Debug Information

Processing Details

• VTT File: eccdb25e.vtt
• Processing Time: September 11, 2025 at 01:04 PM
• Total Chunks: 1
• Transcript Length: 74,209 characters
• Caption Count: 754 captions

Prompts Used

Prompt 1: Context Setup

You are an expert data extractor tasked with analyzing a podcast transcript. 
I will provide you with part 1 of 1 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:
[00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:11.520] We are here with Alex McCaw, the founder of Reflect.app.
[00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:12.640] How's it going?
[00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:13.600] Good to be here.
[00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:15.440] Thank you for inviting me.
[00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:18.320] This is your second time on the ND Hackers podcast.
[00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:21.360] I can't remember how long ago it was that you were on the first time.
[00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:23.920] Was it at least three or four years ago?
[00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:25.120] Do you remember?
[00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:27.760] It was at least three or four years ago.
[00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:30.320] I can't even remember what I was talking about.
[00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:33.520] I think, let me look it up.
[00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:38.240] I think you were definitely still doing Clearbit, but now you have like pivoted.
[00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:39.920] You're episode number 15.
[00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:40.480] I found you.
[00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:41.200] Damn.
[00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:43.440] You came on 2017.
[00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:48.000] Like, you were one of the original interviewees.
[00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:50.960] We were looking up ClearBit because I was like, okay, Alex has moved on.
[00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:52.720] You started this company, Clearbit.
[00:00:52.720 --> 00:00:54.480] I think you raised funding for it.
[00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:55.360] It was huge.
[00:00:55.360 --> 00:00:59.200] When I was in SF, every company was using ClearBit to look up data.
[00:00:59.360 --> 00:01:02.080] If I wanted to find somebody's email address, I would use Clearbit.
[00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:06.720] And now I looked it up and it's like this huge enterprise-y company.
[00:01:06.720 --> 00:01:09.760] Like, you go to the website and it says, like, trying to figure out what it does.
[00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:12.560] And at the top, there's just a drop-down that says, like, solutions.
[00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:20.160] You know, if a company says solutions at the top, like, it's an enterprise company that's got like, you know, a thousand customers and it's making bank.
[00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:24.560] And then we looked it up on some other website and it's making like tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue.
[00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:26.640] I think it was like 40 something million.
[00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:28.080] And you're not even doing that anymore.
[00:01:28.080 --> 00:01:29.360] You're like, that's cool.
[00:01:29.360 --> 00:01:30.160] I started that.
[00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:30.640] Good enough.
[00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:31.920] I'm on to the next thing.
[00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:36.560] And now you're an indie hacker with a bootstrap business called Reflect.
[00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:38.080] That's a crazy transition.
[00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:39.200] Yeah, that's right.
[00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:40.320] You say I pivoted.
[00:01:40.320 --> 00:01:42.160] Well, I almost pivoted my life.
[00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:52.080] I was CEO of a B2B SaaS business that was, you know, almost 200 people.
[00:01:52.080 --> 00:01:55.520] And I wasn't doing any coding or building myself.
[00:01:55.520 --> 00:01:57.520] And now I run a consumer app.
[00:01:57.520 --> 00:01:59.360] There's four of us.
[00:01:59.360 --> 00:02:02.840] We have just over 2,000 customers.
[00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:08.120] And I am doing everything myself, design development, etc.
[00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:11.880] And it is like a complete, complete change in my life.
[00:02:11.880 --> 00:02:16.840] By the way, I was going to say that Reflect, the landing page is so sick.
[00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:18.120] It's like highly unique.
[00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:22.360] It's like this dark, purple, futuristic-looking landing page.
[00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:24.840] I was going to say, does Alex code?
[00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:28.600] Like, you know, are you, are you, you know, involved in this?
[00:02:28.920 --> 00:02:30.920] I do code every day.
[00:02:30.920 --> 00:02:32.360] I'm coding.
[00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:37.320] And, and I, I mean, that was one of the criteria for this new business.
[00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:43.560] You know, after my years of running a B2B SAS business, I had to code.
[00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:45.080] I had to get back to coding.
[00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:50.360] So it's just me and two other engineers and one growth guy.
[00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:53.560] And then we actually contract in all our design.
[00:02:53.880 --> 00:03:01.400] So the design you see, if you go to reflect.app, that design is incredible.
[00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:03.720] And I couldn't take credit for that either.
[00:03:04.040 --> 00:03:06.920] I basically found an amazing designer.
[00:03:06.920 --> 00:03:10.040] So I can take credit for finding young talent.
[00:03:10.040 --> 00:03:12.920] You know, I think he's like 20, 23 or something.
[00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:18.040] But all I did was tell him, make it dark and purple.
[00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:22.520] And he just went for it.
[00:03:22.920 --> 00:03:24.680] Like, it's nuts.
[00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:29.320] There's like 3D visualizations, and you can even play Tetris on that.
[00:03:29.640 --> 00:03:30.520] Yeah, I found that.
[00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.080] There's like a very hidden Tetris game at the bottom.
[00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:34.200] I was like, what is this like keyboard?
[00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:35.160] Press controls to play.
[00:03:35.160 --> 00:03:35.720] Like, what is it?
[00:03:35.720 --> 00:03:37.000] And then I started playing Tetris.
[00:03:37.040 --> 00:03:40.760] Nothing was distracting Cortland as we were like prepping for this episode.
[00:03:40.760 --> 00:03:43.640] So Reflect is like, it's like you said you pivoted your whole life, right?
[00:03:43.640 --> 00:03:52.560] You were, you went from like, you know, high-flying Silicon Valley CEO with millions in revenue, and like now you're like ND hacker guy on a boat.
[00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:53.840] Move your camera around.
[00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:54.800] Who else is on this boat with you?
[00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:57.040] Is this just a visual?
[00:03:57.200 --> 00:03:58.800] Oh man, it's not very tidy.
[00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:01.520] This is a small boat.
[00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:02.800] Oh, that's cozy.
[00:04:04.880 --> 00:04:08.160] Right now it's just me on board.
[00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:11.920] It's a catamaran and we're in Grenada.
[00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:14.880] And I just like sailing around the Grenadines.
[00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:17.360] We have Starlink, which has changed my life.
[00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:22.960] In fact, when I heard about Starlink, it was when I decided to get a boat and live on the boat.
[00:04:22.960 --> 00:04:27.280] Do you know John O'Nolan, the founder of a blogging platform called Ghost?
[00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:30.160] Because he also kind of sails around and lives on a boat.
[00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:31.520] I hear his name a bit.
[00:04:31.520 --> 00:04:34.640] Every now and again, people are like, oh, you're one of those boat people.
[00:04:34.640 --> 00:04:35.040] I know.
[00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:38.320] Hashtag boat person.
[00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:39.920] There's two of you.
[00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:41.120] So what happened?
[00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:42.160] Like, how did that happen?
[00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:46.720] Like, did you just wake up one day and just look in the mirror and be like, this is not for me?
[00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:47.760] Like, yeah.
[00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:50.160] It's like he just snapped and became a different person.
[00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:57.840] Well, pretty much, you know, I think COVID made a lot of people rethink, you know, their lives, to be honest.
[00:04:57.840 --> 00:05:06.400] For me, it was taking a real look at what the company needed from a leader over the coming years.
[00:05:06.400 --> 00:05:10.640] And then also looking in the mirror and being like, is that you?
[00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:12.080] Are you that person?
[00:05:12.400 --> 00:05:16.880] And coming to a really difficult decision that actually it's not you.
[00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:23.280] And it's funny because our ego just gets in the way all the time of our unhappiness.
[00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:31.480] And there's a lot of CEOs out there who are miserable, who are just doing it because their ego is telling them to do it.
[00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:34.520] But not only are they miserable, they're not good at it.
[00:05:29.760 --> 00:05:35.400] That's the key thing.
[00:05:35.640 --> 00:05:44.840] Like, I think a great CEO up to a point, but you know, at some point, it just the job changes completely.
[00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:51.560] What I am amazing at is going from zero to one and building new stuff.
[00:05:51.560 --> 00:06:02.120] And so, honestly, what I should do in life is just concentrate on the thing that I can do almost uniquely, and then other people can focus on the scaling aspect of it.
[00:06:02.120 --> 00:06:08.120] And if Reflect ever gets big enough, I will just hire another CEO to run it and do the same thing again.
[00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:16.600] Shane and I were just talking about how if I had to choose, like, I could be the CEO of some huge corporation that's like at Enterprise Solutions.
[00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:26.840] You know, if I got a thousand customers, I'm making $50 million a year, or be the CEO of something like Indie Hackers, where, like, I've just been building in public the last week.
[00:06:26.840 --> 00:06:28.680] I tweet about the features that I'm making.
[00:06:28.840 --> 00:06:32.600] I like release bugs, and people tell me about them and make mistakes.
[00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:33.480] It's scrappy.
[00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:35.800] Like, there's like what's our game plan, Channy?
[00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:37.240] It like lasts, like the next three weeks.
[00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:38.520] We know what we're going to do, and that's it.
[00:06:38.520 --> 00:06:39.080] Fuck around and find out.
[00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:40.440] If I could do that and make 10 times less money.
[00:06:40.520 --> 00:06:41.480] That's our game plan.
[00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:41.880] Yeah.
[00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:48.360] If I could do that, if I could fuck around and find out and make 10 times less money, I would choose that path.
[00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:53.400] Even if I knew I would be good at being a big company CEO, just because I like the framework.
[00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:56.200] Wait, wait, let's just get a sense of the numbers too here.
[00:06:56.200 --> 00:07:05.400] Because, Cortland, you saw someone that mentioned that Clearbit and 2022 did like 41 million in revenue, like on that order is the correct.
[00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:07.400] But that's not like all belonging to the CEO, right?
[00:07:07.400 --> 00:07:10.120] The CEO is getting a very tiny fraction of that, probably a lot of stock.
[00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:13.600] But let's say you could be like the founder, like Alex, let's see it.
[00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:19.680] You could be the founder of a company that's making, where you a CEO are taking home like $20 million a year, something crazy, right?
[00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:25.520] Or you could be an indie hacker starting like a super fun business that you really enjoy and you're making like $5 mill a year.
[00:07:25.520 --> 00:07:26.960] And let's say you could be good at both.
[00:07:26.960 --> 00:07:28.400] Which one do you pick?
[00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:30.720] Oh, definitely the latter one.
[00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:36.240] I think sometimes people have to do the former to come to that conclusion, though.
[00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:41.760] They have to feel like they have done the big thing or what have you.
[00:07:41.760 --> 00:07:43.200] Because otherwise it's always out there.
[00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:45.520] They always wonder, you know, what if I'd done that?
[00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:51.600] I can tell you after doing it, that small companies are a lot more fun.
[00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:54.960] I think they're a lot more lucrative as well.
[00:07:54.960 --> 00:08:02.160] Because, you know, when I'm CEO of a big company, I'm probably not being paid the most.
[00:08:02.400 --> 00:08:04.480] Actually, definitely not being paid the most.
[00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:12.800] The head of sales or, you know, your CFO or, you know, there's so many other people that are being paid more than you.
[00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:16.320] In fact, the CEO's salary is typically quite low.
[00:08:16.880 --> 00:08:19.360] And so you're certainly not putting in 20 million a year.
[00:08:19.840 --> 00:08:35.360] Whereas when you are running a little indie company, you and to be to be clear with you, reflexive, not at this point yet, but it's very conceivable that you could be pulling like 10 and then 20 and then 30k a month.
[00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:40.880] And then like once you have that coming in, I don't know how much more you need, really.
[00:08:40.880 --> 00:08:45.680] And it feels like so much more than if you just do a secondary, right?
[00:08:45.680 --> 00:08:51.680] If you do a secondary, you sell some of your equity, you know, that's like a one-and-done thing.
[00:08:51.680 --> 00:08:59.040] And you know that that's like a pretty rare event and that you need to basically save that money and not use it.
[00:08:59.800 --> 00:09:06.680] Whereas if you have money coming in every month from your lifestyle business, then I think you feel a lot richer.
[00:09:06.680 --> 00:09:10.280] And especially if you have like a lifestyle where it's not that expensive.
[00:09:10.280 --> 00:09:21.960] Like I imagine living on a boat on a catamaran southern Caribbean is cheaper than living like an expensive two or three bedroom San Francisco apartment and like the peak of the tech boom.
[00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:22.280] I don't know.
[00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:24.920] Break down the cost for me of living on a boat.
[00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:32.760] Well, yeah, I mean, let's just say there are different types of buzz.
[00:09:33.640 --> 00:09:35.160] You could do this a lot cheaper than I do.
[00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:36.440] You got a nice one.
[00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:37.560] You got a nice one.
[00:09:37.560 --> 00:09:39.960] I think you're probably about right.
[00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:45.320] I think it's probably, even if you're not exactly right, it's probably fairly even.
[00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:52.600] And so then the question is like, do you want to be living in downtown SF or do you want to be living on a boat in the Caribbean?
[00:09:52.600 --> 00:09:54.520] So then you have to ask yourself that question.
[00:09:55.160 --> 00:09:55.640] Depends on that.
[00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:02.440] It is expensive, but rent in these cities is nuts as well.
[00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:02.760] All right.
[00:10:02.760 --> 00:10:04.520] So let's talk about what you're doing.
[00:10:04.520 --> 00:10:07.080] Because you're working on this Andy Hacker app.
[00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:07.880] You've joined us.
[00:10:07.880 --> 00:10:09.240] You've joined the Borg.
[00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:12.440] I think you said there's you and six other people, you and five other people.
[00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:14.200] So it's a very small team.
[00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:16.040] And it is called Reflect.
[00:10:16.040 --> 00:10:18.920] And the website says, never miss a note, idea, or connection.
[00:10:18.920 --> 00:10:22.360] So we've got this cool video that's also expertly designed.
[00:10:22.360 --> 00:10:28.440] And I watched this, like a 15-minute introduction to Reflect app and how to be productive and reflect.
[00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:33.160] And like, I don't know, it's hard for me to describe it because I've used like zero note-taking apps.
[00:10:33.160 --> 00:10:34.760] I don't use Rome Research.
[00:10:34.760 --> 00:10:36.760] I don't use, what's the other one you like, Shanning?
[00:10:36.760 --> 00:10:37.320] Obsidian?
[00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:38.040] Obsidian.
[00:10:38.040 --> 00:10:38.840] I don't use Reflect.
[00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:40.680] I don't take any notes at all.
[00:10:40.680 --> 00:10:42.120] Like, I use post-it notes.
[00:10:42.120 --> 00:10:42.760] That's what I do.
[00:10:42.760 --> 00:10:48.960] Like, I scribble, sit on sheets of papers like this and throw it away once it gets too full.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.800] So walk me through the idea of Reflect.
[00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:52.800] Like, why did you build this?
[00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:53.840] Why should anyone use it?
[00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:54.880] Who's it for?
[00:10:54.880 --> 00:10:55.840] How does it work?
[00:10:56.160 --> 00:10:59.840] Well, I would say your system is better than some I've heard.
[00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.720] I've heard of people like saving email drafts.
[00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:06.320] That's like a common note-taking tool.
[00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:12.800] But ultimately, like the way that I think these days is that I don't really do much thinking up here.
[00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:17.680] I push everything out into my note-taking tool.
[00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:22.400] And then once it's in paper, then I can look at it objectively.
[00:11:22.880 --> 00:11:24.640] Or once it's on the screen.
[00:11:24.640 --> 00:11:28.960] So for me, it really helps improve my thinking.
[00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:32.160] And it also lessens anxiety.
[00:11:32.160 --> 00:11:39.360] You know, we all kind of have this feeling when we like, you wake up in the night and you're like, there's so many things to do.
[00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.400] You know, I've got this, this long list to do.
[00:11:42.400 --> 00:11:54.400] The only way of reducing that anxiety is literally getting that stuff out of your mind and into either paper, pen, or maybe something like Reflect.
[00:11:54.400 --> 00:12:00.720] What I set out to do with Reflect was essentially build a Apple Notes Plus.
[00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:04.320] You know, and I view Apple Notes as our biggest competitor.
[00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:06.000] You know, Apple Notes is amazing.
[00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:06.880] It just works.
[00:12:06.880 --> 00:12:07.600] It's fast.
[00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:08.720] It syncs.
[00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:10.640] You never lose a note.
[00:12:10.640 --> 00:12:14.640] There's actually a huge amount of engineering that's gone into that.
[00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:16.640] It's quite an impressive product.
[00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:20.720] But there's a lot of things that are missing, as you kind of imagine.
