As the development of Crop.Express continues, Cory Miller and Corey Maass continue to gain clarity on what is needed for their product to succeed. They discuss features and integration, free vs. paid versions, ensuring compatibility, and more, as they fold in their experience, expertise, and gathered feedback into the future strategy of their product business.
Top Takeaways:
- Cultivating empathy is important for developers. It’s essential to understand the needs of different users, particularly those who are not very tech-savvy or who come from different cultural backgrounds. Empathy helps create products that are more user-friendly and accessible to a broader audience.
- Collaboration is crucial for success. No matter how brilliant a product developer is, they can’t do everything on their own. They need a team of people with different skills and backgrounds to support them, whether it’s in terms of design, marketing, or other areas. Building a supportive team requires humility and a willingness to accept feedback and help from others.
- Failure is a necessary part of growth. Many product developers go through a difficult experience where they realize that their work isn’t as good as they thought it was. This experience can be humbling, but it’s also an opportunity to learn and grow. It’s important for developers to be open to feedback, to take risks, and to be willing to try new things, even if it means making mistakes along the way.
🔗 Mentioned in the show:
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- Corey Maass
- Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
- Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)
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Transcript
Session 5 Corey & Cory Launch a WordPress Product Live
Corey: [00:00:00] Session five, and I’m opening the comments on the YouTubes pop out. Hello?
Yeah, I should do this too. Okay. Oh, shouldn’t
cory: the recorded bit, we’ll do it live.
Corey: Is there any other way? I mean,
there’s no
cory: one, no other way, but to do it live, at least for Corey and Corey
Corey: Otherwise, there’s too much to think about. Exactly.
cory: Who wants, who wants, uh, [00:01:00] Perfection. All right. So, hey everybody. This is, uh, Corey and Corey launching a WordPress product in public and session five. And, you know, life happens. And so I’m actually at a hospital. Uh, my brother, uh, got into the hospital earlier this week and just checking on him.
He’s all good, by the way. Um, anyway, so session five.
Corey: Um, how was the jello? These are the things that matter. That’s true.
cory: I have not asked. He’s not been able to eat, but, um, people are pretty awesome. Yeah. Here taking care of them. Good. Glad to hear it. Um, so first things first, we get our first feedback.
Corey: Yep, yep.
So after all of our discussion around, uh, The most important thing being feedback. How do we collect feedback? I built [00:02:00] into the plugin, um, with your guidance, you know, the most direct way, like I went, we could have just linked to a contact form, but I was like, we want this to be frictionless. So there’s a button right next to every.
Big call to action that says, um, you know, give us feedback or something. Um, and so, and it worked, a little, a little relieved because I, I wound up doing some crazy email routing to get it all, um, signed up because, you know, one of the things with a new product is you don’t want to just like, you don’t want to pr optimize prematurely.
You don’t want to pay, start paying for services. And so we are, um, using a number of email forwards from my registrar to a Gmail account to each of us using aliases and various Gmail accounts. So it’s a little more complicated. But that way [00:03:00] we’re not spending 16 bucks a month on Google Workspace, you know, before we’ve.
Received an email. So, um, but yeah, the, the first email was positive or encouraging, I should say. Um,
cory: yeah. And basically, do you, do you know him? Do you know
Corey: who it is? I, I don’t think so.
cory: I don’t either. So that’s, that’s even better because it’s somebody that we, um, so I’ll, I’ll read it if you, if you want me to, Corey?
Yeah. Yeah. So I, I don’t know his name and it looks like his last name, but we’ll keep that anonymous. Uh, nice start. I would love it if you could work on more fe than featured images. Good affirmation. Wanna be able to do it with just an image on a page. And he gave us a link. Um, this kinda
Corey: seems link, the link, just so you know, all of the emails will include, i, I auto appended the site, u r url.
[00:04:00] Gotcha. So we have, um, you know, so we can go and do a little sneaky research.
cory: Yeah. Uh, looks like in New Hampshire, by the way, aren’t
Corey: you in New Hampshire? I am. That’s why I’m, uh, or at least the site that it came from. Site that came from,
cory: yeah. Yeah. Uh, so what sticks out to me is, um, I mean, it’s one person, but it validates our second step, which is somewhere that can be used outside of the featured image.
Um, right. And last week we were talking about like, is there an area in the right sidebar somewhere that is, you know, you can drag it there, it’s still a step like crop it, but like then you can pull it into a Gutenberg block kind of thing. Is what, do you have any thoughts on that? Like, and I’m trying to remember a conversation from last week too.
I know you’re always tinkering too, so.
Corey: Right. I, unfortunately I haven’t been this week. Um, [00:05:00] yeah. I’ve been work, like you say, life gets in the way and work is part of life, and so, yep. Uh, for those who don’t know, I, uh, consult on the side or freelance on the side and, and these are the clients I’m always talking about.
And so, you know, uh, we have a new design that needs to be implemented this week, so unfortunately side projects get put on, get paused. Yep. Um,
cory: gotta have something, pay the bills and, um, no, no. I, I just curious cause you always kinda surprise me with something. I happen to mention a circle crop and you’re like, by the way, I did it.
I’m like, okay, . Um, cool. What, uh, I’m gonna, I haven’t looked recently, but how many downloads are we or installs are we up to?
Corey: Oh, good question.
cory: I’m gonna do that right now.
When I put Crop express, by the way, into the wordpress.org plugins thing. Mm-hmm. , there’s 1, [00:06:00] 2, 4, 4 things above ours, which is, I’ll have to follow up with that.
Corey: Okay. So, so we still have fewer than 10,
cory: which, you know, that lags, doesn’t it? Like they have these, some metrics or something on what displays and so it could be theoretically more, I think.
Corey: Yep. And am I logged in? No. Um, and I wanna say that they took away the deeper analytics. Cuz, cuz I also, you know, since we’re talking about this, I have a strong suspicion that people are also kicking the tires. Um, so I suspect that people are, you know, installing, trying it, you know, to kind of follow along in our journey and experiencing that.
You know, it is a limited plugin so far, and so we’re probably uninstalling it. Um, [00:07:00] so for me, like I talked about last week, this is, this is, you know, once you’re in public, this is a bit of a, um, urgency to start, like filling in those gaps. And I, I kind of personally, I like that like, there’s, there’s a lot of talk in the startup world about an entrepreneurship world in general of like, you know, if you’re not embarrassed by your first version that you released, then you’ve released too late.
And I, I thankfully got over that fear of releasing years ago. But it, you know, I, I think the next step is usually this, which is the, like, okay, I’m in public, I’ve told a few people about it. Yes, I’m starting to collect feedback, but I’m also, you. I can look at the product and go, oh shoot, it’s missing this.
Oh, I forgot about that. You know, so this is where, this is where we, we scramble as long as, uh, I, I can ,
cory: which is great. Like this is a good stage for, this isn’t our fa main [00:08:00] focus, but, um, I know, I know you probably have internal pressure for yourself. It’s like, I wanna get this going.
Corey: Yeah. I mean the, the sooner we get these extra features in, the sooner we make our first million, you know, and then I don’t have to worry about client work anymore.
So, I mean, that’s exactly, that’s, that’s the race. The other thing that, you know, I struggle with is a bit of an adult, A D H D. And, uh, when I have a project, you know, talking or, or a little voice in my head that’s telling me this is what I wanna be working on, I have a real hard time. Doing what I’m supposed to.
So I’m being a good boy this week. But that’s definitely, I think part of my, if you can call it success, but at least part of my track record of launching so many things, is that for better or worse, I tend to be pretty self-indulgent and will often, you know, nights and weekends crank on something, even if it’s [00:09:00] not what I should be working on or what, yeah.
