Coworking: Grit or Quit & Polish Week at Craftwork

CJ: Welcome to build and learn.

My name is CJ.

Colin: And I'm Colin, and we are back
to catch up on what we're building,

what we're learning after a few little
tech snafus, we are, we are back.

CJ: Yeah.

What do you Okay, so now?

Yeah, what do you think?

What do you think it was?

We got like, totally kicked out?

Totally.

Ah,

Colin: a lot with the different
USB hubs that are out there.

So I used to have a CalDigit hub
and for some reason, so like what

I'm talking on right now is an XLR
mic with a Focusrite Scarlett Solo.

And then I have a Sony, I think
it's a 1000 or something like that.

Camera is my my camera and we
don't even use the video for this.

So it's kind of overkill, but
like, for some reason, the CalDigit

cannot power both of those.

If I plug each of those things
into my Mac, it works fine,

but wasn't enough ports.

To do all that and have like a monitor
so I had another hub and I was like

trying to daisy chain them which made
it worse and it's unclear when when

these companies make them because it's
supposed to be I think each of the USB

C ports are supposed to be thunderbolts
but I don't think that's the case.

So it's just tricky because they all
look the same, but like some of them are

Thunderbolt and some of them are not.

And so you have to know
like which one is which.

And so ultimately I, I kind of
wanted to get a new monitor for

another reason for a gaming reason.

And so I, I used to have a gaming
monitor here at work and now I've

moved the monitor home to use
for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

And and my new work computer is one of the
Apple studio displays because it has four.

USB and one Thunderbolt on the
back, which it's from Apple.

So I don't understand why they're
not all Thunderbolt ports.

Like just make them all Thunderbolt.

I don't understand.

Maybe it's an interoperability thing
with non Apple stuff that they want to

make sure that you can use everything.

But I had everything running into the
studio display and then into my Mac

with one with one card, which is great.

And I've been able to use that in
calls at work and stuff all week

just until we joined Zoncaster and
then everything just stopped working.

So,

CJ: That I don't know how
that's not a thing, right?

Like we went through the pandemic, every
company should be understanding that

we want to sit down and plug in one
cable and have all of our stuff work.

And then if we want to go sit at the
coffee shop, we can just unplug the one

cable, go to the coffee shop and sit down.

We shouldn't have to plug in 25
different cables to get our camera and

our mic and our, uh, yeah, the monitors
and whatever, all up and running.

It's so frustrating.

I don't know how it's, this
is like not a solved thing.

Colin: It has to be an
interoperability thing.

Cause I can't imagine you're in
a meeting and you're like, we're

going to put four ports on it.

One of them is going to have all of
the throughput, but what if we added

three that only do a little bit?

It's like something's up there
that it has to be for a reason.

It's probably costing
components and stuff too.

And this monitor you is not cheap by
any means, but like I spend so much time

in front of this screen that it's just,
I can already tell a huge difference.

And I had like this crazy, like FPS, you
know, gaming monitor and I'm writing code.

So I don't need to have that.

And now that's at home where I can
actually take advantage of that stuff.

So,

CJ: Mm hmm.

Nice.

Colin: yeah.

CJ: Yeah, I, the other thing that has
been interesting lately is we've been

using tuple a lot for pair programming
and this week mob programming, which

we'll get into a little bit later.

But one thing that I
learned this week was about.

The tuple multiple cursors
versus single cursor.

Cause a couple of times I
joined the calls and people were

like, whoa, what just happened?

Someone stole my cursor.

I can't move it anymore.

And I was like, what the heck is going on?

And I think I had like the single cursor.

And maybe my mouse was just like ever
so slightly moving across the screen.

And so like nobody could
do it or something.

And so because of just a little bit
of drift and some one small config it

kind of like jammed up the whole thing.

And so I thought maybe it
was something like that.

Like I know to make tuple do what
it does, I'm sure they've got to do

a lot of like wild operating system
stuff to take over and then present

multiple cursors and things, but yeah,

Colin: and, and with very
little latency, right?

Like you've got those mouse
changes happening on multiple

screens across time and space.

Nice.

CJ: we've been doing these
mob pairing sessions for one

hour in the mornings a day.

One of us will volunteer to just
write code or like do a project that

we have on our plate for that day.

And everyone on the team follows
along, which right now it's just

four of us, so it's nice and cozy.

And eventually as we grow, I think
it'll be a kind of a cool way, but

definitely a great way to cross
pollinate different things that people

are doing, like not only just showing
what they're working on, but how they

approach problems and how they debug.

And so we had Drew.

Go through and show us some you
X UI changes based on kind of

like how he approaches thinking
through those those problems.

And then Nick showed us some cool
stuff about how to fine tune GPT and

like a bunch of Python tools for.

You know, like building out your JSON L
files and then also just like training.

And then Mike showed us some react
native stuff, just kind of walking

through, this is the react native app
and kind of how to start it and how to

run it and how to debug, you know, how
do you actually open the debugger, like

the console to see your console logs
and things like that and react native.

So that, that mob programming
thing has been pretty fun and

like a really cool way to learn.

