231 - Invent a new social media app? (and other Qs!)

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an un-boring business coaching program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show. Hello and welcome to the podcast. Have you noticed the beard is getting full?

[00:00:43] Caroline: Okay. Full is one way to describe it for sure.

[00:00:47] Jason: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the way we would describe it.

[00:00:50] Caroline: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have no qualms. Full. 

[00:00:52] Jason: 10 years ago plus when I decided to grow my beard out when we did a cross country driving trip?

[00:00:57] Caroline: Do I ever?

[00:00:58] Jason: Look back on those photos?

[00:01:00] Caroline: I really love those photos because it reminds me of the trip. But every time I see you in them, I'm like, what were we doing?

[00:01:08] Jason: It's pretty gross looking. 

[00:01:08] Caroline: But it's kind of interesting how your pattern has changed because back then you... I feel like you could only really grow the Abe Lincoln.

[00:01:14] Jason: Right.

[00:01:15] Caroline: It was like very concentrated just around the old chin strap.

[00:01:18] Jason: Maybe by the time I'm 80, I'll be able to grow a full man's beard.

[00:01:21] Caroline: Well, what do you think has contributed, do you think, like if you tried to actually grow it out or it would look the same probably?

[00:01:26] Jason: Probably look pretty similar. Yeah, it's also my beard hair is like just so grossly coarse. Like it's just... 

[00:01:32] Caroline: Who says coarse is gross?

[00:01:33] Jason: I do. Anyway, that's a pramble top no one cared about. But I just thought about right as we started recording this because I have not shaved in a few days.

[00:01:40] Caroline: How's my beard?

[00:01:40] Jason: It's looking pretty good.

[00:01:42] Caroline: Thanks.

[00:01:42] Jason: Yeah. See through. Yeah.

[00:01:46] Caroline: Invisible.

[00:01:47] Jason: Not coarse. Is there anything you would like to share before we get into this episode? Because I think we have a lot to talk about in this episode.

[00:01:53] Caroline: Not really. I mean, nothing new around these parts. 

[00:01:55] Jason: Nothing big break in Creami news. That was the important thing.

[00:01:58] Caroline: That's really big.

[00:01:58] Jason: As of recording this, we don't know if TikTok is banned in the US so we can talk about that. That happens at some point. There's an interesting shift in dynamic and social media content. That's one of the biggest things that's happened in many years. So.

[00:02:12] Caroline: Yeah, I watched a thing last night that was kind of talking about how, you know, a lot of people on TikTok are like, hey, go, follow me over on Instagram because I don't know if this app is going to exist. And the point of this particular creator was kind of like, it doesn't matter if you go your favorite creators on Instagram, you're not going to see their content. And she was just talking about how, like, she... she actually pulled up her home feed and just showed, like, ad, ad, suggested account, suggested account, ad, ad. And it really is true. Like, just unfortunately, that platform has just devolved into, like, something that's not very fun to use.

[00:02:42] Jason: Yeah.

[00:02:43] Caroline: And it makes me go like, okay, where's the new?

[00:02:45] Jason: Of course. And there just always is a new.

[00:02:46] Caroline: And there always is a new. And so what's it going to be?

[00:02:48] Jason: It'll be something.

[00:02:49] Caroline: It'll be something.

[00:02:50] Jason: Anyway, we'll talk more about that as it actually becomes worth talking about. Right now, we're in such a weird little place with that. So for anybody who uses TikTok consistently, you better be diversifying your content creation plans. Anyway, let's get into this episode. We have the part of the episode where we do some updates on our businesses that we're working on first. 

[00:03:09] Caroline: Oh, sure, sure. Let's update. Let's update.

[00:03:12] Jason: I have a bunch of updates on the Teachery side of things I'm very excited about.

[00:03:15] Caroline: Okay.

[00:03:15] Jason: So I want to blast through those. For those of you who maybe this is the first episode you picked up in a while. I am focusing solely on Teachery by myself, without Caroline.

[00:03:23] Caroline: And might I say, you're doing a great job.

[00:03:25] Jason: Thank you so much. Revenue is up tenfold. Shareholders are happy.

[00:03:29] Caroline: That is unfortunately true. 

[00:03:32] Jason: It's not tenfold, but...

[00:03:33] Caroline: Fortunately, because I am a shareholder in the business and so fantastic. Unfortunately because it really is a hit to my ego. But it's okay. 

[00:03:40] Jason: It's all right. We learned a lesson last year. And... 

[00:03:43] Caroline: I don't want to do that.

[00:03:44] Jason: Yeah, exactly. It's that you don't want to do it. And also that type of business, a software business, it is too... It touches too many of your perfectionism tendencies.

[00:03:53] Caroline: Yes.

[00:03:53] Jason: And it makes it too difficult for you to move forward, which is totally okay.

[00:03:56] Caroline: Yes.

[00:03:56] Jason: And it's just like with WAIM, like, I don't like the content side of WAIM.

[00:04:00] Caroline: And I do.

[00:04:01] Jason: And you love it. And so it's like, this is why we're kind of shifting things. So I'm still working. Obviously, I'm here on the podcast. I'm still talking. Thank you so much. And we are not like, I'm not leaving WAIM in any way whatsoever. This is not a huge reveal. It's just that you are taking more control of what we do with WAIM. I'm there to assist more the Robin to your Batman there and then I'm just Superman with Teachery. Like there is no sidekick.

[00:04:23] Caroline: No. If anything I'm the Lois Lane that needs to be... Did she get get rescued or something?

[00:04:27] Jason: For sure.

[00:04:28] Caroline: Like you gotta come in and swoop in and help me sometimes, you know.

[00:04:30] Jason: Absolutely.

