#225 – Growth Tactics, Audience Building, and Brains with Julian Shapiro of Demand Curve
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What's up, everybody? This is courtlandt andi hacker's to com, and you're listening to the andi hacker's podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process.

And on this show, I sit down with these and the hackers to discuss the idea as the opportunities and the strategies they're taking advantage so the rest of us can do the same. I am here with Julian pea, but in mine he's been on to show a few times, what do you talk about the past, Julian? Basically your business to and curve and like how to grow a set business, which you've helped hundreds of businesses do.

What do you have to know is yes. So democrat is a community of like forty thousand marketers and Operators. And then we use them as research and as intel for learning how companies are growing. We package that intel into these playbooks, uh, and then we teach them to you very tactically like hands on how do you acquire customers for facebook as penter's unit. So what have been doing this week as i've been figuring out the patterns among the fastest growing companies that are in our community and who's growing way faster than they should, who who has the cheap codes and what are they? I thought that would be a fine exercise.

So and this is this is important because properly growth is a number one chAllenge. And he start up like so many people start companies and the medical products, they medical idea, they build IT, they get IT out there and nobody uses IT and then they go, shit, I didn't realize that like actually getting people on the doors like the hard part. And so I want to hear these these.

these tactics yeah sure. So I must say, are necessarily new. Uh, but there is interesting. I know a lot of people don't really emphasize them. So one is something called self liquidating funds of bunch for spoke me about this.

And the idea here is if you can't make the economics of paid acquisition work, if you can't get your facebook ads to work for your business because this is too expensive ideas, you can release a second product that is not the primary thing you sell. And the second product is something cheap. And they can impulse biology when you're at the check out ile of the supermarket.

And if you pushed that, and if enough people buy this cheap, say, fifty dollar, twenty or thing that IT at least breaks even on your ad cost, well, then the net gain is, you know, have an email dress and a potentially loyal new customer. So and then you use emails like grip sequences or over the next few months to convert that person to buy the primary product, right? So so that is self liquidating fund, meaning like liquidity is self financially.

And I thought that was so clever. And so this is a quick example. If you're like an education company, you can do IT with an e book, or if you're like an seo tool, and you Normally charge two hundred box of months, what if you had a second day product is like a content planning tool and you discharge five books a month?

I like one. This is idea of a side project marketing. People used to write IT about a lot.

I don't see as much anymore, but it's like, okay, it's really hard to get people to your main product. You build a secondary product and that can sleep on the door. And so it's not the same as self liquid fund where the goals sort of recoup your costs.

But IT is kind of similar in that like you build a different thing in order to get traffic. And so I know like lenni, my friend, to this with our company key values, our companies is all about like getting, you know software engineers to find jobs to companies that share their values. And then you vote the side project called cultural query ies that helps you ask the right questions during a job interview. Like ask questions to the company that's interviewing you so you can find out about the culture like that wonder gets a tony start traffic and then SHE forced out traffic to her main business. And that was super smart.

Be absolutely. And of course, the risk there is that you could get very distracted building all the chasing all the secondary ary cheap product. So there's much more to the strategy of paratimer ation underlying this.

But for some folks, if you can spend up something quick and cheap, that is very enticing and IT can make the difference as to whether facebook acquisitions impossible. alright. So next category of staff demands are companies unity are using to go quick. So next is giving away money, which I know sounds like, yeah no shit. But who how that .

possibly work?

Yeah exactly. But let me give you some examples of what I mean in practice. You have main street, which is the company that literally shows you how to get like ten thousand plus in tax credits are every year.

So the ad is essentially we're going to give you ten thousand box, not literally, but essentially. And that's an extremely ly compelling hook, which whenever you can present something to someone in the framing of we're giving away tons of money and there's really no catch. The ads tend to perform extraordinary R Y.

Well as as they have for main treat and other examples. Company called service that used to exist. They used to be this less known policy among airlines where they would give you some money back if their flights were delayed for certain reasons. And service was an apt automated that customer supporting their action so that literally like if you just upload your edina, you can start like printing cash back to your collect credit toward future flights, uh, if you were ever delayed. And so the ads run for that, we're O K. Did you know your lines of pay up like a hundred box in credit if you're filled and those ads crushed and they were quickly spending well over million a month in in as so it's such a powerful children horse because even if that's like not the best business model unto itself, it's such a quick way to grow because that people flock to IT, that you can then become the growth wedge, like the growth hook that powers your user base and builds loyalty, that and then you then find second day revenue streams that are way bigger to build on top of that.

Yeah, i'm reading about mainstream right now. I was unaware of this business. It's not ever bunch of friends who started businesses in the past. And then when cove IT hit, you know, the government started doing like all these sort of grants and loans and like a crazy rates where people were getting tones and tones of money. And it's not how like changing this money was for different businesses, but it's also not like how chAllenging IT is to like know what all the options are. And so yeah this giving you free money with and he will take a small cat if you let our professionals go to work and say the all this money is huge.

one of the cool business models is IT will take five or ten or twenty percent what we say, right? Everybody wins. Business makes money.

