WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.040 It's terrifying launching something. I've been doing it for twenty five years, launched hundreds of different products, and, like, every single time, it's just like, god, like, what if zero people care? I'm, like, textbook ADHD. 00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:20.125 Now I can just sort of, like, feed the beast a little bit more. I use Opus for the bulk of everything. I'll then do a review pass using GPT 5.5, 00:00:20.125 --> 00:00:44.415 and it invariably finds three to five bugs that Opus overlooked. And then I'll run but for real, and that but for real skill is basically like kind of bullies the AI, the LLM into like, you almost certainly screwed some stuff up. How long do you work on it before you just put it out there? There's been stuff where I've launched within twenty four hours or even like same day. The idea of like spending months working on something before you put it out for other people to use, I think that's a real bad idea. 00:00:47.055 --> 00:01:10.705 Hey, everyone. I'm really excited today to chat with Josh who sold his last startup, Bearimetrics, for 4,000,000 and is now building at least five AI products in parallel. Josh is gonna show us exactly how he builds with AI as a solo founder. So welcome, sir. Hey. Thanks for having me, Peter. Alright, Josh. So maybe to start, can you give us a super quick tour of some of the products that you're working on right now? So today, uh, I actually launched 00:01:11.105 --> 00:01:31.050 this. It's called proxy user. So this is sort of like synthetic users that use actual browsers to QA your apps. So it gives you a screen recording of it functioning or breaking so you can fix stuff pretty quick. Nice. Last on Friday, launched rumored, which is, you know, everybody's sort of familiar with LLMs hallucinating. 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:34.010 This catches them hallucinating about your brand, 00:01:34.745 --> 00:01:44.025 and so you can go and fix that. So that that could mean updates to copy on your website. It can mean publishing certain blog posts. It could be adding, uh, like, schema, 00:01:44.105 --> 00:01:48.585 uh, code to your site. So it monitors this stuff constantly and gives you updates 00:01:49.250 --> 00:01:52.530 about when you need to fix stuff. Then let's see. Replies. 00:01:52.610 --> 00:01:53.410 This 00:01:54.130 --> 00:02:01.090 was I'd launched this earlier in the year. So, you know, I've I happen to get a decent amount of, uh, of replies 00:02:01.170 --> 00:02:09.485 and, uh, mentions of all the different products that I mentioned that I build, but it's hard to stay on top of that stuff. Uh, so this puts it all in one place. 00:02:09.725 --> 00:02:17.885 So this is like a health thing here. So I built this last month or so. Like, so my mom was recently diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, 00:02:18.940 --> 00:02:42.145 which is pretty terrible, but there's just already, like, massive amounts of medical stuff to sift through. Every single day, there's some new thing. So, you know, I initially thought, like, let me dump all this stuff in, like, clawed code, but then it's like, well, how do I give my parents access to that? And then, like, you know, grandparents and who who want to keep up to date or, like, my mom's siblings, like, that kind of stuff. So built this, uh, tool to keep everybody up to date. You can, 00:02:43.025 --> 00:02:48.970 you know, chat with all the different medical documents. Yeah. This is a big, big need for for sure. My parents have the same problem. Like, I need to track 00:02:49.210 --> 00:03:06.745 all their doctor notes and stuff. Nice. Alright, dude. So so let me ask you the the question on people's heads then. How do you work on all these process at the same time? And I guess, like, do you feel like your attention is distracted with all these problems, or, like, that's just the way it is now with agents? You just kinda work on all these stuff at the same time. I'm like, uh, textbook ADHD. 00:03:06.825 --> 00:03:19.880 Like so my brain naturally already is just ping ponging all over the place. Like, just it all and and always has. Now I can just sort of, like, feed the beast a little bit more, which is pros and cons to that. But I think for me, 00:03:20.200 --> 00:03:29.865 you know, it depends on the day. Like, some days, I I can feel myself a lot of days. Like, I'm more mentally exhausted because I'm context switching a lot. But at the same time, I find myself also 00:03:30.265 --> 00:03:31.465 simultaneously 00:03:31.465 --> 00:03:32.985 maybe more fulfilled. 00:03:33.545 --> 00:03:43.110 Like so, like, you mentioned BearMetrics at the beginning here. So, like, that was a business analytics company I built over the course of seven years, I think. So I was essentially working on one thing for seven years, 00:03:43.510 --> 00:03:45.590 and I was just done. 00:03:45.590 --> 00:03:49.030 Like, I was tired of working on one thing for seven years. 