From Magic addiction to Margins updates - Sean finally talked to a customer! Andrew tried Claude Code and wasn't impressed, then gets into product ideas around workflows and flexible tables for MetaMonster. Surprise twist: the guys accidentally design a $699 productized service for MetaMonster and close the deal live on the call. Also: type 2 fun, hiking debates, and why slabbing a kid isn't what it sounds like.

Links:

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

Transcript:
00:00:00.82
Sean
What's up?

00:00:02.45
Andrew
Not much. Just hanging out. What's up with you?

00:00:05.69
Sean
Cool. I have blown so much money this week. and Last week.

00:00:12.87
Andrew
Oh yeah?

00:00:13.75
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:00:15.24
Andrew
On something fun, I hope?

00:00:16.73
Sean
actually Magic the Gathering. Magic the Gathering.

00:00:22.28
Andrew
is Are you like building a deck to play? Is this investing? Are you like trying to buy collectibles?

00:00:29.29
Sean
anyone anyone that tells you they're investing in Magic the Gathering is lying to you and themselves.

00:00:29.64
Andrew
What's the...

00:00:33.17
Sean
No one no one invested this in cardboard. No one invested in Magic the Gathering. let me I'm sure baseball cards are are profitable in whatever way. and Yeah, I'm bill building a deck to play and also just like spending money opening packs. and i got really into it in high school.

00:00:54.33
Sean
and I think I was like fairly okay at it. And this is my like latest like obsession, indulgence, addiction, all that stuff.

00:01:05.22
Andrew
For whatever reason, I never got into magic.

00:01:05.37
Sean
Yeah.

00:01:06.86
Andrew
I was super into Pokemon, and like I was you know collected Pokemon cards like crazy back in the day, but I never...

00:01:13.89
Sean
Pokemon is huge now, by the way.

00:01:15.58
Andrew
Yeah, I know.

00:01:16.30
Sean
Yeah.

00:01:16.41
Andrew
I i like have a couple of creators I follow on YouTube, and it is really addicting watching people open packs. and then

00:01:25.44
Sean
It really is.

00:01:25.71
Andrew
I also follow, you know Coop's Collections?

00:01:28.70
Sean
No. No.

00:01:30.08
Andrew
His whole MO is just that he's like really stupid, nice to people, like mostly little kids.

00:01:34.08
Sean
Okay.

00:01:35.28
Andrew
And so like little kids, he pretty openly says he doesn't make that much money selling.

00:01:35.34
Sean
Okay.

00:01:42.13
Andrew
He makes most of his money from content. And so like little kids will come up to him at shows and he'll just give away cards and stuff.

00:01:44.60
Sean
Right. and Nice.

00:01:50.93
Andrew
There's a, he live streams himself at shows.

00:01:53.19
Sean
Uh-huh.

00:01:54.49
Andrew
And so people will just like watch him interact.

00:01:57.25
Sean
I see, I see.

00:01:57.79
Andrew
And there's, there's someone in his community who goes by the name Sweaty Booger. That's their username. And like Sweaty Booger is famous on Goof's collections because he will often like,

00:02:05.26
Sean
Okay.

00:02:12.57
Andrew
donate money so that Coop can slab a kid. There's, it's, it's pretty slab a kid, which means give them a, give them a graded card in a slab.

00:02:17.17
Sean
Wait, so he can what a kid? Slab a kid.

00:02:21.67
Sean
Slab a kid. bla

00:02:25.70
Andrew
yeah

00:02:25.91
Sean
Slab a kid. Okay. Okay.

00:02:27.67
Andrew
Slab a kid.

00:02:29.37
Sean
That's, uh,

00:02:30.04
Andrew
There's like all this funny, like, yeah, I feel like even more than some of the other YouTube shows I watch. it has very quickly, because I think he's only been doing it for a year or two, it has very quickly developed lore and, sort you know, it's its own terminology and everything.

00:02:47.77
Sean
Sure.

00:02:52.03
Andrew
It's funny.

00:02:53.33
Sean
Cool. Slab a kid. Okay. That is not what I thought you said. It's like sweaty boogers fucked up, man. It's almost as bad as as that Twitch streamer shocking his dog.

00:03:08.04
Sean
Okay.

00:03:05.09
Andrew
Oh, fuck. I don't want to know about that. Don't don't tell me. i I would rather not.

00:03:08.96
Sean
Okay. All right.

00:03:10.83
Andrew
Fuck that person is all i all I have to say.

00:03:14.57
Andrew
I don't even know, but I don't need to know.

00:03:17.61
Sean
okay yeah this is this is whoever's listening this is just a this is just an internet culture magic the gathering podcast now

00:03:26.06
Andrew
Oh, dude. If you want to just go deep on, like, our latest YouTube obsessions, I can i can do that any day. I've been getting really into, like,

00:03:33.32
Sean
oh my latest youtube what is that what is

00:03:35.26
Andrew
the Caleb Heron world lately. He's a comedian based out of l a who's like, he is super progressive, but is from Kansas City and like grew up evangelical. And so I think he does a good job of making fun of like progressives and like the right and Caleb Heron I think is how you pronounce it h-e-a-r-o-n

00:04:04.03
Sean
how do you How do you spell it? cure

00:04:11.85
Sean
oh Oh, okay. I know who this is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is cool.

00:04:15.08
Andrew
yeah bigger dude who's like

00:04:16.02
Sean
I've never heard his name read out loud. Yeah.

00:04:19.43
Andrew
Yeah, it's, I never know if I'm saying it right, but I've been listening to his podcast a bunch and watching clips.

00:04:26.24
Sean
Nice.

00:04:28.77
Sean
Cool. Sweet.

00:04:29.88
Andrew
Yeah.

00:04:30.73
Sean
Yeah, i so I think I've seen some of his clothes. It's pretty funny. He also does stand up, right?

00:04:35.11
Andrew
Yeah, I think he does stand-up. I think he's working on a movie. Was writing for...

00:04:39.09
Sean
Nice.

00:04:40.51
Andrew
He wrote for some TV show i I had watched. A pretty big one, I think. I can't remember what it was. Yeah. He seems like...

00:04:49.32
Sean
Cool.

00:04:51.90
Andrew
It's interesting. I feel like the more I get into like the dropout world and and then some of these... creators.

00:05:02.40
Andrew
Oh, he also blew up the other day because, uh, Rolling Stones ranked him higher on most influential creators than Mr. Beast and Mr.

00:05:09.91
Sean
I saw that.

00:05:09.95
Andrew
Beast got like butthurt about it.

00:05:12.02
Sean
I saw that.

00:05:12.29
Andrew
and it was really funny.

00:05:13.09
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:05:15.56
Andrew
So he's he's definitely not small. He's like big, but he's he's more niche, I guess. Like definitely has gotten most of his fame from like you YouTube and the internet, his podcast, than traditional media.

00:05:31.81
Andrew
And so yeah. yeah I'm sure to a lot of people it's like he's been around forever, but I feel like he's kind of come out of nowhere for me, like in the last two years maybe.

00:05:44.38
Andrew
And then, but then I start to realize how connected that world is.

00:05:44.63
Sean
yes

00:05:49.14
Andrew
Like you realize that, you know, big name comedians hang out with comedians who like, they all sort of came up together at this, you know, trying to make it and all cross paths.

00:06:01.28
Sean
Right.

00:06:03.21
Andrew
And so like, you know You don't have to be a big-name comedian to have worked with and interacted with big-name comedians. And so you just realize like it's a smaller world than it it seems like from the outside, I think.

00:06:12.63
Sean
Right.

00:06:16.81
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:06:20.20
Sean
Yeah. Makes sense. I think but they're probably all like in LA, right? i feel like. And then there's just, yeah.

00:06:26.07
Andrew
LA New York, it seems.

00:06:28.36
Sean
Yeah. Cool. Sweet. Sounds like a good... not my my My latest internet obsession outside of Magic the Gathering is watching this guy shock his dog. so Not watching this guy shock dog. Watching all the drama around him denying that he's shocking his dog.

00:06:42.99
Sean
But everyone's pretty convinced that he's shocking his dog. I can't believe you missed this.