[00:04:31] Caroline: No. What I was gonna say. So sorry for so rudely interrupting you but the meta lesson on the whole figuring out our approach to two businesses is what we always teach people, which is you... If you wanna run a business that aligns with your values and who you are as a person and your strengths, you have to, you can't think your way to that. You have to engage. You have to like experiment, try things out in order to really know in your bones like this is something I want to do or not, you know. And so I repeat that and I say it often so that people really hear it because I know a lot of you out there listening. You would like to believe that if you just, if you just set aside the right amount of time where you can think your way to a solution to how to steer your business. The unfortunate truth is I think for most people that is not a good use of time. What a good use of time is, take your best guess, trust your intuition, try something. Then you get real world data to be able to inform how you want to steer your business. Like, oh, I liked that. I didn't like that. Oh, that worked. That didn't work. That resonated with my audience. That didn't resonate.

[00:05:35] Jason: Fantastic. My updates now. So what I'm really excited about, we are getting close on this new landing page builder that my developer has been working on for now two and a half months, which is just crazy.

[00:05:45] Caroline: Longer feature.

[00:05:45] Jason: I really hate the fact that when this launches, people are going to be somewhat underwhelmed because it will not keep up with the Squarespace page builders of the world because we do not have a billion dollar company with loads of developers.

[00:05:56] Caroline: We don't.

[00:05:56] Jason: We don't. But we do have one really good developer and this page will be a huge leap forward from the existing landing page builder that we had, which was always just a template that you could put stuff into.

[00:06:05] Caroline: And I think for people especially who have taken advantage of the lifetime deal, they will be really happy to see that something that they have already paid for now has a brand new really robust like functionality that they can, you know, swap out. There they might even be able to strip out certain tools that their other tools they're paying for for landing pages.

[00:06:23] Jason: I mean, I think like email capture is going to be an easy one that this landing page builder will replace for a lot of people. It's like just very fixed, simple email capture pages you can direct people to. So yeah, I'll talk more about that once it's live. But the thing that our designer finished, who is not Caroline, her name is Maddy. She's awesome. She finished the Teachery Marketplace.

[00:06:41] Caroline: That's big.

[00:06:41] Jason: So this is going to be a place where there are templates sold of Teachery courses. So pre designed themes that you, you all make if you're a Teachery user and you will submit those for review. If they get approved, they will be shown in the template marketplace and then they will be sold or they can be free. If you want to just have them be free, that's totally fine as well. Teachery will take a small commission from any of the paid ones. So it's a new revenue stream for us, it's a new revenue stream for you all. You don't need to promote them. They'll just be up and it'll be something that we feature. And I'm really excited because more, more teachery themes need to exist for people to get started with courses and create memberships and client portals and archives and FAQ courses and like all this different stuff that people have had to figure out on their own constantly. And now there's gonna be so many great starting places for them. And then also when the new landing page builder is done, we're gonna allow templatizing those page designs as well. So sales pages will be able to be bought, you know, for like nine bucks. You could buy a sales page built on Teachery. It's ready to go. You just customize your colors and drop a few things in. So I'm very excited. I'm hoping that that marketplace will be up in February to at least for the course themes. And then the landing page section will probably be kind of coming soon once we figure all that out. So very excited for that. And then the last small thing is we actually have a new developer starting with Teachery because we're phasing out another developer. And we have Flodesk and Mailerlite email integrations now accompanying our ConvertKit, now Kit, and Mailchimp. So those will all be built in those for email integrations that we're not going to do any more after that. But those will be done probably in like the next week, which is exciting.

[00:08:14] Caroline: That is very exciting.

[00:08:16] Jason: Lots of things moving on the Teachery front. And then also the ads continue to run and they're still doing well.

[00:08:21] Caroline: And the cost or the...?

[00:08:22] Jason: The return on ad spend is still down. Still about. Yeah, it's still about 1.5 to 2x. So, you know, we're not quite profitable on that yet, but we're trending that way. And if we can get that ad management fee down once they get the ad set, then I think we'll be good to go. So we'll see how it goes. From the WAIM side?

[00:08:39] Caroline: From the WAIM side, we are taking it slow and steady this year. We have made some great progress on the... I think we told everyone. Yes. In our Lovable episode, we talked about how I'm trying to build version two of our accountability game using Lovable. And it has given me some headaches because it doesn't always do what you want it to do. But I have made some really great progress since our last episode. The thing that I'm most proud of is the Slack integration. So we run the whole game through Slack to begin with because it keeps the community alive, it keeps people in Slack and helping each other and things like that. It's kind of one of the purposes of the game besides helping people accomplish their goals. One thing I'm really proud of is setting up the Slack integration so that we can kind of like publish these, the weekly check in missions to Slack straight from the app. And then when people comment on those missions with whatever their check in is for the week or whatever their goal is for the month, it counts as their milestone check in in our app. And so they... This is how they earn stones. Which is the whole point of the game is like if you check in for four out of four weeks, you get this fictional stone which we call a WAIM-finity Stone.

[00:09:40] Jason: Think about it like in anything you've ever done where you get badges.

[00:09:43] Caroline: Exactly. So I'm very proud of just... It's really fun. I like working on it. It's frustrating at times, but I just keep reminding myself it's such a powerful tool. So making good progress on that. I think it's still possible that we will be able to get a working version of that up in time for February, which is when WAIM of Stone starts. The new saga. 

[00:10:03] Jason: Yeah.

[00:10:03] Caroline: Saga is the year long thing with eight quests and so that's the main focus. We're already gearing up for our upcoming launch, which is, you know.

[00:10:13] Jason: Right around the corner. 

[00:10:13] Caroline: Right around the corner. It's going to be a little earlier this year. Jason and I sat down and had our meeting about, you know, all the things. So what does the schedule look like? What does the pre launch look like?

[00:10:22] Jason: And when you say launch you mean WAIM Unlimited.

