[00:00:05] Kris: This is Kris, without John and without Garrett. [00:00:08] Kris: And just want to get a little intro to this new episode you'll be listening to or watching here shortly. [00:00:13] Kris: We recorded this back in the fall. [00:00:15] Kris: We'll talk about a couple of new podcasts, you know, upgrades. [00:00:18] Kris: But there'll be some inconsistencies just because we're releasing it not in sequential order. [00:00:24] Kris: But hopefully you'll enjoy, learn something, and like and follow. [00:00:28] John: Hello, you are listening to Standing in the Fire, where Kris and myself and Garrett by proxy in Dreams in Colorado talk about going through the flames of entrepreneurship. [00:00:41] John: Every time it gets more awkward. [00:00:44] John: But we have a few topics to go over today. [00:00:46] Kris: Yeah, excited. [00:00:47] John: So, yeah. [00:00:48] John: First, we should probably discuss our new sign. [00:00:51] Kris: We have new signs. [00:00:52] Kris: We've been trying to improve our studio, and now we have the official Fireside sign, which may adjust at some point in the future. [00:00:57] Kris: But we thought we need to give it a little personalization to the setup. [00:01:01] John: Yeah, this is the goal. [00:01:02] John: This is going to be kind of the theme of this episode is, you know, one thing better every episode. [00:01:08] John: And so like the first, you know, thing for this one is, oh, now we have our flame up there, which is really cool. [00:01:13] John: And one of these episodes, I think we need to take the camera and physically walk outside and show the studio. [00:01:19] John: Yeah. [00:01:19] Kris: Yes, yes, yes. [00:01:20] Kris: Yeah. [00:01:20] John: Do you want to talk about that actually real quick of like what you did on the outside, just the on-air light and stuff? [00:01:25] Kris: So we have the studio in a co-working space. [00:01:27] Kris: And so we thought we need some way for other people not to barge in. [00:01:31] Kris: And we knew we wanted to call it the Fireside Podcast Studio. [00:01:35] Kris: And so we created a custom on-air sign with the Fireside logo. [00:01:39] Kris: It's a neon sign. [00:01:40] Kris: It's super cool. [00:01:41] Kris: So we flipped that switch on and hopefully people will know not to bother us. [00:01:45] John: Yeah, we can add a link in the recording notes. [00:01:46] John: I've taken like a billion pictures of it, both myself with it, my kids, you name it. [00:01:51] John: So we definitely have that. [00:01:53] John: And also, you know, like we said last time, we're in the new studio and it was different. [00:01:59] John: Yeah, we recorded previously. [00:02:01] John: We've always recorded in Riverside. [00:02:03] John: And because of that, we were remote. [00:02:06] John: And so, you know, you were at your house. [00:02:08] John: I was in mine. [00:02:08] John: Garrett was in Colorado. [00:02:11] John: And there's a certain like lack of intimacy or like, I don't know what the right word to wait. [00:02:17] John: Like, so we talked about this afterwards. [00:02:20] John: So I think there's a couple of really interesting points of like recording in person versus recording remotely. [00:02:26] John: And so, yeah. [00:02:26] Kris: Well, I'll even say like from even this, this short conversation here in last time, it's easier to go back and forth without feeling like you interrupted somebody. [00:02:34] Kris: Yeah. [00:02:34] Kris: So even if I, if you give interjections of like, [00:02:37] Kris: with words it's easy to keep going and on zoom it's like oh did you need to say something yeah sort of thing yeah um and it's easier to multitask over zoom yeah if you're on zoom and you get an email or riverside or whatever you can like just archive it quick oh it's trash like or if like you and gary are talking and i'm like i don't know what's happening but i'm gonna be somewhere else [00:03:02] John: Yeah. [00:03:02] John: But I was really surprised. [00:03:04] John: Like we talked till we recorded on a Thursday. [00:03:06] John: And then that night you came over for supper. [00:03:10] John: Yep. [00:03:10] John: And we kind of like rehashed and we were like, it was kind of interesting because like you're standing right here, you're right next to the person. [00:03:17] John: And there are like, I mean, years of social cues built up that you learn that like somebody is going to say something. [00:03:25] John: They get a look in their eye. [00:03:26] John: Yeah. [00:03:26] John: Or some kind of thing. [00:03:27] John: And you can't get that on video. [00:03:29] John: You cannot get it at all. [00:03:29] Kris: Yeah. [00:03:30] John: And I'm starting to think it's almost like a lot of people talk about remote work versus in-person work. [00:03:35] John: And they're like, some people are hard, like, no, it's got to be in-person. [00:03:38] John: And then some people are like, because the serendipity happens or whatever. [00:03:41] John: And some people are like, no, it has to be remote because then you have ultimate flexibility and stuff. [00:03:46] John: And there's trade-offs and benefits to each. [00:03:48] John: And I think it was just interesting to experience the trade-off of being in-person. [00:03:53] John: So one output from that that I thought was fascinating [00:03:56] John: was editing was a breeze. [00:03:58] John: That's what you were saying. [00:03:59] John: Yeah. [00:04:00] John: It was so simple because you and I can look at each other. [00:04:03] John: We have conversations all the time where we don't interrupt each other, or not too much anyways. [00:04:08] John: And we can actually go back and forth and... [00:04:11] John: you end up with this already edited thing. [00:04:15] John: So at the end, it's just like, did it sound good? [00:04:18] John: Was the mic recording? [00:04:20] John: Let's hope it is. [00:04:20] John: The mic's right over there. [00:04:21] Kris: Did the camera record? [00:04:22] John: Yes. [00:04:23] John: And did the camera shut off at the end? [00:04:25] John: Correct. [00:04:25] John: All those things. [00:04:27] John: So that kind of stuff happens. [00:04:28] John: But I think that was the most interesting thing to me from a podcast trend or like, [00:04:34] John: thing that I could, a tip that I could glean from that to pass on to somebody else is if you always record remotely, do it in person and see what the difference is. [00:04:43] Kris: I don't know if you ever watch interviews of people doing podcasts and they're always on Zoom and I feel like sometimes it's just also the questions don't feel as, they feel more rehearsed than conversational because you're not getting any of that nonverbal feedback because you can only see what's on the screen versus seeing the whole thing. [00:05:04] John: The other thing that I thought about, too, and I don't think I talked about this last week is someone I was talking to talked about Zoom fatigue during the pandemic. [00:05:10] John: And they talked about how like, you know, when you it was the fatigue was not being in front of a screen. [00:05:17] John: The fatigue was watching yourself on video. [00:05:19] Kris: Oh, interesting. [00:05:21] Kris: Yeah. [00:05:21] John: So you're actually like you're looking. [00:05:23] John: People are not used to looking at themselves all day long. [00:05:26] John: But if you're constantly on a Zoom, your box is always there. [00:05:30] John: And so you see yourself and then you think, you know, like, again, like you think, do I have a boogie or like, is my hair right? [00:05:36] John: Or am I sitting up straight? [00:05:38] John: Yeah. [00:05:38] John: Oh, yeah. [00:05:38] John: I'm not. [00:05:40] John: Let's shoulders back. [00:05:41] John: It probably is. [00:05:41] John: Yeah, there we go. [00:05:42] John: There you get the mic a little higher. [00:05:43] John: Yeah. [00:05:44] John: But I thought that was really interesting that like we're not, and since then, so in the last week or so, I've actually been turning off my own camera and trying to meet someone. [00:05:53] Kris: I don't see myself when I'm talking to other people because, yeah, because I thought, oh, I wonder if that's, yeah. [00:05:59] John: So if you feel fatigued. [00:06:01] John: Anyways, so the other thing we need to talk about [00:06:04] John: What episode number is this? [00:06:05] Kris: I think we're on number 10. [00:06:06] Kris: So how long has it taken us to get to episode 10? [00:06:10] Kris: A year. [00:06:10] Kris: A year. [00:06:11] Kris: However, getting to 10 episodes is that threshold of if you quit before 10, we're already in the top 1% of podcasts now. [00:06:19] John: Yeah, we're 1%ers right here. [00:06:22] John: That might have to be the title, the 1%, the elite. [00:06:24] Kris: Yeah. [00:06:25] John: But I think that's really interesting because my wife is actually reading Atomic Habits right now. [00:06:29] John: Yeah. [00:06:30] John: And I was like, welcome to 10 years ago. [00:06:31] John: Yeah. [00:06:32] John: I'm just throwing her under the bus. [00:06:34] John: She doesn't listen to this. [00:06:34] John: It's okay. [00:06:36] John: But I was kind of throwing her under the bus because I'm like, I was raving about Atomic Habits years ago and how great it was. [00:06:42] John: Yeah. [00:06:44] John: And she was like, whatever, self-help, improvement, I don't care. [00:06:47] John: And now she's reading it, and she's like, oh, I love this idea of things compounding over time. [00:06:51] John: And I think it's the same thing with podcasts. [00:06:53] John: The more you spend time on this stuff, the better you get. [00:06:56] John: You improve one thing each time. [00:06:57] Kris: I mean, I can... [00:07:00] Kris: Even though from our doing the first one to now is so much different and it's so much more motivating for like, oh, like we even in 10, we've improved drastically on whether it be the sound, the video, the quality of the conversations, also just getting used to it. [00:07:13] Kris: Well, the first one was a dumpster fire. [00:07:15] John: It was so bad as the person who had to listen to it like three times to edit it. [00:07:18] John: Yeah, it was bad. [00:07:19] John: We were like, hey, we should hit recording GarageBand and just see what happens, you