Show Notes:Links:DitheringStratecheryPromised LandShape UpNational TreasureFull Transcript:Ben:I was looking through our accounts this morning and just doing some database checking and looking at some accounts that had been in our database for like seven years. Like, "Oh yeah. I remember them." And they're like old friends basically. It's like, "Oh, the memories."Josh:Memories.Starr:Yeah. That's funny. Last week I remember, it just hit me in the middle of the week, I was making jokes about our customers and like squeezing blood from turnips. And I just feel like I should point out that those were jokes, specifically because it's kind of absurd that we would do that because we treat our customers maybe too well, I don't know. But I realized not everybody might know me personally and realize I'm joking.Josh:There are those who will too, yeah.Starr:Yeah, yeah. And they go on to run private equity firms.Josh:Right? My thoughts exactly.Ben:Oh dear.Josh:We won't say who.Ben:No names.Starr:Well, we'll name names for our Patreon supporters. They'll get the special feed where we just like dish on everybody.Ben:This is where we announce we're setting up our Patreon for a minimum contribution of $1000 a month.Josh:That's genius.Starr:Oh, my God. Can you imagine? That would be amazing, like all the secret insider backroom knowledge. We have enough to fill up about like 10 minutes of a show.Ben:Well, it could be the FounderQuest extended edition. Right? So in the normal edition we just cover the percentages, but in the extended edition you have real numbers, right?Starr:Oh, there you go.Josh:That's amazing, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.Ben:Yeah. So I don't know if you know of Ben Thompson, he writes Stratechery. It's fantastic.Starr:Wait, say that again?Ben:Stratechery by Ben Thompson.Josh:I was just listening to the daily update today. Catching up on daily updates.Ben:So he started a paid newsletter back before paid newsletters were cool, fantastic writer, good stuff. Talks about tech and legal and all kinds of fun things that we care about. And he and Gruber of Daring Fireball fame recently started a paid podcast. Recently, I mean, it's been a few months, several months now, but it's still kind of new to me. So I subscribed to that as well, and I love their format. It's 15 minutes, no more, no less, three times a week. And they just talk about the stuff that's currently going on, the same kinds of things that you would find at Gruber's site or at Thompson's site. So tech and legal and society and stuff.Josh:Current events.Ben:Yeah. Paid podcasts, man, that's where it's at.Josh:Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. They basically like just set a timer and then at the end of when it starts to run out, they play this little time running out stopwatch thing and then it just cuts it off. They have to wrap it up or I think it cuts them off mid sentence.Ben:Yeah. They have some tight editing going on.Josh:They're pretty good.Ben:It's fun.Starr:How much does it cost? I'm curious.Josh:$5 a month, I think.Ben:Yeah. I pay annually, so I don't even remember.Starr:Okay, so it's not like a luxury exclusive type product.Josh:No.Ben:It's not super premium like FounderQuest extended edition.Starr:Exactly.Josh:I imagine with their audience, $5 a month adds up.Ben:Yeah, I imagine it does.Starr:Yeah. But ours is SOC 2 compliant.Ben:Right, right. We've got compliance on our side.Josh:The other thing I found interesting about their format or about how they sell it is that they also bundle, like Ben for instance with Stratechery, you can buy Dithering with your Stratechery subscription. And I think it gives you maybe a bundle discount or something slight. And I don't know if Gruber does the same thing or what, but I think...Starr:Dithering? Is that the name of the...Josh:Yeah, Dithering is the name of the podcast.Starr:Oh, okay. I thought you meant like image dithering. I was really confused there for a second.Josh:Yeah. I guess it would help if we told people what the name is. But I thought that was interesting. So you can buy it through their, I don't know what their website is. Just search Dithering. But yeah, you can subscribe there or you can subscribe to both.Ben:Yeah. I have the bundle and it's so worth it. If you're into tech and you're into modern antitrust and things like that, it's totally worth it.Josh:Yeah. Tech and society.Ben:Yep.Josh:We should get him on the pod.Ben:Yeah. That'd be cool. Actually, it was kind of...Josh:That's what the kids say these days.Starr:You know who we should get on this podcast? I've been saying we should get this person on forever. Barack Hussein Obama.Ben:Oh, speaking of, I've been reading his book, his latest book.Starr:Yeah?Ben:That is an excellent book. You should definitely check it out.Starr:What's it called again?Ben:I don't know. I just read it. I don't look at the cover. But it's great. The writing is just top-notch, the man is a genius. Not that I know him or he owes me any favors or anything, it's just, I mean obviously he's well-spoken, I mean he's got good evidence of that over his eight years of his presidency, but just the book is basically a reflection of his experiences leading up to becoming president and that's as far as I've gotten so far, I've gotten to election night, he just won. But the way that he writes, just the conversational style, and the context that he brings into his experiences running for president, it's just a great read.Starr:Well, cool, I'll have to check it out. We had the weirdest madness of crowds thing happen last night in our household. So I'm just going to tell this story, it's not related to FounderQuest. I mean, I guess you could make it a point...Josh:Everything is related.Starr:Yeah. Everything is related. I can tie it back to marketing, like look at this, look at me. So this friend group texted us last night and was like, "Hey, on the down low there's this clinic that has a bunch of COVID vaccine, it's about to expire and you can just go sign up for an appointment there, and because it's about to expire, they just want whoever." Right? And we heard stories about this happening at various places. And we're like, "Okay. I guess this is fine." So we go on and make an appointment and everything. And then about like an hour later, we're just sitting around being like, "This just seems a little weird, right? Like if it's about to expire, how can I make an appointment for next week? It just seems a little off."Starr:And so we started asking around and it turns out that like everybody, so many different people we knew had gotten a special on the lowdown tip from their friends that there was a batch of vaccine about to expire. And then in a parenting group, somebody in DC posted about like, "Hey, have you heard this thing that's going around? There's this batch of vaccine that's about to expire." And so we canceled our appointments and so did everybody else in that group. And so I was thinking abou...

