00:00:00.160
thank
00:00:04.759
you hey
00:00:06.720
everyone cool I wanted to say something
00:00:09.800
in Bulgarian but I apologize I'm not
00:00:12.120
that well versed uh so Bulgaria is very
00:00:14.879
close to me and not just geographically
00:00:17.039
but uh also uh close to my heart because
00:00:19.800
me and my family vacation and visit
00:00:22.119
quite a lot so being here is and
00:00:24.400
speaking to you guys it's quite special
00:00:26.599
so thank you the original title of the
00:00:29.800
talk talk was how to build a business on
00:00:33.200
Rails or Ruby on open and open source
00:00:35.960
but there's like no recipe for that so
00:00:38.480
I'll just tell you how I built a
00:00:40.039
business on Ruby and open source my name
00:00:43.200
is Adrien I am a uh self-thought
00:00:45.960
engineer which means I didn't go to
00:00:47.199
Computer Science school I learned it
00:00:48.520
along the way I am product oriented
00:00:50.760
which means that I don't like to do only
00:00:52.719
development but I like to do a little
00:00:54.120
bit of design a little bit of Marketing
00:00:56.199
sales checking what other people do and
00:00:58.519
putting all that work into my product to
00:01:01.239
you know uh get to give people my
00:01:03.879
customers and my users the most value
00:01:05.960
out of it uh I am Adrian the dev
00:01:08.920
everywhere on Twitter GitHub and pretty
00:01:10.720
much everywhere else I AO has been my
00:01:13.920
main business and job for the past three
00:01:15.960
and a half years in my spare time I do a
00:01:19.600
tiny podcast with my friend Yaro in the
00:01:21.680
back you're probably working on the
00:01:24.159
podcast we're not very professional or
00:01:26.479
anything but we have great guests and
00:01:28.159
sometimes we're we're funny um and uh
00:01:31.439
last year I put up my own conference
00:01:34.000
it's called friendly RB it's going to be
00:01:35.840
in September so it's about five 6 months
00:01:38.439
from now so just about right when you
00:01:41.040
know this Balan Ruby social juices run
00:01:43.600
out you can just pop across the border
00:01:45.920
to Bucharest we're very friendly a lot
00:01:47.920
of cool people come we do uh nice
00:01:49.920
friendly activities um we have four
00:01:52.439
announced speakers uh it's going to be
00:01:54.640
Rosa Gutierrez from 37 signals um nabila
00:01:58.079
yup uh from factori
00:02:00.719
Steven markheim the site guy uh and Tom
00:02:05.520
Rossy from buz Sprout and as a special
00:02:08.560
treat for you guys I'm going to announce
00:02:10.319
the next speaker is going to be Nate
00:02:13.040
Hopkins the author of stimulus reflex
00:02:15.480
another turbo libraries yes I'm very
00:02:19.640
excited to to host him and the cfp is
00:02:23.400
open so one of our um goals is to bring
00:02:26.800
like new blood to the to the stage to to
00:02:29.519
to to speak so if you think you have
00:02:31.760
something to teach to your peers
00:02:34.080
definitely cfp if you're very well
00:02:36.200
versed we definitely want to have you as
00:02:37.800
well so please apply for those of you
00:02:40.959
who don't know what Ava is it's this
00:02:43.560
Advanced content management system slash
00:02:46.720
admin panel framework slash internal
00:02:49.319
tool builder for Ruby on Rails so it
00:02:51.680
helps developers build um rails apps and
00:02:55.480
graphical user interfaces very very fast
00:02:57.560
like faster than traditional methods I'm
00:02:59.599
going to to speak a little bit about the
00:03:01.720
story of AO because it makes sense in
00:03:03.360
the grand scheme of things and then
00:03:04.920
we're going to talk a about a few tips
00:03:07.080
and tricks and see what I we did right
00:03:11.040
or wrong along the
00:03:12.640
way so one question I get a lot is how
00:03:15.840
did I get to build AO and for those
00:03:18.400
speaking English speaking people out
00:03:20.400
there it's pronounced AO but from
00:03:22.000
avocado not AO um it was called project
00:03:25.120
avocado in the beginning but I couldn't
00:03:26.480
find any usernames or domain names so I
00:03:28.200
just I just use AO so it's uh how did it
00:03:31.640
start it's not a novel idea uh I come
00:03:34.439
from PHP and laravel since back in the
00:03:36.519
day and I used for one Contracting gig I
00:03:39.799
used something called laravel Nova which
