What's up everybody, this is Cortland from ndhackers.com where I talk to the founders
of profitable internet businesses and I try to get a sense of what's going on behind
the scenes so that the rest of us can learn from their mistakes and their successes.
Today I'm talking to Tobias Van Snyder.
For those of you who've never heard of Tobias, he was the lead product designer and art director
at Spotify, but I hesitate to describe him or label him as just a designer because he's
really so much more than that.
I think of him more as just an extremely prolific and accomplished maker of things and an all-around
nice guy.
Now this episode is a bit different than other episodes I've done in the past for a couple
of reasons.
Usually when I bring someone on, I'll do a bunch of research beforehand and try to think
of some interesting questions to ask and topics to discuss.
My conversation with Tobias is a lot more raw and conversational and free-flowing than
most other episodes.
It's also much less edited than other episodes and as a result it runs a lot longer.
I usually try to cut things down to about an hour, but this one runs way over that and
I think it's worth it.
Tobias is one of those rare people who's been successful over and over again and whenever
that's the case, there are also lots of failures behind the scenes.
So I think in this conversation you get a really clear picture of both sides of that
equation.
It's also really illuminating to see so many of Tobias' stories back-to-back and if you
pay close attention you can pick up on a few patterns for how he thinks about the world
that help explain why so many of the things he does end up working out.
So I apologize for the length, but I think you guys are really going to enjoy this conversation
if you stick through it to the end.
So without further ado, Tobias van Schneider.
I'm excited to be joined by Tobias van Schneider.
How's it going Tobias?
Hey, I'm doing well.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, thanks for coming on the show.
You came by San Francisco, I don't know how long ago, it was like two or three months.
It feels like it was just like last week, but you got lunch.
I believe it was in July.
Yeah, July.
You came and got lunch with me at Stripe and then we went back to my place and we just
like talked about what you were up to with some police and what I'm up to with Andy Hackers
and it was a really good conversation.
So it's pretty cool to be able to like follow up with you now and see how things are going
and maybe have like the same conversation in front of a whole bunch of people.
Yeah I would like that.
It's kind of funny, we just went for lunch at your workplace and then we ended up at
your home.
Yeah, I was not expected, I had so much to do but it was like six hours just talking.
Yeah, actually it was quite a long time, it was really good.
So to give people, can you give people some understanding of who you are and the things
that you've accomplished and who is Tobias van Schneider?
I mean, or let's put it this way, I'm just going to give a quick like a short primer
basically so you don't know me, I'm assuming and so I'm Tobias, I'm German, so I'm born
in Germany.
I grew up in Austria which is just south from Germany, same language, not that much difference.
Briefly moved to Stockholm after that to work for another company and eventually ended up
in New York where I live right now and I work as a designer.
I don't always work as a designer, I used to be a developer.
I mean, I'm self-taught so you don't really know or I don't really know what category
you want to put me but I actually started out working when I was 15, dropped out of
high school, started becoming a computer scientist and a software engineer, I sort of like did
an apprenticeship in Austria.
Are you familiar with apprenticeships?
We don't really have them like officially in the US but it sounds like it's kind of
an official thing that the government recognizes in Austria.
Yeah, so it's a very normal thing to do in Austria or Germany or at least it used to
be.
The apprenticeship thing comes from more traditional jobs, you know, like woodworking or something
like that and they kind of like applied it to more modern jobs.
So you just work at a company for three and a half years as scientists and they try to
train you and then if you succeed working there for three years, they will eventually
take you over and actually pay you some actual money.
So that basically just got me into computers.
I was repairing computers, building computers.
I was so interested in the hardware which is why I was interested in becoming a computer
scientist.
At some point, I was becoming more into the software and I was a horrible software engineer
but I was really into it and the more I got into software engineering, the more I found
out that I love front-end and at the time, there was no such thing as a designer or UX
or UI or whatever designer, like all software engineers essentially designed their own software.
So I didn't really understand that.
So everything was ugly.
Yeah, you could say that.
At the time I was working for a company, they did software for hospitals, you know, something
you can imagine quite sensitive things that you have to do there.
And yeah, I just got obsessed with spending more time on front-end development and I think
at some point, a friend of mine or someone was like, hey Tobias, it sounds like you kind
of want to become a designer.
Like yeah, I guess.
I don't know.
I just love doing front-end and improving apps and that was basically the time I switched
and became, you know, a self-taught designer.
And since then I have just worked as a designer.
After I moved to New York, I worked for a company called, well, first I worked for Stink
Digital and then Fantasy Intact, I've worked for a range of big clients doing websites,
apps, and then eventually I ended up working at Spotify for two and a half years as well,
which is now already also two and a half years ago.
And I worked there as an art director and lead product designer, which was quite an
experience as well.
So I think my design path basically took me through all of the traditional design from
branding to, you know, print design, then more into web design.
And I remember, when did the iPhone came out, 2007 or the app store, I think followed actually
quite a little later.
It was like 2008 probably, right?
Yeah, like a year or two later.
I remember when the app store came out, that was when I was already doing web design a
couple of years before that.
But then the app store came out and everyone was just talking about apps and app design.
And I think that was the moment I basically just followed the money, I would assume, and
just started doing apps.
And that eventually got me more into product design.
And since then, I've just been, I just love product design.
You know, I've always been kind of like, it's really hard to say, I just love creating and
making things, you know, so I don't, I think, and you probably know that as well.
I think when I was younger, there was never really, like, everyone was always trying to
find the perfect shoe for you, you know, you need to fit into this box.
They're telling you, well, you're just that, you know, you're just a designer or you're
just a software engineer or something.
But for some reason, I always loved combining all of these things and just making stuff
and creating things and being a jack of all trades.
And I think it took me quite a long time to actually find the confidence to be like, yeah,
that's me, you know, and that's totally fine.
I don't have to focus on just one thing.
Yeah, I mean, you've done a ton of stuff, you've got a newsletter with like 30,000 subscribers,
you've got a blog, you had a podcast for a while, you put together mixtapes.
You're a lead product designer at Spotify, you're running a profitable SaaS business
with a bunch of employees.
You're extremely prolific.
I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the variety of the things that
you've worked on, which I think is super cool because, you know, every time I have a podcast,
I kind of prepare and I read and I listen to other things that the guest has done.
And usually I end up coming up with a whole bunch of different questions to ask.
But when I was reading all of your stuff, I ended up just thinking of like points that
I wanted to make myself, not even questions that I wanted to ask you.
I think that's really cool because it means that what you're writing is like really thought
provoking and really interesting and that you spend a lot of time besides creating just
thinking and writing about things.
I'm thankful that you mentioned that.
I think the blogging thing or writing thing is a fairly new one for me.
I think I started writing just about close to three years ago.
Before that, I didn't write anything at all.
So for me, writing has just become this new outlet of because it's also creating in a
way you could say and writing helps me to think because it's really just thinking in
a different way.
I always need to put it out there.
So sometimes I just write not because I feel like I have something really important to
say, but more because it makes my thinking a little bit more clear, right?
Yeah.
In the same way, like if I'm trying to figure something out, it's hard when you're just
trying to keep it all in your head because your short term memory just isn't that great.
But if you can put things on a page, you end up working things out and you can like rerun
your thoughts because you can just read them and then progress from there and kind of build
this chain.
So I'm the same way.
Like my best thoughts come out when I'm writing.
Right.
And then you're like, well, now I've already written it.
I could just publish it.
That's a scary point.
But in a lot of cases, right, but in a lot of cases you write it for yourself, right?
At least that's for me, what's true.
I write it for myself and then I'm like, well, now I've already written it.
I could just, I could just hit a publish button and, you know, put it up for others to read
because I was only writing it for myself in the first place.
And that's, I think is a good, I think that's always a good motivation to write.
Like don't write for others.
Always write for yourself first and then write for the others or maybe just for yourself.
You know, like you can decide.
Yeah.
I think that's a really good tip.
I want to talk about all the different things that you've written, maybe a little bit later,
but why don't we start by talking about what you're working on now and kind of how you
got into it.
Because you're working on, and when you came over, we spent a lot of time talking about
your business in police, which if I understand correctly, initially began to...
I forgot to mention that.
What's the story behind that?
Because I think it started as a side project, right?
Yeah.
I mean, I've been a designer for quite a long time now.
And one of the big things as a designer is always your own portfolio.
It's kind of like the thing that you procrastinate on, that you don't finish.
But at the same time, it's one of the most important aspects of your career because that's
how other people can view your work and can find you.
So I was always really obsessed with making an amazing portfolio.
And I remember it's not such a big thing anymore today, but I'm not sure if you remember that
like 10 years ago, for example, or 15 years, there was this thing that you would always
relaunch your own website and you put like a version number on it.
You're like, this is V1 and then V2.
And you have these like big launch events, at least in your head, around like launching
your own portfolio or your own website, you know, and then you actually put the number
like V5.
And I remember there was always this competition, you know, between designers or other people
and your friends were really looking forward to it.
And there was a time when you actually put like a countdown on your page of like my website,
my new website is going live in three days and 40 minutes.
And I don't know why it was like that, but it was kind of like the community, I believe.
And this basically always motivated me to do something special for my portfolio.
And at some point I teamed up with a friend of mine and I had this idea of redesigning
my portfolio.
And instead of just showing like small, you know, imagery of my portfolio projects, I
wanted to like do full blown out case studies, you know, where you show the full process
like me sketching, I describe like the wire framing, I show prototypes, I show like behind
the scenes information and almost like tell a story of this whole project.
And at the time I believe there were maybe one or two agencies, if even, who did something
like that, because it was a ton of work.
And also people wouldn't, they don't want to, you know, at the time it wasn't so much
like 10 years ago, even 10 years ago, it wasn't so transparent.
You know what I mean?
Like people were actually trying to keep a lot of secrets, like you wouldn't tell people
how to do things.
Yeah.
It's totally different today.
It's totally different.
Yeah.
