Early stage validation and the PMF spectrum

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

Links:
For more information about the podcast, check out https://www.smalleffortspod.com/.

Transcript:
00:00.01
Sean
This is a full Andrew podcast with Sean does a support character today Mainly because I was late before this call

Andrew
Uh, I was also kind of late. I was chatting with a friend and it took me a while. Yeah. what's up, man? How are you?

Sean
I'm good. um I'm busy. um Yeah, I'm busy. A lot of things happening with miscreants, Q4, trying to get a lot of things wrapped up before the holidays and and just so much inbound.

Sean
So much inbound.

Andrew
That's great.

Sean
Yeah, it is. It's amazing. You know, partially

Andrew
you see You sound exhausted by it. but

Sean
I'm so tired. Yeah. Well, partially thanks to you for for doing some really good work as well. So I appreciate it.

Andrew
Cool. I'm glad it's been helping.

Sean
Yeah, absolutely. What's up with you? What's going on?

Andrew
So two things I want to talk about today, a small one and then a bigger one that I want to work out some thoughts with, with you and our, our 12 listeners.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
so the small one real quick blue sky is popping off right now. It is wild. I've been, I've had an account for like two weeks now and I'm up to 1200 followers.

Andrew
starter kits are this like magical growth hack, uh, where

Sean
he yeah

Sean
Are starter kits just lists but people can auto follow everyone in the list?

Andrew
Basically, yeah, yeah, a starter kit is basically like a Twitter list.

Sean
okay

Andrew
But so in Blue Sky, you have three concepts that that fulfill part of the responsibility of lists um in Twitter. So you have starter kits, which are a way to curate a list of people that you think others should follow most often around the topic. So like, I'm in a couple of like indie hacker, indie founder, bootstrap founder, starter kits. and you can, when you open a starter kit, you can follow individual people or you can just click follow all.

Andrew
and And so that's how I found people to follow. I'm following like 360 people. It's almost all from like a handful of starter kits. And then and it's a really great mechanism for people to very quickly build a little network.

Andrew
And it's if you get added to a couple of these, it's an awesome growth mechanism.

Sean
Hell

Andrew
So I'm up to 1,200 followers. very, very quickly, which is cool.

Sean
yeah.

Andrew
And we'll see how that correlates to engagement. wasn't seeing much engagement for the first like maybe 400 or 500 followers, but now I feel like I'm starting to see some pretty solid engagement.

Andrew
I think engagement is naturally going to lag behind followers on the platform while people are still building a habit of checking and using Blue Sky, because it's still like A lot of people are switching over right now or like signing up and trying it for the first time, and so they're not going to have that usage habit right away. But I'm now seeing more engagement there than I am on tweets, and I have like 2700 Twitter followers.

Andrew
So there's there's starter kits, then there's lists. they do have lists that work exactly like Twitter lists, which are like a non-algorithmic way to curate a list of people whose content you want to view without following them. And then they have feeds, which are custom algorithms that developers can write and publish.

Andrew
so there's like 50,000 feeds. So there's essentially 50,000 different algorithms you can choose to subscribe to and follow. So there's a default discover algorithm. There's a default like following algorithm, where it's just everyone you follow.

Andrew
then you can subscribe to lots of different feeds and customize your algorithm work the way you want to, which is a really cool idea.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
that is a really cool idea i wonder i wonder if there's like a secret like if your feed is used a lot you know how like you know plug-in like places that like have that you do upload plugins and stuff will pay out a certain amount if you have like a cool

Andrew
Maybe. Yeah. I don't think they've started doing revenue sharing on blue sky yet. and they very openly said they're going to try to stay away from advertising and sell premium features, which is interesting. sort of Also the blue sky team is only 20 people. There are 20 people on the team.

Sean
So you're saying Musk didn't fire enough people when he joined Twitter. That's what you're telling me.

Andrew
I'm saying it's really cool what they're doing. And they're they're being very open and like chatting with and interacting with the community. Overall, the vibes are just, it I think because it's new, like this won't last forever, but because it's new, people are looking for people to follow. They're looking for content to engage with. therere They're just more open and and curious than where people have more set patterns of behavior that they fall into.

Andrew
So the vibes are really good right now.

Sean
Yeah, sure.

Andrew
It's it's been fun to explore the platform.

Sean
I have tried to get into it. I have failed to find a lot of success in it so far, but also because I don't know who to follow slash. I don't know.

Sean
I'm not a very good Twitter user in general either, but I hear.

Andrew
Yeah. I'm a Twitter addict.

Sean
I mean, I hear good things. Twitter is my most used social app media app now that I uninstall TikTok. It was like 10 hours a week on TikTok, and then I figured it was time to time to no longer let that take over my life.

Sean
So it averaged like two hours. Cool. I like the growth hack. Do you feel like it is driving any clicks into MetaMonster?

Andrew
Not yet.

Sean
OK.

Andrew
i I haven't really tried super hard to drive clicks into MetaMonster.

Andrew
But yeah, it's something that I will follow over time. Let's see. I'll pull up our our analytics real quick and just see if we have anything that's come in from Blue Sky. Yeah.

Andrew
It's, I mean, I, in the last 30 days, uh, we've gotten 10 visitors from Twitter and six from blue sky and six from LinkedIn.

Andrew
So, I mean, that all says I'm not doing much on social to try to drive people to, to the site, but it means that it's already good enough.

Sean
Yeah, sick.

Sean
Are you sure?

Sean
Sweet.