00:06:46.71
Andrew
I don't, I told you, I don't want to know.

00:06:47.68
Sean
Okay.

00:06:48.63
Andrew
Stop telling me about it.

00:06:49.18
Sean
Okay. all right Alright. Alright.

00:06:52.11
Andrew
Fuck this guy. And we move on.

00:06:54.78
Sean
Okay. Okay. All right. Heard. in other news, I finally have like a tiny margins update.

00:07:02.49
Andrew
Ooh, okay. Let's hear it.

00:07:03.63
Sean
Yeah.

00:07:03.96
Andrew
What's going on with margins?

00:07:04.27
Sean
more Remember like a million episodes ago where you were like, you should talk to like, a buyer about it, you like, or like like a potential ICP, like, like another Webflow agency.

00:07:14.36
Andrew
Oh, like go talk to your customers? Yeah.

00:07:16.45
Sean
Yeah. Go talk to my customers. Yeah. so I want to go talk to my customers. Yeah. Pretty cool. Makes sense. that's our conversation.

00:07:23.64
Andrew
Oh, so like you got good feedback?

00:07:25.42
Sean
yeah Yeah, I sent him, I sent him like a, well, it was, it was more like in the middle of a conversation and then, and and then I sent him a demo.

00:07:30.59
Andrew
Mm-hmm.

00:07:31.65
Sean
It was like a very short exchange about it. I think I didn't actually, I didn't actually talk to my customer. I DM my, I sent, I texted my customer very briefly about it, but yeah.

00:07:45.94
Sean
Yeah, I mean, I very much want to work on it again. have concerns.

00:07:50.28
Andrew
Mm-hmm.

00:07:51.75
Sean
i don't know we i don't know if we talked about this last time, but... i can't tell if it's because like i'm i just have shiny object syndrome and like not enough conviction that i want to think about doing something else versus continuing with continuing with this like so i don't know because like the the reasons why i feel like it's less exciting is one one of the values of like margins is the fact that you get like role-based access for cms like per CMS collection, which is now a feature or is going very soon going to be a feature in Webflow Enterprise.

00:08:29.76
Sean
So I kind of feel like it's not as cool, but also maybe...

00:08:36.53
Andrew
To be fair, that always felt like very secondary benefit to me.

00:08:41.42
Sean
i see. I see.

00:08:42.87
Andrew
like

00:08:44.12
Sean
Fair enough.

00:08:45.31
Andrew
it It always felt like that was a bad thing to bet on because Webflow was never going to want you to take money away from them by giving everyone role-based access control.

00:08:56.11
Andrew
Like, I feel like the point of margins is the editing experience, not and the roles were, like, secondary.

00:08:56.82
Sean
oh yeah

00:09:03.28
Sean
yeah fair enough fair enough i guess i wanted to because one is like a b2b solution in other words like consumer or more on the consumer end

00:09:12.85
Andrew
No, I don't think so. I mean, I think that, like, the editing experience is still a pain in the ass for Webflow agencies, right?

00:09:23.80
Sean
I think it's a pain in the ass for anyone publishing to Webflow. I think it's more of a pain. I would say it's more of a pain in the ass for the client than it is for the Webflow agency.

00:09:33.12
Andrew
Okay.

00:09:33.69
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I'm saying consumer. It's more like, it's that, it's that area of like notion air table.

00:09:40.22
Andrew
It's still like marketing teams, right?

00:09:42.18
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It it's,

00:09:45.02
Andrew
Yeah, I mean, i I get that there's a consumer prosumer element of people who use Webflow, but like, I don't think that building a Webflow product inherently makes it means you're building a consumer product.

00:09:45.100
Sean
I just don't like betting on a better experience.

00:10:00.01
Sean
No, i don't think I don't think I'm building a consumer product. I mean that I think it's like, i think I think what I'm trying to get at is like, it makes me uncomfortable to like bet on the experience of a product and the experience being better versus,

00:10:14.47
Sean
versus the versus like a hard security exactly.

00:10:17.15
Andrew
like a clear feature.

00:10:21.04
Andrew
Yeah.

00:10:21.15
Sean
That's the part that I'm iffy on. And consumers, a consumer apps are like win on giving you a significantly better experience than the previous one. I think that's how consumer apps differentiate themselves versus P2B.

00:10:33.93
Sean
We have more clear like alienation so.

00:10:35.54
Andrew
Yeah. I think there's probably a way to position it that's like, yeah, the value is still that you're giving people a better experience, but you don't just say that because like, I think there's probably a better way to frame that that's more specific and tactical.

00:10:48.30
Sean
I think so. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:10:54.24
Andrew
You know, custom blocks, you know,

00:10:53.09
Sean
and think so

00:10:57.36
Sean
yeah

00:11:01.56
Andrew
something with like,

00:11:03.67
Andrew
like is certain formatting or i don't, I don't know enough about the space to know exactly what it is, but I think that there is is probably a way to frame it that is still feature based, like clear differentiator based.

00:11:07.95
Sean
and

00:11:19.33
Andrew
Cause I agree, like just saying we're a better experience is one of those things that's like, everyone says that and half the time it's, and it's but wrong. It's a worse experience. And like,

00:11:30.12
Andrew
And so it is a tougher thing to differentiate on.

00:11:35.00
Andrew
But I don't... Yeah. To me, the RBAC stuff always seemed like Webflow was eventually going to build it.

00:11:45.36
Sean
well and to be honest I think we're going to build both of it like because they've been calling their 100% yeah

00:11:49.47
Andrew
I mean, I hope they build a better CMS at some point, but they haven't made much progress on that in...

00:11:54.05
Sean
yeah

00:11:57.65
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:57.72
Andrew
How long?

00:12:01.15
Sean
I mean, I'm sure there's other i think there's plenty of other things in the roadmap and you get by right. Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. i probably They probably wouldn't, if I were Webflow, I wouldn't build this because i want people to edit in line in the blog post.

00:12:19.80
Sean
Like I want everyone to log in as an editor or builder or designer and then go and just open up the, you know, of whatever CMS that you have access to and then edit inside the the post itself.

00:12:35.56
Sean
yeah i mean i think the other like major benefit is is going to be the like custom block components where you can have tables and stylized tables like that and then it just add gets added as a custom webflow code block we'll see yeah there are there are a lot of really cool webflow things happening at the moment though like yeah yeah so webflow has webflow cloud

00:12:56.26
Andrew
Really? What's going on

00:13:00.11
Sean
which I'm still trying to figure out what the limitations are. Yeah. Hmm.

00:13:03.81
Andrew
Oh, yeah.

00:13:05.38
Sean
yeah

00:13:05.42
Andrew
Yeah, I remember getting kind of hyped when that came out. The idea was you could deploy basically mini apps to Webflow's cloud so that they sit like right alongside your your domain and your website, right?

00:13:18.45
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:13:19.49
Andrew
Yeah.

00:13:20.66
Sean
So people have built, like, but people have people been testing it? it It opens up this whole other side of, like, React. Okay, so the cool thing also is that, like, whatever thing you build in React, you upload to Webflow Cloud with their, like, code block spec, and now you can use, like, Webflow property, like, Webflow's component properties.

00:13:41.10
Sean
So, but and like, yeah, you can change, like, you know, text size large, text size small, or or whatever sort of thing. It's kind of funny because now we're just building, like, it kind of, like, more and more it feels like like building React or vibe coding a React component, dropping it Webflow, and Webflow is just the hosting provider of your React website.

00:14:03.03
Andrew
That would be weird.

00:14:04.72
Andrew
Yeah. That would be kind of a mess.

00:14:08.21
Sean
Yeah, it is it is kind of weird. I mean, it's kind of weird, and it's kind of cool. Like, there...

00:14:15.85
Sean
like there is something to be said about like being even more technical, building out components, giving marketers like more react components that they can build landing pages with and change those properties that here and there.

00:14:30.16
Sean
it is, is a little odd. Anyway, it's picked up steam because

00:14:32.83
Andrew
Wait, so you can build a React component, deploy it to Webflow Cloud, and then use it in the Webflow editor?

00:14:38.96
Sean
yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:14:40.10
Andrew
Oh, that's cool.

00:14:40.93
Sean
Exactly.

