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Episode 24 of Morning Maker Show: From Nokia's Downfall to Grayscale Dreams
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Summary
Join Dan and Sandra as they remember Finnish history: reminiscing Nokia's glory days, and pondering over the morality of faking it till you make it in business. From eye exercises to A/B testing results, they manage to yet again navigate through the highs and lows of the tech community
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Transcript
Sandra: um, relax, eat good food, um, enjoy good movie.
Do some work because we do love to work, um, and put the link in the tweets
Dan: Good morning, Sandra.
Sandra: Good morning,
Dan: Dan. How are you this fine morning?
Sandra: Ah, excellent. The Friday mornings in Finland are truly, truly amazing. I recommend it to everyone.
Dan: What's new in Finland?
Sandra: Um, I don't know. As you can see, it's like 5. 35 a. m. Just a joke. It's p. m. But it's still a day outside, which means that we are heading to summer.
And I don't know if you read my tweets, but that means that we have five months left of doing business. Which is quite sad and scary,
Dan: actually. So in summer, everything stops in Finland? Yes,
Sandra: nothing works in Finland. There's no people. Last year, I had something to do with the government agencies. Not going to go into details there.
But I submitted a thing in May, and I was, during the summer, I was calling the one lady, and she told me, I'm sorry, girl, stop. Calling us. There's two people working here in the whole country, so I got my respond late August. So you can only imagine. But I said that you see, that's why Twitter is an excellent platform.
I said my complaints, um, to Twitter, of course, and then person told me. Yeah, but the US people always work and I'm like, yes, catching, catching, catching the US in summer.
Dan: Ah, I know what you mean, though. I know what you mean, like, things slowed down, but I didn't think, like, I think Finnish people from the Nokia days, they're very industrious, they, they work a lot, but that's not true, apparently.
Sandra: No, that was true years and years ago. Now Nokia, oh, I don't know, can I say these things, but let me say it. Now Nokia people just love to say that they were in Nokia at some point in their life, you know. Yeah. They, they talk about the proud moments of Nokia.
Dan: Do, do, can you go and visit the Nokia factory?
Like is there like a actually history now, right? No. Hey,
Sandra: don't insult me, . There's no need for insults here, but, um, actually our Klu office is in, um, same campus. area where famous glory of Nokia was, so we are surrounded by a lot of very proud Nokia people. I can just say that.
Dan: Yeah. Well, it's, I will, I will consider visiting because this is an extremely important landmark.
Everyone should see this. It's like you see the, I don't know, Taj Mahal, you see the Nokia building in Finland.
Sandra: Very excellent, um, comparison, but yeah, it's very true. Things are extremely proud, but this is pure like Nokia. Unfortunately, Nokia is pure example how, um If, if you reach that high peak and you're not able to innovate or are able to keep up with, um, competition in the same time and being open minded and even innovating in the same time, you're gonna fail so hard, even if you're on top.
And it's so
Dan: sad. Yeah, I, I still don't understand how they, they could lose the market, but we'll do a show with, where we explain the downfall of Nokia, okay? Next week, it's a special episode where we, it's like documentary style and you explain the downfall of Nokia. I
Sandra: love it. Let's do that. But today we have something, um, we have a updates to do from the community and I'm excited.
Let's find a future Nokia
Dan: here. Please go.
Sandra: Maxim. Maxim. Maksym.
Great news! New iYoga version is available now. Updated design and added great onboarding. Write feedback in the comments. Hashtag building public. Link in the comments. At least we know where the link is. iYoga, this sounds interesting.
Dan: Can I ask, what is it?
Is this a thing? Like you exercise your eyes? Is that true? True. Wow. I didn't know this is a thing that I need.
Sandra: Easily true. It is actually an I thing. I thought, I was actually thinking, is it an I thing or is it just a name thing? But it is I thing.
Dan: Yeah, I thought it's like when you, when you brand things that you say, you know, care bear, okay, but bad, bad example, you, you put like random things next to, to the word because yoga is like so hard to rank for, like to be unique, so you just add a random word in front or after, but this is actually iYoga, and I think it's We probably need this because we sit all day in front of the computer, huh?
