Grief & Pizza

Ben: 00:02

You're listening to Grief and Pizza, a podcast exploring the highs and lows at the intersection of business and emotional well-being. In this episode, Marie and I spoke with creator and founder Joel Hooks from egghead.ioandbadass.dev on the systems that he's developing to help others deliver badass educational content. One of my favorite tattoos is your JF, just JFDI. There it is.

Joel: 00:25

Alex Alex's tattoo. He he I'm a I'm a licensed, tattooee. He gave me a

Ben: 00:31

That's awesome.

Joel: 00:33

License permission for that. How you doing, man? I'm alright. Trying to keep busy.

Ben: 00:40

What's keeping you busy these days?

Joel: 00:41

It's the same thing. I do the same thing. I've been doing the same thing for, like, a dozen years. So just, like, making the same app over and over again. I call it course builder these days.

Joel: 00:50

So I was trying to be more creative with my naming scheme. So I'm just calling it course builder.

Ben: 00:55

I think it's smart. I mean, I I know that we have that in common. Back in the day, we had our course platform that we called Doki, which was like a shortening of our Okeydoke name, but, terrible name. Like, you know, nobody finds things by searching for for, you know, words that in Latin in Latin mean to teach. So, you know, having having your product called the exact same thing it is the act exact thing that it's meant to do is

Joel: 01:21

Is that what Oki Doki means?

Ben: 01:22

I mean, do doki yeah. Doki is, like, kind of a a play on the Latin word for to to teach. Yeah. But but, yeah, that that's a thing over my over the lifetime of my businesses. I have type 1 air studios, and I'm pretty known for clever names that make no sense and don't get any traction.

Ben: 01:39

So yeah.

Joel: 01:40

Amy and Alex Hellman, they named it 30 by 500 as their course, and they're like, I would never do that again to myself because nobody gets it. Like, it's, like, totally unobvious. And then I had I I mean, so I have Egghead. Right? Like, so Egghead IO, which was my first course platform.

Joel: 01:57

So it's like and it's on, like, version 7 or something of what it's doing. That also doesn't have any sort of meaning. And then we have another company called Skill Recordings, and it's kinda like I call it a mullet because I have badass courses. And I made that, and that was for the podcast that we did together where we were talking about about, course platforms and that sort of thing. And, like, I did that just to as a place to publish, but then people started picking it up, and they're like, they liked it as as a a brand.

Joel: 02:25

But so, like, we use that, but then I was like, I'm building building the thing. And I describe it as skill recordings. It's like a mullet business where Badass Courses is the party in the back and skill recordings is the is the business. It's all, like, stark. Nobody nobody nobody likes to work on the brand because the branding's all boring.

Joel: 02:44

So Yeah. I I love the logo, actually. It's a Dan Ceder home. I don't know if you know him, but he does really cool stuff and did our logo for that one, which is, so I I love it. But but the everybody likes the the badass one, which is an homage to Kathy Sierra not not me trying to be edgy, really.

Joel: 03:02

It's not like one of those.

Ben: 03:03

Yeah. Yeah. I'm really excited. I've I've I've been poking around in the code base of of CourseBuilder and thinking about downloading it and trying it out. But

Joel: 03:12

Oh, man. That'd be funny. I'd love to see I'd love to see people trying it. Like, that that'd be great for me. It's really a wacky.

Joel: 03:18

It's a wacky, I think, is how I would describe it. But

Ben: 03:20

I just started working on a new, course for Notion specifically to for teams, called Architecting Workspaces. And, and I when I started looking at the the impetus for the course builder, it feels like a kind of departure from and I love you make the distinction on the kind of marketing ish page that you have for it now, where it's not a it's not a course platform, it's not for hosting, but it

Joel: 03:43

is a thing designed around the

Ben: 03:43

whole creative process of building online courses, which is why I think it was interesting that you've got so much AI tooling built into it that it feels almost like this thing where you're actually developing your material, and the the course actually builds itself kind of around your your internal research. So and and I think, like, that's one of the biggest sticky points for Chorus platforms usually is, at least with our Chorus platform, was always the the cool. You've got all this cool tooling for deploying it and selling it, but what about, like, the thing that really got people stuck was how do I actually develop a course? Like, how do I do the content for the course?

Marie: 04:26

A good course.

Joel: 04:26

How do

Ben: 04:27

I do the research?

Joel: 04:27

And

Ben: 04:28

it feels like you're kind of baking that in from the beginning with this AI tooling where you're gonna be able to, like, almost, like, create create stuff and it that the stuff that you're just kind of dumping into the platform become could become content. It could become a course, but it's all seeding this, you know, almost like a model that you'll be able to develop content on top of, maybe actually develop a community on top of it and take little pieces of your research and and seed them in different ways and publish them in different ways? Like, can you talk more about that? Like, how that what the what the actual goal is for CourseBuilder?

Joel: 05:00

So I use a lot of tools, like, in general. Like, I'm a tool enthusiast, and some of my favorite ones, like, I'm I still use Roam Research. I think it's it's kind of faded into the the the river of forgotten tools for thought. And, you know, like, we use Notion. I'm I'm not a huge huge fan of that one because, you know, it's like a file system to me, and I I can never get my head around it in terms of of organizing our work.

Joel: 05:26

But they all kinda, to me, they have this similarity in that, you know, like, you can get in there and you're doing your outline and you're creating. And Notion is probably one of the best ones because of the publishing capability because you can then share your work where some of these it's like, there's ways to do it with with these other tools where you you can do it. But I I think what's interesting to me is I'd like a place where I can, you know, I can do my outlining. I can do my thinking. I can push my research in there, but then that also gives me a path to to publishing and the, like, the like, to me, it's the the digital gardening is the my my still my favorite metaphor for all this.

Joel: 05:58

It's like, I want a place where I can go in and I'm, you know, I'm kind of planting my seeds and I'm I'm seeing those grow and I can publish articles and maybe I can add video or add a articles, and maybe I can add video or add a podcast or or do whatever and expand that over time until such a point where I'm like, wow. This is a really good course. I could just I could sell this for money and then give people access to it and bring them in. The other important thing to me, and I think a lot of tools kinda fail at this, is the, like, the multiplayer aspect of it is is a is a big thing, and and that's where, like, the the LLM tools, the AI stuff, and and it produces so much garbage. And and that's a fact.

Joel: 06:33

Right? Like, it it creates garbage, but where it is useful is if you have really good input. So if I record a video and it's a good video, then then I can feed that in, feed the transcript, and and that sort of stuff into the LLM. And and what if it also understood all of my notes and had access to that? And then all the articles that I've written and all of the podcasts that I've recorded and all of all of that also becomes, like, contextually relevant for asking questions.

Joel: 06:59

So, like, in the multiplayer sense, you get, like, a sort of a a budget budget coworker that they can, you know, like, sound ideas. And and I like it in the the my favorite approach with these tools is is, like, using it as a a prompt loop where, yes, we prompt these LLMs, but then can it also prompt me back and and just give me something to think about or or ways to reconsider whatever it is or or reminders of of things I've done in the past that have kind of floated away and I'm not thinking about it anymore. So I'm I'm excited about that. It's been a like, I would love if I could just spend all day working on the the fun like, that's kind of the fun, exciting forefront of the technology of what we're doing. But, like, currently, I'm really just trying to get our existing stuff on so we're not across 5 different iterations of my my mistakes, in, course platform building.

Joel: 07:51

So that's, like, that's where we're at right now. So I tried to build a foundation, and I it started out as a demo. This this particular one, I was I took a job last year for the first time in a decade and and because I really like the technology. And and I only spent, like, 3 months there because I was building demos as part of the job, and I couldn't stop building the demo. And they wanted me to do other stuff, like, understandably.

Joel: 08:13

Then I was like, I gotta work on my demo, so I think I'm gonna have to, which I should have known before I started, but, like, it was you know, like, it's it's my nature. I like to I'm building, and then I get obsessive. And then, you know, like, so 9 months later, I'm still sitting here obsessing. It's coming along really good, though. I would I would love to sit down with you sometime and just show you what we've been up to and and how it would work and and, like, how you could set it up.

Joel: 08:37

And maybe you can you can you like ideas or or use it. The idea to me is that people could pull it and build from it outside of our our sphere of influence. It's really it's very specifically made for my team is Right. Who who who it's built for. And then, like, I'm I'm like, I'm gonna build it for my team, myself, my team, our partners, the AGED instructors, and then maybe eventually, you know, like, the rest of of anybody that might be interested in it.

Joel: 09:07

Yeah. Sometimes I think maybe I should do a hosted version. Yeah.

Ben: 09:10

That's what that was my next question is is that are you actually intentionally avoiding doing the hosted version, like, out of the gate just because it you wanna make sure that it works internally first, or what's the is the, you know, the the grand scheme to to have it so that I could just sign up and and start without having to host it myself?