[00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:26.240] Like, Apple have a lot of different products that, you know, Apple Notes is not getting 100% of their focus.
[00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:33.320] It's never going to be as good as if someone was dedicated their life to making this app awesome.
[00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:37.000] So we are trying to do Apple Notes Plus.
[00:12:37.160 --> 00:12:39.240] We have something called backlinking.
[00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:40.600] Are you familiar with that?
[00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:41.160] I am.
[00:12:41.320 --> 00:12:46.200] I feel like everything, just to be clear, everything that you're saying, like you're basically talking to me.
[00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:48.120] I'm in your target customer base.
[00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:50.600] Courtland is like, Channing is the obsessive speaker.
[00:12:51.240 --> 00:12:54.360] Yes, Cortland's like, I don't know, can you backlink with Post-it notes?
[00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:54.840] Like, I don't know.
[00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:56.600] Is that a function of a post-it note?
[00:12:57.880 --> 00:13:03.560] Yeah, well, it's essentially, okay, if you think about Cortland, what's the last thing you forgot?
[00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:06.120] You can't remember.
[00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:07.640] You can't remember.
[00:13:09.400 --> 00:13:17.560] Well, if you think about the time when you did remember something, typically you just remember around the edges, right?
[00:13:17.560 --> 00:13:22.280] Actually, somebody messaged me last week and said they want to do a call, and I was like, Yeah, I would love to talk to this person.
[00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:23.320] We haven't spoken in a long time.
[00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:24.120] I should call her.
[00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:27.320] Then I marked it red and archived it and totally forgot about it.
[00:13:27.320 --> 00:13:29.000] And then I remembered it today.
[00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:30.680] And I just shared it before this podcast.
[00:13:30.680 --> 00:13:31.400] So that's the last thing you can do.
[00:13:31.640 --> 00:13:42.920] Now, but imagine if you couldn't remember her name, you would then try and remember the company that she worked for, maybe, or how you met her, or who you have in common.
[00:13:42.920 --> 00:13:47.320] Or you kind of remember around the thing to try and get to the thing.
[00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:50.600] And this is essentially how the memory works through association.
[00:13:50.920 --> 00:13:58.280] And the cool thing about tools like Reflect Obsidian as well is that you can create references.
[00:13:58.280 --> 00:14:05.320] So one note can reference another, or even a word in a note can reference another note.
[00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:09.400] And then you can essentially build up a graph of associations.
[00:14:09.400 --> 00:14:11.640] And this just helps a lot with recall.
[00:14:11.640 --> 00:14:17.040] You know, I can totally understand why you use this method of note-taking.
[00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:21.280] It's fast, it's right in front of you, it's physical, it can't go wrong.
[00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:24.320] You don't have to pay a monthly subscription for it.
[00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.920] Every note set will appeal to different people.
[00:14:27.920 --> 00:14:29.600] And then I was like, you know what?
[00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:34.400] Let's just see if there are any other people out there that are like me, who think like me.
[00:14:34.800 --> 00:14:35.680] And there were.
[00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:45.520] You know, we launched a couple of years ago now, and we, especially in the last year, have been taking off, like growing 15% month on month.
[00:14:45.520 --> 00:14:55.360] We just did about 43k revenue last month, and we are like very close to being profitable, which is like the goal.
[00:14:56.960 --> 00:14:57.760] When did you start again?
[00:14:57.760 --> 00:14:59.760] So you're at 43 a month?
[00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:00.960] Oh, are you losing?
[00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:06.800] So we started maybe two and a bit years ago.
[00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:14.000] Notes apps are extremely complicated, surprisingly complicated.
[00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:25.440] Things like the end-to-end encryption that we have in Reflect, the real-time sync, offline sync, and conflict resolution, there's so much to it.
[00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:28.960] So the first year or so was building.
[00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:39.120] And the thing about these consumer products is that they are just the bar is so high and the churn is high and there's no expansion.
[00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:48.720] And if you don't have any social elements to your product and we don't have any social elements, it's like this is building a business on hard mode.
[00:15:49.680 --> 00:16:00.520] So I definitely think that if you want to build a little lifestyle business, pick P2B for your own sanity.
[00:16:01.480 --> 00:16:05.880] But I can tell you that B2C is fun.
[00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:06.840] It is a lot of fun.
[00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:19.000] And one of the main differences between this company and Clearbit was that I really gel with our customer base and I hang out with them all day and I chat with them in Discord.
[00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:27.320] And that, I think, would be a big piece of advice to younger Alex, which would be pick your customers because you're going to hang out with them quite a lot.
[00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:29.640] This is what I've been doing with ND Hackers recently.
[00:16:29.640 --> 00:16:32.760] And ND Hackers is like, technically, it's a B2B company, right?
[00:16:32.760 --> 00:16:38.360] Like the products that we build are for other indie hackers who are themselves running businesses.
[00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:42.600] But they're tiny little one-person businesses or two-person businesses.
[00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:47.240] So it sometimes feels like B2C because I'm just like talking to people who are like friends.
[00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:48.520] They don't have like a head of sales.
[00:16:48.520 --> 00:16:52.840] You know, there's no like giant pipeline I have to work through to like sell to people.
[00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:55.160] And I also get to hang out with them all the time, right?
[00:16:55.160 --> 00:17:02.520] Like if you build in public and you're tweeting photos of what you're building and the features you're talking about and you're posting an inform about it, other people will just jump in and give you feedback.
[00:17:02.520 --> 00:17:05.480] So I'm like right there with you on the build for people that you like.
[00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:09.240] Like that's almost like checklist item number one if I'm considering an idea.
[00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:10.520] Like who is this for?
[00:17:10.520 --> 00:17:12.440] And do I like hanging out and talking to those people?
[00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:15.800] Because that's what the next three, four, ten years are going to look like.
[00:17:15.800 --> 00:17:19.560] Yeah, it took me a long time to figure that out, sadly.
[00:17:20.120 --> 00:17:30.360] But the thing is, if you do that well, then your products will be much better because you're going to take that feedback, you're going to improve the product.
[00:17:30.840 --> 00:17:38.840] And I think that's one of the reasons that I managed to hone Reflect into a Notes app that I love to use every day.
[00:17:38.840 --> 00:17:39.520] I think, so.
[00:17:39.560 --> 00:17:44.960] I'm, like I said, I'm a massive Note app fan.
[00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:50.960] Like right now I'm I was like an early adopter to Notion, was obsessed with it, got Cortland into it.
[00:17:51.280 --> 00:18:01.440] Even while I was using Notion, I then kind of cheated on Notion and I played around with like Rome Research and Obsidian and definitely now I'm gonna like mess around with Reflect.
[00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:07.440] And I find it insane because you said building some consumer apps is like playing it business on hard mode.
[00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:13.040] And I feel like with productivity apps in particular, it's like super mega hard mode, right?
[00:18:13.520 --> 00:18:14.640] Because there's so many apps.
[00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:18.560] There's so many, like, you know, part of Reflect is like, it's got a to-do app.
[00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:27.680] And like, like, you know, every person who wants to be a startup founder probably has some to-do app business idea that is sitting around that they bought a domain for.
[00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:37.760] And I think ironically, one of the things that makes Reflect, like, that gives it a shot is exactly what you said, which is that it's like sufficiently opinionated and unique.
[00:18:37.760 --> 00:18:40.240] Like, it actually does kind of have a learning curve.
[00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.640] And so there's certain people who will look at that and be like, that's exactly what the fuck I'm looking for, right?
[00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.000] Like, it's got a mind map.
[00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:51.760] It's got, like, I just look at your homepage and like there are a few things that just like turn on like a part of my brain that I know.
[00:18:51.760 --> 00:18:53.920] For example, Cortland looks at it and he's like, oh, that's neat.
[00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:55.520] And like, is I just keep scanning?
[00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:58.720] I'm like, I have to play around with that thing.
[00:18:58.720 --> 00:18:59.040] Yeah.
[00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:02.880] And Cortland's playing the Tetris is a rather page.
[00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:05.520] Exactly.
[00:19:05.520 --> 00:19:08.720] Did you see Sam Altman's tweet, by the way, when it comes to like hard startups?
[00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:11.520] He said, Chat GPT has no social features.
[00:19:11.520 --> 00:19:12.640] There's no built-in sharing.
[00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:14.080] You have to sign up before you can use it.
[00:19:14.080 --> 00:19:15.840] There's no inherent viral loop.
[00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:19.680] I'm seriously questioning the years of advice that I gave to startups.
[00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:24.320] Because he was like running Y Combinator telling startups they have to put all of those things into their company to succeed.
[00:19:24.320 --> 00:19:27.760] And now he's been built a much bigger startup than any of them without doing any of that.
[00:19:27.760 --> 00:19:30.280] And that's kind of what I think about when I think about what you're doing, right?
[00:19:30.280 --> 00:19:37.800] Like you are not adding all that stuff and yet you're still hitting like 40 grand a month in revenue, which is humongous, especially given how competitive this area is.
[00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:43.320] And after spending a whole year building, so like, you know, I presume like a year marketing.
[00:19:43.320 --> 00:19:44.760] Yeah, like, how did you, how did you get there?
[00:19:44.760 --> 00:19:46.200] How did you grow to that size?
[00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:49.800] How do you make $40,000 a month from a competitive note-taking app?
[00:19:50.120 --> 00:19:53.880] Yeah, well, I can tell you I almost went broke building it.
[00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:55.480] You know, step one.
[00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:57.000] Go almost broke.
[00:19:58.040 --> 00:19:58.520] Yeah.
[00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:03.080] I mean, I was, we were bootstrapped for a long time.
[00:20:03.080 --> 00:20:09.320] And, you know, eventually I basically ran out of money and then we had to do a crowdfund.
[00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:11.400] But yeah, it was difficult.
[00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:19.880] Like, I was just every day like coding, coding, coding, and found some amazing engineers to work on it.
[00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:24.280] We grew initially through word of mouth.
[00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:29.800] And, you know, our AI features have been great as well.
[00:20:30.120 --> 00:20:35.080] For like, we got a big growth spurt once we added those.
[00:20:35.080 --> 00:20:39.480] But it is like, it definitely feels like a very long game.
[00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:49.080] I guess like a very slow burn because our organics are just increasing a little bit every month, but we don't know why.
[00:20:49.080 --> 00:20:54.120] And, you know, we obviously tried to try to figure this out.
[00:20:54.120 --> 00:20:55.800] Yeah, we tried to figure this out.
[00:20:55.800 --> 00:21:01.720] Like, it is one of the first things they teach you about marketing is like have repeatable channels, you know?
[00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:18.720] And we've been trying to build these repeatable channels, but really it's just like, it is like a real product-first kind of growth strategy where we just polish and polish and polish and just make this product amazing.
[00:21:19.040 --> 00:21:23.200] And then and then it seems to be working for now.
[00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:30.320] The adage, you know, they will come if you build something useful seems to be working.
[00:21:30.320 --> 00:21:33.600] And I think we can get away with that because we're a little lifestyle business.
[00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:40.320] You know, we only need to make like 50, 60k monthly revenue to be profitable.
[00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:40.960] Yeah.
[00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:41.520] Right?
[00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:46.080] So, like, we're we're we're close.
[00:21:46.080 --> 00:21:48.960] We don't need all these things that we have.
[00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:52.560] You have a large company, it's like massive ad campaigns and so forth.
[00:21:52.560 --> 00:21:55.360] We just we can just focus on the products.
[00:21:55.360 --> 00:22:00.320] Uh, and I think we're getting over this hump that you have with these bootstrap companies.
[00:22:00.320 --> 00:22:14.880] It's just so difficult at the start where no one will invest in you and you're just like plowing all your cash into it, especially if you're building a B2C company where you're doing that maybe for a year or so.
[00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:17.120] This crowdfunding thing is fascinating.
[00:22:17.120 --> 00:22:23.600] I want to talk about the money behind this because you've got Clearbit where I'm sure you still own, like, you own a good chunk of equity in Clearbit still, right?
[00:22:23.600 --> 00:22:26.640] But they haven't sold, they haven't gotten acquired, they haven't gone public.
[00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:28.560] So that's just like locked up.
[00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:29.920] It's locked up.
[00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:39.600] So, yeah, let's talk about crowdfunding because I don't think enough people understand crowdfunding and what has changed fundamentally.
[00:22:39.600 --> 00:22:45.920] And also, I don't think people are being imaginative enough about investing in general.
[00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:49.280] So, I do a bunch of investing as well.
[00:22:49.280 --> 00:22:50.480] I run a little fund.
[00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:53.360] So, I'm like familiar with the investing route.
[00:22:53.360 --> 00:22:58.560] And often I'm talking to entrepreneurs and they are pitching me their companies.
[00:22:58.560 --> 00:23:03.320] And I'm thinking, and I end up saying, why are you raising money for this?
[00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:12.600] You should only raise money, VC money, if your product and your company has a chance of an IPO.
[00:23:12.840 --> 00:23:14.440] That is the only reason.
[00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:24.440] And you should not delude yourself because once you've raised a fair amount of VC capital, you've just signed away your business eventually.
[00:23:24.440 --> 00:23:30.440] Eventually, the business will exit, either go public or get sold.
[00:23:30.760 --> 00:23:34.040] And you will just make sure you won't be running it.
[00:23:34.040 --> 00:23:36.440] Or certainly you won't have full control over it.
[00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:39.960] And even if you don't, like that's the best case scenario.
[00:23:40.360 --> 00:23:47.080] The most likely scenario is you make a medium-sized business that is okay.
[00:23:47.800 --> 00:23:57.080] Your VCs keep asking for growth or your employees keep asking for growth because their roommate just made a million dollars at Stripe.
[00:23:57.080 --> 00:24:03.960] And they're like, you know, what if, you know, they're like, am I working at the right company or not?
[00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:05.080] Yada, yada, yada.
[00:24:05.080 --> 00:24:07.880] So then you go and raise another mega round and this and this.
[00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:10.440] And this is what has happened the last few years.
[00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:12.840] All these companies are underwater now.
[00:24:12.840 --> 00:24:24.200] And the founders are basically right now working for free because they're not going to make any money out of these companies because they raise such high valuations.
[00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:31.320] So my point is essentially really, really consider about raising venture capital.
[00:24:31.320 --> 00:24:33.400] Crowdfunding changes the game.
[00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:38.920] So there's two really good platforms for this: WeFunder and Republic.
[00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:42.680] They will handle all the admins for you.
[00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:45.760] You can go on there and you can raise from your customers.
[00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:49.280] And you can raise up to, I think it's $5 million a year.
[00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:58.240] And you can raise much less than that if you don't want to go through all the audit requirements or so forth.
[00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:01.600] There's various degrees of regulation.
[00:25:01.600 --> 00:25:03.920] So we just ended up raising a million dollars.
[00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:07.040] And we raised from our customers.
[00:25:07.360 --> 00:25:11.440] We raised it in, I think, a month, maybe.
[00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:14.240] It was very straightforward.
[00:25:14.560 --> 00:25:17.120] We just posted about it.
[00:25:17.120 --> 00:25:20.320] We sent one email to our customer base.
[00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:24.080] And they, I think, are just a very enthusiastic customer base.
[00:25:24.080 --> 00:25:24.640] Right.
[00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:25.600] And they love the app.
[00:25:25.760 --> 00:25:27.520] And I think they love it.
[00:25:27.600 --> 00:25:28.080] They're invested.
[00:25:28.080 --> 00:25:29.280] They're like, we think this is great.
[00:25:29.280 --> 00:25:30.640] We think this is going to be huge.
[00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:34.880] And how often does the average consumer feel like they have a chance to invest in a tech startup?
[00:25:35.040 --> 00:25:35.840] It's not a thing.
[00:25:35.840 --> 00:25:36.160] Maybe.
[00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:42.880] Yeah, but if you hold a gun to the head, I wonder if they were like, this reflects going to be huge.
[00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:47.760] They're probably just like, you know, I'm sick of my no taking out, going out of business.
[00:25:47.760 --> 00:25:50.400] You know, I'm sick of changing tools.
[00:25:50.480 --> 00:25:56.000] Like, maybe this will be big, maybe, maybe not, but maybe this will help it stick around.
[00:25:56.320 --> 00:25:56.720] I don't know.
[00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:58.000] There's a lot of different motivations.
[00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.520] And a lot of our customers or our investors were first-time investors.
[00:26:03.760 --> 00:26:06.480] So I wanted to take them along on the journey.
[00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:14.880] What I told them was, we're not going to try and make your equity like 10 times as valuable.
[00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:17.360] What we're going to try and do is pay you a dividend.