Uh, the people around me are happy for me to be working on, but, you know, if if it’s yelling at me loud enough, then, then I, it’s hard to resist.
cory: Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s hard because you can go, you can go off , just lose yourself because it’s fun, you know? But yeah. You’re talking about like 10 years for me is, is this Blitz Creek everything at it, you know.
This is a great pace. Like the pressure or like if we can get it, we can get it. We’re good. Kind of moving forward. But I do feel those tendencies of like, uh, you slacked me and we’re like, we got our first feedback and I was like, heck yeah. . And it’s a great one is an affirmation. Mm-hmm. . Um, so here’s what I had on my to to-do list and I’ll give you an update.
Um, I had Laney Page, talked to content journey, and Robbie, I did one of three. [00:10:00] I talked to Lindsay about content journey and getting their, how they source images was really fascinating. Um, I think there’s something here to that. Mm-hmm. What I wanted to talk to her more is like the more abstract thought of on page somebody land, you know, finds your post from organic traffic, whatever, and ad get on page and What’s that?
We had that more abstract meta conversation about the role of an image. And, uh, she gave me a lot of good feedback about how they source it. Um, they do custom stock photography, so for clients, so they’ll arrange for a photographer and they’ll do some, they do mood boards and stuff like that of like, these are the shots we want.
So they use a lot of those images in their posts. Um, but they’re probably, I think, using a tool like Canva. But I think still there’s a lot of validity here for crop Exactly. For the [00:11:00] theme this mm-hmm. , that perspective really illuminated for me was these themes have designs and ratios, you know, um, I’m trying
Corey: Oh, sorry.
The, I’m trying to, I I received a little bit of validation. I just, I, let me interrupt you for a sec. The, the other feedback that I’m getting or, or experiential feedback or whatever is the same thing in that, uh, essentially there is, it’s almost like a style guide or you mentioned a mood board, but where there will be somebody who makes decisions about the types of images or the way images are presented.
So we, you had me add circles. Uh, I had a client suddenly request, uh, rounded squares [00:12:00] or round, really rounded corner squares. Um, see, that’s
cory: cool because that’s a, that’s a differe. Nope, that’s interesting.
Corey: Sorry. And so, and no. Exactly, and that’s what I mean is like, you know what, we are a little bit at the mercy of what JavaScript can do and, uh, all that kind of stuff.
But I, I love the idea of, um, Somebody, again, making decisions about, you know, what essentially what is allowed, what, how images are allowed to be presented on a website. Um, and so I think that’s, again, going back to like I, who manage sites for clients or somebody who develops themes. And, and so within a given theme, you know, the, the op the theme was designed for images to be 16, nine, but every author photo is meant to be a square with rounded [00:13:00] corners or whatever it is.
Um, and so being able to lock in those, you know, we, we say here’s all the options and somebody goes in and configures all those options so that then when in your day-to-day, um, you’re, it’s a no. Editing images is, takes no brain space.
cory: But this the, you just. Um, I uncovered something that’s really interesting to me is like, I never thought about that.
Rounded corners. Mm-hmm. , like think about you kinda get a line to images, but that’s a, that little thing apart from the technical, you know, how how to do it Sure. Is. Like that’s a cool way for something to stand out and I think could be like in that pro category, uh, the pay category of stuff is like, yep.
The standout thing that we had kind of got into this higher conversation about us, like how to stand out. Uh, so that’s, that’s pretty cool. [00:14:00]
Corey: Yeah, I think creative was, I think, I think we can, we can have some fun with it too. Um, potentially combined with other services or whatever. But like there’s, um, a little util we talk about, talked about utility apps.
There’s a little utility app that I bookmarked and go back to from time to time, which is, uh, how I created my avatar that I use everywhere. You know, you upload an image, it, I think it’ll remove the, it must remove the background for you. Like there are a lot of little single page apps that’ll do that.
But then it gives you, I don’t know, 40 different options of different backgrounds with sparkles or a star or circles. So it’s professional but fun. And then down below you can, they have backgrounds. So it’s you on a beach and you in front of the Eiffel Tower and yada yada. So, you know, we can. Relying on feedback and or when Corey’s a D H D kicks in [00:15:00] and wants to goof around.
Or if I find some new, you know, piece of code that’ll let us do this stuff. Like, I don’t, I don’t want to go too crazy with this, you know, cuz it’s, we could get goofy and end up building features that nobody wants. Right. Um, but there’s definitely some opportunity for some of these little differentiators, um, to take images, uh, within WordPress to places they haven’t been before.
cory: So, unless you have another pressing topic we should talk about, I’d like to explore that for a second. Not to say we should do it, but explore it. Sure. So that just kind of got me in a whole different, um, thought space of Okay. The round the corners thing is there and, and without technical understanding of this Sure.
Could you have an image and have a pull quote in front of it? You know, or something like those ways of making an image, not just, I pulled [00:16:00] that from iStock photo or Unsplash or whatever, you know? Yep. Which is interesting because like your client came to you with the rounded corners. Yep. So it’s like, how could we dress up and make those images per our conversation?
Like wait more. Interesting. Well, the avatar thing that’s really compelling, because maybe the tool is there’s a crop express area in the menu and you can go in and like, sure, it helps you do your featured image and eventually we’ll figure this crop where we crop it, you know? But like maybe there’s, um, that tool that, again, without technical, but I go, is that something we could do with JavaScript as a remove background or can we put some filters on mm-hmm.
to, or can we lay things like a slide. That’s cool options right there. That’s
Corey: about, and, and, and what I thought you were gonna say is user images, author images, yes.
cory: Make like in [00:17:00] with it, you get this kick butt, like, avatar,
Corey: right. Because we’ve got, I mean, WordPress is tied to Avatar for better or worse. And there are lots of plugins for adding user images.
If, you know, if in a traditional blog you have a little author byline and you wanna a little photo of them, if you don’t wanna use Gravita, there’s plugins that’ll intercept that request and, and use a WordPress image. Um, again, another place where, down the road, anywhere that somebody is interacting with images on WordPress, we wanna, you know, be there.
cory: Um, this is where Corey, I think we’re getting onto something. A bigger use case. Yep. But, um, you’ve been to Sticker Mule,
Corey: but this is the background remover that I use generally.
cory: Oh, is it? Okay. This is your utility? Yes, I have one. [00:18:00] It’s almost kinda like, oh, let’s take all these things and say, can we do them technically
Corey: upscale?
Read your print. Yeah. So if you Google sticker Mule background remove, um, it’s, it’s usually their background remover that I use cuz I, I love, I love Sticker Mule, I use them for swag. And so this is where, um, and, and there’s is free, like other people wanna limit the size or whatever, but these guys put it online so that with the idea that you would then go use whatever d background remover or image to print stickers.
So yeah. Yeah, we can start getting into that. And the, the funny thing here is I’ve been curious if this, if we’d start to have this kind of conversation, um, because the, I think I mentioned a few weeks ago, like I was messing around with another product [00:19:00] in parallel, um, based on, uh, the, the service I built takes screenshots.
And so it’s an API that takes screenshots, but using that a p i, it’ll, you know, people traditionally are like, oh, a screenshot of my homepage. And it’s like, okay, but you can, uh, manipulating H T M L with, and CSS is easy, relatively speaking. And then, and so you can kind of generate an image, uh, in a browser and then take a snap.
