarding funnel.
[00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:08.080] And once I do that, I can build new features.
[00:46:08.080 --> 00:46:10.560] And you have this whole giant process of steps you have to go through.
[00:46:10.560 --> 00:46:13.920] Then you kind of just booked out the next six months of your life.
[00:46:13.920 --> 00:46:23.280] And you don't have that much leeway to do other things because anytime you take a detour from that path, at least for me, it's going to be a little voice in the back of my mind that's like, oh, I'm fucking up.
[00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:25.280] Like I'm not doing what I should be doing.
[00:46:25.440 --> 00:46:26.800] Now that's going to take longer.
[00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.360] And every time I'm on a track like that, I'm just, I'm less happy.
[00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:32.400] Like if I'm coding anything for longer than a few months, like I'm not that happy.
[00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.840] I'm always the happiest when I'm doing really small products, really small launches, really small features.
[00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:42.240] And I go from like idea to design to launching it and releasing it in under a week.
[00:46:42.240 --> 00:46:43.280] Because then I just feel free.
[00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:44.640] I feel unburdened.
[00:46:44.640 --> 00:46:47.280] And like, to Mark's point, like failure isn't as bad.
[00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:50.640] If it doesn't work out, like, I don't feel like I just like wasted three months or a year of my life.
[00:46:50.640 --> 00:46:52.640] I feel like, I had a week-long experiment.
[00:46:52.640 --> 00:46:53.360] It was fine.
[00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:53.680] Yeah.
[00:46:53.680 --> 00:46:57.680] Courtland, have you ever read that book, Finite and Infinite Games?
[00:46:57.680 --> 00:46:59.680] It's a kind of fun philosophy book.
[00:46:59.680 --> 00:47:12.160] This guy in there expresses almost exactly what you're talking about in this really, I don't know, it's a little bit academic for a lot of people's taste, but the whole point that he goes into is he uses this term living horizonally.
[00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:14.240] And so you kind of visualize the horizon.
[00:47:14.240 --> 00:47:16.240] Like you go and you get to the horizon.
[00:47:16.240 --> 00:47:19.600] And then by definition, when you get there, the horizon moves back.
[00:47:19.600 --> 00:47:30.520] And so, if you think about projects, you can say, Look, what I want to do is I don't want to have a plan that like you know, presupposes, like, you know, it's like five years out, way beyond the horizon.
[00:47:30.520 --> 00:47:34.120] Like, this thing is going to happen A, step A, then step B, then step C.
[00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:35.320] Like, I just want to get to the horizon.
[00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:41.000] I know the immediate things that I need to work on, and I know the steps that I need to take to work on those like competently.
[00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:45.560] But then, when I get there, that's when I'll make the decision about the next thing, right?
[00:47:45.560 --> 00:47:49.480] Like, it's not a huge master plan, but there is like a little bit of planning involved.
[00:47:49.480 --> 00:47:50.360] You know what it is?
[00:47:50.360 --> 00:47:52.920] It's like a, because I love that you say it's about like play.
[00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:57.720] I'm looking at the Amazon page too, and it's just like, essentially, it's all about playing games.
[00:47:57.720 --> 00:48:00.600] It's the difference between like an obstacle course and a playground.
[00:48:00.600 --> 00:48:03.320] An obstacle course is like American Ninja Warrior.
[00:48:03.480 --> 00:48:05.560] You got to go through the entire course, beginning to end.
[00:48:05.640 --> 00:48:10.920] If you fail at a part, you got to keep doing that part forever and ever and ever and ever and ever until you get it right.
[00:48:10.920 --> 00:48:13.080] And only then can you move to the next part, you know?
[00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:21.320] Like, if we're trying to grow the Indie Hackers Forum and we need it to be, you know, 10,000 posts a day or something, we just fail at that forever until we get it before we can go to the next step.
[00:48:21.320 --> 00:48:22.200] And I hate that shit.
[00:48:22.2

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Prompt 5: Context Setup

You are an expert data extractor tasked with analyzing a podcast transcript. 
I will provide you with part 2 of 2 from a podcast transcript. 
I will then ask you to extract different types of information from this content in subsequent messages. Please confirm you have received and understood the transcript content.

Transcript section:
40 --> 00:47:19.600] And then by definition, when you get there, the horizon moves back.
[00:47:19.600 --> 00:47:30.520] And so, if you think about projects, you can say, Look, what I want to do is I don't want to have a plan that like you know, presupposes, like, you know, it's like five years out, way beyond the horizon.
[00:47:30.520 --> 00:47:34.120] Like, this thing is going to happen A, step A, then step B, then step C.
[00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:35.320] Like, I just want to get to the horizon.
[00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:41.000] I know the immediate things that I need to work on, and I know the steps that I need to take to work on those like competently.
[00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:45.560] But then, when I get there, that's when I'll make the decision about the next thing, right?
[00:47:45.560 --> 00:47:49.480] Like, it's not a huge master plan, but there is like a little bit of planning involved.
[00:47:49.480 --> 00:47:50.360] You know what it is?
[00:47:50.360 --> 00:47:52.920] It's like a, because I love that you say it's about like play.
[00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:57.720] I'm looking at the Amazon page too, and it's just like, essentially, it's all about playing games.
[00:47:57.720 --> 00:48:00.600] It's the difference between like an obstacle course and a playground.
[00:48:00.600 --> 00:48:03.320] An obstacle course is like American Ninja Warrior.
[00:48:03.480 --> 00:48:05.560] You got to go through the entire course, beginning to end.
[00:48:05.640 --> 00:48:10.920] If you fail at a part, you got to keep doing that part forever and ever and ever and ever and ever until you get it right.
[00:48:10.920 --> 00:48:13.080] And only then can you move to the next part, you know?
[00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:21.320] Like, if we're trying to grow the Indie Hackers Forum and we need it to be, you know, 10,000 posts a day or something, we just fail at that forever until we get it before we can go to the next step.
[00:48:21.320 --> 00:48:22.200] And I hate that shit.
[00:48:22.200 --> 00:48:23.720] It's like very draining.
[00:48:23.720 --> 00:48:27.000] Versus a playground, you show up and there's like a million games you can play.
[00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:29.240] And you just like get on the swing set if you want to swing.
[00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:31.400] You get on the monkey bars if you want to do the monkey bars.
[00:48:31.400 --> 00:48:32.920] You get on the slide if you want to slide.
[00:48:32.920 --> 00:48:34.200] There is no gatekeeper.
[00:48:34.200 --> 00:48:36.600] There is no getting stuck doing something that you don't like.
[00:48:36.600 --> 00:48:42.520] Like, if Mark just wants to like make a YouTube video where he's talking to Joe Rogan, like he can just do that and it doesn't matter.
[00:48:42.520 --> 00:48:45.000] Like, he's not held back from doing that because of something else.
[00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:46.280] So I like that style of work.
[00:48:46.440 --> 00:48:49.800] I think that's kind of like my ideal, my dream.
[00:48:49.800 --> 00:48:52.440] And quite frankly, there's nothing stopping me from just doing that right now.
[00:48:52.440 --> 00:48:54.520] Like, I could just switch to that style.
[00:48:54.520 --> 00:49:02.360] It's kind of outside looking in, but that almost feels like, I mean, again, Mark, like when I look at you, I just go, like, it looks like this guy's having a blast.
[00:49:02.360 --> 00:49:06.760] It looks like he's running his projects almost exactly the way that we just described.
[00:49:06.760 --> 00:49:12.920] You know, you say, oh, I had a project that was, you know, making money, but it was sort of business to business.
[00:49:13.240 --> 00:49:14.360] You know, I wasn't having a lot of fun.
[00:49:14.360 --> 00:49:15.120] So, I scrapped it.
[00:49:15.120 --> 00:49:15.920] I sold it.
[00:49:15.920 --> 00:49:20.560] Like, how does your work style fit into the way that we're talking about this?
[00:49:14.840 --> 00:49:21.840] Yeah, I'm with it with this.
[00:49:21.920 --> 00:49:25.680] It's like having fun is the number one thing.
[00:49:25.680 --> 00:49:29.280] Sometimes I know I have to do things that are not really fun.
[00:49:29.280 --> 00:49:33.440] Like, now I'm adding push notifications to the app, and it's not really fun.
[00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:36.320] But I know I have to push through to have more fun later.
[00:49:36.320 --> 00:49:41.600] But if these not funny tasks go over for too long, then I just move on.
[00:49:41.600 --> 00:49:44.800] You're in a spot that like most indie hackers really want to be at, right?
[00:49:44.800 --> 00:49:56.240] Like, the vast majority of indie hackers have not gotten started, or they don't have an idea, or they're struggling to make their first dollar, or you know, they've got like 10 or 20 bucks coming in a month, but they haven't gotten the ROM profitability.
[00:49:56.240 --> 00:49:57.520] You're ramen profitable.
[00:49:57.520 --> 00:49:58.080] You've done it.
[00:49:58.080 --> 00:49:59.360] You have a giant array of products.
[00:49:59.360 --> 00:50:01.600] You can work on whatever you want every day.
[00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:03.440] What's your advice for other people?
[00:50:03.600 --> 00:50:05.120] He also told me he has a personal chef.
[00:50:05.120 --> 00:50:06.320] Throw that in there as well.
[00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:07.360] You've got a personal.
[00:50:07.600 --> 00:50:08.240] What's that about?
[00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:09.200] You got a personal chef.
[00:50:09.200 --> 00:50:11.600] That sounds beyond ramen profitable.
[00:50:11.600 --> 00:50:12.080] It is.
[00:50:12.400 --> 00:50:21.280] Actually, I got the chef since, you know, at zero, mostly at zero, MR already got a chef, but it's the best productivity hack have fun.
[00:50:21.280 --> 00:50:22.640] So I don't do groceries.
[00:50:22.640 --> 00:50:23.840] I don't do meal plans.
[00:50:23.840 --> 00:50:25.760] I eat super healthy food.
[00:50:25.760 --> 00:50:29.120] It's like vegetables and raw meat.
[00:50:29.120 --> 00:50:32.240] It's just so good for health and productivity.
[00:50:32.240 --> 00:50:37.200] And it's about in Balitz, it costs about $200 a month, excluding the groceries.
[00:50:37.200 --> 00:50:43.600] So in total, for $400 a month, I have five meals, five days a week of lunch and dinner prepared.
[00:50:43.600 --> 00:50:45.280] And yeah, I'm not going back.
[00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:46.240] It's too good.
[00:50:46.240 --> 00:50:50.800] My big thing used to be that, like, my dream was to have a personal chef because I love eating.
[00:50:50.840 --> 00:50:53.840] Like, I count down the number of meals I have to eat left.
[00:50:53.800 --> 00:50:57.200] Like, I eat twice a day, 365 days a year.
[00:50:57.200 --> 00:50:58.640] I'm going to live for another 50 years.
[00:50:58.680 --> 00:51:00.760] Like, I got like 36,000 meals left.
[00:51:00.760 --> 00:51:02.600] They better, every one of those meals better be good.
[00:51:02.600 --> 00:51:05.240] That's kind of how I look at it because it's one of my favorite things.
[00:50:59.840 --> 00:51:06.600] So, I always thought it'd be dope.
[00:51:06.680 --> 00:51:10.280] Like, just like I know I've made it if I've got a personal chef, but it's expensive, man.
[00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:11.400] It's super expensive.