[00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:31.800] So this changes the incentives because now the investors and the employees who receive equity are not looking for like growth, or at least the maximum amount of growth.
[00:26:31.800 --> 00:26:37.560] What they are looking for is a dividend, like an annual dividend from the business.
[00:26:37.560 --> 00:26:40.200] And it means you don't have to sell the business, okay?
[00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:40.600] Right.
[00:26:40.600 --> 00:26:43.320] So it's a little nuts.
[00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:45.800] I haven't heard of any other tech company ever doing this.
[00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:46.680] It's so fascinating.
[00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:47.880] Yeah, I've never heard that.
[00:26:47.880 --> 00:26:49.800] But I think we're going to pull it off.
[00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:56.200] And it's actually very important to me that we pull it off because I want to be a very good example.
[00:26:56.200 --> 00:27:10.280] Because I think there should be this cottage industry of little mom and pop tech businesses that are just like two or three people where you know if you use their product and you have a problem, the person you're emailing is the founder.
[00:27:10.280 --> 00:27:12.680] You're going to get founder level support.
[00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:19.400] And they have agency and they buy into the products and they really, really care.
[00:27:19.400 --> 00:27:25.960] And we just, I think, lost that for no really good reason with a lot of tech businesses.
[00:27:25.960 --> 00:27:30.280] And we have so many companies that go out of business for no good reason.
[00:27:30.840 --> 00:27:35.160] They were great businesses that just happened to raise venture capital.
[00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:38.920] And now they have to sell for Dropbox and then get shut down.
[00:27:38.920 --> 00:27:41.240] You know, that's like the life cycle.
[00:27:41.560 --> 00:27:44.120] Wouldn't it be nice if we had an alternative?
[00:27:44.120 --> 00:27:47.880] What's so interesting about that is that I'm invested in Notion.
[00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:49.720] Notion is my big note-taking app.
[00:27:49.720 --> 00:27:52.520] I have my entire life in Notion.
[00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:58.360] I moved all of my notes and all of my docs and all my to-dos into Notion many years ago before it was big.
[00:27:58.360 --> 00:28:05.880] And I specifically remember that they had like an outage one day where you know Notion was down for five hours and I lost my shit, freaked out.
[00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:08.280] I can't, you know, my hands are tied on everything.
[00:28:08.280 --> 00:28:13.720] And I specifically remember being like, I just want to pay Notion tons of money, right?
[00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:20.080] I wish I could just invest money because I just love the product so much, just so that they give me, just like make sure it's up for me.
[00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:31.040] And like, I remember that I felt invested in the company where I was like, I want to, you know, I want to evangelize Notion and get as many people to use it as possible because I want it to be successful because I don't want it to shut down.
[00:28:31.040 --> 00:28:34.240] And it's like a similar alignment of incentives in the way that you say.
[00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:47.680] And what makes me, but the immediate place that my mind goes towards is like, okay, that crowdfunding model might work, but it specifically needs to be for these kinds of products where like people are massively invested.
[00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:56.480] For example, if like my Kindle app sort of shut down and I like I use Kindle to read, I'll just be like, whatever, I'll just go to Google Books or like Apple Books, right?
[00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:08.480] It's totally, you know, it's a total commodity, nothing specific to any individual app, but like yours, a realm research, a notion, like that model really does seem like it could work.
[00:29:08.800 --> 00:29:11.200] Yes, I would, that's a great point.
[00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:17.680] And I think the model lends itself to consumer businesses from that regard.
[00:29:18.080 --> 00:29:24.800] But also, quite frankly, you're much more likely to see a good return from a B2B company.
[00:29:24.800 --> 00:29:38.800] So I think if people who are more interested in the actual returns aspect of investing might be more interested in investing in B2Bs, and people who are more passionate about the tools they use every day might be more invested in B2Cs.
[00:29:38.800 --> 00:29:43.360] If you go on WeFund and Republic, you'll see all sorts of different companies raising.
[00:29:43.840 --> 00:29:47.280] Not just B2C companies, it's all over the shop.
[00:29:47.280 --> 00:29:55.120] The only other anti-company that I can recall that has been like, you know, dabbled in crowdfunding is Gumroad by Sahil Africa.
[00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:57.280] Have you met Sahil, Alex?
[00:29:57.600 --> 00:29:58.560] Yeah, I have.
[00:29:58.560 --> 00:30:01.880] Yeah, so they raised it, I think, a hundred mil valuation.
[00:30:01.880 --> 00:30:02.520] Yeah.
[00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:04.200] And then I think he raised like $10 million.
[00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:07.800] He raised whatever the max limit was, maybe $5 million or something.
[00:30:07.800 --> 00:30:11.400] And they did not have the sort of dividend promise.
[00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:13.000] It wasn't like, okay, we're going to pay your dividend.
[00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:15.080] It was just like, yeah, be a part of this big thing.
[00:30:15.080 --> 00:30:23.160] And then I think he sort of stopped going for like that crazy unicorn huge valuation sort of exit, right?
[00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:29.400] And so people were investing, thinking, oh, I'm going to make like, you know, 10x, 20x on this investment if Gumroad does well.
[00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:30.600] And he's just like, ah, thanks for the money.
[00:30:30.600 --> 00:30:31.960] Like, we're not going to do that.
[00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:36.760] I wonder, I wonder, like, because this is something that I want to explore with endy hackers.
[00:30:36.760 --> 00:30:42.760] I think it would be awesome if we had like this whole industry of like two and three person companies who could raise money from their customers.
[00:30:42.760 --> 00:30:47.240] I mean, you had like a few hundred customers invest, you know, at a million dollar valuation.
[00:30:47.240 --> 00:30:49.000] That's like a few thousand dollars each.
[00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:50.680] You know, it's not that much money.
[00:30:50.680 --> 00:30:56.520] But like, can that community, can that like phenomenon flourish and bloom if there isn't a lot of trust, right?
[00:30:56.520 --> 00:31:07.240] If investors are getting ripped off, if they don't know what they're going to get in return, if you as the person raising money aren't necessarily held to any sort of like rules saying you have to pay a dividend, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:10.280] Like, how does it work and how do you see that playing out?
[00:31:10.280 --> 00:31:18.840] There's a huge amount of trust, and that is, I think, how the system has worked up to this point, regardless.
[00:31:18.840 --> 00:31:33.240] You know, that is, if you go out and raise an angel and then a BC round, you know, the investors are going to do due diligence on the founder, and it's going to be, certainly early stage, it's going to be like, do we trust this guy or not?
[00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:35.400] Do his references check out?
[00:31:35.880 --> 00:31:37.800] It's a reputation game.
[00:31:37.800 --> 00:31:45.920] So, I mean, I think we can probably lend on the same dynamics as well for crowdfunding.
[00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:50.480] You'll probably need some kind of lead investor who's doing a lot of the due diligence.
[00:31:51.040 --> 00:31:52.720] I think that helps as well.
[00:31:52.960 --> 00:32:01.200] Some other person who's trusted, and then you can kind of trust the entrepreneur by proxy of that person being involved.
[00:32:02.240 --> 00:32:19.520] For example, Gumro specifically, I was confused why they raised that valuation because that really means that you are going to try and sell the business and make that money liquid, or at least, I mean, IPO the business.
[00:32:19.840 --> 00:32:28.560] I would, if I was in his shoes, I would just offer to buy the investors out a certain amount every year just to offer some liquidity.
[00:32:28.560 --> 00:32:31.040] Yeah, and maybe that's an alternative model.
[00:32:31.360 --> 00:32:34.880] But I do think dividends kind of gets you around all of that.
[00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:38.240] You know, it changes the incentives completely.
[00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:42.000] And I want, like, I'm, I'm, this is an experiment.
[00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:51.440] And if we pull it off, like, our investors, I think, should be paid their first dividend, if not this year, next year.
[00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:56.960] We still have like 800K out of the million we raised, right?
[00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:57.360] Right.
[00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:02.960] So, you know, the first dividend check to them might be half their money back.
[00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:06.880] And do you know, by the way, how many of those customers you raised that million from?
[00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:08.720] Like, how many individual people?
[00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:14.560] I know on just WeFunder, there was 317 investors, and I think you raised money from some other places too.
[00:33:15.120 --> 00:33:24.240] Yes, so we raised majority on WeFunder, and then we raised a separate check on AngelList.
[00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:33.480] You know, some of my friends were like, Alex, you gotta let me invest because they invested in my last business that went well for them.
[00:33:34.440 --> 00:33:39.480] So, you know, we took maybe like maximum like 50K checks.
[00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:48.760] But those were only a couple of those, and the rest were all like $1,000 checks from individual customers.
[00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:57.240] But what we told our customers is that they're getting payback, or sorry, what we told our investors is that they're getting payback first, right?
[00:33:57.240 --> 00:34:01.240] So they're going to get their principal back.
[00:34:01.560 --> 00:34:11.960] And so I want to caveat all of this, but it looks like we will be able to pay back our investors really quickly their principal.
[00:34:11.960 --> 00:34:18.440] And then from then on, they get a percentage of the profits of the business.
[00:34:18.440 --> 00:34:19.080] Right.
[00:34:19.080 --> 00:34:19.400] Yeah.
[00:34:19.560 --> 00:34:26.040] So like, imagine being like a user of an app and like you love this app and it gets better every month, every week.
[00:34:26.040 --> 00:34:29.880] And then also that app just sending you money.
[00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:31.080] Sending you checks in the mail.
[00:34:31.080 --> 00:34:32.600] Like that sounds amazing.
[00:34:33.400 --> 00:34:34.840] That does sound amazing.
[00:34:34.840 --> 00:34:40.680] So let's say you're like a founder listening to this and you want to do what they hear you doing, right?
[00:34:40.680 --> 00:34:44.520] Like what's the playbook for a founder that wants to go the crowdfunding route?
[00:34:44.520 --> 00:34:46.440] They sign up for WeFunder, step one.
[00:34:46.440 --> 00:34:50.280] How do they ensure that they get a million dollars raised?
[00:34:50.280 --> 00:34:51.800] Because that's not easy to do.
[00:34:51.800 --> 00:35:02.600] Look, if you don't have a brand or you aren't good at making products, then maybe, I think again, this is not like some free money out sitting out there.
[00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:08.960] Like, you should already have a product and customers by the time you're raising.
[00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:10.520] Like, in this day and age.
[00:35:10.520 --> 00:35:15.520] I don't think there are any excuses unless you're doing some nuclear fusion.
[00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:23.440] If, you know, if you're just building a Notes app or a B2B SaaS company, build the product first.
[00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:28.160] Do contracting on the side if you have to to pay for that.
[00:35:28.160 --> 00:35:32.000] But like, build your product, get customers.
[00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:38.080] Once you're at a few hundred customers, then start thinking about whether you should go this route.
[00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:45.680] Like, we actually polled our customers to see if they were interested or not prior to the crowdfund.
[00:35:45.680 --> 00:35:48.000] And that's another thing that's free to do as well.
[00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:51.920] We had a conversation recently with Rob Walling.
[00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:54.320] He's the founder of MicroConf.
[00:35:54.640 --> 00:35:57.760] A bunch of indie hackers go and have these community meetings.
[00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:02.720] And he's dealing, he has a fund, TinySeed.
[00:36:02.720 --> 00:36:04.240] And so we brought up this idea.
[00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:06.160] Accelerator for bootstrappers.
[00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:07.600] Right, right.
[00:36:07.600 --> 00:36:17.920] And like when we ran the idea by him that like, hey, maybe we should do crowdfunding for indie hackers to be able to invest in each other's products like on our product directory.
[00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:19.840] He almost immediately poo-pooed that idea.
[00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:22.480] And he's like, hey, listen, you don't want to deal with illegalities.
[00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:24.560] You know, dealing with equity, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:29.680] It's like the structures get really difficult, especially with indie hackers who have such low revenue.
[00:36:29.680 --> 00:36:39.600] And he's like, but maybe if you think about crowdfunding where it's all about like, think Kickstarter, it's all about like non-equity based perks, you could get off the ground.
[00:36:39.600 --> 00:36:49.200] Maybe you'd have a lot of indie hackers who are like willing to invest in each other's products for like, you know, I don't know, a three month or like a few extra features or maybe extra access to the founder.
[00:36:49.200 --> 00:36:49.760] Who knows, right?
[00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:51.320] She's just like, how do you guarantee it?
[00:36:51.200 --> 00:36:51.480] Right?
[00:36:51.520 --> 00:36:52.560] It's like Kickstarter, right?
[00:36:52.560 --> 00:36:54.480] It's like, ah, you can't really guarantee it.
[00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:56.560] People might just not use their product.
[00:36:56.560 --> 00:36:59.960] They might like what they were promised to get.
[00:37:00.280 --> 00:37:01.640] Again, yeah, that's right.
[00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:04.920] You can't guarantee it, and you're relying on the reputation of the person.
[00:37:05.880 --> 00:37:09.720] It sounds like this guy doesn't want any more competition.
[00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:11.880] I could walk back.
[00:37:12.040 --> 00:37:12.920] No, no, no, no.
[00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:14.680] Look the other direction.
[00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:24.280] You know, like, I can, that's definitely a good point on his behalf that you don't want to deal with legality, but you don't have to.
[00:37:24.280 --> 00:37:25.560] You could use a platform.
[00:37:25.560 --> 00:37:27.720] Like we fund a republic.
[00:37:27.720 --> 00:37:32.760] The really key thing that you guys have is distribution and trust and the brand.
[00:37:33.320 --> 00:37:41.720] You can just kind of organize it at a high level and then people go and invest on these Azure platforms that already exist.
[00:37:42.120 --> 00:37:46.920] Then you wouldn't have to do any real work around the legality of it.
[00:37:47.160 --> 00:37:49.800] You could just use the existing structure.
[00:37:49.800 --> 00:37:51.080] Ideas, ideas.
[00:37:51.400 --> 00:37:55.480] So one of the things I like to do on the show is we get on Andy Hackers like you.
[00:37:55.480 --> 00:37:56.680] You have a cool business.
[00:37:56.920 --> 00:37:58.040] We talk about that for a bit.
[00:37:58.040 --> 00:38:02.440] But also, whenever somebody's a writer, I want to talk about what you've written.
[00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:05.640] Because excellent writing, I think, is excellent thinking and it makes for a good conversation.
[00:38:05.640 --> 00:38:06.760] So you've got your blog.
[00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:10.120] It's blog.alexmacaw.com.
[00:38:10.120 --> 00:38:12.760] Or you can just go to alexmaca.com and see like a list.
[00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:16.680] It's very Paul Gram-esque, just like a very flat list of all the topics that you've written.
[00:38:16.680 --> 00:38:17.400] It's super simple.
[00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:18.120] I love it.
[00:38:18.120 --> 00:38:25.560] And your latest one is called The Illusion of Free Will, which I take to mean that you don't believe in free will.
[00:38:25.880 --> 00:38:26.760] Give me the rundown.
[00:38:26.840 --> 00:38:27.560] Why do you have a blog?
[00:38:27.560 --> 00:38:28.600] Why do you write?
[00:38:28.600 --> 00:38:31.480] How do you balance this as a founder, like writing and blogging?
[00:38:31.480 --> 00:38:33.960] And then give me your take on free will.
[00:38:34.280 --> 00:38:34.840] Wow.
[00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:35.240] Yes.
[00:38:35.240 --> 00:38:37.400] I think one of those things is not like the others.
[00:38:37.800 --> 00:38:38.200] Yeah.
[00:38:39.160 --> 00:38:39.720] True.
[00:38:39.720 --> 00:38:43.400] And then, and then you know, give me your philosophy on life, the universe, and everything.
[00:38:44.360 --> 00:38:47.120] Okay, so I've always loved writing.
[00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:49.680] I think of it as brain programming.
[00:38:50.240 --> 00:39:03.760] Essentially, I think if you are a very good writer, you can have an impact on the world such that you could never have in any other profession without having a massive team.
[00:39:04.320 --> 00:39:08.240] Elon Musk can have a huge impact because he's got a big team.
[00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:13.040] If he just had one person working for him, you know, he wouldn't have that impact.
[00:39:13.040 --> 00:39:20.080] Writers, on the other hand, okay, they can really change the world just by putting their thoughts down.
[00:39:20.240 --> 00:39:26.080] So, it always fascinated me, and it's one of the reasons that I started a note-taking company.
[00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:33.280] Up to this point, I have been writing non-fiction, like extremely boring books.
[00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:39.600] My brother says he uses to get himself to sleep at night, sometimes uses as a doorstep.
[00:39:39.600 --> 00:39:42.160] That's what I tell Channel about his books.
