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In this very special pilot episode of 'Mostly Technical', Ian & Aaron discuss everything from LK-99 to Screencasting.com & Aaron's 'Maximum Effort' era.
Sponsored by LaraJobs & HelloQuery.
Links for this week's show:
Sponsored by LaraJobs & HelloQuery.
Links for this week's show:
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Mostly Technical?
Hosted by Ian Landsman and Aaron Francis, Mostly Technical is a lively discussion on Laravel, business, and an eclectic mix of related topics.
Ian Landsman:
All right, hey everybody. It's me, Ian Landsman. I'm here with Aaron Francis. This is our first episode of the Mostly Technical podcast. So really exciting to have you here, Aaron, and for us to be starting this podcast.
Aaron:
Yeah, I'm super excited. I'm a long time listener of your old podcast and it was one of my favorites. And when I'll let you tell the whole story, but when you reached out to me, I was like, yes, I'm in baby, let's do it.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, it's crazy. So yeah, the bootstrap that fan was podcast I had with Andre Boutov for years. But that's been already like six years ago or something crazy time, time flies when you have all the kids and the business
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
and everything. So yeah, so it kind of actually leads into this because it kind of felt like I was kind of getting the itch for doing a podcast. And so when just I had this noodling in my brain for quite some time, but just haven't had kind of the right moment. Didn't really feel like I had the right person. Cause you know, to find the right co-host, I feel like the co-host is obviously super important for us to have a good rapport and to have kind of topics that we can, you know, riff on and everything kind of be in the same zone. So yeah, so I've just been, had my eyes out and then, uh, Larricon in Nashville, just a couple of weeks ago here. Um, we were catching up. We did an amazing talk there and, uh, MC'd the whole thing, which was an incredible job there on your part. And yeah, it just hit me. I was like, Oh, Aaron, be the perfect guy. So, uh, you know, we're both obviously deep in Laravel. Um, we're both business people and, uh, we both have a lot of things going on with our businesses. Both have a lot of things going on in the Laravel world. Um, so it just seemed like a good fit. We could have a podcast. We could discuss what's going on in Laravel. We could discuss what's going on with us. Um, both personal fun stuff, business stuff. Uh, yeah. So it just seemed like it would be interesting and entertaining for, uh, you know, the people out there. And, uh, so yeah, so I reached out to you and you agreed to do it. So I'm
Aaron:
And
Ian Landsman:
so excited.
Aaron:
you forgot the most important part. We've both
Ian Landsman:
Hmm.
Aaron:
watched Seinfeld enough
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
that we'll get our little one-liners and our little jokes, so it's
Ian Landsman:
keep
Aaron:
going
Ian Landsman:
the tradition
Aaron:
to be
Ian Landsman:
going
Aaron:
perfect.
Ian Landsman:
of the Seinfeld. Yes,
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
we got Seinfeld
Aaron:
exactly.
Ian Landsman:
in common for sure. I'm
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
sure we have.
Aaron:
there's a lot to talk about. And I think... I like the fact that we named it Mostly Technical because I think on our list, we've got lots of fun stuff that's like, ah, is that really technical? But who cares?
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
This is a Mostly Technical podcast. Of course, we'll talk about, of course, we'll talk about Laravel and the happenings in the community. But there's a lot of fun stuff going on. I've got a full time job. You own a company with a bunch of employees. I'm trying to build something on the side. You're learning React for some reason, which I can't wait to
Ian Landsman:
React.
Aaron:
continually
Ian Landsman:
Hahaha.
Aaron:
roast you about. It's just there's a lot. fun stuff to talk about, so I'm excited.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. You have babies coming. I mean, there's
Aaron:
I
Ian Landsman:
gonna
Aaron:
have
Ian Landsman:
be a lot
Aaron:
a whole
Ian Landsman:
of stuff.
Aaron:
bunch of babies on the way. Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
My babies are kind of getting big. The oldest is 17. So you have the new babies coming in. So we got a lot of stuff there
Aaron:
Damn.
Ian Landsman:
on both sides of that equation we could talk about. So
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
yeah, there's all good stuff there. Yeah. So I'm excited. I mean, we have a huge list of coming, starting this right after Larikon, there's like...
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
I mean, we could do like probably four hours of Laravel stuff. So we're going to try to sprinkle that in throughout, um, try to do these every week. I think we'll see how that goes, but I think we should be able to most, most of the time, pull that off with a few exceptions and then, um, you know, try to, yeah. You know, Laravel moves so quick. That's, that's the thing.
Aaron:
It
Ian Landsman:
It's like
Aaron:
does, yeah.
Ian Landsman:
even in these, the off, you know, times where there's nothing going on, like Taylor's always got dropping new things, you know, little, little enhancements and stuff that are fun to talk about for sure. So, and we'll see. It's always fun to talk about code on the podcast and see how to walk that line.
Aaron:
Yeah, how much code can we actually talk about in
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
an audio form? We'll find
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
out. We'll find out
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
together.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah. That'll be exciting. I've never done a purely, well, this isn't purely code either, but like even more heavy technical podcasts, because Bootstrap was not really technical at all.
Aaron:
No. No it wasn't.
Ian Landsman:
So this will be fun, a new challenge here. All right, so what do we wanna jump into first? We got a big list here of all different things.
Aaron:
Okay, so I kinda wanna talk, let's start mostly technical, I kinda wanna talk about LK99.
Ian Landsman:
I know, that's a good one. I'm really.
Aaron:
Have you been following the whole saga?
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, yeah, I haven't. So what
Aaron:
Okay,
Ian Landsman:
do you, what do you think? I mean, I dunno,
Aaron:
okay,
Ian Landsman:
it was very
Aaron:
so
Ian Landsman:
exciting
Aaron:
yeah,
Ian Landsman:
to start,
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
but you know.
Aaron:
Okay, so for the listener, I will explain what I know about LK99, and I will caveat it with, just because I'm on Twitter does not make me a superconductor expert. I know
Ian Landsman:
Really? Are
Aaron:
that
Ian Landsman:
you sure?
Aaron:
may surprise you, but I do not claim to be one. So from what I understand about LK99, it is a room temperature, ambient pressure superconductor, which stands opposed to all the superconductors that we have, which are just like negative a billion degrees and super high pressure. And so this would be just a monumental breakthrough if it was room temperature. And so whenever you see like a maglev train that's like flying above the ground, it's doing that because it's got like cryogenically cooled superconducting material. It takes a huge amount of energy to like cool the thing down so it can conduct. So that's my understanding of like what is going on. And supposedly, so I think the story is now that these two scientists like were working under their professor in 1999 and like found this material. And since then they've been unable to replicate it. And now, you know, 25 years later, whatever, they've replicated it. Kind of on accident, like they were pulling a tube out of the furnace and the tube cracked at just the right time introducing oxygen and it like made a superconductor.
Ian Landsman:
Oh boy, I don't know.
Aaron:
hallmarks of like, this is a movie, right?
Ian Landsman:
Right, yeah.
Aaron:
Like, and that's part of where it's like, hang on, this feels too good to be real.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
So the fun part is like, there's this internal drama and fighting in this team out of South Korea. One guy releases a paper and then the other guys are like, oh crap, we weren't ready for that, but we gotta rush to release our papers. So the papers are super sloppy, bunch of mistakes. But now all these teams around the world are racing to replicate it. Cause it's just like lead and copper and phosphate or something. So it's very
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
easy to replicate. And so now they're just on Twitter. All these, all these like, you know, material science cowboys are on Twitter
Ian Landsman:
Hahaha
Aaron:
being like, I'm cook, I'm cooking it up in my lab. It's going to work.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
And we're starting to see, like, we're starting to actually see the rocks float, which is like a sign of a superconductive materials that it like gets in this magnetic lock where it floats in the air. So here's the deal. I'm always like, like when, when crypto came around and we should talk about crypto at some
Ian Landsman:
Well,
Aaron:
point,
Ian Landsman:
we can
Aaron:
when
Ian Landsman:
talk about
Aaron:
crypto
Ian Landsman:
crypto.