You get money back in every new you are you had, you know, coming to you. It's pretty compelling. So the third growth topic, mac opportunity, we ve got here is product like growth.

So i'm sure a lot of people i've heard of this term, but i'm not sure if everyone has thought through how to implement IT. So first of all, what does that mean? So product, that growth is basically when I sent up to use the product as is intended to be used inherently.

Other people learn about my use the product ah or other people around me benefit hugely from signing up to experience IT with me. And the reason that so important is because it's the healthiest former growth next to word of mouth reflects, which is a function like the quality of your product, product experience, so and and reduction. What I want to dive into product, that growth for a moment is licious compare at these other channels are just sort of like the worse over the long term.

So ads, the cpm, so the cosplay ressie for running ads can Spike up, can be volatile. People constantly saturate their add channels, and they can get the as to work anymore, meaning people seen there are too many times with content. You have the mercy of google algorithmic dates, which can completely take quite your traffic.

And half happens all the time. But with products, that growth is like the healthier thing that known can take away from you, that you can optimize over time and tend to be the most viral. So let me give you an example.

Like when I sign up for slack inherent to me getting value out of slack, I have to go invite a lot of other people. I bring my whole team on. I bring contractors on to a slack connect, because that makes the slack experiences even Better.

And give you another example, when I use paypal and I send someone money, I think the ultimate product that growth because for them to even get my money, they have to sign up to get IT, right? That's another great example of product that growth. And there's so many more example like drop box and so on, but that's a really healthy weit to growth some way. Those are three things that I guess how to scrap up by saying, like if these are interesting to folks, this is all of what demand ker of dot comas, we just help people with gross stades.

Obviously, the whole I concept, the cradle economies been really big recently. And you kind of got started maybe around this time last year a bit earlier where you're like what i'm going to grow the hell of my witter account and at the time you're at, like I don't know, ten or twenty thousand followers like, okay, cool july and that's cute like you could spend your time on twitter now year later, you're like two hundred thousand followers, the one hundred and ninety nine thousand one hundred followers.

So you'll be like two hundred thousand followers by the end of this episode. You like crushed IT. I don't know have you ever seen anyone set their mind to something and then like figure out the formula and do IT as well as you did.

And now you're this place you've like a crazy following on twitter kind like can you want to branch out? So then we started the podcast brains and now you're also starting a news letter. And another serious like what you're thinking is like, why started a news letter .

if twitter could ban the present of united states Donald trump from the platform? No one safe. And IT IT just struck me that I need a separate so called channel in marketing speak relationship with folks that I could and quote on, meaning I have their email addresses or is a one way connection.

There's no mediator as an email servers. So I think it's really important for you spend all of time building audience and say twitter that you have a skate patch or I can off rap. Um so just theoretically from a time defensively perspective, IT makes sense, but that's not obviously why I would do IT.

I've hopefully pure more interesting motivations and that so for example, I I think a lot about repurposing and forcing functions. So like if i'm already doing x can purpose into y and then how how useful at White b to me. So i'm already reading books of already learning things.

Then I can condense them in the news, other issues, awesome. Or as a forcing function. If I want to be reading more of that stuff, well, then I will publicly tell people I will do this thing, and then I will have to stick to IT.

So forcing functions and me proposing go a really long way, I think when you're essentially a content creator. But the design, the news that her is, the news that I always wanted, which is i'm basically like identifying the loved books in non fiction and distilling the most interesting insights from them and sharing them with my opinions and my takes. And I only email you once a month.

So as I call highlights, the highlights news letter is Julian dog com slash newsletter. Because think of IT, like if you read through someone is kind of highlights the best books y've ever read, but they're like written really clearly in editor realized like summarized IT. That's what you get is like the best interesting stuff.

So that was the whole idea. You know it's interesting. So we can talk more about the content. But was interesting in particular is I have a kanda, which is there's like well over forty thousand people who had sub to drink the com in the past, not really for anything. IT is like really nebulous that I was not doing anything.

And so now the kunder is, how do I swap people over a particularly given like some of them has been quite a while. And like who is this as hole is instantly tly hit the span button. So I had to figure out the actual strategy for on ramping all of these people, whom basically read, at one point, one of my hand books and enjoy my body post like that. Nothing said, cool. all.

Have you sent any issues? yes.

So right now I i've sent the first two, just kind of as an automated drip sequence for fox to sign up, and i've been checking the metrics. So i'm taking a very limited approach this. So i'm not trying to go to the backlog of forty thousand folks, just taking the people who sub every month right now. And I testing does my instant email that gets sent upon subscription.

What's the performance of that? And then I have this another issue that comes at a few days later automatically and what's performance of that? And if those are looking good, if I can harder that performing, then i'm in a position to go to the backlog and knowing that a lot of them won't turn, you know, marketing speak like fall off. So that's what i've done in the the unsubtle rates extremely low, uh, the open rates extremely high, like I definitely crack IT there, I think. So now I got to go to the backlog.

Never worry about being like a kind of a tramp. I mean, you're already on a trade, al, as I like, the fact that I have this podcast means that every week i'm kind of want to hope to produce one or two pockets ever says, whether i'm feeling in the mood to do or not.