I mean, I remember 15 years ago, like finding someone else's like PSD file, you know, like
a Photoshop file that I could open myself and look how they did it was kind of like,
that was, that was like Christmas, you know, yeah, exactly.
Like seeing the layers and actually seeing how they work and nowadays is perfectly normal
because everyone shares everything.
And anyway, so I wanted to focus on this case study format.
So I teamed up with a friend of mine.
He's a developer and also a designer and he helped me put together my portfolio and I
did these case studies and it took me took me weeks and weeks, but it was really successful.
It got me a lot of a lot of attention, a lot of exposure because no one has ever seen case
studies like that.
And we basically developed this backend tool for me to put together these case studies.
And so many other people were then asking me like, what are you using?
You know, what backend are you using?
What CMS?
And that was the moment where I was like, oh, maybe, maybe we could take the thing that
we used for my portfolio and just sell it as a product.
Did you initially, when you first started building this thing, anticipate that people
would really like it and think that it would be cool or was it entirely just for yourself
and you just wanted like your inner circle of friends to think it was cool?
I mean, I built my portfolio obviously, you know, to get attention and impress people
and get the jobs that I wanted to get.
But the technical system behind like the portfolio system, I built 100% for myself.
Interesting.
Because that's like so much work to get that done, you know, it's like really investing
in your own portfolio and the future of it.
Yeah, exactly.
I just wanted to make sure that I can keep publishing case studies and that it's going
to be easy to do that, right?
So I just wanted to make my own work easier.
It's kind of like imagine like same as like you're you're having like a company or whatever
and then you're like, oh, shit, I need a I need a tool to compile or, you know, to automatically
create like PDF invoices from certain data sets, right?
And then you can't find the perfect solution and then you're like, ah, you know what, I'm
just going to do it myself.
And then you have this tool that makes really cool PDF invoices and sends them to your clients.
And then you're like, well, I could actually sell this thing.
Maybe there's someone else suddenly people are asking you about it, right?
So it was really 100%.
I can tell you like there was not even a single thought of publishing this as a as a product.
And funny enough, the first moment I had the thought of like, oh, this could be something
someone else may want to use was only after friends of mine kept asking me and be like,
hey, do you know a tool that could help me do case studies like you do?
And it took me literally from that moment, it would probably like it took me another
four years before we even published and please because you know what I mean?
Like you didn't you were like, yeah, whatever.
Like, you know, you don't have that.
It's almost like you you don't take it that serious, you know, like it's not like, oh,
it was like this magical moment of like, oh, my God, I'm going to be I'm going to be rich.
I can do this product.
And it was more like over the years, more and more people had to tell you.
And then at some point, you're like, oh, of course, why don't we do this as a product?
It's like the hallmark of something that starts as as kind of a side project, you know, like
you're just not thinking in product mode, you're not thinking about how do I market
this and sell this?
You're just thinking, I want to build what I want to build, because it's fun for me.
And it's useful for me, which I think oftentimes, even though like, it might take you a long
time to get to the realization that it's a business, you end up building probably the
best product if you go that route.
Oh, you're so right.
I think you just put it right.
That's the thing.
You said you were just not in in product, like mindset.
And that was 100% true.
Like I wasn't thinking about that at all.
Where were you at the time?
Were you working at Spotify?
No, no, that's way earlier.
That was way before I actually came to New York.
So that's now I'm in New York for seven years.
That was even before.
That's like more than seven years ago.
Oh, wow.
So I think the initial idea of some please was about, I would say nine or 10 years ago.
And that's when I also redesigned my portfolio with like the big case studies.
And I was in Austria at the time and I had my own agency, which I worked with a bunch
of people together on client projects, you know, your regular design shop, basically.
So yeah, that was that.
So people eventually started asking you for some please, it took you a while to really,
you know, decide that, hey, this is something that I want to turn into a business.
What went into that decision and what were some of the first things that you did?
Oh, man, that's a good question.
It's kind of funny because when you look back, it doesn't people always expect this to be
kind of like plan through, you know, thought through kind of like, oh, I had a business
plan and then I I did all of this and I was very sure about everything.
But it wasn't at all like that.
I think again, at some point we started refining the system.
Actually I'm talking here about my friend who's now actually my partner on some please.
And we kept refining the system for myself and then he used it as well on his portfolio.
And then we actually gave it to some other people.
And then we still haven't thought about like selling it at all, you know, because I was
busy having clients and then I worked at Spotify and all these things.
And then at some point, I believe that was about four years ago now, we were like, okay,
you know what, let's sit down and let's redo the whole system completely from scratch.
But still, we didn't really figure out like we didn't know exactly that we're going to
publish it, but we were like, let's do it.
We had a completely different name for the product.
It was completely different branding, everything.
And then while we were working on it, it took us about one and a half years to actually
like redo everything.
And it was still kind of like for us, I think my mind slowly shifted to product thinking.
And I was like, oh, shit.
And I think it was also because I was working at Spotify, you know, and working on a product
there.
I was like, okay, you know, I think we need to try it.
And I remember we put up the first thing that we did was I think that was five years ago
now, we put up a little like, you know how it is, like a little sign up thing of like,
hey, you can sign up here for more information, we're actually going to launch this.
At that time, we didn't have anything whatsoever.
And I believe a thousand people signed up, and it was quite a lot for five years ago,
at least from my from my perspective, I was completely overwhelmed.
And then I was like, look, I talked to my partner, Mike, I was like, Mike, here's the
thing.
Let's just build it.
And if we're going to sell just 100 copies, and we have some of the coolest people or
some friends that we respect using it, it's a win.
Like we cannot lose like just 100 people, like we don't care, because we do it for fun
anyways.
And that was the bet.
And he was like, cool, I have no expectation whatsoever.
All we need to do is sell 100 copies, you know, 100 copies, I would you can always sell
you just you know, you just knock on doors, right, you're just going to be really annoying.
Yeah, you just hustle it like 100 times, you can always do it.
So I was like, you know, I'm, I'm feeling confident that we can do it.
And yeah, and kind of like the rest is, you know, kind of history.
At some point, we launched it.
And then the good thing was always that we had very low expectation, like we didn't want
to get rich, we didn't want to get like millions of people using it, we just wanted 100 people.
Very simple.
But you know how it is.
I like what you said about the fact that you had low expectations kind of at the end of
that story is true in the beginning, too, because you were talking about how the beginning,
you didn't have like this night, it's nice, neat, you know, well formulated business plan
that a lot of people expect to exist.
And I think it's good for people to hear that because more often than not, like the reality
is that the start to any sort of business or any sort of like movement is really chaotic
and messy, and unplanned.
And it's liberating to know that because I think people oftentimes aren't doing the
things that they they really want to do, because they can't, they don't have a perfect plan.
So they're like, Oh, I can't do this.
I don't have it all figured out yet.
And it's like most people don't most of us don't have it all figured out yet.
And you can that shouldn't stop you people.
I mean, there's this whole thing about I used to give quite a lot of talks, like speaking
engagements and the title of my talk was side projects are stupid.
And it was an unfinished sentence on purpose, because it was kind of people were getting
a little bit triggered by it because you always got an opinion, right?
People were like, No, separate are not stupid, or they're like, Yeah, they are.
But essentially, the full sentence is side projects are stupid, because they have to be.
And that's always like a kind of like a thing that I tried to follow, for me, a project
or an idea has to be stupid in the beginning.
And I'm talking about, you know, simple and stupid, kind of like the keep it simple and
stupid the kiss principle, where you you keep it simple and stupid on purpose, because what
we do or what most people do when I talk to people, and you know, you talk to any friend,
and you know, they have some sort of like passion project or side project, you will
ask them, you're like, what are you working on the site?
Or what do you what do you really want to do?
And then they will tell you about this idea.
And sometimes they have this idea for 20 years, but they haven't done it yet.
And then you ask them, why haven't you done it yet?
And then they come up with all of these famous excuses of, oh, you know, I don't have enough
time, I think this is too risky, I don't have the funding, I'm not sure how I'm gonna make
money with this, or I owe there so much competition, or someone else has already done it, you know,
you have all of these excuses.
And the thing is, you're not keeping it simple and stupid, because you're, you're just making
it more complex.
Because if you, if you immediately sit down, you have this stupid idea, and you're like,
oh, I need to figure out exactly how I'm gonna make money, like how I'm gonna monetize this,
what the strategy is around all of that, you're basically making it more complex.
And there will be some, how do you say like, you're basically just killing the, you know,
the movement, the, how do you say, yeah, you're adding a whole bunch of friction.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Like you're not doing yourself a favor.
So if you keep it simple and stupid, which is basically what low expectations are, in
a way, you will you will automatically do things because you're like, well, I don't
know, I'm just gonna figure it out, you know, step by step.
And at some point, you will get more complex, but then you're you're at least you're ready
for it.
So in the beginning, I was, I always tell people, you know, keep it, keep it stupid.
Like it has to be so stupid that people almost laugh about it, you know, because they're
like, holy shit, how are you even doing this?
Like you don't even know what you're doing.
And you can with full confidence say, I don't know either, but I'm gonna figure it out.
And if you if you think that way, you're ahead of 90% or more of all the people, because
everyone else is still having all these excuses, you know, and being like, oh, I'm still not
sure I'm going to monetize this, or someone else just did what I did.
You know, often I hear this, I often hear this, oh, I had this idea for five years.
And now someone did it.
And I'm like, yeah, because you didn't do anything like you, you were just sitting on
your ass not doing anything, you know, you're having your secure full time job.
And anyways, I'm sorry, I don't want to go ranting or something.
No, it's a good rant.
And I think, you know, even if somebody did it already, that's not always a reason that
you shouldn't do it to with your own take, or your own flavor, even more personal style
to it.
But if someone else, that's the thing, I think people see it, they get discouraged, right?
They see someone, oh, someone did it.
I think if I would see something like that, and I'm like, oh, I had this thought already
for five years, and I was very unsure about it.
