234 - We built an accountability app with NO CODE!

[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 unboring 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. Welcome back to the podcast.

[00:00:40] Caroline: It is a absolutely gorgeous day.

[00:00:43] Jason: For a person who has been down in the dumpsters because of the weather. I am glad that you are appreciating.

[00:00:49] Caroline: Do you wanna go for a walk after this?

[00:00:50] Jason: This. I don't wanna make any plans in our lives while we're recording the podcast because we all know that that's not a good place to plan your life is during a podcast recording. We can chat about it afterwards though.

[00:01:01] Caroline: So I'm hearing, yes. 

[00:01:02] Jason: Obviously, it's beautiful outside. Let's jump right into it because I want to give you a quick little quiz here on my silly serial findings. Now, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because the coaching session that we did last month with our Wandering Aimfully members, I do a tier list at the end.

[00:01:19] Caroline: Yes, where you...

[00:01:20] Jason: And I ranked cereals, kids cereals for those of us who are millennials and grew up in the...

[00:01:25] Caroline: What's the difference between a kid cereal and adult cereal?

[00:01:27] Jason: Late 80s, 90s, 2000s. I ranked them on which ones were the best. I'm not going to share my ranking with you because that's for WAIMers only.

[00:01:34] Caroline: Wow. Yeah. Join our program. Our real inside exclusive draw is the tier list of our coaching sessions.

[00:01:40] Jason: But what I thought I would do is I would quiz you and see if you can name in three strikes, you're out. The top five most popular selling cereals in the US by annual sales.

[00:01:54] Caroline: Okay, by annual sales. 

[00:01:54] Jason: You get three strikes, you're out.

[00:01:57] Caroline: Okay.

[00:01:57] Jason: We're going top five.

[00:01:58] Caroline: I'm gonna say Honey Nut Cheerios.

[00:02:00] Jason: Number two. $420 million annually. It's incredible.

[00:02:05] Caroline: Yeah. That's how, you know, like, marketing.

[00:02:07] Jason: Yes.

[00:02:07] Caroline: Matters because it's a subpar... Like, I mean, it's fine, but it's not the best. Oh. When... what year was this data?

[00:02:16] Jason: I don't know. I think it's. I think it's recent. Like, I think it's recent.

[00:02:20] Caroline: That matters. That matters.

[00:02:21] Jason: Yeah, okay.

[00:02:25] Caroline: Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

[00:02:26] Jason: Ooh. Strike one. Cinnamon Toast. Oh, no, no. Sorry, sorry. Number five. Number five.

[00:02:30] Caroline: It's number five.

[00:02:32] Jason: Number five. 340 million annually.

[00:02:33] Caroline: That feels right. 

[00:02:33] Jason: Yeah.

[00:02:33] Caroline: I think it's. I think it's a top tier.

[00:02:35] Jason: It is a top tier cereal in our lives, though.

[00:02:37] Caroline: Okay, I know one of these is gonna be like a disappointment. Like, I'm just gonna talk it out here. Like, I think one of these is gonna be like a Checks or like a.. Like a, you know, Corn Flakes or like something like that.

[00:02:49] Jason: Okay, I'm just gonna need a guess.

[00:02:52] Caroline: What about Lucky Charms?

[00:02:53] Jason: Lucky Charms is number six on the list. First strike. First strike.

[00:02:56] Caroline: Dang it. Okay, fine. I'll go with... Oh, Life.

[00:02:59] Jason: Life is actually number nine on the list. Second strike.

[00:03:02] Caroline: That feels right.

[00:03:02] Jason: But it is top 10. 177 million.

[00:03:05] Caroline: Dang it. I'm so scared. Frosted Flakes?

[00:03:09] Jason: Number three on the list. They're great. 412 million.

[00:03:14] Caroline: Okay, I'm gonna go with.

[00:03:16] Jason: You have two left to guess.

[00:03:23] Caroline: Tricks.

[00:03:24] Jason: False. Not even top 10.

[00:03:25] Caroline: No, I... I knew that's a bad guess.

[00:03:27] Jason: That was a bad guess.

[00:03:27] Caroline: I'm just running out of guesses.

[00:03:28] Jason: Come on, buddy. Cheerios. Just Cheerios.

[00:03:31] Caroline: There's two Cheerios in the top five?

[00:03:33] Jason: Yeah, bud. Those are the best selling cereals. Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios.

[00:03:36] Caroline: Again. Marketing dollars. Wow.

[00:03:37] Jason: And then number four, this one will shock you.

[00:03:40] Caroline: Okay.

[00:03:40] Jason: Honey Bunches of Oats.

[00:03:42] Caroline: I should have known that.

[00:03:43] Jason: But number four? 

[00:03:45] Caroline: I don't know when. Okay, it was when I was in high school, so this must have been...

[00:03:48] Jason: But this is the cereal. We talked about this in the tier list. I said, this is when you graduate from all the fruity cereals and the sugary cereals. Like, I'm more of an adult, but it's kind of the same exact thing.

[00:03:56] Caroline: It is the same thing, but definitely from the years of 2003 to 2006.

[00:04:01] Jason: Yeah.

[00:04:01] Caroline: Honey Bunches of Oats came on the scene and had an absolute, just dominated market share.

[00:04:05] Jason: I have a feeling that there are going to be people listening to this who are going to know this transition in your life where you went from like the Fruity Pebbles, the Lucky Charms, the Tricks.

[00:04:13] Caroline: And you're like, suddenly mom was bringing home the Honey Bunch of Oats. 

[00:04:15] Jason: Not a child anymore. I will eat Honey Bunch of Oats. I know that I've seen it spelled like this for my entire life, but it really blew my mind looking at it. Froot Loops.

[00:04:29] Caroline: Fruit Loops.

[00:04:30] Jason: Spell it.

[00:04:31] Caroline: Fruit.

[00:04:32] Jason: No.

[00:04:33] Caroline: What? Two O's.

[00:04:34] Jason: Yes.

[00:04:34] Caroline: No.

[00:04:36] Jason: This. I, I need everybody to immediately...

[00:04:39] Caroline: No. That's what it looks like on the carton? 

[00:04:40] Jason: Immediately go Google Froot Loops. And you're going to spell it Fruit. Like fruit, like F R U I T. And then you're going to look at the box and you're going to go, what? 

[00:04:50] Caroline: What?

[00:04:50] Jason: I can't turn around because I'm plugged in. But it's F R O O T. Froot. And when you see it written out in text, it looks absolutely wrong.

[00:04:58] Caroline: But when you see it on the box?

[00:04:59] Jason: But when you see it on the box, you're like, yeah, obviously, because it's two O's.

