217: Podcasting / SaaS / Work Life Balance - Justin Jackson
No. We've never talked before. I I think we'll be friends. I can tell.
Brian:Are you familiar with this experience where people act like your friends that you've known forever because they've heard your voice a lot. And, but you're like, I don't know who this person is.
Justin:I mean, they usually often people will say if they meet me or if they end up on a call that they've if they've listened to my my shows for a long time, they'll say, I feel like I know you. I feel like but I've had the exact experience in reverse where I've listened to somebody for a long time, and then I get to meet them or talk to them. And I'm like, man, I just feel like I know you because I've heard so many episodes where I've been on a journey with you throughout the, you know, the course of your podcast. So, yeah, I I've definitely had that experience. I most most of the time, it's pretty cool actually because there is at least a shared connection, regardless of which side you're on.
Justin:Right? So if if you meet somebody and you've been listening to their podcast, you know a lot about their story, a lot about their life. There's something you can at least talk about, and then it's really easy for that other person to inquire about your life, what interested them in the show. There's, like, stuff you can talk about. So but almost 99.9% of the time, I think it's been positive for me so far.
Brian:Okay. Well, I just have, like, this feeling we're already friends, but I don't think you've ever talked to me before.
Justin:No. We've never talked before.
Brian:Okay. Okay.
Justin:I I think we'll be friends. I can tell.
Brian:Well, so, a lot of way back when. So I've been podcasting for, since, like, 2015 or something like that. And Oh, cool. But before I got started, you had a blog, or a, a series. So I was listening to, oh, what were those guys called?
Brian:The the Fizzle dudes? So the Fizzle podcast.
Justin:Yep.
Brian:Yep. So, Chase and Chase and Corbett. Yeah. Yep. And so they were they were not in Portland area at first.
Brian:They were, like, other places, but they both, at one point, they were both in Portland, but I don't know if they still are.
Justin:Anyway, Chase has moved on, and I think Corbett's still there.
Brian:Okay. But the, I've moved on as well. I don't think I've kept kept up on their their podcast, but there there were it was very motivational. And then I started I I I think somehow through the I don't know if you were on their podcast or what, but somehow I picked up, following you. And I, like, actually was thinking about doing a podcast for, like, 2 year.
Brian:Okay. Oh, and just didn't pull the trigger. And then and then what actually pushed me over was that Siri a series you did, it was must have been 2015 or 2014 of, just this, like, 5 episodes, 5 or 6 episodes of and they were short. They were, like, 10 minutes each or something of, like Okay. What do you have to do?
Brian:Do you remember this of how to do a podcast?
Justin:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin:I've done what was this a video or a podcast series?
Brian:Podcast series.
Justin:Yeah. So I've done a couple I had a show called, I think I've done this on a few different podcasts. I had a show called build and launch where I did a a miniseries on launching a podcast. And then I think I did it again for, the Mega Maker podcast, which was after that. And, that's really cool that you found that.
Justin:Yeah. I I, I the idea was to help people get started as quick as they could and, yeah, to make the episodes really short.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:That's interesting that the path people follow to to that's actually really fascinating hearing how folks kinda, discover my work or become acquainted with me. So
Brian:because yeah. I and then, so one of the things you were recommending at the time was just even recorded on your iPhone. That's good enough to get started. And I didn't think so. I mean, I tried that, but the, the podcasting quality was, you know, it was one of those I can't remember who who said this, but, the the notion that your tastes are always, like Mhmm.
Brian:A large better than your abilities.
Justin:Ira Glass. That's his famous quote on creativity.
Brian:Okay.
Justin:Because when you get started, if you've got good taste, your taste is gonna far outstrip your actual ability, and it just takes lots and lots of repetition of making stuff that isn't quite up to your standard before you'll actually get up to your taste level.
Brian:Well, the the interesting thing then, one of the first questions I kinda wanted to talk to you about is just sort of, back in 2015, it really was kinda hard to at least it was for me to to do to get the sound that I wanted in a podcast, but it seems a lot easier. Have is it have you noticed this too? Is it easier to podcast now than it was, say, 7 years ago or something?
Justin:I think so. I think the I mean, I remember when I started, it was just hard to find a microphone. I ended up buying a Blue Yeti from Best Buy because that was the only thing available, you know, that I could just go out and buy. And now there's a couple really good, kind of low cost dynamic microphones like the Samsung q two u or the ATR 21100. And then, you know, companies like Shure have put out, like, the MV 7, which is not just an XLR mic, but also a USB mic.
Justin:So if you don't wanna do right now, I have a audio interface that's running into my computer. But if you don't wanna do all that, you can like my business partner, John, he just has the m v 7, plugs it into his laptop, and he's, you know, off to the races. So I think that part's gotten easier. There's still like to be honest, I've never loved the sound that I've gotten. You know, there's an air conditioner that's always running here.