Right. So one of the things that I started to build as a WordPress plugin is, um, for each post, if you go to a URL off of that post, you will see the featured image with the post title and post date. And then it takes a snapshot of that or a screenshot of that. And then that’s your social image. Yeah.
Right. Oh’s and so, and so. It, it [00:20:00] does, I’m pretty sure it does require a third party, which is why I built this, had to build this separate a p i. Um, but you know, that’s something that I’ve already started looking at and there’s definitely ways that we could combine those things and it, and, you know, it should be a pro.
Definitely we’re talking about getting into pro stuff, but, um, you know, there’s, yeah, it’s lots of other areas where tentacles could creep out involving images and WordPress.
cory: So I’m starting both these avatars and social images with the, in the screenshots that you talked about. Yeah. Because that’s so, you know, our premise a couple weeks ago was make ch creative chores fun or easier.
Mm-hmm. , this is even like
spruce up your stuff. Like when you talk about avatar, it’s like, wow, I went and there’s a thought behind the avatar. Cuz the final [00:21:00] thing is not just a quick image and somehow slammed in there. It’s like, no, they did a circle or run, whatever these tools we could do, it’s like treatment of images, you know?
Right. So that’s a
Corey: level. Yeah. And, and again, I think, you know, the, to me the, I keep coming back to this. The real value add is, The Wizbang, um, not the actual creative part, but, but locking down the creative part. So, uh, you know, I ha again, I have a website, it’s a, um, or a client website. It’s a magazine. So every, uh, article that gets submitted has a user, cuz that’s the author.
And so we’re up to a couple a dozen or, you know, and, and technically more. Um, but every, each one has to upload, we need to get an image from the author and then we upload it and it’s, they’re never quite [00:22:00] consistent and stuff like that. And so it’s, if we, we went in initially and decided, okay, avatar images are, even if it’s not connected necessarily to like the user profile or whatever.
Cuz I keep ta I like your idea of a top level menu item that’s like, here’s. Even if it’s just bookmarks that link to deeper points within WordPress. But it’s like, here, here you can manage all of your author avatars and you know, initially when you set up the site, you’d say, okay, we want them all to be square and we want them all to have, you know, rounded corners.
And you set that and you forget it. And so then every time a new author comes in, you know, you just say, upload image, crop it. And, and these decisions are made rather than, oh, we have a new author. I have to go back to Canva and move sliders around and try to remember, you know, what is our norm. Um, it’s
cory: right there.[00:23:00]
Yeah. It’s, it’s where you need it, where you’re doing the work. It’s not another platform. Yeah. Well like you’re saying, that concept is like left hand menu thing could be like that sticker mill tools. , here’s all your tools. Like, they’re not gonna need avatar every time, but they know, oh, I go back here. Go back to the utility.
Yep. That spruces my images up,
Corey: you know? Yeah. I like that idea of the, the menu because it’s, I, I kind of got stuck on when you were talking about it last week. I’m like, I like it from a branding perspective, you know, but what, and, and we could, and I, I don’t have a problem with having sort of an abstract utility app built in, but I, I was like, there’s something missing.
And I think it’s that, like you, there’s a sub menu that says avatar, featured image, general image, or a crop to your heart’s content, you know? But,
cory: so here’s, here’s a question to that. [00:24:00] Um, there’s JavaScript tools and things that are available that do things. What are some of the things that, like in the libraries or out there, maybe that could connect some dots and go.
Is this something that could be an easy lift and maybe the utility is more pro, but I’m really li I really like that. Like when we kind of make, become the indispensable utility for sping up your images or whatever fancy thing we’re gonna call it in there. But then I just go, there’s so much locked in jQuery, JavaScript, different libraries that are probably easy reasons.
Like, is this remove a background feature? You know, I’m just giving. Mm-hmm. suggest like thoughts here. But if there’s some of that, it’s like, why not put that there anytime. I think the principal here could be, anytime we save them from having to go offsite site, that’s gotta be a plus one. Like that removed background thing.
I know the iPhone does it, [00:25:00] stuff like that. But, um, the, some of these ticker meal tools, like you, you have that book marked to do that, you know? Mm-hmm. . That’s cool. Could we. Can we pull some of those things into that library? And then I guess the question is, what are some of those low hanging fruit fruits for that?
Corey: Yep, yep. I’m looking at, um, image manipulation plugins, WordPress image editor plugins, because I, you know, it’s, it, there’s, there’s features, there’s benefits, there’s ways that they come together and we can, we can offer, we can keep adding features. Eventually we will suss out whether people are using them or not.
Either we will build them because we get feedback or we will build them, and eventually we’ll start looking at analytics and determine that. Mm-hmm. , nobody is using the [00:26:00] watermarking tool or whatever we end. Attic, but I, Ooh. But I wanna
cory: watermarking, . That’s another one I’m writing down, man. Seriously.
Because you got all these photographers, different people, and they’re like, they wanna put their art up, but they want some sense of protection. That’s, that opens up another set of things like a whole other y uh, you know, an avatar group we can go toward, like, with just that watermark thing. Mm-hmm. . So I’m writing that down too,
Corey: but I, what I wanna make sure the, the, the concentric circle that I wanna, or, or the middle that I wanna make sure we end up in it with.
Um, this is like, I’m looking at plugins where you, it’s Canva or it’s whatever image editor you like, it’s Instagram. But it’s abstract. And, [00:27:00] and I see ways that these other plugins are not, maybe not integrated the way that we are talking about integrating. Cuz that to me is the real value. Like I’d rather have fewer, this is, this is me based on my experience, right?
Obviously this will be determined by feedback, but I would rather have fewer features but be where it actually matters than I’m looking again at these other tools that are, I think the same, similar thing where like they’ve implemented libraries or they’ve, they’ve built a utility app and they’ve, you know, shoehorned it into WordPress, uh, like this, I don’t mean these to be derogatory phrases, um, but it’s, they are, they are potentially powerful photo editors, but they’re not where you need them to be.
Right? Yeah. If you, if you have to click. Into media in order to get the editor in [00:28:00] order to upload an image to then go to a post, to me, you’ve missed an opportunity cuz it’s the, I want to click on featured image or I want to click on an image block and that’s where this, you know, whatever features need to be.
Um, and, and that’s, and I think sussing out all those use cases to then go, okay, yes, they need watermarks or they need filters, or they need rounded corners or whatever. That’s when we start, you know, chasing all those feature lists basically. Yep.
All I hear is that I need to get off my butt and hurry up. And not at all, get this stuff implemented, . Not at
cory: all. But I, I continue to be excited as we do. Uh, really this whole product is just a dis a safari between Corey and Corey and I, I, I wrote down here. We’re building the case, you know, for it. [00:29:00] And, um, got our first feedback,
there’s a point where we’re gonna have to say, okay, we think we’re onto something. And I guess the two ways I think about this one is just put it in a pro version and get somebody to buy. That’s validation. Second is, hey, does all this resonate? If, so here’s a, like a, it’s not a Kickstarter, but a Kickstarter thing of like, buy a hundred dollars, you know, we need 10 grand, let’s say, to chase these features that we’re gonna do that we’ve heard and come in, we’ll give you some special thing by being one of the first.
Yep. So that’s another option, but I’m just throwing stuff out like. That’s a good idea because I feel like we’re starting to really build a case and we’re gonna need to make some actual decisions here pretty soon of going, we think this is it, but level of effort for [00:30:00] two hobby workers here doing this, it’s gonna require capital to go get, get the developer plus more time, you know, to, to chase some of these
Corey: mm-hmm.