Yeah,
Sandra: this is the best target audience that, uh, Maxim could have. But I wonder,
Dan: how does this even work? Like, do you, you need to look in different directions? Or, oh my god, I want to try
Sandra: this. Yeah, there are exercises. I mean, we are looking at the moment in the, in the animation, small animation. And there, I can see already, like,
Dan: Yeah, so you could essentially do flexibility or energy exercises and so on. Man, this is probably a whole field, huh? Where people do research, they study, and yeah, I don't know.
Sandra: It's very interesting. I never like, you know, when it comes to regulations and things like that, I'm very, like, I have some knowledge when it comes to the security and things, but when it comes to medical field, I want to know more.
Like this is very interesting for me. How much you can push.
Dan: Yeah, super cool. Nice work. I will try this afterwards and see. I'm a little bit afraid of Googling this because I might find out that I'm doing some very bad things to my eyes and I'm gonna, you know, go blind in 10 years. So, yeah. All right. Next one by Ilyas.
He's saying he's building in public. Nice work. This is, this is the, this is the show to do that. Very nice. Google. Chart from the Google Search Console going up like a hockey stick. He's saying, can't wait to see where this goes in one year. Glad to be doing it with Huao. Wow, this is like a collaboration maybe.
oh, it's Joao, I think is the correct way to say it, but I'm so sorry, Joao. You're listening. We've butchered your name in many ways. I'm so, so sorry. And then he's saying, it's very nice to be building it with you. Looking forward to see those charts going up. A lot of secrecy around this topic, I have to say.
Do you know what this is?
Sandra: First of all, these are our members and I want to know more what is happening and why don't, why we are not part of this story. I want to be part of the
Dan: secret club. Yeah, I thought the agreement was that the members of the morning maker show do not have secrets with each other.
Sandra: But it's good. It's a fun game.
And I love the charts. I love charts that are going up. Minds are going up and down all the time.
Dan: Yeah, but just look at them at the days where they're going up. It's simple,
Sandra: Sandra. Yes, yes, yes. I fully agree with you. It's the same thing like when you're going to shopping, you know, you take the thing, you don't look, you go to the cashier, you pay, you leave the store.
That's how you look the charts.
Dan: Yeah. Simple. Simple.
Sandra: Um, Sam, Sam Newby, um,
vizalo.co made the, made its first revenue this morning. Hashtag building public. I think these are my favorite updates we have in, in community. Um, Just because sometimes you put so much time and effort into building something and then that first payment is the sweetest thing ever.
Um, everything else you kind of get used to it. I still get like chills when I see Lemon Squeezy emails and it's so lovely. But I think the first payment is the sweetest one. So congratulations from us. So
Dan: vizalo, first time I hear, is a powerful and affordable hosting in multiple locations. I assume hosting of, of anything you like, I don't think it's specific to, to something.
This is actually pretty ambitious, huh? For a For an indie project. So, very cool to see. You know that joke where you have the software developer that has, you know, this humongous salary, whatever it is, 200, 000 a year? And, you know, kind of depressed, kind of, I don't like my job. And then you have the screenshot of the 14 pounds or whatever this is And you're super happy and like with medals and Like on top of the world.
This is this is the vibe that i'm getting so freaking awesome sam Yeah, there's
Sandra: nothing better than that. I think yesterday I read such a funny Um, funny tweet from a developer, of course, like he, he quit his job from Google. It was, of course, joke, I don't, but it's not, but he quit his job from Google. The whole day he was, um, moving and changing the sign up button color, you know.
Dan: Oh yeah, the new Google login is such a fail. It's a tough one to make, you know. Yeah, yeah. All right. I want to take the next
Sandra: one. Yes. Um, DevDazzle.
Now that the main app is ready, it's time to focus on the components and templates. Made this cool collapsible header for glidvio.com library in Next. js and Tailwind CSS.
Dan: So it's a way to fast track your projects with powerful components. So a toolkit that You can use to build faster, and it's also open source, and I assume Dev is the, I wonder if Dev is the name, or is just, you know, he is a dev. We'll find out in the comments. Uh, he.
Sandra: It's a given name by himself. Yeah, yeah, that's,
Dan: that's correct.