00:14:41.68
Andrew
Okay, okay, that that makes a lot more sense.

00:14:42.01
Sean
It is cool. Yeah.

00:14:44.41
Andrew
I was like, i thought you meant people were literally just using this as like a render or fly.io alternative for React websites or something.

00:14:54.72
Sean
well Well, the thing is, like the thing is like if you can if you can do the first part, you can also do the second part. you know you can This is what I mean by I don't totally know where the...

00:15:03.88
Andrew
Yeah, but but having those components in a visual editor is a big value add versus just having those components in our on sitting on a raw server or somewhere, like going, yeah, full, like just hard-coded.

00:15:10.19
Sean
Oh.

00:15:14.02
Sean
Yeah, 100%. 100%.

00:15:16.89
Sean
and

00:15:20.19
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's it's super cool. It's picked up steam recently because like some people have been making, because people are basically, they they you know go open Cloud Code, they pull off a React component from a React inspo library, they pull it down, and then they pull the Webflow code block api documentations, like build me a code block for this.

00:15:43.09
Sean
And they upload it and like, you know people are like weather widgets and stuff the most useful immediate value we got out of it was like just dumping like an icon library into webflow so we could just like pick you know we can pick icons on the fly rather than dragging SVGs in or creating creating like a logo component or like an icon component for ourselves.

00:15:59.12
Andrew
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:16:05.65
Sean
Anyway, so that's been cool. I was looking at like a no code. This has been around for a while, but like this no code database called Xano, X-A-N-O.

00:16:16.52
Sean
We have a client that wants to build something, but I'm not going to talk about what it is exactly, but it's effectively a full stack app. And it's one of the solutions that probably is like the best fit for all of this. but Anyway, but's that's your Webflow update for the day.

00:16:36.71
Andrew
Kind of on this topic, I tried Glawd Code for the first time.

00:16:38.69
Sean
Yeah.

00:16:41.09
Sean
Yeah.

00:16:42.14
Sean
How'd it go?

00:16:42.40
Andrew
I wanted to VibeCode a prototype of some features that I've been trying to figure out how to explain in Metamonster.

00:16:52.92
Sean
Yeah.

00:16:54.04
Andrew
And so i was like, I started in Replit and then quickly ran out of tokens. And also Replit just felt kind of clunky.

00:17:03.36
Andrew
And so I was like, all right, let me let me use this as an opportunity to finally get spun up on Cloud Code and try to lean into it and and see if it could work for me for rapid prototyping of you know This is wasn't something where I was expecting to like write the code and then just you merge it in, but I just wanted to prototype a concept and have something clickable and real that I could i could play with to show Austin.

00:17:27.73
Sean
Right. really? OK. Interesting.

00:17:35.50
Andrew
I was very unimpressed. like

00:17:37.73
Sean
really

00:17:37.81
Andrew
I feel like people have raved about how amazing Cloud Code is. it didn't feel drastically better than the cursor agent to me. And in some ways felt worse.

00:17:49.08
Sean
interesting

00:17:50.45
Andrew
Like it, uh, It did the classic Claude thing where I would give it instructions and it would do something that would achieve the same result, but not in the way that I asked for. it

00:18:04.42
Andrew
So like I was trying to experiment with using MDX Markdown, like this new version of Markdown MDX to create like AI generated reports that could have like components and graphs and things in them.

00:18:21.21
Andrew
And, you know, it kept being like, okay, here, I did it. And it's like, no, you didn't. You just like used markdown and then wrote some code to interpret that markdown differently. And I was like, that's not what I asked you to do.

00:18:36.36
Andrew
It also, i ended up fighting with like dependency errors for the first couple of hours that I was messing with it, which, you know, that's not Claude Code's fault.

00:18:36.24
Sean
Right.

00:18:47.30
Andrew
Dependency errors have always been a thing. But it was still just very frustrating. It took me a a long time to figure out how to switch from my Claude subscription to my Claude API.

00:19:01.16
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:19:02.96
Andrew
It turns out all I had to do was log out and re-auth the thing, and it had like a really nice like use your API key version like option.

00:19:07.38
Sean
and

00:19:13.09
Andrew
But it was like impossible to find in their docs anywhere. it was really like it was just really unclear. There was like stuff about environment variables, but when I tried to edit the environment variables, it like didn't seem to be loading.

00:19:26.44
Andrew
It was just a mess. And then you have to like enable the planning mode and it's not super intuitive. I don't think to like find the planning mode, to figure out how to enable it.

00:19:36.37
Sean
Hmm. Hmm.

00:19:40.84
Andrew
And so I was basically just using it in a mode that felt a lot like cursor for most of the day. And it just, I don't know, man, it it felt kind of clunky and I felt like the cursor agent is not that far off.

00:19:54.18
Andrew
I know people swear by clock code and I think if you take the time to get it set up, and like really set up like kind of a spectrum and development workflow and everything, i think it can be pretty powerful.

00:20:06.95
Andrew
But Austin also says that he's had some trouble with it doing total, total like Greenfield stuff that it seems to be better when it has the context of an existing code base to reference.

00:20:20.82
Andrew
But yeah, I was pretty under underwhelmed, which was kind of sp surprising.

00:20:28.15
Sean
I don't know that's because wonder if that's because the cursor agent has also just gotten better since the release of clock code as well.

00:20:33.96
Andrew
I'm sure it has, yeah.

00:20:38.04
Sean
Cool. Good to know.

00:20:40.78
Andrew
Have you played with it at all yet?

00:20:40.88
Sean
Yeah, I have. i like it was okay. It was like it was fine. I don't think I ran into the same. The dependency stuff I definitely ran into.

00:20:53.71
Sean
It didn't feel better than like using Cursor or using Replit or Lovable or anything like that. Yeah, and like...

00:21:06.42
Sean
I think like the way I've kind of stacked it my head is i like Repli because I can tell it to do something and then like come back 30 minutes later, spend realize I've spent $13, but like it's built out a bunch of other things and it's waiting for me to check in.

00:21:21.62
Sean
And i like I've liked Cursor because i can edit alongside whatever I'm doing, rather than like Claude Code feels feels like a CLI version of Bolts or Lovable.

00:21:33.74
Andrew
Yeah.

00:21:34.93
Sean
or Or even Replit, but I haven't played with it before.

00:21:36.74
Andrew
I don't know that I'd say it feels like like a Bolt or a Lovable. It feels much more which more deeply ingrained to me.

00:21:40.65
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:21:43.74
Andrew
But it's still like, I've never been a big terminal guy.

00:21:44.33
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:21:47.23
Andrew
I don't like to live in the terminal. I like to live in like a code editor and minimize my terminal usage. And so I kind of like the little bit of one level of abstraction that Cursor gives you.

00:21:59.40
Andrew
I think Replit, the big end, The big nice to have there is just the like automated deployment that it's all like kind of integrated. But I feel like actually getting into code and editing code and like stuff in Replit feels clunky and

00:22:13.67
Sean
yeah yeah yeah 100

00:22:16.73
Andrew
and like going back and forth with the Replit agent for some reason just feels a little clunkier to me than going back and forth inside of a code editor.

00:22:26.15
Sean
Yeah, I mean, for what it's it's, it's kind of like, do you want it done with you or done for you? And like what, her like the scale of that, right? like Like, I thought it was kind of, like, that was my problem with Lovable.

00:22:34.47
Andrew
Yeah, that's a good point.

00:22:38.19
Sean
I mean, I think Lovable has like code editing editing now, but in the beginning it was like, here's a really great done for you service. Oh, 100%. 100%.

00:22:46.33
Andrew
By the way, there's also zero loyalty with any of these. Like there's zero lock-in.

00:22:51.13
Sean
hundred percent

00:22:51.74
Andrew
Austin was telling me that one of our friends from Grey Noise, Seuss, who was the first person who got him on ClogCode, has already like kind of switched off of ClogCode and gone over to Codex.

00:22:52.46
Sean
hundred

00:22:58.44
Sean
Yeah. Nice. Yeah.

00:23:05.57
Sean
nice

00:23:06.32
Andrew
And I feel like people are just switching around constantly right now. and Makes me a little terrified as someone trying to build an AI product.