Aaron:
came around, I was like, nah, this is not it. This is just not going to work. I feel differently about this. I feel like LK99
Ian Landsman:
Mmm.
Aaron:
is it. So
Ian Landsman:
Wow.
Aaron:
I don't know, I feel hyped. That's the backstory. What are your thoughts on it? And then I'll tell you why I'm so hyped.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, I mean, so I didn't even actually know. I knew that the group that published the two different papers were, uh, there was disagreement there. I didn't actually have all that backstory of, it was actually 20, whatever years ago they
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
first did it. So that's really interesting. Um, I don't know, you know, it feels
Aaron:
Hehehehehe
Ian Landsman:
like, uh, absolutely. Yeah. When I heard it, I was like, this is so excited. I tend to be sort of optimistic. And
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
so, uh, I was like, Ooh, yeah, like this is going to be real. Like I'm excited. Um, Then I don't know, then pessimistic Twitter has been
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
wearing away at me, right? And
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
it's like people have stuff floating, but other things can make things float. So
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
like that by itself is not definitive. And then it's like, it has, you know, I don't feel like we've heard from, uh, we have like the armchair people trying to do it, but I don't
Aaron:
Right.
Ian Landsman:
think there's been like, uh, you know, big lab that's
Aaron:
There's
Ian Landsman:
been
Aaron:
no
Ian Landsman:
like,
Aaron:
national
Ian Landsman:
oh yeah, sweet.
Aaron:
lab
Ian Landsman:
We
Aaron:
that's
Ian Landsman:
definitely
Aaron:
done it.
Ian Landsman:
did this and it's super amazing and all that stuff.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
So now you're in this like, I don't know, I'm like, should I still be super jazzed
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
or not? But I mean, obviously the possibilities are incredible. I didn't realize, one thing I learned in all this was that there's already like thousands of super conductors that are known,
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
but yeah, they're all require, incredibly low temperature or pressure or both. So there's only like a handful that are even practical for like commercial usage. And even
Aaron:
Right?
Ian Landsman:
there, obviously it's, very narrow use cases, you're not going to build a huge thing or mass produce wire or something in
Aaron:
Right?
Ian Landsman:
these conditions. So it's more like for in labs and things. So yeah, so I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to think now.
Aaron:
It does feel like this is a... I don't know, it feels like people on Twitter, at least early on. were like universally optimistic and it was like, hey, we all have something to be excited about instead
Ian Landsman:
R-heh
Aaron:
of like
Ian Landsman:
heh heh.
Aaron:
be mad at each other about, you know, instead of like, oh, you're using JavaScript in a bad way. It's like, we made rocks that float.
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
So that part was super fun. But then of course,
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
of course, you know, it went in a cycle and it's like, no, you're all stupid. This is
Ian Landsman:
R-heh
Aaron:
never gonna
Ian Landsman:
heh
Aaron:
work.
Ian Landsman:
heh.
Aaron:
You should not be excited about anything ever. It's like, okay,
Ian Landsman:
Yep.
Aaron:
dang it.
Ian Landsman:
I don't know though. I hope it's real. Don't you hope it's real? It's
Aaron:
I
Ian Landsman:
like... Ah.
Aaron:
super hope it's real. It would be amazing. I feel like, so I feel like even if it's not real, it is close enough to being real that it will unlock, it will unlock these scientists to go down this path and find the thing that is actually real. So
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
my guess is as a material sciences expert, my guess is like, it is, Like it's real, I don't think anybody's lying. I think it's real, I think it's probably not the final form that is like gonna be commercialized and revolutionized the world.
Ian Landsman:
Mmm.
Aaron:
But I think that this is gonna be the one where they say, oh, we should go down this path and discover what's one step after this. And then that will be the part that takes us on to like flying cars and you know, free clean energy forever.
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
Maybe not that far, but you know.
Ian Landsman:
It's like, have you ever seen The Sink, I think it's called? That movie where it's like
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
a fusion reactor, you know, free energy for all and stuff, yeah.
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
So are you a movie guy? This could be important, I'm a big movie guy.
Aaron:
I know you're a big movie guy. I'm not as big a movie guy as you are, but
Ian Landsman:
Okay.
Aaron:
I've seen,
Ian Landsman:
But
Aaron:
I grew
Ian Landsman:
seen
Aaron:
up watching
Ian Landsman:
some stuff.
Aaron:
lots of movies with my dad and we
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
watched a ton of movies.
Ian Landsman:
Okay.
Aaron:
So
Ian Landsman:
That's
Aaron:
I could probably hang, I'll hang.
Ian Landsman:
yeah, that's the right era for me. I'm not, you know, the new movie. I like new movies too, but you know, those like nineties movies
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
and earlier, it's kind of my wheelhouse. But, um, but anyway, yeah, like the, I mean, I, one interesting thing that I, I read about this too is how this is based. It's kind of like, I guess rock, you know, rock based essentially, which is
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
why some people are pessimistic on it, but also it does make it potentially theoretically harder. to commercialize because like rocks are brittle. And so even if it does
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
work and you know, it's not like a wire, you can just roll out and, and things like that. So, yeah, who knows? But like, like you said, I mean, it's kind of like a chat GPT, right? And like large language models, like initially you're like, whoa, this is like, does, does everything. And then, you know, I mean, I use it every day still, um, on
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
code and stuff, we can talk about that, but it's definitely not like, you know, there's a long way to go until it's like. chat GBT runs
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
everything in large language models run everything, but it's the, the possibility has been sparked in enough people that money then is just like piling in there. And so just like you were saying with, you know, superconductors, it's like, oh, if you get that spark that takes it out of just like geeks in labs who are like, yeah, we can do this to like more broad appeal than sometimes that. generates a lot of just money in the space, which
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
generates more research and so on. So even if this doesn't, isn't real, then maybe it's still helps lead to funding that does find the easier to use superconductors, which
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
solves
Aaron:
and
Ian Landsman:
so many issues.
Aaron:
one thing that it's been really, like it's been really fun for me because I'm not on science Twitter. I actually don't know if science Twitter exists.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, I think it does, but I'm only, I have a tangential, but not
Aaron:
Yeah!
Ian Landsman:
like, I don't have a lot of people I follow in the science space.
Aaron:
And it seems like in the past two weeks, Science Twitter has been main Twitter, and
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
I think it's really fun for me because it's not just like... them arguing about which beakers to use.
Ian Landsman:
Hahaha.
Aaron:
It's like them showing videos about, hey, we're pulling this thing out of the furnace, or here's a closeup of the floaty rock. And it's like, this is all I ever want Twitter to be. All
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
I ever want Twitter to be is really cool, interesting, smart, fun people sharing the cool, interesting, smart, fun things they're doing. And this past few weeks has been just like, peak what I want out of Twitter.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, yeah, that's a whole, that's a whole interesting topic, like philosophy of Twitter, right?
Aaron:
Hmm.
Ian Landsman:
Like, I know you're, you're very big on the, like, kind of, yeah, trying to take the good parts of Twitter,
Aaron:
Yes.