00:03:41.879
is an admin panel framework for laravel
00:03:45.239
and we were able to deploy our internal
00:03:47.799
tools so freaking fast that I was able
00:03:50.400
to focus on the more important and
00:03:52.680
unique aspects of the business instead
00:03:54.239
of you know working on those and I
00:03:56.640
thought to myself like hey if we had
00:03:58.720
something like that polished inside
00:04:00.720
rails because rails already helps you
00:04:03.120
build apps super fast like this would
00:04:04.920
make it like the best framework out
00:04:06.760
there um so I got I got to do some
00:04:11.599
research and I saw there were a couple
00:04:13.079
of Alternatives out there there's like
00:04:14.840
active admin rails admin administrate
00:04:17.160
Trestle and others but each of the of
00:04:20.400
them um had their
00:04:22.440
disadvantages now this is a disclaimer
00:04:24.840
me talking about those disadvantages is
00:04:26.840
not bashing them they were here before
00:04:29.360
AO before Nova they you know they set
00:04:31.800
the the the the groundwork and I I am
00:04:35.000
grateful for that but they were built
00:04:36.680
May probably with different context
00:04:38.199
different Technologies and probably
00:04:39.479
different goals in mind but going back
00:04:41.680
to the Alternatives some of them felt a
00:04:44.320
little bit unmaintained unpolished and
00:04:46.880
the developer experience was not great
00:04:50.720
so I got
00:04:51.800
started um I didn't aim to build a
00:04:54.120
business frankly I'm a developer I just
00:04:56.120
wanted to see if I could build it uh so
00:04:58.440
I started in the spring of 2020 you
00:05:01.199
probably remember 2020 something like
00:05:04.080
covid or something yeah so I started
00:05:05.880
working I started building it as a side
00:05:07.880
project I work throughout the spring and
00:05:09.479
summer and in August I had a gem file
00:05:12.199
and I started telling people uh about it
00:05:15.240
just look at this conversation but it's
00:05:16.960
super easy to to use just follow the
00:05:19.560
docks I was so
00:05:21.800
naive um I was just I was that guy that
00:05:24.919
built something cool and wondering and
00:05:26.639
wondered like why wouldn't everyone want
00:05:28.520
to use it and the the next two months
00:05:31.600
went from me telling people about my
00:05:34.759
product to me begging people to use my
00:05:38.520
product um most people I was talking to
00:05:42.280
they were saying something like they
00:05:43.880
were telling me like oh nobody's paying
00:05:45.800
for for anything like this this is not
00:05:47.400
going to work or but we have active
00:05:49.280
admin and that's free why would we pay
00:05:51.360
for your tool or plainly oh so this is
00:05:54.400
like PHP my
00:05:56.880
admin I was frustrated
00:06:00.280
like nobody understands my tool like
00:06:02.639
this is not something that you build
00:06:04.600
like a you know a half ass nobody uses
00:06:07.120
ugly admin panel this is a tool where
00:06:09.800
you can you can bring all your team to
00:06:11.599
work productively it should work very
00:06:13.720
well it should look nice it should
00:06:15.599
support Advanced use cases and should be
00:06:17.919
ready to deploy to your consumers from
00:06:20.360
day
00:06:21.240
one and I kept
00:06:23.720
working uh I hung on to every bit of
00:06:27.440
promotion that I could without being
00:06:29.639
spammy or sleazy for example um Planet
00:06:33.880
Ruby did a an advent calendar uh in the
00:06:37.880
month of December so each day they would
00:06:40.000
highlight one gem day 15 was for AO um
00:06:44.280
Jason Charles once said um I don't have
00:06:46.800
anything to talk about on the podcast I
00:06:48.319
told him about that and he gave AO a
00:06:50.039
shout out on the podcast whenever
00:06:52.560
somebody asked something like who's
00:06:54.520
building something cool with Ruby I was
00:06:57.080
there telling them about AO
00:07:01.319
I reached out to like 10 15 podcast
00:07:04.120
producers telling them like come on have
00:07:06.000
me there like I want to tell people
00:07:07.720
about my thing Jason Swift was one of
00:07:10.000
the big big first big Ruby podcast that
00:07:12.840
that had me and I will forever be
00:07:14.520
thankful so this is like my call to
00:07:17.680
action to you like if you are somebody