[00:51:11.400 --> 00:51:13.640] So, what I'm getting from you is I got to move to Bali.
[00:51:13.640 --> 00:51:14.360] Move to Bali.
[00:51:14.520 --> 00:51:18.360] Get one for 200 bucks a month and be set.
[00:51:18.360 --> 00:51:21.880] Yeah, that's the good part of living, I think, in Southeast Asia.
[00:51:21.880 --> 00:51:26.920] It doesn't cost much to get a cleaner, to get a chef, to get a driver.
[00:51:26.920 --> 00:51:36.600] And I try to tweet about this, and some of them go viral because some people in the West realize that life could be different somewhere else.
[00:51:36.600 --> 00:51:40.600] Yo, Mark, 12 months, you've become a sensation.
[00:51:41.240 --> 00:51:44.120] You are, in a lot of ways, still starting out.
[00:51:44.120 --> 00:51:46.760] You just got to ramble on profitability, huge milestone.
[00:51:46.760 --> 00:51:54.120] And of all the things you've figured out in the last like 12, 13 months, what's one piece of advice that you would leave for people that are listening?
[00:51:54.120 --> 00:51:59.560] Don't spend too much time on one product and build and ship and kill fast.
[00:51:59.560 --> 00:52:00.280] That's it.
[00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:01.800] Short and sweet.
[00:52:01.800 --> 00:52:02.360] All right, dude.
[00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:04.280] Thanks a Don for coming on.

Prompt 6: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 7: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 8: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:07.920] What up?
[00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:09.120] What's going on, man?
[00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:11.120] What do you do for Valentine's Day?
[00:00:11.760 --> 00:00:19.440] I got some rose petals from Whole Foods, and I kind of spread them out on the floor of my bathroom.
[00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:22.880] And then I got like a, you know, I moved apartments a couple months ago.
[00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:24.800] My new ones got like a big jacuzzi tub.
[00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:32.320] So I put them and filled up a tub with like, you know, some bubble bass and bath bombs, put some rose petals in there, and just watched the movie in the tub with Sarah.
[00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640] And we went out for a nice steak dinner before that.
[00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:35.600] So it was real chill.
[00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:37.760] He was boring.
[00:00:38.080 --> 00:00:39.120] Mark, what's going on?
[00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:40.880] Hey, what's up, Mark?
[00:00:41.440 --> 00:00:43.920] What did you do for Valentine's Day, Mark?
[00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:46.960] You just remind me there's a Valentine's Day.
[00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:49.120] Well, that's it.
[00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:50.160] That's the answer.
[00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:51.600] Is it like an American holiday?
[00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:52.000] That's great.
[00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:56.960] I know there's a lot of holidays that I just assume are worldwide because I'm American and it turns out like nobody else even knows what this is.
[00:00:56.960 --> 00:00:59.200] No, I think friends of mine do it.
[00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:04.400] It's just have been married for five years and every day is pretty much the same.
[00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:05.520] We work from home.
[00:01:05.520 --> 00:01:07.280] There's no Saturday, there's no Sunday.
[00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:10.240] So it feels like we're leaving the same day over and over.
[00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:14.080] Which it's a beautiful day, but we forget about things like Valentine's.
[00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:23.440] Well, listen, man, if being married for five years means that I get to not have to do these forced holidays, maybe I'll be proposing tonight.
[00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:26.160] Anyway, Mark, we should introduce you to the audience.
[00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:28.400] You are Mark Louvion.
[00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:30.000] Sounds like the name of someone I'd have on the show.
[00:01:30.080 --> 00:01:31.920] My mom would be like, oh, you're interviewing Mark Louvian.
[00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:34.080] I think it sounds fancier in English.
[00:01:34.080 --> 00:01:36.240] In French, he's just.
[00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:37.680] Oh, that was way fancier.
[00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:37.920] I know.
[00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:40.400] That was like, whoa, that blew my mind a little bit.
[00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:51.120] In February of last year, you tweeted that you had 200 followers, you were burning through your savings, and you had three startups, which is admittedly a lot of startups.
[00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:55.680] Today, a year later, you have 13 startups.
[00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.080] You have 14,000 followers on Twitter.
[00:01:58.080 --> 00:02:00.280] And I think you just got to Ramen Profitable.
[00:02:00.440 --> 00:02:11.000] So you have sort of reached the first big milestone as an indie hacker where you can completely survive and pay for all your bills and eat as much ramen as you possibly can dream of.
[00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:13.400] And you don't have to do that on anybody else's dime.
[00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:14.440] Like, it's all you.
[00:02:14.440 --> 00:02:15.160] You've made it.
[00:02:15.160 --> 00:02:19.320] Yeah, somehow, I mean, this is pretty new to cross-the ramen profitability.
[00:02:19.320 --> 00:02:22.840] So this is a, it's, it's a good, uh, it's a good achievement.
[00:02:22.840 --> 00:02:24.600] It feels less stress.
[00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:29.080] The whole story, I was building in the dark for a couple of years before.
[00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:31.800] So it's a bit less successful if you put it that way.
[00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.680] I think I've been in and out for about six years.
[00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:40.520] And I only started taking it seriously and doing it in public about a year ago, as you said.
[00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:44.440] Well, I think what I find impressive about it is like something changed, right?
[00:02:44.440 --> 00:02:51.560] Like, and I don't know if it was the building in public or not, but like going from three projects to 13 is like that's 10 stars in 12 months.
[00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:52.360] That's huge.
[00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:53.800] And it seems like you're having fun doing it.
[00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:54.760] Like I read your tweets.
[00:02:54.760 --> 00:02:57.560] Like you're basically a comedian in all your tweets.
[00:02:57.720 --> 00:02:58.600] I look at your products.
[00:02:58.600 --> 00:03:00.440] They're all really well designed.
[00:03:00.440 --> 00:03:02.040] Like these aren't like shabby products.
[00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:03.400] Like you're putting your heart and soul into them.
[00:03:03.480 --> 00:03:10.360] You're adding cool little graphics of like, you know, cool flowers and your photo of your head kind of spinning around as a logo on some of them.
[00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:13.080] Like half of your products just make me laugh out loud when I see them.
[00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:13.720] And they're working.
[00:03:13.720 --> 00:03:15.560] They're actually making money.
[00:03:15.560 --> 00:03:18.280] I guess the process you're going through, like most people are super stressed.
[00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:21.000] You know, they're like, oh shit, I'm going to be broken out of money tomorrow.
[00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:21.800] What am I going to do?
[00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:27.000] They have trouble launching, but you're just like cruising, making money and having fun on the way while you do it.
[00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:28.440] Yeah, that's exactly it.
[00:03:28.440 --> 00:03:29.080] Yeah.
[00:03:29.880 --> 00:03:33.240] I think I've taken things very seriously at the beginning.
[00:03:33.640 --> 00:03:37.160] I started building startup thinking I was the next Mark Zuckerberg.
[00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:40.360] And I've been doing this for years.
[00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:45.000] And the downsides, when you know the startup crash and things like that, it was really terrible.
[00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:56.240] And so earlier, like last year, and thanks to you guys, the indie hiking journey, the building employee community, I started taking things way more simply.
[00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:59.520] and just be like, okay, I'm just a guy in my bedroom doing what I like.
[00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:00.800] I build stuff.
[00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:06.160] And that really changed my mindset and how I handle downsides.
[00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:12.320] And I started building startups real quickly, like trying to imitate what Peter Lovells do.
[00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:13.520] And I loved it.
[00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:20.160] And I could see on my Twitter that it's working well when I do things without too much emotions, when I do it quickly.
[00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:23.440] It's inspiring for some people and it's working for me.
[00:04:23.440 --> 00:04:25.600] So it's a better journey now.
[00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:34.640] That's the thing specifically that I'm most impressed about is like, number one, it's just the quantity and the quality of your output.
[00:04:34.640 --> 00:04:38.160] Courtland mentioned the quality, but it's like, what is it?
[00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:42.400] I think you've got 11 products in the last, whatever, 13 or 14 months.
[00:04:42.400 --> 00:04:51.440] And the only way to do that is if you have like an immense amount of discipline to like keep projects small and then move on.
[00:04:51.440 --> 00:05:01.040] Like I can't tell you how many, I mean, probably, probably every single month we have a trending post on indie hackers that's like, you know, the next person who's going to do 12 products in 12 months.
[00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:03.440] And those things always fizzle out.
[00:05:03.440 --> 00:05:08.160] And it's either usually because people just don't ultimately get started.
[00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:12.480] They fail to start 12 times or they fail to like get to the finish line 12 times.
[00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:18.080] And very, very few people do both consistently over the period of time that you've done it.
[00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:20.240] And it's like, I think that that's the biggest challenge.
[00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:27.280] Like, people just have to spend a week doing design and they have to spend a week talking to people and they have to spend a week coding, right?
[00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:33.080] But you just like have been, you know, sort of zipping through that whole cycle consistently for a while.
[00:05:29.840 --> 00:05:35.240] I think that's why I don't set much goals.
[00:05:35.400 --> 00:05:39.000] And I didn't tell myself I'm going to build 12 startups in 12 months.
[00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:44.760] Because I feel like when you do that, you tell your mind that you're going to have all that.
[00:05:44.760 --> 00:05:50.760] So you get excited, you have the dopamine rush, and you're super into it and you're super protective for a week or two.
[00:05:50.760 --> 00:05:55.240] But after, it feels like it fades out because, you know, you cannot build 12 startups in 12 hours.
[00:05:55.240 --> 00:06:00.600] So you don't get the things you told your brain you're going to get into a short period of time.
[00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:01.880] And so I just don't set goals.
[00:06:01.880 --> 00:06:03.320] And like, I'm going to show up every day.
[00:06:03.320 --> 00:06:04.920] I'm going to be at my desk at 7 a.m.
[00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:06.440] every single day.
[00:06:06.440 --> 00:06:07.800] Yeah, I have a friend who does this.
[00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:16.280] Every time he's going to start something new, he tells everybody, like, not only what he's going to do, but like exactly how much money it's going to make and how successful.
[00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:18.520] He creates this vision of the end goal.
[00:06:18.520 --> 00:06:23.800] And everyone's bought into this end result and how amazing it is and how successful he's going to be.
[00:06:23.800 --> 00:06:26.200] And then he probably goes home after that.
[00:06:26.200 --> 00:06:29.160] And it's like, well, now he doesn't have any of those actual achievements yet.
[00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:31.000] He just has all his hard work in front of him.
[00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.160] And everybody's kind of already celebrated the achievements.
[00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:34.920] So it's like there's no upside to that.
[00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:37.320] It's like now it's just, now he's just screwed.
[00:06:37.320 --> 00:06:43.960] Yeah, I feel like expectations are a kind of internal fight we have to manage in order to keep going.
[00:06:44.280 --> 00:06:45.080] Agreed.
[00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:47.160] There's something smart too in the approach you said.
[00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:50.920] Like you're basically not taking it seriously, which is the same thing that Peter Levels does.
[00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:57.400] Like he told me once that he intentionally on Twitter tries to look dumber and like less sophisticated than he actually is.
[00:06:57.400 --> 00:06:59.640] Like he tries to look like he doesn't know what he's doing.
[00:06:59.640 --> 00:07:01.320] Number one, because it's inspiring to other people.
[00:07:01.320 --> 00:07:03.000] It's like, oh, like this idiot can do it.