Ian Landsman:
uh, with, and not be pulled down so deep into the, into the negative parts of Twitter. I, I'm more on the line, like sometimes I get
Aaron:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ian Landsman:
down in the negative Twitter. Uh, but, uh, Yeah, I don't know. That's the thing. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if we want to go all into Twitter, but Twitter is sort of an interesting topic. It has been, yeah, the science Twitter coming. I feel like the whole thing, like science Twitter, chat, GBT Twitter, LLM Twitter, and people
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
like experimenting with all that stuff. And there's like the Lang chain AI guys, there's
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
all kinds of different people doing interesting AI type stuff. And it has been a nice injection of optimism and kind of. uh science and technology
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
moving forward and uh things like that that's been really cool and refreshing for sure
Aaron:
Yeah, I like the vibe shift that's happened recently. I will say the problem is if we get to the point where it's like, you're using LK99 incorrectly, here are 10 things you can do to use
Ian Landsman:
Hehehe
Aaron:
LK99 better. That's when it's gone too far. That's when we've entered back into like, okay, popular thing of the moment turns into grifter Twitter and I'm like, God freaking, this happens
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
every time. So
Ian Landsman:
That's
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
just human nature. It happens with everything always.
Aaron:
I've got lots of opinions about Twitter, so we could talk about that at some point.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
This one has been fun. This has been a very show and tell week on Twitter, and those are my
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
favorite types of content to consume.
Ian Landsman:
Well, and that's such an interesting thing with like hard science type stuff is like, yeah, we're like, there's videos of like people trying to replicate this thing and their things are on fire and there's beakers and there's
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
containers that do stuff. Who the hell knows what it does? Like, and just even just watching those videos is interesting. Um, and that's actually kind of like. One of the problems even, you know, with what we do is I feel like sometimes it is just hard to show. Like, obviously there's like, yeah, you can have your screenshots with a cool background and here's
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
my code snippet or whatever, but it's still just like a hard thing to show. Like I run into this all the time with even my kids. It's like, what do I do for a living? Like dad looks at the screen all day. Like if I was like a scientist and I could bring them to the lab and they could see like, oh, look, here's a thing on fire. Right. Like
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
that. resonates with a child when it's just like I'm looking at the screen and you could come next to me and look at the screen with me or you know you one of my kids has taken like a coding class or whatever but it's just not it doesn't like click like what
Aaron:
No.
Ian Landsman:
dad does all day you know I think that's one of the unfortunate things for me it's a little hard sometimes to convey what we do
Aaron:
Yeah, and even like even the final output of what you know, both of us and most of us do is like, okay, so maybe we can't show them the process because we don't have a cool furnace. At least
Ian Landsman:
I'm sorry.
Aaron:
we can show them the end result, which is b2b sass. It's like, uh,
Ian Landsman:
I can query this database. So exciting.
Aaron:
like, look, you can put first name equals Aaron and all the errands show
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
up and they're like, why? I don't care about that. Like, I want
Ian Landsman:
So
Aaron:
to see a rock float. So yeah, that is.
Ian Landsman:
yeah.
Aaron:
That is
Ian Landsman:
Yeah,
Aaron:
kind
Ian Landsman:
exactly.
Aaron:
of
Ian Landsman:
Unless
Aaron:
frustrating.
Ian Landsman:
you're going to make like a music app or a social media
Aaron:
Right.
Ian Landsman:
app, maybe. Although my kids aren't into that too much. So like, yeah, there's just it's hard to yeah, it's like my oldest son has been working in the business this summer.
Aaron:
Oh cool.
Ian Landsman:
And it's been really interesting. I'm Dave Hicking, who works at userscape with me. He's been his manager, actually. And But it's been cool. I think he's had a kind of interesting time digging into the business and figuring out what the hell we do. Cause he's 17,
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
like not really sure essentially. Cause like, he knows the very broadest strokes and that's it because yeah, it's like a
Aaron:
So
Ian Landsman:
B2B
Aaron:
what role is
Ian Landsman:
app.
Aaron:
he in? Is he in like an ops support or customer support
Ian Landsman:
He's
Aaron:
or
Ian Landsman:
just
Aaron:
what?
Ian Landsman:
been doing like he did a little bit of just like shadowing and then he's been doing a bunch of research like so far he's mostly done competitive research in help for help spot and then he's moving on now to some Lara jobs like competitive research so yeah just good like intern like hey go look at everybody in this space
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
and aggregate a bunch of information and come up with some recommendations and things like that
Aaron:
Cool. Do you think
Ian Landsman:
yeah
Aaron:
he's liking it?
Ian Landsman:
He is, he said he's like, yeah, he's actually probably going to be a history major. So he's not really
Aaron:
Okay.
Ian Landsman:
into the business stuff so much, but he's liked it. And, uh, yeah, so far so good with that. But, um, yeah, but so it's been interesting to have, have one of the kids in, in the mix on the business and,
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
uh, learning more about it, but I still wish I had a lab or I could blow
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
things up and,
Aaron:
for sure,
Ian Landsman:
you know,
Aaron:
100%.
Ian Landsman:
right.
Aaron:
Yeah, I think it is, like, in terms of, like, sharing stuff on Twitter. I don't know that, you know, your 17-year-old history major son's ever going to love B2B sass. But
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
our peers, you know, it is possible.
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
Like, the code with the pretty background or short little videos. I think it is possible for people to train themselves to see the things that they're doing and just even have a little notepad and be like, oh, that thing that I just did was interesting. I should share that later. Because everybody's always like, man, I don't know what to share on Twitter. I'm like, did you
Ian Landsman:
So.
Aaron:
do anything interesting, even mildly interesting, just barely interesting this week in your code base? Just write it down, put that on Twitter and see what happens. you start to get used to like, oh, this is a good piece of content that I just produced as a part of my regular job, I'm going to put that out there. And yeah,
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
you get used to it.
Ian Landsman:
And I mean, that kind of touches on a couple of our other topics here because it's like, well, first of all, this was kind of the theme, part of the theme of your talk at Laricon
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
was just like to get out there and share things. And it is hard to get over that hump of like actually just putting things out there, especially if you're not as comfortable doing that.
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
And then even your specific example here is Tobias and like he does a lot of database. info just exactly
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
in that format. And I know on our list here we have he's coming out with an indexing book, but if
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
you're not familiar with him, I don't know his last name off the top of
Aaron:
Petri.
Ian Landsman:
my head, but okay, Tobias Petri. So he just shares a lot of interesting little database factoids on Twitter and I think he has some other places too, but
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
a newsletter. That's why I tend to actually see it if I miss him on Twitter, because I'm not
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
always completing Twitter anymore. So he does send
Aaron:
Yeah, I think it's a sequel for devs, newsletters.
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah. And it's great. It's just like, here's a little nugget of like database wonderfulness. And, and yeah, I mean, I mean, the database, just one database platform has like practically infinite nuggets
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
in it. And then if you cover, he does usually cover at least MySQL
Aaron:
He knows
Ian Landsman:
and
Aaron:
all
Ian Landsman:
Postgres.
Aaron:
of them,
Ian Landsman:
So,
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
and then in my world, I also deal with Microsoft SQL Server. So yeah, there's always like, yeah, database platforms are infinite fountain of interesting
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
topics,
Aaron:
it's
Ian Landsman:
I think.
Aaron:
totally an infinite content glitch for him
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
that he can just talk about databases. And yeah, so he's got a he's got a book coming out. It's like indexing beyond the basics or something. I immediately
Ian Landsman:
Mm.
Aaron:
I immediately bought whatever the highest package was, because anything that anything that Tobias does on databases, I'm going to buy for sure. And it's like, this is probably a very good example, because I think all of the stuff that he, you know, puts 10 or 15 years, you know, and
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
it's kind of hard to be like, do I really want to share this? Because like this seems very simple. But then he puts it out there and you look at the numbers on his tweets and it's like, oh, nobody else knew this, but Tobias.
Ian Landsman:
Hehehehehehe
Aaron:
But Tobias knew it for a super long time. And so,
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
yeah, he's one of the ones that has been. He's grown a very like stable, solid, steady audience by just. talking about the thing that he knows and loves. And that's like perfect example. So yeah, we'll put a link to his book in the show notes, but definitely go check it out. Actually in my Lericon talk, I mentioned like when I was really trying to get good at databases, I thought like, I'm smart, but I'm not as smart as Tobias or Kai. And this is the Tobias,
Ian Landsman:
Hahaha.
