42 - GDC, Buckets, and more calendars

Colin: All right.

We're back and we're
changing it up this week.

We're going to change the intro.

CJ: so how was GDC

Colin: GDC was good.

if you've been listening to the show
again, these kind of come out in a

time dilated manner, but GDC was good.

It's It's always good to get into
a conference and celebrate all the

work that you've been doing and put
it out into the world and also see

what other people are working on.

CJ: in terms of GDC versus a RailsConf
or like another language conference?

How big is it relative to that?

And yeah, is it similar in any ways?

Colin: I would say very different.

it's a lot more like
an industry conference.

We were on the expo floor.

There's a lot of talks
and stuff you could go to.

a lot of really cool industry talks,
from creators of power world and all

these like viral games that were really
popular, a lot of stuff from unity and

unreal and a lot of the game engines
and different like publishers and

game creators and things like that.

and then on the show floor, you've
got just like companies showing off,

like teasing that the next thing that
they're working on, or a lot of like

unreal Fortnite, Epic games type stuff.

really big booths from them.

Almost I don't know,
garishly large of a booth.

It was like multi story.

you go up into it and then meta had a huge
booth for quests and Being able to show

and I think like work with publishers and
creators to try to get them To you know

get their games built for quest Yeah,

CJ: And so the few little Clips that
I saw on social media of the game

floor looked crazy because there was
just giant screens everywhere with

people Like demoing their Basically
like their commercial or something

for their games or playing or, yeah.

So it definitely seemed
like thousands of people.

have you been to DEF CON?

Colin: have not is that the germany one?

CJ: This is the, it's in Vegas and
it's like a security conference.

And that's the biggest one
that I've ever been to.

and it, yeah, it's like very different
from like a language conference, but.

Colin: Yeah, it tends to be
more like, the, a lot of the

companies have a meeting room.

It's a little bit more like CES
in that regard where you're like

creating meetings and stuff.

There were a lot of Motion capture
companies and like specifically

motion capture for helping you
to make the rigging for your game

or for movies, things like that.

but I think what's interesting is that
like the tech hasn't changed a lot.

It's a lot of the same cameras and like
the little dots and stuff, but a lot

of it is like supercharged with AI now.

I guess like motion tracking has always
been in camera tracking, but now when

you have AI and ML at the level we do,
you get this no post processing instance,

like actors moving on a stage with a
screen behind them and having it fully

mapped to a character and stuff like that.

That was really cool to see.

Like those are clearly not for consumers.

this is more of a that
industry conference.

whereas something like
E3, which is gone now.

was more for fans of games going
and fans of companies, learning

about what's coming out next.

So there's a little bit of all of that,
but it's definitely more industry focused.

And, I didn't go to any of the
talks, so I think that's like a

whole other area of it that I'm sure
a lot of people go just for that.

CJ: were there any demos on the expo
floor that just were like mind blowing?

Colin: I think the most fun one for
me was, there, there was one called

MetaHuman from Unreal, which is like
creating your own digital avatar.

they, I don't know if they were
doing it in the booth, but there

was a long line of getting your face
scanned and essentially turned into

this digital avatar for yourself.

but the other one was, It's definitely the
motion capture, company, which I'm going

to blank on the name of it, but their
booth, I went to every hour on the hour.

They had an entire like gymnast, and jump
roping team that performed every hour.

And it was pretty amazing just
to see them doing jump roping and

doing backflips in the jump ropes.

wow.

All while being motion captured, they
gathered a crowd every single time.

And I think a lot of people
were like, how can we use this?

cause like we need one
of these in the office.

We need a whole motion capture room.

CJ: Is that the one that you post on
Instagram where the, yeah, it must've been

where the people are jump roping together
and then, behind them, there was a screen

where they were like animated characters
that were following the same motion as

the people that were jumping around.

That was so wild.

It was like, you could imagine that
turning into like an Avengers movie or

something where one person is the Hulk and
they like look like the Hulk, but they're

just moving around like normal person.

Colin: it's interesting cause
motion capture does not need to be

in real time when you're talking
about video games and stuff.

So it's cool.

It probably speeds up their development
process if they can have a person and do

the rigging instead of create the thing,
create the scene, then do a render,

do processing, all that kind of stuff.

so doing it in real time probably
does mean faster, getting your

game to market faster, but,
does not come cheap, I'm sure.

Yeah.