00:23:11.31
Sean
yeah

00:23:15.87
Andrew
It just, it feels like there's very, very little lock-in.

00:23:19.88
Sean
Yeah, I mean, I think for what it's... Well, okay. I think there's two there's two factors. So going back to like people raving about...

00:23:26.94
Andrew
One, devs are crazy and wait early adopters are always gonna adopt.

00:23:32.36
Sean
Yeah, little of that. But I think, like, one, i think the the the, like, fanaticness of Claude Code and then the fanaticness of Codex and the fanaticness of all these things is just through a lot of paid, like, UGC content that we don't see. Like, I think i think there has been, like, people talk, like, I feel like I've scrolled past Twitter posts about people saying, like, yeah, plenty of these people do get paid.

00:23:57.57
Sean
in In one way or another where they don't release that it's a paid partnership and it's why, you know, influencers get early access and all this sort of stuff.

00:24:04.37
Sean
And then there.

00:24:05.54
Andrew
I did see...

00:24:05.70
Sean
Hmm.

00:24:06.67
Andrew
I saw something with like DeepSea kid apparently used like... I don't and couldn't tell if people were actually trying to say that Deep Seek's model didn't do what it claimed it could do, but but apparently a lot of the hype around Deep Seek when it launched was bot generated.

00:24:24.88
Andrew
It was like bots, there was like a big botnet of, yeah, like fake Twitter accounts that sort of got the ball rolling.

00:24:28.19
Sean
Yeah. I believe it. I it. Right. and believe it believe

00:24:36.89
Andrew
And then from there, you know kind of went viral on its own.

00:24:37.18
Sean
right

00:24:41.16
Sean
I believe it. Yeah. And then, i I mean, on the other side, there's also like, it just feels like Uber and Lyft all over again, which is great.

00:24:50.07
Andrew
The end.

00:24:51.46
Sean
You know, i like this is the time. This is the time to be burning VC dollars to to build whatever you want to. yeah i mean i think if i feel if i'm doing if i'm doing any like real development i've i've only like used cursor for it because i want the sort of like integrated sort of co-pilot experience where i'm checking things off and i'm undoing things like choices it's made it's yeah like for any for we had to build like a mini react thing for a client and

00:25:25.50
Sean
I was on like the last mile there and there's no other option. So yeah.

00:25:32.57
Andrew
Yeah.

00:25:33.86
Sean
Anyway, how are, how's, how's Metamonster going?

00:25:38.84
Andrew
So i think last week I told you we were going to take a week or two and explore building a ChatGPT app.

00:25:39.14
Sean
How are you?

00:25:46.30
Sean
Yeah.

00:25:46.63
Sean
For chart juice.

00:25:47.93
Andrew
Yeah, for short use. Ditch that. We got a weekend.

00:25:51.42
Sean
Oh, okay.

00:25:53.65
Andrew
Austin got something like rendering that technically worked, but it one, it was clear that it was going to take two or three weeks at least of additional work to get it to where we sort of envisioned it being.

00:26:07.31
Sean
Okay.

00:26:12.68
Andrew
ChatGPT does have a native like sort of chart widget component that you is pretty limited. It doesn't give you a whole lot of editing controls, but it still felt like it was probably good enough for 80% of what people wanted.

00:26:27.07
Andrew
and so didn't seem like the opportunity was as good as we thought it might be. and then just the whole process felt like maybe a little too new.

00:26:36.27
Andrew
like on the one hand, I think there's definitely an advantage to getting a in on a platform when it's still rough around the edges, the documentation isn't great.

00:26:43.39
Andrew
Like those hurdles, if you can get over them are, you know, a little bit of a moat it'll give you a head start on the people who aren't willing to you know slog through that shit but it just it didn't feel like chart juice was really know as good a fit as we thought it might be and it was just we looked at each other and we were like do we want to sink you know two to three more weeks of work into this or do we want to get back to meta monster and it was like no we want to get back to meta monster

00:26:51.79
Sean
yeah

00:27:12.78
Andrew
So this week, the thing that we've been debating, so the the prototype that I built was sort of my vision for where I want MetaMonster to end up, which is a world where the table starts to fade into the background a little bit and is treated more as just your knowledge base. And you can just, you can dump a lot of data into the table, but you're mostly interacting with like,

00:27:45.59
Andrew
with agents in other ways to make optimizations to your website. And so there were kind of three paradigms that I was playing with.

00:27:56.95
Andrew
One is, you know, I think we're going to need some concept of like a report, something that is, know, more, a little more prescriptive, a little bit more, know,

00:28:15.17
Andrew
Yeah, we're trying to find the balance between something that can be like, hey, you don't have to do a bunch of digging. We can quickly show you, like give you some insights and then give you quick actions you can take off of those insights.

00:28:27.62
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:28:33.33
Andrew
So because we've just realized like Metamonster takes a, yeah it might be easier to use than Aerox, in some ways in that like you can get to to doing optimizations faster.

00:28:48.58
Andrew
But it's still like doing more sophisticated things, doing multiple things at once is still like kind of clunky and just slow. And like you have to, you have to know the prompts library pretty well.

00:28:59.72
Andrew
You have to know how the tool works pretty well to be able to write prompts well. And like there's a lot of knowledge that it still takes to like get in and use Metamonster and use it well.

00:29:07.27
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:29:10.24
Andrew
and So we've been thinking about how do we make that easier? And then also how do we move from like vitamin problems to painkiller problems? And so, you know,

00:29:23.17
Andrew
As far as making the tool easier to use, some version of out-of-the-box reporting that hopefully we do in a way that you can customize it so that it's not just like us being super opinionated, but it's like us giving you tools to build reports based on the things you care about and then giving you sensible defaults to like, you know, so you could come in and just use it as is, or you could get in, dig in and start customizing it if you want to.

00:29:41.81
Sean
Yeah.

00:29:48.71
Andrew
So some version of reporting, I do think we're going to need some version of workflows, the ability to string multiple prompts together, do them in some sort of order, have human in the loop steps in there at some point.

00:30:02.61
Andrew
But I will say i don't want to build like a workflow builder, right? I don't want to build the, you know, a direct Aerobs clone.

00:30:11.42
Andrew
I don't want to build just like the drag and drop canvas builder thing that is in every fucking app right now.

00:30:12.25
Sean
Yeah.

00:30:16.58
Sean
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:18.99
Sean
I know I just had a client pitch me on that yesterday.

00:30:19.31
Andrew
And so we've, yeah there's, they're fucking everywhere and I'm tired of them. And so we're trying to think of workflows a little bit differently.

00:30:25.53
Sean
Yeah.

00:30:28.91
Andrew
We're trying to think of like, what if a workflow is more of like either a checklist, like just sort of a set of steps, or even workflow is basically just a prompt that can reference other prompts.

00:30:35.46
Sean
Yeah.

00:30:41.34
Andrew
And like, so it's, it's just like an SOP. It's just like a document, like you would give to a human.

00:30:48.30
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:30:49.42
Andrew
And so were playing around with some of those concepts. And then i was also playing around with like, you know, what if you could interact with agents the way you interact with, you know, human employees and like, you know,

00:31:04.58
Andrew
You can task human employees by sending them a Slack message, or you you can task human employees by like creating a ticket in a ticket management system of some sort. And so it's like, what if Metamonster had, this is something I've seen a couple of people do.

00:31:19.67
Andrew
Linear has started building agent integrations into Linear and like trying to make Linear a place where you can manage agents.

00:31:23.96
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:31:27.53
Andrew
but i i started to get really interested in the idea of like what if there's like a kanban view of the work that an agent is doing in in your meta monster project and so it's like you could kick off workflows from kanban you could sort of see workflows happening in kanban you could you know the human in the loop piece could come into play where it's like okay cool i know, this thing is paused because it's waiting for review.

00:31:55.44
Andrew
I can see that in like a Kanban view and come in and edit it.

00:31:56.30
Sean
Right. Mm

00:32:00.87
Andrew
So we've been playing around with a lot of these concepts. And I think, you know, right now there's two chunks of work that we want to get done as soon as possible. Workflows, like what is our first version of workflows is one piece of work.