00:07:20.000
with influence in the community and you
00:07:21.960
see somebody building something cool and
00:07:24.199
being passionate about it help them out
00:07:27.240
give them a shout out tell people about
00:07:29.520
about their product cuz they'll forever
00:07:31.360
thank you for
00:07:33.000
it some time Past end of 2020 dhh uh
00:07:37.160
released Hotwire it was this cool Swanky
00:07:40.520
way of building user interfaces with the
00:07:43.160
uh with rails I was a little bit
00:07:45.479
hesitant of changing my vuejs single
00:07:48.400
page application with the rails back end
00:07:50.840
to this new thing because you know it's
00:07:52.639
just new but uh no worries just a week
00:07:56.360
after it was released somebody on
00:07:58.400
Twitter came on to me onto my chat and
00:08:00.599
told me like I will never use your tool
00:08:02.560
because it's it doesn't use Hotwire
00:08:04.720
Hotwire is the best and you should use
00:08:06.800
Hotwire and um guess what I said to
00:08:09.960
myself I'll show that stranger who
00:08:12.360
didn't pay $99 for my tool that I can do
00:08:15.520
it I can rewrite it
00:08:17.360
all and I did just that um he's
00:08:20.800
somewhere in this photo uh we were
00:08:22.560
grabbing a beer in at rails World 3
00:08:24.960
years later so we're all good we're
00:08:26.599
we're very good friends
00:08:29.680
was probably one of the first
00:08:31.560
mediumsized products that used Hotwire
00:08:34.800
not even 3 months after it was
00:08:37.880
released uh then uh a few couple of
00:08:40.479
months went by we got our first
00:08:43.000
customer and then in the first year I
00:08:45.800
almost abandoned the project uh I was
00:08:48.120
chasing the um VC dream the Venture
00:08:51.560
Capital dream uh that didn't work out
00:08:54.279
for me but during that year people
00:08:57.000
started picking it up started using it
00:08:59.560
paying for it they started requesting
00:09:01.480
features and then I thought to myself
00:09:03.360
like wait a minute if they want it if
00:09:05.920
they use it maybe there's something
00:09:07.279
there maybe it solves a problem so um I
00:09:10.560
started working more on it so end of
00:09:13.040
2021 I made
00:09:16.440
$4,000 thank you no wait a
00:09:19.959
minute so it was just enough to pay like
00:09:22.360
my taxes in my
00:09:24.760
accountant um then uh two years um sorry
00:09:28.800
where was I yeah so then uh I we worked
00:09:32.760
a little bit I worked a little bit more
00:09:34.040
on it uh I released version two with
00:09:36.040
some more features and then subscription
00:09:37.920
model and the next two years set the
00:09:40.360
tone for One release every two weeks and
00:09:42.959
me wanting to bring like a substantial
00:09:45.360
uh Improvement every on on each release
00:09:47.560
and still wanting AO to be a little bit
00:09:50.000
get more traction in the community but
00:09:52.519
these years were a little bit gruesome
00:09:54.760
like I was always wondering am I doing
00:09:57.320
the right thing like I could get a job
00:09:59.440
could make so much money am I wasting my
00:10:02.079
time am I hurting my family in the
00:10:03.880
process it was it was very difficult and
00:10:06.640
they say that the second most important
00:10:08.760
decision in your life is choosing your
00:10:10.959
co-founder because like the most
00:10:12.880
important decision in your life is
00:10:14.240
choosing your partner in life and my
00:10:16.760
wife was very supportive with me and I
00:10:18.440
thank her every day for uh pushing me to
00:10:21.480
keep going that she saw the value she
00:10:22.959
saw the um uh the advancement and um I
00:10:26.440
think her every day so you should get
00:10:27.880
somebody like that in your life as well
00:10:30.680
I spoke with Mike Perham I had a few
00:10:33.079
calls and he said the same thing like
00:10:34.920
just keep going just provide value use
00:10:37.720
your strengths to your advantage and he
00:10:40.240
was talking about me living in Eastern
00:10:42.800
Europe and having a lower cost of living
00:10:45.440
and I would definitely have a longer
00:10:46.880
Runway than anybody else from the states
00:10:48.920
and I did just that I worked on a on a
00:10:51.200
reduced income and for my savings until
00:10:53.639
the product took
00:10:55.079
off I also had a convers a few