Justin:It's it's it's always a game. It's like a cat and mouse game of, you know, getting what you want. Yeah. But overall, I think it's easier because there's more microphones and there's better quality, low cost microphones. And, that alone is you know, makes it, I I think, audio quality easier to achieve.
Justin:And then there's just so many more resources out there than I think I started podcasting in 2012. And there's some resources at the time, but everything has just gotten continued to evolve. And now there's, yeah, just more guides, more resources, more how to videos.
Brian:That
Justin:that stuff's gotten better.
Brian:Yeah. So, I mean, what? I started I think I started with an 8DR 21 100, and it was going right into my computer. I was getting frustrated with, like, with the, I don't know, weird noises in the room or something. So, got a power strip at that point and for the noise gate part of it, but then tried to play with the the well, I guess not a power strip, but one of those, like, audio strips with the noise gate and whatever.
Justin:Oh, you have, like, a DBX
Brian:Yeah. Yeah. 26 or something? Exactly. It was a DBX 2 286 because Yeah.
Brian:I don't know the dude from Dan Benjamin, I think, recommended it. Yeah. And, yeah. So I tried that, and I'm like, it's a $100. I'll try that.
Brian:Yeah. But so it was such a complicated setup for a while. And now, what? I've got, this isn't, like, a plug for all this stuff, but, yeah, I got a fairly expensive mic, but it's, like, $100 or so. That's not bad.
Brian:It's like a pro caster or something. And then, and then it goes right into the Wave XLR, which is, who does that? I don't know. Stream stream people? I don't know.
Justin:Oh. But Like, it's a it's like a like a audio booster or something? Or
Brian:What is it? It's the same like, there's,
Justin:it they've Some sort of audio interface that
Brian:Yeah. It's an audio interface with a built in, with a built in, noise gate and amp and preamp. Perfect. And and it's like, wow. I this is better sound than just plugging a USB mic into my computer.
Brian:But Yeah. But it's totally small and easy now. And, you know, a stream deck to turn on lights if I wanted to. Don't anyway, it's gotten a little easier, but I I and what's what's funny is I've spent, like, 1,000 over the maybe not 1,000, plural, but at least a 1,000 on audio equipment over the years. And Yeah.
Brian:My my setup now is probably 200 bucks. So Yeah.
Justin:That's great.
Brian:But I
Justin:should I should get those specs from you offline because, yeah, I'm always interested in good setups that just work. I think that's the other advantage is that people find something that work, and then they just share, like, here's what I found. It works great. I just, found this this microphone arm here. And before everyone was recommending the blue compass, and this arm here from Elgato is, like, a 1,000 times better.
Justin:And I'm just like, I gotta start recommending this. I don't know why everyone's recommending the other thing.
Brian:Oh. And Interesting.
Justin:Yeah. So I think the the the advantages that we're sharing are setups a lot more. Yeah. People find something that work, and they say, okay. You gotta try this out.
Justin:And, it's also easier to order stuff, return it. We just my wife just redesigned our this video studio setup I'm in. And
Brian:It's gorgeous, by the way.
Justin:Thank you. She did she did a great job. We've got all these classic radios behind me here, both transistor radios and tube radios. And, this one here appeared in the, not this exact one, but
Brian:this was in a James Bond movie. Sweet.
Justin:This radio. And, but the what she found is you have to order a bunch of stuff and then return half of it. So you you order stuff, and then you return half of it when you after you've tried it out. And I think that ability to try things out is and return it if it's not working is is the other key. Right?
Justin:You just some voices work better with certain microphones. Some rooms respond different, you know, differently to different preamps. And, you know, you try it all out and then
Brian:Returning. Whatever doesn't work. That's a good idea.
Justin:I was I was always, like, terrible at this. It's one reason I asked for help from my wife because I knew she'd just be able to like she would just order it all, plan it out and do the research. And then, you know, whatever didn't work, she would just return. And so she ordered it all at one time. We tried all sorts of things out, and whatever didn't work, she just returned kind of all at once on one day.
Justin:And that's a good way to do it. So But I mean, for podcast audio, audio setups are so much simpler than video. That's the other, I think, benefit of podcasting is that you can if you if you have a USB microphone, you can get a, you know, a dongle for your iPhone and plug it right into your iPhone and have excellent sound and just record right onto your iPhone with a with a nice sounding microphone and publish from there. It's it it's really easy to get started. The key is that, like, when we started Transistor, I think there was they figured there's about 500,000 podcasts in the world.
Justin:And now there's something like 4,500,000. But my my my advice to new people starting out, as I said, the truth is is that most of those podcasts aren't that good. Like, that's the that's the hard part is you you need to have decent sounding equipment. You know, you need to make it reasonably like, make your sound as good as you can. But after that, the really what distinguishes one podcast from another and whether someone listens to a podcast is if it's good.