know, like. [00:07:24] John: Yeah, that's a really good point. [00:07:25] John: It was quite messy, and it's dramatically better. [00:07:29] John: I mean, now we are in person in the studio. [00:07:30] John: We've got leveled up mics. [00:07:32] John: I mean, I know you had the good mic. [00:07:33] John: I had a Yeti. [00:07:34] Kris: We also have some backlights, and we have some frontlights. [00:07:38] John: Backlights, frontlights. [00:07:40] John: I mean, we dramatically leveled. [00:07:42] John: I know all of you out there are just on audio. [00:07:44] John: You're like, wow, this sounds so good. [00:07:46] John: And on video, you're like, these guys, man, slaying it. [00:07:49] Kris: Hopefully in the next week or two, we'll have two cameras. [00:07:52] Kris: Yes. [00:07:52] Kris: Two cameras. [00:07:53] Kris: That's our next upgrade. [00:07:54] Kris: Yeah. [00:07:55] John: So again, every episode, we're trying to get something a little better, trying to better understand what our customers go through, what they're feeling and stuff like that. [00:08:02] John: So another thing that we were talking about is maybe we're going to start doing some segments. [00:08:07] Kris: Yep. [00:08:07] John: So, like, come up with some ideas. [00:08:09] John: So, we used AI and, you know, it's like a lot of people are right now. [00:08:14] John: It's kind of amazing. [00:08:15] John: Ever know some people are a little anti-AI? [00:08:17] John: I am not. [00:08:18] John: I'm generally a drink from the firehouse kind of person. [00:08:21] John: And AI suggested some really good segment ideas. [00:08:24] John: So, one is we're going to call Into the Fire. [00:08:27] John: Okay. [00:08:28] John: So, Into the Fire is what has been hard, messy, or stretching you lately? [00:08:33] Kris: Okay. [00:08:34] Kris: Who goes first? [00:08:35] John: I mean, I think you, it's definitely gotta be you. [00:08:38] John: It can be business. [00:08:39] John: It can be life. [00:08:40] John: It can be anything. [00:08:41] John: It's just like the opposite of highlight rules. [00:08:42] John: Like what has been kind of dirty and messy. [00:08:45] Kris: Yeah. [00:08:45] Kris: I think, um, [00:08:48] Kris: Going from hiring contractors to hiring like in-person employees, it's a very just different interaction. [00:08:57] Kris: And also, you know, we have the screen printing shop and the guy we had moved away a couple of weeks ago and just finding like a good fit to fill that position has been a challenge. [00:09:08] John: You're space limited. [00:09:09] John: You're limited to the location. [00:09:11] Kris: Yeah, yeah, location. [00:09:12] Kris: And so you're trying to find this right talent versus working with contractors, which we often do in software. [00:09:19] Kris: It's like you go on, you either can find them, you see their resume from an Upwork or sort of site, or you know them from other projects they've done. [00:09:27] Kris: And you're just like, cool, you know how to do this thing? [00:09:29] Kris: I'm going to pay you to do it. [00:09:30] John: Yeah. [00:09:31] Kris: When you're hiring in-person people, you're doing a job posting, going through a resume, trying to figure out what's real, what's not. [00:09:38] Kris: And then you have to be talking to people, trying to figure out what's real, what's not, trying to figure out if they're a good fit for the culture. [00:09:43] Kris: And I think that's been just straining the last couple of weeks. [00:09:47] Kris: We're trying to keep the business growing, but also constrained by we don't have full capacity staff. [00:09:53] Kris: Yeah. [00:09:54] Kris: So that's one of the things. [00:09:55] Kris: I might have more. [00:09:56] Kris: So if you go, I might be able to come up with a ton more by the time we're done. [00:09:59] John: Yeah, no, I mean, I actually think that's a really good point. [00:10:02] John: And that's something that, like, I would say both of us probably have not considered before is that, like, anything, because so much of what we do is online, that anything you do that's in person, it is a little bit harder. [00:10:15] John: And not only that, but, like, if you don't like a contractor, you just don't hire them again, you know? [00:10:20] John: But if you don't get along with the person face-to-face, that's uncomfortable. [00:10:24] John: Like, that's not pleasant. [00:10:26] John: Yeah. [00:10:28] John: I mean, I can easily think back, and the worst things in my career, professional, they're always having a negative interaction with a person. [00:10:38] Kris: Yeah. [00:10:39] John: Face-to-face. [00:10:39] John: It's not like an online thing. [00:10:41] Kris: Online, you just delete the email you have on. [00:10:43] Kris: Or you just cancel the contract on that. [00:10:45] John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:10:45] John: You're just like, whatever. [00:10:46] John: I got another one, though, too. [00:10:49] John: Go ahead. [00:10:49] Kris: No, no, no. [00:10:49] Kris: Well, I don't know if you have one. [00:10:52] John: I can go. [00:10:52] John: Yeah. [00:10:53] John: I mean, what's been messy or hard for