Aaron:
this is the Tobias that I was talking about.
Ian Landsman:
Oh my gosh, that's funny.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, I mean, indexing book. I don't know if I've ever seen an indexing book. I mean, there's probably some out there, I'm guessing like quite long ago would be my
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
guess is like, you know, late nineties, somebody produced some indexing books.
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
But yeah, I think that's gonna be interesting topic I definitely signed up to, cause like, I don't
Aaron:
You love database
Ian Landsman:
know,
Aaron:
stuff.
Ian Landsman:
I love indexes. I
Aaron:
You
Ian Landsman:
do love
Aaron:
do.
Ian Landsman:
database stuff. If I wasn't doing this, I think I could be like, if I had to have like an actual job, like database. Guy, I think could be one. Like, I don't know enough right
Aaron:
That's
Ian Landsman:
now,
Aaron:
me,
Ian Landsman:
but like I
Aaron:
you
Ian Landsman:
have
Aaron:
could
Ian Landsman:
the
Aaron:
be
Ian Landsman:
interest
Aaron:
me.
Ian Landsman:
in the database. Yeah, it could be
Aaron:
I
Ian Landsman:
you
Aaron:
have a
Ian Landsman:
maybe.
Aaron:
full-time job as database guy.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah,
Aaron:
You want to be me
Ian Landsman:
database
Aaron:
and I want
Ian Landsman:
guy.
Aaron:
to be you, it's amazing.
Ian Landsman:
There we go. Maybe we should trade places at work. We
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
could
Aaron:
I should
Ian Landsman:
make
Aaron:
do
Ian Landsman:
that
Aaron:
a Freaky Friday
Ian Landsman:
part of the
Aaron:
thing,
Ian Landsman:
podcast,
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
right?
Aaron:
Yeah, I remember I did a database talk at Lyricon Online and you came on afterwards and you said, as the host, and you said something like, oh man, I just love database talks. I could
Ian Landsman:
It's
Aaron:
just listen to database
Ian Landsman:
so
Aaron:
talks all
Ian Landsman:
good.
Aaron:
day long.
Ian Landsman:
They're so good. You
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
always learn something and everybody needs the things. And you know what I mean? Like even if it's just simple things, it's like there's so many gotchas and
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
edge cases and everybody's always looking for them to be optimized or faster or whatever. Store something that you didn't think you could store. Like there's just a million things and every app in the world basically touches on them. So yeah, it's like a cool
Aaron:
Yeah, he's got,
Ian Landsman:
zone.
Aaron:
I like his angle because I think his angle is the same angle that I took for my sequel for developers, which is more like... It's, it's broader than just indexing. He's going super deep on indexing. Um, and I think his angle is like, what is the application developer need? Like, what do you actually need to know not to be a DBA, like a database administrator, which is a fine calling. But I think his audience is all app devs. And it's like, we need to know slightly different things than, than DBAs.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
And I think that's his angle. There's a good book called, um, I think it's used the index, use the index luke.com.
Ian Landsman:
Mmm.
Aaron:
or something like that. And that's
Ian Landsman:
Okay.
Aaron:
a good one, but it's very, it's extremely broad in that it covers, you know, six different databases and
Ian Landsman:
Mmm.
Aaron:
it is, it's pretty, it's pretty technical and less practical. So I think this will be, I think Tobias's book will be the spiritual successor to use the index. That's, that's my hope at least.
Ian Landsman:
I didn't know about use the index. Interesting.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, that's what the homepage for it seemed kind of like. I think from what he has out there now, it's like just explaining how like compound indexes work and
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
some stuff like that is just like in his examples. But I thought the really interesting part is he's gonna use illustrations in a lot of it, which
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
is a genius idea, because to have it like well illustrated for how the index operates, I think is really useful since it tends to just devolve into like.
Aaron:
Imagine,
Ian Landsman:
outputs of
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
explain or whatever.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
And you're like, okay, like, I don't know, whatever. It says
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
it used this index. I don't get it. And then, um, but having it visualized, uh, should be really cool.
Aaron:
Yeah, I don't know who did his landing page, but it is not a database landing page. It's a proper full
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
on like, this is a beautiful SAAS, I mean, it's an info product, but it looks like a beautiful SAAS landing page. Good
Ian Landsman:
Yeah,
Aaron:
for you. And then
Ian Landsman:
yeah.
Aaron:
I know that Tobias didn't do that. He's very good at a lot of things. I don't think he's a designer. This is,
Ian Landsman:
He didn't
Aaron:
this
Ian Landsman:
come
Aaron:
is
Ian Landsman:
up with
Aaron:
next
Ian Landsman:
that.
Aaron:
level. Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah. Maybe he's working with somebody because obviously he's had somebody do these illustrations too, I assume he didn't
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
do the illustrations. So maybe he's got a partner on it or something, or just
Aaron:
Yeah, we
Ian Landsman:
outsourced
Aaron:
talked a little
Ian Landsman:
it.
Aaron:
bit
Ian Landsman:
But
Aaron:
because when I recently did a screencasting website and he reached out and was like, hey, who did you use for your designer? I used this person, I forgot who he said, but his designer
Ian Landsman:
Mmm,
Aaron:
did a great job.
Ian Landsman:
okay. Yeah. Yeah, so let's talk about your endeavor here. You are a man of many new endeavors. So
Aaron:
I am a busy man. You want to
Ian Landsman:
Oh
Aaron:
talk screencasting.com?
Ian Landsman:
Yes, let's do it.
Aaron:
Okay,
Ian Landsman:
So
Aaron:
so
Ian Landsman:
what's what's.
Aaron:
yeah, so I did this big MySQL for developers course for Planet Scale where I work and afterwards people were like, hey, the course is really good, how did you do it? Like, hey, how did you do this? Like, hey, how can I do screencasts like that? And you know, I would answer and be like, oh, here's some of the things I did and it just kept happening. And I was like, hey, this is an opportunity. Maybe I have... you know, something that I can say or like I'm uniquely positioned to teach something here. And so I just recorded a bunch of videos. I'm not totally done yet. I have like maybe
Ian Landsman:
Hmm.
Aaron:
40 recorded and I have just a few
Ian Landsman:
Wow.
Aaron:
more to go. Yeah, it's a lot.
Ian Landsman:
That's a lot.
Aaron:
And I started looking around and was like, okay, what am I going to name this thing? I could do something like, you know, technical screencasts for developers.com. Because everything's
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
taken. There's nothing available. And I didn't want to do like I didn't want to really do like a.dev and I didn't want to do a.so or.io. And I just wanted to like I wanted to go for it. And
Ian Landsman:
Nah.
Aaron:
so I started looking around and I looked at the I started looking at like the GoDaddy premium domain auctions. And there were some good domains on there. And then I came across screencasting.com and I was like, are
Ian Landsman:
Crazy.
Aaron:
you kidding me?
Ian Landsman:
How is that just available when you
Aaron:
Like.
Ian Landsman:
need it? Like that's
Aaron:
I could
Ian Landsman:
unbelievable.
Aaron:
buy Screencasting.com and I sent it to, I sent it to, like I sent a screenshot of the auction. It was actually a buy now. I sent a screenshot of the buy now
Ian Landsman:
Mm.
Aaron:
to Andrew Culver, who I think you know,
Ian Landsman:
Mm.
Aaron:
right? You know, Andrew,
Ian Landsman:
Mm? Yeah.