Justin:And what's good means meaning, what I mean there is just it appeals to a certain audience. You've created something that's compelling enough that people will click play on your trailer, listen to 30 seconds, and then say, you know what? I'm gonna subscribe to this, or I'm gonna download a full episode. And then if you can get them to recommend it to a friend or you can get them to follow-up and download another episode. That's that would that's what's really distinguishes one podcast from another.
Justin:It's gotta be good. It's gotta be compelling. There's gotta be something about it that people wanna listen to. So I'm glad I'm glad the first steps are easy. Like, I got a microphone, plug it into my I my iPhone, and then it's like, okay.
Justin:What are you gonna do now? Now that you've got your setup, and you're, you know, in the closet recording with all the clothes around you, so the sound's gonna be fine. How are you going to make this entertaining so entertaining that someone recommends it to a friend?
Brian:Oh my god. I have no idea.
Justin:Well, there's some ways to figure out. I think the one thing I've always I've tried to do is prompt listeners when they're listening. And it could be as simple as something like I used to do this all the time. I'd be in the middle of an episode. I'd be like, hey, folks.
Justin:I just wanna take a break right now and say, if you are doing the dishes right now and listening to this podcast, can you just reach out to me on Twitter or by email? Say, hey. It's me, Al. I'm in Tennessee, and I'm listening to your podcast while I do the dishes. I just wanna hear from all the dishwashers out there.
Justin:And I get Interesting. All these responses from people who were, you know, do listening to the podcast while they, did the dishes. And often, you know, that was an easy way to get in contact with listeners, and then I would follow-up with, questions like, I'm curious, you know, what makes you listen to the podcast? What brings you back? What first attracted you to the show?
Justin:What's going on in your life that makes you, you know, listen to a particular episode or listen to the first episode? I I I like that question of what's going on in your world that brought you to the podcast originally or today or whenever you listen because it gives all this context of why people listen. Yeah. You know, there's certain shows I listen to on my way to work because I want them to inspire me to start thinking about business stuff. You know?
Justin:So the job to be done is inspire me on my way to work so that I have new marketing ideas or new business ideas or just energy that I can bring into my day. And there's other shows I listen to on my way home, and their job is help me to wind down, help me to think about something other than work, help me to just divert my attention, have a diversion, have some entertainment as I walk home. And, you know, by the time I'm home, I'm I'm fully, you know, not thinking about work anymore.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:So figuring out why people are hiring your podcast instead of something else, I think, is a good thing to do. And, yeah, it's just asking people when they reach out or if you do happen to bump into somebody that listens.
Brian:That's I should do that. It's a great
Justin:idea. I think I think more people should do it. Yeah. It's it's the one way to it's also a way to because podcasting, you know, it is hard to hear from people. Any signal you get is good signal, and people are listening for a reason.
Justin:They're not just no one wakes up in the morning and says, well, I hope I listen to a boring show today. You know, like, people want, they're trying to get something out of it. And sometimes the job is, like, a lot of utility. Like, help me understand more about unit tests in Python so that I can do my job better. Well, that's a very specific job to be done, and it makes sense.
Justin:You know? Why do you
Brian:wanna do that? Okay. So I'm I'm gonna, talk for a bit so that you have a chance to drink your coffee if you want. But, some of the people listening I'm gonna actually throw this out as a podcast episode. My podcast is normally around Python and software testing, and incorporating testing with software.
Brian:So why would I have Justin Jackson on? And a lot of people in the Python community might not know who you are or might think that you're a football player.
Justin:Yeah. Or a basketball player. There's
Brian:basketball player that yeah.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. My the search engine optimization for Justin Jackson is,
Brian:Not not great.
Justin:Quite competitive.
Brian:But okay. So, just so I I've been following Justin for a while. You, did the what was that podcast again where you did, like, a whole bunch of, build build and launch or something?
Justin:Build and launch.
Brian:Yeah. And which just seemed like craziness. You were trying to do, like, what, like, a 100 or 50 or, you know, like, or 1 a week? I I can't remember.
Justin:Build and Launch was launched something new every month.
Brian:Okay. Of course.
Justin:And then I started another podcast called Mega Maker where I was trying to do a 100 do build a 100 or make a 100 things in a year.
Brian:Okay. Which was fun to listen to. Did you make it to a 100?
Justin:I made it to a 100. Yeah. I think I in retrospect, that was probably overkill. It's probably too many, but, it was a fun challenge.
Brian:So and then okay. So then, I'm listening to him for the in the makerspace and the, the the the the startup, the business, or the bootstrapping business kind of space. Mhmm. And, very inspirational. I love plus, I grew up in the northwest and and was a skater and a snowboarder and stuff, and you kinda have that vibe as well.
Brian:Yeah. So I
Justin:love snowboarding. Not I'm not great at skateboarding, but I have one that I rip around on. But, yeah, snowboarding is definitely
Brian:A complete tangent. I grew up in Eastern Washington and all the rich kids so I was not one of the rich kids. But so often, I was just like, I can I can locals hills and and doing it, but there was a little place called north south that was a little penny ski ball, in Idaho that I go to once in a while? But I see. All the rich kids, I'll always went up to Banff.
