Small Efforts - with Sean Sun and Andrew Askins

Andrew just made a life changing sandwich and is finally using Cursor (and it's living up to the hype). Meanwhile Sean has been working on cutting SaaS costs for Miscreants and gets nostalgic about Flask (the Python framework). Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sean’s Twitter: @seanqsun Miscreants: http://mis...

In this episode Andrew talks about his recent struggles with ADHD and feeling like MetaMonster is moving too slowly. Meanwhile, Sean is planning to build a new SaaS product within Miscreants. The guys talk about the challenges of maintaining focus on a new product while running an agency, and how to set up the project for the best chance of success. Sean gets deeply uncomfortable, it's great! Link...

In this episode, Sean's Shmoocon trip got spicy 🌶️ 🥵 and Andrew is riding the high of a great prospect call for MetaMonster. Sean gives feedback on the experience of using MetaMonster, and Andrew debates when (and how) to start charging early customers. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sean’s Twitter: @sean...

Andrew and Sean are back for Season 3!! Andrew's onboarding his first users to MetaMonster, and as alpha user #1 Sean has lots of thoughts. Meanwhile Sean actually took some time off??? And he used it to start writing. The guys talk MetaMonster, product design, and personal branding.  Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamo...

In this episode, Andrew talks about his recent deep dive on prompt engineering and the way the AI product landscape is shaking out. Sean talks about his recent trip to Philly for a cybersecurity marketing conference. Then the guys reflect on 2024 and their goals for 2025. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ MetaMonster: https://metamonster.ai/ Sea...

In this week's special guest podcast, Alex Hillman (of Stacking the Bricks and 30x500) joins Andrew to coach him on early stage marketing at MetaMonster. They talk through Andrew's recent failed launch (and why not to worry about it too much), what he's doing differently now, and how your identity as a founder can impact your marketing. Plus, what pro wrestlers get right about identity and storyte...

In this episode, Andrew discusses feedback he received from Alex Hillman on his marketing efforts for MetaMonster, and how he plans to adjust his approach going forward. He's now focusing more on creating content and building anticipation rather than rushing to convert customers. Sean shares his thoughts on personal branding and how he's reworking his online presence. They also touch on the pros a...

In this episode, Andrew talks about the rapid audience growth he's seeing on Bluesky and the challenges he's running into finding Founding Users for MetaMonster. The guys talk about the idea of product market fit as a spectrum and validation as a way to uncover where you might be on that spectrum, but without ever getting to 100% certainty. Then Sean talks through trying to find his next side proj...

In this episode, Sean talks about getting himself out of day-to-day client work at Miscreants, and Andrew provides an update on his slow progress with customer acquisition for MetaMonster. Andrew shares an idea for a side project and they talk about Dharmesh buying the chat.com domain and "flipping" it to OpenAI. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com...

In this episode, Andrew and Sean talk about Halloween plans and Sean's decision to kill Stackwise. Meanwhile, Sean has launched two new free tools in the last week! The guys talk about how he did it and what his goals are for both of them. Then they spend the rest of the episode brainstorming marketing ideas for MetaMonster. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andr...

In this episode, Sean discusses the challenges he is facing (and his new momentum) with his project Stackwise, including finding the right developer and getting the project scope defined. He talks about discovering a no-code tool called Subframe that has helped streamline his design process. Andrew shares his progress building the MetaMonster website with Astro and SpinalCMS, and gets feedback fro...

In this episode Andrew tries to pick a CMS for the new MetaMonster website and talks about his dream solution. Then the guys talk about their ideal consulting businesses. Meanwhile Sean is feeling frustrated by how slow his projects are moving, and wishes he could focus on them fulltime for a bit. They also touch on the difficulties of balancing attention to design details versus just getting a pr...

Sean just got back from two weeks in Korea and Japan. His trip got derailed when he had to jump in to put out fires and finish some Webflow dev work for a client. He and Andrew talk about the challenges of removing yourself from the day-to-day as an agency owner and how to balance work and time off.  Andrew gives an update on the client work he's doing with Miscreants, his decision to put ChartJui...