Joel: 09:29

Or I don't know if I like that as, like, a business is is my thing. Like, it in terms of waking up and and doing what we do. Like, I really love the the work that we do is very catered towards working with select partners to produce really nice things. And, like, when you open a platform to people and you and, you know, the the quality of the things that get produced is definitely out of your control, and that's fine. Like, I think people should be able to, like, like, freely make whatever they want.

Joel: 09:56

But I don't know. You know, it's like there's some, like, teachable and Podia, and then there's so many things that are, like, good enough. And and I'm always like, you know, I think at this point when you're making software and and selling it, like, at a mass scale. Like, you're trying to, like, sell and scale software beyond it it really has to solve heavy problems, if that makes sense. And and Yeah.

Joel: 10:18

You know, like, at the end of the day, these are paywall video blogs, and I don't think that I don't wanna belittle the work that that I've been doing because it is very challenging and especially all the edge cases and stuff that we handle. But at the end of the day, right, like, you you know, like, the the good enough point of of that particular experience, I don't think is is like, it's not a super high bar to cross where the processes and then the the kind of the commitment and experience that we offer in terms of of building it and and alleviating that level of pain from our partner's plates has been really kind of the sweet spot for us. So I don't know. Like and and I think about it definitely because it's it's also interesting to to build something that would would kinda grow and scale and and, you know, have enough users to to be a viable thing. And, the technical challenge would be fun too.

Joel: 11:05

So we use kinda consumer technology now, so I think it'd be expensive to do it in the way we're we're built now. But, like, it might be fun to to see what it would take to break out of that.

Marie: 11:15

I'm curious about some of the some of the maybe internal changes. Like, when we connected back in, like, 2019, at that mastermind with with Kai and whatnot Mhmm.

Joel: 11:25

And

Marie: 11:26

we had a chance to work together and took a look at some of your like, how you guys were using Notion. But I'm so curious about some of the changes you've made internally in terms of how you're supporting course creators and even just, like, what changes you've noticed happening in course creation. I don't know if you guys experienced the COVID bubble where just sales were just it was so easy to sell online courses, and then it sort of felt like there was this lull afterwards. And I'm just kinda curious what you've seen as someone on the forefront of what's happening with with online courses and what changes you've maybe made as a result.

Joel: 11:55

Yeah. I feel like I should probably make more changes. And we've specifically with Egghead. Right? We've done like, it's it's been like a ballistic curve, but that's been a while.

Joel: 12:05

It was interesting to me because I made some changes internally where I decided that we are gonna really focus on on the the quality of the the content. Right? Like, we're gonna focus on learning design, and I think I was very enthusiastic at the this you know, at the the conference that we were at where where instructional design, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna really focus on on producing, you know, like, well designed, following, you know, like, more standard, maybe academic, the construction design principles and and build really high quality stuff. And so I threw a lot of I threw a lot of friction at the content creators, and what that actually did was stop them from creating content at all and kinda moved away. And and when you are selling a subscription service to content and you're not producing it on a, like, a constant basis, it kinda takes away from the fire hose of like, people sort by new.

Joel: 12:58

Right? Like, that's the thing. They want they want they want new stuff, and they don't care if your course from 4 years ago is actually super good still. They want to, you know, like, whatever. Well, yeah, but it wasn't last week that this was made.

Joel: 13:11

Right? So how does that that that's a a interesting phenomenon, and and I don't actually know. Like, it's maybe beyond my pay grade what's what's wrong with ACAD because it's still not doing great. But there's a lot of competition, and and there's YouTube, and it's great. And, you know, like like, we can we've always competed with Netflix and and the the what everything else that anybody could be doing with their time that's not, you know, watching programmer videos or or whatever.

Joel: 13:38

But on the same token, our stand alone products, which are high friction for the creators and following those same principles have done really, really well. So it's like a it's a weird dichotomy for me because it's like that friction has been, like, principle to our success in our other endeavors, but then I also feel like it's been, like, the leading cause of decline for for that particular property. So it's kind of a it's a weird thing, and I'm I don't know that that I'll ever figure it out. Like, right now, I'm like I really love the idea of making specific things and and having these projects with, you know, like like talented folks over time has been been really wonderful and and not something that's kinda diluted. Right?

Joel: 14:20

Like they're very specific. It's like for instance, Notion Mastery. I know exactly what that's going to give me. Right? Like, you have made a wonderful product where when I look at that, I'm like, okay.

Joel: 14:32

I know what's gonna happen here. I'm gonna, like, get really good at Notion versus something like Egghead where it's like, okay. I don't I don't think you could derive anything just specifically from the name. And even if you go look at the site, there's a lot going on and and I don't know. But then we have other properties like total typescript.

Joel: 14:49

Right? Like, that makes sense. Epic React. Okay. Cool.

Joel: 14:52

I know what I'm gonna learn there. Like, that that kind of of at a product level has been really interesting. Just that that crispiness of, you know, like, what what is this thing? And and that probably led to me naming the thing course builder. Right?

Joel: 15:04

Like, I was like, oh, really? Well, what is this? It's well, there it is.

Marie: 15:07

Be a little bit more literal. Yeah.

Joel: 15:09

Yeah. Like, you know, and and and it is it's like you can expand having something generic is fine, and you can expand that and and kinda spread it out across a large surface area. But I think that the consumers anyway, like, really crave that, you know, like, they're making choices. They're tired of making choices and want some of that made for them. So, like, in just, you know, like like some of that narrowing down happens for them and even the naming of the thing.

Ben: 15:35

What's the what's the crossover between the stand alone courses and egg Egghead? Is there, like, a upsell, or are those totally separate products that people buy individually? Or do they get that as those ones as part of an Egghead subscription as well?

Joel: 15:49

That was a that's a good question because, like, when we did that transition, I was like, I I have to do everything in my power to make these people not think that they're gonna get any of this with with, their ACAD membership. Right. Yeah. They're literally 2 separate corporations, and and it's a pretty hard divide. The first several were built on ACAD as a, like, a technology platform, which is a horrible, horrible approach.

Joel: 16:13

Like, I wedged everything into it, and I'm I am still unwinding that, and it's been very expensive to, like, unwind that that technical decision. And that's and then we did what we call SkillStack, which is skill recordings, and and, like, it's it's very similar. It's funny because it's very similar to what they get and and what we're doing now with CourseBuilder, but it was like an iteration where I broke that out and, I got I'm I'm a retired Ruby developer, and I'm desperately trying to get everything off of Rails. Still, that's that's where Egghead lives, and and I'm almost like I'm just, like, chiseling away chiseling away and and continually paying my Heroku bill every month, until I can escape the shackles of Ruby on Rails, that I have manacled myself with. It's great technology and, people that like it, I I think they should use it for sure.

Joel: 17:06

But, it's like just for me, it's not what I do. It's not what we teach. And and, like, I really enjoy TypeScript and having that, like, single language across the board. And I like I like React, and I like the confusing mud pie of modern front end web development that has extended into full stack web development. So that's, but getting all that unified has been a real chore.

Joel: 17:31

Technical debt. Yeah.

Marie: 17:32

No stranger to that.

Joel: 17:35

Yeah. And it's like a actually, there's there's this amazing person, Charity Majors, and and I I got this. I have one of her tweets printed on wood on my desk, and and the the gist is if you aren't migrating, you're dying. If it hurts, do it more. And it and it was interesting to me when I saw that because I was like, that's so true.

Joel: 17:55

Like, with Agate, I was like, I'm not I don't wanna migrate. I just wanna stack everything on top of this thing. I don't wanna, like, migrate into the new thing. And and I've been doing these progressive migrations over time. I'm like, wow.

Joel: 18:05

That it really is healthy because the more I do it, the actually, the easier it is. So, like, where it's taken me years to get off of the the rails monolith, now it's months and, you know, weeks. Hopefully, it'd be cool if it was days if I can get to that. I don't know if I'll get to that point. But just that idea.

Joel: 18:24

Right? Like, that that we're flowing forward and we're we're moving things and we're comfortable with the the technology change. And so, like, that debt isn't so much debt. It's just something that you are moving forward and and progressing and then letting some stuff kinda float float away. And that's been another thing with the the current system.

Joel: 18:44

You know? Like, we get projects where a creator will come in and they wanna make something and then they launch it and then they, you know, they're they're they're done. Right? Like, they wanted to launch the thing and then, they literally won't even talk about it anymore for what life reasons, whatever reasons. And, like, it can still exist and they can still, you know, earn 100 of dollars a month or whatever and and exist as a product.

Joel: 19:05

But, like, for us, it's like, I don't I don't want that, like, in our builds and in our, like, our tech stack and, like, seeing it. So it's like we just archive them, stamp them, and then their little you know, they have a GitHub repository, and they just kinda their their account lives on, and they they kinda work and function, but we don't have to, like like, think about it too much. So that's that's been another thing. A lot of learning. Yeah.

Marie: 19:28

It never never ends.