Justin:Oh, yeah.
Brian:Have you ever snowboarded Banff? Is it any good?
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I've snowboard Banff. Banff is good. I mean, I think the best mountains are in British Columbia, which is where I am now.
Justin:Okay. Banff is a beautiful place. I grew up in Alberta, but I grew up in Northern Alberta. So we're prairies, and the the the mountain that we would drive to is Marmot Basin and Jasper. And so we'd get up on a Saturday morning at 4 AM and then drive 4 hours to Marmot Basin to to ride that mountain.
Brian:Okay.
Justin:And then Banff was just a little too far, but I've ridden a handful of times. It's a gorgeous mountain. And when it's good there, it's really good.
Brian:It's Where are you normally riding now?
Justin:So now I live in Vernon, BC, which is in the Okanagan Valley about 4 hours east of Vancouver, And we have kind of a series of mountains here. My local mountain, Silver Star, it's about 25 minutes from my house. Nice. And then, there's Revelstoke, which is about an hour and a half from me, which is the kind of the new I mean, some people call it the new Whistler. It's it's a pretty amazing place.
Justin:And then just, after Revelstoke is Golden and Kicking Horse, And then the other direction, there's Big White and some other places. So we're kind of
Brian:Snow around you.
Justin:Yeah. We got they call it the powder highway. If you ride the all the resorts, you can, like, ride probably 5 or 6 resorts. And when the snow is good, it's like, yeah, just an amazing road trip.
Brian:Yeah. I might have to, like, do some exercise and get my knees up to speed, try to do that at some point or at least get one of them.
Justin:Yeah. Revelstoke's great, and kicking horse is great. If you get the chance to go, it's amazing.
Brian:The, so the reason why one of the couple of reasons why I wanted to come have you on, one was, just to finally talk to some one of my heroes. Also, I'd like to encourage more, there are more Python podcasts coming on. When I started, there was only a few. Now there's quite a few, which is great, and I'd like to encourage more people to do that. And Mhmm.
Brian:I'm gonna start a I'm gonna start another podcast whether that's a good idea or not.
Justin:Great idea.
Brian:And, and so, there's a few special things that I so I thought I'd have you on to help promote, transistor and other things you're doing, and ask you a few questions. So you're, I don't know That's great. I don't know if I had all of the summary of what you're up to now. Is it mostly transistor FM?
Justin:Yeah. We're full time on transistor. We started it in 2018, just me and my partner, John. We actually met through Chase Reeves from Fizzle. He introduced us.
Brian:Okay.
Justin:And, Yeah. We started working on it together in 2018. We launched it August 1, 2018. And by the following August 2019, we were both full time on it. So we've been full time since then, and we now have 3 full time employees in addition to us.
Justin:So we're a little team of 5 people, and it's our full time gig. This is what we're doing these days.
Brian:That's awesome. And by full time, what does that mean to you personally? Like, are you 40 hours a week? Or
Justin:I mean, we probably don't work, we probably work, yeah, about 3 30 to 40 hours a week. And depending on the week, some weeks it's more, some weeks it's less. We built the company to give us a better life.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:So, the the key for both John and I has been flexibility and freedom. And so if the snow is good, I go snowboarding, and I might take the whole morning off or the whole day off. And we've tried to build that into the company. So we work hard. We do good product work.
Justin:We really work hard to serve our customers. We have live chat that we try to answer as soon as we can. But at the same time, we wanted to give folks the flexibility to take time off, to take care of themselves, to have some margin in their lives. And now that we have 5 people, it's, like, pretty good. We can kind of you know, if one person's taking some time off, the other person can, you know, you know, cover for them.
Brian:You have a podcast that covers sort of your some of your transition through this. Right?
Justin:Yeah. We right when we started working together, we signed our partnership docs, and we just started recording a podcast together called Build Your SaaS. Okay. And it's just about building and launching a software as a service company, from when we had 0 revenue and 0 customers, and we didn't know if this whole thing was gonna work. And, and in so in many ways, feeling like this might be our last attempt at something like this.
Justin:Just I didn't know if I had another attempt in me.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:So, And you were
Brian:so but were both of you working at another at other things?
Justin:I was yeah. John was working full time at Cards Against Humanity, and I was I'd already gone independent. I had a paid community called Mega Maker and a course called Marketing for Developers Okay. That was paying the bills.
Brian:But before you went independent, you were at some point, like, doing the side hustle thing. Yeah. I I, I I created
Justin:the marketing for developers course while I was working for a startup in Portland and working full time as a product manager there. And I've been a product manager at other SaaS companies as well. Okay.
Brian:So, yeah, I I worked
Justin:while I was working there, I built this course on the side. I'd already been doing podcasts and blogging and other things before that, building up an audience. And, yeah, launched that in 2015. And then, it did well enough that I thought if I went full time on it, I could double it the next year. And so I did that in 2016.