And that's partly why i'm not that active on twitter like you'll tweet every now in them, but I don't want like condition people to think i'm going to tweet all the time because there was just just don't feel IT. But you're like on a bunch, you running like ten trade simultaneously and like a paleo and like you've got like everything. You've got like your twitter, a podcast, you've got your handbooks on Julian dcom.

People are expecting those to come out. You've got your blog on the Julian dcom. You've got your newsletter. Do you ever feel like you're piling up with too many things and it's unsustainable? Or you just like go mode all the time, never get tired this stuff?

It's a great question. The thing is I don't care at all about expectations regarding frequency. Like I tweet twice a month, my newsletter is once a month.

These are very low agents. Um my hand books come out once every year and a half. But guy just really don't care. There's this weird myth out there that you have to hit some certain referring high frequency if people remember who you are, absolutely not true.

It's just a function of like did you provide high engh signal, really high quality content, at least enough time to say, like one to three times for you to build this impression at any time you read something in the future, it's worth people's time to revisit if you can accomplish that perception. The frequencies are relevant there. So many great examples. Tim urban, who've been talking about on way White econic I publishers, so infrequently take the words on for your blog.

You know, people like ten urban, because if you read his comment on his blog, it's a budget of people who are angry that is not publishing. So you know your fans love you when they were like actually mad at you for not publishing.

And it's like it's kind of an allegation of the podcast where you can do this experimental thing, like you've got this experimenting phase with the news that I would really like, okay, i'm going to need book highlights, but maybe book highlights won't work. Like maybe people will love the first three in the natural that that's an that highlights, right? Then you can just change in the beginning of any new thing.

You might as well cater wide net, experiment with a bunch of different formats, measure and see our people like respond and react to them, and then not narrow yourself into a corner until, like, you've actually figured out what works. Basically, exploit. Exploit is the short way of saying this.

And with the news letter is like, i'm curious if do you have alternative options of this book? Highlights thing didn't work out. I like the book delights idea.

Like I want to get highlights of books. I read a lot of books, but quite Frankly, to be more of us to getting the highlights. But what happens if that doesn't work? Like you quit the new letter? Do you try a different format?

Well, I I guess we have to define work. Like if if I, if I feel enough people are subscribing and retaining and if not turning, then IT works. Uh, if that isn't the case, if we do see hi turn, would I change the approach? Probably because the R Y is IT just tied to M, I learn, is IT a forcing functions like also is is actually like the opportunity costs some billion audience to some other means, or keeping them close.

Isreal, so yeah, I probably switched topics if I were if this undescried tes were super high because I don't think that would be because the implementations bad because i've already have done enough testing and chAllenging the folks that I think implementation of the idea is good. So really what we're trying to find out is, is the idea one that doesn't burn people out? That's the question, I think.

And if so, yeah, I probably switched up. But like when I was canvassing news atter out there, there's a few different categories may be break into IT maybe is helpful for listeners. So you have like the long form editorial stuff, like here's might take on why slack you going to be a huge business, right? Then we have a news round up.

This is like six different stories from the news of mico paragraph. Take right. Then we have things are like personal journeys and personal discoveries, like this month and table, how I learned about x, what have been up to with my girlfriend and what new supplements and trying and all that stuff, right?

We have a few friends who have these little news letters that are just like that, and there's a few others. And so in that landscape, this type of structure has the best legs. Mine is essentially half editorial, half resource finding.

So it's like i'm that that was the everything that I forgot to share. Another format is like the tim fairs five bullet friday thing was like five coolin ks are on the web halfway between that and an actual editorial. And I think that is a good mix.

Yeah yeah, that sort of resource. One is trick is ten vers five bullet friday. I think he had to be the only started this James clear has a three, two, one and thursdays like, okay, well, here's like three quotes and then two ideas and one question for you.

And it's just a super formula at the same every single time. And then you've got like David parl has like basically the same thing he was like two news letters come at the same format. And like that form, I think is really cool because it's the easiest sort of read and skim, like quite Frankly, when I meet my inbox, like I don't really want to sit down and really like a really dense essay.

When i'm like trying to blow through my emails, i'm just try to get the unreachable zero that's i'm trying to do. And so it's really skiable and it's really easy, I think, to right, because you're not to like rack your brain every day with the completely new story. If you're been thomson from protector and you're doing editorial and like every single week, every other day, you've got a figure out like a new story to cover in some unique way, like break news and everyone else's has had are heard like that.

Super hard to do and super effort like that. Levine does this with his column, but he had basically like business writing and it's mostly like finance. And he super good at is like, because new that is awesome.

And I think he writes, your bloomberg is got a huge following, and I know them once. So how do you come up the ideas? I just want to shoot to ship with him.

And his answer is, I work very, very, very, very, very, very hard and it's like, well, that doesn't seem like a very fun thing. He didn't seem like this, having a lot of fun doing IT, you know, even a little stressed out. So I like you are a sort of resource sharing format.