[00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:03.400] I can do it.
[00:07:03.400 --> 00:07:03.640] Right.
[00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:04.760] But like, he actually is not an idiot.
[00:07:04.760 --> 00:07:05.960] He's a super smart guy.
[00:07:05.960 --> 00:07:08.760] But also for himself, like for the same reason that you're doing it.
[00:07:08.760 --> 00:07:16.640] Like, if you don't put things on a pedestal, if you don't have these high expectations, then you can't feel crushed at the end when it doesn't work out.
[00:07:16.640 --> 00:07:17.440] Yeah, totally.
[00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:21.840] I feel like this journey is actually just an internal fight with yourself.
[00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:32.480] I was going to say, Courtney, I feel like we haven't put out the amount of products for indie hackers nearly that you have, Mark, in like, you know, your last year, probably last three years, we haven't put that many products out.
[00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:37.920] But we have created features and like been on the grind with a lot of the elements of indie hackers.
[00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:43.120] And a huge amount of that longevity is being much more input focused, right?
[00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:49.040] Like figuring out what we like to do so that we have like the energy to keep doing it over and over again.
[00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:54.960] And we don't have like, you know, some two-year goal where if we don't hit it in two years, we're going to feel hugely deflated.
[00:07:54.960 --> 00:08:00.720] To your point, Channing, like, I think if we did indie hackers the way that Peter Levels does his business, because Peter Levels has Nomad List.
[00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:02.400] It's this giant hub for digital nomads.
[00:08:02.400 --> 00:08:04.320] Indie Hackers is a hub for indie hackers.
[00:08:04.320 --> 00:08:09.600] But when he does like a feature, he doesn't say like, hey, this is the Nomad List job board.
[00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:11.840] He packages it up like it's completely different product.
[00:08:11.840 --> 00:08:13.920] He gives it its own domain name.
[00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:15.440] And he's like, oh, this is remote OK.
[00:08:15.440 --> 00:08:17.120] It's like a remote job board, right?
[00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:19.200] But we just have like the indie hackers job board.
[00:08:19.200 --> 00:08:29.840] So everything we have feels like it's a tiny feature that's part of this bigger project versus everything feeling like this like small new, you know, 12 startups in 12 months type thing.
[00:08:29.840 --> 00:08:32.240] And I think that other way is like much better.
[00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:47.760] Because Mark, like what you're doing, like when you actually launch everything as its own product from beginning to end, its own domain name, its own thing, like you can build in public and you can like get excited about every single thing that launches way more than you can about like an incremental improvement to a feature of a bigger product.
[00:08:47.760 --> 00:08:52.320] So, one of the things I want to do for indie hackers is we've got these profile pages.
[00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:54.760] Every indie hacker on the website has a user profile.
[00:08:54.760 --> 00:08:59.720] And if you go there, you can see, like, if I go to indiehackers.com/slash like MarkLew, I can see your profile.
[00:08:59.680 --> 00:09:02.920] And I can see that it's like essentially, here's all the posts you've made.
[00:09:02.920 --> 00:09:04.520] Here's all the comments you've made.
[00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:06.040] On the right, here's all the products you've made.
[00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:08.440] And it's kind of like a social media profile.
[00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:10.840] Like, I want indie hackers to have kind of a link tree thing.
[00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:12.920] And, Mark, you have this for yourself, and it's awesome.
[00:09:12.920 --> 00:09:14.120] I kind of want to just steal it.
[00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:24.600] So, if you go to like MarkLew, M-A-R-C-L-O-U.com, you've got like your indie hacker link tree page where it's a photo of your face making a hilarious expression.
[00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:30.600] It says you're an indie hacker, you're 29 years old, you're $1,500 a month in revenue, living in Bali.
[00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:35.160] And your tagline says, I was fired everywhere, so I've decided to always work for myself.
[00:09:35.160 --> 00:09:36.680] Even Ty Lopez fired me.
[00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:39.160] I love smiling, and people who smile, I pursue freedom.
[00:09:39.160 --> 00:09:42.680] And under that, you've got a section where you can see 11 of your startups.
[00:09:42.680 --> 00:09:47.640] You can see, you know, one was acquired, one is new, one of them you're building, three of them are making revenue.
[00:09:47.640 --> 00:09:48.280] I love this page.
[00:09:48.280 --> 00:09:51.880] It's like Mark as an indie hacker at a glance.
[00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:58.440] So I guess I just want to ask you, like, can I steal this concept from the indiehackers.com website and make other people's profiles look kind of like yours?
[00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:00.280] It's even got like the dark color theme.
[00:10:00.280 --> 00:10:02.120] Like, indie hackers has like that dark blue.
[00:10:02.120 --> 00:10:02.760] It's kind of distinct.
[00:10:03.640 --> 00:10:06.200] You don't see it a lot, but like, yeah, yours is like dark purple.
[00:10:06.200 --> 00:10:08.920] It's like, it'd be very easy for us to lift.
[00:10:09.560 --> 00:10:12.200] I think it's a Daisy UI theme.
[00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:13.880] It's a library for tailoring.
[00:10:13.880 --> 00:10:14.600] It's a pretty good one.
[00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:15.720] I use it for all my projects.
[00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:16.200] Nice.
[00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:18.360] The theme is Dracula, I think.
[00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:18.840] Nice.
[00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:19.800] Yeah, it looks really good.
[00:10:19.800 --> 00:10:21.080] And you've got 11 startups on here.
[00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:22.360] So I want to talk about some of these.
[00:10:22.760 --> 00:10:27.160] Because a lot of them are kind of related to some of the stuff I've got going on in real life.
[00:10:27.640 --> 00:10:28.920] Shannon, you want to talk about one?
[00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:31.000] Which one stands out to you the most?
[00:10:31.560 --> 00:10:37.080] I'm really into habits, so I'm just going to start at the top because it looks like one of your big ones.
[00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:40.040] Yeah, you've got two, but it seems like the one that's making the most money.
[00:10:40.040 --> 00:10:44.200] So you've got Habits Garden that's making $767 a month.
[00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:46.240] You've got some details about them being sold.
[00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:47.200] But then what's the other one?
[00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:48.400] Gamify list?
[00:10:48.400 --> 00:10:49.200] Visualize Habit.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.320] Visualize, oh, that's right.
[00:10:50.400 --> 00:10:53.760] So Habit Garden is making $767 a month.
[00:10:53.760 --> 00:10:57.520] It says beat procrastination with a gamified habit tracker.
[00:10:57.520 --> 00:11:00.160] And it says you've got 6,000 plus users on that one.
[00:11:00.160 --> 00:11:02.320] Tell me the story about Habits Garden.
[00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:03.840] How did you start this market?
[00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:06.560] It was about a year ago.
[00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:11.840] I wanted to make a habit tracker with the GitHub contribution board.
[00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:18.080] The one that you have like a square per contribution you make, and you see the whole year with a list of those squares.
[00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:18.720] Yeah.
[00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:23.920] So I just made this one and I added companies and I shared it on Twitter and I got good feedback.
[00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:25.040] People said they loved it.
[00:11:25.040 --> 00:11:31.120] And the fact that they were having fun taking their habits made them more consistent.
[00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:36.080] And I have no idea why, but I was like, oh, how about I turn it into a complete game?
[00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:45.600] Something where people don't need notifications, but instead they got inner motivation from doing a game instead of feeling that they have to do their workouts, things like that.
[00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:55.920] And so I added quest, I added achievements, and I added a whole thing called the garden where you can plant flowers with the gems you earn from the quest.
[00:11:55.920 --> 00:11:59.760] And then you unlock flowers as you go through your progress in your habits.
[00:11:59.760 --> 00:12:03.680] And normally after a month, if you're consistent, you would have unlocked most flowers.
[00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:06.080] You would have a beautiful garden and you can play with your friends.
[00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:10.000] You have a little board where you can see who's the most consistent person of the week.
[00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:11.120] And it's pretty much the story.
[00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:12.880] And I keep iterating on that product.
[00:12:12.880 --> 00:12:16.080] I think it's the one I focus, I spend most of my time on.
[00:12:16.400 --> 00:12:22.480] And I build side projects like Visualize Habits that are on purpose of, you know, like what Peter Levels does.
[00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:27.520] It's like it's a small version of Habits Garden that aims to promote it.
[00:12:27.520 --> 00:12:31.480] Oh, it's like a spin-off kind of like marketing version of the app.
[00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:32.680] Yep, yep.
[00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:34.280] Okay, so wait, hold on, that's fascinating to me.
[00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:35.160] How does that actually work?
[00:12:35.160 --> 00:12:39.400] You've got Habits Garden, that's the main app, it's a habit tracker.
[00:12:39.400 --> 00:12:45.560] You complete your habits, you get this cool little visual garden, and then you've got Visualize Habit, which is like the marketing paired down.
[00:12:45.560 --> 00:12:47.960] Like, how does that marketing version work?
[00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:51.080] So I think it was December last year.
[00:12:51.640 --> 00:12:53.960] New Year resolution is a big thing.
[00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:57.720] And I thought, how can I combine New Year resolutions and habits?
[00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:02.760] And same as we said before, that goal setting can be motivating to start.
[00:13:02.760 --> 00:13:09.160] So I was like, how does a mini habit that I do five minutes a day will translate if I do it over a year?
[00:13:09.160 --> 00:13:14.120] And so I thought about the main habits, which is like exercising, reading books, meditation.
[00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:15.720] How does that look like over a year?
[00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:25.880] And so if you go there and you set up your workout habits and you tell you're going to work out like 15 minutes a day, it will tell you how many hours of workout you're going to do in a year.
[00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:35.160] And it's going to show you fun data about things like, you know, you're going to burn like this amount of calories, which is the equivalent of like 120 big mechs.
[00:13:35.160 --> 00:13:38.280] It's like a calculator basically for all these different habits.
[00:13:38.280 --> 00:13:39.400] Yeah, totally.
[00:13:39.400 --> 00:13:46.760] And at the end, if you want to start those habits, I'm making a plug to Habits Garden and you can import them directly into the tracker.
[00:13:46.760 --> 00:13:47.240] Sweet.
[00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:48.280] So I'm on here right now.
[00:13:48.280 --> 00:13:49.560] Like I want to write.
[00:13:49.560 --> 00:13:51.880] I want to write for, let's say, like 45 minutes a day.
[00:13:51.880 --> 00:13:52.680] So I click write.
[00:13:52.680 --> 00:13:54.200] There's a whole like grid of different habits.
[00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:54.840] You choose which one.
[00:13:54.840 --> 00:14:00.040] It could be code, write, drink water, learn an instrument, read more.
[00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:01.400] So I say 45 minutes a day.
[00:14:01.400 --> 00:14:03.880] I'm going to do it four times a week, five times a week.
[00:14:03.880 --> 00:14:05.800] And then I click add habit.
[00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:11.880] And then it just sort of automatically calculates basically how much that's going to be if I reach my goal.
[00:14:11.880 --> 00:14:15.600] And then I can import that into habits Garden.
[00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:17.280] Okay, this is, man, this is genius.
[00:14:14.920 --> 00:14:22.400] So you can launch this as its own individual product and try to get a bunch of traffic to this.
[00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:26.000] And any traffic that goes to this automatically feeds into your main app.
[00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:32.800] And you can kind of clearly see that the flow, like the funnel of that, because Visualize Habit, you don't have to log in.