00:32:16.32
Andrew
And the real goal there is like make it easier for people to start seeing value in Metamonster. You know, I mentioned last week we're getting one to two signups a day, but those people aren't activating, they're crawling sites, but they're not running prompts.

00:32:32.05
Andrew
So the, the idea there is how do we get them to run prompts faster? Well, what if when you crawl a site, you could also pick a workflow and then, know, you just get an email at some point that's like, Hey,

00:32:41.21
Sean
Hmm. Hmm.

00:32:45.16
Andrew
You now have page titles, metadata, structure schema, internal links. Like you now have like a full export of optimizations sitting here waiting for you.

00:32:58.11
Andrew
Check it out, make edits, and then, you know, run another site. So that's work chunk number one. Work chunk number two is more trying to solve the vitamin to painkiller problem.

00:33:15.48
Andrew
And step one on that path, we believe, is flexible tables.

00:33:15.60
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:33:21.23
Andrew
So right now in Metamonster, the only way to like import data is through a page crawl, a website crawl. And so tables are very much about your website on page data.

00:33:37.35
Andrew
If we can, and the only way to edit them is to run a prompt. If we can expand tables to be totally flexible so that a table is is more agnostic to like what it includes, then we can have import CSV and you can start to import Google Search Console data, keyword volume data, AI search query data.

00:33:46.35
Sean
Thank you.

00:34:05.06
Andrew
And you can then like build tables from scratch, meaning you could... you know, run a prompt to generate a bunch of queries that you want to track.

00:34:15.90
Andrew
And then you could, you know, capture the results of that prompt. And then, or you could like import some keyword data and then do some research and generate content.

00:34:28.94
Sean
Yeah.

00:34:31.04
Andrew
And so it it moves us, like, I think the, you on-page optimization like, like I think I have realized that even though people say it's tedious and time consuming and it's something they need to do and it's something you should be doing, you know, it's just, it's optimization. It's not, it's always going to come after keyword research, query research, whatever you want to call it, topic research, you know, like research ideation, content creation,

00:35:08.16
Andrew
back linking, reporting.

00:35:09.42
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:35:10.68
Andrew
Like those are the things that are, and then on-page optimization comes like, it's a part of those, but it's it's not not really gonna supersede those, and don't think.

00:35:23.78
Andrew
And so we're trying to figure out How do we enable some of those other workflows? And then at the same time, how do we try to make it easier to activate people and and get people started?

00:35:37.62
Andrew
So i think we're gonna work on, we've we've already started the table work. I think we're gonna keep going down that route. We were kind of thinking about pausing that work and focusing on the,

00:35:52.18
Andrew
on the workflows instead, but for now what I'm gonna is I'm going to like try to put together an offer of like basically hand-holding like white glove onboarding.

00:36:07.28
Sean
Yeah. Cool.

00:36:09.98
Andrew
gonna call it complimentary onboarding. If you sign up for a business plan or above, I'll meet with your team. I'll write prompts for you. I'll like set set everything up for you, which I would already have done, but I haven't like really marketed that and tried to make that super obvious.

00:36:23.65
Sean
yeah

00:36:27.20
Andrew
so I'm gonna try to put that offer out there more and see if anyone bites on that in the meantime while we do this table work until we can get to the the workflow work to try to help with activation.

00:36:33.10
Sean
cool

00:36:44.20
Sean
Sweet. You could do it for a certain as a service for us.

00:36:45.82
Andrew
That was a lot. Huh?

00:36:48.25
Sean
Yeah. I said, I mean, sorry, two things. One is you could you should totally do it and for us as a consultant for some of our clients.

00:36:56.85
Andrew
Sure.

00:36:58.10
Sean
But separately, like, yeah, I mean, I'm a sucker for anything that's like productized service as a way to grow like a SaaS app or bootstrap SaaS.

00:37:09.31
Andrew
And right now I'm not even talking about charging for this, right? Like I'm not really talking about this as a productized service.

00:37:12.11
Sean
yeah yeah

00:37:14.27
Andrew
It's just like, like it's an offer to try to get people to to bite on one of the plans.

00:37:22.63
Sean
for sure for sure i i i kind of i kind of imagined it was very until yeah yeah yeah

00:37:24.89
Andrew
But I mean, it is, it is a productized offering. Yeah, it's a productized service offering for onboarding basically.

00:37:33.35
Sean
yeah

00:37:33.34
Andrew
Yeah.

00:37:34.98
Sean
Cool. Yeah, I mean, i think I think it makes it stickier. I'm kind of curious to see how it goes. Are you going to set up like a different landing page for it? And how are you thinking about getting traffic?

00:37:45.39
Andrew
Yeah, I think what I'll do i think what i'll do is I'm going to update the pricing so that to like include like a little snippet that says like on the the upper tiers, the the two most expensive plans.

00:37:50.42
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:37:59.23
Andrew
like complimentary onboarding and then like link to a landing page that like outlines our onboarding offering.

00:38:02.11
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:38:08.87
Andrew
Which I think is gonna just be for right now, like it's just gonna be like a discovery session to figure out what prompts, like what you wanna do with Metamonster.

00:38:20.68
Andrew
a You know, then we go and write the prompts for you, test them. We do an implementation session to, like, get them into your version of MetaMonster and get you using them and comfortable with them.

00:38:38.98
Andrew
We do a general training on, like, just how does MetaMonster work, how do you use it? And then we do, you know, have a follow-up check-in.

00:38:50.51
Andrew
and we'll you know gonna say we'll do up to like 10 custom prompts for you or something like that and so

00:38:57.31
Sean
Yeah.

00:38:58.52
Andrew
yeah that's what i'm thinking right now and then we will yes uh and then i'm also gonna put we have like a little banner at the top of metamonster that has been you know just telling people hey we built something new, just like click here if you want to still want to access the old version of the of the app. And so we're going to replace that with like a CTA for all free trial users so that it's like, hey, if you upgrade, we'll onboard you for free and see if anyone.

00:39:39.06
Sean
Sweet. Nice. nice

00:39:42.14
Andrew
I don't know that Anyone will take me up on it, but you know, worth a shot. and And then I'm also, you know, I'll try to work it into our, our email drip campaigns and to like our onboarding emails and then try to work it into my sales cycle.

00:40:05.90
Andrew
So. We'll see. i don't i don't like i don't think it's going to be a magic bullet. i don't if If we get one or two people who take us up on it, great. If no one does, fine.

00:40:18.04
Andrew
I still think we need to build the table stuff and and then build the workflow and the like reporting and recommendations and all that.

00:40:20.49
Sean
Yeah.

00:40:25.13
Andrew
so

00:40:25.55
Sean
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a good thing to bet on. Yeah. All right. I'm excited to see how it, how long do you, how long do you think you're going to try running that experiment for before you are like, eh.

00:40:41.75
Andrew
Uh, until we either build something in the products that makes it less necessary or, I mean, I think, I think we'll probably always offer some sort of complimentary onboarding to like upper end customers because like I want to get time with FaceTime with them and train them and get them like deeply integrated.

00:40:56.77
Sean
Right, right.

00:41:01.82
Sean
Right.

00:41:03.46
Andrew
uh,

00:41:06.52
Andrew
So I indefinitely, like, I think this is just something we should, that should be a part of our offer until it like, we're at a point where it doesn't make sense to offer it anymore, which we're a long, long, long way away from.

00:41:11.92
Sean
Okay. Yeah.

00:41:16.99
Sean
Sure.

00:41:22.28
Andrew
them

00:41:23.52
Sean
Cool. Okay. Excited to check in in like two weeks, see how it goes, see what happens.

00:41:32.10
Andrew
I mean, at some point we would probably, we might start charging for onboarding or something.

00:41:38.32
Sean
Yeah.

00:41:38.76
Andrew
I've also thought about like, you know, do we want to do a productized service where we're just using MetaMonster to do SEO work on your, either on your behalf or which I'm guessing that's more what you were talking about when, when you were talking about us like doing stuff for clients.

00:41:39.25
Sean
Yeah.

00:41:54.66
Sean
and when I said productized service?

00:42:00.06
Sean
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was like it was like a segment of of what you... and my In my head was like the productized service.