Yeah, you can do what i'm doing or benedicts doing if it's like an africa that has to be integral to the other work you're already doing because this is too time consuming. And if you don't have an audience to justify like the R L Y, it's like very dicey use of time. And that's why to your point is blink ground up things you can delegate that someone on your team like that's probably the strong as I know they have a great subscription rates. I know they're not that hard to do. Um we know their open rates are pretty good too because i've asked some these .

news letter force with indie hackers our news letters. It's the news round up format until every issue will be kind like four or five stories and the value prop from every issue should be that like you walk away knowing more about like what you need to know about to be in the action to be a successful ckt. And then the of the north star metric is turn people underestimate, turn so much IT doesn't matter. Feel like bringing people into your a newley are your podcast, are your website.

If more people are leaving than join, what causes us somebody to unsubscribe a news letter? Often you could have a really good news that that people thinker is like, awesome like, I really love this new setter but they don't read IT and so eventually, after not reading IT, like ten or fifteen times, I just could I subscribe it's just clouding up in box and like this would be good if I read IT but I am not reading IT so IT sex and so for us, we're like, okay. Well, our news that are so long that people often won't read IT and so what we did was try to like condense the value is like much as we possibly could and put IT right at the top.

And so we won't just have four stories and you need to take like thirty minutes to review, like for a bullet points the top, each one of which just by reading IT, like tell you something you need to know, or something that's good to know that you ouldn't have known othe wise unless you were following the news elsewhere. And like that, I don't know itself is enough for you. Do not unsubscribe, even if you never read the rest of IT.

Yeah a little something for everyone is actually a pretty decent approach for neuters in particular, I think um like it's too unfocused for a blog post, but there are some channels where is kind of make sense. I think that is the one I think twitter is the same thing. Little one, me, action there, a little personal narrow.

How do you feel about twitter nowaday? I know they've been like experimenting a whole bunch. It's funny about a much a twitter stock, like last foxes.

Like I think twitter is gonna rush IT. And like that of all the holding that have twitters like to done by far the best, even absolutely rushing for the new features. They're got like a tony people on the platform and I breaking us because you mentioned means they had twitter sort of stories.

I forget if they called the fleet, they had fleet, and you're like so good at posting new memes and the fleets and that they ve announced the ginning rid of fleets, this all sorts of all the cool stuff. They get twitter spaces. They're going to monodist twitter. I think that basically trying to make twitter so that you don't do what you are trying to do right down and move off of twitter and take your audience to like an email news letter. So how do you feel about like the future of twitter?

I think twitter is the most interesting social network for information and nothing even like like youtube. But youtube really a social network I don't called that is not democratized media or something. But if you're looking like his cure social networks and maybe you could say you do this one, twitter is the most interestingly, you can you can learn enough to build a career.

You can learn enough to make a tony money. You can learn enough, but you can like position yourself well enough to meet amazing people. These things are really only possible right now. Uh, on twitter I can think of, and also like on twitter, your assessed not by your social grass.

So if I want facebook, like my social graph determined who I meet who's recommended to me, and like if I mean the cool, cool kids club, maybe from in high school sort of thing, who's talking with with me. Instagram is like how good of the images you post on linking is, how good the fuck and corporate spam you post. Whatever IT is on twitter, you're judge by the quality of your thoughts like that's what you populate into the firehose, the people who follow you.

So if you're just no one with really interesting like contrary and thoughts or elegant thoughts go so far, you can see these people who come from complete security and skyrocket to time of followers just purely based on their thoughts. I think it's brilliant. I think it's an equalizer, and I think it's the most educational, satisfying social network.

So I I really hope he sticks around all these features that they're like releasing and that are bombing. I like a attraction to me. I just really want the health of the network to exist where people feel free to share interesting ideas. Yeah.

I think you just nail IT. yeah. Youtube, youtube, huge. Youtube is like a learning machine. You go to youtube learn anything. Twitter is the best place to discuss ideas like you're saying. It's the best way to connect people and station.

M, I use just like to talk to friends and sometimes to learn like i'm doing a lot of like tear design step at my new apartment and like enterprise, a lot of great accounts for like visual and but twitter is like it's to me that seems like it's a gold mine where like people like you are constantly tweet. These threads fells like really great information, these really great insights. And like I had to have to like beyond line at the right time to catch IT.

Like their search sucks. Like if I could just go on twitter and search, like I don't know, like B2B exc ess sal es, like I should pull up like the best threads of all time, of which there will be many that talk about this topic and like show me the people who are the experts on this and let me ask them questions and talk to them. Like twitter is like boys, we are able to do suffer that, but they really don't.

And so I think like that's unnecessary, a bad thing. If you're like investing in twitter future, I think that means have a lot of room to grow and that's you like there might be me financially is like a public stock market investor. You personally as somebody who's actually investing a lot of time and to twitter itself and other people who are on twitter as well.

But like even without that, they say they never build that stuff. Your twitter account, two hundred thousand followers, is a huge distribution channel, pretty much anything you work on for the rest of your life. If you tweet about IT, you're going to like provide like that initial shock of users on the front to order to get them to check IT out.

You can eat about your news letter. You're a describers. I don't know there's any other place that is easier to sort of grow just by sharing ideas and then use that to sort of parlay your traffic and you're following like some other arena.

