Code with Jason
Code with Jason
317 - Edward Tewiah, Creator of PropertyWebBuilder
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In this episode I talk with Edward Tewiah about his journey with PropertyWebBuilder, a Ruby on Rails toolkit for real estate websites. We discuss the challenges of building a flexible UI, meeting client needs, and how AI is revolutionizing Edward's approach to development.
Links:
- PropertyWebBuilder on GitHub
- Nonsense Monthly
A Snail Mail Newsletter Pitch
SPEAKER_00Hey, it's Jason, host of the Code with Jason podcast. You're a developer. You like to listen to podcasts. You're listening to one right now. Maybe you like to read blogs and subscribe to email newsletters and stuff like that. Keep in touch. Email newsletters are a really nice way to keep on top of what's going on in the programming world. Except they're actually not. I don't know about you, but the last thing that I want to do after a long day of staring at the screen is sit there and stare at the screen some more. That's why I started a different kind of newsletter. It's a snail mail programming newsletter. That's right. I sent an actual envelope in the mail containing a paper newsletter that you can hold in your hands. You can read it on your living room couch, at your kitchen table, in your bed, or in someone else's bed. And when they say, What are you doing in my bed? You can say, I'm reading Jason's newsletter. What does it look like? You might wonder what you might find in this snail mail programming newsletter. You can read about all kinds of programming topics like object-oriented programming, testing, DevOps, AI. Most of it's pretty technology agnostic. You can also read about other non-programming topics like philosophy, evolutionary theory, business, marketing, economics, psychology, music, cooking, history, geology, language, culture, robotics, and farming. The name of the newsletter is Nonsense Monthly. Here's what some of my readers are saying about it. Helmut Kobler from Los Angeles says, thanks much for sending the newsletter. I got it about a week ago and read it on my sofa. It was a totally different experience than reading it on my computer or iPad. It felt more relaxed, more meaningful, something special and out of the ordinary. I'm sure that's what you were going for, so just wanted to let you know that you succeeded. Looking forward to more. Something about holding a physical piece of paper that just feels good. Thank you for this. Can't wait for the next one. Dear listener, if you would like to get letters in the mail from yours truly every month, you can go sign up at nonsense monthly dot com. That's nonsensemonthly.com. I'll say it one more time nonsense monthly dot com. And now without further ado, here is today's episode. Edward, welcome.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for being here. We found each other on Reddit. I've been seeking people lately who have started their own businesses using Rails and stuff like that. So tell us a bit about yourself, what you've been working on, anything that you want to share.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much for this opportunity. I mean, I'm super excited. And um, yeah, I mean, I've been working on Property Web Builder, which I think was the subject in that Reddit thread, or it's what I mentioned that got got got got us started. Um, so I've I've been a Ruby on Rails developer for probably 12, 13 years or so. And in that time I've worked on a lot of different side projects, but the main one has been Property Web Builder, and that's um a toolkit for creating real estate websites. And boy, we can we can talk a lot about that. Um I've learned a lot doing it, um, and yeah, it's been it's been pretty interesting.
The Origin Story And Overpromising
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah, one thing I'm always curious about uh when people build products is how they came across the idea. Um what inspired you to start this particular thing?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good starting point. So um I I did struggle with a lot of different ideas, um just randomly figuring things out. But I was lucky with this one in the house in Madrid at the time, and there was this guy who'd started um creating real estate websites for people in Spain, and he'd been using WordPress and wasn't having a good time, so he reached out to me and I overpromised to be quite honest. Um I I looked up, I looked at what he had, and I thought Ruby and Rails will be able to do this in no time. And um I got something up pretty quick, but um after a month or two, um it still wasn't really something that you could sell to clients the way you could the product he had.
SPEAKER_00Wait, sorry, what was it? I think you said, but I missed it. Like, what was it that you were building for this guy?