[00:05:02] Caroline: Because it's two O's. Because it's loops.

[00:05:02] Jason: And it's loops.

[00:05:03] Caroline: Those are the loops. Those are the Froot Loops.

[00:05:05] Jason: Incredible. Froot Loops is number seven on the list. All right.

[00:05:08] Caroline: Never even got why I always forget Froot Loops. Fruity Pebbles?

[00:05:11] Jason: Top 10. They were number 10.

[00:05:12] Caroline: Top 10.

[00:05:12] Jason: Number 10.

[00:05:13] Caroline: They're so colorful. Think of the like red dye number nine and like blue 12 that we ingested from Fruity Pebbles alone.

[00:05:21] Jason: Oh, yeah. You know what's really surprising me? Not a chocolate cereal in the top 10. Not a Cocoa Puffs. Not a Reese's Puffs.

[00:05:27] Caroline: Are you kidding?

[00:05:28] Jason: Not a...

[00:05:28] Caroline: You know why?

[00:05:29] Jason: I didn't expect Cookie Crisp.

[00:05:30] Caroline: You know why? Moms are the gatekeepers.

[00:05:32] Jason: And they're like, oh, chocolate, bad food.

[00:05:34] Caroline: Dessert for breakfast. Yeah.

[00:05:36] Jason: Yeah. Uh, okay.

[00:05:37] Caroline: Okay.

[00:05:37] Jason: Anyway, those are my silly serial findings that I wanted to share with everybody.

[00:05:41] Caroline: Thank you so much. Wow. I feel this is the hard hitting journalism that we really need in the world right now.

[00:05:47] Jason: This is why, you know, if I ever start my own podcast, it will be a version of 60 songs that explain the 90s, but it will be like 60 things that explain life as a millennial growing up. And like, I'm going to give you the backstory on Trapper Keeper that you never knew you needed. And like, where'd they get that Velcro from?

[00:06:02] Caroline: Very popular.

[00:06:03] Jason: Yeah. Oh, it'll be very popular. Wow. Okay.

[00:06:06] Caroline: I believe in you. 

[00:06:07] Jason: Let's get into this episode.

Lord knows 

[00:06:09] Caroline: you haven't started enough podcasts. 

[00:06:10] Jason: Because we, we do want to chat about something fun. 

[00:06:15] Caroline: We're so excited.

[00:06:15] Jason: That we have finished finally, which is amazing as of recording this and... But it's something we've been doing for a couple years and so let's kind of shape this episode for everybody, if you will.

[00:06:26] Caroline: Shape it. You, you give it to me.

[00:06:27] Jason: In the shape of a Froot Loop. 

[00:06:29] Caroline: And... 

[00:06:31] Jason: You know.

[00:06:31] Caroline: Go ahead, tell them, tell them what we're going to hit up.

[00:06:33] Jason: Okay. So for the past couple of years, we have run this accountability program in Wandering Aimfully in our Slack community.

[00:06:40] Caroline: You've probably heard us, if you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you've heard us mention it. It's called WAIM of Stones.

[00:06:45] Jason: Yes.

[00:06:45] Caroline: It's a play on Game of Thrones, obviously.

[00:06:47] Jason: Don't sue us. And we're going to break down what we have changed with this and why we are absolutely obsessed with no code AI prompting tools to build apps because this has become a game changer in us being able to realize dreams and visions for our business and for our community.

[00:07:05] Caroline: Because you're missing a very important thing that you told them. We have created our WAIM of Stones game as an app.

[00:07:12] Jason: Yes.

[00:07:12] Caroline: We have built it from scratch.

[00:07:14] Jason: Yes.

[00:07:15] Caroline: Not knowing how to code. 

[00:07:17] Jason: I'm gonna say... I mean, from scratch doesn't even describe it. There was no design for the app. 

[00:07:22] Caroline: Nothing.

[00:07:22] Jason: Literally nothing was planned. You just started typing like you would type to ChatGPT and started saying what you wanted and it just started building it. So.

[00:07:30] Caroline: So over the past month, we have created this actual app. It exists as a game. Our users are... are all in it with all of their stones that they've achieved. And this is the first app that we have completed on Lovable is the platform that we're using from start to finish. 

[00:07:46] Jason: Yeah.

[00:07:47] Caroline: We've built little tools, but this is like the full. The largest scale thing that we've built. And we are so excited. And so in this entire episode, we just want to tell you about the process of doing that. We want to tell you about why we think these no code, you know, AI tools are such a pivotal moment for creators and specifically solopreneur creators, because you are going to be able to do things now that you have never been able to do before without the technical knowledge needed. You, you know, really, the sky's the limit on what you are going to be able to create for, whether it's for your customers or whether it's, you know, tools for marketing your business. I just really think that this is like a new frontier in terms of what you as a solopreneur can create. And so we want to just get the... We want to get the creative juices flowing about how you might be able to dive into this. If you don't have any experience with this, we want to make it a little bit more approachable because it can seem, I don't know, I just think AI sometimes can seem very inaccessible. It just feels scary and, you know, technical and futuristic.

[00:08:47] Jason: I've been thinking about this a lot and, like, especially the past couple months we have spent a lot of time using Lovable. We've talked about it on this podcast, almost every episode that we've released in the past two months. And the reason for that is that what came to me is you're always working on something in your business every single day that you're hoping will have other people be interested and find your business.

[00:09:08] Caroline: Right.

[00:09:08] Jason: So marketing, that's essentially just describing what marketing is. And I think that, like, we all feel it right now that content creation either A, just feels insanely noisy and, like, how can you possibly keep up? Or B, you're like us, and you just literally cannot open up the app and record something and post it. Like, you just don't want to do it.

[00:09:28] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:09:28] Jason: And I think as I've been... As we've been working on these projects, and as I have really been like, thinking about where these projects fit into, like, marketing and what we're working on, it really feels that you're going to work on something every day for your business, and if it's something that is just going to get lost into the sands of time of, like, all of the content that is just being spun up every single day. And we were talking, we were joking about this last night. It's like, you know, a couple years ago it was, hey, you're... you're creating a post on Instagram every couple days. You're doing a story every day. One reel a week, that'll get you in the algorithm.

[00:10:01] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:10:01] Jason: And then it shifts. You know, as we went through the COVID times, it's like, all right, three reels a week, we can all do this. Now it's like, hey, if you're not posting five reels a day, you're not going to be seen. And like this for, for some people, totally fine. If you love doing it and you want to do it, that's great for people like us, not sustainable, not interesting. And also to me, as I look at this, I'm just like, all I'm contributing to is the sameness that everybody else is creating. We call this the sea of sameness in marketing, basically. 

