Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

How do you decide whether to go all-in on your SaaS or hedge your bets with side income? "If you're not full-time on MetaMonster, no one is full-time on MetaMonster." In this episode of Small Effort (Season 4, Episode 16), Sean and Andrew get into the career fork Andrew is actually standing at: stay all-in on MetaMonster or carve out two days a week for side income. They cover the 2-year growth mo...

What if the point of AI wasn't to make more, but to work less? This is the thing everyone said AI should do that nobody's actually doing. All the capitalists want to use AI to make more money, not work less. In this episode of Small Effort (Season 4, Episode 15), Sean and Andrew dig into the team that used AI to move to a four-day week instead of squeezing out more, and the WordCamp pivot it mirro...

Can AI actually write, or is it just remixing what humans already think? A human has to be involved. Right now, robots can't go out and have their own experiences. That's not how LLMs work. In this episode of Small Effort (Season 4, Episode 14), Sean and Andrew cut through the AI-writing hype and land on the uncomfortable truth: good writing is good thinking, and good thinking still comes from hum...

Sean and Andrew stop by to chat about what happens when you build a client website live on a sales call 20 minutes into the presentation. We get into Andrew's cold outreach restart for MetaMonster, the report card angle they are testing with SEO agencies, and somehow end up debating whether Astro or Next.js is the right call for a SaaS marketing site. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew'...

Andrew is back from two weeks of Spanish immersion in Puebla, and the conversation picks up right where it always does. We get into MetaMonster's 100-demo sprint with their new co-founder, why AI keeps producing bad content for founders (and what Sean shipped to fix it), and somehow end up deep in a conversation about outcome-based agency pricing and why it is a finance nightmare in practice. Link...

Andrew and Sean dig into Clawdgate, the growing developer complaints that Anthropic has been quietly throttling Claude's default thinking power after locking in enterprise deals. They also get into Sean's Salvo orchestration system, why waterfall specs do not work even with AI, and why scope creep is the silent killer hiding inside every AI coding workflow. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins A...

Andrew ditched Cursor for Claude Max and the economics made it an easy call. In this episode they get into the Meta Monster pivot toward content optimization, why Claude hallucinated an entire Wix API, and what the switch to Conductor actually looks like day to day. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Slacklett...

Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Slackletter: https://slackletter.com/ Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/ Margins: http://margins.so/ Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/ For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/ . Transcript: 00:00.85 Andre...

We found a cheat code for learning Spanish using Claude and Anki (without studying grammar). Plus, the Cult Brand marketing framework that turns customers into superfans. In this episode, Andrew reveals why he is moving to Mexico City and going all in on his startup. Sean breaks down how he scaled his agency to 18 employees and the specific Positioning Strategy he uses to charge premium prices. Li...

A two-hour feedback session with the SEO Gets founder changes MetaMonster's direction. Meanwhile, Andrew realizes he's burnt out on AI and capitalism and Sean defends Spider-Man Magic cards against gatekeepers. Also: surfing vs hiking debates, fractured ankles, the three C's of career satisfaction, and why JetLag's Magic episode was terrible. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website...

From Magic addiction to Margins updates - Sean finally talked to a customer! Andrew tried Claude Code and wasn't impressed, then gets into product ideas around workflows and flexible tables for MetaMonster. Surprise twist: the guys accidentally design a $699 productized service for MetaMonster and close the deal live on the call. Also: type 2 fun, hiking debates, and why slabbing a kid isn't what...

Andrew saw Saturn through a telescope and launched MetaMonster's new UI, but users won't activate! 🔭 Getting 1-2 daily signups with zero engagement while testing Phantom Buster for LinkedIn scraping. Sean presents his Michelin star agency framework and they debate reviving Chart Juice as a ChatGPT app. Plus: why web design agencies might be better customers than SEO agencies. Links: Andrew’s Twit...

Andrew doubles MetaMonster customers in one week and is launching credit-based free trials! 🚀 Sean's still drowning in Miscreants growth (by the way Miscreants is hiring). Plus: LinkedIn strategy shifts, AI acquisition dynamics, and Sean just figured out what "I have to charge" actually means. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: http...

Andrew moved to Atlanta and is going all-in on MetaMonster while Sean drowns in Miscreants sales calls! 🚀 They dive into repositioning struggles, the push vs pull dilemma, and why lead magnets might be the answer. Plus: DEF CON madness, Webflow disasters, and someone made an AI review of MetaMonster. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonste...

We've got a special guest on the pod today! Louis from Sparkloop joins to share how they evolved from referrals to recommendations and sold to Kit! 🚀 Meanwhile Andrew gets Louis's take on MetaMonster's positioning struggles and they debate how and why the SaaS landscape is changing. Plus: the most detailed rom-com ranking you've ever heard, featuring hidden gems and heated debates about classics....

Sean survives on 1.5 hours of sleep while juggling Black Hat submissions and client launches! 😴 Andrew discovers a new MetaMonster content strategy and shows off the new grid UI that's generating page titles and scoring them for engagement. Plus: should you delegate your therapy homework to Claude (hint: no), auth provider decision paralysis, and why internal linking breaks the table concept. Lin...

Pre-Black Hat crunch time hits Miscreants hard as brand audits pile up and Webflow goes down for half a day. Andrew's new MetaMonster grid shows AI's bipolar nature - brilliant one moment, baffling the next. 🤖 Plus: positioning challenges, category creation in the AI era, and why Poboy the cat makes a terrible hide-and-seek player. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://...

Fresh from a techno festival, Andrew's planning an escape to Lion's Head National Park in Canada while working through therapy insights about procrastination. 🏕️ Plus he's thinking about how to reposition MetaMonster away from tools that might be seen as cheap. Meanwhile Sean's juggling multiple client launches and working on mapping the security operations of a bank to help other people on the Mi...

Andrew and Sean talk about hiring tools, positioning MetaMonster, and Andrew's struggles to increase his publishing velocity. Meanwhile, Sean is slammed with inbound after RSA, is putting project management systems in place for Margins, and just got a pool table!  Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sean’s Twit...

Whoops! Our last recording got botched halfway through and only Andrew's audio was saved. So we recapped what we talked about in the last podcast and got into some new stuff in today's episode.  Sean is back from his busiest RSA yet and growing Miscreants like crazy! In fact, they're growing so fast that Andrew is hiring a full-time product designer to join the Miscreants team. Meanwhile Andrew is...

Andrew is in Atlanta visiting friends and continuing to think about how to best integrate more AI features into MetaMonster to make the product stickier. Sean had his first demo of Margins and... everything broke! But that's okay! Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun Miscreants: http://...

Andrew and Sean have a bet to see who can write the best cold email copy for MetaMonster, and early results are in. Sean has a name and domain for his new product - Margins and is letting the Miscreants team handle the branding.  Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun Miscreants: http://m...

Andrew just launched MetaMonster! Andrew and Sean dig into how the launch is going so far (spoiler alert: not great), whether the product is overpriced, and what to try next. Then the guys talk about the demo for Sean's new product and what to name it.  Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sean’s Twitter: @seanq...

In this episode Sean is finally ready to reveal the new product Miscreants is building! Meanwhile Andrew's robotics team is getting dangerously close to qualifying for the World Championships, and the guys debate marketing new products. This episode was originally supposed to go out a couple weeks ago, but we're playing with our publishing schedule a bit.  Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins An...

Andrew and Sean are trying different AI tools to vibe code/write more. Andrew's considering other features for the MetaMonster roadmap and his next steps with consulting. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun Miscreants: http://miscreants.com/ Sean's website: https://seanqsun.com/ For mo...