In this episode, Andrew and Sean got hit up by someone clearly using Podscan... again! They talk about it, then Andrew shares details about his recent trip to Mexico City, including highlights like a hot air balloon ride over the pyramids and an exciting Lucha Libre wrestling match. Sean provides an update on Stackwise, discussing the data sources they've uncovered and the challenges of building a...

Note: This episode was supposed to come out a couple of weeks ago. But Andrew forgot to attach the audio file when he went to publish, so it's just been sitting in our podcast hosting software. Sorry about that.  In this episode, Andrew and Sean dig into Paul Graham's founder mode essay that has gone viral in the past couple of weeks. Spoiler alert: Andrew is not a fan. Sean talks about the challe...

In this episode, Andrew talks about his upcoming trip to Mexico City, which started as a potential plan to live there but has evolved into a working vacation. Sean talks about recent challenges in his agency, including team members getting sick after conferences and some project misfires with smaller clients. Andrew then gives an update on the lukewarm progress he's seeing with ChartJuice (complet...

In this episode, Sean gives a recap on shirt sales, his annual Korean BBQ dinner, and more from DEF CON. Andrew shares some feedback he got from the client project he's been working on, and dives into the early results he's seeing from running Google Ads for ChartJuice. Andrew reveals his latest mile times from his half marathon training, and the guys talk about how much impact you could make in c...

Sean is exhausted because he has so many inbound emails from prospective clients he doesn't have time to answer them all. Meanwhile, Andrew is trying to buckle down and get Stripe built into ChartJuice so he can start advertising and collecting payments. Sean and Andrew talk about how the consulting project is going, and Sean has to rain Andrew in as he contemplates repositioning ChartJuice again....

Season 2: Episode 5 In this episode Sean talks about being buried in client work at Miscreants and how to design trendy clothing that gets people hyped. Meanwhile, Andrew talks about making slow progress on ChartJuice and trying to fight the temptation to become an SEO content goblin. Links: Andrew’s Twitter: @AndrewAskins Andrew's website: https://www.andrewaskins.com/ ChartJuice: https://www.cha...

Season 2: Episode 4 Did you know AI really loves the word delve? Sean and Andrew can't help starting the pod off with a little more AI talk. Then they get into Sean's new product he's working on. Meanwhile Andrew is putting aside his IDE and starting to shift his focus to marketing and selling ChartJuice. He talks about using Flow.club to focus and setting a goal of doing two hours of deep work ev...

Season 2: Episode 3 It's a Small Efforts Double Header! We were late getting this episode out, so we decided to go ahead and publish two weeks of episodes at once. In this episode Andrew is coming straight from a tattoo session, and talks about fighting bugs with ChartJuice. Meanwhile, Sean has gotten over 300 APPLICATIONS to his open job post, almost all from Dribbble. And he previews the consume...

Season 2: Episode 2 It's a Small Efforts Double Header! We were late getting this episode out, so we decided to go ahead and publish two weeks of episodes at once. In this episode Andrew talks about quietly pushing ChartJuice live, and raves about his new favorite podcast. Meanwhile Sean drops some knowledge about the intricacies of swag supply chains, and the guys discuss the trap of being an exp...

Andrew and Sean are back for Season 2! In Season 2 they'll get transparent about the highs and lows of building their businesses (with plenty of goofing around too). Same concept, new businesses. In this episode we recap WHERE THE HELL WE'VE BEEN FOR TWO YEARS. Plus we talk about the projects we're working on now, how to market and validate Andrew's new startup, and Sean's search for founder frien...

(0:24) This is officially a rock climbing podcast (8:15) Andrew and Sean's gardens have attracted guests (12:59) Sean lowkey needs another break (25:10) Miscreants is doing a collection drop at DEFCON (29:56) Rebranding is like creating a religion but without Kool-Aid   Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration between Krit and Miscreants. Shoutout to the Hatch Team and Mary V...

(0:27) There’s a parallel universe where Andrew’s life revolves around photography (8:34) Sean is suspicious as hell (17:31) The real reason why so many CEOs are super fucking into meditation (26:31) Andrew and Sean’s bi-weekly book club chat (34:29) Your lawyer career doesn’t mean shit if you can’t work on your streetwear brand   Thanks for listening to Small Efforts, a podcast collaboration betw...