[00:14:32.800 --> 00:14:37.040] Like there's minimal friction to just getting in there, investing.
[00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:38.160] Here's my habits.
[00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:40.880] I'm just looking at the grid.
[00:14:40.880 --> 00:14:43.360] It's like code, meditate, cold shower.
[00:14:43.520 --> 00:14:45.200] These are all things that I personally like.
[00:14:45.200 --> 00:14:54.640] And then it's like, okay, well, if you want to really track these habits and kind of play a game with them, then you take the higher friction step of joining Habits Garden.
[00:14:54.640 --> 00:14:56.080] You're like, your big one.
[00:14:56.400 --> 00:15:01.360] Yeah, I think the covers rate for this one is the best I've had so far because it's pretty seamless.
[00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:10.160] And about 30% of people who visit the site will build their habits grade and go on habitsgarden.com.
[00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:10.800] Wow.
[00:15:10.800 --> 00:15:12.080] That's huge, man.
[00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:13.920] Does this gamification stuff work?
[00:15:13.920 --> 00:15:16.000] Like, I've used a bunch of to-do list apps.
[00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.840] I think I used Habitica once, which is kind of another one.
[00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:21.600] Like, years, I can barely even remember using it.
[00:15:21.680 --> 00:15:22.480] I think I tried it.
[00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:26.880] But with Habits Garden, the way it works is I'm actually playing Farmville or something.
[00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:31.120] When I'm doing my to-do list, I get this really cool-looking garden.
[00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:34.320] Does that actually motivate people to be more productive?
[00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:40.480] Yeah, it's really hard to get people to understand the game and understand that it's a gamified habit checker.
[00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:44.080] But when they do and they take it seriously, then they become crazy about it.
[00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:49.920] And I have a couple of users, like maybe 30 users, who have been showing up for about a year.
[00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:54.240] And every single day you see them in the little board, you see them completing their habits.
[00:15:54.560 --> 00:15:56.640] It's like a tale of two brothers.
[00:15:56.640 --> 00:16:04.280] Because Courtlin, we sometimes get this like history mix, but like I swear I introduced you to Habitica, and it probably was like five years ago, I don't know.
[00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:09.800] But like, Hibitica, Mark, if you're familiar with that, that's like this other habit tracking app.
[00:16:09.800 --> 00:16:15.400] It's like an RPG, you like have a character, and Cortland said he stopped using that game.
[00:16:15.400 --> 00:16:22.920] Like, I use Hibitica every single day, and I pretty much haven't missed, I don't know, a day in like four years.
[00:16:22.920 --> 00:16:29.000] And not only do I use Hibitica, but I also use there's another indie hacker who has this app called Everyday.
[00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:36.920] It's kind of similar, it's like yours, it has like a grid for your different habits, but it like doesn't have any real game element, it's just kind of simple.
[00:16:36.920 --> 00:16:52.920] Like, I'm a sucker for these things, and it's like what you said, you have like you know, a small number of users or a few users who are like super devoted, and it's like the way that my brain works compared to the way that, for example, Cortland's brain works, like I'm already sucked in.
[00:16:52.920 --> 00:17:01.640] I'm already like, I wonder if I can like do half of my habits on Hibitica and then like move the other half to like Habits Garden and like, you know, if that'll be too much overhead for me.
[00:17:01.640 --> 00:17:06.680] Yeah, Habitica is actually one of the reasons I created Habits Garden because I tried it and it's lovely.
[00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:08.680] Like, the concept is amazing.
[00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:11.560] I just feel like there's a bit of overhead when you get on the app.
[00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:12.760] There's a lot of things.
[00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:22.360] And that made me keep the concept of having the game, but just make it in a way that is a bit simpler where you don't have to think too much when you log in into the app.
[00:17:22.360 --> 00:17:28.600] But keeping the mechanics of having random loots and quests and unlocking achievements, I love those.
[00:17:28.600 --> 00:17:31.560] I try to incorporate some of them into a Hubbits Garden.
[00:17:31.560 --> 00:17:33.320] You know what would make me use something like this?
[00:17:33.320 --> 00:17:36.440] Because I use exactly Zero productivity apps.
[00:17:36.760 --> 00:17:38.600] I'm big on social accountability.
[00:17:38.600 --> 00:17:44.280] Like, if I get a little garden or a little character or whatever, and nobody sees it, I just don't, I don't care.
[00:17:44.280 --> 00:17:46.560] I'm like, gosh, this is just pixels on a screen.
[00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:52.240] But if I had like, like, if my Twitter background, for example, was my habit garden garden.
[00:17:52.560 --> 00:17:58.880] And so like when I'm doing tasks, like everybody who follows me on Twitter can see like my Twitter background is like full of all these lush plants.
[00:17:59.280 --> 00:18:03.120] You know, or if I'm like being lazy, it's just like this dead, barren wheat field.
[00:18:03.120 --> 00:18:04.640] Like, I think I would do it.
[00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:07.040] Like, that would, like, I would show that off to people and I would care a lot.
[00:18:07.040 --> 00:18:08.640] You know, kind of like the same way on GitHub.
[00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:12.800] Like, you see those, like, that graph and everybody likes to like share like how many dots they have in a row.
[00:18:12.800 --> 00:18:15.920] Like, something about the social accountability for me is big.
[00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:21.920] Or if I had it, like, in my apartment, like, right now, the walls of my apartment are mostly kind of empty.
[00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.440] And I want to put like art or something on the wall that's kind of like a conversation piece.
[00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.680] And if I had like a little screen, it wouldn't have to be that big.
[00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.240] It's like a small screen that like showed my habit garden.
[00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:31.920] And people came over, like, oh, what is that?
[00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:34.320] And I'd be like, oh, that's how productive I was last week.
[00:18:34.320 --> 00:18:37.840] Like, that would get me actually caring about the gamification elements.
[00:18:37.840 --> 00:18:40.560] Channing, I don't think you need that kind of stuff, but I need other people to see it.
[00:18:40.560 --> 00:18:48.160] Well, Hibitica does have, like, I'm in a party this morning, like, it's like, whatever, seven random other people who have Hibitica.
[00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:51.040] And, you know, we have our characters with little health bars.
[00:18:51.040 --> 00:18:57.840] And if you mess up and you don't do your habits, then every single person on the team, like their little health bar gets knocked down.
[00:18:57.840 --> 00:19:08.800] So not only do you feel, you're fucking like, hey, I want to keep this streak up, but like, I don't know, a week ago, I didn't meditate, and this woman, Sarah, was like, yo, Channing, what the fuck?
[00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:12.320] Like, I feel, I mean, you know, I've never met her before.
[00:19:12.320 --> 00:19:14.480] She doesn't keep up with her stuff either.
[00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:20.880] But like, kind of know, I mean, that's literally the reason why I still have wait who the two who is she and why is she in your group?
[00:19:21.280 --> 00:19:22.400] It's just a random person, right?
[00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:27.840] There are just thousands of people that use Habitica, and you can just say, you can if they have their own little form.
[00:19:27.840 --> 00:19:36.600] Hey, Mark, not trying to shit on your app and saying that something else is better, but like if you have a social app, you get people like me where I completely agree.
[00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:39.640] I don't like Habitica because it's too complicated.
[00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:43.880] So that's the reason why I got a second app that's like simple and it's just checking things off.
[00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:50.840] But like something about the fact that there are people who are like, yo, why didn't you work on indie hackers and like knock out that objective?
[00:19:50.840 --> 00:19:54.280] Yeah, there's enough to keep me there just for that element of it.
[00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:55.400] Yeah, that's right.
[00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:58.520] Yeah, I think the social accountability part is missing in Habitat's Garden.
[00:19:58.520 --> 00:20:03.320] But I heard you, Courtney, and I'm going to build a product and I'm going to reach out.
[00:20:03.320 --> 00:20:03.720] Okay.
[00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:10.520] If you make a picture frame by Habit Garden or you make a Twitter background, right now in the air, I promise I will set my background to that.
[00:20:10.520 --> 00:20:12.520] Or I will buy your picture frame.
[00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:14.200] How do you charge for this?
[00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:15.080] Like, what's the business model?
[00:20:15.080 --> 00:20:16.440] You're making almost 800 bucks a month.
[00:20:16.440 --> 00:20:19.720] Are these people just paying a subscription fee?
[00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:20.040] Yep.
[00:20:20.040 --> 00:20:25.480] It's a paid app, seven days of free trial, and then it's, I think, nine a month or 90 a year.
[00:20:25.800 --> 00:20:28.440] And how did you get the initial set of users for it?
[00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:30.200] Did you just launch it on Product Hunt?
[00:20:30.360 --> 00:20:32.360] I know you also build on public on Twitter.
[00:20:32.360 --> 00:20:33.800] Is that helping out at all?
[00:20:33.800 --> 00:20:34.600] 100%.
[00:20:34.600 --> 00:20:37.240] But at the time I built the app, I had no following on Twitter.
[00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:38.440] It was about a year ago.
[00:20:38.440 --> 00:20:41.800] And I got so lucky I shared on, I think, Hacker News.
[00:20:41.800 --> 00:20:44.760] And it went viral for some reason.
[00:20:44.760 --> 00:20:48.360] And I got about 10,000 visitors on the site in a day.
[00:20:48.360 --> 00:20:50.520] And that's how I got the first paid users.
[00:20:50.520 --> 00:20:55.800] And I think if these didn't happen, I would probably have moved on to another app.
[00:20:56.120 --> 00:21:05.240] Every time somebody tells me they launched on Hacker News, the first thing I do is pull up Hacker News and look at the comments because those comments are always so sweet.
[00:21:05.240 --> 00:21:06.120] Let's see.
[00:21:06.120 --> 00:21:07.400] Seems like you got some nice comments.
[00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:12.280] The first one said, be honest, OP, you're making this actually just to procrastinate on whatever it is.
[00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:14.240] You actually ought to be doing it the time, didn't you?
[00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:15.200] No, just kidding.
[00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:16.640] It's like a wonderful site.
[00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:19.680] Your second one that says, The good.
[00:21:14.840 --> 00:21:22.320] I really appreciate that the free trial doesn't require a credit card.
[00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:23.920] It just freezes the features.
[00:21:23.920 --> 00:21:25.280] That's a very hacker news comment.
[00:21:25.280 --> 00:21:26.880] They would hate you if you required a credit card.
[00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:30.080] The bad, it said, I think there's a bit of a bootstrapping problem here.
[00:21:30.080 --> 00:21:32.720] You want me to set up a system to make me do more stuff?
[00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:34.560] I'll get started on that later.
[00:21:34.560 --> 00:21:36.800] Which I think is actually a real problem, right?
[00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:42.080] Like, for a lot of productivity apps, like to get to that aha moment, you have to do a lot of work.
[00:21:42.080 --> 00:21:44.720] You got to start thinking about, okay, what are my tasks?
[00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:45.520] What are my habits?
[00:21:45.520 --> 00:21:50.000] Like, the very first thing you ask people to do when they log in is work.
[00:21:50.320 --> 00:21:54.320] Yeah, it's actually my struggle of the day.
[00:21:54.320 --> 00:21:57.200] It's like it's spending most of my time on this.
[00:21:57.520 --> 00:22:02.960] 90% of people who sign up will never show up after 24 hours.
[00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:10.400] And so that's pretty bad because that means in order to get to Ramen profitability, I would need just so much users.