00:03:49.270 --> 00:03:54.175 And, um, and so it's like my I already I just have so many different interests and, like, 00:03:54.655 --> 00:03:57.135 I'm desperate to constantly learn new things, 00:03:57.615 --> 00:04:03.455 and I find myself limited if I have to sort of, like, focus on one thing. Now is that the best business 00:04:03.930 --> 00:04:15.530 move? I don't there's there's an argument that, no. It's a terrible idea. Um, you know, if you wanna grow something to be as profitable as possible, okay. You know, you should focus. Whatever. From, like, a defining success perspective, 00:04:15.770 --> 00:04:17.610 I'm I find much more fulfillment 00:04:17.955 --> 00:04:36.590 in in sort of having my hand in a lot of different things. Yeah. We talked about, uh, we talked about how, like, uh, a typical a a great day for both of us is just, like, you know, work in a garden and also working with the agents. It's kinda it's kinda similar. Right? Like, in the garden, you're trying to grow, like, multiple plants, and then here, trying to grow model products. You know? That's exactly that. Yep. 00:04:36.750 --> 00:05:15.965 Yeah. Yeah. So I would love for you to show us how you kinda build these features end to end, uh, using Conductor or just other tools. This episode is brought to you by WhisperFlow. WhisperFlow saves me at least three hours a week and is one of my favorite AI apps by far. It's just so much faster to dictate to AI using your voice than to type. You just talk naturally, and it outputs clean, ready to send text. WhisperFlow even removes filler words and formats your sentences for you. I use WhisperFlow for everything, including drafting newsletter posts, writing product specs, replying on Slack, and more. It works on Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android across all of your favorite apps. Try it free at whisperflow.com 00:05:15.965 --> 00:05:30.950 and use my code peter whisper flow to get six months free. That's peter whisper flow. Now back to our episode. Sure. Absolutely. So, um, we'll kind of go in reverse here. So I have this build skill, which is an it's open source. It's like a GitHub, 00:05:31.110 --> 00:05:38.470 um, that has these you can see kind of here. It's prob probably pretty small on the screen. But, um, these, like, research phases, 00:05:38.870 --> 00:05:45.775 planning, implementation, and what what those do is, um, they've each got different sort of sets of instructions. 00:05:46.175 --> 00:05:49.615 So when you first build like, in this case, I was like, okay. I want to 00:05:50.095 --> 00:05:53.055 build this bot block implementation into Reply Social. 00:05:53.295 --> 00:05:57.535 Um, and what the output of that initial thing was a research document. So 00:05:57.870 --> 00:06:03.710 this went and took my previous code base that I'd already built out for the now defunct 00:06:03.790 --> 00:06:05.390 BotBlock product, 00:06:05.870 --> 00:06:23.715 uh, used that, and then kind of, like, also merge that in with the Reply Social code base and did a bunch of research over, you know, sort of high level technical stuff, different API calls you might need, pros and cons, what you could ignore from the original sort of Chrome extension, what needed to be brought over, how those systems would would interact, but it's high level. 00:06:24.275 --> 00:06:24.755 So 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:30.360 that's what gets generated first is just a research document. From there, I run an implementation 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:31.160 command 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:32.920 from that build skill. 00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:40.040 Mhmm. And that gets into, like narrows into, uh, different phases. So it creates in this case, there's a there's four different phases 00:06:40.535 --> 00:06:44.295 that it's gonna implement this in. These are gonna be four different pull requests, 00:06:44.615 --> 00:06:47.815 four separate branches essentially in in GET 00:06:48.055 --> 00:06:54.135 so that it's not trying to do all of this in one massive pass. It's doing them in these sort of contained chunks that I can 00:06:55.170 --> 00:06:59.570 I that read through it? Yeah. Yeah. So and and the way that I have that, 00:06:59.810 --> 00:07:01.890 um, that build skill 00:07:02.290 --> 00:07:07.250 set up is I've I've told it to make phases that are that are user testable. 00:07:07.635 --> 00:07:08.195 So, 00:07:08.435 --> 00:07:24.340 um, sometimes, like, these these implementation docs will have 30 plus different phases because I want to at each step, I need to I need to personally be able to test it out. So, you know, I have stuff in place here to, like, as part of its build process, it will open up a browser. It'll do some testing itself. 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:28.020 But, like, I, at the end of the day, need to to be sort of, like, the final 00:07:28.420 --> 00:07:46.145 To play with it. Yeah. Yeah. I need to just it needs to feel right or, like, oh, this is a really slow like, this load's really slow. Like, we're we're missing something here or this doesn't work the way that I pictured it. Whatever. Um, and as part of your process, do you review these do you you read through these documents? Right? You you want to let them go. Right? Yeah. So I will I'll do, like, a quick scan 00:07:46.465 --> 00:07:53.050 Okay. Okay. To, like, make sure that it's especially not so much these tasks that it generates, but, like, uh, the objectives. 