So yeah, really, really enjoyed that.

Colin: That's cool.

It's kind of a fun way to kind of
push forward the culture and knowledge

to and spread it out a little bit.

So we we do some knowledge
shares, but they tend to be

like slide presentations about

CJ: Hmm.

Mm

Colin: getting in and doing it.

I like that idea of like, I'm
going to work on this anyway.

And so I'm going to open up, you know,
tuple or whatever and let other people

join in, even if it's just to watch,
ask questions might actually keep me

more on task to get it, getting it done
faster when other people are watching.

CJ: Do you do a lot of pairing?

Colin: Not really, no I did a little
bit more at Orbit when, when time zones

worked, but not, not so much today.

Most of it's marked down and,
or like sample apps and just

trying to get things running.

And that voice thing that I was tinkering
with, I might need to pair with somebody

on just because it still isn't working,
but yeah, maybe that's an area where we

might be able to add more, more of that.

Yes.

CJ: who I think the first time I
met him, like four years ago or

something he was like, Oh yeah.

Anytime you want to
pair, just let me know.

We should, we should like
set up some pairing sessions.

And I learned so much from him.

It was wild.

So we paired a lot on the
code gen pipelines for Stripe.

Like as I think I was working on.

Code gen for stripe.

net.

And he was working on like the
underlying framework that was like for

building all of the code gen tools.

And so he would jump in and just
teach me like a million things in

an hour or two hours or whatever.

And then that ended up being something
where I was like, okay, Hey, this

is like a really valuable thing.

I should set up more pairing sessions
with more people so that I can learn

from them and you know, maybe there's a
couple of things they'll pick up from me.

And I think it decreases a lot of back
and forth over Slack and decreases a

lot of back and forth over like GitHub.

PRs sometimes too.

And so yeah, I don't know.

I'm really curious to see how this mob
pairing thing goes into the future.

I think we expect maybe to do
like one a week going forward.

So yeah, I'll try to report
back and see how it impacts

our small team at Kraftwerk.

Colin: Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah.

I liked the idea of a Polish week too.

I mean, I think a lot of companies try
to do some sort of like, I dunno, bug

bashes don't always feel super satisfying
because if it's like if it was important

it should just be prioritized into normal
work but I get it there's sometimes

where it's just like here's a whole
basket of things that one on one they

might not take very much time but they
just there's always something that's

more important and we're gonna Just
take a week, pause, and just get through

a bunch of that, you know, tech debt.

And then some of them, in like the case
of Discord, some of them are just like low

hanging fruit that like we can ship and
developers are super excited because they

thought they were never going to get it.

And we, we shipped it.

So,

CJ: Yeah, this was actually
Drew's idea and I think Drew

and Mike put it on the calendar.

In August, they put it in on the calendar
in November and then it just showed up

and we're like, okay, I guess this is the
week where we're going to polish stuff.

And it's so yeah, polish week is kind of
like any sort of cleanup you want to do.

Like anytime you leave a comment in
your code, that's like to do make sure

this works in this edge case, or, you
know, you've got some tests that are

commented out, or you've got, in our case.

In the early days I was scaffolding
just like a ton of stuff to get

things built out really quickly and
a lot of the scaffolded views are

like not even used and some of the
yeah, there's just like a bunch of

cruft that we didn't actually need.

There was some stuff in the jumpstart
template that we're not using.

There was.

Just a lot of things that we were deleting
and then tests that were just flaky.

So we're fixing those and lots
of little things like that.

And it kind of acts as like a, a palate
cleanser almost from your day to day,

like feature building and just like.

I don't know, kind of stressing about,
okay, I gotta, you know, peel off this

century issue and go solve this real
quick and then get back to my grind of

working on this giant form somewhere
in the belly of the application.

And kind of like zooming out and being
like, what are all the different little

quality of life improvements that we
can do, whether it's like actually in

the UI for the team or for customers,
or if it's in the code for us.

So,

Colin: Yeah, I actually really think that
those things are like personal to like,

I don't think it would work if a PM is
like, here's the things we're going to

work on for polish week because, you know,
those things that are hidden in drawers

that need to be cleaned out, right?

You've got the junk drawer, you've
got the extra views and you're

like, Oh, every time I run into
that, I'm like, I should fix that.

But I'm working on something else.

And it's just going to be
satisfying to like retool and it's

like setting up your workshop.

It's like, okay, I've cleaned all
my tools, put everything away.

And then next week, when we start back
into future work, like I'm going to

just feel a little bit lighter and a
little bit more excited to get in there.

You know, we go fast, you know,
we go slow to go fast eventually.

Right.

So that's

CJ: Does like a database dump and
it was always so frustrating because

It was really, really confusing.

I kind of like just sketched out, threw
it up so that people could use this,

but I never went back and cleaned it up.

And when it worked, it
looks like a giant error.

And when it didn't work,
it looked like it worked.

And so it was like this
very, very confusing thing.

And so that was like one that I had a lot
of fun with going back and like colorizing

the terminal output and stuff like that.

You know, making some prompts in the
terminal that were like, Oh, do you want

to, you know, redact all the data now?