And I see someone just did it, and they have some, you know, medium success with it.
I mean, they just, they just, how do you call it, like, validated, you know, I see, yeah,
validated.
Yeah, they validated the idea.
Yeah.
Oh, well, thanks for that.
You already did the market, like maybe the research, you already did the testing, you
already introduced the people to whatever it may be.
And now they want more of it.
And I'm going to give them more.
And I'm going to do it with a special twist.
It's actually even more motivating.
Yeah, I think that's really wise advice.
It's just people put up barriers.
And the hardest thing to do in any startup is to stop yourself from quitting.
And I think if you never get started, then it's really like you quit before you just
quit early.
And so if you have all these goals and these levels of expectation for yourself, where
you have to have the world's best idea, and you have to be profitable from day number
one, and it has to do this and has to do that, then that's just like 100 reasons why you
can give up and you can quit or you can never get started.
And on top of that, it kind of drives you away from doing the things that you like to
do.
Because most of the things that you like to do don't have some obvious path to success.
Like when you were working on some place, or working on your own portfolio initially,
like yeah, in hindsight, it's like obvious that you could take what you built and sell
to other people.
But at the time, like it would not have been obvious to anyone.
It just seemed like a fun thing that you're doing for yourself.
So I think sometimes it's better just to do what's fun.
Yeah, there's a, I have to, if you don't mind, I have to give you another example.
I remember I did this weather, it's called authentic weather.
Have you seen it?
No, I haven't.
All right.
Let's get that.
So basically at the time, and I believe that's already eight, seven or eight years ago, it
was before my time in New York.
And I had this idea, I remember on, you know, Dribble, right, the designers platform.
And a lot of people put up like redesigns of weather apps, because for some reason,
I don't know, designers had this fetish of designing weather apps, and I think it's just
because they're very simple and you can do something, you know, fun with it.
But they just put up these mockups, you know, so everyone was always like designing weather
apps, but they were not developing it, right?
So they were just making like mockups and designs of it.
And I got, I got so annoyed by it that I put up my own concept of a weather app.
And essentially all it was was, it was completely reduced.
It was just a gray screen, like on the iPhone, and then in like big fat type, it says, it's
fucking raining, for example.
And I was basically saying this is kind of like the anti, you know, weather app, because
it's like, because the thing is, like all the designers, like they always went into
like all these great details of like showing like beautiful graphs, you know, kind of like
statistics and graphs pixel perfect.
And I always looked at it and I'm like, I don't give a shit.
Like I don't need to know, like this is not a like a dashboard or something.
All I want to know is if fucking raining or not.
And that was kind of like how the idea was born.
And I put it online and then I got so much feedback on it and people kind of loved it
and they kind of loved the humor of it that I actually started developing it.
You know, I had no, like there was, trust me, there was no intention of building this
as a product.
I was just making fun of like all the others.
And then it got so much feedback and I was like, oh, I think I'm just going to build
it.
So I, I, I build it with a friend of mine for the iPhone initially.
And then we also build it for Android and we just charged a dollar for it.
And I think to this point now, I don't know, I haven't even, I neglected this project a
little bit, but we got a couple million, a couple million downloads.
So I think there's still probably like 100,000 or so or 200,000 active people using it right
now a month.
It's like one of these like small things that I did, but it kind of like blew up and I had
absolutely no idea that this is going to happen.
You know what I mean?
It was just a fun thing.
So I wanted to take this as an example because it's even better than Simpli's because it's
actually really stupid.
It is really stupid, but I'm looking at the pictures now and they're hilarious.
It's fucking raining now.
It's a fucking umbrella.
Yeah.
So, so basically what the app does is like we have, we have this database and of like,
I think it's about 200 phrases.
So like it's fucking raining or there's even more stuff like that, a little bit more sophisticated.
And essentially we just take the weather information, which is like, is it raining sunny or whatever
cloudy and we take the temperature and then we try to match it to a phrase that fits the
weather as, as good as possible.
So it's kind of like telling you the weather in a, in a very humorous way.
And then we also build in a camera functionality and obviously the share functionality was
a big deal because people always share that a lot.
If you, if you go on Instagram and do hashtag authentic weather, a lot of people are actually
sharing that stuff.
But yeah, that's like a small, not many people know that I actually worked on this, which
is kind of funny.
I always meet people and they're like, and I tell them about it and they're like, Oh,
you did authentic weather.
I didn't know that.
So apparently I think authentic weather was one of the few things that I did on the side
that you know, when something, when you do something and it breaks into like different
like target groups, you don't have anything to do with usually.
Just people completely outside of your wheelhouse.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's what happened with authentic weather.
So it's still going and, but that project was kind of like, um, it was simple and stupid,
but at the same time also quite complex because we, it also costs a lot of money with the
weather API and everything.
So let's see how that goes.
But anyways, that was a fun project to do and it was very stupid.
It's a really cool example because you're right, it's, it's simple and it's stupid and
it's a side project, but at the same time, it's fun to analyze and retrospect what works
about it and why it's so popular because in a lot of ways it's just because you did what
everybody else wasn't doing.
You just did the exact opposite and that made it stand out, you know, and it's just so funny
and you've got these sharing features as well.
And it's like, I right now want to share this with my friends just because I think they'll
think it's hilarious.
Yeah.
It's, it makes so much sense, like why people like it, why they share it, why, because when
you, when you think about it, everyone checks the weather, like that's a universal thing.
Everyone does it at least once a day, usually at least the ones that have a smartphone.
So the app caters to that and just brings in some color really, you know, because every
weather app right now looks exactly the same, right?
It just gives you like the temperature and then like some boring statistics or something.
There's authentic weather is like the most brutal, honest weather app out there that
just tells you to get naked when it's really hot outside, you know, and it's just like
that's, that's just how it is.
Yeah.
And it's got a lot of personality in it and it's like pretty much anything if you analyze
it in retrospect, you could find out why it worked, but it's hard to figure that out beforehand,
which is why coming up with the good ideas is difficult, but I think one of the things
that was a joke.
Yeah.
It's just literally a joke.
It was just one big joke at the beginning.
I think what's cool about like people like you and some other people that I've had on
the podcast is that you guys are just prolific.
Like you're constantly making stuff and I'm sure you've made a lot of stuff that didn't
blow up and make millions of dollars, you know, but that's fine.
You just made it for fun and it was a fun thing that you did.
And maybe you put it in a portfolio or maybe you just move on.
And I think for a lot of people, like they see it as they have to get it right on the
first try.
They have to, you know, do something that's perfect and it needs to succeed immediately.
And in reality, the people who are having the most success are constantly doing lots
of stuff that's not working and kind of just figuring out as they go.
Yeah, I think that's a good point.
Also because we don't talk about it and you're the same, Corden, you're the same kind of
person.
You're like the thing is if you would, if I look at my hard drive right now or all the
projects that I have running or have done in the past couple of years, I would say about
maybe 30 percent actually see the light of day.
And then of those, it takes another percentage that is actually that I consider kind of like
successful.
There's a lot of them I launched and they kind of like disappeared and whatever.
But then I would say 70 percent.
So the majority actually has never seen the light of the day.
There's a dozen apps on my computer that are actually fully developed and I have never
launched them.
You know, like I'm pretty bad actually with following my own advice.
You can probably say that because I'm the same.
You know, I'm a perfectionist in that regard.
I try to make it perfect and I'm like, I'm not sure.
And I come up with all of these stupid excuses.
But again, like at least there's 30 percent.
So if I do like 10 different projects, there's 30 percent that actually sees light of the
light of the day.
And I think a lot of people don't know that.
And like you said, it's you just mentioned it again.
It's all just about expectations because people have the expectation of having this one thing
and getting it right.
And that's a really dangerous place to be in because you're not getting it right.
First of all, unless you're very lucky.
But that's too dangerous.
Like it's you're having way too much expectations of yourself.
You will not finish anything.
It's better to there's kind of like this thing about like I try to follow the kind of like
the mindset of like waste your ideas.
You know, like if you like just put them out, like just put out ideas as much as you can.
And I think a lot of people are always scared.
They're like, well, if I have five ideas, if I put them all out, then I don't have any
ideas anymore.
Then I'm done.
You know, but it doesn't work that way.
You know, it's usually like you put them out and then you get new ideas and new ideas and
new ideas.
Because if if you're just like sitting on your ideas because you're too afraid to put
them out there, that someone like steals it or they don't work the way that you want them
to work, you will again like you will never do anything like you said.
So I'm always someone who's like, you know, just waste your ideas.
Just tell everyone about it.
Just do it.
Keep doing it.
Keep doing it.
Yeah, I think it's like writing too.
If you like are trying to write a blog post and you sit down and start writing and you
don't have that many ideas, just the process of writing down a few of them and like writing
your first paragraph will give you so many more ideas for like what else to write or
at least that's how it happens for me.
And I think it's the same for building stuff.
But let's get back to let's get back to some police because we got through the part of
the story where you would really, you know, set your goal to find your first hundred customers.
But today some police is far more than a hundred customers.
You've got I think a whole team of people working on some police.
How did you go from from where you were then to where you are now?
Good question.
You probably expect like a perfect answer.
No, there's no perfect answer.
I think I think what's cool is when is that everybody's story is like totally different.
Sometimes things like take off on their own.
Sometimes just like a big challenge like I'm curious what what's going on with you because
when you talked when you came to SF we kind of just talked about where things are now.
But I didn't really get the story of like the path that led to now.
So the good thing is that with with my partner, we have very much the same expectations and
we're very aligned on having the right expectations or no expectations in that regard.
And when it came to some police, the good thing was always that from the very beginning
we were like, again, first it was we just want 100 people.
And then when we had 100 people, we were like, you know what, let's try 200 people.
Let's see if we could do it.
And we had 200 people who were like, all right, let's try 400.
How about that?
And we just like climbed up the ladder kind of like that.