Yep. So, yeah, there’s definitely a, I There’ll
cory: be a catalytic moment. I’m sorry, there’ll be a CATA for sure. Moment. You know, we keep coming back soon and
Corey: we’re soon there’s, there’s op we’re, we’re coming at it from opposite ends. Mm-hmm. . Um, we have, I think in the, in some of our discussions, we’ve established a baseline of functionality that’s on my plate and then we’re having really good high level conversations that are.
It’s, you know, you’re building a house, you know, you need a basement or a a, a cement slab. That’s Corey’s job right now. But it’s, and, and it’s not without its interesting challenges or [00:31:00] fun points of creativity, but you and I are, at the end of the day, each opening a beer proverbially and standing back and going, okay, so do we wanna build a widows walk?
Do we want, uh, a hot tub? Do we want, um, you know, uh, a fireman’s pole? And s and right now is the time to have all those conversations. Cuz we’re like, oh, well, uh, I live in New Hampshire hot tub, you can only use about three months of the year. Not that people don’t have them, but you know, oh, we use
cory: ours. , I use ours, I should say.
I’m like, okay, it’s five degrees, but ,
Corey: it’s hot out there. .
cory: Yeah. That maybe warrants some of this, cuz I think we’re building a case enough where I ki kind of go, okay man, it but it almost si to me and I wanna get your opinions on this. Here’s free. It’s got us enough to like really get to talking. Some [00:32:00] people are kind of using it and then going like some of these things.
I’m like, yeah. Then we just take down there. There’s a general thought or direction here. It’s like anything where you have to go offsite. Let’s think about that. Let’s think about watermark, social engine, screenshots, avatars, that’s all like paid features. Yeah, those are paid things.
Corey: Yeah. But I like your idea of,
cory: that’s why, by the way, I’m glad you got that other domain, ,
Corey: too many domains.
I in I, that one I own actually brought me up to 20, which is way down. I used to have. You know, a hundred or something. But we need to
cory: buy domain support group separate from this, cuz I’m with you. Um, but the, the domain you did get, I go, that’s probably where it seems like right now, today as we’ve talked about these options, that’s where we’re, we’re probably gonna land.
Yeah. Um, [00:33:00] so, uh, sorry, so what are your thoughts on like, I’ve, I’m feeling excited. I don’t wanna get it, but, you know, beyond our skis here, but I go man, one of these, you start with one domino, the second into a pro feature set. Um, we still don’t have a ton of users, which is what we need. Right. Well, I need
Corey: to finish thoughts on that again.
I need to finish the slab. I need to finish the baseline version that is, Because the other thing I wanna be careful of, and, and we’re gonna have to, as usual 10, 10 thoughts, thought threads at once here. But I am glad that we are talking about these other directions because I want, what we can’t do is [00:34:00] have a plugin that is, um,
cory: what are you looking at
Uh, if you heard somebody yelling, that’s my dad, ,
Corey: um, what we, what we can’t have is a free version that is useless. Yeah. Right. Okay. Is, or, or that, that hint set, you know, features but doesn’t actually deliver. And so I kind of have a feeling. , what we had originally talked about was like pro features that are specifically for, uh, agencies, stuff like that.
But I have a feeling that even the non-technical or non-agency user is going to need like half of the pro features and great, we, it would be great if we could sell it to them, but if it, if it’s useless without those features, you know, we, [00:35:00] we see, we see too much churn. Yeah. And so if, if we can even make a pro version that’s cheap, that just adds a little bit of icing, but then we can use all of this as a segue into these other bigger solving, these other bigger problems than we start to build an empire.
Um, which is very, uh, exciting. You know, if we. We start to get into, if there’s an uh, you know, WordPress and plugins and their add-ons, if there’s an avatar add-on, if there’s a social media image add-on mm-hmm. different from the core pro, which is only, you know, 10 bucks to add, you know, color pickers or something, you know, that, that feels better to me than trying to sell or trying to get people to use a free version that only works for us.
Very small percentage. Yeah. And then [00:36:00] expect everybody to pay a hundred bucks. They’re just not gonna, yeah. Thank,
cory: thanks for anchor this. It needs to be a step, we need to work back on to the slab. So when you said that it came little kind of clear to me is like, maybe it’s just that area, you know, below the featured image.
Uh, I don’t know if that’s where it should go in the ui, but it seems like that one thing could flesh out. And maybe there’s even, like, maybe that’s where custom dimensions comes into. Mm-hmm. Here it is, all your cropping. You don’t have to go somewhere else, you don’t have to upgrade, but like, it’s the free mvp.
It’s the, uh, not mvp. It’s the value prop is just want to get the right sized images, you know, done easily without having to find all these different workflows. It’s right here sitting for you as a utility right there [00:37:00] in right sidebar, post and page. What do you think?
Corey: Yeah, I see that like it’s, uh, basically going in a, going in a different dimension.
It’s, it’s all of the features, but only in limited places as opposed to some of the features everywhere. All of the features everywhere. Yeah. So, yeah, we can, we can, we can look at that kind of configuration. I think it, to me, that’s. , the way I often design product is by building, as we’ve talked about. And so I think that that’s the sort of thing that’s going to become self pretty self apparent as I’m building.
And then you and I can either have one of these calls or can talk in Slack as I’m going. Okay, so we’ve, we’ve covered our bases. We have that cement slab. What is, what does this first floor look like? Do I build three stories of one room or do I build one story of three rooms? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And so we can [00:38:00] decide whether we want to kind of go up or go out.
Um, so, you know, so what feels good and what, how much feedback we have
cory: at the time. Absolutely. And what clarity I see now up for your feedback is we have some case for. A bigger utility that goes, dives deeper into like the avatar. So there’s the screenshot thing. You blew my mind for a second. But you go into social images, you go into water marketing.
So we’ve got a case building here for pro and then you anchored us back to free full. A full featured free, I think is what I take from this. And that makes me think that free tool needs to be inside bar and it needs to have custom dimensions. Mm-hmm. . Because then why would you want to go anywhere else?
Like, cuz somebody could conceivably say, well it’s letting me crop and get the crop, you know, images, but I want them to a little different. Then they’re still having to go out. But if we just think only featured free, I [00:39:00] go, that’s it To me. I go put it in the sidebar. Custom dimensions we’re good, but again, I’m, I’m positing this, I just
Corey: custom dimensions. I think that’s where. Okay. Because I think it’s necessary. I think that that’s the, you know, you we’re, without it, we’re talking about, I don’t know, a car without gas or something. Mm-hmm. . It just doesn’t, it just doesn’t do enough. We can’t, I can’t imagine that the vast majority of websites only use Square or 16.9 and subsequently we’re gonna cover our bases.
I think it’s, um, cuz we also, I think, want to hint at that additional value prop of agencies of locking down your website, even from yourself. So the settings page. [00:40:00] Yeah. If you want to allow certain sizes or aspect ratios that are not 16, nine or square, you have to click, click, click to go over to the settings page.
Now you set it once and you forget it. But it’s over there. Whereas day to day you’re going in and you’re going, well, my website is actually 16 1.6 that’s already configured, and then day-to-day, I’m just plugging in in images.
cory: So it seems like, like I’m trying to remember back to like the Photoshop CRO tool.
You get the little window over here that’s, you can type in pixels wide, pixels tall. Then you have an aspect ratio that could be tweaked potentially. Yeah. Like to me, man, if that’s like maybe the, there’s the preset, click it go. Just try to get ’em fast. The crop. Then there’s, in that window, when it pulls up, there’s, maybe it’s an advanced tab or something, but it’s [00:41:00] conceptual.