[00:39:43.600 --> 00:39:54.240] I've written a few books on programming for O'Reilly back in the day, and then I wrote a couple of books on management and building companies.
[00:39:54.720 --> 00:40:08.640] I co-wrote a book called The Great CEO Within, that's a fantastic book on building startups, and another one called The Manager's Handbook, which is a free online book about managing in companies.
[00:40:08.640 --> 00:40:14.320] So, for me, it's like I set out to write a book, and then I learn along the way.
[00:40:14.560 --> 00:40:18.240] I don't write about subjects that I know about completely.
[00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:23.200] I use writing the book as a mechanism for learning about it.
[00:40:24.240 --> 00:40:29.040] But having said that, my ultimate dream is to write science fiction.
[00:40:29.960 --> 00:40:38.920] And I just think writing fiction in general is just so much harder than writing non-fiction.
[00:40:39.560 --> 00:40:42.840] When you're writing about a book of programming, you know exactly what to put in the book.
[00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:45.240] You just kind of put up the features of the programming language.
[00:40:45.240 --> 00:40:50.760] But if you're writing a fiction book, it can be whatever you dream of.
[00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:52.520] It can go in any direction, right?
[00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:58.760] So that is one of my heroes actually is a guy called Hugh Howie.
[00:40:59.080 --> 00:41:02.360] And he writes science fiction, and he lives on a boat.
[00:41:03.640 --> 00:41:04.600] We figured it out.
[00:41:04.600 --> 00:41:05.400] Full circle.
[00:41:05.400 --> 00:41:05.720] Yeah.
[00:41:05.720 --> 00:41:06.440] Full circle.
[00:41:06.440 --> 00:41:07.160] That's right.
[00:41:07.160 --> 00:41:11.560] And he actually was the inspiration for me getting this boat.
[00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:12.840] All right.
[00:41:12.840 --> 00:41:14.840] So let's shall we talk about free will?
[00:41:14.840 --> 00:41:15.400] Wait, hold on.
[00:41:15.640 --> 00:41:18.760] Before we jump into free will, I want to ask you a few more questions about your boat life.
[00:41:18.760 --> 00:41:23.080] Because the more you talk about it, the more I just see you chilling out here with a beautiful background.
[00:41:23.080 --> 00:41:26.440] You've sort of got this cool ebb and flow where you're just bobbing up and down slowly.
[00:41:26.840 --> 00:41:27.880] It looks nice.
[00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:29.240] What is it like to live on a boat?
[00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:33.960] The downsides for me, if I'm thinking about it, I'm like, it seems like it could be lonely.
[00:41:33.960 --> 00:41:39.080] You're traveling a lot, there's not a lot of people around, but all the upside, there's a lot of adventure.
[00:41:39.080 --> 00:41:41.720] You're going from one place to the next, from island to island.
[00:41:42.440 --> 00:41:45.160] It could be scary, you might be out at sea during a storm.
[00:41:45.560 --> 00:41:46.440] I don't know how this works.
[00:41:47.240 --> 00:41:52.520] Give me a good snapshot of your boat life before you give me a snapshot of why we don't have free will.
[00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:56.680] So essentially, I solve the loneliness problem by having friends come through.
[00:41:56.680 --> 00:42:00.680] And so every other week I have a different set of friends coming through.
[00:42:01.640 --> 00:42:02.840] And otherwise, you're right.
[00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:04.760] It would get very lonely.
[00:42:07.080 --> 00:42:07.960] What is it like?
[00:42:07.960 --> 00:42:14.320] Well, it's kind of the closest thing to living on a spaceship and space travel that we have right now.
[00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:18.960] You know, if you think about it, I have my life support system here.
[00:42:20.160 --> 00:42:25.200] Above me are a set of solar panels that give me all the electricity that I need.
[00:42:25.520 --> 00:42:33.360] I have a water maker, a desalinator that turns seawater into fresh water that I can drink.
[00:42:34.640 --> 00:42:39.520] And then I have, you know, storage, fridges, freezers, what have you.
[00:42:39.520 --> 00:42:42.560] And then my actual mode of transportation is the wind.
[00:42:42.560 --> 00:42:52.480] So I barely use the engines and I just put up a sail and it's kind of crazy, but I can go wherever it's blue on the map.
[00:42:52.480 --> 00:42:57.360] You know, sometimes I look at the globe and I'm like, you know, all those blue bits are mine, you know?
[00:42:57.360 --> 00:43:00.080] And no one can stop you.
[00:43:00.080 --> 00:43:03.360] You can put an anchor anywhere in the world.
[00:43:03.680 --> 00:43:07.680] And it's like the freedom there is just incredible.
[00:43:08.480 --> 00:43:11.360] Of course, it's got its downsides.
[00:43:11.680 --> 00:43:13.360] There's some major, major downsides.
[00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:19.840] Just like the amount of overhead, the money, the time you spend.
[00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:27.760] Like right now, I'm in a marina, but let's just say we were doing this podcast and I was at anchor and the anchor started slipping.
[00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:33.280] I have to end the podcast and go and make sure my house didn't float away.
[00:43:34.560 --> 00:43:41.520] So there's like, you know, there's pros and cons, but at this stage of my life, I absolutely love it.
[00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:43.040] You know, there's a sailing season.
[00:43:43.040 --> 00:43:50.400] I don't know if you guys know this, but hurricanes come through the Caribbean from July to November.
[00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:51.440] So you can't...
[00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:52.240] You can either...
[00:43:52.240 --> 00:43:55.040] Some sailors just go and try and dodge them.
[00:43:56.560 --> 00:43:58.680] My insurance doesn't let me do that.
[00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:02.200] I mean, you're like right in the Bermuda Triangle.
[00:43:58.480 --> 00:44:05.240] This is where people disappear during hurricane season.
[00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:12.120] Certainly, every now and again, a hurricane comes through and just devastates some of these islands.
[00:44:12.760 --> 00:44:17.080] You know, right now I'm in Grenada, which doesn't typically get hit.
[00:44:17.080 --> 00:44:21.640] But yeah, Northern Caribbean is kind of no-go zone for much of the year.
[00:44:21.960 --> 00:44:25.240] Did you have like a starter version of this?
[00:44:25.240 --> 00:44:28.280] Did you have a friend who had a boat and you got to like sample it?
[00:44:28.280 --> 00:44:37.640] Or was this just a you're a land lover and then one day you snap your fingers, pound the table and like you're just on a boat trying to figure everything out.
[00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:42.360] Yeah, so I grew up sailing.
[00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:48.120] My dad had a boat and a lot of sailors, that's the story you'll hear.
[00:44:48.440 --> 00:44:51.560] So I really kind of caught the bug early on.
[00:44:51.560 --> 00:45:04.280] And, you know, like I mentioned, when I was working at Clearbit, I heard about Starlink and I was like, wow, this is really interesting.
[00:45:04.280 --> 00:45:10.840] Starlink actually changes a lot of things because now we can work forever, you know?
[00:45:10.840 --> 00:45:14.760] And then I was like, well, how do I want to change my life based on this information?
[00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:20.440] And I, you know, commissioned a boat at a midlife crisis.
[00:45:21.800 --> 00:45:23.480] But how old are you, by the way, dude?
[00:45:23.800 --> 00:45:25.960] You seem like you're like in your late 20s.
[00:45:26.280 --> 00:45:27.480] I'm 33.
[00:45:27.480 --> 00:45:29.400] Yeah, I've got a baby face.
[00:45:29.720 --> 00:45:30.520] 33 years ago.
[00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:33.160] You're in your prime.
[00:45:33.160 --> 00:45:36.600] I think that's like a Silicon Valley, a Silicon Valley sort of trope.
[00:45:36.600 --> 00:45:38.760] Like you hitting your midlife crisis at about age 30.
[00:45:38.760 --> 00:45:40.200] Same thing happened to me.
[00:45:40.520 --> 00:45:45.520] Well, you know, I just think more people should, yes, think outside the box a bit.
[00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:50.320] You know, we know we don't have to be tethered to our apartments.
[00:45:51.920 --> 00:45:54.160] You can be based from anywhere these days.
[00:45:54.160 --> 00:45:56.320] And certainly, I recommend living on a boat.
[00:45:56.320 --> 00:45:57.840] All right, we got five minutes left.
[00:45:57.840 --> 00:45:59.200] Now we're getting to the good stuff.
[00:45:59.920 --> 00:46:01.440] Why is there no free will?
[00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:03.120] Give us your take.
[00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:06.000] Well, five minutes is definitely not long enough.
[00:46:06.240 --> 00:46:07.200] We can talk about it.
[00:46:07.520 --> 00:46:09.600] It's enough to get all the ins in the outs.
[00:46:10.240 --> 00:47:24.200] But like, yeah, like, I don't think this is like a subject that people like talking about, especially people who are maybe more scientifically minded like talking about just because it is kind of the unfortunate that we have not found any like space for free will in like for example like the standard model or classics physics like there actually is no space for it so if you talk to a physicist and you ask them if there's any free will they're they will probably tell you that there's none like that is the scientific consensus right now uh it's just not really talked about because it's kind of an unsettling thought i have found that once you embrace it it is actually very freeing and and i found like there's also some other benefits like having empathy for other people and their situations and i think we would i mean the the purpose of that post was to try and like ultimately it would be lovely at a government level, like a policy level, we admitted that there was no free will.
[00:47:24.200 --> 00:47:31.240] And then we uh that would actually change how you would do uh justice and prison reform.
[00:47:32.040 --> 00:47:52.040] It would put a big focus on rehabilitation because you wouldn't be trying to get revenge, you wouldn't be trying to just punish people who were bad, morally bad, because it kind of removes the morality from the equation in a lot of senses.
[00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:57.080] But I think there are a lot of benefits to it if you can get over that hump.
[00:47:57.080 --> 00:48:02.840] I don't think a lot of people will get over that hump because it just seems, the idea just seems nuts.
[00:48:03.160 --> 00:48:12.120] It's like such a core part of our day-to-day experience that it almost seems like a repugnant idea that we don't have anything.
[00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:14.280] Some people get offended by stuff like this.
[00:48:14.440 --> 00:48:17.320] I think neither Shannon nor I will because we're probably on the same page as you.
[00:48:17.320 --> 00:48:18.760] Shanny, I think you are too.
[00:48:19.080 --> 00:48:28.680] Not only am I on the same page, literally one week ago today, I pre-ordered a book that's coming out called Determined by this guy, Robert Sopolski.
[00:48:28.680 --> 00:48:31.560] He's like, he's written a book called Behave on Human Behavior.
[00:48:31.560 --> 00:48:36.680] He's one of the most preeminent biologists and endocrinologists in the world right now.
[00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:41.320] And all of his books and studies are about the things that make us tick.
[00:48:41.320 --> 00:48:55.160] And at a certain point, the through line there is like, when you explain even what we know, you quickly squeeze out the idea that there's like a magical goo inside of us or that we're these biological skin bags filled with magic.
[00:48:55.560 --> 00:48:56.680] And so that book is coming out.
[00:48:56.680 --> 00:48:58.840] And I'm a huge nerd of that stuff.
[00:48:58.840 --> 00:49:05.560] And it's particularly, it's not merely just, you know, abstract college dorm room talk, right?
[00:49:05.720 --> 00:49:08.840] Like, it has a lot of implications for legalities.
[00:49:08.840 --> 00:49:15.200] Like, one of the things that Robert Spolsky likes talking about is, like, yeah, like, prison reform should be thought about differently.
[00:49:13.560 --> 00:49:16.160] Like, criminal justice should be thought about differently.
[00:49:18.560 --> 00:49:23.360] It really changes almost everything about some of our core institutions.
[00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:24.960] And how you behave just as a person.
[00:49:24.960 --> 00:49:30.720] Like, I like that you mentioned empathy, Alex, because I also, like, am not a real believer in free will.
[00:49:30.720 --> 00:49:40.400] I kind of think, like, there's this moment, you're born, you know, like your biology is set, your environment is set, you had no choice in any of that, and the rest of it might as well just be dominoes, right?
[00:49:40.400 --> 00:49:51.840] You unfold, and as you put it in your blog, like, given the exact same state of the universe, like, you're going to make the same decision every time because, like, that's just the set of experiences you've had up to that point in your life, and like, you can't really change it.
[00:49:51.840 --> 00:49:58.240] You know, an idea bubbles into your head, and you decide, I'm going to eat a pepperoni pizza, and like, you could never have chosen otherwise.
[00:49:58.240 --> 00:50:10.640] And I think whether or not there's any way to prove that, or it's true or not, and a lot of people will be unconvinced, even though I'm convinced, I think it gives me a lot more empathy for other people because I understand, like, okay, well, like, everybody's got a story.
[00:50:10.640 --> 00:50:15.200] Everybody has a set of things that happen to them and things that are, that make them who they are.
[00:50:15.200 --> 00:50:18.880] And if I was that person, I would do the exact same thing that they're doing, right?
[00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:20.240] Like, I wouldn't have a choice.
[00:50:20.240 --> 00:50:23.200] I would essentially be forced to do that exact thing that they're doing.
[00:50:23.200 --> 00:50:31.600] And I am only me because of who I was before, you know, in the moment before this, and who I was the moment before that, all the way back down to the very beginning of my being, right?
[00:50:31.760 --> 00:50:34.480] Never had any choice at any point along that process.
[00:50:34.480 --> 00:50:36.960] And I think that that doesn't mean everybody gets off the hook.
[00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:41.760] It doesn't mean you don't want to punish, you know, or imprison somebody who's violent or dangerous.
[00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:42.880] It doesn't mean any of these things.
[00:50:42.880 --> 00:50:50.720] It just means for me, like, I can have a little bit more empathy and I can try to understand a little bit more of where somebody's coming from if they're doing something that's hard for me to accept or understand.
[00:50:50.720 --> 00:50:53.440] And there's nothing wrong with having more empathy.
[00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:54.480] That's right.
[00:50:54.480 --> 00:50:56.400] And a bit of more humbleness as well.
[00:50:56.400 --> 00:50:56.720] Exactly.
[00:50:57.000 --> 00:50:57.080] Yeah.
[00:50:57.160 --> 00:50:59.120] It's success in life as well.
[00:50:59.120 --> 00:51:00.040] Exactly.
[00:50:59.520 --> 00:51:01.160] It's predetermined.
[00:51:01.480 --> 00:51:06.520] Yeah, your faults and your credits both become a lot more muted, right?
[00:50:59.680 --> 00:51:00.000] Exactly.
[00:51:07.560 --> 00:51:11.400] Well, thanks for indulging this random line of questioning at the end of an excellent conversation.
[00:51:12.520 --> 00:51:15.240] I am a little bit envious of your boat life.
[00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:22.600] We'll see if I end up getting a boat anytime soon, but I'm taking the opposite approach and investing a ton into my apartment and trying to make it this very cool place.
[00:51:23.240 --> 00:51:31.400] The thing I always ask founders at the end of these episodes is for you to give any hackers who are listening one piece of advice, one observation, one recommendation.
[00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:32.280] It could be anything.
[00:51:32.280 --> 00:51:39.560] It doesn't have to be the most important thing that you've taken away from your journey, but just something that you don't think they would have heard from other people or something that's important to you.
[00:51:39.560 --> 00:51:41.160] What should they take away?
[00:51:41.160 --> 00:51:49.320] I think the book, The Great CEO Within, is mostly written by my CEO coach, Matt Mashari.
[00:51:49.480 --> 00:51:54.520] He's coached almost all the top founders in Silicon Valley at this point.
[00:51:54.680 --> 00:51:56.360] It's such an amazing book.
[00:51:56.360 --> 00:52:05.880] So I guess my meta advice is go and read that book because it contains all the actual practical advice that you need to run a business.
[00:52:05.880 --> 00:52:06.280] Damn.
[00:52:06.600 --> 00:52:09.160] We'll have to talk about CEO coaching next time.
[00:52:09.160 --> 00:52:13.320] But meanwhile, we'll have him on the podcast, Channing, because he sounds like a fascinating guy.
[00:52:13.320 --> 00:52:14.840] Yeah, that sounds sick.
[00:52:14.840 --> 00:52:16.200] Alex, thanks a ton for coming on.
[00:52:16.200 --> 00:52:17.000] I appreciate it.
[00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:21.640] You are second of 10 episodes on the Indie Hackers podcast.
[00:52:21.640 --> 00:52:23.240] So eight more to go.
[00:52:23.880 --> 00:52:25.320] Yeah, it'll happen.
[00:52:25.320 --> 00:52:26.120] Thank you so much.
