Episode 27 of Morning Maker Show: A moment of silence for failed indie projects

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Summary

Join Dan and Sandra as they honor the indie projects that didn't make it, and discuss the challenges of tech-free days, domain management, and AI's role in startups. Plus, a dive into the power of pen and paper in design.

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Transcript

Sandra: Let's have a one minute of silence.

Dan: Yes. To remember all the failed indie projects

Dan: Good morning, Sandra.

Sandra: Good morning, Dan.

Dan: Okay, let's, let's do our jobs, Sandra.

Tech-Free Day? Not Quite Possible

Dan: Enough about technology enough. This is a show without technology today. We're just going to talk about marketing.

Okay. No, that's also technology. Okay. We're going to talk about marketing, but this one that you do on the street, where you hadn't. Even

Sandra: then you need, you need mics.

Dan: Yeah. Well, you need to print the thing that you had then. So you still need to deal with a printer.

The Domain Dilemma: Costs and Ideas

Sandra: Okay. Let's just go back to Rokas Dam.

Oh boy.

Here we go again.

Sandra: I have an idea. I bought a domain, watch domain expired, repeat, hashtag building public.

Dan: Well, the watch domain expires a new one, like typically people stop at two and then don't mention the third step.

Sandra: I think maybe it'll be cool idea to make like a notion page and everyone there can list their domains. Their domains, yeah. Yeah. That they don't use or they're gonna expire quite soon, so maybe someone can jump in.

Yeah.

Dan: I spent so much money on this thing, like especially do you know the AI domains? Increased price. Like, I don't know who can, who controls the domain prices. They're like, someone's making a lot of money out of this. I don't know who, so. The AI, the main increase, but it was expensive anyway. It was like, I don't know, maybe a hundred, am I saying something stupid?

Maybe a hundred dollars for one. And then, you know, you get these ideas. If you, if you buy two, three of these are like, Oh my God, actually. That's starting to be quite a bit of money spent on nothing, but

AI in Startup Names: Trend or Necessity?

Sandra: you know, when we are talking about that this weekend, um, this weekend, or it was Friday, I don't know anymore, but I stumbled on a list of YC companies and every single company or a product had an AI.

In their name, and it got me thinking is are these products actually like a I product and how big of a role a I plays in their products that the part of the technology they are using are in their name. You know what I'm talking about? You haven't seen that before where the product names comes from the technology, the product uses.

Dan: Well, a little bit with, with, uh, crypto, right. Where there was chain in the name, like everything changed something, but. This, this seems like completely, uh, how, how should you even compare it? You cannot compare it. Cause this one took over the whole VC startup spaces. Like it's just, it seems like it's justice.

Like there's nothing that at least doesn't mention AI because now if you make a product and don't have AI, you're boring, right?

Sandra: Exactly. Like, where's the fun part of it?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think you're right. It's more using the word to, kind of, using it the other way around, so using the technology to find the problem instead of having a problem and solving it with technology.

Does that make sense?

Sandra: I mean, it's too early for me to make sense, but I'll just go with you and trust you on this one.

Dan: When it doesn't make sense, just say yes. And

Sandra: yes, yes, yes, I agree.

Yeah.

Dan: But good thing you don't have an AI company.

Sandra: But I keep telling people Klu is not like, yes, there is an aspect. Of AI there, and it's quite important, but we started Klu before, so AI was an implementation to already existing product.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Sandra: Or enhancement, let's say it like that. Like,

Dan: you know. That's the best way, yeah, yeah. You're already trying to solve a problem and then this turns out to solve it better than you could before.

Sandra: Yeah. I mean, it's just enhancing something that we were already doing. Now you don't have to click on like the source of the information, but we can generate an answer for you. Pretty much plays a role as a. Text generator. Yeah, you know, so that's that. That's why I was thinking like how big of a role AI plays into these products that they put the name like they use AI next to the name of the product.

Dan: Yeah, it's just to get the VC money, isn't it?

Sandra: Yes, yes, we love VC money. That's good. I've done it. It's all good. No judging here.

Okay, I

Dan: want to take the next one too.

Back to Basics: The Power of Pen and Paper in Design

Sandra: Mikhail Ulstrup.

I usually dive into coding for my designs and. Iterate from there, but sometimes I switch it up and sketch it on the paper.

Never in Figma or sketch. Um, this is very interesting. Actually, I saw also one more post something similar where a person took a pen and a paper and decided to design their, um, It's a full circle. We came back to an initial thing, you know, um, I think I've, I've, I've shared a very cool product I discovered a week or two weeks ago.