[00:10:26] Caroline: Yeah. And I think also, again, that's not to say, like, content creation is going away. It's not to say that we won't participate in it. It's just like, it's acknowledging that we are at sort of a critical mass in terms of, in the past five to 10 years, there's never been more helpful, quote, unquote, helpful tips that have been shared on the Internet. Right. Like, that was the playbook was share what you know, share your knowledge, share information. And now I feel like we can all agree we're arriving at this place where it just feels like peak information, peak helpful tips. It feels like we're all regurgitating the same things back and forth to each other. And as marketers, we have to constantly ask ourselves, where can I find the opportunity to do something different, to add more value, to take that noise and become this, you know, separate yourself as the signal in that noise? And I really, Jason, I both believe that these new tools are giving you the ability to do that, because now it doesn't have to just be about information and sharing more information and contributing to the information overload. Now you actually have tools at your disposal to create utility. So it's not just telling somebody how to do something. It is creating potentially a working app that allows them to then accomplish whatever result you're trying to get them, not just by telling them the information, but giving them, like, a means of putting that information into action.

[00:11:52] Jason: The metaphor that just came to mind to me, as I love coming up with silly metaphors, is like, for the past five, ten years on the Internet, basically we've been doing is telling people, like, how to build a pickaxe to go find gold. So it's like all this messaging is like, here's how to build your pickaxe, and then you have to build your pickaxe, and then you have to go and mine in the mine for gold. And you're like, digging through and doing it. And what is... I see shifting and like, you know, we're kind of trying to, like, be a part of this is here is the ax. We made it for you.

[00:12:22] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:12:23] Jason: And we're just going to point you in the direction and you just have to make the ax do the, the work for you. But you don't even have to hold it anymore. We, we've already made it so it's like a, a mechanical thing that works on your behalf. And so you're just standing there managing the ax to make sure, oh, if it falls apart or if it needs something or whatever, like, but it's doing the work for you. My metaphor is not perfect, but the idea is that, like...

[00:12:43] Caroline: I think it's good.

[00:12:44] Jason: I feel like in the past 10 years, the blueprint for especially where we exist in the online business space is like you said, you're giving people a bunch of information. They have to figure out what to do with that information. They have to apply that information. They have to tweak. They have to experiment. Like, we've been a part of this because it's been the only way to do things. Now we're at this place where it's like there's too much information. So stop giving me all the information. Give me a tool that helps me apply the information and solve the problem I'm trying to solve.

[00:13:07] Caroline: You know what I think is an early indicator of this shift that I didn't really connect the dots with? But over the past, I would say four years, like maybe since 2020 ish. The explosion of Notion templates.

[00:13:20] Jason: Yeah.

[00:13:21] Caroline: As like there are full people who make their entire living and revenue and business off of selling Notion templates. And I think it's because it's sort of this hybrid between, like, you're not creating an app for someone, but like you're doing the setup to give someone a means of whether, you know, whether it's organizing their life or their finances or their books that they read or what all these things. You're basically creating a utility for someone. Right. And so people love that and, and it's... It helps them stay more organized in their life. It helps them feel on top of things. And I think that is sort of the first early indicator that people have this demand for, don't just give me more information. Give me something that is useful that is going to save me time, save me energy, save me effort. And so that is what I think these types of tools are going to do. And I think business owners who embrace them and can really dive in and start just rolling up their sleeves and learning so... So that they can build these things, I think it's going to give people a real edge.

[00:14:22] Jason: I also think we don't have this in our notes, but we, we have talked about this before and I think you hear a lot of people talk about this like, there's such a difference between hard skills and soft skills. So hard skills, there's always going to be a need for people teaching about those things. And I think a perfect example is like, I've been thinking about creating a course about how to use Lovable.

[00:14:40] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:14:40] Jason: Because I think it can be very intimidating to get into it.

[00:14:43] Caroline: It is very intimidating. We'll talk about why.

[00:14:44] Jason: And I, like, it is a hard skill that I am developing of how to use that app and to make it work. You're also doing the same thing. 

[00:14:51] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:14:51] Jason: But that's the thing that, like, you can't really go on ChatGPT and be like, hey, teach me how to use Lovable. Like, you kind of can... But like seeing someone actually use it is way more helpful. As opposed to the soft skill, which is like, hey, I want you to like, here's how to come up with ideas, here's how to validate your ideas. Here... Those are soft skills that they're very hard to monetize anymore. You still can for sure. But I think the shift is happening now with AI where the hard skills are the ones that you can still charge and monetize for information around. Soft skills are becoming more commoditized through all these tools. So my point to that is I think that when you're thinking about like how to market your business, it's important to realize like, am I teaching hard skills or am I teaching soft skills? If I'm teaching hard skills, then courses, content, all that stuff, it definitely still matters because someone is looking for that information.

[00:15:38] Caroline: Yes.

[00:15:38] Jason: And I am probably a really good source to teach that. Soft skills, there's so much content around that. There's so much information. It's not necessarily the most helpful thing. So if you teach soft skills, tools become so helpful. 

[00:15:49] Caroline: Tools become so helpful.

[00:15:50] Jason: Because they become the thing that your business helps someone, again, not build the pickaxe, not go find the mine, not go start digging. It does the digging for them and then they can apply it in their own way.

[00:15:59] Caroline: I think you're absolutely right. I think that's a good way of thinking about it. And on this point of information overload, I think another thing that you and I, another reason why we even invested the time in building this accountability game as an app in the first place is because you and I have always had this just belief that in business, when you double down on creating community and when you double down on serving your customers well, that creates a word of mouth marketing engine. And it's the oldest marketing tactic in the book, but it will stand the test of time. Tactics will come and go, different apps will come and go, different platforms will come and go. But if you create an experience that is worth talking about for your members, that is the best marketing that you can ask for because it creates this virtuous cycle. And so you and I have always had this belief in pouring energy back into improving our product, which I think is very rare for a lifetime membership product. Right. So the majority of people who are inside of our WAIM Unlimited membership no longer pay us.

[00:17:03] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:17:03] Caroline: That's the majority of people are done paying and they continue to be like, wait, so you're, you've just created this app for me? Or like, wait, you just created this whole new WAIM, you know, dashboard, like when we redid the dashboard, they continue to get things over and over again. And that has just been our strategy is to create this almost like unbelievable experience where someone goes, oh my gosh, I have gotten way more out of this than I could have ever imagined. And then that leads them to go on and become affiliates. That leads them to talk about WAIM. That leads them to, especially, as each year goes by and more and more kind of like grifters and scam artists, I think, come into the online business coaching space. It allows us to stand out because people say, oh, the majority of people out there are under... are over promising and under delivering.