00:10:57.360
conversations with Nick um he told me
00:10:59.760
like we'll never sell brother just just
00:11:01.720
do it uh just
00:11:04.600
continue sometimes I wanted to quit I
00:11:07.320
just wanted to give up but then I had a
00:11:09.360
sale and then I had another sale and
00:11:12.079
then I had the best month and then I had
00:11:14.000
another best month when you're in this
00:11:16.680
thing building a product in a business
00:11:20.160
it's not like you know watching a chart
00:11:22.000
growing and you see okay this was the
00:11:23.399
history of the company over time you can
00:11:25.079
do that but it's very difficult to see
00:11:26.639
the growth and the patterns
00:11:29.360
we started getting fans or evangelists
00:11:31.760
people reaching out telling us like oh
00:11:33.440
my God this is an amazing framework this
00:11:34.959
is a it helps us so much bring so much
00:11:37.839
value so that made us continue more this
00:11:41.600
is how I met Paul uh he was working at
00:11:44.560
the at a company that was using gavo and
00:11:47.440
we started speaking in English of course
00:11:49.680
and he told me like hey these are the
00:11:51.320
features that I would like to to like to
00:11:53.560
have or this is how I hacked it or this
00:11:55.560
you could build this or this is this is
00:11:57.040
how we did this and after we became
00:11:59.240
friends a little bit we did some
00:12:00.200
research and I found out that he's from
00:12:01.639
Romania as well who the figure
00:12:04.519
like yeah and uh at some point he told
00:12:07.839
me like he wants to get like a like a
00:12:09.399
second job like he wants to improve like
00:12:11.279
his income and I I couldn't like think
00:12:14.160
about like hiring anybody I was
00:12:15.720
struggling myself but I told him like
00:12:17.600
why don't you come and work for a like I
00:12:19.560
cannot pay like a full-time salary but I
00:12:21.480
could pay maybe a part-time salary or
00:12:23.320
whatever he said yeah okay and but at
00:12:25.800
that time I we my biggest customer was
00:12:27.959
paying me like $500 per month to be on
00:12:30.760
his slack Channel and on his GitHub Rebo
00:12:33.320
and write some Avo code for them and I
00:12:35.320
took most of that money and just gave it
00:12:36.839
to poll and that's the story of the
00:12:38.959
first Ava
00:12:42.079
employee it's it's not a glorious story
00:12:45.199
it sounds like a a struggling story and
00:12:47.880
it kind of is but it's also a story
00:12:50.320
about resilience like I did what I had
00:12:52.199
to do to get my product
00:12:54.600
going end of 2022 we made $24,000 it was
00:12:59.240
kind of like the ramen profitability
00:13:01.399
level that we were looking for it was a
00:13:03.720
salary but it's okay I had my
00:13:05.800
product I had the freedom to do what I
00:13:07.920
wanted in the development uh area we
00:13:10.800
were banging out features and
00:13:12.040
enhancements we still do we were active
00:13:14.560
and we still are still are active on
00:13:16.399
Discord and our GitHub repo to give out
00:13:19.040
support then in 2023 we launched AO 3
00:13:22.279
where we improved the API to support
00:13:23.880
more use cases and that's when Paul
00:13:26.360
became a full-time employee so he took
00:13:28.320
even more genic work off of my hands so
00:13:31.199
I can focus on sales marketing and like
00:13:33.760
thinking a little bit about the future
00:13:36.240
end of 2023 we made
00:13:38.399
$64,000 enough to cover two lousy
00:13:40.680
salaries but again we were thank
00:13:45.639
you thank you but we were making an
00:13:48.880
impact like we were delivering value we
00:13:51.040
were building a business so it it was
00:13:53.440
quite cool um last year I went to on a
00:13:56.920
conference um Tour by attending and
00:13:59.639
speaking other conferences uh this led
00:14:02.000
me to to host my own conference in in
00:14:03.880
Bucharest and the tour was not there
00:14:05.800
just so I can talk about my product but
00:14:08.759
to connect and understand my community
00:14:11.759
because these are the people who are
00:14:12.920
going to you know buy or recommend my
00:14:15.720
product I thank my wife I thank my
00:14:18.120
community but there's one unsung hero
00:14:21.600
here and that's rails AO wouldn't have
00:14:25.560
been uh wouldn't have worked if rails