And I, of course, forgot the name Elixir, Elixir or something like that. Um,

Dan: yeah, Excalidraw.

Sandra: Yes. Yes. Yes. I have no idea, but I'll say yes. Um, and it's really cool because it allows you kind of to sketch as well. But the idea of going back to pen and paper, I vibe with that.

Dan: Yeah. You know, this meme where you have Like on the left side, you have sort of basic, and then on the right side, you have genius.

And then in the middle, you have like sweaty person that's trying to, and like, imagine this chart and on the left, you have drawing on the middle, you have figma and on the right and the genius have drawing again, I think it's kind of one of those where you, after you go and you like put sweat and tears into it, you realize that there's still a point to it.

And I know like when you. When you ideate, if you have the pen and paper, you actually think a little bit differently and it's more tactile. It's more so. So Mikhail here has for, uh, an iPhone 14 mock up essentially with the actual screen size like this. Correct one to one screen size. And he has a lot of these printed and he's basically filling in the user interface and those, and then you realize how big can some things be and how much stuff you can put inside of the screen.

And, you know, cause when you're in Figma, you could just make things smaller, right? Like, yeah, we're going to fit this. And then. Once you actually try it on, on the phone at the end of it, you realize, Oh, this is not going to work. You know, like we have too much stuff. It's too small. It's like people can't read and so on.

So I kinda, I kinda like this. If you could. If you could skip the Figma and go from that idea to a prototype already, isn't this a little bit more efficient? Because in Figma, you can end up spending a lot of time.

Sandra: Yes, that's true. That's very true. I'm just thinking about the, because I'm in the team and I'm thinking about, um, a person I love dearest, my dear developer, Ice.

Um, he, he, he, he's not someone who is able to visualize something before. So maybe I could suggest to him this as an exercise, actually, so he can leave me alone and not ask me for Figma all the time. What's that mean? Probably a little bit. I love you, Ice, if you're listening.

Dan: Better be listening.

Yeah, so it's also a good team, uh, team sort of, I would say building, but that's like such a stupid word, but you, you all get on the same page if you do the drawing and anyone can draw, like, it doesn't matter, it's going to look ugly anyway. It's just really, cause you're, you're just drawing things, but everyone understands what there is to build.

And you can often go from that if you have, you know, a slice of the team, you know, marketing design development, which usually have completely different, you know, understandings when they look at a task, the marketer would think, okay, how do we, how do we. Tell this to customers, you know, like what's the customer, what's the angle, what, you know, better.

The designer would be like, you know, how do we make this accessible? Like what colors, whatever the developer would be, how do we implement this? Like what are the edge cases and so on? So it's all like completely different thoughts, but. When, when you're drawing, you're all equal, right? You're all like doing the same thing and no one's really better at it than the other person.

And you all understand the same thing.

Sandra: Yeah. Actually after this podcast, um, I'm gonna go back to the office and take a picture of our windows because our office is all in glass. So we tend to, um, Write and sketch things there as well. And it kind of It's good because it stays there until someone decides to clean it and usually no one decides to clean it.

So yeah. Yeah. Sketching is good.

Learning and Building: The Weekend Project Approach

Dan: Yeah. All right. I'm going to take one by Josh.

Dan: He's saying. As part of my learning journey, I dedicated every weekend to building projects. And this time around, I focused on creating an engaging pricing page. I'm excited to showcase the results through a series of screenshots.

So nice pricing page with periods monthly, annually, and he has three tiers, basic premium business. It looks very clean.

Yeah,

Sandra: looks pretty good. Premium business basic.

Dan: How do you learn new things? Like, do you dedicate time as Josh does? Like he's saying, okay, weekend is my learning time or it's just always learning stuff.

Sandra: It depends. It depends of the, of usually depends what's happening during the week and how bad. I don't know something and how fast I need to learn it. Um, like this, this weekend I had a call with a person that is a product manager, actually in a company that you're implementing clue to. And he gave me like during the discussion about clue, he actually gave me so much clues, um, about, about how they're dealing with customer success.

And that's something I haven't kind of dig deeper. Because, you know, like during this part of building clue and marketing clue and chasing companies and selling and figuring out the pricing, um, I think we didn't do, or we, we still didn't do, or like we haven't stumbled on customer success and what does that actually mean?

So that was like something new. That I decided to dig a little bit deeper this weekend.

Dan: Want to take the next one?

Sandra: Uh, yeah, sure.

Exploring No-Code Solutions and Notification Systems

Sandra: Jérémie Campari,

no code notification center. Notify, notifies. com building a new no code notification center is the hardest thought that is the hardest that I thought it's hardest than I thought.