Let's talk about what i've been bugging you to talk about for a we star in the podcast, our other podcast, because we started a new show, brains. I don't think i've talked about IT on ny hackers. But now that you're here, if you've ttl talk about IT just because it's such a cool show, I guess you would like pitched to me.

The idea of doing a podcast went like october last year, like I think my men said at the time, was like the last thing on earth I want to do is another product. And then we talking about IT and working on IT and became, I mean, I don't if I told this place, I pay more excited about IT. The more we workshopped IT and the more we sort of take her own stuff and workshop IT and like analyzed. And I tried to like figure out the best way to make IT work, like the more fun that becomes like that's the fun of IT.

That's funny. My memory is you you suggested to problems changing the yeah the exciting part for me is seeing how relent as you are, but figuring out the right way to sharp show every episode like we buy past a couple of years of really awful content because yet so many learning from meter hackers.

And that to me is like even if even if the show goes nowhere, i'm earning so much about how to construct interesting conversation, which is IT goes beyond the podcast. So that's very interesting to me. And yeah, I almost every part of IT started as a chore, like literally every part scheduling gas figure in out who to schedule the recording, the editing.

But now there's a feedback loop. So because enough of the episodes, I think they're actually good. I'm like, oh, this will come out good and the dope and hits like a like a few feedback i'm going to have fun chasing through this.

And then the flip side is i've realize to become a giant excuse to meet awesome people. So like there's kind of two ways to be a host on a podcast. One is kind of like that fake an A E television announcer person is okay.

So glad to have you here. Let's dive into your history. You once vote about x and I won to learn lot about that.

And then the other way is like, oh, could this be a person? Let's have real conversation, right? And if you do the latter, then there is a good chance that guess you have on who, in our case, are awesome people i've always wanted to meet, actually become your friends afterward. So that, to me, is I an amazing, honestly unexpected benefit that I actually talking with these people now?

Yeah Taylor cowen's podcast conversion retailer. He's like, he's very authentic. I'll basically read like ten books before an episode because he just an avid reader. He only invites on guest that he really cares about and then he just has a conversation with them that he genuinely wants to have.

Like sometimes sharing this episode gets really like, oh, so we explained this concept for listeners and like, no, it's not for them, it's for us. And then just just like talk for ten minutes about something that you've no idea they're discussing. But it's kind of fun like as a listener, because you get to hear what real people like us, in this case, like academics and economists are actually talking about. And you get to authentic, be a fly on the wall, and not get this sort of like fake tail to the audience experience.

That's exactly the thing is I think when a lot of people make content, they think they have to optimize for the lay person. But lay people actually enjoy the puzzle of figure out what the heck is going on, and they they catch up and then IT becomes a fun chase, like in a mystery film. And if you target delay people exclusively, then you you alienate the intermediate in advance.

But if you actually aim for intermediate to advance, everyone enjoys the content are like when eric whedell in goes on, joe rogan and he has, he's like our long diatribe about really hard math concepts so you don't understand any of IT, but you like literally, literally none of IT. But the joy is watching someone who is working in a different plain of like thought, just geek out and then try to late IT to someone else who they really respect and that that that's a really fun thing. So i'm with you like don't make content for lay people when you're doing a podcast.

Yeah and say that is exactly if it's education. You need to dumb IT down to basically hold people's hands and make sure they entertained. It's coming on because the goal is just like teach them something useful.

But most podcasts ers for entertainment, like people are listening while they do chores, like they kind of want like a few dog mean hits of insights and learnings, but like they're mostly listening to pass the time and they feel good. And if you get to do an entertainment show that it's like you really do need to accept the fact that people like to piece together puzzles. You don't always want to know exactly what you're talkin about.

And I think the other side of that is I talked to probably a couple of dozen people who started podcasts since I started, and I hater three, four years ago, and almost every one of them is like subsequently quit. Because podcasting is hard. Putting on anything on a weekly came.

This is hard. A newsletter to eating all the time. Building your website is hard if you going to do IT on consistent basis. So if you're not doing something that you actually enjoy, you're pregnant to quit. And if you're not having a thing to conversations, if you're sort of putting on like a fake performance every single time, then you're not really going to enjoy your show.

And what's worse is you're going to build up an audience of people who get used to the type of show that you're doing and then you're going to feel even more locked in to doing IT that way once you have a thousand and ten thousand listeners, and it's going to be hard to let go back. So the best thing you can do to start off kind of the way that we did, which is like vite, the guess that we want to talk to you and discuss the top that we want to talk about and prep in the way that we want to prep and like converse the way that we want to you. And hopefully people that we like who like us on our styles into the show and people who don't will listen and like doesn't doesn't matter that goes some other .

yeah I think that's the nature of being a crash person. You can be a craft person unless the process is itself the reward. And so if you can figure out how to delegate or like batch or automate the stuff you don't like, and then really emphasize the stuff you do love and fear what those are IT gets IT can be sustainable.

Uh, we have the thing in demand curve, doc comm, which we will talk about, which is this idea purposing. So any time we make content, we ask ourselves, what else can this be rebandage force that if this particular outlet is a failure, then at least we get some biology out of IT. So that's what I meant by, like me becoming close with this awesome guess.