00:14:28.000
didn't have uh it's conventions that's
00:14:30.800
how AO knows how to talk to the database
00:14:32.560
to the controllers to inject routes to
00:14:35.199
handle all those things through engin so
00:14:37.560
thank you rails for making my our life
00:14:40.880
easier now we are a team of three with
00:14:44.000
Gabriel being the third uh junior Ruby
00:14:46.720
developer that we hire um we have a
00:14:50.959
decent respectable three four figure mrr
00:14:54.320
uh we have about 200 paying customers
00:14:56.399
and a clear path forward we've seen
00:14:59.279
people build Shopify Alternatives uh
00:15:01.839
fintech inventory and security apps uh
00:15:05.079
entire Healthcare C crms on AO and other
00:15:08.839
uh front-facing consumer facing
00:15:10.759
applications the market showed us that
00:15:13.120
rails and Ruby has this ecosystem this
00:15:15.600
maturity to handle something like
00:15:17.880
this so that's the story of AO this is
00:15:20.360
how we we came to be this is how we are
00:15:22.560
here um and in preparation for this talk
00:15:24.959
I asked people like what would you like
00:15:26.440
to know from like our story what would
00:15:28.759
you like to and and people usually say
00:15:31.399
how how do we get started and how do you
00:15:34.360
go uh how do you go go from part-time
00:15:36.839
involvement to full-time involvement
00:15:38.319
when do you do that so let's take it
00:15:40.440
let's try and take it one step at a time
00:15:41.959
and see what maybe you should do and
00:15:45.040
what maybe we did right or wrong so
00:15:47.759
first of all you got to have an idea but
00:15:50.279
instead of thinking about it like having
00:15:51.880
an idea you should identify a problem
00:15:54.519
something that a a segment of user some
00:15:56.680
problem that a segment of users have and
00:15:58.680
I ideally that problem should be painful
00:16:01.880
think about your solution as a a
00:16:04.959
painkiller or a vitamin people would pay
00:16:08.000
anything to get their pains away but
00:16:10.399
they might skimp on the vitamins and
00:16:12.519
it's the same with software the level of
00:16:15.079
involvement that you have in the work
00:16:16.800
might be the same but they might not
00:16:18.600
value it uh the same way go and fight
00:16:22.040
potential customers and talk to them ask
00:16:24.240
them about the problem your friends and
00:16:26.079
family don't count uh this book which I
00:16:28.920
recommend will tell you that you should
00:16:30.800
never speak to your friends and family
00:16:32.040
and Pitch them an idea they'll say oh my
00:16:34.360
God that sounds like a great idea go
00:16:36.199
build it you'll be so rich it's going to
00:16:38.279
be perfect but it's going to be bad
00:16:40.519
feedback because they don't have the
00:16:42.680
problem you got to go find the people
00:16:44.519
with the problem so I have an idea what
00:16:47.639
to do next you should go and build the
00:16:49.680
MVP which should be the simplest thing
00:16:53.360
you could build it could even have like
00:16:55.279
a lot of manual processes uh that mvp
00:16:58.360
should give you the best idea if you
00:17:00.279
should like continue or not with your
00:17:03.319
product you should start very very small
00:17:06.240
no fancy automation no fancy cic CD
00:17:09.240
system no fancy design just put it out
00:17:12.039
there people will tell you your
00:17:13.799
customers will tell you that they need
00:17:15.600
the button or they need this feature or
00:17:17.640
that that other feature um did we do
00:17:21.160
this right not really I just built it
00:17:24.280
hoping they would come um so you know
00:17:27.799
call it intuition I did the hard way and
00:17:29.520
I don't really recommend it so do it the
00:17:31.400
the right way next it's time to go and
00:17:34.600
find users uh my biggest mistake is I
00:17:37.200
just built it and somehow I thought that
00:17:39.400
they will come the customers and they
00:17:41.240
didn't and they probably won't come for
00:17:43.000
you to to your product either so uh if
00:17:46.799
you did research about your problem you
00:17:49.160
kind of should know where the those
00:17:51.320
users are it's going to be difficult to
00:17:52.919
reach them but you kind of should know
00:17:54.280
where they are uh this is a famous tweet
00:17:57.360