Justin:And, Yeah. That was kind of when I cut the cord with paid employment.
Brian:That's nice. I guess so one of the I'm jumping ahead, but one of my questions around this, I'll just go ahead and ask now, is
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:As a side hustler myself, I got a full time job, and I've it's like I'm collecting side project, though. Couple podcasts or a couple books. Yep. Doing, what else? I'm starting a SaaS.
Brian:So, I'm not gonna, like, bug you about SaaS questions. But
Justin:Feel free. It's I'm I'm I'm happy to answer anything.
Brian:Well, I guess one of the things is, is are you is SAS, s a a s and s a s s s, pronounced differently or just spell it differently?
Justin:Saas is spelled it's an acronym, so it's s a a s. And, in some ways, it's terrible a terrible thing to name your podcast because, it's yeah. My my kids try to describe this to their friends, and their friends have no idea what they're talking about. But SaaS is actually a lot of people are searching for it now in podcast apps on on YouTube and other things. So
Brian:Software is a service.
Justin:Software as a service.
Brian:Yep. Right. So is it too late to jump on the SaaS bandwagon?
Justin:No. Because SaaS isn't a market. I mean, people say it's there's a SaaS market, but you you use SaaS as a delivery model to deliver a product to a specific market, a specific category. And the key with any whether you're making a podcast or making a software product, the key is that you've identified something that people are already searching for. They're already searching for a solution.
Justin:And if you are if you can target either a desire or a pain or something that has already motivated people to search out a solution, and you can do that again in a compelling way. So it's the same as recording a podcast. You're doing it in a way that compels them to try you out, to give you a shot, to seek you out, then it's not too late because there's lots of opportunities. And the the other thing about most categories is that they're cyclical. Right?
Justin:So we were talking about, earlier, we were talking about Calendly versus SavvyCal. So Calendly was an existing product that reached its maturity phase. And in any category when there's a big incumbent that's kind of reached their maturity phase, that's a good time to launch something new if there's an a kind of a window of opportunity. And that's what Derek Reimer, the founder of SavvyCal, observed. He's like, wow.
Justin:A lot of people using Calendly. So there's a market. People are using it and paying for it. And but there's some gaps. There's some product opportunities that people want Calendly to do that it's not doing.
Justin:And there's also just when something once something's kind of a bit older, people just naturally start to look for, you know, is there a fresh new solution or whatever?
Brian:And one of the interesting things that you've brought up on, I don't know, one of the podcasts is Yeah. That you don't have to have, feature parity before you launch.
Justin:No. As as long as there's enough there that you can I mean, there's a there's a couple of ways to kind of stair step your way into it? For us, you know, when we were in inviting beta users, the idea was, hey, if you come and try Transistor in our beta phase, we will give you a lower price. And so for people who are using other tools, they were like, okay. Well, I can switch to Transistor, kind of grow with the product, and in exchange, I'll pay a lower price and get to give them feedback on the product that, you know, maybe the feature I really want will get built earlier.
Justin:Yeah. So there's ways of of doing it. And there's also just people get attracted to products for different reasons, and a lot of it will depend on you as the founder. What kind of unique attributes, strengths, weaknesses, what advantages would you have, personally over competitors? And for John and I, it was that we were willing to share our story in a really transparent way.
Justin:And so we had a lot of customers that came to us because they were attracted by the story. What was compelling? It was like, wow. This I wanna be a part of this journey and support these guys as they're building this product. And so they were willing to switch to us even before, you know, we were at feature parity to some of the other products out there.
Justin:We were, you know, slowly building it up, but they were willing to give us a shot because they were invested in the story.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:And, you know, that's something that a bigger company, can't can't do. Right? The other thing I think we've done from the beginning is, like, customer support. And I often joke, like, people will say, when sometimes on live chat, I'll get someone who says, why would I use Transistor when Anchor is free? And I said, well, I'm one of the cofounders of Transistor, and I'm pretty sure that the CEO of Spotify is not answering anchor support tickets right now.
Justin:We really care about customers, and we all do support. Even when I'm snowboarding, I'm on the chairlift answering customer support tickets. It's like one of the things I'm really passionate about is helping people out as they're trying to figure out how to launch a podcast. And, you know, I'll go even if it's not something about the product, if they want me to listen to an episode and give them some feedback, if they want me to look at their website and, tell them how how I how to improve it, you know, to get more people finding their podcast on Google, I'm willing to go the extra mile and help those folks. And that's a real competitive advantage that That's huge.
Justin:Especially big incumbents won't do. And it's an easy one for it's not easy, but it's a it's an accessible one for most indie startups is that, yeah, that that the competition is often slow. Their support and customer service is not good, and you we can, leverage our ability to be small, and, you know, we can pivot if we need to. We can react to customer feedback faster, and we can just care more. We and, that I think, that's served us really well.