Or do you want to do this step now?

And then you know, using a couple of
libraries or features of Ruby that I

don't usually get to use around, like,
you know, working in the terminal for uh,

like grabbing standard in and standard
out and standard error and messing

around with the output from some PG.

Like dump command or whatever.

So that was, that was tons of fun
and definitely I think will be

quality of life improvement for me.

Cause people won't be slacking and
being like, Hey, did this thing work?

I'm like, yeah, trust me.

I know it looks like
failure, but it worked.

Just, yeah, we'll fix it later.

Kind of thing.

Like anytime, I guess like maybe, yeah.

Anytime you say, yeah,
we'll fix that later.

Just, that's like something that you
might want to clean up in a polish week.

So,

Colin: that's tricky because rake
tasks don't always give you a lot

of visibility or like, can you, can
you do like inputs mid rake task?

Like run through some stuff and
then do like a, a chomp type thing.

CJ: Yeah, I was, I was surprised you
can do like, yeah, you can do like

gets dot chomp or yeah, the chomp is
like just cleaning up the new line

or whatever, but you can do gets
or get s or whatever, get string.

And then that will like
read in terminal input.

I don't know.

How deeply, or like how far down the
rabbit hole you can go by building like a

whole Thor CLI class thing that gives you
options and whatever, but it was enough

to just, yeah, just stop and get us and,
you know, prompt for a little bit of input

and then check, you know, like, did they
type Y or did they type N like, you know,

Colin: Well, have you seen have you seen
like the, the libraries from charm, charm.

sh?

CJ: I've heard of this, but I
haven't actually used it yet.

Colin: Yeah, I mean, it's
similar to like a Thor.

It's just like really cool utilities
for designing terminal interfaces.

And so like you can have modals
in your terminal interface.

You can have the ability to
toggle like with alt tab and

stuff in between different tabs.

And so it like gives you a UI and they
have some one called lip gloss that

helps you add a bunch of cool designs.

And there's an animation library.

So you can have like little
dancing parrot and stuff in

your all that stuff in terminal.

You know, it's extra tooling, but it can,
if it's, if you're reaching for these

tools that have like a lot of options and
you want to maybe have someone who It's

not afraid to like accidentally drop a
whole database or something when they're

running some rake tasks like it can help
to have those like back office tools.

I know you guys have like administrate
and a bunch of other admin things

to which you could just put a button
into that and say this is where

this is where we're going to go do.

I think most companies have that like
scary admin panel that never gets

enough love and it doesn't have any
styling and it's probably using some

auto gen thing but i'll say like we
have one of those at discord even so

CJ: Nice.

Nice.

Yeah, Stripe 2.

Stripe 2.

I mean, like, uh, yeah, I assume
everywhere has to have that, right?

Like, you, at some point, you need a
way to Quickly build these interfaces

that are for internal users only.

And for like very
specialized internal users.

And it's like, okay, do we want to
invest a ton of time for something

that three people are going to
use or one person's going to use?

I don't know.

So co working space,
business building week.

Is this a, is this next week?

Is it this week?

Mm

Colin: So this is something I wanted
to talk about on the show, just because

I think if anyone's interested in,
you know, indie business just thinking

about when, when you're working on
something and you're trying to make

it work, like, when do you call it?

When do you walk away?

When do you, how do you figure that out?

Or how do you, you know,
do you stick with it?

And, you know, a lot of, there's a lot
of mantras out there with like, you

know, Not quitting early and like if
you endure and you keep pushing through

like eventually it's going to work but
sometimes things don't and i've kind of

been circling around this it's it's It
is working with the co working space.

And so Instead of working on and building
code things outside of my normal day job

I've been more focused on this right now
because it needs the attention is that

Especially after COVID, we've been getting
a lot of new members, but the numbers

are just not doing what they need to.

And so we had to like, look back and
figure out like what, what happened?

Is our pricing wrong?

Is this something that people want?

We're busier than ever.

So it doesn't seem like that's the issue.

And so it kind of went down
this, this rabbit hole.

And I'd listened to this book
quit from Annie Duke in the past.

And I'm re listening to it
because it's very, just.

Timely, I don't think that it'll
hit the same if you're not going

through something like this right now.

Like a lot of it feels like common
sense, but there's a whole thing in

there about grit versus quit, where
again, we, we laud and celebrate this

grit that you're going to stick it out.

No matter what you got the Airbnb
stories of people sleeping on

the floor and all this stuff.

And then all of a sudden things change,
but like we've been doing the collective

for like 14 years and you know, there's
all, there've been phases of this.

It's like, Oh, we don't
know if it's going to work.

And then something happens and
it makes it, it makes sense.

And usually the something happens
is that we pay more attention to it.

And we put focus on it and it grows,
which, you know, most businesses,

you don't have the luxury to be
able to like walk away from it and

just keep, let it keep growing.

And so that, that makes sense.

And so the other thing that they talk
about in the book though, and Andy

Duke is a professional poker player.

So quitting is very much a piece
of this is that you can't go all

in on every hand and be successful.

You have to know how to use information
to maybe, you know, lose one battle

to win the whole war type of thing.