And also from the very beginning, we knew that we didn't want to like explode to some
regard.
You know what I mean?
Like it's I know that's obviously that would be a luxury problem to have, right?
But we were always saying if I could choose between having 20 new people using some police
a day to having a thousand coming in tomorrow, I would always choose the 20 a day.
So we were always like very cautious of let's try to keep quiet.
Let's try to focus on the quality.
Let's try to focus on the curation of like getting the right people on the platform.
And let's not try to attract as like too many people because we were so scared that they
maybe ruined the product, you know, they maybe ruined the brand, the image.
And they would also certainly like if you if you're a team of two, for example, and
then you have a thousand customers coming in tomorrow, it's kind of like a good thing.
But it also it can destroy you.
There's probably a handful of company who got destroyed because of that.
You know, when the demand is just way too high and they're just crushing your like,
you know, they would find so many bugs at once like these thousand people and they would
all ask for support.
And you're like, oh, shit, I can't do anything.
And what a lot of people do in that case, and that scenario is that they would like
overreact and like, oh, shit, we just got a thousand people.
Let's just hire five more people to, you know, fix all of that.
But then the rush like goes over and then there's no more thousand people anymore.
And, you know, like just small amount of people coming in.
But then you're sitting on all of these employees, for example, right?
So and that's and that's when a lot of companies go down, right?
Because they kind of like miscalculated it.
So for us from the very beginning, we were like, hey, let's let's keep it small and simple.
And that's kind of like what we did.
So over the years where we're I think we were two people for more than a year and then we
hired our first person.
She was helping with design and everything.
And you know, it's like when you have a small company, you don't hire specific roles.
You just hire a person who's like as crazy as you like, yeah, you're just going to do
everything from now on like that's your title.
And it's still kind of like that.
So it's actually something I we pride ourselves at some places that everyone is a designer
on the team, but everyone is a designer who does something else as well.
And that's really cool because we all share the same mindset.
It's all about designers creating for other designers.
And we're still fairly small, actually.
Right now we're just five people.
We used to be a little bit more sometimes like a year ago, we were seven.
But I actually like to downscale it a little bit again.
Because sometimes, you know, we had this conversation with my partner where I remember we were seven
people and my partner and I we were just playing some computer games and he was like, hey,
you need to be as you know, I missed the time when it was just like the two of us.
It's not like we're having a big company.
It's just like seven people, right?
But he was like, you know, it was kind of nice because it was just the two of us talking
to each other.
And he was like, let's do this.
And I was like, yeah, let's do it.
And now it's like seven people and you have to have meetings and obviously you want like
we want to be nice.
Like everyone's ideas are always welcome.
So there's seven people who have no ideas.
And again, that's not a bad thing necessarily, right?
But it's a different thing than being a single solo or like a duo, you know, creator team.
So obviously that doesn't mean that we're going to kick out everyone and lay off everyone.
But there was something about it that we were like, OK, let's try to let's try to not get
ahead of ourselves and hire more people.
Let's try to actually make it more that everyone in the team becomes more of a creator and
more independent that we actually can create more rather than having this like trickle
down thing.
And again, it sounds kind of crazy because other people are like, no, well, you only
had seven people.
What the hell are you talking about?
But seven people are enough to have meetings and things are taking quite long actually
compared to just especially we all remote.
That's actually one thing I forgot to mention.
Everyone in simplicity is in a different time zone as well.
So it's not as easy as sitting all on the same desk.
Yeah, there's so much there that I want to ask you about.
Because the fact that you guys were super patient and you were no rush to find success
as rapidly as possible, which is really cool because I think alleviates you of so much
pressure and it prevents you from making like the bad decisions that come with that kind
of time crunch that most people put on their success.
I think it's also really cool that you guys are designers.
And I've talked to so many companies that are started by developers are decided by are
started by people who aren't developers or designers.
And I feel like designers bring a whole different vibe to things.
You know, like developers, for example, have like all sorts of blind spots, like we tend
to think things aren't valuable because we can build everything ourselves and why would
anybody pay for it?
And I'm curious, are there like blind spots that designers have?
Like, you know, everything has like our designers perfectionists too much or is there anything
hard about working with a bunch of designers?
I think the perfectionism part is probably the biggest one.
Yeah, I mean, that's just well, at least if I would look at other designers.
And also myself, although I have gotten better at it, I have to say I was way worse like
a couple of years ago.
There's a huge degree of perfectionism with designers and designers never ship anything.
I mean, that's one of the main reasons I believe.
But it's the same with developers, right?
Like developers are they're also perfectionists.
I mean, there's so many developers that I work with.
Like every time they're done, they're like, oh, let me refactor that code.
I can make it better.
And I'm like, no, and then they refactor it for like a whole month.
And then after that, they're like, they actually made it like 10, 10 lines shorter, the code
and they optimize it.
And then they're like, oh, actually, I can do better.
I can refactor it again.
And I'm like, and then I'm always like, look, like if you you can easily spend 10 more years
on it, and you can probably get your 30 lines of code, you can get it down to one line of
code at some point.
But that's not the point.
And I think we have the same with a designer, like a designer always sits at the final design
and it's like, and you're you're as well, right?
You're also a hybrid.
You also design yourself.
And you know it as well, right?
You look at your own design or indie hacker and you're like, I can do so much better.
Yeah, it's torture.
Yeah, it's like a torture.
But then if you if you just keep doing that, you're never going to ship anything.
And I think we definitely had that with some please as well.
And there's quite a lot of fights that I had with my partner because we are both designers
and we have and he's also like a hybrid developer.
So he's kind of like someone who wants to make it perfect from a code perspective as
well.
So yeah, we I think we wasted a lot of time on that, on like making things a little bit
more perfect or doing things that no one actually is going to notice or doing like a feature
that we thought was actually really cool.
And actually no one has ever used it once since we launched some place.
But that happens, you know, and I think that's still still fine.
Again, we had very low expectations from the very beginning and we were also here's another
thing actually that's really important for people who are listening.
I always had the the thing where I was like, look, we're going to try to get as many people
as possible, but we're going to try to keep it slow.
And I can always work on something else that makes money.
You have a full time job if you have a full time job is luxury anyways, because you have
the whole evening or in the morning or the weekends.
I mean, obviously you have to sacrifice some parts of your life, but you actually have
quite a lot of security.
So you can launch a side project with almost zero risk, even well in like after a year
of launching some police and going full time on it.
I was always telling my partner and he was telling me to that if things don't go too
well, let's just take on some freelance gigs, you know, on the side to pay some bills.
I would take on honestly, I would take on a freelance gig or I would even go full time
for a company just to pay like an employee that I would have on some police.
I know that sounds kind of funny, but I have no I have no problem doing so, you know.
And I think a lot of people, they don't think that way.
They always think that they need to be 100% self sufficient with just that project from
the very beginning.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think it's a good example of how you guys early on didn't feel rushed to succeed
to a crazy level.
And so you're able to slow things down and make more rational decisions, which on one
hand feels like a luxury.
But on the other, anybody can make the choice to have lower expectations or have no expectations.
It also makes me think about, you know, when you say that like you have a full time job,
okay, you can come home at night and work on things.
I think a lot of people say they want to do that and then they don't actually do it.
And they're saying they want to do it for years and they never actually do it.
And I always think that, you know, if you're telling yourself you want to do something
and you don't actually do it, then maybe you don't actually want to do it.
And the thing that you've been telling yourself is kind of a lie because we're all pretty
good at doing the things that we actually want to do.
For example, I love playing video games, but I also want to keep my girlfriend happy.
And so I don't play as many video games as I otherwise would.
And that doesn't mean that I'm not doing what I want to do.
It means that I'm prioritizing and doing exactly what I want to do the most.
And when I look at somebody like you, I see someone who is always creating and you love
the process so much that you're not willing to let any random hardships get in the way
of you doing what you love.
And if it turns out that some police is not going to be enough for you to, you know, pay
all of your bills, then you keep working on some police and you just get a job.
Whereas other people might quit because they don't really enjoy it that much.
So I wonder if this is something that people can learn or if they're just working on the
wrong things.
Maybe it's the wrong things.
Yeah.
I think you're right about that.
Because it's like one of these things that you don't, if you force yourself to do it,
it's probably not the right thing, right?
Like if it's, that would be kind of horrible, wouldn't it?
Like if you, like if it stops being fun, it's not a thing anymore for me.
It's actually good.
It's actually kind of nice that you bring that up because that's, it's kind of like,
that's how I would decide to kill a project.
If it stops being fun, I usually kill it.
I either kill it or I try to hire someone to do the things that I don't think are fun.
But the other person may be thinking that they're fun.
Like accounting, right?
For example, I don't like accounting and that's why I pay someone to do accounting.
But that person who does accounting is like crazy obsessed with accounting.
It's like, oh, I love it.
I love numbers and all these things.
And I'm like, well, I don't like it.
So you can have it.
Like you have now the best, the two best things of both worlds.
Like you get to do things that you like doing.
And for me, it's the same.
So I usually, that's the reason when I stopped doing something.
And like you said, I think there's quite a lot of people maybe that if they don't bring
themselves to work on it, maybe it is the wrong project, right?
Because you shouldn't be forcing yourself and no one else should be forcing yourself.
But yeah, there's some, there's a little bit of sacrifice obviously in it, right?
And when you talk to people and they asked me, they're like, well, how can you work on
all of these things?
I don't have any time.
And then I, I talk them through, I usually ask them, what do you do?
What do you do tonight?
Okay.
And then they usually answer like, oh, I'm going to have some drinks with friends.
And I'm like, see, I don't have drinks with friends tonight.
I'm going to work.
And, and the thing is here, I'm not trying to be judgmental.
You know, I'm like, look, if you want to have drinks with friends, that's fine because that's
your priority.
And if you like doing that, you should be doing that.
But whatever your action, there's, what is this?
There's this quote from, is it Gandhi where action, like your, your actions are always
your priority, right?