[00:17:48] Jason: Yeah.

[00:17:49] Caroline: Oh, you know those folks over at Wandering Aimfully, they under promise they over deliver. That's... that's just like our core belief that we continue to double down on. And so that being said, Jason and I were like, oh, it makes sense to really... This has been... And we'll talk about the game in a second. But the... This has been one of the most unexpected things that we've added to WAIM that our customers rave about. And so you need to pay attention when that happens. When you have created something that you feel like has become a, you know, something that your customers are very excited to talk about. Reinvesting and making that thing even better than it already is, I think is a good use of time and energy.

[00:18:25] Jason: Totally. And I think just to kind of like, put a bow on the introduction of this topic here. And like, kind of as we're thinking about this, of it's a marketing mechanism that we're creating not only as a place of value for our customers to continue to get value from us and reach their goals, but it is a piece of marketing because then they will talk about Wandering Aimfully because we built this app for them and it's cool, but I just think it's worth taking a moment to go, okay, if I'm looking around and everyone is creating content on social media, is my time best spent trying to fight through the noise and create content on social media to compete with all the content on social media? Or is it better to go a different direction and do things that other people are not necessarily doing right now that take basically the same amount of time and effort? Like I was thinking about this weekend, I spent, and I'll talk about this next week, but I spent like 12 hours working on a different project. I finished it. It's done. That project I can now talk about over and over, and people can use it if I had just spent that time on creating content, how many Instagram reels could I possibly have made that would have been of value and worth to people to pay attention to? And how long do they last?

[00:19:32] Caroline: Right. It's the long tail of, of these projects.

[00:19:35] Jason: There's so much more leverage.

[00:19:37] Caroline: There's more leverage.

[00:19:37] Jason: It's so much more helpful because again, it goes back to like, yes, an Instagram reel, I can talk about a thing, but like, it doesn't actually solve someone's problem. It just gives them more information. So I just think it's really important for those of you who are listening this, who I know are banging your head against the wall in the content creation game and like, do I need to get on TikTok? Do I need to go, like, do all this stuff? There is, and there are different ways to market your business and this is, I think, one of the emerging things that is now becoming possible. It still takes time, it still takes patience, it still takes learning, it still takes effort. You're still going to run into roadblocks, you're still going to bang your head against the wall in some way. But like, which way do you want to bang your head against the wall? Is it in, oh, not a lot of people are doing this? Or like, I'm banging my head against the wall where everybody else is too, and I'm just fighting an uphill battle.

[00:20:18] Caroline: Well, and that's the final caveat, which is know yourself and know which one... Like, if you were choosing between do I want to spend my time creating content or do I want to spend my time creating, you know, learning Lovable and creating apps. I think it matters who you are and what you enjoy spending your... enjoy spending your time on because you and I... I mean, it's the weekend. You and I are both sitting at our little side by side desk, which, by the way, the Internet has lots of things to say about. We had a, a real go viral on my personal page and it's still going strong. 5 million views. People still have things to say about it. But, but it was very cute this weekend because, you know, we were trying to wrap up this project and you and I are just typing away on our keyboards side by side and we look over at each other and we're like, this is so fun.

[00:21:03] Jason: And you know, we've never said is when we're recording reels and like social content? This is so fun.

[00:21:08] Caroline: Yeah, exactly.

[00:21:08] Jason: It always feels like this is like pulling teeth to like figure this out. So. 

[00:21:12] Caroline: It's true. It's... It's true.

[00:21:13] Jason: Okay.

[00:21:13] Caroline: So yeah.

[00:21:14] Jason: Let me. 

[00:21:15] Caroline: Sorry just to pivot. I just wanted to set everyone up. This is the part where we get into the nitty gritty a little bit. So if you are still with us at this point and you're interested, we're going to dive deep into this project and give you a little bit of backstory on it and then what it took to actually create it so that you can actually get a much better idea. We're not going to talk in the abstract about creating these tools in Lovable but actually tell you what the experience was like.

[00:21:40] Jason: Also, if you want my Lovable course after listening to this, you can send an email hello@wanderingaimfully.com and you can prepay for it and I'm just going to charge.

[00:21:46] Caroline: Well I was actually thinking and I told you we should do this. 

[00:21:49] Jason: Don't leave them a cliff hanger. No one knows how much I'm gonna charge now. Go ahead.

[00:21:50] Caroline: Good. I told you that I think maybe in April or maybe before then, maybe March we should do a coaching session just on Lovable.

[00:22:01] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:22:02] Caroline: I'm just sharing that because WAIM Unlimited is coming up and if you are interested, like...

[00:22:06] Jason: No, no matter what, we will do a coaching session on Lovable. I think we will also have a course on Lovable. So you should look forward to that.

[00:22:13] Caroline: The reason I was mentioning it is because if you have been on the fence about joining WAIM Unlimited or our six month coaching option, knowing that those resources are going to be inside of our membership is helpful to make that decision.

[00:22:23] Jason: Let me give you the backstory on WAIM of Stones and also just like the initial reason for why we built it. So at the core of it, it is a weekly accountability game. That's all it is. It's helping people commit to their goals every single week and get them done.

[00:22:36] Caroline: Can I... we don't have this in the notes but I think it is an interesting point of why we even created the game in the first place. And it's because for many years Jason was doing one on one accountability in Slack and this was a lot of times what you do when you're starting something is you kind of like you do the unscalable thing. So Jason was doing these one on one check ins in Slack all the time and it got to a place where he no longer could afford the time investment that it was taking to coach people one on one for that long. And but we didn't want to, you know, do a rug pull and not give that to people anymore. So we thought okay, what's a more scalable way to do accountability. I'm sharing that because, you know, so many of these things are born out of, it's like, what do they say? The necessity is the mother of invention.

[00:23:22] Jason: Sure.

[00:23:22] Caroline: So many of these decisions are born out of decisions you have to make in your business where you go, okay, there's a seed of an idea which is people really need accountability. Okay, now I've reached a point in my business where I need to scale more. How can I morph the idea? And so the morphing has happened three times to get to the place where we are now. 

[00:23:37] Jason: The mighty morphing?

[00:23:38] Caroline: Power Rangers.