Andrew
So, yeah, it's interesting.

Sean
Sweet.

Andrew
It'll be interesting to follow up.

Sean
Cool.

Andrew
I'm still switching back and forth between the two, but I just, I'm enjoying being on Blue Sky a lot more than I'm enjoying being on Twitter right now.

Sean
Nice. I gotta be honest, i I follow eight people on here, so, one of them being you, who doesn't follow me back, just saying, you know?

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
you know shout out Shout out to John Tucknarian.

Andrew
do you have Do you have any tweets on Blue Sky?

Sean
No, no, I have zero tweets. i don't I don't even know, I don't even know how to tweet.

Andrew
then I mean, why what's my incentive to follow you?

Sean
um even qui for proco I don't Maybe I'll tweet really cool things. You don't know. Maybe I'll be a blue sky influence. It feels like because because I'm not following like anyone.

Sean
I'm following eight people who like don't even tweet besides like you. My whole algo feels like threads and like a lot of other just like reposted like Reddit posts and everything like that.

Andrew
yeah Yeah.

Sean
But I haven't had any chance to dig into it. I feel like cross posting to both is also a painful experience right now.

Andrew
There's several of the like cross posting tools are are adding blue sky support right now. like typefully is rolling there's out in the next few days and like, i've I've seen a bunch of chatter.

Sean
nice

Andrew
One of the funny things about blue sky is that like, one of the most common topics on blue sky is blue sky right now.

Sean
Sure.

Andrew
It's like there's a lot of people talking about like, this is cool.

Sean
Makes sense.

Andrew
And like, you know, like, oh, this feature or hey,

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
We should add support to Typefully for Blue Sky. And like there's a lot of meta conversation happening right now. Yet I am not using the Discover feed very much at all.

Sean
Makes sense.

Andrew
I'm mostly using my following. and I'm following like 360 people, mostly bootstrapped founders, which is like the content I mostly want to see on Twitter. so yeah, it's been pretty fun and I've been, I found myself like replying to people on blue sky a lot more than I do on Twitter.

Sean
Nice.

Andrew
And so I'm like having more like conversations kind of.

Sean
I mean, you know, I think the birth of any social media app is like a great time to like, I think nine early adopters of all like social media apps, that hit this sort of like, I don't know, I don't want to call it critical mass.

Sean
I don't feel like blue skies hit that yet, but that's, that's, that feels like it's approaching it.

Andrew
No, they haven't for sure.

Sean
Like, i Oh, I feel like nine times out of 10, it's always a good idea. Right. Like, vi like from vine to take talk to any sort of thing, just being early.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
yeah.

Andrew
Yeah, I mean, I think in general, like. I find that marketing channels just get saturated. And so like part of being a good marketer is to constantly be experimenting with new channels and like playing a game of arbitrage where you're trying to find the under-saturated channels and like leverage those for as long as you can.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
At the same time, social in particular can be such a distraction. like We just talked about like You know, I've sent six people in 30 days to the meta monster website from blue sky.

Andrew
So like it's not.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
Delivering a ton of value yet other than like building relationships with people.

Sean
hmm you never know i always i always think back to like stories about like tim ferris and noah kagan and like the south by southwest days where they all knew each other from like blogging circles and then other groups all knew each other from twitter circles i've always like long before the the return to those days so this feels like a possible opportunity to i'll check i'll check it out i'll like try to put more effort into it i have

Andrew
So.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Andrew
Yeah, it's also kind of cool because like it because it is newer.

Sean
Mhm.

Andrew
It puts you on an equal playing field to people who have massive audiences on Twitter.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew
Like Jason Cohen followed me on Blue Sky.

Sean
Sick.

Andrew
And, ah you know, he has twenty six hundred followers on Blue Sky right now and I have twelve hundred.

Sean
Amateur.

Andrew
So like we're we're like, you know, it's wild to be on semi equal footing audience wise to Jason Cohen in a place.

Sean
Small potatoes.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And then like, you know, other people, you know, people, again, they're trying to find who to follow.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
There's not a ton of content there yet. And so if you're just like a little bit active, there are people like looking for like, oh, cool, people being active. Let me engage with this.

Andrew
Yeah, it's cool.

Sean
Yeah. Okay.

Andrew
It's fun.

Sean
yeah, I'll check it out. yeah, I do feel like I've been having like an identity crisis around it because of like my network insecurity and then the like.

Andrew
Yeah, i don't I feel like security is more on Mastodon than Blue Sky. like I don't feel like I've seen a and like a movement in security to Blue Sky yet.

Sean
Okay. That makes me feel better.

Andrew
It feels like it's been more the bootstrapper indie community that has that has been rallying around it recently.

Sean
I feel like I've seen a couple of people move but I haven't seen them be very active on it for what it's worth. Okay that makes me i mean that makes me feel better just because I don't know I have this like weird identity crisis with my personal Twitter because it's like like i don't know tweeting about any hacking things is weird because it's all like security people and then maybe it's just the ego thinking people care about what I have to say anyway.

Sean
What else is going on with you? What else? What else is up?

Andrew
So, okay. So I want to, I want to noodle through this thing that I've been thinking about. So I want to talk about a couple of things we've been doing at MetaMonster and, and just like think out loud about early stage product validation and pre-selling.

Sean
Yep.