[00:10:24] Caroline: WAIM Unlimited launch. So we're still ironing out a few details on that, but that's sort of taking precedence. We have a new coaching format that we're testing out for the first three months month of the year. This is our Unsolved Businesses format where we take one of our WAIMers businesses. It's going to be a little  Unsolved Businesses Bites format, which is 4 to 8 WAIMers, a problem they're having in their business. Walking people through our recommendations of how we would coach them through improving that to reach their goals. And I... We're just gonna see how that goes. I think it's really helpful. We have such a library of like, you know, very topics based coaching sessions now that I think being able to see how all that comes together and apply it to someone's business will be really helpful. 

[00:11:06] Jason: Cool. Um, I'm going to talk about just the WAIM of Stones app real quick while you get up and turn off your alarm on your phone.

[00:11:13] Caroline: That's going off.

[00:11:14] Jason: Yeah, that won't go off for the next 45 minutes while we record this. But I just wanted to share one thing that we are thinking about with this WAIM of Stones game. And as we mentioned in the last episode, we were talking about Lovable, which is the platform that we're using. One really cool thing that we are thinking about is if you run a community of any kind, we're hoping to actually turn this into an app that you could purchase and you could use and you could set up an accountability game that is much further down the road. Like we need to use this and actually have it work consistently for our own community. But I just think it would be really cool because you know you can set it up however you want, whatever type of accountability system you want to set up. It doesn't have to be a game, it doesn't have to be Stones related. It can be badges, it can be other things you do.

[00:11:55] Caroline: No, I think it would have... Well, we can talk about it.

[00:11:57] Jason: Well yeah, but like I just think there'd be some fun customization that we...

[00:11:59] Caroline: There would be fun customization.

[00:12:01] Jason: Yeah. So anyway, I'm just sharing that with people who are like, oh like have you thought about this? And yes we have. Like that's kind of like our long term potential vision for it existing and see other people being able to use it. Now that you are back, let's get into this episode. 

[00:12:14] Caroline: Okay.

[00:12:14] Jason: So how did this get set up?

[00:12:15] Caroline: This is going to be a little bit of a weird episode, but we just wanted to have fun today. That was what we were interested in doing when we sat down. And so I threw out to ChatGPT.

[00:12:27] Jason: Our podcast producer. 

[00:12:28] Caroline: Our podcast producer.

[00:12:29] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:29] Caroline: Named Chad. 

[00:12:30] Jason: Yes.

[00:12:30] Caroline: Tober. Tober, Chad.

[00:12:31] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:32] Caroline: And asked some questions of varying depths. So we have, like, some deep questions. We have some not so deep questions, but just about online business in general. And I've only looked through the questions one time. Jason hasn't looked through the questions at all because he loves being surprised.

[00:12:46] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:47] Caroline: And I thought it would be fun. Very similar to if you've seen... I feel like this is getting pretty big now, these little, like, conversation starter games.

[00:12:54] Jason: Yeah, of course.

[00:12:55] Caroline: Where people, you just have, like, little cards and, like, if you have people over or whatever, you can just ask the questions. And it's just a nice way to facilitate conversation and getting to know people. But I thought we could do the business version of this. Chad really wanted me to call this, "Call to Reaction."

[00:13:08] Jason: Nice.

[00:13:09] Caroline: He wanted some sort of pun with, like, online business term called action. But then we're reacting. I don't know. I'm not really sold on it. But he's... He's just the producer. He's not like...

[00:13:18] Jason: Yeah. I'm also very interested if GPT could become our podcast producer moving forward to help, like, prompt ideas for this podcast. I would love it. I mean, we're 231 episodes into this, this podcast, and, like, we are always looking for new ways for it to be interesting for us and for you all to, like, you know, there's not so many things that we're working on in a business to, like, take you through every single week anymore. So.

[00:13:39] Caroline: Yeah, we both were like, what are you really excited about right now? We were both, like, Lovable. And we were like, well, we just did that episode. So I'm not sure that this just becomes a Lovable podcast.

[00:13:46] Jason: And I think it is more of a visual thing. Like, that's, like, showing Lovable definitely is a good thing. So let's get into it.

[00:13:52] Caroline: Okay, so you start. I wrote your question.

[00:13:55] Jason: So you're going to ask me my question?

[00:13:57] Caroline: Yeah. And then you'll... I'll ask you for... Sure. I'll start. I'll ask you a question, and then we can both answer if we want to. But, like, mainly you can start.

[00:14:04] Jason: Okay.

[00:14:04] Caroline: And then you have your questions that you'll ask me.

[00:14:06] Jason: Yeah, which are Carol's questions? On this list?

[00:14:09] Caroline: Oh, I was thinking Jason's questions are the ones you ask.

[00:14:11] Jason: Okay, there we go. We just need a little bit of clarity here.

[00:14:14] Caroline: Your questions are the ones you ask. My questions are the ones I ask.

[00:14:16] Jason: Fantastic. Would you like me to ask you your first question, which is labeled as Jason's questions?

[00:14:21] Caroline: Yep. Everyone knows that. 

[00:14:22] Jason: It should be, like, Jason's questions for Carol, which...

[00:14:24] Caroline: I mean, if you needed some discussion, sure.

[00:14:27] Jason: Number one, do you think online creators have a responsibility to share their failures as much as their successes? Why or why not?

[00:14:35] Caroline: Hmm. I mean, my first instinct is, I don't know. The word responsibility is really heavy because it feels like some type of, like, moral mandate. But I certainly think that our perspective has always been share your failures as much as your successes because, A, you learn the most from those, and B, I just, I value authenticity so much that I think it is really unfair to give people a picture of entrepreneurship that is not real. You know what I mean? And the real picture of it is that you're going to. If you're going to try things, some of them are not going to work out.

[00:15:11] Jason: Yeah.

[00:15:12] Caroline: So, I mean, I guess as I'm talking about it. Yeah. I do think you have a responsibility, especially because if you're portraying your business as something that someone should aspire to, then I do think you have a responsibility to give them the full picture of what they're getting into, which means you have to let them know that they're going to encounter things where it doesn't work out all the time.

[00:15:31] Jason: Yeah.

[00:15:31] Caroline: What do you think?