SPEAKER_01Right. So he had a product that let um real estate agents create websites. So they'd come to his website, they'd say, These are my details, I need a website for my listings, and you know, he'd give them uh a subdomain, or if they paid a bit more, they could get their own domain, and they'd be able to upload the properties they had for sale, say a bit about themselves, and yeah, they would pay a monthly fee. Uh so it all sounds pretty standard Ruby on Rails stuff, right? So I'd imagine if somebody walked up to you and said that's what they were offering, you'd say, Yeah, I could build that in Ruby on Rails in how long would you say?
SPEAKER_00No idea. I I've grown very cynical and pessimistic. Uh so I'd probably good chance I'd say I'm not even gonna try it, or something like that.
SPEAKER_01Um but but maybe that's the right answer, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish I'd said that.
SPEAKER_00Well, there's that saying, we do these things not because they're easy, but because we thought they would be easy.
SPEAKER_01Very good, yes, yes, quite right, yes.
Why Real Estate UI Gets Hard
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um okay, so you thought this would be relatively and and and why was it so much more difficult than you originally expected? Uh there's just more to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that that's that's the big question I've been holding in my head over the years, and I've I've had I've had different answers at different times. Um and I'll try to give you an answer now, but I have a feeling my my opinions will probably change. But um one one of the difficult things is just getting the UI right. So I know Ruby on Rails makes the UI the default UI quite easy to create, you know. Um and yeah, you'll be up in no time with a good enough looking UI. But as soon as you enter the world of you know a client who uh has a particular idea in their head of what their website should look like, how they should be presented to the outside world, it gets tricky pretty fast. So, you know, WordPress has uh made it seem quite easy, the idea of you know, yeah, your fonts change and the colors change and themes. You know, you know, theme in this is a whole industry in itself, you know? And you kind of look at a theme and you go, well, it's some slightly different colours, some slightly different fonts, how hard can it be? I'll yeah, I'll spin up a theme and yeah, it'll have um purple um rings around every image and it will it'll do all of this. And then you find out no no no, it's gotta have you know purple rings that click in a certain way, and you know, the transitions have to look this way, and and you could go down a whole rabbit hole just with you know one or two clients wanting something that sounds relatively simple. Um so that for me now is is the thing that um that I would point to as the sort of the the thing I underestimated most. I mean that the there's a lot of other things we we could look at, but um I think it probably makes sense to kind of um have one central idea that we're we're we're walk working around and talking about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, that's really interesting. Um when when you say when you when you talk about the UI um and the UI was hard to get right and stuff like that, um I think that's a generally true statement, just like UIs are hard. It's hard to create a good UI that's easy to use and stuff like that. Um and I also want to uh maybe get a firmer grasp on what exactly we mean by UI. I have a feeling that not not just a feeling, it's it's my experience that a lot of developers think of the UI as just like a superficial layer on top. Like there's the meat of the program, there's what it does, and then there's just this surface layer UI that you have to interact with the program using. But another way to think about the UI is just the design of the product, like this is how the whole product works. You know, there's that Steve Jobs quote, uh, design isn't just how it looks, design is how it works and feels like, or whatever exactly he said. Um and and is that an accurate interpretation of of the way you look at your project? Like when you say the UI was hard to get right, is it fair to say what you what you were feeling is is that the product design was hard to get right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um in this case, the most important aspect of the UI is how the website looks to the client. So um you uh visiting Estate Agent X's website, the experience you have. Of course, there's another side of the UI which would be the person who goes to administrate the website, how they upload pictures and so on, and that's important, but in this case, I'd say that's a secondary uh problem. Um and then that problem I I solved better, I'd say, you know. Um it was pretty s it it's still, you know, the product is still out there, and um we we we'll come to how AI has changed it shortly, I imagine. But um the product as it was a year ago, two years ago, the the the UI for administrat was was pretty good. Um and and the the UI for the end user was good as well, but um the rabbit hole is when you know an estate agent thinks of themselves as, for example, you know, a luxury modern, you know, responsive, um sharp madrid real estate agent. And in his head, that means you know, I'll have lots of TikTok videos and I'll have you know snappy, you know, you know, effects. So when you hover over an image, it kind of wiggles. And some other person will think, well, you know, I'm selling properties to Germans coming to Spain and I just want, you know, really high resolution images and I don't want any fancy stuff. What why why does this image even wobble when I hover over it? This is just going to confuse my 80-year-old clients in Germany, you know. I just want them to see a really boring picture, and I just want a really boring description. The text has to be large, so when when they're looking at it on a tiny little mobile phone, they can read everything. And that doesn't sound like a massive difference between those two, but actually trying to make those two work from the same code base is quite a big undertaking.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, no, I can really appreciate that. It it sounds like the desires from the clients are very diverse, and and so it's hard to you know you're never gonna please everybody, no, but you do have to please everybody enough so that they'll actually use the product and stick around, and it sounds like um catering to such diverse desires is not an easy challenge.