Aaron:
he's in the Ruby community. He builds Bullet Train. I sent it to him and I sent it to Chris Fadal and Jason Beggs and I was like, hey y'all, should I do this? And I forget who, but somebody came back and was like, if you don't do this today, I'm gonna buy them. that out from under
Ian Landsman:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Aaron:
you. And I was like, you, I don't know if you're being a friend or an enemy right now.
Ian Landsman:
or
Aaron:
Like,
Ian Landsman:
put some pressure on you.
Aaron:
I appreciate the push, but this feels bad.
Ian Landsman:
Ha ha ha.
Aaron:
And so I just, I went for it. And so I will reveal for the first time on the pod as
Ian Landsman:
Woohoo!
Aaron:
exclusive content. So here, let me before I, so I'm gonna tease it. Before I do, here was my thought process. My thought process was one, I didn't have to get approval from the boss, AKA my wife, because it's running through the business account. So that's like, that's
Ian Landsman:
It's
Aaron:
hurdle,
Ian Landsman:
a write-off baby,
Aaron:
hurdle
Ian Landsman:
it's a write-off!
Aaron:
number one. It's a write off. They just write it off. That's
Ian Landsman:
Exactly.
Aaron:
hurdle number one. Totally, totally cleared. And so
Ian Landsman:
Yup.
Aaron:
I didn't, you know, I didn't have to be like, Hey, babe, I want to buy this domain. She's like, what's the domain
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
and it costs how much? So I didn't have to do that. The second thing
Ian Landsman:
Nice.
Aaron:
was, of course, it is a write off. Like it is absolutely a write-off. This
Ian Landsman:
100%. Yeah.
Aaron:
is no fake. This is a real write-off. And so that counts. And then the third thing is like, if it doesn't work, which I think it will work, if it doesn't work, the domain still retains value. Like
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
I could just turn around and resell
Ian Landsman:
It's an
Aaron:
it maybe
Ian Landsman:
asset.
Aaron:
for a little bit less, but it's a one word domain that has an obvious backend business that you could build on
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
it. So all of those things, I found like I'm justifying, it's not that much. I felt like, okay, this is a reasonable, mild to low risk. And so it was, well, let me, how much do you think it was? Cause I think,
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, let's
Aaron:
I won't
Ian Landsman:
play
Aaron:
poison
Ian Landsman:
this game.
Aaron:
the well. I won't poison the well, but how much do you think it was?
Ian Landsman:
We've already poisoned it a little bit by saying it wasn't that much. So
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
I'm going to,
Aaron:
I know,
Ian Landsman:
that's
Aaron:
shoot.
Ian Landsman:
kind of limiting me down a little
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
bit, but let's say, I mean, wow, it's a good domain. Domains are, um, off of their highs for sure. Cause like with the startups kind
Aaron:
Uh
Ian Landsman:
of
Aaron:
huh.
Ian Landsman:
falling off here in the funding,
Aaron:
Free
Ian Landsman:
they're
Aaron:
money's
Ian Landsman:
definitely
Aaron:
over.
Ian Landsman:
down. Yeah. The free money's over. People just like drop in big money for any random domains. So, um, that helps you a bit too. When was this by the way? Like, was it just
Aaron:
I bought
Ian Landsman:
like in the
Aaron:
it
Ian Landsman:
last?
Aaron:
in April of this year, April of 2023.
Ian Landsman:
Oh, wow, okay, so a little while ago. So, I'm gonna go 3500.
Aaron:
3500 is more than that.
Ian Landsman:
Okay,
Aaron:
It was
Ian Landsman:
wow,
Aaron:
it was
Ian Landsman:
look at that.
Aaron:
it was 6000.
Ian Landsman:
Okay,
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
5,000 was kind of my initial thinking, but okay.
Aaron:
And then I poisoned
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
you and so you went down. Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Right,
Aaron:
So
Ian Landsman:
so
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
I went down, but
Aaron:
So 6000 and so
Ian Landsman:
yeah.
Aaron:
huge, huge amount of money for a
Ian Landsman:
It's
Aaron:
domain.
Ian Landsman:
a big investment for a domain, yeah, sure.
Aaron:
But. I, and so the other thing is like, I'm selling a course. I'm not like, I'm going to get a bunch of traffic and make AdWords money. And so I do feel
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
like the backend is there where I can at least recoup that. My goodness. If I don't recoup that,
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
then I've made a huge mistake. Um, but yeah, I saw that and I was like, I really expected a one word domain to be north of 10,000. And I think by the reactions, by the reactions on Twitter, I think everyone expects it to be like way north of 10,000.
Ian Landsman:
right
Aaron:
I'm like, how did you do that? I'm
Ian Landsman:
Aaron:
like, y'all,
Ian Landsman:
Aaron:
I just kind of, I bought it. So,
Ian Landsman:
Just that it's even available is always amazing though. Cause
Aaron:
I
Ian Landsman:
this
Aaron:
know.
Ian Landsman:
is the kind of thing where I'm sure there's other screencasting courses and people
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
who've done startups, all these, you know, there's like, you know, it's kind of a specific word. There's not like a lot of other words for this content
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
type.
Aaron:
my
Ian Landsman:
And
Aaron:
question
Ian Landsman:
so.
Aaron:
is like, what the hell is ScreenFlow doing that they didn't buy Screencasting.com
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
and turn that into like
Ian Landsman:
Just buy
Aaron:
a standalone
Ian Landsman:
up everything,
Aaron:
marketing asset?
Ian Landsman:
right?
Aaron:
Like
Ian Landsman:
Well,
Aaron:
you want
Ian Landsman:
so here's
Aaron:
to do
Ian Landsman:
a-
Aaron:
Screencasting, well, use ScreenFlow. Like that seems totally obvious to me, but I'm glad they didn't.
Ian Landsman:
Well, so here's the theory behind it of why it's maybe available. But I think for your case, it's great. So the, the sort of generic term for things like that, like screen casting
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
or, or database or calendar, things like that. Um, they are a little bit tricky in the domain world, um, because, cause they are so much generic. So like, is it defensible? Like
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
purely
Aaron:
You're
Ian Landsman:
from
Aaron:
telling
Ian Landsman:
a.
Aaron:
me this now Ian,
Ian Landsman:
trademark.
Aaron:
I've spent $6,000 on it. Where were you in April?
Ian Landsman:
No, no, no. I think it's seem, but I think for your use case is perfect. Like if you were building a screencasting platform,
Aaron:
Yes.
Ian Landsman:
I think I would be, I wouldn't like it as much. Um, just cause I think there is more risk to it. I think like anybody can use the term, there's all this like prior art. And so people are going to say, Hey, you can't like trademark that. And I'm going to open up my own thing that says this or whatever. And like, you know, it's Even then it's not necessarily the end of the world that you can't totally own a term, but at the same time, people tend to like to be like, well, I own this and nobody
Aaron:
Brett.
Ian Landsman:
else can use it for a similar type app. Right. So there is value in that. Um, but I think for a course it's like totally different because it's like. It lends this like authority to it that
Aaron:
Yes,
Ian Landsman:
I
Aaron:
totally.
Ian Landsman:
like. It's like, this is the course on screen. It's literally screencasting.com.
Aaron:
Yes.
Ian Landsman:
Like this is it. This is the guy who knows everything about this. And like, so I think it's great for that. And I don't think it's, it's not an issue for you that like. Trademark wise, like, I mean, you probably should try to trademark it anyway,
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
but like, it's not a huge deal. Um. if you can't like totally own the term screencasting because it doesn't matter. You don't even necessarily want to. It's
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
like
Aaron:
I don't even,
Ian Landsman:
you want people
Aaron:
I super
Ian Landsman:
using
Aaron:
don't
Ian Landsman:
the
Aaron:
care
Ian Landsman:
term
Aaron:
about
Ian Landsman:
screencast,
Aaron:
that. Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
right?