Andrew
so So we have a waiting list that we've been building primarily from running Google ads. We've spent $1,300 more or less, maybe $1,500, something like that. And we have about 150 subscribers on our quote unquote waiting list. And then we have a separate list of 10 or 15 people who we've had user done user interviews with who have expressed interest in trying the product when it's ready and varying levels of interest. And and of those 10 or 15, there's maybe a group of kind of five that I would consider founding users who have given us the most commitment. they They have been quoted a price and they have said they would like to try the product and if they like it, they would be happy to pay that price.

Andrew
a little bit of like forward projection stuff, but like you I did mom tests kind of stuff with them first and then and then sold them or pitched them or whatever. And a couple weeks ago, I i reached out to yeah that 10 or 15 group and asked for feedback on our first round of wireframes.

Andrew
and only four or so people gave me any feedback. and so that was a little discouraging. And so I was like, okay.

Andrew
you know not gonna necessarily be able to rely on this founding user group as much as I thought to give us feedback and like test things. So let me let me go try to get some more founding users, like kind of move some people from the waiting list to this like this smaller subgroup of people.

Andrew
And so I did that. I sent out an email on Monday, pitching founding users to people. I used some of your advice. you know I tried to make it a compelling offer. I offered it a backlink from my personal site, which has a relatively high domain rating. I offered... yeah Tried to give it a name, founding users, make it sound cool, you know sort of sell it a little bit. And I had one person reply to me out of 150. The email got like a 40% open rate, something like that. And I had one person reply and say, hey, ah I'd be interested.

Andrew
And. So I was like, huh, okay, shit. And it it just has me questioning, you know like I felt like we were really doing validation, quote unquote, the right way this time. like We were talking to users, we were doing some cold email, we were you know collecting emails, we were doing things the right way. And and now I'm questioning, like is this validation as validating as I thought it was? like Are people,

Andrew
how many of the you know how much of this $1,500 that I've spent on advertising is wasted. How much of this you know how many of these founding users are actually going to use the product and how many of how many of the how many of like these waiting list users are are actually going to try and I never thought 150 people were going to actually like adopt the product once it was ready. But you know, I was hoping maybe 20 30% or something would at least try it out. And maybe they will like, you know,

Andrew
There's a big difference between an ask to review mockups and an ask to like try a new tool, especially when the ask to like review mockups involves a call with me, which is like you know people don't always like talking to humans. So I ran this by...

Andrew
you know, some friends and like one friend was like, yeah, I've tried everything. Like I once got people to prepay $200 and I got 10 people to prepay $200 and only two of those ended up actually using the tool. He was like, there's just no substitute for actually using the tool to make sure that that you have uh, have something valuable. And, you know, another friend, um, me a blog post that he had written all about pre-sales. And like, one of the things that stresses is that pre-sales help you to like, get some validation, some proof, but they are not the same as sales. Like there are reasons someone might not pre-buy when they would buy. And there are reasons someone might pre-buy and not buy, like it goes both ways. Like someone might.

Andrew
sign up for a presale and never use your product. And someone might never sign up for a presale, but but use your product. And so it's just got me thinking about validation. Like I feel like we often think of validation in this sort of ideal best case scenario where validation is almost like a checkbox. It's like, yes, I have validated this. This product is going to work. People are going to pay for this. And I just think that that's not right.

Andrew
that validation is not a checkbox, it's not a binary. Really what validation is about, what all of like product is about is he's like figuring out where you are on the product market fit spectrum. like Rob Walling has started to talk about product market fit not as a binary as well, like as a as a spectrum. You can have strong product market fit, you can have weak product market fit, you can have no product market fit.

Andrew
and And validation, I think, is really about trying to figure out where you may end up on the product market fit spectrum. but it's not pre-product, you're never going to be able to find like where you are, like a point on the spectrum. you're You're more like, it's like one of those maps and video games that you explore and the more that you explore, the more the shadows recede and you get to view a little bit more of the map.

Andrew
Like that's kind of what you're doing when you're in this validation stage. You're like, you're uncovering the map and you're figuring out like within a range where on the product market fit spectrum you might be. And the more rigorous your validation efforts, maybe the tighter that range ends up. So you get a better idea of where you might be. But the only way to really get clarity is to, to build a tool, ask people to pay you money for it, and then observe people using it on a regular basis, like getting value out of it, using it. That's the only thing that actually gives you concrete evidence of where you are in the product market fit spectrum. Everything else is like kind of a guess. And all of these validation efforts, all of these discovery efforts, these techniques that product managers and founders learn about,

Andrew
user research, landing page tests, prototypes, you know Wizard of Oz tests, press release stuff, pitching, presales, like all of these things are just techniques that help de-risk and help like give you a better sense of where you might be on the product market fit spectrum, but you don't actually know where you are until until you have a product. And then once you have a product, you can move up the spectrum by doing the hard work of positioning and building new features and like making your product better, like improving your positioning. That's like how you move up the spectrum. And you're constantly doing more discovery, you know talking to users, looking at analytics and stuff to to make sure you you have a good sense of where you are. But yeah, I feel like I'm

Andrew
I mean that like the the like idiot midwit genius meme, where like the idiot is like just build something and put it out there, just build something and ask people to use it. And then the midwit is like, is like, you know, do user research, do all of these things, test, test, test. And then the genius is like, just build stuff and ask people to use it.

Andrew
And it's like i I do still think user research is really valuable. like We've learned a lot from it, but this is just a good wake-up call that like validation is is just de-risking. It's just guessing. It's imperfect. And like the only thing that's going to really prove that someone will get value from MetaMonster is to build MetaMonster and ask people to pay for it and use it.