We have literally, if no one listen to the show, I at least have that. And I actually think that alone is possible. Because if you think about a podcast, it's a really, really good, mutually self interested excuse a to meet with people who can didn't have a great excuse to before.

Like if you wait for authors to come on the the publication circuit for the latest book, like they're self interested in going on a pod, and if yours looks like git and you can kind of project that there's enough sort of signal behind their listening, then there's a decent chance to get them on, and that's kind of the wedge for meeting them. So IT does such a great we purposing of the experience. And the other is, and this, I think is the most important one, I think particularly for you, I think, is each episode is a forcing function for learning something. It's like, k, if we get an episode today on personal finance, alright, i've always wanted to learn that now is the time to do IT. And again, if no one listens to IT, at least i'll be able to bounced my ideas of someone who I can, also a guest who can correct me where i'm wrong.

I love this idea is the idea of kind of like stacking where whatever you're doing instead, I was just trying to hit like one benefit or one value proposition. You stack multiple benefits. So it's like, okay, let's do a podcast potentially.

You can make money from a podcast. You can learn interesting things from your guests. You can make friends with your guests.

You can basically learn testing things just by preparing for ever odes. So like you said, we do personal finance. We can read a lot of about personal finance, and it's a forcing function to do that. This is a whole bunch different benefits you can of stack.

And so for me, like one of the things that convinced me to do this show, in addition to the fun of his works, ani with you, was like all of these different stack reasons, like all these different benefits that create what charly monger calls that, the law polo effect. When you have a bunch of different things pushing in one direction instead of just one benefit, you get like these outsides games, these outsize effects. And so I I wonder, like the biggest benefits are for you.

You mentioned obviously becoming friends with the guests like we've had some pretty high profile people on the show and the idea going to cooler, cooler people on the show, ten urban from way. But why on? We've had James clear, mark manson to like the highest, the best selling non fiction authors. We've had a liberi who's like a super cool science educator and she's like best friends are like crimes. Who else you went up in the show and like what else is like interesting to you about doing the podcast because he takes up a time of time.

Yeah well, that's everything is. I think we have compressed the time down enough because we really have asked crap, which is great, takes like forty five minutes, and then only time consume thing is really thinking about what episodes to do next, which takes way more time than anyone this seems going to guess. And then the other one IT, which maybe we can talk about other one is editing the episodes. But this editing is kind of fun because you're like curating conversation.

It's I hate I edited the in the heart back like the first year and half and now it's like the last thing on earth and I want to do is to spend another method of my life editing podcast, like my preference to be like a recorded and just ago.

well, when i'm editing easily, like conversations, I actually like really fun. I don't know how much fun you find your average d hackers, paul, but if if they mean much to individually, I can't imagine editing is anything but saw sucking. But for me, on the going back and read, living this great conversation about aliens and how the world is going to end with every day, I should not live very, I have no problem visiting that. Yeah.

it's not so much they are revisiting. For me it's like the revisiting IT like time after time after a time again to edit like an one hour pok, as I was so good to easily take five or six hours. And what you end up with the end of IT is like a much Better product, the same way as if you were to edit IT an essay or an article or a tweet.

I can definitely pay dividends, but i'm always kind of jealous of these shows where they just like get on and riff and I don't edit and a trade off there is shows not quite as good, but it's a little a bit more fun because you're spending time editing and then you get out more episodes because each epsom sort as you are saying, like the two big time saying, are like scheduling and picking topics and editing. And so if you can get editing down to like zero, it's great. But that's what we're doing for our show and you're doing all the editing. So what kind of works out? Because it's like, okay, i've got a cohoes now, which I don't have render hackers who can do the things that I don't like to do.

If we were to switch to a format that didn't require editing at all, rising kind like this, that could work. And I think I think a very well could work, but I think for for us to progress to that stage where the episodes nonetheless very good when doing that, I think we'll need to have like super diarist guests were also like big draws entered themselves yeah does that make sense? Like I can't just be topic based that ask me like I wanted hear what red pit is bad example once says about anything on this topic because then you kind of have hope and who have anything like quinin tali know I yeah someone just to like a suit three and four hour podcast and film director just something like that and I member thinking like, if you like, what s to say there is no point editing this .

good thing about getting really good guest is, on one hand, it's sort of emotionally draining because as a host, really like, well, this isn't like me writing an article or I can just edit and edit and edit like i've get one shot to record the super harper er file person for ever to schedule with you that he needs to go well and so it's kind of nerve racking.

But on the flip side, when you get like a really famous or talented d guest, almost every time the after sort comes out, amazing because these people are like high profile for a reason. You know, like I think our our dream sort of parents like let's get flat M A putin with a Jerry signficant. Ld, you know, god, I was a joke.

But kind like, seriously like, a year from now, we want to have super high while guest who are just going to be fascinating to talk to you and if we ever do that, like our markman and James clear for ode, like we get to the best authors in the same room, like a sentence eusden, it's a great conversation, and we don't have to essentially worry that much about what the time he is going to go. Well, because these are people who, like people, listen to for a reason. They have a lot to say.