Show Notes:Links:How Cheap a Product Can You Have And Still Have Salespeople?Profitwell Retain New RelicFull Transcript:Starr:Okay, so you are listening to FounderQuest. We're a bunch of founders, we're on a quest. Thank you for listening, we are back after a rather long absence. Basically, people were gone different days during the holidays, and it was just a weird scheduling situation, so we just decided to take, I guess, two months off? A month and a half?Ben:Something like that.Starr:Something like that, yeah.Josh:A little more than we normally do at Christmas.Starr:Yeah, a little bit more, but I've got to say, I feel a little bit refreshed, I'm ready to talk into a microphone again, I missed talking to y'all.Ben:Likewise.Josh:Yeah, same. I also missed the routine of just having this call every week.Ben:Yeah, and our listeners missed us. I had people reaching out to me saying, "Hey, is the podcast coming back?"Josh:Nice, well that's a good sign.Ben:Yeah.Starr:I know, that's so sweet. You've got to get all your business tips in before it's just a bloodbath. You've got to prepare for the anarcho-capitalist future.Josh:Well there's some hope on the horizon, right?Ben:Of course. Well I've got to say, I'm having a great day so far. I was able to upgrade one of our repositories from Tailwind 1 to Tailwind 2 without any snags or hiccups whatsoever. I'm pretty excited.Josh:Wow.Starr:Oh, nice.Josh:Nice Ben.Ben:It's not every day an upgrade goes off without a hitch.Josh:Yeah, for sure.Ben:It's kind of compensation, I think, from the universe, for how badly the upgrade that I'm trying to do with our Elasticsearch cluster is going. Because upgrading from Elasticsearch 6 to 7 apparently is not in the cards for me, so yin and yang.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Well that's a shame. So what are we actually talking about today? It took everything we had just to make it here at 10 am on a Friday together. I don't know if anybody had the energy to think beyond that, so...Josh:Yeah, I think that's a fair assumption.Ben:Well actually I had a thought on something that we could talk about, something that's been kind of on my mind for the past few days, and that is perhaps a slight recap of 2020. Because as I took the break, I was thinking goals for 2021, and things I wanted to see, and looking back at 2020, and looking at some numbers. And to be honest, I'm kind of disappointed with how 2020 went from our business standpoint. The growth was not great. We had growth, but it was definitely off from previous years. And obviously coronavirus was a factor no doubt, we saw our revenue take a hit in March-April. So there's that, but still, it just feels kind of eh to have the worst growth year... I don't know if it's the worst, I don't know, I'll have to go back and check previous years I guess. But it was not a fantastic growth year, and I'm just like, eh, what can I do during 2021 to make that a different story? So that's been on my mind.Josh:Yeah, I think I was telling you the other day, I've had the feeling that it just felt like a stagnant year, just in general. And I know a lot of that is because just of the conditions, and things that were out of our control. But then also, you can only sit and stare at the news for so many years in a row before we get back to work. We did a lot of work last year. Thinking back we did do a lot of work, but I also feel like... I don't know, I'm just looking forward to doing some new stuff, and getting back to innovating.Starr:Yeah. Well first of all, I have to say that it's not nothing. I also looked at our growth numbers, and it's not nothing that we grew, we had growth. We are making more money now in the midst of a global pandemic than we were when it started, so that's definitely something. That's definitely a blessing. Maybe we wish it was more, but it's still there. Ben:Yeah, I agree. Having some growth is certainly a blessing. We had customers, and obviously in the news there are a bunch of businesses going out of business, and they have nothing now.Josh:We have nothing to complain about.Ben:Yeah, for sure. I guess I was thinking of it in terms of... As being three developers who started this business, three technical people, it's always been a weakness of ours on the growth side, the getting customers in the door kind of side. Yeah, we've done some things, and we've stumbled on the way, but we're not experts. We're not sales experts, we're not marketing experts, we're just doing the best we can. And that's been great for us, we've got a nice comfortable business, things are good, growth has been good every year. But as I was thinking of these things and I was thinking about, well, growth last year wasn't great. And yes, there were extenuating circumstances, but looking forward, what can I do that's different than I've done in the past, right?Ben:So one of the things that I've been thinking about... I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions, but I am a big fan of goals. Not that you need a new year to set goals, but... So I'm thinking, my goals for the year, my goals for the quarter, and so on. I'm like, eh, maybe I need to get better at this whole figuring out growth thing. Maybe I should really spend a fair amount of time just trying to get into what that means, and doing some... I don't know. That's the problem, I don't know exactly what that means for me, but the one thing I had thought so far is, maybe that means I spend a little less time on the detail, getting things done, upgrading Elasticsearch clusters, and that sort of stuff, and a little more time than I have in the past on, "Okay, how do we get growth in our business?"Josh:Yeah. It's easy to fall back into the comfortable routine. Believe it or not, upgrading Elasticsearch clusters is comfortable for you. It's not enjoyable, but it's... You know how to do it.Ben:It's the well worn rut in my experience.Josh:Exactly, and I have the same thing.Starr:The nice thing about technical tasks is that generally you know if you did it right, you know if you succeeded. And with marketing it's like, oh, I don't know. Or marketing, or sales, or whatever. I guess sales would be a little bit more direct feedback, but with marketing, it's like, "Okay, let's circle back in a year and see if we can notice any change." Yeah, well that sounds really good. I would love for everybody to be involved in chasing growth and all that. A couple interesting stats I just want to throw out there that I was looking at yesterday, and I'm not going to throw out absolute numbers, but we all agreed it was okay to discuss percentages, or percentage changes, and everything. So I think this interesting just to show how 2020 has been different than previous years.Starr:So what I did is, we use ProfitWell, and I went in and did their... They let you export a CSV of pretty much every page on their site. And so I got a CSV of customer numbers, right? Total customers, new customers added per month, customers who downgrade, who upgrade, et cetera. So the majority in the change in our growth... Our growth was lower this year, and the majority of that change came from having fewer upgrades, and... I forget the exact days, that kind of makes sense to me because we were doing this thing, I think in 2019, where we were asking people who were basically using t...

Show notes:Links:Rollerblade Chair WheelsKung Fu PandaThe Emperor’s New GrooveJustin Jackson"The Fear" - Build Your SaaS podcastWrite For HoneybadgerFounderQuest TwitterFull transcript:Ben:So, I just moved back into my office after being away for six months, because COVID.Starr:I see that.Ben:And in the meantime, though, I had all my stuff at home. So I had my podcast setup, I had my monitor, my chair, everything. And while I was at home, I bought these new roller wheels for my chair, you know the ones that look like a roller blade wheels?Starr:The ball bearing ones.Ben:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at home I have a normal carpet. It's not shag, it's just standard carpet. But here I have those plastic things you put down so you can roll easier.Starr:Yeah.Ben:And so at home I didn't really notice much difference on those wheels on my carpet, but here it's really slippery, so now I'm sliding back, and forth, and all around. It's kind of fun.Josh:Nice.Ben:So, if you want something to entertain yourself, get some of those roller blade wheels for your chair, and then make sure you're on a smooth surface. It's hilarious.Josh:Yeah, yeah that's still on my list. I totally want to do that. I mean, I have wheels on my chair now, but it would just be a smoother ride. I feel like I could do some... Have some fun with that.Starr:What are you doing? Are you riding in your chairs? What are you doing in your chairs?Josh:Oh yeah. You don't like-Ben:You got to do something while you're running all those tests.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Just you can do spins, and...Starr:Y'all must have much more space than I do.Josh:Bounce off the walls.Ben:Next month I'm going to install a half pipe.Josh:All right.Starr:Well, now I'm only moving my chair around and I'm wondering is it moving easy enough? Do I need a smoother action on that?Josh:You need a performance chair. That's right.Starr:All right, well before we get started I should make a little announcement. This will be our last episode for a little while. I know I just scared y'all.Josh:Yeah, are you trying to-Ben:That's scary.Josh:... put people on edge?Starr:Yeah, for a little while, because, yeah, a bunch of us have leave coming up, and it's just going to be impossible to make it all work. Yeah, and we don't record podcasts while we're on vacation, because that's just, that's bad.Josh:And breaks are nice.Starr:Breaks are important, yeah.Josh:It's good to take a break.Josh:Yeah.Starr:It'll let our listeners not be tired of us anymore. They'll forget all the things we repeat all the time.Josh:Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, yeah, when we come back you'll have forgotten everything we say, and we'll just start from the beginning.Starr:Yeah.Josh:I think our plan is to come back with some fresh topics, and-Starr:Some fresh topics-Josh:... fresh attitudes.Starr:Oh, really? Okay, well.Josh:We'll see. We'll see how the election goes.Ben:That's one of the benefits of going on vacation, right? Is get that fresh attitude.Josh:Well, I think we'll see. This will be after November 4th, or whatever.Ben:Right.Josh:It's 4th, right? Yeah so, we'll see how our attitudes are.Starr:That's not the reason for this little break.Josh:No.Starr:But it is a benefit that we just don't have to be on the record.Josh:Yeah, listening to own cynicism in 10 years.Starr:Yeah, live covering this terrible last month.Ben:So awful.Ben:Can I just chip in on that for a second.Josh:Get it in now.Ben:We've tried to avoid being overtly political and stuff, but that made me think again about the stay in your lane comment, that some people like to throw at other people. Like, "Oh, you're a tech guy you should stay in your lane." We talked about this before, but that's just hogwash. We're all people, right? And we all have opinions, and we should all be able to share them in ways that are helpful, and ways that are critical, but ways that are always kind. I don't know. I don't buy this whole stay in your lane, you should only talk about X thing. I think we all have opinions about stuff, and we should feel free to share them.Starr:For that to be true it's like the sum of your humanity would be tech guy, which would be pretty sad.Ben:It would be.Starr:Right?Josh:Yeah.Starr:It's like all of us are more than tech person. Anyway...Ben:Agreed.