Sean
Do you feel like, okay, first of all, just take a step back really quickly. I think a 1% response rate to be a founder, or like to be a founding user and of 150 people where 40% of them open it, which means less than less than 40% because open rates are scuffed already.

Sean
is actually pretty good just saying yeah i actually think that's pretty good i actually think you're talking like um be for for a lot of reasons and and we can come back to it uh

Andrew
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.

Sean
Well, the the thing in my head is like I think it has to do with how you're sourcing the users. So I actually think that 1% out of the way you're sourcing it is actually pretty good.

Sean
And I actually need to pull in the sun more.

Andrew
Okay.

Sean
like I told you, but to tell everyone here, like I joined the advise community. That's like Jackie Cho's thing. you know I think whatever they're doing in SEO goblin land is really interesting.

Sean
And I kind of joined it. I'm pretty sure if I just I'll do this but like if I just hit drop it into their sass channel assuming assuming I'm allowed to do that like and say like hey my friends doing this thing like like asking literally asking for a friend here's this tool what do you guys think is it useful or and is like is it useful or is it stupid long as you're okay with me dropping it in like I'm sure plenty of people who just

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Andrew
Yeah, please.

Sean
either rag on it, or give good feedback or whatever. But like, that's way more people. And it would drive way more clicks to it. I mean, I don't think the advice community is huge for what it's worth.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
But I think it has to do with like, and like, their passion communities, right? I think SEO itself else as well, the same thing of like new tropics, like there are these like heavy passion communities.

Andrew
yeah

Sean
And like, I do think you have to go to where the users and where the passion community is, because of those are the most engaged people, like even, even if you're selling to like, you know, 40 year old Asian moms, I go to Costco, like they're everywhere in the world, and you can reach them their Google ads.

Sean
But there's probably a Facebook Like, or were we check group rather that a lot of them are in and they'll definitely respond in there. So.

Andrew
That's cool.

Sean
I.

Andrew
That's a good reminder to think about like, to always think about where people are coming from and like put yourself in your user's shoes. And, and yet that like in this early stage, you need to seek out early adopters, really adopter types.

Sean
Yeah, and and we had a we had an episode a long time ago where this has been in my mind a lot about how how would you speed run a niche and like

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
I don't know if you're speedrunning the niche, my friend. like i think I think where I got to in thinking about how I would speedrun a niche is I would become a very active member of that community.

Andrew
Maybe not. Yeah.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
Whether I was like a new minute and asking people and looking for mentors slash friends that bring me along and and finding like power like super connectors in that community.

Sean
so pre to the right people, or or, you know, I would join it and try to add value in some other sort of way. Like, you know, I think you just kind of like, let me see this.

Sean
Have you have you posted on Reddit yet, like any of these smaller R slides?

Andrew
Interesting.

Andrew
No, I haven't. I've been like.

Sean
Yeah, see you haven't validated it.

Andrew
Yeah, I've been like scared one because like, you know, Reddit can be so harsh if you're like overly promotional. And so like there's that fear, but I think there's also like fear.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Because I don't view myself like I don't view myself as an SEO expert or, or anything like I'm kind of an SEO enthusiast or like, like, uh, just a little bit of an SEO nerd, but not, I don't really know that much about it.

Sean
Sure.

Andrew
And so I'm just like.

Sean
yeah you also rank like front page of google for like some pretty every time i look up can i like buy a newsletter it's your name on my google page so you're doing something right just saying

Andrew
Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I i think I need to like find my voice and also like overcome some imposter syndrome. like I think my voice in the SEO community has got to be like, hey, I'm just like an SEO enthusiast who's trying to learn and being open about what I know and what I don't know. like I think that's the only way I'm going to feel authentic enough to feel like I can i can contribute to the community.

Andrew
And then I think to I need to like probably overcome some imposter syndrome and start trying to be more active. like It just occurred to me, like as I was setting up my Blue Sky profile, that I should put SEO in my profile, be like, I'm interested in SEO.

Andrew
And it felt weird to put that, because I was like, have I earned that yet?

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
like Do I get to be interested in SEO?

Sean
Yeah, yeah.

Andrew
And it's like, fuck yeah, anyone can be interested in anything.

Sean
Yeah, that's how I feel about, that's that's also how I feel about the Indie Hacker community as well and all that stuff, so I'm with you there.

Andrew
See, I feel more confident like hanging out and talking in the indie hacker community than I do the SEO community. Like I'm still so nervous to like speak up too much in the, in the SEO community, but I'm like happy to like, like I have friends in the indie hacker community.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
So how did you feel like month one in the Indie Hacking community?

Andrew
And so I can like bug them.

Andrew
Yeah. Probably a little, I think I've always felt like an indie hacker a little bit. for a while I felt like.

Sean
Hmm.

Andrew
a little nervous to be in the indie hacker community while I was running an agency because I feel like for a while agencies weren't really respected in the indie hacker community.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Although I think that has changed with like design joy and stuff.

Sean
No.

Andrew
It's changed a little bit.

Sean
Lies. You all still are not. You're not respected. If you're listening to this, you're not. I'm sorry.

Andrew
Yeah, it's changed a little bit, but it's still like ah building chart juice was the first time I felt like I got to really say I was an indie hacker again.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
Hmm. Yeah, I feel that. I feel that. I still feel very awkward about, and you know, trying to, join I think that's my problem with Blue Sky as well, is like, it feels very awkward to join in on it.