MVP will definitely be low code, but no. No code Hope in few months, months I will achieve my vision. This was really hard for me to read. No Code notification center notify users with a notification center. Oh, interesting.

Dan: Do you think this is so like anyone can use this in their apps, right?

Sandra: Notify users with the notification center.

I guess you could implement it. I need, I need an example. What would that actually mean?

Dan: Can you see a demo maybe? I think it's more like,

uh,

Dan: when you have updates in the app, then you have like a thing at the top, that's what I imagine.

And then it's like, Oh, there's a new version of this app.

Sandra: Oh, interesting.

Dan: Okay. So not the, oh, okay. So it's called not the fees. com turn signups into loyal customers, supercharged customer activation retention. Okay. I'm getting confused.

Sandra: Customers activation retention. Yeah. It's pretty much sending them notifications to go back to the app probably, but it's sending it from where.

Dan: Yeah. So it's. It's something you add directly in your app. Okay. Now I'm starting to get the concept. So you add maybe a widget, like you add analytics to your app, right?

Sandra: Yeah.

Dan: And then that thing kind of Sends, uh, emails as well and keeps the customers engaged with the product. But the thing is, how do you configure it for your product?

I'm not sure. Maybe that's why it's so hard for him to do.

Sandra: Enable certification possibilities for all users.

It sounds cool if it's connected also with the emails and the events in the apps. So if you have control of the notifications from your side and then enabling it in the app that is connected with your email provider.

Dan: Yeah.

Sandra: Could be interesting.

Dan: Yeah. So you basically offload like some sort of stream of events that, and then you can maybe see the events in here and then say, okay, if this event comes in, then send this notification and then you don't have to, Like build anything you, you put like a code snippet somewhere and then you get like a bell at the top.

It's like a chat app. Right. But instead of, instead of chat, you get notifications, something like that. I'm actually starting to like the idea. I think it's, it's very important to work on the. On the copy and on the, you know what the, my problem is I didn't understand like from reading the CTA in, in like a practical term, what it can do.

Like I want, if, if I would get an example, like a super simple example, it'd be more helpful because these are big, heavy words that could mean anything. So activation, retention and conversion. I love those words, love them. They're great, but it could be, you know, this could be a website builder and still have the same.

Or it could be Posthog or, you know, email octopus could be, you know, like you can put many brands on the same word. So that I would change that to understand. Maybe just talk about one use case that's very cool, you know?

Sandra: Yeah, that's why we said last time on the last, on the last podcast that we hate websites.

I mean, I'm saying we because it's much easier than saying me. But the websites are turning into something that I don't understand anymore. Like the product sounds very cool, but you really need to dig deeper. I guess his target audience would be, okay, like, You need to have some technical knowledge in order to implement this.

Dan: Yes.

Sandra: So, I think Posthog also did a great job when it comes to copy. They clearly know who they are targeting and they know who is able to implement that, that into the product and then they bring the value. From there. So maybe something similar could also work for these guys.

Dan: But if I go to the Posthog homepage, the first line is telling me who this is for.

And I didn't get it. And I'm getting it now that you should be a developer. If I call on Posthog.com, it says how engineers build better products. Okay. And it's okay. Engineer. Then I already know, is this for me or not? And then build better products, also generic, but then underneath they have, you know, product analytics, web analytics, session replay feature flag.

So I kind of. understand who, who this is for and what it could do. Like this is a, and it's a massive product, right? It's like eight products in one basically. And then this one, I'm not sure if this is for me or not also. So I would, you know, I don't have a good suggestion on how to do it, but it definitely needs some, some iteration, the CTA.

Maybe address the target group that you want, or maybe that's a question for, was it Jeremy? I forgot. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

Sandra: Jeremy.

Dan: Probably saying this very wrong. So that's a question, like a step back and think a little bit about positioning.

Sandra: Yeah. Yeah. Because the product, If we got it correctly, and I'm not sure if we got it correctly, does make sense.

Um, because it would like, in my case, it would speed up the process and streamline it and kind of fit in my workflow. It's just, it needs a little bit more extra work on the copy. Yeah.

Dan: Otherwise very nice work. And it seems like a cool product. Yeah. I think this type of product, if you can, you Not make it too generic and find like a use case that you solve very well, like notifications for this specific thing, for example.

And you just do that in the most simple way. So it's easy to integrate and it has like this one value proposition. It, you know, it helps you show, uh, release notes of new versions, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's one thing. And there are other products that do that, but this could also do that, but this could do anything.

So then it's hard to explain. What exactly it will do for me?

Sandra: Mm mm

Yeah.

Sandra: Look at that marketer in yours. Oh, oh . Oh my God. Such a vibe.