00:07:53.370 --> 00:07:57.770 And, like, it's there's another step here that actually doesn't get saved in a document. But 00:07:58.010 --> 00:07:59.690 so, like, if I want to work on 00:08:00.495 --> 00:08:03.455 phase one here, I would write, like, build 00:08:03.535 --> 00:08:04.735 phase one 00:08:05.135 --> 00:08:09.695 bot block. So that says build phase one from this implementation document 00:08:10.095 --> 00:08:13.935 from the bot block sort of project. Because I could have these other ones, which was, like, 00:08:14.780 --> 00:08:17.260 adding Facebook support, adding Reddit support, 00:08:17.580 --> 00:08:21.500 adding this, like, marketing tools thing. These are, like, self separate self contained things. 00:08:22.060 --> 00:08:30.655 So what phase what it's saying to build the phases is to, like, okay. Take this phase chunk from implementation and now do even deeper research. 00:08:30.815 --> 00:08:33.455 So this is, like, go do web searching. 00:08:33.775 --> 00:08:41.480 So this is, you know, to check, like, competitor stuff. Like, who else has this feature? Have they implemented it? Do searching for, like, a 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:46.840 latest documentation. So this might be using context seven for that. Then, 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:49.720 um, this also has uses that UI 00:08:49.880 --> 00:08:51.720 dot SH skill. 00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:58.165 So this is, like, do a design pass, like, what needs to be accounted for here as far as, like, colors and components 00:08:58.165 --> 00:09:05.285 and all that kind of stuff. So it's incredibly in-depth. Yeah. So then that's what that's what does the actual building is this, like, build phase. And, 00:09:06.085 --> 00:09:11.100 um, the byproduct of that is after each step is done, it updates the progress 00:09:11.660 --> 00:09:12.460 file 00:09:12.540 --> 00:09:15.420 that includes all the stuff that was done in that phase. 00:09:15.660 --> 00:09:46.730 It includes these decisions made. So, you know, I'll go back and forth. These aren't like a one shot thing. Like, I'll have to iterate as I'm going, and it will take these like, oh, here's things that the system learned as it was going, and it adds that to the progress file. And the reason for the progress file is so that it kinda, like, not make the same mistakes. It can refer to this? So not make the same same mistakes, but also, like, each one of these so after I did phase one, I would need to do phase two. I'm opening up a new work tree that it doesn't have any other context. Like, it doesn't know what was done, and so this lets it reference 00:09:46.890 --> 00:09:52.970 future phases reference the past phases to know where it's at in the whole implementation plan. 00:09:53.130 --> 00:10:03.545 Okay. Got it. So, basically okay. So just to summarize, research is kind of like, uh, yeah, research and the and the implementation is basically kinda like a spec, like a product and technical spec. And then you always have, like, three or four phases. 00:10:03.865 --> 00:10:12.400 What was the reason to start a new Work Tree per phase? Like, it's just to save the tokens, or what was the reason? No. I'm not it's so, like, I think of a work tree as a 00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:14.560 as a shippable thing. 00:10:15.040 --> 00:10:20.560 Like, something I'm gonna push to production or yeah. There's lots of different sort of use cases there. But, like, 00:10:21.495 --> 00:10:22.215 for me, 00:10:22.535 --> 00:10:24.695 it needs to be self contained because 00:10:24.855 --> 00:10:26.615 yes. In part because of context, 00:10:26.775 --> 00:10:37.370 but a lot of this is also, like, rolling back. So, like, if I screw up a bunch of stuff, it gives me checkpoints that I can roll back to. Oh, I see. Um, so it's like save points, essentially. 00:10:37.850 --> 00:10:41.930 But, yeah, each time it's, like, fresh so that there's not, yeah, context rot. 00:10:42.010 --> 00:10:43.770 Um, it hallucinates a lot less. 00:10:44.730 --> 00:10:57.565 Got it. So so each phase is kind of like a PR that then you you play test, I guess. Know? Abs each one is is a 100% a PR. Yeah. So, like, I'll I'll, um, so my process here is I use I use Opus for 00:10:57.805 --> 00:11:04.205 the bulk of everything. It does all the planning. Uh, it does the first pass and everything. And then after it's built out the code 00:11:04.700 --> 00:11:10.700 in that work tree, I'll then do a a review pass using GPT 5.5. 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:20.485 So it does a sort of, like, adversarial review of everything in the work tree, and it invariably finds, you know, three to five bugs that Opus, um, overlooked. 00:11:20.725 --> 00:11:27.445 And then after that, it gets merged in. Oh, so you have a you have another skill, or is that part of your build skill to So this is actually inside 00:11:28.165 --> 00:11:29.765 Yeah. Inside, uh, 00:11:30.005 --> 00:11:30.725 Conductor, 00:11:31.125 --> 00:11:33.550 but it'll show, a little review button, 00:11:34.110 --> 00:11:35.470 and you can set 00:11:36.750 --> 00:11:38.030 a review model. 00:11:38.430 --> 00:11:41.870 So Oh, that's model. Yeah. Yeah. So then you can pick 00:11:42.190 --> 00:11:51.945 however whatever you want. This is what I found works best for me. Okay. And so that's that's very much part of the process is, like, big first pass by Opus, have GPT 00:11:51.945 --> 00:12:06.350 basically find all the gaps that were missed, and then, yeah, push it into a a pull request. Yeah. I I was gonna ask you why you're using Conductor because, you know, Codex and Clockrole are both pretty good now. But but I guess, like, it has these features. Right? I can switch with the models. 