Brian:I but I put that to the test. I was listening to one of the your episodes. You're talking with the person. I can't remember her name. The person you hired to do help with customer support.
Justin:Helen.
Brian:Yeah. And it was a great episode. And then I went back and listened to the previous one or the that you said it was the second time she was on the episode podcast, so I went back and listened to the other one. But, I did so a lot of websites have these, like, chat things that you can, like, log into. With you guys, it's one of you that's answering.
Brian:Yeah. That's amazing. And I and so I I was like, okay. So what are the things one of the things that I have that so Fireside has had this is what I'm on right now. And Yeah.
Brian:I whatever. I probably shouldn't name names, but the it's not a secret. That's who I'm hosting with. One of the things I love is the get the guest pages.
Justin:Yeah.
Brian:And I was like, if I and, you know, one of the reasons why I'm considering tran there's a few reasons why I'm considering transistor, and I'm probably gonna pull the trigger and switch. There's a few reasons. One of them is, the multiple podcasts because I want, I wanna do a new podcast, but I don't want testing code to go away. I want people to be able to still listen to it. Yeah.
Brian:And I don't and it seems kind of a lot to pay my normal monthly fee to just maintain it sitting there doing nothing. The other thing was, like, these guest pages are great, and you guys have guest pages now. Yep. And I was like, well, how is there an API or something? And I I let so I hopped on.
Brian:I don't know if you want me to air this or not, but hopped on the chat and said, how would I transition from fireside to to transistor with all these guest pages and stuff? And and I got somebody, I think Helen responded and said, well, we could if you could get it in a CSV file, we could probably help you out. Yeah. And I'm like, that's amazing. This is this is pretty cool.
Brian:I mean, I even if even if I don't even if it doesn't work out, that there's a willingness to try to help, this is great. The other one that really, is that you the other question I had was, on the guest pages, is there a link for Mastodon? And, apparently, there's, like, a free form link that you can use or something that I could put put in people's Mastodon accounts.
Justin:Yeah. I think we got we've gotta update that because we do have let me just look here. On our social links, like, the social links we provide for your website, so, like, find us on Twitter, Instagram. We have Mastodon there.
Brian:Okay.
Justin:But, yeah, I think you're right. I think we need to add it to we need oh, no. We have Mastodon there. It's already on there on the pro profile pages. Yeah.
Brian:And then there's, like, some some at least a free form link or something that I can add somebody's GitHub profile. Yep. Okay. Because that's that's something I've tried to do, before that, I've asked for years for Fireside to say, hey. Can you get a GitHub link?
Brian:And, no, just crickets. And then also with, Mastodon, they said maybe, but it's not there yet. And I think that that needed to be something that that was, like, turned on, like, right away, and it can't have been that hard. Mhmm. And, so, I guess, kudos for you guys jumping on it.
Brian:But also the that customer service bit, I don't I do not want to do
Justin:that. I mean, you don't have to. That here's the thing. There there are multiple paths to to success. And, you know, I and I think I was definitely my experience working for other SaaS applications had been I just saw that it was a real differentiator if you had awesome customer service.
Justin:And so we've taken it seriously from the beginning. John and I have done it in the early days. I mean, early days before we'd even gone full time, I was spending way too much time answering support tickets and going the extra mile for people. I I would do so much extra work for those early customers just because I knew it would be a differentiator. And, so for us, it's been one of the ways we've found success, but there's other ways.
Justin:I've I have friends who do who have successful software companies who don't do live chat, But there has to be something. You have to be able to differentiate. And I think the nice thing about customer service is even if you don't have a feature built, you can you know, like, let's say somebody said, hey, I need at the beginning, it'd be like we had no way of manually updating a bunch of episodes. And they'd be like, I want to migrate, but I need all these things changed. And I would be like, oh, don't worry, I'll take care of it.
Justin:And I would just manually go through each episode and update that thing for them because I could. It was within you know, that's one way I could serve them. And if you get a customer, you know, our LTV, lifetime value of a customer is on average is probably about $1,000. And so you put in a little effort at the beginning and you keep a customer for a long time, that's worth something. Plus they tell their friends, that's worth something.
Justin:Plus they talk about they leave a good review for you on one of the review sites, it's worth something. So there's other ways to win, but you have to find some sort of advantage. And to me, customer support is the is a good one because most folks aren't willing to do the work. And if you are, you'll stand out immediately.
Brian:Speaking of doing the work, though. Okay. So one of the, got a few more podcast specific questions, and then I wanna Sure. Ask about life work life if you got time.
Justin:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Brian:So, you you had in one of the earlier episodes I was listening to, you were mentioning, like, dynamic ad insertion is not being important, but now you guys have it. So is is it a good thing, or is it just something people ask for?