00:42:05.13
Andrew
Like what what what was in your head when you said you should do this for Ms.

00:42:06.85
Sean
Huh.

00:42:09.63
Andrew
Grant's clients?

00:42:11.15
Sean
Oh, like like the SEO, keyword research, the content planning. and I mean, honestly, those parts. like the kind of Like the research, like the ideation and the research.

00:42:23.42
Sean
And then, i mean... I guess you could also just be be a managed service of MetaMonster, but for our Miscereents clients honor on our on our Miscereents account.

00:42:36.62
Sean
Yeah, I don't know. I heard i heard you were going Yeah.

00:42:38.67
Andrew
So the thing, but the thing you wanted is like, let's dig into this because this is, this is helpful and important, right?

00:42:44.48
Sean
Yeah.

00:42:47.13
Sean
yeah

00:42:48.37
Andrew
You didn't really want the onboarding offering that I just described. Like that's not what you needed. what you wanted was someone to do SEO work for your clients.

00:42:54.56
Sean
no

00:42:59.97
Sean
Yeah.

00:43:00.91
Andrew
and, and when you thought about doing SEO work, it wasn't generate meta titles and, you know, structured schema and internal links. It was keyword research, content creation.

00:43:15.82
Andrew
Like what what was it?

00:43:16.19
Sean
and or like content planning, I would say i would say content planning, content planning, keyword research, and like, well, like, um'm for what it's worth, we are, like, we have a subscription to MetaMonster, you generating meta descriptions is not useful.

00:43:36.35
Sean
you you offering onboarding the thing is like like i always hate complimentary onboarding services from sass companies but that's like a like i feel like that's a personal hate because well plenty of them offer it and i'm sure they offer it because it's valuable to

00:43:35.75
Andrew
Mm-hmm.

00:43:54.27
Sean
other clients and we see our clients when they uh like buy sas tools like talk about how they're gonna go work with the the at whatever sort of thing that they've bought and work with them but like i've always just rolled my eyes at like compliment like onboarding it's just I but I'm also someone who hates reading the instructions manual and I just fake like unless it's like Lego but like I'll figure out how to do the Ikea thing myself you know how which works like 80% of the time sometimes you get unstable shelves yeah

00:44:28.27
Andrew
Okay.

00:44:29.86
Andrew
So what would, let's say let's say we did do, you some sort of productized service through miscreants for your clients.

00:44:37.38
Sean
yeah Sure.

00:44:39.32
Andrew
What do you want and what do you want to pay for it?

00:44:45.32
Andrew
You want keyword research and content planning.

00:44:48.28
Sean
I want keyword research, content planning. want, it depends on what you mean.

00:44:53.32
Andrew
Are these for primarily for clients where you're building like brand new sites or existing sites?

00:44:59.57
Sean
No, they they have their existing sites or like post-launch when we take them onto a market. So like, okay, what what I do for clients, I would like to delegate to someone else, right? Which is, we've launched your website.

00:45:08.46
Andrew
Mm-hmm.

00:45:09.95
Sean
It's time to do marketing work. first We'll do keyword research. We'll build out like, uh we'll do cured research well sorry we'll actually do like strategy first so we'll also figure out like what the what the uh buckets of con like the your content pillars are sometimes we do that like earlier on anyway depends on the scope yeah yeah yeah

00:45:26.90
Andrew
Yeah. I would call that topic, like topic goal research. Like what topics do we want to build authority around? What are our, yeah, our content pillars going to be. Yep.

00:45:37.07
Sean
Yeah, absolutely. But then like, you know, I have to go into Ahrefs, find keywords, do all that stuff, and then create sort of a list of articles or or ideas for articles, which we then review with the client of like what's worth, what's worth doing, what's not worth doing, what things can we get like your unique opinion and ideas on or or use some of those unique philosophies on.

00:46:01.57
Sean
And then depending on the ones that they've picked, we put together like a calendar from the calendar. and then and with each one, we just start putting it like, you know, we start putting together outlines and then it gets written.

00:46:13.50
Sean
So I think all of that part, maybe up to like outline. Cause like an outline, think an outline I can have a writer.

00:46:26.30
Sean
Well, that's how our writer works anyway, but it's all the other, like that first part is all the parts that I have to go do myself.

00:46:33.54
Andrew
Yeah.

00:46:34.68
Andrew
What if you could have the outlines too and then just hand the writer an outline?

00:46:38.20
Sean
Yeah. I mean, that'd be great. Make, and make my writer cheaper. Yeah. Yeah.

00:46:43.36
Andrew
Interesting.

00:46:43.84
Sean
Mm

00:46:43.80
Andrew
Okay. Okay, cool. what What would you pay for that?

00:46:46.48
Sean
hmm.

00:46:52.23
Sean
so no outline as in like no content brief like three hundred dollars a client if i'm being cheap uh seven hundred dollars if i'm being yeah

00:46:56.27
Andrew
Sure, we'll yeah we'll we'll cut that part out for now.

00:47:09.92
Sean
yeah

00:47:11.24
Sean
if I'm being not cheap, it might still be cheap. I don't actually know how much people charge for it. Yeah.

00:47:17.77
Andrew
Yeah, I mean, some people charge thousands of dollars for this. Some people charge hundreds of dollars for this.

00:47:20.89
Sean
For sure. sure

00:47:23.34
Sean
Yeah. I would pay, i would pay someone 699 for, for the work.

00:47:30.52
Andrew
Okay. and And what you want is basically like a content strategy.

00:47:31.62
Sean
Yeah.

00:47:36.08
Sean
And, and plan, but yeah.

00:47:38.88
Andrew
So the calendar too, or like the...

00:47:41.18
Sean
Yeah, with the calendar.

00:47:43.12
Andrew
Okay. but But the calendar needs client approval before you create it, or...

00:47:49.91
Sean
and

00:47:51.57
Sean
It doesn't have to.

00:47:52.11
Andrew
how many

00:47:52.64
Andrew
How many revisions do you want?

00:47:54.80
Sean
One.

00:47:56.76
Andrew
One round of revisions?

00:47:58.13
Sean
One round of revisions.

00:47:58.45
Andrew
Or just like, so like you you can, you get the plan, you take it to the client, you bring it back and say, we want these changes and then make updates.

00:48:03.76
Sean
Hmm.

00:48:07.04
Sean
Yeah.

00:48:08.87
Andrew
699.

00:48:09.37
Sean
Yeah.

00:48:09.43
Andrew
Okay,

00:48:10.82
Sean
Yeah.

00:48:12.94
Andrew
okay we should do one and see how it goes.

00:48:14.58
Sean
Okay. Cool. Good sales call. Nice.

00:48:20.92
Andrew
Yeah, do you have any clients right now that you could do that with?

00:48:23.30
Sean
Yeah. Yeah.

00:48:25.58
Andrew
Yeah?

00:48:25.99
Sean
Absolutely. I'm thinking of like four of them right now.

00:48:27.65
Andrew
Okay.

00:48:29.66
Sean
So yeah.

00:48:31.37
Andrew
Okay, cool. Yeah, the the kind of shitty part is like a lot of that I can't do well in Metamonster right now. So I would have to use other tools besides Metamonster.

00:48:42.39
Andrew
But that's exactly what I'm talking about where it's like, I want to change that.

00:48:42.60
Sean
yeah yeah

00:48:45.11
Andrew
I want to be able to do all of that in Metamonster as soon as humanly possible.

00:48:49.71
Sean
right right well i think the keyword research stuff i my understanding is that the way most people are building their own keyword research stuff is that they're all pulled from the same like api and there's like a handful of like keyword apis And then they just build a wrapper around it.

00:49:04.79
Sean
And then, you know, like, I don't know if this is true about these SaaS apps, but like, I've seen like keywords everywhere or keywords, whatever, or like all that sort of stuff. So, yeah.

00:49:14.04
Andrew
Yeah.

00:49:16.34
Sean
I mean, I just use Ahrefs for it, but yeah.

00:49:16.81
Andrew
Yeah. Yep. Yeah, Ahrefs, SEMrush.