AI Makes Custom Design Possible
SPEAKER_01Not at all, not at all. So yeah, um I'm I'm sort of um pushing the bit here because the the the um exciting thing for me these last few months has been AI, and and I know you'll come to it. I hope I'm not being too premature, so I'm bringing it in already, but um I really feel we're at that point where this could be solved. You know, like I've just been blown away how easily I've been able I could literally say what I just said now, you know, um make the website so boring that you know an 80-year-old retired person from you know another country can, you know, um find it really easy to navigate. And it will come up with something pretty close to what I have in my my head. And I might need to tweak a bit, but it's just it just opened up to so many possibilities that I'm just super excited and I really want to relaunch and just get all these random people coming back to me again with their weird requests. And if I don't manage to, you know, um tweak it to all these different requirements with the new power that we have in our hands with AI, I'll be a very disappointed human being. Really.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, it really is incredible. Uh you know, it it's it's been said a million times, but like AI uh it just serves as a I always say AI is like a lubricant.
SPEAKER_01That's a good analogy, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it lets you slip right past these challenges that would have been sticking points before. Um, but of course you still have to be in a driver's seat and you have to tell AI what you want at a certain level. Yeah. Um, you can't just say, you know, make me a thing for real estate agents, and then it'll you know that's the beauty of my position, though.
SPEAKER_01I I feel um privileged. I mean, six months ago, I wouldn't say privileged, uh I'd say I was I was annoyed that that I've I'd struggled with these different problems for for so long. But now that I can see a way of resolving them, I'm so happy that I've got all these problems in my head. And and and I forget a lot of the different problems. I mean, we're talking about the UI now, and it's an easy one to focus on. Um, there's been a lot of other challenges along the way, but every time I remember a particular challenge, I also realize how easy it would be for AI to fix. So I'm just randomly going to mention one of them. It would be too much to go into too much detail, but um, a common requirement is being able to import properties from different systems, you know? And that's all always been a pain as well. So somebody comes up and says, Oh, well, you know, um I work with this guy and he he works with this portal, and they export their properties in this format, and oh, that's simple enough. Yeah, it's a it's a it's an XML file, yeah. I'll process it. Oh, by the way, when you process these images, you've got to do that. Oh, and next week they're gonna change. And it always sounds so easy and then ends up being so difficult. And again, this is something that AI will have for breakfast. You know, you you give it different file formats, you you, you know, there's some weird image file there, and it will know the image format and how to you know figure out the size and whether you know it's got mobile version, it'll just figure everything out. It's just it's just unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's really crazy. Stuff like that is like a perfect use case for AI where it's like there's all this, I call it intellectual ditch digging. You know, um you you you can go and study all the details of what this migration is going to require, and then you'll never use that stuff again in your life. Yeah, it's it's just ditch digging.
SPEAKER_01Um AI gets you had that before, I like that, yeah.