[00:15:32] Jason: I mean, I think it adds a layer of relatability that we really like, which is everybody goes through stuff and everybody tries things, they don't work out or has life happen to them. And I think the more that you kind of share that, the more that you feel like you can relate to a person as opposed to just seeing them constantly when you're like, well, at a certain point, like, I just can't relate to this person anymore. Like, they're just always having viral videos, are always having huge launches. They're always having these things. And, like, I think that's why we see, like, the... the people on YouTube, especially, where it's just, like, it just continues to get better and better, and then you just get tired of watching it. Right?

[00:16:03] Caroline: True. Because it becomes so unattainable.

[00:16:05] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:05] Caroline: And I mean, it's easier said than done, I will say. Like, I remember. I forget when it was that we had kind of that launch that just, like, really didn't do as well as we thought. And we both talked about it and we're like, I mean, is it, like, a little humbling to get on a podcast and...? Because we always do the launch recaps and we're always committed to sharing the real data and, like, how it really went. But I would be lying if I said it wasn't hard sometimes coming on and just being like, yeah, this thing that we thought was going to work and drive sales didn't.

[00:16:30] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:30] Caroline: But that is when you are committed to sharing the full picture. Like, you do have to sometimes swallow your pride and just share the real realness. And part of what makes that easier is exactly what you just said, which is you remind yourself that it is valuable to share when things don't work out. Like, even though it seems like only the valuable stuff is showing people what worked, it's actually very valuable to show people what didn't work as well.

[00:16:52] Jason: Yeah, absolutely. And I also, I love the phrase, I'm not going to get it perfectly whoever said it, but it's like, you can show your scars, not your wounds or whatever it is. So it's like you kind of. You don't have to share your failures in the moment if you don't want to, because it can maybe be too fresh and it can be too difficult, and, you know, whatever varying degree of that is, it's just like, oh, I tried posting on Instagram for a month and nothing worked. And like, every day you're sharing, like, it didn't work. Like, that's a little bit tougher. But maybe it's easier to, like, try that for a month, try something else, then be able to report back, back and be like, I tried Instagram for 30 days. It didn't work. Then I pivoted to this. I was posting YouTube videos every day, and that worked really well. And then it doesn't feel as crushing to, like, share the fact that it didn't work just on the Instagram part of it.

[00:17:31] Caroline: Yeah, I... I think that's right.

[00:17:33] Jason: Yeah. Responsibility, probably not. But growing a business where your customers and people that follow you actually can create some relatability, I think, very important.

[00:17:43] Caroline: I know. Now that I'm thinking about it, I do think they have a responsibility because I think it's... I think it's not fair to share... Like to try to sell a lifestyle without giving someone the full picture.

[00:17:54] Jason: Yeah.

[00:17:54] Caroline: So I think so.

[00:17:55] Jason: All right.

[00:17:56] Caroline: Okay. My question to you. What is one belief about online business you held five years ago that you're complete... that you've completely changed your mind about.

[00:18:04] Jason: I don't think anything in five years, but definitely 10 years for sure.

[00:18:07] Caroline: 10 years.

[00:18:08] Jason: I was 100% a, like, hustle bro. And the like, you got to get up at 5am. You got to put in the late hours. You got to do work more than other people do. And I just completely believe that, like, while I do think more hours worked can net you results faster, because there just is a truth to, especially in the beginning, like, you have to put in the time and you have to experiment, you have to figure things out. But I don't think it is healthy and I don't think for a lot of people it is a reality that they can. 

[00:18:36] Caroline: Yeah. And I think this is a very common thing to believe when you're in your mid-20s.

[00:18:40] Jason: Exactly.

[00:18:40] Caroline: Or late 20s. And you just, you have all the time in the world. You don't have any responsibilities. Like, of course you can work from sun up to sundown and work on weekends. And, and that is what you value at that time in your life is like really building something. But you know, as you go on later in life, you just, you have this much more balanced, holistic life that you're not willing to make those same sacrifices. And I think a lot of times on the Internet, it's people who are at very different phases of life talking at each other and saying that they know the way to do it, when in reality it's like they know... They know what works for that stage of life.

[00:19:13] Jason: Yeah.

[00:19:13] Caroline: So which is why you have to take everyone's advice with a grain of salt and ask yourself what's important to that person right now? Is... does that align with what's important to me? Then this is maybe a person that I can listen to. 

[00:19:22] Jason: Yeah. And I think one of the, like, the, the biggest beliefs that I still hold is the fact that it's just like it takes time to succeed. And so if you don't have much time to put in, your finish line is further down the road. So it's like if I can work eight hours a day on a business, my chance of getting to that finish line sooner is greater. So it's like, I can work eight hours a day working on the business. I can potentially hit my goals in six months or a year. But if I can only work one hour a day or two hours a day, then it's probably going to take me two years to get to whatever that goal is if it's a similar size goal. And I just think that like the... There, there are so many tools that make these things work faster for us now, GPT being one of them, and other AI tools. However, I do think the, like, figuring out your right audience, finding the right problem that you solve, finding the right, you know, customer base that you actually want to work with on a daily basis, like that just comes with a lot of repetition and you can't speed that up. Like, that is just an amount of time that you have to go through. 

[00:20:23] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:20:23] Jason: I think that is one of the tough things. It's like no matter how much time you can put in, that just takes an amount of time that you have to be willing to look at the long term of. I'm doing this. If I can do it for eight hours a day, it's going to happen sooner. If I can only do it one hour a day, it's going to take longer. But that's okay. That's just the reality of it.