They've trade themselves to be interesting, like low level of interesting. This is pretty high and they know how to turn IT on during interview so that that you know in essence, the cheap code. Yeah I mean.

if I think about like some of our best episodes are my favor episodes, I like the one I keep preferences ing, James clear, mark manson. I mean, these are two guys who are sold collectively close to twenty million copies of their non fiction books, made tens of millions of dollars in the process. How many people on earth can really speak to that at the level that they can like? Almost nobody.

How often you get to hear, like two people like that in a room, talking to each other about strategies for selling and writing books? Like, pretty much never. And then Jason's selva and ten urban on storytelling.

Same deal, like ten urban wait. But why? Arguably the most popular blog on the internet, he gave the most popular ted talk on youtube. He is got like forty million years master storyteller.

And then Jason silva, because instagram account is youtube account huge, and he's also like this crazy patent story teller, but they're two very different styles. And so it's okay. What happens to you get the two and minor room and talked them about story telling and that obvious.

I was amazing. Like, I was just like taking notes the same time I was trying to contribute you because I was so fast in here. These two guys go.

My guess is you like the James clear, mark man and episode on writing books because IT hits the ideal that you always wanted to hit from my day one, which is two world class experts brainstorming analytically with also a bit of report, and like good, humid nature through in my favorite experience was probably storytelling with with timing and j soba, slight and tied with the dome day episode with everyday I should library because it's just fun, you know, and the funds infectious and that kind of the brilliance of what we ve figured out only in hindsight.

And anyone listening who has check, like brains pod sta com. There are ban episodes that you all will never see. You know, we drop the couple of the inning because IT wasn't actually clear to us what the heck the archetypes for good episode is.

What we realized that there are multiple archetypes. You can have the fun episode. You can have the other one of the world class experts and the fun ones, I think, are the ones people remember I like.

I thought that much people painted about the dome. The episode, like, literally, in all caps. People keeps saying that was in all catch fun, man. And like, awesome that I want to.

That was, by far, in the most fun one to record. And it's like we have these different architects almost because that just like let's think of interesting scenario, let's think of like how the world's going to end, let's think like the essential risk of AI, let's think about space travel, let's think about u fs. And then just like a rif with, like two professional science educators about, like all these different things. And like we pray for that one, but we pride to be even after, because most of IT, just like us like analyzing dissection, like our favorite theories and and thoughts, and like, if I could have a courage like that every single day. I think IT was funny.

as I don't think you cared for the topics in that episode. De, right is everything everything i'm .

saying is like doing, yeah, I like A, I like A. I is a really cool topic for me. U F S, and not that genuinely interested in, but then hearing like the three of you rif on uf s gave me like all these like kind of ideas and response.

Like when we talk to you, for example, Jason silva, and I think you do this to, we are kind like how to come of ideas for the things to write. And like I don't just like sit around in a room and complete ideas, like I read stuff and I listen to people and then eventually they say, they say something that makes you want to react. And that's what I tweet.

That's what I make videos about. That's going how I felt in that episode. God don't really know to save about uf fors, but if you guys are these the reasons OK for now, I want to respond.

And like that got me express zed, so like you're breaking down earlier what parts of the podcast take the most type and in my dream world, prep to take the most time but wouldn't be like this sort of like honor is old, got a potash. Let me sit down and like prep questions. Iraq, my brain is not that fun. Be much more like speak a topic that I care about, like dating and relationships or whether not to have kids or you know social media and screen time or optimism for the future and technology and then like I just wanted, like go consume, like the best head talks, like the best books, the best essays about that the same way I would just like read in my free time, because these are tables genuinely interested in and then I come to the episode without any questions to run down, but just as background of acknowledge that I had, which sort of like helps me become, I think, a Better smart person as a side effect, or of running the show, and also makes episode like super fund.

I think was different about this. Is this just much more personal? It's more affinity building. And I know i've talked with this before. They scattered across our pod and twitter, but you like what you're just writing stuff at all, how people exactly entire about people know you right is pretty cold.

But if they can now hear you ramble like I am with you for an hour, IT can elevates this sort of degree of how personal relationship. So, like the more multi media layer on as we chat about the of the more intimate guest, like even more intimate than this is video, even more intimate than that is I sitting on a camping? And so the audio is a really nice zed layer.

If you're trying to break, I don't know, build an audience of folks who are kind there for the long hall. Uh, a podcast can be a quite to do IT. If you you're otherwise like not on youtube blogging or .

something yeah I think so too for hackers have been doing kind of going up that same sort of like a fd letter, like a star off is just articles and step online interviews online then IT turned into like a community or who will can respond, interact. And then I turned to a pocket. People could actually hear each other of those voices and hear my voice.

And then we started doing like in person meet ups, which kind of I kill because of covered, but I just brought back. And seattle at least, but they going to be all over the world hopeful. Ly, another year two, when the fire is done.

But it's like it's so much more fulfilling when you actually see people in person, you know, and it's so much, much of feeling when people are hearing your voice over the podcast. First is just tweet. And I think that's part of like what makes IT fun for me. You know, I meet somebody who's like actually listen to the podcast. They've like way more to talk about.