Sean
Yeah. I think, I don't, I don't, I mean, here's, here's like a different like frame for your thing. Like, like you are someone who, like you're, you are new to like the SEO community, but you,

Sean
are you know you're building a tool for a problem that you've dealt with. like You're new to SEO. It's hard and annoying to deal with. And every time you've thought about running a content site or whatever, like this problem has come up.

Sean
So you're solv trying to solve it with an indie hacker sort of frame. I don't think that's bad. ah ah that can just You can just be the random indie hacker guy in the SEO community.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
nothing think but

Andrew
The other thing I need to like, I want to figure out how to leverage is I do have, I'm very confident in my like agency ops knowledge.

Sean
Mm hmm.

Andrew
and so I want to try to think about how to leverage that for like, you know, cause so much of the SEO community is built of agencies and freelancers.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And like, those are my people. I can talk to those people all day long.

Sean
Yeah, that might be ah ah another interesting, like different way to niche down as well, instead of like the, you know, black at SEO rank and rent, like local SEO agency stuff, so.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Andrew
Yeah, cool.

Sean
know

Andrew
OK, heard. I need to I need to get over my fears and start trying to be a little bit more vocal in and like just look, think about like, how do I build a network in this community? And like, yeah, how do I how do I speed run?

Andrew
Getting up to speed in this community.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Cool, heard, heard, heard.

Sean
Sorry.

Andrew
Do you hear me bang my elbow on the desk?

Sean
Yeah, yeah, but I meant like, I think I think so.

Sean
the other thing i wanted to ask you about is you know you were looking at rob allen you were reading rob allen's book do you feel like do you feel like the stuff in his book is like the midwit stuff then like my my hypothesis is that you have the midwit meme wrong is is why i don't think the answer is yeah yeah yeah i don't

Andrew
No.

Andrew
Cool.

Andrew
And i don't i'm I'm oversimplifying. I don't actually think I do either. like I think the the reality is that experienced product people, experienced founders who've who've run through this before know that there's a ton of value you get from user research and know that having an email list is better than not having an email list, but keep in perspective that Those things can only tell you so much that there is a limit to how much you can gain before you have a product.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I think that's, that's the reality, right? Like, like I would not. I would absolutely not recommend to anyone that they don't do user research and they just build build the thing. Because I learned so much, like we wouldn't be building MetaMonster, we'd be building LinkFerret if we where had just started building. Because when I first started this, I wanted to build an internal linking tool. And then I started talking to people and hearing from a bunch of people that like metadata is a problem and it's an easier problem to solve than then internal linking. And people are already using chat GPT to generate metadata, but they're not necessarily using chat GPT to generate internal links. And so I was like, okay, mom test, boom, this feels like where we need to start. And I learned about like how to talk about it and like, you know,

Andrew
Yeah, I learned about how to talk about it from doing some SEO research, I figured out what people are searching for and where there's volume. And so like, yeah, I think that everything we've done to this point has been valuable and helpful. You know, has Will the 150 waiting list subscribers we've got be worth $1,500? I don't know, but you know it's been a ah ah way to test some different messaging and and just like yeah I'd rather have some so email list subscribers then than absolutely none.

Andrew
So, yeah, I don't actually, you know, that was kind of a harsh oversimplification. And I think like Rob Walling in his course, you know, he doesn't ever say that like this, that if you do this stuff, it will like validate an idea.

Andrew
And when he talks about invalidating an idea, he doesn't talk about there being any concrete way to invalidate an idea. It's just like, here are the red flags to look out for. And then here are the like green or yellow flags to look out for.

Sean
Okay.

Andrew
And so it's like, but I think as consumers of the content, we so often want there to be ah ah like a concrete answer. And so it's easy to to sort of fall into thinking like, oh, if I do things this way, then I will for sure have this figured out. And it's just a good reminder that like building a new product and bringing it into the world is like a long, hard, painful process and that everything is a spectrum. It's not binary. And I think that's the really important thing that I'm getting out of this and that.

Andrew
I want to like talk about in a blog post soon is like is really thinking about validation, not as like a checkbox, but a spectrum. and like

Sean
Yeah. Do you think you, I do think that when I think about a community or a market that I'm not super familiar with, I definitely feel like I get into the mind space of like wanting to de-risk and validate, like, cause I don't have the short, like the feeling of a short thing. So then I feel like I'm looking to, yeah, I do think, by the way, for what it's worth, like, I do think you are kind of doing the validation stuff on hard mode, not having,

Sean
a product like I know that you you have the like you know the like MVP is an MVP like MVP is being part of the I feel like MVP is a part of the validation process right in my crazy yeah yeah I feel like

Andrew
Yeah, it is. yeah it it is It's it's the the next stage of the the validation process.

Andrew
Yeah. And I think it is a lot harder before you have the MVP, which is the other thing that I'm just like, I don't know. I had, I think we had some good momentum early on and like people were responding so well that I also like sort of got into my head, like, I'm going to have a list of like 50 people who are like chomping at the bit to use this thing. And, and yeah, the reality is people have lives and like, this is not the most important thing to them. And like, they can be excited about the tool and like also be like,

Andrew
This is yeah, I've got a million other things to focus on. I'm not going to give you more time right now.

Sean
Yeah, mean, that's why that's why I think that one person responding is actually pretty good, just because giving you feedback, like being a founding user, like it's a lot of work.