[00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:18.560] And I'm reworking on that part because on the end funnel, when people use the game for seven days for free, then I think 80% of them become paid customers.
[00:22:18.560 --> 00:22:23.680] So I have a funnel is pretty good at the end, but at the beginning is pretty terrible.
[00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:27.280] And getting to that aha moment is, as you said, is really hard.
[00:22:27.280 --> 00:22:28.080] What was that percentage?
[00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:30.240] You said 80% become paid customers?
[00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:30.880] Yeah.
[00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:31.520] Wow.
[00:22:31.760 --> 00:22:35.200] If they play the game consistently for like five or six days.
[00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:35.760] Wow.
[00:22:35.760 --> 00:22:39.280] So you get people to like a week of playing and they're like, they're in the back.
[00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:39.840] You're set.
[00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:41.440] They're going to start paying you.
[00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:42.240] Yep.
[00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:44.720] I saw you tweeting about some of this stuff on Twitter.
[00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:47.440] You did like a usability test call thing.
[00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:49.680] So, I have a friend who's working on a mobile app.
[00:22:49.840 --> 00:22:52.880] He's in a similar situation where his app is pretty good.
[00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:54.480] People are coming in the top of the funnel.
[00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:55.200] They're running ads.
[00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:57.280] People are like downloading the app and using it.
[00:22:57.280 --> 00:22:59.200] And then they're also not coming back.
[00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:05.480] And he's been trying to talk to them to find out why they're not coming back, but none of them want to hop on a call.
[00:22:59.760 --> 00:23:06.920] No one's responding to emails.
[00:23:07.080 --> 00:23:09.400] No one's like, it's just radio silence.
[00:23:09.400 --> 00:23:10.280] You did the opposite.
[00:23:10.520 --> 00:23:17.320] You asked people to basically hop on a call with you, and at least 30 people said yes.
[00:23:17.320 --> 00:23:19.320] How did you get those people to say yes?
[00:23:19.320 --> 00:23:21.240] And what happened during those calls?
[00:23:22.600 --> 00:23:24.680] So I did that on Twitter.
[00:23:26.040 --> 00:23:31.160] I shared the link and I asked known users to hopefully jump on a call with me.
[00:23:31.160 --> 00:23:41.400] And basically, for 10 minutes, they would go over the app and share their screen and just go over the basic signup process and the onboarding on the app and see what's happening.
[00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:53.560] And then I realized that the data I used to see in the database, which is that 90% of people never show up after 24 hours, it started to make sense because 90% of the calls I had did not understand the app.
[00:23:53.560 --> 00:23:59.000] Like they would have fun when they sign up because it doesn't require any email.
[00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:03.560] And then the app becomes cluttered with features and stuff.
[00:24:03.560 --> 00:24:05.080] And they just don't get it.
[00:24:05.080 --> 00:24:07.960] And then they're like, are we done with the call?
[00:24:08.280 --> 00:24:12.040] And that was a pretty big realization for me to see that.
[00:24:12.040 --> 00:24:12.680] Yeah.
[00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:15.320] The classic way to solve this problem is a startup.
[00:24:15.320 --> 00:24:19.400] There's the coffee shop test where you literally walk into a random coffee shop with your laptop.
[00:24:19.400 --> 00:24:23.960] You go up to somebody who's in line or something and say, hey, I'll buy you a coffee if you use my app for like, you know, a minute or two.
[00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:25.480] I'll just peek over your shoulder.
[00:24:25.480 --> 00:24:31.400] And then you just like watch somebody try to figure out your app and like see what that onboarding experience is like.
[00:24:31.400 --> 00:24:38.200] And even if you like spend months designing your app, it's usually so painful the first few times you watch somebody try to do it.
[00:24:38.360 --> 00:24:47.760] With you, Kirkland, it's like you spend those days building the app, and then you see someone who is training it to click on the wrong buttons and all it's very painful.
[00:24:48.400 --> 00:25:10.480] A huge question that I have about that is like there are so many different potential customers that you could have, and of those potential customers, I don't know, if you have people like me, I carry with me all of the like background knowledge of exactly how to use your app that you need to where I don't really need like much of an onboarding.
[00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:15.840] Whereas if you get some, and like really, I mean, in this case, it's like I'm someone who already tracks habits, right?
[00:25:15.840 --> 00:25:20.320] I think of my habits as like my luggage, and it's like all I need is a new suitcase to put it in.
[00:25:20.320 --> 00:25:25.600] And if you have like a new cool suitcase, and I just like am an easy customer to onboard or whatever, right?
[00:25:25.600 --> 00:25:46.480] Whereas if you're taking anyone else, like say Cortland, I don't know if Cortland tracks any habits, like even if he gets your app, the investment that he'll have to make to like, I don't know, like figure out the features of your app and then like come to a decision about what kinds of habits he wants to start tracking, like start tracking the first one, the next one, like is it night and day.
[00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:56.800] And I just like, I don't know about in your situation, but I'm like, man, if there's some way where you can find like nothing but potential customers who have read James Clear's Atomic Habits, right?
[00:25:56.800 --> 00:26:04.640] Anyone who finished, it gets to the end of that book, for example, like they probably end that book with like seven different habits that they want to start on tomorrow, right?
[00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:14.640] I feel like you should just be stealing users from other habit trackers as opposed to trying to like find net new ones, even though obviously it's like kind of hard to get someone to stop using what they're already familiar with.
[00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:16.160] I think, yeah, this is a smart move, yeah.
[00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:24.720] Bravi, I think I should double down on targeting people who are using Abitika, but are not satisfied because it's too complicated, as you said.
[00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:28.240] Yeah, yeah, there's something to be said for getting the right people on the top of the funnel.
[00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:30.040] But Shanning, you're just one of the 10%, man.
[00:26:30.040 --> 00:26:31.400] Like, you're just one of the people.
[00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:33.240] If you hopped on a call with Mark, you would just know everything.
[00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:35.160] But, like, did you fix this, Mark?
[00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:42.680] Was it like, obviously, you talk to these people, you see that, like, 90% of them, you know, they're just filling up the user interface with all sorts of stuff that they don't understand.
[00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:47.560] I'm curious to see how that turns out because that's like your highest grossing app on your page.
[00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:52.120] You've got, what, Virally Bot, which is something based on escape rooms.
[00:26:52.120 --> 00:26:54.200] And then I think Game Widget is your other one.
[00:26:54.200 --> 00:26:55.240] Is that right?
[00:26:55.560 --> 00:26:56.360] Yep.
[00:26:56.360 --> 00:26:58.680] So I've got an escape room.
[00:26:58.680 --> 00:26:59.960] I actually own an escape room.
[00:27:00.360 --> 00:27:01.080] Kind of sort of.
[00:27:01.080 --> 00:27:01.800] I'm trying to.
[00:27:01.800 --> 00:27:03.320] It's like a really janky escape room.
[00:27:03.320 --> 00:27:06.760] So I opened an Airbnb with my girlfriend last October.
[00:27:06.760 --> 00:27:18.600] And one of the cool creative things that we're doing inside of it, besides the aesthetic design, is we put a scavenger hunt inside of it, which we have since rebranded into escape room, which has instantly increased interest in it.
[00:27:18.600 --> 00:27:24.360] Because I don't know, you just put those two words together and people just want to do an escape room way more than they want to do a scavenger hunt.
[00:27:24.360 --> 00:27:27.320] But essentially, that's kind of one of the selling points for our Airbnb.
[00:27:27.480 --> 00:27:31.560] You get there, there's instructions in the welcome guide, and we've got all these clues hidden all over.
[00:27:31.640 --> 00:27:38.120] You solve all these different puzzles, and then people at the end of it are giving us these awesome reviews because they go through our escape room.
[00:27:38.120 --> 00:27:41.960] But the problem is, we haven't figured out how to market this yet.
[00:27:42.520 --> 00:27:45.640] Generally, our guests are discovering it once they book.
[00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:59.480] And maybe they're telling their friends, but really, the word is not getting out about it as an independent escape room business, which would be dope because then people who wanted to do escape rooms in Seattle, who are like escape room enthusiasts, would find our Airbnb and maybe even book a night just to do the escape room.
[00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:05.480] So both of your apps, like Game Widget and Virally Bot, are two products that you've built that basically try to help with this problem.
[00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:12.280] Like, I need, arguably, both of these things, because both of them have the same sort of value proposition on their websites.
[00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:16.800] Virally bot, for example, says, grow your escape room with gamification marketing.
[00:28:14.840 --> 00:28:19.440] And GameWidget says, turn traffic into customers.
[00:28:19.760 --> 00:28:24.080] GameWidget engages your visitors with the fun grain to grow your escape room business automatically.
[00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:25.520] So give me the rundown on these.
[00:28:26.080 --> 00:28:27.760] How do I use these things?
[00:28:28.080 --> 00:28:32.320] So VirallyBot is one of my first startups started in 2018.
[00:28:32.320 --> 00:28:38.320] I built it when I moved to Bali and I saw the product before I even had it.
[00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:46.640] And the idea is to help escape room businesses to get more conversions by offering a free online mini game.
[00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:55.280] So it connects with their Facebook page and it allows anyone to play a mini escape game on Facebook Messenger with a chatbot.
[00:28:55.440 --> 00:29:03.200] So you would have these automated answers that challenge you to do riddles, to solve puzzles.
[00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:04.800] You will get points for this.
[00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:09.840] And when you reach a certain number of points, you will get a discount coupon for the escape room business.
[00:29:09.840 --> 00:29:16.000] And so escape room businesses that use it and share it with their audience have a fun tool to engage with them.
[00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:21.360] And then the bot, the chatbot, will do the work to convert them into paying customers.
[00:29:21.600 --> 00:29:25.840] The issue with that product is that it requires the business to work with.
[00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:34.640] So if you just put it on your Facebook Messenger page and you don't do anything, then nothing will actually happen because you need to share it with your audience.
[00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:40.480] And so based on that friction, I created GameWidget, which is a similar concept.
[00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:44.640] It's using a game to get people to book something with you.
[00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:48.800] But instead of you having to share it to your audience, it sits on your website.
[00:29:48.800 --> 00:29:52.080] It's a little script that adds onto your website.
[00:29:52.080 --> 00:29:54.880] And then it embeds a game on your website.
[00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:57.440] So as a visitor, you can just play the game right away.
[00:29:57.440 --> 00:30:05.720] And at the end, if you escape the game, you say, get a discount coupon for the business, and you can use it and redeem it right away on the website.
[00:30:05.720 --> 00:30:12.280] And I stopped working on Virally Bots a couple of years ago, but it's still bringing some money because I had customers.
[00:30:12.280 --> 00:30:14.840] And GameWidget was acquired last month.
[00:30:14.840 --> 00:30:15.320] Nice.
[00:30:15.320 --> 00:30:15.800] Amazing.
[00:30:15.800 --> 00:30:16.680] Congratulations.
[00:30:16.680 --> 00:31:09.880] It was again kind of the same pattern of like you got the main business and then in order to like make the main business like easier to find or more accessible you made like kind of a spin-off side project of it but in this situation like the spin-off side project was like more successful and you sold that I think I spent more time on Virallybot and I got almost $100,000 of revenue for it over the last four years Wow and I made GameWidget real quickly back in France for a few months and I did not try to grow the startup because it didn't feel right for me like I started to lose interest for the B2B I felt like disconnected from the buyers and I just I sold a few and it was making about a hundred dollars a month and quit really quickly after that and I sold it but uh I'm pretty sure Game Widget would have been would have been able to go farther than Virally Bot.