Why, okay, step back. Why aren't you Sandra Klu? Sorry,
Sandra: excuse me, what? Uh, why I'm not, oh, I am actually on some places, like on Discord I'm called Sandra Klu. Um, or actually I have put my name as my email, sandraatklu. I'm not sure I have to check that. Um, Reddit Sandra Klu as well as my last name. I put Klu wherever I can.
But now I need to add Morning Maker Show as well. Sandra Klu Morning Maker Show. Daik.
Dan: Uh, sure. I've I didn't expect such a complex answer to a simple question, but Oh, sorry. You know, I wanted to say you have it easy, but Imagine my name with all the stuff that I've made, huh? Yes, you cannot do that. I do that.
But speaking of, about stuff that I've made, there's a new hunted space. It's out. Did you see that? Yeah. And I'm
Sandra: scared of you, Dan, sometimes. You cannot keep up like this. You know, you're putting a complex on, on everyone else. Dan did a brilliant job. We are planning to push, because Product Hunt is vibing at the moment with us, so we are planning to push, um, hunted space to Product Hunt.
And he totally re did. Hunted space and it's brilliant. And it's so nice, and you did it with Shipixen, and so he's combining his own products, he's on another level, guys.
Dan: Oh my god. She, she, I promise she did not receive any money to advertise my things. Thank you, Sandra. Uh, yeah, so, I think that's the biggest hack, and I'm, this, this is the year where I'm planning to combine more of my things together, and it's, it's kind of, uh, Clever way to do more products without starting from scratch always, and of course I have like a framework to do that, but even, you know, similar products, if you can make a spin off out of them, and you've already built, you start with a copy paste and then change some things, it's a huge hack, and You have less risk because, you know, if, if it fails, you, you didn't spend that much time.
So after a certain while, I think most people would, would look at that or revive old projects and, and, you know, uh, reposition them or just pivot altogether into a different product. So it wouldn't haunted space for a long while. We didn't know what to do. And now we're, we're going to add products to it.
We're going to add. You know, some featured ones, we're going to test them, we're going to review them, and kind of make a, a nice collection of, of products that you want to build. And also feature them on the homepage, you know, the ones that we really like. So, you know, they, they also get a little bit of exposure just by being on Hunted Space.
And it's, it's a super cool opportunity, right? Because the people coming on Hunted Space, what are they? They're, you know, people that make businesses. So getting in front of them is actually a good opportunity if you're doing any sort of marketing tools or, you know, growth tools or SEO tools and so on and so forth.
So, Sandra, I have a little bit of drama. And I think you're the best person to read it. Ah,
Sandra: I love drama, but good job with Hunted Space. I'm super excited to see the people's reaction on it. Anyways, Stefan, Stefan Tech Hustle.
Oh, so is this the new hashtag building public hack? People just create fake metrics and zero to 20k revenue stories to create an audience.
And then once they have enough attention, they actually start building. Something to sell. Not fighting, but I bet I'm not the only one who have seen this.
Dan: Oh my god!
Sandra: I mean, let me be honest, like, I've seen these but you can actually see that they are fake. Or I have been very long, like, in the community, so I recognize people, all new, the ones that are trying, the ones, you know, like, so I don't know. Am I, am I into this drama? Not so much, I would say. What
Dan: do you think?
I, I also have some strange accounts that come out of nowhere and claim this or that. And sometimes I'm, I'm a little bit, as you say, if you didn't follow people for, you know, many months and see what they're building, how they're growing it and so on, it's kind of hard to see someone coming out of the blue and claiming this or that.
I, I don't know if it's true or not, it seems, maybe we're missing something in the comments, people are selling, are, are calling them fiction founders, and apparently it's like a, it's kind of a, unknown thing. Fake it till you make it, some other people say. I, I cannot agree with this approach. If, if, even if you succeed with it, I just think starting a business by lying about revenue and so on is a, is a bad way to do it in my opinion.
I mean, for sure. You know, then what else are you lying about? For sure,
Sandra: but it's easy to kind of, like,
Dan: legally Sandra, I cannot hear you if you're saying something. Can you hear me now?
Well, Sandra is going to probably reconnect. I'm going to continue to comment on this. I think a lot of times it's hard to differentiate between people that actually work hard and get there, and people that have, you know, lied about it, and there's also a lot of envy coming out when there's some people that make it very fast and there's others that struggle for years.