me? [00:10:55] John: I think the thing that's been hard for me is being patient. [00:10:58] John: I'm not a I would just say generally. [00:11:02] John: I don't know. [00:11:02] John: I don't know if I'm a patient person or not. [00:11:05] John: What I'll say is I don't feel like I'm a patient person. [00:11:07] John: But I think part of that could be like maybe I do have a lot of patients and I don't give myself credit for that because, you know, it's very easy to just subjectively say like, well, am I more or less patient than I used to be or things like that? [00:11:18] John: And I think I've really struggled with, like, A, I mean, like, growing Fireside, growing Flipboard, growing BoxOut, you know, like, all of those things. [00:11:24] John: Like, the projects are going fine. [00:11:26] John: Like, I would say most people who would talk to me who do not have, you know, successful projects would be like, those are going great. [00:11:34] John: What are you whining about? [00:11:35] John: What are you frustrated about? [00:11:36] John: But it's like, I always have this desire to just have it go faster and to get done faster. [00:11:41] John: You know, we've talked about the marketing side. [00:11:43] John: We've talked about transcriptions. [00:11:44] John: We've talked about... [00:11:46] John: All these, there's a ton of things. [00:11:48] John: That's just on that. [00:11:48] John: That's not even on other stuff. [00:11:50] John: And so I think having the patience and like, cause what you end up doing is you create the stress on yourself, like which, you know, stress make diamonds, you know? [00:12:00] Kris: Yeah. [00:12:01] Kris: And ulcers. [00:12:02] John: And ulcers. [00:12:03] John: That's the other thing. [00:12:04] John: So, you know, that's, you want to make things better. [00:12:08] John: Pressure is a good thing, but like too much pressure is not good for you. [00:12:11] John: And I also read a study recently that was basically like, uh, [00:12:15] John: the more like what like longevity in life is basically like uh heavily linked to correlated with stress uh and so like the more stressed you are are all the time like the more literally shortens your life well i've said this i don't know if we've talked about it but it just makes me think of when uh i when some of we've talked with other like starting out entrepreneurs of [00:12:40] Kris: How do you deal with some of the stress? [00:12:41] Kris: And part of it is, and I wish I could find who I heard this from, but we're moving the goalposts of what our resting state is. [00:12:51] Kris: And I'm just like, because even when we say, oh, we're doing this, I can't think of the examples, but whether we're buying Fireside or starting a new thing or even the t-shirt shop or speaker deck or this, [00:13:02] Kris: they're like, Oh, I couldn't even imagine starting my own thing. [00:13:05] Kris: And I'm like, Oh, I can't imagine not, or I can't like it, but none of that scares me to do. [00:13:10] Kris: Um, it's our, our just, we have elevated levels of that intensity that I don't know, like going to, like if we had an eight to five, like, [00:13:19] Kris: We'd probably, I don't know, keel over. [00:13:22] John: But I think that's a good point of, like, that moving the goalposts. [00:13:25] John: I think that's why it goes back to, like, you know, one of our episodes a long time ago about where we talked about celebration. [00:13:29] John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:13:31] John: And, like, in my head, I mean, we talked about it last week. [00:13:33] John: I have, like, six open loops. [00:13:36] John: And it's, like, two on each of the three apps. [00:13:39] John: And actually, there's some open loops on SpeakerDyke, too. [00:13:41] John: And then... Yeah, I sent you one today. [00:13:43] John: That's right. [00:13:44] John: Okay. [00:13:45] John: Ding. [00:13:45] John: Checking my email inbox. [00:13:46] John: Yep. [00:13:47] John: Um... [00:13:48] John: And one of those loops, you know, I've kind of closed. [00:13:51] John: I'm going to talk about it later. [00:13:52] John: Yeah. [00:13:53] John: But getting that kind of closed, it's like, OK. And if I'm like, if I can get those next five closed, you know, in the next week or two, I'm like, I need to stop and then be like, I did some good stuff over the last two months. [00:14:04] John: You know, like I because it's when you have those open loops and they stay open. [00:14:09] John: It's like that almost creates the stress. [00:14:11] John: And then you need to recognize, OK, loop open. [00:14:14] John: Closed it, celebrate, now open some more loops. [00:14:17] John: And I think that's the only difference between myself when I think about stress and maybe somebody else who has one company or one app is just they maybe have fewer open loops or their loops are more related. [00:14:30] John: Mine are very... [00:14:32] John: Yeah. [00:14:32] Kris: Do you ever think about – I have another comment to make, but are there people that you – it doesn't have to be look up to, but look at and be like, oh, they're in a place that I want to get to with my