And when I was doing this, I was just
playing around with like, what does

it look like for us to raise prices?

What does it look like?

Do we even have the right mix of prices?

Is it, you know, we added new memberships
after COVID because which I actually

think is where most of our issues is
coming from Is that pre covid our cheapest

plan was 200 a month now our cheapest
plan is 100 And so that means we need

twice as many people to even hit that
same number And so we're looking at that

the difference is that there's a lot of
people who only want to come in so many

times because they have a home office,
they have, like you were mentioning,

the setup at home, and they, they have
a pretty good schedule around that.

But some people want to come out once
a week, some people can't work at home

and they need to come in, and so it's
a pretty interesting mix of that and

just kind of re looking at all that.

Has been a good thing
for me to do this week.

We talked about the changes to chat
GPT and open AI last episode, but I

was running a lot of these numbers and
just dropping them into chat GPT and

kind of saying, like, take these and
forecast them out a year, two years.

What does it look like if we do this if
we do like an annual upfront option and

with and without a discount or raising
prices for people who, who are monthly,

but then locking in the price of their
annual, it did a pretty good job.

It sometimes it got confused as to which
number was which but then I clicked on the

analyzing tab and I don't know if you've
seen this, but like my brain broke a

little bit when I saw it because I opened
it and it was like writing Python code.

And just to be able to see, because
like, I understand the whole like prose

piece of this is that it's looking at
what the most next, you know, likely

word is, but it's like writing code.

And so there is it, I don't understand
how it could possibly do that.

CJ: Yeah, yeah, there's like, I was blown
away by that to the uh, by default, like

an LLM is like not good at math, right?

If you ask it, what is you know, if
there's three people in a room and there's

four pizzas and there's six slices, like
how many slices can each person eat or

whatever, like it can't figure that out.

just based on the things you're
giving it because it doesn't know

those exact numbers in a text that
it's read before probably like

Colin: and so what's the next
probable person, like, how many

pieces of pizza did the person eat
in a book that it read once, right?

CJ: exactly and then just spits out yeah
it'll just be like whatever whatever

number it's seen before because that's
like the token that it knows next but yeah

they're like code the code execution or
whatever i can't remember what's called

the whatever gpt4 where it will write
the code for you to answer the question

that that has been kind of like mind
blowing So yeah, this is a pretty sweet

though that the analyze the analyze step.

I think a lot of people are
kind of freaked out too by

what is this black box doing?

And like, what are the, yeah,
what are all the citations?

Like, where's it getting the information?

How do you make sure that you're.

Attributing your sources and then how
are you finding the answer to that?

Like, how can we check your work sort of?

And so it feels like an important step.

I think right now, if I remember
correctly, it only runs Python.

Like it only knows how to execute Python.

And.

Yeah.

So I wish it would, you could just
tell it, like write it in Ruby

and then run the Ruby, like to
figure out the answer or whatever.

So were the numbers based on the, the
numbers that you saw and the stuff

that you learned from Annie Duke's
book, do you feel like you're able to

sort of like draw a line in the sand
and say like, okay, if we make this

change, then by X day, if we don't hit.

Y number, then we'll change prices again,
or we'll kind of like re evaluate or yeah.

So like, what's your,
where are you at right now?

Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

Colin: what I, what I really
enjoyed watching the Python

do was seeing how it was.

Like it's what I would have had to
do by hand in the spreadsheet and I

was going to, and I just wanted it
faster and I wanted to run it a bunch

of different ways really quickly.

And so what was interesting is
that like we, we were under this

assumption that like raising prices
would be like a silver bullet.

And the problem with rising prices,
as most people know, is that you rock

the boat for all of your customers.

Right.

And so I was looking at it and
it's like, it's not going to make

a huge difference versus getting
like three or four more members.

So what can we do to go
get four more members?

Unfortunately, it's like four more
members at the more expensive membership.

So it'd be like, like eight
of the lower price membership.

And this is where it points to maybe
that membership is just too low

or maybe we need to get rid of it.

Versus rocking the boat for all
80 members and asking like, Hey,

we're going to raise prices.

Cause when you raise prices, you may have
turned, you may have people who are just

like, yeah, the, what I was paying was
the most I was willing to pay granted.

We haven't raised prices in forever.

And everything around
us, I think everyone.

can agree is more expensive.

And that includes running the service.

Our bills got more
expensive, things like that.

We're also what I feel like is
the top of the market for this.

In Reno, like there's one other coworking
space that's not run by the university.

There's one by the university, but I
don't really count it cause they have

different finance like situation.

But the other space is only
a hundred a month for what we

charged two 50 a month for.

And We are, we are definitely
better in all different ways, right?

And so that's why we can
command that price and we barely

make it work at that price.

So I don't know how they make it work.

Maybe they aren't, maybe it's credit
cards, maybe it's money that they've

raised, whatever that looks like.

And that's been the tricky thing
is a lot of times I would just go.

Think like, let's go get some money to
give us some cushion to figure this out.

But like borrowing money from a
bank is very, very hard right now.

And it kind of always has
been with this business.