So there might be legitimate people that did this, like they, they raised a company very quickly. Hi Sandra. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, and they essentially caused a lot of people to be envious at them, and that's also a scenario that we see happening a lot, because this is very hard, and some people have the right product market fit, and you don't, and then you tend to shoot them down.
So it's nuanced, my opinion, I think, and I hope most of the people that say this actually have some truth to back it up, and I appreciate those that Do that, but I, that's why I always call for a little bit of background when you share these charts and explaining things because it's also revenue and revenue is not the full story, right?
Never. What if you spend the same amount on ads and then you got this revenue, you know, and you're on zero.
Sandra: My advice to everyone who is just like joining, um, or building or have been in the community, whatever, find your own people. And then, um. Try to follow their growth and like, not just the growth of the product, but their process of building and then growing that product.
Because then you will find a realistic picture of something that is not that fabulous. It's much like far away from the charts and revenue and MRI, like whatever these guys are sharing. So when you do stumble on these things and then when you do see them and they actually like touch you, try to investigate more and move away from that.
Those people that are just like and I like you can easily recognize them. It's usually they don't share much. It's this one M. R. R. pose that went viral pretty much. Um, yeah. You know, so what I'm trying to say is like when I was starting, I already said this. Um, last time I had my own Google sheet of people I like and the Google sheet was called buddies.
So I had my buddies and I would always come back to the bodies and see what they are doing and how they are. Proceeding and growing and these people that, and this is, this, this list is like from January last year, and these people are still currently the people that I engage daily on Twitter.
Dan: Yeah, that's a good way to do it. You know, unfortunately, I would like to say don't do it, but this is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy sometimes where you talk about this, and then, you know, what's the, the jokes we make that you talk about it so much that, When you don't have the product, you make a course telling other people how you did this, and then you actually start making money, although you never did, but you start making money on that course.
And I bet there are people that actually have made it by, by following this, this path. I just hope it's the smaller percentage. I like to see the good in people, and I like to think, you know, everyone's honest, but it's the internet, right?
Sandra: Yeah, it's very hard to, to Distinguish, help me Dan.
Dan: Distinguish, yes.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Alright, let's, uh, let's jump into the next one. I have one thing to, to say before I jump into the next one. I've been doing A B testing. Oh,
Sandra: my favorite.
Dan: I, I never did A B testing in my life. And I was actually a little bit disappointed when I started.
(for reference)
It's because when I initially set it up, the existing, so the A, the control, if you want, actually performed a lot better than the thing that I was testing. I was super disappointed because I spent a lot of time, and I thought, oh yeah, this is gonna skyrocket my conversion. Um, and After a while, actually, the thing that I was testing, it started to get more and more conversion, and I realized, so I'm using Posthog, of course, our dear sponsor, and I've seen this thing at the top.
That said, be careful, this is not statistically significant yet, I've actually missed that, so, you need, I think, a few hundred of conversions before you can draw conclusions, they set it up there, so, so then I just realized, okay, it needs more time before I can, um, Before I can decide in case in point if I were to decide after the first week, I would say that the test has failed and I have to roll it back.
But now after a little bit more time, I'm seeing that the test is going quite well and it's probably going to perform better in the long run with it. Super interesting stuff. I can't wait to do the next one. I just don't know how to do it faster. Like maybe you need a certain amount of users. I have. Some hundreds to thousands, but it's still like you need hundreds to thousands of conversions to test this thing, and I don't have a good idea on how to speed things up.
Do you? Well, you
Sandra: push more from the channels.
Dan: Oh, yeah, well, yeah, you combine it with marketing. Yeah, okay, then you can also do, spend a bunch of money on ads and get it right.
Sandra: But what was your, what, what was your, like, get us into the story of like your A B testing, what you were actually testing? So
Dan: I changed my CTA, I have two versions of the CTA.
Two different texts as well, and two different subtexts. And one of them also has a product hunt, um, you know, this award icon. Yeah. And I kinda, I have both of them side by side, I can put them in the comments. So one of them says, work on your idea, not on the boilerplate. The other one says, make customized boilerplates that you can deploy today.