Ben: 19:30

Kind of kind of in the same place right now where we've we've got this kind of platform kind of bolted on top of Notion for delivering all of our courses, and we can also have subcourses. And we've got an enterprise account on Notion so we can at least, like, segment our customers into specific groups that give them access to the individual courses. But this new one, like, I wanna I wanna take it I've been debating. Like, it's so easy for me to now deploy a course in Notion because we've got all these mechanisms, but it's also really limiting in terms of we have to rely on Notion's available feature set, to deliver the course. So I can't create something that kind of exists outside of that that has, like, a custom component or something like that.

Ben: 20:11

That's been my next goal, is how do I make something that exists in between those two states? My own platform, but that integrates with Notion in some way, so we'll have a separate course that people can get on to. But, yeah, that, like, migration effort, like, I know I could really quickly spin up a course in Notion and and give access to it, but, you know, it's that if it's it it's gonna be painful to recreate another course platform for ourselves. So that's, you know, why I was curious about, like, how how CourseBuilder fits in with your like, all of your the larger ecosystem of all the courses.

Joel: 20:45

The go the goal is for everything to be autonomous at this point. Like, generally speaking, the goal is for for all all of them to be fairly detached. And we we do it, like, at the it's it's kinda like database level, basically, where we have Kenzie Dodds who has multiple products on different sites, but they all share a database, which has has been that that's worked out. And then the other kind of stand alone ones, and then they get their individual databases. So it's like a a per database thing.

Joel: 21:15

I don't know. Like, do do the consumers care too much? And it's like, what what are the custom components doing for them? And and those are the kind of questions that I think are interesting too. Like, how do people want to consume these things?

Joel: 21:27

For a Notion course, being in Notion makes a ton of sense on a lot of levels too. I would have to imagine. I've always liked to have Notion Mastery was laid out. I haven't seen a lot of the new courses. No.

Ben: 21:37

Yeah. We've used some of the newer features in Notion to, to segment our courses into team spaces. And then, it's nice because we have access to a a enterprise account through our, you know, advocacy work in Notion. So we Ambassadorship. Yeah.

Ben: 21:52

We're able to do a lot more advanced stuff with, we use their SCIM API to do the automatic onboarding and shuffling people into groups based on what they purchase. So something that I think, you know, courses in Notion are one thing, but you like, we have, like, a certain privilege that we're able to do the, like, high technical stuff with Notion because we have that that enterprise account access. So, like, it's a thing. Like, people see us doing work in in courses in Notion, and they're like, oh, I could I could just ship a course in Notion. And we often are, like, please don't do this because it's not really, like

Joel: 22:25

Yeah. I've seen y'all have, like, thousands of people in your account, and that would be prohibitively expensive, I think, for most Morse course creators.

Ben: 22:31

I think we'd looked it up one time when we at the end of the year, we moved a bunch of people out that kind of, like, had, expired access and stuff. And but prior to that, we would have had something like a $75,000 a month, software bill or something like that. So

Joel: 22:46

it's Wow. The other person that does that really well is ShiftNudge. So MDS does it really. I think he does a a great job. He brings everybody in as guests, though, so it's a little different, I think, the the way he operates it.

Ben: 22:57

Yeah. Which, you know, I think I was talking to him recently, and he started running up against limits of of the guest account because they're starting to enforce those limits. So it's a tricky thing to build. This is why having your own platform with individual databases, that way Kent, for example, could theoretically, you could build a feature that allows him to share data across all of his, course properties using the same database, but also do something totally custom for him, even though you you have, like, a shared, a shared repository of code that you could deploy for other people, but you could also, like, customize it at the at the individual user level. So such a such an advantage to have that that ability to have a shared code base, but also be able to deviate from it significantly if you need to.

Joel: 23:46

Yeah. I mean, that's that's the so we and we use the the mono repo. Right? So all of the all of the apps are in the repo and then all of the, like, the Right. Packages and libraries and stuff and is really because everything's custom in between, and any one of them can branch.

Joel: 24:00

And and we do you know, like, we want let's say you wanna call something different or you wanna you know, like, there's all this flexibility at the individual level. And then everybody I want everything to feel for the creator as if it is their own, and that's super important to us. I'm like, one of my kinda core philosophical things is this idea of of owning my own platform to the extent that doesn't necessarily mean owning my own infrastructure all the way down necessarily. But I look at something like this, and I'm like, what if Notion changes their mind? Like, what if they decide that your relationship isn't as such anymore and that that you can't have, you know, 1997 users running on your free enterprise account?

Joel: 24:41

And, like, what does that mean? Like, what level would that of work or what would that do materially to your business if that that that occurred? And and it's not like it's not a likely thing, but that's, like, one of those you know, that'd be one of those Still a consideration. Staring at the ceiling at midnight, like, thinking about my choices, kinda kinda things that would would get at me.

Ben: 25:00

Yeah. It's it's the kind of stuff that, you know, you you don't you maybe get lucky because you adopt something early on and you get into, into it in a certain way that affords you the ability to deploy your stuff that way, but then you are, you know, forever reliant on that relationship going forward. So, yeah, like, going forwards, if I were to, say, build a course for a different platform or a different technology, I would 100% not build it on that technology. I think the Notion Mastery course is unique in that we were, like, the first people to build a large scale course that showcased the ability to do something like that in Notion. And, so, like, yeah, there's, like, almost like a a Meta advertising sort of Yeah.

Ben: 25:44

It's like a mutually beneficial kind of relationship with us in Notion in that regard. So it, you know, it both limits us into what we can do, but also emboldens us because we have everything in the place where and that's why I love the idea of course builder because you're actually you can actually deliver, create, and, like, interact with the people that are taking your course in the same platform, and you have com complete control over that. So I love that idea that the tool that the tool that you're using to build the thing is actually where the the tool that you're gonna be using to deliver the thing. Whereas our plat our previous platform, most people were not authoring their courses in our crappy, like, what you see is what you get text editor.

Joel: 26:25

Mhmm.

Ben: 26:26

And getting, like, ideas based on that and being able to, like, syndicate content to their users. They're probably writing it in Google Docs and then copying and pasting it or uploading files and stuff like that. So I think, you know, the future is the authoring tools is the environment where you're, you know, sharing and syndicating and synthesizing all that stuff, all that knowledge together, which is a really beautiful thing, I think.

Joel: 26:49

So I haven't looked at Notion Mastery. Kudos to y'all. This is really fantastic. Like, it's I haven't it's been year and a half, maybe 2 years since I've opened it, and it looks really, really great. Times better?

Marie: 27:01

It's gone through

Joel: 27:02

the generations. At least a bajillion. It it is it is, exquisite, and it makes me wanna, like, dig in and maybe maybe, revisit Notion a little bit. I see all the stuff you do, Marie, and it like, it's like you do such cool like, the the the way you use this particular tool makes me want to love the tool. That makes sense?

Marie: 27:25

Absolutely.

Joel: 27:29

Yeah. So yeah. Like like, nice work on that. Yeah. So it's interesting.

Joel: 27:33

And just to go back to what you're saying about, like, where people are creating stuff because I think that's people are going to make their thing in the most comfortable environment for them. Like, all I offer people right now, CourseBuilder, is just a crappy markdown editor. So it's not even what you see is what you get. Right? Like, you better know some markdown if you wanna come in here and, do any sort of authoring in here.

Joel: 27:53

And I wanna make it a nice writing environment, but I think, you know, it's like when it it comes down to it, like, people are going to do their creation in, you know, the environment that makes sense. And and, like, for me, if I'm writing in markdown, I I use a little weird app called markdown. It's not that weird, but I use a little markdown editor called markdown pro, and that's what I use locally. Or I use text edit with all of the rich text features turned off as my one of my favorite ways to just, like, sit down and tap out writing. And I've been you know, it's like, how do I bridge the gap between how people work, like how they actually work?

Joel: 28:30

And and with my team, it's a thing because they they run scripts locally and they're doing, you know, like their work locally and they like to have text files, flat files on disk and the video files on disk and all this stuff. And it's like, I don't want to diminish that or I don't wanna be like, well, you're you use course builder now, and that's how we make courses because I made it. So you're gonna use it. And, like, that doesn't make any sense. It's not fair to anybody.

Joel: 28:51

And I but I want and also I want them to be efficient and and enjoy their their work life. So it's you know, I've been I I don't know if you've seen they they local first, this is just this idea of of, you know, like, our our local work environment as the and, you know, like, the the local product and then that syncing up and then that relationship between where you're at and how you like to work on your environment, not being forced into, you know, this is how the the technology or the the website that you actually publish on wants you to work. And that's something I've been kinda wrestling with. And how do I I make that experience to where, like I said, my my users are the 8 people that I work with on a day to day bay basis. And and so it's a pretty small user group, but I want them to, like, really enjoy what they're doing and not you know, it's like my goal is to build something that they actually want to use, and they start to use just because it's gotten to the point, you know, of of quality that they are drawn to it, not because I'm putting on some sort of Making them use it.