[00:23:39] Jason: So yes, started as a one on one check in system through Slack and then we decided, I think I did that for three years and I was just like, I can't do this anymore. It's just too much to manage and is there a better way? And also, you know, I was hearing from people in those check ins that they were like, I wish there was more like group stuff in Wandering Aimfully. And we just didn't have the time to facilitate it. Especially I didn't because I was literally spending two days of my week responding to 70 plus people's check in messages. Very unscalable. So we kind of sat down and we came up with this idea of moving this to a group accountability system. And then through just a bunch of like random brainstorming, we decided to make it fun and make it more of a game. And we had always talked about adding like badges or something to the WAIM dashboard and all this stuff, but it just never, we never got to it. And so this was really the first time we could kind of apply that. So we ended up calling it WAIM of Stones. And it was a weekly check in thing where the first week of the month you would, you would share your goal. And this is all done in Slack because we wanted to keep it in Slack and that's where our community lives. And then for the next two weeks you would reply with three things you're doing to achieve that goal. If you're just doing one thing, that's totally fine. But like this is your accountability. Like what am I working on? What am I doing? And you're posting it in a thread in Slack so that everybody has to see what you're working on, which is very helpful to motivate you because if you post it and a bunch of people give you a little thumbs up emoji and you don't do anything, you're going to feel a little bit weird. And then the last check in of the month would basically you just checking in and saying, how did you do? And from very early on, my experience in working with people one on one, I know you're not going to hit your goals. We don't hit our goals often. Even building this app, it's taken so much longer.

[00:25:10] Caroline: Right. Things go wrong or you encounter roadblocks you didn't, you know, anticipate. So from the very beginning we never wanted it to be about like, oh, you didn't hit your goal. We wanted it to just be about showing up.

[00:25:21] Jason: You showed up, that's it. And you could earn these little digital stones, these little...

[00:25:25] Caroline: So if you check in all four weeks. 

[00:25:28] Jason: You, you earn a digital WAIM-finity stone. 

[00:25:30] Caroline: You earn a WAIM-finity stone.

[00:25:31] Jason: And it has absolutely zero value. It's just a little digital thing.

[00:25:34] Caroline: But boy, when I tell you the community took these little stones and ran with it.

[00:25:40] Jason: Exactly.

[00:25:40] Caroline: There were some like off market deals.

[00:25:42] Jason: Yeah, we did have some brokering of stones.

[00:25:44] Caroline: We had some brokering. Yeah.

[00:25:45] Jason: But so this ran for two years. And for two years it was literally done via I managed a Keynote file that you did designs for think like PowerPoint but Keynote's on there. 

[00:25:54] Caroline: So in the Keynote file we did of course game board designs for every single one. And so there was like four spots. And so depending on how many check ins out of the month you did, you would stay on either, you know, spot number one, spot number two, et cetera. Each month had a different theme. Each stone had a different theme.

[00:26:07] Jason: Yeah, the first year I was track, I was tracking this in like a Google sheet, wasn't it? Or did it start?

[00:26:13] Caroline: No, you did it in Notion.

[00:26:14] Jason: Oh yeah. Before that, it was a Google sheet. Anyway, it was so manual. I was literally copying and pasting people's names. And then ChatGPT came along. ChatGPT came along and we figured out how to like copy and paste and it could clean it up. It got better. But it went from taking 10 hours of my week every week. Well before that when it was a one on one thing, it was like 48 hours of my time. 

[00:26:31] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:26:31] Jason: Not necessarily. It was like 20 hours of my work time. Then it went to 10 hours. Then last year it was like two hours per week that I was working on it because I'm still tracking things. This year, it's going to go to like 15 minutes.

[00:26:42] Caroline: Right. So what happened was so we ran it in this analog way at the end of two years. Oh by the way, we had a new theme every year. Right. So the first year it was just your classic, sort of like Squire, Apprentice, like kind of medieval theme. Second year, we decided to make it movie themed. So each quest was a different genre of movies. So you had your rom com stone, your disaster stone, your spy stone, like all these different genres and people voted on their favorite movies from those genres. It was very fun. And so at the end of last year, Jason was like, I just, I still think that there is a better way to do this and I think I'm ready to turn this. People love it, but we just can't be doing it manually anymore. Like I need, you know, it just continued to be like a time thing. And so... Okay. So I said, all right. I think that's a good... For all the reasons we told you about doubling down on community, paying attention to when your, you know, community is telling you they love things. And so we thought about, what are the options then? Do we pay a developer, you know, probably $5,000 to $10,000 in order to make this. Not to mention all the time that I would have spent designing it in Figma, like really designing the UI probably.

[00:27:48] Jason: Which is a project we just did the year before, which is that 2023, when we did that project.

[00:27:54] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:27:55] Jason: And so we had just done a redesign of our WAIM dashboard and we had just spent $10,000 with a developer. And that process was a nightmare because it just never works out as you want it to. It takes longer, it's frustrating, whatever. And this is where like the emergence of a tool like Lovable, it gives you like a light at the end of the tunnel that you've never seen before.

[00:28:13] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:28:13] Jason: Like working with the developer is like, oh, look, there's a light at the end of that tunnel. I don't know if we're going to reach it. This is like, it's like a really bright set of fireworks is going off and you're like, oh, wow, this is opening me up to possibilities I never knew that I could personally do.

[00:28:25] Caroline: Yes. And this is the part where I do want to have a quick aside and say, if you are a developer listening to this and you are a creator, but you're also a developer, this is not meant for us to like, shit on developers. Like we still... There is still such a need for people who have a wealth of knowledge of engineering and development. And I think that need will not go away. In fact, I can tell you, and we'll talk about this from using this tool, like you do need a human being to be on call, to be like, hey, I'm running.

[00:28:52] Jason: What happened?

[00:28:53] Caroline: Yeah, the robots are still not at that point yet whatsoever. And so I don't want this to come off as we're like, developers are totally obsolete. Like, I don't believe that whatsoever.

[00:29:02] Jason: And very clearly we have a whole other business Teachery that has two developers that work on that and I cannot replace them.

[00:29:08] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:29:09] Jason: They are irreplaceable because that app cannot work with a no code tool.

[00:29:12] Caroline: But if anything, I think this means that we're now able to create something that like a developer doesn't need to be working on this project. It's like... 

[00:29:22] Jason: Exactly. And I think the beauty of this project. So let's just keep going with the story. So we decided we were going to build a game version of or like our own version, an app version of it. And we said, okay, not going to be a developer, we've had bad experience. What's another way? And you were like, okay, well maybe I can do it with Framer, which is what we switched the Wandering Aimfully website to. And Framer, there's a lot of like, no code stuff that you can do. There's like a form thing and there's some database stuff. And yes, you kind of actually cobbled together a somewhat working version, but it felt like there were too many places where it could break down. And also we just weren't getting the like result we wanted.

[00:29:57] Caroline: And it never was like a real time sync. So I even got to the place where like I could sync the CMS, which is like the database where people could update with their check ins and stuff, but it didn't update in real time the way that a real app would. And it just created a lackluster experience. And I was like, I don't want to spend all this time building this version. And it's like a subpar version.