So. One is more targeted towards what it does for you and it has different kind of social proof. That's basically it. It's, you know, by, by most standards, not a huge change, but it completely changes the, the, you know, first impression that you have on the website. And the CTA is, you know, you, you either got it right or you, or you screwed it.
So the
Sandra: traffic for. Both of A, B testing is coming from the same place.
Dan: Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's set up, you basically, should I go into the details? It's basically. Um, when you access the site, you get put in the bucket, you know, and then it's the same. It's, it's on the landing page, if that's what, what you're asking.
And then you just see that forever. You don't see the other one. Yeah.
Sandra: What I'm trying to say is that the traffic or the, the traffic source, you have to also like look at the traffic source. So if the traffic. Oh. Okay. For the most of these, um, A, B testing that you are doing the same, that means the audience is probably the one that you are targeting for the B one if it's performing better.
Dan: Right, right. But then you need, you need even more data to, to cover each of the, yeah. Yeah, that's a good point because, of course, this could be misleading if it so happens that the A B test was more targeted at people coming from SEO, then it seems like, They didn't convert as well because maybe they're a different group of people all together.
And then when you, when you just look at the totals, it seems like it's worse.
Sandra: But you can still filter that and
Dan: check. Yeah. Yeah. It's super easy in Posthog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that. I also track secondary actions, which is downloading, and actually, I'm not sure how to make sense of that. I will ask for your help later.
Sandra: I also did a little bit of insights in Posthog and shared it on Twitter when it comes to SEO because it's such an annoying story for me. So annoying. And I wanted to see the conversion rate on this. And it was actually quite interesting. It was actually quite interesting because, like, if you don't, if you put time and effort into something and you think it's working, or you see the numbers, but you don't actually see the conversion rate, it can form a false And you can lose a lot of time and effort you are putting on a daily basis into some channels.
So let's say that you are building like, in my case, like SEO strategy or whatever I was testing in this case. But, um, even though that the traffic is coming to your website, if these guys are not converting, something is wrong.
Dan: Yes. Oh, yeah, I love this. It's great. I think, I think it's so great to dive deep into the data. I also feel a little bit. How to say, I'm unsure, like, when you, when you ask me these questions, like, what are the sources and so on, but you need to start somewhere to, and then you probably have better and better questions to ask.
For me, it was also a technical question, like, how to do the, And I, it was actually quite easy to set up. So now I just need to, to be patient and then to slowly expand the dashboards and funnels and so on. And like you, well, every time I talk to you, you give me a new idea. So
Sandra: that's great. It's really fun.
It's really fun. And then it. Also kind of combines, which I really like. It kind of combines the marketing and the product together. And that's why I got, um, so interested in Posthog as well. For me, like I have a setup that follows like from the, from the traffic to the website, to the product, and then the insights from the product.
So I can follow the whole, the whole journey for the
Dan: user. Yeah, that's another level. I'm not there yet, but you should show me someday. All right. Want to take the next one?
Sandra: Yes. Um, Nishan. Nishan,
I'm working on updating onboarding and design for one of my app. I added some animations in onboarding. I freaking hate design.
I hate onboarding and I hate time zones. This week, just talking about this week, the whole week, Nishan, I, I, I, I mean, I give and I send all my love to you.
Dan: Easy. This time of need.
So yeah, a weight loss app. Weight loss app, yeah. It's a intermittent, intermittent fasting timer app. So I suppose, have you tried that? I suppose you, you have like 24 hours or two days or, or something like that to. actually fast. It could be also with a religious twist to it. There's fasting in certain religions.
That could be cool.
Sandra: Yes, I have tried many things, um, when it comes to Uh, dieting. The best thing that works is the gym. I have to tell you. And then you can eat as much as you can just to go back quickly to design. I can see Greg here and I really appreciate the last time we had it on the show. Um, and his passion when he was talking about the design.
I might listen to the show during this weekend because I need. Some motivation when it comes to design, but I went through something similar. Um, as Nishan, um, when it comes to onboarding, because now we are doing the enterprises and the level of the details and the things is totally different. So I spent the whole week in design and then I swear to you, I lost my mind.
It's so hard. It's so hard. It's so hard. I cannot explain to you. And I don't, I'm not interested in design anymore. I need to have a conversation with Greg where he can inspire me more. Um, but this is crazy.