00:49:22.54
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:49:22.80
Andrew
Yeah, so the thing that most companies build off of is there's a company called Data4SEO that has a bunch of, like, data sets and APIs that you can use for various SEO tasks.

00:49:28.00
Sean
Mm-hmm. yeah

00:49:35.04
Andrew
I was just talking to a friend who's building, like, a keyword database right now. And... and I dug into it some more with him, and apparently, like, Ahrefs, SEMrush, all of them, it's all built off of Google Ads data.

00:49:51.15
Sean
yeah yeah that makes sense that i mean

00:49:53.68
Andrew
Like, that's where volume and difficulty and stuff comes from. It's all based on Google Ads.

00:49:59.99
Sean
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's like you can literally go on Google Ads and like do the same thing you do in Ahrefs, but in Google Ads. It's just clunkier and like meant for ads.

00:50:07.42
Andrew
Mm-hmm.

00:50:08.48
Sean
so yeah what is It always kind of makes me... like wonder what the vow like, why build a keyword database SaaS app or like a keyword and keyword research app. This is separate from like Metamonster, right? Like, this is just folks who are who are building a SaaS app and then building like a keyword database or something. It always makes me wonder like, what is the point of that? Is it because it's niched down into a sector?

00:50:32.93
Sean
it because they have like...

00:50:34.60
Andrew
Versus just building like an integration with Ahrefs or something?

00:50:40.58
Sean
and Yes, I guess so. Yeah.

00:50:45.68
Andrew
Like you're you're talking about someone's building an SEO tool. Why do they add keyword data to their SEO tool?

00:50:51.30
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:50:54.04
Sean
no no sorry sorry someone's building an seo tool but the seo tool they choose to build is like a keyword research tool i've i've never understood that because there's so many of them right i guess the point i'm getting at is like there's so many of them and i don't understand how one keyword research tool actually differentiates from the other

00:51:14.68
Andrew
So a lot of them don't, like, so I think again, it comes down to what are people willing to pay for? And if more and more I'm becoming convinced that like the things SEOs are willing to pay for are keyword research, like,

00:51:24.35
Sean
Hmm. Hmm.

00:51:33.14
Andrew
like yeah it's not just keyword research, it's other analytics, but it's like, help me, help me build the strategy, help me create the content, help me get links and then help, help me like report on progress and like monitor, monitor it all.

00:51:47.31
Sean
and

00:51:52.04
Andrew
Like those are the things.

00:51:54.11
Andrew
And so I think a lot of tools add keyword data for kind of the same reason we're adding keyword data, which is just like, you start off doing something else and then it's just easier if the keyword data is there because, so like that's exactly like my friend who was working on this keyword database,

00:52:04.85
Sean
OK, OK.

00:52:14.95
Andrew
You know his tool is really more in like the clear scope surfer category where like his, his strongest differentiator is his outline building workflow.

00:52:19.51
Sean
okay okay

00:52:25.84
Andrew
Like how he helps you quickly build outlines based on competitive research and stuff.

00:52:26.27
Sean
Yeah.

00:52:33.02
Andrew
And that's, that's his strength. And then people just, you there's a subset of his audience that are writers who aren't really SEOs who need to do SEO. And so like, they're not paying for Ahrefs already.

00:52:50.36
Andrew
Also Ahrefs is, you know, if you want Ahrefs API access, it's like 15 or $1,800 a month.

00:52:55.57
Sean
Yeah.

00:52:58.22
Andrew
So otherwise you've got to do the keyword research in Ahrefs and then export it and then import it. And,

00:53:04.85
Sean
Yeah.

00:53:05.50
Andrew
And so it's just ends up being easier to have it in there for the people who want to do more in your product.

00:53:05.89
Sean
So, so.

00:53:12.41
Sean
Yeah, I totally understand why someone who's building a different SEO tool builds a keywords database for their SEO tool. in my In my head, I thought this person was specifically building like a keywords research and rank tracker, or not even like necessarily the rank tracker part.

00:53:27.81
Sean
And that's the part that... like Because like there's plenty of them on AppSumo, and then also plenty of them.

00:53:29.82
Andrew
Yeah.

00:53:33.20
Sean
like Every once in a while, one one or two pops up for sale on Acquire or whatever for $2,000 to $4,000.

00:53:38.04
Andrew
Yeah.

00:53:39.06
Sean
And I'm always just like...

00:53:41.13
Andrew
I think that's more just the copycat world where it's like people just go, what are people paying for it?

00:53:41.46
Sean
But,

00:53:44.57
Sean
yeah.

00:53:46.25
Andrew
They're paying a fuck ton of money for Ahrefs. I'm just going to build an Ahrefs. And they don't do any, they don't give any thought to how they're going to differentiate.

00:53:49.98
Sean
Yeah.

00:53:53.52
Andrew
They're just like, I'm going to build a cheaper Ahrefs. And then it's like, oh, Ahrefs, this is hard. Like,

00:54:01.15
Sean
It is hard.

00:54:02.42
Andrew
Like my friend who was building the keyword database, like just getting all of the data out of data for SEO into his own database where he and he can index it and do everything he wants with it was taking a lot of programming work.

00:54:02.77
Sean
Yeah.

00:54:11.16
Sean
Mm-hmm.

00:54:17.19
Sean
I believe it. That makes sense.

00:54:19.18
Andrew
Because it's just like, you know, a bunch of records.

00:54:20.95
Sean
Yeah.

00:54:24.14
Sean
Yeah, it is it is a bunch of records. And and I feel like at that point, like performance becomes the biggest thing to work on. Yeah.

00:54:32.61
Andrew
Performance and linking, right? Because keyword research comes down to what, like, how do you link keywords together in, and, and so that's the other way that people differentiate is it's like,

00:54:36.29
Sean
yeah

00:54:43.46
Sean
yeah

00:54:47.93
Andrew
Can I give you better suggestions based off of like some small seed data?

00:54:53.32
Sean
right

00:54:53.73
Andrew
Like, you know, keyword research typically works with like a human going in and being like starting with either at the minimum, like a topic or, you know, a list of keywords that they just generated out their heads.

00:54:54.10
Sean
Right. Right.

00:55:07.79
Andrew
And then it's like, okay, what other keywords are related to those keywords that I didn't think about that are valuable? And then it's like, let me dig through search console data and figure out like what keywords are we already ranking for that we're not, you know, that we're, you know, we're not optimizing for it.

00:55:22.45
Sean
right

00:55:25.32
Andrew
Let me pull those in. Let me, know, and now there's like topical authority and stuff, but yeah.

00:55:32.19
Sean
yeah to be honest with you i just i i actually think yeah i was pretty good at it that's how i do my keyword research i just yeah uh i have a bunch of like i have a topic like like i have a so a space yeah i have a sector in security let's say it's uh what

00:55:39.67
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about that. What is, what does that look like?

00:55:55.35
Sean
mobile app security not a client of ours so new mobile app security from there i know a couple like i have a couple of seed keywords that i have i i take those seed keywords which might have like super high search volume already maybe i go to ahrefs and i just like look uh look up a couple more right i i take like a list of 10 i go to like chat gpt or clawed i'm just like Like I want more keywords and and search phrases perform like a latent semantic analysis or latent semantic indexing on this set of keywords, suggest 50 of them. And then I take that list and I dump it into Ahrefs and I go, okay, this this ranks for stuff, this doesn't rank for stuff, but blah, blah, blah. And then I add it to a list so that I can grab it out later for a client.

00:56:45.00
Sean
which is all in all like 15 to 30 minutes of work, but I don't want to do it anymore. but and And I'm sure there's like other ways that SEOs have found that like, like I feel like this is like the, like maybe it's not like the most surface level, but it's like barely a layer deep in terms of like SEO keyword keyword research.

00:57:08.62
Sean
Yeah.

00:57:10.67
Andrew
Cool. These clients that I'm going to be doing keyword research for, they have like search console set up and are they ranking for things already or is it mostly like kind of net new like yeah yeah okay cool

00:57:25.09
Sean
It just depends. Different. Yeah, it depends. Some, yeah. Some yes, some no.

00:57:34.08
Andrew
cool yeah let's but let's do one or two and see how it goes so cool

00:57:38.75
Sean
Sure. Yeah. We can continue you and talk off the call. Yeah. So I don't just talk about every single client and put it on, put it out there. Cool.