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative)Ben:Agreed. Sorry, soapbox.Josh:Well, I think what we're saying is vote. Please vote.Ben:Please vote.Starr:There you go. Yeah.Josh:I mean, we got to get it in, get our-Ben:Yes.Starr:We're all just terrified.Josh:We're just doing our part.Starr:We're literally spending the next, I don't know, six weeks just in our closets. Okay, well. So we just did our Q... What is this? Q4? Q4 Conclave?Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative)Josh:Yeah. Final of the year.Starr:Yeah, normally, in normal times, we get together in an undisclosed location in a meeting room called the bunker. I'm being serious. And we have a big long all day meeting, in which we hash out what's going to happen with Honeybadger for the next quarter, and so since pandemic started, we've been doing this on Zoom, and so it was spreading out over days, because an all day Zoom meeting would just be like hell on earth. And yeah, so here we are, and we are so... That one went pretty smooth. There are no big changes, we got it done pretty quickly, we got it done in two days under schedule, which made me really happy.Ben:Yeah. My wife asked about that. She was like, "So, you doing another day of conclave?" I'm like, "No, we're done." She's like, "What? You're already done?" I'm like, "Well, yeah. This was shorter than they had been in the past." And I was thinking, "Why is that?" And I was like, "Well, our Q4, our plan basically is to try and wrap up stuff, nail down some of the things we've been working on." And there wasn't really any big new initiative, or big decisions we had to make, it's like, "Oh, well just do that in Q1." Right? Right now, it like we're coasting through the end of the year, I think, is the plan.Josh:Well, let's be honest. October is basically over. It's basically already November, so we're already halfway through the quarter.Ben:Is that pandemic time?Josh:I think so, yeah, but I mean, honestly we are, a lot of us are taking time off in October, and we're also probably going to take a lot of time off in December, like we always do. So realistically, we're not making major plans, I don't think, for any huge initiatives.Ben:True. True.Josh:It was really nice to finish something for the year. Can I just say that? It ...

Show notes:Links:CameoSarah CooperStiumulusReflex VideoJumpstart Whirly BoardFull Transcript:Ben:So we had a bit of an interesting COVID related thing in our household, so we have this grocery store that we love near us, it's called Haggen, it's a Northwest brand. So a lot of our listeners won't be familiar with it, but we love this place, it's a great little grocery store. My wife, who typically does the grocery shopping, hasn't been there in forever, because like, "I can just get stuff from Amazon Fresh." So we've been doing that, but finally, Amazon Fresh started running out of some of the things that we really want. So I think today was the first time in weeks, many, many weeks, that we've actually ventured out to the grocery store.Josh:Exciting.Starr:You went inside the grocery store?Ben:Inside the grocery store, yeah.Starr:Oh, my gosh.Ben:Just like the good old days.Starr:So you just love taking life in your own hands like that.Josh:I never took you for an adventurer.Starr:We're still doing the order online and then pick up outside the store thing.Ben:Yeah? I went and did a pick up for some teriyaki the other night, and there were actually people dining inside. It's like, "What? That's a thing?"Starr:I can't believe that. Florida just opened 100%, so I don't even know. I don't even know what's happening. So I did a little research over the weekend, like normally we record this podcast on Fridays, but we moved it to Monday, because I had a thing. So I had some time, I did a little research over the weekend, and I'm pretty sure that if we are willing to move the legal entity of Honeybadger Industries Incorporated, we can all move to Canada.Ben:Oh, yeah. I read something about that.Starr:Yeah, yeah. Get in on some of that sanity.Josh:Does Stripe have, like Stripe Atlas for moving your business out of the country?Ben:Great idea.Josh:Because it's a freebie.Starr:There you go.Ben:We should relocate the headquarters to Vernon, BC, then we can hang out with Justin.Starr:Oh, of course.Josh:There you go.Starr:Another place I know that does this is Scotland. I'm pretty sure that actually if you move a whole company, you can go anywhere you want.Josh:We've just got to get everyone, everyone has to be on board.Starr:Yeah, just like, "Yes, bring all your ..." Hire local people.Ben:Scotland versus Canada, that's a tossup, that's a hard one.Starr:Canada's a lot closer, it would be significantly less disruptive. Just mosey on over to Victoria or Vancouver.Ben:It would be kind of hard to drive that U-Haul over to Scotland.Starr:Yeah, that's true. But you get to hang out with Nessie, and that's always a bonus.Ben:Yeah, my kids are like, "Yeah, so when are we moving?" I'm like, "Well, first they have to let us in, then we can talk about the practicality of moving to Canada."Josh:Is that the bigger hurdle here?Starr:There you go, yeah. You can be like, "I've got a business. I have skills." What are you doing? Why are they going to let you in? You've got to prove your own worth.Ben:I did mention that, I'm like, "By the way, I'm the only person in this family that has a passport, so I can go, but what are you going to do?" Speaking of traveling though, we talked last time about the conference that I was going to, the Business of Software Conference, and that happened last week. It was the one that originally going to be in Boston, because that's where they hold it every year. I've got to say, while I loved the conference, it was great, even online, I did miss going to Boston. I've realized that I actually enjoy putting myself on a plane for six hours and having that trip.Josh:Yeah, it's nice to get out.Ben:It is. I miss traveling, I miss leaving.Josh:Can you imagine what the next time that we do go to a conference, how great that's going to be? Hopefully, hopefully it's good. I think for us, we probably will wait until we're sure it's not going to be a train wreck.Starr:I'm just going to bring my moon suit with my ... It's just a completely contained bubble and I just walk around inside.Ben:Yeah, I'm surprised that industry hasn't taken off in the past few months. Personal suits.Starr:Are those big transparent plastic balls that you just inflate with air and then you roll around?Josh:That would just be fun too.Starr:I haven't seen any of those.Josh:That's not a hard sell.Starr:I did see a guy with a beekeeper's mask on, like a beekeeper's helmet on. Beekeeper's helmets look weird, they look fedora-y, like milady. They look kind of milady-ish. It's this weird milady hat and then screen stuff coming down. I don't think that works, I don't think that works like you think it does, guy. The coronavirus is much smaller than a bee.Josh:He was wearing the screen too?Starr:Yeah, yeah. No, it was clearly a PPE measure just walking down the street.Ben:Those bees that carry that virus, they can't get through.Josh:That's true.Ben:So the big bubble thing though, Josh, reminded me of your whirly board or whatever it's called. How is that treating you?Josh:I'm on it right now, I'm standing on it right now.Starr:You're so level, I wouldn't even imagine.Josh:I was debating actually taking a minute to lower my desk so I can get off, just because, I don't know, the gain on my microphone, I've noticed since I got this Cloudlifter thing, it's a little more touchy and I don't want to be slamming on my desk, or I think every little movement's going to show up. But I like it, yeah. It's nice to have something to stand on that keeps you off balance.Starr:That's so un-intuitive.Ben:You look like you've mastered it, that's for sure.Josh:I'm getting there, yeah. As long as you just stand right in the middle and don't move around a whole lot, you're good.Ben:Nice.Starr:So when are we ... We're getting pretty close to launching Hook Relay, right?Ben:Yeah. Some people have found it on their own and started using it.Starr:Wait, what? Really?Ben:Yeah, yeah.Starr:We've got organic traffic?Ben:Yep.Starr:Is it officially launched yet though?Ben:It is not officially launched yet.Starr:That makes those people hackers, those are called hackers. We need to sue them.Ben:Maybe we'll just ask them questions instead, that's almost as bad as a lawsuit.Josh:Then build what they ask for.Ben:Yeah, it's close. Kevin just opened a PR for one of the last features, we have to write some documentation, but beyond that, it's ready. It's good. I'm excited.Josh:We even have an amazing welcome video.Ben:Yes. Josh knocked it out of the park on that one.Starr:I haven't seen it yet, I need to watch it.Ben:You should go sign for Hook Relay and check it out.Josh:You just have to sign up for Hook Relay.Starr:I haven't signed up, that's my problem. I just assume I'll get ushered in with VIP treatment.Ben:You know what we should do though? Josh, your video is fantastic, but ...