CJ: yeah, it seems like the whole,
like that entire combination of

real time tracking plus AI generated
stuff is going to be a really crazy.

like new frontier for video gaming,
being able to just say okay, you're in

this place with these game mechanics
now go and generate an entire world

with other digital people who don't
actually exist making like just all

like fantasy come to life in real time
without having to have that be like

prebuilt or, Pre programmed in any way.

It's just like figuring it out for you.

Colin: yeah, I think the thing that
it's probably most relevant to what

we've talked about with AI and co
pilot and helping us to do our work is

there's this new, it's like a half a
game and half of an editor called frvr.

ai, and they've actually built a few games
with us at Discord, It's pretty insane.

so if you wanted to go try it,
I think the beta is available.

There's also a video.

but what you can do is you can just
prompt the creation of a game and

it gives you both the simulator and
the code and the game all in one UI.

And so you could generate asteroids.

Then you can say, okay, go ahead and
make the ship fire at twice the speed and

see the code updating, see the game run.

you can tell it that you want some
sort of power up and you're just

prompting the entire way through.

obviously like the cool thing is
you get access to the code and

then you can see what it's doing.

So it's nice for learning, but it also,
will allow you to get into the code.

And then if something's not super
smooth, you can go in and fix the code

and make it the way you want it to.

I think.

I think it also does generate an art,
which is obviously a little contentious,

in the video game space right now,
obviously even, programming and this

goes back to that whole, AI is going
to be replacing job type things,

which I go back and forth on so much.

Cause it's like a lot of the stuff
we do, it's cool that this can.

But my brain always goes to,
there's just so many things that

AI is not going to be able to do.

Like being an electrician or a plumber
or painting a house, things like that.

CJ: yeah, a couple of thoughts.

I saw a tweet where someone
said this is a bunch of people.

Rallying back against, all of
the layoffs basically that are

happening across the game industry.

This is happening tech wide and the
majority I don't think is related to AI.

I think it's more related to like interest
rates, but, yeah, it was like, Yeah,

capitalism, there's a bunch of people
screaming into the void about, not being

happy with the current situation of their
employment, and so they called it the GD

scream, and, that was funny to see, And
also, I was listening to a, I think it was

an NPR, update this morning on the radio
and they were talking to some folks that,

were just like laid off from a coal mine
somewhere and they were like, Oh, I think

coal mining is going to make a comeback.

It's going to be like a
new wave of something.

And, something is working, it's been
working for a hundred years, I don't

know why we have to change anything.

And they fold that up with my biggest
concern is I just want to be employed.

I'm like, yeah, I totally understand that.

I get that.

And it can be like really scary to
be like, okay, my entire industry is

going away because it's being replaced
by something else at the same time.

The greater good is outweighing, like the
individual in certain ways, we definitely

want to support these folks and help
build transition plans and smooth ways

for people who are being, displaced by
certain, like industries going away.

At the same time, I think it's something
we ought to lean into because these

coal miners, they have all kinds
of medical issues and like it's

not healthy to be like down in the
cold breathing all this crazy dust.

And then also like the emissions
that are related to that.

And we can, that's like a completely other
like separate argument, but whether or

not your industry is going away because
it's being automated away or Yeah.

Exactly.

Renewables or even fast food workers
who might be, out of work because

they're going to start automating,
these entire fast food kitchens that

are going to just be like giant robots
that spit out, hamburgers or something.

or, Amazon warehouse workers
being replaced by figure

ones and like the optimists.

These like, C3PO bots or, R2D2,
R2D2 a little easier C3PO a

little harder, but, it's coming.

How can we.

As a society position ourselves to take
advantage of it and like work together

to make everyone, level up a little bit.

interesting, but

Colin: So I think you were also
talking a little bit about being

busy the last couple of weeks.

So do you want to talk a
little bit more about that?

CJ: we're getting ready to launch a
big feature, for, Craft work I've been

talking about this for several weeks,
but, we've integrated with Twilio.

We integrated with podium and email.

And so we have SMS and a bunch
of other messaging tools and

we can handle like voice calls.

And if someone calls and.

We'll say, this call might be monitored,
recorded, we have automated voice back

and then recording, and then we take
recordings and transcribe and using

that transcription and all previous
messages as like input into, into models

where we can then make intelligent
co pilot like decisions for people

who are like authoring messages.

So it has been, yeah, it's been a
lot trying to just come into parody

All of the niceties that we've come
to expect from a messaging thing.

chat is no longer just chat now.

It's I want to schedule
a message for later.

And, I want to be able to send attachments
of any kind, and I want to be able

to edit my message and cancel it.