I’m just kind of talking, but it’s like those little, that little Photoshop box. If you want to go custom, here you go. And then you can click crop and it’s done. Yep. Okay. If that’s it. What, what do you think the level ever for that is? Because I don’t wanna say Corey, could you do that for us? But I just wanna say, what do you think?
That level of effort, because man, right, with that is, okay, beachhead product is crop the pro then become, this is a path into pro. You do this, by the way, so here’s the panacea for those of you that needs this over here, it’s called mm-hmm. , our domain. Um, so what’s level, level of
Corey: effort you think for that?
Uh, it’s, it’s honestly, I ha it’s built already. I had to rip it out, um, to submit the free version because we had talked about, I love working with developers, , um, you know, keeping it very simple. Yeah. Just getting a proof of concept out the door. So, uh, [00:42:00] you know, cuz that, that’s, to me, even thinking about the 0 0 1 version, we, I knew we would need custom.
Configuration. So, um, so putting in a simple settings page and allowing, uh, some basic, you know, one or two presets essentially gets us there. Um,
cory: okay. So, so if I capture this right though, so they would activate plugin and set those in the plugin settings tab and then have ’em available when that rat sidebar thing comes up, or did I get that wrong?
Corey: No, that, I mean, that was how I imagined it initially. Okay. Uh, but I, as we’ve talked about, or I talked about I two or three sessions ago, I also think that we need an option to bypass. Um, like we don’t want to truly [00:43:00] 100% Absolutely. Lock somebody out of uploading an image that’s some goofy size and shape, like that’s just root.
It’s your, it’s their website. So, in. So in my mind, the flow that we’ve proposed is setting up a new site or you have a site, you install the plugin, you’d go and say, this site uses or will use 16 1.6 aspect ratio images save. And then when I, whenever I try to upload a featured image, it’ll, it’s an option.
It’ll default to that. But there will also, which right now we’re lacking. But there is so an advanced button that says, do whatever the hell you want. Or just, yeah, blunt. Upload a 10,000 pixel image. Even though we don’t recommend that you do that. So the
cory: reason why I’m asking some of these in depth, cuz if I get the workflow in my head and I know how it goes, I, that’s where I’d like to, here’s your workflow, here it is, you know, [00:44:00] and we’re gonna do our best in the product side to make it really easy and safe.
But that’s really helpful cuz I’d go. Hey, it’s here in the settings page, but you can also, when you’re popping it up, crop it to what you think. Right? But if they’re like me, I go, I don’t know how far this is. I don’t, you know, I don’t know how wide single post templates are typically, I guess like 400, 500.
But, so that’s really, really awesome cuz there’s like, if you’re the agency, you’re gonna set it in the plugin. It’s there for ’em. If you’re the independent professional using it, trying to publish content, you might use this at some point, but you got this flexibility. That’s, that’s
Corey: brilliant. And I think, uh, we will do two things.
We will have, and this is similar to a lot of other plugins that have this pattern, and I think it’s, I think it’s a winner, is you have a settings page. So [00:45:00] you’ve gone non-developers, but you also allow those settings to be. Hmm. Locked in by defining constants in your WP config file. So it’s the kind of thing where, uh, you know, um, WP Migrate DB Pro, um, or a c F or there’s a bunch of other plugins that do this, where you’ve, uh, you can go in and fiddle with things, or Corey the developer, sets up a new site, drops in a couple of the same constants on all of the sites, and so there’s no messing with a settings page.
Things are just defined. Um, and so we can do a, uh, we can normalize it that way too. So
cory: I’m gonna follow up with Kathy’s aunt over at Cadence to talk this through, but there, we’ve, we’ve hit it because the free tool will say, [00:46:00] this is what I heard. I’m a web development design firm, agency developer, whatever else.
Um, I create, go to all this pain to create this great site for someone and then they end up probably bettering because the images is a wild, wild west in their workflow is like, we’re gonna use cadence or whatever theme framework, Hey, go here. This is gonna protect your beautiful project you just delivered to the client.
That’s killer man. Yeah. And just making it like it’s a free tool, you know? And by the way, at some point there’s gonna be this other thing. So like we get ’em here, use this on all your client sites. So that’s the u free utility version. Help people. That’s our, I think that’s our angle into building the user base for this is, Hey everybody, raise your hand if you had a client.
Who takes your beautiful project and screws it up with images. [00:47:00] Yep. Okay. This crop express helps put some little guardrails, like bowling, put the guardrails out so it doesn’t bounce into the gutter. Yep. I think we’ve just like stumbled into really compelling to this process. Um, way to go, like we’re being opinionated, you know, you telling me like themes said, I was like going back to my theme days going, yeah, you’re right.
They designed us with specific things to make sure it lights up like the demo site does, but then in the tool, in the software itself, , it’s all over the place. It breaks, it makes it
Corey: look ugly and, and here’s a little like silly little thing, but low lift may be valuable is I’m picturing content journey who are writers.
And content people, but who are, maybe some of them at [00:48:00] least are not going to be artistic or not going to be comfortable in Photoshop or what have you. Right. So they will, they might be sourcing images. I’m trying to, I’m thinking on my feet here, so obviously I’m stumbling a little, but like my clients too, they go and they source images and I have taught them that we use, we need an image that within that image, whatever size shape it is, there needs to be a 16 nine and there needs to be a square cuz the one of the sites specifically uses that.
Right. But they’ve had to learn that and I’ve had to teach that to them. And so imagine this, again, silly little thing, but I, I kind of am in love with this idea at the moment. I love where you’re going. Is uh, it, once you hit settings or once you set those things, it auto generates a style [00:49:00] guide, documentation or what have you.
You know, and, and I think this can keep going, but like, again, the quick and easy is I install Crop Express. I set it, I, the developer set it so that the, the website allows this and, you know, 16, nine and square both need to be 10,000 or, or 2000 or less, which is the plug-in will or take advantage of, but it generates some sort of documentation or reference material that I can then hand the client and say, you know, not so, so it doesn’t rely on them to have to learn or have to figure this stuff out.
They have. A thing upfront that says, okay, here’s what you need when you go to Unsplash affiliate link. When you go to Stock Unlimited affiliate link, you know, these are the, this is what you need to be looking for, this is how you download it, et cetera, et cetera. [00:50:00]
cory: I love it because you’re teaching in the software, you’re guiding in not just programmatically, but like, that’s content heaven right there, because conceptually settings page when they’re doing, or there’s a, some kind of quick, you know, setup and it’s like, that’s our lead magnet two.
It’s like, hey, here’s the five best places. Uh, here’s some th like the thoughts we’ve done on how to like source an image. We, you and I could probably rough some of that out and like, you want it, you know, and journalism is like, you don’t want the person looking off the page. , you know, so like there’s some tips we could put in there and that could become guidance and lead magnet
Corey: and like, yep.
And we let, let developers white label it so they put their own logo. And so Corey gets paid to set up a website. I set up a website, install a theme, install crop express, plug in [00:51:00] the hardcode, what I know will, will work and, and match a best practice. Click a button that then downloads the documentation that I need, that I can then hand the client so that, you know, it makes my life easier.
I don’t have to teach them anything. Ooh. And, and maybe that is powerful. Maybe, maybe I, it lets me put my logo in there instead of crop express. So I’m now handing Corey branded material to the client who I just built a website for.
cory: I just think I need to go, I put another name on my list, which is I need to talk to Kimberly at ballet.
Because all these companies that do agencies that do maintenance and stuff, you’re like, Hey, make this better. You know? Like, this will make it better. They’re, they’ll actually size images correctly. You can do the things you’re talking about cuz you’re thinking about the white label, which normally in the past I put into pro.