Imports And File Formats Pain
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and AI gets you past all that stuff. Um, I'm curious where you're at from a business perspective. Um you you mentioned, or I kind of get the idea that uh you're breathing new life into this project uh now that we have these AI capabilities and stuff like that. Um where first of all, how long have you been working on this? Even if you might have already said how long have you been working on it, and how many people were using it or are using it, where's it at business-wise?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, so what I didn't explain is that you know, when when I started working with this guy, and it became clear that you know he wasn't able going to be able to sell it as quickly and as readily as he'd expected. Um we we stopped working together, I mean we were still friends, it w it wasn't a bad, you know, separation, but you know, he decided to carry on with with his stuff and I carried on with my stuff. And at that point, I didn't feel able to sell the product by myself. But I I wanted to carry on working with it. I just just pigheadedness, I suppose. And I asked on Reddit and had some discussions and eventually decided to open source it. So it's been open source for close to 10 years, which is an embarrassingly long period of time to be working on something like this. Um but I also um can't let it go because um yeah, it's it's just such an opportunity. I I haven't been able to monetize it properly, so every so often someone using it reaches out to me and I do a bit of work and I make some money from that. Um but I have no idea how many people are using the website. Um, every every so often I I I'll do a Google search for powered by property web builder. And if someone's using it and they haven't changed that section, then it will still say powered by property web builder, and I'll I'll find the site. And every so often I'll see a site or two. But I don't imagine there's more than a few dozen, maybe a hundred maximum people using using it right now. Um and yeah, it's certainly not made me very much money. Um nothing near the amount of effort I've put into it. But um the potential is massive. Um and yeah, now that I can see a way of being able to solve all the those little pain points, I'm I'm I'm super excited about um reviving it, yeah. Okay.
Open Source For Ten Years
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and many developers have this curse where we look at everything through a software lens, um, and uh uh the answer to all problems is is some kind of technological something or other. Um and I'm very guilty of this myself. Uh we're working working on improving the product when what's really needed is more sales and marketing. Um and the the bottleneck does oscillate, you know, sometimes, like for the product that I'm working on, Satin CI, I've mentioned before on the show that sometimes the bottleneck is technical and sometimes the bottleneck is sales and marketing. I have to work really hard to remind myself, like, okay, I shouldn't be spending more time working on the product right now. I should be spending more time on sales and marketing, even though the the working on the product is what I'm more comfortable with and it's easier for me and stuff like that. Uh I need to not do the part that I want to do and I need to do the the sales and marketing part that I need to do, and it kind of goes back and forth. Um where are you at with that? Do you feel like your bottleneck right now, it if you think about it in these terms, uh, do you feel like the bottleneck right now is on the technical side, on the sales and marketing side? How do you think about all that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um for most of the time I've been working on property web builder, it's the technical side that's bugged me. Um and I've I've yearned for a technical co-founder. Um, and we could go into why it's so hard to get people excited about working in in real estate because I think there's something about that that problem domain where people you know people who enjoy tech challenges get pretty frustrated pretty quick um working there. I've just not managed to find someone technical to work with me. Um and now with AI unlocking that, I don't see that being the issue going forward, which means selling and marketing becomes a more important priority. Um and I haven't gone out and done a proper marketing campaign, but I really don't think that will be uh anywhere as di near as difficult as um the technical challenge has been. I mean y there's an incredible number of estate agents out there. Um I I don't know what the what the numbers are, but um you know in the UK alone it will be tens of thousands. In in the US, I mean probably hundreds of thousands. There's just a hell of a lot of people. Um and a lot of them pay they they're used to paying a certain amount for their website. It's it's just a question of you know convincing them that the value of the website you're offering matches or surpluses the value they're getting from the from their website. I mean yeah, I'm probably underestimating the challenge, but um I've I've I've I've I've had enough people wanting websites that I haven't been able to deliver just because the requirements were just gonna be too much for one person band to to to deliver. So um yeah, I could be wrong, but I I I am not as worried about finding clients as I was worried about the the technical implementations.