And, like whether or not a message is read
or the conversation is read and whether

or not you care about that conversation.

We don't want to necessarily have
a global inbox of all the messages.

We want to have some narrow focused
thing where if you are on the sales

team, you only care about conversations
that are managed by you or something.

So figuring all of that out has
been quite a massive undertaking,

but I think we're, we are going
to launch today, tomorrow ish.

And, yeah, I think the team has been
super pumped to get it in their hands.

So that's been, yeah, we've been
pretty heads down on that for a while.

Colin: Yeah.

I think that's interesting because
when you think about doing any sort

of like hiring somebody to work on
something, like a lot of it is the

communication and the scheduling and
then a little bit of it is doing the

actual thing and just coordinating.

So it'll be interesting to see
how that pays off for y'all.

And hopefully you have some
downtime planned after all of this.

CJ: I've been trying to do a pretty good
job of taking breaks in between, when I'm

starting to feel tuckered out or whatever,
just taking breaks and trying to, remember

that it's a marathon, not a sprint.

And we have these seasons where
we're sprinting pretty hard, but

also we want this to be sustainable
or as sustainable as possible.

So just trying to temper the, grind with.

getting out and, Being
outside, but yeah, definitely.

Um, it's for sure been on my mind, like
the more we get, the deeper we get into

these massive feature launches and also
like the stress of, okay, you're going to

launch something and if it breaks, like
it's going to directly impact everyone

at the company and the customer and
the whole experience and everything.

So the stress related to.

The visibility and, foundational
nature of certain things is, I think

that also adds to the potential.

I don't know.

is there something that you notice when
you're like starting to feel burnt out?

Is there like any particular behavior and

Colin: That might be something I need to
pay more attention to but I can definitely

tell Like my sleep starts to take a
dive I think I know more when it's like

all consuming Actually like in terms of
like when I go home I'm still thinking

about the thing and then I'm like, oh
we got to fix this thing in the morning

Because then you don't actually get
rest And so it's better I find to write

it down and so you don't forget it and
then let yourself take an actual rest.

So I guess that is probably the most
obvious thing that I noticed is that

I tried to leave my work, In the
laptop at work, things like that.

when it starts to follow me everywhere,
then we're approaching burnout.

if it's the only thing I can think about.

If I'm worried about things that, are
maybe out of my hands, I just need

to write them down, flagged them to,
If it's infrastructure or like I'm

worried about how community will receive
something, things like that, then it's

maybe we need to think about it, but
I don't need to think about it at 10

o'clock at night or staying up late.

Like I have found that when I'm most like
that, I'll, either play video games or

scroll and just be up until I'm so tired.

Versus getting like restful sleep.

and then you don't start
the next day rested at all.

And that, so then you're robbing
Peter to pay Paul the next day

and it just keeps, keeps going.

So

CJ: Yeah, definitely a cycle for sure.

I definitely find that it can be
all consuming and just, I think it's

the same thing that I notice when I'm
starting to like, think, oh shoot,

like there's like that orange flag in
my head of I gotta, Got to be careful.

And what's surprising to me
sometimes is that it is super fun.

Like I find all this work
stuff really fun and exciting.

And I want to do it, like I want to
spend the time grinding and I want

to build and I want to keep going on
features and I want to live in it and

soak in it and just be in the work.

And it is at the same time, like it
feels like there's just a certain

point, like when you reach that
point and just like a switch flips

and you're like, Oh, like I can't,

Colin: the last straw.

CJ: now it's not.

Yeah, exactly.

Now it's not fun anymore.

So it's weird because
it's even if it is fun.

Or even if I am enjoying it and being
excited by it, I have to try to like

actively say, okay, I'm going to go
do something away from the computer.

Now the, this weekend, we're going
to go outside and, yeah, be offline.

Colin: Which can help.

Cause if you write it down and
you can still be excited about

it, but not actively doing it.

Like I get that.

Like wave of I want to do all the
things all at once, but if you can

write it down and let it run in your
background thread for a little bit,

like sometimes it goes faster when
you go sit down after taking a break.

And so without taking those
breaks, you make mistakes.

You don't see things as obvious.

Maybe it just takes longer.

So yeah, it's tricky.

Like after GDC, I want to go
play with all the game engines.

And it's probably better to pick one
and get good at that one and then figure

out what the next one is, but it's, it
can be exciting and still burn you out.

And obviously like we have such a
huge privilege to be able to work

online in the first place, but like
staring into the screen, it takes a

lot out of you more than you'd think.