Like they don't see it.

Like, I mean, even for software,
you aren't able to go to a bank and

get like a bunch of money to go quit
your job and go work on a software

product because it's high risk.

They'll give you money for a mortgage
because there's a house that they

can take if, if you don't pay.

So it's interesting that as much as
banks like to be business friendly and

stuff, it's like, even if we just need
some money to figure out some stuff and

we know that it will be good in like
six months, you have to do it yourself.

And so I've kind of.

Unfortunately, unfortunately, Ben, that
bank is that I'm kind of covering the

difference for now and that's where
it's calling in like you just asked

like what, what is the book pointing to?

And I do think coming up with a
date of like, if this is still not

working by 2025 or something like
that, we need to reevaluate it.

I don't want to make any like, like.

Knee jerk decisions right now based
on what I, what I've seen, but there's

a lot of sunk cost fallacy involved.

There's also I think in the book
they talk about identity like if it's

something you've always done or is part
of you It's hard to quit those things I

CJ: one question is like about the
WeWork stuff that just happened, like,

what is your take on, on their, I think
they just filed bankruptcy, right?

Like WeWork as a co working space,
like, like they were, I think they

were kind of like the most well
known co working space out there.

So yeah, like what's your, what's your
hot take on the, the, we work situation.

Colin: Yeah, I mean, I think in bigger
cities, it might affect co working

spaces, but for us, it doesn't.

Indie co working spaces
are doing better than ever.

There's more of them.

They're, the difference is that
they're not VC backed, right?

WeWork was too, too funded and
it became this very strange,

Like it was not real estate.

It was like coworking service model, but
they had over leveraged just too much

funding and they were, their spaces to
outfit one space is extremely expensive.

And then if you've ever been
in one, they've got a lot of

staff and that is expensive.

Right.

And most coworking spaces
that are indie are either.

run by an owner who also does a
job during the day and they sit at

the front desk and they do that.

And they can even only
do that for so long.

We've done that.

I've had it be my full time job.

I've had it be my part time job.

Now it's kind of, I'm trying to be
like the board of directors of it

and not be in the business every day.

But yeah, I think like some people in
bigger cities like the, like the bigger

competitors, like industrious and things
like that, a lot of them were smaller

and they're actually taking over some of
WeWork's leases because they've already

been built out and they're already ready.

And WeWork was the one who
footed the bill for most of that.

And then they sell it for
pennies on the dollar and, or.

The lease reverts to the landlord and the
landlord's like, I need someone in here.

And so industrious or somebody
like that takes it over.

And they've grown a lot slower
and more level headed so they

CJ: Mm

Colin: actually make money.

CJ: I see.

So here's another curve ball
or like question for you.

Like one way that I could see changing
the economics would be to like

offer more expensive memberships.

Mm hmm.

That are, that have
access to exclusive perks.

So one example that comes to mind
is the, the like accountability

sessions that you're doing right now.

Like, I don't know if you charge
for that or whatever, but like, I

could imagine that being extremely
valuable to people who want to be

held accountable and want to show up.

And so like maybe there is a 300.

400, 500 a month thing.

And that like unlocks these
sort of like premium features

or these premium benefits, maybe
it's five, six, 700 a month.

And it also includes like.

You know, business coaching and I,
so like thinking back to my time

at the collective, a lot of what
attracted me to it was that I know,

I knew there was a lot of developers
that worked out of the collective.

And so I wanted to help build my
network in Reno of other developers.

And so I yeah, so kind of curious
about the composition of the.

The members, if you're down to share
that, like, I assume most are kind of

like freelancers, entrepreneurs, indie
hackers, or like remote employees.

And then like, is there
something you can lean into?

That's like, okay, we are the
coworking space for developers in Reno.

And like, you can come and we're, we're
going to have like, Weekly developer

meetups, and we're going to have these
accountability sessions and we're going

to have X, Y, and Z that is going to
increase your overhead because like

someone has to run those, right.

But also like, it could be kind of
like pushing into like this premium

level where maybe it doesn't matter
if the, if you lose or you churn out

a few members who are paying a hundred
bucks a month, because you can get some

of these more sort of like hardcore,
serious, engaged members that are.

At like a higher price point.

I don't know.

Curious, your your thoughts.

Colin: Yeah.

I like that.

I think if I was 10 years
younger, I would be all over it.

Right.

It's we, we kind of started that way.

And we were a little bit closer to that.

We don't charge for the cultivation
accountability group and stuff like that.

It's a, you just have to be a member
to do it, which helps when we do tours

and stuff, but it's tricky because when
you offer more at a higher price point,

I do think you, expect more right?

And then if it's not working out, then
you turn and so it's tricky because it's

not that I, I mean, I already spend a
lot of time on the business, so it's

not that I don't want to spend more
or rather I cannot spend more, right?

From a sustainability and not burning
out perspective, like this is my

second job and I need to have like
one and a half jobs, not, not to so.

That's a little bit of it.

I like the idea though, like the
accountability thing could be an add on.

I think we've moved away
from being such so focused on

software, which is interesting.

Like it's just not.