Dan: Yeah. One year ago I wouldn't, I would be like, oh yeah, this is this good.

Email Marketing Insights: Choosing the Right Tools and Strategies

Dan: next I have a problem though. A different problem. For the past like weeks, I keep refreshing email octopus to check our newsletter subscribers.

And I do have this problem too.

Sandra: Um, it's, it's lonely to see when the numbers are going up. I have to tell you.

Dan: So we're at 169 subscribers right now. And I just think We, we need at least a thousand more because this is the best newsletter I've, I've read. And just to give you full credit, I have zero contributions to it.

Like I just, I

Sandra: just

Dan: read it and then say, and this is better than your previous one. Please publish it sooner. Uh, yeah,

Sandra: I just, I just want to say for the people, if they are searching for the right email provider, I highly, highly recommend. Email octopus. Um, it's good. It's extremely good. I've learned that they have APIs.

I've learned that they have also email automation. Um, I'm, I'm also rethinking of moving Klu there because I cannot deal with Mailchimp anymore. Um, these are, yeah, I

Dan: remember the pricing for Mailchimp is kind of. Not good

Sandra: thing. It's disgusting. And these are bootstrapped guys, easy to reach out, um, communicate with them as well.

So yeah, I would rather give my money there. You know, how cheap I am.

Dan: Yeah. No, but they do have, they do have better pricing.

Sandra: They do. They do. They do. They, like they did really good job. Very good job guys.

Dan: I'd like to, to try, we talked about this to, to try these, uh, automations and like how, how do you call them when you send multiple mails?

Tell me, I'm going to say the wrong thing.

Sandra: You can say sequences.

Dan: Sequences. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you could do that with email octopus, right?

Sandra: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: Cause I was reading this by, by, uh, Dan Kulkov, you know, you're the biggest fan and he has like a pretty nice automation and like funnel with emails and like his whole, his whole thing now is mostly based on emails and it's actually going quite well from what I can see.

Sandra: And I can confirm that in my case as well. Um, for when it comes to clue from the onboarding, I have certain events. As well. Um, even marketing does work. Proper automation does work. Proper set up as well. Um, you, the only thing is that you need to just find the right balance with your user. And it also depends a lot on the product you have.

I think I talked with, um, Norbert, Norbert, For his duckling app. And he has a like he has more, um, space to send a lot of emails than I have in clue, meaning that he can in his own app find the right events that could engage people and be valuable for them to come back to the app through the emails.

So, um, You know, think about your product, find the right balance, but also try to bring the value for the user.

Dan: Yeah, that's what I was about to ask as a follow up. Like, what is it about email that converts so well?

Sandra: It's usually, or in my personal opinion, it's the value. Like, I can see that we have like really high, um, opening rate and click rate when it comes to onboarding sequences.

Uh, Mostly and probably because during that process, we send a lot of information on how to use Glue and what is the right, um, way to use it. I probably failed there. There's the, I can improve that. And you can always improve that. But I think that onboarding process is extremely important. So one email when they sign up, then there is like one follow up email.

After two days, there is how to use Clue and proper ways and then Chrome extension and et cetera. So kind of you're pushing these emails, finding the right balance, but in the same time, bringing the value for your user. And then if your app allows that, you can connect it with a certain events in the app that will automate the emails to this particular user as well.

Dan: Yeah, that's a very nice answer. I feel like I should Hang up and do some email stuff now, but

Sandra: I mean, I think, I think you have a lot of space when it comes to haunted space.

Dan: Yeah, I could do. A lot of insights from from the data there.

Sandra: Yeah, yeah. Your issue, which I'm extremely mad on you and I haven't told you yet, is that you don't have a proper way of collecting emails on Hunted Space.

Dan: No, I do not.

Sandra: Yeah, so you have to think also what is the proper way of collecting emails. So once you do send these notifications to the users, they do have a value. So either these people. Are launching their products today, or either these people will be launching, let's say someone, um, put in the calendar on hunted space that they're going to launch it on Thursday.

Maybe the right approach to make a right event for them is to send them an email of, um, for them knowing what is, um, general amount for upvotes for the Tuesday, Thursdays of top five places.

Dan: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like, but not immediately, but after a while, try to prepare them somehow. And, and so it's similar to your, okay.

It's not onboarding, but it's still like a learning sequence of sorts where you. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you put all of this after the submission and you put like, 20 different things, they're just going to close it and then it's gone. But if you bite size it for email, they're gonna first have an easier time to understand it, but then also engage with it because the,

Sandra: yeah.

Yeah.