So you do have to make sure you don't
spend your off time staring at a

little screen or a different screen.

CJ: yeah.

Something I have found on the little
screen that's been really relaxing.

I used to think it was funny
that my kids would watch people

on YouTube, play Minecraft.

And it's Oh, they're going out and
they're building all this stuff.

And like recently I've been super
into watching these like ASMR

YouTube videos of people bushcrafting
and they're like building, like

cabin in the woods or whatever.

I'm like, this is literally just
Minecraft, but like for in real

life, like it's the same thing.

They're just, they're out there with their
hatchet, chopping away at the ground and

making little forts and stacking up rocks
and making a little chimney or whatever.

I'm like, this is the same as Minecraft.

It's just like in real world.

Colin: So then the next step is going
out there and doing it yourself.

CJ: I know I'm super excited that it's
been raining for a couple of days,

our last snow is finally melted.

So got to get the chainsaw out

Colin: Do some, ASMR maple syrup
tapping, maple syrup evaporating.

CJ: Dude, the syrup came out so good
and we just got a, an espresso machine.

So I've been making like maple espressos
or like maple lattes in the morning.

And they're off just so killer to
be like, we made this with our land.

Colin: is gonna become
a homesteading podcast.

build and learn, taking a turn.

CJ: there's a lot to learn out there in
the wild, actually, yeah, I'm curious,

like on, on the learning front, I know
that you at the Reno collective, there's

quite a bit of gardening going on.

How involved in that are you?

And what would you say in terms of like
on a skill level of zero to 10, what are

we talking about for gardening skills

Colin: Yeah, so the collective garden
is a little bit of a tragedy of the

common situation, which is that everyone
wants the garden, And a lot of people

will plant the garden, but then no
one wants to take care of the garden.

CJ: I

Colin: So we've every spring we'll pay
to go get the seedlings and do all the

stuff and then the harder part is always
getting people to continually care for it.

Sometimes then no one harvests it.

it when it's ready.

Things like that.

I would say we're not very
high on the skill tree yet.

So we're still working on it.

I think we'll probably
try again this year.

We have the garden boxes ready to go
and we just got to wait till the snow's

melted on Peavine before we start.

CJ: Nice.

Okay.

Yeah, I think, we built a garden
box the first summer we lived here

and we built it like on the ground.

It's like not a huge raised bed.

It's just raised like 12 inches
or whatever the two by 12.

And the rabbits ate like everything.

And so this year I have plans to
build like other higher raised

up a little bit higher, maybe
like waist height garden beds.

but that will be a lot of learning and
building, in a completely like homesteady

Colin: maybe you need a greenhouse.

Keep those animals out.

CJ: it's definitely high on my
list of like wants for sure.

Colin: And then you can make a
YouTube video of you chopping

wood, building a greenhouse,

CJ: Yeah.

Got to get, yeah.

I got to get one of those,
road mics so I can, wear it

around my hat, like Sam Sulek.

Colin: Yeah, I've got some,
videos to send you for sure.

We'll have to start a shirt playlist, but,

CJ: Oh yeah.

Nice.

Colin: yeah, I think, did we talk about
me trying to buy a house last episode?

Yeah.

CJ: I think, yes.

Yeah.

So what's the latest

Colin: Oh, man.

it was so we, we had lost it.

I think it was what we talked about.

and then it went back on the
market and, I was at GDC.

So I like, just hit all
the buttons in Redfin.

I was like, let's go, let's go get
this thing and felt so good about it.

And we basically rode the
rollercoaster of emotions twice

because we got outbid by somebody
who decided to put 60 percent down.

No appraisal.

And They went way over asking.

So I was like, we were so close.

Cause it was one other
offer that was like asking.

And then we went in and we did a little
bit over just to make it nice and said,

we'll close quick and all that stuff.

And it was cool.

It was a learning process.

Like I learned a lot about.

All the different levers you have for
contingencies and things like that.

But, part of me is still watching it,
waiting and hoping that they get cold feet

and that goes back on the market again.

But I, I don't think I can
handle losing it again.

Yeah, it's it's a funny thing.

It is crazy that is still happening
with the interest rates And so I

guess if you have the cash, then the
interest rate doesn't matter so much.

So

CJ: so the NAR, the National Association
of Realtors, there was like this case

where a bunch of rules just changed.

Is that impacting you at

Colin: I don't think it's rolled out yet
And with Redfin, there's usually like a

commission listed for the buyer's agent.