stuff? [00:14:47] Kris: Yeah. [00:14:48] Kris: Because I have thoughts on that of like – [00:14:51] Kris: With even some of the other smaller projects I have, I'm like, oh, they're not doing these tiny projects. [00:14:57] Kris: So how do you get to the next levels? [00:14:59] Kris: They're either having someone else run it or getting rid of it. [00:15:02] Kris: And I feel – I think that's another one of the feeling stuck is I like to do a lot of things. [00:15:08] Kris: I'm a people pleaser, and so I don't like to disappoint people. [00:15:11] Kris: But am I disappointing them by not doing as good a job on their work? [00:15:14] Kris: Because I'm – and I'm not getting – [00:15:17] Kris: compensated to make it worth my time. [00:15:18] Kris: So I'm not spending time on it versus just cutting it and saying, Hey, I want to focus on these ones that have exponential growth. [00:15:25] Kris: Um, because that person who's five years ahead of me who I'm like, Oh, I want to, I want to get there. [00:15:31] Kris: Mm. [00:15:32] Kris: uh they're not doing that tiny little thing because it's taking up way too many hours so the question was is there anyone that you look to like that kind of inspires you that like i would like to get to where they are in terms of how they manage their time and manage their projects yeah [00:15:47] John: You know, I can't come up with a name, but there's definitely a bunch of, like, for me, the easiest way would be, like, well, I listen to, you know, the My First Million podcast. [00:15:54] John: I listen to Money Wise, which is Sam's podcast through Hampton. [00:16:00] John: And I'm like, both of those people come on all the time. [00:16:04] John: Then I'm like, oh, man, they just did it right, you know? [00:16:07] Kris: Go ahead. [00:16:08] Kris: No, I keep it right. [00:16:09] Kris: Yeah, I just think, I think what, and so I'm regurgitating all the things that I get told to me that I read in books and hear on other shows is, like, [00:16:16] Kris: Being able to say no to the more you can say no, I feel like the better, the more you can grow with a lot of these things because I'm a yes person. [00:16:24] Kris: Like, let me figure it out. [00:16:25] John: Yeah. [00:16:26] Kris: And that's not, can't always be the case if you're trying to build an empire. [00:16:29] John: Yeah. [00:16:29] John: Well, and also like going back to talking about time tracking, you know, last year, I'm like, I track my time. [00:16:35] John: And so I'll be like, I'll say yes to something and then I'll track my time. [00:16:39] John: And I'm like, in my head, I was like, this is like less than an hour. [00:16:41] John: Yeah. [00:16:41] John: You know? [00:16:42] John: Yeah. [00:16:42] John: And then it always ends up being like a five or 10 hour thing over a couple of weeks. [00:16:47] John: And like that five or 10 hours could have went into like any of my own things and fortified or made them a whole lot better. [00:16:53] John: But instead, you know, it's like this little side thing. [00:16:56] John: But I don't know if it's just being nerd snide or if it's. [00:16:58] John: Yeah. [00:16:59] John: you know, just being a helpful person or maybe that kind of stuff builds up and it's not measurable, but like over the long haul, it does end up really good because you, because you've done these certain projects and made these certain connections and somehow that it's hard to, it's hard to tell because I was thinking that this morning I was thinking of like two specific instances and was like, well, [00:17:19] Kris: I've been working them a long time. [00:17:21] Kris: I was like, well, if I got rid of them, am I missing out on an opportunity? [00:17:24] Kris: And the answer is no. [00:17:25] Kris: I would say objectively the answer is no. [00:17:28] Kris: But personally, I'm like, oh, well, what if? [00:17:30] Kris: What if something happens for them? [00:17:32] Kris: It hasn't happened in five or six years. [00:17:33] Kris: It's not going to. [00:17:35] Kris: That project doesn't have the ability to. [00:17:37] Kris: But I keep holding on to it, hoping it will, and they're nice people and all that kind of stuff. [00:17:41] Kris: So I think that's, yeah. [00:17:44] Kris: I can see that for sure. [00:17:45] John: I would say, um, not on a personal standpoint, but like on a book standpoint, I've definitely read some interesting books recently. [00:17:50] John: Like, um, I would say, uh, Alex Hormozy's latest one. [00:17:55] Kris: I've not read that yet. [00:17:55] Kris: It's on my, it's on my to do list. [00:17:56] John: Quick and easy. [00:17:57] John: Yeah. [00:17:57] John: We, we've talked about maybe doing an episode on that. [00:17:59] John: It's quick and easy. [00:18:00] John: It's just money, you know, money models. [00:18:02] John: So it's like how different ways to make money in business and stuff like that. [00:18:05] John: I actually, I enjoyed it. [00:18:07] John: Like it's easy read. [00:18:08] John: It has good content. [00:18:09] John: I've highlighted a bunch of stuff. [00:18:11] John: Um, [00:18:12] John: Do I remember any of it right now? [00:18:13] John: No, I'm