[00:31:10.600 --> 00:31:11.560] Who did you sell it to?
[00:31:11.560 --> 00:31:14.040] Who bought it for $4,300?
[00:31:14.680 --> 00:31:19.080] Micro, a buyer and microacquire, which I think are acquired now.
[00:31:19.080 --> 00:31:19.800] What was that like?
[00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:20.840] Was it easy?
[00:31:20.840 --> 00:31:23.800] I've never actually sold a startup on MicroAcquire.
[00:31:23.800 --> 00:31:24.680] Yeah, it was easy.
[00:31:24.680 --> 00:31:32.440] It was a bit daunting at first because you have, especially me, I'm French and I have all the legal stuff to read and I barely understand half of the words.
[00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:33.720] But no, it was seamless.
[00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:39.800] The transaction was made through escrow, so I was pretty sure I would get the money somehow.
[00:31:41.800 --> 00:31:49.680] I want to use Game Widget, actually, because I've never, I feel like I'm the only person at this point who's never done an escape room.
[00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:53.920] So like, maybe, maybe having this, like, digital version will help.
[00:31:53.920 --> 00:31:55.600] And I'm also a little bit traumatized.
[00:31:55.600 --> 00:32:02.160] So, I don't know, maybe five years ago, I had this girlfriend, and we were thinking about what to do for a date.
[00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:04.080] And I mentioned escape rooms.
[00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:07.040] I was like, oh, I'm looking on Yelp.com or something.
[00:32:07.040 --> 00:32:09.360] And I was like, oh, what about an escape room?
[00:32:09.360 --> 00:32:10.640] And her eyes lit up.
[00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:17.280] And she's like, Channing, the best first date that I've ever been on in my entire life was an escape room.
[00:32:17.280 --> 00:32:18.720] Like, I went out, she named the guy.
[00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:20.880] I went out with this guy, Mike.
[00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:25.520] Like, we didn't personally have any chemistry, but like the escape room itself was so amazing.
[00:32:25.520 --> 00:32:28.720] It was like, hands down, my best first date.
[00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:29.760] And I was like, excited.
[00:32:29.760 --> 00:32:31.040] And I'm like, oh, awesome.
[00:32:31.040 --> 00:32:34.800] Like, okay, well, we're going to hit up this escape room this weekend.
[00:32:34.800 --> 00:32:38.400] And she was like, well, I don't want to do it with you.
[00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:39.360] I was like, what do you mean?
[00:32:39.360 --> 00:32:44.000] She's like, well, especially now that I just told you my best first date was an escape room.
[00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.080] Like there's no way that it's going to live up to that.
[00:32:46.080 --> 00:32:47.680] And then it's just going to be kind of awkward.
[00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:50.800] Like you're going to ask me how it compares.
[00:32:50.800 --> 00:32:52.080] And she literally rejected.
[00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:54.960] She rejected my request.
[00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:57.680] And this is like, you know, two years into us being together.
[00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:00.400] This isn't like a new girlfriend at the time.
[00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:03.760] And honestly, like, since then, I'm like, screw escape rooms.
[00:33:03.760 --> 00:33:07.120] Like, I don't want to, like, it doesn't even, I'm kind of PTSD about it.
[00:33:07.120 --> 00:33:12.000] So maybe I'll dip my toe into like a digital version with Game Widget.
[00:33:12.320 --> 00:33:13.280] This guy messed up, though.
[00:33:13.280 --> 00:33:15.360] You don't, you don't go on an activity first date.
[00:33:15.360 --> 00:33:22.160] Like, I don't, I don't think your first date should be something that's so stimulating that the girl has a great time, even if she doesn't like you.
[00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:22.880] Like, he messed up.
[00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.280] So, I think you, I think you still got the better end of that deal.
[00:33:25.280 --> 00:33:31.240] But I would argue that escape rooms are a good way to see things you normally don't see with a typical date.
[00:33:29.520 --> 00:33:32.760] Oh, that is true.
[00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:36.920] You can kind of assess, like, how does this person, you know, work in a group?
[00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:38.840] How are they with communication?
[00:33:38.840 --> 00:33:40.840] So, it's like a almost like an interview date.
[00:33:40.840 --> 00:33:45.400] It's like, I want to like to filter, I want to filter you out based on whether or not we pass the time.
[00:33:45.560 --> 00:33:52.520] Natalie and I had this conversation like a couple of days ago where my girlfriend and I just booked a ticket, a flight to Switzerland.
[00:33:52.520 --> 00:33:53.640] She's Swiss.
[00:33:53.640 --> 00:33:57.480] And we always talk about us being sort of good travel partners.
[00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:16.600] And specifically, the thing if you're dating someone, especially if you're dating someone sort of like and it's new, is when you have good times, everyone is really capable of putting on a good face and like kind of being like their best self, but you never know who the person is that you're dating or that, even like a friend.
[00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:25.320] You never know like someone's true colors until you have adversity together, until you have like something like, you know, you're barely on time for a flight.
[00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:27.000] Like, how does the other person react, right?
[00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:30.600] Like, you have to choose whether it's going to be an Airbnb or a hotel.
[00:34:30.600 --> 00:34:32.680] And you like Airbnbs and they like hotels.
[00:34:32.680 --> 00:34:33.960] Like, what do they do, right?
[00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:35.000] You never know.
[00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:36.920] Like, you need to know everything.
[00:34:36.920 --> 00:34:41.480] Like, my friends, we had a kind of like a group sleepover a couple nights ago.
[00:34:41.480 --> 00:34:46.760] And a couple of my friends made me watch this reality show that they're super into called Love is Blind.
[00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:50.120] They're like season three, episode like 15 or something.
[00:34:50.120 --> 00:34:51.320] So I had never seen it.
[00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:55.560] But the whole concept of the show is like these people date each other without ever even seeing each other.
[00:34:55.560 --> 00:34:56.760] All they do is talk.
[00:34:56.760 --> 00:35:01.240] And then they have to like propose marriage to the person sight unseene that they like.
[00:35:01.240 --> 00:35:02.680] And then they get to see the person.
[00:35:02.680 --> 00:35:04.360] And it's like, oh, you know, it's cool.
[00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:06.440] It's really about what's going on in your heart.
[00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:07.240] You know, on one hand.
[00:35:07.240 --> 00:35:10.680] But on the other hand, like half of these couples now aren't physically attracted to each other.
[00:35:10.680 --> 00:35:11.640] They don't like each other.
[00:35:11.640 --> 00:35:12.760] Like, they haven't lived together.
[00:35:12.760 --> 00:35:14.800] So they don't know like what it's like to live together.
[00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:17.840] They haven't gone through, as you like to your point, any adversity together.
[00:35:14.520 --> 00:35:19.840] So they have no idea how they deal with stress.
[00:35:14.600 --> 00:35:22.320] They have no idea how they communicate with the group.
[00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:23.840] They have no idea how they fit in with their friends.
[00:35:24.160 --> 00:35:30.080] There's like a whole giant checklist of things that you should probably experience with a person before you decide to get married.
[00:35:30.080 --> 00:35:31.840] And these people did none of them.
[00:35:31.840 --> 00:35:34.960] So, Mark, I guess that's a point in your favor.
[00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:37.440] Maybe we should be doing escape rooms on the first date.
[00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:38.240] Yeah, that's it.
[00:35:38.240 --> 00:35:42.000] You're basically testing your product on the market from day zero.
[00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:50.400] So what should I do to try to grow my escape room, which is like embedded within this Airbnb, so you can't even do it unless you book the Airbnb?
[00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:57.680] Like, how do people, you know, one of the sort of lines on your website that I'm interested in that says, go viral in your local community.
[00:35:57.680 --> 00:36:01.040] How do I go viral in my local community with my escape room?
[00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:07.280] I try to solve that by having people play on the Facebook Messenger chatbot with friends.
[00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:11.040] So you could invite a friend and both of that you will solve those puzzles.
[00:36:11.040 --> 00:36:15.760] And I try to find game mechanics in order to incentivize people to do it.
[00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:24.080] That's the idea behind the headline of go viral in your local community because I hoped people would share with their friends, which some did.
[00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:29.040] Have you seen any other escape rooms like doing a good job with their own marketing and like other creative ways?
[00:36:29.040 --> 00:36:31.760] Because I'm just like trying to figure out how I could do this shit.
[00:36:33.120 --> 00:36:37.200] No, I think they do the typical at the end.
[00:36:37.200 --> 00:36:45.120] You can take a picture with your friends and they offer a discount if you share those pictures on social media.
[00:36:45.120 --> 00:36:46.240] Kind of like we did it.
[00:36:46.240 --> 00:36:49.120] We escaped in XYZ minutes.
[00:36:49.120 --> 00:36:49.840] Right.
[00:36:50.800 --> 00:36:51.840] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:53.360] It's like one of the only ways to go viral.
[00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:55.440] It's thinking about putting us on like Google Maps.
[00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:58.880] Like if you have a physical business, you can just be in the Google Maps search results.
[00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:03.080] So if somebody searches for escape room, hopefully we would pop up.
[00:37:03.080 --> 00:37:06.280] Whereas most Airbnbs don't have something like that.
[00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:07.240] I don't even know.
[00:37:07.240 --> 00:37:08.520] I have to just bust in.
[00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:12.600] I don't even know how escape rooms work, but I've always had one question.
[00:37:12.600 --> 00:37:15.560] Obviously, some people are better at puzzles than others.
[00:37:15.560 --> 00:37:20.920] So what happens if you have a group and just nobody is smart enough to get out of a particular group?
[00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:21.640] Dude, you don't escape?
[00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:28.760] Dude, I've done escape rooms with French from MIT where everybody is smart and we didn't escape.
[00:37:28.760 --> 00:37:36.600] Like it's not just about being like, hey, I'm doing this podcast from the escape room right now.
[00:37:37.240 --> 00:37:38.840] They let you out of the escape room.
[00:37:39.160 --> 00:37:42.040] You just don't get to take that picture that says like we escaped.
[00:37:42.040 --> 00:37:46.600] In fact, they'll give you props and they'll give you a little picture frame that says like we failed.
[00:37:46.600 --> 00:37:51.560] And you take like this picture of shame that they put on their Instagram page showing the names and faces.
[00:37:51.560 --> 00:37:51.960] Yeah.
[00:37:52.440 --> 00:37:53.160] That's amazing.
[00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:55.560] They publicly shame you in some places.
[00:37:55.560 --> 00:37:56.360] That's sick.
[00:37:56.360 --> 00:38:02.520] Some of them have walkie-talkies and you can ask the game master to give you a clue and you have like a limited set of clues you can ask.
[00:38:02.520 --> 00:38:04.360] But yeah, you don't have to pass every single one of them.
[00:38:04.360 --> 00:38:05.320] You might just fail.
[00:38:05.320 --> 00:38:06.360] But I like that idea.
[00:38:06.360 --> 00:38:08.120] I like both of these business ideas.
[00:38:08.120 --> 00:38:11.320] I like the fact that you sold GameWidget.
[00:38:11.320 --> 00:38:13.480] Why weren't you interested in working on it anymore?
[00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:15.880] I mean, it seems like a pretty simple business.
[00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:18.040] Like you build this widget, it kind of works.