00:12:06.590 --> 00:12:15.105 I can switch a lot. Yeah. And the the, like, automated work tree management stuff. So every one of these, each time I open a work tree, it's running a setup command 00:12:15.425 --> 00:12:25.025 that goes creates like, it's got a unique port. So I can be running 10 of these at the same time and open them all separately in different browsers. It's copying over environment variables, 00:12:25.105 --> 00:12:32.630 you know, depending on iOS stuff. It's setting up different processes. Like, there's just a bunch of setup stuff that happens automatically that's really convenient. 00:12:32.870 --> 00:12:46.515 And you pretty much use this build process, the planning process for, like, every every feature that you build? Or Yes. So the the that's like, anytime there's a new if it's just so, like, take Clearly for instance. We can I'll show you kinda how interesting 00:12:47.155 --> 00:12:48.195 thing there. So 00:12:48.755 --> 00:12:52.355 Clearly is open source, so there's tons of feature requests that people put into GitHub. 00:12:52.835 --> 00:12:54.355 So there's a GitHub 00:12:54.630 --> 00:12:58.630 integration here so I can see things that people have requested. 00:12:58.870 --> 00:13:04.070 So then what I can what I'll do here is I have for sort of one off things. So here somebody wants 00:13:04.230 --> 00:13:39.190 a Zoom feature on these, like, mermaid diagrams. So what I'll do is I'll just attach it here, and then I have a research skill that basically kind of pulled out something from, like, my overall build skill, but, like, pulls in the GitHub stuff, goes and does a bunch of web search, uh, UI stuff, document searching. And then I basically just have it yeah. It starts researching this stuff and, like, decides how to integrate it and build it out. Uh, it'll give me a plan, and then I'll approve it. When you say you'll look at, like, sometimes look at how competitors do it, you'll you'll, like, go browse the website, I I guess. Like actual web searching. Yeah. And then browse, 00:13:39.645 --> 00:13:50.125 read it, sometimes take screenshots if, like, it does hurt determines that's necessary. I actually did something pretty similar. Like, um, because Substack right now doesn't have a a API. It's, like, pretty back backwards. 00:13:50.605 --> 00:13:58.770 So to implement, like, auth on my website, Substack auth, I had to, like, go research how other people do it, and then, like, Codex figured it out. 00:13:59.090 --> 00:14:17.305 Yep. Yeah. So it's great. Impressive. Yeah. And your build skills are open source, you said? So it's on GitHub? Oh, everything is. Yeah. All all any skills that I've, like, personally put together are all bundled. There's there's probably a dozen of them. Do you have, like, some sort of a, uh, well, I guess I'm not using, you know, Cloud Code, but, like, I was gonna ask you, like, do you have some sort of a 00:14:17.625 --> 00:14:32.650 Cloud. Md or Agents. Md where has, like, a list of best practices, like, know, always write tests or, like, something like that? Yes. But, like, it's very I I can happy to show it. It's, um, it's super Rails focused because that tends my stack is, like, Rails plus Inertia and Postgres. Okay. 00:14:32.890 --> 00:14:54.820 Got it. But is very Rails focused, and it covers a lot of, like, um, best practices on Rails, but also, like, how I like to do testing, which is, like, I use agent browser to open things up. And then, like, it specifically mentions Conductor has some variables, like Conductor ports that are unique, and so it needs to mention that kind of stuff. Like, it's just, like, stuff I've picked up over the years. Do you mind do mind showing it for for just a just that second? Yeah. 00:14:55.860 --> 00:14:57.700 So as part of, like, um, my 00:14:57.860 --> 00:14:59.540 project setup process, 00:14:59.780 --> 00:15:02.660 I get it to create a unique Claude 00:15:02.900 --> 00:15:08.045 file, but, like, from the same general template. So it's give some, uh, context about, 00:15:08.445 --> 00:15:24.460 uh, what the product is. So it just knows what it's talking about, like, what the actual product is. Users like on us. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, just like how to speak in marketing, that kind of thing. Um, in this case so this is like a mono repo that's got a a web app and an iOS app. So, 00:15:24.780 --> 00:15:28.380 basically, it gives direction up front of, like, where things are. So that's important. Um, 00:15:29.740 --> 00:15:46.695 different commands that it will need access to. So it'll have a tendency to want to use certain commands that it thinks are, like, typical for a given app or for or for given, like, framework or framework or something like that. So this clarifies what to use and when to use it, how to run different tests. 00:15:47.350 --> 00:15:57.270 And this is not stuff that you manually type up. Right? This is, like, stuff that you No. This is generated itself. But I it's, like, told to, like, here are the big here's the shape of the document. Fill it out for me. 00:15:57.830 --> 00:15:59.670 Okay. Yeah. Basically, how to do things, 00:16:00.310 --> 00:16:02.070 mentioning. Wait. This is actually pretty long. 00:16:02.470 --> 00:16:04.655 Yeah. Yeah. It is pretty long. Um, 00:16:04.895 --> 00:16:12.335 and and a lot of it's like so I keep mentioning new skills here. So what I'll do a lot of times is I have a separate learnings 00:16:12.655 --> 00:16:18.930 skill. So it takes the current work tree after I've gone through it all, like, done shipped that phase. 