[00:30:17] Jason: Yeah. And so you might also be asking yourself like, you know, but like, why, why build an app version of this? And A, it was to free up my time so I wouldn't have to keep tracking manually. B, yes, we could have hired a VA to like, you know, do all the tracking and everything, but it just, it literally feels like we are on the cusp of building tools ourselves. And so we wanted to see this as kind of the first challenge to like really execute a vision of a thing that we wanted to exist. So that is where we found Lovable. And we said, let's just try and make it happen. And we had a long conversation about, is this worth you spending a hundred plus hours?

[00:30:51] Caroline: Yeah. I said, Jason, if, if you want me to do this, this is going to be my entire January. Like this is what I'm going to be spending my time on. And it's not a technically like a revenue generating project. So is that a good use of my time? And we both were like, you know, we went back and forth and we were just like, okay, yes, because it's not like a one to one transfer of ROI of time because I'm spending my time on this. But it, but it's incremental compounding skills. Right? So it's like yes, I spent a month working on this tool, but I... everything that I've learned about Lovable I can use to make content about Lovable I can use on the next tool that I create. The second part of it was like if we get this working to a place where we really like it, I could see other membership based businesses wanting to use this tool which then can create a monetization and revenue channel for us is I could see this being a software app that we then you know, other people can white label and they can... you pay us for that. So there is revenue generating opportunity for it. And that's what I think ultimately made the decision for us.

[00:31:53] Jason: I also want to point out the reason why we're spending a bunch of time and effort on building this into an app is that about 100 people play or are a part of WAIM of Stones every month. So in total I think we've had just around 300 people who have played. But it's about 100 people a month and that's 100 of our customers who are happily engaging and being involved in our community. And I can tell you from the firsthand experience of the person who runs our Slack community, the second we started doing WAIM of Stones, our community went from like, yeah, our Slack channel is somewhat active to people are still here every single day now.

[00:32:28] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:32:29] Jason: And the reason that they're there is because they have a habit that they come back to for a reason. So if anybody listen, this runs a Slack channel, a Facebook community, a Circle or whatever. And you're not getting that participation that you want or like it only increases when you do a launch and you bring new people in, but then it immediately drops, which we've seen, having a weekly accountability game is a game changer for keeping people active.

[00:32:48] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:32:49] Jason: That in itself too was like the third. 

[00:32:51] Caroline: Which is even way more important for memberships that are... do not have a lifetime model and they have people paying every month because that means that your churn reduces. And so it's a real important thing for you to do.

[00:33:02] Jason: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about actually making this app. And I want to start this with a reminder. Not a single design existed for what the app looks like. And I am going to have to apologize because there is not going to be a way that you all who are listening to this podcast, who are not going to be WAIM Unlimited members are going to be able to see this app. But I think... 

[00:33:22] Caroline: No, I'm going to do a video on it. 

[00:33:23] Jason: You are going to do a video?

[00:33:24] Caroline: For our YouTube channel. Yeah, I'm going to do once it's... Yeah, I'm going to do a video.

[00:33:26] Jason: So we are going to have a video on our YouTube channel where you can... Caroline will walk through this app. But I just want to remind you, as we continue to talk, zero designs.

[00:33:32] Caroline: Zero designs.

[00:33:33] Jason: Literally just like, hey, let's make this an app is the project brief.

[00:33:37] Caroline: Yeah. And let me describe for you, if you've never seen Lovable before, the way that you start a project is just an empty chat box. Very much the similar way that you start a chat with ChatGPT.

[00:33:47] Jason: The way I like to describe it to people is like it's ChatGPT and then you get a window where you actually get the thing designed and built that ChatGPT can't do.

[00:33:55] Caroline: Can't do. So, yeah, the picture, right. So quite literally to start the project, I say, hi, I would like to create an accountability game. Here's a little bit, you know, it... maybe I said something along lines of like it has quests and it. Nothing too detailed at that point. But like I want users to be able to check in and then cross off milestones based on those check ins. And then if they, you know, do four out of four, I want them to be able to achieve stones, like something simple like that.

[00:34:26] Jason: And you can't give it too much to start. 

[00:34:27] Caroline: You can't give it too much to start, but you just want to give it some context about what is the big picture of what we're trying to create here. And without any designs, without any direction, you can give it a little bit of UI direction at the beginning. Like I want the, the, I want the design to be playful and colorful and da, da, da, or I want it to be very utilitarian and you know, dark mode, whatever. Give it a little bit of that. It spins up the most basic. A couple basic pages and, and nothing works yet. Right. But you can, it spins up like the most basic UI elements, the user interface elements. So it'll be like a little navigation and this and that, and then you're off to the races. And you... that is how you start a project. Absolutely wild.

[00:35:09] Jason: And what I love about the beginning of a Lovable project is, again, you're starting with no designs, so you don't really even know in your mind what you want this to look like. But because it builds you something, you can then go, oh, interesting. So it thought maybe I would put this on the left side. I think this is actually better as like a settings menu. We'll just, like, put this over there. And you're like, I wouldn't have really thought of that. So you start to just, like, pick apart different things.

[00:35:31] Caroline: Yeah. It's like, you know when you are like, I really want something good for dinner, but you can't really put your finger on what you want. Maybe the ladies might relate to this more. I think this is maybe a gendered thing. But you know when somebody has to say like, oh, what about sushi? And you're like, no. Like pizza? And you're like, you kind of have to try it on before you're like, oh, pizza is what I wanted. That is what this does for you, where you, you know, we call them Laz, Lovable. We call, like, the chat persona. They do not refer to him as Laz. Yeah, we refer to it as Laz. And so when Laz creates something, then you're able to say like, oh, no, I think this or that. So, but the magic that I want to tell people, there are many, many, many times in the process of building an app using Lovable that you will get frustrated because you'll be so far down kind of a rabbit hole of trying to get a... Once you start trying to add functionality, not just UI elements. So think like, oh, I can see a user on my page, but clicking into a user doesn't mean I have any profile data or anything like that, or, oh, there's a button, but I click on the button to check in and nothing happens. It doesn't. Like, how does it save that? So once you have to start adding functionality, you will get frustrated. It is inevitable. But what I can't even describe to you is the absolute magic. Jason and I always talk about the first 24 hours when you work on a project with Laz is like the most magical thing, because what you're able to accomplish in one single day is absolutely mind blowing.

[00:37:02] Jason: And when we say that too, you might be thinking to yourself, like, okay, but like, how. How are you doing that? You're... you're telling it, hey, the check in button?