Product Work Versus Marketing
SPEAKER_00Interesting. Me personally, I have the exact opposite view. Um the the technical side of what I'm building is hard, um, but the getting customers has been even harder. Um and it's obviously a whole different beast, you know. Um it takes a different kind of work, it's like a different kind it's it's a different part of your brain. Um and I've I've been working at this for over two and a half years now, and I'm still working on just getting the first few customers. I do have some people using it, but not nearly as many people as I would like at this stage. It's it's just really tough.
SPEAKER_01Have you done um Google ads? Um, have you have you spent money on on advertising?
SPEAKER_00Not yet. Um I I could be wrong, but I feel like for me that would be premature right now. Um because I still at this very moment I just have one paying customer, and then I have another customer in the process of getting onboarded. They've been in that process for months. Um, and then I'm I'm talking to at least one other person. Anyway, um, what I feel like needs to happen is I need to get, and and as I'm talking, maybe the words that are coming out of my mouth don't sound as smart as they did in my head. Um but my thought has been that I need to get a couple people using it um so that I can so that I can make sure that people aren't gonna get in and then immediately just fall out because the product doesn't meet their needs. Because if I go if I go and spend a bunch of money on ads and people come to my product, but then immediately they crash and burn because they need such and such, and it doesn't have that, uh, then that's just gonna be a total waste. So I'm I'm yeah, I'm I'm getting these first customers from like people I know, and honestly, like these campaigns I've been doing on Reddit to meet people, like that's a way to meet more people who have Rails uh-powered businesses, and maybe they can be customers and stuff like that. So I'm trying to do that first, get my first handful of people that way, then pour gas in the fire and go and do ads.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um it's it's so easy, isn't it, when when you're hearing someone else's perspective to give advice? Because I'm I'm I'm I'm sort of I'm leaning towards saying just go ahead and you know spend a bit on ads and so on, which I haven't done myself. You know, if if if I were someone else listening to me, I would certainly be giving myself that advice you've been working on this for almost 10 years and you haven't you haven't tried ads, like what's going on? Um but yeah, it's it's it's it it's it's it's it's difficult because um the the the the the reason I I feel like you know saying to you well try ads is is the opportunity cost for for you in not not finding out what those customers will will will will think is quite high. You know, you you you you you can be earning quite a lot of money just uh plain consulting. So when you're working on your your project, um your early opportunity cost is quite high. Um so the money you spend on on ads to just sort of try and just find out what people you you know, even if what you're saying is true and people do do do decide they don't like the product, you'd you'd have learned so much that it would be worth a spend, is is is what what I think as an outsider looking in. Um what kind of stuff do you think I would learn? Well, you'd you you'd learn where they'd you know seen the ad, what what made them what made them um come try out your product, you'd learn what what what made them choose not to stay or to stay, what needs tweaking, what's what needs fixing. Um Yeah, it it it sounds it sounds uh super ben beneficial to to to to spend some some odd dollars and and and get feedback that way, but uh I I I really have to say it's it's easier saying this to someone else than doing it yourself because yeah, I'm I'm I'm equally guilty.
SPEAKER_00I I do like that that angle though. Um, you know, you say it's easier to hear somebody else's situation and tell them what you think they should do than it is to decide for yourself what you should do.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, absolutely.
Paying For Ads To Learn
SPEAKER_00Um and I think Paul Graham even said one time, like, if you were somebody else, what would you advise yourself to do? Something like that helps you think about it a bit differently. Um, because you're not burdened with all the details that are in my mind, and you don't have the like recency bias and all that stuff. And you see you see the picture at a much higher level of abstraction is is maybe the thing. Um, and so that's I think that can be a very healthy thing to do is get somebody's somebody's outside perspective who doesn't know all the details.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I mean, um do you get that from the people you speak to? Do you do do you do you have a mastermind where people sort of give you their perspective?