Dan: And that could be also up to the launch day. You could get like a checklist kind of thing. Like, did you do this? Did you do that? And that could be quite, quite engaging.

Sandra: Yeah. Yeah. And

Dan: helpful. I, okay. It didn't, I get it. It has to be. Helpful to, to, to the user, right? That's the bottom line. And then, yeah, so it's not really about email.

That's just, it's a channel, but exactly.

Show Kickoff and Muse Pro Launch

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Okay. I have a small comment from Okaris. He, he was in the show initially. He probably gave up. Because we couldn't start, but now we're here, he's busy. He's busy because he says, uh, if the show is about him, and if it is, he has to mention that he has a launch on product hunt, he's launching a very nice one, he's launching something called Muse Pro, an ultimate AI enhancing sketching and painting, I've seen this, it's insane, like check, check the comments, and.

Go on his video. He basically does a really bad like color sketch and then on the left It's like mountains and trees with lots of details and so on. It looks completely nuts so it kind of takes your Simple sketch and enhances it really awesome stuff, but I have to show I'm gonna disappoint occurs here because the show is actually not about him.

The Quest for the Perfect Microphone

Dan: It's about microphones

Um,

Sandra: maybe that this is our next sponsor. I don't know what to tell you anymore. If there is someone out there who is building a great, um, Microphone. And when I say great, I mean, simple, just be simple. I will buy it. Like you didn't buy it,

Tech Woes and Apple's Role

Dan: but I think our problem is, is Apple. Like we need to get Apple as a sponsor because the problem is that I want it on the go.

I want to plug something in my iPhone or do something with my iPhone. So it just works from there. Right. And also this, the spaces. Is, is kind of done in a weekend and they just left it like that for years, I think. And it, it's not really working from a browser as it should. Like it doesn't have, you can't even start a space from it.

You cannot even create a space from a browser. So it has to work on the iPhone, but then I don't think the iPhone allows you to do these kinds of things, you know?

Yeah,

Sandra: yeah, yeah. I fully agree.

Sandra: So we need, um, X, Apple, Red Bull. Yeah. Um, and let's just put in a Klu. Let's put also one printer just in case.

You know, they

Dan: love the printers. HP printers are the best. They do this thing where they like put like one quarter of the ink in the ink thing when you get it. So it's like runs out really quick. It's great. Okay. Let's take the next update.

Erik Pulla's SaaS Venture

Dan: I'm getting very mad.

Sandra: Erik Pulla, uh, Pulla is a word on Finnish and it's a very delicious, um, not cake, but like pastry, but that's not the point.

Erik Pulla.

Hey everyone. I'm building my first commercial SaaS this month. It's online store creator plus anon. Chart chat. Target. Miss Chads, oh my God, I'm not sure. Targets people from EC, which cannot sell online physical due to Extortions. Wow. Text stack. Well, kit plus Stacy UI plus pocket base. Um, here's very first overview.

Dan: So it's like a, I love that the target is like so nailed down. A very specific group. I'm not sure what it means. Due to extortions in this. Scenarios like physical, legally speaking.

Okay. I'm fascinated by this. Uh, I, I'll need to google some terms. before, um, love

Sandra: the target audience, though.

Dan: I, no, but you know, the whole idea that. You're really set on solving this problem for this specific group of people. That must be the right approach, right?

Sandra: For sure. And imagine how easier for him is to actually hunt and find these people to try and test the product with him.

Dan: Yeah. So, um, yeah, fantastic, I love it.

Sandra's Babysitting Adventures

Dan: Ah, what are the plans for this week, Sandra?

Sandra: Um, newsletter, fun and engaging newsletter. I might spice things up again with it. Because I got myself into this whole video mode. I don't know, have you seen the latest video? But I want to put me and Dan, um, on Mount Everest.

Um, doing the morning maker show. I want to put, to put us in white house. I want to go to Austria and put us in any palace there because they have a bunch of it. Um, maybe we, we even visit some, a little bit of Asia and you know, like vibe on some kind of beaches. So I'm experimenting with videos. I also would like to see us on YouTube too, um, so that's going to be an interesting process.

And next to that is just surviving. It's working on Klu. It's, you know, doing the best you can. Um, I'm not a mother this week, so I'm childless.

Dan: That came out very strange.

Sandra: Yes. Um, my parents are back. You need

Dan: to add some context, please, because people will think you just sold your child or something like that.

No, I

Sandra: did not sold my child, but I was babysitting my brother for the past week, and I just want to acknowledge all the people that have children, um, you guys are my heroes. I don't know how you do this. It's been really hard week, actually. You need to feed them. They have like practices, um, language courses.