[00:20:37] Caroline: I don't know how to articulate this, but a belief that I feel like I had 10 years ago that is maybe changing is this idea. And I, I still believe that every person can be an entrepreneur. I still believe that. But I think the way that that belief has added nuance or shifted a little bit is I think that the amount of like, personal change that it would require for some people to run a business effectively is just not a change that's worth it. Does that make sense? Like, I just think they're like, if you would ask me 10 years ago, I would be like, yeah, anybody who just can put in the work and put in the time and can and has an openness to learn can build their own business. I would have said that across the board. But what I've seen and what I know now that I didn't know back then is people's brains are so different. Like, we have such a beautiful diversity, neurodiversity across human beings that some people's brains are, I would say, more naturally suited to some of the qualities that are needed in order to run a business. I mean, we just talked about it at the top of the episode. Like the way that my brain works, you know, the amount of imperf... of, of, I would say, tolerating imperfection that is required to run a software business. It's not that I can't do it, it's that it's so unnatural to me that it's like a bad use of my...

[00:21:59] Jason: Yeah, it's very frictionful.

[00:22:00] Caroline: Frictionful. And it's like, would I even want to change myself to the degree to be better at that, when it would be like changing a core thing about myself? Does that make sense? So, I don't know. I think I've just come to this belief that I've always thought that entrepreneurship isn't right for everyone. But I think now I've come to the belief that people should think long and hard about, like, you know, absolutely, if you want to own your own business, give it a go. But if you arrive at this place where you feel like it's requiring so much personal change on your part in order to develop the skills in order to do that, and if that's making you unhappy, then I really think it's worth taking a step back and going, this is not for me, and that's okay.

[00:22:40] Jason: Yeah. Ooh, another one that I would say here, just to finish this off before we move to your next question. A belief that I held an online business five years ago that I've changed my mind about. And I don't know that I've fully changed my mind, but I'm definitely on that trend, which is, are blog posts even worth it anymore? And I get the argument of, like, yeah, but AIs have to be trained off of content and whatever. But like, yes, however, like, you're not getting traffic because an AI is trained off of your content. Like, yeah, there's a little source link and like, maybe some people click through to it. But, like, we are going to see a monumental change in what Google's homepage looks like in the next couple of years, if not the next year or two. We're already seeing some of it, and I just, I really don't know if it's worth spending the time creating written content on a blog because it's so difficult to actually have it rank.

[00:23:28] Caroline: And this begs the question, like, are websites even valuable anymore? Or is it just your social properties are your website and you better have a link in bio that clicks directly to some way to purchase a product. Like, is that where we're moving?

[00:23:43] Jason: Boy, that's a scary.

[00:23:44] Caroline: That's a scary. That's, that's a whole new world right here. 

[00:23:46] Jason: But I think my website...

[00:23:47] Caroline: You know, I think it's happening already, though.

[00:23:49] Jason: Yeah. I mean, we even see it for our website. Like, how much new content do we put on our website?

[00:23:54] Caroline: Well, that's because, yeah, are you filling a leaky bucket?

[00:23:56] Jason: Right.

[00:23:57] Caroline: By doing that?

[00:23:57] Jason: All right, let's get to your second question here. What is a risk you've taken in your business that's paid off in a way you didn't expect?

[00:24:05] Caroline: A risk that you've taken that paid off in a way you didn't expect. I don't know. I mean, the biggest risk that comes to mind is usually totally blowing up both of our businesses to combine forces when we made Wandering Aimfully. But that sort of paid off in a way that I hoped and did expect. So let me think. I guess one that comes to mind is starting my art project like way back when I did that. When was that? 2016, I guess. I certainly. I don't know if you would call it a risk. I mean, I guess it's a risk to put yourself out there and say, I'm going to do a daily thing every day. This is. I said I wanted to get better at acrylic art and I was not a painter at the time and I just really had this... this instinct to, to put it out there. And so I created art every day. I sold prints. And the part that I didn't expect was like, okay, didn't expect that Liz Gilbert is going to find my art and share it on her account. Didn't expect that that was going to lead to my agent, my book agent finding me. Didn't expect that I would have a published book come from that. Didn't expect that I would, you know, have so many people so many years later go, I still have your art print hanging in my office and I look at it every day. So that's one thing. I don't know if you would. I don't know if you would call it a risk. But I certainly think that that idea of committing to putting yourself out there, especially when I was just like, not even like, I didn't even like some of the pieces I was putting out there, but like committing to the daily practice of showing up.

[00:25:35] Jason: I think so for sure. 

[00:25:36] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:25:37] Jason: That definitely makes sense. I mean, mine would probably be getting paid to wear sponsored T shirts, selling my last name, a fully sponsored book, selling my future, and like all the weird things along the way that like, those were all pretty risky bets that ended up working out better than I could have seen coming.

[00:25:52] Caroline: Well, that's true.

[00:25:53] Jason: I would say that if I had to pick one of those, it would be BuyMyLastName. 

[00:25:55] Caroline: Oh, yeah.

[00:25:56] Jason: Because I distinctly remember launching the website for which was an auction style website for 30 days and in the first 24 hours the bidding got up to $30,000.

[00:26:07] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:26:07] Jason: And I was like, oh, I expected this to make $10,000.

[00:26:10] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:26:11] Jason: And that was absolutely wild.

[00:26:12] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:26:13] Jason: So that was definitely some risky business that was... definitely paid off in a way I didn't expect.

[00:26:18] Caroline: Okay, here's my next one. 

[00:26:19] Jason: Okay.

[00:26:19] Caroline: I like this one. What's the most underrated quality an online entrepreneur can have?

[00:26:24] Jason: Yeah, I think I steal this one from Greg Hartle. When we talked about it on the podcast that we used to have called Moving the Needle. It's tolerance for stress. I think that's the most underrated quality you can have.

[00:26:37] Caroline: Yeah, people don't talk about it that much in terms of it being something that you need.

[00:26:42] Jason: Because think about it, I mean, it literally relates to everything. So it's like, oh, it's so stressful for me to create content on a consistent basis and like, it puts pressure on my schedule and whatever. It's like, well, can you figure out how to handle that and do it in a way that feels sustainable for your life?

[00:26:55] Caroline: And thrive, like, through the stress?