It’s like, well, that’s when you get into pro. But I love it here because it’s like [00:52:00] when you go to a developer, you can just do this and it’s gonna be better. And they go, heck yeah, because I don’t have to do all the work and the, I’m gonna get the benefit from that for my client. Now we’re, now we’re here, now we’re hitting huge case study for free and Pro.
Mm-hmm. . Yep. That’s, that’s brilliant man. So, okay, so the, what I got is right sidebar custom dimensions. And maybe a third for downstream is like, do we do this white labeling thing? But I’ll put the third, uh, that’ll be fourth. I’ll put the third is, and this will be on me. Uh, I’ll need some help from you.
But it is like collecting these, here’s your five sources. Mm-hmm. , you know, here’s, you can find and source good, good stuff. And I could turn into, lead back to our blog on the site [00:53:00] that at some point goes, we’re gonna talk about open ai, this source. Like, hey, that’s a webinar you and I can do. Just playing around with stuff.
I’ve been talking to Ag Mors about this, like, maybe we spend a webinar, we’re like talking about how to cool, create cool images for your blog post using Dolly, or whatever it is. Mm-hmm. great content. Get the people attracted that we need. Tell ’em we’re trying to make their life better. Like, that’s the, that’s the, that’s the game right there.
Like, yeah. Okay, let me, let me record this right side dimensions, some of the EDU guidance content that’s me. And then downstream, I think is what label, unless
Corey: I mean just, you know, there’s, there’s complicated ways to do it and easy ways to do it. And so we can start with the easy way of no branding or what have you. And here’s content. Yeah. [00:54:00] Um, I worked with valet a few years ago and one of the things that they were working hard on was the conceptual.
Literature and illustration of the value they provided every month. Um, and came up with, I have t-shirts that have the design on them, but, um, the illustrated, you know, here’s what we do for you every month, because that is something that agencies who who run retainers have to, you wanna stay top of mind.
You don’t want just invoices to roll in without a client going, wait, what did, what did you do in the last 30 days? Or what did you do in the last year? Um, Chris Lema had a great blog post about this years ago, um, that I took away from, uh, for my conbon plugin was send, you know, between purchasing and renewal, I [00:55:00] automated 12 emails.
That of generic content, valuable, but generic content, evergreen, I should say, content. So at month eight it would say, okay, you are eight months into using your CONBON plugin. By now you are an expert. Here are some advanced tips, or whatever it was. Um, and so, you know, if we can give agencies content to hand to their clients, it’s obviously not necessarily month over month, but that kind of content.
You know, I’m teaching you, I’m helping you use your website to its fullest, all that kind of stuff. I, you know, again, I, I think it, it will resonate with some people. Yep.
cory: Uh, championing the cause, helping people, guiding them, walking with them. It’s good stuff.
Corey: But all that to say, I think, yeah, Kim at Valet would is a great person.
I know that they were working on that. I mean, it was years ago now, but, [00:56:00] um, you know, see where she’s at and, and see that it resonates with her or doesn’t, but. Okay.
cory: I think Kathy, uh, I’ll try to ping Kathy this week. If I can get to it today. I’ll ping her to get the conversation. I’ve got other things to talk about or talk with her anyway and talk about this cuz if we can like get on a tr get on somebody’s that’s, that’s a Cadillac moment potentially. Plus being able to, sorry, go ahead.
Just being able to say this is how the theme will look best and this tool’s gonna help you with that. Huge. Yeah. And
Corey: I, I would love to make sure that that’s true. Because as I’ve discussed a little bit, I, I primarily use a page builder, which lets anybody upload anything anywhere on the page. Different from what [00:57:00] I conventionally thought of with themes, which was I buy a realtor theme that is already preconfigured for a realtor.
So when I click install theme it autoinject fake content with fake realtor pages and fake listings and all that, you know. Does that where between the block editor and the block editor being used for full site editing and page builders and these big theme frameworks or, you know, uh, just shy of a page builder type theme.
I want to make sure that that’s the use case we’re talking about is still true. Mm-hmm. . In which case, it’s not like I, you know, we could make a module for Elementor or Beaver Builder, and then it’s on the [00:58:00] shoulders of the person setting up the website to install those modules and then set those, you know, we want, we wanna allow 16, nine images or whatever it is, which I think is a different use case than my neighbor who’s a realtor.
Mm-hmm. , who installs a plugin and it’s the, or ex installs a theme. And the theme is preconfigured with our, to work with our plugin to, to say, you know, I have already built all these layouts that are, that encourage that, that only really work best with 16 not, does that make sense? Like, oh yeah.
cory: Yeah. It’s so.
So thinking ahead
Corey: to them, talk your, your theme people and make sure that this assumption is correct.
cory: Yeah, we’ll just get on the, see where that alignment is. But my hunch is like, I think it’s Ben over at Cadence, but as they’re, whoever designs [00:59:00] their themes, actually, I think it’s Sailor now, but whoever design their themes, like if you could wish that they would fill it with images that really glorify your theme, what would that be?
That’s the question, right? You know,
Corey: and or, and or we’re talking about, you know, if, if you are, because if a theme gives total freedom like a page builder, where, where does it make sense to lock down images? Because Corey comes into a blank slate. It’s up to me to decide. Okay. You know, or, or I had a client who, um, it’s a, um, Asian American themed website.
And so they originally wanted images that were, um, slightly vertical based on the Japanese mats that people sleep on. Apparently, they are a standard aspect ratio, and so [01:00:00] I don’t think anybody has ever looked at the website and, and got the reference. But, you know, they wanted, so it’s, again, it is like, you know, four instead of a four, three aspect ratio, it’s four, 3.7, but that would’ve been decided by the designer and or me, not the theme creator.
Mm-hmm. . So anyway, I’m just, I’m, and I, I have no idea what the theme landscape looks like these days.
cory: It’s something I can, I can add some of our agency owners too. It’s like, What, what tools are they doing to build websites and things like that? I still take it, especially on the boutique level, they’re using some framework like a Cadence Generat press, an AOR or Beaver builder to, to build that.
So if we can, I love this cuz it’s just, we’re just talking about the workflow, which you’ve done right? You specifically have done so you know that and that’s, [01:01:00] yeah, that’s good stuff. Okay, so plan is get, get to the full feature set for free
and I’ll talk to these people and then we’ve, we’re building this really cool case for being that utility. Oh, everything’s here. Then we can start talking about where that, like tools here, but there’s, does it need to be integrated here? Like when you say social images, does it need to be somewhere, again, not technically speaking here, but conceptually is like, Yost has social images that needs to tie into here.
Um, man, we’re, I think we’re onto something. I really do. And it’s not just blind optimism and because we’re having fun doing this. I think we’re getting, we’re really building this case.
Corey: Well, and I, the other thing, I think the good plan that has evolved, yes. And, and I think we are building, [01:02:00] people talk about authority and this is how you build authority.
Like you, you get an idea for a product or a problem you want to solve, and then you start splashing around at it, you know? Yeah. I hadn’t thought about image cropping really, because I am comfortable in Photoshop and Yep. And then I, after a while I got lazy and so started using, you know, a different program or found a website that did it and it was good enough, but I was never.
Thinking deeply about cropping images other than I needed to, I need, I need this done, this task done, and now it’s done. And then I quick upload it and off we go. Whereas now we are, we are becoming the experts, uh, on cropping images, manipulating images, WordPresses relationship with images, themes, images, plugins, da da da da da da da.
