Struggle and Sponsors: A Conversation with Adam Hill, Creator of Django Unicorn

Check out Django Unicorn! https://www.django-unicorn.com/

Follow Adam on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adamghill

Michele Hansen  0:00 
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to software social. So as you heard last week, Colleen joined the Hammerstone team. And she also just started a job recently. And she just moved California. So Colleen has a lot going on this week. And so for the benefit of her mental health, we decided that she should just take the week off. And I'm super excited because that meant that I got to bring a friend on the show this week. So I have Adam hill with us, Adam and I actually used to work together. He was the CTO at a place I used to work at. And he also has some projects going. So welcome, Adam. Hey, it's been a long time since we've caught. Yeah, it's weird. I should do this more often. No, no, when we had I had Murray pulling on a couple of weeks ago, the notion expert. And we like had that exact same conversation at the beginning of it was like, This is so weird. I talked to you online all the time. But we haven't actually spoken in a very long time.

Adam Hill  2:04  
Right. talking over Twitter is a little bit different than hearing someone's voice.

Michele Hansen  2:08  
Yeah. Yeah, it is. So so actually speaking of one of those conversations we are having so we were talking the other day about podcasts, and you were kind of thinking about maybe you start your own show or whatnot. But you said something in particular that I wanted to talk about? Because I think it is I think it's will strike a chord with a lot of people. And you said, I'm tired of hearing podcasts from people who don't struggle.

Adam Hill  2:41  
Yes. Oh, all right. So no offense to you. And thank Colleen, because I think you guys do a great job of talking through the things that you're, you know, having problems with. And maybe this is just the podcast that I tend to listen to. But there seem to be a couple of categories. There's like, advice, podcasts, there are interview podcasts. And then there are kind of like two co founders, like talking through their last week sort of podcasts. And the advice podcasts seem to be more like, I'm an expert, I know what I'm doing. Here's 10 ways to get more traffic to your landing page, or whatever. The interview podcasts are more like, I just made a million dollars in the last year, like, asked me how I did it. And then the two co founders on a journey. Maybe that's the closest to like, these are the things that we're working through. And I'm having trouble with this or that. But even like, even Colleen, she's making $1,000 a month, which to me is like, That's crazy. Like that's, that's, you know, she's like having so much success. And, you know, maybe some of this is sort of like, everything is relative. I'm, I've tried a bunch of little side projects and startups over the years, and I've never gotten to $1,000 a month, but like, maybe she's looking at you and being like, well, Michelle is like Michelle and Mathias are supporting their family, you know, on their startup. So like, maybe it's just everyone is able to look at someone who is above them, quote, unquote, and see someone who is like, doing more of what they want to be doing.

Michele Hansen  4:40  
I think what you're saying is is something that a lot of people feel, and I think that there's kind of this undercurrent of loneliness to a certain extent behind the sort of indie hacker indie SAS kind of world where you know if it's just your one person And working on something or maybe you have a co founder, like me, like, don't really have a lot of people in your daily life to talk to you about these kinds of things. And we're already sort of a lonely pursuit to like, try to start your own SAS on the weekend to then like, hear other people who are doing it, but to hear that they're like having the success that that seems elusive to you. Like that could reinforce that kind of feeling of loneliness. And I could understand how that might make you want to, you know, scream at your phone that like $1,000 is actually amazing. What are you talking about?

Adam Hill  5:40  
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, Can you talk a little bit about, you know, I assume that it was very helpful for you and Mateus to be working on things together throughout the years, like when you were starting geocodes Oh, so like, was that your sort of like support system? Because there was no mic or cough at that point. And there was, you know, indie hackers, I don't think was around. Yeah. Can you just elaborate on on how that worked for you?

Michele Hansen  6:08  
You know, we actually, we didn't go to micro conference till 2019. And we didn't go for so long. Because we didn't feel like legit enough to be there. Like, and I guess I didn't know that. Like the micro con growth side was a thing. But still, like, we didn't feel like we were, like, legit enough to be there even after we had gone full time.

Adam Hill  6:35  
So when did you go full time? Was it 2017? So you didn't think that you belong to that community?

Michele Hansen  6:44  
No, it existed really like so I remember actually, when I was when we started it like the only people we I don't think we knew anyone with side projects, really. And like we had friends were developers. And like, they gave us feedback on it. But like we didn't really know any, like, we knew people who were like freelance developers, who were like, you know, contracting, but like we didn't, I didn't know anybody who had like, started their own SAS and then ran it as like a one two person show. But so when I went full time in 2017, I remember really wanting community. And I actually started a meetup for like, people to work together from Whole Foods, I think, in DC. Yeah. Well, like it. Yeah, it was, I think I did like three, two or three times, like the first time nobody showed up. The second time. This, like other woman, who was a marketing consultant showed up and like, that was cool. And then we like sat next to each other at a table at Whole Foods. Yeah, didn't really talk. And I guess it was fine. And then and then the last time this like, got older guy showed up on like, pitched me how he could like we needed to get our business into China and how. And it was like, I don't know. And after that, I was like, this may, I don't know, maybe this isn't gonna work. And I shut down. And then I actually joined a co working space for I remember half a year but actually only went for like, the first three months, because then I really wanted to, like meet people and like, make friends and find other people in a similar situation. And like going to a co working space in DC there just really wasn't anybody doing that. Like, it wasn't 1776, right? No, it was actually so Okay, so, so context for the people who are not from DC. So 1776 I don't even know if it still exists, but it was like this, like, incubators, slash like co working space in downtown dc 1776 is actually where we did our buco to prototype testing. So we had friends who had a start up at 1776. And one da...