I mean, so many things. At one point, I went with him on his basketball practice, and I was a person holding my laptop, and then there were mothers there that came to cheer up for their kids. Child, and I felt so freaking bad. You were just doing some

Dan: work on the side. What you're supposed to like, thumbs up and say you're doing great and, you know, be super supportive, but you are just like not even looking at him.

Sandra: Yeah. And then there was a few moments during the week where I was like, I'm so, so sorry, but you really have to go into your room because I have two meetings in a row, role like in the, so just like going to your room and close the door and don't come

Dan: out until I tell you it's okay.

Sandra: At one point he actually texted me, can I go to the bathroom?

And I'm not joking.

Dan: So you've made like a tiny prison inside your apartment.

Sandra: So I, I really, uh, I dunno, like. Indie makers and then people who have nine to five on top and then children. I, I really appreciate you guys. Like if you need free marketing, just reach out to me.

Dan: I'm afraid to say that you might have like a A problem with power trips and like control over things.

Like, how can you, how can you lock him in the room? Come on, Sandra. I

Sandra: didn't lock it. Like I didn't put the key. Yeah, but

Dan: metaphorically he couldn't go out. I, it was a, it was a lock in his imagination, at least that he had to text you, uh, which is even worse.

Sandra: I, I, I told you, I am, I am. Like, it's heroes, not Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Indie makers with children.

Dan: Heroes.

The Challenge of Innovation and Competition

Dan: Elias Stråvik, tell me how to pronounce.

Sandra: Elias.

Dan: Elias.

Some, someone built my idea, crying. I often see founders and Indie makers. Or in the hackers getting bummed out when they do a quick Google search for their idea sooner or later. Why shouldn't you let that stop you? And then he has a video explaining that I suppose.

And then says, let's look at loops and resend both backed by Y Combinator.

Sandra: Yeah, I stumbled on this post, actually, and I saw it.

Dan: Tell me what you think.

Sandra: It's very hard. It's very hard. Um, you will find also under his post, um, Marek from inlinehelp, um, saying something similar, that he saw also people copying his features.

Dan: What about The fact that when you have competition, you're validated that this, this idea is actually having a market. It's working. It's, you know, if it's able to spin up multiple businesses, it means like there is a customer base big enough. And then if you're the only one, you're either. So you, you kind of have to create the market and explain to people what this is.

And then once you succeed, they're going to copy you anyway, right? Cause then you're going to look like you're a successful business. Maybe that's how it is with Marek and when there's already competition and you're the new one coming in, then you actually have a bit of an advantage because you can already see their positioning.

You can already see their app maybe. So that you could do it better or find a thing that they haven't done and do that.

Sandra: Yeah. But what I agree with you, the competition is the best thing that could happen to anyone validating the market. And then, you know, showing that there is a potential from you to build from there.

But I didn't quite understand his post. So someone built my idea. So what does the idea mean?

Dan: So. Let's say Clue is the idea, so connecting all of your Notion, Google, searching through it, finding things easier, your personal Google. That's the idea. And someone else comes and says, I made my personal Google too with AI.

That's how I understand it.

Sandra: At which stage was this, was this already a product?

Dan: No, it's, you got an idea. Okay. So it's the other way around. It depends on the perspective. Right? So I think what he's saying is you got an idea to make your personal Google, and then you're, you're like, this can sound weird.

You're Googling for this idea. And then you find out there's already three products that do this. Already, and then you get discouraged and you stop and you don't build it anymore because it already exists. Um,

Sandra: I understand that, but he also then said something about the loops and loop is like what they do is a pretty much email provider, Mailchimp, email octopus, all of these things, um, they grow.

Super fast, like loops grow in a year. Super fast. I remember, um, the founder and I remember their product launch, um, founder of loops is actually quite active in the community, but they took something that was already on the market and in their eyes made it better. Um, and more easier for users to use. So, um, I don't have a problem with this.

Dan: Yeah, exactly. I mean, there are so many email providers and being late in this case, me meant to loops that they could innovate. And do something different by looking at competitors. So it's, it's actually, it's actually good when you, when you Google and you find, Oh, okay, there's these things. I mean, I bet they didn't Google.

I bet they were using email providers and thought, okay, these are some major problems and we could solve it by doing this or that. Exactly. It's a different process, but, but still having competitors, you know, Wasn't really an issue here. It was actually a nice plus for them. Cause then they could also learn from what the competitors did.

Right. Cause they didn't, obviously they did something right. Recent, for example, is like, it's a, it's a good product as well, if we compare it to that.

Yeah.