Um, and that’s where, down the road, [01:03:00] you know, I, I, I have, I have a lot of fun with this, this part of the process. And down the road we become, you know, the image expert guys, the crop expert guys. The, it’s all of our marketing content. Go ahead.
cory: Oh, no, no, no, no. You’re, yeah, I was, yes, you’re on the thing. Uh, the next thing I was gonna say, you’re leading straight into it.
Do, um, do you mind if we talk publicly about the domain? No, of course not. Okay. So, You’re leading into this . I was trying to be like not, not as excited. So I could
Corey: finish, wait, hold this statement. Should we It is, it is th uh, 1 0 5. Should we save the discussion till next week?
Yes, you can say no .
cory: Okay. I wanna say no because I think it’s just real quick. It’s just a thought that we’ll come back to. Mm-hmm. for sure. For direction. We built this case and everything, so I go, crop Express is the free [01:04:00] plugin, but the domain is the brand. Mm. So like if you think about business and marketing wise, we got this one thing, but we’re making this case for, and how would you say the domain It’s
Corey: unfortunately, so it’s image img.express.
Okay.
cory: So to me, it seems like we just got this clear path, like we’re building this case and I go, it needs to be crop express by. I m g Express because we just placed this discovered, backed into, here’s the free utility. There’s a bigger case here, but it’s by this brand Corey and Corey, the I m G Express guys.
Yep. You know, so I kind of tend to think like when we’re ready doesn’t have to happen. Now is like, because all roads we want to lead to, we did this just to get your attention to a beachhead and then, but we’re the [01:05:00] IMG guys, right? From a branding business
Corey: perspective, we are, we are all things image.
cory: Yep.
Because we’ve got these use guys. We know we’ve got some, some, some, we got something here. Um, that is a, could be packaged together and sold for a good price that could sustain and support this business. So that, that’s the only thing I wanted to say. We don’t have to finalize that, but I just go man, that that’s clarity.
Of like, it’s the Im g guys, and by the way, we’re known like, this is a great utility. Everybody should use it. We do it free because you, you need it, people need it. This is gonna make the web better. When you get to the advanced stuff and you really want to go next level, look what we’re doing here. And that’s where you come into the community as Im g community, as professionals doing this work.
Corey: Yeah. I mean, the obvious, uh, parallel that comes to mind is like sayed at doing WP [01:06:00] Beginner. Mm-hmm. Where WP G beginner, uh, I don’t, I, it runs ads. I suppose I’m, I’m sure there’s some way that it makes money, but for the most part it’s just a phenomenal resource.
cory: Yeah. It’s hub free content. It’s the Osmo Automotive Hub for everything they.
Corey: Right. And obviously they, they use it to promote their products and stuff like that, but I end up on their website all the time learning things. I scroll to the bottom where they usually have a code, version, um, to solve whatever little problem I’m trying to, to solve. But, um, you know, to me we’re, we’re kind of following that same path.
If we get people using Crop Express often and and using that for, um, as a reference for other things, then yeah, you know, we can, we can kind of go in any direction really. So, I
cory: already put another domain thought about this and I didn’t wanna do it [01:07:00] publicly just yet cuz we don’t have the domain secured for it, but I was like, and, and I’ll totally buy that one.
But, um, I was like, you think about IMG and stuff. But yes. Sorry, back to I got, I got squirreled, sorry. But back to this. You’re fine. , we’re, we’re building the case. We’re creating this resource. You and I are passionate about this kind of stuff. We’ve got extensive experience, even if we weren’t the person, we’ve, we’ve done these things and it feels very natural to be like, that’s the brand.
This is our, and I wouldn’t have had that clarity two months ago, by the way.
Corey: Right, right. It’s, yeah. You know, we are waiting deeper and deeper into the pr and it’s, it’s also where you start to, you know, the edges become less amorphous. Mm-hmm. You know, the , uh, uh, but you also start to see the rise in . Yeah.
But it’s, you know, you, [01:08:00] you’re stepping foot in, into, you know, all new territory. And I mean, we’re gonna keep having these conversations, uh, and especially. Upfront because we’re not getting a lot of feedback. We are doing our own exploration, which also involves like, you know, there’s, there’s lots of writing and whatnot about we are, we are having biased conversations, right?
We are going, you are, you are going to content journey with a solution looking for a problem if we’re honest mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Um, we’re not, we are open to them saying what we really need is X, Y, Z. But you know, that’s where we’re at. Because right now all we can do is make assumptions.
cory: I did try just so you know, to not do problem first and ask somebody, oh sure.
How do you do it? And that was a gold mine, just like this guy mentioned. He’s like, okay. That’s validating of, we’re not trying to just say, I’ve got a hammer. Where’s your nail? Um, [01:09:00] that’s good stuff, man. It’s, it’s been fun walking with you and this is a good, like, I think we needed each other to kind of, Get to this part.
And it just feels better than, honestly, better than any product I’ve done because we’re, we had less pressure. We thought it served our need and we started exploring how it is, and it, it just feels like we’re on the right path. Yeah, for sure. This could be something, man.
Corey: And it’s, and I, I’m really selfishly, I’m excited to see where we end up in a year, maybe nowhere, who knows, but to then come back and visit these conversations cuz these are always the, you know, what is it, you know, you did.
You make a, you make a plan, and then halfway through executing the plan, you’re like, why did we decide
cory: to do this? See, I thought that was the only one. Like, yeah, nobody comes over. [01:10:00] Most people, I should say, don’t have the fully crystallized, baked out plan. So much of product is expiration like this, right?
I think the people, honestly, I’m side baring and squiring on this, but like the people that kind of think they got the perfect thing, I go one, you might be a genius. Cool. Congratulations. Number two, you’re probably pretty rare the rest of us trying
Corey: to figure it out. Yep, yep. And I mean, and time March is on, like I was, somebody asked on Twitter, uh, I don’t remember what happened to your first product or something.
Um, and, and I was like, I, I got up to, through, through the discussion, I was like, I got up to thousands of users but could never figure out how to monetize and. And the person I was talking with was like, I, that, that’s how, how, how is that possible? Mm-hmm. . And it’s like, well it was email-based. It was a product, so [01:11:00] you couldn’t really run ads, which was his good suggestion.
Um, it was a product for people who had no money, , so you don’t wanna sell to people who have no money. Um, you know, and, and the technology of sending lots of emails was expensive and all this stuff. So it was like, there were all these things at the time, whereas, I could build it better now for much cheaper and could probably figure out how to monetize based on new patterns that have emerged and stuff like that.
So there’s, you know, there’s, there’s all of those dimensions. Like even if you’re a genius, um, you know, and come up with the perfect product, the perfect time, like, you’ve still gotta keep those, the, you know, there’s wear and tear. If you build the perfect car and you’re rolling down the road, good for you.
But there’s, there’s wear and tear. There’s also gonna be other people that go, oh, I can build a car like that and start racing you. I mean, all these things that compound [01:12:00] over time. Mm-hmm. . It took me a long time to understand the time aspect of a lot of what we do both in business and even in like programming and stuff like that of um, you know, and to get technical for a minute.
Like there’s, uh, you know, when you click on something that triggers an event within a website, but technically there’s a number of events, you know, mouse down versus mouse click versus, you know, da da da da da. And all of these things happen in an order, and most, a lot of it’s, um, fixed now. But there was a time when different browsers would put mouse down before mouse click, you know, or the other way around.