Show notes:Links:The B-52's - RoamThe Intelligent Investor - Benjamin GrahamRoam ResearchTiddlyWikiArt of The Product Podcast - Networking ThoughtsScrivenerJosh's BlogWrite for HoneybadgerFull transcript:Ben:So I had the first session of a conference that's happening online next week. It's the Business of Software conference.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:And it's happening Monday through Wednesday. But on Wednesday this week, they had the replacement for the meet and greet, the night before kind of thing where you just go and socialize, and meet other people that are at the conference. And it was of course, it's all online this time, it's not in Boston where it has been in past years.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:And so, the meet and greet was done on Zoom. And I was skeptical this was going to work out very well because big Zoom meetings, they're just not good. No one ever talks because everyone's afraid to talk over somebody else. But actually, it turned out really, really well. They did breakout rooms. So, they had at first everyone together, it was 50 people or whatever. And then, they did breakout rooms of five people, so you could actually just meet a couple of people at a time. And that was just great, and did a couple rounds of that. So, it really was the best ever type of meeting for conference like that. It's much better than yelling at people in a bar.Josh:Yeah. Well, you and I have always talked about the mixer events that they throw where the night progressively gets louder, and you eventually lose your voice.Ben:Right? Yep.Josh:Yeah. That's cool.Starr:And I mean, half the work for me in those events is creating my own breakout group anyway because the only way you actually get to talk to people is if you wrangle five or six people and get them away from the DJ, and just have a conversation with them.Josh:So, this does the work for you.Ben:Yep.Starr:Yeah.Josh:So, did you... How did they organize the breakout rooms? Was it in Slack or something, or did they have a list of them that you joined?Ben:No, Zoom apparently has this feature called Zoom Rooms.Josh:Oh.Ben:And you can just randomly assign segments of people into rooms.Josh:Oh, okay.Ben:And so, you just switch from main group-Josh:You hit a button?Ben:Yep. Yep.Josh:Huh.Ben:And in fact, you don't even... I didn't have to push a button. Whoever was running the show, pushed a button and all of a sudden, now I'm in a smaller room.Josh:Wow. That's cool.Ben:Yeah, it's pretty cool.Starr:Did they have moderation inside the breakout rooms, or was it a free for all in that small group?Ben:So, Mark who was running the show, he gave us some instructions for splitting off into the rooms. So, he wanted each of us to introduce ourselves, and come up with a question. And then, basically, once we got into the rooms it was like, "Okay. Go. Figure it out." And the first round was... Didn't work all that smoothly because no one knows what's going on, right? But then, we came back from that, we chatted a little bit about how it went, and so we came up with some new parameters like, "Okay, you should probably take just two minutes." Rather than the whole time because it was only a five minute window. So, the second round went a little bit better, smoother. But yeah, so there wasn't moderation. There was just like, "Hey, here's what you should go do. Go do that." And then, they corrected a little bit after there was some confusion. But yeah, it worked out really well.Josh:Nice. Were you already planning to go Business of Software before the pandemic, and they switched it?Ben:Yes. Yep.Josh:Okay.Ben:Yeah. So, I haven't signed up for any online conferences since the pandemic started because I just thought that they wouldn't be all that great.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But yeah, this one I had signed up for before. I even had the tickets purchased. And so, that's a thing where now I have a credit rather than a refund, and that kind of gets me.Josh:Right. They didn't refund any of the purchase price, I assume? They just switched it to online?Ben:Yep. Yep. That's right.Josh:Okay. Yeah, that's a pricey virtual event.Ben:It is a pricey event.Josh:Ben. Knowing... Yeah, if it's past rates.Ben:Yeah, it's the same as past rates. So, it is kind of a pricey conference. It's in the upper end of the ones we typically attend.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But it's a great conference to attend. If you're an entrepreneur, if you are involved with software in any shape or form, as a product manager, or as an engineering manager, it's a great conference to go to really take a break from your business, and hear from some great thought leaders, and get some good ideas. Each time, I've come... I've done this twice before I think, and each time I've come back with ideas for how to make Honeybadger better, and I think it's been really good. Really worth the investment.Josh:Yeah. The other attendees are like us I would assume too. Do most of them have established businesses, or are there a lot of people that are in the starting phase?Ben:No, I'd say the people there are more established.Josh:Okay.Ben:So, you're talking about businesses that are much larger than ours, and that have been around for 10s of years.Josh:Okay.Ben:So, it's not a lot of people who are in startups. But you know, the business software forums have been around forever, and these are that same kind of crowd. So, you get a lot of people who are working at fortune 500 companies and so on.Josh:Okay, nice.Ben:Yeah.Josh:I'll have to check that out one of these years.Starr:I've noticed it for virtual events. I do a weekly group on Zoom, and it usually draws a pretty good crowd. About 40 or 50 people. And comparing it to other less formal groups I've been a part of, it seems like structure is really the key to an enjoyable group experience in Zoom.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:And basically, letting people know what's expected of them. Like Ben mentioned, when they went into breakout rooms, the moderator was like, "Okay, here's what you're supposed to. Go figure it out." And so, it's like everybody has a task to work on, or everybody... Everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing. The places where I struggle on Zoom meetings is when it's people that I'm not really super familiar with, and there's no structure, and you're just supposed to talk.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:That's just when I tend to go into crickets mode.Josh:Yeah. That's the kind of thing that makes it hard for me to even show...