Justin:I mean, the important can mean different things at different times. So one thing I often try to think about is, will this feature actually lead to more people signing up and staying on? And at the time, when I initially said it, it just wasn't and remember, markets are fluid.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:Pieces are already always moving around. And at the time, the the reasons people were signing up was just most podcasts were people who were hobbyists or doing it on the side or doing it for their small business or what have you. And you know, 99% of podcasters don't need dynamic ad insertion. There's also at the time, it was just a bigger feature than John and I could bite off as a 2 person team. But once Helen and then Jason joined, Jason was able to do a lot of that work for us, and it was more possible.
Justin:And then we said, okay, well, let's look at it, and maybe this is something we can add, especially once you've kind of gotten all the the easy wins, the low hanging fruit. It's like, well, now to grow, it's a lot harder. And so now we're we're building features, and we're getting kind of iterative gains from you know, in terms of people signing up and staying with us.
Brian:But it so let's say if I on the new podcast I'm starting, if I were to decide to go with the dynamic ad insertion instead of the traditional ads there forever sort of a thing
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:I kinda have to build that into my pitch to my advertisers. Right?
Justin:Yeah. Most people who are actually doing ads are now selling people on a certain time frame. So they'll say, for example, a common way of doing it is saying you can buy ads on new episodes, and those are more expensive. Right? Because when an episode drops, there's a spike of downloads.
Justin:And then there's a separate, campaign for the back catalog. So people will schedule an a certain, campaign for new episodes, and they get that for the first 30 days or 60 days or whatever. And then after that 60 days, it goes into the back catalog, and then their, you know, folks are buying ads on the back catalog. So it gives you more inventory. Cool.
Brian:So I can do that with your with transistor. I can have, like, the new episodes versus back catalog? So Yeah. Different ads?
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. You can schedule you can have different campaigns running, and you can schedule those campaigns. And then we have some basic rules to say, for example, one way of doing it is saying, okay. I'm gonna apply this campaign to all of these episodes in the back catalog, and then I'm gonna have another campaign that's like a default campaign that automatically gets applied to all new episodes for a certain time frame.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:Okay. Then you just adjust the campaign dates.
Brian:So I think I think it's kind of a cool idea even so my thoughts were even if you're not having external advertisers, you've got your own thing that you're plugging. Yeah. You might be able to do things like, like around Christmas time or something. You could I've or whatever. I'm I'm doing a promo, a sale price for this this month.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's the reason I originally wanted to build it. You know, sometimes we build features because like, what pushes it over the edge in terms of something we'll build is like, this is something I'd like. And I always wanted a way of being able to dynamically add, announcements to every episode.
Brian:Yeah.
Justin:And so we often will use it for announcements. Like, I was in New York. I was traveling to New York for a conference, and I just replaced all of the ads to say, hey. I'm gonna be in New York, during these dates. If you're gonna be there, click on this form and let me know, and maybe we can do a meetup.
Justin:And so it was just super easy to say, here's you know, I'm gonna do a pre roll, and then I'm gonna remind them again in the mid roll and then do another reminder at the end. And just to be able to do that automatically with all my episodes was something I was like, ah, I've wanted this forever. Yeah. I think that's the most powerful way to use it. I think there's also a big opportunity in podcasters helping each other grow their shows.
Justin:And so you could do an ad. Like, right now, I'm running an ad on build your SaaS for some of our customers and just saying, hey. If you like our show, here's another show I think you'll really like.
Brian:Oh, that's cool.
Justin:And then promoting other people's shows. I think there's just some really cool things you can do there that other people, you know, that that go beyond, like, selling ads.
Brian:Now, last kind of topic of the question before I let you go. Mhmm. Work life balance, especially with side hustle sort of stuff.
Justin:Mhmm.
Brian:I'm assuming it that your family was on board with all of what you're up to. Were they?
Justin:We we we might have to get other members of my family in here. I think this is actually the hardest part that doesn't get talked about enough. And I've been doing the series on build your SaaS on bootstrapping with kids. And I've had different guests on that have all have a different point of view on this topic. I think there's the there's there's some things I would recommend.
Justin:So one, you have to be kind of brutally honest about your life and how stable everything is. So as an example, in my early twenties, I was working a full time job. And on the side, it had always been my dream since I was a teenager to have a snowboard skateboard shop. And so on the side with a friend, I opened a snowboard shop.
Brian:Wow.
Justin:It did not go well. And, it was really hard on my family Once once all the dust had settled, you know, we had to eventually close it. There's a bunch of debt. And at the time, my spouse's response was, hey. Can you just not do anything else on the side for a while just so we could have some stability, you know, build up some savings again, all those things.
Justin:And I think that was wise, and we did that. I I closed the shop in 2005, and I didn't really start anything new for quite a few years after that. So I think being honest about stage of life, you know, it was easier. It's easier for me to start things now that my kids are older. I have 4 kids that are 13 to 20 than when they were babies.
Justin:Like, the baby phase, it's like no sleep and you know? But it all depends. I know couples who make it work and you know, they've for them, there's enough margin and, you know, it can work, but you have to be brutally honest about where you're at. And I think the other thing is the biggest risk when you're bootstrapping something new is that you'll burn out. Right?