00:16:19.170 --> 00:16:21.010 I'll run this learnings skill, 00:16:21.410 --> 00:16:57.250 and it basically says, like, look at all the stuff that was done in this work tree. Look at our conversations, like our actual sessions, the stuff that I had to sit there and, like, tell you over and over and over, like, no. That didn't work. No. That didn't work. Try this. That didn't work. Yeah. And if basically, it it says review all this stuff and distill it into anything that we might could add to the cloud file so that you don't keep making these same mistakes. Oh, that that's very smart. Yeah. That that yeah. So the cloud file is constantly getting updated. And is this learning is this learning scale open source too, or or or I guess people just use it? Yeah. It is. Um, and, also, there's another major one that I this is, again, a sort of, like, the adversarial, like, method here, but I have a but for real 00:16:58.370 --> 00:17:01.010 skill that I run. So, like, I'll it'll do the plan. 00:17:01.665 --> 00:17:07.265 It'll implement the plan, and then I'll run but for real. And that but for real skill 00:17:07.425 --> 00:17:17.660 is basically, like, kind of bullies the AI, the LLM into, like, hey, man. Like, you you almost certainly screwed some stuff up. Like, go back over it again, 00:17:17.900 --> 00:17:44.520 um, and it'll find three to five bugs, which is separate from the, like, GPT review process. There's a lot of just being, like, making it go back over stuff again. Yeah. Because this is like, uh, you know, for a human to review, like, you know, a lot of code, it takes a long time. But for It does. LM, it's just I the way I think about it is, like, in a typical sort of a team setting where you're both working on a, uh, or both. I mean, like, a whole team of people, you could have three, five, 10 developers working on a project 00:17:44.600 --> 00:17:45.640 or hundreds. 00:17:45.800 --> 00:18:00.545 You make a pull request and then, like, the concept there is you have a you have another developer review it. Right? Like, you get another set of eyes on it. And invariably, they'll find something or be like, like, this isn't really, like, how I would do it, or here's another way to do it. And it's just doing that, 00:18:00.945 --> 00:18:10.785 but having the AI play that role instead of, uh, another human. That's great, dude. That's great. Do you mind do mind showing this, Xcel? The the the Xcel sounds pretty interesting to me. Do 00:18:10.865 --> 00:18:15.800 you have the MD file? So I have this, uh, this other open source Mac app called Chops, 00:18:16.120 --> 00:18:20.600 which is basically just handling skill files. Oh, nice. So these are all these are all different skills, 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:27.825 um, that I use. But, like yeah. So for instance, this, like, but for real one. That's great, dude. Yeah. 00:18:27.985 --> 00:18:35.505 Did you get AI to write with this? Or Uh-huh. But I I iterated over a bunch. So, like, Chops has this built in sort of AI iterator 00:18:35.585 --> 00:18:45.440 where I can just open up Chops and, like, have have the AI keep I'll, you know, give it some kind of guidance over, like, be meaner or something. It'll, you know, it'll update the whole thing. So 00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:56.735 Wow. This is my favorite skill I've I've seen so far from you. It's shocking how good it is. And it kinda feels good just like because when you're really frustrated how it just keeps breaking stuff and, like, you know, whatever. It's a machine. But 00:18:57.455 --> 00:19:07.535 Yeah. You kinda have to be mean to it sometimes. Right? Like, I'm I'm pretty nice to him. Like, hey. Please do this. Please do that. But, yeah, if you get stuck here I reached a breaking point, though, and, you know, it I'll end up typing in all caps like it cares. 00:19:08.095 --> 00:19:21.510 How about let let me ask you a little bit more about the design part. You said, do you get to make some sort of design system thing first or, like, some sort of you know? Or or you just use that thing? Because, like, a landing page, you need to copy. You need to, like, the colors, the fonts to do a step by step. Or 00:19:22.630 --> 00:19:26.230 So the way that my design process typically works here is 00:19:27.165 --> 00:19:27.805 I 00:19:29.325 --> 00:19:31.965 like, I I have to have a name for whatever I'm working on. 00:19:32.605 --> 00:19:38.125 And then, like, it's like if a new if we got a new business or project or whatever. So name, uh, a logo. 00:19:38.685 --> 00:19:39.805 Logos 00:19:40.110 --> 00:19:41.230 ninety 00:19:41.550 --> 00:19:46.430 nine percent of the time done in Adobe Illustrator. Like, I I'm just, like, in there, 00:19:46.910 --> 00:19:53.550 you know, doing actual, uh, using the pen tool and going through a thousand different fonts and all that kind of stuff. 00:19:54.415 --> 00:20:02.415 I haven't found a great way to shortcut that, really. And so that involves some color scheme stuff too. Like, that's where I'm typically setting 00:20:02.575 --> 00:20:08.180 figuring out, like, the colors that I want before I've touched any code. So this is for for rumored. 