Makers.dev

Christian has been reading the book "Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares and has 5 marketing hot take ideas that he wants feedback on.   00:00 Intro   03:33 Kaggle updates   07:58 AcornChat resubmitted   09:54 Cold call update   12:33 Traction book about marketing   17:56 Marketing hot take #1: Blogs   26:16 #2: Publicity   33:46 #3: Unconventional publicity   41:08 #3a: Live video feed...

We talk with Johnny Tong about how he bought a SaaS and is now struggling to grow it. Should he rebuild it? Dive into marketing? Rework the onboarding flow? Buy a bunch of ads?   00:00 Intro   02:47 What Johnny is looking for   10:01 SurveyBot overview   15:29 Buyer's guide   22:00 "The funnel"   28:45 Onboarding friction   33:49 The ups and downs of build vs buy   41:19 Conversion rate   44:19 Ma...

Christian went to Greece and got a new perspective on how he could be living. Chris resubmitted AcornChat to the Slack app store and finished up a Kaggle competition.   00:00 Intro   03:17 AcornChat submitted to the Slack app store   06:40 Kaggle Patent competition   16:51 Reinforcement learning   21:06 Covid (again)   25:40 Building a Second Brain   38:05 On Looking   47:14 FileInbox cold calling...

Chris wants to spend a bunch of money. Christian got advice to do some cold calling, but it sounds spooky 👻. plus 2 bonus hot takes   00:00 Intro   01:30 3d printer, camera and gpus   06:52 Kaggle update   15:49 Slack app update   17:52 Advanced Operating Systems   21:28 Rust   23:30 Personal productivity   25:30 FileInbox update   28:09 TDD   33:21 Firebase security rules   38:26 Spooky recommen...

Chris is prepping for an AI for JS devs course. Christian gets engaged! Also, he wants to get to $20k MRR in 12 months, so we talk about how that would be possible.   00:00 Intro   01:28 AI for JS devs course   19:33 Too many Kaggle competitions   26:00 Christian gets engaged!!!   31:19 Parable of the pottery class   39:25 $20k MRR in 12 months   44:04 Do you really want that?   46:42 Is it better...

Christian makes an easy way to send email templates from FileInbox. Chris got a response from the Slack App Store, and is wasted a bunch of time on an ML bug.   00:00 Intro   02:47 Chris's week   04:21 Slack app store   11:18 Working on things that don't go anywhere   16:36 Christian did a bunch of stuff   21:31 Fileinbox email system   24:03 What sells well   28:57 ffmpeg   32:18 Free Fileinbox f...

Chris is in 3 different AI competitions (anyone want to know how GPS works?) and Christian was gone and describes how it feels to get back to work. He's also selling a paramotor, so hopefully that goes well 😆   00:00 Intro   01:07 Life and death reflections   07:00 Give yourself some leeway   12:10 Work is hard until it's easy   16:00 Kaggle competitions   18:17 Objective measures of learning   2...

Chris was on a trip, and Christian fell off the co-working wagon. Also, focus on authenticity (on YouTube, but everywhere too)   00:00 Intro   04:06 Tests   08:57 Having a beginner's mind   10:32 Fileinbox bugs   16:21 Consulting   18:52 SaaS math is bananas   23:50 Talking to customers   24:31 Focus is fickle   27:20 Makers.dev early episodes   34:54 Youtube as a reliable source of information   ...

Chris created his buyer's guide for acornchat. Christian gets another contracting job and wonders how to leverage that or if he should try to get more similar contracts.   00:00 Intro   00:50 SaaS buyer's guide   11:20 Look at all these salad dressings!   14:00 Machine learning theory and math   19:01 Fileinbox updates   24:37 Errands and engagement rings   32:09 Face follower contracting job   39...

Christian calculates his consulting rate per hour. Chris soft launched saastips.com and was immediately overwhelmed by email bot signups. After fixing that problem, it led to three new SaaS ideas.   00:00 Intro   02:57 Launching saastips.com   12:25 Fixing fake bot email signups   18:54 Hot take #1: email signup saas   23:55 Hot take #1.5: better newsletter sending UI   32:29 Hot take #2: Marketin...

We chat with Tim Leland who runs a link shortener (t.ly) and a weather extension. We cover how he came up with the ideas, how he developed and marketed them, and where he sees the future of his products and Chrome extensions in general. 00:00 Intro 00:22 Tim Leland's start as a developer 05:24 The Chrome Extension Marketplace 09:52 Security concerns about Chrome extensions 16:21 Chrome change crea...

We both share our takeaways from Microconf. 00:00 Intro 00:37 Microconf growth '22 07:46 Takeaway #1: Focus instead of niche 13:16 Takeaway #2: Buying is harder than selling 19:35 subpoint: have a buyers guide 27:18 Takeaway #3: It's OK to optimize for experience instead of growth 39:05 Tall poppy syndrome 41:37 Excited for SaaS again 46:20 A nice little Italian restaurant on the internet 50:28 Ho...