Sean
Like actually giving you, actually giving a random stranger on the internet that I have no relationship with, like feedback on a product is like, unless I get use out of it and I want to drive the roadmap because I see like a piece, like something valuable here, like I'm not responding to things.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
I've signed, to be honest, I've signed up for people like beta things and they're like, yeah, you have to commit to, um, um, like a good, a good example of this is like one guy who was doing like a competitor ad tracking platform, which is like useful to us for our clients. And he's like, I can give you this stuff for free, but, and you can be a fan of user, but like you have to, like you have to respond.

Sean
Every week or I will kick you out of the thing. I was like, okay cool And in my brain, I was like at least I will do it one time for one week I did not did not follow through on it at all. You got way too busy And like yeah, I don't I mean, I don't know how many people responded to him but like, you know

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
I made it, I definitely made it sound like I was super interested and and was willing to give feedback and already tried to provide value on the first call.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
I just, I don't know, life comes up. It's also the holidays. Like I'm not, I'm not doing that shit.

Andrew
Yeah, this is all all great stuff.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I think to what I also want to accomplish and like as I think about but like I want to write a blog post about this experience and I've i've been trying to to tweet about it and I'm talking to you about it.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And I think the other thing too is that I just want.

Andrew
Like in addition to talking about validation techniques, which happens a lot, I want there to be discussion about the realities of like the possible outcomes of those techniques.

Andrew
Like, you know, people say like, Oh, I got 50 people to, to say yes before I, before I built it. It's like, okay, how many of those 50 people actually ended up using it?

Andrew
Was it all 50? Like I feel like that, and and maybe, maybe it probably doesn't get talked about because it's just like,

Sean
Yeah, probably.

Andrew
If you get too into the weeds, you lose people. like it just The narrative disappears. and like you But i think I think it would be good for us as a community to like talk about the realities of what it looks like to pre-sell and validate a product. And then like and I think too, you know i I've never had a successful product. and And so I think that like that's part of what I'm struggling with. is just like you know, when to I didn't like, what is success really look like? um You know, how positive do the signals need to be for it to be a likely success? And yeah, so I'm just, it's this messy middle, the messy gray area I'm just working my way through and just want to keep being public about and talking about

Sean
oh yeah Yeah, I think think what you're talking about reminds me of how Nobody really talks about sass churn, you know?

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
Like, nobody actually talks, like, everyone's like, oh, I got this MRR and stuff, but nobody really tells you, like, this is my churn rate.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
yeah

Sean
The only time I see churn rate brought up is when people don't let people cancel, and they're like, oh yeah, your MRR is gassed up because your MRR is way, like, way higher because you're just literally not letting people cancel and charging them and stealing their money.

Andrew
That would be funny to like post, be like try to start a trend of like, Hey, instead of um MRR screenshots, let's all post churn screenshots.

Andrew
Yeah, that would be fascinating to see everyone's turn. I guess the open startups, a lot of the open startups, like if they were sharing their better metrics page back in the day, they had churn on there too, I think. But, but yeah, everyone focuses on the MRR cause that's the fun number.

Sean
Yeah, yeah it is the it is the number that gets you, gets you clicks.

Andrew
Yeah, for what it's worth, I'm really worried about churn because I think that like for a lot of users, MetaMonster is going to really be most useful in like a one-off sort of scenario. And I think at some point we might have to accept one-off payments where you can like sign up for MetaMonster and you can like buy some credits and just like use those credits instead of paying for like a monthly subscription.

Andrew
And I have to keep reminding myself that like that's why we're focusing on freelancers and agencies, because those are the people who are most likely to get repeat value early on, yeah value month after month, early on. And like yeah for the so like the indie creators like me, it's probably going to be harder to deliver enough value month after month for them to pay even 20 or 30 bucks a month.

Sean
Yeah, I think.

Sean
I think it is worth the worry, I think. When I look at.

Andrew
I'm not overly stressed about it. We're still going to start with subscriptions and then like introduce like credit only, a credit only model.

Sean
Sure.

Sean
Right.

Andrew
If our turn is a problem and we feel like we need to, but Oh, it's got to.

Sean
yeah Yeah, I mean, I think the thing I'm trying to bring up is like, like, I don't see how photo AI like Peter levels thing doesn't have a crazy amount of churn because what I make, yeah, I make it like hop in for a month, make make my screenshots and then I just dip.

Sean
But they probably, you know, people

Andrew
I think he just has a big enough audience and it's like that and is plugged in enough to like the Twitter algorithm at this point that he just has like enough top of funnel to keep it growing for the time being.

Sean
Maybe, maybe, or people stay subscribed and they they use it for other things, like, yeah, or they experimented with it.

Andrew
Yeah.

Andrew
Maybe.

Sean
Anyway, I guess my point is like, there might be a a subsection of people using MetaMonster to like, you know, I find value out of it.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
I'm going to use it for my next content site. I'm going to use it for my next project. And that is kind of, so.

Andrew
And then I think too, if we can, if people are publishing even a few blog posts a month and we can just like set up MetaMonster to like auto, like auto scan and auto optimize this pages and like especially if we can get beyond page titles and meta descriptions where we have like structured schema and image alt text and yeah a handful of things that we can do, then yeah it's just like, cool, I can just write the content, publish it, and then MetaMonster will handle the rest.

Sean
Cool, sweet.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
I don't know what to work on next, by the way.

Andrew
Yeah?

Sean
umma Yeah, I'm in this really weird stage. I'm looking at this list of, ever since like stopping to do Stackwise and like focusing back on my screens, I keep thinking about ideas, and every time I look at my old ideas, I'm just kind of like, fuck, these all suck.