Sandra: Yeah. Yeah. So

I think

Dan: the lesson is, well, the first of all is, you know, You know, you, there's, there's usually enough to go around for everyone. So if, if you see competitors, it doesn't mean that, you know, if you make your product, then they get all the customers.

That's, that's one of the first thing that, that comes to mind when you see, and also the other way around when you see a competitor pop up and you know, you think, well, yeah, yeah. Oh, shit. So what are we going to do now? You know, but you also have to think about that, that there's how many people connected to the internet and, you know, a product like this email provider, right?

There is enough of a market for everyone to share and it's growing.

Sandra: Oh, absolutely.

Navigating Product Migration and Market Entry

Sandra: And I actually. Like this idea. I like taking big already established products on the market and then because already big established products on the market will very, will have a very hard time to, um, innovate. Because they don't have to, but then you can.

So it gives you the ability to listen to what their customers are already using. My advice, maybe small advice, if you are doing that try to find the products that are easy to switch from. Like Slack is not an easy product to build and switch from. It goes too deep into the companies. It goes too deep into the companies and external.

It even goes externally from the company, but it's still in the company. So it's going to be extremely hard to build something better. Yeah. And not hard to build something better, but hard to implement it into the companies.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Or if people get used to the way of doing things with you, so take these, um, uh, take Jira, right?

It's, it's, people love to hate it, but once you have. A PM that gets used to doing things in Jira and all of the advanced things and so on, there is no way you could move that PM to some other platform because they would say, well, how do you do this? Oh, you, you can't do it. We're not moving here. No, we're basically stuck with this product.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I used to do it this way and I don't want to change and people don't want to change. Right. That's the, I mean, it sounds a little bit dark that you're taking advantage of this, but who likes change? Who likes to just flip it all around at a company level, no less and say, yeah, let's, let's start fresh with this new product that we all have to learn and don't, don't know how to use.

Sandra: Yes, fully agree. And then if you some, in some case do go that path, the immigration process needs to be set up for these products. Um, I had a, I had a loop person reaching out because I tend to complain about the email a lot. Um, and he reached out and I told him like, love it. Um, do it. But the process of migrating things is extremely hard once you have set up everything just as you said.

So he gave me an option and said that there is possibility from them doing that. So that's one of the approaches that you could probably, um, do.

Dan: I saw that with, uh, lemon squeezy as well, that they have, it's, it's all manual though, right? They don't have, cause you cannot possibly cover all the use cases, especially when you talk payment providers, it could be anything.

And if you want to move to them, they will offer you. The service of migration, which is a person that's kind of looking at your, your things and just moving it over. So if you move from Stripe, for example, they will probably have someone figuring out how to do that and move your things. So you don't have to think about it.

It's painless. You, when you take the decision, you actually have an easier time to, to justify it because they will do it for you. And it's also, as far as I can tell, free of charge. It should be free of charge. Yeah. Well, it makes sense. I mean, there is a limit to that, right? Because if it's a very small customer, having a person actually migrating stuff manually is very expensive, right?

Sandra: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, don't lose time on that.

Dan: Sandra, I think it's time for us to throw the microphone away and actually do some work.

Sandra: Yeah, I'm excited for this week. I think we had a really good show. I think, um, you know what I consider is a good show when I learn something new and when we have a really good discussions and when we discover some cool products and I.

feel like we did that in this show a lot. And the best part of it, we also had fun with the microphone. So I think in general, we could for each show, try to fix these microphones. If it doesn't work, we have a great story on the show.

Dan: Yeah. Oh, I have an idea. For each show, we unplug a random thing and try to, try to fix it.

There's many things to unplug. So we can do like, or, or even plug things in, like we plug in headphones and then say, Oh, let's see how we fix this one.

Sandra: Yeah. Maybe next time we could have a small challenge where we need to print something during the show and lead the show in the same time. So,

Dan: yeah. I think you want a 24 hour show.

Let's do that.

Sandra: I'm, I just want to say one thing. I don't know why I feel so emotional, but, um, I'm extremely grateful for all the support that we are getting. I can see, um, really nice numbers when it comes to listeners and podcasts or the space or the morning maker show taking kind of off. Um, and I'm super grateful for that.

I'm also grateful that it's kind of becoming this epicenter of great products. Um, I'm not saying that we are a product, but I, it's, it's actually really nice. You know, it, for me, it feels that we are. sitting in some kind of car of a future product, but we are like in front, you know what I mean?

Dan: In the driver's seat.

Yeah. In the

Sandra: driver's seat. Yeah. But it's Tesla, so we don't actually have to

Dan: drive. It's self driving. Yeah. Well, as long as it's not self driving into a wall, I'm fine with it.