00:20:08.340 --> 00:20:08.980 So 00:20:09.700 --> 00:20:11.220 where this started was 00:20:11.700 --> 00:20:13.780 me trying out a bunch of different fonts, 00:20:14.180 --> 00:20:38.150 uh, and I kinda landed on this, okay. Like, quotes, like, the concept being that, like, LLMs are just, like, saying things out of context or quoting you incorrectly or you know? So the idea of, like, quoting is kind of what stuck in my mind. So I started playing around with different fonts, then, like, okay. Well, which which typefaces have sort of interesting quotation marks? So, like, that just went through a bunch of them, and, know, they all end up kind of running together. They all end up looking the same. 00:20:38.870 --> 00:20:45.510 But I kinda landed on, uh, liking this this particular typeface, and it's so then I start playing around with 00:20:45.955 --> 00:20:46.755 colors. 00:20:46.835 --> 00:20:57.315 So I'm just trying out different, you know, light, dark color, black and white, whatever. So that's I end up on there. Then I decide I like this sort of deeper orange. 00:20:57.810 --> 00:21:00.850 So then I start throwing that into different scenarios, 00:21:00.930 --> 00:21:02.770 trying out these textures. 00:21:02.770 --> 00:21:05.970 Here's what it would look like with just in, like, a sort of avatar 00:21:05.970 --> 00:21:08.050 favicon kind of scenario. 00:21:08.370 --> 00:21:19.495 And so this is where I end up picking again, like, I've designed or built nothing. It's just brand stuff. Mhmm. And that's where I end up landing on that. And then I take that and say, like, here are the colors that I want. 00:21:20.535 --> 00:21:22.855 Here's the logo, like, SVG files, 00:21:23.095 --> 00:21:34.520 and I and then I'll jump into code. Then then you're, like, maybe work on the value prop to copy and stuff with, uh, with AI. Right? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll you know, I the marketing page stuff is kind of interesting because it's 00:21:35.080 --> 00:21:37.240 I usually do that after I've built the app 00:21:37.560 --> 00:21:41.335 because I'm, like, figuring out what the app actually does. 00:21:41.815 --> 00:22:02.330 You know, I have a high level idea of what I want, but, like Yeah. How that actually translates into features is there's a whole you know, it's multiple days of iterating on that. And so then after I've feel really solid in that, I'll then say, like, let's generate a marketing site. Here's, again, brand stuff. I like the the these textures. I kind of want this, like, urgent 00:22:02.650 --> 00:22:11.035 sort of tech. Not like, military is the wrong word here, but this is sort of, like, a little bit more sort of edgy, like, soft typical. Yeah. So 00:22:11.195 --> 00:22:12.955 I like that sort of vibe. 00:22:13.435 --> 00:22:21.995 Now I'll also, like, look through the entire feature set of the of the app we've built and, like, generate marketing copy. Oh, that's interesting. That's pretty interesting because 00:22:22.330 --> 00:22:32.810 that also I wanna ask you next. Like, I was gonna ask you, like, what kind of MVP or how do you validate demand? But it sounds like you guys should just build the product first. Let us build the whole thing. Because because I guess it's cheap now to build the whole thing of the AI. 00:22:33.290 --> 00:22:33.930 Yeah. 00:22:34.250 --> 00:22:36.570 I mean, which is that that has not always been the case. 00:22:38.385 --> 00:22:40.705 But I still think people have 00:22:41.105 --> 00:22:54.330 have a tendency to want like, it's terrifying launching something, period. Yeah. You know, I've been doing it for twenty five years, launched hundreds of stuff, uh, different products. And, like, every single time, it's just like, god. Like, what if zero people care? That sucks. Uh, 00:22:54.890 --> 00:23:10.635 and so as humans, we tend to delay that stuff by by having a landing page where we collect email addresses and then, like, try to translate that into demand or something, and it's just not. Um, it's a distraction. So I just suck it up, build the thing, and shove it out there and see what happens. 00:23:11.195 --> 00:23:14.875 So yeah. So, like, yeah, you're like a serial builder. And, um, 00:23:15.275 --> 00:23:19.435 so bay basically, my understanding is you pay you kinda just, like, build something to solve your own problems, 00:23:20.030 --> 00:23:29.790 and then you just build it, and then you and then you spend a landing page, and then maybe like, how how do you get I eyeballs? How do you get demand? Do do you It's it's social media. I mean, yeah, you know, I got whatever. 60,000 00:23:29.790 --> 00:23:31.710 followers on Twitter, 00:23:31.710 --> 00:23:40.475 and it's like, that helps Yeah. Get it started at least. And do you worry that, like, you know, like, does this still happen to you? You lost something and no one cares? Like that? Oh, absolutely. 00:23:40.635 --> 00:23:42.635 Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. 00:23:43.115 --> 00:23:48.920 For sure. And and some of this is like, that's not because what I have to what I battle against is 00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:50.440 not that 00:23:50.760 --> 00:23:59.000 like, I think if I I'm so quick to, like, move on to other things that, um, I'll stop talking about something and, like, just people forget about it. So, 00:23:59.320 --> 00:24:00.920 like, where where I 00:24:01.295 --> 00:24:08.975 sort of need to, like, do better is talking more about the things that exist that I've built already instead of just, you know, building new stuff. 