from Daniel Vaso like and I think all of
00:17:59.640
us did it as developers we do all of
00:18:01.760
these things like dark mode favicon and
00:18:03.640
everything else which you don't really
00:18:05.400
have to do to launch our product all you
00:18:07.880
have to do is like bring some people to
00:18:09.960
your product and then you'll figure
00:18:12.000
figure it
00:18:13.360
out now that you have some users um you
00:18:17.159
have to listen to them they'll tell you
00:18:18.799
what is missing they'll tell you what is
00:18:21.000
extra um it helps you iterate on your
00:18:25.840
product what's the best indicator that
00:18:28.400
your product is solving a problem money
00:18:31.960
yes I said it the dirty
00:18:34.880
word paying customers is the the only
00:18:38.320
way to truly validate that your product
00:18:40.880
is solving a problem and it's it's
00:18:42.799
solving a painful problem so start
00:18:44.960
charging as soon as
00:18:47.520
possible as soon as you have some
00:18:49.360
traction if your product delivers value
00:18:51.760
increase your prices to reflect that
00:18:53.799
value it's going to be difficult it's
00:18:55.960
going to be like ah I don't want to lose
00:18:58.039
everybody or but it's it's a leap of
00:18:59.840
faith again you're testing what is the
00:19:02.039
value of your product you're testing how
00:19:03.559
much you should work on it or not right
00:19:06.640
uh did we do this right I think we did
00:19:08.760
we started charging from day one and we
00:19:11.159
keep iterating on our pricing so um make
00:19:14.600
a reasonable road map and try to stick
00:19:16.600
with it um I started out you know
00:19:19.880
knowing what AO should be like in two or
00:19:22.200
three years we kind of are there and
00:19:24.320
you'll probably have an idea but how you
00:19:26.320
get there is a little bit different we
00:19:28.799
look at you know the big companies how
00:19:30.640
they set road maps for like six months
00:19:32.320
or six years and we try to do the same
00:19:35.520
you know but you're not them that
00:19:37.600
strategy might not work for you so you
00:19:39.200
know set something and try to follow it
00:19:41.760
and this really helps if you're not very
00:19:43.919
strict about it like if you plan to
00:19:45.440
build Feature A B and C in that order
00:19:47.520
and a customer comes and they need
00:19:48.919
feature C go build that like they need
00:19:51.760
it you'll reach the other features
00:19:54.360
eventually uh serving your customers is
00:19:56.799
the most important thing that you can do
00:19:58.960
and bring them value our friends from
00:20:01.520
user List have this quote um better done
00:20:06.320
than
00:20:07.400
perfect it's very true like when
00:20:09.400
somebody asks me like how do I get
00:20:11.039
started I tell them like if if they're a
00:20:13.080
developer I tell them like do rails new
00:20:15.280
and deploy the first day it's going to
00:20:16.720
be a blank page nothing but you're going
00:20:18.760
to write some code and deploy tomorrow
00:20:20.760
some more code and the next day and the
00:20:22.480
next day and by the time you know it you
00:20:24.600
have something valuable that's out there
00:20:26.960
you can tell people about it you can
00:20:28.400
show show it to them you're going to get
00:20:29.960
feedback very very fast so don't build
00:20:32.960
something in the dark cuz that perfect
00:20:35.400
project that you're building that's
00:20:36.840
probably never going to be launched
00:20:38.679
so um did we do this right we recently
00:20:42.559
set a q1 milestone and we couldn't
00:20:44.559
really deliver because our customers
00:20:46.080
needed something else so I think I think
00:20:48.480
we're doing it okay show up and show you
00:20:51.400
care like um like when we when we get
00:20:54.440
like a GitHub issue or something or like
00:20:56.640
somebody is having a problem like we get
00:20:58.760
there and tell them like okay I see you
00:21:00.320
like maybe we can't work on this this
00:21:02.600
week maybe next week or whatever but we
00:21:04.080
see you like that shows that there's
00:21:05.559
somebody on the other side somebody is
00:21:07.360
listening and acknowledging our problem
00:21:09.880
and that builds uh builds
00:21:12.640
trust again um I found that developers
00:21:16.200
especially they don't like to work with