Joel: 29:52

Monoclonal and Yeah. Forcing them to

Ben: 29:55

Yeah. I think, there was a notion designer the other day that was talking about how they're building they wanted to build unopinionated software, and and I and I was kinda like,

Joel: 30:07

well,

Ben: 30:08

you know, Notion is built on top of a whole bunch of different opinionated software, and, like, you know, you can't really build unopinionated software without some pretty strong and, you know, very strong opinions underneath. And I think Obsidian is kind of one of those tools that I've been watching a little bit and I still use regularly that has that idea of, we're opinionated about it being a you know, flat file format in Obsidian, but everything kind of on top of that, the opinions get a little bit less loosely held as they go up. So I could see something like that with data portability and interoperability, that local first thing being similar with, you know, could I even be working in Obsidian and then just be like, alright. I'm gonna throw CourseBuilder out here and point it at my Obsidian directory, and I could actually be authoring in Obsidian and leveraging, you know, those that additional platform tooling. And because it's the same file format, that's the base opinion that we use Obsidian.

Ben: 31:04

So that way, one team member could be authoring in Obsidian, another team member could be, you know, marking it up and changing it with course builder, and another team member could be using something else, but you have that baseline opinion of we store our stuff off you know, offline and sync it to Dropbox or something. It's really simple. You know, that way you don't even necessarily have a application running in the cloud somewhere that's doing your work. You're just all working on the local machine. And when you're ready to publish, you know, you could import that into Notion.

Ben: 31:33

You could put it into a course platform wherever you wanna host that thing and distribute it. But the offline first part is the is the core, the core opinion that the whole team held holds, and the file format is the is one of those opinions as well. So I feel I feel like that's, like, the future of software. It's just, like, layers of layers of of opinion on top of, like, a baseline opinion, and you can be, like to the to the extent that you're not actually gonna be choosing, I think, JavaScript as your baseline opinion, It's gonna be like, what is the file format storage? Hey.

Ben: 32:07

I like to write in Ruby. You like to write in JavaScript. And we're actually just, like, utilizing a shared opinion, which is the file format to develop on top of that. So, like, the the actual language and the actual tooling on top of it becomes less important once you have those baseline opinions, and the platform can can kind of evolve on top of those file storage solutions. So, yeah, it's it's such a beautiful thing.

Ben: 32:31

I hope I hope to see more tooling like that in the future where I don't know. I think I think Rails and, you know, Next and all these things are were kind of, you know, one step towards that where it's, you know, the they have a file structure or a folder structure that is highly opinionated. And what you do on top of that is kind of like you whatever you wanna do.

Joel: 32:51

There's this, I guess, software philosophy or architecture called hexagonal architecture, and, it's usually represented by a square, not a hexagon, but, which is kinda funny. But it has this idea of ports and adapters and and basically inputs and outputs, and and I really like that. And not I haven't got too far into the weeds of of the the over I think it was actually called ports and adapters when it was first developed. But just the the idea that, you know, like, I can have many different data sources. Like, I could I could pull in content from GitHub or Dropbox or Google Doc or whatever.

Joel: 33:29

Right? And the adapter is going to understand that and and go, you know, like a plug in or whatever. And it goes out there, reads that, and brings it in. So I could have several of those and you can, you know, like, hey. This is coming from this.

Joel: 33:40

And, you see that I I guess you kinda see that in in things like like Zapier or whatever. Right? Like, where you're you're building something that that some event occurs and and it goes out and and it has the adapters necessary to to pull that in and transform it to, you know, a consistent file format and and use it anywhere you want. I really love that. Like, I love the idea of being able to kind of expand and build, adapters around different technology.

Joel: 34:04

Right? Like, because everybody has their preferences or or what they they need to use and their their constraints of their context. So how do you how do you meet them there? Like, currently, with CourseBuilder, we're using adapters, but we have one. And, like, so like, it has that interface.

Joel: 34:18

Right? Like, the the software development kit, the SDK is there to, like, add more if we wanted to, but we only use 1. So it it currently has that one, but I've been thinking about it that way in terms how can we expand that and and, even for our own internal use because we have one of our clients loves Remix, but his whole site is served on Next. Js and, you know, like, that's like a knife fight in the on the Twitter, between those two camps. But then people constantly be like, why is your remix course being served on a Next JS application?

Joel: 34:54

It's like, he just defers it to us. He's like, the people that build it use that. So but it you know, it's just like, could we then could we could we match his preferences if it isn't that big of a concern for us? And that would be cool, I think. And then also, like, I think that the addressable market of of the thing that I'm building would go get bigger too if I could support more more preferences.

Joel: 35:17

Right? Could you use you know, could CourseBuilder exist inside of a Ruby on Rails app? That's a stretch, but, like, I don't you know, that's that's the kind of way that's the way I'm thinking about it anyway is is how can this how can this have have a a a broader net and just be a useful tool for more people?

Ben: 35:33

Sort of like, some kind of protocol for development of courses or something that you could adopt. And, so maybe like, I think I've seen that a couple times with adapters for even rail stuff. Andrew Culver, I think, built a bullet train for a while, and he had a he had all these adapters, and he would hire people to build, like, front end adapters that matched, like, the patterns for the app. So, you know, you could easily get somebody to write a front end for the back end or something like that. So similar similar stuff where you could just write a front end for the protocol and, you know, then it would run on your machine or something locally and and what and you could interface it with whatever language you wanted to use.

Ben: 36:11

That'd be pretty cool.

Joel: 36:12

Our our we have tests for the adapters, and they're agnostic, so you just feed in you know, it's just checking inputs and outputs. Right? Like, so Right. In in the same vein. And I've thought about that.

Joel: 36:22

Right? Like, if I wanted to support a different database, I could literally hire somebody to to just go through it, and we'll know the job's done when the test pass kinda situation for for different different different, versions of the the adapter. So I haven't done that yet, but I I love that idea. I just I like the idea of people, you know, being able to like he said, it's like you can you can work in whatever feels comfortable to you, and and, it it won't matter, and the the output's the same.

Ben: 36:50

Yeah. I saw somebody I don't know if it was, if it was an actual working prototype, but it was kinda like a mock up of it's like, what if your what if your desktop, you know, OS was was like a, automation system? And and it was basically, like, the idea that applications all can publish, you know, pubsub kind of thing. And he had this visualization where he was, like, you know, connecting one window from one app to another app. So it was like, this app can receive messages, and this app can send it, and it was kinda like a visual layout on a screen.

Ben: 37:23

So, you know, when I did this thing in Notion, it's actually doing something in another application running locally, and it doesn't require any kind of, like, you know, mediator that is connected to the web. We could just have, like, an automation system that ports data from one place to another, and then maybe those apps handle do something else when data is fed in with a web hook or something like that. So I love that idea of, like, going down to the even the operating system level when we think about local first stuff and not having to rely on a a data mediator to connect things together.

Joel: 37:52

There's a lot of, like, crowbarring the the corporate hands off of the the operating system probably to get to there. I and then then I wonder how people like, it's like it's interesting too because at the same time, people like things to just be lined up. It was like, it it gets back to the the naming of these things. Right? Like, if you can do anything, people get confused and then do nothing.

Joel: 38:13

Like, this overwhelming I love that though. I would love it if my whole computer was just a graph where I could have a note interface and wire everything together willy nilly, and that would be fun.

Marie: 38:23

It's like your synthesizers and music.

Joel: 38:25

Yeah. It's it's it's something outside over there. Like, it's like a whole like, all I have here is the cables.

Ben: 38:31

Yeah. I want to ask you about that because I just started, right when I started making music.

Joel: 38:36

You just started dropping EPs. I haven't done that.

Ben: 38:39

Yeah. In in April, I was like I was like, Joel, man. Like, what do you know about what do you about know about making weird noises? And you're and you were like, like, a lot because you have a this is this incredible physical synthesizer rack. And I was using you introduced me to a couple different softwares, which ended up landing me on this thing called VCV rack, which I think is kind of like a digital version of what you've built, physically over the years.

Joel: 39:05

Yeah. Way smarter. Yeah. What was the what was the first piece

Ben: 39:09

of equipment you bought and, like, and to what end? Like, what were you thinking when when you bought something? Because I just bought my first synthesizer. And now now that I know a little bit more about making weird noises, I would have bought something a different piece of hardware. So I'm curious, like, how how what's what's your decision process like for, like, collecting the next piece of hardware?

Ben: 39:30

Do you usually think, like, there's a specific sound I wanna make, or how do you evaluate that?

Joel: 39:35

Depends on how well the business is doing.

Marie: 39:41

That's fair.

Joel: 39:43

Yeah. Do do you have a do

Ben: 39:44

you have a running, like, tally of, like, what you've spent on on your your equipment at this point, or have you have you stopped counting?