In a, in a like indirect way, because whatever you're doing right now is your priority to
a certain degree, right?
Because otherwise I will be doing something else.
That's the reason why I'm now doing this podcast with you because it's a priority for me, right?
Like if there would be something else that's way more important, I should probably be doing
the other thing.
But in this case right now, you, you, you could argue that the most important thing
for me right now is doing this podcast with you because otherwise I wouldn't be doing
it with you.
And it's kind of like the thing with like going out with friends, right?
If that's your priority, then fine.
But for some others it's not, you know, or they, they just skip a couple of days a week
and then just work on their own project.
So that's kind of, it's kind of funny.
Every time I talk to people who are like, Oh, I don't have time.
And then yeah, I would ask them and they're like, well, I'm just going to go out with
friends tonight.
I'm like, see, like it seems like you have enough time.
You're just doing other things and that's cool.
You can do whatever the fuck you want, you know?
Yeah, I agree.
I think that's like a perfect way to sum it up.
And it's not like you and I don't make any sacrifices or other makers don't make any
sacrifices.
It's just that the things that we're working on, we like so much that it's worth whatever
the sacrifices, you know, like, and I'm like you, like, I don't spend as much time going
out as maybe some other people do.
I don't spend as much time watching TV as some other people do.
Is this where we admit that we don't have friends?
Yeah, I think this is where we slowly, gradually reveal that we don't have any friends at all.
I sometimes, I sometimes joke about, I sometimes joke about that though, when people are like,
how can you be so, so productive?
What's your secret?
And I was like, I don't have friends.
I think the other thing is that people underestimate how much just doing a little bit every day
can really add up over time.
Like if you've got, when you're talking about all the projects you have on your hard drive,
I could have said everything that you said verbatim and it's completely true of me, like
30% of them are just, you know, released on the rest.
You know, one ever sees a light of day, but there's so many and it's not like you did
that overnight.
You made all that stuff and like one sustained work frenzy.
It's like you have been working a lot for years and years and years and years and other
people like are doing the things that they like to do for years and years.
It's just a lot of the stuff that people like to do is an additive.
You know, you can watch 6000 hours of TV and you're not going to have anything to show
for it or you can go out to dinner with friends, you know, five nights a week and probably
you'll build up some really good social skills, you know, but if you're a designer or a developer
or product person or you're just making and building things, then even if you just do
a little bit, you know, an hour a week, a couple hours a week, then after a long time,
it really adds up.
Yeah, it does and it doesn't feel I think this whole conversation is already weird,
to be honest.
I was just while you while you were talking, I was trying to reflect on this, like when
you talk to friends about like when they ask you or or you would be giving advice of like,
oh, you maybe you need to sacrifice this and this.
I think this whole conversation is already weird because I never feel like sacrificing
anything else to what I'm doing.
You know what I mean?
It's almost like you just want to do that normal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just normal.
I'm not like sacrificing anything.
I don't feel I don't feel like I'm canceling other things in order to do this and I wish
I could be doing this instead, but I really need to finish this project.
It's not even like that.
You know what I mean?
It's it's really weird.
You just want to do the project.
And so that's what you're doing and you end up not doing the other things.
Yeah, exactly.
And I play it.
I play a lot of computer games, too.
But yeah, I never I never think about it that way, you know, being like, oh, I could be
also playing computer games.
No, I'm just if I want to play computer games, I just play computer games.
And maybe I mean, maybe that's kind of like where we can end it on, right?
Like this whole thing of like being, well, if you enjoy playing computer games all day,
so be it like play computer games all day.
Just don't make yourself feel bad about not doing like X, right, like certain thing.
Maybe that's OK, you know, because we don't have to like force our it's like the same
with me, right?
I feel bad every day that I go I don't go to the gym and for some reason I have to go
to the gym, but I don't want to go to the gym.
So I'm like, maybe I should just stop thinking about going to the gym and feel guilty about
it because I'm not going to go anyways because I don't like it.
And then there's other people who are like to be as I'm just I don't know.
I just go to the gym automatically because I really like it.
I don't even I don't even think about I have to go to the gym.
I just go, you know, and it's kind of like that attitude.
We're getting too philosophical.
No, it's not too philosophical at all.
I think it's like it's funny you bring up the gym thing because I bought a set of weights
for my apartment and I was thinking, you know, maybe if I have it like 10 feet away, then
I'll go.
And I literally stare at these weights every day and never touch them.
And it's like you said, as long as I don't make myself feel guilty over it, then it's
fine.
Yeah, it's like like me having my I have a gym membership actually, since three years
I went twice.
I like I count myself as a silent investor in my gym, like their their favorite customer
who never comes.
Yeah, I've been there.
So one of the things that I wanted to talk about was a question that I asked on the Andy
hackers forum a few weeks back.
And I basically asked people if they could magically just have any knowledge, any business
related knowledge, just upload it into their brain instantaneously without having to practice
what it would be.
And I'm curious what your answer would be to that question, especially since you're
running some police now and you've got so many other things that you're working on.
What do you wish you knew or what skills do you wish you had?
Should have prepared for that question.
Welcome to the Andy hackers hot seat.
I may have to repeat myself here.
I think the single greatest thing that helped me is really the the keep it simple and stupid
thing and more so the stupid thing, like almost to a degree, like I'm almost weird to a degree
where I'm like, I really every time I come up with a project, I try to make it even though
it may be not as stupid as I as it is, I try to make it even more stupid on purpose.
You know what I mean?
Like because it feels at that point because stupid essentially means that there's very
little expectations attached to it, which means it's easier for me to gain some momentum
because there's no complex things that I need to solve.
And then the other stupid thing is that I love the idea of like telling people about
a project.
And when I asked 10 people in my family and they all like laugh at it and like, that's
stupid.
I'm usually the kind of person who's like, all right, I'm going to do it right now because
for some reason, I just want to pay it back to people and prove them wrong.
And I try to set myself up for proving people wrong.
It's kind of like I get a little kick.
For some reason, I get a kick out of it, you know, when when people are like, that's stupid.
You can never do this because you haven't thought about this, this and this.
I'm usually the kind of person like, all right, that motivates me even more so and now I'm
going to do it.
So I think if I could give this away, if that's even answer to your question, that's kind
of like the principle or the concept that I try to apply to every single idea of, you
know, trying to find what motivates you and keeping it super simple.
So there's absolutely no excuse to not do it.
That's so funny because we're we're so aligned on so many things, but I think we're actually
polar opposites in that I am such a planner.
Oh, yeah.
Like I plan everything in meticulous detail whenever I'm going to start something new.
And to your to your point, it's funny because most of the time my plan doesn't work out
anyway.
I make all these plans and nothing goes according to plan, but I feel like I have to do it.
But another cool thing about just keeping it simple and stupid is that ultimately, if
you fail and things don't work out, then at the very least, you can kind of save face
and be like, well, I wasn't really trying that hard anyway, versus if you plan everything
out and it doesn't work, then you don't really have that lifeline.
Actually, yeah, that's a good point.
Like you're it's a it's a good way out as well, right, because you don't I think it
all comes down to not taking yourself too serious in that regard.
You know, that's also what stupid means in that in that case, you know, taking yourself
too serious.
I don't know.
There's something about maybe that just like from childhood because teachers back in school
would always tell me that I wouldn't be able to do X.
They were always telling me because my grades were really bad in school.
I was a little bit of a problem kid had problems with authority.
I guess.
And teachers were always telling me that like, you will never find a job to be like never
like this is like your grades are shit.
You're a lazy lazy ass kid.
I for some reason that motivated me from the very beginning.
I was always like, I'm gonna I'm gonna prove those assholes wrong.
You know, I'm gonna show you like that's like they're so wrong.
And for some reason, I still try to do that today.
And even today, here's the funny thing, and that's maybe maybe a little sick.
I don't know.
But I actually even that even if there isn't such a conflict, I try to fake create that
conflict for myself because otherwise because otherwise I lack motivation, you know, so
it's almost like if I have an idea and I would tell like 10 people about it and everyone
is like, yeah, that's cool.
I would I would I would be hating it.
I'm like, why is no one hating my thing?
Like why is no one like is it because you because I'm basically saying, well, if everyone
is like meh, you know, it's it's it's not a really good idea, probably because no one
is getting really, you know, no one has a passionate opinion about it.
So I'm usually trying to turn it up a little notch and be like, what about this?
What about this?
And I just wait for people to like be finally against me so I can prove them wrong.
It's like,
it's gives me like a really stupid idea, actually, or something like rent a hater.com,
where you can go and pay a flat fee for a hater, you will just tell you why your idea
is crappy and why it won't work.
And you can try to prove them right.
It does.
I think it does motivate some people.
And I'm the kind of person who, you know, who gets motivated by that.
Maybe there's also something about validating your idea.
I feel that if everyone thinks your idea is like, okay, and no one has an opinion about
it, then your idea probably isn't as good.
But if everyone is like outraged by your thing, chances are high that you may be on to something
there.
You know, even if the first reaction is something negative, I still believe that that's just
because people are like, because it's too, it's pushing the boundaries too much.
Or like, they're kind of like offended because they, they wanted to think about this first
or you know what I mean?
Like, I think if people are very passionate about your idea, even if it's like negatively,
there's some, there's some hidden meaning behind that.
There's a reason why they are like that.
And I mean, it's the same with like, you know, that's why you always say like, you know, even
like all press is good press, right?
Because like the negative thing, like spreads even more, I would say the people who hate
my work the most are probably also the biggest promoters of my work because they're so passionate
about spreading my work.
Even in the wrong context, it gets to other people who then eventually like my work.
If that makes any sense.
It gets people charged.
And I think it's, it's funny because if there's like such a, I think we all have like a draw
to be sort of like politically correct and not offend anybody and to be kind of within
accepted boundaries.
And so the result is like a lot of people end up coming up with stuff that's like stale
and doesn't have any personalities and doesn't push any buttons and doesn't challenge the
status quo.