00:21:17.480
robots so try to show your personality
00:21:19.480
show your face they want to see how you
00:21:21.240
talk about things how you look and how
00:21:23.960
you smile and stuff so uh that
00:21:26.159
definitely helps uh a lot to show Who
00:21:28.240
You Are
00:21:29.919
are I did it the hard way I just quit my
00:21:33.159
job and started working on this um at
00:21:36.120
some point you so you might work on
00:21:37.960
something part-time and at some point it
00:21:40.039
might sustain you full-time and when you
00:21:42.120
go fulltime on this tell
00:21:44.720
everybody your customers your potential
00:21:47.520
customers they want to know that the
00:21:49.080
most important thing you do
00:21:50.919
professionally is this thing that again
00:21:53.799
builds builds more
00:21:55.840
trust uh branding is is important like
00:21:59.559
as as developers like we throw a
00:22:01.159
bootstrap on it on it and we call it
00:22:03.080
designed it's perfect but it's like it's
00:22:06.039
important to have like a proper logo
00:22:07.640
like proper colors to have like a proper
00:22:09.760
way of talking about your product it
00:22:11.400
shows you care it's it's it's that
00:22:13.200
little extra um get so get a designer
00:22:15.880
friend or spend $200 to get a proper
00:22:18.279
logo um and then make stickers once you
00:22:21.360
have stickers by the way I have stickers
00:22:23.000
come come reach me after this when you
00:22:24.919
make stickers it's every everything is
00:22:26.559
more real and you can do other cheat Cod
00:22:28.520
codes like you know if you sponsor uh
00:22:30.559
Ruby social Mastadon then you can add
00:22:33.240
your own Emoji there with your logos so
00:22:35.360
that that's you know um a cool little
00:22:38.279
thing you're going to have to do
00:22:40.320
marketing I know it's scary as
00:22:42.840
developers we find it
00:22:44.520
dirty um but the only way your customers
00:22:47.880
are going to find find out about your
00:22:50.159
product if if it's only if it's it's
00:22:53.039
only if you tell them if you don't speak
00:22:55.320
about your product who will
00:22:58.679
ideally you should create uh this funnel
00:23:01.600
like this and you have customers that
00:23:03.320
are searching for Solutions and then
00:23:04.880
they're analyzing Your solution then
00:23:06.880
they buy your solution whatever and this
00:23:08.440
funnel should be replicable and scalable
00:23:10.960
you should have like a knob somewhere
00:23:12.799
you throw more money in the funnel you
00:23:14.000
get more customers at the other end
00:23:15.720
that's what they tell me did did we do
00:23:17.720
this right no we hate that we don't
00:23:20.240
like it but you're going to have to do
00:23:21.840
it at some point this is this is how you
00:23:24.120
grow when when I see somebody sorry go
00:23:27.520
for it
00:23:29.200
I when I see somebody building something
00:23:32.400
cool online like I get there I I talk to
00:23:35.600
them I say let's get let's jump on a
00:23:36.880
call I want to see how they think what
00:23:38.559
motivates them what what drives them and
00:23:41.159
you should do the same especially if
00:23:43.559
that that's a person that could help you
00:23:45.120
with your product or your business cuz
00:23:48.000
you'll figure out pretty soon like if
00:23:49.960
you just ask they'll tell you they'll
00:23:52.360
tell you everything all the secrets like
00:23:54.120
you just have to ask so go go and talk
00:23:56.080
to people this helps if you you go to
00:23:58.880
events events like this ones like this
00:24:01.000
one bigger smaller meetups um these
00:24:05.440
kinds of events cement that those
00:24:07.360
friendships that you make online and
00:24:09.720
they create this networking effect that
00:24:12.279
uh everybody's talking about it's way
00:24:15.039
easier to buy from Adrien with with
00:24:17.520
which I had like a great time at Balon
00:24:19.279
Ruby right than uh like a random dude in
00:24:22.400
Eastern Europe this this this line
00:24:25.240
worked better when I gave it somewhere
00:24:26.760
else because but
00:24:30.960
sorry yeah so these these new
00:24:33.080
friendships these folks are going to
00:24:34.840
like help you with your product give you
00:24:36.240
feedback keep you saying when you're
00:24:37.679
like super down they're going to you