Dan: You're, you, you give up on design. You
Sandra: know, I don't do design everything. I appreciate ugly but functional things from now on.
Dan: Yeah, that's my speciality.
You know, when I was doing Hunted Space this week, it was actually, it felt like a lifetime, but it was just this week. I sent some of the, you know, early works to Alex and I was, I was devastated. I was like, come on, come on. This is like, okay, it's very functional design and of course you made something that looked better that, you know, everyone said, Oh, this is cleaner.
It's cleaner. It's, you know, no one wants the functional stuff. I want the clean stuff. And it was a, it was a tough moment for me. And then I realized, well, I guess you need to go for the cleaner one because everyone likes that in the end, but accessibility is a very important part of it. So even if you do the clean one, I still did my best to, like, do colors.
I even, you know, I got a book about colors and charts and what's a good way to do it. I tried to follow some advice, but it's also, it's, it's hit and miss. But, you know, you need to cover for people that are colorblind. And actually. Very cool segue to, to the next update, you should put all of your data and charts and so on into grayscale.
And, uh, I hope I read this correctly, Rachel James,
she said that she thought about a concept where, A company called Gray sells everything gray. And she has like a series of mock ups and everything is gray. The user interface is gray, the items are gray. It's all gray. You know what? This will sell like hotcakes in Scandinavia.
Like, no problem. No problem at all.
Sandra: It's brilliant. I was just checking there is an animation so my eyes went wholly into animation.
Dan: Rachel, you did such a good job. It's, I love it. I love it. It actually looks very clean, I think Ra she, yeah, she's a product designer. Very nice. Rachel. Mm-Hmm. . Very nice. I love it.
Sandra, is it time for you to go and do complicated business?
Sandra: Yes. I need to, I need to, uh, I don't need to. Can we do one more before I leave? Because I'm not ready to go into that room yet. Yeah,
Dan: we, we could do, we could do
Sandra: one more, gimme one more then just to go, you know.
Dan: Yeah, for, but we're going to be back on Monday.
I mean,
Sandra: I know, but Monday is like in
Dan: two days. Okay. Okay. Take one more please.
Sandra: Vishu,
launch and get user feedback or get user feedback then launch. What do you prefer? I have to read this one more time because I had a glass of wine. Slowly. And get user feedback. Okay. Or get user feedback and launch. I mean, it depends how fast you can launch.
The fastest you launch and you get the
Dan: feedback. But, okay. Question. Get user feedback before the launch on, on what? That is my, just on the idea?
Sandra: On the guy that is telling the
Dan: MRRs. Yeah. So it kind of depends. I think the. The point is, if you're gonna get user feedback, you better get your story straight, and then, what is that, you need to figure out some sort of copy, at least, right?
And, by the time you do that, you might as well launch a simple webpage with a Pre order button, don't you think? Because that's like what you need. For sure,
Sandra: for
Dan: sure,
Sandra: for sure. Reggie is saying no, so I changed my mind now. Because he had a great post.
Dan: Yeah, he calls this the F word. He's very mad now. And when I asked him, he said, you know, are you using the F word?
To my face, you know, to make, are you, you know, don't speak like this to me, something along those lines. And, you know, feedback is good. If you're at a later stage, so you had this nice note where he explained that. In the beginning, when you are in a fragile state of mind and you don't know if this product is going to be any good, if you go for feedback already, you're most likely going to drop it and be demotivated because people will try to pick at it and say, Oh, what about this?
What about that? So, his point was that if you reach a certain level where you're, you're happy yourself with what you built, then you're more, Prepared to for the feedback. Yeah, exactly. To kind of stand your ground and say, Hey, actually, this is good. So also from that perspective, then launch first and get feedback later
Sandra: and also you can build on top of that.
Yeah.
Dan: Sandra, it's time for you to go, I'm sorry. We cannot have you any longer. Thank you so much everyone for tuning in. See past episodes on morningmakershow.com or listen to us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Sandra, do you have something to wish for the people?
Sandra: Yes, I wish you the best weekend ever, um, relax, eat good food, um, enjoy good movie.
Do some work because we do love to work, um, and put the link in the tweets.
Dan: Brilliant. 10 out of 10. Bye.
Sandra: See you. Bye.