And it ends up being kind of uninteresting.
Whereas if you're making weather apps and you're not afraid to say, it's fucking raining
outside and make that be your weather app, then like people latch onto it because it's
interesting and creative.
So I think people can really benefit from the advice that don't be afraid to push some
buttons.
Don't be afraid to make people upset with what you're doing or to go to really reveal
your personality.
And I think it's, it's hard because it's, it's, you kind of feel naked, you know, if
you're putting yourself out there and you're bearing your soul and you're being transparent
and you're letting your personality shine through.
But to be honest, there's so many just like life, there are enough lifeless products out
there that are just drab and boring and you can do really small things to make yourself
stand out.
Like Indie Hackers is a dark design, not because I had meticulously researched and decided
that a dark design would be the best.
I just wanted it to be different than everyone else's out just because I like dark designs
and I wanted it to look different.
And like, me too, Courtney, I like it too.
Thanks Tobias.
So let me check in on time because you said you had like a couple of hours, it's already
been an hour.
Do you mind going a little bit longer?
No, I have enough time.
I can do all day for you.
Cool.
I love you too.
If that's what, if that's what's needed, I'm not going to do it.
Well, I think there's a, I think we spent a lot of time talking about like motivational
stuff and I think like that's awesome.
And, but at the same time, there's like kind of two types of people.
And then one type of person I think is the majority of people who talk about doing things
but they never really get around to doing it.
And what they really need is to find a way that they can start doing the things that
they want to do.
But I think there's another type of person who I encountered very often and who I've
been myself.
And this is a person who's like actually extremely motivated and who is always doing stuff.
But you know, they either, they never finish and they don't stick with it or the things
that they do aren't working out.
And a lot of times it's just because they like don't have the right knowledge, you know,
they don't have the right skill set or there's something that's holding them back and it's
not just being motivated.
I'm curious like what kinds of practical things that you've learned, you know, what kinds
of lessons have you taken away from the things that you've done at some police and with your
other apps and all your projects that aren't simply, you know, here's how to keep myself
motivated but that are also here's how to build up your Twitter following, you know,
here's how to market a product or practical things that are maybe counterintuitive that
you've learned.
I know that's a super big question so I'm happy to like dive into specifics.
No, I'm going to give you the perfect answer.
Okay.
All right.
Now, so there's a couple of things I believe.
So we're talking about this, just to repeat a little bit, you're talking about this kind
of person that is quite motivated, creating a lot but feeling not getting anywhere, right?
I mean, obviously, there's probably like specific things that we would have to look at, you
know, whoever that person is.
But overall, I would say the first thing that helped me a lot is that find a partner.
I know there's a little bit this thing sometimes on the internet where it's like, oh, you know,
you have to be a solo creator and that's really cool.
If you can do everything, I personally think that's a little bit bullshit.
I don't think you have to be a solo creator, like unless, you know, you're the perfect
person for that.
But I think most people, if they find their perfect counterpart, it's that's exactly what
they need it.
And I'm someone who's very, I can do a lot of things myself, but I actually thrive when
I have a partner.
So every time I work on a project, or any project really that I've worked on, I always
had a partner on it.
I always had a partner that had at least, or close to like a 50-50 share to some regard.
And that partner is just taking care of other things.
And there's not only, there's not only about the only, it's not only the thing that you
can share the tasks, but the main thing is really the like motivating each other and
holding each other accountable, you know?
It's kind of like, I would tell your coordinator, you know, I want to do this and this, and
then you're actually going to follow up with this, you know, every single week with me.
While if you're just by yourself, it's easy to lose track because no one is going to hold
you accountable, right?
So that I think would be the first advice and also something that I've learned over
the years.
I always try to find my counterpart to some regard.
And even if it's just a best friend that I'm paying, you know what I mean?
Like, I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to pay you to be my best friend so I can talk to
you about, because you need someone to, you know, you need someone to reflect, you know,
and be like, hey, I have these ideas.
I don't know.
What do you think?
And sometimes it's just, you know, yeah, again, I just pay that person to have a conversation
or be like, no, Tobias, that's bullshit.
And then I'm like, no, I'm going to prove you wrong.
Here's the thousand dollars.
Here's the conversation.
So I need it because I'm a really, I think I work very well on a team, especially small
teams.
And I really need this.
So I think that's the first thing.
And then the second thing when it comes to like feeling like it doesn't go anywhere.
I mean, I learned that like oversharing has been one of the biggest promoters of all of
my projects.
And you probably know that as well.
That's probably not a big secret even.
But a lot of people just don't do it.
Like I know a lot of people who create like a ton.
Like I sit down with them and they show me all the things that they did on their computer
or whatever.
I'm like, holy shit, you did you doing so much more than I do.
Like I feel really bad right now.
But apparently like you're not putting anything out there like nothing.
So I always meet these people and like you haven't even like why are you not tweeting
about this?
Like put something on dribble.
Like please upload this on something else.
Like you need to put yourself out there a little bit more.
And I know there are some people who are like, well, that's just not me.
You know, and that's where I'm basically saying, well, if you're not the kind of person who
can force yourself, we actually talked about that as well.
You remember, we talked about like Twitter activity and tweeting a lot because you've
got like a ton of Twitter followers and you tweet so much more than I do.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
And and the thing is, it's hard for me to would be like, it would be hard for me to
tell you and be like, Courtney, you have to tweet a lot more too.
You know, because maybe you're like, no, like I would rather spend the time building like
the products that I'm working on and I would fully agree with you on that.
Like for me, when I tweet, it's not because it looks, it goes back to what we already
talked about, right?
It's not because I'm like, oh shit, I really need to tweet.
It's more like, like an extension of my brain, you know, it just like flows out kind of like
talking.
It's just like, ah, here's the tweet.
And all of that eventually amounts to something.
So you can either tell people and be like, look, you have to put yourself out a little
bit more.
Like if you design a lot of things, you have to put things on dribble.
So you either force yourself of doing doing so because that will eventually get you noticed
because you have to be because everyone on the Internet is kind of like screaming at
all times.
Right.
That's like what Twitter is.
Everyone's like, you know, look at this, look at this.
If you're just like the quiet girl or boy, like sitting there and, you know, not taking
part of that, it's really, really hard to get noticed.
So again, maybe you're not the kind of person and that is totally fine.
Like I wouldn't force yourself to do it, but maybe you can find a partner that is the counterpart
of that, you know.
And when you look at some please is the perfect example.
My partner, Mike, most people don't even know that he exists and he kind of enjoys that
for some reason, you know, like he's like Tobias, you know what, if someone's going
to blame some please, it's going to be you.
And I'm like, oh, fine.
So basically we have different responsibilities, you know, he likes to create this stuff in
the background and he hates tweeting and he hates social media and like all of these things.
I'm like, but he's perfect with all these creating things and he works very, very well
with me.
So we are basically a perfect fit, right?
Because I'm doing him a huge favor of being this like front facing, like a little bit
of like public figure and I'm like doing all this promotion stuff.
And if something goes wrong because he had a buck in the software, I'm the one who's
getting the blame.
I'm like, it's fine, you know, but I have this, I have all these other things that Mike
is basically doing for us or for me.
Yeah.
You've done a lot of things that are really hard to do.
And I think building an audience is a great example.
I mean, you've got a massive audience.
You've got tons of followers on Twitter who are super engaged.
You've got an email list that you grew from nothing to 30 or 40,000 subscribers and you
send them a new email every single week.
And I think even for people who might have no trouble at all putting themselves out there,
it's difficult to consistently find good content to share and to have people who are engaged
paying attention to it and to reach those people.
So what are your tips for people in that situation who are trying to build an audience?
The question is just so interesting because I've always been that person too who was like
asking other people of like, where do you get your ideas from?
Like, I was just so like, you know, like when you say like, how do you grow an email list?
I'm like, oh, I wish I could just like give you like a one, two, three, go to this and
then this and then this and success is guaranteed.
I mean, first of all, what's the story behind your email list?
Like how did it grow?
I know it started off super small.
Yeah, obviously every subscriber list starts with one subscriber, which is probably your
mom.
So that's something actually to keep in mind.
Every list has started with one subscriber.
Don't forget that.
It has started with like 30,000, 40,000 or more.
So the number one thing, keep it brief, is expectations.
Once again, I had zero expectations.
I was like, I'm going to write to 10 friends and that will be it.
And at the time it was 10 friends, but then you know how it is.
You know, it becomes 20 and then 30 and then 40 and then 50.
And the second is kind of like a secret you could say, but not really.
It's mostly consistency and I'm pretty sure that you can confirm that as well from the
work that you're doing.
If you show up on a daily or weekly basis, it is something that other people appreciate.
They will recognize it and they will talk to other people about it.
If you show up every single day and it's not so much about like the quality or the kind
of content or whatever you're writing, it's more about the consistency that you're putting
stuff out there on a daily or weekly basis.
It's essentially what gives you kind of like this like momentum pretty much because other
people do recognize that and you will also recognize that yourself.
Like you will feel how that it just feels better when you do it.
And a lot of people that I know and I'm including myself here, every time I see things not working
the way I want them to work is always because I'm not consistent.
It's like when I'm skipping emails, when I'm skipping certain things, I'm not doing it
on a weekly basis, I'm just being lazy and I'm not.
And even if that would be, let's imagine I would write the same amount of emails or articles
as I'm writing right now, but I would distribute them in a different way, like less consistent,
but they're still amounting for the same.
I would see less people talking or reading it because it's just a different kind of thing.
So if you have like, let's say, for example, you would have 10 articles and you have them
already written up rather than publishing them all at the same time or publishing four
now and then three, two weeks later and then another two, four weeks later, I would always
make sure that you publish one a week over the course of 10 weeks because that's going
to give you most of the success and most of the traffic because of its consistency.
That's like people can rely on you and kind of turn it into a habit.
Probably yeah.