going to have to go back and look at my notes. [00:18:15] John: But that was one. [00:18:17] John: And then I'm also reading Ready, Fire, Aim right now. [00:18:19] John: And I think both of those have been a little bit inspiring and interesting to like read and think about like, okay, how would I apply this to one of my businesses? [00:18:28] John: You know, like how would this thought of like, you know, [00:18:31] John: How in Ready, Fire, Aim, he breaks down like zero to a million, a million to 10 million, 10 million to 100 plus, you know, and I'm like, well, we're definitely okay. [00:18:39] John: You know, I have companies, two companies, apps in the zero to one, and I've got one in the one to 10. [00:18:44] John: And I'm like, [00:18:45] John: They are very different problems and different things that you go through. [00:18:48] John: So I can see that the book is true, but I've never personally on my own- Done, yeah, yeah. [00:18:54] John: Did the 10 plus or things like that. [00:18:56] John: So yeah, those would be the two that come to mind. [00:18:58] John: What about you? [00:18:59] Kris: Any books or people where- Wait, which question are you asking me? [00:19:03] Kris: The question I asked you a long time ago? [00:19:04] Kris: Yeah. [00:19:07] John: To be exact, what's fueling you right now? [00:19:09] John: What's fueling your fire? [00:19:10] John: What's making you excited? [00:19:12] Kris: What's fueling my fire? [00:19:14] Kris: Uh- [00:19:15] Kris: I would say, you know, there have been some of these in-person interactions of in the last week of people meeting people they didn't know. [00:19:25] Kris: So it's funny. [00:19:26] Kris: So our mutual friend, Matt, we've been the last two days have been meaning to meet at the cocktail bar around four o'clock. [00:19:34] Kris: Now the first day, neither day have we actually had a drink together. [00:19:39] Kris: But he's chatted with other people or I've chatted with other people to make some of the introductions that I feel like we're probably actually more valuable than if we just hung out by ourselves and we're not expanding that circle. [00:19:51] Kris: So I think seeing that stuff and people being like, thank you for what you're doing and doing all this, I think that's super helpful to stay on the right track versus getting too distracted with... [00:20:02] Kris: things that either aren't moving the needle or things that aren't really the business model or aren't on the mission and vision. [00:20:09] Kris: I think that can be hard because there's so many. [00:20:11] Kris: I mean, you can do it with this building project or with Fireside or Speaker Deck of what's the new thing to like the sparkle to like detract for a bit. [00:20:21] Kris: I mean, I sent you a message on should we, you know, summarize Speaker Deck transcriptions for a summary. [00:20:28] Kris: Yeah. [00:20:29] Kris: And because someone mentioned it on Twitter, so like, should we do that? [00:20:31] Kris: You're like, well, what's the value? [00:20:33] Kris: Are the descriptions not that clear? [00:20:35] Kris: And after that, I was like, well, it was one guy. [00:20:38] Kris: Like, is it actually going to be valuable? [00:20:40] Kris: Or is it not really going to move the needle? [00:20:42] Kris: Is it actually going to make us more money? [00:20:43] Kris: Is it going to get us more customers? [00:20:44] Kris: Probably not. [00:20:46] John: And I just ask because I'm like, I don't know. [00:20:47] John: I don't know anymore. [00:20:49] John: Like on that project, I'm not like a thought leader. [00:20:51] John: It's more just like, look, technically, I'm like, that's an easy thing. [00:20:55] John: I can even estimate the cost. [00:20:56] John: I can do all that kind of stuff. [00:20:57] John: But I'm like, [00:20:58] John: from a practical standpoint, it's really hard to say, like, would that be valuable or not? [00:21:01] John: Because it basically assumes that people are not good at writing their own descriptions. [00:21:05] John: Maybe the better feature is, would you like us to write this description for you? [00:21:09] John: Agree. [00:21:10] Kris: Yep, yep, 100%. [00:21:11] Kris: Cool, we'll add that to an issue. [00:21:13] John: Look at that, just pulling it out of the wind. [00:21:15] Kris: Yeah, but other inspiring things, like, I don't know, I feel like... [00:21:20] Kris: It's been a long slog the last, you know, couple of weeks, couple of months. [00:21:24] Kris: And so it's trying to keep finding that. [00:21:26] Kris: I think when I was at your house, I'm trying to think how I phrased it. [00:21:31] Kris: You said like, how are things going? [00:21:32] Kris: I said something like, like something about how many times have I cried today or something. [00:21:36] Kris: Yeah. [00:21:37] John: I do remember that. [00:21:38] Kris: And you guys gave like an awkward chuckle. [00:21:40] John: Well, like, have you actually cried today? [00:21:43] Kris: Because, yeah, that's, yeah. [00:21:47] Kris: So you asked me that. [00:21:48] Kris: Did you answer what's fueling you right now? [00:21:51] John: Yeah. [00:21:51] John: I mean, What's Fueling