[00:38:18.040 --> 00:38:20.520] Kind of doing sales to get up to these businesses.
[00:38:20.600 --> 00:38:22.200] You already have a lot of experience there.
[00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:25.880] Why did you lose the passion of selling to businesses?
[00:38:26.360 --> 00:38:27.240] That's a good question.
[00:38:27.240 --> 00:38:28.280] I'm still thinking about it.
[00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:29.320] I think it goes to...
[00:38:29.320 --> 00:38:31.720] It's because of the fact it's B2B.
[00:38:31.720 --> 00:38:34.120] I didn't feel close to businesses.
[00:38:35.160 --> 00:38:37.320] I didn't care if they make more money or less.
[00:38:37.560 --> 00:38:39.400] I didn't have any passion for this.
[00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:44.760] And I was not really aware of it, but I think it translated in me being lazy and not wanting to work on it.
[00:38:45.440 --> 00:38:59.520] And it's a big shift because when I close those two products, I studied to build in public, I studied to indie hack, and most of the startups you'll see that I'm shipping today are related to the people, the B2C startups.
[00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:04.800] And I don't know, it just feels more real, more pleasurable.
[00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:08.640] I feel excited to work on because I can share the app to my friends.
[00:39:08.640 --> 00:39:12.080] It just spins up the motivation.
[00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:15.440] Dude, what's your like, how are you so prolific?
[00:39:15.600 --> 00:39:16.640] I mentioned it before.
[00:39:16.640 --> 00:39:19.040] A lot of people talk about 12 startups in 12 months.
[00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:24.800] This is kind of one of the characteristic features of being an indie hacker is kind of building these small things.
[00:39:24.800 --> 00:39:31.280] But like, I don't know, when push comes to shove, most people don't actually still have it in them to just like keep going.
[00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:35.360] But like, what would you say is the secret of this for you?
[00:39:36.240 --> 00:39:38.240] So I have no expectations at all.
[00:39:38.240 --> 00:39:41.600] Like, I ship something and I'm very pessimistic.
[00:39:41.600 --> 00:39:43.440] I'm thinking it's not going to work.
[00:39:43.440 --> 00:39:47.040] So I don't have the rush, the ups and downs.
[00:39:47.040 --> 00:39:49.360] Also, I make it very short.
[00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:53.360] I try to never spend more than a week or two on a startup.
[00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:58.240] So if it fails, which is the case 90% of the time, I don't feel emotional.
[00:39:58.240 --> 00:39:59.760] I don't have any downside.
[00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:02.880] I don't have to wait until I build another product.
[00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:06.000] And I see all those startups as a collection.
[00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:09.360] You know, when you play Pokemon cards, maybe as a kid, you play that.
[00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:12.720] You collection, then you have the rare card, you have this card.
[00:40:12.720 --> 00:40:16.560] I see all my startups as a collection of things that I've built.
[00:40:16.560 --> 00:40:20.240] And I feel like every new startups I build is adding to that collection.
[00:40:20.240 --> 00:40:24.400] And it tells a story about my life at this point.
[00:40:24.720 --> 00:40:30.760] And so, I feel like if it's a failure, it doesn't matter because it's still, I'm growing a little collection of memories.
[00:40:31.080 --> 00:40:32.200] I love that framing.
[00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:35.320] Actually, you tweeted something about like about your habit tracker.
[00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:40.360] You're like, oh, I own a habit tracking app that has 6,000 users.
[00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:43.640] And it's like, I don't see very many people talk about their indie hacking projects that way.
[00:40:43.640 --> 00:40:47.640] Like, people with like old school brick and mortar businesses will talk about it like that.
[00:40:47.640 --> 00:40:51.320] They'll say, Oh, I own a farm and I own a restaurant and I own a hotel.
[00:40:51.320 --> 00:40:58.920] But, like, as an indie hacker, if you've got like six products, like you can say, yeah, I own, I own this thing, you know, that's got this many users, and I own this other thing that's got whatever.
[00:40:58.920 --> 00:41:05.720] And it's like a, you're right, it's like a deck of Pokemon cards, or it's like a portfolio of businesses that are yours.
[00:41:05.720 --> 00:41:09.080] And I think viewing it like that is kind of inspirational and a lot more fun.
[00:41:09.080 --> 00:41:14.440] I think one of the cool things, too, that you do, besides just being prolific, is like you tweet about it, right?
[00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:21.640] Like, half the stuff I know about you comes from your Twitter account, which you've grown to 14,000 followers in just a year.
[00:41:21.640 --> 00:41:23.560] And this is another thing I think a lot of people struggle with.
[00:41:23.560 --> 00:41:24.440] Like, I struggle with it.
[00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:25.240] I don't even like tweeting.
[00:41:25.240 --> 00:41:28.920] I stopped tweeting months ago, and I like, hopefully, I'll pick it back up again this year.
[00:41:28.920 --> 00:41:30.600] But what's your Twitter strategy?
[00:41:30.600 --> 00:41:32.440] How are you growing so much?
[00:41:32.440 --> 00:41:34.120] How are you building in public?
[00:41:34.120 --> 00:41:35.800] You said you're emulating Peter Levels.
[00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:40.360] Like, what parts of how he's tweeting and how he's building in public are you emulating that are actually working for you?
[00:41:40.360 --> 00:41:47.080] Because the fact that you've grown your account, like, I don't know, like some crazy percentage in a year means that whatever you're doing is working.
[00:41:47.400 --> 00:41:50.840] Yes, it took me a long time to cross 1,000 followers.
[00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:53.160] At the time, I had strategies, I had plans.
[00:41:53.160 --> 00:41:56.520] I was rethinking about my BO on Twitter.
[00:41:56.520 --> 00:42:04.040] And then something kind of happened about six, seven months ago, and I was like, fuck, it doesn't feel right.
[00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:05.880] And then I stopped thinking.
[00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:09.640] I started to share really transparently what I was doing.
[00:42:09.640 --> 00:42:16.400] I started to see myself as just a guy who, instead of building Legos, I build startups and I have a collection of startups.
[00:42:17.840 --> 00:42:23.920] And I stopped tweaking my view, I stopped testing my tweets, I stopped thinking about when to tweet or things like that.
[00:42:23.920 --> 00:42:25.840] And I just go with the flow.
[00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:32.160] And basically, it sounds a bit weird, but I started to think less and just be more me.
[00:42:32.160 --> 00:42:39.120] When I look at your stuff, yeah, sure, on Twitter, but also, you know, you have a lot of posts on indie hackers.
[00:42:39.120 --> 00:42:43.680] Like almost any of your posts that I see, A, you're hilarious.
[00:42:43.680 --> 00:42:44.880] Like, you're really funny.
[00:42:44.880 --> 00:42:52.960] You had a post that went sort of viral on indie hackers where it's just a video of you superimposed in Joe Rogan's studio.
[00:42:52.960 --> 00:42:59.760] And like, you made a video where it's like you cut together things that he had said on his podcast, and it sort of seemed like you were getting interviewed by Joe Rogan.
[00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:00.480] It was hilarious.
[00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:02.240] It went viral on our site.
[00:43:02.240 --> 00:43:08.240] And you're funny, but it also looks like the things that you're doing, like you're having a blast about it as well.
[00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:16.400] And whenever I see that, whenever I see someone who looks like they're having a really good time, I go, are you just like a really good actor?
[00:43:16.400 --> 00:43:21.280] Or are you genuinely like enjoying, you know, being on the treadmill on Twitter, et cetera?
[00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:25.040] Because if you found a way to actually have fun, like, that's the fucking hack.
[00:43:25.040 --> 00:43:28.560] Like, that's exactly, like, then everything else is on autopilot, just like what you said.
[00:43:28.560 --> 00:43:33.040] Like, you don't have to do so much thinking because like you're doing the thing you already want to do.
[00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:35.680] Yeah, that's a really good point.
[00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:39.440] That video, that day, man, I had such a good day.
[00:43:39.760 --> 00:43:41.680] I woke up and I had no idea what I'm going to do.
[00:43:41.680 --> 00:43:46.720] And I'm like, oh, I got to make a video for the product I'd launched for that product for Visualized habit.
[00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:49.520] And then, and then I don't know, something is going on in my head.
[00:43:49.520 --> 00:43:51.680] I'm like, oh, I'm going to make a video with Joe Rogan.
[00:43:51.680 --> 00:43:53.680] And then the whole day was just publishing.
[00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:55.120] Like, you could ask my wife.
[00:43:55.120 --> 00:43:57.600] She was next to me, and she could hear me laughing in the room.
[00:43:57.600 --> 00:44:01.800] She could see me, like, walking to get the microphone here, running back to the room.
[00:44:03.640 --> 00:44:08.040] It's hard to get those moments, but when they come, oh man, it's just so good.
[00:44:08.040 --> 00:44:10.360] My buddy Sean talks about having like the perfect Tuesday.
[00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:14.360] For him, it's like the ultimate goal of like being an entrepreneur, being a founder.
[00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:26.120] It's just like figuring out how to structure your life, you know, get the money you need, the business you need, the lifestyle you need, to just have like the perfect Tuesday every Tuesday and every Wednesday and every Thursday, just like the mundane days of your life.
[00:44:26.120 --> 00:44:28.200] But I think that exists for your work life too.
[00:44:28.200 --> 00:44:33.560] Like a lot of us talk about like, oh, I want to work so I can have the perfect like, you know, home life or personal life.
[00:44:33.560 --> 00:44:36.040] But like, I want my work life to be like perfect.
[00:44:36.040 --> 00:44:44.280] And for me, a big part of it, I think, is kind of what you said of like waking up in the morning and not knowing what I'm going to do today and then just doing whatever sounds fun.
[00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:46.440] In your case, maybe that's making like a video with Joe Rogan.
[00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:49.400] But for me, it's like, I don't like having a bunch of shit scheduled out.
[00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:55.080] I don't like having a huge plan for the next nine months of everything I'm going to code and build and I have to do this before I can do that.
[00:44:55.080 --> 00:44:57.400] Like I kind of like just playing around.
[00:44:57.400 --> 00:44:59.560] Because Shannon, I think we should run Eddie Hackers more like that.
[00:44:59.560 --> 00:45:07.160] Like I know I would enjoy it more if every single day we just wake up and figure out like what are we doing today or at the very least like what are we doing like, you know, this week.
[00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:08.120] It's funny.
[00:45:08.120 --> 00:45:10.440] I think we come at it from two different sides.
[00:45:10.440 --> 00:45:13.400] I love the idea of crafting.
[00:45:13.400 --> 00:45:14.920] There's this guy, Andrew Huberman.
[00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:16.760] He calls it the unit of the day.
[00:45:16.760 --> 00:45:20.600] So it's like you just think about what your perfect day is like and then you build up from there.
[00:45:20.600 --> 00:45:24.280] And for me, there is some planning involved in that.
[00:45:24.280 --> 00:45:26.040] Like I think you can do it either way.
[00:45:26.040 --> 00:45:31.320] You can do it where you're like, the perfect day for me is I wake up and like there's no Google calendar.
[00:45:31.320 --> 00:45:33.640] Like there's no, there's no like habit tracker, right?
[00:45:33.640 --> 00:45:35.400] There's none of that stuff.
[00:45:35.400 --> 00:45:39.160] For me, like I just have a bunch of projects that I love.