Aaron:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Like you want people out there talking about screencasts and then when people look for how to do them, like they find screencasting.com.
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
So.
Aaron:
that is my hope is like, I think it will be good. I think it will be good for SEO maybe. I don't super
Ian Landsman:
Yeah,
Aaron:
care
Ian Landsman:
definitely
Aaron:
about that.
Ian Landsman:
can be.
Aaron:
I think what is like what you mentioned is it's good for perceived authority. So like when
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
you Google how to record a screencast and I have eventually an article on how to record a screencast and it's screencasting.com, people are gonna look at that and go, oh, that's the word, that's the dot com. There's
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
something going on here.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah,
Aaron:
Like there's,
Ian Landsman:
for sure.
Aaron:
I don't know who this guy is, but this is screencasting.com. It must be like there's some kind of business or money behind it where I can trust these people.
Ian Landsman:
At the very least it's on it's a certainly on the topic I'm interested in right now and what
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
I'm looking for like so at the very least like I know I'm gonna click this Google link and go to a place that's at least about Screencasting like maybe they're gonna try to sell me something I don't want or maybe it's a service
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
and I'm looking for info or whatever so there's you know, that, but the baseline, like, it definitely lends a lot of authority there of like, yeah, this is, this is where I want to be at least
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
in terms of the type of information I'm looking for. And I think SEO would be huge for you. I think you should definitely, I think you should really put a lot of thought into the SEO and try to. Uh, yeah, I mean,
Aaron:
What would you do? Tell me.
Ian Landsman:
I would definitely like, you want to own like how to screencast, like you
Aaron:
Hmm.
Ian Landsman:
need like the definitive article on like how to screencast and like getting. all the people who follow you to like link to that and like
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
talk about it and like come up with something awesome for that one page, especially.
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
I'm sure there's like long tail keywords and stuff you could research, but
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
because somebody is searching for how to screencast or how do I screencast or how to create a screencast. Like those, those main topic terms, like, I mean, that's just like absolute goal for you, like
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
those people are ready to buy something to learn how to do it. And so. Uh, Yeah, I think that you want to do that. Because I mean, even with like, in our world, like Tailwind UI, like so much of their success is basically SEO of
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
like the Tailwind docs,
Aaron:
the docs.
Ian Landsman:
essentially
Aaron:
Yeah
Ian Landsman:
being monetized by Tailwind UI. And because people are out there searching for like, how do I do this CSS thing, right? And they come in the docs and they say, oh, I don't even have to build all the stuff
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
I was going to build. I can just pay $200 to Tailwind UI and copy and paste all the... HTML and CSS I need. So kind of the same thing with this. Like, yeah, you wanna own those like, how do I type
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
related terms, I think on the
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
SEO front.
Aaron:
I think I could do that. I think I could have two, maybe three big pieces that are
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
super high quality, that tell you how to do as much as you can in text, and then be like, hey, do you wanna really know how to do this? You should go
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
watch these videos, because you're trying to learn how to do video, it's gonna make more sense if you watch the video. So that's a good kind of segue
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
into
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, for
Aaron:
it.
Ian Landsman:
sure. And how much, you know, I think it's an area you could own. I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of articles out there, but you got to get to the main, you have like pretty good audience that's going to link to you
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
and like all that stuff that will help out a lot for somebody who's just like wrote that same article and just putting it up
Aaron:
Right.
Ian Landsman:
on their own without, you know, an audience. And so.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
I think that you definitely want to try to own those couple ones. And then like, whatever the long tail stuff, like you could get into that, but there's just going to be like two or three that are like, you know, super obvious. Um,
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
you can use like a h refs or even Google, um, ad where it sounds like a keyword plan or tool, whatever, there's different ways to do it, but you could just run a, you know, spend an hour poking through one of those apps to find, um, kind of what the big keywords are around it
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
and phrases, and then just. plan out a couple articles around that are like landing pages for those. And yeah, I think that'd be huge. Cause no matter how far your reaches, right? Like Google's is bigger
Aaron:
Google's
Ian Landsman:
by a lot.
Aaron:
is a little bit further, yeah.
Ian Landsman:
So, so yeah, you just want to be able to reach everybody in the world who's
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
like, hey, how do I do this?
Aaron:
Yeah, I run out of Laravel friends at some point and
Ian Landsman:
Right, exactly.
Aaron:
I would like to go a little bit further with this project, that's for sure.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm excited. It's really cool. I mean, I've never done a lot of screencasting, just like a couple of little more like support
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
videos or things like that, but nothing formal in terms of like a more fleshed out series or anything. But yeah, I mean, just even using ScreenFlow, like I have ScreenFlow, but you know, it's like, it does all kinds of stuff.
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
Do I need, what do I not need? And what's the baseline setup? What are the baseline like resolution, dimensions, like just even like the really baseline stuff of like, when you only go in there once every couple of years and
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
you're like, oh, I don't know. Like, is this going to come out right? Like all that, all that kind of stuff. Just a lot of technical setup stuff
Aaron:
Well,
Ian Landsman:
that would
Aaron:
boy,
Ian Landsman:
be
Aaron:
do
Ian Landsman:
super
Aaron:
I have
Ian Landsman:
useful.
Aaron:
the thing for you, Ian. Screencasting.com,
Ian Landsman:
Okay, there we go.
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Awesome. I will be a customer.
Aaron:
Yeah, so it was great. The launch, so it's like, it's not done. It is majority done. And so I felt like I was comfortable, you know, putting it out there and saying, it's almost done. Please, please sign up. Um, went super great. I just, I tweeted about it. I'm working, Jason Beggs has built out the whole site and he's handling, he's handling everything. Um, so he's
Ian Landsman:
Mm.
Aaron:
handling like the lemon squeezy integration. And if there's ever any like support or anything, he's going to handle all that. And so we tweeted it out on, I guess it was sometime last week and the reception was great. and we got a bunch of people to sign up on the MailChimp list. I think we're up to like almost 500 now, which is awesome.
Ian Landsman:
Wow, that's great.
Aaron:
And so yeah, the plan is like... I think the plan is send them all an email and maybe give them access to the first few lessons and then also solicit. So I'll be curious your thoughts on this. Solicit feedback or like not feedback, solicit submissions from them and be like,
Ian Landsman:
Mm-hmm.
Aaron:
hey, do you have a screencast that's public somewhere that I can do a teardown of? And if you do,
Ian Landsman:
Mmm
Aaron:
send it to me. If it's okay, I'll include it in the course. And then I can make a few videos of that and that can be good content to, one, include in the course as an examples module at the end, but two, to put on Twitter as short little videos and send out as a teaser for signing up for the mailing list, that sort of thing.
Ian Landsman:
That's so funny because I love teardowns and this was the exact thing we're going to be doing actually pretty soon. We were supposed to do it last Friday, but we had the technical difficulty. So it didn't happen. Um, actually with Lara jobs, like me and Dave
Aaron:
Oh
Ian Landsman:
are
Aaron:
nice!
Ian Landsman:
going to do this with resumes. Cause like everybody's resumes are horrible.
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
Sorry everybody, but your resume is bad.
Aaron:
you've got good
Ian Landsman:
Like,
Aaron:
tweets about that. You've been consistent
Ian Landsman:
yes.
Aaron:
about that for a long time.
Ian Landsman:
So we're gonna do some resume teardowns and try that on Lara Jobs, just cause it's like fun. And I think people, there's so much people can learn from just
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
getting some feedback from the other side. Cause you don't usually get feedback from the other side. Like your
Aaron:
Right?
Ian Landsman:
only feedback you get is like, you
Aaron:
No.
Ian Landsman:
don't get
Aaron:
Ha
Ian Landsman:
a call
Aaron:
ha
Ian Landsman:
back,
Aaron:
ha.