00:24:09.855 --> 00:24:24.830 And and and do you usually launch something with, like, a paid version, or or is it kind of like how do you know what was per market fit? You know? I Right. I I yes. I try to always have a paid version of something. The open source stuff is kinda like, clearly, for instance, like, markdown editor. 00:24:25.150 --> 00:24:41.755 I don't know that I'll ever charge for that. Um, it doesn't cost me anything. So but anything that has some sort of hosted, you know, infrastructure servers that have costs, I yeah. I charge for it, and hopefully, somebody pays for it. And if they don't, then, like, it it gets so far. I'm just like, okay. Well, then, like, I'll shut it down. 00:24:42.680 --> 00:25:00.335 Okay. Do you worry that, um, one thing that, like you know, I'm I'm more I'm much more of a novice builder, but one thing I worry is, like, maybe I need to get over this. It's, like, my reputation is online if I watch some new shitty that no one cares about. Like, do do you how do you get past that? You know? Um, I feel like I've just been I've been building stuff for so long that, 00:25:00.895 --> 00:25:03.855 um, I don't I don't I don't worry that 00:25:04.175 --> 00:25:06.255 somebody's gonna, like, think it's dumb. 00:25:06.495 --> 00:25:08.175 It's just 00:25:07.970 --> 00:25:14.130 because everybody's different and, like, I might I have this itch, but I might be the only one who has the itch. 00:25:14.290 --> 00:25:18.050 So Yeah. That's fine. Doesn't invalidate that there's an itch, but, like, maybe 00:25:18.690 --> 00:25:19.890 there's not enough there to, 00:25:20.495 --> 00:25:29.535 you know, cover the costs. I think that's where it comes down to for me is, like, does it pay for the servers that like like, Reply Social, for instance, has all these, like, API 00:25:29.615 --> 00:25:31.375 data sources that cost money. 00:25:31.535 --> 00:25:37.800 And Yep. If it's not covering the cost, like, it's not a charity. Like, I'm not it needs to cover its costs. 00:25:38.040 --> 00:25:38.760 Um, 00:25:39.240 --> 00:25:59.185 but that's kinda tends to be the the the line for me is like, okay. If I spent thousands of dollars just, like, fronting the costs of this and I still can't get anybody to pay for it, then, like, I don't I probably need rethink some stuff. But if you if you have some paying customers, you shut it down. They just have to send them an email and be like, hey. You know? I'm I'm shutting this down. You have to Yeah. Which sucks. Like, I I'm I'm Yeah. You know? I 00:25:59.825 --> 00:26:02.305 I do try to be a little sensitive to that where 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:08.560 if somebody's paying for something, you know, what I'll do is if I shut it down, then let's refund them the past few months or something. 00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:13.280 Um, that doesn't take away for the fact that they now don't have access to a tool that they needed. But 00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:16.160 so that's sort of the reality of business as well. It's like 00:26:16.725 --> 00:26:17.445 things 00:26:17.685 --> 00:26:39.360 yeah. I'm not paying for other people to use it. I think one thing I worry about you even just with the Substack newsletter, like, I used to have a monthly subscription, and then people are just like, if you if you charge too low, like, a couple you know, $20 or something, then people are just like, hey. I want a refund. I want a refund. And there's, a shit ton of support that comes in. This is a paid ass. So eventually, I decided to just, like, charge couple $100. Like, if you can't afford it, then, you know 00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:43.465 yeah. Do you have that kind of yeah. Yes. So 00:26:44.345 --> 00:26:53.145 that which is, like, that's very typical of, like, any kind of product stuff. It's like the these, like, really low cost plans tend to have the highest 00:26:53.625 --> 00:26:55.145 Sure. Support overhead. Yeah. 00:26:55.860 --> 00:27:00.420 Uh, but I guess for your like, since you have five products or, like, you know, however many of us, like, 00:27:00.900 --> 00:27:03.380 you you probably do you have a support email for each? So, like, 00:27:04.020 --> 00:27:13.395 do you worry about just, like, matching support? Yeah. No. So, like, I do have a central or, um, I have an email address for each service that all just comes to my inbox. I also, 00:27:13.795 --> 00:27:18.515 um, man, I'm I'm I'm sounding like a shill here for all my skills. I have a skill that 00:27:19.155 --> 00:27:22.035 generates an entire in app chat support 00:27:22.530 --> 00:27:24.290 system within your app. 00:27:24.930 --> 00:27:28.850 So people can, like it's like intercom replacement, but, like, inside the app. 00:27:29.090 --> 00:27:29.570 So, 00:27:29.970 --> 00:27:34.290 um, people can just chat inside the app, and it sends it to there's a whole, like, 00:27:35.265 --> 00:27:39.665 support. Well but it's still just it's still just me in there, but, like, I'm not having to 00:27:40.625 --> 00:27:47.665 I it lets me do more efficient support because I I have