[00:45:39.160 --> 00:45:42.760] I love hanging out with my girlfriend and like I love doing this podcast.
[00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:45.280] Like this to me doesn't necessarily feel like work.
[00:45:45.600 --> 00:45:51.760] But I guess if you see it that way, maybe there's like a clash of whether you do planning or you don't do planning.
[00:45:44.680 --> 00:45:52.000] I don't know.
[00:45:52.080 --> 00:45:56.320] I think a lot of the planning comes from having a multi-step process.
[00:45:56.320 --> 00:45:59.280] If you're like, hey, I've got to launch my product.
[00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:02.960] And then once I launch, I can like get the conversion data.
[00:46:02.960 --> 00:46:06.320] And then once I do that, I can improve the onboarding funnel.
[00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:08.080] And once I do that, I can build new features.
[00:46:08.080 --> 00:46:10.560] And you have this whole giant process of steps you have to go through.
[00:46:10.560 --> 00:46:13.920] Then you kind of just booked out the next six months of your life.
[00:46:13.920 --> 00:46:23.280] And you don't have that much leeway to do other things because anytime you take a detour from that path, at least for me, it's going to be a little voice in the back of my mind that's like, oh, I'm fucking up.
[00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:25.280] Like I'm not doing what I should be doing.
[00:46:25.440 --> 00:46:26.800] Now that's going to take longer.
[00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.360] And every time I'm on a track like that, I'm just, I'm less happy.
[00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:32.400] Like if I'm coding anything for longer than a few months, like I'm not that happy.
[00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.840] I'm always the happiest when I'm doing really small products, really small launches, really small features.
[00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:42.240] And I go from like idea to design to launching it and releasing it in under a week.
[00:46:42.240 --> 00:46:43.280] Because then I just feel free.
[00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:44.640] I feel unburdened.
[00:46:44.640 --> 00:46:47.280] And like, to Mark's point, like failure isn't as bad.
[00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:50.640] If it doesn't work out, like, I don't feel like I just like wasted three months or a year of my life.
[00:46:50.640 --> 00:46:52.640] I feel like, I had a week-long experiment.
[00:46:52.640 --> 00:46:53.360] It was fine.
[00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:53.680] Yeah.
[00:46:53.680 --> 00:46:57.680] Courtland, have you ever read that book, Finite and Infinite Games?
[00:46:57.680 --> 00:46:59.680] It's a kind of fun philosophy book.
[00:46:59.680 --> 00:47:12.160] This guy in there expresses almost exactly what you're talking about in this really, I don't know, it's a little bit academic for a lot of people's taste, but the whole point that he goes into is he uses this term living horizonally.
[00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:14.240] And so you kind of visualize the horizon.
[00:47:14.240 --> 00:47:16.240] Like you go and you get to the horizon.
[00:47:16.240 --> 00:47:19.600] And then by definition, when you get there, the horizon moves back.
[00:47:19.600 --> 00:47:30.520] And so, if you think about projects, you can say, Look, what I want to do is I don't want to have a plan that like you know, presupposes, like, you know, it's like five years out, way beyond the horizon.
[00:47:30.520 --> 00:47:34.120] Like, this thing is going to happen A, step A, then step B, then step C.
[00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:35.320] Like, I just want to get to the horizon.
[00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:41.000] I know the immediate things that I need to work on, and I know the steps that I need to take to work on those like competently.
[00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:45.560] But then, when I get there, that's when I'll make the decision about the next thing, right?
[00:47:45.560 --> 00:47:49.480] Like, it's not a huge master plan, but there is like a little bit of planning involved.
[00:47:49.480 --> 00:47:50.360] You know what it is?
[00:47:50.360 --> 00:47:52.920] It's like a, because I love that you say it's about like play.
[00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:57.720] I'm looking at the Amazon page too, and it's just like, essentially, it's all about playing games.
[00:47:57.720 --> 00:48:00.600] It's the difference between like an obstacle course and a playground.
[00:48:00.600 --> 00:48:03.320] An obstacle course is like American Ninja Warrior.
[00:48:03.480 --> 00:48:05.560] You got to go through the entire course, beginning to end.
[00:48:05.640 --> 00:48:10.920] If you fail at a part, you got to keep doing that part forever and ever and ever and ever and ever until you get it right.
[00:48:10.920 --> 00:48:13.080] And only then can you move to the next part, you know?
[00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:21.320] Like, if we're trying to grow the Indie Hackers Forum and we need it to be, you know, 10,000 posts a day or something, we just fail at that forever until we get it before we can go to the next step.
[00:48:21.320 --> 00:48:22.200] And I hate that shit.
[00:48:22.200 --> 00:48:23.720] It's like very draining.
[00:48:23.720 --> 00:48:27.000] Versus a playground, you show up and there's like a million games you can play.
[00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:29.240] And you just like get on the swing set if you want to swing.
[00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:31.400] You get on the monkey bars if you want to do the monkey bars.
[00:48:31.400 --> 00:48:32.920] You get on the slide if you want to slide.
[00:48:32.920 --> 00:48:34.200] There is no gatekeeper.
[00:48:34.200 --> 00:48:36.600] There is no getting stuck doing something that you don't like.
[00:48:36.600 --> 00:48:42.520] Like, if Mark just wants to like make a YouTube video where he's talking to Joe Rogan, like he can just do that and it doesn't matter.
[00:48:42.520 --> 00:48:45.000] Like, he's not held back from doing that because of something else.
[00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:46.280] So I like that style of work.
[00:48:46.440 --> 00:48:49.800] I think that's kind of like my ideal, my dream.
[00:48:49.800 --> 00:48:52.440] And quite frankly, there's nothing stopping me from just doing that right now.
[00:48:52.440 --> 00:48:54.520] Like, I could just switch to that style.
[00:48:54.520 --> 00:49:02.360] It's kind of outside looking in, but that almost feels like, I mean, again, Mark, like when I look at you, I just go, like, it looks like this guy's having a blast.
[00:49:02.360 --> 00:49:06.760] It looks like he's running his projects almost exactly the way that we just described.
[00:49:06.760 --> 00:49:12.920] You know, you say, oh, I had a project that was, you know, making money, but it was sort of business to business.
[00:49:13.240 --> 00:49:14.360] You know, I wasn't having a lot of fun.
[00:49:14.360 --> 00:49:15.120] So, I scrapped it.
[00:49:15.120 --> 00:49:15.920] I sold it.
[00:49:15.920 --> 00:49:20.560] Like, how does your work style fit into the way that we're talking about this?
[00:49:14.840 --> 00:49:21.840] Yeah, I'm with it with this.
[00:49:21.920 --> 00:49:25.680] It's like having fun is the number one thing.
[00:49:25.680 --> 00:49:29.280] Sometimes I know I have to do things that are not really fun.
[00:49:29.280 --> 00:49:33.440] Like, now I'm adding push notifications to the app, and it's not really fun.
[00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:36.320] But I know I have to push through to have more fun later.
[00:49:36.320 --> 00:49:41.600] But if these not funny tasks go over for too long, then I just move on.
[00:49:41.600 --> 00:49:44.800] You're in a spot that like most indie hackers really want to be at, right?
[00:49:44.800 --> 00:49:56.240] Like, the vast majority of indie hackers have not gotten started, or they don't have an idea, or they're struggling to make their first dollar, or you know, they've got like 10 or 20 bucks coming in a month, but they haven't gotten the ROM profitability.
[00:49:56.240 --> 00:49:57.520] You're ramen profitable.
[00:49:57.520 --> 00:49:58.080] You've done it.
[00:49:58.080 --> 00:49:59.360] You have a giant array of products.
[00:49:59.360 --> 00:50:01.600] You can work on whatever you want every day.
[00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:03.440] What's your advice for other people?
[00:50:03.600 --> 00:50:05.120] He also told me he has a personal chef.
[00:50:05.120 --> 00:50:06.320] Throw that in there as well.
[00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:07.360] You've got a personal.
[00:50:07.600 --> 00:50:08.240] What's that about?
[00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:09.200] You got a personal chef.
[00:50:09.200 --> 00:50:11.600] That sounds beyond ramen profitable.
[00:50:11.600 --> 00:50:12.080] It is.
[00:50:12.400 --> 00:50:21.280] Actually, I got the chef since, you know, at zero, mostly at zero, MR already got a chef, but it's the best productivity hack have fun.
[00:50:21.280 --> 00:50:22.640] So I don't do groceries.
[00:50:22.640 --> 00:50:23.840] I don't do meal plans.
[00:50:23.840 --> 00:50:25.760] I eat super healthy food.
[00:50:25.760 --> 00:50:29.120] It's like vegetables and raw meat.
[00:50:29.120 --> 00:50:32.240] It's just so good for health and productivity.
[00:50:32.240 --> 00:50:37.200] And it's about in Balitz, it costs about $200 a month, excluding the groceries.
[00:50:37.200 --> 00:50:43.600] So in total, for $400 a month, I have five meals, five days a week of lunch and dinner prepared.
[00:50:43.600 --> 00:50:45.280] And yeah, I'm not going back.
[00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:46.240] It's too good.
[00:50:46.240 --> 00:50:50.800] My big thing used to be that, like, my dream was to have a personal chef because I love eating.
[00:50:50.840 --> 00:50:53.840] Like, I count down the number of meals I have to eat left.
[00:50:53.800 --> 00:50:57.200] Like, I eat twice a day, 365 days a year.
[00:50:57.200 --> 00:50:58.640] I'm going to live for another 50 years.
[00:50:58.680 --> 00:51:00.760] Like, I got like 36,000 meals left.
[00:51:00.760 --> 00:51:02.600] They better, every one of those meals better be good.
[00:51:02.600 --> 00:51:05.240] That's kind of how I look at it because it's one of my favorite things.
[00:50:59.840 --> 00:51:06.600] So, I always thought it'd be dope.
[00:51:06.680 --> 00:51:10.280] Like, just like I know I've made it if I've got a personal chef, but it's expensive, man.
[00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:11.400] It's super expensive.
[00:51:11.400 --> 00:51:13.640] So, what I'm getting from you is I got to move to Bali.
[00:51:13.640 --> 00:51:14.360] Move to Bali.
[00:51:14.520 --> 00:51:18.360] Get one for 200 bucks a month and be set.
[00:51:18.360 --> 00:51:21.880] Yeah, that's the good part of living, I think, in Southeast Asia.
[00:51:21.880 --> 00:51:26.920] It doesn't cost much to get a cleaner, to get a chef, to get a driver.
[00:51:26.920 --> 00:51:36.600] And I try to tweet about this, and some of them go viral because some people in the West realize that life could be different somewhere else.
[00:51:36.600 --> 00:51:40.600] Yo, Mark, 12 months, you've become a sensation.
[00:51:41.240 --> 00:51:44.120] You are, in a lot of ways, still starting out.
[00:51:44.120 --> 00:51:46.760] You just got to ramble on profitability, huge milestone.
[00:51:46.760 --> 00:51:54.120] And of all the things you've figured out in the last like 12, 13 months, what's one piece of advice that you would leave for people that are listening?
[00:51:54.120 --> 00:51:59.560] Don't spend too much time on one product and build and ship and kill fast.
[00:51:59.560 --> 00:52:00.280] That's it.
[00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:01.800] Short and sweet.
[00:52:01.800 --> 00:52:02.360] All right, dude.
[00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:04.280] Thanks a Don for coming on.