[00:26:58] Jason: Exactly. Oh, I get really stressed out every time I get an angry customer emailing me or even just an angry subscriber, an angry comment. And like, that really just like ruins my day. And it's like, well, can you handle the negative emotions that come with that and then like rebound from it and move forward? And so I just, you know, the pressure of like, oh, a client didn't pay me this month and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make my bills. And then you kind of like flounder and, you know, it just, you can create a whole bunch of stuff and if you can manage that stress better, I'm not saying you have to be a stress free person and just ignore the stress, but I think that is one of the most underrated qualities. And I, whenever I've talked to entrepreneurs or done, you know, coaching with people over the years, the people that can handle stress are the people that succeed, I think, a little bit more than the people that can't handle stress. I think it's just so much harder to run your own thing because you're getting hit with stress from so many different angles. And that's not to say that if you can't handle stress, you're a bad person or you shouldn't own your own business. That's just to say that I think your expectations of what you can do should be a little bit lower and you should be okay with the fact that, you know, hey, I'm just gonna forever and always I'm gonna be a side hustler. Like, entrepreneurship for me is just like little projects on the side. It's not a full time thing because I can't handle the negative things that come along with it in all the different, different ways.

[00:28:13] Caroline: For sure. Yeah, I think that's a good one. I am trying to put a word to the one that I am thinking of.

[00:28:19] Jason: Give it a couple words, let's see if we can find one.

[00:28:21] Caroline: Well, the, the one that I'm thinking of is sort of, I guess it would be self belief or self trust. But I'll tell you where I'm going with it. I think something that I see in, in entrepreneurs that are able to have businesses for the long term is they all carry this quality which is, number one, they sort of believed they could do it before anyone else believed that they could. And I think that's the, that is what fuels them and keeps them going. Because in the beginning, people are going to doubt you. In the beginning, people are going to kind of laugh at you potentially. People are going to be afraid for you. Your family is going to be like this. Sorry. And so that little seed of self belief I think is so important. But, and that part gets talked about, I would say like a fair amount. But where this also relates to as you grow your business. I think a lot of us get stuck in comparison traps where we're looking at other people's businesses and we're seeing how they do things and we're starting to believe, oh, maybe that's how I should do things. But I think the best people who build businesses that are true to themselves and really aligned with their values are the ones who can ignore that. And I think you only ignore that when you have... almost you put your own opinion of yourself and your decisions on a higher pedestal than other people.

[00:29:33] Jason: Yeah.

[00:29:34] Caroline: And I think all of that comes down to like self trust and self belief. And it's kind of strange because it's not confidence because I would say I, you know, I, I think I'm a fairly confident person but I still have plenty of insecurities. But I, I can't describe where this feeling comes from. But I think even from such a young age I just had this like belief in myself of like, oh well, if I don't know, I can figure it out or like I don't know, I just, I really think I can. Sky's the limit on what I can, you know, like... and I don't know if that's instilled by parents or if you come kind of pre...

[00:30:05] Jason: Wired.

[00:30:06] Caroline: Pre wired for that. But I think the more you can believe in your own vision and ignore what other people are saying and what other people are doing. I think that's a real, really important ingredient to success.

[00:30:17] Jason: Yeah, I mean, I, I think it, it very much relates to the stress one too, because it's like if you believe you can handle any situation and you can pivot and you can change and you can adapt, then you can absolutely survive what it takes to create a whole new business, change a whole business. You know, if, if your whole business is built on TikTok and TikTok goes away, like you believe that you can move all of your effort to somewhere else to then still be doing what you're doing and succeed with it.

[00:30:43] Caroline: And that's why I think one of the best things that you can do as a business owner is invest in a therapist or a coach or something to really cultivate that sen of self belief if you don't feel like you have it maybe out of the gate because it affects everything you do in your business. And so it's like the more you work on your mindset and your own self perception, you know, all of that work that you do to pour into that pays dividends, I think.

[00:31:06] Jason: Yeah. And I mean, as the person in our relationship who has done the one on one coaching with people over the years, I can tell you for sure that I have worked with people that run the gamut. So it's like people who don't have a lot of belief in themselves, but they're so creative and they're so talented and they literally need someone to tell them that they can do it. And they're just like, you could tell them a hundred times, but they just need that external motivation. And then you have the people on the opposite spectrum where they just really need that one time for you to tell them, like, hey, you got this, like, you know what you're supposed to do, you already have all the answers. Just go and do it on, on repeat. And they're like, oh, okay, great. Like, no one ever gave me that like confidence essentially in my own belief to do that.

[00:31:44] Caroline: Totally.

[00:31:45] Jason: All right, your next question.

[00:31:47] Caroline: That was my... Okay, go ahead.

[00:31:49] Jason: Yeah, we're currently at the 30 minute mark. Maybe we'll do two more and see how it goes.

[00:31:53] Caroline: Okay, cool. Pick your favorite out of the remaining.

[00:31:56] Jason: Okay, let's see here. Okay, I'm gonna go with, what's the weirdest or most unconventional idea for an online business you've ever had?

[00:32:07] Caroline: Me?

[00:32:08] Jason: Yeah.

[00:32:09] Caroline: Oh, God. Why are none coming to mind? Because I really have had so many ideas over the years. Okay. This is the first one that's coming to mind and I don't know why. I don't know if you, you would even call it an online business. But I do remember when I was doing my art era, I did have this idea for, I forget what I called it, but it was like, it was like upside down prints or something like that. But I wanted this idea of art prints that had conflicting advice. Like, one, if you turn the print one way, the message is one thing, and then if you flip it over upside down, the message is the complete opposite. And I wanted you to be able to, like, put it on your desk and flip it over on, like, a little stand whenever you want because I was just noticing that in life, so many times, the same, like, people can give the opposite advice, and it can be the right advice for someone at the right time, you know, so, like, a perfect, easy example is like, keep going or you're allowed to quit. Right. That's conflicting advice. But every one of us knows that there have been things that you've been engaged in where what the advice that was best for you at the time was, you need to quit this. Like, forget about it. Like, you're sacrificing too much. Like, who cares? Don't follow through. Quit. It's not good for you. And then all of us know that time when we've been doing the exact same thing. And what we need to hear is like, push through, keep going, you got this. Like, you can overcome these challenges. And so I just thought it was very interesting, this idea of conflicting advice. So that was a little bit of an unconventional idea I had.