Show notes:Links:San Francisco Looking Like Blade RunnerThe Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791The Radicalism of the American RevolutionA People's History of the United StatesHitler: 1889-1936 HubrisThe DispossessedI, RobotThe Murderbot DiariesFoundationThe Unicorn ProjectOpen Yale Courses - The American RevolutionMy Brilliant FriendBona Fide MasksFull transcription:Starr:I got to tell you guys, this was just... I don't know. This makes up for the rest of 2020 for me personally but when I took all this equipment that I had bought for the fiber optic link between my house and the new office, and I hooked it up to the cable that had been buried by electricians who didn't really know what they were doing. Regarding fiber. And I hooked everything up. It just all worked the first time.Josh:Wow.Ben:Wow.Starr:That was the most... This is the most amazing thing. I think that's what I need to get me through the rest of this year.Josh:For real.Starr:I'm just going to think back to that golden moment.Josh:Yeah. I still can't get anything but Comcast here and on top of that, we can barely breathe now because of the smoke outside.Starr:Oh yeah. I see the window behind you. It looks kind of apocalyptic.Josh:Can you see that?Starr:I can see it, yeah.Josh:It is daytime right now.Starr:I know. I know.Josh:It is so dark.Starr:Oh my gosh.Ben:I read that yesterday, it was so bad in San Francisco that the birds didn't even realize it was daytime.Starr:Really?Ben:Yep.Starr:Well, poor birds.Josh:Yeah, none of the roosters are crowing either.Starr:Yeah. I've just got to say though, Coit Tower in San Francisco was made for these apocalyptic red sky pictures. It's that really pointy tower.Josh:Yeah. Did you see the drone footage that someone did with the... Was it Blade Runner?Ben:Uh-huh.Josh:Yeah, the soundtrack.Ben:Yep.Starr:Oh, I need to find that.Ben:The air quality's been frustrating for me this week because I got my new kayak, and I was on vacation. I was like, "Yes, I'm going to paddle everyday all day long." And no. I did not paddle everyday all day long.Starr:Oh, that's frustrating.Josh:Yeah. Well, I was thinking about you this week. How is it up there anyway? Because I was like, if you all are dealing with any of the stuff that we have done here, I wouldn't want to be out on a river right now.Ben:Yeah. Well, earlier in the week, we were getting Easterly winds. So, we were getting smoke from the fires in Eastern Washington. And so, our air quality index was hovering in the low 100s. So, 100 to 120-ish in my neck of the woods. And then, as of last night, now we're getting Southernly winds, so now we're getting the California, and Oregon smoke. So, now it's gone up... I think we're around the 200ish neighborhood. So, everyday I was hoping the next day would be a little bit better and everyday, it wasn't. So, finally on Thursday I'm like, "I'm just going." So, I just went and luckily, I didn't get overwhelmed by all the smoke. I was able to successfully complete the maiden voyage of the kayak.Josh:Did you enjoy it?Ben:Yeah. It was nice.Josh:Was it a good paddle?Ben:Yeah, it was great.Josh:Nice.Ben:Yeah.Josh:That's good.Starr:Yeah. It's hazy here and unpleasant to breathe the air but it's not... It doesn't have the same world is ending vibes that are in Oregon, and San Francisco.Josh:Yeah. Apparently, you know Mike Perum, he was telling me that the air quality index inside his house is over 300.Ben:Oh, wow.Josh:Yeah.Starr:How's he measuring that?Josh:Yeah. They are headed North. Yeah, he's got a little... I don't know. A little meter. Yeah.Starr:Oh, that's so cool.Josh:Yeah, I want one now.Ben:I found that you can buy them from Purple Air.Josh:Oh, really?Ben:Purpleair.com. Yes, they have both internal and external monitors. And they have a crowd sourced map of your local neighborhood air quality. Assuming, that someone in your neighborhood has one of their devices.Josh:Interesting. Okay. Oh, that's cool.Ben:Yeah.Starr:Oh, cool.Josh:Yeah. I didn't really know anything about air quality... Like majoring air quality before. We've never really... Our air has always been pristine.Ben:Yeah. When you live in Washington state, it's like, "Yeah, the air's good."Josh:Yeah.Ben:Pretty much always.Starr:Yeah. It just comes in from the ocean, and it's always fresh. But apparently, if the air, or the ocean is full of smoke, then you're just... Yeah.Starr:Yes.Josh:The worst part about this is it could not stop raining this Spring when we were all stuck quarantined inside. It just would not stop raining. And now, we're stuck inside due to the smoke and we just wish it could rain because it would dampen everything and it just won't rain. It's really doing the opposite.Starr:Yeah. Well, fortunately, I bought a bunch of... A resperator type mask, not the cloth masks, and they actually... If you wear one of those, you can't actually smell smoke in the air outside.Josh:Oh.Starr:Yeah. So, we just ordered 100 more of those just to have stockpiled. Yeah. So, we got those masks.Josh:And you look really cool when you go for your daily walks.Starr:Yes. So, I wear the... I use a respiratory type mask. They're not N95, they're KN95.Josh:Oh.Starr:By, I guess a reputable company that's been approved for use by the FDA for medical stuff or something. And so, they're legit good masks. And I tend to wear them whenever I go into enclosed spaces.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Or anywhere outside now. I guess everywhere. But I always wonder, do people think I'm too bougie because of my masks that I special order? Do they think I'm putting on airs?Josh:Well, I mean, maybe if you lived outside of Seattle. Yeah, I don't know. There's got to be other... You got to have some fellow mask wearers that you meet on the street and just quietly nod to.Starr:Oh, totally.Ben:All you got to do is get some big baggie pants, some big old boots, strap a keyboard across your back and then you can be all like, "Yeah. I'm Blade Runner cyberpunk."