Andrew
What do you think it would look like if you just like focused on miscreants for like six months or a year with the goal of like really getting yourself to the point where you can like drastically reduce your time?

Sean
Yeah, yeah, I know. What's the smart thing to do?

Andrew
But it's, it's not the fun, exciting thing to do.

Sean
Yeah, it's not the fun exciting thing to do. I do think that like I feed off of like some of the the other energy that helps me, you know, it's like something else that like I feed off having a secret side project.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
It's like good energy.

Andrew
Yeah, whatever happened with fig tree?

Sean
I mean, I built it.

Andrew
Is it live?

Sean
It's a thing. No, no, it's like half a little, it's like a little bit broken or doesn't, it's not perfect. i would Like it.

Andrew
Not perfect, like every MVP ever, or like?

Sean
Yeah, but the core, the core feature of it notifying you, it doesn't work. So it's kind of, it's kind of, there's also like a problem

Andrew
Okay, yeah. Are you are you actively trying to fix it or?

Sean
No, no, I just kind of love it. It was like an itch that I scratch and that I felt soothed because I scratched it and they didn't ever went back to it and they didn't care anymore. But I was also there in the time that I was doing that and like that was driving stuff and the stackwise stuff and the screens and and then I was traveling that it was like, I don't know, it was like meant to always be a free app, so it wasn't meant to like like.

Sean
like I didn't really care to to like it's like copy work right I don't really care to have users or whatever it was just kind of like I wanted it to exist so that was my reason for creating for working on it um yeah I've been thinking more and more about this Neera thing by the way

Andrew
Which thing?

Sean
the like data access governance, like the heat and shaw near a thing.

Andrew
Oh, yeah, yeah

Sean
I feel like that's like the best idea I have at the moment.

Andrew
yeah.

Sean
I feel, but the thing is This is where I get stuck. I am doing them i'm doing very little amounts of validation, but I'm doing some amount of it.

Sean
So I was speaking to a friend who's a lawyer at a law firm, and I was like, how do you what do you guys use? like Is this useful? Because the the gut reaction to data access governance for Google Drive is, oh, people who with sensitive documents would care about it, right?

Andrew
Snore.

Sean
Except lawyers and what?

Andrew
Oh, my gut reaction was you just said a bunch of jargony words that make me want to go to sleep.

Sean
Uh-huh.

Andrew
but

Sean
Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. like like ah Like a tool that lets you manage file access permissions better on Google Drive so that you don't like leak private data and stuff.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
like

Andrew
Yeah. I was always a little bit afraid of that when I was running the agency.

Andrew
I was like, I was like, Oh shit. Like we're sharing this stuff with clients and we don't have a great way of like revoking access and like monitoring.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
it It never felt like, like I don't think it was painful enough for us to solve, to like pay to solve, but i I did always, it was like a little itch in the back of my head.

Sean
Hmm.

Sean
Yeah. um I did come up with another interesting idea, but mainly because we've been trialing Datadog for like synthetic browser testing so that we can test to make sure like things on our website don't go down and other very bespoke features.

Andrew
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sean
they have a thing at the bottom left, which is like, I think it's called co-screen. And it's a product by data dog. And it's basically just like the ability to share your screen with a customer support agent or a different engineer.

Sean
And then, you know, co-screen is ah ah now its own tool with pricing and stuff like that. And it's they call it screen sharing for technical teams. And I feel like this is a really like cute indie hacker project where it's, oh, nice.

Andrew
Yeah. I was working on something like that at one point, yeah, Rami built a like built an MVP of this screen jar was what he called it.

Sean
Oh, nice.

Andrew
And I started doing some validation and reaching out to people. And the the people who seemed to be the most excited about it were like IT teams, like MSPs, basically.

Sean
Makes sense.

Andrew
and But the problem was for them to use it, like it was going to need to be HIPAA compliant, PCI compliant, like SOC 2 compliant, like HIPAA and PCI being the biggest ones.

Sean
Well, makes sense.

Andrew
And so that was the ah ah roadblock that we ran into. And then Ramy ended up selling it to someone and um for like, yeah I don't know exactly how much, but it didn't have, it had like a couple of paid customers, and but it was only ah only a few.

Andrew
And yeah, i think I think there's definitely I think that's a really valid thing. Like I think there's something there and there might be another use case, like another target segment that wouldn't care as much about the compliance and then it would be more valuable. but yeah, it's, it's a cool. Straightforward business.

Sean
I think the people that would care about compliance are part of the ICP, unfortunately, because I think the people with customer support team, actual customer support teams are not like the tiny indie hackers and are.

Andrew
Yeah.

47:14.100
Sean
Yeah, I don't know. um Anyway, feel like every time I think of an idea, I think of like a reasonable reason that it isn't great.

Sean
So then I.

Andrew
Yeah, I feel like I was stuck in that feeling for a while. And I think that is the value of doing some of the like, like 5pm framework kind of stuff or like being a little more structured to like ideating is to get all of your ideas out on paper and start comparing them and looking at which ones are worth investing in, which for some people is just too boring and they're not ever going to do it.

Andrew
They're just they just prefer to like kind of take things as they come. But for us was helpful to like, you're like, Okay, yeah, we want to we want to explore this meta data thing more. And then, you know, I think, again, that is another thing that like validation like user research in particular can do like drop a few hundred bucks on userinterviews dot.com for one of these and you know it takes no time and you can talk to five people and then get a sense of like I feel like talking to people when it goes well does massively build your confidence and going like okay this is this is worth doing let let me let me pursue it or it it tells you like no don't do this but

Sean
True.