Chris almost has Acorn Chat feature complete and ready to submit to the Slack app store. Christian is getting close to finishing the serverless FileInbox v1. Also we talk about RSI and using voice commands as a potential way to limit injury. 00:00 Intro 00:37 Expectation maximization 06:06 Acorn Chat 09:10 Screenshots and video marketing 12:55 Simple can be a differentiating factor 17:50 New Kaggl...

Chris is almost ready to submit his Slack app to the Slack app directory. Christian tries to figure out how to charge for work he wants to do for a friend. Christian also has ideas about home automation.   00:00 Intro   01:08 Kaggle essay competition   08:16 Building a Slack app   09:32 The amount of time things take to get done   17:09 Administrative poms   20:12 Home automation   37:50 Doing wor...

MeetingPlace is sold, so Chris is working on his next SaaS. Christian keeps getting stuff done on FileInbox, and wonders when he can actually fly with his paramotor. 00:00 Intro 02:28 Microaquired 09:29 SaaS feelings 13:23 Why developers are bad at marketing 16:31 What is the core functionality? 17:58 AcornChat development roadmap 22:31 Kaggle update 28:50 Getting work done one step at a time 44:4...

Chris finalizes the sale of MeetingPlace. Christian worries that he's getting too productive. 00:00 Intro 01:03 Completing the sale of MeetingPlace 11:33 Should Christian sell something? 15:01 Data science 16:14 Coworking progress 21:30 Open vs closed mode of working 32:09 Admin work 38:49 Three Body Problem 40:29 Paramotor Adventure Timestamps created with https://clips.marketing by @cgenco

Chris sells a SaaS! Christian tries to figure out what makes him productive. [Sorry for the audio quality! - it gets better next week] 00:07 Slava Ukraini 03:31 Selling MeetingPlace 08:43 Advice for selling a SaaS 11:21 Strategy to build apps just to sell 13:53 Motivation to sell 16:15 SaaS valuation calculations 20:30 Data competitions 22:51 Accountability buddy effectiveness 27:03 Time estimates...

Microconf is in 40 days! We talk about what we want to accomplish before then, and come up with a strategy to hold each other accountable and get stuff done. 00:00 Intro 01:18 MicroConf in 1.5 months 04:07 The next 40 days 10:22 Accountability buddies 15:13 AI competitions 19:13 Tesla safe driving score 24:20 Writing mini blog posts 31:42 Paramotoring 33:45 Flashcard app 38:54 The big SaaS idea fo...

Chris has to relearn a bunch of math and tries to figure out how to teach it as well. Christian has a new way to try to get things done by delaying work on his fun projects. 00:00 Intro 03:08 ML Math 08:16 Teaching as you're learning 17:57 Games that you can't lose 22:08 Anki flashcards app 31:55 New tactic to get things done 36:04 Making clear priorities for Christian's assistant 40:18 Have you e...

Chris tries to figure out how to learn the math he needs for ML by teaching it. Christian buys a new domain name, then works on another project for 16 hours and tries to figure out how to deliver it. 00:00 Intro 03:38 Benefits of taking a break 08:28 How to teach math? 12:52 Am I a web dev or actually shifting to AI? 14:07 Snow water equivalent competition 19:23 Doge wordle 26:50 Feeling like a BO...

Christian had a really productive week and would like to figure out how to have more weeks like that. Chris is doing well in a Kaggle competition and had to learn a bunch of math for ML this week. 00:00 Intro 02:11 ML math is like coding 08:45 How Kaggle promotes code and idea sharing 18:12 Balancing family life and work 27:20 Christian's super productive week 33:04 Stripe extension vs coding your...

Christian's executive assistant experiment is going great. Chris has to learn a lot more math to do his ML class. Christian has great LEGO aspirations. 00:00 Intro 00:42 LaTeX 06:44 How to learn by teaching 13:28 ML for essay classification 19:39 Folding data into bins 25:22 Christian's executive assistant is great 38:13 FileInbox Stripe integration 46:33 Harry Potter LEGO Timestamps created with...

Christian finally gets an executive assistant! Chris finishes the pet kaggle competition and prepares to start the next semester of his masters program. 00:00 Intro 02:47 Chris cleans up 07:13 Adam Savage's rules for putting things away 13:16 Kaggle top 6% 18:34 Overcoming futile feelings 21:08 Public and private leader boards are different 27:13 Crypto trading is still gambling 28:46 AcornChat Sl...

Can we only get a lot accomplished if we have something more important to do that we are ignoring? Both Chris and Christian had productive weeks, but only by ignoring other things that we were supposed to do... 00:00 Intro 01:07 Getting stuck on features 07:25 Why features feel good 10:03 Next steps for AcornChat 11:04 Frustrated at Kaggle competition 17:21 Difference between cats and dogs 18:13 A...

Chris re-learns that to go fast you have to slow down. Christian rediscovers who his best customers are and tries to focus on getting more like them. Then he tries to sell a laptop... 00:00 Intro 00:27 Chris did nothing 01:26 Go slow to go fast 05:55 Software is magic 11:04 Dropbox api upgrade 19:01 Won't you be my boss? 31:16 Dude, where's my laptop? Timestamps created with https://clips.marketin...