Show Notes:Links:Horrorstör Tiny MBAGreat NutsAntiRSIMotivAiderPomodoro TechniqueFull Transcript:Starr:So, I've got to say, this is kind of a brag. It's completely off topic but I've got to tell somebody. I'm very proud of myself. You know how in any... I don't know. Whenever you watch movies or TV about prison, or weird situations, there's always somebody who's a genius at making booze, right?Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh, yeah. Like the trash bag or whatever?Starr:Yeah. You take whatever's in your environment and you somehow make booze out of it. Well, I think I'm kind of like that with ice cream. I think I'm the same with ice cream.Josh:Some garbage bag ice cream?Starr:No, not garbage bag ice cream. But I was just like... Yesterday, I was like-Josh:Some bathtub ice cream?Starr:Yesterday I was like, "I really want ice cream but I don't have any cream."Josh:Gotcha. Okay.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. So, I was like, "Okay. I need my fat source. I need my source of milk solids. I need a sugar source."Josh:Yeah, you're going all chemist on it.Starr:Oh yeah, yeah, totally. It does harken back into the chemistry stuff. But actually, it turns out, if you take a can of sweetened condensed milk, and a package of Philadelphia cream cheese, and you add a little bit of milk to dilute them, and then blend them in a blender, and then put them in an ice cream maker, it makes pretty serviceable ice cream. It's a little bit sweet for my taste but it worked out.Josh:It's good to know.Josh:Sounds like some sort of new form of gelatto or something.Starr:Yeah. Something like that.Josh:I don't know. You got to come up with a name for that.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Like your own name.Starr:I don't know.Josh:Yeah. We don't have to do it on the air. I'm not... Not to put you on the spot.Starr:No. No. I'm not going to give that way to... I'm not going to give that away. You got to pay for that.Starr:Yeah. So, on Monday, we had our all hands meeting and... Except Ben wasn't here because he was taking some sort of time of which is just amazing. It's unprecedented.Josh:Yeah. Can we say why, Ben?Ben:I suppose.Josh:It's because Monday was Ben's birthday. Happy birthday, Ben.Starr:Oh, happy birthday.Ben:Thank you. Thank you.Josh:I'm pretty sure he hates this. So, I'm sorry, this is not your birthday present.Starr:I'm sorry. We won't sing. We won't sing.Ben:There was no ice cream involved but there was cream cheese. My birthday dessert was cream cheese sopapilla. So tasty.Starr:Oh.Josh:Nice.Ben:Yes. Yes.Starr:Oh, nice.Josh:Sounds good.Starr:I'm really curious what that's like. But anyway, the thing that you missed, you missed our all hands meeting. It was lonely without you but we made do. And we had an interesting conversation I thought about the way that which we work, right? We're all working on computers all day. We all feel rushed. We're doing this stuff. It leads to surmounting pressure and tension. And I really enjoyed having a conversation with everybody about that. I learned that some people are into yoga in our office. I'm a little bit into yoga. I'm a baby yoga person. A baby yogee. We talked about balance boards, and how Josh is like... I don't know. It just seems like Back To The Future to me, you're on the hoverboard all day, just sitting there typing.Josh:It does kind of feel like a hoverboard, yeah.Starr:Yeah?Josh:I'm not on it right now.Starr:Well, unfortunately.Josh:Just because I... I don't know.Starr:You should do that more-Josh:I know If I always used it during the podcast, I know that at some point I'll probably wipe out.Starr:That's why I was saying you should do it. We should capture that.Starr:Yeah. Yeah. I discussed a little bit about how I found that just trying to do things quickly is kind of stressful. And so, things that are... Email checking that doesn't require a bunch of... It's not too thoughtful and I tend to just be like, "Delete. Delete. Delete." Just go through as quick as possible. I've been trying to purposely slow that down just a little bit. And we're talking about it adds an extra five minutes. So, not really that much longer, and that's helpful. I'm not saying I want to do the whole podcast about this, I just wanted to mention that because I just really enjoyed talking with everybody about that stuff. I think that's a good... It makes me happy that we're doing these bi-weekly check ins.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it was a good chat.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. That reminded me, I had to turn off my bell of mindfulness because I realized it was probably going to chime.Starr:Oh, you did? So, you go one?Josh:Well, I downloaded the app to check it out, and turn the thing on. So, every 15 minutes or whatever it dings.Starr:Oh yeah. I forgot I told y'all about that. So, that is-Josh:Yeah. I kind of like it actually. It's... Yeah, you have to say what it is but yeah, it's cool. It does bring you out of the moment and then lets you refocus.Starr:Yeah. So, it's just a really simple app. It's the plum village app which is... It's released by this monastery in France, it's a Buddhist monastery and as part of it... I mean, it's all free and stuff but as part of it, they have this basically that will... It's this meditation bell, this really long, and really... You have an option of a couple of them.Josh:Yeah.Starr:And it just rings every 15 minute so you just remember to be like, "Oh yeah, I exist in the world. I'm not just eyes looking and fingers typing."Josh:Yeah. It came about in this discussion on Monday I think because we got talking about when you're in deep focus at work, especially on a computer, I think Starr you mentioned you've experienced this and I have too to some extent, you can get really absorbed to the point where you're almost in some kind of... I don't know. It can be a little stressful after a while because... At least for me, I find myself, my breathing tends to get more shallow, and I stop blinking. So, having something to break you out of that and remind you, "Oh, you shouldn't work for... You shouldn't spend two hours in that state." And pomodoro technique for instance is something people created to create some sort of more focused schedule where you still remember to take breaks and let your mind wander and stuff.Josh:So, to me, this seems a little bit... It fulfills a little bit of that. It's not as structured but it's just a thing that reminds you, prompts you basically to stop and think for a minute before continuing in your work or whatever.Starr:Yeah. It's really cute because my little daughter is... She's obviously noticed there's a bell going off. And so, I told her what it was, "It's like, you take your breath." And so, she'll hear it, and she'll just be like, "Hmm-Ha." And then, just go back to whatever she was doing. But it's cute because it's so... It's kind of just like... I mean, it's "I'm just going to take this breath then I'm going to...

Show Notes:Links:NotionBasecampAmanuensisNeuralinkFull Transcript:Starr:Well, what's up in y'alls worlds?Ben:Went out kayaking yesterday, that was nice.Starr:Oh, nice.Josh:Cool.Starr:Did you get that foldable one you were talking about?Ben:I did order, but it is back-ordered, so I have not yet received it.Starr:Damn.Josh:It's like this was a bad time for everyone to wait to purchase these things they were putting off for their recreation time.Ben:Exactly.Josh:Till they have forced time on their hands.Ben:Yeah.Starr:Yeah, totally. We went canoeing on our little vacation a couple of weeks ago, and it was really nice. It was one of those things where I was kind of dreading it because we had Ida with us. But it actually turned out being really calm and peaceful, and all that. It was just very nice.Josh:Where did you go, Ben?Ben:Out on the Sammamish River, which is right near me.Ben:Yeah. We went from Redmond towards Lake Sammamish but there's a little area with a bit of turbulence, and we were in an inflatable kayak, so we were not able to proceed. Some people might call them rapids, but I mean, it's-Josh:Did you do some sick rapids?Ben:No. We turned around. But it was a nice little cruise.Josh:You're going to wait for the paper kayak-Ben:Right.Josh:... for the rapids? Part origami.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:Yeah. We ordered an inflatable one.Ben:Yeah, I think they're fun.Starr:Yeah. It's-Josh:I should do that. We've got some rivers around here.Ben:The only trick is, like where we go is rocky, so every time we're done I have to inspect the bottom for new holes.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:So ...Starr:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:As long as I remember to do that it's okay. Because otherwise-Josh:Does the water get low in places.Ben:Yeah, it gets pretty low.Josh:Okay.Starr:How does that work when you're out there? Do you just look for bubbles-Ben:Yeah.Starr:... coming out from under you? You just keep an eye out for bubbles?Ben:Or you start to feel lower in the water, and you're like, "Oh, I think I've lost some air."Starr:I guess that would make sense. Yeah.Ben:Yeah. Do carry the patch kit with us whenever we go out.Ben:Good news is, it's pretty easy to patch.Starr:People have been saying the '90s are coming back, so low riders are in, so low rider canoes I imagine are the next step for that.Ben:For sure.Starr:Definitely. We have some good news. I don't know if this ... I'm just going to say it and then you can tell me if it's public or not. But we got our SOC 2 report done, right?Ben:Yeah.Starr:We got that in?Ben:Yeah. That's why I'm feeling a little tired today. I think it's like, finally got over the finish line and now I'm just collapsing. It's post-marathon, just dying.Josh:Yeah.Starr:I know.Josh:Time for a vacation.Ben:Yeah. Just scheduled it.Josh:Nice.Starr:Good.Ben:Yeah. It's not public yet, because I haven't written the blog post yet. But, yeah, that's on my to-do list.Starr:But it's not a secret?Ben:It's not a secret. We did get-Starr:Just between us and our listeners, we can share.Ben:We did get our type 1 report for our SOC 2 audit, so I'm pretty excited.Josh:Yeah. Congratulations.Ben:Thanks. It was a team effort.Starr:No, not really. A team of