Sandra: So thank you everyone. And. Thank you to this beautiful community and thank you for listening to the show. And we'll try to figure this speakers and videos and make this, this whole new thing.

Dan: Thank you so much, Sandra. You, you really melted my heart with this. It's very nice of you to say. I would also like to thank you everyone for tuning in. And listening to us discover products, but also dealing with microphone issues and so on. We're sorry for that. We're going to get better. It has to get worse before it gets better.

I think that's, that's how it is. Um, past episodes on morningmakershow.com. They have transcripts and a lot of Easter eggs in there. Please make sure to check it out. We're also on Spotify and Apple podcasts. We have all the past episodes there, which I will publish today. Actually, I have a couple that I'm missing.

So make sure to, to check those out if you miss them or otherwise tune in live Monday, Wednesday. And Friday, we're going to do this for a very, very long time. We're not going to get rid of us forever and ever. We are not going away.

🙈 Post Show. Actually Pre Show. You get it.

Sandra: How

Dan: are you? You know, not the best.

Sandra: I agree with you.

Microphone Mishaps and Live Show Challenges

Dan: Please tell us what happened.

Sandra: Um, so as you all know, we were extremely excited that we got new mics and the previous show almost went 100 percent correctly. It kind of shut down, you know, by the end, but it was good.

So this morning we, um, With the same thing, we connected our mics and speakers and all of these things that needs to be connected and we test it for a second, then it worked perfectly and then it just crashed. So now we are back to our phones and I hope you can hear us

Dan: still. I can still hear you. You were not talking to yourself.

Sandra: Okay, good. That's, that's, that's good. That makes me feel a little bit more.

Um,

Dan: I'm actually, I'm actually thinking there is like a space on the market for someone that can make a simple microphone, don't you think? Like this is like a huge business opportunity right now.

Sandra: I fully agree. I mean, I don't, I, I don't quite understand.

Um, if we were able to fix freaking printers, I feel like Mike's going should have been already fixed, especially during this podcast timing and like,

it should

Sandra: be super easy. It should be, you have small thing, you connect it to your computer and you just talk and it works.

Dan: Yeah.

Sandra: So I don't know. I don't know.

Dan: I'm sure it's going to be like that someday, but not today. Today we spent 15 minutes, but we're here now. I think It could be. It could be better. I agree with you, but we're here and we have updates and it's Monday and it's going to be a great week. Yes. So there's no problem, really. Yes. Yes. And also, remember when we did it without mics and we didn't have a problem and everything was okay?

Sandra: I don't remember that There is always something in this show happening That's why red bull is almost here to sponsor us because it's so exciting. It's a rush, you know

Dan: Yeah doing a live show is actually Two times more complicated, but 10 times, right? Cause yeah, but I still think, I still think it's okay.

You know, I, I was actually, it's going to sound a bit evil, but I was having fun seeing you panic with the microphone. It's just like, it was a good time.

Sandra: Well, I'm happy you were in this thing. That's sometimes that's my role on this side of, of, of. The

Dan: world. Yeah. I could, I could just see you swearing, but I couldn't hear you.

So I just imagined what the swear request was.

Sandra: And bear in mind, I use three languages just to make sure that this swearing actually works. Yeah.

Dan: It goes through correctly.

Sandra: Yeah.

Dan: So I usually say bye and close the, the thing Sandra, but I'm gonna like leave it open because now, you know, when I got disconnected, I realized that everyone's in the past, like we.

Closing Thoughts and Future Plans

Dan: We're 20 seconds ahead. So no one's going to hear that they could go on morningmakershow.com now. But the problem is I also have to shut up and just leave it, you know, and.

Sandra: Okay. Let's have a one minute of silence.

Dan: Yes. To remember all the failed indie projects.

do even realize. That while we were taking this, I was disconnected, completely lost the microphone, spoke from my phone, connected back and pretended everything's normal.

Did you even notice that?

Sandra: Yeah, I did. I did. And I noticed that when you asked me, can't you see the demo? It was like, Sandra, I'm working on something. Please leave me alone.

Dan: I figured out something very cool though. So we're in the future now when we're speaking and we're like plugged in. As soon as I'm not speaking, I go like I get pushed back in the past and I hear what I said 20 seconds ago and it was so strange like I got disconnected and I started to hear myself in the past and I slightly panicked.

But then on the phone, I could hear future you speaking and I was, what the hell is going on?

Sandra: And they say time machines don't exist. Look at us.

Dan: We just did it live.

Sandra: Have a nice week,

Dan: everyone. Bye.

Sandra: Goodbye, everyone.

Have a lovely week. See you on Friday.

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