Justin:That's that's 1. Or you'll run out of money. Like, those are the 2 things. Right? So, if you're doing it on the side and you have a full time job, you effectively have infinite runway, but the risk there is that you could burn out.
Justin:It's just a it's just hard for most people doing consistently applying energy at work and then going home and taking care of all your home stuff, trying to be a good partner, a good parent, a good friend, a good family member. And then once all that stuff is done, dedicating hours to a side project, that's that's a lot. Right? And so, I think you can do that for a while, but the the biggest risk is that you'll you'll burn out. And so I think
Brian:I guess there's
Justin:there's some things you need to consider there for sure.
Brian:One of the things I wanna address while we're talking about burnout is that especially with site I mean, with work burnout, that's tough because you got you're there or you're there all the time. Yeah. I don't and I don't I'm not I don't think I'm skilled enough to tell somebody how to deal with burnout at work. But burnout with side projects, I've gone through it, but I think it's fine to just take a pause. Like, Test and Code just had, like, a, I don't know, 4 month break over the a 3 month break or something like that just because I needed a little bit more room in my life.
Justin:Yeah. I think that's the point is that and this is why you need to be have good communication with your partner, good communication with your kids. Good, I think I wish in retrospect I'd been going to therapy regularly as well because all of these things give you a perspective about how are we doing, how are the gauges of our lives, And to be open and and receptive enough to to you know, if if your partner is saying, listen, You can't keep doing this to yourself. Like, you're getting 4 hours of sleep. You're you're grumpy all the time because, you know, you're you're constantly thinking about this side thing you're trying to launch.
Justin:And if they're saying, hey, we need to pause or we need to figure out something new or, like, that's a signal you should listen to. And for yourself, I think having especially a professional, like a therapist that you see regularly who knows what you're up to. And I've had therapists who said, listen. Like, Justin, you need a break. You you can't keep doing this.
Justin:Right? You gotta you gotta slow this down. And, Yeah. And also even like, I remember one time I went to I've told the story before. I went to the doctor, and, you know, I was just, like, going through a hard time and feeling depressed.
Justin:And my physician said, well, tell me what is kinda going on in your life. And I'm like, wow. I'm trying to do all this. I got all this responsibility trying to do this. And she said, how, like, how much alcohol are you consuming?
Justin:And I said, well, not that much. Like, after I, like, put the kids to bed and I'm just totally, like, burnt out, I I do a couple shots of whiskey every night. And she said, okay. Well
Brian:Maybe not do that. That
Justin:that's that's quite a bit of booze. And I had never had someone confront me about that. Yeah. And so she said, okay. Well, my first prescription is I want you to stop drinking for a while.
Justin:And I said, okay. Well, okay. And then, the second thing she asked me is how much exercise I was getting. And at the time, I was, like, riding my bike down to my office, which is downtown, and riding my bike back. And she said, I want you to double that.
Justin:So if you that means riding up and down the hill twice, do that. And her the the the reason for the prescription was I was I was burning out. I wasn't being healthy. I was drinking too much alcohol. I wasn't getting enough exercise, and I needed to create space to take care of myself.
Justin:So I think having professionals and family members and friends and accountability partners and other things in my life who could keep me in check, you know, realign me when I got off track was important. And often it means, yeah, you gotta take a
Brian:break. Yeah.
Justin:Often it means you need to reevaluate. Is what I'm doing is doing more of what I'm doing actually going to get me more of what I want. And, you know, there's numerous times in my journey where I had people challenge me on that. I had a business, like a course business. So after marketing for developers, I tried to launch a few more things.
Justin:And I went to this retreat with, a bunch of other entrepreneurs, and they just we had a hot seat time where everyone was on the hot seat for a while and people could just really challenge you on how things were going. And they said, it sounds like the business you're trying to run, like doing more of like spinning more plates or applying more effort or working harder is not going to get you more of what you want, which is more money, more margin, more freedom, more flexibility, less burnout, etcetera. And it was hard to hear that, but their encouragement helped me move on from a bad idea, or an idea that wasn't giving me more of what I wanted. And that created space for me to eventually get to Transistor, which is an idea that did give me more of what I wanted. I think all of that's important.
Justin:I think it's, there's there's a real risk for us to do damage to ourselves and our relationships if we're not careful.
Brian:Yeah. And even, so in the software world, there's a lot of people getting there with just open source projects, and they're not making any money off of it.
Justin:So I
Brian:think paying attention to yourself is good. I think that's a good place to wrap it up. Sounds good. I'm in a I guess this was an hour long. Just thanks for being an inspiration for me, I guess.
Justin:I'm happy to chat. These are all topics I'm passionate about. So, yeah, this is one of the reasons I got into the podcast game is because I like doing this.
Brian:Nice. Well, thank you.
Justin:Thanks for having me.
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