Joel: 39:51

Modular grid is a website where you can, like, make a digital representation of your physical modules, and it actually runs a MSRP down at the bottom when you when you build that up. It's in, like, a Honda Honda Civic or whatever. Yeah. It's basically what it equates to. Yeah.

Joel: 40:16

For for the for the rack. Yeah. And

Marie: 40:19

it's one

Joel: 40:20

of those that's just like they're they're like art pieces, and they're, like, they're very, they're they're built with love and craft by, you know, small companies. Behringer makes they Behringer bites everybody's modules and and mass produces them, and you can buy Behringer modules on Amazon. But most of them, like, all the ones in in my thing are all, you know, it's like they're small businesses. They're doing something they love. They're trying to to do the thing, and they're essentially art projects.

Joel: 40:48

And they, you know, like, they they are everything I love about computer programming, except more obnoxious and immediate. My family is very forgiving. I don't I don't make a lot that's musical. Like, you're not you know, like, you can go look at my TikTok if you wanna see what kinda screeching I'm into, sort of my own my own satisfaction. But it's like, I'm not I'm not really trying to it it's really difficult actually to compose music on this.

Joel: 41:17

Like, I'd like, make song compositions. Usually people move to the computer, and and I've legit never brought anything that I've made on here into the computer. Oh. I have not I haven't done that. I recorded.

Joel: 41:30

I have a recorder hooked up, so I have hours of screeching recordings for my kids to dig through when I pass. But, like, just pulling dad's SD cards and seeing what she can find. And but I I get a lot of I get a kick out of it, and I've I've been it's been, but it's one of those things, like, like, I walk by it and I I love it and, like like, getting in there and and just the the limitless possibilities of the thing is amazing to me. Mhmm. And it's funny because it's a very much a ports and adapters kinda situation where you can you know, it's like you have all these inputs and then possibilities and then you connect the little wires and move them around and, you know, like, pull them all out and that sound will never occur again.

Joel: 42:13

And I love that so much. Like, I'll make a I'll make a weird noise and it'll be like, oh, that's good. It's like a recipe, you know, when you, like, follow a recipe, but you doctor it up and you you add all your stuff to make it and then tastes really good. So maybe like, oh, I I well, you know, what was that? I was like

Marie: 42:27

Never to be seen again.

Joel: 42:28

Sauce that'll never be seen or tasted again.

Marie: 42:32

I love that.

Joel: 42:33

So it has it has some of that. It's fun. It's a great way to I do think about making actual music sometimes, but then I just, you know, pull the wires out and move on. So

Ben: 42:43

Yeah. There's a couple of people I follow. I'll I'll have to share this one dude's, Twitter with you, but he's using BCV rack and doing these kind of, ambient, expressions with his his vocals that he's running through. So he he kind of just sings, not not words, but, and he's running them through BCV rack, and it creates these really, like, ethereal kind of, like, haunting things. So I think some people are are using those to make some interesting compositions.

Joel: 43:11

I see people making amazing music with trash, like, literal trash. Like, they are surrounding themselves with trash, like, and not like, oh, this is just bad equipment, but I mean like literal trash. And they're making like really compelling music with it. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? You can spend a lot of money on gear and the gear is not gonna make the music.

Joel: 43:38

It's great. Like and this is true with, you know, it's like I also, you know, I have a lot of cameras. Like there's a lot of like gear is great. I love it. And tools are great.

Joel: 43:47

I have a table saw. But the table saw doesn't make tables. Right? Like a chair you're not gonna make a cool, like, well crafted rocking chair for, you know, like, people to to enjoy just by purchasing a table saw or or, you know, buying a camera isn't gonna give you great pictures that you love or, you know, buying a Honda Civic's worth of modular synthesizers isn't going to, like, like, give you give you an album. And and that's true for a lot of things.

Joel: 44:17

And it's like, I I enjoy it. And I I find I actually have an audience, and I do believe art needs an audience. And and there's a little bit of one on because, like, TikTok is amazing because you can get on there. I don't care what you're doing. You're gonna find people that that are right in your your shape of weird, over on the the algorithm brings us together.

Joel: 44:37

And it's, like, just a bunch of people, like, yeah. I love that you're doing anything at all, and I love screeching also. They're there. It's a it's a funny site. I haven't seen any other site that I that I've come across where you can, you know, really just like the algorithm.

Joel: 44:50

Like, if you're making stuff, it'll push push whatever kinda oddball stuff you're making into especially with the music and and stuff like that. I'm sure you could you could probably you could probably get too weird and find yourself alone on TikTok even. But

Marie: 45:05

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm always showing Ben, like, oh, here's some ridiculous thing I found today or a guy who wrote a song about his girlfriend's menstrual cycles and just, like, amazing weird stuff that people are doing with music.

Joel: 45:15

With tens of thousands of people liking it too. Right? Like, it's just like you could like, I you know, it's like that is amazing to me. And I I love that about, you know, where we're at now is is you, you know, like like people just making stuff and sharing it is one of the things that brings me great joy. Just people do it in all sorts of artistic endeavors and just expressing themselves and being able to put it out there and kind of share and, you know, that it also finds me where I'm appreciating it is pretty wonderful because that's pretty new, really, relatively

Marie: 45:47

Yeah.

Joel: 45:47

As far

Marie: 45:48

as I go. What kind of, like, when you started your TikTok account, were you just looking at it as a creative expression? I'm assuming there was no, like, intention there of sort of sending people to your business. Was it just kind of a place to play?

Joel: 46:01

No. No. In fact, I get the opposite effect. If I, like, post the synthesizer stuff on Twitter, like, it actually drives people away. Like, I I I can actively lose followers on that site when I when I post the stuff, which I don't mind.

Joel: 46:14

Like, I'm like, if you, you know, if you can't handle me at my noisiest, then you don't deserve me. I'm my Exactly. At my most business y for sure.

Marie: 46:24

Yeah.

Joel: 46:25

But, yeah, there's no there's no intention to it. It's just some place to like a just a just an outlet to to publish it and get a little dopamine hit from the couple of folks that'll like it. Every now and then, one will, you know but a couple that just like 3 3 figures of likes. Break break a 100. A little bit counts?

Joel: 46:44

Yeah. That's that's the that's the jam right there.

Marie: 46:47

Well, I like, what's your relationship then with, say, using Twitter as a place to both be yourself, express yourself, but also do marketing? Like, what what are some of your approaches to marketing your stuff, and how has that changed maybe over the last 5 years? Like, Twitter's changed a ton. What have you noticed in that way in terms of how you talk about your business?

Joel: 47:06

None of it for the better, I wouldn't say. Yeah. As far as that, I mean, I still love that site, and and it's because I I like text stuff and and, you know, like, I'm like, almost like a stream of consciousness kind of approach is is how I approach Twitter in general, and and it's fine. But, like, it's like, a lot of my friends are gone now, and that's always what's been fun for me is, like, the interaction and and having my friends there and, you know, like, like, jokes and and the play aspect of it. And I think I've stopped using it very professionally.

Joel: 47:41

I still like I it's like a journal, and I get like, to me, I'm still using it like it was in intended in terms of the microblogging. Right? Like, it's like I'm I'm just here to to to share that. But I I feel like over the last, you know, almost, what, 2 years now that we've we've been, under new management, it's like the the deterioration of the the you know, it's like top level URLs are going away and the algorithm is what it is, and and it's not like so much about here's this cool thing I made over here, but really, you know, wanting to to draw people more into into the into that particular platform, which is what you know? I mean, I get it, I guess.

Joel: 48:19

I don't I don't really understand it, to be honest. I think they're gonna ruin it, more over time just because they don't you know, it's like it was like a wonder weird and wonderful thing that that nobody really understands. And when you go and start turning the knobs, you just kinda kinda kinda wreck the the the innate beauty of of of what it was. Trying to make it, like probably trying to push it towards what TikTok is, and and they maybe have a good idea of what, actually makes that site good over there, I think. I don't know.

Joel: 48:50

Like and, you know, it's it even that side ends up being QVC. Right? Like, it's it's like a home shopping network kinda situation, and and that's what they would love Twitter to be too where they're getting a cut of of people buying and spending and all that fun commerce y stuff.

Ben: 49:07

I feel like something weird I noticed about Twitter lately is because it's mostly text based that the commentary and the threads and the the conversation, the original media and the conversation tend to have a similar weight to them. And when you go over to a platform like YouTube and TikTok, I feel like in a in a sense that I almost never am looking to see what the conversation around the content is in those platforms because the media itself has such a presence over the commentary. So it's like, you know, the comments feel like the separate thing, whereas on Twitter, it always feels like the comments feel like part of the original tweet in some way.

Joel: 49:45

You might be missing out if you're not digging into the comment section on TikTok. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta say, like, there is so much gold going on in there that that and it is astonishingly wholesome Yeah. In a lot of cases.