So this one said two and a half percent.

but yeah, that case basically says
that those rates are negotiable.

some would argue, some people were
arguing that why aren't agents paid

hourly instead of commission based?

And it's because if you don't
buy a house with this person,

like they're not getting paid.

but if you do, then it's a big
payout, and it's all worth it.

I'm pretty sure my real estate
agent doesn't listen to this

podcast, but, I found them.

They're just the default
lead agent on Redfin.

Barely.

they were like, who is this person?

Why are they trying to
buy this house so fast?

And I was like, you're going
to get your commission.

Please help me get this thing.

And I think we'll be finding somebody
that we actually want to work

with for the, if we keep looking.

CJ: It's a bummer that you lost it
twice, but it's good that, yeah,

you're going through the motions and
building the muscle of okay, when

it goes in the market, it's go time.

And you've got all the right
documents in the right places and

the right understanding of your
financial situation and all that.

yeah, what I was remembering is that when
Nicole was doing the real estate agent

thing in Nevada, I think it costs 1, 500
a month to list yourself on Zillow as like

an agent that shows up in that sidebar.

So I don't know what it is for Redfin,
but they're definitely paying some

pretty penny to become the default agent.

Colin: I think this
person works for Redfin.

They are like the agent of agents.

They probably have agents
under them and stuff.

yeah.

But I think the big, the biggest lesson
is trying not to get attached to things,

but like you want to want the thing that
you're going to spend this much money on.

And, in our case, we got attached two
times and hook, line and sinker on that.

But yeah, finding an agent who knows
what we're looking for and is watching

cause like Redfin and Zillow are delayed
compared to the MLS, which you shouldn't

think that would matter, but it does.

CJ: it totally does.

Yeah.

And sometimes if you find like a solid
agent too, like they'll get back channel

information about houses between like
inside their network, because they'll talk

to people who are talking to people who
are thinking of selling, and even before

they put their house in the market, your
agent will yeah, catch wind of something

happening across town or whatever.

Colin: it's not a good sign for the
supply of houses is that like my Redfin,

I have reached inbox zero on Redfin.

I have no new houses to look at.

And so it's just now when they pop
up, I'm like, okay, wrong area.

Not, it's a McMansion
that's super ugly, whatever.

But

CJ: yeah, the MLS to their search engine
and filtering is really granular.

Like you can say, I only want to
see three bedroom, two full bathroom

houses with shingle roofs in this zip
code that are zoned for this school.

That, are on, yeah, exactly.

Like you can get super, super specific
and then yeah, maybe you only get

one alert per month or something,
but then that'll be the one.

so yeah, I definitely find that agents
often will try to negotiate with

their clients to be more flexible
about what they want just so that

they can see different options and
open their, maybe open the client's

mind to different possibilities, but
also like they just want to close.

Incentive alignment always
bothered me between agents and

buyers, like even in sellers too.

It's it doesn't,

Colin: Yeah.

CJ: The incentives are
certainly not aligned.

Colin: That's the house.

That's the house update.

What do you, is there anything
else that you're working?

I know you've been working so
much on this messages stuff, but

anything else you're building?

CJ: In any home services, the success of
the business is all about gross margin.

Basically like, how much
profit can you make based on.

How you're pricing and how you're
optimizing for the time that

you're spending at the place
and supplies and everything.

And so we've also been working on
this massive, gross margin calculator

that takes into account, like labor
that's happening and also supplies

that we're buying and, We have a cost
analysis thing that looks at discounting

and, a whole bunch of other stuff.

And so that's been another piece
of the puzzle is just like starting

to track all of those different,
expenses and costs and figure out

what our true picture is per project.

So a lot of boring accounting.

Type like crud stuff, but I think we've
got some cool integrations coming down

the pipe where Many of our suppliers
will give us like rough PDFs that are

pretty gnarly And so we're hoping to
try to use some LLMs to just give it a

PDF and try to get some structured JSON
back so we'll see how that works out,

but That's that's it on, on our side.

It sounds like you've been working
a bit on the calendar, the booking

software for booking conference rooms.

How's that going?

Colin: So I had abandoned
it because we figured out.

So we use a company called Robin and
we've discovered they had a free plan

if we deleted a bunch of our members
who never booked conference rooms.

And so we just stay under that limit.

And we just say if you really need a
conference room, we'll add you, but

we've got to stay into this limit.

And I logged in yesterday to
update an iPad that just wasn't

working and they have decided
to get rid of their free plan.