A lot of the engineers, we get some
of them but some of the folks that

we've been getting, we have two members
who are awesome that work for Penske,

which is the truck trucking company.

And they started out in trucking and
now they're like heads of data science

and analytics, like which Penske is
very focused on personal development

and growth and moving between teams.

And they've been there for years and
years and they've, they took those

stepping stones and now they're like.

We are here once a week.

Now we want to be here every day,
you know, and things like that.

So like, that's the kind of thing
that I really like and they're

developers now, but they weren't when
they started which was interesting.

We've also, I think the, the time that we
made the most amount of money was when we

ran a developer bootcamp, but that comes
with all sorts of issues, as you know.

CJ: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's tough man.

It is.

Colin: business

CJ: Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So like going back to the, going
back to like the quit thing, I

have been, it's been on my reading
list for a super long time.

I think maybe you told me about it
like years ago or something, but

I have been nervous to read it.

Cause I feel like sometimes
I feel like quitting is.

Like me failing or like
admitting to failing in some way.

And so I am nervous that I'm gonna
read it and it's gonna convince

me to quit a whole bunch of stuff.

. So I don't know.

What, what was your biggest
takeaways, like from, from the book?

Mm-Hmm?

Colin: if you mix this with essentialism
or atomic habits and James Clear,

like if you think about the things
that you want to do, like when I

think to, like, how do I create space
to work on this calendar app, or I

have some ideas for a GitHub app.

It's like, and then I'm like,
where am I going to find space

and time in my day to do that?

Right.

It's quitting things so that you can
get to the things that you really

want, or in essentialism, it's, you
know, people doing so much that they.

are run ragged and then they're
not even present and at home

when they're at home, right?

Their, their relationships, their
friendships, things like that start to

dwindle and it's just not sustainable.

That's like the equivalent of burnout.

And so we, I think we start spinning a
bunch of plates and we're afraid to fail.

So we just never stopped spinning some
of them that don't serve us anymore.

And that that's more what the book is
about is that we want to identify things

that aren't serving us and we can.

quit those in a way that doesn't
feel like quitting or failing rather.

And that it's not a bad thing, right?

That like, if you go all in on
this hand that you know is going

to just take you to the cleaners,
you don't get to stay in the game.

You are done, right?

And so quitting this hand means you get
to keep doing something that you want

to do longer term, and that's great.

But some of the things you're like, yeah,
I've been doing this forever because

we started doing it and we've always
done it, but we don't really know why

we do it anymore doesn't really, you
know, we don't know, in our case, it's

like, do the members still want that?

Do I still want to show up for it?

And I think that's natural.

The longer you do things like I'm
kind of, maybe this is a phase

that I'm going through, but like,
I'm also evaluating the developer

meetup like this because it doesn't
serve me the same way that it would.

me 10 years ago.

And I wonder if there's a new
person who is, who was me, right?

That, that, who's the new Colin
that can run that, who was

going to get a lot out of it.

We both got a lot out of those events.

Right.

And it's just sometimes.

the night just doesn't make sense for me.

And, you know, the, or the,
or it's just sometimes really

hard to get people to speak.

People really like that it
exists, but no one wants to

give a talk, things like that.

And so in coworking that, that comes up a
lot where people try to event coordinate.

the whole month and then no one comes to
all the events cause there's either too

many or it's just like, yeah, we like
that you do them, but we're really busy.

And I would say again, after the pandemic,
a lot of people are a little bit more

choosy with where they spend their time.

Cause they have to be.

CJ: Mm-Hmm.

. Great.

Colin: Yeah, I would not
be afraid of reading it.

I think it'll help set a few things free.

There's the thing, this is kind of like
Burning Man type of thing, but like

there's this quote from Burning Man where
it's like, don't divorce your parakeet.

Which is that like a lot of people go
to Burning Man or maybe you go to some.

camping trip or some life changing like
you go to Europe or New York or whatever.

And you're like, I'm going to move here.

I'm going to change everything.

Right?

Like you need to give yourself time.

So like read it, give yourself
some time to process it.

And then like write down
what comes from it for you.

And then revisit it and see if
it's still something that's true.

Like you know, people go to Burning
Man and then they try to like upend

their life and quit their job.

And, you know, leave their
partners and all this stuff.

And it's like, I think you miss, miss
some of the points here of of what's going

on, but yeah, it can, it can give you a
good lens for at least reevaluating why

you do some of the things that you do.

CJ: Love it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Should we, you want to
talk about YouTube stuff?

Colin: Yeah, let's do it.

So I guess this is in the favor of
stopping some things so that I can start

doing other things is Be curious what
kind of tips you have for like getting

started with YouTube because I've been
kind of toying around the idea Do I do

I want to start just twitch streaming?

And then maybe push those to YouTube
or keep them separate, whatever.

Some live streaming feels
daunting for other reasons.

But it's also sometimes easier
just to hit play and go or hit

record and go and, and not worry
about editing and all that stuff.

But then I need to like, feel like
I have to do a bunch of prep work

know what I'm going to do on stream.

So curious what, what tips you have
there is, you know, is this a, just do

it and be embarrassed first couple of
times or, or, or how you go about it.