Joel: 49:59

In a lot of cases, not super wholesome. But, like, yeah, it is like that. I think that is interesting just because I don't think about those sites that way. And YouTube's done a ton to make it a better place for that because they're hiding all the bad comments. If you're the creator, you can go look at those bad comments if you wanna have like, if you're feeling too, like, optimistic today or whatever and you wanna, like, really, like, bring yourself back down to the reality of the Internet.

Joel: 50:22

Like, you can go and and actually open those up and find them. But, like, they've done a great job in in those comment in the comment section. Like, I've always been a fan of the comment section, and that's, like, what Twitter is. Right? Like, it's like a runaway comment section where where Yeah.

Joel: 50:36

You know, it's like Reddit and and even, you know, sites like Hacker News where people are like, oh, that's so bad in there. It's like there's so much there's so much good stuff too. Right? Like, there's bad stuff, but you just gotta I was raised in the streets of, like, v bulletin forums. Right?

Joel: 50:49

Like, I'm I'm able to I'm able to handle the the the yeah. Sure. There's a bunch of just mean spirited, icky people, but, you know, like, you gotta like, hopefully, you can, like, bonsai your experience enough to where you don't have to deal with them and have them ruin it. But, you know, it's all all this is is, I think, really that that same kind of thing. It's like, how do you that that sense of of it's it's community, I think, for sure.

Joel: 51:16

Like, it's like the with the the modular stuff. That's why I like that, you know, my little account, when I can post stuff. It's like I get to be part of a little community, and we don't you know, so we're not hanging out, but we're all rooting each other on, and that's cool. Yeah. If I did something like, pottery or or quilting on there, I think I'd, I should.

Joel: 51:33

I should take my I made I made my first quilt last year, so I I should see how

Marie: 51:39

What?

Joel: 51:39

Like, my my I should see how QuiltTok is. But that's awesome, actually.

Marie: 51:44

QuiltTok has to be able to Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Joel: 51:46

Like, they're out there just Absolutely. Rooting for each other. I curate TikToks for my little daughter.

Marie: 51:52

I love that.

Joel: 51:53

She has an accountant. Like, she likes to watch a few at night, so it's like I'm always, like, watching for stuff to send to her. She her account's on our phones. We don't just let our 7 people I love that. On TikTok.

Joel: 52:04

So if anybody's worried about us, we're not doing that.

Marie: 52:07

The best and worst of humanity. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 52:09

How do we how do we get that for for programming? Like, the wholesomeness of of, like, quoting, but for programming, like, I feel like folks like like Aaron,

Marie: 52:21

Aaron

Ben: 52:22

and yeah. Aaron Francis. Like, he has that, like, just like mindset of of positivity and, you know, sharing what he's working on. And it it it promotes it promotes that, the commentary being a little more elevated and and and kind and intentional like that. So it's, like, feels like on the individual versus the community sometimes for specific topics, it's so difficult to, like you know, when you say, like, Hacker News, you think of, like, or Reddit.

Ben: 52:47

It's, like, the best and the worst of the Internet. It doesn't have that nice, like And it's the mob. Right? Yeah. Some topics are more, I guess, controversial or polarizing, I suppose.

Joel: 52:58

I guess the the more people doing that. Right? Like, more more people being like Aaron and getting out there. And, like, it's a the be the change you wanna see. It's like like that that kind of thing.

Joel: 53:08

Right? Like, at the end of the day, it's it's trying to do that. And he and I I see he has an effect. Like, it there's a ripple effect from from what he's up to, for sure, and it's it's wonderful to see. And he's he's amazing.

Joel: 53:18

Yeah. I don't I don't I don't really like the word authentic, but I like the people that just kinda bring bring their whole self. I think maybe that's the that's not really it's not authentic, but the whole self is is really interesting. And I think a lot of people put on a put on a a character, and and that's you know, like, a lot of the the negative stuff ends up being that too. They're just playing a character and then doing that to to Sure.

Joel: 53:42

Like, get these p p buttons. Games. And if they can make you cry, then, they've scored the points that they're looking to to score. Right? Like, that that's a that's a thing too where people are just trying to tear other people down for their own entertainment.

Joel: 53:58

Yeah. I've been and those people aren't friends of mine, frankly. I wanna hang out I wanna hang out with Aaron's in real life, for sure. And and there's a there's still a bunch of that. Even, you know, like like Twitter, there's still a ton of that.

Joel: 54:10

It's still going on despite the best efforts to to push us in the other direction, I think.

Marie: 54:18

Something you you mentioned recently was around deciding to be fit. And I was I really liked that from an identity shift perspective. I was just kinda curious, what made you decide to be fit? Like, how how was this a thing you were like, I I'm gonna be a fit person now. How did that

Joel: 54:35

I just turned 50. Mhmm. So hashtag fit for 50 was Yep. Where it's it started, like, a year and a half before because I was like, oh, I'm gonna be 50 in a year and a half. If I'm gonna do this, I have to start now because you can't you don't wanna be 50 and then be like, oh, fit for 50 because it's gonna take a while because you can't like, it's one of those things that So you're doing The the mind shift mind mindset shift.

Joel: 54:56

And I was like, well, 1, I I hired a coach, and that that was a big deal. But even then, you had to kinda make that decision. And I was like, I can do this for I can do this for a month. Right? Like, I'll hire the coach and see how one month goes, and then that went pretty well.

Joel: 55:10

And I was like, I can I can commit to 1 year? I can I feel like I can do anything like that for a year? Right? Like, I can track my food for a year. I can, like, do moderate exercise.

Joel: 55:22

And it was cool because the coach, I was expecting it to be like, oh, you need to do this, and here's the program, and here's the spreadsheet. And it wasn't. It was more like, yeah. So, you know, when when are you what are you thinking this week? You know?

Joel: 55:32

What are you gonna be able to get up to? What are you, you know, can you know, what are you what are you gonna be able to do? And I was like, I can stretch for 5 minutes a day. I was like, great. Let's start doing that.

Joel: 55:41

Like, let's let's stretch for 5 minutes a day. And, you know, that turned into 15. And then, you know, I was like, alright. I guess I can walk 10,000 steps a day. You know, like, and just kinda

Marie: 55:52

Kinda self defined.

Joel: 55:53

Progressive. Yeah. I was like, yeah. Exactly. Like, what what can I commit to?

Joel: 55:56

And then, and I was. I was just I tried to be really consistent. Right? Like, I'm gonna do this every day, and I'm gonna, like, just JFDI. I got the stupid tattoos, so now I gotta do the stupid thing every day.

Joel: 56:09

So, you know, and that's really what it was, and track calories and started lifting again. Like, went to PT, got my knee into shape because it was always like, it's always been a weak spot in lifting. And then, like, for the last year, I've been to CrossFit, which is wild to me because I would have never in a 1000000 years, I would have just laughed in your face if you had said that I would be doing that. But as it turns out, like hanging out with people on a daily basis and doing fitness activities and, like, getting better at it is actually it's second order fun is how I call it. Like, one how I like to refer to it, but it's it's become fun.

Joel: 56:45

It wasn't when I started. I wanted to die, but I was I was just thinking about that today because I was, like, when I started a year ago, I was doing, like, big jump on boxes and stuff up there and, like, jump rope, which I still hate. But, and, you know, it's like riding the the bikes and doing all this and stuff where I was just it was just, like, literally, like, oh, I'm I'm gonna die a year ago. And and today, instead of a 10 inch box, I'm, like, jumping up on a 24 inch box for my reps. Right?

Joel: 57:11

Like and that's a that's a big difference. And when we do the the cardio stuff, I don't feel like I'm gonna die. I'm like, hey. This isn't I do a little bit, actually, and that's not totally true. But you're supposed to.

Joel: 57:21

Right? Like, it's

Marie: 57:22

like this is you push

Joel: 57:23

it to the you push it to your personal limit, and and, like, that limit, the bar that I'm I'm jumping over keeps raising up, and I think that's that's pretty cool. I was, like, having I was, like, when I have a conversation or walk around in a meeting, I was, like, wheezy. Like, it would be like I was like, I got all sorts of checks. I was like, do I have asthma? And and that wasn't the case.

Joel: 57:45

Actually, I didn't have asthma. I just needed more activity in my life. So that's been great. Like, I really, I think the other thing that's interesting, the part of that is because I decided to be fit, but I was really like, I'm gonna lose weight, and I need to lose weight. And then that's always since I was, like, 11 years old and weight watchers with all the, like, blue haired ladies, like, trying to lose weight for my entire life.

Joel: 58:06

And sometime over the last year, it switched from that goal to, like, well, how about fitness and fitness activities as opposed to, like, strictly, like, losing weight and aesthetics? Because that that can be part of it. But, like, I wanna live a fit and active life, not, you know, lose weight. And, you know, like that, It kinda led into that and and they they go hand in hand to me, but that was a big mindset shift for me. I was just thinking about that and what kind of activities could I enjoy that I traditionally have not enjoyed simply because of the the fitness requirement.