[00:33:36] Jason: I like that one. I think that's fun. You can still come back to that. Could still make that.

[00:33:39] Caroline: One day. 

[00:33:39] Jason: Alibaba that thing. I don't know how that would work, but you know what I'm saying?

[00:33:43] Caroline: Okay, so... Oh, here's a... Here's mine for you. If you can...

[00:33:47] Jason: What do you think? Before you ask me, what do you think is my weirdest or most unconventional idea I've had?

[00:33:54] Caroline: Probably selling your last name. 

[00:33:56] Jason: Yeah.

[00:33:56] Caroline: It would have to be. 

[00:33:57] Jason: Yeah.

[00:33:57] Caroline: That's the... That's the one that people latch onto and can't believe that you've done.

[00:34:00] Jason: Like, what?

[00:34:01] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:34:01] Jason: What'd you do?

[00:34:02] Caroline: That's why I just skipped that question for you, because we all know you've done...

[00:34:04] Jason: No, but I was just curious to know what, like, what you chose is, like, you... That was the weird one?

[00:34:10] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:34:10] Jason: Okay.

[00:34:11] Caroline: If you can invent a new social media platform, what would be its core feature?

[00:34:15] Jason: Oh, boy. Hmm. We think about this often. Like, I feel like every couple years, we're always like, okay, like, there's only so many ways that, like, content is spread just like through audio, through video, through text. Like, what is a new way that, you know?

[00:34:30] Caroline: Oh, I just remembered. Remember Thomas's idea that he talked...?

[00:34:34] Jason: Vaguely. What was it?

[00:34:35] Caroline: What was the name of it?

[00:34:37] Jason: Well, don't worry about the name. Just explain the thing.

[00:34:39] Caroline: Oh, well, we were just talking about, like, his idea was basically this app where you can, like, basically, for close friends and family, you can kind of like, the best way I can describe it is poke them. Remember the old Facebook poke? Poke them. And then they send you a photo of, like, what they're doing right then.

[00:34:57] Jason: Right.

[00:34:57] Caroline: So it's very... It's... It's like you send like a, like a, some type of intention that's like, hey, what are you doing right now? And they send the photo back. Because we were talking about how it's like, it's really hard to stay connected to your friends and family and you don't want to be the one that's just like, in the group chat. Like, I mean, maybe you do, but, like, just sending random photos because it just feels weird. It's fine on, like, Instagram, where you're just posting it for a bunch of people, but it just feels like, oh, well, no one asked for this. And so... But then I was like, well, I think all the time I want to see what you guys are up to. And we were just talking about some type of app like that that's for close friends and family, like a photo sharing app, but it's very much based around someone starting the interaction.

[00:35:35] Jason: Yeah, it's the opposite of what all these apps are.

[00:35:37] Caroline: Which is push.

[00:35:38] Jason: Yeah. Like, I... I open the app and I'm getting pushed a whole bunch of things.

[00:35:43] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:35:43] Jason: As opposed to, I open the app and I'm like...

[00:35:45] Caroline: I'm pulling to myself.

[00:35:46] Jason: Like, nudge these, like, five people to see, like, what they're up to and, like, have them then send me a message back.

[00:35:50] Caroline: I think it's a cool idea. 

[00:35:51] Jason: I think it's a really cool idea. I love it. That was not my idea.

[00:35:54] Caroline: I just... That was copyright Thomas Cowan.

[00:35:56] Jason: Yeah.

[00:35:57] Caroline: That was my stepbrother. And so I think it's a good idea.

[00:36:00] Jason: Yeah, I... Yeah, I don't. I really don't think at all about social media platforms, like, whatsoever. And so this question is very difficult for me because it's just not how my brain necessarily thinks anymore because I just want to be off of all these platforms completely. But I do like the idea of just flipping the push pull relationship so that it's less of like I have to constantly think of new things to say or create or whatever and more of like if the app was always like a question that everybody was answering on a day. So it's like what did everybody have for breakfast today? Like that is the app's question of the day. And then everybody answers.

[00:36:39] Caroline: It's like, yeah.

[00:36:41] Jason: And there's only like one question a day. And so it's for 24 hours and it's kind of like that, like it's...

[00:36:46] Caroline: Like a water cooler.

[00:36:47] Jason: Yeah, you get that ephemeralness of it of like that question's never going to be asked again. You can't find the answers. Or maybe you can find the answers in the history of like your feed or whatever. But then it's like there's a new question tomorrow. You just can post one time and then that's it. And then like we move on to the next question, the next.

[00:37:03] Caroline: Well, I've been thinking about this lately too. Kind of on that idea of one prompt kind of drawing everyone. I keep, I want to institute this in my girls group chat, but I don't want to be the one who is like the cruise director who like is adding one more thing to people's plates. But it's what I want in my life. Sometimes our group chat, like everyone gets busy, right? Like they're all moms and like whatever. So the group chat can kind of like die for like a couple weeks at a time and then something happens and it can kick back up again or whatever. But something that I miss is like I miss seeing the mundane day to day of my friends lives. I see them post like around holidays, the photos of their kids and their families on Instagram. I know what trips they go on because of Instagram. What I don't see see is like, what are you doing on Wednesday? And so the thing that I wanted to institute to my friends was like, okay, every Wednesday morning we're going to check in and you just tell me like something really mundane, like I just dropped off the kids. Here's what I'm listening to. Here's like whatever. I just, I'm frustrated about this. I'm... I just watched the show. Like whatever the mundane is. And so again I just don't want to add one thing to people's plates. But it would be cool if there was an app built around this idea of, of like group chats or like small groups. But it's a, it's a kind of like you were saying, it's a, an agreed upon one day a week where you all just hop on and you do your 15 seconds of... Or your one minute update of here's what's going on.