Ian Landsman:
right? Like, but you don't know, nobody ever stops to tell you like what's wrong with your bad resume. So yeah, so I think that teardown idea is great. Like you said, you can use it in all different ways. And I think people get a kick out of getting your feedback on that. This brings up another thought for me here. I know we're on the, we're really leaning into the mostly part
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
today,
Aaron:
yeah,
Ian Landsman:
but,
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
because this is a question everybody's gonna have. Everybody has this about you. So
Aaron:
Yes.
Ian Landsman:
I'm gonna ask it here in the first
Aaron:
Ask
Ian Landsman:
episode.
Aaron:
me.
Ian Landsman:
How do you get all this stuff done? Cause you got babies, you got more babies coming. You
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
got a job, you got a hammer stone, you got,
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
you know, all the, you got the screen, the screen. greencasting.com, you got new podcasts with me, you
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
got all the stuff you're doing. So are
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
you one of these like super organized? Are you,
Aaron:
I wish.
Ian Landsman:
give us a behind the curtain a bit
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
on how you handle all this.
Aaron:
I so a couple of things. One is I have and I've been very public about this. I have decided that this is like, this is my moment. And
Ian Landsman:
Alright.
Aaron:
now is the time. Like now is the time for me to work really, really hard in a way that is not long-term sustainable. And so for me and not for thee, like this is not this is not advice to anyone, but this is what i'm doing. Like I have decided that right now I'm just gonna work all the time. And what that means is like I don't watch a lot of current TV shows except Foundation.
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
I'm a few episodes behind on Foundation, but I do love Foundation. But like all these new shows, like I haven't seen Succession. I never watched Game of Thrones. I've never like whatever the new one is. Suits. I don't think that's new. But any
Ian Landsman:
Mm.
Aaron:
of
Ian Landsman:
Mm-hmm.
Aaron:
these shows that people like I'll go hang out with my friends and they're like, hey, have you watched this, you know, eight season or eight?
Ian Landsman:
I'm sorry.
Aaron:
Yeah. Eight season series. And I'm like, I haven't watched any of it. I don't even know what you're talking about.
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
So that's part of it. I think the other part is I have a lot of like long running projects. And so like I mentioned, I bought this domain in April and we're in August right now. And so some
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
things, some things just stew for a really long time. Like we've been working, Colleen and I have been working on Hammerstone, which is now Hello Query. We've been working on that for, for years. And so there are things that just like burn in the background for, for a long time. Um, and some of them come to, some of them come to fruition at like, they all come to a head at the same point. So it's like, I'm doing. and then I launched Screencasting and then we start this podcast and it's like, okay, some of those things like the Lericon talk and hosting was locked in, you know, in January or December. And it just so happened that it came up at, you know, the same time, like this summer.
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
So there's that. And then there's also like, there's also just this thing inside me that I just feel like this is like I... I'm gonna, I have to make it. And if I'm gonna make it, this is the moment. And like, if I'm gonna break out of the way, kind of the way that like I grew up and the way that me and like our family was when I was a kid, if I'm gonna break out
Ian Landsman:
Mm-hmm.
Aaron:
of that for these million children that I'm gonna have,
Ian Landsman:
Ha ha.
Aaron:
like... my job is to work. And so that's kind of the feeling that I have now. And I don't think it's sustainable. I really don't. I do feel like I'm starting to see, like, at some point, you're going to run out of steam, man. And I'm starting to see
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
that more clearly.
Ian Landsman:
Mmm.
Aaron:
And I think what a lot of people, the trouble that a lot of people get in is that they adopt, they adopt this level of effort or this level of like, God forbid, hustle, and they just think this is like their life. And I just don't think that. I think this is a moment in time that I feel like I have an opportunity and I'm riding a wave and I'm going to do everything in my power to like catch this wave. And hopefully
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
at some point the wave is pushing me, right? Hopefully
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
at some point I'm just surfing. I don't have anything to do. I got just swimming in gold coins. But at this point,
Ian Landsman:
Hahaha.
Aaron:
you know, at this point I'm paddling, trying to catch the wave. And God, I hope
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
I catch it. So that's kind of that's
Ian Landsman:
Yeah. I like
Aaron:
kind
Ian Landsman:
it.
Aaron:
of behind the curtain
Ian Landsman:
I mean, I think we're very similar in those ways. Like definitely the start of userscape. Like I just worked a totally unrealistic number of hours, just insane. And there was this. whatever, this is like in the early 2000s. So there wasn't Laravel and there wasn't anything. And I was literally just having to write every line of code in my app. If the app did anything, JavaScript, anything, I wrote every line, every line of PHP, right? And so it was just like 12 hours a day, all day, every day, because there was no packages, no anything. And so, yeah, but it was like, okay, I quit my job and I burned the boats, right? And I'm
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
like, this is what I'm doing. And kind of similar to you, like we had our first kid, baby, it's crying, like the whole thing, you know? Yeah, I mean, I know you took some heat for kind of having that stance. I'm
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
totally on board with that stance. I think everything else is kind of BS, like Tim Ferriss and working
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
four hours a week. Like, you know, it's all BS. Like to me, that's none of that's realistic. And you can like come up with the handful of people that those things have been true for. But I think for most people, just hard work and outworking
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
other people
Aaron:
like
Ian Landsman:
is like
Aaron:
if DHH
Ian Landsman:
the
Aaron:
can work.
Ian Landsman:
answer. Sure.
Aaron:
DHH can work 10 hours a week and be a supercar driver. Like that's awesome for him. I wish that
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
was true for me. That just hasn't been true for me. So I don't know what else to do.
Ian Landsman:
Alright.
Aaron:
I can work harder. I can do that. And I will say for like people that don't fully, haven't fully listened to this saga of my life, when it hits 5.30 or six o'clock, wherever I'm working, I'm downstairs or I'm inside. I'm helping with the kids and I'm doing dinner and playing and then bath time and bedtime. things I'm not willing to compromise on. But then when it hits 7.30 at night and the kids are asleep and I have dinner, it's like, okay, now I can sacrifice things that belong to me and I'm comfortable
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
doing that. I'm sacrificing
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
things that belong to me, eh, that's fine. But like sacrificing things that belong to my children, i.e. time with their dad, I'm just not okay with that.
Ian Landsman:
And this is also some advice from the other side
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
of that is that like, uh, there's sort of this illusion that it gets easier when the kids get bigger. And it does not,
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
it is way harder when the kids get bigger. So actually like, yeah, like, I mean, just when you said seven 30 bedtime, I was like, Whoa,
Aaron:
Whoa, this
Ian Landsman:
that's
Aaron:
man
Ian Landsman:
like,
Aaron:
is free, yeah.
Ian Landsman:
yeah, like seven 30 bedtime. Like, yeah, of course you got to utilize that time after
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
seven 30 bedtime. Cause like, you know, it's not too much longer when they're going to want to be outside playing ball at eight 30 or doing whatever, or you're going to be running them all around to like all their different activities and you're not even going to be done with that till nine o'clock. And so, uh, that's like where I am now. It's like, it's harder to utilize those other time slots and, um, Yeah. So I think when they're little, like, and when they're little, like, they can be put in a spot and they kind of stay in that spot. Like
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
when they're eight, they don't stay in the spot. Like they
Aaron:
Right.
Ian Landsman:
fly into the office and they're like, what do you think about this? Well, like, you know, there's a lot more there that you're also like sacrificing too, cause like, yeah, they're not just sleeping and you're then busy or whatever.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
Um, it's more like you're saying no to them and
Aaron:
Oof,
Ian Landsman:
you're
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
not going to do something with them
Aaron:
Yup.
Ian Landsman:
because you're going to work on this other thing. Right. And so then. It's a more, more of a trade off. Um, obviously
Aaron:
And that's
Ian Landsman:
I have
Aaron:
what
Ian Landsman:
like
Aaron:
I see on the horizon.