Joel: 58:38

Right? Like, I can, I've always liked hiking, but wouldn't do it because of, you know, or wouldn't do harder stuff and have been able to do that and that's been great too. So it's, you know, being being stubborn, has paid off finally. Like, so

Marie: 58:55

Kudos, man. It's not easy to make major changes like that. So

Joel: 58:59

No. It's cool. That's what my doctor said too, actually. I was just in there, like, getting a checkup and she's like, wow. I don't see many people doing this at your age.

Joel: 59:06

So, like, congrats congrats for for that. And so getting the high five from the doctor, that's a that's a nice feeling.

Marie: 59:13

Absolutely.

Joel: 59:15

Imagine their job's kind of a drag sometimes, so it's nice to get a little bright spot in the day.

Marie: 59:20

Absolutely. Seeing some improvement. Yeah. What's next for you? Like, what else are you stoked about right now?

Joel: 59:28

That's a good question. I think my obsession with this the course builder thing is gonna carry me through at least this year. You know, it's like I I wanna get this built. I would love to fix Egghead, and I really don't know if I'm gonna be able to do that. And I keep looking at it and trying to fix it, and I'm like, man, I I don't I don't know if I'm gonna be able to.

Joel: 59:46

So that's like a challenge that I I keep looking at and maybe keep kinda pushing it away because I don't have it figured out. And I'm like, I don't know if you you know, like, at what point do you let something go like that? And, it's not to that point, but, you know, like, I'm I've been thinking about that a lot as well. What's next, for for the the business stuff? Like, the the personal side of it, I've been trying to skateboard, which is Okay.

Joel: 01:00:13

I don't know if I'll get good at that either. Like, I it might be like

Marie: 01:00:16

I love it.

Joel: 01:00:16

Like like music for me, but, like, I've been trying to do that a lot. And then that's, like, in line with the with the fitness goals. It's like I didn't I wanna do that when I was younger, but I never would because of the just the activity requirements because it's really is quite a lot of work to, like, even just practice is a thing. But it's like, if I could ollie, that would be really

Marie: 01:00:34

cool. 50 is the new 20.

Joel: 01:00:36

Yeah. There you go. I don't know. Like, we'll see. Yeah.

Joel: 01:00:40

Keep keep the bones nice, and the impact should help the the overall longevity of the bones. It's like when you have a plant, you shake it so it gets nice and strong. I don't think that's

Ben: 01:00:51

true. Box jumping will help for sure.

Joel: 01:00:53

I was thinking about that today, actually. Like, I was jumping up there. I was like, oh, this is kinda like the same this is the same movement. Like, I don't know.

Marie: 01:01:00

This. So we'll see

Joel: 01:01:01

how that goes. Yeah. Oh, I

Marie: 01:01:02

love your site branding, by the way. I don't know who's doing those illustrations for you. If it's

Joel: 01:01:07

Michelle Holek, does those. She is rad. So she she did that. She did Total TypeScript. She's worked on a few of these.

Joel: 01:01:13

Like, she does a

Marie: 01:01:14

Gorgeous.

Joel: 01:01:15

Testing accessibility is is wonderful too. She did all those. So she's Wojta Holick is we've worked together for a long time, and that's his his wife. So they're like a design powerhouse. Those 2 are Yeah.

Joel: 01:01:30

Passing along. She'll she'll she'll like to hear that.

Marie: 01:01:32

Absolutely gorgeous.

Ben: 01:01:33

Yeah. But you also gotta give props to Joel for,

Marie: 01:01:36

Oh, jeez. Yeah.

Ben: 01:01:37

The idea of, of starting your YouTube channel, Marie, before we Yeah.

Marie: 01:01:41

You were the one that was like, you need to start a YouTube channel. And I was like, do I have to? But that was what needed to happen. And, like, even making Notion Mastery, like, all of that was a big in part to your your butt kicking, just being like, just do it. It's lightning in a bottle.

Marie: 01:01:57

Just do it.

Joel: 01:01:58

Are you still publishing to YouTube regularly?

Marie: 01:02:02

Reg was it ever really regularly? No. I wouldn't say regularly.

Joel: 01:02:06

It's still part of your

Marie: 01:02:07

It's still part of the the toolkit for sure. And I'm sure I'd be doing a lot better if I was publishing more regularly, but it's definitely a a struggle to keep up the momentum. Got any tips?

Joel: 01:02:19

I've got a really negative attitude about that site. Like, as a as a like, I love it. It's it's weird, but I'm constantly fighting against it and have the, like, the opposite advice. Like, it it's it's great. Right?

Joel: 01:02:32

Like, there's this exposure element and then one, just the just doing it and, like, doing the activity of of creating it. But once you, you know, like, have that rhythm and you're you're comfortable in front of the camera and you're able to to create, it's like the the it gets back to the idea of platform ownership. And that's a problem with all of these. It's a problem with with Twitter and TikTok and YouTube and everywhere we we go where we're, you know, like, creating for platforms versus Yeah. You know, like the platform ownership.

Joel: 01:02:59

And and that's really you know, it's like, I the course builder idea is, like, how do you make video more seamless? Because video is a real chore, you know, like, going from recording to to publishing video. They've kinda got it locked up traditionally, I think, these platforms do. So that that's one of the big things too. That's why I'm wondering.

Joel: 01:03:19

And then, you know, it's like people love the some people love the the just the ding ding kinda, number go up, like, dopamine hit of of that's what they give you. Right? Like, it's like gamified the the Yep. In your follower accounts and all this kind of stuff. And I'm always like, I don't know if that's Yeah.

Joel: 01:03:43

I'm just not super motivated by, like there's a

Marie: 01:03:45

lot of things I could be doing to increase my YouTube followers and such. I'm just like, I just don't know that I care that much. Like, I publish what I'm inspired, and, you know, I know I'm leaving money on the table, but it's sort of like, I'm doing the best I can.

Joel: 01:03:59

I did the part time YouTuber Academy.

Marie: 01:04:01

What'd you think?

Joel: 01:04:01

It was alright. I did I didn't I'd was the self paced version. And so there's plenty of good advice in there. And I you know, it's the it gets kinda bleak at the end of the day to me because it's a lot of people following the same kind of pattern. Right?

Joel: 01:04:08

Like, and and you go in there and and so you get a bunch of the same kind of cookie cutter thing and and everybody finds it's like you see it with the thumbnails and and just the the direction of of these sites is is kinda you'll get an innovator. I've called it the beastification, of of YouTube where, you know, that dude works so hard and is really dude, the content's really not for me, but I'm so impressed by the the work ethic and and the but then it's like you get the people that are not that creative and don't wanna work that hard and and kinda just follow the they're trying to follow the pattern to to reap the same rewards, and you get this dilution over time of of kinda worse things. And then people pick up the, I don't know, some of the the

Marie: 01:04:55

Bad habits or yeah.

Joel: 01:04:56

Yeah. Like the bombastic kinda hyperbole of of the thing.

Marie: 01:05:02

Cheesy voice. Yeah. Cheesy effects, cheesy voices, just stuff that doesn't feel super authentic.

Joel: 01:05:06

Yeah. I think part of

Ben: 01:05:07

the appeal for me, and I I honestly was not a person who used YouTube at all, and still I started trying to learn how to make music with Ableton. And I've discovered all these creators that have these I'm I I actually hired, him for, for coaching lessons. His name's, his name's Underbelly, and he has a channel called You Suck at Producing. He does all of his education through a set of characters. So when he's teaching music theory, he has this guy called Prance Connors who's, like, this nerdy professor that teaches at Chico State, and It's so weird.

Joel: 01:05:39

He's always,

Ben: 01:05:39

like, he's always in trouble with HR. And and, like, I feel like that's the kind but but his education is so good. Every single video I watch, I'm like, oh, man. Like, I can't wait to try that out.

Marie: 01:05:49

Edutainment. Right?

Ben: 01:05:50

Yeah. So, like, I think that those are the kind of channels that have the he maybe doesn't have the the formulaic setup because it it's it's, like, really like, he kinda goes for that, like, low key bad art aesthetic in a way. So it doesn't have the beautiful YouTube covers, and he's not, like, trying to monetize and gamify it. But but the, you know, the the uniqueness of it is what makes it stand out for me. And I found so many of these channels that people are just, like, being their weird selves, and it's so good.

Ben: 01:06:20

But the but the the training quality is, like, so good. It's it's, you know, it's the best training there is on how to like, anybody ask me now, like, how did you how did you pick this stuff up? Did you just start messing around? Like, those will be the channels that I share with them, you know, and I'll I'll subscribe to this.

Joel: 01:06:36

Making a living with it, though?

Ben: 01:06:37

He has a Patreon and then the paid coaching. So he's got a paid Patreon, and, and then he makes music as well, does, shows.

Joel: 01:06:46

See, and that that's the kind of thing and that is the, like, kind of individual that ultimately I want to, like, help lift and give help to provide some escape velocity off of Patreon is fine too. Like, I I would I it's not it's not great though. Right? Like, Patreon is is what it is, and people use it because it's there and it's the de facto. But, like, somebody that that has that and has created that sort of content, like getting their own platform, that they then have this option to publish to.