Some psychologists or whatever could probably dig into this and explain why exactly it works,
but there's something about it and everything is about consistency.
It's the same with working out, right?
It's better to work out, which we're both not doing, by the way, apparently, but it's
better to work out an hour a day over the course of a year than like cramping in like
six hours of workout every two weeks because it just doesn't work.
You have to have that consistency and yeah, I think that's already it.
I think that's literally how my email list keeps growing is because I, and I haven't
done it always, I skipped weeks.
People will be friendly to remind me of that.
I have skipped weeks because I was lazy or because I couldn't do it or because I wasn't
inspired enough, but I showed up for more than two years now, pretty much like 99% every
single week and wrote an article.
You know what?
Sometimes these articles are shitty.
They're not interesting.
Sometimes it's like literally an article where I'm like, hey guys, I don't know what I'm
going to write today about, but now that I'm already writing, I'm just going to keep writing.
Oh, there's more letters coming.
I'm still writing and that's it.
That's the article.
But people still appreciate it because I just showed up.
Yeah, I felt I've seen the same things happen with some of the things that I've worked on.
I think that's really good advice because for example, this podcast when I first started
doing it, it was extremely difficult for me to get out and I think making by having more
consistency I got better at it as well as people were more interested in it.
So the first few episodes were getting like a couple thousand downloads.
These episodes nowadays are getting like 20,000 downloads and I can see in the charts with
the graphs where if I miss a week, which I haven't done in a while, but it kind of resets
things and like all the downloads go down and it has to like start back from an earlier
point and slowly get back to where it was just because I missed a week, not because
the episodes are any worse.
So I think consistency is a really good tip and it makes me think about like, yeah, go
ahead.
Okay.
Yeah.
No, I just wanted to add to what you said.
You know, people have such short attention span, especially when it comes to online.
Like if you skip your podcast for like two or three weeks and then you publish one again,
you know, you kind of like broke your consistency.
They're like, who the fuck is Cortland again?
Like who's a guy?
What podcast?
You know what I mean?
Like, of course it's not like as bad, but it's kind of a little bit like it, you know,
like you're not on the flow anymore.
You're like, I don't even know who this, who's to be us again.
Like what's this newsletter?
When did I actually subscribe to this thing?
And they just didn't read it for like a month because I skipped it, you know?
So that happens.
So I tell people starting newsletters, like you can't, you can't have like a quarterly
newsletter or you can't even really have a monthly newsletter.
That's too much time for people to know who you are.
You know, unless you're already established, you know, if you're already established, you
can do whatever you want, but you can do, Kanye West can write a newsletter every quarter
if you want to.
You can do it once a year.
People will read it.
I think, I think what's interesting is there's like, like a lot of the advice and the stuff
that we're talking about is like really common.
It's like not stuff that's hard to find online, but what makes it good advice isn't that it's
not obvious.
It's just that it's like, it's just hard to follow.
It's like, we can say be consistent and people are like, okay, I'll write that down.
Be consistent.
But it's like pretty hard to be consistent with your newsletter every single week.
You know, for me and the indie hackers newsletter, what kept me going early on was that like,
I kind of did have that like huge influx of users at the beginning.
It was like a thousand people on my mailing list after a week.
And I felt like incredibly guilt, like kind of, it's like you have like the haters who
are motivating you.
It's like, I felt super guilty if I didn't write a newsletter or if I did like a half
ass job.
And so I had to write the newsletter every single Thursday and start that habit because
I was like, man, there's thousand people waiting on me to write this newsletter and I never
would have written it otherwise.
And after a while it just got easy because I had done it so many times.
Yes.
You know what that is?
It works for me as well.
It's pride.
Yeah.
And I have a lot of self pride, although I wouldn't necessarily say I have a huge ego
or anything, but it definitely plays a role in motivating me.
Like I have a lot of pride.
Like the fact that someone can be like, oh, Tobias, you're so shitty.
You know, you're breaking your own advice.
Like you're, you're not consistent.
You skipped the newsletter.
That makes me like so angry, like not at the other person, but at myself, that it keeps
me being consistent, you know, because I don't want to upset people and most of all, I don't
want to upset myself.
So yeah, pride is actually really good.
A motivator.
I mean, it's the same thing.
I have to mention it here.
Like I'm the kind of person who loves to like thrive on outside pressure, right?
So if I would have a project that I want to work on, I'm usually the kind of person who
tells it to every friend in my friend circle because they're going to hold me accountable
because they're going to laugh at me if I'm not going to follow through.
So that's something that helps me a lot too.
You know, if you have an idea, don't keep it to yourself because if you keep it to yourself,
like no one is going to follow up, no one's going to hold you accountable.
You have to tell it to friends, but you have to be careful because there are also these
kind of people and pretty sure you know them.
You know, the kind of people who always tell everything to everyone and then they're not
doing anything anyways, and they already have the image of like, oh yeah, it's just Cortland.
He's, you know, he's just talking.
He's just like, yeah, whatever.
He wants to do a, you know, this, I, yeah, whatever, you know, obviously you have to,
you have to be careful, right?
You don't want to end up being that person.
Are there any things that you've told like to friends or coworkers that you just ended
up not doing?
Yeah, like a lot, probably.
Yeah, like a lot, like I'm always, but this is just a problem.
Like, you know, when you, when you're kind of person who always creates new things and
always has new ideas, like I'm always the kind of person who sits at the dinner table
is like, what about this?
Oh, I could do this, you know?
And honestly, for example, my podcast is one of the things that probably is one of the
biggest letdowns for myself and maybe friends as well.
I'm not saying I've stopped doing my podcast like for good, but I haven't done an episode
in many months now because it was just, you know how it is.
Like you, you're the person who would, it's, I couldn't do it anymore.
I was like, I'm writing this blog, like doing new articles.
I have this product.
I have like all these other side projects and then the podcast, like it was way out of my
control.
And then also when you're a perfectionist, you're spending so much time on researching,
finding the right guests.
And then it takes like, and then the thing is there's so many outsides, outside thing
that you don't have under your control.
Like there's other projects I have, everything is under my control, whereas the podcast is
very much dependent on other people's schedule.
So every time they reschedule, you know how it is.
Like someone is like, oh yeah, let's do the podcast.
And then a day before they're like, oh shit, I have to unfortunately cancel.
And then they're like, what about in two weeks?
Then you look at your calendar and they're like, well, I can't in two weeks.
And then it keeps going and you reschedule a podcast interview for like six months, literally.
And you know what I mean?
It just takes so much time.
And then at some point I was like, oh fuck this, I'm not going to do the podcast anymore.
It's just, you know, because it was a project that didn't really, like it was only costing
me money, like because I don't have advertising on it.
And it was just like one of these projects where I was like, oh, I feel so disappointed
in myself because people liked it.
I liked it, but I just couldn't make it work with my current workload and I'm disappointed
in it.
And maybe I can bring it back.
But it's one of these projects that I'm yeah, I'm definitely disappointed in myself.
Imagine if you were someone who only ever found it within himself to do one thing.
And the thing that you started with was your, your podcast and it just got exhausting and
you couldn't do it.
And then you would probably live the rest of your life thinking, ah, you know, I gave
it a shot and it didn't work out.
But in reality, you've done so many things that it's like, if one of them doesn't work
out, that's fine.
You've got a ton of other things to do.
And I, I get sad when I see people quit things because I think, you know, you just started
with the thing that's not what's right for you.
You know, some people love podcasts.
Some people love like the uncertainty.
I don't like it and you didn't like it, but some people are totally cool with it.
And like, that's their thing.
But if you don't do enough things, then you, you end up, you end up striking out on like
the first or second thing that you try, then you never really know if it's just because
you had the wrong idea that wasn't really meant for you.
I think it's cool to see someone like you is like incredibly successful to have things
that don't work out because like not everything's going to work out.
And in fact, most of the stuff that people like you make like doesn't work out.
You just keep going.
Yeah, there's, there's a lot and some of them are, you know, more painful than others.
The podcast is not too painful because it feels like you could still make it work of
like publishing it like here and there.
I think the only reason why my pride is a little bit hurt is because it's, you know,
it's like you're, you're, you're talking about consistency and you know that consistency
is what is important, especially for a podcast.
And I feel a little bit sad about it because like a podcast is also this thing where I'm
like, ah, I need to do it right.
You know what I mean?
Like it needs to be good and I need to focus a hundred percent.
And I think when I started my podcast, it was just like, kind of like a side gig.
You know, it was always like, ah, yeah, whatever.
I'm going to do it tomorrow.
And then especially with like the uncertainty, I felt like I don't have it under control.
And then I just started slacking, you know, and I just started rescheduling and I was
like, ah, I don't want to, I don't want to do it anymore.
And there are other projects.
For example, um, have you heard about dot mail now?
I can tell you if we still have time.
Yep.
Because that's a huge failure, a huge failure.
I remember that's about eight years ago now, um, I did a concept for a mail app, like an
email app, um, and it was called dot mail and I had all these ideas around and I did
like a nice case study on my portfolio of how I imagined this new email app to work.
Right.
And it was like a complete, like it was a redesign, but it also had like slight little
adjustments of like how we treat email, you know, because I always, I was always really
annoyed by email in general.
And I published this thing, um, without actually having the intention of building it.
Right.
It was just me talking about email and I can, I can send you that actually as it's still
online somewhere.
I just found a link to it.
I'm looking at it right now.
Yeah.
That's like eight years ago.
So I haven't touched it since then anyway.
So I, I publish it and it got picked up by a lot of news outlets and like fast company
and like wired magazine or like all these big magazines where I'm writing about it.
They're like here, email reinvented.
And I was like laughing at it because I was like, this is ridiculous.
Like I didn't even expect this to blow up because like I didn't reinvent anything.
You know, it was just like me trying to take a different take on email.
And because all this attention, like pouring it, like I got like millions of views in traffic.
Okay.