CJ: oh my gosh.

Okay.

Colin: I don't know, I'm
going back and forth.

I think I still agree with the idea that
I should not build co working software.

but I think there's room for
purely meeting room software.

And each room is tied
to a Google calendar.

Each.

Calendar is tied to an iPad
and then it just renders it and

you can book it on the iPad.

That's what the dream has always
been and that's one feature of Robin.

So Robin went upstream.

They became this hot desking check
in big company tool for hey, you have

a guest or you have a certain hot
desk today or you've got mail In

the mail room and you have a COVID
screen, all these different things.

We only want the meeting room piece.

So I've been watching
the coworking software.

There's like a coworking software
group where it's more proof that we

shouldn't build all the other stuff.

Cause like everyone's using
a different payment provider.

They have different door systems.

They have different, like we bill
on the first, third and fifth day.

like it's like the weirdest rules that
like we only bill on one day per month.

We use Stripe for that.

We're not going to change that, but I need
to have a solution by the 15th of April.

and it might even just be like a green red
toggle button to start with until we can

get like user accounts and all that stuff.

But, yeah, Sometimes
decisions get made for you.

CJ: What is like the first
level of the Robin plan?

Like it, you have to talk
to sales or something, or?

Colin: we used to pay for it.

It's one of those things where it
looks like people notice it when

it's not there, but we were paying
like, I think it was like 2, 000 a

year or something for three rooms.

So I think it would be like, it's such a.

inexpensive thing like I can say that
because we can we are capable of building

these things but like It feels like it's
it wasn't worth it when we're full and

maybe now that we are full again Maybe
it's worth just thinking about paying

for it again Because if I divide that
by months and I divide it by my like

time Like how much I get paid and all
that it's is it really worth my time?

I think if I do this I have to
consider whether or not I could spin

it up as like a sass that's like You
know Is it worth it if it's 30 bucks

a month, and people just do that?

Cause that would be like, what,
360 a year for people to do.

So we'll see.

Cause I think there's a lot of
people who honestly do this for their

house and, small coworking spaces
that don't want to use software.

The tricky thing is that this is a feature
of most coworking software out there.

do you need it for just
an office that you have?

Do you want it for.

a room in your house,
whatever that might be.

I need to think about
it a little bit more.

CJ: we have a conference room at the
office that we just set up recently

as like a room that is bookable
and Google calendar or whatever.

But because I'm remote I have no idea how
they're actually handling when they want

to book it in real time and just be like,
I'm taking the, I'm taking the room for

the next hour and I don't know how they.

Look at if it's booked or not for the
next hour, I think the other thing

too, that might be interesting is you
could sell it as like a package like buy

it for 2, 000 this year and you get an
iPad mini or something, and then just

Colin: Or it could be like a once product.

It's here you go.

You paid for it

CJ: Yeah, exactly.

Totally.

That might be interesting.

Yeah.

Colin: is that I'm also
thinking about doing, we can,

I might as well say it here.

Cause if I don't say it, I might
not do it, but I'm thinking about.

Building, the name that I have for it
right now is Cal CalWIN, which is just

the Tailwind calendar, but like with all
of the full hooks, and JavaScript and

stuff built in for Tailwind specifically.

'cause I need it and the ui,
it does exist in Tailwind ui.

I don't need to go do all that.

They actually have a new
template that's coming out that

I'm really excited about too.

But, what's it called?

It's called Catalyst.

But, yeah, I think having an open source
thing that would be fun to release as a

calendar plugin for tailwinds, and then I
would use it myself inside of this thing.

whether it's maybe the whole thing's
open source and I don't try to charge

for it, I don't know, cause maybe people
will help maintain it if that way.

CJ: we use full calendar and I
don't know how much we style it

with tailwind, but it's not like.

Colin: It's not

CJ: The default is not Tailwind.

Colin: or something like that.

CJ: yes.

There is definitely something

Colin: Are you guys

using tailwind for everything else?

CJ: We are, yeah.

This is definitely one of the special
snowflake things in the app that

are, I think we do have CSS, we
write like CSS to style, like to

hide certain buttons or to color the
weekends or to color the whatever.

it's also not free.

we pay for some sort of license.

it has a free trial.

So as long, I think as long as you're
not selling it or something, then,

Colin: Nice Yeah, so we'll see.

I know we brought this one up a
lot over the last couple of the

last So it feels like a thing.

I've had it on my list of Oh,
I should build that thing.

And then we're like, Oh,
we found the free plan.