[00:52:26.120 --> 00:52:26.920] Thanks for coming on.
[00:52:26.920 --> 00:52:27.960] Cheers, guys.

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": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:11.520] We are here with Alex McCaw, the founder of Reflect.app.
[00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:12.640] How's it going?
[00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:13.600] Good to be here.
[00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:15.440] Thank you for inviting me.
[00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:18.320] This is your second time on the ND Hackers podcast.
[00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:21.360] I can't remember how long ago it was that you were on the first time.
[00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:23.920] Was it at least three or four years ago?
[00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:25.120] Do you remember?
[00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:27.760] It was at least three or four years ago.
[00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:30.320] I can't even remember what I was talking about.
[00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:33.520] I think, let me look it up.
[00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:38.240] I think you were definitely still doing Clearbit, but now you have like pivoted.
[00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:39.920] You're episode number 15.
[00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:40.480] I found you.
[00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:41.200] Damn.
[00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:43.440] You came on 2017.
[00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:48.000] Like, you were one of the original interviewees.
[00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:50.960] We were looking up ClearBit because I was like, okay, Alex has moved on.
[00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:52.720] You started this company, Clearbit.
[00:00:52.720 --> 00:00:54.480] I think you raised funding for it.
[00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:55.360] It was huge.
[00:00:55.360 --> 00:00:59.200] When I was in SF, every company was using ClearBit to look up data.
[00:00:59.360 --> 00:01:02.080] If I wanted to find somebody's email address, I would use Clearbit.
[00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:06.720] And now I looked it up and it's like this huge enterprise-y company.
[00:01:06.720 --> 00:01:09.760] Like, you go to the website and it says, like, trying to figure out what it does.
[00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:12.560] And at the top, there's just a drop-down that says, like, solutions.
[00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:20.160] You know, if a company says solutions at the top, like, it's an enterprise company that's got like, you know, a thousand customers and it's making bank.
[00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:24.560] And then we looked it up on some other website and it's making like tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue.
[00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:26.640] I think it was like 40 something million.
[00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:28.080] And you're not even doing that anymore.
[00:01:28.080 --> 00:01:29.360] You're like, that's cool.
[00:01:29.360 --> 00:01:30.160] I started that.
[00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:30.640] Good enough.
[00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:31.920] I'm on to the next thing.
[00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:36.560] And now you're an indie hacker with a bootstrap business called Reflect.
[00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:38.080] That's a crazy transition.
[00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:39.200] Yeah, that's right.
[00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:40.320] You say I pivoted.
[00:01:40.320 --> 00:01:42.160] Well, I almost pivoted my life.
[00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:52.080] I was CEO of a B2B SaaS business that was, you know, almost 200 people.
[00:01:52.080 --> 00:01:55.520] And I wasn't doing any coding or building myself.
[00:01:55.520 --> 00:01:57.520] And now I run a consumer app.
[00:01:57.520 --> 00:01:59.360] There's four of us.
[00:01:59.360 --> 00:02:02.840] We have just over 2,000 customers.
[00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:08.120] And I am doing everything myself, design development, etc.
[00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:11.880] And it is like a complete, complete change in my life.
[00:02:11.880 --> 00:02:16.840] By the way, I was going to say that Reflect, the landing page is so sick.
[00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:18.120] It's like highly unique.
[00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:22.360] It's like this dark, purple, futuristic-looking landing page.
[00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:24.840] I was going to say, does Alex code?
[00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:28.600] Like, you know, are you, are you, you know, involved in this?
[00:02:28.920 --> 00:02:30.920] I do code every day.
[00:02:30.920 --> 00:02:32.360] I'm coding.
[00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:37.320] And, and I, I mean, that was one of the criteria for this new business.
[00:02:37.320 --> 00:02:43.560] You know, after my years of running a B2B SAS business, I had to code.
[00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:45.080] I had to get back to coding.
[00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:50.360] So it's just me and two other engineers and one growth guy.
[00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:53.560] And then we actually contract in all our design.
[00:02:53.880 --> 00:03:01.400] So the design you see, if you go to reflect.app, that design is incredible.
[00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:03.720] And I couldn't take credit for that either.
[00:03:04.040 --> 00:03:06.920] I basically found an amazing designer.
[00:03:06.920 --> 00:03:10.040] So I can take credit for finding young talent.
[00:03:10.040 --> 00:03:12.920] You know, I think he's like 20, 23 or something.
[00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:18.040] But all I did was tell him, make it dark and purple.
[00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:22.520] And he just went for it.
[00:03:22.920 --> 00:03:24.680] Like, it's nuts.
[00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:29.320] There's like 3D visualizations, and you can even play Tetris on that.
[00:03:29.640 --> 00:03:30.520] Yeah, I found that.
[00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.080] There's like a very hidden Tetris game at the bottom.
[00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:34.200] I was like, what is this like keyboard?
[00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:35.160] Press controls to play.
[00:03:35.160 --> 00:03:35.720] Like, what is it?
[00:03:35.720 --> 00:03:37.000] And then I started playing Tetris.
[00:03:37.040 --> 00:03:40.760] Nothing was distracting Cortland as we were like prepping for this episode.
[00:03:40.760 --> 00:03:43.640] So Reflect is like, it's like you said you pivoted your whole life, right?
[00:03:43.640 --> 00:03:52.560] You were, you went from like, you know, high-flying Silicon Valley CEO with millions in revenue, and like now you're like ND hacker guy on a boat.
[00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:53.840] Move your camera around.
[00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:54.800] Who else is on this boat with you?
[00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:57.040] Is this just a visual?
[00:03:57.200 --> 00:03:58.800] Oh man, it's not very tidy.
[00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:01.520] This is a small boat.
[00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:02.800] Oh, that's cozy.
[00:04:04.880 --> 00:04:08.160] Right now it's just me on board.
[00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:11.920] It's a catamaran and we're in Grenada.
[00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:14.880] And I just like sailing around the Grenadines.
[00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:17.360] We have Starlink, which has changed my life.
[00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:22.960] In fact, when I heard about Starlink, it was when I decided to get a boat and live on the boat.
[00:04:22.960 --> 00:04:27.280] Do you know John O'Nolan, the founder of a blogging platform called Ghost?
[00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:30.160] Because he also kind of sails around and lives on a boat.
[00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:31.520] I hear his name a bit.
[00:04:31.520 --> 00:04:34.640] Every now and again, people are like, oh, you're one of those boat people.
[00:04:34.640 --> 00:04:35.040] I know.
[00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:38.320] Hashtag boat person.
[00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:39.920] There's two of you.
[00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:41.120] So what happened?
[00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:42.160] Like, how did that happen?
[00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:46.720] Like, did you just wake up one day and just look in the mirror and be like, this is not for me?
[00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:47.760] Like, yeah.
[00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:50.160] It's like he just snapped and became a different person.
[00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:57.840] Well, pretty much, you know, I think COVID made a lot of people rethink, you know, their lives, to be honest.
[00:04:57.840 --> 00:05:06.400] For me, it was taking a real look at what the company needed from a leader over the coming years.
[00:05:06.400 --> 00:05:10.640] And then also looking in the mirror and being like, is that you?
[00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:12.080] Are you that person?
[00:05:12.400 --> 00:05:16.880] And coming to a really difficult decision that actually it's not you.
[00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:23.280] And it's funny because our ego just gets in the way all the time of our unhappiness.
[00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:31.480] And there's a lot of CEOs out there who are miserable, who are just doing it because their ego is telling them to do it.
[00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:34.520] But not only are they miserable, they're not good at it.
[00:05:29.760 --> 00:05:35.400] That's the key thing.
[00:05:35.640 --> 00:05:44.840] Like, I think a great CEO up to a point, but you know, at some point, it just the job changes completely.
[00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:51.560] What I am amazing at is going from zero to one and building new stuff.
[00:05:51.560 --> 00:06:02.120] And so, honestly, what I should do in life is just concentrate on the thing that I can do almost uniquely, and then other people can focus on the scaling aspect of it.
[00:06:02.120 --> 00:06:08.120] And if Reflect ever gets big enough, I will just hire another CEO to run it and do the same thing again.
[00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:16.600] Shane and I were just talking about how if I had to choose, like, I could be the CEO of some huge corporation that's like at Enterprise Solutions.
[00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:26.840] You know, if I got a thousand customers, I'm making $50 million a year, or be the CEO of something like Indie Hackers, where, like, I've just been building in public the last week.
[00:06:26.840 --> 00:06:28.680] I tweet about the features that I'm making.
[00:06:28.840 --> 00:06:32.600] I like release bugs, and people tell me about them and make mistakes.
[00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:33.480] It's scrappy.
[00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:35.800] Like, there's like what's our game plan, Channy?
[00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:37.240] It like lasts, like the next three weeks.
[00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:38.520] We know what we're going to do, and that's it.
[00:06:38.520 --> 00:06:39.080] Fuck around and find out.
[00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:40.440] If I could do that and make 10 times less money.
[00:06:40.520 --> 00:06:41.480] That's our game plan.
[00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:41.880] Yeah.
[00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:48.360] If I could do that, if I could fuck around and find out and make 10 times less money, I would choose that path.
[00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:53.400] Even if I knew I would be good at being a big company CEO, just because I like the framework.
[00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:56.200] Wait, wait, let's just get a sense of the numbers too here.
[00:06:56.200 --> 00:07:05.400] Because, Cortland, you saw someone that mentioned that Clearbit and 2022 did like 41 million in revenue, like on that order is the correct.
[00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:07.400] But that's not like all belonging to the CEO, right?
[00:07:07.400 --> 00:07:10.120] The CEO is getting a very tiny fraction of that, probably a lot of stock.
[00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:13.600] But let's say you could be like the founder, like Alex, let's see it.
[00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:19.680] You could be the founder of a company that's making, where you a CEO are taking home like $20 million a year, something crazy, right?
[00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:25.520] Or you could be an indie hacker starting like a super fun business that you really enjoy and you're making like $5 mill a year.
[00:07:25.520 --> 00:07:26.960] And let's say you could be good at both.
[00:07:26.960 --> 00:07:28.400] Which one do you pick?
[00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:30.720] Oh, definitely the latter one.
[00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:36.240] I think sometimes people have to do the former to come to that conclusion, though.
[00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:41.760] They have to feel like they have done the big thing or what have you.
[00:07:41.760 --> 00:07:43.200] Because otherwise it's always out there.
[00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:45.520] They always wonder, you know, what if I'd done that?
[00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:51.600] I can tell you after doing it, that small companies are a lot more fun.
[00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:54.960] I think they're a lot more lucrative as well.
[00:07:54.960 --> 00:08:02.160] Because, you know, when I'm CEO of a big company, I'm probably not being paid the most.
[00:08:02.400 --> 00:08:04.480] Actually, definitely not being paid the most.
[00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:12.800] The head of sales or, you know, your CFO or, you know, there's so many other people that are being paid more than you.
[00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:16.320] In fact, the CEO's salary is typically quite low.
[00:08:16.880 --> 00:08:19.360] And so you're certainly not putting in 20 million a year.
[00:08:19.840 --> 00:08:35.360] Whereas when you are running a little indie company, you and to be to be clear with you, reflexive, not at this point yet, but it's very conceivable that you could be pulling like 10 and then 20 and then 30k a month.
[00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:40.880] And then like once you have that coming in, I don't know how much more you need, really.
[00:08:40.880 --> 00:08:45.680] And it feels like so much more than if you just do a secondary, right?
[00:08:45.680 --> 00:08:51.680] If you do a secondary, you sell some of your equity, you know, that's like a one-and-done thing.
[00:08:51.680 --> 00:08:59.040] And you know that that's like a pretty rare event and that you need to basically save that money and not use it.
[00:08:59.800 --> 00:09:06.680] Whereas if you have money coming in every month from your lifestyle business, then I think you feel a lot richer.
[00:09:06.680 --> 00:09:10.280] And especially if you have like a lifestyle where it's not that expensive.
[00:09:10.280 --> 00:09:21.960] Like I imagine living on a boat on a catamaran southern Caribbean is cheaper than living like an expensive two or three bedroom San Francisco apartment and like the peak of the tech boom.
[00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:22.280] I don't know.
[00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:24.920] Break down the cost for me of living on a boat.
[00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:32.760] Well, yeah, I mean, let's just say there are different types of buzz.
[00:09:33.640 --> 00:09:35.160] You could do this a lot cheaper than I do.
[00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:36.440] You got a nice one.
[00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:37.560] You got a nice one.
[00:09:37.560 --> 00:09:39.960] I think you're probably about right.
[00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:45.320] I think it's probably, even if you're not exactly right, it's probably fairly even.
[00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:52.600] And so then the question is like, do you want to be living in downtown SF or do you want to be living on a boat in the Caribbean?
[00:09:52.600 --> 00:09:54.520] So then you have to ask yourself that question.
[00:09:55.160 --> 00:09:55.640] Depends on that.
[00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:02.440] It is expensive, but rent in these cities is nuts as well.
[00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:02.760] All right.
[00:10:02.760 --> 00:10:04.520] So let's talk about what you're doing.
[00:10:04.520 --> 00:10:07.080] Because you're working on this Andy Hacker app.
[00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:07.880] You've joined us.
[00:10:07.880 --> 00:10:09.240] You've joined the Borg.
[00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:12.440] I think you said there's you and six other people, you and five other people.
[00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:14.200] So it's a very small team.
[00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:16.040] And it is called Reflect.
[00:10:16.040 --> 00:10:18.920] And the website says, never miss a note, idea, or connection.
[00:10:18.920 --> 00:10:22.360] So we've got this cool video that's also expertly designed.
[00:10:22.360 --> 00:10:28.440] And I watched this, like a 15-minute introduction to Reflect app and how to be productive and reflect.
[00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:33.160] And like, I don't know, it's hard for me to describe it because I've used like zero note-taking apps.
[00:10:33.160 --> 00:10:34.760] I don't use Rome Research.
[00:10:34.760 --> 00:10:36.760] I don't use, what's the other one you like, Shanning?
[00:10:36.760 --> 00:10:37.320] Obsidian?
[00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:38.040] Obsidian.
[00:10:38.040 --> 00:10:38.840] I don't use Reflect.
[00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:40.680] I don't take any notes at all.
[00:10:40.680 --> 00:10:42.120] Like, I use post-it notes.
[00:10:42.120 --> 00:10:42.760] That's what I do.
[00:10:42.760 --> 00:10:48.960] Like, I scribble, sit on sheets of papers like this and throw it away once it gets too full.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.800] So walk me through the idea of Reflect.
[00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:52.800] Like, why did you build this?
[00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:53.840] Why should anyone use it?
[00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:54.880] Who's it for?
[00:10:54.880 --> 00:10:55.840] How does it work?
[00:10:56.160 --> 00:10:59.840] Well, I would say your system is better than some I've heard.
[00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.720] I've heard of people like saving email drafts.
[00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:06.320] That's like a common note-taking tool.
[00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:12.800] But ultimately, like the way that I think these days is that I don't really do much thinking up here.
[00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:17.680] I push everything out into my note-taking tool.
[00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:22.400] And then once it's in paper, then I can look at it objectively.
[00:11:22.880 --> 00:11:24.640] Or once it's on the screen.
[00:11:24.640 --> 00:11:28.960] So for me, it really helps improve my thinking.
[00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:32.160] And it also lessens anxiety.
[00:11:32.160 --> 00:11:39.360] You know, we all kind of have this feeling when we like, you wake up in the night and you're like, there's so many things to do.
[00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.400] You know, I've got this, this long list to do.
[00:11:42.400 --> 00:11:54.400] The only way of reducing that anxiety is literally getting that stuff out of your mind and into either paper, pen, or maybe something like Reflect.
[00:11:54.400 --> 00:12:00.720] What I set out to do with Reflect was essentially build a Apple Notes Plus.
[00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:04.320] You know, and I view Apple Notes as our biggest competitor.
[00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:06.000] You know, Apple Notes is amazing.
[00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:06.880] It just works.
[00:12:06.880 --> 00:12:07.600] It's fast.
[00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:08.720] It syncs.
[00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:10.640] You never lose a note.
[00:12:10.640 --> 00:12:14.640] There's actually a huge amount of engineering that's gone into that.
[00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:16.640] It's quite an impressive product.
[00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:20.720] But there's a lot of things that are missing, as you kind of imagine.
[00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:26.240] Like, Apple have a lot of different products that, you know, Apple Notes is not getting 100% of their focus.
[00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:33.320] It's never going to be as good as if someone was dedicated their life to making this app awesome.
[00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:37.000] So we are trying to do Apple Notes Plus.