So the first reaction was just like, Oh shit, I got to put, you know what, I need to just
capture that interest and put up a quick like dot mail app.com website with an email sign
up and being like, okay, you know what, if you're interested in this, if you would interest
in buying this, um, like put in your email and then we think about it.
Okay.
So within the first month, about I think like 60 or 70,000 people signed up and I was like,
well, that's a good, that's a good test.
You know, that's like, well, if we would develop it, there's already 70,000 people who have
initial interest in who would buy it.
Even if just 10% of those would buy it, um, that would be so cool.
You know?
So I was like, shit, that's cool.
And again, it was not planned.
That was just unexpected.
Um, so I tried to find developers and I, uh, teamed up with someone and I worked on this
for more than a year and it was a huge failure.
Like the developer completely underestimated.
I think we all underestimated working on an email app because email protocols are so fucking
old.
It's really annoying.
And that's why you don't see much innovation in that field happening because it all runs
on protocols that are like decades old.
Um, so that was a huge failure.
I switched to another developer and you know how it is every time you switch developer,
they always have, you know, they always come with their own religion.
So they always like, oh, you know, we're going to do it.
Yeah, I'm going to rewrite this.
We're going to do it like this.
This developer was so stupid and like, all right, fine, um, let's do it like this.
And again, like I used to be a software engineer, so I'm not completely stupid.
You know, I can read code and I understand how things work.
So I was like, Oh yeah, you're right.
Like let's, let's just try a different approach.
And it completely failed again.
And I slowly had to disappoint people because one and a half years later, people were asking
like, what do you have?
Like you said, you guys are developing it.
What's happening?
Um, and then at some point I was like, I think it was like two years after, um, I wrote out
a message and I was like, I'm sorry, we're like, we're shutting it down.
Like I'm, I felt so fucking disappointed.
Like you can't believe me because it's, you have this huge audience, more or less at this
time it was like more than a hundred thousand people who signed up to the email list.
And we're like, yeah, let's give it like I'm, I want it like I want it right now.
Um, and so I was like, yeah, fuck it.
And then, yeah, nothing happened.
And then I think like three years later or four years later, actually after that, I had
another, I was like, shit, there's still nothing happening.
Right.
Um, like in the email market.
And at that time, uh, mailbox mailbox launched, I think a little like a year after I did the
dot mail thing as well.
Um, and then they actually got acquired from Dropbox and it got shut down and you know,
I saw all of that thing happening and I was like, oh shit, we can still do it.
I, you know, it's almost like a little flame, like, uh, was lightening up inside of me and
was like, oh, this thing I did four years ago is still kind of relevant.
Maybe I try it again.
So I looked for a developer and I teamed up with someone and again, I tried to make it
like a team, you know, not just me hiring a developer, but just like making, Hey, we're
a team now and we're going to split this thing 50 50 and we worked on it for a couple months
and like the developer ditched me again and it didn't work and underestimated.
And then I was like, but at that time I didn't tell anyone about it.
Okay.
I was like, I'm not going to tell anyone about it.
I'm going to do this in secret because at least then it's just a disappointment, like
a personal one.
So actually you're actually one of the first people I tell you this, um, because I never
told anyone that I actually started working on it again.
Um, and that's actually just a year ago now, I believe, um, that I had another try at it
and we shut it down again.
And now I'm basically, I think I'm like, fuck this bullshit.
Like this is, it's a,
My labs are really hard, I've done a couple myself and none of them worked, it's just
not easy.
There's a giant graveyard of people trying to reinvent email.
Yeah.
So I was like, so this is, um, maybe this is interesting for some of the listeners,
you know, because it's, it's a huge disappointment, um, from the very beginning and, and, and
even worse so because there was a huge potential too, you know, if you already have a hundred
thousand people who signed up to your thing and then you have to disappoint them, that's
even worse than doing something that only your mom is going to disappointed about you
because you told her about it.
But I, I was really angry at myself, you know, because I'm not the kind of, I'm the kind
of person who's like, if I promise something, I follow through, you know, I don't give up.
And now I see all these, yeah.
And I feel bad about it, you know, and I know that a lot of things, the reason why we didn't,
we couldn't do it was also a lot of, was my fault because I, I wasn't like strict enough
with the people that I teamed up with, you know, like they were treating it more as a
side project and you know how it is.
You can't treat those things as a side project.
They're too complex.
Like you have to dive into them.
You have to give them a certain amount of time of your attention every single day.
Otherwise you don't get it done.
And it was my fault.
And I feel really bad about it, but I'm slowly starting to feel better about this whole thing
of like being like, fuck this bullshit.
Like I don't care anymore.
Like I don't care about this email thing anyways.
You know, maybe I'm just, maybe I'm just telling this to myself, but I think I'm glad at this
point that it didn't work out because when I look into the future, I'm always like, can
I see myself working on an email client every day?
Fuck no, definitely not.
Maybe I was attracted to the challenge.
Maybe I was very energized by the overwhelming feedback.
Maybe that's what was the reason why I wanted to work on it, but am I really passionate
about email?
No, definitely not.
No.
And it's funny because it's like the story, it's like the story kind of goes against some
of the things that have helped you succeed with other projects, like having low expectations,
which it's really hard to do if you have 70,000 people sign up for your email list saying
they want to pay for it.
You know, like how do you have low expectations for that?
You've got to make almost a hundred thousand people happy right out of the gate.
But I think we started this interview by me asking you, you know, who are you and what
are some of the best things you've done?
And you said that you wanted your best things to come in the future.
And so maybe we should end on that note.
What are some things that you would like to do in the future?
And what are your goals really with the things that you're working on now?
I think it all comes down to, first of all, all the things that I'm doing right now, I
always want to have fun.
That's the most important thing.
If the thing that is not that I'm doing right now is not fun anymore, I'm going to stop
doing it and I'm going to find something else.
And number two, I don't know exactly where I'm going, but as long as I know where I don't
want to go, that's enough for me.
You know, it's almost like as long as I know that this is not what I want to do, then at
least I can try to avoid these things, you know, and I go into a new direction.
Number three, I would love to do something to get a little bit more specific for you.
I would love to do something in the air travel, like aviation industry at some point, because
it really has so much potential and there's so many things that are really bad about it
and I'm really interested in it.
But I also know how complex it is, so it's not, that's more like a wishlist kind of thing.
You know, it's not like, oh, I have very concrete thoughts of what I'm going to do.
But there's something about it that I want to work on in the future.
And in general, I think right now I'm very, very open to, maybe that's just because I'm
a little, you know, too used of like the technology industry, but I'm really interested in breaking
into more traditional industries right now.
Again, like I have, I'm just talking right now out loud my thoughts pretty much, but
there's something, I think I'm getting a little bored sometimes of like the tech stuff.
You know what I mean?
Like I remember, I remember 15 years ago, I would be so passionate about building websites.
You know, I would be like, if you would show me a website that was like, you know, with
like cool animations and transitions, I would be like, whoa, that's so cool, I want to build
this too.
Or like, I would always have these ideas of like making it even better and better and
like more flashy, you know?
And now if you would tell me, hey, Tobias, you want to build a website, I'm like, fuck
no.
Like I go away with that bullshit.
Like I don't want to build a website anymore.
And it sounds kind of funny because I'm working on something that helps people build websites,
but there's a different kind of view that I have right now.
Like for me, websites right now are not the same thing anymore as like 15 or even 20 years
ago.
You know what I mean?
Like there, now it's more about like, just make them usable, like make them easy to read.
Like don't go away with that stupid flashy stuff.
Like don't make too, like don't put too many animations in there.
You know, like I just want to get to the information.
Let's try to, let's try to try to improve other things than like making internet websites
more flashy.
For example, I know it's, it sounds kind of funny right now because I'm maybe ranting
a little bit, but I think my passion or my interest has just changed a little bit.
You know, and I'm not as passionate about doing websites anymore because they don't
feel like 15 years ago was this whole experience around the website.
There was this like, I sometimes spend like minutes or hours like pouring over websites,
like how they were done because they were almost like a mini, like a mini movie sometimes.
And nowadays websites and design has became, become so standardized.
It's almost boring.
You know what I mean?
Like no one is doing like very few people are doing anything special anymore.
And I think that's just because like UX designers and like all these people like came around
and everyone was, everything was just about, let's like, let's make everything look exactly
the same.
The navigation is in the same place.
And again, like I can't even complain right now because you could argue these things are
now more accessible, right?
Because there are norms around how we do things and it's not the Wild West anymore.
So maybe, but that's also, so I'm basically, I'm seeing the positive things about the accessibility
and the norms and standards, but at the same time, it makes me lose passion to build within
that space.
Does that make any sense?
It makes a lot of sense.
And I think it's so cool looking at the pattern that kind of underlies how you think you're
almost always like pushing against some sort of trend or something that has become the
accepted standard.
And I think that's probably why a lot of the stuff that you do stands out because you you're
constantly acknowledging what are people doing and how do I do the opposite?
You know, what's wrong with what people are doing?
And I think the tendency that a lot of other people have is to try to figure out what other
people are doing so that they can emulate it, which is the recipe for not standing out.
You know, people are, yeah, they're trying to fit in and definitely not trying to fit
in.
No, not at all.
Please don't that's like, that's the worst thing that can happen.
And every time it happens, you can you can slap me in my face and remind me I will make
sure to slap you.
Well, anyway, Tobias, it was great having you on.
Can you tell people where they can go to support you or to learn more about what you're doing?
Yeah, sure.
I mean, it would be nice if you can just check out my you can just check out my website at
Vanschneider.com or on Twitter at Vanschneider.
Maybe Kordland is going to link that up as well.
But that's that's pretty much it.
Just check out all the things that you can find there.
You can read my blog if you want.
There's a lot of things written about the things that we talked about.
And I would appreciate if you can say hi on Twitter if you enjoyed this episode.
I think Kordland would appreciate that as well.
Yeah, me too.
Well, thanks so much, Tobias.
Thank you so much, Kordland.
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