one, yeah.Josh:I mean, I'll take credit for reading some policies, and-Starr:Yeah. I read some policies, and I was like, I guess this makes sense. I don't really understand it. Okay. Yeah. But-Josh:I did learn a lot throughout.Ben:We talked about this briefly a couple weeks ago. I saw this idea of building a site ... some sort of resource for startups like us, to get more familiar with what the compliance process is, and just demystifying that whole thing. I think I know a lot more now than I did when I started, and I think there's a lot that could be explained in layman's terms to help entrepreneurs understand what the whole thing is about, and why you might want to go through the whole process, and why you might not want to go through the whole process. I know we talked about this ... When we got started down this road, we're like, "Do we really want to do this?"Josh:Yeah.Ben:We didn't really know how to answer that question. Like, "Oh, I guess."Josh:It's not for everyone.Ben:Yeah. It really isn't. Yeah.Josh:Yeah. We should totally do that.Starr:Because one of the reasons we didn't know if we should go down that road was because nobody would tell us what that road actually was. It was all just a bunch of vague ... it was this very vague thing. It's a road you go down, but you can see about a foot in front of you. At least that's what it felt like to me.Ben:Yeah. And people who have been down that road are like, "Well, I'm not going to tell you anything about it. I'll let you find out on your own."Starr:It depends. You can pay me a retainer.Ben:Yeah. Part of the problem is, there aren't many small startups like us who have done it. Most of the people who do that are larger organizations, and for them, it's not even a question. It's like, well, they have to because of whatever.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Ben:There really aren't people like us who can say, "Well, here's what I did and here's why you might want to do something like it."Josh:What are some reasons not to pursue that path?Ben:It's very expensive.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:You're guaranteed to be spending tens of thousands of dollars. There's no way around that. And it's very time consuming. It took a lot of time to put together everything, and then go through the audit itself is actually pretty time consuming as well, because you have to provide so many evidences of the things that are part of that process.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Those are some pretty good reasons why not to do it. It's experience, and time consuming.Josh:If no one's going to care anyway then the trade off doesn't work.Ben:Yeah. For sure.Josh:Just don't do it.Ben:I mean, we got started on the path because we got customers asking about it, and that is really it. If you have sales that are being held back-Josh:Someone actually cares.Ben:Yeah.Josh:That affects your bank account.Ben:And if you can't talk your way out of it.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Because there are things that you can do, and this is part of the resource site that I'm thinking about putting together. Because there are things that you can do that are short of full compliance audit, that will help alleviate concerns for people who are asking you for a SOC 2 report, who are asking you for your security posture. And no one who has any vested interest in this whole thing, like auditors, or consultants, no ones going to tell you that. Like, "Oh, by the way, there's this really cheap approach you can take, which sh...

Show Notes:Links:Snow CrashMicrosoft Flight Simulator glitchGoogle deprecation article by Steve YeggeSwiss ArmyBadass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy SierraHerokuFull Transcript:Josh:This is just why I know. I know that whatever happens in November, it's just going to get... It's going to get crazier. No matter what.Starr:I do feel like... More and more I feel like I'm inside of a cyber punk novel. Not really a William Gibson, Chiba City, going to get your bioware implanted or whatever but more of a Neil Stevenson Snow Crash type of situation where you have to... Everybody lives in gated communities, and the gated communities are owned by the different franchises. So, you live in the KFC gated community, and you worship the Colonel and all that.Josh:Or you live in a super PAC community.Starr:Yeah, exactly.Josh:Where they have your videos playing on billboards for everyone who drives by.Starr:Exactly. And the hero of the story is just this girl trying to deliver some pizzas through this wasteland of a country.Josh:Okay, this really is just Snow Crash, isn't it?Starr:Yeah. Pretty much. The only difference is the way the internet's played out is that we have a lot less sword fights.Josh:Right.Starr:I don't really just interact... I don't go online and just find myself in a seedy bar with my samurai sword.Josh:You got to give VR a chance to develop because you never... There might be more sword fights in the future.Ben:As long as you don't mind having a Facebook account since now, apparently that's a Facebook account for Oculus.Josh:Oh, Facebook sword?Ben:Well, you saw that news about Oculus. They're now-Josh:I did.Ben:Yeah. I had a friend of mine here in Seattle who said, "Okay. Well, I've got an Oculus for sale if anybody wants it."Josh:Really?Ben:Yep.Josh:Yeah. I never... I would not have bought an Oculus after Facebook acquired them. Maybe for that... Not necessarily for that specific reason but that's as good a reason as any.Josh:Obviously, they're going to do something with it in their interest.Ben:Obviously.Starr:Yeah, my house is too small too. I just break everything. It seems like you need a fair amount of free space to have some sort of VR set up.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Or you can gesticulate and not destroy priceless family artifacts.Josh:Yeah, I don't even know. I tried one of the very early ones and it was like that but I'm not sure how far they've come since then.Starr:I know. Eventually, they'll refine it to the point where instead of having to jester around, you just have this little device that you hold in your hand and you can just move your fingers small distances.Josh:Oh. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I see where you're going with that.Starr:Yeah.Ben:Well, in non-VR gaming news, Microsoft Flight Simulator was released this week.Josh:Is that what I... I saw something that looked a lot like that and then the page refreshed and it went away. For a split second, I was like, "Holy crap. Is that Flight Simulator?"Ben:It is. Yeah.Starr:Did y'all hear about the OpenStreetMap thing with that? Okay, this is great. I actually didn't realize that it was just released but I read about this glitch. So, somebody... So, there's an open street map, right? That's... I'm getting the name right, right?Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:Okay.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Starr:OpenStreetMap is people's open source version of Google Maps. So, you can go and get these maps and do whatever you want with them. So, it's maintained like Wikipedia by an army of volunteers. And I guess somebody in I think Melbourne, made a typo, and instead of... I don't know. Instead of listing a building as three stories, they listed as something like 3,000 stories. And so, Microsoft when they were developing the flight simulator, they went and got the OpenStreetMap data and they didn't scrub it or anything. And so, if you're flying in Melbourne, it's Melbourne and then this one really narrow building that goes up just like a giant monolith in the sky.Josh:That's amazing.Starr:And there's all these pictures on Twitter of people flying around it, going like, "What is this?"Ben:That's great.Josh:It's just a glitch in the data.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Wow. This is because Microsoft... I mean, this would never happen to Google Flight Simulator, I feel like. They don't use OpenStreetMap, do they? They've got their own... They've got Google cars.Ben:Yeah. But the problem with Google Flight Simulator would be that in three years, they would trash it. They would end it.Josh:Right. Because no one would play it. Or, not enough people would play it. Like 500,000 people would play but they'd be like, "We need 500,000,000 to play this."Ben:Exactly.Josh:"If it's going to be..."Ben:Exactly. Yeah, that's been in the news recently too. Google Cloud, and Steve... I don't know how you pronounce his last name. Yegge, maybe? Had this blog post about how Google deprecates so much all the time that... Why would you even build on it? And it's notable because Steve is an ex-Googler. And not just a luminary in the field in general but having worked there, he was pretty annoyed that he'd have to rebuild all of his stuff every few years just because Google likes to turn things off.Josh:Yeah. It's not a great policy.Ben:That's definitely a consideration that we had when we were shopping around for hosting, comparing AWS versus Google. That wasn't the primary consideration but that was an issue. My primary consideration was it's really easy apparently, to get your Google Cloud account shut off, and hard to get it returned back on.Josh:Wow.Ben:So, they made me pretty skittish.Starr:Based on complaints, or third parties, or what?Ben:No, based on automated algorithms at Google for detecting abuse.Starr:Oh.Josh:Nice.Starr:Oh, wow.Ben:Yeah, exactly.Josh:So, that's a good selling point.Starr:Great. Yeah.Josh:"Our platform is so free of abuse that you can't even use it."Ben:So, yeah, there have been a variety of Hacker News posts about people-Starr:Or it's, "Amazon just bills you for the abuse."Ben:Exactly. Amazon's just, "Oh, just pay us. We'll be fine."Josh:I guess with that Bitcoin money that you're mining.Ben:Exactly.Josh:Wow.Ben:Anyway, so yeah, so I think not a good idea to play Google Flight Simulator because halfway through your flight, they'll just turn it off.Josh:Just in the middle of the-Starr:Well, I don't know. They might keep it around because they got to train those self-flying planes.Ben:Oh, yeah. Yeah.Josh:Oh, yeah.Ben:That makes me think though, what would be really hard, so it'll be Google Airlines. Would you really want to fly in that air...