[00:12:37.160 --> 00:12:39.240] We have something called backlinking.
[00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:40.600] Are you familiar with that?
[00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:41.160] I am.
[00:12:41.320 --> 00:12:46.200] I feel like everything, just to be clear, everything that you're saying, like you're basically talking to me.
[00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:48.120] I'm in your target customer base.
[00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:50.600] Courtland is like, Channing is the obsessive speaker.
[00:12:51.240 --> 00:12:54.360] Yes, Cortland's like, I don't know, can you backlink with Post-it notes?
[00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:54.840] Like, I don't know.
[00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:56.600] Is that a function of a post-it note?
[00:12:57.880 --> 00:13:03.560] Yeah, well, it's essentially, okay, if you think about Cortland, what's the last thing you forgot?
[00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:06.120] You can't remember.
[00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:07.640] You can't remember.
[00:13:09.400 --> 00:13:17.560] Well, if you think about the time when you did remember something, typically you just remember around the edges, right?
[00:13:17.560 --> 00:13:22.280] Actually, somebody messaged me last week and said they want to do a call, and I was like, Yeah, I would love to talk to this person.
[00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:23.320] We haven't spoken in a long time.
[00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:24.120] I should call her.
[00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:27.320] Then I marked it red and archived it and totally forgot about it.
[00:13:27.320 --> 00:13:29.000] And then I remembered it today.
[00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:30.680] And I just shared it before this podcast.
[00:13:30.680 --> 00:13:31.400] So that's the last thing you can do.
[00:13:31.640 --> 00:13:42.920] Now, but imagine if you couldn't remember her name, you would then try and remember the company that she worked for, maybe, or how you met her, or who you have in common.
[00:13:42.920 --> 00:13:47.320] Or you kind of remember around the thing to try and get to the thing.
[00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:50.600] And this is essentially how the memory works through association.
[00:13:50.920 --> 00:13:58.280] And the cool thing about tools like Reflect Obsidian as well is that you can create references.
[00:13:58.280 --> 00:14:05.320] So one note can reference another, or even a word in a note can reference another note.
[00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:09.400] And then you can essentially build up a graph of associations.
[00:14:09.400 --> 00:14:11.640] And this just helps a lot with recall.
[00:14:11.640 --> 00:14:17.040] You know, I can totally understand why you use this method of note-taking.
[00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:21.280] It's fast, it's right in front of you, it's physical, it can't go wrong.
[00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:24.320] You don't have to pay a monthly subscription for it.
[00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.920] Every note set will appeal to different people.
[00:14:27.920 --> 00:14:29.600] And then I was like, you know what?
[00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:34.400] Let's just see if there are any other people out there that are like me, who think like me.
[00:14:34.800 --> 00:14:35.680] And there were.
[00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:45.520] You know, we launched a couple of years ago now, and we, especially in the last year, have been taking off, like growing 15% month on month.
[00:14:45.520 --> 00:14:55.360] We just did about 43k revenue last month, and we are like very close to being profitable, which is like the goal.
[00:14:56.960 --> 00:14:57.760] When did you start again?
[00:14:57.760 --> 00:14:59.760] So you're at 43 a month?
[00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:00.960] Oh, are you losing?
[00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:06.800] So we started maybe two and a bit years ago.
[00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:14.000] Notes apps are extremely complicated, surprisingly complicated.
[00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:25.440] Things like the end-to-end encryption that we have in Reflect, the real-time sync, offline sync, and conflict resolution, there's so much to it.
[00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:28.960] So the first year or so was building.
[00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:39.120] And the thing about these consumer products is that they are just the bar is so high and the churn is high and there's no expansion.
[00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:48.720] And if you don't have any social elements to your product and we don't have any social elements, it's like this is building a business on hard mode.
[00:15:49.680 --> 00:16:00.520] So I definitely think that if you want to build a little lifestyle business, pick P2B for your own sanity.
[00:16:01.480 --> 00:16:05.880] But I can tell you that B2C is fun.
[00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:06.840] It is a lot of fun.
[00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:19.000] And one of the main differences between this company and Clearbit was that I really gel with our customer base and I hang out with them all day and I chat with them in Discord.
[00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:27.320] And that, I think, would be a big piece of advice to younger Alex, which would be pick your customers because you're going to hang out with them quite a lot.
[00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:29.640] This is what I've been doing with ND Hackers recently.
[00:16:29.640 --> 00:16:32.760] And ND Hackers is like, technically, it's a B2B company, right?
[00:16:32.760 --> 00:16:38.360] Like the products that we build are for other indie hackers who are themselves running businesses.
[00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:42.600] But they're tiny little one-person businesses or two-person businesses.
[00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:47.240] So it sometimes feels like B2C because I'm just like talking to people who are like friends.
[00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:48.520] They don't have like a head of sales.
[00:16:48.520 --> 00:16:52.840] You know, there's no like giant pipeline I have to work through to like sell to people.
[00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:55.160] And I also get to hang out with them all the time, right?
[00:16:55.160 --> 00:17:02.520] Like if you build in public and you're tweeting photos of what you're building and the features you're talking about and you're posting an inform about it, other people will just jump in and give you feedback.
[00:17:02.520 --> 00:17:05.480] So I'm like right there with you on the build for people that you like.
[00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:09.240] Like that's almost like checklist item number one if I'm considering an idea.
[00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:10.520] Like who is this for?
[00:17:10.520 --> 00:17:12.440] And do I like hanging out and talking to those people?
[00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:15.800] Because that's what the next three, four, ten years are going to look like.
[00:17:15.800 --> 00:17:19.560] Yeah, it took me a long time to figure that out, sadly.
[00:17:20.120 --> 00:17:30.360] But the thing is, if you do that well, then your products will be much better because you're going to take that feedback, you're going to improve the product.
[00:17:30.840 --> 00:17:38.840] And I think that's one of the reasons that I managed to hone Reflect into a Notes app that I love to use every day.
[00:17:38.840 --> 00:17:39.520] I think, so.
[00:17:39.560 --> 00:17:44.960] I'm, like I said, I'm a massive Note app fan.
[00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:50.960] Like right now I'm I was like an early adopter to Notion, was obsessed with it, got Cortland into it.
[00:17:51.280 --> 00:18:01.440] Even while I was using Notion, I then kind of cheated on Notion and I played around with like Rome Research and Obsidian and definitely now I'm gonna like mess around with Reflect.
[00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:07.440] And I find it insane because you said building some consumer apps is like playing it business on hard mode.
[00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:13.040] And I feel like with productivity apps in particular, it's like super mega hard mode, right?
[00:18:13.520 --> 00:18:14.640] Because there's so many apps.
[00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:18.560] There's so many, like, you know, part of Reflect is like, it's got a to-do app.
[00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:27.680] And like, like, you know, every person who wants to be a startup founder probably has some to-do app business idea that is sitting around that they bought a domain for.
[00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:37.760] And I think ironically, one of the things that makes Reflect, like, that gives it a shot is exactly what you said, which is that it's like sufficiently opinionated and unique.
[00:18:37.760 --> 00:18:40.240] Like, it actually does kind of have a learning curve.
[00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.640] And so there's certain people who will look at that and be like, that's exactly what the fuck I'm looking for, right?
[00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:46.000] Like, it's got a mind map.
[00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:51.760] It's got, like, I just look at your homepage and like there are a few things that just like turn on like a part of my brain that I know.
[00:18:51.760 --> 00:18:53.920] For example, Cortland looks at it and he's like, oh, that's neat.
[00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:55.520] And like, is I just keep scanning?
[00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:58.720] I'm like, I have to play around with that thing.
[00:18:58.720 --> 00:18:59.040] Yeah.
[00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:02.880] And Cortland's playing the Tetris is a rather page.
[00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:05.520] Exactly.
[00:19:05.520 --> 00:19:08.720] Did you see Sam Altman's tweet, by the way, when it comes to like hard startups?
[00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:11.520] He said, Chat GPT has no social features.
[00:19:11.520 --> 00:19:12.640] There's no built-in sharing.
[00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:14.080] You have to sign up before you can use it.
[00:19:14.080 --> 00:19:15.840] There's no inherent viral loop.
[00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:19.680] I'm seriously questioning the years of advice that I gave to startups.
[00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:24.320] Because he was like running Y Combinator telling startups they have to put all of those things into their company to succeed.
[00:19:24.320 --> 00:19:27.760] And now he's been built a much bigger startup than any of them without doing any of that.
[00:19:27.760 --> 00:19:30.280] And that's kind of what I think about when I think about what you're doing, right?
[00:19:30.280 --> 00:19:37.800] Like you are not adding all that stuff and yet you're still hitting like 40 grand a month in revenue, which is humongous, especially given how competitive this area is.
[00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:43.320] And after spending a whole year building, so like, you know, I presume like a year marketing.
[00:19:43.320 --> 00:19:44.760] Yeah, like, how did you, how did you get there?
[00:19:44.760 --> 00:19:46.200] How did you grow to that size?
[00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:49.800] How do you make $40,000 a month from a competitive note-taking app?
[00:19:50.120 --> 00:19:53.880] Yeah, well, I can tell you I almost went broke building it.
[00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:55.480] You know, step one.
[00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:57.000] Go almost broke.
[00:19:58.040 --> 00:19:58.520] Yeah.
[00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:03.080] I mean, I was, we were bootstrapped for a long time.
[00:20:03.080 --> 00:20:09.320] And, you know, eventually I basically ran out of money and then we had to do a crowdfund.
[00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:11.400] But yeah, it was difficult.
[00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:19.880] Like, I was just every day like coding, coding, coding, and found some amazing engineers to work on it.
[00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:24.280] We grew initially through word of mouth.
[00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:29.800] And, you know, our AI features have been great as well.
[00:20:30.120 --> 00:20:35.080] For like, we got a big growth spurt once we added those.
[00:20:35.080 --> 00:20:39.480] But it is like, it definitely feels like a very long game.
[00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:49.080] I guess like a very slow burn because our organics are just increasing a little bit every month, but we don't know why.
[00:20:49.080 --> 00:20:54.120] And, you know, we obviously tried to try to figure this out.
[00:20:54.120 --> 00:20:55.800] Yeah, we tried to figure this out.
[00:20:55.800 --> 00:21:01.720] Like, it is one of the first things they teach you about marketing is like have repeatable channels, you know?
[00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:18.720] And we've been trying to build these repeatable channels, but really it's just like, it is like a real product-first kind of growth strategy where we just polish and polish and polish and just make this product amazing.
[00:21:19.040 --> 00:21:23.200] And then and then it seems to be working for now.
[00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:30.320] The adage, you know, they will come if you build something useful seems to be working.
[00:21:30.320 --> 00:21:33.600] And I think we can get away with that because we're a little lifestyle business.
[00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:40.320] You know, we only need to make like 50, 60k monthly revenue to be profitable.
[00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:40.960] Yeah.
[00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:41.520] Right?
[00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:46.080] So, like, we're we're we're close.
[00:21:46.080 --> 00:21:48.960] We don't need all these things that we have.
[00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:52.560] You have a large company, it's like massive ad campaigns and so forth.
[00:21:52.560 --> 00:21:55.360] We just we can just focus on the products.
[00:21:55.360 --> 00:22:00.320] Uh, and I think we're getting over this hump that you have with these bootstrap companies.
[00:22:00.320 --> 00:22:14.880] It's just so difficult at the start where no one will invest in you and you're just like plowing all your cash into it, especially if you're building a B2C company where you're doing that maybe for a year or so.
[00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:17.120] This crowdfunding thing is fascinating.
[00:22:17.120 --> 00:22:23.600] I want to talk about the money behind this because you've got Clearbit where I'm sure you still own, like, you own a good chunk of equity in Clearbit still, right?
[00:22:23.600 --> 00:22:26.640] But they haven't sold, they haven't gotten acquired, they haven't gone public.
[00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:28.560] So that's just like locked up.
[00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:29.920] It's locked up.
[00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:39.600] So, yeah, let's talk about crowdfunding because I don't think enough people understand crowdfunding and what has changed fundamentally.
[00:22:39.600 --> 00:22:45.920] And also, I don't think people are being imaginative enough about investing in general.
[00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:49.280] So, I do a bunch of investing as well.
[00:22:49.280 --> 00:22:50.480] I run a little fund.
[00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:53.360] So, I'm like familiar with the investing route.
[00:22:53.360 --> 00:22:58.560] And often I'm talking to entrepreneurs and they are pitching me their companies.
[00:22:58.560 --> 00:23:03.320] And I'm thinking, and I end up saying, why are you raising money for this?
[00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:12.600] You should only raise money, VC money, if your product and your company has a chance of an IPO.
[00:23:12.840 --> 00:23:14.440] That is the only reason.
[00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:24.440] And you should not delude yourself because once you've raised a fair amount of VC capital, you've just signed away your business eventually.
[00:23:24.440 --> 00:23:30.440] Eventually, the business will exit, either go public or get sold.
[00:23:30.760 --> 00:23:34.040] And you will just make sure you won't be running it.
[00:23:34.040 --> 00:23:36.440] Or certainly you won't have full control over it.
[00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:39.960] And even if you don't, like that's the best case scenario.
[00:23:40.360 --> 00:23:47.080] The most likely scenario is you make a medium-sized business that is okay.
[00:23:47.800 --> 00:23:57.080] Your VCs keep asking for growth or your employees keep asking for growth because their roommate just made a million dollars at Stripe.
[00:23:57.080 --> 00:24:03.960] And they're like, you know, what if, you know, they're like, am I working at the right company or not?
[00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:05.080] Yada, yada, yada.
[00:24:05.080 --> 00:24:07.880] So then you go and raise another mega round and this and this.
[00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:10.440] And this is what has happened the last few years.
[00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:12.840] All these companies are underwater now.
[00:24:12.840 --> 00:24:24.200] And the founders are basically right now working for free because they're not going to make any money out of these companies because they raise such high valuations.
[00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:31.320] So my point is essentially really, really consider about raising venture capital.
[00:24:31.320 --> 00:24:33.400] Crowdfunding changes the game.
[00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:38.920] So there's two really good platforms for this: WeFunder and Republic.
[00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:42.680] They will handle all the admins for you.
[00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:45.760] You can go on there and you can raise from your customers.
[00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:49.280] And you can raise up to, I think it's $5 million a year.
[00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:58.240] And you can raise much less than that if you don't want to go through all the audit requirements or so forth.
[00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:01.600] There's various degrees of regulation.
[00:25:01.600 --> 00:25:03.920] So we just ended up raising a million dollars.
[00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:07.040] And we raised from our customers.
[00:25:07.360 --> 00:25:11.440] We raised it in, I think, a month, maybe.
[00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:14.240] It was very straightforward.
[00:25:14.560 --> 00:25:17.120] We just posted about it.
[00:25:17.120 --> 00:25:20.320] We sent one email to our customer base.
[00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:24.080] And they, I think, are just a very enthusiastic customer base.
[00:25:24.080 --> 00:25:24.640] Right.
[00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:25.600] And they love the app.
[00:25:25.760 --> 00:25:27.520] And I think they love it.
[00:25:27.600 --> 00:25:28.080] They're invested.
[00:25:28.080 --> 00:25:29.280] They're like, we think this is great.
[00:25:29.280 --> 00:25:30.640] We think this is going to be huge.
[00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:34.880] And how often does the average consumer feel like they have a chance to invest in a tech startup?
[00:25:35.040 --> 00:25:35.840] It's not a thing.
[00:25:35.840 --> 00:25:36.160] Maybe.
[00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:42.880] Yeah, but if you hold a gun to the head, I wonder if they were like, this reflects going to be huge.
[00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:47.760] They're probably just like, you know, I'm sick of my no taking out, going out of business.
[00:25:47.760 --> 00:25:50.400] You know, I'm sick of changing tools.
[00:25:50.480 --> 00:25:56.000] Like, maybe this will be big, maybe, maybe not, but maybe this will help it stick around.
[00:25:56.320 --> 00:25:56.720] I don't know.
[00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:58.000] There's a lot of different motivations.
[00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.520] And a lot of our customers or our investors were first-time investors.
[00:26:03.760 --> 00:26:06.480] So I wanted to take them along on the journey.
[00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:14.880] What I told them was, we're not going to try and make your equity like 10 times as valuable.
[00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:17.360] What we're going to try and do is pay you a dividend.
[00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:31.800] So this changes the incentives because now the investors and the employees who receive equity are not looking for like growth, or at least the maximum amount of growth.
[00:26:31.800 --> 00:26:37.560] What they are looking for is a dividend, like an annual dividend from the business.