Ian Landsman:
your significant other too, but
Aaron:
Like, besides
Ian Landsman:
yeah.
Aaron:
running out
Ian Landsman:
So.
Aaron:
of steam, I see that. Like, my kids are two,
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
and it's starting to get to the point where it's like, I think you guys are, you guys are gonna be kid kids soon. Like, you're not gonna
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
be like toddlers. You're gonna be full on kids, and you're gonna wanna like,
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
dig for worms into the evening. And I wanna do that. So it's, I
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
do feel like the time, the time is running out. So, yeah.
Ian Landsman:
And you have like, you're going to have these other two too. So like, you're
Aaron:
All
Ian Landsman:
going
Aaron:
right,
Ian Landsman:
to have a lot close
Aaron:
yeah.
Ian Landsman:
together too.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
You know what I mean? So like all that stuff's going to hit close together. Like everybody's
Aaron:
Yep.
Ian Landsman:
going to have all these activities all at once. And they're going to have all their different teams and different, whatever they do. Right. And so like, that's just as a little bit to the complexity, especially of like the after hours stuff. Like obviously they go to school and stuff, which then opens you up and makes sometimes the days easier.
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
But, um, But yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a big upside of this job. It's like, I mean, it's definitely a potential downside too. And I've
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
had definitely issues with overworking and different,
Aaron:
Yep,
Ian Landsman:
you know,
Aaron:
for
Ian Landsman:
things
Aaron:
sure.
Ian Landsman:
that can come from that for sure is something you always want to be cautious about, but it's also an upside that you can get more done.
Aaron:
It's
Ian Landsman:
Um,
Aaron:
gonna be a great, if
Ian Landsman:
so.
Aaron:
I make it, whatever that means, if I make it, it's gonna be a great story. Everybody's
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
gonna look back and be like, oh, he tried really hard and he made it. And I'm fully aware that if I just like super crash and burn in a very public manner, it's gonna be a cautionary tale.
Ian Landsman:
Hehehehehehe
Aaron:
And so I'm kind of just piling on the stakes of being like, boy, I hope I make it here.
Ian Landsman:
But I think so much of this goes back to your Laricon talk, which I think has been published, right?
Aaron:
Uh-huh.
Ian Landsman:
So we should put a link to that. But it's just like, just by being out there, right? Like even if you totally crash and burn and like killer query doesn't work and screencast.com makes a little money and then Peters out
Aaron:
Mm-hmm.
Ian Landsman:
and like, whatever. Like. You've built this reputation, you know a lot of people, you've put yourself out there, and you're never gonna not have a job. Plan a scale, heaven forbid, goes out of business tomorrow. You're not gonna be unemployed for a really long time. So you still have all these upsides that have already been created by working hard, getting out there, and then yeah, hopefully you have the really big payoff is what everybody wants. But. Even the worst case scenario, like short of like you go totally insane as long as you like pull back before you totally crash and burn
Aaron:
Yeah.
Ian Landsman:
If it comes to that then short of that like it's still good outcomes Like it's still outcomes
Aaron:
Absolutely.
Ian Landsman:
that most people would be really happy with right so So like in that way, it's like low risk Because you've already built a lot and have a lot of upside here. So then yeah, hopefully, you know You're able to take it that next level
Aaron:
That's funny because you're 100% right that it's low risk, that if everything goes up in flames, I'll just get another job tomorrow. It's funny because I think it's high risk because I think what will people think of me if everything goes up in
Ian Landsman:
Right?
Aaron:
flames, which goes back to my whole problem. I'm just worried about what other people think of me. Yeah, that's
Ian Landsman:
That's
Aaron:
funny.
Ian Landsman:
true. Right. That's so hard. I mean, it is like it's such a hard thing. And everybody suffers from it, especially like, you know, everybody out there, you just put yourself out there and
Aaron:
Mm-hmm
Ian Landsman:
it's like, yeah, obviously the armchair quarterbacks are going
Aaron:
Mm-hmm,
Ian Landsman:
to be quick
Aaron:
totally.
Ian Landsman:
to say they're two cents or whatever. But the upside of nowadays is like then you're old news by like 12
Aaron:
Oh
Ian Landsman:
hours
Aaron:
my gosh.
Ian Landsman:
later or whatever. So
Aaron:
That's
Ian Landsman:
that's
Aaron:
one
Ian Landsman:
the
Aaron:
thing
Ian Landsman:
that's the upside.
Aaron:
I wanted to say. I wanted to fit into my talk somehow and into my article somehow, but it could come off as kind of nihilistic, but it's like, I promise you that people are not thinking about you. Like,
Ian Landsman:
Right.
Aaron:
I'm
Ian Landsman:
It's
Aaron:
so worried
Ian Landsman:
Joe.
Aaron:
about what people are thinking about me. The real answer is people just aren't thinking about me. People
Ian Landsman:
Right. Like if you
Aaron:
are
Ian Landsman:
just stop
Aaron:
only thinking
Ian Landsman:
tweeting,
Aaron:
about themselves.
Ian Landsman:
like,
Aaron:
Yes!
Ian Landsman:
yeah, they're not going to remember. They're like, you might, they might remember you like five years and now they're
Aaron:
Yeah,
Ian Landsman:
like, whatever
Aaron:
they'll be like,
Ian Landsman:
happened
Aaron:
what
Ian Landsman:
to
Aaron:
happened
Ian Landsman:
that guy?
Aaron:
to that guy?
Ian Landsman:
Like,
Aaron:
I wonder if he crashed
Ian Landsman:
yeah,
Aaron:
and burned. I don't know. Well, anyway.
Ian Landsman:
exactly. That's so true.
Aaron:
Yeah. Well, mostly technical. Maybe we got to revise the name, at least in the first episode, barely technically.
Ian Landsman:
Barely technical? Yeah, that might be the play.
Aaron:
Over a long, over a season arc, it will be mostly technical.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah,
Aaron:
How about that?
Ian Landsman:
exactly, exactly. On average, we're going
Aaron:
Yes,
Ian Landsman:
for averages
Aaron:
exactly.
Ian Landsman:
here, yeah. Anyway, well this has been awesome first episode. I think it's really, really fun to do and hopefully the Laravel community and the wider audience gets a kick out of it. Yeah, so
Aaron:
Yeah, do we have
Ian Landsman:
I
Aaron:
any
Ian Landsman:
don't know,
Aaron:
asks
Ian Landsman:
what do we wrap
Aaron:
of
Ian Landsman:
with?
Aaron:
the audience? Do we want them to do anything?
Ian Landsman:
We should, right?
Aaron:
Right.
Ian Landsman:
We should ask them to do stuff. Well, we'll definitely, obviously you should subscribe to the podcast and your favorite podcast player. We have mostly technical.com, which the.com was available, major factor.
Aaron:
Love it. I think that's
Ian Landsman:
Yeah.
Aaron:
why we went for it. I was like, oh, this is kind of a
Ian Landsman:
Yep.
Aaron:
good name. Oh, the dot com's available. Yeah, we're gonna go for it.
Ian Landsman:
Yep, Aaron thought of the name and then we saw the dot com was available. And we're like, Oh, yep, done. Um, so yeah, so definitely subscribe. Uh, we're on, we have an account on Twitter and the other places, I'm sure. So, uh, subscribe to us on there. And, uh, yeah, I mean, definitely check out screencasting.com do that for sure. And, uh, yeah, we'll be back next week with more, more fun antics.
Aaron:
Well, this has been great. Great first episode. I'm super glad we're doing this.
Ian Landsman:
Yeah, so much fun. Thanks everybody.
Aaron:
See ya.
Ian Landsman:
All right.