the context of their account inside that chat. And, 00:27:48.225 --> 00:27:51.000 you know, I also can kind of compartmentalize 00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:58.760 it like, okay. I'm ready to work on support for this product. Okay. Let me go work on support for this other product. Got it. Got it. Okay. Yeah. It it feels like 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:06.765 as a solo builder, anything that you don't wanna spend time doing, you can just kinda build a scale to try try to automate that as much as possible. Yeah. 00:28:06.765 --> 00:28:08.925 I think, like Yeah. You know, the 00:28:09.885 --> 00:28:12.525 AI has leveled the playing field in a lot of ways. 00:28:13.245 --> 00:28:13.805 Yeah. 00:28:14.765 --> 00:28:24.360 At the same time, I think, like, I'm able to do things very efficiently because I've got twenty five years of, you know, sort of boots on the ground, like, experience 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:28.840 in the trenches of, like, building all these things pre AI. 00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:29.880 And so 00:28:30.335 --> 00:28:43.295 I, like, I know the general shape of how I want things to work. And so I can very quickly get to that point and decide, like, this is gonna work fine. Oh, this won't work fine. Oh, this is gonna be a real problem in a couple of months, you know, whatever. So 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:49.680 I can get to, like, a shippable point on stuff or fix problems pretty quickly just because I've 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:51.280 dealt with these problems 00:28:51.760 --> 00:28:54.560 pre AI, I think. Just a few more questions. 00:28:55.280 --> 00:29:09.545 I think there's gonna be a lot more builders now. Right? Like, people who are Sure. Who don't have, like, fifteen years of experience like you you you do. Like, do you have any advice for them, uh, as they kind of vibe code all the stuff? Like, how how can they actually learn some of the technical stuff that's actually important to work with agents? 00:29:09.705 --> 00:29:23.030 Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just failing a lot. So, like, people people give, you know, they use, like, vibe coding as, a slur. And, like, the reality is that's it's fantastic that anybody's building anything, and the only way that they'll ever figure out 00:29:23.590 --> 00:29:26.710 what not to do is by doing the thing incorrectly. 00:29:27.515 --> 00:29:31.115 I think any kind of, like, AI assisted coding 00:29:31.595 --> 00:29:38.555 reduces the number of mistakes that you'll make. But, like, this idea that mistakes didn't exist pre AI is insane. 00:29:38.635 --> 00:29:39.035 So 00:29:40.470 --> 00:29:45.030 I think it's just making the mistakes as fast as you can and and recognizing 00:29:45.030 --> 00:29:48.390 what the mistake was so that you don't repeat it. 00:29:50.390 --> 00:29:51.830 But there's 00:29:51.830 --> 00:30:05.305 no, like, real replacement to just jumping in there and doing it. And I think and, like, putting stuff out there. So so the idea of, like, spending months working on something before you put it out for other people to use, I think that's a that's a real bad idea. 00:30:06.425 --> 00:30:08.585 Um, there's no reason not to just throw it out there now 00:30:09.390 --> 00:30:22.190 and see what happens. Why would you say, like, a lot of projects worked on? Like, how long do you work on it before you just put it out there? Like like like a week or something or a couple days even? There's been stuff where I've launched within twenty four hours, like, um, or even, like, same day. 00:30:23.375 --> 00:30:27.295 That's not always possible, but as fast as I can. Absolutely. 00:30:27.375 --> 00:30:34.815 Yeah. That that's actually something I struggle with too. Like, I kinda wanna make it really, really good and perfect, but then, like, maybe no one no one cares. Like so so, yeah, you gotta launch fast. 00:30:35.470 --> 00:30:39.790 Yeah. And there's so many times where you'll build something based on your own assumption of what the problem is, 00:30:40.110 --> 00:30:56.605 and maybe it solves the problem exactly for you. But what the problem is for somebody else is similar, but, like, it looks a little different. And you can't know what that is until somebody else is in there and is like, well, what about this use case? Like, oh, I hadn't thought of that. But, yeah, because it's somebody else. And so you just need to get those other perspectives 00:30:56.685 --> 00:31:01.885 as fast as possible. That's good advice. Alright, dude. Well well, where can people find you online? Where can people find your projects? 00:31:02.380 --> 00:31:07.180 Sure. The the the best place is just on Twitter. So, uh, at Spigford. 00:31:07.740 --> 00:31:14.540 I I'm just you know, I post there a 100 times a day and talk about all my products and stuff there. And my bio's got all the links to 00:31:15.020 --> 00:31:23.015 my 50 different things going. I also really like your blog. Uh, every day is a year dot a I is is very well written and very practical. 00:31:23.575 --> 00:31:27.815 And, uh, I I love the Rats for OpenCloud, and we can talk about that next. Yeah. 00:31:28.135 --> 00:31:28.855 Perfect. 00:31:29.095 --> 00:31:32.295 Yeah. Alright, Josh. Thank thanks so much, man. Thanks for having me, Peter.