I can mark this off my to
do list as if I had done it.

And then it sneaks back onto
the list, but I totally get it.

I think that this goes back to what
we talked about before though, is

that if you're thinking about building
something, I know there's so many people

out there who want to build something
and create something, especially with

the number of layoffs and things.

So many of the companies that we
were around in coming up the Airbnb

era of software, they all have gone
upmarket and there's this giant

gaping hole of good software that
does one thing very well and, doesn't

require procurement and a sales team.

So you know, what does intercom
today look like if you were

to start it over from scratch?

CJ: 100%.

along those lines, an update for buckets,
I was having an issue where, first of

all, we went and tried like a whole bunch
of data providers, like connecting to

Plaid or connecting to MX or connecting
to FinCity or connecting to whatever,

Stripe, to get financial data, like
transaction data and balances, basically.

It's a hot mess for sure, like there's
just so many different providers and

none of them give you all the things.

I want to see crypto, I want to
see in, brokerage accounts, 401k,

stock accounts, property, checking
accounts, credit cards, like all of the

transactions from all of those things.

And also the balances for
all those things, and there

is no one stop shop today.

Stripe claims to be that, and they do
a pretty good job, but there is a giant

hole in their integration where if you,
connect to any kind of account that

is not a credit card account or bank
account, if it disconnects, there's no

way to reconnect it other than just like
creating a whole entirely separate new

one, and there's no way to de dupe them.

Colin: Yeah.

I found this when I was doing, like
frantically trying to fill out stuff to

get pre approval for the house offer,
cause what we were dumb and like when

we lost the house the first time,
we didn't think let's just get pre

approved anyway and then we'll be ready.

So we got ready fast, but I
had, I went through multiple

firms to get different offers.

And It was so painful to be like, okay,
I need to go like why isn't there a

common app or a Vault that is like my
financial or even I think about this

for medical too That they just plug into
and they have my entire history and I

don't need to like Go download the last
60 days of bank statements from every

account you own and then go find all
these like retirement accounts and things.

I'm like, I'm not draining my
retirement account to buy this house.

So I don't really know why you need that
other than like net worth, cause I know

we've looked at some of these tools for
know your customer type stuff like KYC

stuff, but even being able to just verify
net worth income, assets, stuff like that.

It feels like there should
be a thing for that.

Even for yourself like I think that's
how we think about it with buckets.

It's like what buckets of money savings
retirement emergency fund And then

in that maybe category with Josh is
like maybe I want to buy a house or

maybe I want To quit my job, right?

It's like thinking about those what
those maybes are So early days still

in FinTech, which is crazy to think

of

CJ: Yeah.

That might be one interesting feature
of maybe might be tell me how much I

could get pre approved for, like roughly

Colin: And then get a
pre approved through it.

Like we're going to

send all your data

CJ: yes.

Yes.

Then they can sell it to mortgage

Colin: and then they make
money through mortgage brokers.

Yeah.

CJ: Yeah.

yeah.

Interesting.

I don't know.

something that, so Nicole and I,
we've talked about this a bunch

too, that like we use YNAB for
our budgeting and, we go over our

grocery budget every single month.

just because random stuff ends up in
there or whatever, or, I don't know.

We're just being like, we're not
being as disciplined as we should be.

And so this month we're like, we're not
going over a single penny on the grocery

budget, but something that I wanted to do,
is look at the L3 transaction data and try

to figure out, can I use the target API
and the whole foods API in the, Walmart

API and the Haniford API and Costco
API to pull in what are the exact foods

that we're buying at all these places?

Or what are the groceries we're buying?

And is there a way we can price
match at different places to

try to optimize, spend for.

Our family groceries, because there's,
probably yeah, eight different

grocery stores that we go to, and
surely we're spending too much at

one of them for something that we
could get cheaper at somewhere else.

Colin: Interesting.

CJ: Definitely, over, over optimizing

Colin: might spend more money
building that than saving.

CJ: Yeah.

Yeah,

Colin: and when you say that, the idea
that as long as we can categorize things

properly, like for me, I don't necessarily
want to obsess over every penny.

I want to know, if we think
about a budget, all I just

want to know is the bucket.

did we barely make a dent in the bucket?

If there's a grocery bucket,
is it an overflowing bucket?

Does it need two buckets?

And what did I put the target on?

Cause we did, I did open a PR for
adding goals and that kind of made

me think a little bit, I did a really
naive approach to goals, which is just

having a denominator in general, but.