CJ: Yeah.

I think it is to get started.

I think it is one of those
things where it is very much just

flip on the camera and do it.

And the first, I, I think the
wisdom is like do a hundred videos.

And then once you've done a hundred,
you can start worrying about like making

improvements or whatever, but even in.

Like after you do one video, you'll
be like, Oh, I need, I definitely

need to change X, Y, and Z after
you do two videos, I definitely

need to change X, Y, and Z.

So it's, it's all about putting in
the reps in terms of, would you,

do you want to stream to Twitch and
then push to YouTube or vice versa?

I think it kind of depends on what you're
comfortable with and Twitch tends to.

attract a different style of, or
like a, not a different, but a

very specific style of live stream
that is totally valid on YouTube.

I think you can stream to both
Twitch and YouTube from many of the

streaming platforms at the same time.

And if you want to kind
of like I don't know.

I, I think I wouldn't worry too much
about getting everything set up to

stream to like all the different places.

In the beginning, I think it's
fine if you want to start small and

teach something that feels so, so,
so beginner and so small that it's

like, this is like ridiculous that
I'm talking about this right now.

because I think you'd be surprised
at how many people will find value

from that and it also like you will
get a ton of value just from trying

some super, super small little thing.

So yeah, I would say like the first
and biggest piece of advice, just like

flip on the camera and go in terms
of screencasting and teaching code, I

don't know, I'm assuming that's like
what you want to do, but maybe you

want to do gaming or something else.

But

Colin: Yeah.

I think mostly code, but more like
building apps together type of thing.

So like instead of play together, it'd
be built together or something similar.

I think that doing kind of like the mob
pairing that you were talking about,

because I don't get to do a lot of
that in my day job, doing that with

other programming creators and stuff
like I, like my friend, Aaron, like

you, whoever else would be like, just
get on and build a fun thing together.

It's like a live stream tuple
or something, could be fun.

CJ: Okay.

So that, yeah, totally.

Awesome type of content that people
get really engaged with and they'll

follow along like the entire
journey because they want to watch,

like, how do you make decisions
about all these different things?

In that specific case, I would
probably try to like record everything,

like record your whole process from
start to finish and include that.

Even if it feels like, gosh, I'm
spending a ton of time debugging this

one stupid little thing or whatever.

Like what I.

Have done several series is I'll
build something like I'll build

a project from start to finish.

And if I find myself in the middle, like
Losing 45 minutes down a rabbit hole

trying to debug something, then I'll
still shoot that and I'll still keep the

video in there, but I'll like speed it up.

So that's like 700 times speed, you know?

So it's like,

Colin: Yeah,

CJ: you know, just kind
of like moving through it.

And people do this like really fancy,
but it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

Like you can literally just like record
yourself, record yourself talking.

Colin: yOu throw the Spongebob
like five days later.

CJ: Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like you can get super,
super fancy with editing too.

Like I, my style right now of
editing is like, I want to spend

as little time as possible editing.

That's like not the fun
part for me anymore.

And so I

Colin: tape basically.

CJ: Yeah, exactly.

And then I will, I'll cut it up a
little bit in ScreenFlow, blur out

API keys, and then pull it into
Descript, remove filler words.

And then like I move my camera
input around a little bit

to like show and hide it.

But other than that, I'll just like
basically ship what I recorded.

And yeah, like it doesn't, it doesn't
have to be super heavy handed.

It's not going to be
great in the beginning.

But the more reps you put in,
the more comfortable you'll get.

And yeah.

If you sort of consider, like, think of it
as like a zoom call where you're doing one

of those lunch and learns at work, right.

Where it's just like, Oh, Hey these are
a couple of my peers who I expect to

have some experience with writing code.

And I'm just going to walk them
through something that I learned or

something that I think is interesting
or something that I think is cool.

And, hopefully they learn something.

If not, whatever, like this is like just
for me and for the fun of the process.

Colin: Yeah,

CJ: couple of resources that were
Valuable for getting like the stripe

quality content up to snuff was
this how to egghead how to egghead.

com slash instructor I can't the yeah
the founder and the company egghead that

puts out a bunch of developer courses
They have a entire like Documentation

and series for how they do it and they
have some really good settings in there

for like how You know, what frame rate
your camera should be at and how big your

screen font should be and things like
that, that you don't have to, then you

don't have to like think about is this
font big enough and record and stop and

like, I don't know, how does it look and

Colin: yeah

nice.

CJ: and then, yeah, like Aaron
Francis shipped screencasting.

com.

I haven't watched any of them
yet, but it looks really good.

So I'm excited to go
through that eventually.

Those are kind of like.

I would say like developer content
and screencasting specific, and then

just like general YouTube tools.

I use a tool called TubeBuddy.

I use it a little bit less
now, but that's like a Chrome

extension that you can install.

And they have like different tiers with
different features, but with the base

one installed as you're browsing YouTube,
it'll show you all kinds of cool stats.

And like they have a bunch of
like SEO tools and tools for a

B testing your thumbnails and a
B testing your descriptions and

like really, really fancy stuff.