It’s like just this other level of thinking that I was able to abstract and now look at also in the context of building product and building business and whatnot of you’ve. You’ve got the people involved, you’ve got the ideas, you’ve got all this stuff. But tomorrow the landscape might be different. If somebody else comes [01:13:00] out with a plugin that does or doesn’t do, or proves or doesn’t prove everything we’re talking about, we, we have to adjust all of our thinking, you know?
Mm-hmm. , which was honestly half the fun,
cory: but I like your positive spin on that. . I like it. It’s cause you know, we’re doing this in public and you’re like, yeah, somebody go, okay, cool. Thank you for getting me that way. I’m gonna go do this. You know? Um, and that’s the, that’s part of playing this game. Yeah.
Corey: I mean, and we, as we’ve talked about, we have the luxury of, we, we are not desperate.
We do not need this to succeed tomorrow. Um, and I’ve, I’ve definitely, I have been in that seat. I put myself in that seat years ago, um, counted on like, oh, the, my next product has to succeed, or I can’t pay rent, and I [01:14:00] made no good decisions. Mm-hmm. . And so for me, that’s, I, I know people who work better under pressure.
I do not. And so for me, that’s, I’ve, I’ve worked long and hard to get to a position of luxury entitlement, privilege, uh, knowledge and experience where I can build product or play this game, like you said, under the circumstances that are best for me. Mm-hmm. . And I think that that’s, that only comes with time and experience.
Yeah.
cory: It’s good timing for both of us because I’ve painfully, you know, trodden this path for a long time. You know, like, I don’t know if I told you the story back buddy, but we can do that next week. But you know, so much of this, it felt like high stakes poker in a sense of, in the past for me, because we were a product company and trying to dial this stuff in, [01:15:00] felt so much like art and not science.
Um, I still think it’s a blend of those two, art and science where Oh, sure. Like if I hadn’t had you and we’re doing this, talking this through, I would’ve went into a different direction that probably wouldn’t have been right. But because I had you, cuz like for instance, you grounded me back to let’s, let’s concentrate on the, the foundation.
I was like, ding, ding, thank you for the grounding. Mm-hmm. . And like, then we real quickly got what that should be. You’ve surprised me and already been doing some of that work and it’s like that’s, that’s where we need to be right
Corey: now. And I’ve been desperate to work with somebody for years. You know, I’ve pretty much always been the solopreneur, solo founder, solo builder.
Yeah. And have often had wonderful people around me willing to ha you know, be in to mastermind with me. Um, you [01:16:00] know, but to have somebody who at least right now is 50 50, um, is, is a whole different experience and, you know, and exceedingly valuable. I definitely, yeah. I feel like we’ve arrived at a lot of things faster than either one of us would have.
Had we had I just been over here banging away at Yeah. The plugin that you asked me for and I was thinking about, but was like, well, you know, is this, is this, I
cory: think too, sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off. No, go, go, go. I, I think too, I want to give you a real gratitude in this is like, because of your experiences, Uh, a lot of developers I’ve worked with, um, there’s high idealism and I really love that.
I value that. And then, but you’ve had enough experiences that go, we can’t do everything. You know, you know enough about the business and marketing side [01:17:00] that, and how things get done, where I’m not having to be like, I’ve had those conversations before and this feels really fluid and I compliment you for that.
And thank you for being a partner because, you know, oftentimes the way I’ve experienced is like negative. That’s why I gave all this caveats when I was like, Hey, I’m not talking about technical. I don’t know what the technical, cuz I feel like it’s been past conversations. Mm-hmm. and I’m like, I’m talking conceptually.
But you get that, you know. Yeah. You’re like, yeah, we we’re not in these 30 seconds deciding to do a two month long feature, . We’re exploring it, trying to make a good decision that’s best for us. The product, the user. So thank you for that. And that, that’s experience, Corey, I mean, seriously, as,
Corey: as a dev, it, it is because I was the grumpy programmer in the corner for, there’s so many, at least a decade, you know,
cory: and there’s so many too.
Like I, that experience and I get it [01:18:00] because you all are brilliant and you can do these things like write code, do this stuff. Like, I’m like, that’s another thing I haven’t accessed. And so, yeah. Sorry I cut you off again, but No, it’s fine. Saying fine, but I just, I’m thankful for those experiences, . Yeah. I,
Corey: I don’t know why so many developers are assholes to be blunt about it.
Like there’s, there’s a, a feeling of power. Great. Uh, uh, where that comes from. I don’t know. I mean, and I, I know where mine came from, uh, but it’s unique to my upbringing and situation and mentality and all that stuff. And, you know, so it, I, I can’t imagine that everybody had the same, uh, experiences I did that arrived at this.
Like, I am genius. You all should bow before me just because I learned to code. Um, but thankfully what, what is interesting to me is, uh, therapy and yeah, uh, getting into [01:19:00] product forced me to learn empathy. I had to, you know, I, I read all the, I showed it last week. I have all the books on graphic design and user interface and don’t make me think and, uh, all those types of, of books and, um, you know, and so I could design a good product.
But then the, the product I alluded to a minute ago, from 15 years ago, I had, um, people who, uh, I had grandmothers and very non-technical people, and I had, um, people in, uh, countries where there’s not much economic, um, structure and whatnot. And, uh, using my pro, that’s why they were using my product. So basically, instead of mint.com that relied on plugging in all of your banking info.
I had people in Nepal who were like, we don’t have bank [01:20:00] accounts, but I would still like to track my spending. Um, so it was kind of a neat little, you know, but I was like, oh, well just, you know, saying to the grandma or saying to somebody who, you know, totally different, um, cultural context. Like, oh, just click on this and click on this.
And they’re like, you know, or, or people who only have phones. And so I’m like, well go to the desktop view. And they’re like, what? What desktop view or whatever it is, you know? And so I had to learn. Empathy and that I wasn’t always right. ,
cory: I think he just hit it. There’s this level of genius and creativity that so many developers like you have talked to.
And I’m like, I value it. We in the world value it. And then there’s this other side, and I think so many of the developers I know had to go through some crucible to get to like, okay, I need this other side. A genius needs help. You know, like you need a supporting cast. Um, but, and I’ve seen [01:21:00] enough developers go, you gotta go through this event where you get burned.
Hmm. Like, you realize like, maybe my shit isn’t the best. And you get a little humbled. And, and, and I’m not saying that lightly either. It’s, it’s probably a very tough experience. I’ve probably had dozens of those in other areas of my life. Right. Sure. But then learning like, okay, geniuses don’t operate in the silo.
They need teams. Yeah. They need people and humans. And then you hit it with the empathy. You pair those two together though, you got something like, I would always kind of say like, I’m, I, we need a translator because I need you to talk human for a second. Mm-hmm. , because I don’t understand these things. And I, that was always the role I played.
I was like, I don’t understand it, but if I get it, I can help other people get it. Right. A lot of other people get your work, so,
Corey: and you can sell it. Yeah.
cory: Uh, man, thank you for the, for letting us go over. Um, but speaking of therapists, I have mine in six minutes, but, um, and I can [01:22:00] use the bathroom, but dude, I, I’m, I’m enjoying this journey with you, my friend.
Corey: Yeah. Right back at you. We’re gonna have some good luck to your brother.
cory: We’re gonna have to find some time this year to get together and hang out. Find a hot tub where it’s warm or you know, not
Corey: five degrees, two, two quarries, and two Lindsay’s in a hot tub. There you go. That’s the, that’s the other podcast.
cory: That’s
Corey: the other podcast thinking the same thing. Just mar marital advice or something.
cory: Mine would be what not to do. There you go.
Corey: Thanks my friend. Good, good luck to your brother and uh, hope everything sorts itself out. Okay. Enjoy some jello.