When I think about goals and what I loved
about bank simple when they were around

was the ability to create target goals.

And so you could say, I want
to go to Hawaii in December,

it's going to cost this much.

And then they backtrack it and say,
Okay, if you want to be on target, by

then you need to save this much aside.

And as you and you can either
automatically move money into that

little bucket, it Or you can just
manually do it and update your progress

and it would show you your wins.

so for now I think it's just
cool to see, like my emergency

fund goal is this over this.

but if we do goals over time, you can
start to see Oh, my emergency fund

goal was a thousand dollars and then
5, 000 and you can paint a little

like milestone history for yourself.

CJ: Totally.

Yes.

I didn't see that you opened
that PR so it's merged now.

yeah, I love that.

That's so cool.

That's like exactly what I
would want from goals too.

Like just a simple, something simple.

Colin: we'll start simple, but I do
want to do the more dynamic goals

of just okay, here's where it gets
a little bit more complicated if you

don't, if you're not the bank, like
with bank simple, it was the bank.

And so It could move the money
around and hide it from you.

But then also when you were ready to
like book the trip, you could say my

card is now pulling from that bucket.

I mean you could just move the money
into your main account once you

hit the goal and pay for the thing.

But, yeah, interesting.

CJ: One thing that we've been
chatting about recently is like needs

versus wants versus emergency fund.

And are those three different buckets
or are they like, okay, maybe wants

is a separate thing from needs
and emergencies is like a need.

Maybe if some, a need comes up that
technically is an emergency, but

it doesn't feel like an emergency.

Like we had to replace a boiler and.

it was like 17 K or something.

And so it's okay, does that come
from like the emergency fund?

Does it come from the wants fund
or is there some other thing?

should we sell stock
to pay for that thing?

Or should we like not sell stock or, do
you make your emergency fund drop down

and then fill it back up or I don't know.

Yeah.

trying to think about, think
about that a little bit.

I guess we're also in a very
privileged spot to not have to.

Touch our needs, wants, or
emergency fund very often.

And so it's just huh, when we do,
what, how do we want to think about it?

Or what do we, like, where
do we want to pull it from?

Colin: does not feel like, like
wants to me are things that

you don't need to buy a boiler.

Sounds like you need to buy it.

And it sounds like it
might've been an emergency.

Some people advocate for
an, like a, an oh shit fund.

CJ: Yeah.

Colin: so emergency, it depends on
if that is an emergency, it's good to

have, but a lot of people think of an
emergency fund as like what expenses

you need to live for three months, six
months, whatever that ends up being,

and you eventually get to maybe a year.

That would be amazing.

Some people want that in their
brokerage instead of in savings.

but then having that other fund of
the things break, type of thing.

Honestly, even for a lot of those
things, every time people are

like, Oh, it's an unexpected thing.

It's if there's one unexpected thing
every year, it's not unexpected.

it's now expected and we just
got to save for it, plan for

CJ: I always felt bad about keeping
an emergency fund in cash, but

Vanguard just launched this new thing
called like cash plus or something.

It's like the Vanguard version
of a high yield savings account.

And yeah, I'm like, Oh man,
this is going to be awesome.

I love Vanguard, hashtag VTSAX for life.

I set it all up and it has this weird,
caveat that you can't deposit or withdraw

in the same way that you can to other
accounts on Vanguard, at least not yet.

And so when I go to interact
with it, the only way I can get

money in is a mobile deposit.

Like what?

Like you want me to write a check to

Colin: It's like a forced savings account.

Yeah.

CJ: Yeah, exactly.

okay, this is, yeah,

Colin: I use one finance and
I mean their savings is 5%.

So like it feels pretty
good to do that right now.

When things go down in interest
rates, then maybe it doesn't feel

as good to keep it in cash, but

CJ: Before my thought was in my mind.

I was able to juggle having half of the
emergency fund just yellowed and stuff in

Robin Hood and then half of the emergency
fund in cash, like in a savings account.

But Nicole prefers it a different way.

And so I'm trying to adjust my
mental model and come to some middle

ground, which feels like high yield
savings account is probably the

safer way to go for those two things.

But,

Colin: totally.

CJ: All right.

maybe we should wrap it

Colin: I think so.

We covered a lot of ground.

CJ: right on, as always, you
can head over to buildandlearn.

dev.

We'll drop links to things
that we talked about.

And, if you have an opportunity.

Dear listener, head over to your
podcast player, drop in five star review

and tell your friends about the show

Colin: We'll see you next time.

CJ: by friends.