[00:37:10] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:37:11] Jason: I need you to make sure that that attributes a check in to this user so that they get a check mark on the game board for their progress. Make that work. Like that.

[00:37:20] Caroline: Yep.

[00:37:20] Jason: That is what you're saying. You're not saying, like, I need you to figure out a function to blah, blah, blah. You're just using very plain... 

[00:37:25] Caroline: Plain language. And so then what Laz will say to you is, great, in order to make that happen, we need to create a database in your Supabase account. So Supabase is a, an integration that you need to do for those of you who are not technically savvy.

[00:37:37] Jason: Which we are not.

[00:37:37] Caroline: Which we are not. You know, databases are like where you keep all the data in the back end of user profiles or, you know, if somebody checks in, we need to save that information somewhere. And so you have different tables and you have different data that exists behind the scenes. And so they have an integration with a tool called Supabase in order to do that. But what's great about Lovable is it will tell you that. It will say, okay, great. In order for you to save milestone data for your users and to know what stones they've achieved, we need to set up these database tables. Here are the tables we need to create and all it does. And then it'll tell you that. And then at the very bottom it'll say, like, set up. You know, set up.

[00:38:15] Jason: Just. Yeah, just like a light changes.

[00:38:17] Caroline: Yeah. And you click a button and it does that.

[00:38:20] Jason: Yeah.

[00:38:20] Caroline: Now, we've talked a little bit about the magic of it. Right. And there's a lot of magic. Let's talk about the frustrations.

[00:38:28] Jason: I think this, I'm going to highlight this sentence here. I don't think. Can you see what I highlight in Notion?

[00:38:33] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:38:33] Jason: This is, I think, the most important phrase you're going to hear when working with tools like Lovable. There's another one called Bolt. Like all these types of, like, AI, no code tools. No code does not mean no effort.

[00:38:44] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:38:44] Jason: And this is where, again, I was mentioning earlier, like, you're going to bang your head against the wall doing anything in your business. Like, there are going to be things that aren't fun for many years. We've talked to you about the phrase from Liz Gilbert, which is, you got to eat a shit sandwich. Like, which shit sandwich are you going to eat in your business? And it would be a lie to tell you that, like, using a tool like Lovable is just perfect and everything works and nothing ever goes wrong. And we can say that, without a doubt, this project is very big. It's the biggest thing we've worked on Lovable. And you have run to so many different errors that have kept you stuck for five minutes, but some that have kept you stuck for...

[00:39:17] Caroline: A day. 

[00:39:18] Jason: A whole day.

[00:39:19] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:39:19] Jason: And you make absolutely no progress on it, and it feels like you're fully defeated. But I want to come back to the comparing what we're doing here as a marketing vehicle to creating content. There's so much content that we all know that we create that is absolutely meaningless. Like it, it, it doesn't go anywhere. No one sees it. It doesn't convert to emails on your list. It doesn't convert to any sales. And it feels like that was a complete waste of my time. But you still do that thing because it helps you get to the end result of having people find out that your business exists and solving problems for them and helping them and et cetera. And that's what we constantly come back to. And also, it has given me so much respect for developers because simple things like setting up an authentication system, which is just like signing in and signing up, it's very easy in Lovable. You just tell it, hey, start this. But for some reason, out of the box, Forgot password is not part of that setup.

[00:40:11] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:40:12] Jason: So then you have to do that and inevitably it always breaks the sign in or sign up process or any other functions you have in the application. And it's a very simple thing. Like any developer can tell you, like, yeah, it's easy. I'll just set up the authentication. We'll have users sign in, we'll have them sign up, forgot password. But like these tools, it's, it's not like that yet. And so I just, I bring that up because again, I want to repeat it. No code does not mean no effort.

[00:40:35] Caroline: Yes. It's very important to set the expectation that if you're listening to this episode and you're sort of like bought in, you're like, okay, I get it. Like, I do think we're on the cusp of this being a really big thing. And I want to be on the cutting edge of it. And I want to learn this because I think I could create tools for my business and I could sell them and all these things. I want to set your expectations. You have to be... And I think if you're an entrepreneur, you already have a lot of these innate qualities, but you really have to be a tried and true entrepreneur in the sense that you have to be persistent, you have to be patient, you have to be curious, like, you have to be the type of person who wants to learn, because there is a learning curve. Even though so much of this is plain, plain language, you will run into things where you just go, I don't, I don't get it.

[00:41:19] Jason: Exactly.

[00:41:19] Caroline: But all you have to do is go, let me tell Laz. I don't get this. Like, can you explain to me this database thing? Like, I'm, you know, a brand new beginner because I'm not understanding how this connects to my feature of X, Y and Z. There's a lot of that that goes on and you will learn things. Did I know a single fricking thing about a database before I started this? No.

[00:41:39] Jason: No. But now you understand that literally every app you use is just a database.

[00:41:44] Caroline: It's just a database. It's amazing. And you learn so much. Did I know a thing about what an edge function is? No, I did not. Did I know how auth works? No, I did not. But I've learned all those things. And if you're someone who likes learning, this will be a fun investment of your time because you will learn so much and it all builds on... on each other. Right. But yeah, you need patience, you need persistence, you need creative problem solving skills.

[00:42:07] Jason: I was going to say, I think that's one of the things we have learned now that we... I think we have like 12 active projects going in Lovable right now, and only two them essentially exist. So there's one that I'm going to talk about next week and then there's WAIM of Stones which essentially exists now. Both of those have been such a difficult journey to get to a finished place. And it feels like they're never going to get there in the moment. But you really have to zoom lens out and be like, why am I doing this? I'm doing... And then, then you actually look at the total time that you've spent time and you go, wait a second.

[00:42:39] Caroline: Wait.

[00:42:39] Jason: If I would have had a developer work on this project, A, it would have taken them probably the same amount of time that I'm working on it, if not more.

[00:42:45] Caroline: No, way more.

[00:42:46] Jason: And B, I would have had to pay the money.

[00:42:48] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:42:48] Jason: So, like, I've only paid money to Lovable and, and I will say, like, you know, we had to upgrade our account, I think, like three times in one month.

[00:42:55] Caroline: And that's because we were both working on several projects.

[00:42:58] Jason: Exactly. And so our bill was like $300 a month.

[00:43:00] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:43:01] Jason: That's expensive. It's one of the most expensive things we pay for in our, in our business stack of tools. But it's $300 a month.

[00:43:09] Caroline: Compared to? 

[00:43:10] Jason: Like, again, $5,000 to $10,000 to build the WAIM of Stones app. That's $5,000 to $10,000 total. We could use Lovable for three years to get to that amount.

[00:43:19] Caroline: You have to remember what you're comparing it to.