Then if I mean somebody who just like read a tweets or something because they kind of feel like I started understate, like how how close someone can feel to you if they had you in their year for hours and hours every day for months, question to be raised. Besides the fact that like this is obviously like fun to do in the meantime is like, what does our ultimate go with this? Like are we going to make money from the podcast? Is the goal for this to help our other projects?

I know a lot of people who so i've got like an APP or a project or a blog or something and it's got no traffic. Like I know i'll start a podcast and they have two problems. They have two projects. I have no traffic. What's the point of like our pocket? And if I asked myself, like I don't really know besides the fact that is really fun to do and I really like the episodes are putting out.

Don't think we have any plans to make money like I don't think I wanted any advertisers on the podcast like let's say the show didn't hit huge numbers, so say we're never getting one hundred thousand dollars in what I under energy circumstances still be happy about the show. I think absolutely yes. You let's say we never add, we never put ads.

We never motorize. We never like bring on start of founders and started investing in their companies, which is like one way that people monitor their pocket. But I still be happy about the show. Yes, why? Only if what you're saying, what to happen, which is that we actually I think they became really good friends with the guests.

And for me, if I can be even until an actual like habit that's part of my lifestyle that doesn't feel like work IT just feels like a fun, not even excuse is how to cool people, but like sort of a hack to talk to cool people where I feel like privileges and like honor, like to talk to people I Normally never would have a chance sit down with. And so I think for that to happen, it's less about how many dadd loads we get, how much money were making her of the things like that. And it's one hundred percent about like what calibre of guest can we eventually get on the show and like what topics are we discussing with them? And that's pretty much IT.

This is also the chase, which is like how can we keep escalating the difficulty of guests we're getting on. That's also fun, and that's actually what I need more. So when I say forcing function is i'm trying to figure out, okay, well, like how do we get Jerry science filled and I like having to build like a back catalogues like sufficiently good podcast episode material that generally be like, oh, hello, i'm coming on this you know, just like is fun and all of this has been repurposed in so many ways like sometimes I was begin to something for a month writing a blog place on IT and that'll become an episode for the show yeah.

I know I said I was going to like, be over the have of this podcast after the entire time, but I ve got to say the other thing I love about our show, as simple as that is, is the title brains, which took forever or for us to come up with, like, I think your first title idea is an onest conversation just smart because this starts at an a.

And like when people describe to podcasts and they're player cannot ring them alphabetically most of the time. And then we had, like, I was like, a lot, I don't know. I text out a few friends and some of them said I was good.

Some of them said, is, that is stale. And then we had, like a whole list of things. I was tested out tones of people.

And one of them who sounded quite right, like every one of them sounded like, I don't know compromise or settling and then I got to know where when they you're like I just call IT brains and I thought that was genius. It's like the most of vocative name. There is no podcast called brains like we were the only one.

And that kind of means whatever you wanted to mean, like are we are referring to our guests? Are you referred to the topics that who knows? But like for some reason to the name brains makes me more excited to work on IT.

I think that was a good contribution, but yours was actually more meaningful. And I think the striking art, the monkey who is like contemplating they pared with the name brains, is very everything is kind of charged and just feels like, what the heck is that?

I've thought to about this on the show before? This is this book to namee and called egos guy to naming. And they talk about, like, different categories of names.

And the best category of names are like evocative, like names like virgin, virgin airlines, like an evocative name. And to get an advocate tive name or an image, you don't want to be too literal. I give you your show is called brains or ideas or something like you don't want a picture of a brain or a picture of a light bub.

Um you want something that's like one or two steps to moves like, okay, brains makes me think like thinking when you actually think of evolution. So let's put a picture of monkey on there and then like people see the monkey and they see the word brains and it's kind of like what you are saying earlier, like people don't want things that to really explain to them, like their lay people. They kind of want to like made the connection on their own and their heads.

And so like something about IT just kind of feels right when you're a couple steps to move from what you're actually trying to describe. We should do this more often. I want to have more kind of in the same way that I want like brains to be really fun for me to run.

I want any hackers to be like increasingly fun for me run as a podcast. And so part of that is like doing a bread and butter and interviews, right? Bring on, you know, entrepreneurs.

S and I go to the story and we extract lessons. Part of that does not want to talk to, like my friends, people like you, people like just in mayors, people who like I know really well. We are doing interesting things that are sort of ten generations and I hackers and put IT out there and see people like IT. So hopefully will come on more, jillian, and will talk about what is even a your newley twitter and demand curve and all sorts of other projects I know if I know anyone else is work as many promising projects somewhat tiny see is you are right now ah why do you tell people, Julian, where they go to find out more about what's going on at demand curve and news letter and our podcast and anything else .

to plug to say, july 的 com has a links， everything and the podcast to mean orland. And i'm curious to find out .

brain the podcast stock.

But i'm curious like people who love in the hackers what they think of brains.

yeah, I wish was an easier way to get feed back from pakistan. But people can listen live review on itunes or apple pokus. Let us, joan. thanks. Time for coming out.