00:57:50.76
Sean
Sweet. Go to Hawaii in two weeks.

00:57:54.98
Andrew
Oh, sick.

00:57:56.17
Sean
Yeah.

00:57:56.41
Andrew
That's cool.

00:57:56.72
Sean
Yeah.

00:57:57.32
Andrew
What for?

00:57:57.37
Sean
Yeah.

00:57:57.78
Andrew
Are you taking a vacation?

00:58:00.51
Sean
I'm making an attempt to take a vacation. We'll see how it goes.

00:58:02.91
Andrew
Okay.

00:58:03.78
Sean
Yeah.

00:58:03.78
Andrew
Okay.

00:58:04.55
Sean
We'll see.

00:58:05.22
Andrew
Impressed.

00:58:05.39
Sean
We'll see. Uh-huh. The friends I'm going with are aware of my usual work schedule, so... Because they were the friends I went to with Japan, and they're like, this poor guy.

00:58:16.100
Andrew
How long are you gonna be in Hawaii?

00:58:18.90
Sean
Two weeks. So I'm gone 7th.

00:58:20.40
Andrew
Sick.

00:58:21.38
Sean
Nice.

00:58:23.46
Andrew
Oh, hey, I'm gonna be in Mexico the 25th through the 8th. So basically the same, yeah.

00:58:27.16
Sean
like Alright, so you guys won't hear from us because we will be partying in different places. Yeah.

00:58:34.62
Andrew
Oh, I was gonna take my microphone and record, but we don't have to. No, you you should you should take an actual vacation.

00:58:39.39
Sean
We'll see. We'll see.

00:58:42.29
Andrew
we we We're already on a once a month recording schedule anyway, so we should.

00:58:42.70
Sean
We'll see.

00:58:46.06
Sean
Yeah, they're used to it. They know. Plus, it's an extra long episode. Yeah. it's

00:58:51.59
Andrew
Yeah, we've been recording for over an hour.

00:58:53.80
Sean
yeah exactly cool okay well have fun in mexico kind of wish kind of wish i was going to mexico instead to be honest with you the dartboard unfortunately said just feels like the like the outside you know it feels like the fun things to do in hawaii are like i was gonna say grass touch grass related but like sand related i mean

00:58:55.91
Andrew
Yeah.

00:59:01.75
Andrew
Not Hawaii fan?

00:59:16.26
Andrew
Yeah, it's like swim in the beautiful water, you go go on some beautiful hikes. Are you a hiker? you

00:59:23.06
Sean
No. I don't understand why people like hiking. Okay, look. Sorry, sorry. I understand why people like taking a walk in the woods. I get that. I understand why people sometimes like taking an elevated walk in the woods. I get that.

00:59:36.46
Sean
But then it's like... where the hiking becomes more climbing. It's just not enough stimuli for me personally. Like, if I'm going to take a walk, I might as well walk in downtown Manhattan, you know, and and like possibly pass by a shop.

00:59:51.04
Andrew
That's so funny.

00:59:52.86
Sean
Yeah. I don't...

00:59:54.22
Andrew
Like, i I can just walk for hours and hours and be totally happy.

00:59:56.32
Sean
Hmm.

00:59:59.34
Andrew
Like, i i I love the physical act of moving and walking and just like foot, foot, foot. And I can, like, hiking through the woods, like, I would ideally prefer a hike with some some scenery, but I'm also happy just walking through the woods.

01:00:05.96
Sean
right.

01:00:08.76
Sean
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:00:19.54
Sean
yeah

01:00:19.77
Andrew
Doesn't have to be a ton of elevation and pretty.

01:00:19.93
Sean
i

01:00:22.33
Andrew
I'm just, I, yeah, I love going for a walk.

01:00:26.75
Sean
I also love going for a walk. I just don't... I just prefer, like, stimuli when I'm walking. But, like i like, I have a fine hike if I could just plug in a podcast and, like, listen to it while walking. That's fine.

01:00:40.71
Andrew
Sure.

01:00:41.42
Andrew
Yeah.

01:00:42.12
Sean
that's a great That's a great hike just... i just

01:00:44.79
Andrew
One of the things I love about going for a solo hike is you can listen to a podcast sometimes, you can listen to nature sometimes, you can walk at your own pace, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

01:00:55.24
Sean
Yeah, I'm with you. I just don't. It's the part where it gets into like, it's the part where it gets into like, you got to go climb a mountain. You got to go put this extra work in.

01:01:03.71
Andrew
Yeah.

01:01:05.06
Sean
I just don't at the end of it. You know, you know, this concept of like type one, type two, type three fun.

01:01:10.93
Andrew
Yeah, 100%. hundred percent

01:01:12.36
Sean
I just don't get the reward at the end. Like, I yeah understand it's type two fun for other people. I just, I just get out of it like, it's also my favorite type of fun.

01:01:18.99
Andrew
Type 2 fun is my favorite kind of fun. Like, i love fun I love fun that sucks in the moment.

01:01:25.02
Sean
it doesn But it like I don't. OK, I think I think my what I'm trying to get at is I don't really think that it sucks in the moment because like I'm just moving. It just like sucks overall and it sucks more at the end for me.

01:01:40.99
Sean
Like I don't feel like I had it I don't feel like I had fun doing it and I don't feel like i look back on it's like, oh, that was like a fun time.

01:01:49.05
Andrew
That's so funny.

01:01:49.34
Sean
Anyway, yeah, this this is me this is me venting at this point.

01:01:50.54
Andrew
Yeah. Maybe you just need to go for harder hikes.

01:02:00.03
Sean
Sure, maybe.

01:02:01.76
Andrew
Like if if the hike was steep enough and it was hard, maybe it would be more interesting.

01:02:04.80
Sean
hu

01:02:07.58
Sean
Maybe.

01:02:07.78
Andrew
Or like what about a hike with some some crazy exposure where you're like, ooh, If I step three feet to the left, I might die.

01:02:14.27
Sean
and I might die.

01:02:17.61
Sean
That doesn't sound like type 2 fun at all. so like That sounds like.

01:02:21.94
Andrew
What do you mean?

01:02:23.58
Sean
oh but is that Is that, what is type 3 fun?

01:02:28.39
Andrew
Type three fun? Okay, so type one fun is fun in the moment. Type two fun is hard in the moment, fun when you're looking back on it. And then type three fun is not fun at all, traumatic, trauma.

01:02:40.56
Andrew
Type three fun is trauma.

01:02:43.11
Sean
I feel like that's. Yeah, i don't I don't feel like... I feel like I've gone on hikes that were challenging before because I've been tricked to go on one with my friends who were just like overtaking a walk in the park and it became no longer a park.

01:02:58.40
Sean
I don't feel like a look back on any of that fondly. I don't feel like a look back on any like... Or or even a walk in in like... or like like an easy hike i don't feel like i've ever looked back on being in greenery of as like this was enjoyable no matter but difficulty i like rock climbing rock climbing rock climbing is great yeah rock climbing is fun that's but not and but not like patagonia type of rock climbing or whatever that that's not a mountain but like like thinking back

01:03:15.100
Andrew
Wild. was about to say, you're a climber.

01:03:30.97
Andrew
It's an area, yeah, where people go rock climbing.

01:03:32.31
Sean
Okay. All right. Thanks. Sure.

01:03:34.14
Andrew
Yeah. It's actually one of the, yeah, like, best climbing areas in the world.

01:03:35.24
Sean
I enjoy... i think I just enjoy AC too much, to be honest with you. I think that's probably what it is.

01:03:40.82
Andrew
yeah

01:03:41.70
Sean
thats That's honestly...

01:03:44.87
Andrew
It's fair.

01:03:45.20
Sean
Okay. I'll see you later.

01:03:48.05
Andrew
Well, yeah, man.

01:03:48.47
Sean
We were just rambling.

01:03:49.50
Andrew
Enjoy your AC.

01:03:51.36
Sean
Cool. Bye. Thanks. it's It's too cold for AC.

01:03:53.41
Andrew
Peace.

01:03:54.54
Sean
Bye.