Joel: 01:07:14

And and I think that that's that's really interesting to me also just because it's like, how do they how do they make a living off of that stuff and and all the free YouTube is great, but, like, to me, it's like, where do you drive? Where's that driving people to? And Patreon, I don't think is the is the best ultimate answer. Because, you know, like, if they had a paid course that was more in-depth or or whatever, you'd probably go purchase it. Right?

Joel: 01:07:39

Like, at at the end of the day, I'd I'd assume. If you if you're buying coaching, then

Ben: 01:07:44

Yeah. I totally would. Yeah. Some of the and it's funny because, like, when when we hop on a call and we do coaching together, he'll he'll say stuff like, do you know much about music theory? And I'm like, I don't know anything about music theory.

Ben: 01:07:55

I played I played the baritone horn in school. That's that's in grade school, that's the extent of my musical ability, you know, but I know a lot about music, and I'm a good music appreciator. So, like, he just basically did a live version of one of his YouTube videos with me, like, teaching me the basics of how to set up the scales and and the difference between, you know, the, you know, the notes and things like that in and how to do basic. Like, he made me play, like, a basic scale in in Ableton. And, yeah, I could've just done that in I could've just watched one of his YouTube videos and done the same thing on my own, but it was, like, it's more it's nice to have somebody actually teach you through it live.

Marie: 01:08:33

So A structured plan.

Ben: 01:08:34

Happy to to pay for that, like, 1 on 1 stuff to get the same stuff that's on YouTube, but that's not I'm I'm pretty unusual in that I don't think many people would pay what what I pay for basic music instructions.

Joel: 01:08:46

It it's it's also them trying to make money is bleak also. Like, artists trying to make a living online has been like like, just seeing people try to make it and and because people won't buy it. I agree with you. Right? Like, it's like they they want cheap or free.

Ben: 01:08:59

Most of the most of the creators that I'm seeing that seem to have success in the the music education have a some sort of preset library or samples that they're selling. Mhmm. So it's a similar thing with, like, Marie where Marie is just, is pushing traffic to, you know, the Notion Mastery program or just Notion in general. And but, So they'll have some kind of free education, and then there's some kind of mentorship program or a serum, which is one of the VSTs for Ableton, where you can design presets for those. So, oh, you want you want your music to sound like this artist?

Ben: 01:09:35

Here's here's their here's their presets that you can make a cool baseline that sounds really good without having to learn how, you know, the the software actually works and stuff like that.

Joel: 01:09:44

So I I love that you've you've you've taken this and that you're actually, like, publishing music because, you know, like, I there's a lot of people, that that get the gear, do the thing, or talk about it. And then it's like you'll see the guitars hanging on the wall, or you'll see all the gear. And it's like Yeah. I've literally never heard any sort of music from you. What are you doing with all of that that stuff?

Joel: 01:10:05

Like, what are you you know, it's like and I I don't know what it's like a I kinda get it. Like, putting it out there is it can be embarrassing if you're not, like, super talented or whatever. And and, like, I I I don't mind, Ryan. Like, I'm like, I I don't mind looking like, you know, like, sucking a little bit and and, doing things that I'm not great at and and sharing that with other people, I think, is fine. But I'd say it's just I I love that you were like, hey.

Joel: 01:10:27

I'm gonna make some music and have, not only not only made the music, but then are are sharing it and putting it out there. And I think that's that's great.

Marie: 01:10:35

Super impressed at how fast you

Joel: 01:10:37

were willing to put your first stuff out there. Yeah. That's the way too. Now now you're just like, now it gives you a rhythm, though. It's just like, this is what I do.

Joel: 01:10:43

I make stuff and then share it. Right? Like, you've you've Yeah. Yeah. Not waited till it's waited till it's whatever, you know, some arbitrary line of of internal processed quality that you have to to to meet before you'll ever share it with anybody.

Joel: 01:10:59

I see that a lot. Like, people

Ben: 01:11:01

I have a personal quality goal in my head when I'm creating, but I'm not attached to sharing the artifacts of getting to that goal. So my personal goal is that I wanna create a song or a set of songs that I would be able to mix with other artists' music because I'm a DJ at heart, and I love that's the way I love consuming music is mixing and finding the, like, the the blends that sound really beautiful together. And so my my internal mechanism for this is good is that I would be able to put it into a mix and have it sound like a like a natural, like, mix that I've made, you know, because I've been DJing for, like, 2 decades. And yeah. So that's my internal metric, and I actually you know, if people like the things that I'm creating, then great.

Ben: 01:11:46

But I don't really it's not really a like, it's it's so that I can put it into my mixes. And I've always done DJ mixes because that's the way I like to listen to music. Like, I don't care if other people listen to them, but I will publish them because I know a lot of people also like the music that I like. But, yeah, I've never had that any sort of goal in mind that I want people to like what I'm doing, so I think that's those are the most beautiful things. And, yeah, I think since April, I probably have, like, a a folder of about 30 songs that I've written, and I've published 6 now.

Ben: 01:12:16

That those are ones where I was like, this is ready to go. Yeah. So Good

Joel: 01:12:19

enough. Just ship it.

Ben: 01:12:21

Yeah. I mean, I for a while, I was, I I'd be curious to hear, like, what your when you go to play with your your rack, like, what do you just like, ah, I feel like playing around, and I wanna do this, or do you have a gen do you have a a consistent the way that you're doing your working out, do you have consistency with the play?

Joel: 01:12:39

I'll I'll often pull up the manual for some neglected piece in there and, like, be like, I'm gonna, like, explore the manual. And it's wild because I when I started, I my my knowledge has increased. You know, synthesis like, synthesis is a whole thing, and and each one of these has a you know, some of them have a 100 and 200 page manuals that that go with them, and then they have all the options, and then you connect them together. So there's just a, like, a lot to to understand and and follow, and then you can also move them around, which if you would wanna, I wanna make this hard, so I'm gonna move everything around. Like, that's another thing.

Joel: 01:13:14

But usually, it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna, like, find a wave that's interesting and then just build on that. And, you know, like, I'll also go, like, it's like watching people on YouTube too, so you'll hear something. And one of the things on my agenda is to try to, like, hear beats or hear pieces of of tracks that I love and then recreating them on the modular is like an activity that that's pretty fun and, just, you know, like, stacking it that way. I feel like eventually I've like, one of my long term goals is I would love to have just one I would, you know, like, have an album of of coherent music, but the constraint is I wanna do it all on the modular and not use a DAW at all. So we'll see how that works out for me.

Joel: 01:13:53

That's, it's gonna make it hard, but Yeah.

Ben: 01:13:55

It's super fun.

Joel: 01:13:56

It is fun. Yeah.

Ben: 01:13:57

I have a a similar mechanism for play where I think, you know, like like I said, I wanna, like, I wanna be able to make this baseline from this artist, and I'm just really curious when I hear a sound. I'm like, how did how did they make that sound? That's so that seems so far outside of anything I've ever heard before, and so I'll just start trying to recreate that sound and eventually get to a place where it interesting enough that, you know, maybe even just playing a simple phrase or something and then cycling it through like a 1,000 different sounds, so I'm perfectly content to sit there for hours just, how does that sound? How does that sound? Just, you know, doing that over and over again.

Joel: 01:14:34

Just listening to the loops?

Ben: 01:14:35

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I never get tired of a loop once it's, you know, once it's stuck in your head. You can just listen to it for hours and hours and hours, so I love finding that that groove that that clicks and then riffing off of that.

Ben: 01:14:47

So it's it's a very, yeah, it's a very playful enterprise, so I find, like, I can I never get bored of messing around without, like, making noise? You know?

Joel: 01:14:56

Yeah. For sure. Sure

Ben: 01:14:57

you're the same way. Yeah.

Joel: 01:14:58

That's where it's at.

Ben: 01:14:59

Awesome. Well, sounds like Marie's gotta go, so we'll let you go. But, where can what what do you wanna share? I got you got, badass badass dot dev. And

Joel: 01:15:09

Yeah. That's a great one. Like, it's it's, easy to remember, and that's that's that's where I've been publishing mostly is CourseBuilder lately. And literally using it as my my own personal YouTube, I I've been trying to, like like, dog food the the thing. So I I record a lot of looms and and, like, small screencasts and stuff and publish them there.

Joel: 01:15:26

They're they're I don't know. They're super entertaining. They're mostly for the team. But, Badass Badass has the the what I love there is our case studies. I think those are, pretty cool.

Joel: 01:15:36

Yeah. They've they've been those they're long form case studies for our projects. So check those out if you're interested. Awesome.

Ben: 01:15:42

Well, thanks for hanging out with us, Troy. Thanks, y'all.

Joel: 01:15:44

It was great to see you. Thanks so much. Bye. Take care.