SPEAKER_00I used to do mastermind groups many years ago, but I quit and I've never looked back. Uh I decided mastermind groups are for the birds, at least the way that I was doing them. Um, because it was no offense to the people I was in mastermind groups with, but it was usually people getting together each week and saying, like, oh yeah, this week I'm gonna write a blog post, and then we'd get together the following week and they'd be like, ah yeah, I I didn't get around to doing that. Uh, I'll do that next week. And it was just some variation of that every single week, and it's like this is not helpful, and and not only was it not helpful, but it gave us all the illusion that we were doing something because you know we were all getting together and we were talking about our businesses, so it felt like we were doing something meaningful, but most of the time we were not, and so I said, I'm gonna quit these mastermind groups, I'm gonna stop listening to business podcasts, stop reading business books, so that the one and only thing that could possibly give me any feeling that I'm making progress is actually making progress.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting. That I've it's so good to hear this because um I'd say masterminds and the idea of you know bouncing off ideas with each other is one of several things which it's almost not allowed to to be critical of in the in the startup space. So there's some kind of almost religion around you know how startups are done. And I don't I don't want to mention it's so tempting to mention particular, you know, groups and individuals, people who do it, but but I don't think there's any benefit to doing that. But um when you listen to these podcasts and so on, it almost feels like you're not allowed to say masterminds don't work.
Masterminds And Fake Progress
SPEAKER_00Well, there's a whole fake economy. Um and I compare it to gyms and weight loss and stuff like that. Um you know I've I've heard that the vast majority of info products that are bought never even get downloaded. Um if I said vast majority, I didn't mean to. The majority, like 60% of info products that are bought, never even get downloaded, let alone read, let alone acted on. Um and it's like these people who buy gym memberships in January for their New Year's resolutions, but then February comes around and the gym's empty because all these people who uh decided that they were gonna do something about their weight, they just wanted the feeling that they were doing something, and buying this gym membership gave them that feeling, and then they actually didn't do the hard work and sustain the hard work that was that was needed, but still there's an entire fake economy around it, and in the business world, there's all kinds of people selling all these business books and metaphorically selling uh these ideas and stuff like that, and then I would bet a lot of money that 90 plus percent of the people who are consuming all that material aren't doing anything. There's people who read business book after business book for decades and never actually start anything, but they can sustain themselves off of this feeling that they're in this world by consuming all this content. So fake fake products for fake entrepreneurs, it's a whole economy.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Um having said all of that, I still think there must be some way of getting quality criticism of whatever you're working on. Yes. What other ideas do you have? There's gotta be some you you know, because um yeah. Yeah a fresh perspective is absolutely essential.
SPEAKER_00We gotta talk to the right people. And the right people are extremely hard to find. Um, you know, you can't just if if you have my my opinion, could be wrong, but if you have, for example, a mastermind group of people who are all just at the starting point of their journey or or early on, their ad their feedback to each other is gonna be worth very little. Because business is something that is is learned experientially. If you read a bunch of books about business, it's kind of like reading a bunch of books about how to ride a bike or how to ski or something like that. And it's like, I don't want to take skiing tips from somebody who has only read a bunch of books about skiing. I want to get skiing tips from somebody who is actually, and and there's a big difference between getting skiing tips from somebody who has skied a few times and from like an Olympic level skier. And so I think a lot of mastermind groups are the equivalent of people who like they've just bought some skis and they read a lot of skiing magazines and stuff like that, but they've never actually gone skiing. Those people who are actually doing the black diamond hills and stuff like that, those people are really hard to find.
Finding Real Expert Feedback
SPEAKER_01So can I just turn this on its head then? Because I'm talking to somebody who's spent years podcasting, you know the ins and outs of podcasting. It strikes me as a very good way of speaking to a lot of people and learning from other people. Has that turned out to be the case? Have you learned a lot from podcasting?