Show NotesLinks:_whyRuby's Exceptional CreaturesWeinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone MethodAudience OpsPeter CooperDocsketchProofHubScribendiDeltaWalkerNotionHoneybadger Developer BlogFull Transcript:Starr:I wonder if any of our listeners are too young to know what SOAP is, like SOAP?Josh:I'm guessing so.Ben:Yeah.Starr:SOAP is what we have before REST APIs and JSON. It was interesting.Ben:It was hell.Starr:Yeah. I dipped my toes in that water a little bit and just gave up.Ben:Every time I hear SOAP I think of DHHs slide at that one RailsConf early on where he had the WS-Death Star. It was great.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Because all the... I guess I should explain that. It's all of the, I guess, it was schema domain or the name space, everything started with WS, and so they started referring to the different... Because there was, I don't know, 10 or 20 or whatever, there were a lot of them, and so they called them WS-Star, to represent all of his schemas that went into that whole SOAP definition. So DHH made fun of it by calling it the WS-Death Star.Josh:I see.Starr:Oh, I get it. I didn't get that joke to begin with. And the schemas are XML schemas.Ben:Right. Yeah, it's all... yes.Josh:It's all the good stuff.Starr:Yeah-Ben:All the fun java land things that you could ever want.Josh:I feel like I remember having at one point to take a SOAP endpoint and build a REST wrapper for it or something so that we could interface with... I don't know, I can't remember exactly, but I feel like that happened.Ben:That's a special level of pain.Josh:It was terrible.Starr:Did you use to do some freelance work for the mouse?Josh:Oh, yes. Mickey Mouse?Starr:Yeah, that mouse.Josh:Yeah, uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:That just sounds like something they would have had you do, I'm not sure though. I don't know.Josh:Yeah. We're not saying their name just in case they decide to sue us, right?Starr:Oh, yeah, yeah.Ben:At some point, we may want to monetize this podcast, and we can't have the copyright taking us down.Josh:We can't have the... Yeah.Starr:Well-Josh:That does sound like something that they would do.Ben:Yeah, it does, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Well, today, I don't know if we've had unanimous consensus on this, but I think we're going to talk about blogging and content and I've done a bunch of paid content acquisition recently, and y'all want to talk about that stuff?Ben:Oh, yeah.Josh:Sure.Starr:All right, I don't know, there was a time back when blogs were the thing. You started a company, then you need a blog. I'm thinking 2005-ish, 2007, and I remember getting started blogging, I didn't know what I was doing then at all. I produced some terrible content with no real purpose, and since then I've learned a lot, like you do when you, I guess, do something off and on for a decade. Even if you don't really try, I guess you learn some stuff. Y'all had blogs too, right? Your personal tech blogs.Ben:Yeah. And it's sad, they're pretty lonely these days, somewhat abandoned.Starr:Oh, yeah, me too. Me too. I think starrhorne.com is still up, but I don't know. Don't go there, don't go there anybody. Anyway when we started Honeybadger, obviously, we had to have a blog and we just took the approach that I think a lot of people do, which is you write a blog post about what you're working on, you write a blog post and you do a new feature and you want to talk about it, or when... I don't know, just something occurs and... That did fine for a while, the main problem I found with that approach though is that everybody just gets too busy to write blog posts.Starr:Yeah, I feel like back in the day there was this real feeling like, oh, everybody's having blogs, it's this community thing, you'd link to your-Josh:You've got to have one.Starr:... blogs... Yeah, yeah. And you're having discussions by writing blog articles back and forth, and people don't really do that anymore. Since then, it's become a lot more, I don't know... When I look at a lot of company blogs these days, I just see, pardon me French, garbage.Josh:The earlier days of blogging actually were kind of cool, because everything was still... there was no standardization, everything was unique and... Actually, I didn't even have blog, initially, I had a weblog, I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure it was a weblog.Starr:Oh. Yeah, I don't know, it seemed much more of a discussion, because I guess there was... people weren't just uniformly on Twitter or I guess, Reddit or whatever people use these days. I don't know. I don't know what the children are using.Josh:The were on all those things that we talked about last episode.Starr:Exactly.Josh:Or whatever, BBS'sStarr:Yeah, they fall in with just having everybody do a blog post when they feel like it, is that that nobody really feels like it kind of thing, because writing is hard and it's... I don't know. Plus when you're starting company, you have a billion things to do and a lot of them feel more important than writing some blog post, especially when you don't have a strategy or anything around it.Starr:Then, I don't know when this was, it was around the time when we started going to a bunch of conferences and stuff. I decided, okay, Starr, I'm going to write one blog post a day. And so I had a flurry of activity for about, I don't know, three, four, five months, where I just turned out tons and tons of blog content. And actually, I was really surprised, that started getting some results. In terms of people coming up to me at conferences... I'd never had that happen before where people come up to me and say, "Hey, you're Starr. You wrote this thing. That's cool." And it floored me the first couple times it happened, and then-Josh:That started happening to me too, by the way. Where people would come up to me at conferences and be like, "Hey, you know Starr?"Starr:Oh, really?Josh:Uh-huh (affirmative).Starr:Oh, my gosh. I guess I'm famous.Josh:Yeah. People would always mention your blog posts, still do.Starr:Yeah, that's amazing. Some people still reference these blog posts I wrote years ago.Josh:Yeah.Starr:So I guess the one thing I learned there is that posting frequency is really important, probably, more than quality even. I'm not going to say that, but getting stuff out there frequently is important. And I actually did some stats analysis type stuff of our overall revenue. I did this about a year ago, and showed that growth in our revenue was correlated to growth in posting frequency during at least a time when I was doing a lot of posting, which was kind of strange to see. I don't know ...