[00:26:37.560 --> 00:26:40.200] And it means you don't have to sell the business, okay?
[00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:40.600] Right.
[00:26:40.600 --> 00:26:43.320] So it's a little nuts.
[00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:45.800] I haven't heard of any other tech company ever doing this.
[00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:46.680] It's so fascinating.
[00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:47.880] Yeah, I've never heard that.
[00:26:47.880 --> 00:26:49.800] But I think we're going to pull it off.
[00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:56.200] And it's actually very important to me that we pull it off because I want to be a very good example.
[00:26:56.200 --> 00:27:10.280] Because I think there should be this cottage industry of little mom and pop tech businesses that are just like two or three people where you know if you use their product and you have a problem, the person you're emailing is the founder.
[00:27:10.280 --> 00:27:12.680] You're going to get founder level support.
[00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:19.400] And they have agency and they buy into the products and they really, really care.
[00:27:19.400 --> 00:27:25.960] And we just, I think, lost that for no really good reason with a lot of tech businesses.
[00:27:25.960 --> 00:27:30.280] And we have so many companies that go out of business for no good reason.
[00:27:30.840 --> 00:27:35.160] They were great businesses that just happened to raise venture capital.
[00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:38.920] And now they have to sell for Dropbox and then get shut down.
[00:27:38.920 --> 00:27:41.240] You know, that's like the life cycle.
[00:27:41.560 --> 00:27:44.120] Wouldn't it be nice if we had an alternative?
[00:27:44.120 --> 00:27:47.880] What's so interesting about that is that I'm invested in Notion.
[00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:49.720] Notion is my big note-taking app.
[00:27:49.720 --> 00:27:52.520] I have my entire life in Notion.
[00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:58.360] I moved all of my notes and all of my docs and all my to-dos into Notion many years ago before it was big.
[00:27:58.360 --> 00:28:05.880] And I specifically remember that they had like an outage one day where you know Notion was down for five hours and I lost my shit, freaked out.
[00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:08.280] I can't, you know, my hands are tied on everything.
[00:28:08.280 --> 00:28:13.720] And I specifically remember being like, I just want to pay Notion tons of money, right?
[00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:20.080] I wish I could just invest money because I just love the product so much, just so that they give me, just like make sure it's up for me.
[00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:31.040] And like, I remember that I felt invested in the company where I was like, I want to, you know, I want to evangelize Notion and get as many people to use it as possible because I want it to be successful because I don't want it to shut down.
[00:28:31.040 --> 00:28:34.240] And it's like a similar alignment of incentives in the way that you say.
[00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:47.680] And what makes me, but the immediate place that my mind goes towards is like, okay, that crowdfunding model might work, but it specifically needs to be for these kinds of products where like people are massively invested.
[00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:56.480] For example, if like my Kindle app sort of shut down and I like I use Kindle to read, I'll just be like, whatever, I'll just go to Google Books or like Apple Books, right?
[00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:08.480] It's totally, you know, it's a total commodity, nothing specific to any individual app, but like yours, a realm research, a notion, like that model really does seem like it could work.
[00:29:08.800 --> 00:29:11.200] Yes, I would, that's a great point.
[00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:17.680] And I think the model lends itself to consumer businesses from that regard.
[00:29:18.080 --> 00:29:24.800] But also, quite frankly, you're much more likely to see a good return from a B2B company.
[00:29:24.800 --> 00:29:38.800] So I think if people who are more interested in the actual returns aspect of investing might be more interested in investing in B2Bs, and people who are more passionate about the tools they use every day might be more invested in B2Cs.
[00:29:38.800 --> 00:29:43.360] If you go on WeFund and Republic, you'll see all sorts of different companies raising.
[00:29:43.840 --> 00:29:47.280] Not just B2C companies, it's all over the shop.
[00:29:47.280 --> 00:29:55.120] The only other anti-company that I can recall that has been like, you know, dabbled in crowdfunding is Gumroad by Sahil Africa.
[00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:57.280] Have you met Sahil, Alex?
[00:29:57.600 --> 00:29:58.560] Yeah, I have.
[00:29:58.560 --> 00:30:01.880] Yeah, so they raised it, I think, a hundred mil valuation.
[00:30:01.880 --> 00:30:02.520] Yeah.
[00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:04.200] And then I think he raised like $10 million.
[00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:07.800] He raised whatever the max limit was, maybe $5 million or something.
[00:30:07.800 --> 00:30:11.400] And they did not have the sort of dividend promise.
[00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:13.000] It wasn't like, okay, we're going to pay your dividend.
[00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:15.080] It was just like, yeah, be a part of this big thing.
[00:30:15.080 --> 00:30:23.160] And then I think he sort of stopped going for like that crazy unicorn huge valuation sort of exit, right?
[00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:29.400] And so people were investing, thinking, oh, I'm going to make like, you know, 10x, 20x on this investment if Gumroad does well.
[00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:30.600] And he's just like, ah, thanks for the money.
[00:30:30.600 --> 00:30:31.960] Like, we're not going to do that.
[00:30:31.960 --> 00:30:36.760] I wonder, I wonder, like, because this is something that I want to explore with endy hackers.
[00:30:36.760 --> 00:30:42.760] I think it would be awesome if we had like this whole industry of like two and three person companies who could raise money from their customers.
[00:30:42.760 --> 00:30:47.240] I mean, you had like a few hundred customers invest, you know, at a million dollar valuation.
[00:30:47.240 --> 00:30:49.000] That's like a few thousand dollars each.
[00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:50.680] You know, it's not that much money.
[00:30:50.680 --> 00:30:56.520] But like, can that community, can that like phenomenon flourish and bloom if there isn't a lot of trust, right?
[00:30:56.520 --> 00:31:07.240] If investors are getting ripped off, if they don't know what they're going to get in return, if you as the person raising money aren't necessarily held to any sort of like rules saying you have to pay a dividend, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:10.280] Like, how does it work and how do you see that playing out?
[00:31:10.280 --> 00:31:18.840] There's a huge amount of trust, and that is, I think, how the system has worked up to this point, regardless.
[00:31:18.840 --> 00:31:33.240] You know, that is, if you go out and raise an angel and then a BC round, you know, the investors are going to do due diligence on the founder, and it's going to be, certainly early stage, it's going to be like, do we trust this guy or not?
[00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:35.400] Do his references check out?
[00:31:35.880 --> 00:31:37.800] It's a reputation game.
[00:31:37.800 --> 00:31:45.920] So, I mean, I think we can probably lend on the same dynamics as well for crowdfunding.
[00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:50.480] You'll probably need some kind of lead investor who's doing a lot of the due diligence.
[00:31:51.040 --> 00:31:52.720] I think that helps as well.
[00:31:52.960 --> 00:32:01.200] Some other person who's trusted, and then you can kind of trust the entrepreneur by proxy of that person being involved.
[00:32:02.240 --> 00:32:19.520] For example, Gumro specifically, I was confused why they raised that valuation because that really means that you are going to try and sell the business and make that money liquid, or at least, I mean, IPO the business.
[00:32:19.840 --> 00:32:28.560] I would, if I was in his shoes, I would just offer to buy the investors out a certain amount every year just to offer some liquidity.
[00:32:28.560 --> 00:32:31.040] Yeah, and maybe that's an alternative model.
[00:32:31.360 --> 00:32:34.880] But I do think dividends kind of gets you around all of that.
[00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:38.240] You know, it changes the incentives completely.
[00:32:38.720 --> 00:32:42.000] And I want, like, I'm, I'm, this is an experiment.
[00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:51.440] And if we pull it off, like, our investors, I think, should be paid their first dividend, if not this year, next year.
[00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:56.960] We still have like 800K out of the million we raised, right?
[00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:57.360] Right.
[00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:02.960] So, you know, the first dividend check to them might be half their money back.
[00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:06.880] And do you know, by the way, how many of those customers you raised that million from?
[00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:08.720] Like, how many individual people?
[00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:14.560] I know on just WeFunder, there was 317 investors, and I think you raised money from some other places too.
[00:33:15.120 --> 00:33:24.240] Yes, so we raised majority on WeFunder, and then we raised a separate check on AngelList.
[00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:33.480] You know, some of my friends were like, Alex, you gotta let me invest because they invested in my last business that went well for them.
[00:33:34.440 --> 00:33:39.480] So, you know, we took maybe like maximum like 50K checks.
[00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:48.760] But those were only a couple of those, and the rest were all like $1,000 checks from individual customers.
[00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:57.240] But what we told our customers is that they're getting payback, or sorry, what we told our investors is that they're getting payback first, right?
[00:33:57.240 --> 00:34:01.240] So they're going to get their principal back.
[00:34:01.560 --> 00:34:11.960] And so I want to caveat all of this, but it looks like we will be able to pay back our investors really quickly their principal.
[00:34:11.960 --> 00:34:18.440] And then from then on, they get a percentage of the profits of the business.
[00:34:18.440 --> 00:34:19.080] Right.
[00:34:19.080 --> 00:34:19.400] Yeah.
[00:34:19.560 --> 00:34:26.040] So like, imagine being like a user of an app and like you love this app and it gets better every month, every week.
[00:34:26.040 --> 00:34:29.880] And then also that app just sending you money.
[00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:31.080] Sending you checks in the mail.
[00:34:31.080 --> 00:34:32.600] Like that sounds amazing.
[00:34:33.400 --> 00:34:34.840] That does sound amazing.
[00:34:34.840 --> 00:34:40.680] So let's say you're like a founder listening to this and you want to do what they hear you doing, right?
[00:34:40.680 --> 00:34:44.520] Like what's the playbook for a founder that wants to go the crowdfunding route?
[00:34:44.520 --> 00:34:46.440] They sign up for WeFunder, step one.
[00:34:46.440 --> 00:34:50.280] How do they ensure that they get a million dollars raised?
[00:34:50.280 --> 00:34:51.800] Because that's not easy to do.
[00:34:51.800 --> 00:35:02.600] Look, if you don't have a brand or you aren't good at making products, then maybe, I think again, this is not like some free money out sitting out there.
[00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:08.960] Like, you should already have a product and customers by the time you're raising.
[00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:10.520] Like, in this day and age.
[00:35:10.520 --> 00:35:15.520] I don't think there are any excuses unless you're doing some nuclear fusion.
[00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:23.440] If, you know, if you're just building a Notes app or a B2B SaaS company, build the product first.
[00:35:23.760 --> 00:35:28.160] Do contracting on the side if you have to to pay for that.
[00:35:28.160 --> 00:35:32.000] But like, build your product, get customers.
[00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:38.080] Once you're at a few hundred customers, then start thinking about whether you should go this route.
[00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:45.680] Like, we actually polled our customers to see if they were interested or not prior to the crowdfund.
[00:35:45.680 --> 00:35:48.000] And that's another thing that's free to do as well.
[00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:51.920] We had a conversation recently with Rob Walling.
[00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:54.320] He's the founder of MicroConf.
[00:35:54.640 --> 00:35:57.760] A bunch of indie hackers go and have these community meetings.
[00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:02.720] And he's dealing, he has a fund, TinySeed.
[00:36:02.720 --> 00:36:04.240] And so we brought up this idea.
[00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:06.160] Accelerator for bootstrappers.
[00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:07.600] Right, right.
[00:36:07.600 --> 00:36:17.920] And like when we ran the idea by him that like, hey, maybe we should do crowdfunding for indie hackers to be able to invest in each other's products like on our product directory.
[00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:19.840] He almost immediately poo-pooed that idea.
[00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:22.480] And he's like, hey, listen, you don't want to deal with illegalities.
[00:36:22.480 --> 00:36:24.560] You know, dealing with equity, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:29.680] It's like the structures get really difficult, especially with indie hackers who have such low revenue.
[00:36:29.680 --> 00:36:39.600] And he's like, but maybe if you think about crowdfunding where it's all about like, think Kickstarter, it's all about like non-equity based perks, you could get off the ground.
[00:36:39.600 --> 00:36:49.200] Maybe you'd have a lot of indie hackers who are like willing to invest in each other's products for like, you know, I don't know, a three month or like a few extra features or maybe extra access to the founder.
[00:36:49.200 --> 00:36:49.760] Who knows, right?
[00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:51.320] She's just like, how do you guarantee it?
[00:36:51.200 --> 00:36:51.480] Right?
[00:36:51.520 --> 00:36:52.560] It's like Kickstarter, right?
[00:36:52.560 --> 00:36:54.480] It's like, ah, you can't really guarantee it.
[00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:56.560] People might just not use their product.
[00:36:56.560 --> 00:36:59.960] They might like what they were promised to get.
[00:37:00.280 --> 00:37:01.640] Again, yeah, that's right.
[00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:04.920] You can't guarantee it, and you're relying on the reputation of the person.
[00:37:05.880 --> 00:37:09.720] It sounds like this guy doesn't want any more competition.
[00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:11.880] I could walk back.
[00:37:12.040 --> 00:37:12.920] No, no, no, no.
[00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:14.680] Look the other direction.
[00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:24.280] You know, like, I can, that's definitely a good point on his behalf that you don't want to deal with legality, but you don't have to.
[00:37:24.280 --> 00:37:25.560] You could use a platform.
[00:37:25.560 --> 00:37:27.720] Like we fund a republic.
[00:37:27.720 --> 00:37:32.760] The really key thing that you guys have is distribution and trust and the brand.
[00:37:33.320 --> 00:37:41.720] You can just kind of organize it at a high level and then people go and invest on these Azure platforms that already exist.
[00:37:42.120 --> 00:37:46.920] Then you wouldn't have to do any real work around the legality of it.
[00:37:47.160 --> 00:37:49.800] You could just use the existing structure.
[00:37:49.800 --> 00:37:51.080] Ideas, ideas.
[00:37:51.400 --> 00:37:55.480] So one of the things I like to do on the show is we get on Andy Hackers like you.
[00:37:55.480 --> 00:37:56.680] You have a cool business.
[00:37:56.920 --> 00:37:58.040] We talk about that for a bit.
[00:37:58.040 --> 00:38:02.440] But also, whenever somebody's a writer, I want to talk about what you've written.
[00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:05.640] Because excellent writing, I think, is excellent thinking and it makes for a good conversation.
[00:38:05.640 --> 00:38:06.760] So you've got your blog.
[00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:10.120] It's blog.alexmacaw.com.
[00:38:10.120 --> 00:38:12.760] Or you can just go to alexmaca.com and see like a list.
[00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:16.680] It's very Paul Gram-esque, just like a very flat list of all the topics that you've written.
[00:38:16.680 --> 00:38:17.400] It's super simple.
[00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:18.120] I love it.
[00:38:18.120 --> 00:38:25.560] And your latest one is called The Illusion of Free Will, which I take to mean that you don't believe in free will.
[00:38:25.880 --> 00:38:26.760] Give me the rundown.
[00:38:26.840 --> 00:38:27.560] Why do you have a blog?
[00:38:27.560 --> 00:38:28.600] Why do you write?
[00:38:28.600 --> 00:38:31.480] How do you balance this as a founder, like writing and blogging?
[00:38:31.480 --> 00:38:33.960] And then give me your take on free will.
[00:38:34.280 --> 00:38:34.840] Wow.
[00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:35.240] Yes.
[00:38:35.240 --> 00:38:37.400] I think one of those things is not like the others.
[00:38:37.800 --> 00:38:38.200] Yeah.
[00:38:39.160 --> 00:38:39.720] True.
[00:38:39.720 --> 00:38:43.400] And then, and then you know, give me your philosophy on life, the universe, and everything.
[00:38:44.360 --> 00:38:47.120] Okay, so I've always loved writing.
[00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:49.680] I think of it as brain programming.
[00:38:50.240 --> 00:39:03.760] Essentially, I think if you are a very good writer, you can have an impact on the world such that you could never have in any other profession without having a massive team.
[00:39:04.320 --> 00:39:08.240] Elon Musk can have a huge impact because he's got a big team.
[00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:13.040] If he just had one person working for him, you know, he wouldn't have that impact.
[00:39:13.040 --> 00:39:20.080] Writers, on the other hand, okay, they can really change the world just by putting their thoughts down.
[00:39:20.240 --> 00:39:26.080] So, it always fascinated me, and it's one of the reasons that I started a note-taking company.
[00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:33.280] Up to this point, I have been writing non-fiction, like extremely boring books.
[00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:39.600] My brother says he uses to get himself to sleep at night, sometimes uses as a doorstep.
[00:39:39.600 --> 00:39:42.160] That's what I tell Channel about his books.
[00:39:43.600 --> 00:39:54.240] I've written a few books on programming for O'Reilly back in the day, and then I wrote a couple of books on management and building companies.