SPEAKER_00That is a fascinating question, and I don't think anyone has asked me that. Well, that's it's something I've thought about. Definitely, yes. Absolutely yes. Um, the question is, what have I learned? That would take me some some thinking. You know, I've been doing this for like seven or eight years or something like that. So what have I learned? A lot of stuff. I'd really have to think about how to answer that question. Um, honestly, the the number one thing that I've taken away from it is relationships. I've met a lot of people via podcasting. Um, and then in in knowing those people over the years, I've learned a lot from them and and and stuff like that. But definitely, yes, I've learned a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Because I mean, having spent so much time in it is that not a business in itself? Do you not see that as something which you you you must enjoy it? I mean, you you you're good at it. You you you I I came I came to this feeling very nervous. I've I've I've been stupidly stressed about this, just yeah, thinking it it's it's gonna be a nightmare. And you and you've made it very easy for me. Like, like it's felt very natural. You you've asked really interesting questions. It's it's it's felt good. So you're good at this. So surely this is something you'd want to make a business of and make profit. There's gotta be ways of monetizing this, no?
What Podcasting Teaches You
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting question, too. It's again, it's another topic that hasn't come up much, except I've I've talked with my wife about it um over the years. Um yeah, that's so interesting. So I I do monetize it in certain ways. Um, I I don't do ads from other people, but I do my own ads. Um so I have this. Okay, and here's here's the challenge. This is a general technology podcast, it's not like a Ruby on Rails focused podcast, although I talk about Rails a lot. Um, but I have people from outside the Rails world. It's just a programming podcast. And so I've I've written like books that are specifically Ruby on Rails related books and stuff like that. Um, but I've been hesitant to use my podcast to have ads for those products because it only appeals to a subset of the listeners, and everybody else is going to be maybe alienated. Um, but I do have a product for all programmers, and that is a monthly snail mail uh programming newsletter. And so if you listen to an episode, you'll hear it uh an ad at the beginning of each episode for this newsletter, and that is uh 50 bucks a year, you sign up and you get this letter in the mail. And so that's my way of monetizing the podcast.
SPEAKER_01And and I have heard that advert, but um what when I think about monetizing it, I I th I'm thinking of more than just you know advertising, you know, the this what you're doing is it's quite a service, and I I don't I don't think you realize I mean everyone's case is is different, but in my case it's it's it's quite a privilege to to be on here talking to you. And I'd imagine there's a lot of people who would pay for your help in sort of preparing for podcasts, understanding the world of podcasts, getting advice. I don't know, there's gotta be an economy around it, no?
SPEAKER_00Quite possibly. Um, but I'm a big believer in focus, and you can only have one focus. Oh, yeah. You can have exactly yeah, exactly one. Um, and and even though I believe in this, I've not done the greatest job of it. So I made a conscious decision that Saturn CI is my top focus.
SPEAKER_01Fair enough, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm gonna but I I I I I I feel such guilt tugging at me so often um because I haven't done what I've told myself I want to do with this podcast. Uh I've told myself early on with this podcast that I want to be the number one programming podcast there is. I want to be like the Joe Rogan of programming podcasts, and I have not even come close to achieving anywhere near that. And to be honest, I haven't given that objective very much attention, even. So I've I feel some guilt around that. Um so you're you're you're touching a bit of a I don't want to say you're touching a s a sore spot when you're bringing this up, but this is definitely something that I've thought about.
SPEAKER_01Because I think you're underselling yourself when you say you haven't come anywhere close, because um having a consistent podcast that's been going for so many years, and you've had some amazing guests on here, and it's it's you you you you've you've you've got that uh consistency. And that's immensely valuable. I mean I I think when you say not even close, you you're thinking of raw numbers. But I think the raw numbers just tell a certain part of the story, because you know, um 90% of the effort is just getting out there and getting you know the consistency and and all the basics right. And you've done that, so yeah, I'd I'd love to see this um podcast do super well, and I think you've got the goodwill of a lot of people who've been on here, so we'll we'll we we'll take this aside I guess for later, but I I re I really yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I really appreciate that. I appreciate you saying all those uh kind things, and that makes me happy to hear and and hearing things like this really puts fuel in my tank uh to to keep going. Um because yeah, monetarily it's bringing me, frankly, very little. Um, but there are other motivations to keep going, like all of the the wonderful people I meet in the course of doing this, and hearing comments like the one you just said made about people appreciating the the content that they that they hear. So I really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I've spent way too long on it than I I y y y y you know relative to where I wanted it to be at at ev any any given moment in in this product I I would have told you, oh by next year we'll have, you know, thousands of users and it will be, you know, super successful. And you you you've probably had the experience of thinking, well, in in in in a few months in the next year it's it's going to be super successful. And somehow we've both kept a tea and I feel when you do that, that's that's a good sign. Something fundamentally s sits right with you about what you're doing. And um yeah you you've just got to it it's it's not the fashionable thing and it's not it's not the the story people want to hear about the guy who's just worked really hard and you know just pushed through. But I think that's one of the the paths to success.