Sean
Yeah. There.

Sean
Yeah, but you know you know, the last time I talked to a lot of people about something, I was that was ah ah trying to build arrows before it was a thing, and then, yeah, yeah, and everyone told me that it was stupid, and I should not have listened to, I mean, granted, it was the wrong people to talk to, I should have talked to people who actually did, were in like, you know, SaaS sales roles, and not just like, and and engineers who only buy dev tools, or download free dev tools.

Andrew
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sean
was a a lesson learned. Not that I would have executed even remotely as close to what Eros was doing for the record, but yeah.

Andrew
yeah Yeah, they've done really well. Yeah, I mean, that is one of the challenges of validation of this like early stage stuff is you don't know who your ICP is.

Andrew
And so sometimes you don't know, am I getting nos because the answer is no?

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
Or am I getting nos because I'm talking to the wrong people? like I still kind of had that feeling with chart juice that like there was maybe a segment somewhere that I just couldn't find that would get a lot of value from chart juice and be stoked on it.

Andrew
I just couldn't. I wasn't able to find a segment that really made sense.

Sean
Yeah, I think it's hard to, I don't know. like it's It's one of those things where like I think you keep in your back pocket and then you start talking to some other SaaS founders with, I don't know, one day you meet like some MyFitnessPal-esque clone and you're like, would this have been useful?

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
And and then you'll know. And then you're like, yeah.

Andrew
yeah

Andrew
And I think I still might turn it into like kind of a free tool or like a freemium tool at some point and see if I can get some like SEO juice from it or something.

Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have one more update for you.

50:15.100
Andrew
OK, sick.

Sean
I have made probably almost like a hundred bucks off of selling things Elon Musk fans.

Andrew
That's hilarious. That's so silly.

Sean
That's it. That's it.

Andrew
By the way, if you have if you have like

Sean
havingt so

Andrew
relative if you're not concerned about copyright infringement and like takedowns and stuff. think an underserved market on Amazon is college logos like like i I was trying to look for some swag.

Sean
Hmm. Hmm.

Andrew
I'm taking Maddie to her first South Carolina game and I was trying to look for like some decent sweatshirts and t-shirts and hats and stuff on on Amazon. And there's stuff on there. It just like mostly is ugly and kind of sucks. that's probably because it's technically illegal to to use like the the official logos and stuff without a licensing agreement.

Andrew
But if you're if you're the kind of content goblin who is happy to do drop printed shirts and you and yeah infringe on trademark until until you get a cease and desist,

Sean
Let's find out.

Sean
It's the Gamecocks, right? All right. Hold on, let me just load.

Sean
my My philosophy around this is no blatant blatant copy pasting something that exists already, except for Elon Musk's thing, because because I thought it was really funny.

Andrew
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andrew
Because fucky Limelusk. Who cares?

Sean
Yeah, I also thought it was just really funny if he like tweeted something and I was like, oh, and I just cop like saved it, but put put it on a T-shirt and put it on mine.

Andrew
Mm-hmm.

Sean
And then like within the next day, three orders came in. I was like, this is really stupid. But if I it's southow South Carolina, South Carolina Gamecocks, right?

Andrew
Yeah, the other thing is if you if you do like an actual original piece of art that's like like South Carolina doesn't own and like drawings of Gamecocks or the word South Carolina or even Carolina or something like that.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
South count.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And so like you could just do your own take.

Sean
Also.

Andrew
And like especially if you make it kind of retro and vintage-y, that stuff I think would but sell.

Sean
Yeah.

Andrew
And you could just churn out a bunch of it for a bunch of different schools and

Sean
Three.

Sean
That's a good idea. Three out of the top four shirts on here are amazon are merged by Amazon.

Andrew
Yep.

Sean
They're just yeah they're just people printing stuff.

Andrew
Yep, not surprised by that at all.

Sean
Oh nice.

Andrew
I bought a hat because it was like way cheaper and we'd get here in a day.

Sean
Sweet.

Andrew
And it's like, yeah, made by like some hat company I've never heard of. But hey.

Sean
Amazon is just a showroom for Teemu, man.

Andrew
Yeah.

Sean
That's all it is now these days.

Andrew
Yeah, sad but true.

53:18.100
Sean
well

Sean
Okay. Yeah, I'll try it out. I, for what it's worth, I have like not been doing anything. I've just been letting it like run over the past couple of months until I saw that, like a certain email almost to, you know, I was like, I'm just gonna go right click save as and sure it was like three.

Andrew
Mm hmm.

Sean
of it I woke up the next morning.

Andrew
I feel like I feel like copyright infringement with Elon Musk just feels like Robin Hood type shit like that just feels like stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Sean
Yeah.

Sean
yeah That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah that's how i that's exactly how I feel about it.

Andrew
We're we're you're the poor.

Sean
right right right i am the It's just the transfer of wealth. it's like It's like the taxes that he's evading, I'm getting, but he's not paying other people.

Andrew
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Also, like, should anyone be able to copyright anything? Maybe, you know, free the IP.

Sean
Yeah, yeah, exactly. oh Yeah, yeah. I'll smoke all of that copium.

Andrew
All right, man, this has been fun. Thanks for letting me ramble for a while.

Sean
Cool. No problem. I'll see you later. Bye.

Andrew
All right, peace.

Sean
Thanks.