So that's a good one.

And then think media, Sean, And, or
Cornell and Ali Abdul, these are two

just like super famous YouTubers that
also make content about making content.

And so Sean in particular has
like a bunch of camera videos.

And

Colin: Yeah, I follow Ollie's
YouTube and really, really like it.

Yeah.

CJ: nice, nice.

Yeah.

So the, I went through
his Skillshare course.

He edits with Final Cut Pro.

I use ScreenFlow.

So like none of the actual detail,
like technical details made sense,

but like his approach to like, Oh, I'm
going to splice it here and splice it

here because it seems more natural.

Yeah.

The storytelling, but also like just
like actual cuts, like J cuts and L

cuts and like different crossfades
and like really, really basic video

editing stuff picked up from there.

But yeah, again, like, I don't
think you have to look at

any of this to get started.

Like, in fact, I would recommend like
not just like, yeah, flip on the camera.

You've got like your, your
setup right now as you have it.

Looks amazing.

Like this is what you have now is
easily 10 times better than what I

started with and, uh, people, it's like
thousands of views on those old videos.

So like, uh, I

Colin: Well, and if you drop this
into a thumbnail, like you're

not even really going to see it.

Like the audio being good is important.

And then from there, it's the screen.

So I remember because I did
some videos for our boot camp.

That then somehow got picked up as like
videos for some other bootcamp and the

accidental hack that I did was it was
like a building Pinterest in like six

videos and I think it was only five
of the six videos ever got released

and so like all of the videos had
comments about where's the sixth video.

CJ: yeah, yeah, yeah,

Colin: And I was like, oops, I don't
know how I actually think that all of the

content was in the five videos, but they
were like mislabeled as six or something.

And, and just like, it was getting so
much engagement, but it was like either

a, that it was like, now it's been so
many, it's been like since 2015 or 16.

So all the people that comment on it
now are like, this code doesn't work.

This gem is like malware now.

Because I think we were using we
were using like an image upload or

whatever the popular one paperclip
or whatever it was at the time.

And there was some sort of malware
going around and it's like, well,

that's, that's why you that's why
you use Twitter and Google and

read, read up on the GitHub issues.

CJ: Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

Totally.

Colin: Oh, that's super helpful.

And I think I'll have a little bit
of free time over the holidays.

And I think I just need to need to do it.

CJ: Cool.

Yeah.

I think, yeah, maybe listeners
can expect to see a link in the

show notes in a future episode.

Well, yeah, we'll drop it.

We'll drop it.

Colin: I think one last thing on that
would be how do you feel about your name

versus like a channel name as where you're
going to build your little YouTube empire?

CJ: Had I done it, uh, in retrospect,
I would have used the channel name.

I used my own like personal Gmail account
and it's like, that's my YouTube channel

is my actual Gmail accounts, YouTube

Colin: it's like CJ Avila or

CJ: Yeah, exactly.

It's yeah, it's CJ Villa and like,
I just renamed, you can rename the

channel, handle whatever you want,
but it's yeah, if I were doing this

again, I would have come up with some.

Like outlaw videos or, you
know, whatever racing video,

Colin: is all under his
name on his YouTube as well.

So I

CJ: it.

Colin: I think Ali is.

And then, you know, I think you've
got the big ones iJustine and stuff

like that, that's kind of like a
channel name and their name, but

CJ: Yeah.

Like Traversee media, Traversee
is his name, but his, like he

now has like this media empire.

Chris's go rails.

Like that's perfect.

Right.

Go rails as a company could be sold
to someone else and someone else

could make content and it could all
be about Ruby on rails and Chris

could be like, no longer involved.

But there's no way that like the CJ
Avila channel could be sold to anybody

and like just picked up by some
other person to keep making content.

That's like the only, I guess that's
the only thing that I would consider,

but yeah, maybe that it depends on what
outcome you're looking for because as a

personal brand, it does help me directly

Colin: That's what I'm focused on more.

I have no, no intentions of building
a thing to sell it more, just building

a personal brand and audience.

CJ: Got it.

Yeah.

So in that case, it is like
a pretty legit resume point.

Like, or, you know what I mean?

Like kind of, it's, it's sort of like
if, and when I need another job or gig

or something, you know, I can be like,
Hey, check out my YouTube channel.

And that's like all me.

Whereas that might be a little awkward
if it was like, check out my YouTube

channel, it's like outlaw devs or
something, you know, like which.

Colin: Quit your job.

CJ: Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It might be some something.

Yeah.

That's, I guess that's the trade
off is like, do you want this

to be an independent thing that
you're creating and investing into?

Or do you want it to
be your personal brand?

I guess it's kind of like,

Colin: Cool.

I'll play around with that a little bit.

Super helpful

CJ: Yeah.

Awesome.

Colin: This is like a little bit of
a meta business episode, but we can't

talk about code all the time, I guess.

CJ: True.

Yeah.

Right on.

Well, yeah, as always, you can
head over to buildandlearn.

dev to check out the resources and
links and things that we talked about.

And that's it for now.

Colin: I'll see you next time.

CJ: All right.

Bye friends.