[00:38:25] Jason: Yeah.

[00:38:26] Caroline: And it's like features that facilitate that rather than someone having to think about it.

[00:38:30] Jason: Okay, so I like that idea. I like my question of the day idea because I think it adds like some really interesting boundaries. But if I was to go one step further, and now I'm the CEO of like the emerging hardware and social media company. So like, you know, the human, the humane AI pin like thing that tried to launch. I think an idea that would be really interesting is imagine you have a little wearable device. Like it's just like a little pin that's a camera.

[00:38:54] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:38:54] Jason: Or like the Meta Ray Ban glasses or whatever. It captures moments throughout your day, little video clips. You don't have to tell, it's just capturing throughout the thing. It goes into an encrypted cloud server that's just yours. It doesn't go to anywhere else. So it's only you can see it. So like keeps your privacy.

[00:39:09] Caroline: We're big on privacy. We're big on privacy.

[00:39:10] Jason: But then what you get to do, and obviously like an AI would help you do this is like, it would tee up like the 10 most impactful moments of the day or most interesting moments of the day or uninteresting or whatever, and then you could choose to share them, but it's always like the day before. So it's... you're never like in the moment having to think about like...

[00:39:28] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:39:28] Jason: Setting this up or whatever. Like it's just recording your life. And then you get to look at a retrospective view of your day, previous day, and go, I want to share these two video clips and like these two photos of like when I was on a walk and the sunset was pretty.

[00:39:39] Caroline: Yes.

[00:39:40] Jason: And I just think, like, it would be so interesting if you don't actually have to think about creating the content. Like, it really goes back to like the Justin.TV, which is like the original, like live streaming platform, you know, lifestyle.

[00:39:51] Caroline: Well, this goes back to this discussion we were having in the Instagram episode where we were kind of like agreeing and disagreeing at the same time on this, which is that I don't want to be pulled out of the present moment to have to record those things. But there is a part of me that looks back on my camera roll from the year and is sad that I didn't record some of the things.

[00:40:10] Jason: Exactly.

[00:40:10] Caroline: Because, yes, I still have them as memories, but they're so much more visceral and like, long lasting for me when I can see them and relive them. And so I... I am constantly finding myself between this, like, dichotomy of, and I'm sure it gets even worse when your parents, right? Because it's like you, they change so much and you want to be able to like, have that for posterity, but you also want to be a very present parent and you don't want to, like, get out of the moment. I was watching a video last night about a woman who was saying just that. And she's people, she's like, people ask me all the time, like, how are you, like, pulling out your phone? And she's like, I'll tell you what I do is I think to myself, we're making pancakes. I set my phone up at the corner of the kitchen. I record like for like 15 minutes. And then when I'm done, I just take out my favorite clip and I delete the rest. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting way to think about it is like you almost forget the camera's there and you don't worry about all of that. But I really like your idea because it kind of takes that...

[00:41:06] Jason: For sure.

[00:41:07] Caroline: That friction away.

[00:41:07] Jason: I think if you could also like, come up with these like little like pin sized cameras or like tiny, like smaller than a GoPro type cameras that could like suction cup anywhere. And I know that it feels a little Big Brother-y because, like, it would always be recording. But, like, if there was a way that you knew that like, it wasn't connected to WiFi, there was no way that it was being uploaded consistently to anywhere else. And like, it's just moments for you to capture and keep for your life. Man, I would opt into that immediately because...

[00:41:30] Caroline: I totally would.

[00:41:31] Jason: It would be so fun to not have to think those things through. And then you always have, like...

[00:41:34] Caroline: Because the second that you know you're recording too, it changes a little bit the dynamic of the moment.

[00:41:39] Jason: Yeah. Anyway, there's a couple ideas if anybody wants to take those. Except for Thomas's, he owns that one. You're not allowed to take that one.

[00:41:45] Caroline: For sure.

[00:41:45] Jason: All right, if you all enjoyed the GPT podcast producer that we brought on for this episode, feel free to let us know because this is a...

[00:41:54] Caroline: What are we calling this? We can't call it...

[00:41:55] Jason: Call to Reaction, obviously. 

[00:41:57] Caroline: Okay, fine.

[00:41:58] Jason: Call to ReaPTion? 

[00:41:59] Caroline: No.

[00:42:00] Jason: Because GPT.  ReaPTion?

[00:42:01] Caroline: No.

[00:42:01] Jason: With the PT?  ReaPTion?

[00:42:02] Caroline: No.

[00:42:05] Jason: Something. Something like that. But yeah, if you enjoyed this and you thought it was a fun way for us to do the podcast, let us know because we're, as you can tell in these first couple episodes of the year, I think we're trying to find our footing on how we want to...

[00:42:16] Caroline: We're just experimenting.

[00:42:17] Jason: Present the podcast this year.

[00:42:18] Caroline: What's your word for the year, Jason?

[00:42:20] Jason: Did we not talk about this on last episode?

[00:42:22] Caroline: I am just... It's a callback. What's your word for the year?

[00:42:24] Jason: Experimentation.

[00:42:25] Caroline: Yeah. And what's my word for the year? 

[00:42:25] Jason: Flow?

[00:42:25] Caroline: So what are we doing?

[00:42:28] Jason: We're flowing and experimenting.

[00:42:29] Caroline: That's right.

[00:42:29] Jason: Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:30] Caroline: Good job.

[00:42:30] Jason: All right, so your social media app's name is Flow and my social media app's name is Experimentation. That's what we have to do.

[00:42:36] Caroline: Yours is too long.

[00:42:37] Jason: It is. For sure. All right, that's it for us. We will be back next week and hope you enjoyed listening.

[00:42:42] Caroline: Thanks for listening. Bye.