00:24:39.600
know recommend your they're definitely
00:24:41.320
going to keep your those those social
00:24:42.880
juices up which you definitely
00:24:46.679
need if I didn't speak to Mike Perham to
00:24:49.799
Nick to other people in the community
00:24:51.559
like I wouldn't been here like I would
00:24:53.000
just quit and Say Goodbye so whenever
00:24:55.399
you're you know you find your way and
00:24:58.480
you're good you help you you should help
00:25:00.799
others like talk to them and share from
00:25:02.600
your
00:25:03.600
stories go and speak at meetups at
00:25:06.080
conferences write a blog help people be
00:25:09.440
honest share your successes and your
00:25:12.840
failures that trust you build is going
00:25:15.320
to trickle into your
00:25:18.200
business you're going to have to do a
00:25:20.080
lot of things this is not your you know
00:25:22.039
9 to5 job where you know you close your
00:25:24.640
laptop at 5 and you know you you do your
00:25:27.399
hobbies you're going to have to do do
00:25:28.520
like marketing is hard if you never done
00:25:29.960
it sales is hard if you never done it
00:25:31.679
copyrighting is hard if you never done
00:25:33.120
it but you're going to have to do it but
00:25:35.799
the only way to build something like
00:25:37.399
this is just show up every day so just
00:25:40.880
just do it every
00:25:42.240
day us as developers especially as as
00:25:45.159
Engineers we try to imagine that every
00:25:47.480
decision that you take is like very um
00:25:51.799
rational it's only rational decisions
00:25:54.279
but sometimes you're going to have to
00:25:55.720
listen to your gut so keep that in mind
00:26:00.399
don't try to do what 5-year-old or
00:26:03.399
10-year-old startups are doing right now
00:26:05.440
like how they launch products or how
00:26:06.840
they organize their companies cuz you're
00:26:08.960
not them okay maybe try and check out
00:26:12.279
what they did when they were in your
00:26:16.000
position one of the things that we did
00:26:18.159
wrong was take things personally like
00:26:20.640
sometimes somebody comes on our Discord
00:26:22.279
and rant about our product AA doesn't do
00:26:24.480
this or it's bad like this or whatever
00:26:26.440
and it's crap and we paid money for it
00:26:28.399
we wanted to do this and like I took it
00:26:30.320
so personally like what do you mean you
00:26:32.039
pay so little and you get so much value
00:26:33.720
why how how dare you come here but I I
00:26:36.320
failed like I failed to read through the
00:26:38.200
lines I mean the the maybe the discourse
00:26:40.440
the the the message was maybe a little
00:26:42.320
bit aggressive or not proper but I
00:26:43.960
failed like I should just read through
00:26:45.279
the line say okay yes you're right these
00:26:47.320
are the things that are wrong with my
00:26:48.960
product so we're going to improve those
00:26:51.279
so again don't take things personally
00:26:53.279
try to read between the
00:26:55.440
lines pricing is hard it's very hard
00:26:58.240
hard especially when you're trying to
00:26:59.919
help you know the little guy companies
00:27:02.440
usually you know throw an x amount of
00:27:04.440
dollars per user and per month and maybe
00:27:07.240
an Enterprise plan and call it a day uh
00:27:09.919
but we still haven't found the right
00:27:11.399
pricing and still working on it it's not
00:27:13.640
fair that the company that gets I don't
00:27:15.399
know 50 $100,000 per year of value from
00:27:18.000
your product pay the same thing that a
00:27:19.919
company that makes millions and that
00:27:21.799
distinction is usually difficult to do
00:27:24.320
with just features so you you should
00:27:26.559
iterate on your pricing
00:27:29.919
but seriously if there's one thing you
00:27:32.159
can take out of this talk is that you
00:27:35.640
have the power to build the product that
00:27:38.360
you want and the business that you
00:27:41.200
want but you also have the power to not
00:27:43.640
do
00:27:44.760
it execution is key execution is the
00:27:47.720
best advice that I can give you the
00:27:49.840
opposite of execution is to doubt is to
00:27:53.320
wonder is to delay is to not ship
00:27:58.880
so not executing is the biggest mistake
00:28:01.559
that you can make so please go out there
00:28:05.200
and ship something people want thank you