[00:39:54.720 --> 00:40:08.640] I co-wrote a book called The Great CEO Within, that's a fantastic book on building startups, and another one called The Manager's Handbook, which is a free online book about managing in companies.
[00:40:08.640 --> 00:40:14.320] So, for me, it's like I set out to write a book, and then I learn along the way.
[00:40:14.560 --> 00:40:18.240] I don't write about subjects that I know about completely.
[00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:23.200] I use writing the book as a mechanism for learning about it.
[00:40:24.240 --> 00:40:29.040] But having said that, my ultimate dream is to write science fiction.
[00:40:29.960 --> 00:40:38.920] And I just think writing fiction in general is just so much harder than writing non-fiction.
[00:40:39.560 --> 00:40:42.840] When you're writing about a book of programming, you know exactly what to put in the book.
[00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:45.240] You just kind of put up the features of the programming language.
[00:40:45.240 --> 00:40:50.760] But if you're writing a fiction book, it can be whatever you dream of.
[00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:52.520] It can go in any direction, right?
[00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:58.760] So that is one of my heroes actually is a guy called Hugh Howie.
[00:40:59.080 --> 00:41:02.360] And he writes science fiction, and he lives on a boat.
[00:41:03.640 --> 00:41:04.600] We figured it out.
[00:41:04.600 --> 00:41:05.400] Full circle.
[00:41:05.400 --> 00:41:05.720] Yeah.
[00:41:05.720 --> 00:41:06.440] Full circle.
[00:41:06.440 --> 00:41:07.160] That's right.
[00:41:07.160 --> 00:41:11.560] And he actually was the inspiration for me getting this boat.
[00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:12.840] All right.
[00:41:12.840 --> 00:41:14.840] So let's shall we talk about free will?
[00:41:14.840 --> 00:41:15.400] Wait, hold on.
[00:41:15.640 --> 00:41:18.760] Before we jump into free will, I want to ask you a few more questions about your boat life.
[00:41:18.760 --> 00:41:23.080] Because the more you talk about it, the more I just see you chilling out here with a beautiful background.
[00:41:23.080 --> 00:41:26.440] You've sort of got this cool ebb and flow where you're just bobbing up and down slowly.
[00:41:26.840 --> 00:41:27.880] It looks nice.
[00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:29.240] What is it like to live on a boat?
[00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:33.960] The downsides for me, if I'm thinking about it, I'm like, it seems like it could be lonely.
[00:41:33.960 --> 00:41:39.080] You're traveling a lot, there's not a lot of people around, but all the upside, there's a lot of adventure.
[00:41:39.080 --> 00:41:41.720] You're going from one place to the next, from island to island.
[00:41:42.440 --> 00:41:45.160] It could be scary, you might be out at sea during a storm.
[00:41:45.560 --> 00:41:46.440] I don't know how this works.
[00:41:47.240 --> 00:41:52.520] Give me a good snapshot of your boat life before you give me a snapshot of why we don't have free will.
[00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:56.680] So essentially, I solve the loneliness problem by having friends come through.
[00:41:56.680 --> 00:42:00.680] And so every other week I have a different set of friends coming through.
[00:42:01.640 --> 00:42:02.840] And otherwise, you're right.
[00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:04.760] It would get very lonely.
[00:42:07.080 --> 00:42:07.960] What is it like?
[00:42:07.960 --> 00:42:14.320] Well, it's kind of the closest thing to living on a spaceship and space travel that we have right now.
[00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:18.960] You know, if you think about it, I have my life support system here.
[00:42:20.160 --> 00:42:25.200] Above me are a set of solar panels that give me all the electricity that I need.
[00:42:25.520 --> 00:42:33.360] I have a water maker, a desalinator that turns seawater into fresh water that I can drink.
[00:42:34.640 --> 00:42:39.520] And then I have, you know, storage, fridges, freezers, what have you.
[00:42:39.520 --> 00:42:42.560] And then my actual mode of transportation is the wind.
[00:42:42.560 --> 00:42:52.480] So I barely use the engines and I just put up a sail and it's kind of crazy, but I can go wherever it's blue on the map.
[00:42:52.480 --> 00:42:57.360] You know, sometimes I look at the globe and I'm like, you know, all those blue bits are mine, you know?
[00:42:57.360 --> 00:43:00.080] And no one can stop you.
[00:43:00.080 --> 00:43:03.360] You can put an anchor anywhere in the world.
[00:43:03.680 --> 00:43:07.680] And it's like the freedom there is just incredible.
[00:43:08.480 --> 00:43:11.360] Of course, it's got its downsides.
[00:43:11.680 --> 00:43:13.360] There's some major, major downsides.
[00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:19.840] Just like the amount of overhead, the money, the time you spend.
[00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:27.760] Like right now, I'm in a marina, but let's just say we were doing this podcast and I was at anchor and the anchor started slipping.
[00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:33.280] I have to end the podcast and go and make sure my house didn't float away.
[00:43:34.560 --> 00:43:41.520] So there's like, you know, there's pros and cons, but at this stage of my life, I absolutely love it.
[00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:43.040] You know, there's a sailing season.
[00:43:43.040 --> 00:43:50.400] I don't know if you guys know this, but hurricanes come through the Caribbean from July to November.
[00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:51.440] So you can't...
[00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:52.240] You can either...
[00:43:52.240 --> 00:43:55.040] Some sailors just go and try and dodge them.
[00:43:56.560 --> 00:43:58.680] My insurance doesn't let me do that.
[00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:02.200] I mean, you're like right in the Bermuda Triangle.
[00:43:58.480 --> 00:44:05.240] This is where people disappear during hurricane season.
[00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:12.120] Certainly, every now and again, a hurricane comes through and just devastates some of these islands.
[00:44:12.760 --> 00:44:17.080] You know, right now I'm in Grenada, which doesn't typically get hit.
[00:44:17.080 --> 00:44:21.640] But yeah, Northern Caribbean is kind of no-go zone for much of the year.
[00:44:21.960 --> 00:44:25.240] Did you have like a starter version of this?
[00:44:25.240 --> 00:44:28.280] Did you have a friend who had a boat and you got to like sample it?
[00:44:28.280 --> 00:44:37.640] Or was this just a you're a land lover and then one day you snap your fingers, pound the table and like you're just on a boat trying to figure everything out.
[00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:42.360] Yeah, so I grew up sailing.
[00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:48.120] My dad had a boat and a lot of sailors, that's the story you'll hear.
[00:44:48.440 --> 00:44:51.560] So I really kind of caught the bug early on.
[00:44:51.560 --> 00:45:04.280] And, you know, like I mentioned, when I was working at Clearbit, I heard about Starlink and I was like, wow, this is really interesting.
[00:45:04.280 --> 00:45:10.840] Starlink actually changes a lot of things because now we can work forever, you know?
[00:45:10.840 --> 00:45:14.760] And then I was like, well, how do I want to change my life based on this information?
[00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:20.440] And I, you know, commissioned a boat at a midlife crisis.
[00:45:21.800 --> 00:45:23.480] But how old are you, by the way, dude?
[00:45:23.800 --> 00:45:25.960] You seem like you're like in your late 20s.
[00:45:26.280 --> 00:45:27.480] I'm 33.
[00:45:27.480 --> 00:45:29.400] Yeah, I've got a baby face.
[00:45:29.720 --> 00:45:30.520] 33 years ago.
[00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:33.160] You're in your prime.
[00:45:33.160 --> 00:45:36.600] I think that's like a Silicon Valley, a Silicon Valley sort of trope.
[00:45:36.600 --> 00:45:38.760] Like you hitting your midlife crisis at about age 30.
[00:45:38.760 --> 00:45:40.200] Same thing happened to me.
[00:45:40.520 --> 00:45:45.520] Well, you know, I just think more people should, yes, think outside the box a bit.
[00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:50.320] You know, we know we don't have to be tethered to our apartments.
[00:45:51.920 --> 00:45:54.160] You can be based from anywhere these days.
[00:45:54.160 --> 00:45:56.320] And certainly, I recommend living on a boat.
[00:45:56.320 --> 00:45:57.840] All right, we got five minutes left.
[00:45:57.840 --> 00:45:59.200] Now we're getting to the good stuff.
[00:45:59.920 --> 00:46:01.440] Why is there no free will?
[00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:03.120] Give us your take.
[00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:06.000] Well, five minutes is definitely not long enough.
[00:46:06.240 --> 00:46:07.200] We can talk about it.
[00:46:07.520 --> 00:46:09.600] It's enough to get all the ins in the outs.
[00:46:10.240 --> 00:47:24.200] But like, yeah, like, I don't think this is like a subject that people like talking about, especially people who are maybe more scientifically minded like talking about just because it is kind of the unfortunate that we have not found any like space for free will in like for example like the standard model or classics physics like there actually is no space for it so if you talk to a physicist and you ask them if there's any free will they're they will probably tell you that there's none like that is the scientific consensus right now uh it's just not really talked about because it's kind of an unsettling thought i have found that once you embrace it it is actually very freeing and and i found like there's also some other benefits like having empathy for other people and their situations and i think we would i mean the the purpose of that post was to try and like ultimately it would be lovely at a government level, like a policy level, we admitted that there was no free will.
[00:47:24.200 --> 00:47:31.240] And then we uh that would actually change how you would do uh justice and prison reform.
[00:47:32.040 --> 00:47:52.040] It would put a big focus on rehabilitation because you wouldn't be trying to get revenge, you wouldn't be trying to just punish people who were bad, morally bad, because it kind of removes the morality from the equation in a lot of senses.
[00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:57.080] But I think there are a lot of benefits to it if you can get over that hump.
[00:47:57.080 --> 00:48:02.840] I don't think a lot of people will get over that hump because it just seems, the idea just seems nuts.
[00:48:03.160 --> 00:48:12.120] It's like such a core part of our day-to-day experience that it almost seems like a repugnant idea that we don't have anything.
[00:48:12.440 --> 00:48:14.280] Some people get offended by stuff like this.
[00:48:14.440 --> 00:48:17.320] I think neither Shannon nor I will because we're probably on the same page as you.
[00:48:17.320 --> 00:48:18.760] Shanny, I think you are too.
[00:48:19.080 --> 00:48:28.680] Not only am I on the same page, literally one week ago today, I pre-ordered a book that's coming out called Determined by this guy, Robert Sopolski.
[00:48:28.680 --> 00:48:31.560] He's like, he's written a book called Behave on Human Behavior.
[00:48:31.560 --> 00:48:36.680] He's one of the most preeminent biologists and endocrinologists in the world right now.
[00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:41.320] And all of his books and studies are about the things that make us tick.
[00:48:41.320 --> 00:48:55.160] And at a certain point, the through line there is like, when you explain even what we know, you quickly squeeze out the idea that there's like a magical goo inside of us or that we're these biological skin bags filled with magic.
[00:48:55.560 --> 00:48:56.680] And so that book is coming out.
[00:48:56.680 --> 00:48:58.840] And I'm a huge nerd of that stuff.
[00:48:58.840 --> 00:49:05.560] And it's particularly, it's not merely just, you know, abstract college dorm room talk, right?
[00:49:05.720 --> 00:49:08.840] Like, it has a lot of implications for legalities.
[00:49:08.840 --> 00:49:15.200] Like, one of the things that Robert Spolsky likes talking about is, like, yeah, like, prison reform should be thought about differently.
[00:49:13.560 --> 00:49:16.160] Like, criminal justice should be thought about differently.
[00:49:18.560 --> 00:49:23.360] It really changes almost everything about some of our core institutions.
[00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:24.960] And how you behave just as a person.
[00:49:24.960 --> 00:49:30.720] Like, I like that you mentioned empathy, Alex, because I also, like, am not a real believer in free will.
[00:49:30.720 --> 00:49:40.400] I kind of think, like, there's this moment, you're born, you know, like your biology is set, your environment is set, you had no choice in any of that, and the rest of it might as well just be dominoes, right?
[00:49:40.400 --> 00:49:51.840] You unfold, and as you put it in your blog, like, given the exact same state of the universe, like, you're going to make the same decision every time because, like, that's just the set of experiences you've had up to that point in your life, and like, you can't really change it.
[00:49:51.840 --> 00:49:58.240] You know, an idea bubbles into your head, and you decide, I'm going to eat a pepperoni pizza, and like, you could never have chosen otherwise.
[00:49:58.240 --> 00:50:10.640] And I think whether or not there's any way to prove that, or it's true or not, and a lot of people will be unconvinced, even though I'm convinced, I think it gives me a lot more empathy for other people because I understand, like, okay, well, like, everybody's got a story.
[00:50:10.640 --> 00:50:15.200] Everybody has a set of things that happen to them and things that are, that make them who they are.
[00:50:15.200 --> 00:50:18.880] And if I was that person, I would do the exact same thing that they're doing, right?
[00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:20.240] Like, I wouldn't have a choice.
[00:50:20.240 --> 00:50:23.200] I would essentially be forced to do that exact thing that they're doing.
[00:50:23.200 --> 00:50:31.600] And I am only me because of who I was before, you know, in the moment before this, and who I was the moment before that, all the way back down to the very beginning of my being, right?
[00:50:31.760 --> 00:50:34.480] Never had any choice at any point along that process.
[00:50:34.480 --> 00:50:36.960] And I think that that doesn't mean everybody gets off the hook.
[00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:41.760] It doesn't mean you don't want to punish, you know, or imprison somebody who's violent or dangerous.
[00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:42.880] It doesn't mean any of these things.
[00:50:42.880 --> 00:50:50.720] It just means for me, like, I can have a little bit more empathy and I can try to understand a little bit more of where somebody's coming from if they're doing something that's hard for me to accept or understand.
[00:50:50.720 --> 00:50:53.440] And there's nothing wrong with having more empathy.
[00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:54.480] That's right.
[00:50:54.480 --> 00:50:56.400] And a bit of more humbleness as well.
[00:50:56.400 --> 00:50:56.720] Exactly.
[00:50:57.000 --> 00:50:57.080] Yeah.
[00:50:57.160 --> 00:50:59.120] It's success in life as well.
[00:50:59.120 --> 00:51:00.040] Exactly.
[00:50:59.520 --> 00:51:01.160] It's predetermined.
[00:51:01.480 --> 00:51:06.520] Yeah, your faults and your credits both become a lot more muted, right?
[00:50:59.680 --> 00:51:00.000] Exactly.
[00:51:07.560 --> 00:51:11.400] Well, thanks for indulging this random line of questioning at the end of an excellent conversation.
[00:51:12.520 --> 00:51:15.240] I am a little bit envious of your boat life.
[00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:22.600] We'll see if I end up getting a boat anytime soon, but I'm taking the opposite approach and investing a ton into my apartment and trying to make it this very cool place.
[00:51:23.240 --> 00:51:31.400] The thing I always ask founders at the end of these episodes is for you to give any hackers who are listening one piece of advice, one observation, one recommendation.
[00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:32.280] It could be anything.
[00:51:32.280 --> 00:51:39.560] It doesn't have to be the most important thing that you've taken away from your journey, but just something that you don't think they would have heard from other people or something that's important to you.
[00:51:39.560 --> 00:51:41.160] What should they take away?
[00:51:41.160 --> 00:51:49.320] I think the book, The Great CEO Within, is mostly written by my CEO coach, Matt Mashari.
[00:51:49.480 --> 00:51:54.520] He's coached almost all the top founders in Silicon Valley at this point.
[00:51:54.680 --> 00:51:56.360] It's such an amazing book.
[00:51:56.360 --> 00:52:05.880] So I guess my meta advice is go and read that book because it contains all the actual practical advice that you need to run a business.
[00:52:05.880 --> 00:52:06.280] Damn.
[00:52:06.600 --> 00:52:09.160] We'll have to talk about CEO coaching next time.
[00:52:09.160 --> 00:52:13.320] But meanwhile, we'll have him on the podcast, Channing, because he sounds like a fascinating guy.
[00:52:13.320 --> 00:52:14.840] Yeah, that sounds sick.
[00:52:14.840 --> 00:52:16.200] Alex, thanks a ton for coming on.
[00:52:16.200 --> 00:52:17.000] I appreciate it.
[00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:21.640] You are second of 10 episodes on the Indie Hackers podcast.
[00:52:21.640 --> 00:52:23.240] So eight more to go.
[00:52:23.880 --> 00:52:25.320] Yeah, it'll happen.
[00:52:25.320 --> 00:52:26.120] Thank you so much.
[00:52:26.120 --> 00:52:26.920] Thanks for coming on.
[00:52:26.920 --> 00:52:27.960] Cheers, guys.