Me is definitely those books. [00:21:53] John: And then the other thing for me is it's always – I get a lot of fuel and inspiration and I get stoked listening to My First Million. [00:22:00] Kris: And I think – yeah, I would say my goal the next week is to walk more, listen to more either audiobooks or podcasts because I often listen to music when I'm driving and that doesn't do it, right? [00:22:13] Kris: I agree listening to something educational, something entertaining that's not – [00:22:17] John: There's a balance though. [00:22:18] Kris: Yeah. [00:22:18] John: Cause like you, I think I'm going the opposite direction where I'm just like every minute in the car, I'm like sponge soaking in a bunch of stuff. [00:22:27] John: And sometimes that's just exhausting. [00:22:28] John: And I'm like, I literally like yesterday when I drove home, I shut everything off. [00:22:33] John: I turned nothing on. [00:22:34] John: And I was just like, I need to like detox and just like think thoughts in my head. [00:22:38] John: Cause it's so easy to just entertain yourself all the time and get inspired and all that kind of stuff. [00:22:43] John: But like, sometimes you just have to rest. [00:22:46] John: And I definitely am not great at that. [00:22:48] John: And even music, I think music helps with the rest a little bit because it, you know, you just kind of enjoy it. [00:22:54] John: You're in the moment. [00:22:54] John: It's like watching TV or something at night. [00:22:56] Kris: Yeah. [00:22:56] John: It's not like a podcast where you hear one phrase and all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, I'm not doing this in my SaaS product or my whatever life or career. [00:23:04] John: And so like now I'm failing and I need to think about how I'm going to do that thing, you know? [00:23:08] John: So yeah. [00:23:09] Kris: Cool. [00:23:10] Kris: Was it, was there another question? [00:23:11] Kris: I know we had more or we also had some thoughts on the, um, like the progress on some fire size stuff, which, which one direction you want to go. [00:23:20] John: That leads us to our next segment. [00:23:21] John: So, so far we've had into the fire. [00:23:23] Kris: Yep. [00:23:24] John: Good one. [00:23:25] John: What's fueling our fire. [00:23:26] John: Yep. [00:23:27] John: you're seeing a theme seeing a theme and the last one is we've got some embers we just got some what are some small updates some little wins some ideas simmering or experience we haven't shared yet like what's something that's small that's a nice little bite that's cool I can definitely go [00:23:43] John: Go ahead, yeah. [00:23:43] John: So I'm going to go first and ask myself. [00:23:45] John: The thing for me, and this is one of my – I would say it's actually not even a small thing. [00:23:50] John: It's small in that I knew exactly what needed to be done in order to make it work, but it was large in that it just took a lot of time. [00:23:55] John: And that was fireside metrics. [00:23:57] John: So metrics are important for podcasters. [00:23:59] John: A, it makes you feel good. [00:24:00] John: It's vanity. [00:24:01] John: It's things like that. [00:24:02] John: But B, most podcasters who get past the one percenters of us – [00:24:08] John: Uh, you know, we have, you have sponsors and sponsors want to know how many eyes, what's the reach of their thing. [00:24:15] John: And so they need metrics to do that. [00:24:16] John: So metrics are really important. [00:24:18] John: And the more episodes you have, the more downloads you have, the more it is difficult to kind of load those metrics and show them in like a succinct way. [00:24:27] John: And so that's one of the things I've been working on the last, I would say at this point, it's been pretty close to two weeks. [00:24:33] John: Um, [00:24:34] John: is how do I make the metrics load faster on Fireside? [00:24:38] John: So we did a couple things. [00:24:39] John: I'm not going to go deep into the tech and all that kind of stuff. [00:24:41] John: I don't want to bore people. [00:24:42] John: But the biggest thing we did is initially you click the page. [00:24:45] John: We just loaded every graph and every number asynchronously. [00:24:48] John: So when you click metrics, don't try and calculate everything [00:24:53] John: and show a loading, you know, the browser is loading literally thing. [00:24:57] John: Instead, it's like load that page immediately in the, you know, the fireside admin or whatever. [00:25:01] John: And then eventually, you know, fire off requests for all of those little things and then show it. [00:25:06] John: And I'm like that just alone made it feel faster because some of those things, you know, episode durations, number of episodes, some of that kind of stuff would load super fast, but you couldn't see it until all the, it was the slowest thing. [00:25:19] John: So you're basically dealing with the lowest common denominator. [00:25:22] John: So all we do is we kind of change it to say, instead of the lowest common denominator, let's load the shell first and then load everything as fast as we can individually. [00:25:30] John: And it's made a huge difference. [00:25:31] John: So we, for example, you know, some people have, we've had a customer who has, you know, 40 million plus downloads or 800 million plus downloads. [00:25:39] John: Yeah. [00:25:41] John: Loading those was just taking forever. [00:25:42] John: It was effectively not working. [00:25:45] John: And they mentioned it, and we were like, totally see the problem. [00:25:49] John: That stinks. [00:25:50] John: And so we went to town, did stuff that I did for the last 20 years, and we've got it down to the biggest podcast that we have is the slowest loading time for any of the graphs, maybe four, five, six seconds. [00:26:04] Kris: Yeah, that's awesome. [00:26:05] Kris: It's still slow, but that's so much faster compared to... [00:26:08] John: minutes or it's infinitely faster yeah that's awesome yeah and we've had a few people already like oh my gosh what did you do to metrics or a few people that I reached out to who I was like you know had reported that it was a little slow for them and they're like it's insanely fast now so that that was my ember awesome that's awesome yeah I don't know what was the question yeah [00:26:28] John: You know, the Diet Coke is going – I know, I know. [00:26:31] John: You're not on video right now. [00:26:32] John: I'm drinking my coffee. [00:26:33] John: It's morning, and Kris is drinking his Diet Coke. [00:26:36] John: It's going straight to his head already. [00:26:38] John: It's just small updates. [00:26:39] John: Like, what are little wins, little things that have happened? [00:26:41] John: You know, Momentum, Fireside, SpeakerDak, any of the projects that you have going on? [00:26:47] Kris: Yeah. [00:26:50] Kris: Dang, I'm trying to think. [00:26:51] Kris: Like, it goes – you know what this makes me think is – [00:26:57] Kris: Yeah. [00:26:57] Kris: Yeah. [00:27:09] Kris: know each week either the beginning of the week going through hey like what went well what didn't go well the last weeks to make better acknowledgement of it um gratitude yeah because i because i think like that's where i just get lost and like the things happen and then i just keep moving forward to the next thing um i think what was and i forget if we talked about it last week because it was maybe the same day or the day after but we had um the 15 founders who kind of pitched their ideas last week [00:27:35] Kris: And, you know, having that event was super motivating. [00:27:38] Kris: It's like, oh, like there's more people trying to start new projects. [00:27:41] Kris: A lot of different, you know, the span of different ideas. [00:27:44] Kris: We give out a little bit of cash money to help them keep going. [00:27:48] Kris: And then that's helping us plan more events for the next two months. [00:27:52] Kris: And so I think that's like, OK, there's an appetite for people learning more about. [00:27:58] Kris: Whatever it might be, like we just had yesterday hosted a workshop for AI and nonprofits. [00:28:03] Kris: And so there are probably 60 people that I would say, oh, that's over exaggerated. [00:28:07] Kris: And then there are 50 people that showed up, I think 60 registered. [00:28:10] Kris: And, you know, seeing that is like, oh, like we were creating an ecosystem and space for people to learn and. [00:28:17] Kris: Take chance on what they're doing. [00:28:18] Kris: I think that's been super helpful because, yeah, it's just I think that's what's kind of fueling right now is watching other people experience the ecosystem that we're building. [00:28:30] John: Yeah. [00:28:30] John: And I think, you know, and it's working because like I got a text message yesterday from someone and they were like. [00:28:35] John: hey i saw you at momentum but you looked like you were like in a big discussion so like i just you know i just walked out but you know we'll catch up later and i was like oh i was like yeah you should have just came over and they were i was like why were you here and they were like oh i went to this you know ai for non-profits and i was like oh they're like yeah i got a lot of ideas and uh you know now i'm like thinking like how can i apply this and some of that kind of stuff so like i you know we're both i think helpers yeah so that's that's one way that you know to [00:29:01] Kris: And I even think something like that is, so it's, that even can spur more opportunities for learning of saying, okay, let's deep dive onto a specific tool or a specific use case of it and apply it versus it being a little bit more high level educational, like broad. [00:29:20] Kris: And I think that's just been something that's missing a little bit. [00:29:23] Kris: And it's, yeah, seeing people in person, like to come here and do that is just pretty, pretty cool. [00:29:28] John: Awesome. [00:29:30] Kris: That's it. [00:29:31] Kris: That's it? [00:29:32] Kris: That's all I got. [00:30:00] Kris: Yeah. [00:30:01] Kris: Give us a like. [00:30:02] Kris: Give us a comment. [00:30:03] Kris: Give us a subscribe. [00:30:05] Kris: All helps the algorithm. [00:30:07] Kris: And we'll see you next time. [00:30:08] John: Yeah. [00:30:09] John: Adios.