Focus Guilt And Sustainable Bets
Relaunch Plans And Returning Updates
SPEAKER_00Yeah and and I have a big principle about don't make bets that you can't afford to lose because I've done that. I I had a business that I've talked about a lot from 2011 to 2015 um scheduling software for hair salons and the that ultimately failed and I would say that I bet more than I could afford to lose. I took time away from my family to work on it and stuff like that. And it really I I worked on it on a at a pace that was not sustainable and it had to work. Like it had to work or else everything I put into it was a waste and again I bet more than I could afford to lose and I lost. So now I I don't do that anymore. With this podcast I'm making I don't know if I want to frame it that same way of making bets that I can afford to lose but it's it's sustainable. You know it doesn't have to make me a million dollars in order to be worth it. It doesn't have to make me any money in order to be worth it because it is intrinsically rewarding and I would keep doing this for 10 years even if I never expected anything to come from it. So that's that's what has uh kept me going. And I should be clear that even though I I can't like attribute direct ad revenue or something like that um to the podcast it has had some indirect benefits uh like for example I surely owe my current job which is a really good job to the podcast and the people I've met through it in connection with speaking at conferences and putting on my there there's this whole bundle of things that have gone into it and the podcast has been a really important ingredient in that. So even though I can't point to like a deposit in my bank account every month that says this came from the podcast it absolutely has brought me uh monetary benefits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah that's good that's good yeah yeah yeah so what's next for you with with property web builder and where do you see it going in the next year, five years whatever so the these last couple of months I've been able to add more features and do more with it than I have been in in the in the past several years. And I know historically startups have been warned to stay away from feature bloat but um in this case I do feel like there's a bunch of features which will be super useful. So I'm I'm pretty optimistic that um over the next few months I'm I'm going to be able to onboard a bunch of estate agents and and and and get it you know making me some money. I I suppose I probably need to write a detailed plan of some sort have some targets but um for now all I'm doing is just coding each day adding more functionality and figuring out at which point I can I I have a couple of um people I can I can try out um these these new features with so probably over the next month or two I'd say around about the end of this month I should be in the position to actually go up to people and say hey can you try this out can you try um yeah just just just get some real life feedback.
SPEAKER_00Yeah well something I'd love to do if you're up for it is to have you back on periodically and see where are you at with things now what has progressed since uh since we last talked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah that would be that would be awesome um yeah that would be really good actually could you j just also in the sense that um it would it would um be a be a good motivator for me um just coming on on the on this podcast has made me sort of um review a few things in my head and it it's already been quite beneficial for me and um yeah if if if I was to come in a few months time and I listened back to this and you know reminded myself of what I was expecting to achieve that would that would be amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah well this hour together really flew by and unfortunately we're already almost out of time. Absolutely yeah but this has been a wonderful conversation I can tell you and I are going to be friends. And before we go is there is there any uh links you want to share where people can find out what you're up to online and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01So it's just property web builder on GitHub. So fortunately if you if you type property web builder in it it's one of the first results that come out. I'm not big on social media and all of that so I yeah just just find the repository on on on GitHub from there you you you you can find me and and I'd love to have people to collaborate with any feedback positive negative much appreciated.
SPEAKER_00All right well we'll put that stuff in the show notes and Edward thanks so much for coming on the show.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much really appreciate it