[00:43:21] Jason: Exactly. And so I really think it's important, like, this is a new way of doing things for especially us who are like knowledge workers, right? Like, we are learning knowledge, we're sharing knowledge, we're teaching, we're coaching, et cetera. It's so different to be a problem solver when you're interacting with something that is going wrong and it's not just you recording a video and like, nothing really goes wrong. And so it takes a different mindset to not give up at the first sign of adversity when this happens, and to keep reminding yourself, like, okay, this is a new thing that I'm doing. This is a new tool that I'm using. This is a whole learning curve to, again, I don't know about databases and edge functions and auth and like, all these things that make no sense to me. Like, I've had a GitHub account for 15 years. I don't know what it is, I don't know how it works, I don't know anything about it, but I know that it's crucial for the project. And so I just kind of like, it's just kind of like a little like elbow nudge of like, yeah, I got a GitHub account. And then it's fine.

[00:44:13] Caroline: You just have to have an acknowledgement of the fact that what's the point in living in an age of information where things like Google or ChatGPT exist if you're not going to use them? So it's like when you run into something and you go, what? Use the tools at your disposal to use some of these chat tools to go, please explain this to me, or I don't understand this, but you have to kind of develop that muscle of, of realizing that when you hit a dead end, it's not really a dead end. You just have to, have to have the creative problem solving skills. And I can't wait for the video. Also, like, the deeper we get into this Lovable thing to record the video, that's like the 10 prompts that have helped when I have run into a dead end. You will inevitably try to be doing a feature and Laz will kind of like, they will suggest things over and over again. And you'll start to feel like you're running in circles. And you're like, Jason and I are always like, No, buddy. Buddy, no, we already went over this. No, buddy. And sometimes we have to get stern with him, and we have to say something like, buddy, we have done this three times now, and I'm really gonna need you to tell me how confident you are that the next fix that you offer me... There have been a couple times where we're like, oh, I went stern mom... mom mode right there. But... But, yeah. So you learn all these things about how to come at the problem from a new angle in order to, like, get past the stumbling block. And there's something very gratifying about that. And just to, you know, zoom the lens out and give you a concrete example of how you could use this tool. It doesn't have to be like an accountability game. But, for example, one little project that we have going that I'm sure we'll finish at some point is for Calm Launch Formula. We have these amazing AI prompts that, like, really took  Calm Launch Formula as a course to the next level because you just put these prompts into your chat tool of, of choice, and you can, like, write your sales emails for your launch, you can choose dates for your launch. I have really crafted all of these prompts to be able to do that for you. But I thought, how cool for you to create a launch planner tool. So I'm in a tool where I just say, I want to create a new launch. I go through this steps that we outline in... in  Calm Launch Formula. But it's not you having to, like, go to Notion, copy the prompt, go to chat. Where do I put that information? It's you creating a launch in this little app so that you can go, okay, cool, in 30 minutes time, I have, you know, and then you can integrate AI in the Lovable app. So you go, okay, in 30 minutes time, a user would feasibly be able to sit down, pick dates for the their next launch, pick the price of their offer, write their sales email like, and you would have it all there. And how cool would that be? And wouldn't that be a reason for someone to sign up for WAIM Unlimited?

[00:46:51] Jason: Exactly. And that is a perfect example of my somewhat mediocre metaphor of building the pickaxe for someone and, like, having it start to mine the gold for people. Because you just go, in you go, I'm gonna launch this course in six months. This is what it's about. These are the sales emails I want to write. And you're literally clicking buttons and it's just spitting out things you can copy and paste. And you can copy and paste into your email provider for your sales emails. You can copy and paste into your sales page for the sales copy. Like, you set all these things up very quickly. And I just think this is the kind of like the cusp that we are on as content creators and again, like kind of, you know, knowledge workers who are just like selling knowledge and learning things and teaching it to other people because we like doing that. I just think you have to be open to the fact that we are in a huge shift of there has never been more information and helpful tips that people can find. What is the way that you can help someone actually do something with that information that changes their life and business in a way that is meaningful and it's not having to have them do the hard work. And so, yeah, I, I think you'll hear us talk about Lovable quite a lot this year. I think 2025 is going to be the year of tools for us, which we've talked about for years, but we've never had the tool to make tools.

[00:47:59] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:48:00] Jason: And so there's always been these videos on YouTube that we've watched of someone doing like the super complex no code Make automation, where it's like 37 apps are integrated and you're like, yeah, but if one of those breaks down, this whole thing breaks and then it doesn't work.

[00:48:13] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:48:14] Jason: And now we feel like we have something where you actually have some confidence in it. And we have an app that's released. We have two apps that are released. And yes, it was a bumpy ride to get there and we learned a lot along the way that we're hopefully going to share and again teach with all of our members and you all listening to this and on YouTube and these tools aren't perfect yet, but I think this is the way that you can stand out. I think it's a way that you can make great experiences for your clients, customers, your community. You can keep them engaged. You can show them that you're the one who's on the edge of kind of technology and creation. And this is a thing that you can do to help them.

[00:48:49] Caroline: And listen, that's not us saying that, like, if you don't do this, your business is going to be left behind. That is not, hopefully, you know, that you're listening to this podcast because that's not our vibe at all. We just like to share the opportunities that we see and the ones that we're excited about. I think, you know, there's plenty of kind of hot new things that have come and gone that Jason and I have been like, not for us. Like, that's okay. And so you have to discern for your own business and your own who you are and what you like to spend your time on of whether this is something that you're interested in, too. But hopefully, if you are and you're sort of curious about this new frontier that we are, you know, emerging into as online business owners, I hope that we can be a little bit on the front lines for you, learning some of these lessons the hard way, bringing you back what we've learned so that you can maybe not run into the same roadblocks that we have. And yeah, that we can just embrace curiosity together. But, but, as always, do your business the way that feels good to do your business.

[00:49:48] Jason: Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that's a fun look at the building this accountability tool for our Wandering Aimfully community. If you want to check it out, obviously you can join Wandering Aimfully and you can learn more about that at wanderingaimfully.com/join. We will have a YouTube video up walking through this app that we built. We will share that and you can learn more about how we use Lovable. You can also check out Lovable. There's a link in the description if you want to use our affiliate link to sign up. We get a little bit of a commission for that.

[00:50:17] Caroline: And in the meantime, if you want to see the one page app that Jason just created in a weekend, that video is live on our channel right now, so you don't have to wait for the WAIM of Stones video to go.

[00:50:26] Jason: I will link that up and we'll talk more about that next week, next week's episode as well. So hope you enjoyed this one. And we'll be back next week with more.

[00:50:34] Caroline: Thanks for listening.